Happy Birthday at the 4 Crafty Chicks!

Here we are at Thursday again!  How did that happen?  The week seems to go by so quickly and now that the countdown to Christmas is on, the time seems to go by a whole lot faster.

This week's challenge at the 4 Crafty Chicks is brought to us by Leanne and she has given us a birthday theme to work with.  I don't make many birthday cards on a regular basis and my supply has been dwindling so I was glad to have the chance to make one to add to the box.  :)

I have had so much fun using Arielle's colourQ combinations over the last few weeks I thought I'd pop over and see what she had for us this week and, boy oh  boy, is it a doozy:

Are you all laughing at me again?  You know how much I *love* the wonderful Pacific Point...(insert eyeroll here).  BUT, not one to give up a good challenge, off I went in search of a sketch to inspire and found the perfect one over at Mercy's Tuesday Sketch Challenge:

I rotated it 90 degrees and voila:

Stamps: Upsy Daisy (SU!)  Ink: Pacific Point, Tempting Turquoise, Soft Suede  Paper: Whisper White, Wild Wasabi, Tempting Turquoise, Pacific Point, Soft Suede  Accessories: Paper piercer, Soft Suede grosgrain ribbon, button, twine, Twizzle embossing folder

Thanks for stopping by today - if you have some time so play along with us at the 4 Crafty Chicks, we'd love to see what you create so make sure you link us up with inlinkz.  Enjoy the rest of your week!

Take Two - Mojo Monday & The Play Date Cafe

OK... I have to admit something... I was wrong.  I know, I know, "How can that be possible?" {giggle} But, alas, it is. (Just don't tell my husband...)  Last week, I made a card for the Play Date Cafe and was NOT lovin' these colors...but the more I thought about them, the more they grew on me.  So much so that I had to make one more card before the deadline.  If you missed my card last week, here's the inspiration picture:

I used Julee's fabulous Mojo Monday sketch:

And voila!

Recipe - Stamps: Upsy Daisy (SU!), Celebrating You (Verve)  Ink:  Melon Mambo, Versamark  Paper: Whisper White, Chocolate Chip, Cajun Craze, Melon Mambo, Tempting Turquoise  Accessories:  Tea Dye embossing powder (Tim Holtz), Perfect Polka Dots EF, Argyle EF, Optic Dot border punch, Melon Mambo polka dot ribbon, button, twine, adhesive pearls, scallop circle punch, circle punches

Thanks for stopping by on this lovely, fall, Tuesday afternoon.  I am sure enjoying only working mornings - leaves me so much more time to create.  See you tomorrow with a new Color Dare!

Color Throwdown - Thursday Sketch Trio

Happy Thursday everyone!

What a great week it has been. We only had school 3 days due to "Professional Development" days for the teachers so I'm spending today and tomorrow getting crafty!

I haven't been over to the Color Throwdown challenge lately so I was curious to see what this week's color combination was:

My initial reaction was, "Ummmmm . . .what?"  I would NOT have ever in a bazillion years thought to put Brocade Blue with red and black but I was up for the challenge.  

The first card I did is for Julee's Mojo Monday sketch:

Julee seems to come up with one amazing sketch after another, week after week. . . I think her sketches are my favorites to do.  I started out by picking my stamp image for this card.  I am VERY short on birthday cards so I chose SU!'s "Crazy For Cupcakes" set and stamped the tray of cupcakes on Whisper White.  I colored the image with my Copics and cut it out with my Labels One Nesties.  I layered it on the Brocade Blue also cut out with my Nesties, paper pierced the left side and added some pearls.  The right-hand side of the background is some Basic Black I ran through my CB in the Swiss Dots folder and the left side is some printed vellum I found in my stash.  Some gingham ribbon, a sentiment from the "Best Yet" set and I was done:

Card number two was inspired by Our Creative Corner's weekly sketch:

I admit I was puzzled for quite some time with this one.  I don't have many stamps that are circle-oriented so I had to dig through ALL of my sets.  I found the heart image in the "Doodle That" set from SU! and the sentiment is from the "Best Yet" set - again.  The ribbon is from a box of ribbons I got at Costco a LONG time ago - at the time I thought they'd get SO much use but, unfortunately, this is the first time I've ever used this particular roll!  I Cuttlebugged the Brocade Blue background, added a filigree brad to the heart image, used my Nesties to cut the circle shapes and voila:

Today's final card for this week's Splitcoast Stampers' Sketch #213:

This one came together pretty quickly.  I stamped the "Upsy Daisy" image with my Onyx Black Versafine ink and then clear embossed it.  I sponged some Bashful Blue over top and then cut it out with my Nesties.  I layered it on Real Red and Whisper White and went to work on the background.  I used some more of the printed vellum on a Basic Black layer, ticket corner punched the corners and added some pearls.  The vertical panel is a piece of black I edged both side of with my Martha Stewart border punch and added a strip of blue down the middle.  The horizontal panel is some more of the gingham ribbon on top of Basic Black.  A couple of bows were added just because I thought they needed to be there!  LOL  Some flowers in the bottom right complete the card:

So - that's it!  I'm hoping to spend tomorrow with my peep, Lori.  We haven't crafted together for awhile and Josh had been asking for WEEKS to go over to their house so tomorrow just might be the day!  

Gotta run and get supper started - enjoy the rest of your Thursday!