Loving The Aquas

I recently just created a Pinterest board for all my card creations (check out my Pinterest link on the right) and realized that I often create with colors in the aqua family.....think Papertrey colors Aqua Mist, Tropical Teal, Hawaiian Shores. Reminds me of the ocean and the sky. So versatile - can be happy or toned down when paired with certain other colors. These colors make me happy.

So when the Papertrey anniversary bash kicked off with a color challenge, in's no surprise that the palette I was drawn to the most was Amy's gorgeous combination -

The aquas look fabulous with various shades of grey. Plus this color palette used the two new Papertrey colors that I have not yet had a chance to play with. So here's what I came up with - 

I just got Stitches & Swirls which is stamped in Smokey Sea, Tropical Teal and Aqua Mist. Panel put on a card base of Smokey Shadow. I stamped the sentiment in Smokey Shadow on a strip of Mint Julep matted on Smokey Sea. Sentiment strip was adhered with foam tape. 

I continued the design on the inside with a sentiment fro Healing Touch. 

Got another card to share using the aquas inspired by the Pinterest Inspired Challenge this month - 

I used the Winnie & Walter 'Do You See What I See' stamp again but this time heat embossed it in white on an angle. I inked the background with Tim Holtz Crushed Olive, Tumbled Glass, Peacock Feathers and Squeezed Lemonade. 

I added a nest of white thread under the sentiment from Altenew Label Love. Panel added to a Hawaiian Shores card base. 

Now that I am more conscious that I use these colors so often, I'm going to TRY to use other color families....let's see how well that turns out! :)

Enjoy the weekend! Thanks for popping in! 

Two for Thursday

Hello friends -

I was very intrigued by the new Pinterest Inspired Challenge this month. Love the colors and graphic feel of this inspiration photo:

I used the awesome 'Do You See What I See' stamp from Winnie and Walter and heat embossed it in black on white card stock. I applied several Tim Holtz distress inks (Weathered Wood, Squeezed Lemonade, Peacock Feathers, Crushed Olive, & Salty Ocean) to the embossed panel. Looks really cool in real life but I wasn't sure what to do with it as a whole piece. 

So I die cut several vases out of it to make this:

I clustered the three vases (PTI Mega Vases) on one side and heat embossed a simple sentiment from the PTI Keep It Simple line. I adhered one flat and then the other two with different thickness foam tape for dimension. 

Second card I'm sharing today uses the supercool Balloon Strings stamp from My Favorite Things which I stamped on half of the card. I scattered various hearts cut out of Bazzill card stock on the strings. Sentiment from Mama Elephant.  Colors inspired by the ColourQ challenge this week. Hardest part of this challenge was using the two different red tones. Think it worked out well here. 

Hope you are having a great week! Snow is almost all melted here and temps now in the 50s. But guess what's expected tonight....more snow! 

Thanks for popping in! 

CASology:Glitter

It's Tuesday which means we have a new CASology cue card - GLITTER. I have a love-hate relationship with glitter. Its so pretty but also so messy! 

I remember my daughters made a craft in preschool which was made of paper, covered in glitter, and supposed to be hung from the ceiling or fixture. When it was suspended,  it would spin in the air. Can you see where this is going?? Although beautiful, it spread glitter everywhere when it spun! Seriously everywhere. Never again were my girls allowed to use glitter in their craft projects. 

For my CAS take on glitter, I wanted to incorporate it in a muted way so I went for a tone on tone, look. I used a Hero Arts  Large Lotus stencil with Wendy Vecchi translucent embossing paste on Smokey Shadow card stock. After letting the embossing paste dry for 3 minutes, I added Sparkle and Sprinkle glittered embossing powder in Ebony Spark to the top and applied heat. Wow. The embossing powder just melts into the paste and leaves a glittery finish. These pictures don't truly capture how cool it looks in real life - textured and sparkly. I heat embossed the sentiment in the same glitter embossing powder and Versamark. 

This is my take on a technique I learned from THIS video of Jennifer McGuire featuring embossing paste and embossing powder. 

Check out the fabulous GLITTER creations by the DT to see how glitter can be used in a clean and simple way. 

Ardyth Percy-Robb

Deidre Payne

Hannelie Bester

Hazel Hodgkins

Jacquie Southas

Jen Wills

Joyce Mehrberg

Judy Marino

Kymona Tracey

Melissa Chipperfield

Sherrie Mannion (HERE!)

Tracey McNeely

Guest Designer:  Sarah

and this week's sponsor  DeNami Design is offering a prize for our gallery winner. 

Look forward to seeing what you create in the gallery! Have a great week! 

CAS(E) This Sketch & ColourQ

Wanted to post two cards before I get the kids off to school. This first card is for the CAS(E) This Sketch challenge which ends shortly.

I used PTI Brushed Off in Enchanted Evening, Blueberry Sky, and Spring Rain. 

Second card is for the ColourQ challenge this week. I heat embossed the large bloom, flower center and leaf from Winnie and Walter. I sponged PTI Winter Wisteria ink on the large bloom and Simply Chartreuse on the leaf. 

Gotta run! Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day! 

CASology # 182

It's time for a new CASology challenge. This week's word is ADORE. When I heard the cue word, I started singing the line from 'O Come All Ye Faithful' so this inspired me to make a clean and simple Christmas tag.

I definitely wanted to use the song lyric from Petite Places:Nativity. I die cut PTI Tag Sale #4 out of Enchanted Evening and used one of my old circle punches to cut a white circle for the inside. I heat heat embossed the nativity scene using Versafine Black ink with clear embossing powder. I find that using black ink is makes for a better embossed image than regular Versamark ink with black embossing powder. Less imperfections show up. The song lyric is stamped in Enchanted Evening and the star in Delicata Gold. I toyed with adding more to the background or other additional elements from the Nativity scene but decided to keep it simple to let the embossed scene stand out. 

Check out the blogs of the other CASology team members for their amazing takes on ADORE. Can't wait to check out the gallery to see what you come up with! 

Ardyth Percy-Robb

Deidre Payne

Hannelie Bester

Hazel Hodgkins

Jacquie Southas

Jen Wills

Joyce Mehrberg

Judy Marino

Kymona Tracey

Melissa Chipperfield

Sherrie Mannion (that's me!)

Tracey McNeely

and our Guest Designer:   Jenny 

and our fabulous sponsor Sponsor Concord & 9th

Fusion Woodgrain Neutral

Well, we've dug ourselves out of the snow but kids out of school today since the area around the buildings aren't yet ready for the students and teachers. Hopefully tomorrow school will be open and we'll get back into the swing of things. I got up early to get some craft time in and made a couple of cards for this week's Fusion challenge.

For my cards, I was inspired by both colors and sketch. I used the PTI Pretty Petals set (December 2014 freebie) along with the Mama Elephant Blessed set for the sentiment. 

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great week! 

January 2016 PTI Blog Hop

Its the 25th so its time for the Papertrey Ink Blog Hop. This month's inspiration photo was graphic and bold and I admit threw me for a bit of a loop. 

I made two cards this month. For my first card, I was inspired by the graphic nature of the photo so I pulled out Sketched Shapes and stamped a row of triangles on a diagonal in Aqua Mist, Tropical Teal, and Orange Zest on two pieces and heat embossed the sentiment in the middle. 

The white panels are adhered with foam tape so it floats above the sentiment. 

 Second card was inspired by the oblong shapes in the photo. I found a medallion from Fancy That that had a similar shape within it. I heat embossed the medallion in white and blended Tropical Teal, Hawaiian Shores, and Orange Zest on the medallions. Sentiment from Swoosh was diecut and adhered across the card.

Can't wait to see what everyone else came up with! Thanks for taking the time to stop by! 

CAS(E) This Sketch #156

As you probably have heard, NJ got a LOT of snow this past weekend. We got about 25 inches here.
And you would think that I could have spent a good amount of time in my craft room. Unfortunately not. For our snow weekend, I ending up cooking and baking a lot, played games with the family, and tackled shoveling the snow in several phases. Fun stuff.

I did make a card this weekend inspired by this week's CAS(E) This Sketch challenge. I used the flowers from PTI All About You Additions. Sentiment from KIS:Birthday. Since the flower images are a little doodle-like, I only stamped color on the inside and was purposefully a little skewed when stamping the leaves multiple times.

Thanks for popping in! Hope you had a wonderful (& warm) weekend!