Try Stampin Challenge

Morning All,
Have some paperwork to do but wanted to update my blog with a card I made for Try Stamping on Tuesday's weekly challenge. Here is their sketch this week:

 

Their twist was to add a photo if you wished. I decided that I wanted to use the layout for a sympathy card I wanted to offer in a future class so I omitted the photo. Here is what I came up with:

 

 

I used a base of Soft Suede and layers of Early Espresso and Comfort Café to coordinate with the Very Vanilla. I used the hostess stamp set Simply Sketched and water colored the flower with my regals crayons and blended the colors with my blender pens (one of my favorite tools!). A little Early Espresso ribbon and I was done! Thanks for stopping by!

Karin



A little motivation!

Evening All,
I had such a crazy day at work that I decided I needed to carve a little crafting time for myself tonight. I needed to make some Thank You cards for some of my wonderful students and found myself a little short. I was also a little short on inspiration so I went on over to the Friday Mashup and they had a great sketch and challenge:

 

 

Here's your Mashup Challenge:

1. Create a project with the "Sketch."
2. Create a project using "the theme of Time. "
3. Or Mash it Up and create a project "a theme of Time & the Sketch."

 

I decided that I wanted to stick to this great sketch and here is what I came up with:

I used a base of Rich Razzleberry, Pool Party and some Comfort Café DP that I had squirreled away. I used the flower from Simply Sketched and colored it with my Blender Pens. I punched out my sentiment and I was done. It was nice to pull out some of my flowers for a change! Have a great night!

Karin



Pals Paper Arts Challenge

Hi All,
I made it through my first day of the school year and dragged myself home. I decided that I needed a little stamping time and decided to focus on my grandmothers Thanksgiving card so I went on over to Pals Paper Arts for some inspiration and they had it! Check out the sketch:

I loved the look and here is what I came up with:

I used a base of More Mustard, some of the beautiful Spice Cake DP and the Full of Blessings stamp set that I heat embossed in Early Espresso and colored with my blender pens. A few pearls and I was done. Thanks for stopping by!
Karin

Working on it!

Hi All,
"Working on it" seems to be the theme of my day! Finally got around to finishing my Great Aunts Thanksgiving cards using some new products from the Holiday Mini and old stuff from the old Holiday Mini AND cleaned my craft room/office!! Gotta love Stampin Up you can always count on great products for the holidays! Anyway I needed a design so I went on over to Freshly Made Sketches and they had another awesome sketch:

Here's what I came up with:

 

I used the expressions thinlits for the awesome greeting on the front, the howlstooth and scaringbone DP as a background and heat embossed the wreath from the Full of Blessings stamp set and colored with my blender pens. I hope she likes the card!

Have a great day!

Karin 





Freshly Made Thanksgiving

Hi All,
As I sit here coughing up a lung (hate getting Bronchitis in the Summer!) I thought I would share a card I made for the challenge over at Freshly Made Sketches:
                                  

I used more of my wreaths that I colored on my plane trip and added the row of leaves and pumpkins at the bottom. Couldn't resist adding the Wood Grain Embossing folder to my Crumb Cake base. I just love Fall crafting!

Thanks for stopping by!

Karin 

Clean and Simple Halloween

Hi All,
Sorry for my slight disappearance! My knee and back was very sore and I couldn't sit for any length of time to create. Course the heat doesn't help either! Had a better start to my day today so I decided to play with one of my favorite new sets, "Cottage Window". I am also still trying to finish up my Halloween cards and think I have found a favorite:

I used glossy paper to stamp the window, cut it out and stamped the spider with Staz on. Then I stamped the pumpkins on more glossy paper and colored the window and pumpkins with my wonderful Blender pens and mounted the pumpkins on the window sill with a dimensional! I used some of my retired Night and Day paper for the wall paper and ran some Basic Black through the Stripes embossing folder and placed some Whisper White as the chair rail. Hope you like it!
Thanks for stopping by!
Karin

The need for MDS!

Hi All,
I wanted to quickly share this "quick" project I was working on for my mother yesterday. You see my grandmother turns 100 this September and we are having a party for her. My mom didn't want to "bother" me with making the invites and RSVP's so she bought some. Long story short they wouldn't run through the printer, the color on the invites wasn't "even" and the quality of the cardstock was just not there. So after hours (yup at least three) of trying it all different ways I threw up my hands ran some of SU's Whisper White cardstock through the printer with the info I typed up, ran it through the Big Shot on the Top Note Die and then "dolled" it up as best I could. Here is the end product, SO not my best but if you only knew!!

Anyway it really made me rethink the value of the My Digital Studio software. I would have had the colors, images and it would have easily printed on the cardstock and I would have been done in no time!! If your interested in NOT having my experience LOL then click here and learn what if can do for you!

Have a great day!

Karin

Happy 4th of July!!

Happy 4th all!!
Can not believe that it is July already!! The Summer is zooming by! Eek! Anyway I had a few moments between activities and I wanted to share my July "Thank you's' with you. I am in love with the Reason to Smile stamp set available only this month so I chose to you that as my focus, as well as the cool new (well to me) cutting technique I have been playing with.

I hope you can see the DP I lined the bottom of the inside of the card peeking out at you! I used some old favorite colors as well, Concord Crush and Pear Pizazz. Hope the crew likes them! Enjoy your fourth!
Karin

Another Reason to Smile

Hi All,
I wanted to share the third card that I will be presenting to my stamp club this July. I had been inspired by a cutting technique I had seen over at my friend Linda's Blog. There you can see who she was inspired by. I thought cutting the edge was a perfect technique to showcase the "Reason to Smile" stamp set, as well as the Floral District DP. Without further delay here it is:

Here is a closer peek:

After stamping the edge of the whisper white card stock in Staz on, I colored the flowers to varying degrees with blender pens and Rich Razzleberry and Daffodil Delight ink. Then I cut along the edge so that when it closes you can see part of the inside edge of the card. I place a 2 x 5 1/2" piece of coordinating DP so that you get the "splash" of the pattern to show through. For a final touch I took another piece of the DP and ran it through the Beautiful Wings folder and placed the butterflies on the front. Hope they like it! Thanks for stopping by!

Karin 

Freshly Made Dinosaurs!

Morning All,
As promised I am sharing the box of cards that I am including in my raffle basket for this Sunday's "Keep the Beat" benefit for the "Its My Heart" New England Chapter. I was crafting like crazy last night, but was a little "stuck" for the last layout. So this morning I went on over to Freshly Made Sketches and they had an inspiring sketch:

Great layout!! Here is what I came up with for my last two cards:

I used the last of my Mellow Moss (sadly retired) as the base and layered pieces of Concord Crush DP (also retired). I am really in love with the Bitty Banner Framelits! So easy to use and love the look! Here are the rest of the cards that will be in the box:

I really had a lot of fun making the cards and hope they are a hit. Now off to work on my sign up sheet prize! Have a great day!

Karin

paper Players 96

Hi All,
I had an unexpectedly productive day today. I had gone on over to my parents to deliver my dads birthday card and found them cleaning out the garage. Well I "dug" in and four hours later about 3/4 of it is cleaned out! Its nice to accomplish something but it wasn't what I had on my schedule! :)
Earlier today I had gone on over to the Paper Players and they had a cool challenge:

Dots! So here is what I came up with:

I chose to use my retiring Blushing Bride cardstock and Concord Crush DP with coordinating markers.  I ran the paper through my Big Shot Polka Dots folder and finished off the dots theme with the dotted Concord Crush DP. I played with the tone of the color with my Blender Pens. Seriously my favorite tool!

Thanks for stopping by!

Karin

Getting Back on Track!

Morning All,
I have been missing my card making time the past few weeks. I was in Florida during April vacation and did have a few posts prepared but have had zero time once I came home between horses, work and PT sessions. While it was nice to not do very much while in Florida except read I cant believe how many things are now on the "to do" list! Yikes! Well before I plunge into more house cleaning I wanted to share one of my cards for my upcoming May stamp club. I was fresh out of ideas for a layout so I went on over to Stamping 411 Blogspot and as usual they had a great sketch to get me started:

Here is what I came up with:

I am once again having issues with the camera. **Edited with better photo after I borrowed my significant others camera!** For the life of me I cant imagine what went wrong now! Anyway, this was the best of many many shots. I knew I wanted to share the Herb Expressions stamp set with my group as it retiring May 31st! Such a beautiful set! I also wanted one more chance to play with Concord Crush as that In Color will also be retiring. I used the blender pen to get the different shades of Concord Crush on the Flowers and used Pear Pizzazz on the leaves.

Thanks for stopping by!

Karin

Simply Less is More

Hi All,
I made this card a few days ago and am just getting a chance to post it. I had gone on over to Simply Less is More blog and their challenge of the week was to make a one layer card with "Doodling". Now I tried adding additional elements to the card free hand as it were, but I wasn't happy with the result so I went with coloring different shades to give a faded water coloring look to it as my "doodling" effect. Check it out:

I used Staz On ink and stamped repeatedly to get the falling flower look and then chose different colors to shade the leaves and flowers. I actually made this is a smaller 3x3 1/2 card for a gift I need to make. Anyway, hope you like it! Thanks for stopping by!
Karin

Friday Mashup #43

Hi All,
Had a great opportunity to complete one of my favorite challenges this weekend: The Friday Mash Up. Here was their challenge:

So here is the "Mashup" Challenge :

1. Make a project using the "Sketch".
2. Or Make a project using "Something NEW in your stash". (Stamps, ribbon, pretty paper...anything!)
3. Or "Mash it Up" and create a project "using the Sketch & something NEW in your stash".

I chose to "Mash it Up" with the DP, Ribbon and Stamp Sets I recently received. Here is what I came up with:



A great friend of mine gave me the beautiful Vanilla Ribbon and I had not had a chance to use it!! Here is what I used:
Paper: Everyday Enchantment, Calypso Coral, Lucky Limeade and Very Vanilla
Ink: Early Espresso, Crumb Cake, Calypso Coral, Lucky Limeade and River Rock
Stamp Set: Loving Thoughts and Take it to Heart
Tools: Blender Pens, Big Shot
Embellishments: Lucky Limeade Organza Ribbon, Vanilla Ribbon, Dimensional's and Lattice Folder
Punches Small Oval and Decorative Label

Thanks for stopping by! Have a good Monday!
Karin

Watercolor pencils

Hi All,
Another card we did at my October club. We used the awesome Sunflower stamp, colored it in with the watercolor pencils and blended quickly with the blender pens. The depth the blender pens give to the color is great, but the key is to blend very quickly. Of course it is layered on my current favorite designer paper Spice Cake with the Early Espresso Bakers Twine wound around it for a finishing touch. Enjoy the day!
Karin