Chocolate Soft Wings

I won this wonderful stamp at

Pixies Snippet Playground 

last year.  It's become one of my favorites.

And so has Penny Black.

So when I saw that Penny Black had a challenge,

I just had to jump in.

Penny Black Saturday Challenge

This month's theme is Easter/Chocolate Brown

By the time I saw the challenge, Easter had passed

so I went with Chocolate.

I stamped the butterfly with Chocolate Chip ink

and clear embossed.

All that was left was this beautiful sentiment from

the Eloquence set and Penny Black and I had a yummy card.

I'm also entering again at
Simon Says Monday Challenge

ANYTHING GOES

Thanks for stopping by.

Enjoy!

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Card Recipe

Stamps:  Soft Wings, Eloquence (both Penny Black)

Ink:  Chocolate Chip (SU)

Paper:  Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla (both SU)

Other:  Clear EP (SU),

Happy, Happy Little Stampers

Here's another card for the

Happy Little Stampers April Sketch Challenge

Here's Kylies awesome sketch

I love that these challenges last a month.

I'm also entering the

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge again.

CLEAN AND SIMPLE

Simon Says Monday

ANYTHING GOES

I hope you have a happy day!

Enjoy!

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Card Recipe

Stamps:  Crazy About You

Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black

Paper:  Island Indigo, Watercolor (Arches 140 lb. cold press), Basic Black

Other:  Happy Die (SSS), Reinkers (Daffodil Delight, Pool Party, Island Indigo), Aqua Painter, Paint Brush (for splatters)

All supplies are Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted

Believe in Christmas for Merry Monday

Good Merry Monday morning.

Have a look at what we're doing this week....

Wendy (WeeBeeStampin4Fun) chose our challenge this week.

I love that box all dressed up for Christmas.

The believe kind of stumped me at first.

Then I remembered that I had bought a Tim Holtz die

with Christmas words.

Sure enough, believe was in there.

Yeah, Tim!

Be sure to check out what the rest of the design team has done.

Their designs always blow me away!

I hope you'll join us at

Merry Monday.

and get a head start on  your Christmas cards.

Since I die cut from snippets,

I can take this to

Pixies Snippet Playground

 April Rudolph Days

lasts until the end of the month.

It's ANYTHING GOES as long as it's Christmas.

Winter Wonderland

Twinkle, Twinkle (All Sparkly and Bright)

I'm so glad you stopped by.

Enjoy!

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Card Recipe

Stamps:  Ornamental Pine

Ink:  Soft Suede

Paper:  Naturals White, Snippets of green, white & gold foil

Other:  Pine Sprigs (Poppy Stamps), Holiday Words Script, Stitched Mats Rectangles (Lil' Inker), Red Cord (stash), Dazzling Details

All supplies are Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted

Enjoy the Daisies

I pulled out a very old Stampin' Up! set.

I think I'd only used this stamp once.

It's such a pretty set.  I don't know why I don't use it often!

Kylie's sketch at 

Happy Little Stampers

intrigued me.

I loved Kylie's Inspiration card

but wanted to do something a little bit different.

I thought of this set and things just kinda fell together.

I actually did another card using this sketch.

Hopefully I will get the photo taken, edited and blogged 

before the challenge is over.

And since I layered the sentiment, I'm going to join 

Virginia's View Challenge


The sentiment is actually popped up a bit for added dimension.


Simon Says Wednesday Challenge


CLEAN AND SIMPLE

There are some beautiful cards in all these galleries!

If you need inspiration, please do visit.

Thanks for the visit.

Enjoy!

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Card Recipe

Stamps:  In Full Bloom (retired), Enjoy (Penny Black)

Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Versa Mark

Paper:  Daffodil Delight, Basic Black, Whisper White, Cardstock Velum

Other:  Blendabilities, Black EP, Black Checked Ribbon (retired), Basic Pearls (colored with a black Sharpie), Simply Scored

All supplies are Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted

Make Your Heart Sing for ATCAS

We're back around to another challenge from 
Addicted to CAS

Barb (Barb's Studio Creations) is our hostess this week. 

This is what she chose.

Pia (Pia's Creative World) is our Guest Designer this month.

Do check out her lovely creations.

Eureka Stamps is our sponsor for this challenge and

they're offering 3 digi images to the winner.

They have some lovely designs that I've been hoping to win for some time!

I'm going to enter this in our sister challenge
Addicted to Stamps

ANYTHING GOES

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I had this piece of Alcohol Inked background out 
and thought it would do well for the gold.

I trimmed it up, stamped the sentiment, added a little die cut butterfly
 and some pearls.  Done!

Be sure to check out all the Design Team's inspiration! Wow!

And I hope you'll create a CAS (Clean And Simple) card 
with black, white and gold and join us at ATCAS.

Glad you stopped by.

Enjoy!

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Card Recipe

Stamps:  Eloquence (Penny Black)

Ink:  Archival Black, Alcohol Inks (Ranger)

Paper:  Solar White (Neena), Basic Black, Glossy White (Time Holtz)

Other:  Pippi Die (MB), Simply Scored, Basic Pearls

All supplies are Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted

Watercolor Class Project

Here's another card that we did in the watercolor class last week.

We stamped the Blended Bloom stamp with Whisper White 

and heat embossed it with white EP.

Then we wet the flower with clean water and dropped some 

Pink Pirouette and Strawberry Slush reinker onto the wet petals.

The center was colored with Daffodil Delight reinker.

After the flower dried (and we had a good chat), we wet around the flower

and added some Pistachio Pudding reinker with a few spots

of Pink Pirouette and Daffodil Delight.

Stamped the sentiment and let the paper dry.

I find that stacking a couple of big books on the dry watercolor

works well to flatten it before adhering to the card base.

My friend Loll has a great tutorial on this technique.

I think this fits the Addicted to Stamps Challenge

A few days ago I posted a card very similar to this one that we did in the class.

I had a question about how I did the background.

Unfortunately, the person who asked the question didn't give me a way to answer her.

So I thought I'd post a similar card and give you a link to the

Watercolor Bokeh Technique.

You may need to be a member of Splitcoaststampers to see the tutorials.

It's free to join and very easy.

After teaching the class, I had several more backgrounds done

and decided to do one with black accents instead of white.

I can't decide which I like better.

Since I used a snippet of black for the butterfly, I'm sharing at

Pixies Snippet Playground

Thanks for the visit.

Enjoy!

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Card Recipe (card 1)

Stamps:  Blended Bloom, Lovely Amazing  You

Ink:  Whisper White, Soft Suede

Paper:  Strawberry Slush, Watercolor (Arches 140 lb. cold press)

Other:  Reinkers (Pink Pirouette, Strawberry Slush, Daffodil Delight, Pistachio Pudding), Corner Rounder (Fiskars), Aqua Painter, White EP

Card Recipe (card 2)

Stamps: Enjoy (Penny Black)

Ink:  Whisper White, Memento Tuxedo Black

Paper:  Pool Party, Watercolor (Arches), Basic Black

Other:  Reinkers (Pool Party, Island Indigo, Daffodil Delight), Butterflies Thinlits, Stencil (Made from Window Sheet, Circle Collection Framelits, 1/2" Circle Punch), Sponge Dauber

All supplies are Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted

Rose-Breasted Grosbeak Visitor

Blessings continue at the bird feeders.

At dinner  tonight I caught this out of the corner of my eye.

I grabbed the camera and snapped this.

He was on the far side of the feeder and this was as good as I could get.

We got out the bird books and identified it as a Rose-breasted Grosbeak.

I set the camera aside and turned off the light.

Cleaned up the kitchen and peeked out again.

He was perched in the cherry tree checking out the situation.

Then.....

He posed prettily for me...

and decided it was time to eat.

Another first time spotting this kind of bird. 

The Indigo Bunting evidently continued his migration

as we haven't seen him again.

I'm sure this guy will be on his way...

I'm so glad you stopped by to share this blessing.

Enjoy!

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Indigo Bunting

We were blessed with this little visitor this afternoon.

Isn't he a beauty?

My grandson Luke has said this was his favorite bird since we studied the bird book.

I wish he could have seen him.

At least I got some good pictures of him.

I'd never seen one before and didn't think I ever would.

What a blessing!

Enjoy!

Furry Friends for Merry Monday

It's Merry Monday time.

This week Sue is the hostess and she chose



I know we're going to see some fabulous cards this week.

I have 2 stamps with dogs and/or cats and I'd used the other one a few weeks ago.
I had this all laid out and saw that my good buddy Karren 
had used the same stamp and die.
Great minds think alike!
So I worked up a different layout.
(Glad I hadn't used adhesive before I saw that.)

The rest of the design team cards are fabulous too.
I hope you'll go take a look.
Then make a Christmas card with a cat or dog on it,
and share it with us at Merry Monday.

Thanks for the visit.

Enjoy!

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Card Recipe

Stamps:  Furry Friends (SSS), Christmas Messages (retired)

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Soft Suede

Paper:  Very Vanilla, Whisper White, Snippets of green

Other:  Copic Markers, Blendabilities Markers, Woodgrain EF, Stitched Circles Die (Lil' Inker), Pine Sprigs Die (Poppystamps), Polar White Flower Soft, Sparkle Texture Effect (MS)

All supplies are Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted

Promise Me Tulips

The tulips have been beautiful this year!

Seeing them has made me want to do a card with this awesome Penny Black stamp.

And when I saw the Curtain Call Challenge, I was had to play.

Simon Says Monday Challenge

IN THE MIDDLE

I inked the stamp with Distress Markers, thumped with a darker shade

 and stamped on Whisper White cardstock.

The background is lightly sponged with Soft Sky.

I used my Color Spritzer and Pumpkin Pie marker to spritz a bit of the orange shade.

The sentiment is from a Penny Black set, Eloquence.

I love these sentiments!

I hope you're having a good weekend.

Thanks for stopping by.

Enjoy!

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Card Recipe

Stamps:  Promise Me (Penny Black), Eloquence (Penny Black)

Ink: Distress Markers (Picked Raspberry, Seedless Preserves, Peeled Paint, Shabby Shutters), Soft Sky, SU Marker (Pumpkin Pie

Paper:  Solar White (Neena), Whisper White

Other: Color Spritzer (retired), Adorning Accents Edgelits (retired), Adorning Accents EF (retired) Crochet Thread (stash)

All supplies are Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted

Watercolor Bokeh

I've been playing a lot with watercolors this week.

I'm having a Customer Appreciation Class today.

Here's one of the cards we'll be doing.

This card  uses the Bokeh technique that I've been seeing a lot of.

It's really easy and a lot of fun.

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge


MAKE YOUR OWN BACKGROUND



Happy Little Stampers CAS Challenge

I cut my own circle stencil to do the dots.


I hope my friends will enjoy doing this technique as much as I did.

Thanks for stopping by.

Enjoy!

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Card Recipe

Stamps:  Four You

Ink:  Whisper White

Paper:  Island Indigo, Watercolor (Arches), Shimmery White

Other:  Reinkers, Stencil (Made from Window Sheet, Circle Collection Framelits, 1/2" Circle Punch), Butterfly Thinlits, White EP, Large Rhinestone (retired)

All supplies are Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted

Butterfly in the Middle

I am having such a good time with the Butterfly Thinlits.

What could be easier than cutting a butterfly and popping it on an embossed piece?

The embossing folder was a gift from a dear friend.

Thanks again, Peggy.

QACAS, as Darnell would say, (Quick and Clean and Simple).

Simon Says Monday Challenge

IN THE MIDDLE

Thanks for stopping by.

Enjoy!

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Card Recipe

Paper:  Solar White (Neena), Whisper White, Basic Black

Other:  Butterfly Thinlits, Moroccan Frame EF (Sizzix), Basic Pearls

All supplies are Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted