Yellow Bicycle Card

I love this Hero Arts bicycle, it just sings happy thoughts. Here's a cute little card using the Sketch Girl sketch.

Materials: Hero Arts stamp, Vellum, cool paper from my stash

Sweetie Heart Card

I have run out of white card stock and am having to dig deep into my color wheel to make cardstock like this bright pink work for my palette. I'm combing the Card Patterns sketch and the Shabby Tea Room challenges.

Cupcake cards

I was making a birthday present for a little girl and used the last of the cupcakes I cut out for this cute card. I think I'll use this one as her birthday card (the present is personalized cards, but shhh, don't tell her or her mother- it's a surprise!). And since I used the last of the pink polka dot paper I'll enter this in the Shabby Tea Room challenge, since there's an hour left in this week's challenge!

Bugs, lots of bugs

I've been thinking about the Moxie Fab World Tuesday Trigger all week and have come with all sorts of great ideas in my head. When I saw the 365 Cards challenge to use bugs I figured that might as well be the leaping off point for the card.

The challenge required 10 bugs, so please look carefully for the hidden ladybugs.

Stamping 411 Sketch- Thinking of you

I already had the red cherry paper out and thought this sketch would work well with the beautiful paper. This card is for the Stamping 411 challenge.

Materials: Cosmo Cricket Paper, Hero Arts Thinking of You Stamp, red ribbon

Sending warm thoughts your way

I saw this Paper Crafts sketch awhile ago and loved the simplicity of it. I made another card with the sketch in mind for my sister. I thought the vellum was a nice touch to tone down the busy Cosmo Cricket papers (which I love). This card is for the Paper Crafts contest and the Papertrey Pals contest that challenged me to cut some of my beautiful patterned paper and Sentimental Sundays.

Brown & Orange Cupcake Card

Here's a simple birthday card using the colors from the Color Q Challenge and the Card Positioning Systems sketch.

Celebrate the Day

A very clean and simple card for this week's clean & simple sketch using the colors from Kim's Off the Wall Craftiness challenge.

Cherry Thank You

This cute cherry card is for Stamp Simply's Flying High and Proud Color Challenge, Red, white and blue.

Materials: Cosmo Cricket paper, Stampin Up thank you stamp and scallop punch

Dad Card

A quick card using the Sketch Girl sketch and a "dad" card for the Totally Stampalicious "Manly" challenge. Photo taken with the wooden creation by my soon-to-be 5 year old created to be a card machine for me. It comes with levers which changes the ink, and make card things and whatever things I want it to do.

Play Date Cafe Challenge PDCC31

Another week at The Play Date Cafe challenge and my first reaction to these colors was positive. I love Savannah's sample card (must have to do with the polka dots). But I struggled with the end result of mine, hence why I have two cards on this post. And I don't really love either of them. Oh well, I tried. Then I went back to Susan's Simplicity Challenge and made nice clean white cards and felt much better. Good exercise for me, I'll keep playing, because sometimes the end result surprises me.

One Layer Wednesday Overlap Challenge Sunflowers

It is so very cold and dreary here today and I need some sunshine, which isn't going to happen, perhaps more snow? So, I'm making more very cool one layer overlapping cards for Susan's Simplicity challenge. Can I enter more then once?

Cupcake Card- a touch of green

A simple birthday card for the Cas-tastic Challenge, the theme being a "touch of green".

One Layer Wednesday Overlap Challenge

I love how simple Susan's cards are and I think they are just a breath of fresh air. This week's challenge is a one layer card with an overlapping stamp. My sentiment is a bit crooked, but after looking at it for awhile I decided to leave it. I'm sure whoever needs this card should know that motherhood is never straightforward!

Shabby Tea Room- Pink Polka Dots

I am such a sucker for these lovely online competitions, today's is for the Shabby Tea Room. I thought I'd take the day off today, but when I saw Lucy's gorgeous card I decided that perhaps I should just whip up a cute pink polka tea card. I knew just the person to send it to. I'm confident she'll appreciate it when she opens it up tomorrow.

Materials: Who knows where the paper came from?, Studio G tea pot, Stampin Up sentiment, versamark and chalk

2 Sketches 4 You- Flower card

A very clean and simple card for the 2 Sketches 4 You challenge this week. Tried to use my W Plus 9 stamps b/c they're sponsoring the challenges, but decided to stick to the trio of stamps I had on the desk. I think I'll try this card again and maybe add a few more layers to it... but in the mean time I'm off to do the preschool pick up.

Sky's the Limit- Super Kid

Jenny over at Wee Memories is hosting a challenge with things that fly, i.e. clouds, hot air balloons, balloons, kites, planes, and when I mentioned this to my soon-to-be 5 year old son he decided he wanted to make a bat card for the competition. I decided then I should make a card to celebrate his superhero obsession and have created a very simple card for the Super Kid. He can fly! Below is his photograph of our cards, precious little man.

Sweet Sunday Sketch, coffee cups card

I love that the sketch for this week's Sweet Sunday Sketch required a background stamp. I know just the perfect stamp, but then I realized it wasn't mine, but a friend's- and she's away for the week. So I put on my thinking cap and pulled out the large stamp I used last night to make a coffee card. While we're thinking about coffee, might as well make the rest of the card about coffee?

Materials: Red Stampin Up card stock and coordinating paper, vellum, black eyelets, small coffee stamp- Paper Salon and large background stamp from Impression Obsession, inc, black ink, versarmark, I like it a Latte- Stampin up

Ladybug & flowers

Still trying to make some ladybug and butterfly cards for a friend and when I saw these stamps in my cling collection I thought "perfect". Funny how I've had these stamps for years and have used others from the set, but never these two. This sketch is from CPS Sketch #168 challenge.

Embellish Butterflies Color Challenge

I clicked on this challenge last night when I really should've gone to bed and my little eye balls went "oh!". My color palette and I've been trying to make some butterflies cards for a friend. Perfect! So here's the card for the Embellish Butterflies Color Challenge.

Materials: Stampin Up card stock and coordinating paper, Hero Arts stamp,W Plus 9 woodgrain stamp in versamark, clear vellum, white ink, brown string, Scallop cutter

Coffee Card

I'm excited to say that this card is not for a challenge! I clicked on this card in my random card-surfing and thought that I needed to make a cool coffee card. I started this card with the idea that it would work for a "thinking of you card" for my husband's friend who's in the hospital. But the card was too big for the sentiment. So things shifted and I went looking for a larger stamp. The problem with the bigger stamp is that it's hard to get the whole stamp to ink well. So it was an accident that I did it on vellum and then raised the coffee mugs. I love when that happens. Here's the thinking of you card I made instead.

Butterfly Card

I'm trying to make some butterfly cards for a friend and I thought I'd give this week's Crazy 4 Challenges sketch a go. This wasn't the first version I made and I'm not 100% sure I like this one much better. But I'm enjoying the process of trying different layouts and stretching my brain to work outside of my normal boxes.

Heartfelt cheers

I'm trying yet another new challenge for Off the Wall Craftiness.
I must confess that I'm not 100% sure I got the right colors for this challenge. Here's the photo for the challenge. The theme was showers, babies, weddings, rain, umbrella's, etc. I decided to go with the idea of weddings, because it's always good to have a few extra of those cards in my stash. But I will admit that I started thinking of clouds and really liked how the Hero Arts paisley looked in white ink, but the end result was something a bit different. Once again this challenge has pushed me outside my color palette. I added a ripped edge to the vellum for the KL Stampin Challenge's "Tear it Up".

Materials: Blue cardstock, Shelly Castillo Home Is Where the Heart Is digital paper, yellow vellum, Hero Arts paisley, Stampin Up Heartfelt greeting, Studio G wine glass stamp, white ink, black ink, versamark pen with yellow ink

Butterfly Thank You

A simple card using the sketch from Card Patterns and putting the main message askew for the challenge on Stamp Simply Challenge #40. Hope Card Patterns doesn't mind that I chose to put two eyelets in each corner instead of one on each corner.

Winter Wonderland

Lucy's Cards is having a challenge using at least one sort of digital element. She included a lot of great links on her site, but I took her recommendation and tried out this paper. I haven't printed papers off the computer before and I'm a little scared- my collection of paper is already large enough as it is. But this was quick and fun and I can see the advantage of combing digital elements with traditional cards. I printed the paper on vellum and the end result was very cool looking.

Materials: blue card stock, white, white eyelets, Studio G stamp, Fiskars scallop rotary cuter

Ladybug card- CAS-tastic Challenge

A girlfriend asked for some ladybug cards and since I'm going to be sending them internationally I thought I'd see if I could make some that would fit with the one layer CAS-tastic Challenge. I've made a few versions of basically the same card... can't decide which one I like best.

clean and Simple- FTL 91

I have been meaning to use these flowers for awhile and the sketch for clean & simple seemed liked the perfect excuse. In the end I feel like I stay fairly close to the sketch... might need to branch out a bit more next time.

Materials used: Stampin Up flower, brown card stock, brown Stampin Up paper. "Hello" part of a Hero Arts greetings. Small circle punch and small tag punch.

Wee Memories- Challenge 6- pink

Pink is not my color, but I'm always surprised when I use it and the card turns out okay. I had some of this gorgeous Thai paper floating around (see bicycle card) and I thought I'd give it a try for Jenny's Wee Memories pink challenge. Humm, now that I look at the photo I think I'll go give the card a bit of a trim on the side, but no time to take another photo.

Kiwi Card- Everything But the Kitchen Sink Challenge

Another fun challenge.... Here's the photo and the sketch for this week's Everything But the Kitchen Sink challenge. I thought I would do a card with some of the of the paper I had from the NZ company Greener Pastures. So here's a card that celebrates my newfound New Zealand citizenship.

CPS 167- Thank you Card

I love simple cards. Here's a very simple thank you card using the Card Positioning Systems sketch.