I wanted a shabby chic card, but that is so not my style. I started with the Faux Silk technique but after I stamped it I realized it wasn’t all that chic. I searched my stamp collection for a fun set. I haven’t used In Full Bloom in ages – and it isn’t one of my favorites, but I like how this bouquet turned out. I even got to watercolor!

The corner punch on the Faux Silk layer was pretty easy (thankfully, as I tend to do my experimenting on the real thing). I started on the corner and tilted the card to a point and punched the corner. Then I just punched the edges starting by lining up the holes on the corner. It isn’t perfect, but I think it worked well.

This card is for my mother-in-law, so I had my hubby pick out the image. I knew I wanted the leaves to hang out, so I did that and then sat and stared for a bit 🙂 The only pattern paper I had that had the colors was Enchante. I did the piercing on the pattern paper to complement the stitching on the flowers, but I think if I was to do the card again, I’d skip the piercing.

I’ve had the texture plates for a few months now and I don’t think I’ve used but one of them once. When I normally look at the weave one, I wouldn’t think Asian, but as I was flipping through my supplies that one really caught me and I think it works well.

The last touch was ribbon. I’m not so good at using my special ribbon – I’m a hoarder, lol. But it’s a special card!

I created this card for Becky’s latest Compose-A-Card challenge (#9). I was mostly inspired by the inspiration song title – Lucky. My hubby is going to be away alot over the next few months on business trips. I thought it would be good to get a stash of “miss you” type cards I can tuck in his suitcase.

This past week’s Clean & Simple challenge on SCS was a sketch (cas60). One I found a bit intimidating! I finally came up with a card. I’m not one who normally puts stuff on a card for the heck of it, and at first, the squares felt like that – just filling in the box of the sketch. But I like it…maybe I can pretend they are windows 😉

I also used the color scheme provided at the Color Dare (cd62). I love this color combo! I actually bought the Western Sky paper from SU because of the colors – but I think this is the first time I’ve used it!

I finally broke down and bought a new border punch. This is one I’ve seen loads on other folks’ cards and I love it.

I started this card for the sketch at Clean & Simple Stamping (ftl84). I found a cool color scheme too – at Color Dare (cd61). And finally, I added glitter to participate in the challenge at Stampin’Royalty (sr#12).

The card ended up being huge (a 5 1/2 square) with hang-over bits too. It will definitely have to be a hand-carry card.

ColorQ has a great challenge this week (cqc24). I love Razzleberry – it is my favorite current InColor. I first thought about flowers when I saw the color scheme, but I wanted to do something different. I decided to use the Cheers To You set. A good excuse for coloring too!

The card layout came from a cool sketch over at Just-Add-Ink (jai9).

This card was created for Jean’s challenge on the Res-Q blog (resq37). The challenge was not only to use tulips, but she provided a color scheme as well. The layout for the card came from the Stamping 411 blog (ssc143).

I really love multi-colored tulips. When I saw the color combo, I knew I would ink up this image this way.

I had my card all ready, but thankfully not glued down yet, when I realized I hadn’t put any blue in it! Ack! After a couple failed ideas, I simply changed out the border.

I do believe this Perfect Details impression plate is one of my favorite! I guess I should try the other side one of these days 😉 When I embossed the card front, I ended up getting the design throughout the whole card. So without a sentiment on the front and an uneven writing surface inside, I knew I needed to decorate the inside of this card.

When I saw this alien set from Stampin Up I had to have it. Of course, until now I hadn’t used it. Yesterday I decided I would use some rubber that I purchased but hadn’t inked yet. This is a set my mom would never own, so I chose to work with this set – and then send her the card to share with her customers.

I found a couple challenges to help me out. I chose a sketch from Card Patterns (sketch 55) and a color scheme from Color Dare (cd59).

One thing to note, the alien’s helmet was cut out from a window sheet. I didn’t want the alien’s head to be part of the overlay, so I ended up using a thin sharpie to trace the helmet while the sheet was over the image (does that make sense??). I like the effect!

I’m not sure why but the first thing that popped into my mind was a “support” type card with the sentiment “Not feeling like yourself?”. Originally I was thinking because of PMS, but then I realized that the dude was blue and thus it could be for a broken heart too. So for the inside I opted for the cure-all CHOCOLATE 🙂

Thanks for stopping by!

Some of you know my mom had hip replacement surgery this week. She is doing fabulous, but it has been hard not being able to be there myself (I used to live 20 min away, now I’m 2 plane rides away). My Aunt Karen (mom’s sister) graciously agreed to come down this weekend and stay with mom while she recuperated! This card will hopefully be waiting at home for her. Thanks Aunt Karen!! xoxox

You know me, I don’t make a card right out of my head, I have to have a start. This one started with a challenge, and added a couple more 😉 First up, the CAS challenge at SCS (cas57) which was to use two different die-cut shapes on a card – and keep it CAS (ack, not easy!). I used the Top Note die and the Tag punches all from StampinUp. (Since my Aunt does a lot of Stampin Up work for my mom, I wanted a card she could show folks – so it had to be all current SU.)

The next challenge I used was yesterday’s 365 challenge to make a landscape (day 11). Since she posts a challenge every day I try to keep to the current day’s challenge, but this one was too inviting! The paper I used is old Prints, but you can easily substitute current paper and get the same look.

Finally, the colors. I had my landscape colors already picked and wasn’t sure what to do for the rest…so I went hunting! I found this super fun color combo at ColorQueen (cqc23). I did change the Tangerine for Dusty Durango, but I think it keeps close enough otherwise.

Thanks for stopping by!