MelJen’s Designs Challenge #145-Inchies

My friend Barb is hostess of the current challenge on the MelJen’s Designs Challenge Blog and I thought I’d surprise her a bit and participate for a change. *Ü* And I got to wander around the store and find an image I thought might work well for the challenge of using inchies on the card.

Here’s what I came up with:

I really like this button flower that I found. It’s called Little Layered Flowers Button Daisy. There is a whole set you can buy, or you can pick and chose the items that most appeal to you. For now, I just picked up this flower. It was fun to color with Prismacolor pencils and odorless mineral spirits. I like the Spring time colors in the Doodlebug 6x6 paper stack. And I tried to do something a little different by angling the larger square like a diamond. It’s a little big, though. Sigh. Still I think it looks okay. I like the clean and simple lines. The inchie squares are popped up with foam dots. I like the texture of the polka dots, too. It was fun playing along, if nothing else. You might want to try it, too. Who knows…maybe you could win a digital image!

Thanks for stopping by! Have a SUPER start to your weekend.

Sally Curtsies So Sweetly

I pinned a card last week because I thought the image was so very sweet. Then I went on the hunt at Sassy Cheryl’s to find the image. It took a little time, but I managed to find Sassy Sally Curtsy. She was in the $2 area, which I wasn’t expecting. Anyway…here’s the inspiration for the card I made. I am really liking Pinterest for opening my eyes to new and neat blogs!

I used, what else, my colored pencils and odorless mineral spirits to color the image. :) And I sponged some Tim Holtz Faded Jeans distress ink to look like sky. I had the Doodlebug polka dot paper in my stash from last spring. I paired it with Hydrangea (CTMH) cardstock and some green pattern paper (unknown brand). I punched the Martha Stewart border, added a narrow white organdy ribbon and added some Doodlebug twine. My nod to doing something different was to offset the image.  I like the final result quite a bit. :)

While I had the paper sitting on my desk, I quick made another clean and simple card, pretty much casing this one.

These are squares with two corners rounded off. The larger square is 1 1/4 inches and the smaller is 3/4 inch. I probably could have cut smaller squares, but it would have been harder to round the corners of the smaller piece. The happy birthday is from Papertrey Ink’s Birthday Basics set and stamped in Hydrangea ink. The purple gem is from my stash and I think it was Kaisercraft, but it’s not in the packaging so I can’t say for sure. It’s hard to tell from this shot, but the petals of the flower are pop dotted as well.

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you are having a great day!

Little Teenie Card Challenge #144

A week or so ago, my good friend, Barb, really wanted me to enter a Meljen’s Designs card challenge using the Windswept Diva card I made. Let me just say, she made sure I entered. LOL  Lo and behold, my card was selected to win a free digital image from Meljen’s Designs!! How fun is that?! Thanks, Barb! *Ü*

I decided to choose Little Teenie, a new image, because it was different from her other designs. Here’s what I came up with…

As Barb explained to me, she was inspired by a character from The Borrowers movie. One I haven’t seen since I didn’t pick up on why she has  the fork. I admit I’m clueless about some things. We are not a big movie watching family. We watch a lot of tv, though. LOL  Anyway, I thought she was a cute little thing. Then Barb told me that the current challenge is to use a square on the card. So, I thought what the heck, I’ll try entering again.

I’ve colored her with my trusty Prismacolor pencils and odorless mineral spirits. The papers are from Pebbles, Inc.’s new paper pad called Family Ties. And just in case you didn’t get the whole “square” challenge, I added the embossed strip that uses squares. Gotta cover my bases. LOL Nah, I wanted to add a little texture and thought this would be a fun way to do it. Oh and I added mini brads (Michaels Recollections brand) instead of gems. She’s not such a girly girl, right? Don’t you love the needle sword??

Thanks so much for stopping by! Hope you are having a happy day. *Ü*

**Edited to add the challenge number and to also say, I guess I haven’t read The Borrowers, either. **

CAS Anniversary Card

My neighbors are out of town celebrating their anniversary and I am keeping an eye on their house. I thought it would be fun to leave them a little surprise for when they get home.

As my post title noted, this is indeed a clean and simple card, and I sure like it! I was inspired by a card I saw on Pinterest, which was leading me to www.freckledandfun.blogspot.com. Unfortunately, Chrome detected malware and wouldn’t let me actually go to the blog. So, sorry no link on this one. I don’t want to mess up my computer, that’s for sure. I will err on the side of caution.

I used two Cuttlebug embossing folders and some American Crafts ribbon from my stash. I was tickled at how well the ribbon worked with the Breeze cardstock from CTMH(sorry, I think Breeze is retired now)! For those who don’t remember or know, I was a consultant several years ago and I still have a lot of cardstock in my stash, which is why I use product that may no longer be available. The inspiration card had an oval matted in blue with the sentiment and I was going to do that as well, but I kind of liked it without the sentiment.  I also think this card can most definitely be used for many different occasions.

That’s it for today…I really need to straighten up my corner…it’s a mess from yesterday.  *Ü*

Thanks so much for stopping by. Hope your week is off to a great start.

Valentine’s Day Cards

I recently acquired the Close To My Heart promotional kit, Whooo’s Your Valentine and had some time today to play with it. Or rather, to play with the stamp set that comes with the kit. Thought I’d share what I came up with. Hope you like! The first two cards I’m sharing were inspired by cards I saw on Pinterest.

 Here’s the card I saw that led me to create this first card. It’s the third card as you scroll down the blog post. What I really liked on this card was the embossed lines. I have to be honest and let you know that it took me a couple of tries to get the lines embossed because I kept going too fast and my bone folder would jump the track. I added a heart gem that I had in my stash. I thought about adding a bow to the top ribbon piece, but I kind of liked it left alone. I cut the heart using the Artiste cartridge Real Size at 1 1/4 inches.

This card is pretty much a case of this card using the hearts from the CTMH kit. I liked using the Cuttlebug heart embossing folder, which I’ve had for years, but haven’t really used. LOL I liked the look of kraft and Blush. The images are stamped with Hollyhock ink and hand cut (maybe what they call “fussy” cut?). I used a Fiskars border punch for the scallops.

This next card is the result of my playing around a bit after seeing this card in my Reader. I really like the end result and wish I could get a better photo of it. If I don’t use flash when my camera says to, my images end up really blurry. Unfortunately, the ribbon is satin and kept catching the flash. I think you get the idea, though.

I’ve got a neat woodgrain embossing folder that I picked up at Hobby Lobby. It’s their Paper Studio brand. When I saw the card I linked above,  I decided to play with inking up this embossed piece of Kraft. I used some Brown Bag, Chocolate and Cocoa ink from CTMH. I then played with it being a sort of monochromatic look and while the ink looks a lot darker, the images are inked with Cocoa. Like I said, I am really happy with how this card came out. I think it’d be a nice masculine and non traditional Valentine’s card.

Well, that’s it from me for today. Thanks so much for stopping by! Til next time…

Oh Happy Day Card

I had some time today to work on a birthday card to hold a gift card and I have to say, I’m very happy with the end result. I started out in a completely different place and wound up with this result. What a happy surprise.

There is a blog I’ve followed for a while written by Kay Miller. She designs digital products and I just love her style. If you look back on some of my digital layouts, you’ll see plenty of Kay Miller Designs in use! Recently Kay has decided to utilize her blog, My Joyful Moments,  to share cards she has been making and what a treat it’s been to see her projects. She is so talented! I think I have starred each of the cards that has shown up on my Google Reader.  Okay, so yesterday Kay posted a card that thought I wanted to kind of CASE.  I haven’t used Linen Closet from DCWV for a while and I thought it’d be a great card. So, I started there, but I really don’t have any of the flourish type of stamps (that stamp well) and I couldn’t find a Cricut cut I liked so I got a little discouraged. In my rummaging around I remembered I recently picked up a new 6x6 pad of Pebbles Family Ties Collection that I’ve been wanting to play with.

I decided to ditch the floral clusters and ended up playing with my new Cricut Artiste cartridge/kit that I got from CTMH.  That’s where the chipboard banner and Oh Happy Day stamp came from. Fun, huh?! The little stickpin is also from CTMH.

On Artiste, there is a cut to hold a gift card and that’s what I decided to make for this card. I wanted to dress up the inside of the card, but didn’t want to use up paper, so I stamped the dots with a Papertrey Ink stamp and Sunflower (CTMH) ink.

The embossing folder used that you can see on the front of the card is from Hobby Lobby. It’s a Paper Studio brand folder. The blue and yellow cardstock is from DCWV’s Spring Cardstock stack.

So, there you have it! A fun way to dress up a gift card for a special someone.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Windswept Diva Card

My friend, Barb, has inspired me yet again with a card she made here. Like Barb, I’m really liking these lovely diva images from Meljen’s Designs. I was really taken with the glittery goodness of Barb’s diva. I almost copied her idea, but when I saw what the “base” color I used looked like after coloring, I didn’t want to cover it up, so I opted for some glittery outlining instead along with a glitter sash and sparkly shoes.

This image was coloring with colored pencils and blended with odorless mineral spirits.  I added some shiny gems to enhance the image. And I tried for a monochromatic white look. All in all, I’m pretty happy with the final result.

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope your week gets off to a great start!