The 12 Kits of Christmas - April 2012 Challenge

This month's hostess was Marybeth and what a beautiful and elegant kit! The printed paper was just so nice, my favorite being the sheet music. I fell in love with the stamped images of the two sweet little girl angels walking hand in hand, I could not resist putting them behind a memory box black window.  The colors of the kit wen perfectly with PTI's Scarlet Jewel too, a color that I have to admit I have not used before.  I was thrilled when I was looking and found that I purchased the ink to match too, Marybeth must have known all of this when she assembled the kits.  I made three cards with the kit and still have plenty of supplies left over to make more once I see what other fabulous creations the rest of our group came up with.  Thanks for taking a peek!

Kit Photo - Courtesy of Kara

Be sure to check out the rest of the ladies cards at their blogs listed below...

Marybeth - Marybeth's Time  for Paper

Joyce - Cards-by-the-Sea

Renee - It's A Patchwork Life

Amy - Stamp-n-Paradise

Suzanne - The Card Yard

Sharron - On Papillion Wings

Jeanne - A Kept Life

Cathy - Empty Nest Crafter

Christina - Sea Glass and Sentiments

Jessica - The Paper Parade

Kara - K and R Designs

CAS-ual Fridays Challenge #50

I have not done one of these challenges in a while and since I have my new Trendy Tree Tops stamps and dies from PTI I thought it would be fun to play along. This was a very quick and easy card to put together, the only challenge being getting the stamped images down in the correct way so that the tree branches from the die line up.  Only took me two tries! I also bit the bullet and cut one of my new stamps, Think Big Favorites #15. I wanted to use Hello Sunshine but did not want it all in one line, so I pulled out the scissors and gave it a quick snip...not as painful as I thought it might be, LOL. I thought I had some itty bitty butterflies hanging around that though that would make a nice addition to the tree but could not find them and really did not want to take up too much time looking for them.  So here is my card, thanks for taking a peek!

Ingredients

Solid Card Stock: PTI - Rustic White, Spring Moss, Chocolate Brown and Summer Sunrise

Printed Paper: PTI - Distressed Dots

Stamps: PTI - Trendy Tree Tops and Think Big Favorites #15

Dies: PTI - Trendy Tree Tops, In The Meadow and Limitless Layers

Ink: PTI - Spring Moss and VersaFine - Vintage Sepia

Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge #95

My sister asked me to make a wedding card for one of her co-workers who is getting married later this year and thought this would be the perfect challenge sketch to try and make something special.  It took me two attempts to get it right, this card has to be special.  The first card I made last night and I was just not happy with it...earlier in the day I cut out and made Ashleigh some new pj's and the leaning over just seemed to do a number on my back, and it reflected in my card. So needless to say that card hit the trash and I started fresh this morning and had much better results. Thanks for taking a peek!

Inspiration Sketch

Ingredients

Solid Card Stock: PTI - Rustic White, Spring Moss and Melon Berry

Felt: PTI - Melon Berry and Simply Chartreuse

Printed Paper: Basic Grey - Hopscotch (thanks Renee)

Stamps: WMS - Compact Sentiments

Pearls: SU

Dies: PTI - Filigree border, Mat Stack 1, Mat Stack 1 Layerz and MFT: Rolled Roses

retrosketches #9

This is my first time playing with retrosketches.  I am in love with all of their sketches, even though they say retro, they just seem so fresh and clean, love that look.  I was playing with my cricut this afternoon and cut out a bunch of Mickey Mouse heads just for fun, really had no clue what I was going to do with them but you can never have too many Mickey heads, right? I can't believe how quickly with card went together too, just so much fun and festive too.  Thanks for taking a peek!

Inspiration Sketch

Ingredients

Solid Card Stock: PTI Black and White

Stamps: PTI - Heart-2-Heart #2 and Think Big Favorite #13

Bling: BoBunny

Ribbon, Printed Paper and Balloon Paper - Scrap Bin

Cricut Cartridge: Mickey and Friends

Surprise Meetings....

What a fabulous week! On Sunday I had the pleasure of meeting one of the PTI forum members that I have been sharing supplies with and chatting with for some time...I finally got to meet Joyce Mehrberg in person! What a treat...Joyce has to be one of the sweetest people you would ever meet.  We met for dinner at a fabulous place in Campbell called Pacific Catch and we chatted for hours and I really believe we could have chatted all night! Here is a picture we had one of the wait staff take of us...

Then on Tuesday, Ashleigh surprised me and took me to Bruce Springsteen for an early Mother's Day gift. What a fabulous show, over 3 hours of Bruce, no breaks or intermission, just rock from start to finish. We go home at 1am and I felt like a bit of a zombie the next day but it was well worth it.  I can also cross one more thing off of my bucket list! Thank you Ashleigh for the best Mother's Day gift ever!

Papertrey April Blog Hop Challenge

It is that time again, time for this month's PTI blog hop and isn't the inspiration photo just so beautiful! I love the colors but on my card focused on the damask prints.  I added a bit more green too.  What I love about this card but it is a bit difficult to see in the photo, but I used the Damask Impression plate for my background paper and like how it coordinates with the printed paper for my flowers. I wanted to stamp the Mother's Day image on a 1 3/4 inch circle but always have such a difficult time getting my image centered, but early this month Heather Nichols from the PTI design had a post where she stamped to 1 3/4 inch images and them punched them out using a punch the same size, just such a brilliant idea that I had to get a new punch, thanks Heather for the inspiration! Thanks for taking a peek!

Ingredients
Solid Card Stock: PTI White and Simply Chartreuse
Printed Paper : PTI - Raspberry Fizz, Aqua Mist and Simply Chartreuse
Buttons: PTI - Simply Chartreuse and Aqua Mist
Dies: PTI - Beautiful Blooms 1 and Leaf Vine Border
Stamp: PTI - Not sure of the set name
Impression Plate: PTI - Damask
Circle Punch: SU
Ink: PTI - Raspberry Fizz

Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge #94

Happy Sunday! We have had unusually warm weather the last few days that I decided to use bright and cheery colors, green and yellow for this challenge card by Karin Akesdotter.  I used the French Country stamp set and even made my own background paper, so easy with this stamp set.  Thanks for taking a peek!

Ingredients

Solid Card Stock: PTI - White and New Leaf

Inks: Memento - Dandelion and PTI - New Leaf

Dies: Spellbinders - Label 25

Stamps: Waltzingmouse - French Country

Ribbon: Renee Lynch (thanks)

Flower: Prima

ColourQ Challenge #133

Once again the ColourQ ladies have put together colors I would have never combined but all together they really do look fabulous.  As soon as I saw the colors I knew what type of card to make...Thanks You Rock is perfect because it has been a rock music kind of week.  Thursday Ashleigh and I bought our tickets for a 3 day rock concert, Outside Lands in Golden Gate Park in August and then today was National Record Store Day. We all got up early and headed over to San Francisco to wait in line at Amoeba Records on Haight Street.  So many people and so much vinyl, vinyl seems to be the thing to collect now. So my card is a reflection on this fabulous week, thanks for taking a peek!

Here are the inspiration colors.....

Ingredients

Solid Card Stock: PTI - Canyon Clay, White and Summer Sunrise

Stamps: PTI - You Rock and Grunge Me

Buttons: PTI - Black

Ribbon: SU

Ink: PTI - Smokey Shadow, Canyon Clay and Black

Waltzingmouse Blog Party - New Beginnings

It' that time again, the 17th of each month is Waltzingmouse Blog Party and the theme this month is new beginnings.  I had so much fun putting this card together...I used their Off Beat Backgrounds set and decided to make my own plaid paper. Once that was completed I thought why not make some polka dots to coordinate, so this is what I came up with.  I used PTI white card stock and Spring Rain and Spring Moss inks, thought they would be perfect for a new beginnings baby card.  I kind of steered away from making a plaid but found out it was not as hard as I thought it would be.  Thanks for taking a peek!

Ingredients

Stamps: Waltzingmouse - Off Beat Backgrounds and Compact Sentiments

Solid Card Stock: PTI - White, Spring Rain and Spring Moss

Inks: Spring Rain and Spring Moss

Ribbon: Michael's

Dies: PTI - Limitless Layers, Sweet Baby and Stampin Up - Scallop Edge Punch

Pearls: Stampin Up

Four of a Kind - April 2012

It is that time again where 4 of us using all of the same supplies make cards and then post them to our blogs...April's Four of a Kind Challenge. This month Renee was our gracious hostess and came up with an incredibly fabulous kit! The first thing I saw when I opened my package where the colors, red, yellow and black, so I am thinking Disney, right? Nope but the next best thing Country French from Waltzingmouse Stamps. This set is one of my favorites and makes me dream of Paris.  I was the lucky one of the group and received the kit with self assembling cards, no really it was like the cards just put themselves together. Renee sent a fabulous array of supplies too, from buttons, pins, bling and ribbon, anything you could want to create some wonderful cards.  I made 5 cards and still have plenty of supplies left over for another day.  Thank you Renee for the awesome kit and thank you all for taking a peek!

April's Kit - Photo Courtesy of Renee 

I just fell in love with the yellow paper and ribbon so decided to make a more feminine card

This card is my favorite of the bunch

Good Morning

Bonjour

Greetings

Be sure to check out everyones blogs to see what everyone else came up with, links to blogs listed below...

Cathy - Empty Nest Crafter

Joyce - Cards-by-the-Sea

Renee - It's A Patchwork Life

Colourq Challenge #132 - Coffee

You just have to love spring break...so much time and so many cards (and a very messy craft desk)! This weeks challenge from Colourq has so many of my favorite colors, red, orange, black and green, but this time of year my favorites are orange and black for the San Francisco Giants, I love baseball too. Anyway I decided to go through all of my stamps and find a set that has not seen much ink and once I saw the polka dot coffee mugs I knew this was it!  Thanks for taking a peek!

Ingredients

Solid Card Stock: PTI - White, Black, Orange Zest, Pure Poppy and Simply Chartreuse

Stamps: PTI - Warm Happiness

Dies: PTI - Warm Happiness and Edgers Die #5

Ink: SU - Real Red, VersaFine - Black and Memento - Tangelo

Just Bee-Cause Card Set

I follow a blog called Pink Petticoat...it is all digital, not really my cup of tea (don't like coloring), more my sister's but her digital images are just so adorable I had to take the plunge.  You have to go and check out Liz's blog and see her incredible creations (click on Pink Petticoat above).  Not only do you print out the awesome images but she has printed and solid paper to print too! The honeycomb background paper is hers too and it prints up so beautifully on the heavy PTI white card stock and in so many fun colors.  There are 12 different images for the bee's, (8 have sentiments and 4 do not) that print up on 3 sheets of card stock and then an endless choice of honeycomb for white or ivory.  What I love so much about these little bee's is that it requires so little coloring and then I used a glue pen and glitter for the flowers, bees and wings. What a mess the glitter makes but I just love all of the sparkle. I took one of the bees and used it to make a belly band for the plastic box that will hold the cards.  Thank you for taking a peek!

Ingredients

Solid Card Stock: PTI - White

Images and Background: Pink Petticoat

Markers: Zig

Ribbon: PTI - Lemon Tart

Glitter: Hero Arts

Plastic Box: Recycled from PTI's new packaging

Die: PTI - Limitless Layers Ovals

Christmas in April - Waltzingmouse Christmas Card Challenge

No, this is not a late April Fool's post but really Christmas in April.  Each month Waltzingmouse has a Christmas card challenge and this month's theme is birds or trees.  I love the set I used for today's card, Sewing Box Christmas, it has so many possibilities, almost endless.  I don't have any WMS birds yet so I decided to create a little forest of Christmas trees decorated with red buttons and pearls, it was so quick and easy to make, they remind me of trees the little forest critters might decorate.  Thanks for taking a peek!

Ingredients

Solid Card Stock: PTI - Spring Moss and Rustic White

Stamps: WMS - Sewing Box Christmas

Buttons: PTI - Pure Poppy

Pearls : Kaiser

Ribbon: PTI - Pure Poppy

Ink: SU - Real Red, VersaFine - Vintage Sepia and PTI - Spring Moss

Country French - Bonjour

Happy Tuesday! The Country French stamp set from Waltzingmouse is just so much fun...I love all of the french sayings and that chicken wire is too much fun to play with.  My dream has always been to go to Paris, so maybe someday but until then I can play with my french words and create some fun cards to share. There is something about this Pure Poppy that just goes so well with this set, navy would be another great color or anything deep and rich in color would work. Thanks for taking a peek!

 Ingredients
Solid Card Stock: PTI - Pure Poppy and Rustic White
Stamps: WMS - Country French and Chicken Wire
Dies: Spellbinders - Labels 25
Ink: SU - Real Red
Buttons: PTI - Pure Poppy
Bakers Twine: PTI - Pure Poppy
Ribbon: PTI - Pure Poppy

Happy Easter!

I hope everyone had a wonderful day...we did, we all went out for lunch at the Market Broiler and had a fabulous meal of fresh fish except Ashleigh who had a steak.  Once we got home I pretty much had the rest of the day to play in my craft room, with the exception of finishing up a few loads of laundry.  I finished 7 cards but only plan to post 4 of them...they all seem to be of the same theme, silhouettes.  I have had these stamp sets for a while and with the combination of the Memory Box die windows that Renee sent me, I was on a roll.  Thanks for taking a peek!

Just a Note...

Happy Childhood

Make a Wish....

I just love this card, Renee gave me the Memory Box Orchard Tree Frame and I have been dying to give it a try and I am so happy with the way the card turned out.

Swing...

Ingredients

Solid Card Stock: PTI - Pure Poppy, Simply Chartreuse and Black

Printed Paper: PTI - Beautiful Blooms, echo park - summer days

Ink: VersaFine - Black

Bling: Kaiser and Doodlebug

Ribbon: PTI - Pure Poppy, Michael's - White and Renee - Green Gingham

Embossing Folder: Cuttlebug - Swiss Dot

Stamps: Flourishes - Kid's Play, Technique Tuesday - Life is Good and PTI - Ribbon Tails