Happy Mother's Day PP344

What a special day today!  A day to honor not only mothers but sisters, daughters, aunts, nieces, friends.....all the wonderful women in our lives.  For me, there are plenty but none more influential, strong or loving than my mother.  My constant, my rock, my support....I love you to the moon and back times infinity Mom!  Thank you for everything you do for our family.

This week at The Paper Players another wonderful woman, Claire, has a bright and beautiful color challenge for us:

I'll admit, I was a little vexed when I first saw these colors but then I realized that I could blend the red and orange together....maybe cheating a little but it's a good way to approach similar colors in a palette.  So here's what I pulled together:

I really love the Special Reason stamp set and am sad to see it retire.  So far, I've mostly used it with the coordinating dies for the beautiful cut outs it creates.  Here I wanted to feature the full stamp and the pretty flowers.  

The two sizes of similar flowers makes for easy bouquets—I like the graduated look of the sizes.  Here I inked the flowers first in Tangerine Tango and with a sponge dauber tapped in the center and the edges with Real Red ink.  After cutting out with the coordinating die, I painted the flowers with Wink of Stella…happy sigh.

The watercolor look to the background was made easy with the swoosh stamp from Work of Art—a set I am happy to report is not retiring!  Since the swooshes were stamped off I wanted another layer that was full strength Tempting Turquoise so I added some watery dots from the Dragonfly Dreams set

So, there are a mixture of sentiments from three different stamp sets.  The front features an oldie but goodie from Delightful Dozen while the inside combines Petite Pairs and Teeny Tiny Wishes.  I stamped another blended flower and using a mask added some more swooshes and Pear Pizzazz leaves.

Thanks so much for stopping by today….be sure to check all the lovelies from my teammies at The Paper Players.  Maybe you will join us before our challenge closes on Friday, May 19^th at Noon (PST).  Have a great day!

The Paper Players Design Team 

Claire Broadwater

 Jaydee

Joanne James

Laurie Schmidt

LeAnne Pugliese

Nance Leedy 

Sandy Mathis 

Crystal Komara

Valentyna Komisarenko

Deanne 

A Lakeview of Adventure {PP242}

Hi there friends...happy Sunday!  It's another week at The Paper Players and our fabulous friend Ann is this week's hostess for sketch challenge!

And do you know what else?  It's Ann's birthday today!!  Woohoo!  Happy Birthday, Ann!  May today be as fabulous as you are!  Be sure to pop over to her blog and send her big birthday hugs!  So I hope Ann will forgive me for taking a bit of a....er....um...."abstract" interpretation of her sketch.  I had a couple things in mind and once I started creating, well....creative energy was flowing and I ended up with this:

Oh yeah, and I flipped the sketch on it's side too [insert blush here].  But you can still see the sketch, right?  I used the water and the grass as two of the banners and the linen thread as the third banner element.  The oval is there and the sentiment placement is the same so I hope Ann is OK with it!

I used an assortment of stamp sets on this one and there all listed at the bottom of the post.  I also had to pay homage to my beloved Naturals White cardstock which is on the SU retiring list as well as the Petite Pairs stamp set.  Won't be getting rid of that one--the sentiments are too good and I love the scale of them!  This card is being mailed to the fabulous teacher who recently arranged for my daughter's fifth grade class to go on an amazing camping trip.  I chaperoned the trip last week and it was an amazing experience!  

A gorgeous location full of nature hikes...

campfires.....with s'mores of course!

friendship....

 and adventure....

Yes, that's me climbing the 40 foot Alpine Tower...and I made it to the TOP...along with many of the kiddos!  OK, if I haven't lost you yet, you might be even more interested in the goodie bags DD and I made for all the campers...

Like that closure?  Two holes punched in the top of the bag with a stick from our yard threaded through....clever, yes?  I thought so!  Thanks for bearing with all my photos in today's post.  We had such a great time.  I am so proud of our girl and the effort she made to learn new things and test her abilities.  What an adventure!  So, you can see why I needed to make a special card for the teacher who made this whole trip possible.  The rest of the design team have amazing samples for you so be sure to pop over to The Paper Players and have a look!  We would love for you to join us before the challenge ends on Friday, May 1st at Noon (PST).  Thanks for stopping by!

The Paper Players Design Team

Ann Schach

Anne Marie Hile
Claire Broadwater
 Jaydee
Joanne James
Laurie Schmidt 
LeAnne Pugliese

Nance Leedy
Sandy Mathis 
Debbie Mageed
Karren Johnson
Shannon Jaramillo

Table built using Product Table Builder by The Crafty Owl - Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator.

Corner Garden Sketch {PP201}

Hello friends!  I have another new stamp to show you today using my sketch over at The Paper Players where I am the hostess this week.   Here's my sketch:

I received the large stamp called Corner Garden along with my new catalog goodies and I wanted to try and show a different way to use it.  This stamp is actually pictured in the catalog with the background stamps but can be used in lots of ways:

 

Coloring on Crumb Cake cardstock gives a much different feel to this stamp than if it were stamped on white or vanilla.  It has a rustic and natural look doesn't it?  I stamped the image on Crumb Cake with Versamark and heat embossed with white embossing powder.  I tried the image on a horizontal panel but I liked it better vertically.  To accommodate the image, I took creative license and flipped my sketch.

After heat embossing, I went to town coloring with my new Blendabilities markers using Old Olive, Coastal Cabana, Pumpkin Pie, Daffodil Delight and Rich Razzleberry.  The Crumb Cake "canvas" turns these otherwise bright colors into a more subtle, deeper shade.  I used a Chalk Marker to add some swirling dots to my leaves.

This stamp is such a pretty line image that I had to stamp it on the inside too--coloring the sentiment in all the other colors used for the flowers.  This is my first card using the Blendabilities markers and while I still need quite a bit of practice, they are fun to work with--especially on Crumb Cake cardstock!  

Be sure to pop over to the rest of the Design Team to see what they have made with my sketch.  I hope you will join us before the challenge ends on Friday, June 27th at Noon (PST).   I realize that in last week's post I forgot to share more pictures from our Italy trip. Take a peek below if you're interested...

The Paper Players Design Team
Ann Schach
Anne Marie Hile
Jaydee
LeAnne Pugliese
Nance Leedy
Sandy Mathis

click an image for more details & ordering info:

Table built using Product Table Builder by The Crafty Owl - Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator.


There are endless views like this in Venice.  Every side street, every bridge leads to an amazing vignette.

In no particular order just sharing images I like....We drove along the Amalfi Coast from Sorrento and while it wasn't the brightest day, sights like this one still took our breath away:

 

Just before sunset on the last night of our tour, the view from our hilltop restaurant in Sorrento.  The restaurant was host to a wedding reception while we were there and do you know what?  They dance to the Y.M.C.A at weddings in Italy too!!

We departed from the tour and took a side trip to Sora, about 2 hours from Rome.  It is the birthplace of family members we were traveling with so it held special significance.  A beautiful town and one of my favorite stops was the Basilica San Domenico.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Oh, Petite Hello {PP195}

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there!  I hope you have something special planned or, better yet, nothing but relaxation.  Aaaah, I am certain that you deserve it.  :-)  Today at The Paper Players, Sandy has given us a lovely color combination to work with:

I was feeling a bit rushed and out of sorts so I went in search of inspiration at some of my favorite challenge blogs and found this fabulous sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches:

I combined the two together with a favorite retiring stamp set, Oh Hello, to create a card just for fun:

I used a whole bunch of products that are either retired or retiring--sometimes it's fun just to dig through my stash and pull things together.  

I love to fussy-cut and find it so mind-numbingly relaxing that I don't mind cutting out the flowers in the Oh, Hello set.  I had a little left over Calypso Coral Organza ribbon from 2013 SAB that I tied along with some Linen Thread and attached with a Glue Dot.  Oh yes, this embossing folder is retiring too--another favorite--that adds such a charming detail without a lot of fuss.

It's hard to see in the overall picture but I wanted to show you the tone-on-tone stamping I did in opposite corners with the flourish from Creative Elements.  Just a subtle layer to the background that is very pretty IRL.

I think this is one set that will stay in my personal stash even after it is retired.  I love all the elements and find them so easy to work with--even on the inside!  

When it comes to working with stamps and paper, I'm going to need all the good thoughts you can manage to send my way as I work to create twenty-four samples for SU's North American Convention...  That's right, I applied and was invited to be a Display Stamper at Convention!!!  I am so excited, what an honor.  Oh, and just a little bit terrified too, lol!  I hope I can get everything accomplished in a short amount of time!  So, if things are a little quiet here you'll know it's not because I've abandoned you, it's because I am sequestered in my studio trying to churn out convention worthy designs...wish me luck!

In the meantime, do check out all the fabulous inspiration from my friends on the rest of the Design Team.  I hope our work inspires you to play along before the challenge ends on Friday, May 16th at Noon (PST).  Have a wonderful day, friends!

The Paper Players Design Team
Ann Schach
Anne Marie Hile
Jaydee
LeAnne Pugliese
Nance Leedy
Sandy Mathis