Canopy Crafts: balloon celebration

Sunday, June 19, 2016

It's a Milestone Celebration PP300

What a fabulous day today--so many great things happening! First and foremost, here's wishing all the dads, grandads, opas, uncles, cousins, nephews and brothers a happy, Happy Father's Day. What a special place our daddies hold in our lives--forever. Second, today is the opening day of the AAU Girls' Junior National Volleyball Championships and we get to watch our daughter and her team defend their 19th place (out of 94 teams) ranking in the state! And as if all THAT wasn't enough fabulousness.....over at my other family...my Paper Players family...we are celebrating our 300th CHALLENGE today!

It's difficult to describe what The Paper Players challenge and my friends on the Design Team--curent and previous--mean to me. Since my first appearance as a Guest Designer for PP12 on August 22, 2010, this challenge is a place where I have grown as a designer and found a small stage to feature my craft. But more than that, I found a close group of friends that nuture, care for and laugh with each other. I will be forever grateful to the immensely talented Lesley Croghan for creating this challenge and bringing us together. Here's to the next 300 challenges, gals!

But, you came here for a card didn't you?! How about I show you one that celebrates our accomplishments and answers this week's challenge for a Clean-and-Simple Celebration card!

Woohoo, this was fun to make! The Balloon Celebration stamp set returns to the new 2016-2017 SU Annual Catalog and I am so glad. I paired it with some fabulous colors from the Playful Palette DSP stack including: Emerald Envy, Peekaboo Peach, Sweet Sugarplum and Blushing Bride. They're pretty together aren't they?!

Here's a close-up so you can see the heat embossed sentiment from the returning set, Bravo, and just a hint of Wink of Stella I brushed onto the balloon bottoms. I never would have paired these colors together without the aid of the DSP but they look great together.

So I might have mentioned how great today is, right? Well, if you participate in our 300th challenge at The Paper Players it might just get even better for you!

To celebrate our 300th challenge, we are giving away Blog Candy, and lots of it! The team has assembled not one, not two, but ten grab bags full of stamping goodness! To be eligible to win one, all you need to do is play along with our challenge this week. You can play as many times as you like, but each needs to be a new project (no back linking, please) and see The Paper Players blog for our other challenge rules. Winners will be selected from all PP300 challenge participants using random.org and will be posted at The Paper Players on Saturday, June 25. We hope you will help us celebrate and join in for a chance to wine--just link up before the challenge closes on Friday, June 24th at Noon (PST). Be sure to check out the rest of the Design Team inspiration--we are so happy to have a visit from our former DT friend, Ann!

The Paper Players Design Team

Claire Broadwater

Sunday, February 21, 2016

A Celebration of Balloons: PP283

Oh it's a fun one this week at The Paper Players where sweet Joanne has a clean-and-simple challenge for us:

Up, up and away! I couldn't resist using my newly arrived Balloon Celebration stamp set...love it! First it's photopolymer, therefore totally clear, and I love stamping with those AND it's got the cutest coordinating stamps to layer.

So, this card took me a little longer than I anticipated because a) I was fussing WAY too much about the colors and b) I just can't do random! In the end, I mostly acheived the random whimsical look of the balloons I was after but it was a challenge! I chose some pastel colors, inspired by the challenge badge, for the balloons and ended up with Pool Party, So Saffron, Blushing Bride and Smoky Slate. Do you see that little bit of silver glimmer at the end? Ooooh, that's the new Sale-a-Bration product--Metallics Glitter Tape, oh my! It's like glitter washi tape only a little heavier and lovely to work with!

This little intersection of colors makes me happy--I like the way they play off each other and the little overlay stamp of dots is so cute! I should also mention that it was the clean and simple lines of the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches this week that inspired the layout for my creation--thanks gals! I'm also linking up to the Global Design Project where their theme is, coincidently, balloons!

I hope you've enjoyed my clean-and-simple card and encourage you to check out the inspiration from the rest of the Design Team at The Paper Players. Maybe you will join us before the challenge closes on Friday, February 26th at Noon (PST). Thanks for stopping by!