What do you do when you cannot sleep? Think of good friends and create a card (one of multiples) to send out to them. My card will be entered into the Sunday Stamps SSC235 Bright and Beautiful Color challenge to choose a minimum of three colors from this graphic.

Insomnia made me use all five colors on the Pink Fresh Studio Nested Chevron background stamp. Memento Lady Bud, SSS Coral Reef, Distress Oxide Mustard Seed, GKD Blue Raspberry and Fresh Asparagus. What next? Oh yes I guess I need something else for the front after cutting two circle die cuts I found a Hampton Art LOL (Laugh Out Loud) Stamp set. Fun sentiments in this set that Buddy Gerry should feel free to snark away with.

ModSquad Challenge Blog – Slimline Scene with scenery

The Sisterhood of Crafters – Ink It Up

My card today is a slimline underwater scene with plenty of ink and it’s for our sweet granddaughter’s 8th birthday. What better than a fantasy card with narwhals from Technique Tuesday, my underwater grasses are GKD’s Best Fishes and the waves stencil is from Pretty Pink Posh which I stamped in Versamark and heat set with white embossing powder then realigned the stencil to cover the entire slimline front panel. Using lots of Distress Oxide inks and watercolor brush pens for the narwhals, fish, shells and spray.

Of course when you are almost 8 years old, less is more….NOT….more is better so here’s my inside scene:

The sentiment and fishes are also from the same Technique Tuesday set , mermaid is a Sizzix stamp and die set, sand castle is a Mama Elephant stamp and die set and my stencil is Hero Arts Sun background stencil that I extended and yes more inking. My underwater greens are Tim Holtz Alterations.

Happy to be able to play along with some challenges but now I just have to figure out where to put our personal message to Brooke.

Color challenges are always a struggle for me but decided to play along with The Paper Players Color Challenge PP499 to use Smoky Slate, So Saffron and Seaside Spray. Hmm….so doing my best I pulled out GKD Little Boy Blue cardstock, cut multiple frames using my Waffle Flowers A2 layering dies then decided that the frame needed some embossing so used my swiss dots embossing folder and actually before I adhered the frame to the card base. Next I used Memento’s London Fog ink on the GKD Sunshine Stencil to create background. The main image SU’s Measure of a Life stamp set was stamped in the London Fog and sponged a little Distress Oxide’s mustard seed ink on the dragonfly. Added some crystalline drops that looks like dew.

Not feeling very motivated but hopefully that will change. Have a great day.

What’s almost as good as Christmas? Christmas in July with rainbows!! The challenge this month at Gina K Designs hosted by Sheri is Christmas in July. I pulled out my GKD Christmas stamps and found the Sentimental Sentiments StampTV kit using all of the snowflakes in this set stamped in versamark ink, white heat embossed with GKD’s fine detail white embossing powder, then pulled out my inks all GKD with an exception of the yellow which is a combination of GKD and a TH Distress ink and applied rainbow order ink over this slimline card. The image is from GKD’s Snow One Like You and the coordinating Silhouette cut file. Die cut sentiment and shadow as well as the cheer sentiment are from the same StampTV kit. I was going to use the small “merry” sentiment but somehow it got lost in my messy desk. My lower left corner got a little funky not sure if it was the versamark, not heat set properly but probably due to human error :).

But right now it’s back to work…Will is on a mission of different projects and I have been pulled in as his assistant. It is so very hot with not much relief in site so I was a little cranky today…..but…..to my surprise I just received a delivery of 6 Christmas Edge-Ables dies and can’t wait to play with them. So excited! Crankiness appeased!

A girlfriend has finally gotten a puppy. She has been hoping for one for years and her husband finally said yes! Bailey is a Cavapoo (Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and a mini Poodle mix). We haven’t met her yet but her name is from It’s A Wonderful Life and George Bailey because according to my girlfriend if you have a dog it is a wonderful life. She’s very happy and her husband is trying not to admit that he’s enjoying puppy’s company too.

So my card is a Quarter Fold Card using the tutorial from Lisa’s Stamp Studio. My puppy and paw paper were both found on line free sheets (search the web and thanks to Buddy Gerry) printed and cut to size for the panels. My puppy is an older Inkadinkadoo stamp set, Welcome sentiment is GKD’s It’s the Little Things and banner and Bailey were from Microsoft Word, Spellbinders nestabilities used to hold the card closed.

The quarter panels of the card opens and I decided to use an image from Sweet n Sassy stamps “Woof You”.

This card will be entered into The Paper Players: PP498 – A Theme Challenge From Ann

DRU Challenge #148 – Anything Goes

Happy Birthday America! To celebrate our country’s Independence Day this July 4th, I CASED a SSS reprise of Lauren Bassen’s 2015 card. My card will be entered into the The Sisterhood of Crafters Stenciling Challenge and the stencils I used are Pretty Pink Posh’s wide stripes stencil and a swirl stencil that I cannot remember the name…it was either a SSS or a Tim Holtz included in a kit possibly. My stripes were inked with GKD’s Faded Brick and Cherry Red, the star area was sponged with GKD’s powder blue and navy inks. The stars are the unnamed stencil and Brutus Monroe’s Alabaster Glitter Glaze.

The second part of the challenge is Dies R Us Challenge #148 – Anything Goes and to include a metal die. My scripty metal die is a Spellbinder’s sentiment which reminds me of something that Buddy Bonnie would create using her Silhouette. I layered it and finally cut it out with some glitter paper added some self adhesive stars for my “dots” and found that cool “ribbon” in my stash.

Besides the SSS inspiration, I was inspired by our Buddy Judy with her amazing patriotic Americana cards lately.

Have a great day and stay safe.

MIUCB #39 – Anything Goes + Open Technique

Judy over at the ModSquad Challenge Blog has a challenge entitled Silhouette time with a silhouette required to be the focal point of the card. I went through some of my GKD stamp sets and came up the with this flower silhouette from the Hello Sunshine StampTV kit and the sentiment is from another GKD stamp set Garden Silhouette. My sponged background was created using SSS Coral Reef, GKD’s Dusty Rose and Wild Lilac inks. This is a CASE of Cathy Zielske’s blog post from yesterday. I added some GKD Vanilla Ice Sequins, embossed the focal panel using my Bonnie embossing template and layered onto some Dusty Rose cardstock.

This card, I believe will also be acceptable for the Mix It Up Challenge Blog (MIUCB#39) Anything Goes + Open Technique option. My technique is ink sponging and masking. That template I created comes in handy for masking off sections. I may make some different shapes.

Enjoying a break today from a second walk so decided to use my time wisely and create some cards.

Summertime, Summertime, Sum Sum Summertime! Summer arrived on Saturday and this year we may have to experience alternative summertime activities. Well maybe not that different since we are not roller coaster fans. For today’s card which will be entered into the Dies R Us Challenge with a Summer Time Fun theme, I inked up the Hero Arts May My Hero kit which finally arrived at my door. The kit includes a stamp set and matching dies as well as few other dies. The dies used from this kit were the airplane, sun, cloud, hot air balloon and the banner. My clouds were created using a Pretty Pink Posh cloud stencil set and the patterned paper is Echo Park’s Summer Days.

Happy Summer!

Father’s Day cards for my son (bottom) and son-in-law (top) for this year. Getting my inspiration from Johanna and her lovely nautical themed cards.

Happy Father’s Day to all our Dads.