SIP Challenge #83 - Thanks

I like sketches which have a layer slightly "skewed".  They're fun to use and make an ordinary card just a little bit different.

I decided to use just three colours for my card:  Whisper White, Emerald Envy, Flirty Flamingo, and Mint Macaron.  The stamp set which I used is from the Occasions Catalogue, Special Reason.  My background is hand-coloured and is free from the Sale-a-bration Brochure.  The "Thanks" which I used as my sentiment is from Taylored Expressions and fits perfectly over that cut-out flower.

I hope you'll check out the Design Team cards over at the Stamp Ink Paper Challenge.

Watercooler Wednesday Challenge #103 - Birthday Wishes to the Leader of the Pack

This week's challenge is perfect, at least from my point of view.  Gail Allen is hosting a Masculine "Anything Goes" Challenge and today happens to be my nephew's birthday.  Talk about two birds and a stone, right?

Since this challenge is "anything goes", I began rummaging around my craft room, hunting for masculine products.  There are quite a number of them at the moment.  And then I remembered a stamp set which I had bought shortly before our trip in December and had not introduced to ink yet.  Given Alex's many interests, the set was perfect for his card.  Which one is that?  The One Wild Ride set, of course.  Not only does Alex love motorcycles, but he also makes life the wild ride it has been for the last 39 years.  He and danger have gone steady for years and he has the scars to prove it.

I chose to use primarily neutrals for the card with the addition of some silver.  Why silver?  Because our Alex simply "shines".  The new Hexagons Dynamic embossing folder left an amazingly deep pattern on the Silver Foil.  I embossed two strips, one debossed and one embossed because, quite honestly, I couldn't decide which way I liked the pattern more.  I also added two metal stars from the Urban Underground Embellishments pack.  My base is the Smoky Slate and then I've added layers of Basic Black and Basic Gray.  I've stamped the motorcycle image on Whisper White and then sponged some Basic Gray ink around it to age it a bit and make it appear scuffed.

Of course the inside had to be special too.

I know Alex will love the card.  I hope you do, too.

And now I invite you to check out the amazing cards created by the other Watercooler Artists for our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge this week.

The Wacky Watercooler Second January Mini Blog Hop

Before I begin introducing my projects for this Blog Hop, I want to talk about a friend who should be participating in this blog hop with us today but, instead, is in the hospital fighting for her life.  You will all remember Christine Giuda.  She has participated in our Blog Hops more often than not over the years and her projects are always incredible.  Please pray for this sweet, talented and warm-hearted lady and her family.  Thank you.

* * * * * * * * * * 

This is our second mini blog hop this month, introducing the 2017 Occasions Catalogue as well as 2017's Sale-a-bration.  Some wonderful products have been introduced and, of course, thanks to Sale-a-bration, until March 31st, for every $60 CDN you spend, you get a product FREE from the Sale-a-bration brochure.  Sweet, right?

As you will remember, if you've wandered through our blog hops before, our blog hop is presented in a circular fashion.  What does that mean?  Wherever you begin in our blog hop, whether you go forwards or backwards through the participants, eventually you will wind up precisely where you began.  I hope you'll take time to visit all the participating blogs and, perhaps, leave a short message letting us know  what you've thought of our posts.

If you've been moving forwards through the blog hop, you'll have arrived here from the very talented Jean Fitch's post.  Jean makes her home in Oregon and is a member of our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge artists as well.

* * * * * * * * * * 

For my first project I turned to one of the most outstanding of the new stamp sets, Beautiful You.  Not only are the images beautifully sketched and versatile, but the sentiments included in the set are also some of the best I've seen in quite a while.  I imagine I will be using this set quite happily for years to come.

My card is oversized simply because of what I wanted to include.  I absolutely love the remarkable papers that are part of the Serene Scenery Designer Series paper stack.  I've used some of them before but one, especially, stood out as being perfect for this card.  The beauty of this seaside scene is that it allowed me to use another stamp set which I love along with the Beautiful You set, and that is Wetlands.  Don't those sandpipers look as if they were naturally part of the scene?  

I decided to stamp the image from Beautiful You on a piece of Watercolour Paper and then cut it out using a stitched oval framelit.  I followed along with the natural curves of the colours in the designer paper using an Aqua Brush and several colours of ink.  Since all the sandpipers have shadows, I added a shadow for my lovely lady by first stamping the image on a piece of Window sheet and then quickly placing it on the paper behind my lady, thus providing the shadow.

Instead of leaving the umbrella and dress plain, I used the tiny flower stamp from the Weather Together set to add some blooms.  Then I used my Aqua Painter and the Bermuda Bay and Crushed Curry inks to colour them in.  For my sentiment I used the Thoughtful Banners and matching punch as well as a sentiment from the Beautiful You set.

A few tiny pearls and my card was done.

* * * * * * * * * * 

For my second project I had fun with a mixture of products from the Annual Catalogue, 2017 Occasions Catalogue, and, of course, the Sale-a-bration brochure.  It didn't begin well.  I had decided to use the gorgeous Inside the Lines designer series paper that is offered free during Sale-a-bration.  The main reason for that was that it contains some stunning images which can be coloured with any variety of tools, but, especially with the new Stampin' Up! Watercolor Pencils.  A secondary reason was that the image I chose also included some beautiful dragonfly images and, so far, I haven't bought the new Dragonfly Dreams bundle---next order!

Well, I coloured my images, cut them out using the stitched circle framelits, and totally hated them.  You have to understand that I'm convalescing at the moment and I hit some highs and lows during the day.  Thank goodness I didn't throw away the images (my first impulse), because the next day I knew that I could use them.  And so I hauled out a whole bunch of other products and got to work.  In the end I used some of the Irresistibly Floral Specialty Designer series paper from the Annual Catalogue, the beautiful new Falling Petals embossing folder and Stylish Stems thinlits from the 2017 Occasions Catalogue, and a whole bunch of current cardstocks and inks.

I made it all about circles and added some die-cut leaves and suddenly the images which I had hand-coloured seemed perfect instead of being rejects.  (Remember, I have been having those highs and lows.)  And the whole card just came together almost effortlessly.  

Do you see the slight glitter to the wings of the bee and the dragonfly?  That's due to the subtle effect of the clear Wink of Stella brush.  Trust me, in person those wings simply "rock!"

* * * * * * * * * * 

And that's it for my projects.  I hope you've enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed creating them.  From here you'll be visiting another wonderfully creative stamper, Sheri Lee.  Sheri is another Canadian and is a frequent participant of our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge.

WWC102 - Love You

This week's Watercooler Wednesday Challenge is hosted by Libby Fens and is all about Red on White.  Such a fun Valentine type of challenge, but this one is Clean & Simple.

Of course there are quite a number of heart shapes available in our current Stampin' Up! products.  The problem is deciding which one to use.  I decided that the scribbly heart in the Sunshine Wishes Thinlets would be fun to use, especially along with one of those cute jars from the Jar of Love stamp set.  I cut the heart from a piece of Red Glimmer paper and stamped the jar using Black Memento ink.  I also cut the "love" from another piece of Red Glimmer paper as well as a number of tiny hearts.  (I may have overdone the die-cuts, but I was on a roll.)

I hope you'll check out the wonderful creations by the other Watercooler Artists at our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge.  And I hope you'll welcome our new Watercooler Artist, Heather Hopson, as well.  You'll have seen some of her work in our many challenges since Heather has been a very constant participant.

WWC101 - A Good Friend Like You

Colour challenges are such fun, especially when you love the colours.  Thanks to Jean Fitch's great choices, I found it was very easy to decide just what sort of card to make.  Bonus:  I got to use some of my new products.

It didn't take me long to get my products together.  I used quite a bit of Shimmery White cardstock since it has such a rich and wonderful sheen.   On a base of Heavy White cardstock, I added a layer of Bermuda Bay and then an embossed layer of Shimmery White.  The Falling Petals embossing folder added such a lovely background, I almost didn't want to cover it up.  But I had more ideas, so I did cover up a small amount of it with the Ovals that I added.

For my Ovals, I chose a stitched oval in cutting out my Shimmery White and then a scalloped oval in cutting out the Bermuda Bay backing.  You can't see the smaller oval which I used to cut out the Sweet Sugarplum which backs the beautiful flower die-cut using the Stylish Stems framelits.  I also added a hand-cut oval to use in the centre of the flower, of course cut from So Saffron.

With all my colours used, I simply assembled everything and then stamped the lovely sentiment from the Special Reason stamp set in the upper right corner, using Bermuda Bay ink.

I hope you'll check out the wonderful creations by the other Watercooler Artists at our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge this week.

WWC100 - Let's Celebrate 100 Challenges!

Better late than never is so true this time around.  I'm adding this at the last possible minute, to take part in the last 10 minutes of the challenge.  Dedicated?  People who know me will have other words, none quite that complimentary.  But I had looked forward to this 100th Challenge for months.  Let me have my 10 minutes of satisfaction that I actually participated.

I kept it simple...had to.  My energy levels are rather low at the moment.  But fancy or simple, the 100th celebration is something for which we, at the Watercooler Wednesday Challenge are proud.

And onward to the next 100...