My Favorite Things Stamps Day 5: Morocco and Get Well

It's Day 5 of the Release Countdown at My Favorite Things Stamps.  I hope you have been popping by their blog each day and leaving a comment for a chance to win a fabulous prize!!

Today I am previewing the Moroccan Tile Border Trio Die-namics and the Get Well Wishes stamp set.  Get Well Wishes was the freebie with purchase last month so you might have seen it before.  This month it becomes available for purchase.

My first card uses both in a very clean and simple card.


I used the smallest of the trio of border dies.  The other two are slightly bigger motifs than this one.  I wanted to add the rich colors of Moroccan tile so I used Orange Fizz, Grape Jelly, Gumdrop Green, Lemon Drop and Wild Cherry. (The blue isn't from MFT.)
I used the current sketch from Freshly Made Sketches for this card.

I also was inspired by CAS(E) this Sketch but my design team card (which I don't like as much) was already published!!

What I love most about Get Well Wishes is the combination of large fonts and small script fonts, so I wanted to do a second card showing both.  This card also uses Lisa Johnson Designs Grand Peaceful Wildflowers which was previewed on Day 1.

The tag on this card comes from Blueprints 1.  The main cardstock is Whip Cream which I am loving - it's off-white without being a yellowed cream.  I also used Natural, Bubblegum and Sour Apple. 
I hope you are enjoying this month's release.  Isn't there an amazing variety?  There are three more days of previews, than everything is available for purchase on Tuesday, December 10th at 10 pm EST along with a Product Launch post from everybody on the design team!  
Be sure to head over to the My Favorite Things blog to leave a comment and to check out all of the other designers.

Stampin' Royalty and Freshly Made: Oh What Fun! NOT!!!

This card stretched me - probably a bit too much!  I'm not overly comfortable with Summer Starfruit - per my rant on yesterday's post - and I'm not real thrilled with my use of the sketch.  Does "Oh What Fun" apply for me in making this card?  NOT!  But that's what challenges are for, right?  So you get to see the results of my stretching!


The colors are from Stampin' Royalty.

The sketch is from Freshly Made Sketches.

I've used Summer Starfruit twice now.  Now I can set it aside and continue to ignore it!!

• Stamps: Stampin' Up Festive Flurry, Christmas Messages
• Ink: Stampin' Up Raspberry Ripple, Summer Starfruit, Chocolate Chip
• Paper: Stampin' Up Raspberry Ripple, Project Life Midnight Edition (the stripe)
• Accessories: Stampin' Up Festive Flurries dies, Heat and Stick Embossing Powder, Martha Stewart Fine Crystal Glitter, Neat & Tangled sequins

Quick Cards with CAS-ual Fridays Stamps!

There is absolutely no chance that I will ever be nominated for mom-of-the-year.  It was about 7 pm on Thursday night.  My two children were at a football game until 8 pm.  It suddenly occurred to me that they had the biggest weekend of their lives coming up and I hadn't made any cards of encouragement or congratulations.  It is the state marching band competition this weekend.  These kids have been working on their show starting with a two-week marching camp in July, into the school year, straight through daily rehearsals during fall break - and it's now the final weekend.

I am not a fast card maker.  You will never see me in the 10 minute challenges.  Even my simplest cards typically require multiple changes and re-dos - not to mention multiple photos and edits - before I am happy with them (and sometimes, I'm not even happy then!).  But Thursday night, in 60 minutes (OK, maybe 70 minutes) - I did six cards - and I mostly like them!

Thank goodness for CAS-ual Fridays Stamps!  They have great contemporary sentiments that work perfectly in these situations.  I did six cards for my two teenage boys, who aren't typically easy to make cards for! These first two cards were encouragement on Friday morning before the entire weekend began.  Noise...marching band...how perfect!  Everything comes from the Woot Woot set.



FYI: the flag and the "washi" tape were made with dies from My Favorite Things.I did get a starting point for this one from Freshly Made Sketches.

I am fairly certain we will end up placing higher than our marching band has ever placed.  We won't win it - there are a few fabulous marching band dynasties that win it year after year.  Our kids would be thrilled to be in the top 8 and are secretly hoping for 5th.  I'm thinking somewhere in the middle.  But assuming that they are thrilled with the outcome, here are the congrats cards.  All of these stamps are still from Woot Woot.


I was needing inspiration at this point, so I got these great colors from Sunday Stamps.  In real life, my blue is closer to the teal that is in the inspiration photo - but I edited so quickly I messed up the colors!

Then there are two cards that I am hoping never see the light of day and end up in the garbage.  Not that there is anything wrong with them - but it means my kids are disappointed.  The sentiment comes from Tech Talk and the asterisk from Exclamations along with the coordinating die. 

At quarter finals yesterday, the band ended up once place lower than hoped for.  One place higher and we wouldn't be up at 3:45 a.m. this morning getting ready to take them to the bus for semi finals.  One place higher would have moved their performance three hours later and after two of their main competitors which does make a difference in the judging..  They are discouraged but still hopeful of making finals tonight.  
Keep your fingers crossed for my boys and the Chaparral High School Marching Band!!!

Freshly Made with Reverse Confetti

This is my second post today.  In my first post, I used a Reverse Confetti Spooky Sentiment and a whole lot of patterned paper.  Since that was a bit out of my comfort zone, I decided to use a different Spooky Sentiment and go a little bit more my style!!


I am a very literal person - so when the sentiment mentioned pumpkin faces and ghosts - the card had to have both of them.  As it turns out, I don't have a jack-o-lantern die.  So I used the pumpkin from Reverse Confetti's Forever Fall and found an older EK Success punch in my stash that was just the face!
The sequins are my favorite go-to Halloween bling this year.  They are Iridescent Chocolate sequins from Ellen Hutson.  They flash purples and greens and blues - so even though I don't have any chocolate on my card - they still give the perfect Halloween feeling.
The sketch is from Freshly Made Sketches.

• Stamps: Reverse Confetti Spooky Sentiments and Forever Fall (the pumpkin), Clearly Besotted Fright Night (the ghost)
• Paper: Stampin' Up Basic Black, Pumpkin, Glitz Raven 6x6
• Ink: Stampin' Up Basic Black, Tangerine Tango
• Accessories: Hemptique 10 lb black twine, Iridescent Chocolate sequins from Ellen Hutson, Clearly Besotted Fright Night dies

What a Wonderful Weekend!!

I have had a truly wonderful weekend!!  A good friend in town, a dozen amazing card makers, an entire day focused on cards and fun and chatter!!  Yay for World Cardmaking Day!!  How many of these people do you recognize??





You may not recognize everybody from their bitty photos on their blogs - but I guarantee you know them all!  There's a picture of everybody with links on my Facebook page!!

Seven hours of crafting takes energy, so we were heavy on the snack food too!!

The whole event was hosted by Michelle, the creative mind behind CAS-ual Fridays Stamps.  She is a truly wonderful lady - a great hostess and an amazing talent.  I have to admit to getting a quick sneak peek of some new stuff that's coming from CAS-ual Fridays and it's going to be a great release. They started peeks today on their blog!

And to make it all even more amazing, the wonderful Stacey Schafer came in for the event (we gave her honorary Coloradan status for the day). We managed to do quite a bit of craft shopping and ate some huge meals (even after the feast shown above).  I took her to the airport early this morning so the weekend is officially over!!!

I had thought that she and I might spend a little more time celebrating over drinks - this was the first time we had met in person!!  But I totally wore out by the end of each day with all of the crafting craziness!!   I had made this card for her in advance of our wild times! (Stamps by Paper Smooches)

I also wanted to be sure to thank Michelle.  When you make a card for her you have to use CAS-ual Friday Stamps, right??

I did use the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches for this card and the sequins and chevrons from the CAS-ual Fridays challenge.

I did get some cards made yesterday, although less than you might think for seven hours of crafting.  But they are all for posts later in the week.  I am definitely going to take a day or two off (it's going to take me that long to put everything away that I had carted over to the event!) - I'll be back in a few!

Freshly Made with Simon Says: Warm Thoughts

So many of my blog heroes have been using light stone-gray patterns for their backgrounds instead of plain white and I love the look.  It seems to make the other colors so much richer!  I thought I would give it a try, but my first challenge was finding a soft gray tone paper.  The problem is that most of them are the backside of busier sheets of dsp so it takes a bit of looking.  Does anybody know if there's one big pack of light stone-gray papers??

I also wanted to play along with this week's challenge at Simon Says Stamp is to use a product from their store.  Not a big problem for me!!  I decided to use one of the feather dies that I just got and a new stamp set (list below).  I was browsing challenges and realized that the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches would be a perfect fit for the feather!

Here's my Simon Says Stamp list:

• SSS Pointed Feathers dies
• SSS Handwritten Greetings
• Clearly Beloved Sequins
• Hero Arts Raspberry Jam Shadow Ink
• Basic Grey Carte Postale
• the gray paper and twine are scraps

Catered Crop: Let's Make Lemonade

The current challenge at Catered Crop is Summer Lovin'.  Here's my problem.  I do not love summer.  I truly hate being hot and Colorado just seems to get hotter and hotter every summer.  Older homes, like mine, weren't even built with central air.  We did add a swamp cooler - but swamp coolers rely on dry air and the storm clouds seem to come in every day just to raise the humidity and make me miserable. So I just can't get away from the heat!  (Of course, those of you who live in Colorado are shaking your heads right because we have actually had a couple of wonderfully cool days in a row!!)

So Summer Lovin' challenges are always a problem for me.  My inspiration this week comes from my children's complaints!!??  I have a frozen drink that I make a batch of at the beginning of each summer and my kids have just reminded me that I forgot this year.  It's a fruity frozen slush drink that does include lemonade.  There is nothing redeeming about it - as it begins with a sugar syrup (not only not healthy but it also takes forever to get the sticky remnants out of the kitchen each time a drink is made!)  This whole discussion put summer drinks into my mind and, while my frozen drink isn't lemonade, what is more representative of summer than a frosty glass of lemonade!



I also used the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches.  I used it exactly as is because I loved the fresh, clean and open look for my summery card.

I've had my frozen slush drink recipe for 40 years.  I got it from a family friend when I was just a child and typically make a batch every summer.  If you are not concerned about the sugar - nor the mess - here's how you do it...

---

4 cups sugar6 cups water46 ounces pineapple juice24 ounces frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed12 ounces frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed5 bananas, mashed6 bottles ginger ale
Measure sugar and water into saucepan.  Heat, stirring until sugar dissolves.  Bring to a boil and boil for 1 minute.  Refrigerate until cold.
Mix chilled mixture with pineapple juice, OJ, lemonade concentrate and mashed bananas.  Pour into 5 1-quart containers, cover, label, and freeze.
At serving time, half fill glasses with ginger ale; spoon in frozen mixture to fill.  Stir. Enjoy!

---

• Stamps: The Alley Way Stamps Lemon Squeezy
• Paper: Simple Stores I {Heart} Summer 6x6
• Ink: Memento black, copics
• Accessories: Avery Elle sequins, Papertrey Ink tag die, The Twinery Caribbean Twine, Martha Stewart Crystal Fine Glitter

Rockwell Designs: Pantone Color Challenge

Jackie Rockwell of Rockwell Designs and founder of such fabulous challenges as Muse, CAS(E) this Sketch! and Fusion - is now running a fun little challenge on her blog - to use the Spring 2013 Pantone Fashion Colors.  She is using them one at a time (and in a fun little twist, she changes her blog header to match the current color!)

She's offering up a prize too - a free blog header!  If you haven't seen her work - just look at my blog - she designed it and I absolutely love it!

I also want you to make sure you still have Rockwell Designs in your blog reader.  It's been the perfect storm for Jackie - she was changing blogs about the same time we were all moving off of Google Reader and it seems that a whole lot of people lost her blog in the mess.

The current challenge is Tender Shoots (Jackie has samples on her blog).  I found it a little difficult to match (partly because my PC shows it as an entirely different color as my iPad shows it).  I picked Papertrey Ink's Limeade Ice, although I think it's yellower than Tender Shoots.



I did start out in a different direction - I've never worked with Limeade Ice except in small doses so my first card kept it minimal. I like this card a lot but I decided I challenge myself to really showcase the color.


This cards uses the new sketch at Freshly Made Sketches.

Bless You

• Stamps: My Favorite Things Cheerful Blessings
• Paper: Papertrey Ink Limeade Ice, Stampin' Up Smoky Slate
• Ink: Memento Gray
• Accessories: Memory Box Lorelai Outline Leaf, MFT Fishtail dies, Papertrey Ink Soft Stone button

Sending Happy Thoughts

• Stamps: WPlus9 Strictly Sentiments 2, Hero Arts tweed background
• Paper: Papertrey Ink Limeade Ice, Stampin' Up Smoky Slate
• Ink: Stampin' Up Smoky Slate, WPlus9 white
• Accessories: Memory Box Dragonfly die, Taylored Expressions birch tree, misc clear sequins

Peace, Love and Flip Flops!

It's a busy day today - lots of fun stuff!  An afternoon stamping with friends, an evening at dinner and then my friend's choir concert and it's finals week in my current class.  So I had a half an hour this morning to play - and it's a very rare card that I can finish in half an hour.  But I had a plan to use flip flops for a niece's birthday.  (Sadly, this plan changed when I realized the stamp set didn't have a birthday sentiment - but it was still a plan.)  First, I saw the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches - perfect space for some flip-flops.  Then I saw the colors at color throwdown - perfect colors for my favorite sentiment in the set!


So I'm all done - and then I noticed my mistake - anybody see it?  This die set comes with a number of toppers for the flip flops.  I didn't use the actual flip flop topper because it would have been hidden by the bow that I wanted to use.  So I don't think these are technically flip-flops, are they??  Flip-flops have the little strappy thing for the big toe - can they also be little slip-ons like these?  It's just like me to obsess over stupid things like this!!

• Stamps: L'il Inkers Flip Flop Sentiments
• Paper: Stampin' Up Night of Navy, Little Yellow Bicycle Just Because 6x6
• Ink: Stampin' Up Night of Navy
• Accessories: L'il Inkers Flip Flop Dies, Divine Twine Maraschino, misc sequins

Freshly Made and Color Throwdown: Congratulations

Two challenges popped up this morning that I thought would be perfect for one of my unused sets that I have been eyeing lately.  The set is this year's Papertrey Ink anniversary set - Birds & Blooms.  I got it right away because I had the points - but I've been feeling like it would be a total pain to line it all up - so I have ignored it.  As it turns out, PTI did a great job as each layer has a little tab that lines up and makes it quite easy.



Because I wasn't sure that I was going to like the set, I didn't get the coordinating dies that came out the next month.  Because I do like dimension, I added some white Glitter Domes from Mark Richards.  But I think the dies are going onto my wishlist so that I can pop up the little flowers (and don't have to handcut the bird!)
The sketch is from Freshly Made Sketches and I knew that the large square would perfectly hold the wreath.

The colors come from color throwdown along with a bridal bouquet image.  I think my card could be used as a wedding card or even a new pregnancy or baby card.

• Stamps: Papertrey Ink Birds & Blooms, Simple Little Things (sentiment)
• Paper: white
• Ink: Stampin' Up Pear Pizzazz, Blushing Bride, Rich Razzleberry, Old Olive
• Accessories: Crafts-Too Embossing Folder, Papertrey Ink Double Ended Banner die, Mark Richards Crystal Dome sickers, Stampin' Up Rich Razzleberry Taffeta

Freshly Made Sketches to the Rescue

We were up very early this morning getting my youngest and my husband ready for an all-day lacrosse tournament.  At 6 a.m., my hubby asked whether I had made the two bar mitzvah cards that he needed.  Excuse me? I think I would have remembered him asking that as I have no stamps for it and no idea what to do!  I quickly searched on bar mitzvah, realized that the cards really could be any style, downloaded a free image - and then, most importantly, found a sketch challenge that made my job easier.  Freshly Made Sketches to the rescue!!



I thought the sketch was perfect.  Since I kept everything black and white, the card reflects the seriousness of the event, yet the cute little flags give it some fun - particularly since these are 13-year old boys.

• Stamps: none - it's a free digi that I just randomly found online
• Paper: Black, white, Bazzill Basics Patterned Paper Licorice
• Ink: none
• Accessories: Papertrey Sending You die and Linen Impression Plate, Divine Twine Black Licorice

TAWS Time: A Sneak Peek of Bot Time

It's that wonderful time of the month when I get to show you sneak peeks of the new June sets at The Alley Way Stamps (TAWS).  Be sure to check out the link for what other designers did with this same set and for a chance to win this set!  Then head back to the TAWS blog on Tuesday and Wednesday for two other sets.  Finally, on Thursday, it's a blog hop to show you all the new sets!!

Today's set is just plain fun.  As cute as this guy is, I don't even think he's the cutest of the batch and I look forward to using the set often to show off all his friends!


Isn't he just "robotastic"???
This card uses the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches.

And it is perfect for CAS on Sunday's Make it Masculine.

BIG NEWS: The downloadable Copic charts for color matches to Stampin' Up and

Papertrey Ink have been updated for the brand new Stampin' Up colors and the

most recent Papertrey Ink colors.  The link to these charts is on my side bar to the right!!

• Stamps: The Alley Way Stamps Bot Time
• Paper: Stampin' Up Pacific Point, scrap dsp
• Ink: Memento black and Copics
• Accessories: Ranger Glossy Accents, black brads

TAWS BE Inspired: Crazy About You

The current BE Inspired challenge at The Alley Way Stamps is a rainbow of color on a black background.

I'm not a black background kind of cardmaker - but decided to give it a try.

I wasn't entirely certain about this card, so I asked my men and boys.  They liked it!  You have to understand that they don't say they like things just to spare my feelings.  Typically they tell me that my cards have "too much".  Really?  My cards??  They will also tell me they don't like the bling, or the colors, or that I have a smudge or that I colored out of the lines.  It's a good thing that I have a healthy ego.  So...while this card may not totally appeal to me...it appeals to my men/boys who don't want "too much"!  (On the other hand, each of them - even the teenagers -have kept the cards that I have made them over the years!!)I was inspired by the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches.

• Stamps: The Alley Way Stamps Lighter than Air (sentiment), Tag-alongs (chevron)
• Paper: scrap
• Ink: Memento black and Copics
• Accessories: Papertrey Ink Scarlet Jewel button, Divine Twine Black Licorice

Get Well Quilts

When I was young, I had a "sick quilt".  It only came out when I didn't feel well.  One side was silky smooth and the other was rougher with hand-tied tufts.  I remember my mom saying that she could tell just how sick I was by which side I was cuddling with.  As an adult, I've tried to find a new "sick" quilt for my family - but it just never has measured up to my childhood blankie.

WPlus9 recently came out with a quilt-building set that I just had to have for get well cards.  This first card is a tribute to my blankie.  I am not sure that I love it as a card - but I do love it as a memory!  (Check out the little "tufts"!)


I was inspired by the WPlus9 Mood Board.

And I used the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches.

• Stamps: WPlus9 Quilt Prints, A Pocketful (sentiment)
• Paper: white and Papertrey Vintage Cream
• Ink: Stampin' Up Real Red, Gumball Green, Bashful Blue
• Accessories: WPlus9 Pocketful die, October Afternoon button, cream crochet thread