Sweet and Dreamy Cranes: SSSC57

I am a regular reader of Karen Giron's blog, the Sweetest Thing. She has a weekly sketch challenge and I like her clean simple layouts. LOL, well maybe this one isn't "simple"! Here is the sketch for SSSC57: And here is the card I made!
I didn't think I would be able to figure out something that worked. Those darn panels had me in a dither! But...I've made a few cards with the Dream Garden set, lately and as it was sitting on my craft table, I realized that the beautiful crane stamp was the perfect mimic of the panels in the SSSC57 challenge! I chose my colors--all watery shades of blues & greens that add to the dreamy feel--and proceeded to stamp. Sorry, they appear a bit washed out in this pic. I'll try to get a better one. I first stamped the cranes individually in each color and cut them out but, of course, I couldn't cut them perfectly even so they didn't line up right. And that.just.won't.do. Then I got the idea to stamp them all on one panel using my stamp-a-ma-jig to line them up--perfect! I guess it's cheating a little because the sketch doesn't show any white space between each one but it's just an inspiration piece right?! I also moved the ribbon to right-of-center so I didn't hide the beautiful cranes. I'm not sure that it's an exact match to the sketch but I like how it turned out. And, it's my first-ever submission for the Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge! Be sure to check out Karen's blog--it's sweet!

supplies:
stamps: dream garden
ink: bashful blue, certainly celery, mellow moss, sage shadow, not quite navy
paper: bashful blue, certainly celery, whisper white, not quite navy cardstock
xtras: stamp-a-ma-jig, 1 3/4" & 1 3/8" circle punches, white organza ribbon

OMG! artist pick!

The design team over at PPA honored me this week with one of 3 artist pick of the week badges!! Thank you so much ladies! The Pals weekly challenge is hands-down my favorite challenge. Everyone involved is talented, generous and always inspiring. It looks like everyone else is figuring out how cool it is to play at PPA with over 125 entries this week--congratulations team! Thank you!

Dreams for a New Year

In addition to Valentine's Day, last Sunday was also Chinese New Year so here is a card that we made at my stamp club last week in celebration with a new-to-me stamp set: Dream Garden (#114395, pg. 104 IBC). Isn't she lovely? Tip: stamps that have a lot of surface area do not always ink up well so brush the rubber lightly with an SU sanding block to prepare the surface for ink. You'll get a much better stamped image which is key for intricate designs like this one. The layout is pretty simple and one that I like a lot. My card is made from Kraft cardstock and stamped randomly in Versamark ink with the bamboo leaves from Embrace Life (#114958, pg. 104 IBC). Thanks for looking!



Supplies: stamps: dream garden ; embrace life
ink: real red, basic black classic stampin' pads; versamark
paper: very vanilla, kraft, real red, taken with teal cardstock
xtras: top note die, scallop edge punch, 1.25" circle punch, 1 3/8" circle punch, so saffron ribbon (retired)

Simple Wings of Thanks

So sorry it's been so long since I last posted. Really and truly, I have been busy craftin' but just haven't had time for postin'! Does that ever happen to you? So, the challenge over at the PPA30 this week is to KISS it--that is to keep it simple. Simple design? Check. Lots of white space? Check. Goes together like a breeze? Check. Limited layers? Check. I think we've got it this week! This card came together with the help of some stellar SU products. The card base was already made for me with the help of the 5 x 3.5" prepackaged Whisper White note cards (#107311, IBC pg.168). At $5.95 for a pack of 20 pre-cut and pre-scored cards plus envelopes they are a busy crafter's bargain! Just fold and go! The second workhorse of this card is the gorgeous Beautiful Wings embosslit from the mini catalog (#118138, pg24). These embosslits are a must. One trip through your die cut machine and they cut your cardstock and emboss the cut image at the same time. How cool is that? The Beautiful Wings embosslit is a Stampin' Up exclusive and only available in the mini catalog until April 30th. My butterflies are flying over the branch from Cheep Talk (#113204, IBC pg. 113) inked up with Stampin' Write markers in Chocolate Chip and Old Olive. Perfectly simple. Even my kindergartner loves to ink stamps with the markers--it's like coloring and stamping at the same time! Thanks for looking and be sure to go play at the PPA!

supplies:

stamps: cheep talk

ink: rich razzleberry

paper: bermuda bay, cameo coral, crushed curry & rich razzleberry cardstock

xtras: beautiful wings embosslit; whisper white note cards; stampin write markers: chocolate chip & old olive; stamp-a-ma-jig

sunny MDS days

Wow, I love My Digital Studio software. I finally, out of necessity (!), played around with the photo album creation in MDS. I used the designer option to make an 8 page 8x8 photo album for my husband's grandmother. The whole family is celebrating her 100th birthday on Saturday--go Mabel! Anyway, here are a few pages from the album I made for her. I used the out-of-the-box album with pre-designed layouts and embellishments. I hardly changed a thing! I had the whole thing done in about an hour. Being more of a card-maker than scrapbooker, one hour is my kind of scrapbookin'! I hope she likes it!