I'm super excited about my post today because I am a guest designer at Addicted to CAS this week!  They liked one of my cards a few weeks ago and invited me to play along with this challenge.  Since CAS cards and I get along really well, I jumped at the chance!  And then Kylie sent me the challenge graphic and I had a mini panic attack!  The cue word was "beach."

Don't get me wrong, I love the beach.  I grew up close enough to Cape Cod in Massachusetts that I spent many happy summers frolicking in the ocean.  The problem is that I don't own a single stamp about the beach.  So for inspiration I turned to Splitcoast Stampers and searched the gallery for the word beach.  What I found was that Stampin' Up! had a stamp set with an abstract images that, if stamped in the right colors, mimicked beach, ocean, and land and while I didn't have that stamp set I had some abstract images of my own that just might work for a similar look.

So I took that abstract image and stamped it multiple times in colors that would call to mind land, sand, and sea.  I couldn't believe how well it turned out!  I know it's an abstract design but I hope you can see the beach there!  And since I find the beach to be a place of calm - there's nothing like feeling the hot sun on my face while the sea breeze is blowing and the sounds of the ocean are around me - that I added this particular sentiment.  To me the beach is a place to just be.

This is a one-layer card, another favorite of mine, so I'm going to join in with the Less is More challenge too.  They are looking for a favorite technique.  I'm not sure a one-layer card is a "technique" but it is in my book!

Thanks for stopping by!  And thanks again to Kylie and everyone at Addicted to CAS for inviting me to be a guest for this challenge.  I loved thinking a bit outside the box with this one!

Supplies
Stamps:  Celebrate Artsy (Stamplorations); Words of Wisdom (Verve)
Paper:  Whisper White (Stampin' Up!)
Ink:  Frayed Leaf, Forest Glades, Sand Dunes, Rocky Shores, Sea Glass, Ocean Waves, Dusk (Altenew); Onyx Black (Versafine)

Hey all!  It's time for a brand new challenge at Freshly Made Sketches!  We've got a great sketch for you from our hostess Kim.

There's a whole lot of snow falling in blogland so I thought I'd hop on the bandwagon.  Ironic since I hate snow in real life.  I always say, the only good snowflake is a pretty one on the front of a card!  But real snow aside, for this sketch I stamped a few grungy background lines in silver and followed it up with a couple of snowflakes layered together.  I think I even used a Christmas sentiment on the inside which puts me one more in the Christmas-card-stash plus side.  I don't think I've made so many Christmas cards so early in the year in my life!

There's snow at Addicted to CAS and snowflakes at Challenge Up Your Life.

Thanks for stopping by!  Our always-amazing Freshly Made Sketches design team has made some fabulous cards to inspire you to play along with us.  We hope you'll join us in the gallery!

Supplies
Stamps:  Mixed Media Elements (Stamplorations); December Typed Words (Papertrey Ink)
Paper:  Whisper White, Vellum (Stampin' Up!); silver glimmer (Recollections)
Ink:  Silvery Shimmer (Delicata); Onyx Black (Versafine)
Accessories:  Snowflake Trio die (a.must studio); Let It Snowflake Too die (My Favorite Things); silver cord (Stampin' Up!); clear embossing powder

We've got a great new sketch for you at Freshly Made Sketches this week.  Our hostess is Cécile and her designs always make me swoon! 

We've got a great new challenge at Tag You're It inspired by coffee!  I do enjoy my morning cup of coffee....or two.


I don't have a lot of coffee themed stamps but I do have this to-go cup that has a great sketchy look.  I went digging through my stash of patterned paper to find something that would be good to go along with the sketch challenge at Global Design Project and stumbled upon this ancient SU paper pack.  The design is supposed to be abstract, I think, but those brown ovals looked a lot like coffee beans so I thought it would be perfect for this tag.


I flipped the sketch one turn counter-clockwise but I cheated a bit with the sentiment layer.  After flipping the sketch the sentiment layer should have been vertical but it looked weird to my eye so I placed it horizontally.  Sorry Global Design Project! 😊

Thanks for stopping by!  My teammates at Tag You're It have created some great tags to inspire you to play along with us.  Hopefully we'll see you in the gallery!

Supplies
Stamps:  Latte Love (Stamplorations); Tiny Words (Simon Says Stamp)
Paper:  Chocolate Chip, Woodland Walk DSP (Stampin' Up!); Naturals White (Neenah)
Ink:  Chocolate Chip (Stampin' Up!); Copics
Accessories:  Tag die (Paper Smooches)

My card today is a perfect blend of sketch from CAS(E) This Sketch and theme from Fusion.  I'm excited to say that I'm joining the design team at Fusion and today is my first official post!

I think the sun is supposed to come out today!  It's been rather dreary around here lately and everyone I know is anxious to see the sun.  A harbinger of great things to come, I'm sure!  We'll start with today's great thing:  a brand new challenge at Freshly Made Sketches!  Our hostess is Narelle and she surprised us with a sketch that only has three layers!  But I suppose you could sneak one or two more on there if you wanted!


I took a little liberty with that circle and used a dragonfly instead.  I hope you can see it on there!  I used a few grungy stamps to make the background so I could play along with Addicted to CAS, used yellow, a die cut, and sequins so I could play along with The Paper Players and coincidentally there's a sequin challenge at CAS on Sunday.  Whew!  That's my challenge limit!


My Freshly Made Sketches teamies have cooked up some amazing cards this week so be sure to check them out and play along with us!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies
Stamps:  Mixed Media Elements (Stamplorations); Family is Everything (My Creative Time)
Paper:  Solar White (Neenah); Basic Black, Vellum, Beyond the Garden DSP (Stampin' Up!)
Ink:  Daffodil Delight (Stampin' Up!); Jet Black (Altenew)
Accessories:  Libellules die (4enscrap); Winter Blend sequins (Avery Elle)

It's been a busy week with almost no time for stamping but I couldn't miss our Wednesday sketch reveal over at Freshly Made Sketches!  This week our hostess and sketch designer is Karren and her sketch is an instant classic!

My card was inspired by a couple of recent rainbow challenges.  Rainbows aren't normally my thing, especially the arched-with-a-pot-of-gold variety, but then I saw a card made for this CAS-ual Fridays challenge by Ilina Crouse and suddenly I saw rainbows in a whole new way.


If I was going to do this card again I think I would maybe use lighter shades of color because I think my shimmery star accents get lost on these dark ones.  And now you've gone back for a second look because you didn't see those the first time around, right?  The two hearts on the sketch became stars on my card that I die cut from some glimmer paper.  They look pretty in real life but here they are a bit washed out.

And since I missed the deadline for the CAS-ual Fridays rainbow challenge I'm going to enter this in the challenge at Addicted to CAS which has the same theme.  I'm not sure this card is CAS enough for that challenge, though!


 Thanks for stopping by.  And be sure to check out the latest challenge at Freshly Made Sketches.  Our design team has whipped up some beautiful cards to inspire you this week!

Supplies
Stamps:  Awesome (Neat & Tangled); Celebrate Artsy (STAMPlorations)
Paper:  White (Spectrum Noir); Basic Black, Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer (Stampin' Up!)
Ink:  Real Red, Pumpkin Pie, Daffodil Delight, Garden Green, Pacific Point (Stampin' Up!); Dark Indigo; Royal Velvet (Papertrey Ink); Jet Black (Altenew)
Accessories:  Awesome die (Neat & Tangled); Stitched Stars die (Lil' Inker Designs)

Our new challenge at CAS(E) This Sketch, designed by Leigh Penner, is beautiful in its simplicity and I had a few ideas in my head for my card when I happened upon the inspiration challenge at Global Design Project.  The use of gold was eye-poppingly delicious so I decided right then and there to use some gold on my card.

Hello and welcome to Tuesday which also happens to be the day of a new palette at colourQ!  This week the colors are eclectic for sure!



I shamelessly used the sketch at CAS Colours & Sketches to create a little rainbow of rectangles using the colors, sticking a sentiment on the bottom one stamped on white.  Easy peasy!


The colourQ design team had no trouble at all using these colors as you will see when you pop on over there.  I hope you have some time to join us in the gallery this week!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies
Stamps:  Celebrate Artsy (Stamplorations)
Paper:  White (Spectrum Noir); Bermuda Bay, Calypso Coral, Cool Carribbean, Pumpkin Pie (SU)
Ink:  Bermuda Bay (SU)
Accessories:  Pierced Rectangle STAX (MFT)

Here we are at Thursday again and time for a new sketch at CAS(E) This Sketch.  I loved the balloon and string imagery in the sketch but didn't want to copy it exactly so I spent some time mentally going through my stamps sets to see if I had something I could substitute.  Insert some divine intervention and I remembered that I had a set with some butterflies and their little fluttering trail.



The CASology cue word this week is "distress," and for me that means inserting a grungy image wherever I can, so inked one up to serve as a background to the sentiment.  The colors I used were inspired by a color challenge that didn't have a chance to play along with last week, but I loved them all the same.

The cards this week from the CAS(E) This Sketch design team are so awesome this week (but you didn't need me to tell you that)!  I hope to see you in the gallery there!

Supplies
Stamps:  Mixed Media Elements (Stamplorations); Live, Love, Laugh and Be Happy (My Creative Time); Many Thanks (Simon Says Stamp)
Ink:  Going Gray, Cherry Cobbler (SU); Onyx Black (Versafine)

Spring has finally arrived in New England!  After a blah Saturday and a not-so-promising start to Sunday the sun finally broke through the clouds, the temperatures warmed up and I actually wore short sleeves outside!  Woo hoo!  But alas I had to eventually go back inside to get busy with the latest palette from colourQ.  The colors, inspired by this apron, are perfect if you have flowers on your mind!



I actually didn't have flowers on my mind, as you can see!  I was feeling the butterfly instead.  The colors seem awfully close in my photo (a professional photographer I am not), but I can assure you that the horizontal stripe is Calypso Coral and the butterfly is layered with Blushing Bride and Poppy Parade.  I went over the intricate details of the Poppy Parade layer of the butterfly with my Wink of Stella pen because that makes everything better, of course!

I've used a liberal interpretation of the Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge this week.  I started out with some card stock for the horizontal layers and decided that they were a little too blah, so I created those "layers" with some new grungy stamps I recently bought.  And I'm pleased as punch to say that I was chosen over there last week for the Sweet Sunday SPOTlight!  Yay me!


I can't wait to see how you light up the colourQ gallery this week with these beautiful colors.  The design team has outdone themselves with their creations!  I hope to see you over there!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Mixed Media Grunge (Stamplorations); Live, Love, Laugh & Be Happy (My Creative Time)
Paper:  White (Spectrum Noir); Blushing Bride, Poppy Parade (SU)
Ink:  Coastal Cabana, Calypso Coral (SU); Onyx Black (Versafine)
Accessories:  Chrissy Butterfly die, Leanna Butterfly die (Simon Says Stamp); enamel dots (My Mind's Eye); Basic Pearls (SU); Wink of Stella

A funny thing happened on the road to making this card.  When I saw the CAS(E) This Sketch challenge I knew immediately that I wanted to use Tim Holtz's "umbrella man" image.  I don't know why I just knew that was what I wanted to use.  Then yesterday I checked out the Friday Mashup challenge and guess what they wanted on our projects?  If you guessed an umbrella you win the prize!  That's what I call serendipity!



I used the colors again from Color Throwdown for no other reason than I LOVE them!  There's just something about black, white and a pop of color that really appeals to me!


Well, that's it for me.  I've got a sick kitty in the house and I may need to take him back to the vet this morning so I've cleared my schedule.  I was going to go in to Boston to see my nephew's band play at Faneuil Hall later today, but depending on how things go with the kitty I may or may not go.

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Jumbo Abstract Art (My Favorite Things); Grunge Me (Papertrey Ink); Mini Mixed Media Backgrounds (Stamplorations); Life's Possibilities (Tim Holtz)
Paper:  White (Spectrum Noir)
Ink:  So Saffron, Hello Honey (SU); Onyx Black (Versafine)
Accessories:  enamel dots (Freckled Fawn)