Birthday "Wish"

Lately I have been missing contest deadlines - sometimes just by a minute or two!  But not tonight.  I went to The Shabby Tea Room and they had just posted their new challenge.  Inspiration hit me, I was wide awake and so I have a card ready in plenty of time.

The challenge this week at The Shabby Tea Room is to use colors from their photo (which I've tried unsuccessfully to link here), and include material and flowers.  I opened my fabric cupboard and this luscious lime green fabric practically fell into my hands.  It is something I saved from a flower bouquet so I thought it would be perfect to use it as a "floral wrap" on a stamped vase of flowers.  From there everything fell into place.  I mimicked the challenge photo fairly closely as far as the layout of flowers.

Lots of friends and family members have birthdays in September so everything I make for the foreseeable future will be birthday cards.

Thanks for stopping by!

~ La

Missing my Chance

Another card for Mojo Monday:

Just a note about the fabric flower - While living in Taiwan I discovered a shop near the Fabric Market which sold accessories including fabric flowers in every color of the rainbow.  They came attached to a strip of tulle.  I bought 3 strips of flowers.  A few days ago I ventured into the local scrapbooking stores for the first time since returning to Boise.  Low and behold, one of the stores had a huge supply of the same fabric flowers on tulle.  I thought I had something that would be original but, once again, it has already been discovered here.  I wish I had bought much more of it in Taiwan because it was no doubt considerably cheaper.

Same thing with Washi tape.  I frequented a bookstore in Taipei called Eslite.  They carried loads of Washi tape and I bought some thinking I could do something different than other Americans.  But when I got home I found out Washi tape was all the rage.  Darn it.

I have one more trick up my sleeve.  I had better get busy using it before it, too, becomes popular!

~La

Finding My Style

I am trying to find "my style" in stamping. I know what I like - collage, blingy, shabby chic - but I am not sure I have the knack for it. And so sometimes I think I should just go clean and simple; it's quicker and easier and there are some admirably beautiful stampers who embrace this style. But in my heart that's not what I love, so I am trying to go in the direction of my heart. Accordingly, I have recently begun playing with Tim Holtz' Distress Stains and, I must say, I am loving the results. I've been pulling scraps from my scrap drawer and just messing around with different ways of getting the stain onto the paper. Some have been wildly successful; others, not so much. But I'm having fun! My daughter's birthday is approaching and, finding myself with a kid-free zone for a few hours, I went to work on a card for her. I looked to Mojo Monday for a layout. This week is their 300th challenge (wow!) I've participated in very few of them as I stamp sporadically, but owner Julee does a great job of offering inspiration each week. In addition, I looked to The Shabby Tea Room for color inspiration. Their challenge this week was to use colors from their (lovely) inspiration photo, flowers, ribbon and newsprint. I don't have any newsprint so I sort of manufactured my own which, I think, turned out quite well. So here is my card:

I hope my daughter will appreciate the Shabby Chic style. I think she prefers bright, contemporary cards. Who knows, if I get time before her birthday perhaps I'll make her one in that style!

She Stood for colourQ

Recently I was perusing Verve Stamps newest release and one stamp leapt out at me. It says: "She stood in the storm, and when the wind did not blow her away, she adjusted her sails. -Edwards" This quote perfectly describes a dear friend of mine. She has endured several unimaginably difficult things in her life, but she hasn't only endured. She has walked through trials with grace, humor and fortitude. When life hasn't taken her on the expected course she has adjusted her sails, ridden through the storm and carried on without complaint. On top of that, she has been a sort of lighthouse for me when I faced storms of my own. So I had to have the stamp. I knew I wanted to use it with a photograph I recently took of my friend.

The colors at this weeks colourQ challenge were perfect for this photograph. They are: Going Gray, Island Indigo, Certainly Celery, Soft Sky and White. Here is my card:

I have to confess, this is a giant "card". I wanted the photo to be 5 X 7 and so I designed the card around it. It is, in fact, a card which I will write inside of, but it could potentially go into a frame for display. After several attempts to translate the vision in my head to paper, I found some stuff that Stampin' Up sold a few years back. Magic paper, I call it. It is all white with designs embossed onto it and you simply add color as you see fit. (I bought 4 packs of the paper because I knew I would love it, but this is my first time using it! Moving, you know...)

I rubbed Certainly Celery and Soft Sky onto the magic paper. I then decided to overlay the photo with transparency paper and stamp the quote onto it. Wow - was that frustrating! I first tried Island Indigo ink but it doesn't dry on the transparency. Thankfully I have a pigment ink pad in a color called Harbor which is a fairly perfect match. I stamped it over and over and over... I really struggled to keep the stamp from smudging. I finally got it perfect. But then I accidentally touched the ink too soon and smeared it! This final version is slightly smudged but I needed to be done so I am calling it good enough. I don't yet have Going Gray so I substituted with Sahara Sand for the sand dollars. They are fitting because this picture was taken at Cannon Beach where I get as excited as a little girl when I find sand dollars.

Thanks for stopping by!

~La

Graduation Spots

Today is my daughter's last day of elementary school and she is, of course, ecstatic at the idea of going to junior high next year. I wanted to make a big deal over the fact that she is "graduating" because the elementary journey has taken her through SIX schools and 2 countries. In addition (and largely because of all the moves) this year she had to spend several months with an outside tutor in order to get caught up in math. She worked hard this year and I wanted her to know we are proud of her for everything.

This weeks colors at Color Throwdown are perfect for a card for my vibrant daughter. Here is my card: I punched circles out of vibrant colored paper for the front of the card. Inside I stamped polka dots using the same colors (Tempting Turquoise, Pink Passion and Daffodil Delight). I actually stamped the image off once so that it would be subtle enough to write over on the inside.

~La

Daffodil Birthday

Today I went to Color Throwdown for inspiration. Their colors this week are: Marina Mist, Daffodil Delight, Wild Wasabi, Black and White.

I used Wild Wasabi for my card base. I was not a fan of that color so just have a few pieces of cardstock that came in a color combo pack. I used SU's Friendship Blooms stamp set for the flowers and Verve's Small Phrases for the sentiment. I sponged the edges of my main panel with Daffodil Delight and around the sentiment banner with Marina Mist. I mounted it on a black panel, wrapped it with a black polka dot ribbon (loving that!), added a light green rhinestone to the flower and popped it up with a dimensional. Thanks for stopping by! ~La

Play Date, Take 2

Here is my second card using Play Date's colors of Navy, School Bus and Grass. I am also entering this one into Verve's Diva Dare. Their challenge is to use stars and stripes and as a bonus challenge to make a CAS card. This one fits the bill!

I started by stamping square frames from Verve's Asian Flair set in each of the 3 colors. Then I stamped the star from SU's In The Stars set. Don't know if you can see it, but the star includes the word "Happy". I then used the words "Father's Day" from SU's Plane and Simple set. Finally I used a blender pen to draw stripes inside of the star. (I don't have markers for any of these colors - gasp! I shall have to remedy that.) The stamped piece was simply mounted onto plain Midnight Muse and then a Daffodil Delight card base - CAS! Thanks for looking! ~La

A little birdie told me...

The Play Date Cafe's colors for this week are Navy, School Bus and Grass. Here is my first card:

I first watercolored a background paper using LuminArte' in Bolivian Blue, Lemondrop and Kiwi. (The blue looks very violet in this picture, at least on my computer, but it is not.)  Then I stamped the French Script background stamp from SU using YoYo Yellow. Next I cut the bird cage and bird using a Tim Holtz Movers and Shapers Die which I bought years ago but had never yet used. I stamped the sentiment from Verve's Small Phrases set using Versamark and SU's Gumball Green Embossing Powder and put it over the SU Daffodil Delight ribbon. Finally I hung the cage using an old clip from SU and added a few flowers (some SU, some Prima.) I used some SU paper from their "This and That Epic Day" collection for the background and then put the whole thing onto a piece of SU Midnight Muse cardstock.

~La

I am going to try, AGAIN, to get back to regular stamping.  We've moved again. I am living in my 3rd house in 1 year!!! We knew the last house was temporary and I guess because of that I never really set up my craft room. I made a few cards but mostly just when they were absolutely needed. But now we are settling into a house that we expect to be in for at least 2 years. I have organized the craft room here more in 1 month than I did in 8 months at the last house and now I AM GOING TO STAMP! So here I go...

I pulled the colors for this card from The Play Date Cafe and the layout from Mojo Monday.  It feels so great to stamp again!

~La

Coordinated Birthday