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May 23, 2025

Floral Challenge with TK

Hi and Welcome!

It's time for a new challenge between myself and TK (Time for Kards).

This time we are using another image from Penny Black called, 
Garden Trio which also features a matching die set, Garden Trio Cut-Out.  Plus circle dies from PB (Stitched Square and Circles).

Here is my card that I created with the images and dies that she stamped and cut out for me to use.





The flowers in this card reminded me of, (poppies) so I wanted to go with poppy like colors for my card.  I had a very old piece of designer paper from (My Minds Eye) in my stash that has never been used and decided to base my color scheme off of it.

Card Base: Tangerine Tango (retired SU - this was one of my favorite SU colors and I was sad when they retired it). Next layer is Costal Cabana - SU.  Then the designer paper.  Also used were Unity Stamps Rectangle and Scallop dies.

The sentiment is from PB - Blooms stamp set.

I colored the image with Colored Pencils and blended with a blending stump and Gamsol).  For a little touch of sparkle I used some Black Diamond stickles (Ranger). 

You can see some of the sparkle on this close-up section of the card.


To achieve the darker shading behind the flower I cut out another circle on masking paper and used it as a mask and ink blended some Pecan Pie ink over the patterned paper.  The flower, circle and sentiment are raised up using foam tape.  To complete the card I added some small white pearls.

Don't forget to stop by TK's blog (Time for Kards) and check out what she created.

Thanks for stopping by.

May 18, 2025

IB#336 - Lemons

 Hello & Welcome!

Today's card is being shared for the Inspired By challenge #336 - Lemons.


Here is the inspiration photo and sketch:


Here is the card I created for this challenge:
I was inspired by the colors of the photo and also the sketch which I altered a little to fit my squares into a patterned that worked for my card idea.


For this card I used a stamp set from Catherine Pooler,  Your Zest Life.  - I've featured this stamp set before on (this post) using the same paper but different stamps, So you'll have another idea for this stamp set.

Details: Card Base: SU - Night of Navy card stock.
Designer paper was purchased at a JoAnn's store. I used a Scallop Rectangle Die from Unity Stamps to cut it out.
Lemon slices stamped with Memento Tuxedo ink on SU Daffodil Delight card stock and cut out with the matching dies.
Lemon was stamped on SU Basic White card stock with Daffodil Delight Ink and cut out with the matching die.  I added sparkle to the lemon and slices with a Wink of Stella Pen.
The sentiment was stamped with Versa Mark ink and embossed with SU Bold Black embossing powder on a piece of textured yellow card stock.
The squares are from Stampin'Up! - Stylish Dies and were cut out with Navy textured card stock. I mounted the images over the squares with foam tape and added some homemade enamels dots:
thanks to Leslie Miller for this idea.

A sample of the sparkle from the Wink of Stella:



Thank you for stopping in and don't forget to check out the Design teams cards and 

May 15, 2025

Art Nudge#525A and Freshly Made Sketches #686

Welcome  and Thanks for stopping by.


Today's card is being entered for Art Nudge #525A  and Freshly Made Sketches #686




Here is my card for these two challenges:  Click to enlarge


Details:  Image and Sentiment - Sweet Miss Daisy - Unfrogettable
Designer Paper - Sweet Miss Daisy - Ribbit
Card stock: Distress Watercolor Card Stock - Ranger,
SU retired Chocolate Chip, Close to Cocoa - Also Old Olive which is not a retired color.
Inks: Distress Ink from Ranger: Mustard Seed, Crushed Olive,  also used Memento Tuxedo Black, SU Early Espresso
Distress Mica Spray - Antique Bronze
Punch - Birthday Candles EK Success
Circle Die
Water Brush SU

I'm trying my hand at "water coloring" and still have a ways to go but think this turned out okay.

Foam Mounting Tape 

I stamped the image with the Memento ink and water colored it then fussy cut it out. The Close to Cocoa panel was stamped with the bugs using the Early Espresso ink.  Then the frog image and panel were spritz with the Mica Spray. 

Lots of shimmer on this card.


This is going to be hubby's birthday card this year. - I'm happy with how this one turned out.

May 9, 2025

Paper Players #736 (Something Old, Something New), Freshly Made Sketches#685 & A Challenge with a Friend

 Hi,  Welcome to my blog.

So today I'm combining a challenge that I'm doing with a friend,  TK from Time4Kards along with this weeks Paper Players #736 challenge:
Something Old, Something New. and Freshly Made Sketches#685

My good friend, Terri (aka TK) and I met awhile back for a visit and coffee together.  She brought a long an envelope filled with stamped images and sentiments that she said we could use to do one of our challenges together.  We each used the same image for our cards.  

Since the Image is new to me and also the die-cut that I chose to use and I'm using very old card stock and a patterned piece of paper that I've had in my stash for a couple of years now I thought this card would work great for the Paper Players challenge.  





So without further ado here is my card:  Click to enlarge cards.


Here's another view of the card:


For this card I started with the patterned paper as my inspiration point along with this weeks Freshly Made Sketch #685.  I bought the designer paper at Hobby Lobby several years ago and have never used it.  Then I decided to use this image from the ones TK gave me.  It's from Penny Black (Blooms) and comes with a matching die although for this image I didn't have the die so I fussy cut my image.  I colored it with a mixture of Colored Pencils and Copic Markers.  I used 3 color pencils, Celadon Green and Powder Blue and Metallic Gold. The marker I used was, Powder Blue as well.  I added Wink of Stella, Gold Glitter and Tarnished Brass Mica Spray to the flowers and the Embossed Background and Sentiment Die Cut.

I used retired SU card stock colors, Sage Shadow and I believe, Bliss Blue.  Both have been long retired so that is my something old along with the patterned paper.

Other items used: Fishtail Die (MFT) Swiss Dot Embossing Folder, Hello Die (Unity Stamps), Rectangle Die (Unity Stamps) Small baby blue pearls and foam mounting tape.

This card has tons of shimmer on it.  Hard to see in the photos but this is a closeup of part of the card:


You can see some of the shimmer from the Mica Spray, the Gold patterned paper and the pearls.

Be sure to stop by TK's blog - Time 4 Kards and check out how she used that stamp.

May 3, 2025

Monster Mayhem3 - FMS#684

 Greetings! - Guess what? - It's another Monster Mayhem card!

This one I'm entering for FMS#684  *on a fun note if you want to skip all the details you can read about my stamping mishaps at the end. - I promise you will laugh.


My card is done the opposite direction and I used a rectangle image instead of the circle. Plus this is a bit different from my first two monster cards as very little coloring was done on this one. Plus I did not use the matching paper pack.  Instead I chose to go a more, "grunge" style and used a monochromatic color scheme.

Here is my card:



I finally found my cloud stencil that I was looking for a few cards back (I believe it was the mouse with the umbrella card).

So I started off by stamping the Monster with Memento Tuxedo Black ink on Crumb Cake (Kraft) card stock.  Next I made a mask of him and place it over the image white I blended white ink over the cloud stencil to create clouds.  My white pad is not the greatest so you don't see the white that well.  I need to find a different white pad. Then I colored the eyes with a white pencil and added highlights to the monster's hair and horns with a Copper metallic pencil.

Next up I spritzed the image with Brushed Pewter Mica Spray. Cut out with rectangle dies and mounted it on a piece of Basic Black cs that I distressed.  Wrapped some twine around the 2 corners and set it aside.

Next up I stamped a piece of Crumb Cake cs with Memento Black ink and a stamp from Unity Stamps (Squared Impressions) stamp set, tore the edge and distressed it with my finger and also added the same spritzing of mica spray to it. Then I added a strip of white card stock cut with a punch from EK Success . I glued that down to a piece of Copper metallic card stock and layered it onto the black card base.  I stamped the sentiment on the kraft card stock and mounted it with foam tape. The main image was also mounted with foam tape.

This really sparkles in real life, I tried to get a picture to show it but it looks even better than the picture.


So yesterday while working on the 2nd Monster card, I realized that I couldn't find the circle sentiment I'd put together anywhere on my desk.  I spent about a half an hour looking for it before deciding to just make a new one.  Of course as soon as I did that I found the original one...stuck to the back of the main image panel!

It get's better...so today while I'm stamping the background panel I stamped off the first image and then stamped the 2nd one which had barely any ink on it.  I'm thinking to myself that maybe I didn't get enough ink on it so I stamped it down a couple of times on the pad and then realized I'm not stamping on my ink pad.  I was stamping on top of my cell phone!  Boy did I feel silly.  Thankfully I was able to clean the ink off and discovered that my stamping pad was on my right hand side and not my left where my cell phone was.

Does anything like this ever happen to you while you are stamping?

That's it for my first set of Monster Mayhem cards.  - My, She Monsters will hopefully be here Monday so be prepared for more monster mania! - Thanks for stopping by.

May 2, 2025

#IB334 - Inspired by

Welcome .

Today's card features those adorable (Mayhem Monsters) from yesterday's card.  Plus it's for this weeks, Inspired by challenge:





The idea is to be inspired by either the sketch, the photo or both.

Here is my card:  I was inspired by the colors of the photo although mine are a bit different as I leaned more towards purple and green which are in the photo.  Plus the blueberry color for the splatters.



My original idea was to follow the sketch but as often happens this card took on a mind of it's own and the sketch went the way of the "wild goose" as they say. - I hope you enjoy my interpretation of the inspiration photo.

I stamped the image on white card stock and colored it with my pencils (blended with gamsol). For a fun detail I used some Diamond Glaze on the teeth and added Crystal glitter.  I masked the image off and stamped the splatters with Azure Afternoon ink.  Some enamel dots were added to finish the card off.

Supplies: Stamp set - Monster Mayhem (Unity Stamps)
Pattern Paper - Monster Mayhem (Unity Stamps)
Card Stock: SU - Granny Apple Green, Gorgeous Grape, Highland Heather and Basic White
Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black, Azure Afternoon (SU)
Colored Pencils, Blending Stubs, Gamsol.
Enamel dots, Glitter, Foam Tape, Diamond Glaze

Thanks for stopping by.  If you leave a comment please include your e-mail in the comment if you want a personal thank you.