Make-It-Monday Challenge #83

I decided I would join in this week's Make-It-Monday Challenge at Papertrey Ink: inspiration from the card aisle!  I went to my local Michaels and found this card as my inspirational piece:

I came up with this:

For this project, I used flowers and leaves from my Rosie Posie stamp set; the sentiment comes from the Sunflower Bouquet set and the label I stamped the sentiment on is a new Darcie's die set (I'm not sure of its formal name, though, but it came in a set of four dies). The patterned paper I used is from the Simple Stories 'Harvest Lane' collection, and the inks I used are varieties from Tsukineko/Colorbox.

I had a fun time with this project.  Even though the Rosie Posie set has been out for a while, I have not had it for long.  I love the big and bold solid flowers.  It makes me think of confidence and fullness...and don't you just love those lush leaves?  At first I was hesitant about getting the matching dies, simply because I thought cutting out the images (which is something I often do when I'm making cards) would be an easy task.  Nowadays, I always try to get the matching dies for whatever stamp set I have my eyes on.  It makes the cutting process a non-issue!  

Thanks for stopping by - hope you like the card!  Enjoy!

Semi Non-Crafting Thought of the Week

I cannot believe the amount of time I wasted on Pintrest this afternoon.  In all fairness, I created an account just this morning, so for the first time ever, I sat down with my favorite cup of joe and began my journey of creating 'boards.'  Of course the first two had everything to do with food and handmade cards!  Actually, that would be a disaster: eating food (runny, oily food with an extra helping of sause) while making cards.  Hahaha, the thought is alarming!  But anyway, Pintrest is so cool!  My sister-in-law, if I'm not mistaken, planned much of her wedding around ideas she picked up on Pintrest (and her wedding was a stunner...let's just say, that will forever be a hard one to top!).  I figured Pintrest would be a good way to get my creative juices flowing, especially when I have so much beautiful paper sprawled all over my work desk and no place to call "home."  I already started a board I'm calling "Color," which is often a challenge for me - just when I think two particular colors will be spectacular together, I begin to cut and paste, and it turns into a dud.  I'm thinking Pintrest will be chock full of little 'creative highs,' where one look at a picture will really get my creativity going.....fingers crossed!

Hello, Autumn!

I think Autumn cards are the easiest for me to visualize and create.  I tend to go for earthy colors, so when I see patterned papers that have greens, browns, and burnt oranges swirled together, I already have several layouts planned for my mini albums, as well as a multitude of cards to welcome Fall and to celebrate Thanksgiving.  I can spend days just staring into pinks and blues, and not be able to go forward.  With fall colors, I can pump out several creations that I think look pretty nice.

Here is a card I was able to do in about 15 minutes, just this morning (the apples were previously cut, though).  It was well received at my local crafting store, so I will be making this card for their Demo Day next month.  It should be fun!

For my "crate," I cut strips from MME's Howdy Doody paper and overlapped them a bit to look like pieces of wood. The thinner strips of kraft with brad connectors remind me of those metal bands you sometimes see around barrels to keep them from falling apart.  I then cut out some apples from BoBunny's Apple Cider collection (the paper is called Apple Cider Orchard).  Those huge apples were just begging to be cut out and pieced onto a card!  Does anyone else find image-cutting therapeutic?  I have already cut out all the apples from 2 papers, heh.  Granted, I will typically do this late at night, when I can enjoy some quiet time after the boys have gone to bed.  Since I always feel I can never just sit and watch a television show, cutting out images from patterned papers is a great activity to go in tandem with that.  This year, my mailing list will be getting all kinds of apple-filled cards, for sure!!

Hope you like the card...enjoy!

(Additional items used: Harvest Lane and Harvest Blessings papers from Simple Stories; Just Rite's Christmas Antique Labels One stamps with coordinating dies from Spellbinders; sentiment from Northwoods Stamps)