There is a NEW CHALLENGE up at Cupcake Inspirations Blog

Hello all my friends!! Today there is a NEW CHALLENGE up at Cupcake Inspirations Blog. It is a color challenge for the next two weeks. Use the colors Aqua, Blue and Brown on your card. I kind of mixed up my colors and used some blue too.

The inspiration for my card came directly from the photo for Cupcake Inspirations Challenge #525. 

I did not want to color my frosting aqua so I made it vanilla with aqua tones. The cupcake paper I chose to color in a deeper shade of the aqua.

I chose to make the cupcake "chocolate" so that is where my color brown came in. Yes, it is just a touch but this challenge is how YOU interpret it, right?

The cupcake image is from My Favorite Things *Mice Day to Celebrate stamp set. I used Copic markers to color it in an Stickles in *Christmas Red and *Ice Blue for sprinkles on top of the cup cake.

The sentiment is from a retired Sweet and Sassy Stamp set. The background stripe is my FAVORITE element on this card. This is a retired My Favorite Things Diagonal Stripe Cling. I forgot I even had this stamp and need to spend a day making some backgrounds!!

I die cut the stripe and white panels with the Lawn Fawn *Stitched Rectangle Dies. 

I had a lot of fun creating this card and I hope you will join us at the Cupcake Inspirations Challenge to create a project of your own! Be sure to hop on over and see what the other Design Team Members Created. 

I want to thank you for taking the time to stop by. I hope you have a FABULOUS day!!

**Some links in this blogpost are Affiliate Links. Affiliate links have an asterisk and can be used at no extra cost to you.

Some Challenge Cards

Happy Sunday everyone!! 

This week has been so BEAUTIFUL, not like a normal New England August at all. It makes me smile!! I have not been able to enjoy much of it, though, as I have been shopping to get Charlotte back to college. She has her first apartment (on her parents dime 😬) and she needs quite a few things to fill it. I have been on the prowl to find her another set of dishes, a stock pot and I did finally find her new bedding. 

I have been able to make some cards, though, for some challenges. This first card is for this weeks *Color Throwdown Challenge #354. It was to use the colors gray, brown and white. 

Below is the badge for this weeks ctd654 challenge.

I am not going to lie, I always have difficulty doing color challenges. I am also NOT a neutral person. I decided to go through my scrap drawer which contains my neutral colors, get out some of the pattern paper and cut it into strips. I then made a few backgrounds.

I die cut this background twice, one to create the striped rectangle for this card, and to make a frame for my next card, with my Lawn Fawn *Stitched Rectangles. I adhered it to a *Kraft background using *foam adhesive. 

I used the Tim Holtz *Wildflower Stems 2 to die cut some leaves from *Neenah Solar White Cardstock. I adhered the leaves over the striped rectangle.

I then adhered the sentiment that was stamped and die cut using the Thinking of You Sentiment Suite from The Greetery. I LOVE how this card came out and intend to use this as a Sympathy card. I will add a nice sentiment inside for the recipient.

For my second card, I used the remainder of my striped paper as a frame for my card.

I decided to create a shaker card, using an ocean theme. I shaded the inside using *Salty Ocean Distress Ink.

I added a kraft paper net that was die cut using a Tutti Fruitti die and some shells from the Hero Arts *Fancy Sea Shells die set. Can I tell you how I LOVE these dies? I get no money from saying this but I adore them!!

The last thing I adhered was a sentiment from my stash. I am not sure who the company is that created it. I intend for this to be yet another retirement card and will add a nice sentiment inside for whoever I send it to.

I am entering this card into the Just Add Ink Challenge #566-Just Add a Frame. 

The last card I created just because. I used a Stamp Market Paper Hug die (retired) with The Greetery's Alpha Buds Floral Detail stamps and dies. 

The sentiment is one from my stash and I am not sure who created it. 

I shaded in the white rectangle using *Squeezed Lemonade Distress Ink and used a piece of yellow pattern paper underneath.

I love how all my cards came out. I have been having so much fun in my craft room creating things again and using my supplies!!

I want to thank you for taking the time to stop by today. I hope you have a GREAT night!!!!

On The Blog at CAS-Fridays Stamps

Hello friends!! 

Today I am on the blog over at CAS-ual Fridays Stamps with a grungy card that will make you SMILE! I used a Gelly Plate with some Oxide ink to create a two funky backgrounds, one of which I used in my card. Below is a sneak peek:

I hope you will hop on over to my post to see my complete card and a mini-photo tutorial on how I created it. 

Thank you for taking the time to stop by. Have a FABULOUS day!!

Cupcake Inspirations Challenge Reminder

 Hi everyone!! 

Today I am popping in with another card for Cupcake Inspirations Challenge #524. There is just a few days left so I hope you join us with a project!!!

Once again I used one of the images from Laurie Furnell Ink's Animal Digital Stamp set. This time I chose to enlarge the fox to color in. I am trying to perfect the coloring in of fur so this image was perfect to use. 

I used the the theme and some of the colors as my inspiration from the challenge photo. My fox is red in color and even though I know the cupcake papers are red, on my computer they look like a dark pink. That color inspired the pink color of my balloon.

I used Copic Markers in a variety of E's and a few YR's to shade my fox. I didn't monitor the specific colors as I did have to go over some areas to make him as dark as he is. The foxes around my area tend to be a deep red color so that is how I colored him in.

The sentiments are from The Greetery. I had them in my stash and just pulled them out to use. I did cover up some of his body for design purposes.

Instead of using Glossy Accents on the balloons, I chose to emphasize them by using a Clear Wink of Stella pen. This produced a glittery effect on the image. 

The sky was created by using four Copic Markers (B000-B01), the darker shade (B01) around the fox to the lightest shade (B0000) out toward the edge. I then layered this adorable image over some plaid pattern paper that matched the colors I used in the card.

Please hop on over to the Cupcake Inspirations Challenge #524 reminder to find out how you can win some Laurie Furnell Ink images, as well as to see some of the other Design Team projects. 

That is all from me today. I want to thank you for taking the time to stop by. Have a FABULOUS day!!!

Graduation Cards in August??

Happy Saturday everyone!! It is a PERFECT DAY in Connecticut-sunny, not too hot and very low humidity. I wish all days could be like this!! 

Today I am popping in with some Graduation cards. Yes, you heard it right, I am posting Graduation cards in August. To be honest, I had the last three cards created in May but only sent out one! The card below I made this week to send out to one of my husband's cousins.

I used this weeks Global Design Project's Sketch (#GPD302)- as the bones of my card. I did change the "label" on the sketch to the numbers block. I figured attaching the numbers, the hat and the sentiment would work well for this sketch. 

I used an MFT Blueprints Die to die cut the white and black polka dot stitched stripes. The mirrored cardstock numbers were die cut from Chrome Silver Tonic Cardstock using The Greetery's Bold Numbers Dies. 

The little cap was die cut using the Sugar Pea Designs For the Graduate dies and the sentiment is from Sweet and Sassy Stamps. 

I cannot tell you how much fun it was to make this card! I am also going to enter this in this weeks Watercooler Wednesday Challenge-wwc321. It is Tristan's challenge and it is to make a Masculine card.

Even though this is for a girl, I am thinking it is more generic than most of the cards I create.

I created the next two cards for my cousins. They are twins and graduated HS in May. I just sent out the cards on Thursday. I am so horrible!!! 

Again, I used The Greetery's Bold Numbers Dies as my focal point and built on this with a retired Paper Trey Ink set.

I added some scraps of silver cardstock behind the numbers to ground the whole focal point.

For the second card, I used black paper over a white card base, with silver numbers.

The hat is from Paper Trey Ink and the sentiment is from a retired CAS-ual Fridays stamp.

The black paper on the card front was from my scraps and is actually HALLOWEEN paper!! It didn't have a distinct Halloween pattern so I used it.

I am posting one more card that I forgot I made. I created this one for my nephew's college graduation. This was the only card that was sent out on time!!

I have to admit that this was the first card I created and actually was the inspiration for the second card I posted. Instead of using silver cardstock behind the numbers, I chose to randomly adhere silver paper stars.

I am so happy with how all these cards came out and am just ashamed of myself that it took so long for me to send them!

That is it for me today. I want to thank you for taking the time to stop by. 

Have a FABULOUS day!!