Gettin' Ready...

for the 4th of July! Actually, we are leaving shortly so I thought I pop in quick and let you know I am taking the next week off. We are headed to family camp, a first for us. It is only a half hour down the road and we will need to go back and forth a bit but, it will be a vacation from normal life. I am so ready too! DH will be leading the morning worship time and I am teaching 2 stamping classes. In many ways it will be like a reunion because we get to see lots of people from our old church.
I do have a project to share before I go. I went digging through the bold brights again, definitely a summer color combo.

There are a set of 4 cards in the box, all with different saying from the new set, Teeny Tiny Wishes. I made a One Sheet Wonder with stamps from the Simple Friendship set and added butterflies cut with the Big Shot die.
I wish you a wonderful week!

Watercolor Blooms

Cornish Heritage Farms is holding a Summer Stamp Star Design Star Challenge. I have lots of CHF stamps so I thought I might play along. Week 1's challenge is Color It-- use your favorite coloring method. I can do that! Their Shady Tree Studio line has many floral stamps that are perfect for watercoloring so I didn't even struggle to find the image to use.

I used SU inks to do my watercoloring along with a good smooth watercolor paper. The image was cut out with Spellbinders Label 3 die and layered over a Labels 4 die cut out of old olive. I added some of my favorite October Afternoon paper, some machine stitching, ribbon and buttons.
You still have time to join in the fun, week 1 runs until Monday! Next week is paper piecing. Another fun one!
Thanks for stopping by, blessings on your day.

Look Who's Turning...

Here's a quick kid card that my friend Lynn and I put together. The colors definitely grab your attention!

I sort my scraps by Stampin' Up color families and you can tell that the Bold Brights don't get much love because the pile is pretty small. We used a scrap of October Afternoon paper behind the star and built the rest of the card from there. The sentiment is part of a stamp from the It's Your Birthday set, we punched it out with the My Way punch. The number is a foam Thickers that was white until I colored it with a Copic marker.
Easy Peasy!
Have a great day!

Red Banana

This past week was jam packed! My youngest son finished 5th grade so they had a graduation ceremony. It was a proud moment.




I put up 7 batches of strawberry freezer jam, yum! We went vehicle shopping (ugh). And I spent hours prepping cards for an upcoming class I am doing at Family Camp. Actually, I am doing 2 classes and we will be doing 5 different designs at each class. I have no idea how many people will attend but I have set a limit of 25 for each session. Most likely they will be non-stampers so the designs must be fairly easy to handle. I looked over a bunch of my older cards to get some inspiration and modified the colors on a card I did a long time ago. The bonus was breaking out a stamp set I hadn't used in awhile, SU's retired Polka Dot Posies!

Real red and barely banana are great together and paired with polka dots...well, it just makes me smile! It doesn't even really need any explanation.
Thanks for stopping by, I hope you had a restful weekend.

It's Kinda Sketchy

I wish I had more time, or I should say made more time, to participate in the various sketch challenges out there. I am not the most imaginative person when it comes to lay outs for my cards so these challenges are good for me, lol. I have been in a 2 week mode of waking up at 6:30 so this morning I tackled Jen's SFYTT. It is a great lay out!

Here is mine, sans any actual stamping. I originally had stamped something for the center but in the end I didn't like it. Even now as I look at it I think it needs just a tiny sentiment somewhere so I will have to work on that later. But I love the blues and greens. This card just makes me HAPPY!

I bought the Cosmo Cricket paper a few weeks back and have been itching to use it so the entire card started with the paper and went from there. The butterfly uses some October Afternoon paper that I thought matched well.

It's a work day so I am keeping it short. Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Cardstock-SU certainly celery, PTI's aqua, blue paper ??(purchased at Hollo's in Ohio)

Patterned paper- Cosmo Cricket, October Afternoon

other- SU butterfly Sizzix die, SU buttons, linen thread, Spellbinders Blossom die, SU wide grosgrain ribbon, CB Swiss Dots folder, dimensionals, machine stitching, piercing tool

Summer Jam

Today is the monthly Dirty Dozen challenge over at Splitcoaststampers. Val hosted us this month and gave us a fun challenge.

School's Out for Summer

Challenge Focus: Create a project that screams school's out for summer. Do you like the beach, camping, the mountains, bbqing, you name it, whatever screams summer to you is fair game.

Required Element: Mini brads

Restricted Element: Buttons

When I think of summer, I think of picnics, swimming, camping, going to the lake and canning. As soon as school is over, the boys and I go strawberry picking. I put up a ton of strawberry freezer jam and this year I also tried some strawberry rhubarb and cooked strawberry jam. Later in the summer it is all about the salsa and peach jam. It is especially delightful now that our kitchen has been reno'd. So, a strawberry theme seemed perfect for this challenge. Here is what I came up with...

There is actually very little stamping on this but all the distressing makes up for it! I've made pumpkins out of punches before, why not strawberries? I used the wide oval punch with real red card stock and then embossed them with the CB Swiss Dots folder. I used the reverse sides and in the dimples I dotted a black glaze pen to crate the seeds. The shine of the glaze pen creates a nice touch. The leaves are made with the 5 petal flower punch and I used old olive textured card stock for added depth. As you can see everything is distressed. I used some Cosmo Cricket Early Bird paper and stitched it onto some vanilla that was punched with a Martha Stewart punch. The ribbon is SU's black gingham and I sponged it with walnut Distress ink so it wasn't so stark white.
The tag is one I purchased at Joanne's ages ago, I cut it down a tad and punched the bottom border. The label is a combo of 2 Paper Trey sets--Green Thumb and Holiday Treats. I made the tag after tying on the ribbon so, to attach it, I cut a slit at an angle from the top to the hole and slipped it over the ribbon. Perfect fix!
Strawberry season is a wonderful thing!
You can see the other challenge creations here.
Later...

4th of July Top Note Style

The gals in my downline wanted to work on some Big Shot samples and now that the ones I mailed out have arrived, I can post this idea.

The quilted Top Note creations have been popular for some time but I had yet to make one myself ( I know...what took me so long?). The flag is a bit different than the random quilt square idea but I like the end result. These quilt ideas make great use of scraps! I have mountains of scraps so I welcome projects that help me make a dent in them. Each side uses 4 squares of night of navy, 6 squares of real red and 2 whisper white. We added a large star punched from white, mounting it with a dimensional.

The tag uses the Celebrate Everything and Wanted stamp sets, a blue brad from the bold brights set, whisper white ink, linen thread and the small star punch.

We made a box to sandwich between 2 Top Note pieces using night of navy card stock. A small cello bag filled with treats fits nicely into the box making a nice table favor for your upcoming celebrations!

I think a vintage one may be in order, one with lots of distressing. Maybe later.

Thanks for visiting, have a great weekend!