Pistachio Pudding Christmas

Hi, Everyone!  Today's card is another Christmas card for the next 'Tis the Season challenge.  This time around it's a color challenge.  I have to admit I wasn't too sure about the colors this time around, but I have to admit I love them together!

Make sure you head over to the challenge HERE to check out all the designers cards because they are fabulous!!  

Can you believe the difference in colors between these two pictures.  I think my camera likes to play tricks on me...either that or just annoy me!  Why can't it take pics and have the color turn out exactly like the card looks when I'm looking at it.  Guess that's the way it will be, and I'll have to learn to live with it! lol

Thanks for looking and have a great day!

Sara

Stamp Sets:  Festive Flurry & Teeny Tiny Wishes

Card Stock:  Pistachio Pudding & Very Vanilla

Classic Stampin' Pads:  Pistachio Pudding

VersaMark

Stampin' Emboss Powder:  Gold

Embossing Folder:  Retired

Framelits:  Circles Collection

Smooch Spritz:  Vanilla Shimmer

Happy Black Berry Bliss Watercolor

Ahh...it's Friday and a day to celebrate too.  Happy 4th of July!  

Today's card from Heidi over at the Friday Mashup was a fun one!  Here is the challenge that she has for us...

Create a Project with a "Watercolor Wash".

Create a "CAS project or one with Minimal Layers".

or Mash it Up! and create a "CAS project with a Watercolor Wash".

I haven't done watercolor wash before and it's a little hard without a paintbrush so I used one of my aqua painters instead.  I tried a few different "strokes" and decided I liked this one the best.  I also did a wash around the edge of my top piece because I didn't want to add another layer to my card.  I kind of like how it turned out. :)

Head over to the Friday Mashup HERE to see the other great projects using watercolor wash.  Make sure to give it a try yourself and show us what you've created.

Thanks for looking and have a great day!
Sara

Stamp Sets:  Happy Watercolor, Gorgeous Grunge & Teeny Tiny Wishes
Card Stock:  Naturals White
Classic Stampin' Pads:  Black Berry Bliss & Mossy Meadow
StazOn:  Black
Smooch Spritz:  Vanilla Shimmer

Evergreen Christmas

I know it's hard to think about Christmas when it's so close to the 4th of July.  Then again with as cold as it was here in Michigan yesterday it felt more like a cool October day instead of the beginning of July!  But nothing is stopping me from creating cards for Christmas and 'Tis the Season Christmas card blog.  I didn't get a chance to make three more cards though because I was helping my daughter move a bunch of her stuff back to our house last night.  Maybe I'll get a chance tonight because I really loved the colors for this week's challenge and like how my card turned out.  

Head on over to 'Tis the Season HERE to be inspired by some more great cards, and take a bit to play along.  You'll be glad you have a card or two when Christmas comes around!

Thanks for looking and have a great day!

Sara

Stamp Sets:  Evergreen, Gorgeous Grunge & Teeny Tiny Wishes

Card Stock:  Bermuda Bay, Coastal Cabana & Whisper White

VersaMark

Stampin' Emboss Powder:  White

Punch:  Modern Label

Embossing Folder:  retired

Jewels:  Basic Pearls (colored with Blendabilities)

Pool Party Watercolor

Today's card is the card I made for the Red Hots' card swap that we had at this month's meeting.  Fourteen of us swapped with each other using sets from either the sale-a-bration catalog or the Occasions catalog...and there were a lot of great cards from each of the ladies!  I'll have to take some pics and show them to you some time. :)  For now I'll show you what I swapped with the ladies and it's also going to be one of this month's stamp a stack cards.

Thanks for looking and have a great day!

Sara

Stamp  Sets:  Happy Watercolor & Teeny Tiny Wishes

Card Stock:  Pool Party and Naturals White

Classic Stampin' Pads:  Pool Party & Pear Pizzazz

Ink Refills:  Pool Party & Pear Pizzazz

Embossing Folder:  Stripes

Framelits:  Windows Collection & Ovals Collection

Punches:  1" Square & Modern Label

Ribbon:  1/2" Seam Binding in Pool Party

Jewels:  Basic Pears

Smooch Spritz:  Vanilla Shimmer

Aqua Painter & Sponges

Lovely You

It's Tuesday so that means it's time for another sketch challenge from Try Stampin' on Tuesday.  This week's twist is to use hearts and/or flowers.  I went with flowers since I've been wanting to use the set You're Lovely from the Sale-a-bration catalog and haven't had a chance until now. 

I have a  few more pics for you to look at since I actually had more than one of them turn out.  lol  I would have just used one of the pics below, but they didn't show the smooch spritz like the top pic, so I had to use that one.  I seem to have a hard time getting the shimmer to show in my pics lately.  Don't forget to check out what the other designers made at Try Stampin' on Tuesday HERE.

Thanks for looking and have a great day!

Sara

Stamp Sets:  You're Lovely & Teeny Tiny Wishes

Pink Pirouette ink refill & Blender Pen

StazOn:  Black

Framelits:  Deco Labels

Smooch Spritz:  Vanilla Shimmer

Thinking of You

Wow, I had a hard time coming up with a card for this week's Try Stampin' on Tuesday sketch challenge.  It really shouldn't be that hard, but between my new job, trying to prep for my stamp a stacks and keep up with all my sketch challenges I feel like I'm striking out!  Simple...I need to think clean and simple!  Not that this is bad, just not what I was thinking it was going to be.  I do love the colors together though. :)  

Thanks for looking and have a great day!

Sara

Stamp Sets:  Happy Watercolor & Teeny Tiny Wishes

Card Stock:  Basic Black, Calypso Coral & Whisper White

Classic Stampin' Pad:  Calypso Coral

Stampin' Write Markers:  Calypso Coral & Basic Black

StazOn:  Black

Embossing Folder:  Fancy Fan

Punches:  Modern Label & Word Window

Smooch Spritz: Vanilla Shimmer

Love Banner

Today's card is brought to you by the Dynamic Duos color challenge.  I need a Valentine's card for this month's stamp a stack and liked the thought of using black and pink for the card.  I skipped the option of umbrellas for this sketch since it didn't go with my theme and I don't have one!  Of course I had to use a few new goodies from Sale-a-bration which starts soon!

Thanks for looking and have a great day!

Sara

Stamp Sets:  Banner Blast & Teeny Tiny Wishes

Card Stock:  Basic Black, Melon Mambo & Whisper White

Classic Stampin' Pads:  Melon Mambo; StazOn:  Black

Embossing Folder:  Decorative Dots

Punches:  Full Heart, Small Heart,

 Heart to Heart (retired) & Banner

Pretty Petite Petals

It's Tuesday, so that means it's time for another sketch challenge from Try Stampin' on Tuesday.  It's a great sketch this week and the twist is "well worn".  Don't forget to check out what the other designers made this week HERE.  It's my in-law's anniversary later this week so I thought this would be a great sketch for an anniversary card.  

While working on this card I was hoping to stamp the piece under the flowers directly on the card stock so I wouldn't have to cut the shape out.  I'll do fussy cutting, but would rather skip it if I can! lol  As you can see I ended up cutting it out, but I also managed to get the "words" from the embossing folder onto the stamped image.  How did I do it?  It was actually on accident!

I embossed a scrap piece of paper to see if I could actually stamp over the embossed words.  As you can see in the pic below it didn't work out too well.  Only the cursive embossed letters got ink on them.  However when I turned my stamp over and looked at it this is what I saw.  I thought to myself, "Hmm...cool!  Let's see what it looks like after I stamp it again."  So I huffed on the stamp to get it damp again and stamped it... 

and this is the image I got. :)  I thought it was pretty cool and thought I'd share it with anyone who reads my blog.

Thanks for looking and have a great day!

Sara

Stamp Sets:  Petite Petals, Everything Eleanor & Teeny Tiny Wishes

Card Stock:  Soft Suede, Crumb Cake & Very Vanilla

Classic Stampin' Pads:  Soft Suede

Embossing Folder:  Pretty Print (retired)

Punch:  Petite Petals

Jewels:  Basic Pearls

Smooch Spritz:  Vanilla Shimmer

Sponges

More Pretty Pansies

~ Update ~

If you'd like to know how I created these pansies scroll down for a picture tutorial.

Ok, one last card with pansies, I promise.  I needed to make my third one for my upcoming class.  Thanks to Mojo Monday I was able to use another great sketch to help accomplish it.  Believe it or not there are pansies that look like this...ok, pretty close to this.  The orange isn't quite as a bright, but none of the other "oranges" were doing it for me.  And they don't have jewels in the middle, but hey it's a card and I like bling! :)

Thanks for looking and have a great day!

Sara

Stamp Set:  Teeny Tiny Wishes

Card Stock:  Rich Razzleberry, Gumball Green,

Pumpkin Pie & Whisper White

Classic Stampin' Pads:  Rich Razzleberry & Pumpkin Pie

Embossing Folders:

Perfect Polka Dots & Modern Mosaic 

Punch:  Pansy

Jewels:  Basic Rhinestones

Smooch Sprtiz:  Vanilla Shimmer

I've had a few people ask how to make these flowers, so I thought I would take some pics of the steps...enjoy!

Using the Pansy punch, punch out one pumpkin pie flower and one rich razzleberry flower.  Cut the petals apart, making sure to trim off the excess edges.  You don't want those on like I have on the two bottom orange petals.  For each finished flower you need three orange petals and two purple petals.  You can choose whatever colors you want.  I just looked at pics of real flowers and decided on my colors.

Sponge around the edges and tips of each petal.  I did it to the purple ones too, but it is a little hard to see.  

Spritz each petal with rubbing alcohol to make them wet.  I did it with rubbing alcohol mixed with a few drops of smooch spritz so my flowers would have a sparkle to them. :)  I use rubbing alcohol because it gets it wet so I can "bend" the petals, but then dries a lot faster than if I used water.

About a minute after you spritz them you'll want to put a bit of a curve or curl in them.  I just rubbed them on the Stampin' Up! spritzer because it was the perfect size of curve.  They need to still be damp when you do this or the card stock will bend, but you don't want to do it right after you spritz them or the card stock will start to rip and the layers rub off.  

Let the petals dry completely!  While you're waiting for them to dry you can start to put your card together and punch out a 3/4" circle to layer your petals on.

Once the petals are dry attach glue dots to the back of each tip.  Cut the bottom off your biggest orange petal so it's flat like in the pic below.  This is the last piece you'll be putting on the flower.

Attach the two purple pieces to the circle.  You'll want these to overlap a bit.

Attach the two orange pieces that don't have the flat tip.  They're pretty much right across from each other.

Attach the last orange piece with the flat tip.  It's cut so it doesn't show once the jewel is on. :)

Using the writing tip of the Rich Razzleberry marker draw lines on the flower petals.  I start in the center and sweep out.  Just a quick flip of your wrist to get them on.  They are on the purple petals too, it's just hard to see in this pic.

Attach the rhinestone to the center.

Using the same punch cut out three petals for leaves.  I usually attach my flower/s to the card first with dimensionals, then slip in each leaf where I think it looks just right on the card.  I attach them with glue dots like I did the flower petals.

Happy Pink Poppies

Boy has it been snowy and cold in Michigan for the past couple of days.  I definitely wanted to make something with flowers for today's Try Stampin' on Tuesday sketch challenge instead of  a wintery scene!  I love the new set Happy Watercolor, so I thought I would use the poppy along with the flower garden embossing folder.  Since there are pink poppies I thought I would make the card with pink instead of the more common poppy that is orange.  As I'm sitting here typing this I'm imagining that color would be pretty too.  Hmm...maybe a second card is in order.  We'll see...

Don't forget to check out what the other designers made HERE using this sketch.  Why not play along too if you get the chance. :)

Thanks for looking and have a great day!

Sara

You can order any of these supplies below through me.  I'd love to be your Stampin' Up! Demonstrator if you don't have one.  Click HERE to place an order.

Stamp Sets:

  Happy Watercolor ~ 133188 $29.95 or 133191 $21.95

 Teeny Tiny Wishes ~ 128748 $36.95 or 127802 $26.95

Card Stock:  Basic Black, Blushing Bride & Whisper White

Classic Stampin' Pads:  Blushing Bride

StazOn:  Black

Embossing Folders:  

Flower Garden ~ 123113 $7.95

  Decorative Dots (available during Sale-a-bration!)

Aqua Pen ~ 103954 2 for $16.95

 Blender Pen ~ 102845 3 for $9.95

Smooch Spritz:  Vanilla Shimmer ~ 118772 $4.95

By the Tide Birthday

Today's card is for my son's 20th birthday.  Wow, where did the years go!  I sure love him though, so I had to make him a special card (I must love a lot of people because it seems like I'm always making special cards. lol).  He's definitely an outdoors man, and enjoys fishing, so I figured some sort of fishing card would be the way to go.  I used this week's Paper Players challenge #173 "Any Shaped Card" to come up with this idea.  It could be any shape except the normal rectangular card so I used the Deco Labels Framelits to make this card's shape.  Instead of layering behind the card to get a dark background I sponged around it instead.  I think that was faster to do than cut and stack the layers to get them to look just right.

I had to take a few close ups so you could see the pieces I cut out to add dimension. :)

When I make a "shaped" card I don't like to have a piece of it missing, so I never fold a piece in half and leave part of the shape off the card.  All you have to do is cut two of the same pieces, score the back piece where you want the card to flip at, and put your adhesive on the top part of the back piece of the card. :)  Here are a couple of pics in case what I wrote doesn't make sense.  I'm definitely a visual person so pics help a lot!  

This is the back of the card and you can see where I scored it and attached it to the front piece of the card.

This is what the inside looks like when you flip it open.

Thanks for looking and have a great day!

Sara

Stamp Sets:  By the Tide & Teeny Tiny Wishes

Card Stock:  Naturals White

Classic Stampin' Pads:  Not Quite Navy, Island Indigo & Garden Green

Framelits:  Deco Labels

Sponges

Let it Snow...

Today's card is my design for this week's Try Stampin' on Tuesday sketch challenge.  And like my title says the twist is Let it Snow!  I actually had a different card in mind, but another designer had the same idea as I did, so I went back to the drawing board.  I came up with this card using the colors from Dynamic Duos...black and smoky slate.  

Thanks for looking and have a great day!

Sara

Stamp Sets:  Lovely as a Tree & Teeny Tiny Wishes

Card Stock:  Basic Black, Smoky Slate & Whisper White

Classic Stampin' Pads:  Smoky Slate

StazOn:  Black

Punch: 1 1/4" Circle

Sponges

Creative Crew Creations for November

Welcome to November!  It's hard to believe it's already here.  Where has the year gone?!  Just to warn you my first post for this month is a long one since I'm going to combine all of my Creative Crew projects into one post instead of doing four this month.  I tried to keep my projects and little more simple this time.  I like to go all out and need to learn to do simple but elegant.  So let's start from the beginning...

Oh November, the time of sweaters & blue jeans, cocoa & fires, and just about every kind of yummy food you could ever be thankful for! This month we're going to take ourselves a trip down memory lane and remember what we have to be thankful for.

The first challenge...DSP/Color Focus: Since we're starting Sweater Weather why don't we take our trip down that road first. Show us Chocolate chip, Crushed Curry, Sahara Sand, Soft Sky, Tangerine Tango all getting happy together.

Since we've had our leaves on the trees for so long here in Michigan I figured I'd use the Lovely as a Tree set using the colors from the first challenge.  

I like to stamp the image on the inside after I've stamped the first time.  It leaves the same image just a lot lighter so you can write over it.

The second challenge...Creative Focus: KITS! We have a mountain of kits to choose from, they make a class or a workshop easy peasy! The next part of our trip takes us into packaging territory, show us something with the Pretty Packages line on pages 158 & 159 of the main catty or any of the kits or packages in the mini catty, tell us why you choose what you did.

The reason I chose this kit is because you can make so many cute things using the bags and tags and add anything you want to it to match what you're using from the kit.  Plus I have an open house coming and I'm trying to figure out ideas for some of the make and takes. :)

Just a close up. :)

The third challenge...Holiday focus: Did you know that November 26th is national cake day? Trip number three is to be inspired by the cake pictures and show us what creation one of these cakes led you to, please see the attached ideas.

I usually like color, but I love black and white cards as well.  Since it's November and a month to be thankful I thought it would be nice to make a thank you card that's clean and simple.

I had to make a matching envelope too. :)

The fourth and last project...Scrapbook focus: The last leg of our journey is to take that walk down memory lane and share a favorite childhood memory, event, toy, or treat on scrapbook page, mixed media project or with This & That!

Well, a scraper, scrapbooker (not sure what you call it!) I am NOT!  But I didn't want to do a mixed media this time, and I don't have a This and That journal so a scrapbook page it is.  I decided to make a quick page of when we brought our kids to Disney World with my brother's family in 1998 and for our fifteenth anniversary in 2005.  I made quite a few visits there while growing up, and it's also where we went on our honeymoon.  Love that place! :)  I think it's time to go back!! :)

Thanks for looking and have a great day!

Sara

Lovely as a Tree Card

Stamp Sets:  Lovely as a Tree, Dictionary & Express Yourself

Card Stock:  Chocolate chip, Crushed Curry, Sahara Sand, 

Soft Sky & Tangerine Tango

Classic Stamp Pads:  Chocolate Chip, Sahara Sand, 

Crushed Curry & Tangerine Tango

Punch:  Modern Label

Candy Dots:  Neutrals Collection

Decorative Bag

Stamp Sets:  Festive Flurry & Teeny Tiny Wishes

Classic Stampin' Pads:  Coastal Cabana & Bermuda Bay

Framelits:  Festive Flurry

Ribbon:  3/8" Ruffled Stretch Trim in Coastal Cabana

Tag a Bag:  Gift Bags & Accessory Kit

Jewel:  Basic Rhinestones

Thank You Card

Stamp Sets:  Hello Doily & Blooming with Kindness

Card Stock:  Basic Black & Whisper White

Classic Stampin' Pad:  Smoky Slate 

StazOn:  Black

Smooch Spritz:  Vanilla Shimmer

Scrapbook Page

Stamp Set:  Everything Eleanor

StazOn:  Black

 Card Stock:  Basic Black, Real Red, 

Pacific Pride & Garden Green

Punches:  1/2" Circle, 3/4" Circle, 1" Circle & 1 3/8" Circle