Playing along with Uniko Studio Fall Foliage Challenge and Seize the Birthday Texture Toppings. The background paper is part of a pack from Target, with the remaining papers a mix of Bo Bunny and Authentique. Stamped and fussy cut this gorgeous Uniko Studio gerbera and leaves, combined with Uniko Studio sentiment and Lil Inkers Stitched Polaroid frame and Annabelle's twine. With one exception, all the papers chosen are patterned - to add texture and the flower is pop dotted for added texture too.

It's a glorious warm Spring day here today, and what better way to celebrate than with a little Sunflower Sunshine.  Playing along with Curtain Call Sunflower Surprise and this fabulous Seize the Sketch.  Whilst I did not have a specific sunflower stamp, I think this gorgeous gerbera stamp from Uniko Studio fits the bill, stamped in Hero Arts Cup O' Joe on Bo Bunny Forever Fall paper and fussy cut. The background paper is from Fancy Pants Down by the Shore.  I raided my general craft supplies to play along with Moxie Fab World Handmade Cards Week - General Craft Supplies Challenge and incorporated hessian, corrugated cardboard and twine (The Twinery Natural Twine) too!  A mat of Lil Inkers Stitched Rectangles ties in the homemade country theme, and is perfect for playing along with The Twinery You're Sew Fine.

As soon as I saw this weeks FUSION Challenge, I knew I wanted to break out my Paper Smooches Crystal Clear die-cut jar, and create a sequin shaker with this gorgeous watermelon pink vellum.  How about you, will you be inspired by this photo of summertime iced watermelon juice jars, by this fabulous sketch, or by both?

My vellum shaker jar is filled with sequins and topped with Paper Smooches Crystal Clear flower and stem stamps in Blushin Bride and Whisper Green inks, tied with The Twinery Strawberry twine, atop two strips of coloured vellum and a strip of washi tape.

Here's how you can play along...
PROCEDURES:
1. Play with just the sketch challenge.
2. Play with just the inspiration photo challenge.
3. Or you can create FUSION by combining BOTH challenges into one card.
4. Use the challenge graphic and link back to Fusion in your post.
5. Please read the other considerations on the Experiment Page before playing along.

Hope to see you at the FUSION Challenge Blog soon, in the meantime, here's some more FABULOUS inspiration from the Design Team...

I had fun today, stamping on cork to create this little birthday tag card.  Inspired by the Little Tangles Into the Woods,  I incorporated some Kaisercraft wooden paper, and paired Glitz teal woodgrain letters with these cute stamps from Neat & Tangled for the sentiment.  Inspired by Amy's gorgeous Freshly Made Sketch and the Little Red Wagon Tag You're It Challenge, a tag was created from Echo Park paper using My Favorite Things vertical sentiments diecut, trimming off one end and punching a hole for the twine.  I love the cute Neat & Tangled bear paw print trail too :)

8 Minutes and 43 seconds later...

• Placing the stamps two up on the front of a clear block helps cut the time down - then to speed things up even more, I placed the flower centres two up on the reverse of the block - so they stamped perfectly in place as well!
• Instead of a bow I taped down the straight line of twine, adhered to the back of the cardstock, then wrapped a second set of twine around three fingers, and a third set was used to knot the two sets together.

After having so much fun with my CASual Fridays Mapquest Challenge LIFE Map card yesterday, I thought I'd have a play and do another using the same October Afternoon Thrift Shop paper.  This time I combined it with a dollop of inspiration from Lisa Spangler's gorgeous CASE Study card, using plenty of hexagons for the Less is More Hexagons Challenge and Shopping Our Stash Geometric Shapes Challenge. Cut the map hexagons using Cheery Lynn Honeycomb Frame die, and enlarged the shape to create a template for my cork hexagon. The gorgeous wood veneer plane is from Studio Calico.  The fab world map is from Paper Smooches Space Cadet.  The sentiment is a cardstock sticker from My Mind's Eye, wrapped in The Twinery Solid Natural twine and pop dotted - 'cause you know I need to LOL!

Lisa Spangler's gorgeous CASE Study card

9 minutes and 16 seconds later...

This weeks 10 Minute Craft Dash colours with its red, butter yellow and pale blue, reminded me of a day by the seaside, so what was more perfect for a day by the sea than this gorgeous boat!

This week I die cut my Paper Smooches flag from some Crate Paper cardstock, then stamped it with this gorgeous Verve sailboat and sentiment.  Next up I stamped the same images directly onto the card base, then stamped just the boat and waves onto red stripped and yellow polka dotted Echo Park papers. I fussy cut the waves, the boat and the sails before using a glue pen to adhere the boat and sails to my card base.  I positioned a strip of double-sided tape on my card base across the "you are" on my sentiment, and used this to secure the twine wrapped twice around the card, before adding pop-dot tape to the back of the sentiment flag, making sure they were positioned above and below the level of the twine (rather than at the same level as the twine), and adhering the sentiment flag. The two bottom corners of the card were rounded using a corner punch (yes, I forgot to do this before I stuck down my sentiment flag, so I had to lift it out of the way before rounding the corner, then stick it back down again LOL).

10 Minute Tip

• Plan to do all your die cutting at once, all your stamping at once, all your fussy cutting at once and then assemble and adhere everything as the last step - not swapping back and forth from one to another saves TIME :)

There's 10 days to enter, and in case you need any more motivation, there's a gorgeous prize up for grabs from Timeless Twine too!

Jen's gorgeous MUSE card

There are so many elements I LOVE on Jen's MUSE card that I couldn't resist playing along this week!  And as I love combining challenges, I couldn't resist adding a few more challenges into the mix too.

I love Jen's layout, the butterfly element and the teal and yellow combo, to which I added some orange for extra zest.  Jen's combination of the maths washi tape and teal twine section reminded me of an equation - so what better sentiment to pair with my teal equation washi tape with than "We equate".  The sentiment was created using Paper Smooches Spring Groves "We" from "Welcome Spring", and die cut Wise Dies alphabet, perfect for playing along with this weeks Paper Smooches Sparks Anything Goes Challenge.  I love the embossed background, perfect for playing along with this weeks Catered Crop Make an Impression Challenge, and the washi tape, perfect for this weeks The Pink Elephant Washi Tape Challenge too.

LOVE, LOVE the inspiration card from JJ Bolton over at Case Study this week, one of my all time favourites.  I thought I'd try mine with a bit of a twist and use the negative space, because you know how much I love negative die cuts LOL!

I negative die cut the tall MFT letters and Quickcuts balloon first, stamped my MME paper with the Heidi Swapp sentiment in Hero Arts Cup o Joe, then aligned the sentiment on the cardstock base and masked the tail of the "y" before stamping.  I pop dotted my patterned paper, and the centre of the "a" and sliver from the balloon back into position, before securing the balloon with this cute Twinery twine.


Joining in the celebrations at Simon Says Stamp 4th Birthday
Little Red Wagons Be a Negative Nellie,
Catered Crop Twine Love Recipe Swap and
Pile it On Wooden too!

I created the sentiment digitally with A Little Pot font and used this cute Paper Smooches yo-yo stamp, together with The Twinery Carribean twine, perfect for linking up with this fortnights Catered Crop Twine Love Recipe Swap, and Marie's 7 or Less Challenge too.

So glad you have joined me for this weeks 10 Minute Craft Dash - with a FAB gift voucher from Paper Smooches this week, even more reason to give it a try!