Witchy Card {and a triple challenge with Bree}

Halloween is almost here!  I've always loved Halloween, but I love it even more now that my husband and I can share it with my little girl.  It's so fun to see her learning about how the seasons change and about how we dress up and celebrate.  She's 2 and she is all ready for some serious trick-or-treating.  Which just happens to be the sentiment on my lastest card:

It was my pal Bree's turn to pick some challenges for us to tackle, and she chose a great combination of the sketch from Fab Friday, the colors from colourQ, and The Friday Mashup.  Check out her take on the same 3 at Craft-somnia Momma.  I love this combination of colors but my favorite part of this card has to be this cute little witch I cut with my Cameo.  I love that it was able to cut such a small detailed image even using thick glitter cardstock.  This is how it came out on the first try! Yes!

I added some jewels to mimic stars, because of course that witch would be flying around in the night sky.  I used the SU colors Tangerine Tango, Rich Razzleberry and substituted Lucky Limeade for the green.  Check out all the other great cards at these challenges:

Thanks for looking!

Love You Card

Happy Thursday!  For this card I used the sketch from clean&simple and the colors from Fab Friday.   Unfortunately I let this color palette intimidate me for too long and I missed the deadline, but at least I finally tackled it!  I must admit I was kind of won over by these colors after I finished.  Never say never!

Here are the colors and sketch I used:

Thanks for looking, have a creative day!

Hello Sunshine

Hello Sunshine! It's a beautiful fall day complete with sunshine and a cool breeze.  I love this time of year. It's a great day for a bright and cheery card.

Today's card is inspired by the Paper Smooches SPARKS challenge.  I found this site a while back and immediately ordered some cute Paper Smooches stamps so I could play along, and I've been waiting for them to come in the mail.  I decided I couldn't stand to wait any longer and I wanted to make a card (like NOW) so I decided to use some of their free digis.  Thanks for the freebies!  The challenge was to use a cool color scheme, and I used another great sketch from Retro Sketches.  Halfway through making the card I realized that my flags were going to hang off the edge of my card.  Must have been my subconscious saying I should play in the CAS-ual Fridays "Over the Edge" challenge this week too.  Alright subsconcious, I will!

Anyone else have trouble with some cards just not wanting to stand up and be photographed? I have a question for all you crafty ladies out there.  Can someone tell me what those little spiky round things that hold your card up are called?  I want one and I'm not having any luck searching the web for "spikey round things that hold your card up" strange, right?  I know you crafty pros will help!

Check out the fun at these awesome challenge sites:

Thanks for looking!

{another} Halloween Card (...and a challenge with Bree)

Hello! It's time for another challenge combo with my pal Breelin over at Craft-somnia Momma.  Kudos to her today, for not only creating another fab card but for running a 10K this morning, she just keeps on impressing me!

It was my turn to pick a duo of challenges for us to tackle "together".  I chose the color palette from colourQ and the sketch from Pink Paper Bakery.  It's my first time for both of these and I'm happy to have found more great places to play and be inspired.

             

Here's what I came up with:

I had Tangerine Tango and Pear Pizzazz cardstock in my stash, and I used Peach Parfait for the lighter orange shade.  I cut the sentiment with my Cameo.  I've seen so many clever critters made with the Stampin' Up owl punch so I tried a few of those.  This ghost was going to be on the front but I ran out of room so I popped him onto the inside, he's too cute to waste.

Extra thanks to my awesome husband Ken, who took these pictures with his fancy camera since I was having trouble with mine.  He's amazing, and I couldn't do all the stuff I enjoy without his help and support.  I Love you!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Celebrate card for CAS(E) this Sketch! no. 2

Yay! It's time for the second CAS(E) this Sketch! challenge. I love their simple sketches and I'm so amazed by the great interpretations from everyone designing and playing.  The sketches are a bit challenging for me (hence the name!) because they are so simple and I feel like my CAS cards sometimes lack that special "something".  I have to keep reminding myself that this is exactly why this is good for me if I want to keep improving my skills.  It wouldn't be fun if everything was easy-peasy, right?  Anyways, to all the other players and designers, I'm so impressed by your cards, you inspire me!  Here's mine for this week:

Here's the challenge sketch: 

I cut the cupcake with my Cameo (*love*) and hand cut the bits of confetti.  The stamp is from a Stampin' Up retired set called Curvy Verses.  The "sprinkles" on the cupcake were made with something I've had for a while but haven't found a use for, they are microbeads by Martha Stewart.  They're super shiny and cute and they're a bit like glitter but unique.  I think they'll be great for snow on some winter cards, can't wait to try them again.  The camera really doesn't show how shimmery they are.  Here's a closer look:

I stamped the sentiment in SU Chocolate Chip ink and covered the heart with glossy accents.  I can't seem to get enough of that stuff lately, love it!  

Thanks for stopping by!

Freshly Made/Dynamic Duo Thank You card

This card is for two difference challenges, I used the sketch from this week's Freshly Made Sketches challenge, and the color palette from this week's Dynamic Duos challenge.  And just for funsies I asked my very talented crafty friend Bree over at Craft-somnia Momma if she would like to play together on a few challenge combinations, and she said yes! She's always up for anything crafty, I love that. So every once in a while we will choose a new combo and both use the same guidelines to create something.  It's so much fun to see all the different things people come up with even using the same sources of inspiration. Bree had already done a card for these two so I rushed home to try and come up with something.  Here's my take on the two challenges:

Here's the sketch and color palette we were using:
 

 

 For my flower I used an emboss-resist technique by stamping and heat embossing in white onto white card stock, then I used Pool Party ink to sponge over the flower, making it a little bit darker in the middle.

 This looked pretty, but didn't end up looking very different than my sentiment which I embossed in white on a piece of Pool Party cardstock.  Guess I could have saved myself the trouble, oh well! You stamp, you learn.

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I had some Tim Holtz tiny paper clips and matching brads that were almost an exact match to my Soft Suede card stock, so I threw those in for extra details.  Check out Bree's take on the same two challenges here.  She has done another great card, (of course!).   And a special thanks to Bree because without her letting me raid her craft room I wouldn't have been able to play in this color challenge, thanks again, you are awesome!

Thanks for looking!

Happy Halloween Card

Here's a card that had me thinking outside my usual comfort zone, thanks to the challenge at Hand Stamped Sentiments this week.  It's a technique challenge, to use inked embossing folders.  Here's what I ended up with:

I've never done this before and my first few attempts were not hitting the mark, so I switched gears completely and used a brand new (to me at least!) cuttlebug folder called "Spider Stew" which was a gift from my best friend.  Thanks Krista!  I'm so glad she gave this to me because it's not one I would probably pick out for myself, but I really like it!   I inked it lightly with a black ink pad and it came out grey with white spider webs.  What a cool technique.

 The images are all cut files from the Silhouette Studio cut with my Cameo.  I sprayed the fence with gray mist and inked all the edges of the other cuts to give it an aged feel. I made my own sentiment with an alphabet stamp set (I guess it's truly a hand-stamped sentiment since I was winging it, so it's fitting for this challenge :)

Thanks for looking!