I created this card based on the latest Retro Sketch (rs5).

My preferred style is clean and simple, so it may be sorta hard to see the sketch in my final card, but it is definitely where I stared.

The seashells are actually from my scrap bucket. Something I had tried – eons ago – but didn’t use. I brushed Twinkling H2Os on to paper. Then I stamped the image and cut it out.

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The current Paper Smooches Sparks challenge is so adorable!

I chose to work with the colors and the idea of something being different colors.

I made my own sentiment by pairing a partial sentiment from Sentiment Sampler and then using the Alphadot alphabet to create the rest of it.

I have a few extra yellow cows because I could not find the right yellow. This one was the best of the bunch.

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This weekend’s Waltzing Mouse Sketch Challenge (wmsc91) is a one-layer card. Ooooh that is so hard for me. The only reason I attempted it was because their definition was a lot more lax than others, so I felt I could give it a go.

I think that freed me up and I actually managed a one-layer card!! Though, with all the pearls, I’ll still need to be careful mailing this card.

I trimmed the base to 4″ because I think the slightly narrower card is nice for vertical one-layer cards (at least with the idea I had in my head).

I used the heart border from Nordic Winter set and stamped it in a gradient with a variety of pink inks (some generational stamping too).

I used Chocolate ink for the sentiment. There was a time that I only used black for sentiments and I don’t remember how I broke that, but now I’ll use other colors – but I do admit, I still reach for black first. I really have to think out my card before I put ink to stamp!

I have to shout just how EASY it was to apply the Zva pearl flourish! A couple months ago I had tried a small flourish from another company and it was torture. This took seconds and it laid down perfect. I can see more of these in my future!

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Oh how I love the In Bloom stamp set! This flower is stamped onto Blush cardstock and then the shadows added with Copic markers. I love coloring!

The striped pattern paper is from PTI’s new pattern packs. I love this new packaging and can’t wait for more colors. You get lots of different patterns all in the same color (and you can get each pattern separately too). I have really come to love the Aqua color – it is such a soothing color.

The card base is narrower than a typical A2 card. However, I’m pretty sure even with the narrower card base, this would not fit into a regular envelope. But I knew this card was going into a puffy mailer, so I didn’t worry too much. (It is already long gone otherwise I would measure it for sure.)

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I created today’s card for the Waltzing Mouse sketch challenge (wmsc90).

This was a hard sketch for me! But the Design Team posted such wonderful creations on the challenge blog that I just had to figure something out!

My original idea was to use the lanterns from Asian Garden (my go-to set from WMS!), but I didn’t have a sentiment that worked for the main focal panel…so after much trying I gave up on that idea and moved on – to my other go-to set: Teeny Trees!

I am quite happy with how this turned out! I probably should have gone with yellow for my sentiment panel, but I do think this yellowy-orange works fine.

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My third Masculine Motifs post today. All three cards have fussy-cut images – I do hope PTI comes out with dies for this awesome stamp set!

This is probably my favorite of the three. I was very much inspired by Dawn’s card.

This card is headed to a dear friend, who really could care less that the card is handmade. That means I was not about to put 3 wood buttons on it! Instead I decided to make the buttons. This was SO simple and the fact that they are much thinner means I may be doing this much more in the future! I used a wood laminate (from StampinUp) and die cut it with a Button die. The laminate is more golden, so I rubbed some dark brown ink on the buttons to get the tone I wanted (I can see pink and green buttons in my future!!).

The handmade buttons are being entered in the Moxie Fab challenge – DIY Handmade Items challenge

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Another of my Masculine Motif cards.

This little boat rocks – literally I used the Tilt Card tutorial on SplitCoast so the boat would move!

I was going to have a sentiment on this card – and even though I thought about the fact I needed to do it before I embossed – I still forgot! Oh well.

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In the first week of April there are three male birthdays in my family! Thankfully none of them read my blog so I can post

I recently purchased Masculine Motifs (PTI) from a forum friend so I decided to break it in by creating all three cards with the set.

For this card I was very inspired Emily Leiphart’s card. I really loved the Retro background with the fish!

I really wanted the cool bubble lines to continue across the card, and I thought about the split negative technique. The stamping isn’t perfectly aligned but hopefully not so off as to be distracting.

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My random file picker came up with this old Bella image. I decided to use a Retro Sketch (rs4) for the layout.

I used Copics to color the image.

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