Hot Pink & Black Valentine

I love hot pink and black together so I had to give the Dynamic Duos challenge this

week a try. They also have a "dessert option" of umbrellas, but I wanted to get

another Valentine's card made so I went without dessert! 

I stamped the heart, die cut the scalloped circle and printed the greeting on the computer.  

I thought it need just a little bit more, so I added the 3 pink pearls.  I don't think you can

ever go wrong with pearls, right? Anyway, there you have it. Thanks for taking a look!

Photo Inspiration

Just Us Girls  has a photo inspiration challenge going on this week. This is just

what I needed to help me get another Valentine's card done.

I'm not entirely sure I'm happy with the way this card turned out. Something about that

white label keeps speaking to me to do something different and I probably could've

done with out those pearls, but I decided to leave it alone.  It seems I've become obsessed
with dry embossing these days! I had to give this new heart embossing folder a try.  I
ended up sanding the finished product a little, although that was not my original plan.
When I ran the red card stock through the big shot it was so tight some of those hearts had
the white core showing through, so I kinda thought I had to go with it! I also thought I had

to do something with the plain die cut hearts so I embossed the middle sized  and small 

one with a dot folder, sanded one of them and decided to use the debossed side on one.

I added a dazzle sticker to the large heart.  Thanks for taking a look!

Double Embossing

The challenge at 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown this week is to do double

embossing.  That is using both heat and dry embossing.

Here's what I came up with.

I bought several stamps on clearance at Michaels after Christmas and thought this

ornament stamp from craft smart would work great for this challenge. I used red
 embossing tinsel on the ornaments and the Joy greeting.  The corner embossing folder
I used is from Sizzix.  The gold and red papers are from the DCWV Foiled Cardstock
stack. The gold cord I used to "hang" the ornaments are left overs I bought years ago.  So
 there you have it. Another Christmas card down! Thanks for taking a look! 

House of Cards 

This is my first post as a member of the House of Cards Design Team. I am so excited to be
part of such a great group of creative teammates who provide wonderful inspiration in
4 different styles,  which are Fun/Cute, Shabby/Vintage, CAS and Classic & Elegant.
I am on the Classic & Elegant team.

The first 2 weeks of the month we ask you to create cards in the Fun/Cute or
Shabby/Vintage styles and the next 2 weeks will be for the CAS or Classic & Elegant
styles, plus you are to incorporate the additional guidelines for the month.

For January you are to use this sketch.

Here is my Classic & Elegant card.

I did some stamping, fussy cutting, die cutting and added some pearls. So, I hope you get
some inspiration from my card and decide to give the challenge a try yourself.  As always,
thanks for taking a look!

Happy Valentine's Day

Okay, it's a little bit early to wish anyone Happy Valentine's Day but I realized it'll
be here before we know it and I have not made any Valentine's cards yet, until today.  I
thought I would use the inspiration at Dynamic Duos to get me started.  Have you seen
the Design Team's cards over there? They are all just beautiful as always.

This is this week's color combo…

and what I did.

Pretty simple. I used solid card stock because I didn't have any printed ones that I

thought would work well with this color combo.  When that happens to me I always 

pull out the embossing folders and go to town!  I stamped and fussy cut the heart, did

some die cutting, computer generated the sentiment and added some pearls.

Thanks for taking a look!

Thinking of You

I have a card this morning that I created for the Color Throwdown challenge. I really like their challenges because they get me to step out of my comfort zone a little.  I think I've
mentioned before that rarely do I use more than maybe 3 colors on a project and when
there are 5 to use,well I really have to put the old brain to work! But, enough of that.  I
used sketch #134 from the Deconstructed Sketch and here's what I ended up with. 

Incorporating the purples and the green were easy. It's adding in the kraft and black that
really threw me off. But, in the end I think it turned out pretty well.  I, once again, used a
 Hero Arts stamp and die set from Sizzix, Sizzix framelits dies for the circles, a Cuttlebug
 embossing folder, some black border Dazzles and a couple of black brads.
Thanks for taking a look!

Happy Birthday Butterfly

I'm back for a second post for today.  I went over to Just Us Girls to see what the color

challenge is this week and decided to give it a try using the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches.

Here's what I came up with

I love these colors and knew the Linen Closet stack from DCWV would work great.  It took

me a little while to decide if I should use the printed paper the way I did or if I should use it

as the skewed piece but I think the choice I made worked out okay.  Then I went back and

forth trying to decide if I should add some gems to the kraft banner and finally decided to

go without.  Then there's the decision on which photo do I post? Man, I think I just way

over think these things most of the time and I could probably get a lot more done if I
didn't! But I can about bet that I'm not the only one. Am I right? Anyway, thanks for taking
a look!

Monochromatic Christmas

There's a recipe challenge over at 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown this week.   This is a
good oneto help you get those Christmas cards done early this year.  I know  it's going to
help me!

 Here's what I decided to do.

I bought a whole bunch of new embossing folders a couple of weeks ago when Hobby
Lobby had them for 50% off, so I had to put one of them to use.  This one is called
Whimsical Frame by Paper Studio.  I used it to frame the Hero Arts tree image which
I stamped with Versamark and heat embossed with Stampendous silver tinsel embossing
powder.  The sentiment is from a Hero Arts Christmas greetings stamp set which I also
embossed. I added the ribbon and a bow and of course finished up with some gems.
Thanks for taking a look!

Christmas Card #2

I managed to get Christmas Card #2 for 2014 completed this afternoon, so maybe I will

meet my goal with the help of 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown challenges every week!

This week's challenge is to to create a card with non-traditional colors.

Here's what I did.

I recently bought this cute little Deep Red Snow Family stamp.  I colored with some

spectrum noir pens, one of my Christmas gifts, fussy cut them and placed on the snow

that I created by tearing white mulberry paper and gluing to the background in multiple

layers.  The printed background paper is from the DCWV Winter Combo matstack.

Thanks for taking a look!

Birthday Wishes

I wasn't able to get any crafting done yesterday so I thought I would see what I could get

done today.  So far I've only completed one card but it fulfills the requirements for 3

challenges.  I really wanted to give paper piecing a try for the Just Us Girls challenge

and used the sketch from the Deconstructed Sketch and the color combo from

Color Throwdown.

Here's what I ended up with.

I found the floral corner stamp and thought it would work pretty well for the paper piecing

but it was quite a challenge for me.  I can't ell you how many times I stamped it on the 3

different papers I used before settling with what I needed up with. I added a paper flower

 to  the center of the largest one and added gems to all of them.  The other challenge I had 

was  using 5 colors.  Most of the time I only use 3 colors on a project but thought this 

sketch worked  really well for that many.  I'm pleased, overall, with the way it turned out! 

Thanks for taking a look!

JUGS #222 / DD #85

After going back and forth and back and forth I managed to get one card made today with

inspiration from 2 challenges.  I used the sketch at Just us Girls and the color combo at

Dynamic Duos.  The colors photographed a little darker than I wanted.  The green came 

out looking more gray than green and I'm thinking I should've gone with a brighter green,
but, what's done is done! Anyway, here's what I ended up with.

This is the sketch…

and the color combo.

I trying to do ore stamping.  So the flowers, vines and butterfly are from a Hero Arts stamp
 and die set by Sizzix.  I stamped the greeting, which is from a small set I found at Michaels
 for a dollar, on a die cut Taylored Expressions label set called "Label It".  The DP is from
 DCWV's Lemon Flower stack. Thanks for taking a look!

Mojo Monday / Color Throwdown

It's been snowing all day so it's a good day to get in some crafting.  I made a card using

 sketch #326 at Mojo Monday and color combo #273 at Color Throwdown.

Thanks for taking a look!

52CCT

After taking a few weeks off from making Christmas cards I'm at it again.  This year I

hope to do a better job at getting the number of cards done that I did not quite meet for

2013.  And I thought I started early enough, it was August, but I didn't. So with starting 

in January this year and with the help of the challenges at 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown

I'm bound and determined to meet my goal!  The first challenge of the year is a sketch

challenge.

Here's my rendition.

I used a Deep Red stamp called "Winter Church",  some dark blue and silver shimmer card

stocks from DCWV and some lacy labels cutting dies from Hot off the Press.  I finished up

with some bling.  Thanks for taking a look!