The Challenge #44-Birthday Theme Challenge!

Hooray!!! Monday is here and today we have a fun "Theme" Challenge for you! We are looking for Birthday Cards! 

Feel free to be inspired:
 -by the colours
-the monsters
-the patterns 
and make a birthday card!

I dug out an old digital stamp by Torico and coloured the image with my Copics. I then paired it with a sentiment from Paper Smooches. I was inspired by the bright colours in the challenge graphic! 

Our weekly winner will be our next Guest Designer! So come and join the fun! We want to send a big thank you to Alanna for being our Featured Designer this month at The Challenge!

Alanna 

(Featured Designer)

The design team have created some inspiration to get you in the crafting mood! Come and join us! 

Kim Heggins	Anita Madden	Kimberly Wiener
Stephanie Severin (GD)	Claire Broadwater	Nance Salkeld
Lori Tecler	Diane Jaquay	Michele Ferguson

An InLinkz Link-up

Merry Monday #173 {Rainbow Christmas}

Hello stampy friends!!! Today we have a brand new challenge over at Merry Monday and I was SO excited about the theme! Kristie has asked us to use Rainbow Colours on our Christmas cards!!!

I dug out this cute snowflake set from Stampin' Up. They are not delicate flakes...they are chunky and I thought that suited the whimsy of the rainbow theme! I stamped them in Real Read, Tangelo Twist, Honey, Tempting Turquoise and Concord Crush. The Turquoise got mixed with the red and it turned purple on the snowflake but I liked the look, so I left it! A happy mistake! Love when that happens. The sentiment is from an Avery Elle set. 

Come and play along with us this week! Christmas card giving time is coming soon!

The Challenge Winners

Thank you for joining us last week at The Challenge! The team and I have have chosen the winners! 

Congratulations, Mary.
What a stunning card! I love the way you were inspired!

I hope you will join us as a Guest Designer for The Challenge! Please email our Guest Designer Coordinator, Kimberly Wiener at  oloughlin.ka @ gmail.com (no spaces) for more information! 

Please join us in one hour, we will be back with a brand new challenge for you!

An InLinkz Link-up

The Paper Players#264 {Kind Word Florals}

Today I am playing along with the lovely, Claire over at The Paper Players. I absolutely loved her amazing sketch and I decided I wanted to try using the new Avery Elle Christmas Florals set in a non-holiday way! So I made a thank you card using Fall colours.

I stamped all the flowers in different colours: Hello Honey, Cajun Craze, Tangelo Twist and Crisp Cantaloupe. Then I stamped the leaves in Sage Shadow. (all inks are SU!). Then I cut them out with the die set that matches the stamps and arranged them on the card to be the "circle" element on the card. The sentiment comes from Verve Stamps and is one of my favourites! I stamped it in Cajun Craze as well. The big square in the background is hard to see but it is Whisper White paper, embossed with the diagonal embossing folder. I used a strip of brown designer paper to "ground" the card. See my new little pumpkin? Found it at M's and for only a couple of dollars! I am so excited to make Fall cards!

Avery Elle {Christmas Florals}

My order arrived today containing the new Avery Elle stamp set called Christmas Florals and I also purchased the matching dies! Oh! They are fun and I cut out a bunch of floral pieces for other cards in the future. Love how pretty the sentiment is too! One of my favourite things is Christmas stamp sets with Christmas music lyric sentiments! 

I used some designer paper scraps and made my card 4.25" square. Sinple and fun! I think I will be using this set a lot!!!

VLV Sketch #4 {Hello Lovely}

Hello stamping friends! Hooray for the weekend! I am working on my laundry pile as always and getting some work done too. Teachers always seem to be working on weekends! Occupational hazard I guess! But I love my profession and I am so excited about this school year. Everything has been going swimmingly!

This morning I decided to whip up a quick and easy card for the Week 4 of the Viva la Verve sketch challenge. It is SUCH a great sketch! I kept my card monochromatic and somewhat neutral. I wanted it to look classic and elegant. I stamped the floral image from Altenew's Hennah Elements Stamp set in black ink onto watercolour paper and did not colour it! I was going to watercolour it but I liked how it looked. (Hope you do too!) I paired it with the sentiment from the SRM Hello Big Sentiment Set.

Coffee Lovers Blog Hop {Verve & MFT Stamps}

Today is the big day! The "Fall" Coffee Lovers Hop! I have recently given up coffee...for a while anyway! It is tough on me, as I love the rich taste and the amazing aroma is gives off! Sigh! Hopefully I will be able to drink some soon!!!

Using a MFT coffee cup die that I picked up from Butterfly Reflections Ink and some Verve sentiments from the set One Cup, I went to work and made two simple cards! I used the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches. The first card uses the "Coffee" die from Verve and I hope you can see how the die cut word "Coffee" from Verve, is the top of the sketch...that piece that goes across the top of the card.

 

The second card uses the same colours but different stamps and some plaid paper to mimic a nice cozy blanket! I wanted the cards to match, and to have a Fall "flavour". I have been feeling so cozy lately...drinking tea and wearing sweaters. Have you?

Thank you for stopping by! I hope you get the chance to hop along and play along. A special thank you to Amy Tsuruta for doing this magical hop! 

The Challenge Reminder

There is still time to join in with our current challenge by clicking HERE!

You have until Sunday, September 27th at Midnight (PST)

The Challenge Winners

Thank you for joining us last week at The Challenge! The team and I have have chosen the winners! 

Congratulations, Valentyna!
I absolutely loved her pretty and delicate card! Such a clever way to use the colours!

I hope you will join us as a Guest Designer for The Challenge! Please email our Guest Designer Coordinator, Kimberly Wiener at  oloughlin.ka @ gmail.com (no spaces) for more information! 

Please join us in one hour, we will be back with a brand new challenge for you!

An InLinkz Link-up

The Challenge #43 {Inspiration Challenge}

Hello and welcome to The Challenge! 

We are so excited about this week's challenge because we get to introduce you to a new team mate!!! I am thrilled to welcome, Diane Jaquay to our team! Welcome, Diane. I asked Diane to share a bit about herself...here's what she had to say!

Diane Jaquay

Hello!  My name is Diane Jaquay and I'm super excited to be a part of The Challenge design team!  I love paper crafts, particularly creating cards, I think I'm "addicted" to it!  Anytime I can sit down and find time to create I'm a happy camper.  I live in beautiful Lancaster County, PA with my programmer/analyst husband and 14 year old daughter.  My son recently left us to attend Bloomsburg University, and I'm definitely missing him like crazy.  I home school my daughter and currently don't have a job outside of the home, and I think I like it that way.  My home is my haven and I love being here.  In addition to crafting, I love nature, reading, spending time with my family, and watching good TV shows and movies.  I also love to watch some of the reality TV shows that are on, my favorite being Big Brother (ha ha, yes, I'm not too proud to admit that, it's my guilty pleasure).  I'm thankful that Lesley asked me to be a part of her team, and I hope that my creations inspire you.

Thank you Diane!!! This week we have an inspiration challenge and I was so excited to make my card! I really wanted to do some watercolouring and some fussy cutting. I will admit, this card did not turn out as I had hoped...it is a little "weird" to me but I think you can see I was inspired by the colours and the textures of the photo. I usually like to have a white or "clean" card base but I was trying to recreate the wall in the background of the photo. I also used the awesome sketch at CAS(E) this Sketch! Love it! I thought it worked perfectly for the design I had in my mind! I hope you do too! I used a retired My Favourite Things stamp set.

The design team have created some inspiration to get you in the crafting mood! Come and join us! Our weekly winner will be our next Guest Designer! So come and join the fun!

Alanna 

(Featured Designer)

Kim Heggins	Anita Madden	Kimberly Wiener
Lee Ann Barrett	Claire Broadwater	Nance Salkeld
Lori Tecler	Diane Jaquay	Michele Ferguson

An InLinkz Link-up