Just Us Girls Challenge #214 Words, words Words!!

Hello!! My good friend and fellow design team member, Lisa, has set a terrific challenge for us this week!  Use words to create your own background!  This was fun!!  Please see the JUGS blog for tons of inspiration and a link to a tutorial on how to do this.  Mine is not perfect because I just jumped in without marking my paper!  JUGs BLOG

 This card has so many things I love!!  And isn't what it's all about-using things we love?!?  I love turquoise and red for colors, whether it's a Christmas card or a winter card!  I love this High Hope Santa Claus face (so cute!).  Anna Wight's Diamond Dust snowflakes are also so fun to make and use!  I kept the layout simple and maybe you can tell it looks a bit like our (JUGS) sketch from last week!  Just flipped!

 I stamped my PTI words (a 5.00 set!!) in Taken with Teal on Hawaiin Shores cardstock.  I just stamped the word SNOW alternating it's placement and leaving 1/4" in between so I could add in 'Let it snow' afterward.  The dotted paper is from Bo Bunny.  Snowflakes are punched from white card stock, sponged with a little Coastal Cabana and then covered with glossy accents and Diamond Dust Glitter Glass. 
I leave these to dry for quite a while before handling.

My Santa is colored with my distress markers and then color was moved around with a water brush. I also added Stardust Stickles to Santa's hat for extra sparkle!
Please take a look at your word or sentiment stamps and see what you can come up with for this challenge!  We'd love to see what you do!
We also have a guest designer for this month!  Congratulations to Nancy at Artful Notions!  Please check out her blog too! Lovely creations!
Have a great day!! Cheryl

Celebrating Another Life!

Hello, friends!! A friend of mine has a birthday today and this is the card I made for her!  She is a cat lover so this Whipper Snapper Design image is perfect for her, though I don't think she'd let her cat get THAT close to her cake!!

I stamped my image on water color paper and colored it with Tim Holtz distress markers.  Then I used my water color brush to blend and move color around for the look I wanted. My card base is Hawaiin Shores (I think) and I stamped it with Taken with Teal using a plaid background stamp.  The dotted piece is Harvest Gold dp from Papertrey Ink.  The yellow edges are sponged with More Mustard and the Hawaiin Shores edges are sponged with Taken with Teal.  I  added Stardust stickles so that the card went with my sentiment-Hope Your Day Just Sparkles (Inky Antics).
This is a nice flat card that will mail easily!
Thanks for stopping by on this U.S. Election Day!! Remember to VOTE in your area!  I have to get out of the house a bit early today to do just that!
Have a great one!  Cheryl

Sketch-Just Us Girls #213

Hello!  Thanks for coming by my little blog!  The Just Us Girls (JUGS) challenge this week (the first Saturday in November!!) is a sketch challenge! This means I've been on the team a whole month!  Now you know we would love to have you join us in our weekly challenge so here's the link to the BLOG

 You know I've said I love our challenge because you can use ANY stamps you want!!  This week I've used some 'Oldies but Goodies from Stampin' Up!  The apple bucket is from Give Thanks (2006).  My backgrounds are Paisley (also retired SU) and Flannel (SU too).  I stamped Chocolate chip cardstock in Early Espresso and Kiwi Kiss cardstock with Kiwi Kiss.
I'm super excited to say I stamped the image on watercolor paper with Versamark Black and then colored it with my new Tim Holtz Distress Markers!!  I'd put off buying them long enough, so made my purchase from Amazon about 3 weeks ago. I loved coloring with them and then adding water from his brush for the watercolored look.  I hadn't watercolored in a long time and this was so easy!  Now I'll be torn between my copics and distress markers!
At first the sketch intimidated me, but once I decided on colors and image it was fun, fun, FUN!!
Remember you have until Thursday, Nov. 7 at 9 pm Eastern time to enter your creation!!
You DO have Thanksgiving cards, Christmas cards and maybe a birthday card or two to make this month, right?  Try our sketch!!
Have a great day!! Cheryl

Happy Halloween, but......

Not a Halloween card!  There's a nine year old girl at school who collects owls AND had a birthday this week!  Along with an Owl punch I made her this owl window card!  

 I used one of PTIs dies to make my card base.  I ran the front through SUs woodgrain embossing folder.  It's my favorite because the lines are close enough to tell that it is wood.  I sponged it with Soft suede to bring out the texture.  I punched a hole with a large circle punch -2", I think.  Inside of card is below:

This cute owl stamp is from Latina Crafter.  I saw a card on pinterest and HAD to have it!  Surprise to me-the sentiments that accompany the stamp are in Spanish! I have no idea what they say-I was a French student in school!!!  The stamp was worth it, though!

Hope your day is not to spooky!  And, the weekend is on the way!!  The JUGS team will have inspiration cards on the blog at midnight tomorrow (mine is not even started! Yikes!!) and the sketch challenge will be up for you to join on Saturday!  You still have until 9:00 pm tonight to enter in this week's photo inspiration!
Here's the link for the Blog!
Have a great day!  Cheryl

House of Haunts! FS351

Here's why I can't get rid of retired SU sets!! I love them and you never know when you'll NEED one!! Today was that time for me.  The featured stamper has some great creations on Splitcoast and I have to get a few treat boxes done for Halloween on Thursday!  So, instead of school work I got busy on this project!  You see the result-a treat box for a teacher friend which houses 3 small Heath bars~Yum!

 I started with a new (to me) treat box die from Papertrey Ink-Favor it box #3. I don't know if you can see it but the fence is an antiqued silver!  I saw this cool silver engraving board on Theresa Mombers blog a week or so ago and HAD to have that.  Here's the link-SILVER and here's Theresa's blog post  POST.

I used Martha Stewart's grass punch on the bottom and some Wink of Stella pen/paint on the house windows.  Lisa Kind and I enable each other ALL the time!!  She got be to buy this silvery pen that operates like a paint brush.  Lisa if you're reading this, I want you to know that some of this Langnickel silver board is on it's way to you as soon as I can get to the post office this week! ;) You'll love it!  Christmas ornaments?!  Can't wait to see what you do with it!
Well, that's enough for me-I've got to get supper and then crack open the school bag!
Hope you've had a great weekend and that yours didn't fly like mine did!
Cheryl

JUGS Inspiration photo challenge

Good morning!  As I post this Friday evening and have had a killer headache all day, Blogger is giving me fits and won't upload all my pictures!  I'll forge ahead despite the issues 'cuz I am tired!  Please click on over to the JUGS blog to see a fantastic fall photo to use as your inspiration.  I struggle with inspiration challenges, but I really enjoyed this one!

I fell in love with the table cloth in the photo and tried to recreate that as my background for Northwoods Mason Jar Bouquet.  I hope you can see a bit of it in my poor photos.  I stamped some leaves from an old SU set with bleach on black paper.  I use a meat tray with paper towels folded into it to pour a small amount of bleach into.  Then stamp away on your dark paper and watch the magic happen.  I had hoped for a bit more bleaching out, but this looks okay.

ETA; I HAVE NO IDEA WHY THESE PHOTOS STAYED SO LARGE!! APOLOGIES!!

 The image is colored with copic markers.  I 'had' to use some stickles on the flower petals and glossy accents on the water in the jar.  I used an SU white pen to make a 'table' grounding my cut out image.

 Here are some colors that bleached out more color when I stamped them.  A dark purple and not quite navy, I think.

One more shot in natural just trying to get a good photo!  No luck here!
Please DO take a look at our BLOG and join us in the challenge this week!  And, remember we are going to be having a monthly guest designer, so, please, check that out as well!

SU owl punch

Hi!! Sorry I haven't had the chance to post until now-it's been a busy week!!  I finally bought SUs Owl punch since a couple of people in my life are owl crazy!  Why did I wait so long!?  It's fun to play with it!

This is the first card (of many, I expect!) I've made with it.  I used the Coordinations paper from SU as well as the wood embossing folder.  There's a layer of Wisteria Wonder behind that to match the dp (also SU) on the owl.  The card base is Pool Party, but it's hard to see.  The leaves are from a memory box die. I think I used two of them and moved the leaves around a bit for the look that I wanted.

Remember we'll have a new JUGS challenge post up at midnight tonight! So, please come back then (or tomorrow!) to see our Inspiration photo!  You'll love it!
Have a great day!  Cheryl