Invisible Dimensions... You Amaze Me!

Okay, so I don't know what this technique is actually called, but invisible dimensions seems to fit. And I'm obsessed with it!!! I see so much potential, with various words, shapes and backgrounds. For this one, I wanted to use all 5 retiring In Colors together for one last blast, and I think it's my favourite card with the whole colour suite I've done yet. I used the Perpetual Birthday Calendar set for the background and the Crazy About You/Hello You bundle for the sentiment. This technique is done by stamping the background first, (minus the AMAZE ME, for placement purposes). Then die cut the YOU, exactly where you want it to be. Cut the same die out twice more on thicker-than-cardstock paper, (I used the support backing that comes in a pack of Stampin' Up's DSP), to make the equivalent of a chipboard. Carefully glue the layers together with Tombo Multi-purpose glue (the green top), and then glue the word into place, followed by tiny inside bits, to fill the holes back in and complete the image. Pretty cool, huh? Anyway, this is my second card as a Design Team member for Creative Moments, and I really hope you join our Spring/Easter Challenge :)

Other Challenges I Used:

Lawnscaping - Dimension

AAA Cards - It's Springtime! (see below)

The Pink Elephant - Inspiration image (see below)

The Kraft Journal - Take Your Pick (blue, coral, baker's twine and chipboard equivalent)

Spring has Sprung!!

I am so excited to announce that I have been invited to join the Creative Moments challenge blog as a design team member!! This is my first card for them, and I'm looking forward to joining them for a long time to come.

It may still be "winter" here, but it's been feeling very much like Spring for most of the last weeks, so I thought this image, combined with our challenge, would be perfect for my niece's upcoming birthday. Here is our challenge, please come join us in the fun...

Challenge 64 Anything Goes/Gift, Tag Or Card for a Special Lady/Mum

Other Challenges I Used:

Your Next Stamp - (see sketch and palette below)
The House that Stamps Built - (see photo inspiration below, very similar to the above, but more green shades)
Simon Says - Spring Pinterest Inspiration (see collection below)
Fab n' Funky - Spring Into Colour
Crafter's Cafe - What Season are You In?
Pile It On - Use 3 of Something (flowers... one in the image and two punches stacked in the sentiment)

You're a Star!

Thanks to a defective stamp, I had to design and prep a second card for club, totally from scratch, in under an hour and a half... phew! It isn't the stunner that I had planned, but for a super simple card, I think it came out alright :)

Challenges I used:

CAS Colours and Sketches - (see sketch below)

Cosmic Strawberry - (see palette below)

Crafty Cardmakers - Stripes

Pile It On - Adhesive Elements (the epoxy star sticker on my star punch)

Sparkles - One for the Boys

Sweet Stampin - All or Nothing

Celebrate Today

I love designer papers, but there is something so satisfying about creating my own background papers... this cloud one is SO easy, using just a couple of Cupcake punch frostings, a sponge and a Soft Sky ink pad :)

And these balloons turned out so great... I love how the white embossing powder looks so much like the puffy white "ink" they use on real balloons!

As it sometimes happens, I started with a sketch and a specific idea in my head, but then as I started piecing things together, it evolved and doesn't have all the sketch elements I had planned on using, but it still turned out great.

Challenges I used:

Try Stampin on Tuesday - (see sketch below)
ColourQ - (see palette below)
Crafty Catz - Use your Dies/Punches

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

Bird on a Wire

After 4 years as a Demonstrator, I finally got a chance to attend a Stampin' Up! event! It was a total blast, full of fun, inspiration and freebies! There was also a contest to enter a card for the Ronald McDonald house, and the criteria was no text/sentiment, bright and cheery and of course, current product so others can copy. I didn't have a chance to make a card in time, thanks to Halloween, but I had time to make it after the morning sessions and brought it to the last Product Playground. It was too late to have a chance for votes, so they will be displaying it in Quebec instead so I have a chance to win :)

I used the Chevron background stamp with 3 colours again (this time, Indigo Island, Tempting Turquoise and Coastal Cabana), and I used the Melon Mambo, Pumpkin Pie and Definitely Daffodil to color the bird and fill in the sun.

Challenges I used:

Create with Connie and Mary - (see sketch below)

Pile it On - Feeling Cool 

Vandicrafts - Bye, Bye Birdy

A Little Birdie Told Me...

I got to play with this Hostess set for my sweet niece's 4th birthday... I would have loved to use my Blendabilities for the image, but don't have the colors I needed yet. It would have been better if I'd planned better and used watercolor paper for my Stampin' Write markers, but I didn't have time for a do-over, so it is what it is...

Challenges I used:

Pile It On - 2 or more Die Cuts (the ovals)
Inspired by Stamping - (see sketch below)
Just Add Ink - (see palette below)
Craft-Room Challenge - Make your own Background
Through the Purple Haze - Wings and Bling
Papertake Weekly - Super Fly

So many smiles...

Just a quick post so I don't miss yet ANOTHER challenge deadline, lol... tomorrow I will add and link to the other challenges I used and edit this description :)

Challenges I used:

Color Throwdown - see palette below

Fresh Flutterbies

 With so many Thank You cards to make for various staff at my kids' school, I'm trying to keep at least some of them quick and simple, and what is quicker than washi tape!

 

Challenges I Used:

The Card Concept - (see palette below) Style: Clean and Graphic

CAS(E) This Sketch - (see sketch below)

SuperDog!

This was a super quick and simple card I whipped up for a sweet nephew's birthday... I'm often unimpressed by my fast and basic cards I'm forced to do when I'm running behind for an event, but I think this one is pretty cute anyway ;) Especially since I finally grabbed this stamp set right when it retired, and I hadn't had a chance to try it out yet!

Challenges I used:

Sketch N Stash - (see sketch below)
Pause Dream Enjoy - Food or Beverage
Nutcrafters - Animals or Insects
Crafty Creations - All about S (Superhero, Spots, Stripes)
Just Add Ink - Just Add Cupcakes/Cake/Dessert
Little Red Wagon - Food for Thought