Raspberry Suite Color Challenge 2 and 2 Sketches 4 You Sketch Challenge

Two challenges in one!

This is my submission for Dawn McVey's Week 2 Color Challenge as well a 2 Sketches 4 You sketch challenge this week.The patterned paper fit so nicely with the colour challenge that I wanted that to be my focus. For embellishments, I used a giant brad with a cute flower pattern (dollar store) as well as one of my Baba (grandmother)'s buttons. She saved EVERYTHING because she lived through the depression. I "inherited" these buttons from her and use them occasionally. If I ever want to use them up, I'd better put them on every card I make from now to eternity! She was a great lady and I miss her dearly.

Ok, now that I've uploaded another card, I really have to get to bed!

OCC Colour Challenge

It's getting late, but I wasn't ready for bed, so I was looking through some of the blogs I have listed as "favourites" on my computer. I had forgotten about Our Creative Corner's colour challenge, so thought I'd give it a whirl. The colours this week are More Mustard, Bashful Blue and Not Quite Navy. I stamped Rubberbootabella with Black Stazon on watercolour paper and paper pieced the umbrella with S-U SAB DSP. I coloured her boots with Not Quite Navy, her skirt with Bashful Blue and her top with More Mustard. I used Blush Blossom on her skin and Close to Cocoa for her hair. I added a few self-sticking rhinestones and added the sentiment on the bottom. A pretty quick and easy card for 11:15 p.m. Gotta go get some ZZZZZ's.

Chicks Inspiration Challenge - Week 2!

Here it is! Week 2 of The Chicks' Inspiration Challenge. Last week, we had five participants in our brand new challenge. It's a great start, but next week when all five of them are the guest designers, we're going to need some new players! So don't be shy, join us and play! As with last week, there are no rules! Just look at the picture and make any project it leads you to! You have until Sunday, April 5th at midnight EST to link up using the Mr. Linky form at the bottom of this post. If you need help with any part of this process, simply click on the lable "Tutorials" in the right sidebar for step by step instructions.

Start by checking out the samples our guest designers made this week!

Donna MacDonald

Cathy Lewis

Karen Motz

Dana White

Joy Atkinson

Laurel Halliwushka

Chicks Inspiration Challenge - Week 1 Top Five!

O.K. I know only five people played the challenge in week one. But we loved all five entries and we are thrilled to invite all of you to be guest designers for our Week 3 challenge! If you would like to participate, please contact Cathy with your email address (inkycathy@gmail.com) and we will send you the week 3 challenge in advance so you can "get ready for your closeup!"

Without further ado, here are our "top five" for Week One:

Shelley Weaver

Janet R

Emily Wundrock

Margaret De Witt

Cat Spicer

Great job Ladies - Thanks for playing!

Mojo Monday Week 80

I have to say, I do like starting my day off making a card, especially if it is for Mojo Monday! I'm trying to decide (still) if I like this stamp set or not (Best Kind of Friend). I think I do, but I don't often reach for it when I am making cards. I guess it was needing a little love today so why not? This is a great layout. The flowers are just starting to peek out in the garden, so I had that in my head too. I used Gina K. 120 lb. card stock for my card bae. The patterned paper is S-U (of course!). I used versa mark, then Riding Hood Red and clear embossed the flower pot. I used Regal Rose, Ruby Red and Old Olive to colour the flowers. Kiwi satin ribbon and a few rhinestones from the dollar store along with a couple of punches and c'est fini. Have a terrific day everybody!

Connor's Birthday Card

Happy 17th Birthday, Connor! It was my nephew's birthday on Monday and this is the card we gave him. He has had a litte grass-cutting business for about 4 summers (he's very entrepreneurial!). He's a great kid and as quirky as he sometimes is, he's got a heart of gold. The sentiment inside says "and many mower". The card base is Sahara Sand and I stamped the Sanded background on it (see what I did there?). I watercoloured the image with various markers and layered it with Riding Hood Red and Basic Black. I've had some retired ribbon for a couple of years and since it matched, threw that on as well. The ticket corner punch was used and the card was finished off with a few black brads.

Kristina Werner Colour Inspiration #47

As I often do, I combined challenges - it makes me feel like I've accomplished something major (I know, it's a little thing, but it helps me get through the day!). This time, I put together Kristina's Colour Inspiration Challenge from yesterday with the SCS Sketch Challenge #221. I had the chicks image from A Little Birdie Told Me on my craft table for about 2 months! Actually, I have about 10 of them sitting there because I was going to use them for a swap, but never did. This one was already coloured too - I only added grass under their little toes (do chicks have toes?). My card measures 5" x 5". The base is Gina K. 120 lb. card stock. I added panels using DSP. The "It's your birthday" sentiment comes from Gina K. too. I used a nestie punch to frame it and I finished it off with some Tangerine grosgrain that I've had forever and some orange brads. TGIF!

An Apple a Day...

This is one of those cards that started out as a swirling mass of little inspiration sparks in the deep recesses of my brain combining all kinds of lovely details that I had collected over the past week in my travels through blogland. It began its slow journey with this sketch from the excellent 2sketches4you blog which posts a challenge every Monday. I loved the sketch and I really loved the samples the design team had come up with. In particular, a few of the ladies had used that Nesties lable shape I love so much, and one of them had added a gorgeous detail using eyelets and ribbon that I decided I had to try!

Then, as I was surfing around, I came across a simply fabulous tutorial at Paperfections on colouring fruit with Copic Markers. I was in love! But....I didn't own any images of fruit to try it on. So, hot on my (perceived) success at creating a hand drawn image of my dog, I spent a day coming up with some of my own drawn images of fruit. In particular, I was pleased with this image of a bushel of apples. And you know what they say about apples!

So I happily coloured my image using all the wonderful tips and tricks I had learned. And it looked pretty good, I thought. Then I thought of my friend Karen Motz over at Paper Playground and how she sometimes used Crystal Effects to glaze parts of her images and how much I like that. And I realized that I could make the apples....shiny! Even better! (I also borrowed the idea of a little bow made of two strands of twine from Karen's sample for this week's Chicks Challenge).

Finally, I traipsed down the street to my faithful blogging buddy Donna's house to steal some of her fabulous SU punches because my sentiments always look so boring and I love the layered look she always gets using these. Thanks, Donna!

And that, my friends, is the long tortuous road of begging, borrowing, and stealing that this card sent me on. It was a lot of fun!

It's a two challenge in one day!

I thought I'd start off my day with the SCS Ways to Use It #211 challenge to use "Hot Metal". Because I am lay-out challenged as well, I incorporated Sketch Challenge #119. For the challenge, I put waxed paper in a cuttlebug folder with glossy card stock then ironed it. I brayered Almost Amethyst over top and ended up with a shabby circle-y look. Since we are approaching Easter and I am determined to send relatives cards this year, I decided to use the chickadee from An Egg-cellent Easter set. I watercoloured the chick and eggs with various inks. For my long Barely Banana side panel, I versamarked the egg numerous times and clear embossed it. I added a little ribbon and dew drops to finish it off. I think it's cute! I'm going to use this technique to create the 4th card in my "ir-resistable" class next month.

A Milestone and Mojo Monday!

Today our little blog passed a major milestone:

10 000 Hits! ... and counting!

Thanks to all of you who keep coming back to see what we're up to, leave a kind word, and generally make us feel motivated to keep sharing all our tips, techniques, and artwork.

I haven't actually posted a new card in a few days because I have been focussing on getting our first Chicks Challenge organized. I was also feeling a bit like I had been "rushing" my cards in order to respond quickly to various challenges and I wasn't all that thrilled with some of my results. So this week I took a deep breath and decided to stop trying to be "first" and to focus more on "quality."

Which is why it has taken me until Wednesday to respond to Mojo Monday this week! Here's the sketch:

And here's my card!

I really liked this sketch and I had fun with this card. I have kind of a thing for dogs - one dog in particular: my crazy, goofy, lovable labradoodle, "Izzy." Whenever I see dog stamps anywhere, I am always hoping to find one that looks like her. But alas, I have yet to come across a labradoodle stamp! So I decided to take a shot at drawing my own and I surprised myself by coming up with a pretty good likeness! I scanned this into my computer so I can resize it and print it any time I feel the need for a labradoodle card. (I know, I'm a little weird, but basically harmless).

Anyway, I coloured Izzy with Copic Markers, layered her onto some cute My Mind's Eye paper, added a scalloped edge and a little ribbon....but I still didn't feel like the card was balanced. So I used a straight edge and a fine black marker to draw the border around the top half of the card and that seemed to do the trick!

The sentiment, "Woof," is hand written and inside the card I wrote: "Translation: Happy Birthday!"

Colour Throwdown #35

Wow- this was a bit tough! I gave all of my old "in colours" to my niece a long time ago. I did keep the satin pomegranate ribbon 'cause I love it! I had to rumage through some of the old cards I made to salvage a scrap of pomegranate card stock. This is the best I could come up with. I was going to add primas and pearls, but you've got to know when enough is enough! I used the Fresh Cuts stamp set and popped the tangerine highlighted circle on top. Short post today - I've got to get to work!

The Very First Chicks Inspiration Challenge: Week 1!

It's here, it's here! It's Tuesday morning and it's finally here - the very first Chicks Inspiration Challenge! And here is your very first inspiration photo!

Just look at the picture and let it lead you anywhere you want to go! Maybe the colour combination speaks to you, or maybe the positioning of certain items inspires you. You might get distracted by one tiny element that reminds you of your favourite embossing folder. It's all good! There are no rules! We'll even get you started with samples made by us and our hand picked guest designers. Just make a card with anything you like and link it up using Mr. Linky at the bottom of this post before midnight on Monday, March 29, 2009. If you are uploading to a public gallery such as Splitcoast Stampers, please include the code CHIC1 in your keywords so that we can see all the cards for the challenge in one place. And of course, feel free to mention our blog and the challenge by name in your description!

We'll be picking our favourites and announcing the top five next Tuesday along with a new challenge for you to try. If your card is selected for the top five, you will be invited to be a guest designer for the following week's challenge. Awesome!

If you're new to challenges, or unsure how to participate, simply click on the "tutorials" label on the right side of the blog. You'll find easy step by step instructions for everything you need to know to play!

Check out these samples to get started:

by Donna MacDonald

by Cathy Lewis

by Karen Motz

by Dana White

by Joy Atkinson

by Laurel Halliwushka

Thank you so much to all of our fabulous guest designers! Thanks for playing along!

Up for the Challenge - Part 3: Linking to the Challenge!

Okay. So you've been busily making cards, photographing them beautifully using your very own home studio and all the right settings on your camera. You've discovered the wonderful world of Splitcoast Stampers and you've been uploading your artwork into your very own gallery online. There's only one more thing you need to know in order to participate in tomorrow's Chicks Inspiration Challenge: how to link your card to our blog!

It's super easy. First, hop over to Splitcoast Stampers and login using your name and password. Click on the "Gallery" option on the menu across the top of the page. Now you will see your personal options appear in the left margin. Click on "My Gallery" and you will see a screen like this:

but with your cards, of course! Select the card you want to link to the challenge and click on it. You will get a big screen, showing just that card, like this:

This is the screen you want! Now you will go to the address bar at the very top of the page and highlight the entire address showing in the bar by clicking and dragging your mouse over it. When the whole string is highlighted, press and hold the Ctrl button while pressing the letter "C" This will copy the address to your clipboard. Now jump over the Chicks with Inkpads blog and look for this little box at the very bottom of the Challenge Post:

Click on the empty box beside "Your name" and type in whatever name you would like to publish you card under. Tab to the "Your URL" field. Press and hold the "Ctrl" button while pressing the "v" key. This will paste the copied address string from the last step into the field. Click on "enter" and you're done! Your name will immediately appear in the list above the box and clicking on it will take you instantly to your card! Cool huh? I told you, you could do it!

Now come back tomorrow and quit all this messing around - we've got the real thing happening here!

Mojo Monday Week 79

I'm glad to have gotten this done early today - I have a feeling it is going to be a busy day - I've got loads of "real" work to do and my Sale-A-Bration workshop on Sunday to prepare for. I made this card with the workshop in mind - I wanted to showcase a few SAB products (the Polka Dot Punches stamp set and Delcate Dots DSP in this case). I'm happy with the way it turned out. It was a little tricky matching up a colour with this Sahara Sand patterned paper, but the Blush Blossom looks nice, I think. This is my submission for today's Mojo Monday Challenge. My card base is Basic Black with the Blush Blossom panel over top. I used versamark and white embossing powder on the 5-petal flower and punched it using the coordinating punch. They were popped up on a white panel that was layered over black. I used the Eyelet border punch on my black panel under the patterned paper. I finished it with grosgrain ribbon. The sentiment comes from the Great Friend set (due out on April 1st).

I still have a little room in my SAB workshop for anyone local who wants to come! Send me an e-mail and I'll save you a seat!

Featured Stamper Challenge 111 - It a"Beate" time!

Beate has the honour of being today's Featured Stamper on Splitcoast. She has an amazing gallery and has posted loads of great tutorials. This is the card I chose to case.We are supposed to change at least two things from the Featured Stamper card we are inspired by. I changed the colours of the card including the patterned paper, ribbon, etc. I omitted a smaller image Beate had on her card under the main image. I used a different border punch, but otherwise, I kept the layout the same. What an honour to be able to CASE such famous papercrafter!

WSC73 - Easter Wishes

Here's my version of the Weekend Sketch Challenge (see sketch below in Cathy's post).

I don't often participte in the Weekend Sketch Challenge but I was in a bit of a stamping groove (at least I thought so), so I pulled out an Easter set (An Egg-cellent Easter) and used the egg. I used various ink and a blender pen to colour the egg in Pretty in Pink, Pumpkin Pie and Regal Rose. I coloured the dots in with a Chocolate Chip marker. I used my square scallop punch with Pumpkin Pie to layer the images. The layer behind the scallops is Chocolate Chip and my card base is Pretty in Pink. The ribbon is from Fancy Pants. My sentiment is from the All Holidays set. A pretty basic card, but it's finished! Thanks for taking a look.

Tea for Three - Weekend Sketch Challenge 73

This week's Weekend Sketch Challenge was hosted by Cambria Turnbow who provided us with this beautiful sketch to play with. And honestly, I LOVE scallops - I fully intended to follow the sketch faithfully and pull out all my scalloped nesties, punches, ric rac ribbons, etc.... But then I stumbled upon this stamp of three teacups - an old favourite of mine by Stampington & Co - and somehow, the whole thing morphed into the following card:

I really like this stamp and it seemed to fit the sketch somewhat, with it's three framed teacups. I stamped it with Black Memento Ink and coloured the images with my Copic markers. Scalloped edges seemed to fight with the image, so I layered straight black strips over the mat and mounted the whole thing on a lovely scrap of patterned paper from my stash (I'm not sure, but I think it's from Autumn Leaves Foofala). Next, I've been dying to do some hand stitching on a card, inspired by Mel over at Mel Stampz, of course! So I alternated colours and did a tidy little border all around.

For the sentiment, I thought it would be fun to fold a little tea bag out of some pearlescent vellum. I added an eyelet and embroidery floss to the top to make it look more realistic, and tucked a little scrap of scalloped black cardstock inside to mimic tea. I stamped my sentiment on the outside and stuck it on! Here's a closeup of the tea bag:

To finish it off, I balanced the card with three self adhesive pearls from Hero Arts in the bottom left corner and then applied Crystal Effects to the three teacups for extra dimension and shine. It's not very faithful to the original sketch but I love how it turned out!

Taylored Expressions Cupcake Challenge #60

I fell in love with this sketch from Taylored Expressions as soon as I saw it! I can envision quite a few possibilities with it. I dug around in my non S-U stamps for an image that I hoped would really show this great sketch off. My sister bought a wedding set of stamps from Inkadinkado that I don't think ever saw ink. That was it! I knew this beautiful dress needed some love. I stamped it in Black Stazon on watercolour paper and coloured it with various S-U inks using my aquapainter. There was a lot of empty space on the upper right side, so I dug through my big stash of primas and tried to find a couple of flowers to layer with coordinating colours. It took me about 2 hours to figure that out and in the end, I had to use reinkers to paint the rose flower in the middle. I was mucking around with these puppies that the petals were starting to come off! Of course, I didn't have a small pink rhinestone brad (well I did, but it was attached to another flower somewhere in the pile, so I had to search for that too). I cut out the dress with nesties and layered it on a Regal Rose panel, then a Barely Banana scalloped panel. My card base is Gina K. 120 lb. white and I added a panel of Barely Banana. On top of that is a Regal Rose panel and on top of that is a sheet of patterned paper from the Bella Bleu line. As accents, I used the scallop border punch on the patterned paper and added a little bit of fancy pants ribbon. I am happy with the way this one turned out!

K Werner Color Challenge 46

I stalked Kristina's blog for about 6 hours waiting for her to post the color challenge this week and was so happy when it was finally posted. Unfortunately, when I went to make a card, I couldn't get one put together for the life of me. I had 3 other images stamped and partially or completely coloured, then couldn't figure out how to lay it all out. I abandoned it for a couple of days until yesterday, when Cathy came over and got me out of a bit of a slump I was in. This is what I finally came up with - nothing earth shattering by any means. I used an old Sketch Challenge on SCS (#208). I used "House on the Hill" stamp from Sunshine Designs. I inked it up with Black Stazon on watercolour paper and used the other colour inks and an aquapainter to fill it in. I added stickles to give it a little shine. My card base is Basic Black and I added a white panel with Itty Bitty Backgrounds in Pretty in Pink so it didn't look so plain. I layered my image panel with Bashful Blue and behind that is Regal Rose. I added a couple of Pretty in Pink buttons on the bottom and voila, c'est fini!