Big Fan

I am really enjoying some of the current challenges out there. This card is for two of them - the pleats challenge on Moxie Fab World and Color Q's current combo, cqc55b. I went the clean and simple route with this card. There's actually no stamping involved, which is a first for me. The sentiment is digital, printed out onto Very Vanilla cardstock. For my fan focal point I simply accordion folded some design paper and used a brad to secure the bottom. Well, clean and simple card makes for a short and sweet post!
Thanks for stopping by :)

Still Here

Hey everyone, no I didn't drop off the face of the earth :) I've been busy with summer and working on a craft project other than cards. I've been working on decorating a perpetual birthday calendar using my favorite stamps and design paper. I'll probably start posting pictures of it soon so stay tuned. But I had to take a break from it this time and join in the fun of some of the challenge blogs that I enjoy following. So today's card is for PPA65, the Pals Paper Arts' theme challenge - bling. I don't normally go for the glitzy cards, but this snowflake set really looks good with bling.

For the layout, I used last weeks sketch (19) from Waltzing Mouse. These pretty snowflakes are from SU's Serene Snowflakes set, the sentiment is another SU stamp and is from the Warm Words set. My colors are Night of Navy and Marina Mist. For the bling factor, I added a rhinestone brad, some pearls and silver cord. And then, for some extra frosty bling, I spritz the whole card with Tattered Angels' Pearl Glimmer Mist. Fun stuff :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Green Tea

It's been a few weeks since I've played along with the MOJO Monday sketches, but when I saw this weeks - MOJO150 - I had to join the fun (and not just because its contest time either :o). The wavy edge to the background paper and the rounded edges of only two corners of the other layers made this sketch unique, and the samples that the design team put together were really inspiring. For my version I pulled out some of favorite design paper, Stampin' Up!s Green Tea (retired), grabbed my handy nestebilities label die, some coordinating cardstock and a few embellishments, and viola! Everything came together so well and much faster than it sometimes does for me. This sketch is now at the top of my use-again-soon list.
Thanks for stopping by!

Take Four

So the other day I was doing some rearranging of my craft space and uncovered a card I had been wanting to case for awhile. The thing that caught my eye was that it is perfect for bold or large image design paper, of which I am a hoarder :) So when I was looking through my stash trying to decided which paper to use I came upon four different ones I really liked and rather than trying to choose just one, I decided to make a card which each of them. Its a great example of how different the same sketch/template can look depending on your color scheme.

Paisley Classy

Happy August everyone! I've created today's card for the Card Style Classy and Elegant Challenge in the Moxie Fab World. Click here for more details; there is still one day left to enter.
While the layout of this card is rather simple, the elements of it really dress it up. The colors used are Rose Red, Cameo Coral, and Basic Grey from SU. I used a set of Nestibilities die cuts to frame the sentiment of my card. Lastly I added some fun, ruffly edged ribbon around the middle. Check out the special issue from Paper Crafts magazine called Card Style to see wonderful, inspiring examples of all four card styles.

4u

Hey everyone. I'm back from vacation and have finally caught up with myself. Its so nice to get back to my craft table :o) Today's post is my entry in the Go-To-Sketch Challenge #5 from Paper Crafts magazine. (Click here for the details) They have a fantabulous special issue called Go-To-Sketches that's just chuck full of great sketches and super cute cards, and this card is based on the sketch found on p. 128. For my card I used a Wild Wasabi scalloped circle card as my base and pierced each of the scallops. I added a layer of patterned paper from DCWV's Flower Spring collection and then topped it with a "4" in Mambo Melon and a chocolate brown "u" sticker from Thickers. Lastly, I added three circle stickers from the same Thickers collection as the "u" to finish the card.
Thanks for stopping by!
~B

Summer Weddings

This week on the Pal's Paper Arts blog, they chose to feature a wedding theme challenge, and boy was it fitting for me. This Saturday I attended a beautiful outdoor wedding in Massachusetts, 90+ degree weather and all :o) So my card to them fit perfectly with the PPA challenge - PPA 51. For my card I used Basic Black cardstock for the background and lined the inside with Whisper White cardstock so that I could stamp my sentiment and sign the card. For the card front, I layered a piece of Coated White Pin Stripe paper from the old Taste of Textiles collection and used the "Cherish" stamp from the Warm Words set. Next I stamped the cake from the Year-to-Year set in Black Stazon Ink on Whisper White cardstock, then colored in the heart using Pastels and a Blender Pen, and finished the whole cake off by adding a layer of Crystal Effects. I added a layer of Basic Grey cardstock to offset the cake from the other white paper and then used a slot punch so that a piece of Purely Pomegranite satin ribbon could be threaded through it. There you have it, simple but elegant.

Hello Tweet Friend

I just love this fat little bird! He's a free digi stamp (I wish I could remember the site) so I printed him out onto some Whisper White cardstock and then used a Nestabilities die from Spellbinders to frame him. My watercolor pencils worked nicely to color him in, and then I used a marker to write the sentiment free hand. The main card was stamped with a woodgrain background stamp on Ballet Blue paper and then I finished off the card with some Certainly Celery ribbon and a ribbon slide from the old Hodgepodge Hardware collection.

Oriental for MOJO

Woo hoo! It's MOJO Contest time (MOJO146); here is my entry, just under the wire too. As soon as I saw this week's sketch, I knew I wanted to create a card with an oriental look. So I pulled out my Garden Sketch stamp set. My colors are River Rock, Bravo Burgundy, Basic Black, and Very Vanilla. The flower is stamped in VersaMark and colored with Pastels, and the friendship image is stamped in Basic Black craft ink. Thanks for another great sketch MOJO Makers!

True Friend

Recently, I've been thinking quite a lot about friends and how important they are to all of our lives, how they inspire us. And that inspired me as I created this card. Here are the details: the butterfly is die cut using a Sizzix die and some older DSP. My color palette is Rich Razzleberry, River Rock, Basic Gray, and Pretty in Pink. The sentiment is part of the Simple Friendship set from SU!; and last but not least, the accent is a basic gray corduroy brad.
Thanks for stopping by :o)

Three Cheers for the Red, White, and Blue!!

Here's my red, white, and, blue - celebrate America card and my third post for the Operation Write Home (OWH) blog tour. Hope everyone is having fun with this; I know I am. Some rather old stamps and paper were pulled out for this card. I used Stampin' Up!'s Little Somethings stamp set, some bordering blue, night of navy, and confetti white card stock, as well as some design paper from I don't even know how long ago but it fit perfectly with the country look of my card. I love to pull out old materials every so often and see what comes of them.
Thanks for stopping by!

Rainbow Birthday

My birthday card today is for a special girl in my life and I created it using a special digi stamp called Macie's Rainbow created by Lori Boyd. Lori created and is selling this digi to help benefit a sweet girl named Macie who has a rare disease called GLUT1.

For a donation of $5 you can have her!!

100% of the proceeds will go to

Mission 4 Macie

If you would like to help Macie and all the children with Epilepsy and GLUT1 please email Lori at
byloridesigns@gmail.com

with your email address, she will invoice you via paypal, then send you your Macie's Rainbow Digi!!

Thank you in advance for helping Macie!! and check out Lori's blog: The Pink Elephant for more details.

Mini Calendar

Here is my first post for the OWH Blog Tour this weekend. This is my little mini calendar from Stampin' Up! I had such fun decorating each of the months. It's perfect for my desk at work. I love that I had a picture of last year's fireworks that came out so well. Thanks for stopping by! and be sure to check out all of the other great links that are part of the Tour.

Tuesday Trigger Entry

I've recently discovered a new weekly challenge which is lots of fun and really stretches my creativity; I would encourage you to play along as well. It's called Tuesday Trigger and it's a part of the Moxie Fab World blog. Each week she posts a picture to use as inspiration for a card creation. Here is this week's picture that was the basis for my card:

Cute, huh!? I decided to be rather straight forward in my interpretation of this photo using the colors as well as the tropical flower image, although my blue is rather different from the white and blue stripped flower of the halter. I also decided to use the scallop border punch on the bottom of my card to mimic the ruffle on the bottom of the halter. I'm excited to see what this coming week's photo will be!

Totally Tess Debut

(Sorry for the dark picture; my camera and lights were not cooperating.)

Today's card was created using this week's sketch from Mercy Kerin (MTSC79) and the Stampin' Up! set called Totally Tess. This was my first time using her and I really enjoyed it. For her clothes, I stamped her on patterned paper and then cut them out and glued them over top of the base image. The rest of her I colored in using pastels and a blender pen. I'm sure you'll be seeing her on another card again soon. Thanks for stopping by.

Coffee Run

So this card was totally cased from an old issue of Stampin' Success which is put out by Stampin' Up!; I used both the template and the colors from it for this card 'cause I just loved them! The mug stamp is part of a clear set sold at Michael's (unfortunately I didn't save the package to know who makes it :o( When I first decided to use the colors of the SU card, I didn't realize just how well they worked with this mug image to create a retro feel; too cute! Pastels/chalks and blender pens were used to color the mugs giving them a soft feel.

Bold, Bright Scoop

More fun with the new Sweet Scoops set from SU and some paper from the bold brights collection that will be totally redesigned come July 1st. Lucky for me, they're keeping my three fav. colors from the old collection :o) one of which is the turquoise paper I used for the scalloped border. But both the green of the base card stock and the pink of the ice cream will be retiring. I'm excited to start using the new brights when they come out; I've seen some beautiful cards already from the demonstrators who have pre-ordered them.

Go-To It

Hey all. Here's a super quick card I made using a fabulous Go-To Sketch by Jessica as seen on page 133 of the Go-to Sketches magazine by Paper Crafts. I've recently discovered this magazine and this special issue and I'm thoroughly enjoying them both.
I used my handy circle punch and coordinating design paper, then cut out the sentiment using a Nestabilities die. How simple is that?

Little Summer Somethings

Earlier I didn't know if I'd have time to squeeze this card in, so I decided to do two separate posts. This card is for two different challenges and my first time playing along with either of them. The color scheme is for this week's ColourQ challenge (cQc37), even though I missed the deadline for this one as well. The template comes from this week's sketch challenge on SCS (Split Coast Stampers) SC285. Till tomorrow, Bethany

Word Search Birthday

Well, I didn't get my card finished before the contest deadline, but here's what I put together using this week's sketch (MTSC78) from Mercy Kerin. This sketch is so versatile, I'm sure it will become part of my frequently used templates. You should hop on over to her blog and check out her top five picks, very nice.

Happy Father's Day

In honor of Father's Day, I've created two cards with a masculine theme. The wire heart on the first card was an idea that came from the "Get your Groove on in the Garage" article in the May/June 2010 issue of Paper Crafts magazine. For the sentiment, I used a free font from Creating Keepsakes called "Wired" and printed it right out on the card stock.



This Adirondack style card was created using this week's MOJO Monday sketch (MOJO143) I used real birch bark for the background and sentiment circle as well as a twig across the top of the card. The bear image is from a retired set called Pines, the small pine cone and leaf image is part of Lovely as a Tree and the "Happy Birthday" stamp is from Vintage Labels (all stamps are Stampin' Up!)



Happy Father's Day everyone.

3 Scoops

This new stamp set from Stampin' Up! is just too stinkin' cute. It's called Sweet Scoops, and I just love playing with it. For each of the scoops, I stamped them on a seperate sheet of paper and then cut them out so that I could layer them. The bowl is a half circle of design paper, and I added a little bit of Crystal Effects to the cherry to finish it off. Lastly, I hand drew the squiggle border with my Regal Rose marker and stamped the sentiment, also from the set, in Chocolate Chip. I love how the circle shape of the card really causes the bowl of ice cream to be the focal point of the card.

I've entered this project in the Card Style Fun and Cute Challenge in the Moxie Fab World. Click here to check it out; there's still time to enter!

Sweet Pea Celebration

The Top Note die has to be my go-to die, and based on how often I have seen others use it, I think its safe to say that I'm not the only one. Today I used the "left over" portion of the paper as my card frame. When ever I get ready to use my Top Note die, I make sure to use a quarter sheet of cardstock so that I am left with a perfect frame as well as the note portion. That way I always have plenty of frames on hand. As for the rest of the card, the flowers are from SU's Sweet Pea felt flower collection, and the stems are just hand drawn. The word stamp came from a new SU set, Sweet Scoops; which will be featured in tomorrow's post.
Quick, simple, cute!

Sweet Hello

This was a super easy card to put together. I used my new little heart punch for the row of rainbow hearts; and the colors came from the Island Oasis DSP by Stampin' Up! which is currently my favorite color combo. For the sentiment I used one of my go-to stamp sets, Sweet Shapes, its an older, retired set. The clean, simple, white background card is not my usual style, but I've really been drawn to them recently and have seen them everywhere this season.

Tropical Party

Love the new Tropical Party stamp set and matching Island Oasis DSP from Stampin' Up! The colors and patterns in the paper are so bright and happy that it was super easy to whip up these two cards in no time. Hands down, my favorite image in the stamp set is the coconut!

Grunge Fun

Today I've been playing with new stamps from Stampin' Up! and cool new, to me, design paper from Cuttle Bug. I also pulled out some out MOJO Monday sketches for layout design; its so nice that they collect their weekly sketches for each month into one easy to print 8 1/2 x 11 sheet. The design paper worked so well with these stamps, I had lots of fun putting these two cards together!

Spray Ink Butterfly

Summer's here and I've been inspired by all of the bright colors from the flowers and the butterflies flying about. When I at the CK Convention in Manchester at the beginning of the month, I discovered Tattered Angels' glimmer mist and absolutely love it! I used their butterfly screen/stencil and 4 colors of mist to create this fun, bright card. The look reminds me of tye dye. Too fun!

Spring

Here is a card to celebrate the hope of spring that is in the air!

MOJO's March Contest Sketch

Love this weeks sketch - MOJO128! I had a hard time deciding what image and style combo to go with, but I finally decided on one of my favorite sets, Backwoods. Incorporating real Birch bark into a card is favorite technique of mine.

My First Entry

Here is a card I put together based on this week's sketch, MOJO 127, from Mojo Monday. I've been following them for a few months now and really like the templates that they put together, but this is my first time participating in the posting. Hopefully I can begin to do it more often!

Cute New Flower Technique!

Can I just say how much I love these flowers that I just learned how to make on Mercy Klein's blog? I saw them first on Krista Fenton's blog on a super cute card she made with them.


All four of these cards were ones that had been started in some way but didn't work for what I wanted at the time so they were side aside in the "pieces" drawer or box. Over this past long weekend, I decided to pull these pieces out and finish them/ create something from them.

Winter & Spring

It's been awhile in between posts for me, but here are some of my recent projects.
Two winter themed cards and two spring themed. The two butterflies in the spring themed cards are pieces of fabric that I ran through my Big Shot and then used embroidery floss for the body of the small one. What do you think?