Butterflies and Belleek

It's been awhile since I've made a card for an SCS challenge.  I loved the "Try A New Technique" challenge posted today called "Inspired by Belleek Pottery".  The challenge is to create the look of this pottery by using the negative embossing technique.  We were challenged to emboss a piece of white or light colored cardstock with an embossing folder that has the front or top of the folder inked with a light colored ink.  I used ivory cardstock and Stampin' Up's River Rock with a Cuttlebug folder featuring butterflies.  Here's my card:

The embossed panel was matted on River Rock cardstock and attached to the card base of Blush Blossom cardstock.  The sentiment "Thinking of You", from Stampin' Up's Friend to Friend, was stamped in Blush Blossom, die cut with Nestabilities oval die and sponged with Blush Blossom.  The oval was attached to a tag of River Rock cardstock cut with Spellbinders Fancy Tags die.  To strips of eyelet bordered ivory satin ribbon I added prima flowers and butterflies cut with a Martha Stewart punch in shades of peachy pink cardstock.

It's my birthday today and I think this card suits me to a tee. I love butterflies and love this shades Peachy Pink!!

New Year, New Cards

It's almost the halfway through January and I'm already behind in my goal of posting to this blog at least once a week.  Today I'm posting a number of birthday cards I've recently created for friends and family.  The first one was for my friend Bill whose birthday is January 1st.  I used Mojo Monday sketch 214 for the layout and designer papers are by DCWV La Creme Stack.  The sentiment is from Gina K's  Inside and Out stamp set and the finishing touch was a plaid ribbon attached with a medal button with the word "birthday" engraved on it:

 The inside of the card features another sentiment from the Gina K Inside and Out stamp set:

 The second card was for my sister Donna who celebrated her birthday on January 3rd.  Because teal is one of Donna's favorite colors I used this paper from DCWV The Downtown Loft Stack.  The image is a stamp by Elizabeth Bell for Ladybug and Friends called "Hello Sunshine".  The prima flowers were just the right touch for a pretty card for a special sister:

 The third birthday card is for my nephew's wife Linda who celebrated her birthday January 8th.  The layout is from Splitcoaststampers sketch 365.  Papers are by DCWV All Occasion Glitter Stack.  The sentiment is from Gina K's Inside and Out stamp set.  The fushia flower give this black, silver and white theme a punch of color along with a glittery brad:

 On January 10th we celebrated my BFF Barbara's birthday.  She loves red so that was the theme for her card.  Papers were from Stampin' Up, DCWV La Creme Stack and Bazzill.  Mojo Monday sketch 223 was the inspiration for the layout.  The red layer with the lacy black overlay was made on my Cricut with cartridge Paper Lace.  The large 'B' was made with my SCAL software and outlined with Black stickles.  I created the sentiment on my Word program.  The final touch was a bow made from sheer red ribbon topped with black, cream and red flowers.

 Last but certainly not least is a card I created for my cousin Jim who is celebrating his birthday today.  The layout was taken from Splitcoaststamper's sketch367.  The plaid d.p. is by Pebblesinc. The green layer framing the striped designer paper was punched with my EK Success candle punch.  The sentiment with spinner is a Stampin Up stamp "Take A Spin".  Two silver square brads add a little embellishment to what I hope is good masculine birthday card:

What Not To Wear at the Dueling Darling's Holiday Party

It's November 15th and time for another Dueling Darlings' challenge.  This month our esteemed hostess's and group leaders, Kelly for the Divas and Jeanette for the Dazzlers, have chosen the wackiest theme of What Not To Wear to this year's holiday party.  The tv show of this same name is the inspiration for the challenge.  In the words of our host: "Stacy and Clinton find unsuspecting women (craziest, wildest, most bizarre, worst-dressed) and give them lifel-chanign fashion makeovers and fasion advice, HOT OR COLD or no matter whjat the season or are you live in (another hint!).  So in this kit of "craziest, wildest, most bizaree kits - full of papers and embellishments that at first glance look atrocious" we are to create a card using the darling In Style stamp, Lilah and put her in the party.  Now Kelly added an extra challenge for the Divas.  She included two of her favorite holiday items - gigerbread men and candy cane twine from the twinery.  She requested we use these items and one of each of the designer papers from MME, CI and DCWV she included in the kit. Whew!
When I first viewed this kit and read the instructions my mind was in a whirl.  What am I going to do?   Well, in the spirit of the show I felt it was only appropriate to give lovely Lilah a makeover, so you're going to see my card in several views, one with Lilah before her makeover and one after her makeover and one that show the "suspension" card:

Here's Lilah in her "atrocious" outfit, top and skirt paper pieced from DCWVpapers, yellow ribbon bow, orange boots.  The tree is decorated with many items from the kit including the candy cane twine and the gingerbread man.  How do you like that red and white stripe ribbon at the top of the frame?  Here's Lilah after her makeover:

Our Lilah is now ready to be the star of the holiday party.  She's been "made over" with new hair color  and a sparkly silver dress with matching boots made from the wonderful glitter d.p. and her yellow ribbon has been replaced with this sparkly gem head dress and giving her sparkly aqua eyes.   WhooHoo! Let's party!!!

I was hoping to show a picture of the suspension element of the card with a peak at the interior. That was the only way I was going to get papers from the 3 different groups on the card.  But I'm having problems today uploading pix so you're not going to see one of ME wearing something crazy, wierd, or atrocious! That was the other challenge.  Sorry!
Let's go check out what the other Diva's have done with this challenge starting with Kelly here:

  Kelly * LJ * Barb * Carol  * Judy (you are here)  * Jamie * Joan * Tami

and to see the dueling theme from the Dazzlers, you can find them here!

Happy Harvest For The Dueling Darlings!

It's October 15th and time for team Divas to duel with team Dazzlers.  Our leaders this month, Tami for the Diva's and Darlene for the Dazzlers, have chosen the theme Happy Harvest.  Tami send the Diva's a great card kit including this adorable image from the "Sweet Season" Stampin' Up set and a wonderful collection of papers and embellishments.  From this collection I chose to use the Heidi Grace dual sided Floral/Green dotted paper, the TPC dual sided Fall words/plaid paper and the GSilk bronze glitter paper.  From the wide variety of embellishments Tami included I used colored rhinestones, red maple leaf brad, narrow chocolate satin ribbon, and a tiny green safety pin.  The layout is from Card Patterns Sketch 136 by Michelle Bertuzzi.  I used Martha Stewart maple leaf punches on the image panel and colored the image with Copic markers. For the base of my card I used SU "Old Olive" cardstock and added a panel of gold bazzil cardstock.  Here's my October Dueling Darling entry:

Please check out the rest of the Dueling Darling cards starting here:

Kelly * LJ * Barb * Carol  * Judy (you are here) 

 * Jamie * Joan * Tami

and to see the dueling theme from the Dazzlers, you can find them here!

In addition to creating a card with this fantastic kit the Divas and Dazzlers were challenged to include in this post a favorite autumn recipe.  I especially love having soup when the weather starts to cool and here's a favorite of mine:

Easy Vegetable Soup

1 cup brown rice

1 cup lentils

2 carrots, sliced

1 onion, chopped

2 stalks of celery, sliced

2  49 1/2 oz. cans chicken broth

1/2 tablespoon dried thyme

1/2 tablespoon dried basil

1/2 tablespoon dried oregano

2 cloves of garlic, minced

2 drops of tabasco sauce

2   14 1/2 oz. cans of pasta sauce

Put everything at once into a big soup kettle. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. 

This smells heavenly and is a wonderful meal when accompanied with bread and a salad.  Easy!

School is Cool for September's Dueling Darlings

The challenge presented to the Dueling Darlings this month was to create a card around the theme "School is Cool".  For those of you not familiar with the Dueling Darlings we are a group of papercrafting friends who have formed two teams, the Divas (my team) and the Dazzlers.  Each month a member from each team consults with one another, chooses a theme and, often, a challenge for the teams.  Based on the theme, a card kit is created and sent by that member to each of her team members and on the 15th of the month the "duel" begins as we all upload the cards we've made from the kits we've received.  This month the Diva's recieved this  terrific kit from Jamie that included some fabulous DCWV designer paper, some coordinating SU cardstock, stamped images and sentiments, die cuts, ribbon, buttons and brads.  Using some of those elements plus a few of my own here's the card I created:

School's Cool & So Are Teachers!

I used both sheets of the DCWV d.p, the perfect paper for this theme.  My main image is a digi stamp by Guylou's Inimitability which I colored with Copic markers and cut out and mounted with dimensionals on the die cut d.p.  I thought it was the perfect complement to the theme and all the elements I used from the kit which included these two quotes, the terrific "Have Fun/Always Creating/ Never Stop Learning" pencil image, ribbon, sparkly red apple and blue book and the white clip.   The sentiment on the red tag reads "America's future walks throught the doors of our schools each day" and I believe that sentiment applies to both students and teachers.  So I'm dedicating my card to all the teachers who played such an important part in my life and also for one special teacher in my life, my sister-in-law who will be retiring at the end of this school year.  This one's for you, Tina!

I almost forgot!  We were asked to share a favorite school memory.  I guess it's not surprising I forgot...It's been so long ago that I was in school.  There is no one event or person that stands out in my mind but a series of experiences and most of all the friendships I made.  I still keep in touch with my best friend from grade school and a BFF and I go back to high school days.  This summer I was able to reconnect with many of those old friends as we got together for a picnic to celebrate the year we turned 70! Yikes,  how did that happen so fast!

Please check out the rest of the Diva's September duel cards here:

Kelly * LJ * Barb * Carol  * Judy (you are here)  * Jamie * Joan * Tami

and to see the dueling theme from the Dazzlers, you can find them here!

The Dueling Darling August Challenge

It's So Hot, Let's Cool Off!  Yep, that was the theme chosen by August team leaders Paola for the Dazzlers and Judy (that's me!) for the Divas.  A funny thing happened on the way to the duel.  Both team leaders got side tracked and are just now posting their August dueling cards in time for the September duel.  Oh well, as the saying goes "Better late than never!"  As for me my excuse was that I was traveling and didn't have an internet connection to post my card. Well, I've been home for almost 3 weeks now and finally getting around to uploading my card and here it is:

I sent a boat load of yummy papers from American Crafts' Margarita line...Love those papers!  Also included were a variety of images and sentiments all fashioned around a beach location, my favorite place to cool off on a hot summer day!  To add some fun to the cards I included a variety of die cuts and sea life stickers, ribbon and buttons and brads in lots of hot and cool colors. 

For my card I chose to use two of the d.p. papers along with some shiny blue, bright green and pink cardstock.  I love the cute Close to My Heart Beach Babe! Isn't she a cutie?!?  She and the little beach chair/umbrella/ball image are colored in Copics and she is shown off predominately with dimensionals. I used the fish brads to swim in the "ocean waves".  I couldn't resist using some letter brads I've had forever to spell out the theme of "Keep Cool".
 
We asked our Dueling Darlings to share a favorite way to cool off.  My favorite way to cool off is to get out of the Arizona desert and head to the Pacific NW near Seattle.  Here's where I spent many of my mornings this summer walking along the Tacoma waterfront on Ruston Way:

That's Mt. Rainier in the background

My husband and I were very blessed to view so many of nature's wonders including one morning watching 2 bald eagles on the beach.  Here's one as he flies away:

My muse for creating this kit and card was my dear friend and Diva team leader Kelly who many of you know by her SCS name MiamiKel.  Love you, girl!  Let's go check out the rest of the Diva's starting with my inspirational leader here:

Kelly * LJ * Barb * Carol  * Judy (you are here)  * Jamie * Joan * Tami

And check out the Dazzlers' starting with team leader Jeanette here:http://creativeplayischeaperthantherapy.blogspot.com/2011/08/it-is-hot.html

Dueling Darling's Garden of Friendship

It's July 15th and time for another duel with Dueling Darling Divas and Dueling Darling Dazzlers.  This month our hostess for the Divas is LauraJean and she has sent us the most gorgeous kit to create a card using July's theme of Garden of Friendship.  Love it!! She asked us to share a friendship we have as an extra bonus this month.  I treasure all my friendships and none more than those I've made on SCS and papercrafting blogland.  Wow!  What a gift all of you have been to me and I give thanks to my Lord for blessing me with you in my life.

Here's my take on this super fun and colorful kit:

LJ send  this darling Gardening Flopsey (My  Favorite Things) which I colored with copics.  In the kit were 4 fantastic October Afternoon designer papers and I used them all in my card: multi-color dots paper as background layer; yellow with circles paper die cut with blossom nestability and used as background layer for the polka dot fabric die cut; pea pod image paper cut out and used as a  background layer for the sentiment; and green plaid paper pieced for Flopsey's overalls.  I used the red and green ribbons and the metal button from the kit to wrap around my green scalloped layer, a button from the kit to anchor the fabric to the the die cut and the darling lady bug button to top off the sentiment. I added the multi-color rhinestones to the scallops to echo the design in the background paper.  And I used this terrific sketch for MOJO Monday week 199:

Now hop on over to view the rest of the Divas startin(g with our team leader Kelly:

Kelly * LJ * Barb * Carol  * Judy (you are here)  * Jamie * Joan * Tami

and to see the dueling theme from the Dazzlers, you can find them here!