fresh & fun

I love this new set. And I love what I have seen of the new catalog so far. The few sneak peaks people got that went to the cruise look fabulous. I can’t wait to own all those sets. When is August going to be here? I can’t wait!!! LOL

My card base is a 5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″ piece of Purely Pomegranate folded in half.

The black cardstock measures 3 1/2″ x 4 3/4″ followed by a 1/4″ smaller piece of the retired Uptown Designer Paper. The edges of the Designer Paper were paper pierced and part of of a 1″ black circle was taped to the top left. On top of that is a 1/2″ Pumpkin circle followed by an Ice Circle Rhinestone Brad.

The Soft Sky Prints designer paper measures 1 1/4″ x 5 1/2″, layered on a 1/8″ bigger piece of Basic Black cardstock. Striped Pumpkin Ribbon was tied around the top, the sentiment from Fresh Cuts stamped underneath the knot of the ribbon and the bottom edge was paper pierced.

For the main image I stamped the big background stamp from Fresh Cuts in Black Stazon on a 1 3/4″ x 2 3/8″ piece of Shimmery White cardstock. I colored it with Aqua Painter and Classic Inks (Soft Sky, Purely Pomegranate, Pumpkin Pie and Wild Wasabi) and layered it first on a Purely Pomegranate then on a scalloped black layer (cut with rectangle Nestabilities). The image was attached to the card with dimensionals.

I found this fun layout on a card at Carols blog.

To participate in the challenge and be entered in the  raffle, make a card with this layout and upload it either to your blog, or to an online gallery.

 If you upload your card on SCS, put WSC50  (NO SPACE INBETWEEN WSC AND 50) in the keyword section. That way we can look at all of them at once!

Post a link to your card to this blog entry as a comment. Please add your entry# to it.

I will determine the winner  with Random.org on Monday at 11:00 a.m. CST

To see samples made with this sketch now, check out the blogs of

Cambria Turnbow

Charmaine Ikach

Laurie Schmidlin 

Lori Craig

MaryJo Albright

Sharon Harnist

Have fun creating! I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

SCS submissions

I had a comment on my card yesterday asking how to round only one edge of the sentiment strip or how to make it a longer strip. I know most of you already know this little trick, but it’s easier shown then explained.

Step one:
Stamp your sentiment on the bottom edge of your cardstock piece.

Step Two:
Cut your cardstock into a 3/8″ strip.

Hint: You can cut the strip first and then stamp. I just find it easier to stamp first and then cut. This way your sentiment will always be in the center of the strip.

Step Three:
Slide your cardstock strip through your window word punch like shown.

Step four:
Punch your strip. It will only round the one edge that was inserted into the punch.

Alternate Punches:
Try it with any circle or oval punch. The key tag punch and even the round tab punch will work as well. Or course there are always corner rounder punches that do the same.

I know this is not a super exciting tutorial, but it’s one that needed to be in the resource section of SCS. So here is the card I made with for the paper piecing tutorial.

The card base is a 4 1/4″ x 8 1/2″ piece of Purely Pomegranate cardstock folded in half. The edges of the card front were sponged.

The black layer measures 3 3/4″ square. The 3 1/2″ square of Whisper White dry embossed with the Swiss Dots Cuttlebug Embossing folder. On the bottom I added a 1 1/4″ x 3 1/2″ piece of Bali Breeze Designer paper. All the corners were punched with the ticket corner punch. 5/8″ wide Olive grosgrain ribbon was tied around those layers.

I stamped the bird from Fun & Fast Notes in Black Stazon once on textured Soft Sky cardstock and three more times on different patterns of Bali Breeze Designer paper. I cut out the bird on the cardstock with an oval Nestabilities template, sponged the upper edges with Soft Sky, the lower ones with Old Olive and layered the oval on a slightly bigger sponged scallop Purely Pomegranate oval. I cut pieces of the Bali Breeze paper images out and taped them to my Soft Sky image. Last I paper pierced a border to the Soft Sky layer. The image was attached to the card with dimensionals.

I stamped the sentiment from the bird image on Whisper White cardstock, cut it down to 3/8″ strip and rounded the left hand side with my Window Word Punch. I taped it to the lower right hand side and added 1/4″ black circle with a small blue rhinestone brad in it’s center to the right.

Okay…another last minute stamping! I seem to thrive on that. I just finished my sample. I have to run to get Rebecca to school, then meet my neighbor for a walk. I will take a better picture and write about all the details when I get back.

I loved the color combo on this dress!

Okay…so after my walk I went to cool down (translated that means stop sweating and panting like a DOG!) in the backyard with my book and stayed there until noon.

After that it was time for a shower and then time to make cookies. Since the kids were off yesterday, they got their Monday cookies today.

I still haven’t taken a better picture (my neighbor came over to hang out and we just chatted) but I can tell you more about the card.

The card base is a piece of 5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″ piece of Basic Gray cardstock folded in half.

Under my 3″ x 5 1/2″ strip of Jersey Shore Designer Paper I added first an 1/8″ wide layer of River Rock, then another Whisper White layer of that width on the top of that paper. Underneath I added River Rock and White layers again, only did I scallop the white layer with my Long scallop Rectangle Nestabilities.

I stamped the sentiment from Bursting with Joyin River Rock on a 1 7/8″ x 2 1/2″ piece of Whisper White cardstock and again in Basic Gray on a scrap piece of Whisper White. I punched the gray sentiment out with my small oval punch and layered it over the River Rock stamped layer.  Then I layered that first on a Bashful Blue rectangle, then on a scallop rectangle that was cut with a rectangle Nestabilities die template. I paper pierced the edges of the white layer as well as the white oval.

I wrapped Striped Bashful Blue Ribbon around the card base and layers before attaching the sentiment with dimensionals. Over the knot of the ribbon I added two 1/2″ Bashful Blue circles, followed by 1/4″ Basic Gray circles and silver brads.

For my accent I stamped the medaillon from Boho Background four times all with Basic Gray ink. Once on Whisper White, once on Pumpkin Pie, once on River Rock and one more time on Basic Gray. I punched the Basic Gray medaillon out with the scallop circle punch, the River Rock with 1 3/8″ circle punch, the Pumpkin pie with the 1″ circle punch and cut the flower out of the medaillon stamped on white cardstock. I adhered them all on top of each other and added an Ice circle Rhinestone brad in the center.

Today this card of mine was on the Stamper’s Showcase on the demonstrator part of the Stampin’ Up! website.

I hadn’t sent anything in to SU in a long time. I think this is the only thing this year so far. It was a swap card of mine.

It was nice to see a card of mine up there. Thanks to everyone who saw it and commented on it.

Hugs and smiles

This weeks inspiration piece is a J. C. Crew dress.

Use the colors or the pattern….anything that will inspire you to create your card.

I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

Check out the cards made by the Inspiration Challenge Team:

Charmaine Ikach

Danielle Lounds

Jennifer Buck

Silke Ledlow

I will post my sample later. I didn’t feel inspired yesterday! I am going on another walk this morning and will start right after that.

If you upload your image to your splitcoast gallery, don’t forget to add BIC15 in the keyword section. That way your card will appear in this search: SCS Submissions

I knew I wanted to use the stamp set The Free & The Brave today. I ordered it, but it hadn’t seen ink yet. So when I checked out today’s Technique Lover Challenge, I thought I could use the set and participate in the challenge at the same time.

Today’s challenge was to pick one of the first then Technique, Color and Sketch challenges and combine them into one card. The only half way patriotic Color combo out of the first ten Color challenges was Rose Red, Night of Navy and Brocade Blue (CC03). I picked SC10 as layout, since it had a big square as focal point. That would work well with the eagle and the Spotlight technique (TLC06) for my technique challenge.

The card turned out rather simple, but since it’s going to Rick, it will be allright. LOL

The card base is a 4 1/4″ x 11″ piece of Night of Navy folded in half.

On the bottom I added a 2 3/4″ x 4″ piece of Brocade blue that was stamped all over with the three star row from The Free & The Brave. Over it was a 3/8″ x 4″ piece of Kraft cardstock. I added a red (rose), white and blue brad on the left hand side.

The main image is also from The Free & The Brave stamp set. I stamped the eagle once in Rose Red on Kraft cardstock, once in Night of Navy on Whisper White.  I cut the blue eagle out and layered it on the Kraft cardstock. The Kraft cardstock was then layered first on a Rose Red, then on a Whisper White cardstock layer and the edges of the Kraft cardstock were  paper pierced.

I stamped the first half of the sentiment in Night of Navy on the bottom right. The second half was stamped on a 4″ x 5 1/4″ piece of Brocade Blue that was taped on the inside of the card.

I want to wish you all a Happy Memorial Day!

The kids and I are going to see the new Narnia movie. Since we didn’t read any of the books, we won’t be dissappointed. I like to go to movies that have been running for at least a week. That way the theaters won’t be that crowded. Next week will be Indiana Jones time! I love watching movies!

Random.org picked #67.

That is Brenda, with this card.

You can see more of Brenda’s work on her blog Stamp It Up.

Thanks to everyone who tried out the sketch! The samples looked amazing!

Have a wonderful Memorial Day!!!

Random.org picked #88. That is Mary P.

Mary, please email me your mailing address and I will send out the set to you.

Thank you all for your kind words! You are the best!

Hugs and smiles

I like using my sketch challenges as layouts for my scrapbook pages when I can. I did that for this weeks Scrapbook Sunday share.

I love this picture of Rick and Rebecca!

I took it on our trip to the Smoky’s.  As you can see the trees were still bare and it was foggy.

That didn’t matter because we had Rick home for a little while.

I pulled the colors from the gray day and Rebecca’s jacket.

The page base is a 6″ x 6″ piece of Basic Gray. The top was stamped with the background stamp from Fresh Cuts in Basic gray. I stamped additional branches from that set in gray over the background and sponged the edges.

I cut the photo down to 3″ x 6″ and taped it to the bottom of the page. Over it a 1″ strip of Berry Bliss Designer paper was adhered. The top edge was paper pierced and a piece of polka dotted Sherbert Ribbon was layered over the bottom edge.

For the circular layer I stamped  a Day to Remember from Sweet Celebrations in second generation Basic Gray and once in full strength of Purely Pomegranate ink. I cut out the gray layer with my round Nestabilities, the Pomegranate layer with the 1 1/4″ circle punch. I taped both layers together and stamped the branch from Fresh Cuts in second generation Pretty in Pink ink. The little journaling I did was done with a 03. black Micron Pen. Both layers were adhered to a bigger Basic Gray Scallop circle, cut again with round Nestabilities.

I stamped the flower from Fresh Cuts in Purely Pomegranate on Whisper White cardstock and cut it out. It was adhered with dimensionals to my circular layers and a pink rhinestone brad (Fire collection) was added in it’s center. Last I taped the circular layers down with dimensionals.