An Amazing Number of Years! PP382

Hi friends!  This week the my sensational friend, Sandy, has an equally sensational sketch challenge for us at The Paper Players...take a look:

Isn't that a good one?!  I could see so many possibilities with this from heavily layered to clean and detailed....I landed somewhere in the middle with today's card:

A colleague at work hits a milestone birthday next week so I wanted to make an extra special card for her.  She loves flowers so I loaded her up with as many as I could fit on this card!  I wanted to keep the focus on the center panel and chose to stamp a panel of mock paper on the bottom layer.  For this I used my favorite Birthday Blooms set in a tone-on-tone pattern on the Pool Party base.  Next, is a striped layer from some retired paper--Blushing Bride is such a pretty pair to Pool Party isn't it?

The Number of Years stamp set and coordinating Large Numbers Framelits makes for a fun way to  highlight more of this pretty retired DSP by using the negative space left behind from the die-cut.  Once I cut out the numbers, I stamped through the shape with the number in Blushing Bride ink.  What you can't see in the photo is that I brushed Wink of Stella onto the numbers for some pretty sparkle!  The Pool Party ruffled ribbon is long since retired but like some many things in my craft room likes to come out and play.  Here it served as a nice base for the Mossy Meadow "amazing" Celebrate You thinlit from the current Sale-a-Bration catalog.

The Number of Years stamp set has a bunch of great sentiments like the one I used here on the inside.  I mean who wouldn't feel better about their 50th birthday after a sentiment like this one, right?!  

I hope you enjoyed my card today....be sure to check out my teammates at The Paper Players for even more fabulous inspiration.   We hope you will play along with us before the challenge closes on Friday, March 2nd at Noon (PST).  Thanks for stopping by, friends!

The Paper Players Design Team 

Claire Broadwater

 Jaydee

Joanne James

Laurie Schmidt

LeAnne Pugliese

Nance Leedy 

Sandy Mathis 

Annie Abrahamson 

Jan Clothier 

Elizabeth Stewart 

CAS Crazy about Sewing PP381

Hiya friends!  Welcome to another week with The Paper Players where the lovely LeAnne is hosting a Clean-and-Simple challenge that's sew much fun!

Sewing was among my first hobbies as a child--my mom is an excellent seamstress and taught me to sew when I was in fifth grade!  Although I don't sew as much as I used to, I still love the satisfaction of creating something out of a piece of fabric.  So of course, I am a sucker for any sewing related stamp set and couldn't part with the set Sew Suite that retired ages ago.  Lucky I didn't because it is perfect for LeAnne's "sew suite" challenge!

I could see this card completed in my mind's eye and was thrilled that it turned out just as I imagined.  That so rarely happens, lol!  Anyway, the card base is Crumb Cake and the top Whisper White panel is 3.5" x 5.5".  True "random" stamping is so hard for me to do--what with the OCD tendencies, ha--so, of course I used my stamp placement tool to get these sweet little sewing machines just right.  I alternated colors of Bermuda Bay, Lemon Lime Twist, Calypso Coral (I know it looks red here), and Crumb Cake.  The sentiment combines a couple stamp sets--I stamped the "sew" in Early Espresso ink using the Hand Lettered Alphabet photopolymer set while the "thanks" and "much" came from the Crazy About You [retired] set.  

I hope you liked my card today.  Be sure to check out all the eye candy from my teammates over at The Paper Players.  I hope you're inspired to join us before the challenge closes on Friday, February 23rd 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 

We had a rare weekend off from volleyball this weekend but here's a shot from the previous weekend's tournament in Orlando.  Yep, that's our daughter leaping over the backpacks and a teammate on the sidelines to save this pass and assist in a point.  They ended up losing the match but they sure played their hearts out.  Love their determination--every point matters!

Thanks for looking in on me...take care, friends!

One of these things is not like the other... PP380 & FMS323

...and it's pretty obvious!  I couldn't help myself and I made two wildly different cards for Laurie's fun color challenge at The Paper Players and I couldn't decide which one to feature so, you get two! Laurie's color challenge is a fun one:

The first thing that probably comes to mind with these colors is Valentines Day....so, of course, me being me, I had to make things difficult on myself and opted for the less obvious choice, flowers!

The Birthday Blooms set never disappoints whether colored in or left as an outline--both of which I did here.  I stamped the image in Black archival ink on hot press watercolor paper (less texture than cold press) and colored the blooms with Real Red and Crumb Cake inks and an aqua painter. 

I stamped the Crumb Cake card base in the same color ink and added just a touch of retired black lace ribbon to the left side.  The sentiment is Birthday Basics from Papertrey Ink--love the font!  The centers of the flowers were colored with a black marker and the petals were frosted with clear Wink of Stella.

The second card did turn out to be a Valentine's Day card because I had these sweet little pandas from Mama Elephant sitting on my desk.  I saw this week's fabulous sketch at Freshly Made Sketches and knew right away what I would do with it!  I embossed two pieces of Real Red and Crumb Cake cardstock with a retired SU heart embossing folder and then cut between the rows of hearts to make two thin strips.  They were cut down to two sizes of varying length and then adhered to a piece of whisper white cardstock. 

I already had these adorable pandas stamped and die-cut and I heat embossed the sentiment from the panda set onto basic black cardstock and trimmed it to size.  A little real red glimmer heart and this is all set for Valentine's Day!

Be sure to check out the rest of the team for even more inspiration with Laurie's fun colors.  We hope you are inspired to play along with us at The Paper Players before the challenge closes on Friday, February 16th at Noon (PST).  Thanks for stopping by!

The Paper Players Design Team 

Claire Broadwater

 Jaydee

Joanne James

Laurie Schmidt

LeAnne Pugliese

Nance Leedy 

Sandy Mathis 

Annie Abrahamson 

Jan Clothier 

Elizabeth Stewart 

Timeless Textures Valentine PP379

Hi friends!  Are you all ready for the Super Bowl?  We're not huge football fans in this house--give us volleyball or cycling any day--so we probably won't even watch it. LOL. However, I am rootin' for the Eagles just for my Paper Players pal LeAnne!  Speaking of The Paper Players, this week the lovely and talented Claire has a fun Theme Challenge for us: 

I tried a few things and just wasn't getting anywhere and then I spied a picture of the Painted with Love designer paper in the Occasions Catalog.  I don't own it--really trying to cut down on my paper buyign--but it is gorgeous!  When I saw the paper, something just clicked!  So I pulled out my stamp pads, acrylic blocks and some abstract stamp images and made this:

Which turned into this:

I made my own designer paper and it was so much fun!  I started with some Blushing Bride ink on a small acrylic block stamping it in a loose checkerboard pattern on a piece of Whisper White cardstock.  Next I added the abstract swoosh from Work of Art in Sweet Sugarplum.  Next was an element in Flirty Flamingo from the Timeless Textures stamp set.  A step back to look at it and it still needed some more layers....so I kept going.  I added another image from Timeless Textures in Powder Pink ink and some random tiny splotches, also from Timeless Textures, in Fresh Fig.  That seemed pretty good but to really make it special, I added a swirly stamp--you guessed it from Timeless Textures--that I heat embossed in gold.  

You can better see all the stamped images in this close-up and also see the little bit of gold thread added behind the die-cut sentiment.  Love that I was able to fill a whole sheet of cardstock because now I can make at least 4 more card fronts from it!  Woohoo!  I had a little strip of the my stamped cardstock left over which I used to trim the inside panel of the card.  I can't show it to you though because that would give away the name of the recipient!  Shhhhhh. 

Be sure to check out the work of my fabulous teammates at The Paper Players and come join us before the challenge ends on Friday, February 9th at Noon PST.  Thanks for stopping by!

The Paper Players Design Team 

Claire Broadwater

 Jaydee

Joanne James

Laurie Schmidt

LeAnne Pugliese

Nance Leedy 

Sandy Mathis 

Annie Abrahamson 

Jan Clothier 

Elizabeth Stewart 

Y'all seemed to enjoy last week's photo of our daughter playing volleyball so I thought I would share again...two pix from last weekend's tournament in Tampa:

And this is one of her teammates but I just love the shot and the intensity of Cate's stare--I think I would be intimidated looking at that from across the net!

Love these girls and their moxie!