12 Kits of Occasions - May 2017

Good morning!  April wooshed by for me, but was full of many wonderful things, including making these cards with Sharron's fabulous kit.  Lately I have fallen in love with green plants.  I keep adding more and more in our home, and working with PTI's Super Succulent Papers in this kit made me so happy!  I love them.  That's why they are on every single card.  Speaking of cards, I'll get right to them.  First up is a card inspired by MFT Sketch Challenge #330.

I used the gold embossed cats from MFT's Purr-fect Friends that Sharron included in the kit. 

My second card is about as simple as it gets, but the plants just make me happy.

These last two cards are my favorite.  Two of my nieces live in Seattle.  I immediately thought of them when I saw the cuties decked out in rain gear from Mama Elephant's Chance of Rain.

I added eyelashes to this one and colored her to reflect my oldest niece.

 

My final card is for my little red-headed niece.  I put her on a die cut Sharron included in the kit and added an umbrella from Mama Elephant's Up, Up, and Away since there was only one umbrella in the kit.

I had so much fun with this.  The polka dot rain boots are my favorite.  She wore a pair of red polka dot rain boots when she was little...which have been passed down to my little one who fits into them just perfectly right now.  

I'm linking all of my cards up to the Simon Says: Anything Goes Wednesday Challenge.

Many thanks to Sharron for the wonderful kit!  I loved it and look forward to continuing to use my leftovers.

Make sure to visit the 12 Kits of Occasions Blog next.  You can find a detailed supply list for the kit as well as see oodles of fabulous projects by my talented teammates. I barely touched the tip of the iceberg here, so you definitely won't want to miss out. Hope you have a lovely Sabbath! 

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Triple Challenge Christmas Card

Good afternoon!  I'm back sharing another card for Anna Kossakovskaya's CASometry - Randomizer Challenge. For Stage 2, in addition to randomly selecting a stamp set, you had to use one stamp at least three times.  I randomly selected Altenew's Wood Pallet Background Stamp (not exactly the easiest for repeated stamping), but there is a little trio of stars in the set, so I chose that stamp.  

I was a little at a loss for a theme, but I'd recently looked at Jessica Frost-Ballas' 3rd Crafty Christmas Collaboration, so I decided to combine these two challenges. My layout was completely inspired by Jessica's card HERE.  I'm also linking to the Simon Says: Anything Goes Wednesday Challenge. 

I wanted a multicolor background, and the stars are spaced far enough apart that you can ink each one in a different color and then stamp all three colors at the same time.  I stamped the trio of stars at least 10 times (I lost count), added some little black dots, and then filled the window with seed beads.  The banner is from the same Altenew set, but the sentiment is from Winnie & Walter's Sentimental: Winter.  I was really trying to keep the Altenew set the focus of my card, but the card needed a little something more, so I scooted the banner down and added a super cute reindeer from Clearly Besotted's Let's Prance stamp set.  My eye is still most drawn to the banner, so I'm hoping this still counts for the CASometry Challenge.

I'm enjoying taking these supply pictures.  Sometimes it surprises me at the end how many (or how few) supplies I've used.  Plus it helps me remember what I use on cards without having to write anything down. I guess that makes me sound a little lazy, but it's true. :P I hope you are having a wonderful week!  Thanks for stopping by today!

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Where Creativity Meets C9 Sneak Peek

Hello, friends!  I totally forgot to share that I have a blog post up on the Where Creativity Meets C9 Blog.  You can CLICK HERE to check it out.  I used some of my favorite colors and favorite sets... Concord & 9th's Brushed Blossom and Sophisticated Script Bundle....AND it was the only Easter card I made this year.  (Luckily I had a couple left over from last year to mail out as well.)  I hope you all had a wonderful Easter, my friends!
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CASometry Challenge 3. Randomizer. Stage 1.

Hello!  I have a few cards to share today inspired by Anna Kossakovskaya's CASometry Challenge.  Anna is one of my very favorite cardmakers, and I love how her challenges always aim to help you get more use out of the stamps you already own.  This year the overall theme is "Randomizer".  For Stage 1 all you have to do is randomly select a stamp set and use it as the main focus on your card as well as one geometry shape (mine is a rectangle).  Fun, right?  Because I know the order of my stamps fairly well, my husband randomly chose "the 11th one in the middle box".  :) The stamp set was Clearly Besotted's An Apple a Day.  It's been far too long since I've used it, and it actually was the perfect random set because Teacher Appreciation Week is coming up.  I'm ahead of schedule now.  Yay!

This is my official card for the challenge.  I loved all the apples so much I stamped all of them. :) I created the sentiment with Neat & Tangled's Journaling Alphas Dies. 

Since the large sentiment kind of took center stage on my first card I decided to make a second.  The design is even simpler, but you can see the apples a bit more.  I used Little Notes by The Stamp Market for the first time for the sentiment.  Ooo...I just LOVE the font.  And although the first smudge was accidental, I did purposely ink a bit of a second color on each apple.  I kind of liked the bit of shadow my oops created, so I did it on the rest.

My final card made use of all the scraps and pieces that didn't make it onto the previous cards.  The only thing I had to do was blend ink behind the alpha negative.  It was pretty awesome to not have any leftovers when it was time to clean up.  Here's a quick shot of the supplies I used. 

Thank you, Anna, for hosting such a fun challenge.  I had a bunch of fun making these cards and dusting off a set that hasn't seen ink in quite a while.  It made me remember why I bought this cute set in the first place.  

Hope your week has been full of lots of smiles.  Thanks so much for stopping by today!

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Where Creativity Meets C9 Challenge #8

Good morning!  I'm so happy to share with you my card for the newest challenge at Where Creativity Meets C9.  Our theme for Challenge #8 is "One Layer". :) I sure love a one layer card. 

This card is super special to me.  Almost always I make my cards with the recipient in mind.  I love that it allows me to think of that person the whole time I create, and that I can add little details specific to them or to the message I am trying to send.  I view cardmaking as so much more than a hobby.  It is a wonderful creative avenue for me to send a piece of my heart to those I love often at times when I don't quite have the words to express all I feel, whether it be joy, or encouragement, or gratitude, or sorrow.  Sometimes a card (or rather the message I am trying to convey) is so important that I pray before I even get started.  That was the case with this card.  I had a prayer in my heart for the ones who will be receiving this card and prayed that I would be able to create something that they would think was beautiful, that would bring a little warmth and peace and love and faith during a difficult time. 

Knowing who I was making this for made it easy to gather supplies.  I pulled out my Concord and 9th stamps, selected the ones that reminded me of her, and then gathered other supplies and colors that did the same.  I really, really wanted to put woodgrain on here, but I actually remade this card a couple times, and the woodgrain version didn't make the cut.  

I initially started coloring the flowers a few colors, but realized after finishing that card that the flowers all had to be white.  I want to send a big shout out and thank you to Sandy Allnock, whose "Winter Whites" copic video tutorial (you can view it HERE) was SO helpful after struggling to try to color white flowers.  And as luck would have it (or rather, little tender mercy), she even used the same Hello Lovely Stamp Set from Concord and 9th in her tutorial.  Since I'm just starting to learn how to color, this tutorial was invaluable to me even when I was using a different coloring medium. 

 

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I built my sentiment with Concord and 9th's Kindhearted and Sophisticated Script Stamp Sets. I adore the font in Kindhearted, and love that I've been able to selectively ink and combine sentiments from that set to create lots of different sentiments on cards I've made.  I also love that I can literally create any sentiment I want with Sophisticated Script.  And doesn't it just look beautiful when it is embossed?  (Fun sidenote: the person who is receiving this card is the one who convinced me I needed Sophisticated Script in my life after she sent me a card and special wall art for my daughter's room using it.)

Right before I cleaned up, I snapped a quick photo of the supplies I used to make the card.  I imagine I might want to make something similar in the future and didn't want to forget what I used. :)

This card was a bit labor intensive for me, but the awesome thing about one layer cards is that they don't have to be, so I really hope that you will join us for our One Layer Challenge at Where Creativity Meets C9,  Making one layer cards is truly so satisfying to me.  Make sure your next stop is the Where Creativity Meets C9 Challenge blog.  My super talented teammates are sharing some amazing cards today!