Saturday Fun with Friends

Happy Saturday...only two more weeks until I am off work for the Summer and I can not wait!  Rather than counting the minutes until I am off work, I am playing along with four of my crafty friends today making a card and matching envelope.  We are all using the Kreate-a-lope.  If you have never heard of this before, it is a plastic tool to help you make A2 envelopes with no scissors. The creator of Kreate-a-lope is having a campaign at Kickstarter to raise funds to make the Kreate-a-Lope available in new sizes.  For a donation of $10,  you receive one of the current Kreate-a-lope envelope makers.  Here's a link for you to read more about it.

While I was trying to decide what kind of card to make, I saw the current Case Study Challenge #141.  This is the third cute card by this month's muse, Maile Belles.  It is a bright and fun CAS card which I knew would be perfect for my inspiration.

I love the colors Maile used,  so bright and happy against the white card stock and the die cut script word layered over them.  Here is my card:

I impressed some white card stock with PTI's woodgrain impression plate, stamped and cut out a woodgrain chevron image from Waltzingmouse Stamps (Woodgrain) in the three colors that Maile used on her card.  I die cut my sentiment with Wonderful Words: Hello from PTI.  It seems to be a trend these days to not punch out all of the negative space, so I left mine in place.  It was tough for me to do it...it just didn't seem right to leave them there, but I did it.

Here's a look at my matching envelope:

Just a few of the same woodgrain chevrons stamped on the outside...but on the inside, I added the great big woodgrain stamp.

It is so nice to have an envelope ready to go when I need it.

So, let's take a look at what my other four friends made with their Kreate-a-lope.  Here's a link to Kelly, Julia and Renee's blogs.  I am sure they have come up with something spectacular!

Kelly Schirmer

Julia Aston

Renee Lynch

Suzanne Dahlberg

10 Minute Craft Dash # 18 and CASology #44 - Bloom

I decided to play along with the 10 Minute Craft Dash #18 for the first time today.  The colors are lavender, green and yellow (my card is a bit more orange, but I was using YR copics)  I normally take days to make a card, starting and stopping, making and remaking each piece, so this was a fun challenge for me.  I also wanted to make a card for CASology #44 where this week's cue word is Bloom.  I just hung a beautiful hanging basket I received from my son on Mother's Day and it seemed like the perfect time to play along with such a happy, cheerful cue as Bloom.  Everyone loves flowers, even someone with a brown thumb like me.  I have a new stamp I have never used before, Serendipity Stamps Butterfly Garden.  It totally reminds me of the word bloom.

Butterfly Garden is super easy to color, requires very little shading (my type of coloring) and is perfect for a CAS card.  I just added the Serendipity sentiment (Thanks so much, large) and wrapped a simple twine bow around it.  This one will be very easy to mail, practically one layer.  This card was so easy and quick to make...final time was 9 minutes 30 seconds. (I had all the markers out and twine ready to go which made things go much quicker) Whew.  Fastest card I have ever made!

Butterfly Garden

Everyday Words, large

Case Study Challenge #140

I woke up this morning, grabbed a cup of coffee and started off on my normal Saturday routine of catching up with all the blogs I follow.   I saw several of my friends had their Case Study Challenge #140 cards posted and I realized I was sitting here with mine right in front of me, ready to be written up...thanks Joyce and Marybeth for motivating me to get busy writing!

This week's card is another beautiful card by May's Muse, Maile Belles.  Maile's card this week was very striking and CAS all at the same time.  Here is her card:

Lots to be inspired by on this card, but I loved the kraft, black and white combination and the background stamping so those are the elements I wanted to incorporate into my card.

I stamped my background with Impression Obsession Roses Cover a Card stamp.  It is so detailed and also nice to be able to cover the whole card in one stamp.  I added a Polynesian Sails die cut in black, a little strip of corrugated black border and a scalloped bottom edge.  The leaves are from PTI, Turning a new leaf which I also corrugated and shaped to give a more realistic feel (although, I've never seen white leaves before).  I tied a twine bow and cut a little tag with my cameo.  One of the things I love about Case Study challenges are you can use anything you want.  I find that on Case Study Challenge cards I always use so many more of my stamps and dies that I rarely use.  Good justification to buy more, don't you think?

SSCB#11 - Masculine Card

I can't believe we are on Challenge #11 already!  This week Serendipity Stamps's challenge is going to be a fun one...masculine cards.  I know I normally dread making them, no bows, no flowers, no glitter, but it is still possible to make a nice card for men or boys just by using a few stamps, die cuts and the right choice of card stock color.  Here is my card:

Kraft really is the most perfect color.  It can be paired with almost any combination and depending on the accent colors, make a card perfect for a either a man or woman.  Today I used some cute stamps from Serendipity that are perfect for any male, young or old.  What male doesn't love sports, all kinds, especially with all the cable sports available on television.  There is a game on just about every minute of the day.  This card uses Serendipity Baseball, Football, Basketball and Soccer Ball to make a fun border for my masculine card.  I cut a kraft star background with my Silhouette and adhered it with spray glue to the card base.  Then after stamping and embossing the basketball, just layered it over the background.  I think that basketball looks so real with the polkadot embossing.  Since all of these sports rely on referees, I decided to add a "referee" sentiment banner.  I cut the banner shape and added slivers of black cardstock to frame my sentiment (We Make A Great Team).  I think it looks a little like a referee uniform, don't you think?

Do you have a man in your life that deserves a nice card...remember Father's Day is coming up very soon.  If so, why not make a card and enter the Serendipity Stamps Blog Challenge #11 and make a masculine card using at least one Serendipity stamp or die.  You have a chance to win a $20 certificate towards your next Serendipity order.   For a little more inspiration, here is a list of the other Serendipity Design Team members who also made masculine cards today.

Jeanne

Marybeth

Anya

Pauline

Jenny

Miriam

Soccer Ball

Basketball

Baseball

Bike and Tandem Set

Football

Happy Birthday Joyce Blog Hop

Happy Birthday to my sweet friend Joyce Mehrberg!  I know you aren't surprised.  You HAD to know that after all the blog hops you have organized that we would be doing one for you too and a great big thank you to Kim for arranging the details.  There was no shortage of willing participants for your blog either, just take a look at the link list at the bottom of my post.
I will keep this short, I am sure you will want to see what everyone has made for you!

Joyce loves ice cream and this one is a triple scoop using three types of PTI patterned paper pack designs.  I stitched around Tag Sale #3 with floss and stamped it with Fillable Frames #5 in three different colors.  I added some Lil Inker Balloons and a cute celebrate arrow I cut with my silhouette. The raspberry fizz layer is embossed with a Darice Chevron embossing folder.   I even tied a shiny bow!

Joyce, I hope you have a fabulous day on Cinco de Mayo and make sure to blow out the candles and make a great big wish for the coming year!

Darnell

Jeanne

Joyce (Leave Joyce a little birthday hello)

Kara

Kim

Marybeth

Renee 

Tracey

Sharron

Case Challenge #139-My Hero

***Please scroll down to the previous post which has the complete description of my Case Study Challenge cards...I could not link two challenge cards from the same blog post***

Here's the direct link:

Case Study Challenge #139, Card Two

New Muse in Town-Case Study Challenge #139

There is a new Muse in town, Maile Belles, a designer followed by many, many of us who love to make cards is the muse for the next few weeks at Case Study Challenge.  I have so many of Maile's cards pinned and have watch her blog daily for anything new she might create.  The card this week (Case Challenge #139) is textbook Maile, so CAS but with a twist.  Here is Maile's card:

What did I love about it?  The stamping on the short panel and that great partial die cut image on the front panel.  Maile does this neat thing with partial embossing and cutting all at the same time.  I have to admit, I have not been successful with this technique, but a little light bulb went on and I realized I could do something very similar using my Silhouette Cameo (probably a million people have thought of this idea already), but it was new to me!

I drew a rectangle in A2 size and also a pinked circle, overlapped them and welded them together which gave a similar look to Maile's card.

I stamped Waltzingmouse Stamps Nordic Winter background and overlapped it with the pinked circle layer, in both Berry Sorbet and white cardstock.  The white layer in impressed with the linen/canvas impression plate by PTI.  The beautiful medallion is from Waltzingmouse Nordic Baby, as is the sentiment.  I embossed it with white embossing powder and added a popped up center layer and button.

I was happy with this card, but now that I have discovered how to recreate Maile's partial die cut technique, I wanted to take it to another level.

I took a cute fire engine die and scanned it into my computer.  Then I went into the Silhouette software and imported it, traced it and welded it onto a rectangle I had drawn.  It is the exact same look, but now I have a stamp I can use that matches it perfectly!

This card is going to my son Andy who is a firefighter paramedic.  In reality, he has very few house fire calls, but it was a good excuse for me to use a stamp that has never seen ink before, Neighborhood by Market Street Stamps.  The fire engine is from Papertrey Ink (Boy Basics Truckin It), the sentiment is also PTI (Star Prints) and those great flames...PTI (Boy Basics Out of this World).  I even cut open a window to let some of the flames escape.  The patterned papers are from MME (Cowboy) and the roadway is just smokey shadow cardstock with little bits of white paper glue sticked to it.

Can you tell that Maile's card really inspired me this week?  I am very excited to see what next week's inspiration card looks like...I'm betting CAS, but with a twist!