A Color Dare Perfect For Christmas...

SO...have you started making your Christmas cards yet?  If you haven't, then this week's Color Dare combination is a PERFECT jumping-off point for you to get started - no excuses!  :)  Riley has given us Poppy Parade, Pear Pizzazz, Chocolate Chip and Very Vanilla to work with - don't you love them?  When I created my card, I had just gotten home from a weekend away visiting my parents and was NOT interested in trying to use my brain to "go against the grain", so a Christmas card it was.  :)  I wanted to use a new Flourishes stamps set so I tried to find a sketch that would help me along and Kazan's 2 Sketches 4 You sketch was perfect:

Recipe - Stamps: Sleigh Ride (Flourishes), Ornamental Christmas (Verve)  Paper: Very Vanilla, Early Espresso, Poppy Parade, Pear Pizzazz  Ink: Early Espresso  Accessories: Modern Label punch, brads, paper piercer, Parisian border punch, Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder, Nesties, Chocolate Chip satin ribbon, Pear Pizzazz twill ribbon, jumbo eyelet, sponge dauber

Thanks for taking the time to stop in today - I hope you will join us over at the Color Dare.  If you need more inspiration, please visit the rest of the design team members' blogs - their links are to the left.  Enjoy the rest of the week!!

Two Throwdowns + Taylor's Sketch Challenge = ... joy in the little things

Hey there, crafty peeps!

Here's a quick post for you all - it is almost time for me to turn into a pumpkin and I wanted to get this posted before I head to bed.  I was out all day at work and then to town with my PIC, Lori, to get our nails done so when I got home I wanted to browse the blogs and check my email.  That was {all} I was going to do...until I saw the sneaky peeky on the Color Throwdown Facebook page:

Then I clicked over to a new-to-me challenge blog, Tuesday Throwdown, and discovered that their challenge for this week is Spotlighting.  I LOVE this technique but just don't use it very often so I was thrilled to take a crack at it again.  I remembered seeing Taylor's sketch this week and knew it was perfect for spotlighting:

I dug out my Cherry Blossoms set from Flourishes and a sentiment from Verve...

What do you think?  Isn't this sketch perfect for spotlighting?  I had a hard time with the Artichoke and Soft Suede together since it is kind of hard to tell the two apart from a distance but I think I made it all work. 

Thanks for stopping by - I hope you are enjoying your week!

Cottage Comfort at The Shabby Tea Room

Happy Monday everyone!

Y'all know how busy Mondays are for me and this one is no exception!  This week's theme over at The Shabby Tea Room is "Cottage Comfort" - inspired by this warm and cozy picture:

Nicole is asking us to use warm colors and/or stripes in our creations so I did just that.  I LOVE the colors in the comforter and picked four that I thought went well together ~ Chocolate Chip, Kraft, Riding Hood Red and Groovy Guava.  I found Amy R's new sketch , dug out my new Cherry Blossoms stamp set from Flourishes and got to work:

Recipe - Stamps: Cherry Blossoms (Flourishes)  Ink: Groovy Guava, Chocolate Chip, Fired Brick Distress Ink (Tim Holtz)  Paper: Chocolate Chip, Riding Hood Red, Groovy Guava, SU! DP, Kraft  Accessories: Paper piercer, Nestabilities, Perfect Polka Dots EF (SU!/Sizzix), corduroy buttons (SU!), stitched grosgrain ribbon

Our sponsor this week in the Tea Room is:

Make sure you stop by and see what the rest of the Shabby Girls created:

Debbie Marcinkiewicz - {TSTR Creator} - Simple Treasures

Audrey Pettit - Audrey Pettit's Weblog

Cathy Clark - Papier Girl

Lisa Golzbein - Oh So Cute By Lisa

Nicole Segnere - My Craft Room Creations 

Thanks for stopping by - don't forget to come back in a bit for the PPC Summer Kick-Off Blog Hop!  See you then!

The Shabby Tea Room - Challenge #2

Welcome to another Monday and another Shabby Tea Room challenge!  This week's challenge is brought to you by Audrey.  She's asking us to create a spring-inspired card with stitching of some kind on it.  Hmmm....

I found this sketch over at Our Creative Corner a few weeks ago and thought it would fit my image perfectly:

My good friend, Lori, and I went shopping at our LSS a couple weeks ago (shhhh...we were supposed to be at the gym....) and discovered a BRAND-spankin' new shipment of Nesties and Flourishes stamps they had just received but hadn't put out on the floor yet.  Lori and I got very excited, very quickly...:)

After digging through the stash, we each picked some and Lori was kind enough to let me take this one (there was only one of these sets and she wanted it too...) Thanks again, girlie!  I LOVE this image:

 

Recipe - Stamps: Strawberries (Flourishes), Faux Stitching stamps (unknown)  Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Garden Green  Paper: Pink Pirouette, Garden Green, Riding Hood Red, Whisper White  Accessories: Nestabilities, paper piercer, hodgepodge hardware, Copics, adhesive pearls, scallop edge border punch

HA!  I realize now that I used the Bella Rose paper AGAIN this week for my STR project!  LOL  The gingham has always spoken "spring" to me and the strawberries are spring/summer perfect.  :)  Shhhh...my stitching is totally FAUX!  I have stamps that work well for this kind of thing so I just stamped them with Versafine and then clear embossed to give them some dimension.  

Now it's your turn - you've seen what I created so your next task should be to visit the rest of the Shabby Tea Room Special Friend Blend Gourmet Designers to see what they came up with!

• Debbie Marcinkiewicz - TSTR Creator http://debssimpletreasures.blogspot.com/
• Audrey Pettit - http://audreypettit.wordpress.com/
• Nicole Segnere - http://fabric-paper-scissors.blogspot.com/
• Jill Hillard - http://jill031070.blogspot.com/  

Thanks for stopping by - I can't wait to see what springy-stitchy projects you create!