End of September Friends with Flair!

How can it possibly be the last day of September? Personally, I have no idea. But it is, and it's also Friday, so it's time for Unity Friends with Flair.

As soon as I saw this Itty Bitty stamp, I knew I, um, needed it. There are so many things you could do with this image, but for this card, I kept it simple. Inked and embossed the image in red, cut it out, and popped it up on red and then black. This card is definitely clean and simple (CAS) so I'm throwing it into the latest challenge at Crafty Creations, which is exactly that: clean and simple creations. And how can I resist entering the Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes challenge?
Any plans for World Card Making Day tomorrow? I'm hoping!


Supplies: white, black & Stampin' Up real red cardstock, Unity silhouette song bird stamp, Colorbox cranberry ink, Ranger rich red embossing powder, pop dot tape Pin It Now!

Sympathy Cards

I am fortunate in that I haven't had to make a lot of sympathy cards, but already, I have discovered I am in a bit of a rut. All of my cards so far (I think six?) are blue and have flowers. Obviously, I have some subconscious fixation of what a sympathy card should look like. Anyway, this one uses the flower image from the Unity October Kit of the Month combined with a sentiment from Bevy of Butterflies. I made this card for a friend who needs to send a few sympathy cards, so I hope she agrees with my idea of what they should look like! I'm linking this to this week's Unity Friends with Flair. Have a great weekend!


Supplies: white & blue cardstock, Unity October 2010 Kit of the Month Take Time to Laugh & Unity Bevy of Butterflies stamps, Versacolor Atlantic blue ink, dimensionals Pin It Now!

Mini cards!

Mini cards are so much fun! A small canvas, but lots of scope for creativity. I like to make 3"x3" cards as gift enclosure cards, so I made a Christmas one for the new CAS-ual Fridays challenge (CFC20):

I actually steeled myself to cut into an extra copy of a Christmas choir book I have, even though it's painful to my book-loving heart. I distressed the edges a bit before stamping some gold snowflakes around. The central image is embossed in gold. And the stamp comes pre-distressed, I didn't actually mess up the embossing. :D I'll also throw this into the growing collection for the Less is More challenge to gather 1000 entries this week! 




Supplies: green cardstock, DCWV Christmas Collection patterned paper, Christmas carol book, Studio G Joy & Hero Arts Decorate You stamps, Versamark, Antique Linen distress & Colorbox gold inks, clear embossing powder

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Ahh, the weekend...

I decided I would try to participate in a bunch of card-making challenges this weekend. Right. It's amazing how real life can get in the way of things you hope to accomplish! And for me, real life this weekend resembles a tomato. We planted lots of tomato plants this spring, because usually the neighbourhood critters get more than we do. (Last summer, critters -- probably raccoons -- wiped out pretty much our entire crop in two nights, just as the first tomatoes were barely beginning to blush.) This year, our various preventative measures seem to have worked, resulting in many MANY tomatoes. So that's where a lot of my weekend has gone. Meanwhile, here's what I've made out of paper, not produce:

This uses the sketch from Lily Pad Cards new challenge. I'm hoping it's only my first entry, but we'll see. This one interprets the sketch fairly literally, and I'd like to play with it some more. I went looking through my Christmas papers, thinking I'd cut strips of three coordinating ones for the left panel, but when I came to this striped paper, I knew it was the look I wanted. I'm also entering this in the Less is More "Anything CAS (Clean and Simple) Goes" challenge. All my cards are CAS, so if it gets made this week, that's where it goes! The blog is hoping to reach 1000 entries this week. I'll do my part if I can. :P 


Supplies: white & Stampin' Up real red cardstock, manila file folder, chipboard, DCWV Christmas collection patterned paper, Cavallini Papers & Co. Vintage Christmas stamps, Colorbox cranberry ink, clear embossing powder, green soutache, dimensionals Pin It Now!

September 16th Friends with Flair

I feel a bit guilty adding this card to a hop called Friends with FLAIR. It's not necessarily full of said flair. But obviously I'm not bothered enough not to share it...

I needed a card as a pick-me-up for a friend, and didn't want anything too bright or busy, so I changed my normally red gingham iPaper to greyscale before printing it out. I successfully used my stamp positioner to get the bottom text perfectly aligned on the gingham... the first time, even! 
This is the second card I've made with the the strawberry stamp from Unity's Vintage Fruit bundle. (Yes, they're remarkably similar; good they were for two different people.) I've also used the apple stamp, but have yet to have success with the pear. I'll have to keep working on that one, I guess. :P Have a great weekend!


Supplies: white & Stampin' Up real red cardstock, Amber Ink plaid picnic gingham-tiny iPaper, Unity strawberry greetings stamp, Colorbox cranberry ink, clear embossing powder Pin It Now!

Hanging on to Summer

Many people embrace autumn -- the crisp mornings, the changing colours, cozy sweaters. I don't. I hold on to summer for as long as possible. Like with this card:

This is for my step-son's birthday, so it was a collaborative effort. My husb suggested a card with a deck chair. Amazingly, a stamp set with a deck chair was clearing at Michaels! I used some great paper from Echo Park for the sky, but then realized I had nothing to match it for the water. Luckily, Caribbean twine works perfectly... and the name's appropriate, too! I used more Echo Park paper to piece the beach umbrella. My husb also contributed what the sentiment should say and the idea of the beer mug. We thought of a champagne bottle in the sand beside the chair, but I didn't have anything to the right scale. 
So as the days get cooler, I'll just imagine myself in this little scene... ☺


Supplies: white, red & oatmeal cardstock, Echo Park Sweet Summertime & Little Boy patterned paper, Stampendous Fun in the Sun & Amber Ink Hope, Popcorn & Wine stamps, Brilliance graphite black ink, clear embossing powder, Sharpies, Prismacolor pencils, Twinery Caribbean twine, dimensionals

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That IS Why It's Called a Challenge

To help celebrate her move to a new house, my friend Emily is hosting The Moving Challenge. 

Participants are to use this picture of her new house as inspiration for a paper project. So I looked, and I thought, and I looked some more. The house itself wasn't really doing it for me, as I have a sum total of one roof stamp, and that's as close as I get to anything house-related. So then I looked at the colours of the picture. Very earth toned -- also not really me, but that's what I decided to work with. 

I focussed on the cream colour of the siding, the green of the trees and plants and the browns of the mulch in the front bed. I decided to ignore the brick tone, as I was already way out of my comfort zone with these colours. Since Emily is moving from the concrete jungle of the downtown to a street with yards and trees, I picked the trees image from the August 2010 Unity Kit of the Month called All You Need... That decision was great, but what to do with them? I turned to the new Unity sketch challenge for a little added inspiration. The "leaves" are paper-pieced with some Stampin' Up patterned paper, which I also used for the background panels. The two-part sentiment comes from the same kit, and seemed appropriate for such a major life-change as moving to a new house. The "o" of "love" is another of the fabulous epoxy faux brads that another friend, Angela, not only gave me, but actually MADE! The other half of the sentiment is adhered to a piece of chipboard (okay, fine, a piece of a Kleenex box) for a little extra dimension. 
Since it's Friday, I'm also linking this card to Unity's Friends with Flair blog hop. 
So now I'm thinking, hmm, cream and green are nice for Christmas cards... ☺


Supplies: cream & Stampin' Up kraft cardstock, Stampin' Up patterned paper, chipboard, Unity August 2010 Kit of the Month "All You Need..." stamps, Brilliance coffee bean and Stampin' Up old olive craft inks, clear embossing powder, epoxy faux brad, dimensionals Pin It Now!

Another Floral Birthday

Every once in awhile, Stampin' Up has a stamp set I just can't resist, and this set, Elements of Style, is one of them. It is a no-brainer if you want to make any kind of elegant card. This one was for my mother-in-law's birthday recently. By mistake happy accident, I grabbed my holographic embossing powder instead of regular clear when I went to emboss the flowers. It added the coolest iridescent sheen to the image, which is watercoloured with distress inks. Then I inked the hummingbird in the same inks, cut him out, and popped him up.  Everyone at the family birthday gathering was suitably impressed. :D

Supplies: white & olive cardstock, Stampin' Up Elements of Style stamps, Versafine onyx black ink, Worn Lipstick & Peeled Paint distress inks, holographic embossing powder, dimensionals

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