Shabby in White

In anticipation of yet another move I have begun studying Shabby Chic design. We plan on just renting a house this time and so I am hoping that I can learn to decorate with white in a way that will be pleasing and comfortable rather than cold and stark. Today as I was reading through a decorating book I decided to make a card using only "shades of white", in Shabby Chic style. Here is what I came up with:

This card works for 2 challenges: the layout is from Mojo Monday's sketch and at The Shabby Tea Room the challenge this week is to use homemade flowers. I did make my flower and it looks quite good. Unfortunately, I am still having photography issues (due to the loss of my lens that can take close-ups) so I cannot get a good picture of the flower. Besides, for some reason the photo rotated when I uploaded it to my blog!

So I'll tell you about the flower. I used about 12" of crocheted lace ribbon. I ran thread through every other hole near one edge, then I gathered it into a bunch that resembled a flower and stitched it together. I thought it needed a little more punch so I did insert a small manufactured rose into the center.

Paper, ink, stamp and frame are all Stampin' Up. Ribbon and pearls are from Michael's and the tiny manufactured rose was part of a "thank you" gift with purchase from Verve.

Thanks for looking!

~La

Bright Colors!

I can't help it, I love these colors! Bright colors like these make me happy.

For my card I used colors similar to those in ColourQ's palette. (You can see their full blog post here.) Because of being "temporarily" away from home (for 2 years!) I didn't bring all of my supplies with me. Of course while here it made me crazy that I didn't have "enough" colors so I purchased some locally. All of the stamp pads I have bought here are similar to SU's "Stampin Spots" - little 1 inch things. I like that size when I'm not sure I want to commit. I also have found that I really prefer it when stamping the pad onto the stamp rather than the stamp onto the pad.

So here is my bright spring card:

My daughter wants me to give it to her in the worst way. I absolutely will, I just have to figure out when and how to surprise her with it.

All supplies are Stampin' Up, except the "Life is good" stamp which is from Verve.

~La

Busy Birthday?

I am writing this post on my iPad and I'm not sure which has more limitations - the iPad or me! I cannot figure out how to copy images from the challenge blogs into my post so I cannot do that for this card. I can (I think) link the blog challenge post. So... This cards colors are inspired by The Play Date Cafe's weekly challenge and the layout comes from Mojo Monday. I was quite pleased with this card, but my husband said it is too busy. So now I want to know: is it too busy? Honest opinions welcomed.

for the record: All supplies are Stampin' Up except the silver paint pen with which I outlined the Happy Birthday sentiment.

~La

Double Challenge

I'm on a roll...

I made this card yesterday for two separate challenges. First, the colors are from Color Throwdown:

(And may I just say, these were the easiest colors in the world for me to use. Purple and green together are my favorites. Yeah!)

The layout came from Mojo Monday:

And here is my card:
Stamps are from Verve; papers from SU, Creative Memories and ???. Ink is all SU, the exact colors named in the Color Throwdown challenge. The purple in my flower looks lighter than Elegant Eggplant but that is because I colored it on using a blender pen.

Thanks for looking!

~La

How Exciting!

I am thrilled to say I received an honorable mention for a card I entered at The Play Date Cafe. They call it "The Cream in Our Coffee" and when your card is chosen you get to display their badge on your blog. So, as you might be able to see, I am TRYING to display the badge. Unfortunately I am fairly tech-challenged so while I was able to load the badge onto my page (BIG accomplishment for me!) I cannot figure out how to move things around so that the entire badge shows. Boo! I think when I get back to the States I will have to find a class to take that will teach me something about the mechanics of blogs.

Colour Q Challenge and a CASE

It seems there are endless numbers of "challenge blogs" out in blog-land. I am thankful for them because they provide so many starting points. Additionally, each of them have "designers" who showcase what they come up with to meet the challenge each week. The ladies who are designers, by and large, have amazing amounts of talent. It is wonderful to be able to copy their designs. It seems no one minds being copied, as long as you give credit where credit is due and don't profit off of your copy of their work. Fair enough! (More than fair, honestly.)

As I was perusing a challenge blog yesterday I came across a card that I HAD to copy. Immediately! First though, here is the color pallet from my chosen challenge-blog-of-the-day (aka ColourQ).

I love the blues and purples. I thought I would make something light colored and spring-like. However, when I decided to CASE this card, I ended up focusing on the darker colors in the pallet. I am very pleased with the card and it was a lot of fun to make. I do hope to make another card for the ColourQ challenge and go with the lighter blues. But for now, here is my card:

I actually handmade the dark flower - to my great surprise! I think I have discovered a new thing to put on cards! It was time consuming but fun. A couple of details that I should probably learn to mention: Paper, ink and ribbon are all Stampin' Up; stamp is Verve, fabric flower is from the fabric market in Taipei (awesome place!) and the adhesive pearls are from Recollections, purchased at Michael's in the States.

Thanks for looking!

~La

On My Mind

Knock knock. Hello?! Anybody out there?

It's been 6 months since I've posted a card. So much for getting serious about this blog! In truth I have made precious few cards. Even at Christmas, I just made a couple for people that I felt I HAD to send cards to, but I was just generally not in the mood. I'm not sure if I'm in the mood yet.

We will be moving again in about 3 months and, in anticipation of that I am starting to purge and box up what I will not need for daily life. Several times I have walked into my craft room thinking I would box everything there up, but each time I have stopped, hoping I might actually go in there and DO something. Well, today I finally did something. I made one card. Just one. But it's a start.

I think that I expected a bout of creative genius after my Mom died, because that happened once before during a hard life event - I went crazy with (what I thought were) great cards. That hasn't happened with the loss of my Mom however. So I guess it's time to make cards even if I don't feel particularly creative.

As usual, for inspiration (because I always need inspiration) I turned to The Play Date Cafe. Their colors for this week almost chased me back out of my craft room! Look at this:

I am sorry, but that is just awful to me. But I started looking at some of their cards and realized the loud picture board did not have to mean loud cards, just color inspiration. And so I was able to set to work. Unfortunately I don't have any bright green. I used the closest thing I could find. My colors were: Pear Pizazz, Night of Navy, Marina Mist and Dusty Durango.

This is the best I could do today for a photograph. It's taken with my phone! I have been having mucho trouble with my printer/scanner and my camera - well - I have no idea how a person loses a camera LENS, but I did.

So, if anyone is out there, thanks for looking!

~La