2015

84 posts

I have missed out on at least the last two Paper Craft Crew Card Sketch challenges due to making wedding invitations with a deadline and going on vacation. So glad to get back to making a card for this weeks challenge:

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As usual, I started off with a completely different layout and stamp choice for this card than what I ended up making, but I’m really happy with how this card looked once I had changed the stamp choices. I really, really, really LOVE the watercolor technique I used on this card and several other previous cards to make a subtle color transition (this is the initial technique for Bokeh cards, but using only one color and smoothing out any rough transition areas). I chose SU! Watermelon Wonder as my monochromatic color for this card. I’m loving the new 2015-2017 In-Colors!

The matted flower was supposed to be laying on a landscape layout, but the OCD in me noticed I had not centered my striped paper and one side of the mat would have a white stripe while the other side would have a red stripe, and I didn’t want to cut anymore paper since I still have to use this paper for my catalog open house event. So, I made the card a portrait layout and placed the matted flower parallel with the stripes; it worked perfectly. I added diamond rhinestones tinted with the Cherry Cobbler Blendabilities marker, but decided to not included any other type of embellishment along with it. I decided to leave off the sentiment as well since everything I tried just didn’t “fit” the card. I almost forgot! I stamped the You’ve Got This flower in Black Staz-On onto a piece of Watermelon Wonder cardstock, and I watercolored shading onto the flower, stem, and leaf. I really love the way this card developed into a stunning card:

PCCCS147Supplies:

This week’s Pals Paper Arts Challenge is a color challenge:6a00e54f95df92883401b8d121b7dc970c-800wi

 

On this challenge I wanted to do something a little different. Instead of stamping on Whisper White or Very Vanilla cardstock, I decided to stamp the sentiment from SU! Friendly Wishes onto a piece of So Saffron cardstock using Soft Suede ink and cut it out using the Labels Framelits dies. I had tried several different looks with the soft suede background mat. I started off just doing nothing to it. It just wasn’t quite right (if you know what I mean); then, I tried stamping the small dot lines from Friendly Wishes in soft suede onto the mat. Yuk! So, I decided to try something else and realized I had used the last piece of cardstock scrap in the size I needed and I didn’t have any full sheets of Soft Suede cardstock. What??? How did that happen? No problem I left the original mat on the card and cut two pieces of Soft Suede cardstock to the width of the card; embossed it with the Scallop embossing folder and adhered the pieces to the Yuk, Yuk piece of cardstock. From there, I stamped a piece of Strawberry Slush cardstock with the flower from the same stamp set using Strawberry Slush ink. The card still needed something, but I didn’t want to detract from the sentiment focal point so I cut two small strips of So Saffron and placed them behind the sentiment (I didn’t have any ribbon that worked with this color challenge). Last but not least, I colored in the heart with the Strawberry Slush Stampin’ Write marker. And, here it is:

PPA254

Supplies:

Freshly Made Sketches #189 is a great sketch to feature the new Stampin’ Up! In-Colors along with the new Envelope Paper.

FMS Final 189I am having an SU! catalog open house and I wanted a clean and simple card to showcase the new 2015-2017 In-Colors. I used the striped side of the Mint Macaron envelope paper for the circle; then, I stamped the flower from You’ve Got This in Mint Macaron on Whisper White and matted the stamped image askew onto a solid piece of Mint Macaron. I added a sentiment from You’ve Got This in Mint Macaron on a Whisper White banner. Very monochromatic. I plan on using this card sketch and duplicating this card in all of the five new In-Colors as a quick make-n-take at the catalog open-house. I’m sure all of my stampers will LOVE this design as well as the new In-Colors and stamp sets I will be featuring.

FMS189

I posted about being MIA while working on 250 wedding invitations for a friend of my daughter. Once I was finished with that project, we went on vacation in Branson, MO. What a long ride from the ATL (13-14 hours when traveling with a three year old)! We met up with family and had a great time visiting and seeing some of the nieces and nephews for the first time.

When we got back to Georgia late Thursday night, we were all exhausted from the trip back and we (me, my husband, and our daughter’s family) laid around on Friday trying to re-energize. Saturday, we began to get things back in order and my husband and I feeling as though we were still on vacation went to a movie. When we got back, our daughter informed us the Air Conditioning had GONE out! WHAT!!! Why do these things happen on the weekend???? Well, this was just dandy. I keep the house at a nice 68 to 70 degrees during the day and a nice cold temp of 64 to 65 at night. Yes, I’m of that age where I stay hot most of the time and I wake up in the middle of the night burning up (no night sweats), sure that someone has messed with the thermostat and set it at 70 degrees (yes, I have gotten up many a night with my handy-dandy cell phone flashlight to double-check the house temperature; only to find the house is 65 degrees – just where I had set it before bed). It has been quite a survival feat to make it through to today, Monday. The phone call is in and the HVAC repair company will be here between 1 and 5. I’ll be as excited to see the repairman as I am the UPS driver making a SU! delivery!!!

Now, on Sunday as I was leaving the house to go and pick up a box fan from my friend, Cheyenne, my husband and daughter mentioned we had a water leak in the yard. When it rains it pours! My husband checked out the water meter while I stood by and supervised LOL. He had to shut off the water and take a jar and get the water out of the hole in the ground before we, oh I guess I should have said he, could determine the source of the leak. Thank goodness it was between the meter and the road; therefore, the county will fix the leak with no cost to us, and it looked as though the leak was not affecting our water consumption. Someone from the county water department should be out sometime today to check out the leak.

All of this dialog was to say, I’ll be getting back on track with card challenges and posts. In fact, I’ll be posting a challenge this morning as soon as my camera’s battery recharge.

Have a great week!

It has been a while since I have posted anything. I have been quite busy!!!! One of my daughter’s friends from Master’s Commission ATL at Victory World Church is getting married in July. She had asked Rebekah (my daughter) if I could give her a price for making wedding invitations. I said, o.k. But, I said I would do a digital one on MDS (My Digital Studio) for her because making invitations takes a lot of time. So, I worked on a digital version for her and I was never happy with the results; plus, Rebekah and her family moved in with us due to an apartment issue and it was just CRAZY around here! I ultimately suggested to the bride-to-be an online digital company that specializes in wedding invitations, because I just didn’t have enough time to do the project justice. Well, that company wanted to charge a ridiculous fee for postcard type invitations. So, I said let’s do it; we’ll just make them.

Thus, it started. I ordered the paper for 250 invitations as well as going to Hobby Lobby for specialty paper (SU! is no longer offering the gold matte paper and it was already sold out from the retired list). Once the paper was ordered, I began with printing out the main wedding portion of the invitation along with the reception location since I had Whisper White cardstock on hand. I was able to make a few of the envelope/card portions as well. Needless to say, there were a few revisions along the way.

The paper came in on a Wednesday and the bride-to-be came over to help work on the invites all day Tuesday prior to the paper arriving. Wednesday the paper came in and I printed, printed, printed, and cut, cut, cut, and stamped, stamped, stamped. She came over again on Thursday, and we worked ALL day on the invitations. On Friday, we had help from one of the bridesmaids and the bride’s sister. We worked ALL day. Saturday and Sunday we relaxed and worked ALL day again on Monday. The bride came back over on Tuesday and we worked all afternoon pulling it all together.

Here are some pictures of the Friday we worked on them:

Wedding Invites

 

I almost forgot, the bride-to-be and I still worked Wednesday afternoon (if I remember correctly – it’s all a blur). We were all, definitely, exhausted. In fact, I slept pretty much all day and evening Thursday after my hair cut appointment. I was still tired Friday morning and had a lot of errands to run before we leave on vacation.

I couldn’t have been happier with the results and here is the Wedding Invitation with the Traditional Nigerian Wedding insert which family and bridal party received.

Wedding Invite

Note: I blocked out the names and locations of the bride, groom, and family for their privacy.

The base of the invitation is the envelope. I cut a piece of Rich Razzleberry to 11″ x 5 1/4″. I took the left over piece of cardstock and cut it to 3.25″ x 5 3/4″. I then took the larger piece and scored it at 2 1/2″ and 7″, and the smaller piece I scored at 1/4″ on three sides to create the pocket at the bottom of the envelope to hold the r.s.v.p. card, the website information card, and the Traditional Nigerian Wedding ceremony information.

I was able to cut three each of the circles and scallops at a time, but each circle was stamped individually (of course); that’s 250 x 2 sets of circles (500). The same is true for the r.s.v.p. card and the website information card. There were only 175 Traditional Nigerian Wedding invitations. The picture above is for my portfolio and I added some bling to it as well as the bride’s invitation with some pearls. Of course, the picture doesn’t do the invitation set justice. Once the wedding is over, I’ll add some pictures without the blocked information with individual pictures as well of each insert.

 

 

 

I have really been having a great time playing with all the Card Challenge websites. One of my favorite sites is Paper Craft Crew. This week the team is featuring a card sketch.

PCCCS144sketchI wanted to focus on a new SU! product this challenge and decided to use SU! Build A Birthday stamp set along with the new paper stack and In Colors. I managed to finish right before it turned dark and got a quick snapshot of the card. Oddly enough, the flash caused the surrounding background to appear black as if it were night-time. Here is this week’s entry:

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I think this is a fun, cute card sure to make anyone happy on their birthday. Enjoy!

Supplies:

 

Pals Paper Arts 251 challenge this week is a color challenge featuring Daffodil Delight, Melon Mambo and Tempting Turquoise.

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These colors are part of the Bold Brights. which happens to be my favorite SU! Color Collection. As you can see from previous posts I tend to gravitate toward bright colors unless a card/color challenge specifies something different.

I’m sure all of you papercrafters have this dilemma quite often, you have a shelf/shelves full of stamps and you can’t find a stamp that really works for what you’re trying to create on paper. I finally settled on one, the new SU! stamp set Friendly Wishes. It just seemed to fit the card. I took the Melon Mambo cardstock and stamped on it with the Hardwood background stamp in Basic Gray to mute the Melon Mambo and allow the word phrase to stand out. I used markers to color in the areas of the stamp and then accented it with a Daffodil Delight mat and butterfiles cut from watercolor paper that had been water washed and the featured colors (ink dyes) applied directly to the paper. I accented the butterflies with pearls colored with my Daffodil Delight Blendabilities marker (the medium shade). I think this card says it all for a special friend or family member.

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Supplies:

Note: I used Melon Mambo and Tempting Turquoise Stampin’ Write Markers to ink directly to the rubber stamp.

I also used the retired butterfly embosslit folder.

Supply List

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

A great Monday morning to play with Freshly Made Sketches #186. Here is the FMS186 sketch:

FMS Final 186-001

This past week was a very hectic week as well as this weekend, and I had a major mental block trying to design cards for the current card challenge websites I like to play. Well, I woke up this morning and double checked the deadline for the FMS186 challenge and voila, I had an idea. I love the clean and simple lines of this card. And, I’m excited to be using some of the new SU! 2015-2017 In-Colors!

FMS186

Note: If you look closely you can see where I scored the card stock to create two diagonal lines (the lighting doesn’t capture the scored lines very well). I also embossed the crazy circle lines with gold embossing powder.

Supplies:

Price: $29.95

Supply List

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Wow! I am so honored to have my card challenge entries featured as part of the Fab Fave 63 and the featured artisan for Paper Craft Crew #142 challenges. Here are the cards that were selected (click on the cards to be directed to the post with the supply list):

Fab Fave 63

 

PCCS142 Featured Artisan

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Have a GREAT WEEKEND!

Freshly Made Sketches #185 is a card sketch this week:

FMS Final 185-001In a previous post, I had mentioned wanting to make a sympathy card, but the card for that challenge turned out to be a Father’s Day card. I have successfully completed a sympathy card for the FMS185 Card Challenge. I really think the SU! Thoughts & Prayers stamp set is fitting for sympathy and get well occasion cards. I chose the tree and the sentiment “Sharing in your Sorrow.” I went with a color combo of Baked Brown Sugar, Hello Honey, and Pistachio Pudding. It took me two efforts to make the watercolor tree portion. This was due to the fact, I usually have “ants in my pants” and can’t wait for the paper to fully dry; therefore, the inks tend to smear easily where I don’t want them to smear.

Here is the card I made:

FMS185Supplies:

Note: Some reinkers and stampin’ write markers are not showing up on the supply list. I used Baked Brown Sugar, Soft Suede, and Pistachio Pudding Stampin’ Write Markers and the Pistachio Pudding re-inker.

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