Sunshine Yellow

I just have to say that this card makes me happy! I love the crisp yellow colors (better in real life than in the photo) and the stamped rose popped up above the pretty green leaves. And the lace, it was a gift from my friend Melisa, and has the most wonderful texture. I don't really know how to describe it -- sort of like a soft fluffy felt. I used the Colored Embossing Folder technique for the Swiss Dots background. This reminds me of a dress my mother made me when I was young that was yellow with white dots!! The panel was not quite large enough so I added some yellow and white striped paper behind that just peeks out at the top and the bottom -- love the stripes with the dots!

I will be entering my card in the Flourishes Noon Time Challenge from yesterday, to use lace on a card. Also for Sugar Creek Hollow's challenge for a floral project in a primitive, vintage or shabby chic style.

Have a wonderful day everyone!

Betty

Vintage Birthday

Good Morning, All! I made this card last night for the challenge to make a birthday card with a vintage, shabby chic, or primitive style at Sugar Creek Hollow. I'm very pleased with the final look! Hope someone else will like it too and snap it up at the Monday Market next week!

The lovely image is from Ephemera's Vintage Garden. If you haven't visited there, please do so. You'll see some lovely images and if you sign up to receive her newsletter, you'll receive a free image or page of images each week. I really enjoy seeing lovely things show up in my inbox!

I had to make use of my sponge and the Tea Dye Distress Ink this week -- sponged over everything except for the ribbon and light green pearls. Hope you enjoyed my vintage card (I think I'm getting a little more comfortable with this style) and if you have the time, I'd like to share one more card with you.

This is an older card that has been sitting in a box for a long time. I took out a bunch of cards and have been "refurbishing" them -- changing a little, adding a little...... I raised the panel of flowers on this one and added this pretty sentiment stamp from Papertrey Ink. This card will be donated to the church card ministry and others I will take to the Monday Market. Much better than to just have them sitting in a box!

Best Wishes for a Wonderful Day!

Betty

Build a Flower

The petals of my flower were created with the Colored Kissing Technique demonstrated on the Make It Monday video by Papertrey Ink. Heather Nichols demonstrated the technique.  I did not have many solid clear stamps so I went with this flower petal. First I inked the stamp with the lighter plum color, stamped on white paper and followed that by stamping PTI's Basic Backgrounds: Gingham in the darker plum color onto the petal stamp and stamped it on top of the lighter color. The flower parts are from a set by Autumn Leaves, Build-A-Flower. I also used the Gingham background stamp again by stamping in dark green on a lighter green cardstock. Sentiment is PTI, Everyday Button Bits.

I also made this card with the Sugar Creek Hollow challenge in mind. This week the challenge is Lots of Layers and the design team offered examples of the primitive style. I think that the gingham petals of the flower as well as the dashed stem and leaves give a country effect to my card. However, I think it may fall slightly short of the primitive style -- what do you think, Sugar Creek Hollow DT????? Any suggestions as to how I could get it to look more primitive? At least, my card does have lots of layers, especially if you count each petal as a layer -- they are layered one on top of each other at their points, after all!!

Later,

Betty



A Flowery Postcard

Many thanks to Patti P. who shared a link to a wonderful website in her post this morning for Sugar Creek Hollow's Momochromatic Green challenge. Thanks to her link I found this wonderful free postcard image at Ephemera's Vintage Garden. There were three other beautiful postcards with flowers that went along with this one but I only needed to use one of them.

Patti also shared a link to a terrific tutorial for making ruffled ribbon from paper. Be sure to check out Patti's card at Patti's Paper Creations -- I thought that her ruffles were make from ribbon, for sure!!

I have used the Monkey 99 sketch and flower challenge for my card. I had to rotate the sketch so that it would work with the size of the postcard image. Here's the sketch, which is a beauty itself.......

Hope you're able to check out some of the links -- I know you'll be glad you did!

Betty

A Recycle Project

This is my project for the challenges at Joan's Gardens and Sugar Creek Hollow which call for recycling an object. This is how my project began.......

The particulars for Joan's Gardens Weekly Challenge #9 are:

• Use a recycled box, preferably round
• Color theme can be your choice
• Use some Lace
• Use Pearls and Flowers

The first challenge of the new Sugar Creek Hollow is called TRASH TO TREASURE. This week we are asked to take something that would normally be headed for the garbage can or recycling bin and transform it into a vintage, shabby chic or primitive treasure.

My recycled object is a tin for holding pellets for a BB gun. I used the required lace, pearls and flowers and added a little bow. The sides of the tin are wrapped in thin grograin ribbon although I don't have a photo of that.

I had a sand dollar that fell and broke during our unpacking and I've been saving the little "doves" that you find inside the sand dollars in this little tin -- now they have a pretty home to live in!!

Hope you enjoyed seeing my "beautified" tin and that you'll be able to join me in sharing a recycled project.

Edited on March 9: Karen asked that I link this project to the Word Art Wednesday site. They share a piece of free word art each week but if you happen to be working on a project with a scripture or inspiring sentiment you are free to link that project. Thank you, Karen!

Betty 

Hibiscus in Bloom

I picked a hibiscus from the yard yesterday so I could use it as a model to color this hibiscus stamp which was a gift from a friend. It was almost like I had hacked into the Sugar Creek Hollow challenge site because they asked us today to create a card inspired by a photo. Well, my cart actually came along before the horse because I just took the photo of my hibiscus this morning! Here it is:

I sponged Antique  Linen Distressed Ink to tone down the whiteness of the card stock and distressed the edges of the green mat. Used two pieces of ribbon (dots on one and dashes on the other) and added rhinestones. The Fancy Tags die cut was already laying on my desk; just sponged with Antique Linen again to tone down the white and added a sentiment from Gina K. Designs and more rhinestones! Added little seed beads to the butterfly stick pin. The background is a 12x12 piece of paper that I've had forever -- twelve by 12 collectible fine art paper -- Color Textures -- Garden Mist by Jennifer O'Meara. Love the graduated shading that had the colors of my image.

Thanks for the challenge, SCH! I promise I didn't hack into your website -- it was just great minds thinking alike!!
Betty

Stir Up A Happy Birthday

Sugar Creek Hollow is having a sketch challenge this week with an added challenge. Because SCH is a vintage, shabby chic and primitive challenge blog they discourage "cute" cards with "cute" images but this week they are going to let us pull out a cute image and want to see how we can turn it into one of the three styles they do want to see.

Well, I found my cute colored image at The Graphics Fairy. Is she not just the most adorable little cook you've ever seen???? It must be hot in the kitchen because her cheeks are extremely rosy!  I almost forgot about the sketch we were supposed to follow because I was all wrapped up in CUTE! With a bit of a stretch (thin image exchanged for a wider one) I think you can still see the sketch in my card. I'm also hoping that it qualifies for shabby chic. Here's the sketch:

I'll be back again later today with  pictures of  Mexican folk dancers that we saw perform yesterday. Also have a picture of the cutest little fellow you've ever seen playing "menu" guitar -- that's just like "air" guitar, only he was strumming on the menu from the restaurant!! too cute!

Betty

Rejoice

Challenges Entered:

 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown -- Use at least three sparkly rhinestones
Crazy 4 Challenges -- Layer it On! use lots of layers and embellies
Sugar Creek Hollow -- Color combo of Cream, Blue and Brown
Do You Stack Up -- Use ribbons
Speedy Fox and Friends -- Use at least four layers
Repeat Impressions WHAT IF Wed. Sketch Challenge


I'm digging down into my stash of papers and trying to use different ones. These papers come from an old Stampin' Up designer paper pack that I inherited from a cousin years ago. I got so much paper at that time that it's hard to use even a little bit from each pattern! I really have NO NEED whatsoever to buy patterned paper but somehow it just calls my name and pulls me in!!

The stamp is from Layers of Color, Christmas Verses.
 
For embellishments I've used light blue rhinestones, flowers, ribbon, lace and a Martha Stewart branch punch.

This is my second post today. If you'd like to see my card for the Roses' January 2012 Challenge, please see previous post.

Thanks for your visit,
Betty

Be Strong and Courageous

Are you ready for a purple card? Hope so, because that's what is on the menu here today!

I have three challenges that played a part in this card:

Paper Players #79 - make a clean and simple card with a tag on it

Sugar Creek Hollow -- go girly!

Word Art Wednesday -- use the word art of Joshua 1:9

Hope you enjoyed my card. Now, I need to share a picture that my hubby took of the sunrise this morning as seen from our front porch. He said that he wasn't able to catch it at it's peak gorgeousness, but I'm pretty impressed with what I see here!

Wishing you beautiful sunrises and bright days ahead,

Betty

Make It Monday Ghost Masking

My card today was inspired by Papertrey Ink's Make It Monday with Betsy Veldman -- Ghost Masking. Friends, you have to check out the video -- it's a terrific technique! I had to improvise with what I had on hand and even though it didn't turn out quite as nicely as Betsy's, I was quite pleased with my first attempt!

I would also like to enter this into the challenge at Sugar Creek Hollow -- embossing.

My good friend, Mary Anne, let me know that my card would fit the challenge at Art Impressions and Do You Stack Up so I would like to enter my card at these sites also.  AI's challenge is Pink, Pink, and More Pink -- isn't that a fun title? DYSU also wants us to Be Pinky!

After completing the ghost masking technique, I embossed my panel with one of the Cuttlebug folders in the set Paper Lace II, and then sponged some Distress Ink Tattered Rose on top of the embossing. Also used this same ink to sponge on the edges of my ivory card base. The flowers are from a Martha Stewart set, Clear Camellia Stamps, and they were stamped with Stampin' Up ink, Rose Red, Regal Rose and More Mustard. The circle is a Gina K. Designs stamp from the Spring Mix StampTV set and was stamped with Momento London Fog.

Added a little piece of ribbon in the corner with a couple of buttons tied with a piece of that shiny embroidery floss for embellishment.

Hope you'll check out the video and try this technique -- would love to know how you like it!

Betty

Vintage Card

I've made a vintage card for the challenge over at Sugar Creek Hollow where they are asking us to make something for our card using toilet tissue, paper towels, or coffee filters. My flower was made with a coffee filter.

I have used the sketch from Just Us Girls 118. I did add a sentiment at the bottom which was not shown on the sketch -- hope that's okay. Here's the sketch in case you'd like to use it too.

7 Kids Challenge - Try Something New is asking us to use a new technique, a new style or a new product. I am trying to get more comfortable with the vintage style and although I've made a card and a tag lately in the vintage style, I'd still say that it's new for me. And I've never made a flower with a coffee filter before either!

The lovely image that I've used on my card comes from Digital Two for Tuesday; Cora has wonderful vintage images there and at Clearly Vintage.

I've used a beautiful ribbon that was a gift from my friend Melisa Waldorf. By the way, Melisa is in the process of making a video tutorial so keep an eye on her blog for that! Back to the ribbon, I sponged it with Antique Linen, a Distress Ink from Tim Holtz so it would coordinate with my color scheme. The edges of my card base were also sponged with Tim Holtz Distress Ink, Antique Photo (thought that was appropriate with the image I was using!).

Sentiment stamp is from Gina K. Designs' set Fanciful Tags. Cut it out with Spellbinders Fancy Tags die. You can't see that very well on the photo but I did want it to blend in with thebackground so I guess you'd say I accomplished what I set out to do!

Well, that's all for now. Come on back now, 'ya hear?
Betty

Vintage Tag

Yesterday when I printed the Graphics Fairy Victorian Lady image for my card I printed it in two sizes. The smaller image was perfect for the challenge at Sugar Creek Hollow to make a vintage Christmas tag. While this doesn't have any particular Christmas image, there are so many blue Christmas wrapping papers these days that I thought this would work on a Christmas present.

I used my new Martha Stewart punch around the page punch and nestabilities to cut out and mat the image. The little corner stamp is from Inkadinkadoo and the "To and From" stamp on the back of the tag is by Layers of Color, from their Glad Tidings set.

And here's my tag (front and back).........

On another note, we had a wonderful lunch this past week at a local restaurant called Panino's. Here is my plate and I have to admit that I totally ate everything on it!! Chicken Kabobs with an Asian sauce, potato salad and green salad -- it was delicious with a capital D! The next pictures shows the restaurant, which is open air dining and it was a delightfully mild day when we were there.

Happy Stamping to All,
Betty

Christmas Music

My card today is made with Flourishes stamps, from the sets Doves and Holly, Drummer Boy and Christmas Music. I embossed the french horn and sentiment with gold embossing powder and used Distressing Inks to make the sheet of music look older; lighter on the background, darker around the edges. Each layer starting with the music is popped up with dimensionals. Had to do a little fussy cutting for the french horn and ivy.

Lily Pad Cards Sketch Challenge provided the layout. Nina Brackett is sponsoring this week.

Their sketch is on the right. But I flipped it -- can you see it now????? I also changed the placement of the sentiment (I didn't want it to be upside down, now did I?)

The challenge at Sugar Creek Hollow is to use Colours of Fall. This challenge is being sponsored by Paper Cupcakes. Now I struggle with vintage, so I'm hoping that this card will fit their challenge -- I did use a piece of "vintage" sheet music!

The final challenge I will be entering is at Wee Memories which is being sponsored by AnnaBelle Stamps. They are having a "Free For All" challenge so you can make any kind of project that you wish.

Changing subjects, I will be going to Guadalajara this afternoon with a group of my stamping buds from church. We are going to Miguel's. This is a craft store and while I hear that it is not quite like Michael's in the States, I look forward to seeing what's there! Will let you know details later.

Hope you all have a great weekend; say a little prayer for us that traffic in Guad will not be awful!

Betty

Sugar Creek Hollow and Plumrose Lane

Well, everyone, today it's Patti Painter's turn! Although I'm not actually casing her card, she did encourage me to step out of my box and try a vintage Halloween card over at Sugar Creek Hollow. Her friend Sharon at Plumrose Lane is sponsoring the challenge this week and has a freebie for us to craft with. It includes two printable cards and envelopes; also a collage sheet of images. The link is at Sugar Creek Hollow.

I have made this card for my grandkids in Texas. The bats are for Ashton and the flower is for Brianna. Inside, I also have spiders for Ashton and a butterfly for Brianna. All digital images are from Plumrose Lane which I printed out and fussy cut. On both the front and inside I added a portion of a doily that I inked up with Momento Tuxedo Black ink. All of the images are popped up with dimensionals. The bats are flying, the flower petals are swaying in the breeze and the little kitty just wants to know what the heck is going on -- why is he sitting on a pumpkin with a crow, wearing a goofy hat!! The sentiment stamp is from Autumn Leaves, Forever. I have to send my hugs and kisses in the mail since I'm not there to do it in person!

Thanks, Patti, for making me do something a little different -- I'm sure the kids are going to love it!

Betty