A Calm Sea....

Hi Everyone!

Happy Monday!  I do hope you all had a fantastic weekend - I did.  Movie and dinner with some lovely friends on Friday, wine and a book on Saturday and crafting with a wonderful friend on Sunday night - I don't think it gets much better.

During crafting last night, I decided to get inspired by some fun and fantastic challenges - I know, I know, big surprise!!

Here are the challenges I will be playing along with:

1. Stampin' Celebration

I have been wanting to use the Adventure Awaits stamp set for some time now and the sketch from Stampin' Celebration this week was a great one that would be wonderful to showcase the stamps.  So very fun.

2. Color Throwdown

I loved this week's colours for the Color Throwdown.  I interpreted them to be Coastal Cabana, Night of Navy, Crumb Cake and Real Red and thought they would be perfect for a nautical themed card.

3. Just Us Girls

This week is word week over at Just Us Girls and the word is "masculine".  I thought it would be fun to add to my guy card stash and for once, create a card that wasn't a birthday card that screamed masculine.  I think the colour combination and nautical theme works here.

4. Stampin' Royalty

I love having a chance to try new techniques or ones that I don't use that often.  This week over at Stampin' Royalty the technique to be used is embossing.  I both wet embossed the stamped image on the Adventure Bound DSP stack and dry embossed on the Real Red accents.

Here is my card tonight:

Card Recipe (all products used are Stampin' Up! products unless otherwise indicated):

Card Stock: Crumb Cake, Real Red, Adventure Bound DSP Stack, Maritime DSP
Stamp Sets: Adventure Awaits
Inks: Versamark
Tools/Techniques: Big Shot, Arrows Embossing Folder, Black Embossing Powder, Little Labels Framelits, Heat tool

Thanks for dropping by, I'm so glad you did!
Steph

Looking for Spring...

Hi again everyone,

I spent some more time in my craft room this afternoon looking for Spring...it didn't really happen as all I see is SNOW when I look out my window but crafting did help!

I really thought that the colors over at the Color Throwdown were screaming Spring this week so I decided to play along with their challenge this afternoon.  

Over at Create with Connie and Mary, Mary had a great sketch (and she's also completely done with Winter and ready for Spring!) which I used for my inspiration.

Combining the two challenges, this is what I came up with:

I decided that I would do a little coloring today and stamped the flower image from the Secret Garden Stamp Set (Stampin' Up!) in Basic Black ink.  I then colored the flower petals using Pink Pirouette and Real Red markers and traced the image again with a Basic Black marker.  I really like how it came out. I also decided to use Hemp Twine for the first time on a card - it was a bit harder to work with than I had initially planed but I like the effect it gives - kind of like a vine.

Here is the card recipe:

Card Stock:

Whisper White, Pistachio Pudding, Fresh Prints Designer Series Paper Stack

Ink:

Basic Black, Pistachio Pudding, Real Red, Pink Pirouette

Stamp Set:

Secret Garden

Tools/Techniques:

Secret Garden Framelits, Basic Jewels - Pearls, Hemp Twine, Stampin' Dimensionals

So what do you think?  Will this do as a little Spring cheer till the real thing arrives?

Thanks for dropping by!

Steph