I made this card for a few different challenges. First, the colors came from Color Dare (cd58). Next the layout came from Just Us Girls (jugs23). Finally, the piercing touch was from a challenge over at Crazy 4 Challenges (c4c27).

For some reason circles scare me! I don’t have a problem using stamps in the shape of circles, but I shy away from using circle layers. I’ve done two sketches in the past two days that had circles as their focals – ack! talk about pushing one’s self! Both times I ended up not using an actual circle mat but using stamps with circular shapes (though I’m sure yesterday’s tree pushed that boundary, lol). I find it much easier to handle that way!

This card was started for a challenge, but I already know it will be a perfect card to send to my brother come July.

The card started with the inking challenge at 365 Cards (day 6). I bought the tree stamp when it came out but hadn’t inked it up yet. Since I was using the tree, I thought about making a card for my bro, so I wanted a masculine color scheme. I found the perfect scheme at ColorQ (cqc22). The images are huge (which is good), so I wasn’t sure how to finish up the card. That was when Jen del Muro’s Saturday sketch came to help (sfytt31).

I am really really happy with this card. The picture just doesn’t do it (maybe I’ll try again in the daytime) – the colors and the texture work so well together.

I need to get my gifties out to my DSS players this weekend – but as usual, I don’t have cards ready. (I’m a coordinator in the Divine Secret Sibling group over at SCS.) Instead of just doing something, I checked out the latest challenges and came up with this combo.

This week’s challenge from Denise, at Res-Q Challenge blog, was to use text as a main component to a card (resq35). I thought about making the entire background be text, but I needed to stamp 4 of these babies and I just did not have that much time (kiddos *insisted* on a trip to the pool). So when I spotted the sketch at Clean & Simple (ftl81) I knew that would be an easy way to achieve my goal.

I tried hard to get a color challenge in this too, but it was NOT working, so I kept it to the two colors I had already stamped. This is a very simple card and it isn’t executed the best, but I do like the idea.

Becky Oehlers (PTI Design Team) started a weekly challenge on her blog. It is a pretty unique challenge – she provides quite a bit of rules for each challenge, but I have always been amazed at the variety of cards created.

I really loved the inspiration piece for this week’s challenge (Compose a Card #6), so when I found myself with time on my hands tonight (ok, I was procrastinating, but we won’t tell), I had to take the challenge.

I started out by wanting to replicate the tray ceiling in the inspiration photo. I created the frame with a ruler/exacto knife. I really had no plan for the rest of the card, so I’m very happy that it finished up so nicely

This card was created for two challenges. This week’s CAS challenge at SCS was to create a square card (cas56). And Lisa has started a new challenge on her blog – Poppy Seeds – where she’ll provide 3 seeds of inspiration. This week’s seeds were (a) light yellow color, (b) crystals, and (c) flower stamp (psc01).

I never grab my owl set though I *had* to have it when it came out. I do like the set, but I am definitely a flower girl

Months and months ago there was a craze about creating little skinny cards using the cardstock strip that is created when you make a square card. My cardstock was a tiny bit bigger than your normal 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 card, so my scraplet is a little wider than the “norm”. This is the first time I’ve done this and boy it is a bit challenging – such an odd canvas size to work with.

Cath, over at Moxie Fab World, has “Trigger Tuesday” when she posts an inspiration picture. This week’s challenge was a really cool montage of springy colors, but there was one particular panel that caught my eye and led me to create this card.

The background in inspiration panel had a mottled look that I tried hard to emulate with some simple sponging using white and ocean inks.

This card was created for two challenges – an Embellish color/technique challenge (Color with a Border), and a Just Add Ink sketch (jai6).

I am really happy with how this turned out! The birdhouses were actually what got me started on this card – I thought they would be a cute way of fulfilling the sketch. The technique challenge was to use a border. I only have a couple border punches, but I like this new one. The focal circle is more like a frame; I like the look of the yellow polka dot paper behind the scallop.

This card was done for a challenge – over at PageMaps blog (contest). I’m not sure why, but when I looked at the sketch I saw a Christmas tree in place of the bird. It is sorta hard to get in a holiday mood here, so I wanted to keep the colors bright.

Since I chose a PTI stamp set, I checked in my PTI paper stash and decided the Men of Life pack was my best choice. The blue piece looks stitched so the lace was an easy choice. The rest just sorta fell in place. I am in love with this card!

Tonight is Papertrey’s monthly Blog Hop! This month’s theme was to create a card that was inspired by a Design Team member. Papertrey has such an awesome design team, I’m sure anyone could find inspiration!

I think I am most in awe of Betsy Veldman (Blog & PTI Gallery). Her style is very very very different than my own, but it is always so full of detail that every time I look at something she’s created I find something new to ooh and ahh at!

I couldn’t pick just one of her cards to “copy” because I’d never come close. So I made a list of things she seems to do frequently and then I tried to incorporate them into a card of my own.

I really love how this card turned out. I’m not sure I could spend so much time on every card I made (since this stuff isn’t second nature to me, it took me hours to make this card), but once in a while I will definitely be pulling out my “Betsy List” again!

Blog problems kept me from getting this posted before the deadline at Embellish Mag, but I love this card so I have to post it! The challenge was to do a birthday card using the color provided: raspberry, blue, green, brown. Sort of a bold color combo.

This is the first time I’ve inked up my Vintage Picnic set, but I am loving it. One cool thing about the stamp set is the basket is symmetrical. I actually stamped the plain basket and cut it out and then decided I wanted the weave image. I flipped over my cut basket and was able to stamp the weave and didn’t lose any outlines! Clear stamps rock!

The outside is pretty simple, so I went overboard on the inside – a first for me!

At first I didn’t want to stamp and color all the tulips on the inside so I tried to do something else…but it wouldn’t work so I just did it. I do love how it turned out. The “basket” was done by using the 4 line background image from Background Basics – Retro and then just drawing little vertical lines to simulate a weave.