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 

Paper, Paper so much Paper! PP341

I have sooooo much patterened paper--too much!  All the pretty prints and colors are hard to resist but I really have waaaay toooo much.  I've cut down on how much I buy and I'm trying to use it instead of hoard it.  Can you relate?!  :-)  So with Sandy's super fabulous sketch in hand, I made TWO cards using up some of my stash!  Take a look at her awesome sketch this week at The Paper Players:

The same sketch but two very different looks just by changing the paper and the colors.  The first card uses some retired Botanical Gardens DSP and the colors are Basic Black, Hello Honey and Mint Macaron.   I used the coordinating dies from the Special Reason stamp set to cut the flowers and leaves tucking a few behind the main panel.  It took some figuring with scrap copy paper to get the sizing of the sketch elements just right so in case you're interested....the main panel of DSP is 3.25" x 5.5" and the secondary panel (with the flower die-cut) is 2.75" x 3.5".  The second card is exactly the same layout and measurements just changing the paper for retired Birthday Bouquet DSP and the colors of Blushing Bride, Mint Macaron and Mossy Meadow.

The Special Reason stamp set made quick work of the inside with that gorgeous bloom.  A little masking to create the leaves and a simple sentiment finished it off.  That's it for me today friends....pop on over to the rest of my teamies at The Paper Players and check out their fabulous creations.  Come play along with us before the challenge closes on Friday, April 28th at Noon (PST).  

The Paper Players Design Team 

Claire Broadwater

 Jaydee

Joanne James

Laurie Schmidt

LeAnne Pugliese

Nance Leedy 

Sandy Mathis 

Crystal Komara
Valentyna Komisarenko
Deanne 

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