CFC72 - miss you

Happy Friday!  I hope everybody has had a wonderful week!  I'm back with the CAS-ual Fridays challenge for this week, and it's a fun one:

 CFC72: Create a clean and simple project inspired by your own blog banner

This week's challenge is sponsored by A Muse Studio.  They have some seriously cute stuff, and the winner of this challenge will win a prize valued at over $35!  How awesome is that?!?

So you can see my blog banner above, and when I chose it, it was because I was drawn to the color combination.  I used the same inspiration to create this paper yummy:

I stamped the Hero Arts Graph Background in gray ink, then cut a frame from blue patterned paper using a Nestabilities die.  The yellow circles are from the Paper Smooches Potpourri set, and the sentiment flag is a stamp by Pebbles Inc.  I added some yellow baker's twine to a cute little blue button, and adhered it onto the sentiment flag.  Here's a close-up:

So will you toot your own horn?  I can't wait to see the entries this week!  You have until next Thursday at noon EST to play along.  We'd love to have you!

Thanks for looking!

Supplies: cardstock: Georgia Pacific; patterned paper: Making Memories; stamps: Hero Arts (graph), Paper Smooches (rings), Pebbles Inc. (sentiment flag); inks: Tsukineko (gray), TPC Studio (yellow, red); cutting die: Nestabilities by Spellbinders; die-cutting machine: Sizzix; button: Buttons Galore & More; baker's twine: Divine Twine; corner rounder: We R Memory Keepers

I'm a cover girl!!!

Yep, you read that right...I'm a cover girl, yo!  Last month, I had my first card ever published in CARDS magazine (August 2012, Sketch Challenge) and I was over the moon excited!  But this month, I have 3 cards published in CARDS, and one of them is ON THE COVER!!!  They didn't tell me it was gonna be on the cover, so you can imagine my surprise when I went looking for the magazine and saw this:

In addition to this card, I have another in the Style Challenge section as well as in the Vintage category.  Just a little excited...you understand!  :)

Paper Smooches SPARKS challenge - Thanks

Hello, and happy Monday!  I hope everybody had a great weekend.  Starting tomorrow, I have another six days off work, so yay for that!  But first, I'm bringing you the new Paper Smooches SPARKS challenge for this week!  Yippee!!  Since it's the fourth week of the month, you know what that means:

Yep, it's a photo inspiration challenge.  And here is the lovely inspiration photo for this week:

I just love the soothing feel of this room, from the pale robin's egg blue walls to the crisp white trims, then that POP of green apples and those yummy apothecary jars.  Swoon!  Those are the elements I was inspired by to create this paper yummy:

First I used a stamp from the Potpourri set to create the background.  I stamped it repeatedly onto a diagonal striped patterned paper by My Mind's Eye.  Then I traced and cut an oval from white cardstock to mimic the white oval mirror in the photo.  I used the straight line stamp from Hullaballoo to create the "shelf", then used the test tubes/beakers from the Great Chemistry set for the "vases":

I used a tiny heart and a flower from Hubby and Wifey on the middle vase, then finished with more flowers, leaves, and the sentiment from the Daisies & Paisleys set.  I colored in the images with Copic and Prismacolor markers.  I added a cute green gingham ribbon, and voila:

How are you inspired by this week's challenge?  I'm really excited to see how other people interpret this photo!  You can play along with the challenge here. You have until Sunday, September 30th at 11:59 PM EST to play along.  The winner will receive a $30 credit to the Paper Smooches store!!  And don't forget the check out the rest of Team 2's wonderful creations, and give em' some love!

Angeline

Erica

Jackie

Savannah

Thanks so much for looking! 

Supplies: cardstock: Georgia Pacific; patterned paper: My Mind's Eye; stamps: Paper Smooches (Potpourri, Great Chemistry, Hubby and Wifey, Hullaballoo, Daisies & Paisleys); inks: Hero Arts (blue), Tsukineko (black); markers: Copic, Prismacolor; ribbon: American Crafts

CFC71 - I ♥ fall

Happy Friday!  I'm so excited that the official start of fall is almost upon us, even if we don't really have a fall season here in Arizona.  It is refreshing to feel that change in the air though.  And that's exactly what we're celebrating this week at CAS-ual Fridays!  Check it:

And our wonderful sponsor for this week's challenge is Great Impressions Stamps.  The winner will receive a  $25 gift certificate to spend in their store!  How cool is that?!?

For this challenge, I knew I HAD to use my Simple Stories Harvest Lane collection.  It is to fall paper crafting what their Summer Fresh line was to summer: absolutely PERFECT!  It made it so easy to create this paper yummy:

So, I've been doing a lot of sewing lately, and just so happened to have a leftover piece of ruffled fabric.   It was the first thing I've made using my new ruffler foot.  Has anybody else tried one of those?  AWESOME!!!  It makes ruffling so. much. easier.  And serendipitously, the yellow in this fabric matched the yellow in the Harvest Lane collection perfectly.  Thanks to that, and the collection pack sticker sheets, this card came together pretty darn easily.  I adhered the ruffle to the card...

...then adhered the alphabet stickers to the card, starting at the right and working backwards to make sure it all fit.  I popped the wood grain house sticker up on foam tape, and popped a punched heart up in the middle of the house's heart.  With a white gel pen, I drew a heart between the two hearts and a line around the edge of the card.  I finished it off with a button:

Of all the things to love about fall, my favorites are the color schemes, warm-scented things to melt and make the house smell delicious, and being inspired to create different kinds of crafts, i.e. sewn projects.  What do you love about it?  Show us in this week's challenge!  You have until next Thursday at noon EST to do so.

I'm also playing along with the Gallon/Quart/Pint challenge in the Moxie Fab World.

Thanks for looking!

Supplies: cardstock: The Paper Studio; patterned paper, cardstock stickers (alpha and house): Simple Stories Harvest Lane collection; fabric: Joann Fabrics; sewing machine: Singer; quilting thread: Americana; button: Buttons Galore & More; white gel pen: Uniball Signo; foam tape: American Crafts; heart punch: Fiskars

CFC70 - Fangtastic

Happy Friday!  I'm here today with the CAS-ual Fridays challenge for this week.  You guys rocked the embossing challenge last week, and I can't wait to see what you all do with this:

CFC70: Use black, white, and one other color in your clean and simple project

And the sponsor for this week's challenge is Neat & Tangled, which is a new stamp company launched by the awesomely talented Danielle Walls!  The winner of this week's challenge will receive a $20 gift certificate to spend at Neat & Tangled!

So for this week's challenge, I couldn't help but go in a Halloweeny direction, but I used a somewhat non-traditional color in addition to the black and white.  Now for the paper yummies:

I actually quite like using yellow as a Halloween color, and just love the way it looks on this card!  The chevron paper is from a baby collection by Crate Paper, but I've been dying to use it on something other than a baby project.  I stamped the bats (from Paper Smooches Spookalicious stamp set) onto the patterned paper, then placed my "Polaroid" frame over the top.  

 

The sentiment is also from Spookalicious.  I placed a scalloped border under the yellow paper...

...then finished off the card with some black and white baker's twine:

So what will be your "plus one" this week?  I bet the gallery is just going to be chock full of stunning cards!  You have until next Thursday at noon EST to link your's up to this week's challenge.  Thank you so much for looking!

Supplies: cardstock: Recollections (black), Georgia Pacific (white); patterned paper: Crate Paper; stamps: Paper Smooches; ink: Tsukineko; punches: McGill (Polaroid), Martha Stewart (scallop), We R Memory Keepers (corner rounder); baker's twine: Divine Twine

Paper Smooches SPARKS challenge - School is cool

Happy Monday to all!  I just got off work this morning, and have the next six days off!  Yay!  I have the best schedule ever!  I plan to do a TON of crafting and get caught up on several projects.  But first, I'm comin' at ya' with the new Paper Smooches SPARKS challenge!  Since it's the second week of the month, that means...

...it's a sketch challenge!  As I've said many times, these have been some of my favorite challenges since joining the SPARKS design team.  And this week's sketch is no exception, it's another great one that got me thinking.  Here is the sketch:

And here are the paper yummies:

As the sketch lends itself to a CAS style, I decided to stay true to that.  I thought the vertical element in the sketch looked like a giant pencil, so I used the sketch for a back to school card.  To create the pencil, I cut a piece of yellow cardstock to the size I wanted, then scored two vertical lines to mimic the barrel of a wooden pencil.  Then I repeatedly stamped the awesome chevron from Geo-Graphic in a yellow ink.  I cut a piece of pink patterned paper, and rounded the bottom corners for the eraser.  For the "metal" part, I cut down a scrap of kraft cardstock, but any color would work.  I covered it with Versamark ink, then embossed it with metallic pewter embossing powder.  Once I had the metal look I wanted, I ran the piece through my paper crimper.  I created the sentiment using the Alphadot set:

For the circular element in the sketch, I punched a hole in my ledger background paper to make it look like it was notebook paper.  I used a little ribbon scrap and a tiny staple to finish off the card.  It doesn't really translate in the photo, but I used a strip of foam tape down only the middle of the pencil, and adhered the left and right sides down flat.  Here's a close-up of the "metal" crimping:

 

How are you inspired by this week's challenge?  I'm really excited to see how other people interpret this sketch!  You can play along with the challenge here. You have until Sunday, September 16th at 11:59 PM EST to play along.  The winner will receive a $30 credit to the Paper Smooches store!!  And don't forget the check out the rest of Team 2's wonderful creations, and give em' some love!

Angeline

Erica

Jackie

Savannah

Thanks so much for looking! 

 

Supplies: cardstock: Core'dinations (kraft, yellow); patterned papers: Echo Park (dot, ledger); stamps: Paper Smooches (Alphadot, Geo-Graphic); inks: TPC Studio (turquoise, yellow), Tsukineko (Versamark); embossing powder: American Crafts; punches: We R Memory Keepers (corner rounder), Hampton Art (circle); ribbon: The Ribbon Boutique; stapler: Ranger

CFC69 - Boo!

Happy Friday!  I hope everybody has had a great week!  I've been super busy with a lot of non-card projects lately, so I hope to be getting back into the swing of things soon.  Maybe I'll share some of my other projects too.  Anyway, I'm here today with this week's CAS-ual Fridays challenge!  This week's challenge is super fun:

CFC69: Incorporate embossing (either kind) into your clean and simple project

And once again, we are sponsored by the FABULOUS Simon Says Stamp!  The winner of this week's challenge will not only receive a gift certificate to Simon's store, but will also win a guest designer spot at CAS-ual Fridays!  Fun stuff!

So I just love embossing.  Whether it's the dry kind or the heat kind, it just adds so much dimension and texture to all kinds of projects.  For this week's challenge, I couldn't decided which kind I wanted to use, so I went with both!  And now for the paper yummies:

I started off with a piece of plaid patterned paper from My Mind's Eye Lost & Found Halloween collection, and embossed it with this texture plate from Lil' Inker Designs.  I added some distress ink over the top of the wood grain to help define it a little bit.  

Then I masked the wood grain so that only the center rectangle was showing, and applied black distress ink inside the rectangle.  I stamped the spider web, spider, and sentiment in Versamark ink (only after using my Embossing Buddy so that the powder wouldn't stick to my inked background), and embossed each in a different color powder.  It's hard to see in the pictures, but the spider is embossed with a glittery embossing powder.

I added a simple ribbon tab, some tiny staples, and colored the diamond on the spider's back orange to match the ribbon:

Which kind of embossing do you prefer?  Show us in this week's challenge!  You have until next Thursday at noon EST to play along!  Thanks so much for looking!

Supplies: cardstock: Core'dinations; patterned paper: My Mind's Eye; stamps: Hampton Art (spider, web), Martha Stewart (sentiment); inks: Ranger (Tim Holtz Black Soot, Frayed Burlap), Tsukineko (Versamark); embossing powders: American Crafts (green, black), Recollections (white); texture plate: Lil' Inker Designs; embossing machine: Sizzix; ribbon: The Ribbon Boutique; staples/stapler: Ranger; marker: Copic