What February SHOULD Look Like ;)

I'm going to have a LOT of fun with this stamp set :) For now though, I'll use it to create some snow, since I doubt I'll be seeing any this year... 

Challenges I Used:

Paper Sweeties - (see palette below)
Sentimental Sunday - Happy Valentine's Day
Stamplorations - Stamp & Hearts
Wedodoobadoo - Hearts and Flowers (my hearts ARE the flowers ;) )
Penny Black - Hearts

Glad You're In My School

While I occasionally look at other's cards for new techniques or borrow an element here and there, I almost NEVER CASE (copy and share evereything) other people's cards. But I am not a natural when it comes to shading, so when I broke out the Blendabilities for this card I did a google image search to see how others had shaded this image. I saw one with this paper, the amazing coloring and the Crystal Effects and couldn't resist!!! I did my own design of course, based on the challenges I used, and didn't color my image exactly the same, but it's more copying than I'm used to. So thank you to Janine Tinklenberg for the inspiration :)

Challenges I Used:

Deconstructing Jen - (see sketch below)
Creative Moments - Anything Goes/Love
4 Crafty Chicks - Valentine's
Simon Says - All Creatures Great and Small
Hanna and Friends - Embossing (and always with cute, "living" creatures)

Hey, Valentine! Arrrgh!

This year my kids used the Hey, Valentine set for their school valentines. I stamped and cut the number needed of the Pirate for one kid, and the school of fish for the other and then let them color them all, while I made a fancier version of each for the teachers :)

Here's the first:

Challenges I used:

Stamplorations - (see sketch below)
Colour Q - (see palette below)
The Male Room - Valentine
Inky Impressions - Valentine/Love
Crafty Ribbons - Nautical

A REAL Challenge!!!

My son's Grade 4 teacher invited me to lead the class in making a Valentine's Day card for their parents. I was thrilled, and immediately made a list of the fairly basic techniques that would still WOW a group of young newbies. Some of these, I ruled out for time factors, others for lack of material on hand and limited time. The ones that stuck were a punch, an embossing folder and the three-in-one of heat emboss/resist/spritz. Then I had to redesign my overall design multiple times, keeping in mind that I didn't want to use any of my newer foam pads, as I feared it wouldn't stand up to 25 kids the way a classic linen pad would, and finally realizing that aside from a mini glue dot under the punched heart, the kids would only have glue sticks and/or white glue, so the layers needed to be flat and easy to adhere, for example, using the embossing side of the hearts, rather than the slightly more fun debossing side.

While this may not be my most impressive card, we had a blast, and most of them went off with only some minor hitches :D

Challenges I used:

I heart Sketches - (see sketch below)
The Paper Players - (see palette below)
Sparkle and Sprinkle - glitter and embossing powder (in one... iridescent!)
Penny Black - ATG except digi

Wishing for Spring

I love how fun and bright this card turned out, while still remaining soft... that's a hard balance to find! I found a lot of great new challenges to work with and of course I pulled out some Sale-A-Bration papers, ribbon and button :) I was originally planning to do the flower with a rock 'n roll technique with Crushed Curry in the center and Calypso Coral on the edge, to more closely resemble the inspiration picture, but when I decided to use the button, I changed the center color to Crisp Cantaloupe.

PS. I know that until this week, it has been a LONG time since I posted, which was mainly due to the extreme frustration and time involved doing a simple post with our ancient computer. Now that we have a new one, it's SO much faster, so I will be able to keep up with posting new things, and as I have some extra time, will be catching up on the many things I didn't post since last Spring/Summer... stay tuned!!!

Challenges I used:

Mojo Monday - (see sketch below)
Cupcake Inspirations - (see inspiration/palette below)
Stampotique Designers Challenge - Citrus Colours
Moving Along With The Times - Pastels
Simon Says - All Things Bright and Beautiful
Fab 'n Funky - Hearts and/or Flowers
Our Creative Corner - Bingo (Die Cuts, Stamps, Embossing Folder

Love you...

I started this card with the sketch shown below, but as I assembled it, the butterfly (which was the oval in the sketch), decided to fly away from the center ;) For the make your own background challenge, I stamped the I Love Lace background stamp in Sahara Sand on the Whisper White, and then did the tissue paper linen silk on top. The rest of the challenges are pretty self explanatory, so here's my card...

Challenges I used:

Sketch Saturday: (see sketch below)
The Crafter's Cafe: Make your own Background
Just Add Ink: (see palette below)
Crafting for All Seasons: Things with Wings