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