Another Plain Jane

Are you tired of these verses yet?  They just fit inside my new nesties so nicely. . .  I went through my paper stash and found this paper - I have no idea who made it or where I got it.  I guess it's not really *that* hideous but normally I would NOT put pink pirouette, kiwi kiss, and tangerine tango together on the same card.  But here, it kinda works. . . 

Here's the card sketch:

And the result:
My rectangles are a bit too high/low but I can't change that now!  LOL  I got a new embossing folder yesterday too so I thought I'd try it out on the black layer - it's kind of got a flower and viney design on it.  The black layer was actually a last minute addition. 

K- Off to bed I go.  Not sure what I'll do tomorrow - laundry is calling so I'm sure that will be on the list.  Enjoy the rest of the weekend everyone!

Viva la Verve

Another Friday means another Viva la Verve Sketch Challenge and this week I combined it with the Color Throwdown Color Challenge:

I spent my day in town yesterday and just *had* to make a stop at my LSS. When I saw the Curved Rectangle Mega Nestabilities I knew I couldn't just leave them there!  

I don't use Mellow Moss a lot in my cards so it took some effort to wrap my brain around this combo.  This Plain Jane verse from Verve fit perfectly on the VV layer. When I finished layering the rest of the nestie layers, I thought it was too stark so I got my paper piercer out and went around the borders.  Part of the Viva la Verve Challenge includes a "twist" and this week's twist was to use BLING somewhere on the card - EASY PEASY!!  I alternated green and black rhinestones all the way down the DP layer.  Done!  

I'm going to try to do another card tonight.  I've got a whole stack of new Bellas that need to see ink so maybe I'll use one.  I read a great book today, "Firefly Lane," by Kristin Hannah.  It was a WONDERFUL story about two best friends and the journey they make together through their lives - through the 70's, 80's, 90's and 00's.  I laughed and cried and remembered how much I love and appreciate my girlfriends.  They are the ones that will be there through it all - good and bad - and stick beside me anyways.   You know who you are. . . Thanks.

I'm going to get busy on my card - maybe pull out some really hideous DP and see what I can do with it!  

Verve is Looking For Love. . .

Verve Stamps is releasing some new stamps on Friday and Julee is celebrating!!! She is hosting the "Looking For Love Release Challenge" over at Splitcoast Stampers and what great challenges she has for us!  Julee must know that some of us are "keeners" so she posted a .PDF of all 4 challenges at the beginning of the week!  Thanks Julee!!

The first challenge was a color challenge and I kind of used this color scheme for all of my cards.  I have to admit, I have NEVER used Blush Blossom in ANY of my cards but I kind of like it - a cross between pink and apricot.  I also used Julee's Mojo Monday sketch for this card 'cause I loved the sketch so much!  Unfortunately, the Blush Blossom looks REALLY pink in my pictures so you'll just have to take my word for it - it REALLY is Blush Blossom!!!

Recipe: Stamps: Upsy Daisy, Best Yet (Stampin' Up)  Paper: Kraft, Blush Blossom, Riding Hood Red, SU! Holiday Treasures DP  Ink: Riding Hood Red  Accessories: Nestabilities (Labels 2), adhesive pearls, Hodgepodge Hardware (bookplate & swirly clip), kraft taffeta ribbon, spiral punch, Swirls EF & Cuttlebug

The challenge for Day 2 was a sketch.  I opened up my brand new Plain Jane from Verve and used it for the image in this card.  The rest of the card came together pretty quickly.  Have I mentioned lately how much I LOVE my Martha Stewart border punches???  AND how much I LOVE adhesive pearls????  AND how much I LOVE SU!'s taffeta ribbon???? *giggle*  It really doesn't take much to get me excited.  

Recipe: Stamps: Plain Jane (Verve) Paper: Kraft, Blush Blossom, Riding Hood Red  Ink: Riding Hood Red  Accessories: Ticket corner punch, dimensionals, adhesive pearls, Martha Stewart's Lace Doily border punch, Swiss Dots EF, Cuttlebug, Riding Hood Red taffeta ribbon, Marvy corner punch

Today's sketch was actually the last card I did and my brain was not really working very well after doing the other 3 cards first.  I had trouble deciding what colors to use, what border punch would look the best and what image would fit into the size of square I had already cut out.  I'm still not totally enthralled with the result but it's done.  Oh, have I mentioned that adhesive pearls are my new favorite embellishment???  And I didn't put anything in the top left corner (where the bow is) because with the flower on the top of the cupcake, it would have been too much up there.
Recipe: Stamps: Cupcake Affair (Verve), sentiment from Stamping Bella  Paper: Kraft, Riding Hood Red  Ink: Chocolate Chip, Riding Hood Red  Accessories: Nestabilities (Scalloped and Plain Squares), Swiss Dots EF, Cuttlebug, Martha Stewart Lace Doily border punch, adhesive pearls, paper flower, Versamarker, Iridescent Ice EP, Riding Hood Red taffeta ribbon

OK, now tomorrow's sketch hasn't been posted by itself yet so I can't show it to you tonight.  I will come back tomorrow and edit to add it but, for now, you're going to have to trust me!  I had trouble picking an image for this one but when I saw these cute lovebirds (from an unknown acrylic set) I figured it would work perfectly.  I just realized that I didn't put a sentiment on the front of this one but I *think* it's pretty self-explanatory, don't you???  Ugh - and my ribbon is crooked... *sigh*   Whatever...  It's kind of hard to see in this picture but the birdies and the hearts are embossed with Iridescent Ice EP.

Recipe: Stamps: Unknown acrylic set Paper: Kraft, Riding Hood Red, Blush Blossom Ink: Basic Black, Riding Hood Red  Accessories: Nestabilities (Labels 2), Argyle EF, Swirly EF, Cuttlebug, paper piercer, metal swirly thing, kraft & riding hood red taffeta ribbon, riding hood red grosgrain ribbon, black adhesive pearls, Versamarker, Iridescent Ice EP

SO - that's it for me tonight.  I have a busy day tomorrow and then Friday will be busy too - it's NAIL DAY!  I've been having lots of fun with glitter lately but I may go for something completely different this time.  We'll see how adventurous I am when the time comes!

Stay warm wherever you are and may your mojo never be far away!  

Another Mojo Monday!

Boy, it feels good to have those creative juices flowing again!  It's really amazing how quickly you can get in a funk - even more amazing how quickly you can get OUT of it when you have great inspiration.  

It's Monday and that means Julee gives us a WONDERFUL sketch to get us going.  This is the first week Julee comes to us from her new blog dedicated to Mojo Monday sketches.   

I started by going through my paper stash - I don't think I have ever used this DP (retired Porcelain Prints).  I used Blue Bayou, Wild Wasabi and Very Vanilla CS along with Blue Bayou ink.  The sentiment is from Verve's Plain Jane collection.  I really love the simplicity of all these verses and hope to use them a LOT in the future.  I used my Top Note die for the sentiment layer and inked the edges for a bit of depth.  The rest of the card is pretty simple - vanilla brads, antique brass HPH swirly-thing, leaf charm, velvet flower, button, wire, Martha Stewart border punch and my trusty ticket corner punch.
I really love how this turned out - it seems to have a lot going on but it really is very simple and elegant.  I hardly ever use my Hodgepodge Hardware but I'm going to try to use it more often because it just gives a card that "sumthin' sumthin'."

K - I'm outta here for tonight.  I made it through the first day back but I'll tell you what- 6:30 AM came AWFULLY quickly!  LOL  Thanks for stopping by!

I'm BAAAAACK. . .

Wow - what a busy couple of weeks it has been!  We had a wonderful Christmas with my side of the family and I spent many hours reading "The Pillars of the Earth" and "World Without End" by Ken Follett - excellent reads if you like books set in medieval times and don't mind the fact that they are both over 900 pages long!  I spent WAYYYY too much time in my jammies and enjoyed every minute!

Today was the first day I spent any real amount of time on the web and discovered that there's a new Verve weekly challenge - and a sketch challenge, my favorite!  Viva La Verve challenges are posted on Friday and this week's sketch looks like:

 Another part of this challenge is to use hardware of some kind on your card - brads, eyelets, bookplates, frames. . .whatever metal you've got!  I opened my new Snow Wonderful set from Verve and picked the snowman and sentiment to use for this card.  I've decided that I need to try to use up some of the retired DP that I have in my stash and found this Wintergreen DP still hanging around.  I used the coordinating solids - Always Artichoke, Certainly Celery and Soft Sky - some ribbon, silver brads, ticket corner punch, Nestabilities, my VersaMarker & Iridescent Ice EP (for the snowman), a paper snowflake and rhinestone brad complete the card.

I also paper-pieced the scarf and inked the edges with Always Artichoke.  The card itself is one from a box of pre-folded cards I got at Michael's a LONG time ago - another item I have decided I need to make use of!  

Hopefully, you all had a wonderful Christmas and were able to spend time with family and friends.  I know I have enjoyed just being in "hibernation" mode - it had been so nice to have DAYS go by when the phone doesn't ring at ALL!!  LOL  Monday will be a rude awakening, that's for sure but it will be time for me to get back into the swing of work *and* playing along with my usual challenges.  

See you on Monday!

How Many More Sleeps???

Well, you can sure tell Christmas is getting closer - the kids at school are just BOUNCING off the walls.  Of course it doesn't help matters much that we've had a couple of inside recesses because it's been too darned cold to send them out for even a short length of time.  Thank goodness the holidays are almost here!

In the meantime, to keep my sanity, I came home today and crafted.  To heck with supper, they can fend for themselves.  ;)  I decided to combine Julee's Mojo Monday sketch with Splitcoast's Color Challenge: Baja Breeze, Kiwi Kiss, Basic Gray and Not Quite Navy (optional).

I dug out my Urban Garden DP because I KNEW those colors were inspired by this DP.  I decided to go with the stripe and layer with solid colors.  The main card is Baja Breeze with a layer of Kiwi Kiss behind the striped DP.  I used my Martha lace doily border punch but you can't really see the detail that well.  I used my blender pen and classic ink to color the image (from retired set Happy Harmony) and then cut it out with my new label Nestabilities.  The sentiment is from a MSE! acrylic set (Sympathy Sentiments) and I used Basic Gray to stamp it.  At the last minute I ticket-corner-punched the bottom corners and added some pearls but now I'm wishing I had left the corners alone and done 3 brads horizontally in that big, green space in the bottom left.  And I'm just now realizing that the ribbon was only supposed to go across the smaller layer...whatever. *sigh*  It's done now!  LOL

I think that's going to be it for me tonight. I thought about doing Kwerner's Color Challenge but I think I'll wait for SC's Sketch Challenge tomorrow and combine the two.  Have a good night and wherever you are - STAY WARM!!   

Sunday Sketch Trio

Welcome to another fun-filled week!!!  Since this is the last week of school before Christmas holidays, it is going to be a very busy one.  There are lots of events planned at the school and I still have some shopping to do, presents to wrap and sanity to keep!  :o)

Let's forget about the busy-ness and relax for a few minutes.  I have been feeling a bit "mojoless" over the past week, thus my lack of posts.  I decided to sit down this morning and I wasn't allowing myself to get up before I had accomplished "something."   I was up before anyone else . . . blessed silence . . . and started to check the blogs, something I hadn't really had time to do this week.  I started at Splitcoast where I found my color inspiration as well as a sketch.  The color challenge for this week was Taken With Teal, Riding Hood Red, Baja Breeze and Whisper White.  UGH, was my initial reaction.  How was I going to make THOSE colors work together???

BUT, I persevered - not going to give up THAT easily!  So, without further ado, here we go:

Card #1: Sketch For You To Try

I started by stamping my very cool snowman from an Inkadinkado acrylic set with Riding Hood Red on Whisper White cardstock.  I cut him out with my Nestabilities Label and then I used the snowflake from the same set to stamp some Baja Breeze snowflakes around him.  I added a metallic brad and a half-pearl to one of the snowflakes to give it some more interest.  The rest is pretty self-explanatory: ribbon, ticket corner punch, cuttlebug, swiss dots EF, more pearls. . . 

Card #2 - Splitcoast Sketch Challenge #206

This card was a bit harder for me.  I wanted to keep Baja Breeze the focal color and I had already cut the BB for the main card.  Hmmmm... I worked on the vertical strips first - I used my Nestabilities pinking circles and plain circles to frame the sentiment and other two images.  The bottom two images are from the Snowflake Spot set (retired) and the top image is from a $1.50 stamp I bought at Michael's.  I put some red brads on the top one for berries and added some more pearls to the snowflake on the bottom.  Some white brads in the corners and some ribbon and bows along the side complete the center panel.  I started to put it all together and at the last minute, I ran the card front through the cuttlebug with my Snow Dots embossing folder and VOILA:

Card #3 - Taylor's Cupcake Challenge Sketch

My brain was feeling a bit "used" by the time I got to this sketch.  It is a beautifully elegant sketch and it gave me a chance to use my Martha border punch again!  I started with the main image which, again, is from that Inkadinkado acrylic stamp set.  I stamped it with Taken With Teal and ran it through the CB with my rectangle Nestabilities.  I layered it onto a piece of Riding Hood Red, scalloped the bottom and paper pierced a double row around the image.  Some red brads for berries, a couple photo corners and some sheer ribbon and the main image was done.  I found a scrap of Ski Slope paper to use for the bottom panel and ran a piece of Taken with Teal through the CB in the Argyle EF for the top panel.  I ticket corner punched the corners and added some silver brads before gluing it all together.

What do you think? I had a lot of fun making these and now I think I'm going to spend the afternoon curled up on the couch.  It is rather chilly here today (-29*C!!!) so anything I can do to stay warm, I will!!  Have a great week everyone!  Thanks for clicking by!