PAL PAPER ARTS CHALLENGE # 100!

What a great challenge this is at PPA, it's their 100th Blog Challenge and they will be awarding some fabulous blog candy along with some wonderful inspirations from the talented Design Team, check it out.

The challenge is to use your favorite technique... well that's rather difficult as there are soooo many that come to mind, but one of my very favorites is heat embossing. It just seems like something magical happens when you're holding the heat tool and all of a sudden this gorgeous embossed image appears before your very eyes, I just love it!

So here is my card with a heat embossed image. I chose to keep the card very simple so as to showcase the image which was embossed using silver powder. I added a ribbon with a little bling and a simple sentiment.

It is rather difficult to capture the beauty of embossing in a photograph as I'm far from being a professional photographer, but I hope you can see some of the shimmer that makes the card so pretty. Of course it's much prettier in real life.















Supplies used for this card are: Whisper White card stock Stampin' Up Rose Red seam binding ribbon, ink for the sentiment and silver EP
Papertrey Ink's Mehndi Medallion Stamp set, sentiment from Botanical Silhouettes
Anonymous rhinestones

Thanks for looking!

The Play Date Cafe Challenge # 88

Aren't these colors for the PDCC, beautiful and the inspiration picture is gorgeous made me (almost) want to start sewing again I thought of spools of threads, fabric, etc! They're calling the colors red-ish/orange, yucky yellow, and Juniper!


Anyhow my base card is whisper white card stock, I then added a piece of Yucky Yellow which I "faux" stitched around the edges.


To achieve the "faux" stitching I drew a straight line around the edge of the piece, then took my piercing tool and pierced every so-often to get the appearance of real stitching. I discovered this tip from Lauren Meader of MTME. I think it looks great, definitely something I'll use again!

Oh, back to the card. I then took the three challenge colors and die cut circles and frames from a Sizzix Die, layered them together alternating the colors to form a replica of the challenge picture, which became my one-of-a-kind button. I think it turned out pretty good, what do you think?

I then stamped the background piece for the "one-of-a-kind button in red-ish/orange ink, adhered my layered pieces and found a brad in my stash that I thought was perfect, (how often does that happen), popped the entire piece onto the yucky yellow cs.

Using my interpretation of the color Juniper I die cut and added a border of circles then stamped it with the three challenge color inks using a button stamp.

One of my BIGGEST problems is always stamping CROOKED (even when I use rulers, lines, etc. So of course I stamped my sentiment on the bottom of the yellow card stock and it was, yep you guessed...it crooked! Well I was not about to re-do this card, so I stamped the sentiment AGAIN, using the same color cs, used pinking shears on the one end and added the "faux" stitching to the other end and popped it up OVER the original crooked sentiment. Actually I thought it turned out better this way as it continued the line of faux stitching (which in case you couldn't tell...I love)! H'mm maybe I shouldn't have told that.


The inside of the card was also stamped using sewing aides stamps.


Supplies used:
Red-ish/orange, yucky yellow & juniper cs and inks
Papertrey Ink stamps-Button Boutique & Simple Circles border die
Sizzix die-Frames, Circle Combo
Stampin'Up-Sew Suite stamps & One of a Kind, Piercing tool kit
White Gel pen



Hoping for some comments, preferably kind ones, thanks!

Stamping 411 Color Inspiration 160

I noticed this color inspiration at Stamping 411 this morning and thought what a pretty color combination.

My neutral card base is whisper white card stock with the main image stamped using the three challenge colors and added three strips of card stock also using the challenge colors.

Don't know why, but Pacific Point paper photographs much darker than it is in real life and the stamped ink much lighter, maybe I didn't use enough pressure on the ink pad or maybe it's my photography!

I then punched three little flowers and just had to tucked a little pearl in the center of each for a bit of elegance and popped them up on the challenge colors. The sentiment is stamped in Pear Pizzazz and that finishes my card for the challenge.








Supplies: All Stampin' Up
Card stock: Pacific Point, Pear Pizzazz, Tempting Turquoise and whisper white
Stamps: Medallion and Happy Greetings
Inks: Pacific Point, Pear Pizzazz and Tempting Turquoise


Thanks for taking a peek at my blog, would love to hear your comments regarding this card.

Paper Players Challenge # 53

Paper Players has come with another quick and easy challenge. You may want to participate in this one.


This is my take on it although I did take a few liberties and changed the direction of the rectangles. I hope it still has all of the items necessary for this challenge.


I started with a white card base added a piece of DSP. I cut out three rectangle shapes to resemble candles and embossed them. Punched three flames from the Blossom Petals Builder and popped them up with dimensionals and added to the DSP.
I punched a 1 3/4" circle, stamped it using some PTI stamps added a ribbon folded in half behind the circle and attached it to the card. Finally added a sentiment to the bottom of the DSP.

Supplies used: Paper: 2011-2013 In Colors, Calypso Coral, Island Indigo, Wisteria Wonder and Daffodil Delight & DSP Play Date Inks: Island Indigo, Calypso Coral
Punch: Blossom Petals Builder, Circle Punch and PTI's double-ended banner
Sentiments: PTI's Tag-Its #1 Stamp Set

Thanks for looking and leaving a comment.

Inkspiration Sketch Challenge #75

Oh my, when I first saw this sketch at Inkspirations I thought of this newer stamp set that I purchased with my granddaughter in mind, because she loves "Hello Kitty". Is there a 7 year old out there that doesn't! Oh excuse me, 7 1/2 year old!

Well it was a fun stamp to use and a great sketch for it, I'm glad I finally got this done,(I hope in time). This is what I did...

I dug through my stash of paper and found this Stampin' Up Simply Scrappin' Petal Party set, which had NEVER been opened. (Can't imagine how long it's been hiding in there). What's wrong with me!
Anyhow it has gorgeous textured solid color paper, designer paper, embellishments and anything else you might need.




I chose to make my card base out of textured Pumkin Pie card stock. I then layered a piece of striped paper from Sweet Always (another oldie from 2008). Using my Nesties I cut a circle from the Petal Party paper of pink polka dot (say that 3 times real quick) and topped it with a smaller whisper white circle which I then stamped.

I love the way the stamping turned out, I used a sentiment from Papertrey Ink (Fillable Frames #8). However, I laid the stamp on my block curving it to the shape I wanted then stamped it around the outer edges of the white circle. I then stamped inside that using the "Hello Kitty" circle of flowers then added the Hello Kitty image of choice. ( The set is from PSA Essentials and is part of their Peel & Stick Stamps it comes with the one flower circle and 8 different poses of "HK".)

I added two strips of polka dot paper (which came in the Petal Party set (I told you great stuff in the package). Stamped the sentiment one more time on the polka dot strip at the bottom of the card. Added 2 flowers (from the set) along with 2 little leaves (yup, also from the set).

Now on to the inside...




I love this, again, inside the set was this great little sticker for journaling which I thought was perfect to add whatever sentiment you want (I'm holding off on adding until I know exactly how I'll use this card).

That's it, sorry it's such a long post, but there was a lot of explainin' to do!

Thanks for taking a peek and hopefully leaving a comment.

Birthday Best Wishes

Yes, another birthday card for a friend. I couldn't resist using the PTI Gracious Vases stamp set again. I promise to put it away for a while after this card.



I stamped the shelf for the vases from the bottom half of a PTI Mat Stack 3 onto a 2 1/2" X 3 1/4" piece of cs. I covered the vases with post-it notes in order to stamp the flowers and then stamped my sentiment. I added a piece of DSP to my card base, cut a border from vellum paper using PTI Victorian Border and added a white satin ribbon on top of it. I then added a strip of tiny colored pearls to the ribbon, re-stamped two of the vases onto the same background paper cut them out and glued to the original images. The middle vase was stamped again using the same DSP as is in the inside of the card, then cut out and popped up with pop-dots.

Here's a peek at the inside of the card.

















supplies:
Paper: Whisper white cs, DSP Sweet & Sour
Ink: Chocolate chip
Stamps: Gracious Vases from & Botanical Silhouetttes from PTI
Punch: Victorian Borders from PTI
Anonymous: strip of pearls
Ribbon: Stampin' Up


I'm pleased with the results of this card and hope you like it too. Thanks for looking.

Miniature Orchid plants

A golfing friend of mine celebrated a BIG birthday, she was not happy about reaching this age, but we told her the alternative wasn't very appealing!
Needless to say she didn't want our golf four-some to go over the top (as we sometimes are known to do), so we agreed to keep her birthday simple.

I found these adorable miniature orchid plants, at of all places Ikea. Of course I had to buy not one, not two, but three. Two were gifts and one was a gift for me!
Anyhow I created these cute little boxes compliments of MTME templates and decorated them with DSP. I placed the flowers in small mosaic glass containers, and added a pair of garden gloves to each of the boxes. One of these plants was my gift to my friend for her BIG birthday last week in keeping with a simple theme. The other one is for another friend's birthday and of course the third one (not photographed) is mine!

Just thought you might enjoy seeing these little cuties!