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Wednesday, April 29, 2015

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
Simon Monday Challenge Blog
ANYTHING GOES


Thanks for stopping by.

Enjoy!
    **********
Card Recipe
Stamps:  Soft Wings, Eloquence (both Penny Black)
Ink:  Chocolate Chip (SU)
Paper:  Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla (both SU)
Other:  Clear EP (SU),



Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Happy, Happy Little Stampers

Here's another card for the



Here's Kylies awesome sketch


I love that these challenges last a month.

I'm also entering the

Simon Wednesday Challenge Blog
CLEAN AND SIMPLE

Simon Says Monday
Simon Monday Challenge Blog
ANYTHING GOES


I hope you have a happy day!

Enjoy!
    **********
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

Monday, April 27, 2015

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
and get a head start on  your Christmas cards.

Since I die cut from snippets,
I can take this to

Pixies Crafty Workshop


lasts until the end of the month.
It's ANYTHING GOES as long as it's Christmas.


Twinkle, Twinkle (All Sparkly and Bright)



I'm so glad you stopped by.

Enjoy!
    **********

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




Sunday, April 26, 2015

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 
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

Virginia's View Challenge
The sentiment is actually popped up a bit for added dimension.


Simon Says Wednesday Challenge
Simon Wednesday Challenge Blog

CLEAN AND SIMPLE

There are some beautiful cards in all these galleries!
If you need inspiration, please do visit.

Thanks for the visit.

Enjoy!
     **********
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

Saturday, April 25, 2015

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
Addicted to Stamps and More!
ANYTHING GOES

    **********
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!
    **********
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


Wednesday, April 22, 2015

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
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 Crafty Workshop



Thanks for the visit.

Enjoy!
    **********
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





Tuesday, April 21, 2015

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!
    **********


Monday, April 20, 2015

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!
    **********
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

Sunday, April 19, 2015

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 Monday Challenge Blog
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!
    **********
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




Saturday, April 18, 2015

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

Simon Wednesday Challenge Blog
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!

    **********
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





Friday, April 17, 2015

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 Monday Challenge Blog
IN THE MIDDLE

Thanks for stopping by.

Enjoy!
    **********
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