Magical Stardust & Rainbows PP389

Hi friends!  Welcome to another week with my gal pals at The Paper Players where the lovely and talented Sandy has a trendy Clean-and-Simple challenge for us...Magical!

As a child I loved unicorns....The Last Unicorn was a favorite book of mine but sadly, I only have ONE stamp set featuring these magical creatures--an old retired set called Pony Party.  As it looks quite a bit like a My Little Pony type of unicorn, it wasn't really what I had in mind for today's card.  So, I turned to the Silhouette Design Store to find a design I could cut on my Cameo...

...and I did cut it out but found that I liked the negative space better!  I used a piece of watercolor paper underneath to color a rainbow with my watercolor pencils starting with Real Red, Tangerine Tango, Daffodil Delight, Old Olive, Pacific Point, and Rich Razzleberry.  The white embossed sentiment is from the retired Pony Party set and it is just perfect for my grown-up unicorn.  I was tempted to add some embellishments or dry embossing but kept to the clean-and-simple style of today's challenge and only added Wink of Stella around the edge of my cut shape.

The inside is equally as Clean-and-Simple with a sweet sentiment and some Crushed Curry stars from another retired set, Be the Star.  Can you tell I have a difficult time getting rid of my retired sets?! LOL.  The sentiment is from a Papertrey Ink set called Inside & Out: Birthday--my Mom (a die-hard PTI aficionado) bought this set for me ages ago and, along with PTI's Birthday Basics, it is one of my go-to sets for inside sentiments.  It's hard to beat PTI for sentiments!

And it's hard to beat my pals at The Paper Players for creativity!  Be sure to check out all their fabulousness over at The Paper Players....maybe you'll play along with us before our challenge ends on Friday, April 20th at Noon (PST).  

The Paper Players Design Team 

Claire Broadwater

 Jaydee

Joanne James

Laurie Schmidt

LeAnne Pugliese

Nance Leedy 

Sandy Mathis 

Annie Abrahamson 

Jan Clothier 

Elizabeth Stewart 

It's been a little while since I shared some volleyball shots, so here's a few of our favorite player last weekend at a tournament in Jacksonville.  Thanks for stopping by!

 

Haunted Forest {CCMC164}

Happy Thursday friends and welcome to another week with the Create with Connie & Mary design team!  We know how much everyone loves a sketch and this week's is a fun one.  Check it out:

As you will see, I took a few liberties with the sketch so feel free to use it as inspiration!  Instead of a square, you could make a standard A2 size card as I did:

I couldn't wait to a) order the Haunted Forest (upcoming holiday mini) single stamp and b) play with it!!  This sketch gave me the perfect canvas for this stamp.  I heat embossed it in black onto Very Vanilla cardstock and sponged the Rich Razzleberry sky with a More Mustard moon.  So spooky!  You have to see this stamp up close to wonder at the detail of it:

and there's even a little mouse in the corner:

Aww!  You can also see that I added some Old Olive grass to tie in with the Old Olive mat.  That itty bitty grass stamp is a favorite of mine and it's from the Pony Party stamp set...go figure!

I hope you enjoyed today's card--I sure love this stamp!  I hope you do too because you'll likely see a lot more of it, LOL!  Be sure to pop on over to check out the rest of the Create with Connie & Mary design team for some fabulous inspiration!  Have a great day friends!

supplies:

stamps: haunted forest (holiday mini); pony party; woodgrain (of course!); four frames

ink: rich razzleberry, more mustard, versamark, old olive

paper: rich razzleberry, more mustard, old olive, very vanilla

xtras: black stampin' emboss powder; decorative label punch; black wide striped grosgrain ribbon; glimmer brads (neutrals), 7-sided tool; color spritzer; crumb cake marker

A Sketch for the Paper Players {PP35}

Happy Sunday everyone!  Hope you're having a good weekend. Welcome to Paper Player Sundays!  Lesley is our hostess this week and she has designed this versatile sketch for us:

It's a good one, eh?  I went with a traditional A2 size as it fit the focal image that I had in mind...

When I pulled the Build-a-Cupcake punch out of my Sale-a-Bration order box and looked at all the parts it punches, I couldn't wait to use the top part of the cupcake--that is, the frosting--as clouds!  Believe it or not, this card started with the clouds!  I knew I wanted to use the clouds where the flowers are in the sketch.  Once I had the clouds, a tree seemed the next logical choice and it just snowballed from there!  My three colorful and fun panels are taken from the Play Date designer paper.

This tree from Valentine Defined is one of my favorites in the set and it fit perfectly inside a 3" circle mat cut from Chocolate Chip cardstock with my new 3" Circle die.  Of course, I used the same Pony Party grass I used in this card and added a red glimmer heart with the smallest heart from the Heart-to-Heart punch.

The clouds were punched from Whisper White cardstock with the Build-a-Cupcake punch:

and the edges were sponged with Tempting Turquoise ink so they would stand out against the other white cardstock.

The sentiment from You're a Gem seemed to fit the mood of this card and I matched the Old Olive ink and Chocolate Chip mat to the main image.  For a little more texture, a strip of Chocolate Chip cardstock was edged with the Scallop Border punch and run through the Polka Dot impressions folder.

So there you have it--what do you think?  I hope you like it!  Be sure to hop on over to the rest of The Paper Players design team for some fabulous inspiration.  If all that inspiration gets you crafting, come back to our blog and link up your creation by midnight Friday February 25th for a chance to be our "Headliner" or "A Cut Above"!  Hope you'll join us!

the goodies:

stamps: valentine defined, you're a gem, pony party

ink: old olive, tempting turquoise

paper: so saffron, chocolate chip, whisper white CS; play date DSP

xtras: build-a-cupcake, scallop border, 1" circle, 1 1/4" circle, heart-to-heart punches; 3" circle originals die; nestabilities; stampin' write markers; red glimmer paper