Missing Mint

Howdy.  I hope your weekend was wonderful!  Productive!  Creative! and on track with your new year resolution.  Mine was.  {smile}

I am still loving my planner, and keeping my projects/tasks/chores organized.   I have also added my budget and menu, to my tasks.  It feels good to have those two chores organized.  {smile}

So, with my mind not on those items, I had some free time today to craft a little.  Gotta love that!

For starters, I stopped by Shabby Chic .  They have a color theme board.  The color theme is mint and their requirement is to craft in a shabby chic style.  And who doesn't love mint!  It is such a sweet, and refreshing color.  Mint pairs nicely with almost everything!

To help give me some direction, I stopped by a new-to-me challenge As You See It.  They have a sketch, as their current challenge.   I love working with sketches.  And this one is a good sketch.  easy to work with, and I did flip the sketch.

I stopped by my favorite challenge site:  Cupcake Inspiration.  This challenge site, always have some creative themes/inspirations.  Their current challenge is to use plaid.  Yep, plaid.  I just love their cupcake!  But, I wanted something a little more spring.  But those cupcakes look yummy!

And finally, I stopped by Brown Sugar Challenge.  Their current challenge is Anything Goes.  But please stop by to see what this creative design team has created!

All of these challenge sites, have very talented, creative folks on their design teams.  They will inspire you!

and here is what I created:

Recipe:  The card meausres 4 1/4" x 6 1/4".  The card base is made with a no name Kraft card stock.

The first matt is pool party card stock.  I matted the floral pattern paper with aqua mist card stock.  The mint & aqua plaid is actually a holiday pattern paper by My Mind's Eye.  Once these two pattern papers were adhered to the card front, I ran them thru my sewing machine to add a double border stitch, all the way around. I added a strip of mint lace, to cover the seam where the two pattern papers meet.  I machine stitched some aqua seam binding to the center of the lace.  I wrapped silver bakers twine around the middle.  I tied the seam binding into a double bow.  I also tied a simple bow with silver bakers twine. I added a trio of paper blossoms distressed with tea stain ink, and white acrylic paint.  They are adhered to the card front with my hot glue gun.  For the sentiment, I used a new-to-me stamp set by AlteNew: Label Love.  I stamped the sentiment in basic black classic ink,  and stamped on kraft card stock.  I used my scissors to cut out the sentiment piece, and adhered it to the card front with foam squares.  The final touch were these rain drops in mint.

Well, I hope you have a chance to play along with some (or all) of these challenge sites!

Floral Friend; Card

Howdy!  I needed to get a few cards in the mail, and so I set out to find some inspiration.  Along the way, I stumbled upon a new (to me) challenge site, and visited two favorite challenge sites.  The inspiration was infectious!  I hope you agree!

Let's start with the new challenge site, that I 'found'.  This is an east European challenge site.  They don't have a 'translate' button, but google translator works pretty well.  [Just copy and paste the text.]  Shabby Scrap.  Their current challenge is to use rose(s) on your project.  And your project can be just about anything! A card, a page, an altered item, a tag, a book, etc.  (I'm sure you get the idea) You will be amazed at the creativity of their design team.  This challenge runs from Feb 25 - March 24.  And here is their photo:

Ok, so now on with another of my favorite challenge sites.  {smile}  This next one, is another challenge site from eastern Europe - Shabby Chic.  This challenge site does have a 'translate' button.  So it's super easy to play along with {smile}!  Their current challenge  is to use butterflies.  Or simply one butterfly.  A very creative and feminine work by their design team.  Their challenge runs through March 25.

And for the finally challenge, it's one that is truly dear to me:  Just Us GirlS #333.  I started playing along with their challenges when I first started blogging.  Their current challenge for 'Word Week' is Flowers!  How wonderful!  I love adding flowers to my cards and projects!  You will certainly be inspired by their design team!

So, I have combined the challenges, not too hard really,
and created a card for a very dear friend!

Recipe:  I created another A6 size card.  To create the card base, I used a heavy weight card stock: Soft Sky by Stampin' Up!.  I just love the soft, pale blue color.   

I added three different digital papers.  I printed my digital papers onto whisper white card stock by Stampin' Up!.  I just love how clean the images come out, and how true to color they print.  

Anyways, I used a pale blue, pink floral pattern paper for the main paper.  I just love how pretty this digital paper is, and the way the pale blue background really makes the pink roses pop!  I cut the paper down to 4 1/8" x 5 3/4".  I sponged crumb cake classic ink along the edges.

I printed a library card, digital paper and cut it down a bit.  I used my corner rounder punch on two of the corners, and sponged the edges.  I adhered these two papers together, and then added my machine stitching.  I wanted the butterfly on the library card to 'pop', so I added dimensional glaze to it.

For the tag, yes, it's another digital paper.  I used my tag punch to create the top piece.   I added some aqua blue crinkled seam binding and tied a simple bow with some thin blue tinsel.  (I just love how soft this tinsel is!)  I added some foam tape to the back of the 'tag' before adhering it.  

I tied some twine through the trio of aqua mist vintage buttons before adhering them to the card front with my glue gun.  I also adhered the trio of blossoms with my glue gun.  

For the sentiment, I used the Signature Greetings stamp set by Amuse Studios.  I stamped the words in versa mark onto some card stock vellum, and used an antique gold embossing powder and heated the embossing powder with my heat gun.   I hand cut the banner ends, and added adhesive where the words are, so you wouldn't see the adhesive through the vellum.

I stamped two butterflies onto a scrap piece of the same vellum with Archival Black ink by Stampin' Up! and used markers to color the backs of the butterflies.  I folded the wings together to give them a 3 dimensional look.  I adhered them to the card front with dimensional glaze.  

Thank you for looking!  I hope you have been inspired to play along with any (or all) of these great challenge sites!

Pretty Thank You: Card

Welcome.  I took an hour this morning to make a card for a very special friend.  She has been my rock when I needed it the most.  She is always available when I need her.  And always helps me see the bright side to life.  I really do love her, and I know I am truly blessed to have her in my life.

a sneak peak

I needed some inspiration and direction, so I went to a few of my favorite challenge sites:

I started @ Shabby Chic.  Because let's face it, that is my easiest style to craft {smile}.

Their challenge is two parts: include an apple(s) or/and use the required colors: soft pink, pale green and white.   Also, your craft must be in Chebbi or Provence style.  Easy for me!

I next stopped by I Love Scrap.  They have sketches that are so easy to work with, and the design team really can get your creative juices flowing with their creativity and clever use of embellishments {smile}.   

I always love the layers in the sketches, and the design team will sure to inspire you.  They have various styles of crafting, but all of them are beautiful!  You just might find a new blog to follow.  {smile}

And finally, I stopped by another creative challenge site:  Brown Sugar Challenge.  Their current challenge theme is: make the sentiment BIG!  I have noticed that several crafting companies have started creating large sentiment stamps and chipboard words.  This is your perfect opportunity to use those large sentiments.  

and here is what I created:

and a slightly different view:

the Recipe:  I used kraft card stock from Paper Trey Ink for the card base.  I love the weight of this card stock, and I really wanted a 'light' kraft color.  

The text matt is a pattern paper from Melissa Frances.  I love the dark grey text on white paper.  It's very beautiful!  The cream floral pattern paper, is from Tilda: Happiness is Homemade.  I used a thread cutter to distress the edges.  I also added some machine stitching along one corner (upper right corner).

I machine stitched a strip of this beautiful gold lace trim to the pale green tiny star pattern paper.  This is also from Happiness is Homemade.  I adhered this piece to the left side of the card.

For my large circle piece, I cut an embroidery hoop out of a thin wood sheet.  I sponged white ink on the edges to help give the hoop some dimension.  I adhered the same dark grey text pattern paper to the inside of the hoop.  I felt that the repeating of this pattern paper would tie the large matt into the over all look of the card.  [I thought that a different pattern paper would look too random and possible out of place.]

I tied a multi-loop bow out of a pale pink seam binding.  And tied a button to the bow, and tied the whole piece to the hoop with some kraft twine.  I made sure my twine had a double wide loop bow, too.

I added a trio of paper blossoms to the lower right of the embroidery hoop.  I selected pale, soft colors that matched the required colors of the Shabby Chic challenge.  I stuck a button stick pin into the floral cluster.

For my sentiment, I could find the right font, the right words, the right shape.  And then, I decided to use vellum as my 'paper', and use embossing powder as my 'ink'.  It sounds relatively simple, but I did stamp several different sentiments in various colored inks, on various shaped papers, before I thought of using vellum.  I selected gold embossing powder, because gold is the accent color on the lace trim.  I used the Hand Scripted stamp set by Amuse Studios, the sentiments are big and 'hand written' style.

I also added a scrap piece of gold washi tape to the bottom right corner on the inside of the card.  And yeah, I added some machine stitching, to tie it all together. {smile}

Thank you for looking.  I'll post some photos of my advent calendar tree soon.  It's super cute!