Let's Raise a Cup!

A birthday card for a friend who loves tea cups (but doesn't drink tea!)

Following Color Throwdown's lead, I used Real Red from SU, Aquatini from Catherine Pooler and Silver from ColorBox.  Stamps we're Catherine Pooler and Verve, none of which are currently available.

I love this color combo which I probably never would have thought of. This card was put together quickly because I needed it, but I think I'll use these colors again.  Hopefully someone will post something I can copy!

~La

Difficult colors

I'm rushing to load this before the contest closes!

Alas, I missed it by about a minute. Oh well...

As the title says, these were difficult colors for me to use. I thought about them all week and on the last day decided to just give it a try.  The prescribed colors were dark teal, rust and cream. I love blues but rust? Not so much.

Oh well, I have an extra card now which I may or may not use.

Modern Merry Christmas

As usual, I went to Color Throw Down for inspiration.  Here is their palette:

I've decided to work primarily on Christmas cards for now so that maybe I'll get them out in a timely manner this year.

With that in mind, here is my card:

Feeling quite happy with the layout but wanting something with more sparkle, I went all out for modern Christmas colors and made 2 more cards.

Thanks for stopping by!

~La

Serenity

After saying I was only going to copy cards, I immediately went back on my word and made one up. The reason is I haven't found anything I could copy in this week's challenge blogs.

The blog challenges which inspired this card are Color Throw Down and The Card Concept.

Initially I wanted to use Catherine Pooler's Plaid Background stamp to make a piece of background paper. I stamped it in 3 colors on 2 papers but didn't love any of them. So I thought I'd cut them into strips and line them up.  That looked awful. Then I thought of weaving them and - ta da! I think that worked. The effect reminds me a bit of a country fence which I thought worked nicely with the inspiration photo from The Card Concept.

Obviously the inspiration photo also gave me a chance to use my sunflower stamp! (From Our Daily Bread Design's Be a Sunflower set)  I love sunflowers but struggle to use fall colors.

Thinking I would give the card today to someone in a bit of life turmoil I chose the sentiment "Serenity" from Our Daily Bread Design's set The Waves on the Sea. I didn't complete the card in time for our lunch date, so perhaps I'll mail it.

Here is the inspiration photo from Color Throw Down:

I chose inks from Stampin Up today: Peach Parfait, Chocolate Chip, Dusty Durango and Crushed Curry.

The papers I stamped the background stamp on were miscellaneous scraps I had laying around.

Thanks for stopping by!

~La

My New M.O.

I decided to use a new method of card making. I visit the challenge sites that I've been relying on for inspiration but, rather than try to create a card, I'll choose some cards others have created and copy them. It's a great plan because I'm not exactly artistic/creative. I won't enter contests and I'll give credit to the original artist so I don't think I'm breaking any rules.

For my first card I decided to copy this simple yet pretty card made by Rosemary:

I'm in love with my new stamps from Catherine Pooler's Stamp of Approval Tropically Yours collection, so that's what I used.  I do have to say, I think the leaves Rosemary used work better for this card, but I think mine work too.

I stamped all of my leaves on to one piece of 4 x 5--1/4 piece of white cardstock using Catherine Pooler's Lime Rickey, Grass Skirt and Juniper Mist inks as well as SU's Smokey Slate.

I cut the panel in half and made two (nearly) identical cards.

I noticed that Rosemary had a sparkly strip under her sentiment panel, and it just so happened that I had sparkly silver trim sitting in front of me - perfect! I tried mounting the panels on gray cardstock but mine was darker than Rosrmary's and I didn't like how it looked. Instead, I mounted them to a piece of navy cardstock which I then mounted on to a white card base.

Just like that I had 2 finished cards! Copying is definitely a better idea for me.

Thanks for stopping by!

~ La

Here's a card that was not made for any challenge, I just needed to make it for someone.

Catherine Pooler stamps again.  I'm just loving everything from her. I used Close to my Heart ink for the sentiment and water,  Tim Holtz distressed ink for the flamingo outlines (because it's the only black I currently have that has any ink in the pad!!) and I colored the flamingos with Copics.

Hope your day is going swimmingly.

~La

My card for Color Throw Down.

I found my way to Catherine Pooler Designs a few months ago and fell in love with a plaid background stamp she had. Since then I have become a big fan of her stamps and inks. I made this card using stamps from the following sets of hers: Leave me in Paradise, Fearless Pursuit and Tropically Yours. I also used the following Catherine Pooler inks: Aquatini, Lime Rickey, Eucalyptus and Royal Treatment.

CTD 505

This week's colors from Color Throw Down were pink, teal and gray. I thought they would work nicely for a sympathy card I needed to make.

I used an image of cherry blossoms which I bought while living in Taiwan and a sentiment from the SU set "Thoughtful Branches".  For ink I used Versamark, SU Smoky Slate and Versa Color's turquoise (with which I stamped the sentiment and did a bit of a watercolor background around the cherry blossom branches.) I used a copic marker to color the flowers and highlighted a few of the petals with Spectrum Noir's Crystal Clear sparkle pen.

All paper is from Stampin Up. I added a few simple accents with Liquid Pearls.

Father's Day

The colors in this week's Color Throwdown Challenge worked well for a Father's Day Card. I looked first to my new favorite Catherine Pooler inks from which I pulled Lime Ricky and Aquatini. I also used two Stampin' Up inks: Calypso Coral and Daffodil Delight.

I wanted to keep the stamping simple, since this was a masculine card and was already going to be quite colorful. So I chose just one image from SU's Mosaic Madness stamp set and, using my MISTI stamp positioner, I alternated the colors across a piece of CTMH white cardstock.

Next I chose a stamp from Verve (one of my favorite companies which has, sadly, recently stopped producing stamps) which simple said "Father's Day". 

For "Happy" I used a die cut from Our Daily Bread's Happy Birthday die set. I cut it out 3 times from scrap black cardstock and glued all 3 together.  Then I covered it with Crystal Effects both to make it glossy and give it a little extra dimension.

I finished by simply adhering the decorated panel on to a folder piece of Stampin'Up black cardstock.

Thanks for looking!

~La

CTD #485

Above is my card for this week's Color Throwdown.  Their inspiration photo is below.

I love the current trend I'm seeing of black and white gingham in farmhouse style.  One local home builder actually did a tile floor in it, and I was over the moon in love with that floor!

I immediately thought of using my favorite new stamp from Catherine Pooler Designs; it's plaid rather than gingham, but the two seem closely related to me.  I didn't end up leaving much of the background showing, perhaps I'll make another and adjust so that more of the background shows.

I then stamped some poppies from another new-to-me company, Marij Rahder for Krazy Kreations  (the stamp set I used is currently on sale for $2.00!), using Memento Tuxedo Black ink. Using my limited selection of Copic markers I tried to color them coral; I'm afraid they went a little too far into orange territory, but I don't have anything lighter.

The verse is from Verve Stamps; inked in SU's Calypso Coral.

I sewed around the edges, then resisted the urge to fill the white space with... something.

Thanks for stopping by!

~La

First time making trifold cards

I actually HAVE been making cards recently, just haven't taken time to blog.  Honestly, the only reason I put them into a blog post anymore is so that I can upload them to challenge blogs.

Yesterday I wanted to learn how to make tri-fold cards.  I LOVE how they look, although thus far I'm finding it difficult to include a sentiment.  That's okay, it gives me something to work toward!

Yesterday I made 2 tri-folds; this was my second.  I used the colors from Color Throwdown: navy, aqua and pink.  I used several of my new dies from Our Daily Bread Designs, and some old SU stamps. All of the patterned paper is from one pack from Stampin Up.