A Labeler Halloween PP315

So, you know how some weeks are just crazy?  Extra hours at work, people pulling you in all different directions, deadlines looming?  Yeah, it was one of those for me.  Which is way I cheated a little for Claire's awesome theme challenge this week at The Paper Players:

I cheated because I used the exact same sketch and layout as my cards for Joanne's awesome sketch challenge last week!  Ugh, I just couldn't come up with anything new.  That said, I do really like how my Halloween version turned out.  Take a look:

Like Thanksgiving stamps & accessories, Halloween stamps and goodies stick around in my craft room too.  Here, I've used some old DSP with Edgar Allen Poe's verses as well as a retired bat stamp from the set called From the Crypt.  

The real star, though, is the gorgeous tree from the Sheltering Tree set.  Embossed in silver on black it looks positively spooky!  I washed over it with some clear Wink of Stella because a Halloween forest has to sparkle!  The Labeler Alphabet stamp was super fun to use on the sentiment.  I love the ransom note (i.e. creepy) look of the crooked letters.  This is my first time using the fun black/grey Baker's Twine from the holiday catalog--love it!  Because I felt guilty for not coming up with a new design, I decided to try out an idea that had been floating in my head since my mom showed me this awesome idea from Pinterest:

I made a candle to go with the card!  I bought plain white candles at Dollar Tree and set to decorating them.  I cut a 6.5" x 7.25" piece of vellum cardstock.  I heat embossed the same tree as well as a gate image from another retired set, Toxic Treats.  On the back of the vellum I stamped the retired Dictionary image with Basic Gray archival ink.   I used spray adhesive and rolled the vellum onto the candle.  Some Glitter Tape around the bottom and some more black/grey Baker's Twine was tied around the top.  Easy-peasy!

By this time, I got my crafty groove on so while I had everything out I made three more!  I dug deep into my retired collection for these stamps including a contraband (non SU) stamp of some dancing Day of the Dead ladies.  Here's a close-up so you can see the background stamping and the detail:

And here's the whole set:

So, I guess I created someting new afterall!  Thanks for the fun theme, Claire. I love Halloween and though I don't send many cards, I do love decorating for the holiday so these candles will be put to good use...and will make a good present for a friend or two!  

The Paper Players Design Team

Claire Broadwater

Jaydee

Joanne James

Laurie Schmidt

LeAnne Pugliese

Nance Leedy

Sandy Mathis

Linda Callahan

Hannelie Bester

Colleen Begley

Be sure to check out the rest of the inspiration from my friends on The Paper Players design team!  We would love see your Halloween projects before our challenge closes on Friday, October 7th at Noon (PST)...thanks for stopping by!

Sheltering Tree Falls for a Sketch PP314

Hello and welcome to a fun filled week with us at The Paper Players!  Our sweet friend across the pond, Joanne, is hosting my favorite type of challenge this week....SKETCH,,,and it's a fabulous one too...take a look:

Right?!  I liked it so much that I made two cards with it!  I'm trying to go through my hoard stash of designer paper and decided to use some of my treasured prints from the retired collection. 

If any card could represent my style, I think this one is it.  It's clean but layered and features some background/watermark stamping which I love to do.  The colors in the [retired] Spice Cake DSP are wonderful together and the pop of Pool Party is so unexpected.  I stamped the tree from Sheltering Tree on Pool Party cardstock and framed it with some Spice Cake DSP that was cut with a die from the Leaflet Framelits.

There's some background tone-on-tone stamping wtih a leaf from Thoughtful Branches and some other retired goodies in the More Mustard cardstock sentiment banner and the Baked Brown Sugar ruffled ribbon.  There's really not a lot to this card but the details and layers make it look more complicated that it really is.

The same tree on the inside with some scattered leaves (also from Sheltering Tree) in More Mustard and Pool Party.  The sentiment is from a long-ago retired set called Season of Friendship that I specifically kept for the sentiment--love!

I mentioned that I made two cards, right?  So here's the other one featureing some retired DSP (can't remember the name!) with Cajun Craze, Crushed Curry and Soft Suede.

 These little wooden embellishments are also retired but I wanted to show you how I colored the acorn with a Crushed Curry and Soft Suede marker.  Cute, no?!

Some images on the inside of this one but this retired sentiment is from another fall favorite called Falling Leaves.  I also kept this one for the sentiment.  I love autumn/Thanksgiving sentiments and SU doesn't seem to have many of them so when they come around they tend to stay in my craft room!

Thanks for sticking with my long post--lots of pictures this week!  But that just proved how much I love this sketch!  I know you will love all the inspiration from the rest of my Design Team peeps.  Be  sure to check them out over at The Paper Players before our challenge closes on Friday, September 30 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

 

A Bicycle for...Three! PP293

This week, I am the hostess at The Paper Players for a theme challenge.  May is National Bike Month in the US and bikes are a big part of our family.  We love to ride them together and my husband is an avid cyclist.  We cycle while on holiday, we attend cycling events and we even host cycling races!  So yeah....bikes are a big part of our lives. :-)

With all that said about how much we like bikes, you would think I own a bunch of bicycle stamps, right?  Ha!  I found out that I don't....whoops!  Fortunately, I do own the Sheltering Tree stamp set which has the cutest little bike in it:

When I showed this card to my  hubby, he said wow it even has a different color for the fork!  That is the cutest part of this stamp--that the wheels, seat and handlebars are one stamp and the bike frame is separate.  The result is a bike in whatever color you wish! 

In the case of my card, I used a snippet of the Cherry on Top DSP stack and took my colors from the paper: Crushed Curry, Watermelon Wonder and Bermuda Bay.   The tree trunk is stamped in Tip Top Taupe and the leaves are Cucumber Crush.  I used the "ground" stamp from the set to stamp just a little bit of grass on the hill for the bikes to ride on.

...and on the inside there's another cute bike coming down the hill...

I hope you will ride on over to The Paper Players and check out the rest of the Design Team and their fabulous samples!   Maybe you'll be inspired to make a bike card of your own...or maybe even go on a bike ride!  Thanks for stopping by.

The Paper Players Design Team

Claire Broadwater

Jaydee

Joanne James

Laurie Schmidt

LeAnne Pugliese

Nance Leedy

Sandy Mathis

Linda Callahan

Hannelie Bester

Colleen Begley

Sheltering Bicycle {PP243}

Hi all, boy I am late with my post for The Paper Players!  We had another volleyball tournament for DD this weekend and while I (just barely) managed to get my card done, I ran out of time to write my blog post!   But...better late than never, right?! Sandy has a fun theme challenge for us this week:

I really liked this (older) sketch at Freshly Made Sketches and it was perfect for the small sized stamp I had in mind:

and here's my card....

Sorry for the poor photo quality.....I just could not get a good shot of this card and this one from my phone ended up being the best I could do.  Gesh!  Anyway, I used the little bike stamp from Sheltering Tree and a sentiment from a retired set called Pedaling Past.  You might be wondering about my color choices here....the bike is Pool Party because it is a tribute to my husband's beloved Bianchi bike.  Bianchi bikes are famously painted a color called Celeste Green which is a greenish-aqua very similar to Pool Party.  When I showed DH the color choices and asked him to pick the one closest to Celeste, he went with Pool Party!  This card is pretty simple but the little squares have a nifty little detail.  After I stamped the images on a piece of white cardstock, I cut them out with a square framelit.  Before I popped it out of the framelit, I traced around the inside edge with a Pool Party marker to make the border.  It is a small detail that just makes the squares stand out more.  I also colored the smallest pearls with my Silver Stampin' Write marker to make them look like wheel hubs.  DH was impressed with that detail!  :-)

Be sure to stop by and check out the rest of the design team's amazing creations with Sandy's theme--there's lots of eye candy there!  WE hope you'll play along before the challenges ends on Friday, May 8th 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

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.

Crazy for Flower Fair {PP240 & FMS181}

Hey there friends!  Wow, what a crazy week it's been.....and here we are back at a Paper Players Sunday.  Joanne is our fabulous hostess this week with a beautiful, springtime color challenge:

Can you imagine a crafting world without Coastal Cabana?  Oh my, but it's true!  Coastal Cabana and this whole trio of colors will retire with the introduction of the new SU catalog on June 3rd.  Whaaaaa!  Joanne was so clever to give us a challenge using all three of these beauties!  I combined them with the fab sketch from the uber-talented Jen Mitchell over at Freshly Made Sketches:

There are a few people, hi Mom!, who will be shocked at me embracing a TILTED sketch but there you have it...I really liked this one!

Because this was a card for Freshly Made Sketches, I wanted to keep it clean and uncluttered.  Because this is Jen M's sketch, I wanted to try big pops of color that she does so well....and because this is Joanne's challenge, I wanted to do something bold with the colors--also something she does well.  So what do you think?  This is my Jen-Joanne channeling card, LOL.  I know they will get a kick out of that!  Anyway, not much to 'splain here except  that yes, I did use my sewing machine to stitch around the center panel and I was really happy when I was able to change mid-stitch to a zig-zag pattern!  I thought that was a fun detail that emphasized the tilted panel.

Here's a close-up so you can see the fussy-cut layer of the flower.  To give the word die a little more strength and stability, I layered two pieces of Basic Black cardstock together before running it through the Big Shot.  Worked like a charm and gave me a nice thick sentiment.

I wanted to use the challenge colors again on the inside but didn't want to take my predictable route of using the same stamp on the inside.  Since this card is headed to my mother and father-in-law in Wisconsin, I put together the appropriate sentiments from Crazy About You with a little birdie to remind them of us in Florida!

Do pop over to The Paper Players and check out the awesome creations from the rest of the design team.  We hope you will join us before this challenge ends on Friday, April 17th at Noon (PST).  Thanks for stopping by today!

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.