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

FRIDAY FREEBIE - Alphabet Challenge - Letter X

I recently followed a trail of glitter to a challenge thread on SplitcoastStampers called Alphabet Challenge. Every week a new challenge is posted with specific guidelines. Of course, there is a Letter of the Alphabet. But sometimes they through in a double challenge... like this week.

Letter X
Use an Embossing Folder
Make it Masculine

I needed an anniversary card for Bob, who will be home on Wednesday! My 'X' is in the form of a cross-stitch sampler.

I used my scor-pal to make the wainscoting, (hard to see in the picture but there are vertical lines 1/4" apart on the bottom 1/2 of the card), The wallpaper is from DCWV Heirloom pad. Recollections brown CS and the woodgrain EB folder from The Paper Studio make the frame and the chair rail.

I stamped the words in Classic Alphabet (retired - SU) in a ghost print of Bordering Blue then did cross-stitch marks over the letters with a blue perma-pen.

The sentiment is from SU Number of Years. 

TEAPOT TUESDAY #390

I have missed participating in Teapot Tuesday at Splitcoast Stampers and am happy to be back.

This week, if we so choose, we are sending cards of encouragement to Sue Hennning. Sue's husband of 40+ years passed prior to the holidays. I can't imagine what Sue is experiencing because I can't imagine my life without Bob. We swear we are going to be one of those couples that when one goes, the other will not be far behind.

We were  asked to keep the 'one step at a time' theme in mind when creating our cards this week. Here's what I came up with:

After not having made a card in awhile, I was slow in finding a groove. Cards normally do not take me all afternoon.  I was inspired by THIS card by Lin at @heartshugsandflowers

For color choices, I turned to my Pinterest board again - Color Inspiration. I used Recollections cardstock and My Minds Eye from my scrap drawer. 

The quote is a Chinese Proverb.

      To get through the hardest journey, we need take only one step at a time... 

              (on the inside) - but we must keep on stepping.

Magazine Monday!

I had a really good weekend. I hope you did too. I spent the entire day on Saturday working on some of the challenges from the SplitcoastStampers VSN that was held on Friday night and all day Saturday.

When I participated in the VSN back in December, I focused on Christmas cards, using the challenges as my guide to get all of my 2012 Christmas cards done. It worked out very well. Each time I opened up a challenge, I figured out what I wanted to do, used a Christmas theme (unless the challenge called for a specific theme) then cut enough of everything to do 10-12 cards of that one challenge.

This time my focus was on Birthday cards. One of the threads I co-mod on SCS is a monthly reminder thread to get our birthday/ anniversary cards out on time. Because I’ve been busy playing catch-up on the business, I haven’t been getting my cards out like I wanted. So I decided I needed to get some of these cards done up ahead of time.

I found this birthday card inspiration in the 4th quarter 2011 issue of STAMPING-STATIONARY-AND-SCRAPBOOKING, an idea magazine from Hobby Lobby. For $1.99 you get a ton of great ideas for card and scrapbook page layouts.

This particular card was under Thanksgiving – not a birthday card. It was a Happy Thanksgiving design by Regina Farrell of TX. I tried doing a search for her without success. I kept her sketch pretty much the same. Where I have 2 sunflowers, she used 2 pumpkins, accented with a couple of green oak leaves. Where I used the Vintage Labels, Regina used an actual tag with Happy Thanksgiving stamped on it, a bit of chocolate ribbon tied in a bow on the tag and a brown oak leaf. Across the bottom of the printed band, she added a row of the brown oak leaves.

I tried just using the sun ‘flowers’ but decided they really needed the stems/ leaves. I used the Marvy Daisy punch for the flowers and the SU Build A Blossom stamp set for the leaves. The green stripe is from a 2-sided paper by Heidi Grace Designs called Baby Girl. In trying to use up stash, I’m using my ValuCS on cards I know will probably be tossed after receiving so I used ValuCS Yellow and Green from their Primary collection as well as SU Garden Green. I used my favorite SU Vintage Labels for the sentiment. The MS Daisy border punch gave a nice country look to this card in keeping with the sunflowers.

Recycle Wednesday

I FINALLY have a post for Recycle Wednesday. It's not what I've had in my mind initially but it definitely fits.

I have a passion for Altered Art. I love taking something and repurposing it. And one of my favorite things to repurpose is a book. As a writer, I value the 'book in my hands', 'turn the pages', kind of thing. However, I am also wise enough to understand that as technology continues to advance, a lot more books are going to wind up in landfills. Sad, but true. I have 3 or 4 different 'Altered Books' in progress. Little by little I'll get them finished. In the coming weeks, as my creative time is shared with my granddaughter, I'll be posting some of my past completed projects.

Over the past couple of months, I've been working on a Stationary Swap over at SCS. My SCS friend, Susan always comes up with the neatest swaps! Being a hostess has a bonus! We work them as a 3 + 1... meaning everyone who signs up makes a total of 4. 3 will be swapped out amongst the other participants and 1 is for the hostess. She gets the goodies without having to create. Trust me, she has enough of a job coordinating the swap. She EARNS the goodies she receives in return.

Initially I wanted to use a binder system from Univenture. One of their products is THIS cute little binder. My plan was to make 'pocket pages' to fit the confines of the binder, and be able to hold the components required for the swap:

* at least 3 cards with envelopes

* coordinated pen or pencil

* place for postage stamps

* coordinating cover

* And we HAD to including stamping in some way.

Anything else we wanted to add, such as a notebook/ address book/ notepads/ stickers, etc were optional.

So I ordered my binders from Univenture and was all excited about my coming project when...

they were back ordered until the end of April! The swap was due to be in Susan's hands by March 1st. Okay... new plan.

The following weekend I was in the city and spent a lazy afternoon at Barnes n Noble perusing the mixed media art books when I came across an altered hardback book with pockets. BINGO!

Because I had to make four of these, I picked up 8 books (always nice to have extras on hand, right?) from my local library sales room for 25 cents each. They were each approximately 6" X 8.5". I plan to write a tutorial on this soon so I can't show the step by step, just the end results. But I will give you a brief overview of what I did. Here is a picture of the three different covers.

I used SU Sage Shadow to complement the soft florals in the first one, Cherry Cobbler in the 2nd one and Almost Amethyst in the 3rd one. I made two of the second design as I had purchased the most of that print. I must have really liked it.

After determining the placement of the items I needed to include and how much space would be needed between the pages, I cut out the excess book pages. They'll be great for punched flowers and other mixed media projects in the future.

While in the city, I made a lucky stop at JoAnns Fabrics where they had all their 12x12 paper on sale. I was able to coordinate the papers for all 4 albums at a reasonable price and pair them with papers in my stash. Here's how my pages came out:

Front pocket for Pen and Stamps 2nd pocket for Mini-notebook

I used this pocket for the 4 cards and this one to hold the envelopes.

I did 4 cards and lined the envelopes to coordinate with each album's color scheme. I also covered a mini-composition book to match the cover of the stationary keeper.

This particular set was done using SU Cherry Cobbler as the coordinating cardstock to The Paper Studios Mirabella Floral DP I purchased at JoAnns. The spine cover is Tan Leather by Paper Pizzazz.

My tip for this week... never judge a book by it's cover. It truly is what's inside that counts!

Creative Blessings!

Teapot Tuesday!

Today we are taking the royal carriage to Austin TX and the home of Virginia Blakley. Virginia recently broke the femur bone just below her hip. Not fun! Virginia loves history and has read everything on Queen Elizabeth. So our challenge for TPT this week was to bring a touch of royalty and books to Virginia. As a bonus, she loves cats but can't have one because her husband is allergic. So if we included a royal feline, all the better!

Virginia is also uber special because she is the mother of one of the kindest souls on SplitcoastStampers. Lydia, aka Understandblue, is one of the forum mods and is usually right on top of fixing any problems we might have or directing us when we're not sure we've done something correctly. Though she is not the only mod over there, she is the one I work with most often and adore her.

You can read Virginia's story in it's entirety HERE

As soon as I read the challenge details, I knew I had to use my DCWV Once Upon A Time stack. The colors and the theme were perfect for this challenge.

I paired the paper with SU Bravo Burgandy and Very Vanilla. The cat is from Paper Crafts. I inked the stamp with Memento Tuxedo Black and then over-inked it slightly with SU Bravo Burgandy. I can't remember the stamp company I got the book stamp from. I used MTB to stamp over a section of the 'story' paper in the DCWV slab then cut it out. To break up the pairing of DP/ solid CS, I used a strip of SU Elegant Eggplant to pull out the script from the DP. Then I found this rich -looking gold trim in my fiber stash. Perfect!

To finish it off, I cut the crown from a background sheet of the same CWV slab and added jewels to the crown points. I cut a slit and so Her Royal Kitty could wear her crown properly.

I hope Virginia enjoys this card as much as I did creating it for her.

Speedy Healing, Virgina and...

Creative Blessings to all!

Magazine Monday

With the head cold working it's way to where ever colds go, I'm back to creating again. I felt so good last night I didn't want to leave the Studio. I created today's card plus cut the base mats and stamped the images for 9 more. Yep 10 more Christmas cards for 2012 will be done by the end of today.

I was inspired with today's card from a member of our Christmas Card Challenge 2012 members. Colleen (Katchoo1 on SCS) showed us her January card using a layout she used back in 2006 in the spring issue of Take Ten. You can see her card HERE. Although I have several back issues of Stampington publications, this was one of only 2 back issues of Take Ten I have in the Studio and am glad it was. WOW!

This LO hits all the marks:

EASY

SIMPLE

CLEAN

USES STASH/ SCRAPS

IMPACT

Here's the recipe:

5x6.5 card (I created mat dimensions for both standard card sizes)

DP scraps from DCWV Christmas 2010

SU Pacific Point CS

SU Pacific Point ink & water color crayon

SU Big On Christmas stamp

Black and Red Perma Marker

Blue snowflake (gift wrapping trim - Walmart)

Dimensions:

5x6.5 card -

Base Mat - Cut 2- 5 1/8 x 1" + Cut 2- 3 5/8x1"

DP - Cut 2 - 5x7/8 + Cut 2- 3.5x 7.8"

Center Mat- Cut 1- 3 7/8x 2.5" (CS) + 1- 3 3/4x 2 7/8" (white)

4.25x5.5 card-

Base Mat- Cut 2- 4x1" + Cut 2- 2 5/8x1"

DP - Cut 2- 3 7/8x 7/8 + Cut 2- 2.5x7/8

Center Mat- Cut 1- 2 7/8x 1.5" + Cut 1- 2 3/4x 1 3/8

This card also fulfilled the January Challenge for the PBU thread at Splitcoast using the theme 'Let It Snow' direct our creativity.

My next plan is to pull out my scrap drawer, cut the DP strip sizes I need and then match with CS to make several cards for the All Occasion Challenge thread. I already see one in browns and earth tones with Noble Deer featured in the center for guy cards.

I hope your 2012 is off to a creative start!

Magazine Monday!

I took a break from decorating over the weekend to play over at the VSN (Virtual Stamp Night) at SCS. The hostesses for those events come up with some amazing challenges to coordinate with that particular VSN theme. This time it was Winter Wonderland. So with my mindset in the Christmas groove, I made a batch of cards for each challenge. By the time I've completed all of the challenges I will have my Christmas cards for the CCC12 (Christmas Card Challenge 2012) complete BEFORE January! LOL

The first challenge was to create a card based on what gives us Warm Fuzzies during the holidays. We could take the 'warm fuzzies' literal and go with furry pets, warm gloves, etc. Or whatever gives us that 'comfortable' feeling.

For me, Christmas is my baking season.Nothing says comfort like great smells from the kitchen. Growing up, my (step) mom introduced me to baking around the age of 9. I fell in love with the kitchen and have been baking/ cooking ever since. I don't bake a lot during the year because if I did, Bob and I would weigh a ton x3 between us. We like our home baked goodies and know if they're in the house, they're going to be eaten. So instead, I save my massive baking for the holidays when I can divide it all into treat boxes for friends and businesses who've served us well throughout the year.

Since our daughter's favorite cookie is my gingerbread men, I pulled out my Martha Stewart Gingerbread set from Christmas 2009, along with the coordinating paper. Then I went to one of the many Christmas issued stamping magazines packing my shelf. I chose the December 2007 issue of Scrap and Stamp Arts. I found a simple, yet great card from artist Grace Tolman called Merry Christmas. Sometimes a card is fine the way it is. The layout, right down to the pierced scalloped edge is the same with three exceptions. Grace's tag was more centered on the card front, bearing a Christmas tree withe the saying Merry Christmas, her candy stripe paper also had shades of green and she used white ribbon where I used green and white yarn.

I chose to separate the two. I stamped the gingerbread man on the tag and scooted the tag to the left. This left room for the sentiment on a separate tag on the bottom.

I used SU Garden Green and Cherry Cobbler CS. I decorated my gingerbread man with gold stickles and a black glaze pen.

Ten of my family/ friends will receive this card for Christmas next year. Maybe you'll be one of them!