Just For You {SSS, Butterfly Reflections Ink & FMS}

Saturday! Hooray! Here I am, up early so I can craft before I roll up my sleeves and get started on the housework! I was intrigued by the great sketch at Freshly Made Sketches, the mood board at Butterfly Reflections Ink and the birthday challenge over at Simon Says Stamp! So I put together a Spring birthday card for my stash!

I was so happy to find a My Favorite Things set called Modern Blooms at a local store. I had this set on my wishlist! I've had the set for a couple of months but this is the first time I have inked it up! 

I scattered the flowers and the leaves...letting the aqua colour be my "main" focal point. I accented everything with black ink...to help it pop and finished my card off with a sweet sentiment from Verve. I heat embossed it white onto black paper. To add some visual interest, I used my Swiss Dots folder from Cuttebug. It's an oldie but one of my favourites!

Inspired by All the Little Things, VLV & SSS {Amazing Birthday}

Today I am sharing a card I made for three different challenges! Viva la Verve, Simon Says Stamp & Inspired by All the Little Things. The inspiration photo from Inspired By gave me the colours I wanted to use...I mixed red, blue and dark blue with an all white background. Following the sketch, I added some ribbon in behind. I used my Zig Markers to watercolour the blooms.

We hope you will come and join us at Inspired by All the Little Things!

Right Up My Alley! {SPDSS48}

  

Today we have a brand new sketch up over at SugarPea Designs! I decided to make a masculine card for my stash!

I used some fun papers from My Mind's Eye-this is some old paper that I thought was kind of bright and fun! And then I coloured my image with my Copic markers. I kept the design simple. 

Come and join us! You are welcome to play along with all the sketches or just one but remember the more times you play along during the month, the better chance you have of winning a $75 gift certificate to our store!!!

The Challenge #67 {A Sketch}

Hello and Welcome to Week One of a brand new month at The Challenge! This week we have a versatile sketch for you and we hope you are inspired to join us!

Are you looking for last week's winner? Please CLICK HERE.

Each week we have a fun challenge for your to try!!! We do a different style of challenge each week! We like to mix things up and keep them fresh!

Here is the monthly rotation:

Week 1-Sketch

Week 2-Colours

Week 3-Photo Inspiration

Week 4-Masculine Photo Inspiration

Week 5-Wild Card (a surprise!)

This month we are thrilled to welcome Greta Hess as our Featured Designer! Welcome, Greta!

For my card, I decided to ink up Reverse Confetti's new rose stamp again. I love it! I stamped it with Ranger watercolour ink and then coloured it with my distress inks on watercolour paper. I paired the roses with this pretty sentiment from Verve. I wanted to create a clean and fresh card for this week's sketch.

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!

Greta Hess from ggnursecreations

Featured Designer

Christine from Poppaea Cards

Guest Designer

Anita Madden

Broni Holcombe

Claire Broadwater

Diane Jaquay

Jinny Newlin

Kim Heggins

Laurel Seabrook

Lori Tecler

Nance Salkeld

Nina Forsyth

Rachel Bergfeld

An InLinkz Link-up

Winners for our Nautical Challenge

Ahoy mateys! Wow! SO much talent last week! We loved seeing your nautical creations! The team and I have have chosen the winners! We really all weigh in and voting is always tough!!! The work that gets linked up each week is so inspiring!

Congratulations, Sheri!

Sheri created an amazing nautical card using so many wonderful papers and patterns! The twine on the anchor was the perfect finishing touch!

I hope you will join us as our next Guest Designer for The Challenge! Please email Kim Heggins at kim heggins @ comcast.net (no spaces)

And now for our Top 3 Picks!

(In numerical linked up order)

9. vicki dutcher

18. laurie

21. Monika Reeck

We will be back in one hour with our next challenge! 

Inspired by All the Little Things {The Thief of Joy-A Personal Note}

Sunday already? Where does the time go? Lately I have been noticing that it is going much faster than normal! Summer is just around the corner and I really have a lot of big ideas and plans to accomplish before the end of the school year! Does anyone else ever feel like there is not enough time in the day!

Friday I came home from work to find such a wonderful "happy mail" email in my mailbox. Her kind and thoughtful words really boosted me. 

Every once in a while, being a crafter can be intimidating. We try to not compare ourselves to other stampers or crafters but we do. We wish we could colour better or that we took better photographs. Do you know what I mean? It is hard to be happy with who we are...right now. We always want to be better. 

This year I have been focusing on being the best me I can be and I am striving to compare myself to ME. No one else.  (Easier said than done...right?)

In the meantime, I am sharing another card that I made for the Inspired by All the Little Things challenge once again. This time I wanted to create something for the challenge that was not a floral. I was inspired by the colours and the watercoloured images in the graphic.

I stamped the images in distress ink and then used my waterpen to "smudge" the images. Then I added some blue watercolouring around the images, to tie them all together. I used a sentiment from Verve, and two retired Stampin' Up stamp sets. 

As a final pop...I punched out one butterfly on vellum and one on white paper...then I added them with a glue dot over the butterfly on the card. My card panel is slightly skewed...just for some added interest.

I hope you have the chance to craft day and remember to find joy in your creativity!

Hello Friend {Power Poppy, Inspired by All the Little Things & Power Poppy}

Today we have a brand new inspiration challenge over at Inspired by All the Little Things! It is my turn to host and I chose a watercoloured floral image for the inspiration. My good friend, Nancy Leppek, is our guest this week and she created a stunning card! I also wanted to link up to the Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes Challenge. 

 

I was inspired by the arrangement of flowers and I couldn't help it! I picked up some digital images from Power Poppy last night. She is having a sale and I could not resist! So I inked up the floral set  called Ranunculus in my copic markers and kept the design simple. The sentiment comes from a SugarPea Designs stamp set called Funky Wreath – Spring Addition. I tried to leave some white spaces...to add some visual interest.

Thank you so much for stopping by! I hope you are stamping away today or doing something crafty!