I think I must be channeling some previously unknown psychic abilities because on Friday when I first saw the Inkspirations color challenge I thought it might be fun to use the colors for a Christmas card.


Then I find that this week the The Paper Players challenge us to use non-traditional stamps or colors to create a Christmas card!  How cool is that?


Once again I turned to Perfect Presentation and the wonderful tree stamp in that set.  I don't know what little Christmas fairy persuaded me to get that stamp set so many years ago, but I am eternally grateful to her because I can't believe how often I use it this time of year.  Not only does it have this great tree, but it has tags, and a snowman, and some round sentiments that are so useful.  It's long been retired, but I'll never part with it!

I also used one of the snowflakes from Snow Flurries to to stamp a background on the So Saffron layer.  One of the other snowflakes from that same set I stamped in Versamark and heat embossed with Wild Wasabi embossing powder.  I punched those out and mounted them on dimensionals.  The sentiment is from Contempo Christmas.

I haven't decided who will be the recipient of this card.  I think it's got to be someone who will appreciate the irony!

Now, I need a little help.  Last year I loaned this stamp to my sister and I recently got it back.   But I don't remember what stamp set it came from.  It's on purple rubber, which used to mean it was either a hostess set or was from a Mini (I'm not sure which).  If you recognize it, please let me know where it goes!  I'll be forever grateful!


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This week has just flown by!  I can hardly believe it's Friday already and I've barely set foot in my stamp room all week.  Since I've been on vacation I've been so busy cleaning the house, running errands and doing some Christmas shopping that I haven't had time for much else.  But I was determined to get some stamping done so that I don't completely forget how to do it!

I thought the wonderfully CAS card sketch at Create With Connie and Mary was pretty awesome, and I thought it would look good paired with the color challenge at Inkspirations.


I was originally going to make a card using one of the snowmen from Snow Much Fun, but as I was perusing my stamp sets I came across a few neglected ones and thought I'd show them some love.

The poinsettia is from Season of Joy and I tried to jazz up the center with a bit of Dazzling Details, but unfortunately I think it looks like a blurry, blobby mess.  The sentiment is from Perfect Presentation which I cut out and popped up on dimensionals.

Sorry about the helter-skeleter photo.  I'd like to blame it on my new eyeglasses but I'm sure that's not the case!  Thanks for stopping by!

I don't mind saying that I had a bit of a tough time this week with our Freshly Made Sketch.


I was indecisive about a theme, and a color combo.  I started out with a base of Crumb Cake then waffled about what other colors I wanted to use.  Then I stumbled on the Inkspirations color challenge and liked the colors enough that I wanted to use them for this sketch.


Then I waffled some more before I decided to use my brand new Stripes embossing folder and ink up Triple Treat Flower for the first time.

I've seen some people ink up the embossing folder with a brayer before embossing the cardstock, which creates a nice effect, but I was too afraid to try it.  I had already waffled enough with this card and I didn't want to attempt something I'd never done before in case it came out horrible and I had to start again!

But on the plus side, I love this flower!  How awesome is it that there is a punch for each segment so you can easily create a flower made from multiple colors!

Now don't forget to pay a visit to our awesome design team and our special featured designer Holly Endress.  Then head on over to Freshly Made Sketches and link up your creation!

Lesley Croghan
Linda Callahan
Cindy Hall
Tui Nathan
Jennifer Timko
Rita Wright

The other day I was looking at some designer paper that I had in my stash and I came upon some called Cottage Wall.  One of the colors featured in this paper pack was Orchid Opulence and I thought I'd never get to use the scraps I had in that color since the color was retired and nobody ever thinks of those retired colors anymore.  Well, to my surprise this week the ColourQ challenge features this forgotten color!

At first I was a little apprehensive about attempting this challenge.  It seemed like there were so many layers that I wouldn't know what to do with.  But I talked myself into attempting it and once I broke it down, I realized that those layers were very manageable.

Over at Inkspirations, we were warned not to be afraid of their color combo challenge this week!

Although, I don't usually make cards with such vibrant colors, I wanted to give this challenge a try.  I paired it with the latest MOJO sketch challenge.

As always, the last challenge of the month is a choice between a round or square card.  Or if you're feeling really ambitious, you could do both.  I opted for the square.

I think it actually hurts my eyes when I look at this card!  My intention was to really make the bright colors be the focal point of the card and then throw in a smidge of Concord Crush to round things out.  I'm not entirely sure that I like the Concord Crush rectangle, but I do like the row of circles.  They're easy to do.  I just punched a 1/2-inch hole then punched a 3/4-inch hole around it.  And I've just noticed as I'm writing this that I didn't use a single stamp on this card!  I haven't done that in a long time, but there's plenty of space on the Tangerine Tango layer to add one later.

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One challenge that I like to participate in is the Pals Paper Arts.  It's hard to believe, but this week's challenge is #100.  Time flies, doesn't it?  And the Pals' challenge to us is to make a card using a favorite technique.  Well, that was a no-brainer for me, since my favorite technique is none other than the faux mother-of-pearl!  You're shocked, I can tell!

Anyway, I hunted around the blogosphere and thought that the Deconstructed Sketch and the Inkspirations Color challenges would fit the bill for my card.


I feel a little bit like I'm in some weird Stampin' Up! limbo land.  I've ordered all kinds of goodies from the new catalog, but I haven't received them yet.  And when I look through my stamps nothing seems very interesting to me!  I must be pining for my new stuff, since the old stuff in not very inspiring.  But, here's what I came up with for these challenges anyway.

I found some Baja Breeze patterned paper from the Urban Garden dp.  I'm not 100% sure that I like it, but I like to use up supplies in my stash, especially ones that have been hanging around for ages.  And I also used a Texturz plate on the Poppy Parade layer - something that I haven't used in a very long time.  Those don't give quite as deep an impression as the embossing folders, but when you need a softer look they are the way to go.  And I lightly mist the cardstock with rubbing alcohol first, because it seems to soften up the cardstock and makes a better impression.  (And it dries much quicker than water).

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When I saw the color challenge this week at Inkspirations, I knew immediately that I wanted to participate.

Ooh La La!  What a fabulous color combo.  And the inspiration from the design team was luscious.  I couldn't wait to get started and I thought it would be a good idea to pair this with the sketch challenge at Pals Paper Arts.

My mother's birthday is Sunday and I had a card already made for the occasion.  But I liked this color/sketch combo enough to try my hand at another birthday card to see if I could make something that I liked even better.

This week is a color challenge over at Inkspirations.  A self-described "autum-ny" color challenge!  And almost any time I see "autumn" I think of one of my all-time favorite stamp sets:  French Foliage.  If this set doesn't make it into the new catalog this year, I'll be really surprised.  I hope it does, so that anyone who didn't buy it when it was in the holiday mini, will have a chance to.  It's all kinds of awesome!

Anyway, I checked out the Stamping 411 sketch challenge and although I did finally make a card, I had a hard time with that sketch!

It looks so straight-forward, but I just couldn't get it to cooperate with what I had in mind!  I'm not sure what my issue was, but once I started I had to keep going.  My precious autumn leaves were at stake!

It seems funny to make a card like this when spring is (technically) here already, but the weather where I live is not cooperating with what the calendar says.  It actually feels quite autumn-like.  For some reason winter does not want to give up its grip on us yet (it actually snowed here yesterday)!  So, I feel somewhat vindicated making a card with wonderful leaves like this.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to stamp today!

I think that spring fever must have hit me this weekend.  I started my "spring" cleaning and spent quite a bit of time yesterday getting my house all spic and span.  By the end of the day I had no energy to be creative in my stamp room, so I avoided it and watched some tv instead.  I ended up falling asleep on the couch while watching last week's DVR'd episode of Saturday Night Live.  I can't seem to stay awake to watch that show anymore!

So today, after meeting a good friend for breakfast and running some errands, I had to go into my stamp room and get busy.  I've got a lot on my plate this week, creatively speaking, and I needed to get stamping.  So to get my juices going, I thought I'd make a card for the Sweet Sunday sketch and the Inskpirations color challenge.

All the color challenges lately inspire me to make something with flowers, but today I decided to go in a different direction.  As I was looking for a stamp that I might like to use, I stumbled upon the Happy Together stamp set and thought it would look cute for my card.

These little birdies are so adorable.  Look how the middle one is checking to make sure the last one is keeping up!  How sweet!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to stamp today!

I've had a busy week.  It seems like every night this week I've had something to do after work.  So it's nice to be home tonight and spend some time in my stamp room thinking about creative things.  One thing I checked out was the Inkspirations challenge and I have to say at first glance I was very intimidated.

These are not colors that I would ordinarily pair together.  My first reaction was that I would move on to something else, but the more I looked at it the more I wanted to give it a try.

So I searched around until I found a Verve challenge that I thought would work nicely with this color combo.

Maybe it was the stitching.  Maybe it was the skewed panels.  But something made me want to give this a try.  And I thought that the Inkspirations color challenge was just the thing.

So, I inked up my Seeing Stars stamp set (for the first time) and set to work.  I'm actually really pleased at how this turned out.  Despite my original misgivings I think these colors are fabulous together.  It could be a masculine card (and we all know how hard those are to do), or it could just be a cool card with modern colors!  What I especially like is that the Early Espresso panel has plenty of room to add a sentiment depending on what I might need later!  
Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to stamp today!

For the last few days I have been eyeing my Lap of Luxury dp.  I never thought I would like it so much, but I suspect that I do because I really like Concord Crush.  When Stampin' Up! first introduced Concord Crush, I wasn't too thrilled with it.  Purple just isn't really my thing.  But I've grown to like it.  It reminds me of grape soda, which I LOVE.  I know that seems weird, but there you have it!

So I decided to use both Concord Crush and Lap of Luxury when I made this card for the Inkspirations challenge.

I even cut out the floral image here which qualifies me for Our Creative Corner's Cut It Out challenge.  I was a little apprehensive about cutting this image out, but it really wasn't all that difficult when it came down to it.  I should have adhered it with dimensionals to really make it stand out, but I used glue dots instead.  Rats!  In real life you can see the difference in the layers, but it's hard to see in the picture.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to stamp today! 
 

Do you know what I mean when I say that I checked out a color challenge and said to myself:  "wow, I love those colors!"  I'm guessing you do!  Well, that's what I thought when I saw the latest Inkspirations Color Challenge.  A little help from the Friday Mashup sketch challenge and I was off!

I have long been of the belief that there is no better red on the face of the earth than Cherry Cobbler.  I absolutely adore Baja Breeze and, of course, Whisper White makes the world go 'round.  But the kicker here for me was the Basic Black.  If used sparingly with colors like these, I think it can really make a card pop!  And that is what I envisioned when I sat down to make this card.

And I tried something new with this card:  paper piecing.  I stamped the vase on a piece of Baja Breeze designer paper from the long retired Urban Garden collection and carefully placed it in the proper position.  I think it's a nice way to add a little interest to the image.

It's been a few days since I've provided a snow update, so I thought I'd let you know how it's going around here.  On Wednesday we had quite a bit of rain, which ordinarily would be a good way to melt some of the snow, but unfortunately it caused quite a bit of flooding (and many roof collapses as well).  A lot of the storm drains on the roads are covered in snow, so all that rain and melting snow had no place to go!  Add to that, below freezing temperatures at night and we've got giant frozen puddles all over the place.  On my drive home from work I encountered a series of card accidents involving nine cars that all basically slid around the road due to the icy conditions.  Thankfully no one was seriously hurt, but I'm pretty sure I'm not alone when I wish for the warmer temperatures of spring!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to stamp today!

I have recently discovered that I am sorely lacking in Valentine's stamps.  Today I sat at my desk and tried to think of a cute Valentine's Day stamp set that I could use with the latest Waltzingmouse sketch challenge.  I thought I'd incorporate the Inkspiration color challenge as well.
The colors are somewhat unusual for Valentine's Day, but I figured I could make it work with the Blushing Bride.  I thought the nice, big heart from the Love You Much stamp set would be perfect for the large shape on the sketch.  So, onward I went!

I stamped the big heart with Versamark and embossed it with clear embossing powder.  I thought the pattern would show up better that way.  After I embossed it, I cut it out and sponged the edges with Blushing Bride.  Once I was done with my layers and my oh-so cute heart, I realized I needed some kind of sentiment.  This is when I realized that I had no decent Valentine's Day stamps.  So I was forced to resort to one of those bargain clear stamps that you get in the dollar bin at the local craft store.  Although, the sentiment is appropriate, the quality of the stamp is horrible!  The edges are blurry and the rest is splotchy.  Hopefully, the recipient of this card can overlook this!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to stamp today!

I think I read somewhere in blogland that the stamp set, Just Believe was that blog person's new favorite.  I think I may have to agree.  The wispy flowers, the practical sentiments and that cool shaped block (which, by the way, is just screaming for a coordinating punch!) are really so versatile.  Although I've been playing with it quite a bit over the last few days, I think this is the first card I've posted using it.