Back To Regularly Scheduled Programming!

After my foray into the world of layered patterned paper yesterday we're back with a more Jen-esque CAS card today.  :)  I've used a much more manageable (for me) amount of PP here for a bit of paper piecing on my Unity lamp and some shiny gold paper behind it. These are papers I've had since 2007 (remember those HOTP Sarapapers??) so it's time they got some use I think!  I'm playing along with Unity's Friends With Flair and also the paper piecing challenge at Less Is More.  


The sky is looking a bit dark outside at the moment and I'm hoping it will rain a bit and take away some of this oppressive humidity.  All I want to do right now is sit under the ac unit with a pint of ice cream!  Seems to be the only sensible way to handle this weather really...


Supplies Used:
Cardstock:  (White) Bazzill
Patterned Papers:  (Fresh Citrus Sarapapers) HOTP
Stamps:  (Lamp & sentiment from Shine On!) Unity
Ink: (VersaFine Onyx Black) Tsukineko
Die:  (Nesties Peony) Spellbinders
Gems:  (Bumblebee assortment) Doodlebug

Consider Yourself Vintage

Happy Friday!  Is everyone ready for the weekend? I'm hoping to get lots of crafty time in since Luis will be working.  I made this card for my uncle's birthday using an image and sentiment from Unity's February 2012 KOM.  His response was, "What is that?  A hearse?  I'm not THAT vintage!!" Hmmm...  not quite the reaction I was looking for but I guess it does kind of look like one huh?  Oh well, even if he wasn't sure about the card he enjoyed the Mexican dinner we put on for him.  :)  


I used the sketch from Less Is More for the card, I'm going to join in with Unity's Friends with Flair blog hop and I'm entering this in the Simon Says Stamp birthday challenge!   

Cardstock:  (Vintage Cream) PTI, (Not Quite Navy) Stampin' Up
Stamps:  (Image and sentiment from Feb '12 KOM - Lucky To Have You) Unity
Inks: (VersaMark) Tsukineko, (Not Quite Navy, Early Espress0) Stampin' Up
Embossing Powder:  (Clear) Ranger
Dies:  (Nesties Large Labels) Spellbinders

Pastel Butterflies

A big thanks to Jenny for reminding me to post this today.  I was all set to put it up tomorrow which would have been a day late for the CAS-ual Fridays Bold and the Beautiful challenge to use black and pastels.  It would, however, have been a day early for the Less Is More Take Three Challenges challenge.  Clearly my mind was somewhere in between... The LIM challenges I used are:

Week 5 - Pastel Colours

Week 15 - Embossing

Week 16 - Butterflies

Week 55 - Punches/Dies   
I'm also entering this in the Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes Challenge. 

Cardstock:  (Black) Pacon, (Textured White) Bazzill, (Smooth White) Gina K
Stamps:  (Butterflies from {...with her own wings}, Sentiment from Oct 2011 KOM - Faith, Hope, Love...Live By It) Unity
Inks:  (VersaMark) Tsukineko, (Pretty in Pink, So Saffron, Certainly Celery, Bashful Blue) Stampin' Up

Embossing Powder:  (Seafoam White) Ranger

Die:  (Alpha-Blocks) PTI

Hello Hello

I've got a multi-challenge card for you today.  I started out with the colours from the Play Date Cafe.  I love their bright and cheery colour story this week.  Susan of One-Layer Wednesday has challenged us to use more than 5 circles on our card and Chrissie and Mandi at Less Is More are looking for one-layer cards with stripes.  I figured there must be a way to combine these and I ended up using my new (to me) Background Basics: Retro stamps from PTI which incorporate stripes and circles!  Using the PTI stamps also made this eligible for A Passion for Papertrey's stripes challenge.  A CAS four-challenge wonder!

Cardstock:  (Rustic white) PTI

Stamps:  (Background Basics: Retro) PTI, (Hello) Woodware USA

Inks:  (Pacific Point, More Mustard, Night of Navy) Stampin' Up

Gems:  (Bumblebee Assortment) Doodlebug 

Pensive Bluebird

Less Is More is another challenge that I haven't played along with in a while so I thought I'd join in their latest - a one layer card with the subject of birds.  I had a completely different card to start with but couldn't quite make it work so I started again and ended up with this which uses a pensive little bird from Paper Smooches' Forest Whimsy which I was lucky enough to win because I used the phrase "Whoop whoop" in my comment!  I knew that would come in handy one of these days...   :)
Cardstock:  (White) Gina K
Stamps:  (Bird from Forest Whimsy) Paper Smooches, (Sentiment from Everyday Sayings) Hero Arts
Ink:  (Memento Tuxedo Black) Tsukineko
Copics:  Y17, BG01, BG05

The True Spirit of Christmas

***This is my second post of the day.  Please click here for my Friends with Flair/Wee Memories/Use It Tuesday/Simon Says Stamp card!***

I decided to rebel against my usual schedule and not do any cleaning this morning.  I went to the Craft Cave instead for a little play time and made a card for the current Less Is More challenge to use stars.  The picture is kind of dark and I don't have time to mess around with Photoshop as I have to be out the door in 15 minutes and off to work.  It'll have to do as I won't get home in time tonight to fix it and make the challenge deadline.  
I've had these stamps for ages now and I think they were a freebie with a magazine.  I stamped the sentiment with ColourBox Burnt Copper which I've never used before but I like the reddy colour of it.  I had nothing to match it for the stars so I inked up some cardstock and die cut the stars out of that.  I like that the smaller one came out a little darker than the larger one - gives it a bit more dimension I think - and I added some Doodlebug gems and Glossy Accents for shine!  Gotta jet now!  Hope you all have a lovely day! 

Winter Wishes

I wanted to have another go at one of the sketch challenges over at the Moxie Fab World so this is my entry for the Horizontal Sketch Challenge.  I'm also going to enter it in the Less Is More CAS Anything Goes challenge.  The LIM ladies are attempting to get 1000 entries so I am happy to lend a hand and help them reach their goal!  :)  This week's challenge at 4 Crafty Chicks is to use embossing so I am posting this puppy over there as the snowflake and sentiment are both heat embossed.  And, of course, I can't forget my friends at Use It Tuesdays - here's 5 more previously uninked stamps!

Also, today is Monday and time to announce the winner of my Unity blog candy!  (You thought I'd forget didn't you?)  Not too many comments on that post but I didn't really advertise the blog candy.  I wanted it to be for people who not only were followers but who actually look at my blog regularly.  I hate the idea of having a bunch of people suddenly become followers just do win some free stash.  I also enjoyed reading what products people are enjoying these days although asking for that was a bit of self torture given the shopping ban!!  :)  Okay, let's get to the part you really want to read - without further ado here's the winner!

True Random Number GeneratorMin: Max: Result:2Powered by RANDOM.ORG

Commenter #2 is Jenny from Crafting in the Country!  Congrats, Jenny!  And thanks again to  all of you who stop by and say hello and who in turn inspire me with all your amazing creations.  :)  

     

Supplies Used:
Cardstock:  (White) Bazzill, (Black) Gina K Luxury Cardstock
Stamps:  (Flower, sun, leaf from Friendly Flowers) Paper Smooches, (Snowflake from Winter Swirls, Sentiment from Holiday Button Bits) PTI
Ink:  (Memento Tuxedo Black & VersaMark) Tsukineko
Embossing Powder:  (Silver & Seafoam White) Ranger
Gems:  Doodlebug

Punch:  (3/4" square) EK SuccessCopics:  R27, YR68, Y17 / Y08, Y38 / YR04, YR07, G99

Fighting the Lack of Mojo

I had expected to be posting an entry for this week's CAS-ual Fridays challenge tonight. However, try as I might, I could not get the really cool idea in my head to translate on to paper.  It was SO frustrating!!  I've noticed a lot of people saying their mojo has gone AWOL lately and I think that mine has joined the deserters too.  Everything I tried felt like an epic fail.  I really hate those days...  However, I was determined to come out of the Craft Cave with something at least slightly respectable so I turned my energies to this week's Less Is More challenge to use the colours of your nation's flag.  Since Bermuda's flag is pretty colourful I decided to also enter my card in the latest Wee Memories challenge - to use no less than 4 colours on your card.

So here's the Bermuda flag.  We've got the old flag favourite colours of red, white and blue (we are a British territory after all!) and also some green, yellow, sky blue, beige and brown. Quite a selection!  The picture in the crest depicts the ship Sea Venture running aground on Bermuda's treacherous reefs.  The Sea Venture was on it's way to Jamestown, VA to provide relief to the struggling colony.  Instead, they got caught up in a hurricane and ended up in Bermuda.  Eventually they build 2 new ships and some people carried on to VA while others became the island's first settlers.  But enough of the history lesson - onto the card!

Supplies: CS: Bazzill & misc; Stamp: (image) Unity, (sentiment) Hero Arts; Inks: VersaMark,  Tea Dye Distress Ink; Gems: Doodlebug

With all those colours I wanted to keep things fairly simple so I found this harlequin stripe stamp in All You Need (Unity's August 2010 KOM).  I stamped it in VersaMark on each coloured paper and fussy cut it.  I used the Tea Dye ink on the sentiment and matted the banner on chocolate paper to bring in the beige and brown.  It's hard to go wrong on a card with a rainbow element and finishing this made me feel slightly less useless than I had earlier in the day!  Tomorrow is my long day at work so no carding.  Maybe the break will give my mojo time to find it's way home!

Rainbow Buttons

***2nd Post For The Day***

I really thought I'd posted this first thing this morning!  Whoopsie!

Another rainbow goodness challenge - this time from Colour Throwdown.  You really can't go wrong with a rainbow on a card can you?  I found these white Prima flowers when I was tidying up the other day and briefly considered inking them but then I stumbled across some buttons and thought I'd let them share the spotlight with the flowers.

Supplies: CS: Bazzill; Stamp: Paper Smooches; Ink: VersaMark: Embossing Powder: Ranger: Flowers: Prima; Buttons: Craft Supply

**ETA:  Ack!  I'm not doing well today!  I also wanted to enter this in this week's Less Is More recipe challenge to use buttons or ribbon.  Hope it's okay to add it in now!

Sweet Rain

It's not very often that I create a multi-challenge card but today the stars aligned and I came up with a card for the following:
CAS-ual Fridays Sweet & Treats Challenge
The Play Date Cafe Challenge #90
Less Is More Circles Challenge
Unity Circles, Circles, Circles Challenge

Supplies:  CS: Bazzill, SU; Stamps: Unity; Ink: VersaFine; Die: Nesties Circles; IP: PTI

I love the PDC colours this week especially that yummy creamsicle!  I didn't have any Bazzill cardstock that worked for the eggplant colour so I used SU Elegant Eggplant.  It looked a bit plain next to the other textured colours so I used a PTI impression plate to give it some pizzazz.  The ice cream stamps are from Unity's March 2011 Kit of the Month and the sentiment is from their August 2009 KOM.  The paper piecing on the ice creams was a bit fiddly but I like how it came out.  The thin stripes were inspired by Cristina's Round 1 Gallery Idol entry.


Guess what?  All that dancing finally paid off!  Here's what I woke up to this morning:

Look at that rain!  Whoo hoo!  It lasted about 20 minutes and I could hear the water pouring into the tank - music to my ears!  :)  Then there was another shower a few hours later.  It's still looking pretty grey out there so maybe there will be some more.  The only ones who are not impressed are Jem and Atti as it has cut into their ball playing time.  I promised them an extra long walk later and gave them a treat at lunch time but they're still looking a bit hard done by!  Oooh!  It's raining again!  Whoo hoo!

Less Is More

The Less Is More challenge blog is only in it's 4th week but it already has a huge following.  This is my first time joining in  and I doubt it will be my last.  The challenge this week is a recipe: 3 squares.  I used colours inspired by last week's ColourQ challenge.  I didn't manage to play along with that one but I love the bright colours and will definitely be using them again.

Supplies: Card Blank: The Stamp Pad Co; Stamps: Hero Arts squares and sentiment & The Paper Source images; Ink: SU Rich Razzleberry, Wild Wasabi & Pacific Point

The Hero Arts funky frame stamp was given to me by a friend a few years ago and this is the first time I've inked it up.  I love the doodliness of it!  The Paper Source stamps were part of a set I bought in 2007.  I think I've mentioned before how much stash I have hoarded and I am determined to stop buying and start using.  I'll post some Craft Cave pics one day soon so  you can see how out of hand it has become.  Part of the hoarding has to do with the fact that I don't have any local stores I can pop out to when I need something.  I have to order everything online.  Due to shipping costs it's not economical to order just one thing here and there so I tend to do bulk orders and always go overboard.  I'm a bad, bad stash hoarder.  Is there a stash hoarder's anonymous I can join?