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

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