Last month the challenge blog For Your Inspiration had a call for new design team members. I had recently found the blog and loved the challenge, so I thought I’d give it a go.

To my surprise, I was selected!! (Here is the announcement post.)

Their challenges are the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of the month. I start in March

Thanks again to Steph and the other team members!

I created this card for both the Waltzing Mouse sketch challenge (wmsc82) and the Clean & Simple challenge at SCS (cas155).

I admit, I had a hard time with this particular inspiration picture. In the end, I went with the colors and my own memory (we had wonderful willow trees near my childhood home which I loved to hide under).

Thanks for taking a peek!

I created this card for the For Your Information challenge (fyi23).

Even though the picture is full of modern lines, that isn’t what drew my attention. What I first noticed about the inspiration photo was the tiles along the outside wall of the building – and the colors: white & blue. Those two things together made me think of wedgewood.

Thanks for taking a peek!

I created this card for the For Your Inspiration challenge (fyi22).

My stamping time has really taken a hit since we adopted a new puppy last month. But I’ve had an idea in my head for this challenge ever since it was posted. I finally made myself stamp last night. I could have created a few different cards I was so inspired by the image, but I settled on this one because the colors and bridge in the IP is what caught my eye first.

I love this set by Waltzing Mouse and this was just too good an opportunity not to use it! I did have a couple false starts with it, but I am happy with the final product.

I also feel good because that green velvet ribbon is from my HUGE stash of ribbon. Sometimes it is nice to be able to find exactly what you need!

Thanks for taking a peek!

I created this card for the Waltzing Mouse sketch challenge (wmsc80).

I took a little liberty and imagined each stripe in the sketch as its own color – instead of two alternating colors. I also dropped the sentiment panel down because that just felt right. To steal words from Amber, it felt too predictable otherwise.

Thanks for taking a peek!

Day 5 was about techniques. I took the spotlight technique and simplified it. I stamped the map on both green and blue paper then used a circle punch to punch out my spotlights in a grid pattern.

I left off the “base” image as an attempt to simplify the technique and card. I felt there were enough glimpses of the map to know what it is (even though some of them are not the right angle – I did *try* to punch in a grid, lol).

Since I used a map image, I’m also entering this in the Moxie Fab challenge, Map to Your Heart.

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Day 7 is all about plain white cards. I actually love doing plain white cards.

For this card, I also took inspiration from the CASE Study blog challenge (#73). This month’s muse there is Jen Rzasa.

I liked how she had different colors of the same pattern and the banner sentiment with rhinestones and the little loop of ribbon.

I haven’t figured out how to cut my dies apart, so instead of creating negative punches, I just die cut the pattern paper and popped-it on the card.

I felt the background needed something. Then I remembered how Gayatri recently created her own impression plate. So I gave that a try for myself. I die cut a bunch of clouds from thin cardboard and adhered them to another cardboard. I’m quite happy having this impression plate now!

Oh, and the final card size is actually 4 x 5 1/2 (I needed to leave room in the envelope for the loop of ribbon).

Thanks for taking a peek!

Today is Waltzing Mouse’s Blog Party. The theme this month is “Sweet Things”.

I struggled with what I would do. But it finally came to me last night!

I paper pieced (just out of cardstock) the pears from Peace & Plenty. Then I stamped the pear bodies with the smallest Gingham image.

For the sentiment, I used a font and printed it on my computer.

Since the theme is “sweet” I wanted to keep my colors light and sweet – so I had to work in some pink. I found some old StampinUp paper that worked nicely.

Thanks for stopping by!

Day 4 of class was to take a stamp and use it in different ways. I chose to use the large floral spray in the Elements of Style set by StampinUp.

My first card uses the spray as a background. I stamped it in very light ink a couple times on the card base.

To do the sentiment, I stamped the frame in a dark brown (to help pull the focus) and colored it with Copics. I’m a cutter – of stamps The sentiment was trimmed so I could stamp the words separately.

I really like how this one turned out.

For the second card, I wanted to use the spray as the focal image. Of course, I didn’t have a lot of time to color the whole thing, and Day 5′s lesson was in my head – so I chose to do a technique: Spotlighting.

This time I stamped the spray in dark brown (since it should be the focus).

I embossed the background – not sure if that lessens the CASness, but I like the feel it adds.

I also chose to keep the same colors for all the cards.

I really wasn’t sure what I would do for the last card. I knew I wanted to do something unexpected with it. After looking over the lesson again, I liked how Kristina & Julie used their image within other images. That made me remember this totally awesome card by Dawn O. So I cased it.

Thanks for taking a peek!

I created this card for the Clean & Simple challenge at SCS (cas152) – a supply challenge: die cuts.

After perusing my index of dies I settled on the spinner from the MFT – and the stamp set had a perfect sentiment too!

I will say I had a dickens of a time getting the spinner to work. I wanted the spinner behind the heart, but that was NOT working, so I went with the simple assembly – but at least it works!

Thanks for stopping by!