Summer flowers...and a bug

I had this partial piece of Dena Designs paper I wanted to use up and went browsing through the OWH sketches. Sketch 52 worked great for using this colorful paper. The flowers are Prima and held with a brad from my stash. The circles are done with Spellbinders. That dragonfly is from Queen & Co. and the sentiment is Paper Smooches.

Butterflies

This card is one I sent to a woman's daughter who was at our local military base doing some training. The DP is Basic Grey and the butterflies from a Fiskars punch. The bodies of the butterfly are from a deconstructed Prima swirl thing I found on clearance.

Take the time to share your smile today.

Cherie

Sketch 64

Sketch 64 uses some very old DP I've had for at least 15 years. I really like the watercolor look to the squares. The stamped flowers are SU All You Do and the flower embellishments are Prima. The stems are embossed in black, the two outside flowers with clear and the middle with white. I let some of the white stay attached to the outer flowers to give it a different look.

Enjoy your day!

Cherie

Sketch 63

When I saw sketch 63, I just knew I had to use some Prima flowers. I love how you can layer them for a unique look. I used an eyelet for the center to go with the black ribbon and layers. The DP is Memory Box and the sentiment is Stampendous.

Make sure to share your smile today.

Cherie

Oozak June Blog Challenge

The challenge for June over on the Oozak blog is to use two patterned papers and at least one embellishment. This was pretty easy to do since I just bought a pack of pretty patterned papers by Memory Box. The flowers are from Prima and I used buttons for the centers instead of eyelets or brads like I usually do. The sentiment is by SU and embossed in black and a white gel pen is used to make the "stitched" border. A little bit of Memento London Fog was used to distress the edges for the green patterned paper.

"Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing." -Mother Teresa

Cherie

Spring Has Sprung! (and S&S Sketches 13 & 14)

Crafty Contagion is challenging us to make a spring card over the next two weeks. We've had snow here and 60 degree weather in the last week or so, so I'm more than ready for spring! For my card, I used S&S sketch 14:

The image is Rainy Day Ruby from Sparkle Creations that I got when I took a Copics class but never had a chance to color. I think it's the perfect "spring" stamp considering the weather in WA this time of the year. The sentiment is from OWH Hero Arts All the Time set. I used white Gelly Roll pen to add the dots to her umbrella. The background was Cuttlebugged with Swiss Dots. All of the papers I already had.

I also finished S&S sketch 13. When I first saw this with a diagonal sentiment, my mind went blank. I'm more of a straight lines kind of person. But thankfully there was an example to give me some inspiration.

The letters are A Muse Graffiti alphabet with the Cuttlebug folder Floral Fantasy as the background.The floral paper is by DCWV. The flowers are Prima and I was happily surprised to see how well they went with the paper. I'm not sure where the flower brads came from. Again, I already had all the papers on hand. It's a bit over the top for me, but hubby assured me Mom cards should always be over the top lol.

Today is a busy day for me with a SU party at 10, my craft group and a friend's birthday party. But I'm looking forward to all of it!

Happy Saturday!

Cherie

Happy New Year!

Well, we did it! We made it to 2012. I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to a better year than last year. And this year, I actually made some resolutions. It's been years since I've made them, but this year I really do want to accomplish a few things, including three crafty ones. 1) Do a blog entry at least once a week. 2) Participate in more challenges. 3) Empty out the container below.

This container is full of cards that need to be revamped. Many of them have just a sentiment slapped on them. I've had some of them for a few years because I knew they weren't good enough to send out. Now I've challenged myself to get them out of the house! And just think of all the new craft stuff I can put in that container.

So here's what I got accomplished out of it today:

This was originally just the pink card base with the celebrate embellie in the middle. I carefully peeled it off and added some more color. The squares are Basic Grey and the green is from a DCWV pack that was pre-embossed. I love that kind of paper. This card is for my friend Mary's birthday.

Next I redid this one:

It originally had only the pink card base with the embellie off to the side. The same papers were used. I'm trying to work on using some of my stash. I have so much paper and ribbon that I'm running out of room in my small craft area. My hubby helped with the pink ribbon placement on this. I wanted to add more but he insisted it would be too much. Turns out he was right lol. The white ribbon came with the embellie.

I love rhinestone sentiments, like the one on here:

And that's all it was before I fixed it...the green card base and sentiment. I couldn't remove the sentiment like I did the other two, so I worked around it. There's actually two different ribbons, the black with stitiching and the white with circles. I added a layered Prima flower and textured brad from Imaginisce. I had to really dig in my box of embellies because I just knew I had those brads.

The last one:

This had a sentiment that didn't come off in one piece, so I kept the card base and created something new. That patterned paper is the last of that Basic Grey piece. I love the Kid Sentiments from Inkadinkado. They are so funny and yet so truthful. I learned how to do the silk flowers from a tutorial on the Stars & Stamps blog. I was surprised how easy it was to deconstruct them and make them easy to use on cards. The top flower is purple, not blue like it looks in the picture.

All of these cards, except the first one, will go to Operation Write Home.

Good luck on any resolutions you made for the new year!

Cherie