It's been too long...

Yes, it's been too long since I posted last!  I really don't have an excuse other than I have been UBER busy, but isn't everyone?  **sigh** Well, being busy is my excuse for not posting, but I have made time to do a little crafting here and there.

There are two challenges I am taking part in each week.  One is a Last Scrapper Standing Challenge and another is a Last Stamper Standing Challenge.  The first is for page layouts and the latter is for cards.  It's much easier to post the cards right now, so that's what I'll stick with for this post.  Here are a few of the cards I have done over the past ten weeks of the challenge:

 This card is from week 10.  I love the way it turned out!  And I hope "ewe" are doing ok, too! ;)

 This card is from week 8.  It turned out that it worked perfect for Father's Day and my children and I gave this to my husband for Father's Day.  He really liked it!

This card is from week 9.  Personally I don't find this to be one of my favorites, but I followed the sketch and the technique requirements, so I submitted it. ;)

 I can't remember what week this card (or the others after this) are from, but they are all part of the weekly challenges.  I think this princess one would be perfect for a little girl's birthday!

This ballerina card... ah... this little ballerina card was made as part of the challenge, but I also decided to give it to my little girl the night of her very first dance recital.  She loved the card so much she hugged it! 

 This card was my favorite from the challenge that week.  I love the Cafe Ian image from The Greeting Farm and I just think the papers and the gems worked beautifully together!  I'm not sure who this will go to, but right now I'm not worried about it because I'm a little more interested in keeping it around (LOL!) for a bit!

This last card was made for my daughter's dance teacher.  She gave it to her the night of the dance recital.  Of course, I used the same sketch for the challenge that week... I just love how each of these last three cards are all a little different even though the same sketch was used!  And I must admit that I absolutely adore the Aspire stamp set from Close to My Heart that I used for the card above!

Well, that's a little bit of what I've been up to when I've made the time to complete my challenges over the past few weeks.  I'm hoping to post more regularly, but this summer isn't even half over and it looks like I'll be going nonstop the rest of the way through!  That's ok, though- it'll slow down... eventually!

I hope you've enjoyed seeing a few of the cards I've made!  Please leave me a comment and share your thoughts!  I'd love to hear from you!

The Latest Cards

Once again I joined a swap, so I found myself needing to make 14 thank you cards.  I wasn't entirely sure what I wanted to do, so I looked for inspiration on the Splitcoaststampers galleries and then among the various cards I've pinned and repinned on Pinterest.  Here are the two cards I came up with:

 This first card was inspired by one I saw on the Splitcoaststampers galleries.  I ended up pinning it to my boards on Pinterest, so you can see the original card where I got the inspiration from here.  I didn't have any patterned paper that suited me, so I decided to use stamps and coordinating cardstock colors.  I pulled out my Hero Arts Old Letter Writing stamp to do the background along the bottom strip and the background in each of the squares along the top.  The CTMH For Every Occasion set is where the "Thanks" comes from that you see at the bottom.  I used my cuttlebug and an embossing folder (sorry, can't remember which one) to emboss the top background piece, and I used my Nestabilities Lacey Squares dies to cut the scalloped squares.  I also used the Nestabilities to cut the two label shapes that hold the word "Thanks" at the bottom.   The ribbon is Certainly Celery from Stampin' Up, and the coordinating cardstock is called Pear Crush- I purchased it at Archiver's.  Honestly, I can't remember if it's by Bazzill or American Crafts.  The butterflies were punched from a MS butterfly punch, and I added a dot of Perfect Pearls to the center of each one after I adhered them to their squares.  I apologize if the card looks washed out- I really need to work on the lighting in my craft room!  All in all, though, I was pleased with the way the first card design turned out- even if it did take me longer than I thought it would to make 8 of these (I made one to keep for myself)!

The second card was inspired by one I repinned on Pinterest.  The original card can be seen here.  I used the Fiskars stamp set called Latte Love for both the coffee cup and the sentiment.  The base of this card is made from kraft cardstock.  I used a dark brown card stock as the background (from Archiver's), and then Basic Grey patterned paper for the other two pieces.  Brown Baker's Twine is wrapped around the card, and the coffee cup is adhered with Stampin' Up dimensionals to give it a little more... dimension.  I colored in the coffee cup with my copic markers, but I didn't note which colors I used (sorry!).  I really like the way this card turned out, too!  Isn't it great when you can get inspiration from other cards you see?

Well, that's it for now.  Hopefully I will be able to make some more cards and scrapbook pages soon!  Thanks for stopping by!  Feel free to leave a comment- I love hearing from visitors!

Have a great day!

A Few Valentine's Day Cards

Since Valentine's Day is next week, I've been working on making a few cards.  In years past I haven't given cards out, but I'm giving a handful out this year.  Here are the ones I've made:

 For this card I used The Greeting Farm's Stella.  I colored her with copic markers and then used my Lacey Squares Nestabilities to cut her out.  Once I had her cut out, I sponged distress ink around the edges to help the image pop out a little.  I used Spun Sugar, which seems to coordinate perfectly with the papers!  The patterened paper is from My Mind's Eye, and the coordinating cardstock is from Bazzil.  I added three heart gems to the bottom of the card- after I colored them with a copic marker (R89) to get them the color I wanted.  Here are the colors I used to color Stella:
skin:  E21, E00, E000 & R20 for the cheeks
hair:  E53, E55, E57
clothes & shoes:  R81, R83, R85
envelope: a little N0 to shade it in

 This little card is one I came up with for my kids.  It's a 4x4 square card.  I used my cuttlebug to emboss the red square, stamped "love" on a small strip and placed it near the bottom, and used punches to get the scalloped circle and heart in the upper corner.  I adhered the heart with a pop dot and then outlined it with stickles to give it a little shine.  Nothing much, but I'm sure my kids will like them!

This last card is one I just made today.  Surprisingly, I didn't use a sketch to make it- I just went with what felt right as I was going along!  The paper and the image are the same as in the first card (I had colored a few of the images the same so I could make multiple cards) shown above.  The ribbon on the card is from Stampin' Up!- it's Rose Romance 1/4" grosgrain ribbon.  I once again colored the gems so they would match the colors in the patterned paper.  For this card I used the Lacey Ovals from Nestabilities to cut out the image of Stella, and I adhered it to the card using pop dots for just a little dimension.  I used Gathered Twigs distress ink along the edges of the card and the top patterned paper to help them stand out, too.  It seemed to give it just the right amount of "pop."

Well, that's the latest.  I hope everyone who gets these Valentine's Day cards enjoys them!!

A few cards using The Greeting Farm images

Life has been... well... LIFE lately!  I have not had much time lately to make cards or scrapbook pages, but I do have a few things I want to share that I made before Christmas (yikes! almost a month ago already!).  So, here goes...

The first card is one I CASE'd from a card I saw on Bee Craftee's blog a while back.  I loved the simple elegance of her card and I was able to adapt the design so that it became a birthday card for my Dad.  I admit I visit Bee Craftee's blog often- I just adore her clean style and how well she colors with those copic markers!!  I used the Greeting Farm Edward stamp and the sentiment is from a Hero Arts set.  Here is the card I made for my Dad:

This next card is one I made for my husband for Christmas.  On this card I used the Cheeky Christmas image.  My awesome friend Amy stamped a few for me (thanks, Amy!!!) a few months ago and I thought it was perfect for this card.  Of course, when I saw the ribbon with the saying "Naughty or Nice?" on it, I KNEW I had to put it on the card, too!  It just fits, don't you think?

The next card is one I made for a card swap.  I actually made four of these cards.  They were part of a "Teen Girl Birthday" group of the swap, and I had SO much fun making them!  I used Creeper Leslie from The Greeting Farm's Creeper Crew Collection I.  The sentiment comes from an Oliver and Amelia set called Summer Fun.  When I made these teen girl cards I was hoping to capture a little bit of sass and teen attitude, yet still make the card youthful and fun.  I *think* I accomplished that (well, I hope I did, anyway!).

This last card was also made for a card swap.  It's actually part of the same swap for which I made the previous cards.  This group just happened to be "Teen Boy Birthday."  The image I used for this card also comes from the Creeper Crew Collection I; it's Creeper Jack.  The sentiment is from a set for which I cannot remember the name or manufacturer (sorry!).  I had so much fun making the [four] cards for this set! 

I have to take a moment to apologize; I don't have the copic colors listed for the images I colored on these cards.  Normally I would list them, but I didn't keep track of them on these cards for some strange reason.  I don't even have one of these cards for myself as I totally forgot to make a copy for me!  Oh well- at least I have the picture so I can recreate them later.  Anyhow... my apologies for the lack of supplies and copic colors being listed.  I'll do better next time!

Thanks so much for stopping by!  Have a great day!