Basic Grey Challenge Week 18

The Basic Grey Challenge this week was to use blue, gold, and white. I was a hard combo because I didn't have BG paper that was truly gold but I think it worked out pretty well. As always their sponsor is Simon Says and they are offering the beautiful Kioshi collection.

Sketch Girl #17

Sketch Girl 17 is now up! We had so many great participants last week and our top 3 shows that talent. This week our sponsor is Frenzified. They create digital stamps like the fish I used from their Cutie Critters set. You have until May 14th to link up your sketch and be our random winner or part of our top 3.

Daring Cardmakers Die Cut

I love Basic Grey diecut stickers and so when I saw the Daring Cardmakers challenge to use die cuts I decided to use some from the Green at Heart collection. This is a quick simple congrats card. Tonight Sketch Girl will be sharing their top three and the random winner so stop by to see the winners or contribute your entry by 9pm tonight.

Some Thank Yous

First here is my card for the 2 Sketches 4 You sketch this week. They are featuring Bo Bunny stickers but unfortunately I don't own any so I went with Basic Grey papers and stickers from the Kioshi line. This is the thank you card I made for the teacher and students who I have been working with this semester. As a teaching student I have to make visits to classrooms to get real world experience. I was visiting a fourth grade classroom this semester and on my last day they made the cards below for me in art class. It was so wonderful to receive 20 homemade cards sayings things like thank you, we'll miss you, and congratulations (I am graduating with my bachelor's in May but will still be going to school until next May to finish my master's).

Scrap It With a Song Challenge #2

There were so many wonderful entries into the first challenge and now Scrap It With a Song is back this week with the second challenge. This week we would love to see your projects inspired by Once Upon a Dream by Emily Osment. The winner this week will receive a personalized shadow box! I took my title from the song lyrics. The picture is from my senior prom about four years ago. I used SEI Bridgeport for just about everything. Such a fun elegant collection.

Please check out the rest of the DT:

Christina

Tina

Angela

Ana

Hannah

Pink Elephant Scrapbooking Challenge #4

The scrapbook challenge #4 at the Pink Elephant is to use paint and chipboard. I love chipboard although paint is a bit more of a challenge. I used paint to accent the letters and then chipboard to frame my journaling. The papers and stickers are Vintage Yummy from Sassafras Lass. The cloudy weather is messing up the colors a bit. It seems that I have a real preference for stacking photos on the left side of the page lately. I may have to look at some sketches to make sure I add a little variety next time.

Scrap It With a Song Inaugural Design Team

So I promised I had some exciting news to share. Well I have been asked to join the inaugural design team of the new papercraft challenge blog Scrap It With a Song! Each week the challenge will be to create a papercraft project based on a song. I will be doing lots of LOs for this work so I hope you'll enjoy seeing my LOs as much as seeing my cards. I'm excited to see that Christina choose a design team with such a diverse range of styles and can't wait to see more from the DT.

The first challenge was Your Song by Elton John and you have until April 25th to link up your creation for your chance to win 50 Prima flowers! The last line "Yours are the sweetest eyes I've ever seen" was my main inspiration. This is a little boy who I observed for a semester as part of my fieldwork in psychology. I had to look at many aspects of his development and take pictures of how he was in and around the classroom. It was a great experience and I got a little attached I must admit so I wanted to record the experience simply.

In the LO I used almost entirely Cosmo Cricket Joy Ride. Apparently this collection doesn't get as much love. While I must say I am more apt to reach for Material Girl or Garden Variety for a card I think Joy Ride is perfect for a little boy LO. Even if the layout isn't about traveling they love cars, trucks, planes etc so much it works great.

Bo Bunny Card Challenge a Sketch

I love Card Challenge Tuesday at Bo Bunny mostly because I love the challenges at Bo Bunny even if I don't get to join every one. But I love this sketch and these papers which I picked up at the LSS recently.

The reddish oranges and teals of Gypsy is stunning. I've used some chipboard and pop dots to create embellishments right from the paper with the addition of a sentiments sticker and some gems. I love when paper can make such a statement. I have some exciting news so share with you tomorrow and hopefully with a project that matches the news.

Pink Elephant Scrapbooking Challenge #3

Yesterday I was in Princeton with the craft club I run here at school. We visited the Princeton Art Museum and then lots of local shops. One shop that I loved was the Paper Source. They had lots of great gift items, but also a decent scrapbooking section. I found this Creative Imaginations background paper in the clearance section and knew it would be perfect for these Easter pictures. Speaking of Easter that is the scrapbooking challenge this week at Pink Elephant, create an Easter layout so here's mine.

I used the Sketch Girl sketch as well. Julie did a great job adapting the sketch to a scrapbook page so I thought I would give it a try as well. I would love to see everyone's interpretation of Sketch #16.

Sketch Girl #16 is up!

It's time for a new sketch at Sketch Girl! We have another great sponsor this week and some amazing inspiration from the DT. We are being sponsored by The Character Cafe and I've used one of their super cute images on my card. This is a free image they offer called Love Buggy. They are offering a $10 gift certificate to our randomly chosen winner.

For my card I used the new Kioshi collection from Basic Grey. I appreciated that the image was easy to color for a digi stamp beginner like me. I kept it simple and true to the sketch but feel free to interpret and flip the sketch to your heart's content. I can't wait to see your take.

Check out the other Sketch Girls:

The lovely Teresa Kline is our Guest DT

Alyssa

Harriet

Tiffany

Randee

Bonnie

Amber

Jennie

Sara

Annie

Julie

Very Merry Strawberry CPS

When I saw the CPS sketch this week I thought of the red paper from Cosmo Cricket's Garden Variety line and how it would work perfect with gems for the side of the sketch. I kept it simple because I think the die cut card from the line is pretty cute all on its own. I love that I got some crafting in this week but I need to also go get to that homework thats piling up done.

Pink Elephant Scrapbooking Challenge #2

The Pink Elephant Challenge has posted their second Scrapbook Challenge. The challenge is to give an old layout a makeover. Well I don't have pictures of all my older LOs and they're not stored with me here at school so I can't show you the original LO, but let me assure you its quite different. The first scrapbook I made was of my trip to Italy (in 2004) and the book is filled with maps and postcards and even table napkins. I was really interested in putting ephemera in my scrapbooks. Well then I found out that those things might ruin my pictures so I wasn't so keen on them anymore (though in the digital age I will always have the pics). So now my style is more streamlined and simple focusing on pictures and journaling and I printed these pictures a few months ago meaning to give them an updated LO. Well this Pink Elephant challenge was the perfect motivator.

I kind of wish I could update the pictures as well. I borrowed my sister's camera and could only take so many pictures because we didn't have a power adapter to charge it. So the picture of me and my grams isn't that flattering but it is the only picture of us from the whole trip because we were much more interested in taking pictures of the scenery and art.

Sketch and Theme Combo

I wanted to create a card for the Pink Elephant nature challenge in addition to the LO I made. I combined the nature challenge with the Card Patterns sketch. I knew I wanted to use Basic Grey Green at Heart, I love the bright colors and the 'bloom & grow' sentiment seemed to fit perfect with the sketch. I added the leaf in lieu of the circle detail. Remember you have until Wed to post your take on Sketch Girl 15 and on Thurs Sketch Girl 16 will go up, can't wait to show you my take and share our new sponsor.

BTW feel free to check me out the Monthly Challenge post at SEI where my card from last month was featured. It's the stitched flower card.

Moxie Fab Picking Up the Pieces

Over at Moxie Fab World, Cath has laid down a Picking Up the Pieces challenge. Basically any style of paper piecing goes, but my card is quite a traditional take on paper piecing. This time I came up with my own pattern for a pieced owl, but I also included a pieced flower. The flower is made by putting four folded circles together, fluffing them, then trimming a bit. A simple card for sure, but when you've got a cute owl as the centerpiece what more could you want (I'm an owl lover you see). I included the pieced flower for the Cupcake Crafts challenge to Make Your Own Flowers.

Nature LO for Pink Elephant Challenge

I enjoyed scrapping the pictures from hiking the other day so I kept at it and made this LO for the Pink Elephant nature challenge. Usually I make cards for the challenge, and I'll probably be back with a nature card this weekend because I have the new Green at Heart from Basic Grey, but I don't think a card is strictly required. I struggled with color in this LO because the pictures were very brown and I thought the pictures would get lost in a brown background so I went with this gray and burgundy look. For those of you lucky enough to have beautiful weather like we have in NJ enjoy it!

Pink Elephant Scrapbooking Challenge #1

The Pink Elephant Challenge now offers scrapbooking challenges! I'm so excited to see these challenges because I've loved their card challenges since the start and so this is one more way to play along. The first challenge is to show them your favorite technique. My favorite thing to put on any LO is handwritten journaling, but I also did many of my other favorite things on this LO like adding rub ons, a Thickers title, and keeping it clean and simple. I use elements from many different manufacturer's. We R Memory Keepers background pp, A Scarlet's Letter scrap and some rub-ons from Basic Grey, as well as some GCD Studios epoxy stickers.

This LO features some photos from a summer morning hike at Merrill Creek. It was really early but also really gorgeous. It was beautiful to see the reservoir lake change so much as the sun came up. These photos are shot in color so if you look closely you can see the green of the tress in the top photo but the scene and surrounding colors were so muted that morning that they appear to be black and white.

A Card and Candy Winner

Happy Easter! I haven't gotten a chance to play with my Kioshi papers yet so I took the opportunity to make a quick spring card today. This was made for the Pink Elephant use pastels challenge which this collection is prefect for.

Also I want to take this chance to announce the winner of my blog candy, congrats to Becky! Becky email me at jesmoyer gmail.com with your mailing address and I will get your prize out to you. I simply put all the names in a hat and did a draw. Thanks for everyone for all their lovely comments.