Birthday Tea Party - PP392

Hiya friends!  I've been away from the blog for a bit as things pick up with volleyball season and end-of-the-school year activities.  I am happy to be back, though, and playing hostess with my gal pals at The Paper Players for a Tea Party Theme Challenge.  This theme is near and dear to my heart.  Every year, our daughter's school hosts "Mother's Day Tea" where the kids put on a talent show and serve their mothers a lovely luncheon.  It's the highlight of the school year and I've attended every year since first grade!  Our daughter graduates from 8th grade this month so in honor of our last Mother's Day Tea, I'm inviting everyone to play along with our Tea Party!

All the women in my family, myself included, are tea drinkers so I definitely kept the retired SU set A Nice Cuppa! With the coordinating framelits, it makes for a quick and easy tea inspired card.  I also pulled out some beloved [retired] DSP, Birthday Bouquet, and took my color palette from there...Mint Macaron, Blushing Bride, and Pool Party.  A very simple layout really but I had fun layering on the elements with the mini doilies, glimmer Pool Party ribbon and silver accents. 

On the inside, I masked the teacup stamp so I could stack them on top of each other.  With the mask, I also added some outline flowers in the background--these are stamped in Pool Party from the retiring Birthday Blooms set. Boy, am I sad to see that one go!  

That's it for me...I hope you have a lovely Sunday planned.  Be sure to stop by The Paper Players and check out all the Tea Party lovelies from my teammates.  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 

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 

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 

Autumn Blooms PP364

Happy Sunday, everyone!  Sunday is fun day because it's the start of another challenge at The Paper Players.  My dear friend Sandy has some gorgeous inspiration to get our mojo going for her theme challenge of Autumn Floral:

This card took waaaay longer than it should have.  Not because of the theme of the inspiration photo, because I could not translate the image in my head to paper!  I tried numerous stamp sets but couldn't capture the blended hues I wanted with just a single color of ink.  In the end I went with an old standby image and found my happy place in watercolor! 

I also used the fantastic sketch at the Global Design Project as my starting point--sure do love a sketch challenge and this one is great!  The first thing I stamped was the leaf from the Colorful Seasons stamp set.  I inked it in Crushed Curry and lightly kissed the inked stamp with Cajun Craze.  When stamped it gave a two-toned color to the leaves and no two are exactly alike, just like real leaves!

I am really liking the Fresh Fig in color for fall projects.  The gorgeous flower from Birthday Blooms was stamped in Basic Gray archival ink onto cold press watercolor paper.  I colored the image in layers starting with Sweet Sugarplum, adding a few layers of color to rich the intensity I liked.  Fresh Fig was washed on to shade the flower and add dimension.  I washed the center of the flower with Crushed Curry with some drops of Cajun Craze.  I wanted to mimic the color of the leaves in the inspiration photo as well as my stamped ones, so I colored these with a blend of Old Olive, Crushed Curry and just a hint of Cajun Craze.  The whole image was actually stamped twice--once to provide the base with leaves and the second to cut out and pop up just the flower.  I added some looped copper thread and a bitty die-cut stem in copper foil paper from the Flourish thinlits.

By this time, I was running out of light to snap a pic of my card so the inside was a quick 1, 2, 3 stamp job using a sentiment from Thoughtful Branches in Fresh Fig, the Birthday Blooms flower in Crushed Curry and some [retired] Gorgeous Grunge splatters in Sahara Sand ink.  There were a TON of stamp set and dies on my desk by the time I finished this card, lol!  It took me awhile to get there but, in the end, I am pleased with the colors and final result.  I hope you are too!

Here's the awesome Global Design Project sketch--thanks for the inspiration GDP!

Please go check out the rest of the lovely autumnal inspiration from my teammies at The Paper Players.  Maybe you'll be inspired to play along with us before the challenge closes on Friday, October 6th 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 

Deanne 

Annie Abrahamson 

Jan Clothier 

CAS Color for Birthday Blooms - PP358

This week at The Paper Players, the fabulously talented Joanne has a fun Clean-and-Simple challenge for us: Get Coloring!

 Like so many people, I find coloring very relaxing.  In fact, I saved time at the end of a busy work week just so I could color a project for this challenge.  I came home from work, poured a glass of wine and got busy coloring with my inks and Aqua Painter!  Ahhh.....relaxation.

 This big gorgeous flower in the Birthday Blooms set is one of my absolute favorite to color.  The lines on each petal give a hint where there should be some shading and no matter what color you use, it always turns out beautiful! I always admire the white embossed and watercolored flowers of my teammie, Deanne, and she is the inspiration for today's creation.  The bloom is embossed in white on some hot press watercolor paper.

I have mentioned before that my watercolor technique involves layers of color.  I thought you might want to see how that works for me as I colored this blossom.  Above is my first pass with color including Blushing Bride, Soft Sky, and Lemon Lime Twist.  I try to pick colors that are close to each other--think of how they might appear on a strip of paint colors.  So, the flower uses Blushing Bride and Calypso Coral, the background is Soft Sky & Pool Party, and the leaves...well, I didn't have a pair to Lemon Lime Twist so I just started with a light wash of color and kept adding depth with darker versions of the ink.

 I added a few more layers of Blushing Bride to make it true to the color.  Once dry, I started adding layers of Calypso Coral to achieve the final effect.  Where there are extra lines on the petals, I made sure to add a deeper color using less water for close to a full strength color.  Using the same technique as last week's flamingo card, I trimmed the sides of my main panel with the rotary cutter and fussy-cut around edges I wanted sticking out.  This is a Clean-and-Simple challenge so I didn't want to add layers but the plain card base needed a little detail.  I stamped opposite corners with the same blossom as my focal point in Soft Sky ink.

The inside is a very simple treatment of more blossoms and a fabulous sentiment from Watercolor Wings.  This flower is so pretty all on it's own just as a line stamp as you see here--it doesn't even need color!

I hope you've enjoyed today's card for our Clean-and-Simple challenge at The Paper Players.  Pop over and see all the gorgeous inspiration from my teammies.  Maybe you'll be inspired to join us before our challenge closes on Friday, August 25th 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 

Deanne 

Annie Abrahamson 

Jan Clothier 

Twinsets & Flannel for Any Special Reason PP331

This week at The Paper Players, I have the pleasure of hosting our Color Challenge.   I love color challenges both to create with them but also to see what others do with the colors I put together.  This week, I was inspired by a gorgeous scene I found on Pinterest:

Fresh and modern but classically elegant too--think pink cashmere twinsets and gray flannel skirts--these colors are gorgeous together.  At least I think so. ;-)  I took these classic colors and used them with a decidedly modern trend--negative space, that is using the space left behind from a die-cut.  Take a look:

Oooh, I love this technique and bought this SU stamp set and coordinating dies--Special Reason--just so I could use it in this way.  The card base is covered with a full piece of retired Smoky Slate DSP.  The focal piece of Smoky Slate cardstock measures 3.5 x 4" and I tucked a small piece of Copper Foil cardstock under the left side.

I used both the flower dies from the Special Reason bundle to cut out the shapes on the Smoky Slate base.  I tucked a slight smaller piece of Blushing Bride cardstock underneath and popped up the Smoky Slate panel with dimensionals.  The small flower was stamped in Blushing Bride ink onto the same color cardstock over which I layered a outline of the flower cut with the dies.  You can't tell in this photo but all three flowers were outlined with Wink of Stella and boy, do they sparkle!  The tiny Copper Foil leaves--both solid and outline--were cut with dies in this set and I wrapped a little bit of Copper Thread behind the small flower.

The inside has a lot more stamping than the outside--just showing off how pretty the flower stamps in this set are too.  Only because I couldn't resist another use of the negative space, I die-cut a small flower in the lower corner so the Smoky Slate card base could show through.

There you have it, my Twinsets & Flannel for Any Special Reason card!  I hope you like it.  Be sure to pop over to my peeps on The Paper Players Design Team to see all the beauties they are sharing this week.  Thanks for stopping by, friends!

The Paper Players Design Team 
Claire Broadwater

 Jaydee

Joanne James

Laurie Schmidt

LeAnne Pugliese

Nance Leedy Sandy Mathis 

Crystal Komara
Valentyna Komisarenko
Deanne 

  

Black + White with a splash of color PP327

This week at The Paper Players, my kind and talented friend Sandy is our hostess for a color challenge!

Don't you just love black and white together?  Always so crisp and fresh looking whether it's a spring outfit or a card!  I was inspired to feature some of the beautiful work in SU's line image stamps.  One of my all-time favorite is the Birthday Blooms set.  So, here's what I did with it:

I started with stamping in the upper right corner and then created a mask so I could stamp again without the images overlapping:

I chose Calypso Coral as my accent color and colored the flower stamens with a Stampin' Write marker.  The Calypso Coral background panel was dry embossed with the Petal Burst folder.  I had so much fun making this one, that I tried it again using Pool Party as my accent color and with a slightly different layout:

The flowers on both cards were colored with a combination of Stampin' Write markers, Blender Pens, ink pads and Blendabilities alcohol markers [retired].  My coloring skills need some work but I sure do find it relaxing.  Kinda like my own adult coloring book!

And here's a look at them together...which one is your favorite?  Speaking of favorites, be sure to check out the rest of my favorite Design Team over at The Paper Players for all their fabulous inspiration.  We hope you will join us before our challenge ends on Friday, January 20th 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 

Crystal Komara
Valentyna Komisarenko
Deanne 

  

Birthday Blooms of Color! PP286

Hiya friends!  We have a really pretty (I think) color challenge this week at The Paper Players.  I may be a little biased because I am the hostess but check it out:

Pretty, right?!  So, I knew I wanted to use my recently acquired Birthday Blooms stamp.  Have you seen this flower?  Really pretty.  I kind of let this one develop on it's own.  I stared by coloring the flower and let the design go from there:

I stamped the flower onto Shimmery White cardstock with black archival ink and colored it with my Blendabilities markers.  I wanted a funky edge to the banner piece and decided to fussy cut around the flower to make the bottom on the banner. 

You can probably see better here what I mean.  The banner ends with the edge of the flower  I stamped the flower a second time, colored it and popped it up.  The background was stamped tone-on-tone with Calypso Coral ink on the card base.

And because the shimmery cardstock wasn't enough :-) , I added some Wink of Stella to the flower for extra sparkle.

This flower stamp is so pretty that I had to stamp it on the inside.  It looks so pretty just on its own with no coloring, doesn't it?.  And have you seen the sentiments in this stamp set?  Love the combination of fonts.

I hope you will check out the inspiration from the rest of the Design Team--they really rocked it this week!  Once you've checked out the eye candy, go get busy in your craft space and join us before the challenge ends on Friday, March 18th @ noon (PST).

The Paper Players Design Team

Claire Broadwater

Jaydee

Joanne James

Laurie Schmidt

LeAnne Pugliese

Nance Leedy

Sandy Mathis

Linda Callahan

Hannelie Bester

Colleen Begley