ColourQ 214 & CASology 69

When this week's CAS-ology cue card BROWN was revealed, I instantly thought of coffee which I happened to be drinking at the time. Coffee is my saving grace each day. I can't live without it. Believe me I tried! Anyway, coffee led me to the PTI Latte Love set which has yet to see ink. I heat embossed the stack of cups in American Crafts Chestnut and colored them in with Copics. My color inspiration is from colors at ColourQ this week. They worked perfectly with the look I was going for. I layered the banner with brown cardstock that I dry embossed for some contrast. Added a little canyon clay banner peeking from the bottom as well.

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Birthday Tracey!

I'd like to wish Tracey McNeely of In My Creative Opinion a very wonderful birthday! Your blog and cards are always so inspiring - you may have noticed that I CASE'd more than a few of them! The sweet comments you leave on my blog make me smile. And hope you like black velvet cupcakes (just like traditional red but even extra chocolately!) because I'm having one today in your honor.

Glad your family is all home to help you celebrate. Have a amazing day Tracey and enjoy your virtual birthday party!

If you want to check out the fabulous party that Joyce has organized on her blog, click HERE. You can join in on the fun and make a card too.

I'm also linking this card to this week's Seize The Birthday challenge.

Dynamic Duos #76

Here's a card inspired by the purple monochromatic colors at Dynamic Duos. I don't often create things in purple but I kinda like how this turned out.

I stamped a light crackled background in Soft Stone ink. The mums are done in PTI Winter Wisteria and Plum Pudding, sentiment is one of the Think Big Favorites. Finished it off with a few black pearls to compliment the black stems and leaves. I mounted the soft stone layer on some dark purple Memory Box cardstock.

Thanks for taking a peek.

Bokeh Stamping

When I saw THIS card on the Hero Arts blog, I knew I had to give it a try. I've long admired the look of bokeh (means 'blur') in photography. The monochromatic purple colors at Dynamic Duos this week would be perfect for this technique. I stamped the circles from PTI Bits & Buttons in both Plum Pudding and Winter Wisteria. I never wiped off the stamp, just keep stamping on the paper until the was no more ink each time. I was contemplating adding some scattered rhinestones but restrained myself because it might be too much. I think I might have already gone overboard with the number of circles but hopefully still looks ok.
Think I'll try this in other monochromatic colors to make a set of cards....

Thanks for stopping by! Have a good week!

Burst of Inspiration

You know sometimes when you make something and its just eh? Just ok, not great, not how you pictured it to be, just eh? Or even worse is when you make something and its so horrible that you can't even post it because its just THAT bad. Some days are like that for me so I walk away and take a break.

Then there are other days when you spend your idle time at a traffic light thinking about a challenge, sketch or color or both. And you get an Ah-Ha moment, a burst of inspiration that has you running to your craft space. Yesterday I had that burst and am excited to share it with you.

I was thinking about this week's ColourQ challenge and my lack of Halloween stamps to make it work. Then as I was browsing my newsfeed on facebook, I saw a pictures of my niece who is a senior at Clemson wearing her school colors - purple and orange. BAM, there was my ah-ha moment. I wanted to make a card for her to let her know that we are thinking about her. So that led me to think about hearts in my stash and I came across this heart in a circle image from a very old Pink Paislee stamp set (Sweet Cakes) that I honestly don't remember ever having inked up. Then it all came together so easily. And the best part is that I think she will love it and hearing from us via something other than text or email.

This second card is a card I made for this week's CAS(E) This Sketch challenge. I have to admit this week's sketch is HARD. I don't have any airplanes or other vehicles in my stash that could make the sketch work literally. So after some thinking and digging around I came up with this baby card for my brother and sister-in-law expecting their baby girl next year. Patterned paper is from Echo Park This & That collection and baby carriage is PTI Bitty Baby Blessings (I knew those dies would come in handy one day!). Even made a little trail using PTI's Sew Simple Borders. Can't wait to send it to them!

Wishing you a happy burst of inspiration! Thanks for taking the time to check out my cards!

PTI October 2013 Blog Hop

Happy October Friends!

This month's Papertrey Ink Blog Hop Challenge is a holiday tag challenge. What could be more timely? And efficient! We'll all need some tags in the next few months so this was a great jump start!

Since I plan on giving wine to friends and neighbors over the holidays, I decided to make a set of wine bottle gift tags. The extra challenge for me is that I have very few holiday stamps & dies so I really had to stretch my stash for these five different tags.

First up is my gingerbread tag which uses my new Tremendous Treats Christmas dies. I cut the tag using the PTI Wine Bottle Tag die (probably my most used PTI die after the double ended banners) from a sheet of old AMuse cardstock in my stash. I diecut the gingerbread men from another piece of old AMuse cardstock and embossed the men in white AC Zing powder. I love how the embossing looks like real icing. I finished it off with a heat embossed sentiment from the same Tremendous Treats Christmas set on a banner cut from Pinefeather. I kinda like how it hangs off the edge.

Second wine tag has a more modern feel thanks to the Snowflake Flurries stamps and the unconventional holiday colors (Blueberry Sky, Winter Wisteria, Plum Pudding, and Lavender Moon). I also decided to keep stamping even on the top part of the hanging tag. The tag is cut in Soft Stone and I heat embossed the sentiment in silver and finished it off with a few rhinestones.

This next tag is my most traditional tag in terms of colors. I used Kraft cardstock for the tag itself and stamped PTI Snowflake Medley in Hero Arts Snow ink. I finished it off with red rhinestones to match the Pure Poppy sentiment.

Next up is my City tag which uses the new City Scene Sentiments I just got. I didn't get the City Scene stamps but I had this old AMuse wooden stamp in my stash that worked just as well for me. I just LOVE the Santa flying over the City. I filled in the windows with a Copic marker and stamped the sentiment in nice contrasting Pure Poppy. Finally, I used my Versamark pen and diamond dust glitter to create a snowfall over the city with more snow at the top and less toward the bottom. Unfortunately it was a little hard to photograph the sparkle but trust me, its pretty glittery! You should see the mess on my desk!

And last but not least my favorite tag features Winter Penguin which has never been inked until now. I think I need to use this little cute guy more often! I tried to use non-traditional holiday colors so I used Ocean Tides and Aqua Mist with the black and red. The scalloped oval was embossed with the linen impression plate and I added a few snowflakes in Hawaiian Shores and Soft Stone to keep the penguin company.

Whew! 5 different tags all in one sitting. It feels so good when I can get a lot of crafting in.
Thanks so much for stopping by on my little blog. I can't wait to see what you all created this month!

ColourQ #211

The fun colors at ColourQ this week are a very interesting combination. Its another color palette that lends itself to Halloween. Since I don't have any Halloween stamps, I put this old Hero Arts monster set to good use. I paired it up with the PTI chevron coverplate to act as the wall for the silly monsters to be popping out of.

I'm also linking this card to the Seize the Birthday anything goes challenge.

Thanks for taking a peek!

CASology #67

So this week's CASology cue is Country. There's such a wide interpretation for that word. For me, my first thought was my country, the place I live in. Good old USA. And then it got me to think about my dear husband who is currently serving our country on active duty with the Coast Guard and I just knew I had to make a card for him.

I made a mask of a heart and stamped the sentiment repeatedly within the heart. I wanted to personalize it further by adding the banner across the heart.

Figured I'd stamp the inside while I had my supplies out too.

I love the way the CASology challenge works...can't wait to see what everyone else comes up with. Thanks for stopping by.