Pinwheels

***This is my second post for today, please click here for Erin's Birthday Blog Hop card!***

Eating icicle pops, feeling the sand between your toes and watching the pinwheel patterns go round and round from a quick breath of air is what a hot summer day is all about.

I'm really excited and honored to be a guest designer for Skipping Stones Design this summer! The ultra-talented Kim Kesti is the guest sketch artist and she has offered up a fabulous and easy sketch for this week's Skipping Stones Design Sketch Challenge.

My pinwheel card today features Pumpkin Seed Sentiments, a really versatile set that has background images plus sentiments. I sprayed some plain paper squares with varying colors of mists and then stamped the same background image in the same color on each of the squares. After creating pinwheel shapes, I adhered them to the card and used a toothpick as their handle. Super fun and colorful!

A Modern Birthday

To one of the best blogging pals around, this birthday hop is for you Erin!

The cards in this hop will feature the colors of kraft and red. As a surprise to Erin, the rest of us teamed up to feature a simple sketch with a "hopping sentiment"!

 

This is the first stop. My card features Modern Basics from Papertrey Ink and For the Love of Dots from Practicing Creativity Designs. I experimented with the shapes from the set and came up with this stamped design which I think it perfectly modern and fun. Moxie Fab World is having their Stamp It! Cards Week Challenge so I'll be entering this card.

The ultra talented and super sweet Jen is the next-she has a wonderfully created krafty birthday card too!

Please make sure to hop on through and the final stop is the birtdhday girl herself, Erin. I hear that she might just have some party favors and birthday giveaways on hand for your well wishes!

Here's the order of Erin's Birthday Blog Hop

Karen  The Bald Dragonfly  
Jen   Jen Shears Designs  
Sav   Savannaland2   
Emily L.   Art from the Heart   
Yvonne  Do More With Less  
Michele   Studio MSG 
Lora  Fleur de lo   
Lynn  Miller's Ink  
Emily K.  My Little Slice of Bliss   
Erin  Homeade Cards by Erin

Leftovers

**My Young Crafters Unite Blog Hop post can be found here**

My husband doesn't eat them. My kids don't eat them. Usually I have to- I bring the leftovers to work for lunch the next day. Its a good thing I don't mind them, I think leftovers carry over to my crafting too.

Today's card for the Market Street Stamps Sketch Challenge, with the twist of including mists, uses leftover scraps of misted paper. I stamped the large Vintage Notepad over some white paper previously misted in orange, trimmed and adhered to a card base. I then drew a thought bubble onto a white scrap previously misted in blue, handwrote the sentiment and adhered that with dimensionals to the notebook paper. I'd like to think of this as a boy version to this card here. Ahh, I love spray mists.

Young at Heart

***To check out my CAS-ual Fridays Krafts-men post, please click here***

Welcome to *what used to be* the 21st stop on the Young Crafters Unite Blog Hop! You should have arrived from the talented Ezlie Perez's blog.

21, eh? I remember those good ol' days of looking forward to buying my first ever six pack! Nowadays, I'm looking forward to finding a good deal on a six pack of boys' socks! My boys and I like to get a bit messy with paper, colors and scissors! Let's just say that I no longer have to use blunt ended scissors and they might be a bit more interested in frogs and mud as of late.


Another young crafter recently gifted me with some amazing embossing plates (thank you!) and of course I had to see what they are made of. Using one of my favorite crafting supplies, I gently misted the plate and ran it through some vanilla paper. After cropping the panel to a pretty and interesting work of art, I adhered it to a rusty solid colored base that had been stamped with a sentiment. I then finished the piece with a wrapped a ribbon tab with another of my favorite crafty product, natural burlap string. A rhinestone was the last touch, completing the visual triangle of elements.

You're next stop on the hop is Amy Courchaine.

There are 65 stops in all and up for grabs are some really great prizes, drawn at random from all commenters on the blog stops through Sunday. You could have the opportunity to a $20 from Simon Says Stamp, your choice of stamp set from Paper Smooches your choice of stamp set from Lawn Fawn. If you by chance get lost, a complete list of blogs can be found here.

Thanks for stopping today!

Supplies Used:
Cardstock: (Really Rust) SU, (Vintage Cream) PTI

Stamps: (Botanical Silhouettes) PTI

Ink: (Chocolate Chip Pigment) SU

Embellishments: (Chocolate Chip Satin Ribbon) SU, (Natural Burlap String) May Arts, (Rhinestone) Michaels

Tools: (Embossing Plate) PTI

Other: (Treasured Hymn Spritz) Shimmerz

Five Pennies for Dad

My dad gave me one dollar bill 'cause I'm his smartest son,
and I swapped it for two shiny quarters 'cause two is more than one!
And then I took the quarter and traded them to Lou for three dimes- I guess he don't know that three is more than two!
Just then, along came old blind Bates and just 'cause he can't see he gave me four nickels for my three dimes,
and four is more than three!
And I took the nickels to Hiram Coombs down at the seed-feed store,
and the fool gave me five pennies for them, and five is more than four! 

And then I went and showed my dad, and he got red in the cheeks

and closed his eyes and shook his head- too proud of me to speak

  ~Shel Silverstein 

I read that poem to my sons the other day before bed and they giggled and giggled and giggled! I can totally see my youngest doing this some day soon...

Another fabulous week, another fabulous challenge from CAS-ual Fridays! This week we are sponsored by the Kraft Outlet and are challenging you to create a clean and simple masculine card and use the color kraft! For additional challenge details, prize information, rules and really, really great inspiration from the Girl Fridays, check out the CAS-ual Fridays blog!

My card started with a kraft base that was ink distressed with a dark yellow and stamped with a bold sentiment. I then stamped off-centered a fern row which the leaves were then colored lightly with distress inks. After whittling down the back side of a twig, I adhered that to the card base and wrapped it all with some twine.

Supplies Used: 
Cardstock: (Kraft) PTI
Stamps: (Falling For You, You're the Man) Practicing Creativity Designs
Ink: (Wild Honey, Peeled Paint Distress Ink) Ranger, (Onyx Black) Versafine
Fibers: (Natural Burlap String) May Arts, (Yellow Bakers Twine) The Twinery
Other: Twig

#5

The Grab Bag Giveaway Winner from this post is #5, Chari M., as picked in random from the oldest. Why #5 I asked? About twenty reasons and five minutes later, the general consensus was that at age five he did a lot of fun "stuff" like  play and sleep in, you know, the important things in life...

This card came about by using the colors from Color Cue #16 and Funky Flowers from WPlus9. I added some rhinestones to the funky flowers and carried the colors down to some paper strips attached to the base of the card whereas the layer with the flowers and sentiment have been popped up with dimensionals.

Happily

Sigh.

It's been twelve years today. Twelve years ago today I first laid eyes on my then future husband. He was the best man in a wedding of my childhood friend. It went down like this at the reception:

:::   cue the corny macarena music  :::

Me: Oops, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bump into you.

Him: If you are sorry, you'll dance with me later.

Sigh.

I promise. I really didn't bump into him on purpose. I'm just a bad dancer.
We've had our ups, some downs and a major fall, but we are here together, and happy.

I've been following A Passion for Papertrey for a while and was delighted to see that I could play along in their WaCCCky Challenge. Four, yes four, colors plus a neutral. The mastermind behind this color combination is the talented Maureen. She pulled the colors out of a basket, brilliant idea if you ask me!

 

I was determined to play. Five colors? I hardly ever use five colors! Its a good thing today was a lazy day because my final design was probably my sixth or seventh attempt.

Supplies Used:

Cardstock: (Kraft) Papertrey Ink

Patterned Paper: Basic Grey
Stamps: (Botanical Silhouettes) Papertrey Ink
Ink: (Vintage Photo Distress) Ranger
Embellishments: (Chipboard Hearts) Heidi Grace
Tools: (Die) Papertrey Ink, (Scallop Punch) Fiskars

A Forgotton Note

The 2010-2011 school year might just be remembered by the oldest as the toughest in his short school history. New teacher to the first grade, homework became the enemy and try to focus was a bit of a difficult journey... He persevered and made the marks to go on to the second grade with a fresh start.

CAS-ual Fridays is Getting Edgy this week (we'd love to see a clean and simple creation with fun edge by using border dies, punches or tearing!) and our fabulous sponsor is Market Street Stamps! For all the challenge details, rules and prize information, along with some edgy Girl Friday samples, please visit the CAS-ual Fridays Blog.

I created my sentiment panel by first stamping the ginormously huge and really clever Vintage Notebook background stamp from Market Street Stamps onto white paper. I love the big image of the stamp because it also works equally fabulous in a small scale after cutting the paper down. So, after trimming the panel to size, I worked the edges with distressing and tearing, which was then adhered to a patterned paper background with foam dimensionals. A forgotten note, one might say, thanking a teacher for a job well done.

I really hope that you will play along this week, it is so much fun to see your clean and simple takes on these challenges!

Supplies Used: 
Cardstock: (White) Office Max
Patterned Paper: (Recollection Collection) Crate Paper
Stamps: (Vintage Notebook) Market Street Samps, (Teacher from Chatterbox) Practicing Creativity Designs, (Apple from My Silly Valentine) LawnFawn
Ink: (Broken China, Vintage Photo, Barn Door Distress) Ranger
Embellishments: (Rubon) SU, (Paperclip)

Rustic Friends

 

A bit of rustic. A bit of determination...that's about all I've go to say about this card, and that I didn't give up on it. Since I worked to hard to make it I decided to post it. Sometimes I like the cards I make, sometimes not so much. I might have to revisit this at a later date, when I'm not thinking so hard. Any suggestions would be welcome!

I started by stamping the woodgrain pattern in a mix of cream and brown inks onto a bright orange and earthy green panel and then added pops of the bright blue color. The layout is from a sketch by Skipping Stones Design and the colors are from the Embellish Magazine Color Trends Challenge with the twist to do some background stamping.

 

Ok, let's move on to what I really wanted to show you.

Here's a rustic friend that visited us this morning in our backyard. Isn't she beautiful? 

Supplies Used:
Cardstock: (Kraft) PTI, (Green, Orange) SU
Ink: (Vintage Cream) PTI, (Vintage Photo Distress) Ranger
Embellishments: (Twine) Divine Twine, (Rubon Sentiment) SU, (Ribbon and Rhinestones) Basic Grey
Tools: (Flower Dies) SU

You Did It

Funky. Modern. Bright. {Very bright}

I look at the get-ups my nieces wear and realize that fashion has come around, in my time. Wow. Nothing like bold neon colors, tied up t-shirts and tight tight pants to make you feel old... Nothing like meeting the oldest for the first time when she was still in diapers and has now graduated into high school to make you feel old.

It was fun to channel my young {er, very young?} years and pull out bold, bright colors and flashy patterns for this card based on this week's The Play Date Cafe combination. The layout is off of the current sketch at Skipping Stones Designs, which was also youthful and playful with its rotated panel. I decided that I needed a strong sentiment that didn't interfere greatly with the fun orange panel, so I die cut a piece of thick transparency and layered it with a sticker sentiment.  The tricky part was to figure out how to adhere this clear panel to the card...I figured I'd build up some drops of glossy accents (similar to foam squares) until they were hard and then adhere that with another drop of the glue to the card and it worked fine! I'm also going to enter this into the Papercrafts Gallery Idol First Round Auditions.

Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there. Just had a nice chat with mine and the husband is out doing what he loves best...fishing.

Supplies Used:
Cardstock: (White) OfficeMax
Stamps: (Pumpkkin Seed Sentiments) Skipping Stones Designs
Ink: (Only Orange Pigment) SU
Embellishments: (Sticker Sentiment) SRM, (Ribbon) May Arts
Other: (Mr. Huey Mist) Studio Calico, (Thread)
Tools: (Die Cut) Wplus9