Radiant Light in the Great Outdoors - PP356

Hi friends!  This week I am the happy hostess over at The Paper Players with our first Theme Challenge of the (new) month:

The Great Outdoors...my favorite place to be.  Whether at the beach or in the forest, I love being outside.  And when it comes to "outdoor" stamps, I would be hard pressed to find a tree or leaf stamp that I didn't love!  Every time there's a new one from SU, I say "nope, don't need it" and you can image how long that lasts! 

Today's card was inspired by one that I found while roaming around Pinterest.  This stunning card from Susan Goetter took my breath away.  I love pinning cards that inspire me to re-create them with Stampin' Up products.  Unfortunately, I needed two sympathy cards this week and Susan's gorgeous creation had just the right melancholy feeling I thought was appropriate.

The rugged texture of hot press watercolor paper was just right for the watery look I wanted with my colors.  I laid down a base of light colors for the earth and sky first using Soft Sky and Pear Pizzazz.  Once that dried, I added some streaks of Old Olive and [retired] Baja Breeze.  I kept adding more layers of color until I was happy with the look.  Honestly, I really don't know what I'm doing, I just play around with color and water until I like it!  The tree line is from a [retired] set called Happy Scenes and the trees have snow clumps on them.  I didn't want a winter look to the trees so I used my Aqua Painter to blend the ink which covered up the snow clumps and added to the watercolor look of the whole design.

Vellum adds elegance to any project and since the overall design of this card is quiet and simple, a vellum insert adds a little extra special touch.  I replicated the scene from the front on a piece of Very Vanilla cardstock with brush strokes from the Work of Art stamps.  The colors were more vibrant, without watercolor, and the vellum overlay mutes the colors.  This sentiment is from a retired set called Love & Sympathy and has always been a favorite of mine.  It's always so difficult to know what to say in a time like this and the idea of our loved ones watching over us resonates with me and, I hope, brings comfort to my two friends who experienced great loss this week.  

I hope you've enjoyed today's card.  We would love for you to play along with us at The Paper Players.  Be sure to check out all the other inspiration from my teammates and then play along before our challenge ends on Friday, August 11th at Noon (EST).

The Paper Players Design Team 

Claire Broadwater

 Jaydee

Joanne James

Laurie Schmidt

LeAnne Pugliese

Nance Leedy 

Sandy Mathis 

Deanne 

Annie Abrahamson 

Jan Clothier 

It's a Charlie Brown Halloween PP316

Hi friends, welcome to another week with The Paper Players!  Where our sweet friend Sandy has an awesome color challenge for us.  Next to sketches, color challenges are my next favorite!

 

I was trying not to go in a Halloween direction because that was the first thing that came to mind and I wanted to do something different.  Well, that different something ended up in the trash bin and I took the easy way out...Halloween! 

 

This sweet little [retired] stamp set, Happy Scenes, always reminds me of a scene from a Charlie Brown episode.  Charlie Brown was a staple holiday favorite of my childhood so maybe that's why I like this set so much!  The Wild Wasabi cardstock is embossed with the Petal Burst folder and popped up on the Happy Scene image.

The stamp was heat embossed in black and colored with [retired] Blendabilities markers in Wild Wasabi and a Stampin' WRite marker in Pumpkin Pie.  I did use the lightest Soft Sky Blendabilities marker to outline the tree and horizon line for emphasis.  You can't see it here but I also washed the tree with clear Wink of Stella.  I swear I can't make a card without it!

I repeated the scene and coloring on the inside--this time without the heat embossing.  Left it blank for a sweet handwritten note!  I think my daughter might send this to her bestie who, sadly, moved out of state last year.

My Paper Player besties have some great projects lined up for you with Sandy's colors so be sure and check them out.  We hope you will join the fun before our challenge closes on Friday, October 14th at 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

 

 

Window on a Happy Scene {PP262}

Hiya friends! We've got another lovely color challenge over at The Paper Players this week but it's also a bittersweet one.  My dear friend, Ann Schach stepped down from our Design Team after 5 years with us.  Ann and I started on the team within a few weeks of each other and grew together as teammates and friends.  I've always admired her ability to blend a fierce commitment to the business side of Stampin' Up with incredible creativity and talent.  She's helped shape our team into a strong "family" unit and she will be dearly missed.

This week we have a pretty trio of colors that could be used many different ways.  I chose to use some more Holiday Catalog goodies and went with an autumn themed design:

 The Happy Scenes stamp set and coordinating Hearth & Home Thinlit dies are just so cute!  AFter much fussing, I finally settled on a So Saffron base embossed with the Brick Wall impressions folder and a piece of retired Lost Lagoon DSP. 

The real fun was stamping and coloring this sweet little scene from the Happy Scenes stamp set.  I sponged the sky lightly with Lost Lagoon and colored the leaves & pumpkins with my So Saffron and Tangelo Twist Stampin' Write markers.  A little bit of Venetian Crochet Trim perfectly framed the my window view.  

The windowsill is a separate piece and I was able to emboss one of the sentiments from Happy Scenes in gold on the Early Espresso "wood"

A scene this cute deserves to be repeated on the inside and that's exactly what I did with a little more sponging in Lost Lagoon and So Saffron.  There are several sentiments in the Happy Scenes set and I love how this one coordinates nicely with the one I used on the front of the card.  Easy peasy!

I do hope you will go check out the rest of The Paper Players Design team.  Lots of inspiration there!  If you chose to use these colors, please be sure to link up your creation before the challenge closes on Friday, September 18th at Noon (PDT).  Thanks for stopping by!

The Paper Players Design Team

  Claire Broadwater
 Jaydee

Joanne James
Laurie Schmidt

 LeAnne Pugliese 

Nance Leedy

Sandy Mathis

Amy Koenders
Jodi McKinney

Lisa Elton

Anne Marie Hile (on leave)

 

Sleigh Ride on a Moonlit Night {PP260} {FMS201}

Hi friends!  It's Tic-Tac-Toe week over at The Paper Players and I am still having fun playing with all my goodies from the upcoming holiday catalog.  First, here's the challenge board:

Today's card was a hmmm shall we say..."fluid" process.  By that I mean, I started out with only two things in mind.  1) I wanted to use this gorgeous technique demonstrated here by the talented Lydia and 2) I wanted to use the Sleigh Ride edgelits (I can tell they are going to be my favorite thing from the holiday catalog).  Once I got going...well, I kept adding things on until it looked like "me":

I ended up working with the middle row from the board: circle, embossing and Mint Macaron.  The background was created by inking a piece of Whisper White cardstock with Mint Macaron, Night of Navy and Blackberry Bliss inks.  I was inspired by this week's sketch at Freshly Made Sketches (although I may have taken a few liberties!) and added the Sleigh Ride Edgelit and a silver foil moon.

Th trees have a 3D effect because I added a second layer of Mint Macaron behind giving them a bit of a drop shadow effect.  Kinda cool?  You'll notice also that the snowy hills are two layers.  That's because the first layer got smudged with Blackberry Bliss ink so I covered it up with a second layer and added the Dazzling Diamonds at the edge.  Shhhh, don't tell anyone!  :-)

I busted out another stamp set, Happy Scenes, for the inside using all the same colors again for the snowy trees and starry sky.  

So what do you think?  I hope you like today's card and it inspires you to play along with us over at The Paper Players before our challenge closes on Friday, September 4th at Noon (PST).  I know that the rest of the Design Team has some awesome inspiration for you too so check them out:

 The Paper Players Design Team

Ann Schach

Anne Marie Hile (on leave) 

Claire Broadwater
 Jaydee

Joanne James
Laurie Schmidt 
LeAnne Pugliese
Nance Leedy

Sandy Mathis

Amy Koenders
Jodi McKinney

Lisa Elton

In case you missed it, this week's layout at Freshly Made Sketches is fantastic! 

Among the Branches {PP259}

Hiya friends!  The crafty owl herself, Joanne, has a great sketch for us this week at The Paper Players:

I delved further into my box of pre-order Holiday catalog goodies and put the Spider Web doilies to good use...as did several DT members too!

I took a liberal approach to the sketch using several elements that harkened back to the circles in the sketch.  The spider web doily, the offset circle and the silver cording trim all echo the double circle of the sketch.  The new Woodlands embossing folder is fabulous and looks equally as beautifully on cardstock or vellum as I've used here.  To line up the embossed images perfectly, I simply laid the vellum on top of my cardstock when I ran it through the Big Shot. 

 I heat embossed the "spooky" image from the Among the Branches stamp set in black on Crushed Curry cardstock.  I offset the circle framelit when I cut out the image which gave the illusion of a harvest moon.  If you look closely you will see that the Spider Web doily has a glossy finish.  I covered the front of the doily with Versamark ink and heat set it with clear embossing powder.  The result is a shiny spider web to coordinate with the embossed sentiment.  

Besides being totally clear and super clingy, photopolymer stamps have the added bonus of being two-sided.  To create the Crushed Curry moon, I stamped the back side of the stamp I used on the front.  That is, I turned it over on my clear block and used the back of it--which is a solid circle--as my stamp. This gave me a nice full moon! One stamp = two images!   The branch and owl silhouette are also from Among the Branches while the sentiment is from another fabulous new set called Happy Scenes! 

I hope you've enjoyed my card and the sneak peeks at Holiday Catalog goodies it brings you.  Be sure to pop over and check out the rest of the Design Team at The Paper Players.  We would love for you to join us before our challenge ends on Friday, August 28th at Noon (PST).  Thanks for stopping by!

The Paper Players Design Team

Ann Schach

Anne Marie Hile (on leave) 

Claire Broadwater
 Jaydee

Joanne James
Laurie Schmidt 
LeAnne Pugliese
Nance Leedy

Sandy Mathis

Amy Koenders
Jodi McKinney

Lisa Elton