fresh & fun

Here is my sample for MJ’s awesome sketch this week.

I knew I wanted to use the beautiful flower stamp from Soft Summer. To do so, I had to make my card a bit bigger then regular. I would mail this one with a business size envelope.

The card base is a 8″ Basic Gray square folded in half. Both Designer strips are from the Walk in the Park Designer Paper pack. The upper one measures 2 1/2″ x 7 3/4″, the lower one 2″ x 7 3/4″. I overlapped them slightly.

 The layers for the main image measure 3″ x 5 1/2″ for the gray layer. The bottom was punched with the Eyelet Border punch. The Kiwi cardstock measures 2  3/4″ x 5 1/4″ and the Shimmery White Layer is another 1/4″ smaller.

The flower was stamped with Basic Gray ink on the left hand side of the Shimmery White cardstock. I stamped the flowers again, colored them with Aqua Painter and classic inks (Cameo Coral, Kiwi Kiss and Baja Breeze), cut them out and layered them over my main image. The sentiment is from from the Soft Summer stamp set as well.

I added a white Jumbo Grommet through one of the big flowers from the Pretties kit and added a Baja Breeze Ribbon knot in it’s center.

I am sorry I don’t list all the details, but it’s been almost two weeks since I made this card.

The inside of the card is kept pretty simple.

The 2 3/4″ x 7 3/4″ piece of Cameo Coral cardstock muted with White Craft Ink.

The designer paper is from the Walk in the Park Designer Parks.

Have a wonderful  day. Hugs and smiles

Mary Jo Albright is the hostess for this weekend’s sketch challenge.

Make sure you visit her blog and post your entries there.

And visit

Charmaine Ikach

Jenn Balcer

Laurie Schmidlin

Lori Craig

Mary Jo Albright and

Sharon Harnist’s  blogs for more samples.

Have a great weekend. Hugs and smiles

P.S.: Sorry about the mess up with this post. I don’t know where it came from but it should have been posted April 03rd, not on the 25th. Weird. Sorry!!!

Here is a card I made for the Color Challenge two weeks ago. The colors were Summer Sun, Kraft, Riding Hood Red and Black.

The card base is a 4 1/2″ x 9 piece of Riding Hood Red cardstock folded in half. The edges were sponged

Next is a 4 1/8″ Basic Black square. The corners were punched with the ticket corner punch. It was layered with a 4″  square of Parisian Breeze Designer paper that was sanded. The edges were punched with the same punch as well. The paper was sanded and the edges were paper pierced.

The horizontal strip measures 1 7/8″ x 4″  and is sponged Riding Hood Red cardstock. The bottom edge was punched with the Eyelet Border Punch and three clear Rhinestone brads were added to the left hand side.

The the full berry image was first inked up with Summer Sun. Riding Hood Red ink was added with Fantastix over the berries, Sahara Sand over the stem. Then the image was stamped on to Whisper White cardstock. Next I masked the image and stamped En Francais over it with Sahara Sand. I cut the image out with Label Nestablities and sponged the edges first with Summer Sun, then with Sahara San. It was layered on a black Nestabilities cut out and white gel pen dots were added all around. A small hole was punched on the top right and White Taffeta Ribbon was tied down with a Hardware piece from the Styled Silver Hodgepodge Hardware.

I punched out a designer label out of Summer Sun and sponged it with Sahara Sand. Next the sentiment was stamped in Black Stazon on Whisper White and punched out with the large oval punch. It was taped to the Designer label punchout, paper pierced and taped to the image. Another Styled Silver Hodgepodge Hardware piece was added over it.

We will be in Trier today all day. I can’t wait to show the kids the Roman ruins there. It’s the oldest German city and goes back to 58 B.C.

Hi everyone,

 We got to Germany alright. I am tired as tired can be, but Rick is already standing by the car, wanting to drive to the first castle. So I can only upload the images, I will tell you more about them later.

Sorry about the blurry picture. I took it early in the morning before we left Florida.

The card base is a  3 1/4″ x 8 1/2″ piece of Basic Gray cardstock folded in half.

The 3″ x 4″ piece of Kiwi Kiss was ran through the Big Shot with the Texture Plates. The dots on it sanded.

The inside is super simple. I didn’t even get to straighten the ribbon before I took the picture.

Okay…the whole family is waiting now. I got to  run!

Have a great weekend. Hugs and smiles

Okay…so my sample is an hour late and it’s not quite like the challenge sketch. I just can’t stick to samples. I did keep the three images and the ribbon. I stretched the card out and made the horizontal layer bigger though.

I started with a 6″ square of textured Basic Gray cardstock folded in half.

The designer paper measures 2″ x 6″ and is from the occasional mini catalog. The paper pack is called Walk in the Park.

I layered the designer paper on Shimmery White cardstock. The bottom of that layer was punched with the Eyelet Border Punch. Kiwi Satin Ribbon was tied around the layers before they were attached to the card base.

I stamped the frame from Great Friend three times in Basic Gray on Basic Gray cardstock and cut those out. Each frame was layered first with a 1 3/8″ Kiwi Kiss cardstock circle, then with a 1 1/4″ Shimmery White circle. I stamped directly on two of those circle with stamps from Great Friend. One the third one I adhered a butterfly stamped in Baja Breeze ink and cut out. I inked the butterfly with Kiwi Kiss, stamped it off once, sponged the edges with Baja Breeze ink and a sponge dauber and stamped it again on Shimmery White. It was cut out and layered on top of the first butterfly with dimensionals.

To finish it off I added some Ice Rhinestone Brads.

Sorry I am so short. I am an hour late for my walk and it’s getting warm outside.

Cambria is the hostess for this weekend’s sketch challenge.

Make sure you visit her blog and post your entries there.

And visit

Charmaine Ikach

Jenn Balcer

Laurie Schmidlin

Lori Craig

Mary Jo Albright and

Sharon Harnist’s  blogs for more samples.

I don’t have a sample made as I type this in. I hope I get one done before it’s time to post. If not, I am sorry!!!

Have a great weekend. Hugs and smiles

I made this card for the inspiration challenge last week. I picked this pillow to get my inspiration from.

The bunny reminded me of the bunny from Forest Friends. I was itching to try out that set.  So I picked the colors (Kiwi, Chocolate, Apricot) as well as the shape and the bunny from the inspiration piece and went to work.

I started by inking the tree from Forest Friends in Kiwi Kiss. I went over the trunk and branches with my Chocolate Chip marker and stamped it on the lower right of 3″ Whisper White cardstock square.

I added a 1/8″ scored border all around the white and then a diagonal grid with my Scor-Pal.  I did not add grid lines over my stamped image.

Then I went over the diagonal lines with the new Scor-Bug (available beginning of April, I was lucky enough to get one to review for SCS).

Because of the scored lines, I used dimensionals to adhere this layer to a 1/4″ bigger Kiwi Kiss layer that was taped down to a 3 1/2″ square of Chocolate Chip.

Chocolate Taffeta ribbon had been  tied around the Chocolate/Kiwi layers before adding the scored layer. The card base is a 4″ x 8″ piece of Apricot Appeal cardstock folded in half.  A white gel pen dotted border was added to the edge of the card front.

The bunny from Forest Friends was stamped in Chocolate Chip on Whisper White cardstock. It was colored with Apricot Appeal Classic ink and Aqua Painter, cut out and adhered under the tree with dimensionals.

The sentiment is from Really Retro. It was stamped in Chocolate on Whisper White cardstock, punched out with the small oval punch and layered on a 1″ Kiwi Kiss circle. A paper pierced row was added under the sentiment before it was taped to the top left of the image layer. A Flower brad with a small Apricot cardstock gel pen dotted circle (punched out with the Crop-a-dile) finished off that brad.

My inside is again very simple.

I added a 3 3/4″ square of Chocolate Chip topped with a 3 1/2″ square of Kiwi Kiss cardstock.

Two Scor-Bug lines were added to the bottom of the 3 1/4″ piece of Whisper White on the bottom. The other three edges received a score line.

The tree was inked the same way as for the front, stamped off once and then stamped in the bottom right corner.

Have a wonderful Sunday! Hugs and smiles

I am excited.

I am holding my first stamp camp this year!

I have been a slacker since Rick came home.

These projects what we will be stamping

Crimped Envelope Card

Cute little Funky Trees

Not Quite Navy Butterfly

Baja Le jardin Botanique

Have a wonderful Saturday!!!

Hugs and smiles

Pink Damask

I love how different Jenn’s sketch is.

Make sure to participate this weekend and post your link on Jenn’s blog.

She is giving away a Splitcoast mug of your choice!

I started with stamping my little duck from the Occasional Mini catalog Wagon Full of Fun in Tuxedo Memento ink on Neenah cardstock. I colored the bill and feet with copics and outlined the duck with W1 Copic and air brushed the sky with Copic B00.

Sunshine Flower Soft was added over the body of the duck with glue. I stamped the duck twice more, one more time on white cardstock and one time on Delicate Dots Designer Paper. I cut out the wing of the white cardstock duck, popped it up with a dimensional and added Sunshine Flower Soft over the wing as well. I cut out the bow around the ducky’s neck from the designer paper and added it to the main image with dimensionals. I added Shamrock Green Flower Soft under the ducky’s feet.

The image was layered on a basic black scallop rectangle that had been cut with Nestabilities. The edges top and side edges of the image layer were paper pierced.

The card base is a 5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″ piece of Basic Black cardstock folded in half. It was layered with a 4″ x 5 1/4″ piece of Delicate Dots Designer Paper. The Designer Paper was sanded and paper pierced.

I cut one Top Note Die cut out of Basic Black cardstock, one out of retired Haiku designer paper. The Haiku paper was cut down a bit, layered on the black cut out and paper pierced around the top edges. It was taped to the center of the green designer paper with a 1 3/8″ x 5 1/4″ piece of Delicate Dots Designer Paper added over the bottom. Celery 5/8″ Grosgrain ribbon was tied around the bottom.

The sentiment is from Many Happy Returns. It was stamped in black on Whisper White cardstock, punched out with the Curly label punch and adhered to the top left of the image. The image was secured to the card base with dimensionals. I added two flowers from the Pretties kit, one with a Pumpkin Corduroy Button, one with a Flower brad in it’s center. The last flower is from Flower Fusion and has a half Pearl from the Pretties kit to top it  off.

The inside is kept pretty simple.

I started with a sanded piece of the Delicate Dots Designer Paper. It was followed by a White Top Note Die cut that had been layered first with a 1 1/4″ strip of Basic Black, then a  1 1/8″ strip of Delicate Dots DP.

To finish it off I added a felt flower from Flower Fusion with a 5/16″ Jumbo Brad in its center.

Make sure to check

Cambria Turnbow

Charmaine Ikach

Jenn Balcer

Mary Jo Albright

Lori Craig and

Sharon Harnist’s blogs for more samples.

Have a great weekend. Hugs and smiles

I haven’t been able to participate in challenges since last week. After our site update on SCS I have been busy answering emails every day. So here is another card I made last week.

The card base is a 4 1/4″ x 8 1/2″ piece of Kraft cardstock folded in half.

Next is a 3 7/8″ square of Basic Gray cardstock . The edges were distressed and the corners punched with the ticket corner punch.

The next layer is a 1/4″ smaller piece of Whisper White cardstock. It was first stamped with En Francais in Sahara Sand. The corners were punched with the ticket corner punch and the edges distressed. Next the edges were sponged with Sahara Sand. Then I added images from the Occasional Mini catalog set Sense of time and the flower from Central Park to finish my background. I tied retired ribbon from the Beach Originals around both the gray and my background layers.

The sentiment is also from Sense of Time. It was stamped in Basic Gray on Whisper White cardstock and cut out with Nestabilities. I cut the next biggest shape of the Nestabilities out in Basic Gray, sponged the edges and layered my sentiment on that. A white gel pen dotted border finishes the layer off. The sentiment was adhered to the main card with dimensionals.

To finish the card off I added the big flower from the Pretties Kit. It was topped with a 1″ sponged and dotted Basic Gray circle. The edges of that circle had been slightly distressed. In it’s center is one of the new Kraft Corduroy Buttons. I LOVE those new buttons!!!

I didn’t decorate the inside of this card yet. It just doesn’t feel right to have it that NAKKED! I need to change that. LOL

Have a great day! I am off to walk with Katrina!