Winter Wonderland

As I drove to my retreat this weekend, I was truly passing through a Winter Wonderland as all the trees were dark and wet with the branches covered in snow. So very pretty. Especially since it was only enough snow to make it pretty, and not enough to have to shovel or make it hard for me to drive to the retreat. 🙂

I used a bunch of my new Lawn Fawn stamps to create this Winter Wonderland for the new Lawnscaping Challenge. Party Animal, Baah Humbug and Scripty Sayings all showed up in this scene. I used the long swirls of Hello You from Scripty Sayings to make a snowy little hillside for the friends to meet up under a Distress Ink sky.

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MFT Sketch Card Challenge: 262

I love card sketches. It’s a lot of fun to see how everyone interprets the same basic design. My Favorite Things has great card sketch challenges and I need to make some time to do more of them.

I turned it sideways and used my older Grand Peaceful Flowers stamp set to make a flower garden sympathy card that I hope I won’t need anytime soon.

I’ve been playing with some new-to-me Palette inks this weekend. I’m really liking the colors so far. A few sketch-placed sequins, and I popped it up from a plain white card base.

10/366 #yearofmaking

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Something New…

Ahhh…new love.

I’m a long way from new love,  but it’s still pretty awesome. 🙂 (Hi Honey!) I used a new combination of Tim Holtz stamp sets: Bird Crazy and Mini Blueprints 2. Simon Says Stamp is having a Something New challenge.

How can you say no to that face?!?

You can’t. That’s how. 🙂 He’s so adorable. Now I want to try all the other Mini Blueprints stamps and see what else he can hold in his crazy little wings. Off to make another card!

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I’m a Happy Camper

I got some great new Amuse stamps at the stamp convention in Madison in November. I’ve used a couple, but I’ve been wanting to paper piece this adorable camper ever since I got it. That’s one of my favorite things about Amuse stamps is they often have simple, open designs that lend themselves well to paper piecing. New Year = New Projects!

See that amazing Panda Stamp?!?!?! My amazing friend Makalah–Jump Into Stamping got that for me for my birthday. YAY for AWESOME friends! SHE made ME a Happy Camper. Thanks Makalah!

She’s SO cute!

 

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TCP Color Challenge

I love color challenges to help me put colors together that I wouldn’t think of. These are SO Springy and I need a little of that right now here in WI.

I used the Wish stamp set from The Cat’s Pajamas. I love the little bunny. He’s so fun to paper piece.

I made a fluffy little bunny tail for him with heated Liquid Appliqué. My Stickles gave him a sparkly star to wish upon and Wink of Stella added sparkle to his nose.

15/365 #YearofMaking

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Watercolor Me Happy

Watercolor is one of the newer trends I am enjoying. There are a lot of trends I’m not a fan of (including calling anything “on trend”), but I can get behind the watercolor trend. It’s simple and doesn’t require a lot, if any, new supplies. You can make it fancy by buying fancy new paints (which would be awesome!), or you can use the Toys R Us set you got when you were a kid. You know, for instance.

This weekend I made a card for the Lawnscaping Birthday Challenge.

 

I stamped the hippo and cute little bird from the Year Four Lawn Fawn stamp set and then embossed them in white. I then watercolored over them with my super fancy (see above) watercolors. I added a heart balloon and some twine. Then I spritzed it with the Heidi Swapp Gold Lamé spray. Afterward, I slightly regretted the use of the spray. I really like the spray though; I think it was user error.

Part of the reason I decided on watercolor was seeing all the inspiration over at the Neat & Tangled Little Tangles Watercolor Challenge. That means I get a two-for-one! 🙂

 

 

8/365 #YearOfMaking

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Succulents with Waffle Flower

A couple of friends came over yesterday to hang out with me, watch Big Bang Theory and make stuff. And eat mini-quiches. Can’t forget the mini-quiches. We like entering challenges and we made cards for the current Waffle Flower Photo Inspiration Challenge.

I love the colors in this. I don’t really have a lot of the new succulent stamps so I had to make do, but I like how it turned out.

 

I used the Rock My World stamp set to make a little cactus! Isn’t it cute?!? 🙂 Then I stamped one of the little flowers from that set and added some Wink of Stella to make it all glitzy. The Hello die is from My Favorite Things called Happy Hellos and the smaller little plant is from Simon Says Stamp.

The cards I made yesterday were 6/365 and this blog post is 7/365 #yearofmaking. 🙂

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Hello Happy!

My mom got me into stamping (Gee thanks Mom! 😉 ). When I first started, she gave me a set of blank notecards and some Stampin’ Up ink spots. I’ve had those notecards for a really long time now. The last online class I took was about using your supplies, Supplies on Hand and that spurred me to finally break these out. I also pulled out a bunch of the die cuts and chipboard that I’ve had for awhile. This is one of the first cards I made at my weekend retreat. The simple Kraft-like background worked well with the Waffle Flower Photo Inspiration and white space challenges.

 

I used the Waffle Flower Rock My World stamp set for the Hello, Laugh rock, and leaves.

The Close to my Heart blog also had a Choose Your Own Adventure type story and I followed along with that to get to my challenge. That challenge was to use the colors Goldrush, Honey, and Colonial White so I incorporated those too.

I didn’t finish using all the notecards, but I made a big dent and I hope to finish them soon!

And of course, Anything Goes at the Paper Girls Challenge Blog and Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge!

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Party Panda Parties All Week!

Well…I’m back to reality from my crafty retreat. Bummer. But you can all still pretend I’m on vacation since I’ll be posting more of what I finished there. I was able to work three of my goals into this card: Using the flair buttons I got from…(who knows where), using papers from some of my Simon Says Stamp card kits that I love, but that have been piling up, and using the pieces of a Halloween themed kit I bought from a friend.

First up, the sketch. This one is from Retro Sketches.

Square cards are CRAZY hard for me…so I modified it to a good ol’ A2. But everything else is still there.

Next, add a panda. I mean, you should ALWAYS add a panda. And Anything Goes when the panda’s in da house! 🙂

My Pandamonium set from Mama Elephant is probably the most used stamp set I own. Thanks Makalah! So here’s the result:

I used the Simon Says Stamp Card Kit papers from April 2014. Simon Says “Make Something!” 🙂 I don’t usually use bright primary colors, but this seemed like a good opportunity. Added benefit? The heart flair button matches! Also, the orange polka dot button and the “button” brads from the Halloween kit were able to make an appearance! I just bought that arrow Close to my Heart washi tape from my friend at the retreat. Since I used it, I’m now completely justified in buying it.  I imagine he’s bursting in the door of the party saying “Hi!” and everyone turns, smiles and yells “Panda’s here!!!” 🙂

 

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Getting Sketchy with the Cats

I’ve said it before, but I really like using sketches. Having a slightly restrictive guideline really helps me. This time I went for an even more challenging experience and combined a sketch from the Tuesday Morning Sketches challenge with a theme and inspiration photo from The Cat’s Pajamas.

Tuesday Morning Sketch #272

Here’s my combined interpretation.

I caught Jack!

I used the basic sketch to make a Halloween card. Instead of the star that is supposed to be caught by the bunny in the Wish stamp set, I added a little pumpkin and paper pieced his fancy moon.  I thought the hanging down pumpkin mimicked the ornaments falling in the second inspiration picture from TCP.  Of course, I needed to stickle his nose and the pumpkin! 🙂 The sentiment is from one of my favorite Tim Holtz sets called Simple Sayings.

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