Hey Chick

 I am loving the challenges from Let's Squash It!!. It forces me to look through the basket of embossing folders. I invariably find one I haven't used for awhile. This week's challenge is use an embossing folder and an animal.

The chick is from SU, colored with Stampin' Blends. This chick is so much fun and the sentiment is perfect for a note card. The embossing folder is from Cuttlebug.  The swirls remind me of fluffy chicken feathers. I rubbed a purple stamp pad over the swirls for some contrasting highlights The papers are also SU.

Here is the inspiration image. 

Is it Spring Yet?

I know, I know it is only the middle of January and I am not liking these cold gloomy days. I am thinking spring flowers today. 

Have you tried any of the Memories and More card packs from Stampin' Up? I think they are really designed for scrapbooking but I use them for cards. The cost around $10.00  I was able to get 30 cards from the Flowers for Every Season pack.

 The tulip design is from the card pack. The die cut bunnies are from Penny Black. The velvet embossed vellum is also from SU. The sentiment is an old one in my stash. 

This one I am entering at Shopping Our Stash challen #436, What's New With You?

Also since the card pack and the bunny die are both new I am sharing to Darnell's NBUS blog.

Stencil

 One of my granddaugters will be having her confirmation in the Catholic church next month. I wanted a special card for that occasions. As I had no appropriate stamps for religious purposes, I went searching the digital stamp companies. I found this cross one by Chubby Mermaid on etsy.

It has the scripture from Philippians 4:8 about Whatsoever is true, noble, pure, lovely,,.think on these things. It comes with the scroll border. After I printed out the image, I used a stencil from Honey Bee stamps called Stained Glass. I used a lot of pastel inks around the edges of the cross. After trimming the design, I matted it on black and then on a soft green. I added the butterfly as a symbol of new life.

Entering in Just Us Girls

Sending Love

 I am back after a brief interval for some cleaning and maintenance in the craft room.  The major task was refinishing my desk top. I had so many splotches from sticky tape, glue, glitter. I am not very good about putting down a protective surface, guess that should be one of my New Year Resolutions.

New challenge at Send A Smile 4 Kids is Valentines/Love. I have already sent a box of Valentine's to the volunteer but will share one for my teenage granddaughter. Teenagers are such a challenge to get a balance between too cutesy, too childish, or too adult.

Cards come together so quickly when the patterned paper does all the work. This paper is from Stampin' Up! from a couple of years ago. The sentiment is computer made and goes with the stamp theme of the paper. The label is a Sizzix die. To get a smaller border, I cut a red one of the same size and split it diagonally. Give just a hint of color but not too large like the next size label would have been.

Sweet Treats

It is time for Tuesday Morning Sketches annual Anything Goes Challenge. I strayed from the normal card to do a treat bag. I made several of these in Christmas patterns to use for gift cards. This one is for Valentine's treats.

I cased this from Dawn Griffith. She did some for Halloween and has an instructional video. Dimensions are 3 1/2" across and 4" high. The little heart and the sentiment are from SU. 

It is perfect for some Valentine treats for the granddaughters.

The Tropics

 Oh what I would give to spend Christmas in  this scene in the tropics: colorful beach homes, sunny skies, and an inviting sea. It has been so gloomy and rainy and cold here for several days. Okay, I know winter starts today but I really am wanting to just skip it. I think I will post this card on my bulletin board and spend several minutes a day just staring into it.

I used SU's Pool Party cardstock and a Darice cloud embossing folder on the upper 2/3.  With various stamps from SU's Waterfront set, I made sand, water and a bright yellow sun. The houses are die cut from a scrap of white with Gina Marie Design Die from Joy Clair Designs. I colored them in tropical colors with SU Blenders. The palm tree die cut from a white snippet with a die from SU Peaceful Nativity. It too is colored with Blenders.  I added some shading and highlights around the clouds and sun. 

I am entering this at Pixie's Crafty Workshop  Challenge #303 and playing for a prize.  Check them out--the challenge runs for 3 weeks and lots of prizes available

Lots of Pinks

 Diving into my scraps today and came up with these papers from several years ago by Stampin' Up!

Fun note card for Send A Smile 4 Kids for a teen girl.

I used the sketch from Tuesday Morning Sketches

Can somebody help? I thought I had figured out the new blogger. But recently, and maybe it is only from certain blogs, I am having problems copying and downloading pictures, like sketches, from another blog. I use the picture icon and by URL but l keep getting an error message. I finally had to save the sketch to my downloads and upload from computer. 

Hey Chick

Back with a second sketch challenge today. This one is from CAS(E) this Sketch! #401

The gold is a scrap. The feather paper is from Stampin' Up! Bird Ballad DSP from last year. The chick is also from SU, colored with Stampin' Blends. Ought OH, I think the chick is shedding a few feathers. They are from the Positive Thoughts Stamp Set, stamped in Pool Party, Old Olive, and Hello Honey. then die cut.

This will be a cute note card for someone.

Pretty Poppies

Christmas cards are in the mail.  I pulled up several sketch challenges to work on today. This is the first. Hopefully will get more done today.

Time to pull out SU's DSP Peaceful Poppies that I have had for several months. All the pages are so beautiful.  The paper is no longer available but you can still purchase the Painted Poppies stamp set.

The papers are so pretty, they can really be the focal point of a card. But here I stamped the 2 step poppy to be my focal point. The tag is from Sizzix. The sentiment from Creative Memories. 

I used the sketch from Tuesday Morning Sketches

Frolicking Zebras

New challenge time for Let's Squash It. This month is use any embossing folder and dies/fussy cutting. I ended up using both dies and fussy cutting.

I have been playing with the new Quite Curvy stamps and dies from SU. It has been a learning curve (see what I did there?) (pun intended) to get the cutting edges the right way and lining up curves on the card base.  This card I used only 1 side of the curves.

After die cutting the green grass with the curvy die, I ran it through a Sizzix for Stampin' Up! folder. I don't know the name, I just call it wavy lines. I think it looks like grass. I adhered that to a Pool Party background that I used a Darice cloud embossing folder on.  The zebra is from SU, stamped and fussy cut. His little robin friend is from the Quite Curvy set. It has a coordinating die cut. Colored with Prismore colored pencils. I don't know, do they have robins in Africa plains? The hello is also SU, it has a die cut but it is just easier to fussy cut it.

I think this will also be a fun card for kids at Send A Smile 4 Kids. Their current challenge is winter cards for kids. So I suppose winter in Africa is like our summer.