I made this card for Jen’s March 28 SFYTT. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do at first, but when I looked through my stamp index and saw the Bella image, I knew I should use it to make the Easter cards for my girls. I wasn’t sure what I was going to put as the accent (the star in the sketch), but I knew I didn’t want a flower (I wanted a flower on the sentiment panel), so I ended up inking just a few chicks on an image from SU’s Best of Cluck set.

This card uses the sketch from Karen’s Sweetest Thing blog (SSSC11).

The purpose of the card is to reconnect with someone – so I thought the mailboxes were a good choice. I wanted a fun cheery card, so I pulled out some older SU paper. Thankfully I had ribbon that worked! I do wish I had the rectangle or square nesties, I’m not completely satisfied with the focal mat, but it works well enough.

I am hosting an inspiration challenge this week over on the PTI forum (CMWC49). You can play along too!

This is the piece I selected as my inspiration – a skirt I found in an Etsy store called GoodGracie. I loved the bright colors and fun patterns.

I decided to use the bright colors and also the pattern from the blue fabric (the white paint effect). I don’t have any ric-rac, let alone ric-rac in a color that would go with this card, so I just made my own ruffle – which, without a sewing machine was accomplished with lots and lots of glue dots!

So, when I was packing for my move (which is temporary), my mom convinced me that if I only used my sewing machine for cards, I didn’t need to bring it with me. Ugh! Now I know that even that use is a good thing – I miss it!! The wavy sewing on this card was done by hand – yes, by hand. I would have liked to do another wavy line, but it is late and I needed to get this posted.

This card is for the PTI Forum mid-week challenge (CMWC48), which was a sketch. The colors came from the OCCC blog. When I do a PTI challenge I like to use PTI stamps, but I challenged myself even more by doing a card I could send out this week for a male birthday coming up. Lots of restrictions!

I really only have one set that is sorta masculine – Pond Life. So I browsed the gallery until I found this card by Julie Cameron – I immediately knew the fish scene would be perfect! I like how this card turned out, though I didn’t follow the sketch strictly. I love using white as a mat to lighten up the darker colors.

I even did the inside (it has been a few cards since I did an inside, hee hee).

There are a few birthdays coming up for which I need masculine cards. When I saw the new color combo over on Dawn’s blog, I knew it would work perfectly.

I’m not sure I’m all that happy with the final product, but I really couldn’t think of anything else to do that didn’t make it go overboard.

This week’s Weekend Sketch (WSC74) was designed by Charmaine. It is a perfect sketch to highlight those big sentiments (which I don’t have, lol) and pattern paper. I have a ton of pattern paper, but I had a color scheme in mind that I couldn’t let go of The colors come from a dress I bought my daughter recently. I’m sure I’ll do another card for it as there are plenty of things about the dress from to be inspired.

I used all the colors to make the floral panel. Knowing that I was going to put some Summer Sunrise accent in the top left, I made sure I used all the pink inks in that corner. The sentiment panel was fun to put together. I ended up using a few different sets to get all the pieces on there – I like how it turned out!

Today is PTI’s monthly blog hop. I’m sure I’m coming late to the party, but, I loved the challenge and needed to get this idea on paper! To view more of the blog hop entries, stop by the PTI forum. This month’s hop challenge is to create backgrounds – either using stamps made for creating backgrounds, or re-purposing other stamps.

I chose to use the Honey Bees set from PTI for my card. I used the honeycomb stamp to create my flower background. It isn’t much of a stretch, but I like how this turned out. I used a Mojo sketch (mojo78) for the layout.

I apologize for not posting more frequently – this is spring break time. The girls use my computer, which is also at my stamp table, so I’m left with books…which if you know me, means sucking my undivided attention until I’m done I just finished Atlas Shrugged (you can read my reviews on my Book Review page).

I’ve had this card in the works for a week. It started with the PTI Forum challenge to use your stamps in a different way (cmwc47) and when I saw Dawn’s color challenge (rscc1), I knew it would be perfect for what I wanted to do.

I know the party-hat-as-ice-cream-cone isn’t a new idea, but I hadn’t done it myself. It is a fun result!

Whew, I’m done! And only a week late, lol. This card was hard – my normal format is A2 size cards, so doing a long/tall card was a challenge. Since this was a challenge from the PTI forum, I wanted to use a PTI set – but I challenged myself to use one I haven’t used in a long time. Finally, I took umpteen pictures – I can’t seem to find the right place/angle/lighting in the new house. My pictures keep coming out dark. I am using the same sort of setup, so I’m not sure what is different. Maybe it is time to get a light box

OK, enough whining. I do like this card, it actually ended up much better than I thought it would (I’ve had it half done for a few days). PTI doesn’t have a lot of multi-color pattern paper (I *hope* they start coming up with designs that incorporate more of their colors), so I pulled out a Basic Grey pack that I’ve had for awhile and decided to use that. My colors ended up being all over the map – some retired SU, some current SU, and a PTI color; but that was all in the attempt to match the pattern paper.

This card turned out soooo much better than I thought it would! The challenge areas for this months’ PTI Guest Star Stamper were limited to scrapbook or project, use of Friends ‘Til the End, and use of a previous set. I didn’t bring any of my scrapping stuff with me to Hawaii (I figured space would be limited and I hadn’t scrapped in two years already, so what is another two) and projects are hard for me – I enjoy doing them, but I never have a reason to make them and I like making stuff for a purpose. I’ve already made a couple cards that I entered with previous stamp sets. That just left Friends ‘Til the End. Thankfully I ordered that one

I know lots of people use this image (just like SU’s Fifth Avenue) to make those uber cool mod cards, and while I do want to try that myself, I wanted to watercolor this baby. I really love watercoloring. Have you ever watercolored with Palette inks before? It is hard! They dry on whatever surface you use (I normally squish my cube onto a plastic plate that I use) and they don’t take to water too well. But I’ve found if I work fast and try hard, I can do it.

The layout of this card is from Karen Giron’s sketch (SSSC08). I’ve been wanting to participate in her challenges, but this is the first one I’ve managed…and not I’m not really sure it “qualifies” as I didn’t do the layering in the background. I hope that I can go back and do her others too.

I didn’t take a picture of the inside, but I did stamp the same flower image with white pigment ink.