CAS17 Challenge - Towel Inspiration

I love the new Clean and Simple (CAS) challenge over at Splitcoaststampers. I find myself gravitating toward that style a lot. Especially when my creative juices have dried up....CAS seems to be the only thing that is possible for me. So, I checked the thread and the CAS #17 challenge that Jen had up was an inspiration challenge. She gave us THIS LINK from Land's End with towels and totes. I saw the solid blue striped towel and had to go with it!! The card was simple, and is actually a SCRAP card as well!! I used 1" strips of blue in 3 different shades found in my blue scraps bag. I also pulled that fishy out of my image scrap bin. I had stamped and colored a bunch of them a long time ago (see, this is why I never throw anything away). To color him, I had actually dry brushed some blue and purple watercolor paint (remember you can

click on the image to see it larger) onto white cardstock. I added this great sentiment from an add-on set to the Pond Life stamp set from Papertrey Ink and popped that little swimmer up on dimensionals. This was an increadibly easy card to make and used a ton of scraps. I can see this same card made in different colors with different images and sentiments!! Wow, what a great way to use up some of my many pieces of scrap! Supplies: Stamps - Fishy Friends (Stampin' Up!), Pond Life Sentiments (Papertrey Ink); Ink-Versamark, Basic Black (SU!), Paper - 3 shades of blue (one is definately Night of Navy and I think the middle color might be Buckaroo Blue but I am unsure of the lightest shade), White; Other - watercolor paints, paint brush, white embossing powder, dimensionals. Thanks for dropping in! Don't forget about the smARTworks tea party coming up on Wednesday. We were challenged to create a card without using white!! Come and play with us!! Donelda

Loonie Stamper's Challenge #42 - Father's Day Plaid

It is time for another Loonie Stamper's Challenge and it was Maria's turn to pick the challenge. She picked a great one...to use plaid on our cards!! I love plaid.

Since I lost my hard drive, it has really sapped my creative mojo and I haven't been doing much crafting these days. So, I sat at my craft table for some time, trying to get some plaid inspiration. I decided to look through my "scrap" bin and found some pre-punched circles that happened to have some great plaid on them!! The plaid is from the Chocolate Remix desinger paper from Papertrey Ink. Perfect!!

The card is a Clean and Simple card (easy to create when

trying to get your mojo back!!) with little need for explainations!! I plan to send it off to my dad in the next few days.

Supplies: Stamps-Father Knows Best (Papertrey Ink); Ink-Chocolate Chip (Stampin' Up!); Paper-Dark Chocolate, Vintage Cream, Chocolate Remix (Papertrey Ink); Other-1 1/4" circle punch.

So now, off to the Loonie Stampers to see what their plaid creations are:

Dee, Maria, Wendy, Jewels, Regan, and Char

Thanks so much for dropping in!! Have you made a father's day card yet???

Donelda

smARTworks - Swirly Pink

Here is a card using some of the swirls from the new-ish Swirly Gigs stamp set by smARTworks. When I first laid my hands on this set, I knew I'd be making a card like this!! It is pretty straight forward, just ink and cardstock, an oval scallop, and a bit of ribbon plus a few half pearls! Stamps- Swirly-gigs (smARTworks); Ink - Brilliance Graphite Black (Tsukineko), Sweet Blush (Papertrey Ink); Paper – Whisper White (Stampin’ Up!), Sweet Blush (Papertrey Ink); Other- scallop oval nestability (Spellbinders), white satin ribbon (Papertrey Ink), half pearls pink and white (Dollarama), dimensionals. Thanks for dropping by. I am continuing to figure out my new computer and reload all my favorite blogs and sights, which is why I've not been doing much blogging. Hopefully it will improve. Thanks for your understanding and patience! Donelda

smARTworks Tea Party Announcement - Colorful Card

Well, it is Trish's time to host the next smARTworks Tea Party! Even though she is moving and all, she still set a great challenge. Unfortunately, I'm very late at posting the announcement!! However, here it is....better late than never!! Trish challenged us to ...."Create a card without using white" .... what, are you kidding me!! Doesn't she know that I am a bit addicted to using white on my cards!! Well, this will really be a challenge. We will be uploading on June 6th. Remember, you too can play along with this challenge and you don't have to use smARTwork stamps if you don't have any! Just create your colorful card and leave a link with a comment on any Design Team member's blog!! I can't wait to see what you create!!

Black, Grey + One - challenge from Basic Grey

I am forever making cards that meet challenges but I never seem to get them uploaded to actaully enter the challenge!! Here is a card that fits that category. A few weeks ago, the Basic Grey blog had a challenge to use Black, Grey and One (meaning to use the colors black and grey plus one other color). I decided to use this strip of butterflies from their Abrosia line. It is called Winsome and contains lots of different colored butterflies, but I strategically cut the black and grey ones out to use. The other color is red...or maybe the cream...I guess it is a bit of a cheat!!

I also added an oval of grey paper from Stampin' Up! cut and embossed using my oval Nestabilities. Finally, I stamped a sentiment from Quilters Sampler by Papertrey Ink. The little swirl under the sentiment is from Faux Ribbon (also from Papertrey Ink). One tiny gem to add a bit of bling!! Thanks for dropping in!!! Donelda

Blue Flowers

When Susan from smARTworks designed this stamp, she had imagined those flowers being blue. Well, every single design team member colored the flowers pink when it was the stamp for our April Cookie Challenge.

I decided to create the image in blue for Susan. I wanted to see what these flowers would look like in blue...and I like them.

They were colored with Copic markers. Then, I added strips of blue ribbon around the edge cutting the ribbon at angles for the corners. The sentiment is from Beautiful Blooms from Papertrey Ink!!

Still working on rebuilding my computer again!! Be this a lesson to me and everyone else out there....Back up your stuff!!!

Thanks for dropping in!

Donelda

smARTworks Tea Party - inspiration cup

Susan picked an inspiration piece for us to use for this Tea Party (see the picture a few entries ago!). I loved the soft look of the cup and knew I wanted to make a vellum card. I've never made a vellum card so I wasn't sure how it would turn out but I like the results.

I started out making a card base out of vellum. Then, I stamped the flowers in blue and the stems and leaves in green right onto the vellum. I added the sentiment in the same green and a few lines along the top and bottom. Next, I added a simple piece of white cardstock underneath the stamping and one on the inside of the card where you could write a message.

A simple card but I think it is a great piece based on the inspiration photo.

Now you have to go see all the other Cookies to see what they created based on the same inspiration piece (see the links along the right of my blog). Did you create something based on this inspiration piece?? if so, leave a comment and a link so we can see it!!

Hey look Sarosa played along with us!! I love this girl, not only did she also use vellum on her card but she has the same blog layout that I have!! Two great minds.....??!! :-)

My computer is still "out of order". I will hopefully be up and running again soon. Sorry for the limited blog posts!!! Keep your fingers crossed that I will be able to recover some of what was on my computer!!

Donelda

Clean and Simple #15

Here is my card for the 15th Clean and simple challenge over on SCS. We were to make a card that was Black and White plus one Bold Bright.

the card is straight forward. The bold bright color I picked was Pink passion. this stamp set is Beyond Basic Borders by Papertrey Ink.

My computer is still down but I wanted to play. I am using a different computer which is also acting up, plus I can't find anything on here as it is organized differently..... sorry!!

My Computer has Crashed

Yikes!! I think my hard drive has crashed!! I am looking in to it to see if anything can be rescued...in the meantime I do not have a consistent means of blogging. Cross your fingers for me. Donelda

Clean and Simple #14 - Rock n Roll Leaf

I made this card for the Clean and Simple challenge #14 over on Splitcoaststamper. The challenge was to use the Rock and Roll Technique. I don't use this technique very often because I have not had a lot of success with it in the past. But this leaf turned out okay!! I stared with Summer Sunrise ink, then rolled the edges of

the leaf in Spring Moss and stamped. Then I cut it out and popped it up on the die with dimensionals. I added the sentiment with more Spring Moss ink (I'm using this color a lot lately....might I be anxious to actually feel spring??).

Supplies: Stamps-First Fruits, Birds of a Feather (Papertrey Ink); Ink-Summer Sunrise, Spring Moss (Papertrey Ink); Cardstock - Select White, Summer Sunrise (Papertrey Ink); Other - Label 1 Nestability (Spellbinders), Cuttlebug, dimensionals. Make sure you check out all the other Clean and Simple cards on the galler HERE. Thanks for dropping in!! Donelda

smARTworks Tea Pary announcement

This month it is Susan's turn to decide what we will be doing for the next smARTworks Tea Party. She decided to go with an inspiration piece...and wow....what a piece!! I love it so much. I have a bunch of interesting ideas to try....

So, come and have fun with us. All of the members of the design team will be posting our creations on Wed. May 2oth and you can too. Create a card with this picture as inspiration and leave any of us a link. You don't have to use smARTwork stamps, just come, play, and have some fun!!

Can't wait to see what everyone creates!!

Donelda

Loonie Stamper Challenge #39 - Hello Friend

So, Charlene set the colors this week and they were scrumptious!! Vintage Cream, Hibiscus Burst, and Black!! Wow, how can you go wrong with those colors. Well, since we were away all weekend, I have just finished this card. It is a bit late but I love to play with the Loonie Ladies!! The Hibiscus looks a bit dard in this photo but it is a bright pink, honest!! I love this designer paper by Basic Grey called Granola. I've been using it to make masculine cards but I was dying to see what I could do with it on a feminine card, and these colors were perfect!! and Dee is right, there is a "wood grain" look on that black designer paper!!

Supplies: Stamps - Birds of a Feather, Borders& Corners (Papertrey Ink); Ink - black; Paper - Hibiscus Burst, Vintage Cream (Papertrey Ink), designer paper (Basic Grey); Other - circle nestabilities (Spellbinders), Cuttlebug (Provocraft), scallop scissors (Provo Craft), black organdy ribbon (Stampin' Up).

Now off to see all those Loonie Girls:

Char, Dee, Jewels, Maria, Regan, Wendy

Thanks for dropping in everyone. I appreciate all those who leave a comment, it lets me know if you like what you see!!

Have a great day!

Donelda

Mother's Day Tea Holder Card

This Mother's Day I decided to send my mom something a little different. I made this cute little tea bag holder and sent her a few different flavors of tea. This way she could try them out and see if she likes them (she really only likes Red Rose but I keep trying to get her to branch out a little!).

I fashioned it after the one Debbie Olson made HERE. I used an image from the smARTworks set called Teapot Trio and the sentiment comes from Pond Life by Papertrey Ink.

Supplies: Stamps-Teapot Trio (smARTworks), Pond Life, Birthday Basics (Papertrey Ink); Paper - blue (stash), watercolor paper, designer paper (K&Co.); Ink - Basic Black, Ruby Red, Garden Green, Buckaroo Blue (Stampin' Up!), tea dye (Ranger); Other - stample and stapler, sponge, watercolor brush, glassine bags (Papertrey Ink).

Thanks for dropping in!!

Donelda

smARTworks - Birthday Tree

We've been away all weekend helping my in-laws build a quansit...I have sore muscles everywhere!! Even in my hands!! Sheesh. So, here is a little card for you to enjoy! The tree was so much fun to make. I used this one circle stamp from the smARTworks set called Petal Power - clearly designed to be a flower. But I love to think outside the box!!

Stamps – Petal Power, other sentiments (smARTworks), Ink – Wild Wasabi, Chocolate Chip (Stampin’ Up!), Paper – Whisper White, Wild Wasabi textured (Stampin’ Up!), Grateful Cute Dot (KI Memories), Other – Labels One die (Spellbinders), black marker (Sakura). Have a great Sunday night!! Donelda

smARTworks - Twinkling Flower

Here is another card I made with the Petal Power stamp set from smARTworks. This flower was so much fun to create!! I started out with some watercolor paper. Then, using my Twinkling H2Os, I painted on different colors onto my paper. Next, I stamped this fancy swirly petal (one of my very favorites from the

set) onto the paper making sure to keep the yellow part of the painted area to the outside and the little bit of blue on the inside of the petal. When it was dry, I cut the petals out. I kept the basic card design simple because I didn't want to take anything away from that spectacular flower. It is always frustrating when making sparkly, shimmery cards because they never look as good in the photograph as they do in real life..... but then, you all probably know that! Remember you can click on the pictures for larger images which might show the shimmer a bit better.

Stamps – Petal Power (smARTworks), Ink- Brilliance Graphite Black (Tsukineko), Paper- Basic Black (Stampin’ Up!), African Daisy (The Paper Company), blue (unknown), watercolor paper, Other – Twinkling H2Os (Sunburst, Plumaria, Mediterranean Blue) (LuminArte), rhinestone (Me and My Big Ideas), dimensionals.

Well, have a great shimmery day!!

Donelda

smARTworks Tea Party #15 - Yellow Burst

So it was Peggy's turn to provide us with a challenge for today's smARTworks Tea Party!! She was inspired by the warm weather and decided to pick yellow!! That's right, we were to make a card featuring the color yellow. Now, I love the bright yellow sun, and daffodils are my favorite flowers but I don't typically use that much yellow in my crafting. But I've had this sun burst idea in my head for a few weeks now...and I figured this would be a great time to try it out!!

I created the "burst" by sponging Summer Sun ink onto a piece of white cardstock. Then, using some Post It Notes, I left strips and added a light amount of Groovy Guava ink. It was easy and fun. Then, I stamped this bird and branch image on a piece of scrap white and colored it with a mix of my Copic markers and Prismacolor pencil crayons. I then cut around the top portion of the bird and branch and adhered it to my burst. And check out that sentiment....I love that it is curved like that!! It is from a relatively newer smARTworks stamp set called Swirly-gigs. I finished the card off with a piece of Lemon Tart twill and a guava card base.

Now, off to see what all the other design team members created:

Dina, Susan, Trish, Donna, Giovana, Sarah and Peggy (both on Susan's blog)

and look at THIS, seamom played along with us too!!!

So now it is your turn...share your 'yellow' card with us!! Just leave a comment on any of our blogs with a link to your card. If you upload to a public gallery, use SCTP 17 so we can find your card!! You don't have to use smARTwork stamps unless you are lucky enough to own a few!! Come and have some fun with us :-)

Supplies: Stamps-Spring #1, Swirly-gigs (smARTworks); Ink - Summer Sun, Groovy Guava (Stampin' Up!), Brilliance Graphite Black (Tsukineko); Paper- Whisper White, Groovy Guava (Stampin' Up!); Other - YG03 Yellow Green and Y13 Lemon Yellow markers (Copic), Lemon Tart twill (Papertrey Ink), pencil crayons (Prismacolor), Post It Notes, sponge.

I hope you all have a bright and yellow day!! Thanks for stopping in today!!

Donelda

CAS13 and Raspberry Suite Color Challenge 4

I've been working on some of the older Clean and Simple challenges on SCS all weekend long. Tonight, the latest challenge #13 was posted and it was a sketch. The funny thing is that while I was waiting for the post to go up, I was sorting through all of my little scraps (yup, I have a "big scraps" bin and a "little scraps" bin) and had seperated out all of the circles. I was about to throw them all back in the bin when I saw the sketch and all those circles!! Wow - deja vu or what!!??

So, I pulled out 3 blue and 3 brown circles of the same size. As I was placing them on the white card base, I realized that I had picked the colors from Dawn McVey's color challenge #4... convenient!!

I stamped one of the beautiful images from Guide Lines Two onto the brown circles with white craft ink and a little sentiment onto to bottom 'corner' of the bottom blue circle.

Supplies: Stamps - Guide Lines Two, Mixed Messages (Papertrey Ink); Paper - Whisper White, Chocolate Chip, Bashful Blue (Stampin' Up!); Ink - Whisper White craft, Chocolate Chip (Stampin' Up!); Other - 1" circle punch (Stampin' Up!).

Thanks for dropping in!!

Donelda

Clean and Simple Challenges on Splitcoaststampers

So, over on Splitcoaststampers (SCS as it is lovingly referred to) there is a new weekly challenge. It is the CAS (or Clean and Simple) challenges!! I was so excited to find them. My blogging friend Susan pointed me in the right direction ... and she is really the queen of Clean and Simple....and, in fact, is one of the DT's for the challenges this quarter!!! You have to go check out her work, she amazes me!!

Anyway, the challenges are posted for Monday mornings (but often get posted Sunday nights, a bit early!!). I couldn't wait so I was browsing through the 12 challenges that have been posted so far to date. I decided to do a bunch of them...

Here is the first one for CAS #2 - One Button. The challenge....obviously was to use one button on your clean and simple card.

Supplies - Stamps - Guide Lines Two, Demask Designs (Papertrey Ink); Ink - Brilliance Graphite Black (Tsukineko), silver (Hero Arts); Paper - Whisper White, Basic Black (Stampin' Up!), Pure Poppy (Papertrey Ink); Other - one button (from my stash), Labels One die (Spellbinders), Cuttlebug.

This card is for CAS #7 - Punches...where we were obviously asked to use punches on our CAS cards.

This one was inspired by that awesome piece of orange plaid...which I've had so long that I don't even know made it!! But it looks awesome as a piece of fruit :D

Supplies: Stamps - Borders & Corners{square}, Mixed Messages (Papertrey Ink); Ink - Brilliance Graphite Black (Tsukineko); Paper - Basic Black, Groovy Guave (Stampin' Up!); Other - apple punch (Martha Stweart).

Here is my card for the CAS challenge # 8 where there was a sketch to follow. It was a fairly simple sketch ... of course, being a CAS challenge. I love, love, love this border stamp from Stampin' Up and bought it just before it retired even though I had adored it forever! Anyway, I'm just glad to have it and actually put it to some use. The brad is one I've had forever and it says "be" on it. I love the pop of orange with these other subtle colors.

Supplies: Stamps- Garden Annuals (Stampin' Up); Ink - Versamark; Paper - Sahara Sand, Basic Black (Stampin' Up!); Other - white embossing powder, prima flowers, brad (Making Memories, I think).

My last card is for the CAS challenge#12 - Little Bits of Ribbon. This is the latest CAS challenge posted.

For this challenge I decided to use these cute little babies. I got them a few years ago during the free stamp event with Stampin' Up...you know, where if you buy so much money you get a free stamp set. Well, I got all the free sets that year and one of them, Very Punny, included this little baby. I've never used it!! I colored the images with Copic markers and added the Little Bits of Ribbon with a staple.

Supplies: Stamps - Very Punny (Stampin' Up!), Mixed Messages (Papertrey Ink); Ink - Brilliance Graphite Black (Tsukineko); Paper - Whisper White, Regal Rose (Stampin' Up!), blue (from my scrap stash); Other - RV11 Pink and B14 Light Blue markers (Copic), gingham ribbons (from my ribbon scrap stash), brown pencil crayon (Prismacolor), stamples and stapler, dimensionals (actually I just used 4 layers of cardstock because I'm out of dimensionals!!).

Well, I hope you enjoyed the cards. They were a ton of fun to make and acutally did wonders at kickstarting my creative flow again!! I will definately be around tonight to see what the newest CAS challenge will be!!

Donelda

Loonie Stamper Challenge #38

Friday the latest Loonie Stamper Challenge was posted and when I saw them I knew I would have to try out these colors! They are awesome and definately up my color ally!! In fact, once I pulled a sheet of each color out and laid it onto my craft table, I knew I had to make a father's day card with them! Perfect color combo for a masculine card.

So, I pulled out my handy dandy Father Knows Best stamp set from PTI and got to work!!

I started by stamping the tree. Then I cut the image using my Labels Two Nestabilities. I also cut the brown mat and attached them. I added the sentiment, button, and brown hemp. Then, I randomly stamped the little leaves onto the Spring Moss strip of paper and adheared it all together.

Now off to see what the Loonie girls all did with these colors:

Jewels first card and second card, Dee, Char, Regan, Wendy, Maria

Thanks for dropping in tonight!! A post this morning, two tonight, and I have 4 cards posting tomorrow for the new Clean and Simple challenges over at SCS. I'd say my creative juices are flowing again!!

Donelda

Spring Fling Inspiration Challenge for PTI

Note, this is one of 2 posts tonight. I have also posted my Loonie Stamper's Challenge card after this one. Make sure you scroll down to check it out!! So, Nichole Heady announced a great Spring Fling Challenge on her blog! She had a number of her Design Team use spring inspiration photographs to create cards. You should see the projects..they are spectacular. Then, Nichole invited us to play along too. We were to pick one of the Design Team's inspiration pieces and create our own card or project. I chose Kelly Lunceford's inspiration photo. I LOVE purple tulips so this one was an easy pick!! I knew I would obviously have to use the new Wishing You set. I did a bit of rock and rolling on the tulips, starting out with lavender Moon ink all over and then rocking the top edges of the tulips in Plum Pudding ink. I love the effect!! Then I added the stems, leaves, and stamens. I included the sentiment placing it over the leaves. Because it is in black, it is still easily read over top of the Spring Moss color. I added a bit of scallop along one edge of the main image and after randomly stamping a small tulip with Lavender Moon ink onto Lavender Moon cardstock ( I love the color on color look), I pulled the whole card together. Overall, a fairly simple card but with awesome images like that you don't have to do much to create a great card. So, you should head over to Nichole's blog to see all the inspiration pieces and also all the cards that are being entered into the draw. Thanks for dropping in today!!

smARTworks - Big Pink Flower

Don't you love this great big flower?? I do!! It was easy to make and the best part is that you could decorate the petals to have any "look" you want. The large outline petal is part of a smARTworks set called Petal Power (go figure). It is an amazing stamp set with so many possibilities. I have a bunch of different cards that I made with this set to share with you in the coming days....hold on to your hat!! For this card, I stamped the large petal onto white cardstock 5 times. Then, I took a circle stamp from the same set (probably supposed to be a flower center...but lets think outside the box), and stamped it all over those big petals. Finally, I cut out the petals, adheared them together and added a center. I decided to keep with the circle theme and added a piece of Bitty Dot Basics paper from Papertrey Ink. Love it!! Stamps-Petal Power (smARTworks), Ink-Sweet Blush (Papertrey Ink), Brilliance Graphite Black (Tsukineko), Paper-Whisper White, Basic Black (Stampin’ Up!), Sweet Blush (Papertrey Ink), Itty Bitty Dots Sweet Blush (Papertrey Ink).

I hope you have a great weekend! It is finally a sunny and warm one for us so I think I might be outside this weekend!!

Donelda

smARTworks - Subtle Monochromatic

Sometimes it is nice to make something really simple!! Like this rather masculine looking square card. Just one type of cardstock, one color of ink, and one stamp set!! In order to match the color of the stamped image, I sponged on the same color of ink onto a few strips of the paper to use as borders around the sentiment strip. Supplies: Stamps-Lock and Key (smARTworks); Cardstock-blue (gift given to me by a company with no manufacturer name provided); Ink-Bordering Blue (Stampin' Up!); Other-sponge. Have a great super simple day!! Donelda