Best Wishes for 50 More

Kristina Werner is celebrating her 50th Color Inspiration Challenge this week! What fun! I only wish I knew about them back in the beginning. This will be my 6th color challenge, not quite 50 but still quite fun.

Kristina's Colors













Best Wishes
Supplies:
Prima screen pattern stamp
SU! Short & Sweet
Penny Black Love in Bloom
DCWV papers
Prima flowers
Pearl stickers
Favorite Findings buttons
red ribbon - source unknown
Nestabilities Label One







In keeping with this week's stricter rules of color conformity, there used to be barely visible tiny bits of green in the patterned paper - I colored them brown!

One Layer = Hard!

It's a special week over at the Hero Blog - It's the blog's first birthday! In honor of that, this week's challenge is to use only one paper layer (ribbon, gems, buttons, etc all still allowed). Talk about hard, I learned to make cards by mounting my images and using more than one layer. Plus stamping and coloring directly on the finished piece? Can't cover that up if you mess it up! I did find one elusive, one layer card I had attempted many moons ago. I remember I had abandoned it because I didn't like its lack of layers! Needless to say this week was a true challenge for me. Especially after seeing all the amazing creations on the blog and in the Flickr group, definitely some true works of art and some amazing faux layers - stunning optical illusions!

Here are my creations. Honestly I can't tell if I like them. I don't not like them, but I just have a hard time in a one layer mindset! "Hmm, are they missing something? Well, what would you add? Another layer!"

I started the easy route with a HA Card Art stamp:
Supplies:
HA CardArt Flower Thank You
HA flower gems
Stickles - stardust
pearl stickers
buttons unknown
colored with Copics











A Day to Celebrate
Supplies:
HA large and small solid circles
HA solid narrow rectangle
HA Clear Design Birthday Messages
Colorbox Chalk inks
Cakes colored with copics
Offray ribbon
K & Co. gems
Stickles - Yellow (on cake candles)






A harder one on Kraft paper (white paper is much easier!)
Supplies:
HA I love my Dog
HA small solid circle
Doodlebug Tags
Colorbox Chalk inks
Tea Dye Distress ink
Pup, frame, and ball Copic'd
Offray ribbon
Pearl stickers
Favorite Findings buttons
Ranger Glossy Accents ("drool" on ball, kind of hard to see)


Phew! I do have one more that was a special effort. Stay tuned for that post! (Or click here)

Windows (Not from Microsoft)

This week's Hero Arts challenge is Window Cards. I've been a little slow on the window ideas so this is the only entry I have so far (well, I did re-enter my cheese). Not sure if I'll get to another before the weekend is up, but windows will be on my mind!

A Nice Day...

















...To Play
Supplies:
DCWV papers
HA Clear Design Love my Dog
HA Clear Design Love my Cat
HA Clear Design Elephants (the clouds are the tree minus the trunk from that set)
K & Co. gemstones
Favorite Findings buttons
Offray Ribbon

She's here!

8 pounds 9 oz, 21 inches long, Lil H arrived today! So excited to meet her!

Happy Day of Birth
HA Number Zero
SU! Short & Sweet
DCWV papers
K & Co. gems
Stickles

Baby Shower

Today was Traci's baby shower for my new little niecphew - although now we know it's a niece! Yay!

Sweet Baby Girl
Supplies:
Stampendous It's a Girl
K&Co gemstones
La Di Dah mini trim shoppe ribbon
Cuttlebug Swiss Dots











Inside















Hurray for babies!

Cupkizzles #49

Brother's birthday is coming up in less than two weeks. For his card I decided to play along in this week's TECC (#49!) over at Taylored Expressions (see second half of this post).

This is the sketch.









I was expecting this sketch to be a challenge. Normally when I attempt this type of symmetry I end up thinking my design looks too simple. I liked playing with Brother's card so much though that I made a second. (Does that make me a cheater?)

Grillin' and Chillin'
(The inside says "And Chillin' Happy Birthday!")
Supplies:
Studio G grill set from series 14
SEI patterned paper
Bazzil Cardstock
JoAnn's Sew Essential buttons








How Sweet
Supplies:
Stampendous Hey There Cupcake
SEI patterned and solid paper
Heidi Grace printed flowers
White Opal Liquid Pearls








I'm pretty psyched that I was able to line everything up so well! Really, it's layouts like this that make me wish I had a tiny level...

With a Cupcake!

Taylored Expressions Cupcake Challenge # 38 take two! I already revamped my original idea from earlier today - cupcake now included! I like this one better because of the cupcake, so I'll be entering this one:

Dibs!
Supplies:
Imaginisce Penguin Dude stamp
Stampin' Up! Short & Sweet Cupcake
Colored with Prismacolor pencils
Inkssentials Glossy Accents on cherry
Offray Oatmeal Ribbon
DCWV papers
JoAnn Sew Essentials Buttons









The inside will say "The cupcakes are all yours today!"

I'm wondering if I should speak to someone regarding my apparent view that penguins are greedy...

Picky Penguin

After getting my feet wet in a few Hero Arts challenges I decided to tackle a challenge I've seen Lysa enter a few times. Taylor over at Taylored Expressions holds a weekly Cupcake Challenge! It's a sketch challenge where you make whatever you want following a given sketch. Whilst it's called the Cupcake Challenge, cupcakes are not mandatory.

This week came with an additional challenge to tell Taylor what our stamps are really saying or thinking. Here is the sketch:

















Here is what I came up with:

Popsicle Penguin
Supplies:
Imaginisce Penguin Dude stamp
Colored with Prismacolor pencils
Inkssentials Glossy Accents on popsicle
Offray Oatmeal Ribbon
DCWV papers
JoAnn Scrap Essentials Brads
Hero Arts Gemstones






I haven't created an inside for the card yet but plan on having it say "It's your special day, you deserve to take the last one!"

I did want to use a cupcake (I love cupcakes!) and considered selectively removing the popsicle and adding a cupcake instead. Hmm. I might still do that as something to play around with. I haven't entered the contest yet and have until Monday at 8am, so I now feel possessed to play around with including that darn cupcake!

I want Sprinkles

A little back story on this first: Sometime in August a vendor I occasionally work with cleverly figured out that sending me 2 Sprinkles Cupcakes would be an easy way to expedite setting up a meeting with me. Now I had never had these delicate morsels of heaven before this time and boy can I say my life was incomplete before! I have made two trips of my own to our new store in town since then and I keep thinking up reasons why I need to go. What's even better is I've gotten my parents hooked! So now that we all dream in Sprinkles I wanted to Sprinkle a card. As you can see from pictures on their website they have a trademark dot that they use as a cupcake topper (made out of gum paste, not so tasty). They have different color combinations to signify each flavor. I wanted to make a birthday card option for dad using his favorite flavor's colors, brown with blue in the center (coconut!). This is also what started my quest to find every size circle punch ever made.

This card failed the original intent for three reasons. First, the dots just aren't the right size. I did measure a dot from our last set of cupcakes and I thought what I had would be close enough. I just don't like how they look. I only used one on this card, what the sentiment is hanging on, so you can see. Second, the coconut cupcakes aren't served with dots on them. They have coconut on them so something may have been lost in translation. Third, dad doesn't need 4 birthday cards! Mom has a birthday coming up in December so out of all fairness while I'm still riding a crafting wave I should be making her some birthday options too. So I'll retry this again, but using 3/4" and 1/2" circles. Her favorite flavors are actually served with the dots so it won't be as much of a stretch. Although I say this failed the original intent, I don't mean it failed completely. I really like it a lot! So it'll go into my general card pool and the next time someone deserves a day sprinkled with fun I'll already be ready already.

A Day Sprinkled With Fun
Stamp:
HA Clear Design Cupcakes















In looking through some past entries right now I just happened to realize how amazingly similar this looks to Thank You 2 from my 5 Thank Yous post. I CASEd myself! (CASE = Copy And Selectively Edit)