#KCDAUGJJ23 - Inspired by Tracy Easson - Week 3

 Good morning, crafty friends!

Yep, I'm late again. 

I fought a good portion of yesterday trying to get the video for this week to upload. The video stuck in processing for several hours. I tried multiple things to make the video process but nothing worked. I finally gave up and dove into projects I have deadlines for - without giving yesterday's post another thought!

I'm trying the video again this morning in Firefox. If it works, I'll come back and add the link at the bottom of the post, as usual.

In the mean time, here's this week's project:

I used THIS stamp set from her Soul Whisper's collection . This is one of my favorites!

I made a postcard from a food box, covered with the Winter collection from Maja Designs that I'd purchased from Spectrum Art Creations over a year ago. Three of the colors for this month's challenge were in the background paper. The girl is cut from one of the 6x6 sheets and brought up on dimensionals - with the wings in the background.

I did this in full on the video:

Creative Blessings!

~ Kelly

LATE TRACY EASSON PROJECT

 Hey all!

Man, this month is flying by!  I don't think it helps to have Bob only gone two weeks ... and home only two weeks.  Last week was Bob's first week home and I failed to post Thursday's video here... so check out what I did for Week 2 and Week 3 will be here tomorrow!

Creative Blessings!

~Kelly

WOYWW #741

 Good morning, crafty friends!

I'm rushing to get this post up. Bob is on his way home... about 30 minutes out. Which means, I may not be as lucky as last week in getting to everyone. I'll do my best and may be late. 

Here's my desk as I left it last night:

I'm working on the new color challenge this week, featuring our own Tracy Easson stamp set. To the left you'll see a sheet of cut aparts from a G45 8x8 pad called Ocean Blue. I've used part of it on the right diagonal of the 6x9 art journal page. The top left diagonal is a water print from Hobby Lobby with a dylusions bubble stencil & Stamperia  Cream paste. You can just see the colors for this month's challenge. I'll be adding color to the sea shells with a Magicals alcohol application. 

If you want to see in the Week 1 challenge with Tracy's stamp set, you'll find the blog post HERE

That's it for my desk (and story) this week. Who's Miss Julia and why am I here?  When you are done visiting me in the Ozarks, please hop on over to Stamping Ground for all the details. Miss Julia has a long list of other studios you can peek into. No standing on an up-turned milk pail to look in the window. We open the doors wide and welcome you.  Please leave your number and you'll be among the first on my list.

 

Creative Blessings!

~ Kelly

INSPIRED BY TRACY EASSON

 Good morning, crafty friends!

This post should have ran yesterday but after a rough night sleep Wednesday night, I just could not get the things done that needed.

We kick off our Inspired By series this week with stamps from Tracy Easson. Tracy is a fabulous artist from Scotland and a member of our WOYWW blog hop group. You can see her blog HERE.

Tracy will be in our Creator's Corner on Thursday, August 31st.

For this week's card, I chose to use two of the sets from her large collection.

BELIEVE

SOUL SYMBOLS

I absolutely loved both of these sets.  While SOUL SYMBOLS is more of a 'star' theme, I thought they'd make beautiful snowflake/ Christmas images, too. 

What is a 'soul symbol'?  Basically, a sigal assigned to your birth month. You can read more and find yours HERE. (NOTE: the sight is AD heavy)

My soul symbol, or sigal, is a FLOWER.

If your soul symbol is the flower, you have an incredibly pure and lovely heart. Wherever you go, you spread a great deal of happiness and joy. You embody tranquility, adding elegance to a boring environment. The kindness you exude encourages folks to take a break from their hectic lives and appreciate the peace.

Your lovely heart and soul are your unique selling proposition and you never compromise on that, no matter how hard life gets or hurts you, You always emphasis your inner fortitude, positivity and beauty.

Now that we know more about soul symbols... here's the card I made this week:

Because I had to work with the August colors:

I used colors from my Lindy's Magicals - Industrial Chic collection. I used Time Travel Teal, Rusty Lantern Lime and Shabby Turbine Teal. I brought the Mango Melody in by using some vellum from a retired Stampin' Up! collection and mounted everything on Balmy Blue card base.

I hope you'll check out the links I've provided.  In the mean time, here's the video where I put the card together in 'real time'.

I'll be back Monday with our Memory Dex card of the week!

Creative Blessings!

~ Kelly

MEMORY DEX MONDAY - Bonus Week!

 Good morning!

Do to my oversight of not creating a video thumbnail for the color challenge Memory Dex card, Week 3 will run next week and put us back on track... aka 3 weeks of Memory Dex. LOL

This video is about creating the Memory Dex card for the Spectrum Art Creations challenge. Brian gave me yellow and green to work with. Once I found that out, my mind instantly went to a memory.  I hope you enjoy!

Creative Blessings!

~ Kelly

MAY COLOR CHALLENGE - #KCDMayJJ23

 Good morning, crafty friends!

Blessed Beltane, Happy May Day.... whatever you celebrate, I hope your day is awesome!

I didn't get any cards made over the weekend. Between planning out the Merry Merry Month of May (remember that little tune?), getting new words written on the book and spending a very large amount of money at the Spectrum Art Creations sale both Thursday (napkin sale) and the usual Saturday Live, I had a busy weekend. LOL  Be patient. some are coming, I promise.

With today being the 1st of a new month, I released the Color Challenge on my YouTube channel this morning so that's what I'll leave you with for now.  I should be back here tomorrow with a card. :: crossing fingers :::

Creative Blessings!

~Kelly

WOYWW #724

 Good morning, friends!

Thank you for stopping by. 

I do have some activity on my desk this week. I worked on part 1 of a project video last night for my April color challenge:

Book pages and acrylic paint project inspired by #CeriGriffiths aka #CeriTheCrafter on YouTube. You'll get to meet Ceri a week from Thursday as he is my guest for Creator's Corner.

For my color challenge this week we are painting book pages then turning them in to junk journal elements. I may even take a pass at a card. We'll see. 

NOTE: This is Bob's last week home so I may not get 'round til Tuesday. Thank you for your patience. 

That's it for my desk (and story) this week. Who's Miss Julia and why am I here?  When you are done visiting me in the Ozarks, please hop on over to Stamping Ground   for all the details. Miss Julia has a long list of other studios you can peek into. No standing on an up-turned milk pail to look in the window. We open the doors wide and welcome you.  Please leave your number and you'll be among the first on my list.

 

Creative Blessings!

~ Kelly

COLOR CHALLENGE - Granny's Doing A Delightful Mambo By the Bay!

 Good morning, crafty friends!

I do love a colorful challenge. Being a Stampin' Up! demonstrator I knew before I even saw the color swatch we'd be working with Granny Apple Green, Daffodil Delight, Melon Mambo and Bermuda Bay cardstocks. If we would like to bring Dessert to the challenge, then we need to add a Designer Series / Patterned Paper ingredient.

This color combination provides lots of opportunities for spring cards. So this is what I came up with:

I chose the swallow background designer series paper from Bird Ballad (Stampin' Up!) as my dessert. The thank you is stamped from Heidie Grace on to a Darice Banners die in Bermuda Bay. The flower border is a die from Lawn Fawn. I adhered a strip of the Sizzix Adhesive sheet to the back of each color of the flowers - Daffodil Delight and Melon Mambo. 

The border was first cut from Granny Apple Green. Then I cut just the flowers off of their strips and paper pieced them onto the green base. Everything is built onto a Bermuda Bay cardstock base.

I had the opportunity to interview a local bakery/ floral shop owner yesterday. This will make the perfect Thank You card for her. Psst... she's on Facebook at Sugar Lily Bakery & Floral. - Jennifer Connor. 

I'll be back tomorrow for What's On Your Workday Wednesday. Not sure what you'll see. Dealing with a pinched nerve again today so you may just get leftovers LOL

Creative Blessings!

~Kelly

COLOR CHALLENGE - Back to Basics

 Good morning, crafty friends!

It's Color Challenge Tuesday at SplitcoastStampers. Today, LeAnn Skinner asked us to go back to basics with the following colors:

For dessert, we could add our favorite color. I chose Stampin' Up! Gorgeous Grape.

My stamp set came from the August 2019 issue of Cardmaking & Papercrafts called Summer Meadow

I subscribe to this magazine from the UK specifically for the monthly freebies. Most of their card designs are square but the stamps, dies and papers are made specifically for the magazine, making them a unique addition to my collection.

I have a dear friend who's brother-in-law passed away last week. This was especially hard for Linnie as he died of the same thing her husband dealt with prior to his passing a few years ago.  Here's the card I made for Linnie:

I began with a Basic Black cardbase. From there I stamped the background of fairy clocks (dandelion seeds) in Basic Gray. I added the stamped oval frame in Gorgeous Grape then the sentiment in Tuxedo Memento Black. The black satin ribbon is from my stash.

Here's the Color Challenge thread for this week if you'd like to play along! 

Want to see what others have done for this challenge? Go HERE

I'll be back tomorrow for What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday (WOYWW). I warn you.. .it's a mess. LOL

Creative Blessings

~ Kelly

COLOR CHALLENGE - Butterflies are Free

 Good morning, crafty friends!

We are back for the weekly color challenge at Splitcoast Stampers. Anyone and Everyone can play along! 

Here's the color combo for this week:

Night of Navy, Purple Posey, Coastal Cabana

For Dessert, we could add Designer Series Paper, so I pulled out my DSP binder in search of a Stampin' Up! DSP collection that featured at least a majority of these colors.

I found Botanical Butterfly from the 2019 Sale A Bration line and came up with this card:

While I'm not really a black & white person when it comes to paper, I really loved the black polka dot and thought the simplicity paired well with the busy back ground. I layered the sentiment mat on the dot paper then onto a strip of Purple Posey. To bring in a bit more of the Coastal Cabana I fussy cut out a couple of the butterflies. The DSP is layered on a Night of Navy cardbase. The sentiment is from Ornate Thanks

I'll be back tomorrow for What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday then the rest of the week gets crazy. Of course, Bob is home, so my plans change from moment to moment. 

Creative Blessings

~ Kelly

COLOR CHALLENGE 3-9-21

 Good morning, everyone!

This week's color challenge at Splitcoast Stampers was to use, Cinnamon Cider, Soft Seafoam and Mossy Meadow. For dessert, add some pink.

I chose Jar of Flowers from Stampin' Up! as well as the coordinating punch

Here's the card I came up with on the fly:

I punched the jar from Basic White cardstock and watercolored in with soft sea foam. The colors are done with Flirty Flamingo.

I'll be back tomorrow with What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday. I can warn you... with a full schedule today, not a lot of progress will be made :-)

Creative Blessings

~ Kelly

COLOR CHALLENGE

 Good afternoon, everyone!

I am way behind on a lot of things. With Bob being home tmost of the month of February, I've spent the past week trying to catch up.  I wanted to do the February Find It Finish It Junk Journal Challenge and try to find the office as well as get blog posts up. Most of Sunday was spent working on my author blog... which I'll explain in a bit.

I finished the February challenge on time but had an issue with the spine. I'm in the process of uploading that video now.

In the mean time, I went over to Splitcoast Stampers with the intention of doing a Teapot Tuesday when I spotted a Color Challenge, which also runs on Tuesdays. I've never played before so thought I'd give it a go.

We were to use Just Jade, Daffodil Delight, Balmy Blue and Melon Mambo as well as any neutrals and were allowed to substitute a close match if there was a color we didn't have.

Just Jade is one of the new In-Colors in the current catalog. The other three are standard colors.

Here is the card I made:

I used a Daffodil Delight base as well as a narrow strip behind the sentiment. The sentiment is from Happy Birthday to You and the image is Ornate Style.

Blog posts will be hit and miss or at least fewer for the next several weeks.

I have gone back to writing every day so that I can publish two books this year. Book 2 in my series is LOONNNGGG overdue and Book 3 should have come out last fall. While I love crafting, writing is my important job. With Bob wanting to retire in two years I really need to get my behind in gear and start building a readership.

I'll be back tomorrow for Whats On Your Workdesk Wednesday. 

Creative Blessings

~Kelly

COLOR CHALLENGE - August - Really!

Thank you all for your patience. To top everything off, we found out on Wednesday for sure that Bob was leaving Thursday. I'm glad I took the time off to spend with him.

So here's this month's color challenge:

I fell in love with these colors! So rich.

Here's the SU colors I selected:

Remember, you do NOT have to use Stampin' UP! products. You can use anything. These are just my go-to products. As you'll see in the embellishments, I keep forgetting I don't have to use current product on this blog.That's just where my mind always goes.

I started with the Basic Black A2 base. Used my Martha Steward lace border punch for the accent strip.  The flowers are from PRESSED FLOWERS and the sentiment VERY VINTAGE

I used the Darling Label Punch (available only through the box set in the link) to punch out the floral mats from Whisper White. I punched one from Smokey Slate, cut it in half then mounted under the sentiment mat so that I had a border top and bottom.

For the base mats under the florals I cut punched three, one from each Flirty Flamingo, Mint Macaron and Merry Merlot. Then I cut each one in half and off-set under the coordinating flower color. I used retired SU Share What You Love Artisan Pearls for the flower centers and the top right corner for balance.

Okay.. now the fun stuff!

I can't wait to see what you come up with!

RULES:

There aren't any rules. You may use any company product you like. My only request is if you use a stamp or something special, link to the company so we may add to our stash, too :-D

KEYWORD: KCC18APR

COLOR CHALLENGE - August

I woke up this morning and realized today was the third Monday. Man is this month zooming by. Do you realize we are 4 months and 4 days from Christmas?  Yikes!

Torrential rain and storms here so I'm hoping this gets posted before I lose internet. If not, I'll be back to finish.

I did have to shut down. By the time the storm was over I needed to make a grocery shopping trip, come home to fix dinner.. and the day was gone.

COLOR CHALLENGE will run next Monday - August 27th.

COLOR CHALLENGE - July

Bright colors perfect for any July 4th picnic! I knew immediately I wanted to use Pacific Point, Soft Sea Foam and Real Red

I used Sketch #142 from Operation Write Home

And came up with this:

My photo colors are WAY off with this larger digital camera. I'm really missing my small Fuji for the truer colors.  What appears to be a yellow is actually the Soft Sea Foam. The shorter banner in the middle is Whisper White.   The embossed background is from Branches & Leaves (Sizzix)

I used the stamp set COUNTRY BORN - part of the 30th anniversary collection from Close To My Heart when my bestie Brenda (pinkdisneychick) was with the company.

RULES:

There aren't any rules. You may use any company product you like. My only request is if you use a stamp or something special, link to the company so we may add to our stash, too :-D 

Okay.. 1 rule - no back-linking. Make a new project in any form. That's pretty easy.

KEYWORD: KCCJuly18

There's my card for this month. What will you create. Grab the button on my side bar for your blog, make something using the colors and link up below so I can see what you make!

WOYWW #472

Squeaking in late. Bob decided to get up early this morning so coffee/ breakfast with him was a priority.

As you can see, I've been busy. Front and center as well as most of the items above the orange box is all Paper Pumpkin stuff. About the only change is the catalog and stamp set to the bottom left. That is today's SU blog post soon as I clear a space and my stamp scrubber to the right of the box.

If you were receiving an ATC from me, they went in the mail Saturday morning.

Today, I need to do that SU blog post then switch gears for alternative uses for the Paper Pumpkin kit, including a 2-page PL spread that goes up tomorrow.

In case you missed it, my June Color Challenge went up on Monday. I'd love to have you play.

So far, I've been keeping the SU blog on track. I've also started getting this one back on track. In case you missed it, my Color Challenge post went up this past Monday. I hope you'll come and play.

That's it for my desk this week. Who's Miss Julia and why am I here?  When you are done visiting me in the Ozarks, please hop on over to Stamping Ground  for all the details. Miss Julia has a long list of other studios you can peek into. No standing on an up-turned milk pail to look in the window. We open the doors wide and welcome you.  Please leave your number and you'll be among the first on my list. 

Creative Blessings!

~Kelly

COLOR CHALLENGE - June

So May just kind of flew by me. LOL I have things set up now so that hopefully I won't be skipping months. However, unless I start getting players, I will be changing to something else when my Mr. Linky comes due. Spread the word! Let's see what you do with these colors.

With summer officially beginning this week, I thought these colors were perfect. Though here in Missouri, we've been experiencing record high temps and triple-digit heat indexes for the past month. I'm seriously ready to sit in the creek and wait until fall arrives. 

So today's card, aside from Basic Black, here are the three colors I chose to play with:

Pacific Point, Flirty Flamingo, Melon Mambo

I wanted to use Powder Pink in place of Flirty Flamingo but I didn't have that marker color for the flowers, as you'll see in a moment.

I've been subscribing to Cardmaking and Papercrafting, a magazine from the UK, for about three years but I'm always so busy playing with Stampin' UP! products I seldom pull those sets out to play with. My most recent issue arrived a couple of days ago. I've not even had time to catalog and put the packet on the shelf so I thought this a perfect time to play!

If you've not seen the magazine in book stores or JoAnn's, Each issue includes creative tools to get you playing right away. LOL Okay, I'm pretty sure that's what they are after anyway. They most always include a stamp set. Along with the stamps they usually include a die or embossing folder and a few papers. Sometimes you get all four!  This  month our issue included the stamp set and embossing folder below plus a few papers.

I liked that this stamp set wasn't just about birthday or thinking of you. They've included Enjoy the Ride as well as Beautiful Day.

Here's the card I came up with:

I had initially planned to square everything up. Before I could get the pieces glued down, I noticed they'd shifted a bit askew and I liked the look, so I went with it.

I did add a bit of green. The basket of flowers in Flirty Flamingo looked out of place without the leaves being colored in.

I also wanted the basket to have an aged look so I did a second generation stamp of the image. At first I masked off the basket to stamp the flowers but then noticed I was a bit off. Still getting the hang of positioning with the Stamperatus as opposed to just using a blog. In this case the Stamperatus came in hand for stamping the wheels over the bicycle frame.

I started by stamping the image using the Stampin' UP! Stamperatus and let that be my dimensions guide. 

Image mat: 4-1/2" x 3-1/2"

Melon Mambo mat - 4-3/4" x 3-3/4"

Sentiment strip - 2-1/2" x 3/4"

Pacific Point mat - 2-1/2" x 3/4"

   then I off-set them so the blue was only below to separate the white strip from the white of the 

   image mat.

There's mine, now let's see what you have.  

RULES:

There aren't any rules. You may use any company product you like. My only request is if you use a stamp or something special, link to the company so we may add to our stash, too :-D

KEYWORD: KCC6

COLOR CHALLENGE - April

Can you believe it's time for the April Color Challenge already? Where is this year going!

April brings to mind, Spring... Spring Cleaning, Easter Eggs, First Flowers... So I found this image on Pinterest:

Soft, Springy... perfect for our challenge this round.

I chose to work with the softer pink/ lavenders this round. 

I went with Melon Mambo, Powder Pink and Wisteria Wonder. 

Painted With Love DSP carried 2 of these colors and paired well with the Wisteria Wonder.

Fairy Celebration seemed like the perfect stamp pairing with these colors:

And here's my card:

I can't wait to see what you come up with!

RULES:

There aren't any rules. You may use any company product you like. My only request is if you use a stamp or something special, link to the company so we may add to our stash, too :-D

KEYWORD: KCC18APR

COLOR CHALLENGE - March

Since this the month for all things Irish, I thought we'd play in the green tones. The picture above is of Water Lettuce. This is an excellent coverage plant for ponds as they help prevent sunlight from creating algae and provide shade as well as cooler water for the fish below the surface.

For this week's challenge, I chose Lemon Lime Twist, Dapper Denim and Garden Green

I've chosen Southern Serenade from the Stampin' Up! Spring Catalog again but this time I'll be using three of the stamps from the set.

I'm not linking up with other challenges this time around. I just have not had time to scope others out. I've been focusing on getting a manuscript whipped into shape so I can have it up in time for a good Christmas read selection.

However, I did get most of the way through a big project over the weekend:

I went through my Pinterest board, Sketch It! and copied all of them to an Avery  Print template. All I have to do now is cut them down to a smaller size. I haven't decided if I'm going to key ring the or put them in page protectors. Binders are so hard for me. As you'll see from my card below, I followed the Paper Play Sketches in the top left corner of this sheet.

My cards are all done in a 4.25 x 5.5 unless otherwise stated. Here's my card for this month:

I used a Lemon Lime Twist card base. I used the lace stamp from the set to stamp a background in Lemon Lime Twist on Garden Green. For the horizontal piece I used a strip of Dapper Denim, tying in to the Dappen Denim Stampin' Blends that I used on the image. For the embellishments in the top left, I used a large and small Dapper Denim enamel dot. 

I can't wait to see what you come up with!

RULES:

There aren't any rules. You may use any company product you like. My only request is if you use a stamp or something special, link to the company so we may add to our stash, too :-D

KEYWORD: KCC18MAR

COLOR CHALLENGE - February

For this month's challenge I found this sweet image of a luscious layer cake:

I chose Elegant Eggplant, Blushing Bride and Sweet Sugarplum from my Stampin' Up! collection:

I also joined a couple of challenges (listed below) Here is the sketch from FabFriday:

This is the card I came up with:

I used 'Thank You' from the Southern Serenade set from the new Spring catalog:

The scalloped and matted circle were cut using the Layering Circles Framelits Dies

My card also links up with:

FabFriday #131 Sketch challenge

Penny's Challenge #367 - Anything Goes

Now let's see yours! You have until March 12th. Top picks will be listed the Friday prior to the new challenge.

Please share the blog post link on your blog. (I hope to also have a blog button in place by February) so others can play.

RULES:

There is only ONE rule

No back linking - new projects only. Any type of project is acceptable.

You may use any company product you like. My only request is if you use a stamp or something special, link to the company so we may add to our stash, too :-D

KEYWORD: KCC18B