Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (Moxie Fab & Simon Says)

Yesterday we woke up to a beautiful blanket of fresh snow on the ground.  It was a wonderful way to start the day.  I think the snow makes everything look more beautiful in the winter...colors are more vibrant and everything just looks clean.  With that beautiful fresh snow in mind I knew I wanted to make a card with a lot of white and just a smidge of color.  The theme of this card was inspired by Moxie Fab's Constellations: Trendy Star Power Challenge, so I pulled out PTI's Seeing Stars stamp set and dies.  I wasn't sure if the star in the middle was sufficient for the challenge, so I sprinkled some star confetti (courtesy of Pretty Pink Posh...oh, this stuff is addicting!) on as well.  I've never had an eye for spotting them in the sky, but I'm sure we could connect these stars and come up with some constellation. :) My smidge of color was inspired by the Simon Says Anything Goes with Twine or String Challenge.  It's kind of my favorite way to use string these days.  This card is totally different than my first card for Moxie Fab's Constellation Challenge (see my other card here).  Isn't it fun that challenges have the ability to spark so many different ideas?  Thanks so much for stopping by today!  I hope you have a happy weekend. :)

The Stars

Hello! Today I'm sharing a card that I made for Moxie Fab's Constellations: Trendy Star Power Challenge.  I sketched the idea for this card a several nights ago.  While I kept the basic sketch the same, this card evolved quite a bit over the few days I had to think about it before I had time to make it.  First, it represents a risk for me.  I used distress inks and a blending tool for the very first time.  Second, the purpose and recipient changed.  I stumbled upon this quote, and the more I thought about it, the more I liked it.  This card is supposed to be one of encouragement.  I did a bit of research and apparently this quote is from the novel Twilight, which I've never read, so I have no idea the context.  However, to me this quote represents a kind, gentle, encouraging reminder that there is hope and "stars" even in the blackest of times and the stars always lift my thoughts Heavenward...which I'm hoping this card will do as well.  Though I love a good view of the stars from a mountaintop, a view of the beautiful colors surrounding stars from space is absolutely incredible to me.  So I decided to create my card from that perspective.  I blended four distress inks with the blending tool, then I flicked water white watercolor on it, and finished it off with some flecks of white acrylic paint.  I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.  I realize it isn't the typical card, but it was fun to do something different.

CASology: Contrast...Then vs. Now

Hi!  A couple days ago I made a card for this week's challenge at CAS-ology, but I didn't have time to share it.  Though the cue card was open to your own personal interpretation, I loved the idea that most of the team members' used -- to contrast a CAS vs. a non-CAS card.  I started looking at photos from closer to the beginning of my blog and found this one (original post here).

THE OLD CARD

I remember liking it a lot when I made it, but it most definitely is not a clean and simple card.  I kept the focal point and the color palette palette the same, though I did swap out PTI's Lemon Tart for Harvest Gold, and this is my new and CAS-improved card:

I'm hoping that it's obvious that I simplified and cleaned up EVERYTHING on this card right down to the pillow. :) And the ironic part is that I am 100% certain that recipient of the first card would love this new CAS one a whole lot better.  It's so much more her.  This challenge was a blast!  Now if I could just apply this same concept with my entire house. :) There's a tad bit more time to participate (it closes Sunday afternoon), so if you get a chance, I'd highly recommend joining the fun.  Have a fabulous rest of the weekend!  ETA: I totally forgot to link up my card after I posted it...silly me!  Oh, well...it was totally worth making the card anyway.

Supplies (All PTI unless otherwise noted)

Stamps: On My Couch

Ink: Basic Gray (SU!), Harvest Gold, Raspberry Fizz

PTI January Blog Hop: Pretty in Pink

Hello, friends!  I'm so glad to be joining in on Papertrey's "Pretty in Pink" Blog Hop today.  I'm not really a pink kind of girl, but the inspiration board was fantastic, and I had several ideas I wanted to try out for today's hop.  

Time only allowed for one card, but I'm happy that I got this one done! :) 

I combined flowers and leaves from Bigger Blooms, Birds & Blooms, and Turning a New Leaf on my project.  Even then I found myself wanting for a few other images, so I stamped some images twice, overlapping them to create some new flowers.  For example, Birds & Blooms has a 3-leaf image that I stamped twice to make a 6-petal flower.  I did a practice run on some scratch paper and ended up liking that one a bit better...funny how that happens sometimes.  Quick question before I go -- I had planned to use Raspberry Fizz on my card as my dark pink, but when I stamped it, I could hardly tell a difference between it and Hibiscus Burst.  For those of you who have both inks, is there a noticeable difference when you stamp the two colors? My Raspberry Fizz is less than a year old and I haven't used it much, but I'm wondering if maybe it's drying out and that is why the colors are looking so similar.  Any ideas?  Thanks for your help!  Happy hopping!

Supplies (all PTI unless otherwise noted)

Stamps: Bigger Blooms, Birds & Blooms, Turning a New Leaf

Cardstock: Stamper's Select White

Ink: Pink Passion, Pink Pirouette (SU!), London Fog (Memento), Hibiscus Burst 

Other: Stitched Rectangle Die (Lil' Inkers)

Heartfelt Thanks (1 Card, 4 Challenges)

It's a holiday today in the US, so my husband is home from work.  Yay!  He was super sweet and allowed me some time to craft....and take down the Christmas tree.  I know it's nearly a month after Christmas, but we were out of town for a few weeks over the holiday and didn't really get to see much of our tree.  I wasn't tired of it when we got home, so I left it up.  And to be honest, I was sad to take it down today.  I love our tree.  Okay, onto the card.  I've had some ideas mulling around in my head for a while and today they all came together.  I combined ColourQ's palette, Curtain Call's inspiration photo, Clearly Besotted's Love Challenge, and Simon Says...Emboss It to create this card.

This card started with the heart panel, which I created with a heart from Clearly Besotted's In Stitches: Christmas set.  My original idea didn't pan out, so I recreated it using the colors in ColourQ's Challenge and turned to Curtain Call for more inspiration. I decided to use my panel like a letter, and the tag  represents an envelope.  Can you see it?  (Think of an envelope that has been totally opened.)  I actually flipped the tag upside down so the embossing would show more for the Simon Says Challenge.  I added some twine and the tag with a heart to represent the parcel on the far right in Curtain Call's photo.

And actually my layout is loosely based on the Curtain Call's photo as well. (Cascading down from the left: red tag = red flowers on top left, stacked panel and sentiments = books/parcels, red heart tag = red heart at the bottom right)  The final touch was some super fun heart confetti from the Pretty Pink Posh Store.  I can't stop using the goodies the super sweet Paulina sent me.  Thanks for stopping by today.  I hope you have a wonderful week!

Supplies

Stamps: In Stitches: Christmas (Clearly Besotted), Mat Stack 3 Collection, Sew Simple Borders (PTI)

Paper: Pure Poppy, Stamper's Select White (PTI)

Dies: Tag Sale #3, Tiny Tags, Script Alphabet (PTI)

Other: Heart Confetti (Pretty Pink Posh), Twine (Lawn Fawn)