2S4Y Bonus Sketch

Here is a card I created for the 2S4Y bonus sketch. This was my first time using Bella Blvd products. I picked up some papers from Estate Sale at my LSS last week. Beautiful and I love the cut outs for creating cards. I stamped a cut out with some Hero Arts stamps for a simple card.

Bo Bunny Birthday Card Challenge

Bo Bunny latest card challenge was to simply make a birthday card. I’ve had this on my to do list for awhile and finally made the card over the weekend. Entries are due tonight so I guess I just squeaked it in. I used the Bo Bunny Gypsy line. I was lucky enough to pick up the Gypsy cut-outs as well making it a super easy card to make. I added a bit of bling, some crumpled ribbon, and a simple birthday sentiment stamp. It’s not a card that screams birthday but for some people that makes a good birthday card.

Scrap It With a Song #20

After 20 fabulous weeks I'm saying goodbye as a DT member at Scrap It with a Song. We have lots of great new talent joining the team and I figured that with student teaching coming I didn't want to reapply for the team. But I had a great time and hope I can play along at least some of the time. For week 20 the song is Isn't She Lovely by Stevie Wonder. I went a little untraditional with my take. I thought "lovely" "wonderful" and "precious" were great words to describe the cards that students made me during my last school placement. I thought the ABC Sassafras paper was great because it was school and the little monster worked because they were a trying group of kids but like that monster still very lovable.

We are being sponsored by Crafty Ribbons who will be giving the winner 20 jewel colored heavily glittered ribbon. Sound like a really fun prize so please share your creations for this week!

Random Crafty Sharing

So when I got the update on Facebook that my LSS had received Cosmo Cricket I headed right over. Unfortunately they have only ordered Pixielicious and Mitten Weather. I was hoping for Togetherness. I got Pixielicious but decided against Mitten Weather since I have lots of unused Christmas paper already even though I love it. I also picked up some Echo Park and Bella Blvd. Everyone seems pretty excited for the Echo Park papers plus they have lots of fun Facebook contests. I decided I had to get in on the action.

You purchase a kit (picture above) for $5 and then make a card or two or more. Bring your completed card back to the store and be entered for a random draw of a $25 gift certificate to the store. Sounds like a good deal to me. I've been looking into new inks. All I have are the Cat’s Eye Chalk Inks and they just don’t’ produce crisp images so the owner recommended Momento Inks. So between the black which they only had in the small and the brown that came with the kit I now will be able to stamp cute sentiments instead of spending money for the crisp look of rub-ons.

Anyway here are my two cards with the kit. I wanted to use a little bit of everything from the kit in one card. I knew I wanted to ink up the octopus so I decided to put him in a little ocean scene. The blue waves are the other side of the orange paper. I added some gel pen accents and added the ribbon to ground the sentiment.

I decided I want to keep playing with the ocean idea because I didn't get to incorporate the ship stamp in the last card. I made a rather simple card that I think could be sent to one of the boys from the Cards for Kids drive. This meant leaving out the ribbons and buttons because they were sparkle-y and girl-y. I'm loving the new inks and am excited to use my stamps to their full potential.

Cards to Share

I'm going to keep this quick because I'm quite tired. I've been commuting to Burlington about an hour away (hour and a half with traffic) for my student teaching. We are just setting up the classroom and I'm exhausted from the drive. I hope I adjust quickly when the year starts. Anyway on to the cards. First up a card using scraps for the Etsy Inspired Challenge. The Etsy store of the week is Global Child Connection and I was inspired by this print.

Next up on Tuesday I was able to pick up the new Pixielicious at my LSS. I crafted with it that night but the craziness of the past two days means I'm only now sharing. I made it for the 2S4Y sketch. I used one of the elements and then the cut off strip on the bottom of the paper is my bottom border. I love Cosmo Cricket so much I'm already thinking of ways to stretch my new collection. Have a fab night and I will be back soon hopefully more well rested with a more thought out post.

Scrap It With a Song #19

At Scrap It With a Song this week we are celebrating Summertime the great Will Smith formerly known as The Fresh Prince. It’s a fun song from his early career before we was a movie star. I went with a fun simple card that was a bit summery but could be used anytime. That is a touch of Sassafras Lass paper that I colored in part way with some gel pens. Then I spelled out my sentiment with MLS letter stickers. This week we are being sponsored by Digital Delights which makes adorable digital stamps. This is the perfect week to join us at Scrap It With a Song because you can scrap some of your recent summer memories.

SRM Stickers Sketch

SRM Stickers is featuring creations made by their DT featuring SRM Stickers and the new Cosmo Cricket lines. Unfortunately I have not gotten the chance to get my hands on the new lines yet but I did want to play with the sketch. I used the Cosmo Cricket Girl Friday papers and elements. Head on over to the blog to check out the sketch for your chance to win the new stickers or some lovely Cosmo Cricket goodies!

CPS 180

With the recent Lawn Fawn Blog Hop I realized that I still didn't have enough boy cards to send so I decided to use the simple CPS sketch this week to make another one. The paper and journaling spot are from the Colorbok Friendly Forest collection. The journaling spot had some flowers along the bottom so I chose to cover it up to keep it more boyish.

2S4Y 59

*** If you're on the Lawn Fawn blog hop please scroll down for that post***

So I rediscovered these cute plastic flower buttons the other day going through my stash and set them aside to use on a card. Also I knew I didn't have many get well cards and thought having another one on hand wouldn't be a bad idea. So this tag and the buttons combined with the 2Sketches4You sketch inspired this card.

Paper Flower on a Halloween Card

*** If you're on the Lawn Fawn blog hop please scroll down for that post***

The CARDS challenge this week at the Create Blog is to use handmade flowers. Well I've seen many tutorials and tried a few. One that I always loved but was a bit intimidated by was the spiral flower. The technique was featured in the latest issue of Scrapbooks Etc which contains lots of great Halloween projects so I pulled out last year's Basic Grey Halloween line and started to play.

I love the look of it finished but must say it wasn't as easy as it seems. Its one of those things that you will likely need to play with a few times to get the hang of. Also its a big embellishment and this card won't be able to fit in an envelope so its not something I would use on a LO. I used an awesome Halloween rub-on I've been hoarding and a Hambly overlay I got on recent trip to the LSS. Unfortunately this card didn't make it into the shared gallery, maybe because its out of season, but I love it anyway!

Etsy Inspired Challenge 101

*** If you're on the Lawn Fawn blog hop please scroll down for that post***

I'm back with my card for Etsy Inspired this week. This has fast become one of my favorite challenges to participate in each week. The Etsy shop for inspiration this week is Lover Dovers which sells adorable aprons. I was inspired by this retro apron. I loved the colors and the general cuteness of it. I tried to capture that in a simple straight forward card. Right now I can't seem to stop adding black faux stitching on the edges of the card. I've been trying to play with simple and white space but I can't seem to leave the edges of the card blank. The sponsor this week at Etsy Inspired is Sassy Studio Designs.

Lawn Fawn Hearts Cards for Kids Blog Hop

Hello hoppers, welcome to my stop on the Lawn Fawn Hearts Cards for Kids Blog Hop! This blog hop is meant to promote the awesome card drive that is Card for Kids where crafters create cards for sick children and their families. I know this is a big hop but its full of inspiration, chances to win great prizes, and crafters doing good so I'm glad to see you are still hopping away! If you came from Donna's blog you are on the right track but if you've gotten a little lost or want to start at the beginning you can always head to Lawn Fawn.

Today I have several cards and a digital FREEBIE to share with you. So when trying to create a bunch of cards its good to have a simple design and embellies that you can have in bunches. Well the elephant tag on my card is a printable tag that I created using an image from Free Pretty Things for You. A great source for printable tags and images! I added a colored background and a little thought bubble so the cute elephant image would be a usable tag.

To use this tag simply right click and save the picture. Put a whole bunch of the desired size into a word document. Print and stamp a saying. I rounded the corners and added some ink. You will be able to create some great cards for kids in a snap.

Also I know that its easy to create cute cards for girls but I wanted to have some guy cards to send as well. I think Basic Grey's Obscure line works great for boy cards so I made two simple cards with the punch-outs and papers from the line. Remember to leave comments throughtout the hop for your chance to win. Next up is Marilyn's blog. Happy hopping!

Scrap It With a Song #18

This week at Scrap It With a Song the song for inspiration is Get Here by Oleta Adams. I thought all the mention of travel would be a good reason to use it for a LO about a trip. Here's is my craft club's spring trip to Princeton (we got there by railway as in the journaling). I used Sassafras Anthem papers and stickers. I also used some pieces of the brochures we collected. This week we are being sponsored by The Paper Trail an online scrapbooking store who is offering a $20 gift certificate. We've had less than 20 participants these past few weeks. I would think great sponsors and the ability to create any type of paper craft would elicit a little more response. If you've never played along I urge you to give it a try. If nothing else who wouldn't want a 1 in 20 chance of winning a $20 gift certificate. So whip up a quick card or beautiful LO inspired by our song this week and share!

CPS #179

Yesterday I got the chance to scrapbook with my boyfriend's mom. I love the chance to get crafty with others and chat with people who understand why this hobby is so much fun. We also got to visit the scrapbook store. Seeing it through her eyes made me realize just how obsessed I am. Not only do I know the layout of my LSS really well, I also can tell the manufacturer and line of a paper from across the room. Is there a 12 step program for paper addiction? Anyway, I made this simple card while we were crafting with the CPS sketch using Cosmo Cricket's The Boyfriend line. Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Card Patterns Sketch 76

This weekend I was making some cards for the upcoming Lawn Fawns Hearts Cards for Kids Blog Hop on Aug 18th. I was playing with some printables from Free Pretty Things for You and decided to make a card with this tag as well, though it wasn't good for the drive because I had already added the Happy Birthday sentiment. I simply save the images as jpegs and then use gimp (free software similar to photoshop) to add text. Then I print on white cardstock. During the blog hop I will have a cute free printable to share with visitors similar to this cute bird tag. Last but not least, I used the Card Patterns sketch for the card.

Basic Grey Challenge: Pearls

This week the Basic Grey Challenge was to use Pearls. They are of course sponsored by Simon Says Stamp. I was playing with stamps trying some techniques and I decided to try piecing this Imaginisce cupcake stamp. First time I've actually tried that technique and it makes me want to get a few more stamps suited to the technique. All papers are Basic Grey Euphoria. I've just recently seen the new BG lines and I'm quite excited to see them arrive at my LSS soon.

Scrap It With a Song #17

This week at Scrap It With a Song we are being inspired by the song With You by Jessica Simpson. Remember you can be inspired any part of the song and make any sort of creation you want. The event I'm scrapping was called Storytelling 'with you' and me so I went with it. We also have a fabulous sponsor in Crop Chocolate who has generously donated $20 in crop credits for the winner. Cant' wait to see your take!

Etsy Inspired Challenge 100

Etsy Inspired is celebrating their 100th challenge with a blog hop, some fabulous giveaways, and a huge 100 item prize! Now the prizes are certainly a good motivation, but the Etsy shop this week Cathy Walter makes some beautiful inspiring pendants that had me motivated to play by themselves. For this card I drew my inspiration from this Be Free pendant. In the pendant I love how the text is framed by the beautiful florals. I used Basic Grey rub-ons for the sentiment and the surrounding foliage images. I added a few small gems for pops of color.

Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger She Sells Seashells

When I first saw the Tuesday Trigger at Moxie Fab World I was feeling a little stumped because I'm not big on seashells although my mom and sister certainly are. But I did love the soft colors mixed with the metallics so I used these to inspire my card. I inked up this owl from Basic Grey for the first time. I restamped his eyes in gold and then popped them up and added touches of black for interest. Here's the inspiration photo so you can take a peek and play along.

Bo Bunny Card Sketch

Bo Bunny has issued another card challenge and this week it is a card sketch. After pulling out my Bo Bunny Love Struck papers I decided to make a set of matching cards. Since I have some extra time off now that classes are over I thought I should make a few cards for causes like Card for Kids and Operation Write Home. After all what's the point of using such pretty supplies if not to share.