Summer Coffee Lovers Hop {Stop & Smell the Coffee}

Hello crafty friends! It's time for the Summer Coffee Lovers Blog Hop! I could not participate in the Spring hop because I was pregnant and unable to craft easily! SO I am delighted to be able to share a card for the Summer hop! Today I am featuring some products from SugarPea Designs.

I decided to play along with the current Freshly Made Sketches challenge. I LOVED the sketch and took a different approach to it with the coffee cup and sentiments from the SugarPea Designs sets called Caffeine Addict and Espresso Yourself.

 

The sketch was a fun one from my pal, Karren and I was truly inspired! I used my copic markers to colour the cups in one of my favourite color combinations-Aqua and Coral.

The design is simple and easy to mass produce plus is a flat for mailing!! I think the sentiment works well for my teaching friends who are finishing up the school year!

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!

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! 

Freshly Made Sketches #204 & Merry Monday {Peace on Earth}

I wanted to play along with Jennifer Timko's awesome sketch this week at Freshly Made Sketches and combined it with the awesome, "Sentiment" Challenge over at Merry Monday! Decided to get a couple of old Stampin' Up Christmas sets and used my Copics to colour the bird. The paper is a pack of retired Stampin' Up designer paper pad...a mini pad from last year!

Freshly Made Sketches 200th Celebration!

Hello stamping friends! Today marks an amazing milestone! Way back (Sept. 7, 2011) I decided to start my 2nd challenge blog and I called it "Freshly Made Sketches". 

Never did I imagine that it would last for as long as it has and I never thought it would become so popular. The design team then, now and in between have been all so talented and wonderful! A couple of years ago I stepped down from "running" the challenge and the multi-talented Jennifer Mitchell and Jennifer Timko took over! They have done a fabulous job of building the challenge and making it into one of my favourite challenge blogs out there! Thank you ladies!!

Jennifer Timko managed to organize all these sponsors! Even Stampin' Up has jumped in!! Thank you so much, Jennifer for all of your hard work with organizing this amazing day!!!

The 200th Sketch is a cool one! SO many possibilities and so much potential! I decided to ink up an Altenew Stamp set that I love called Vintage Roses. My flowers are stamped in Stampin' Up ink using Crisp Cantaloupe, Cajun Craze, Tangerine Tango and Peach Parfait! The leaves are Pear Pizzazz and Gumball Green. I stamped the flower images first and then using the sentiment that came with the set, stamped the bottom half of my card. Then I used some gold dot washi and twine to accent the divide. The butterfly was punched out of vellum and I added some pearls.

I hope you will join in at Freshly Made Sketches and support the team with their wonderful work! There are so many prizes to be won!

Freshly Made Sketches & Altenew {Hello}

Today I am sharing a card I made for the current Freshly Made Sketches Challenge and Altenew's Tunisia Inspiration Challenge. Once again, I was inspired by the textured background. I used some new Altenew flowers called Whimsical Flowers and the sentiment is called Halftone Hello. The sketch is by Cindy Lovell! I always admire Cindy's work! This sketch was so easy to work with, I think I may need to make a few more cards with it!

  

Using an older SU! embossing folder, I embossed the background on white paper. I used Crisp Cantaloupe and Cajun Craze for my Flowers and Pear Pizzazz and Gumball Green for the leaf. The sentiment was stamped in black ink. I decided to use up some retired Smoky Slate ribbon from SU! as well. I used a MFT die called Stitched Rectangles.

I hope you will come and play along with us at Freshly Made Sketches ! 

Freshly Made Sketches {Just Because}

Happy Wednesday! We have a brand new sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches from Jennifer Brum and I LOVE it. I used a stamp set from MFT Stamps that is retired and a sentiment set from Simon Says Stamp.

Are you intimidated by the slice through the paper? I was at first but then I discovered a little trick!

1. Cut your top layer to be 4" x 5"-cut 2 layers in the colours you want.
2. Then put both pieces together on your cutter and slice the diagonal through it.
3. Then line up the pieces on your card as you would like!
4. There should be a 1/4" space between the pieces now...I hope that makes sense

I created the stain glassed flowers again. I shared how to make these flowers on my post found HERE.

Freshly Made Sketches #185 {Watercoloured Blooms}

Watercolouring! I am enjoying it! I wanted to create some watercoloured flowers for my card at Freshly Made Sketches this week and I wanted to play along with the fun challenge at Verve Stamps which is all about flowers and the Simon Says Stamp challenge to use Coral. I used the Abandoned Coral distress ink to make my watercolour flowers.

I stamped the flowers from a stamp set called Contemporary Roses by MFT Stamps (designed by the lovely Mona Pendleton). That stamp set is retired now but I think Verve's Poppy Birthday set would work. I stamped the flowers on watercolour paper in distress inks and then I used a water brush to "paint" and soften the lines of the flowers.

Once I had the flowers all painted, I stamped the small leaf from a retired stamping up set and soften the stamped leaf image with water as well. Using my heat gun, I dried the paper and then added some blue highlighting around the flowers. I got the paper really wet with water and then dropped some of the colour onto the wet spots. The colour spread and that it how it dried. Then I stamped the sentiment from Verve's stamp set called Kind Words.

Here is some more watercolouring I did. I want to try making some one layer cards this way.

Freshly Made Sketches #184 & The Card Concept #34 {Mother's Day Blessings}

Today I am excited to be designing with the team at Freshly Made Sketches and at The Card Concept. The sketch and the inspiration is simply awesome this week! I know you will enjoy playing along. I am also using the "Polka Dot" Challenge at The Challenge.

I used one of the new stamp sets I recently purchased. It is called "Botanical Blooms" by WPlus9. This is one of the first stamp sets I have purchased of theirs. I mixed it up with a Verve sentiment from the stamp set called "On Occasion". I love the clean look of the font. I was inspired by the Card Concept photo to use flowers on my card and a tag!

Wplus9 BOTANICAL BUNCH Clear Stamps CL-WP9BBU

My Favorite Things STITCHED TRADITIONAL TAG Stax Die-Namics MFT MFT525

Memento TUXEDO BLACK INK PAD Full Size me-900

Copic SKETCH 72 PC SET B Markers BBBS72B

Hemptique BLACK Hemp Cord Twine 029294

Neenah Classic Crest 80 LB SMOOTH SOLAR WHITE Paper Pack 25 Sheets

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