ATSM #303 - Holiday

It's time for another Addicted to Stamps & More Challenge.  This time it's all about Holidays.

For this card I used one of my favourite Christmas sets (sadly retired by Stampin' Up!) called Christmas Magic.  I think it's magical the way the holiday train is coming out of that tunnel, carrying all those wonderful gifts.  I've gone over parts of the train and snow with some H2O sparkle.  In real life it makes a dazzling difference.

Check out the awesome creations by the rest of the Design Team and link up your card HERE.

I've also entered my card in the following:

Crimbo Crackers Challenge #163 - Anything Goes
Dream Valley Challenges #183 - Christmas in July

WWC180 - Marsha's "All About Holidays" Challenge

Woo Hoo!  We have a brand new challenge today!  Marsha is hosting the new "All About Holidays" Challenge this week.  I'm excited because it means I could make a card for any special holiday.  How perfect when Easter and Thanksgiving roll around!

You can see a few of the choices of holidays on the banners shown in the challenge icon.  I've decided that I may as well keep adding to my Christmas stash.  I don't want to be scrambling to make my cards when it's time to write them, after all.

I chose a clean and simple design with my card base in the Heavy Whisper White.  On a regular weight Whisper White I used a circle mask to sponge Bermuda Bay topped with a light coat of Pacific Point.  Then I removed the mask and let my circle dry.  At that point I used my Memento ink to stamp the trees, the reindeer, and the sentiment from the wonderful (and still current) Nature Sings stamp set.

I added a bit of Soft Suede to the reindeer and a bit of Mossy Meadow to the trees, using my Stampin' Markers.  I attached the piece to my base using the Foam Adhesive Strips and then added five sequins.  Simple but I love the results, don't you?

I hope you'll check out the wonderful creations by the other Watercooler Artists at our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge blog.   And then I invite you to link up your Holiday creation to our challenge.

I'm also entering my card in the Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge #32 - Anything Christmas

as well as in the Crafty Gals Corner Challenge 170 - Christmas in July

WWC179 - Heidi's Masculine "Anything Goes" Challenge

It's my turn to host the Masculine "Anything Goes" Challenge this week.  What fun!  Masculine cards always add to the challenge, making me think outside my usual comfortable "box".  Of course I have enough men in my family to make having a stash of masculine cards a real bonus. 

I bought the Rooted In Nature Bundle right after the OnStage which Stampin' Up! hosted in Red Deer, Alberta.  Sadly this is the first time I will have used it.  And quite honestly, it's not purely a masculine styled bundle.  This set can be used for all sorts of occasions and creations.  Having used it now, and having loved all the images and framelits that make up my card, I am at a loss as to my long wait in  creating with it.  You can be assured I won't be waiting long to use it again.

Since this is a masculine challenge, I thought that using the carried-over Wood Textures Designer Series paper would be a great start.  In fact I pulled all my paper and ink colours from this designer paper.  My base is the new Gray Granite, then comes the designer paper, and then layers of Early Espresso and more Gray Granite.  That final layer of Gray Granite really shows off the great embossing possible with several pieces of the Nature's Roots Framelits dies.  I used all three of the embossing dies for this textured background. 

I also stamped the tree onto a piece of the Gray Granite using the Mossy Meadow ink, stamped off once.  Then I used the matching framelit to cut it out and mounted it onto the embossed piece using Dimensionals.  If you look carefully, you'll see that I actually stamped the tree several times and then added more dimension by cutting out three sections of foliage and mounting them over the stamped image.

I love how the copper ribbon allows itself to be pulled wider and formed.  That's what I've done here and then I've glued the undulating form onto the paper using Tombo white glue.  That embossed leaf is cut from Champagne Foil and then I've run my Smoky Slate marker over it to dull the shine and add more interest to the embossing.

I hope you'll check out the awesome creations by our other Watercooler Artists at the Watercooler Wednesday Challenge blog.

I've also entered my card into the Sunday Stamps SSC183 - Cottage Colours

ATSM #301 - Anything Goes

It's time for another Addicted to Stamps and More Challenge.  This time it's an anything goes.

For this card I used the sweet Moon Baby stamp set (sadly retired).  I coloured the images with my Koh-I-Noor Colour Pencils and Gamsol.  Those embossed hearts on the background textured blue cardstock echo the star hanging from the baby's hand.  Unfortunately the photo doesn't pick up the sparkle of the Wink of Stella on that star.

Check out the awesome creations by the rest of the team and link up your creation.

WWC178 - Crystal's "All About Occasions" Challenge

It's Crystal's turn to host our challenge, which is "All About Occasions" this week.  I love special occasions, don't you?  This time, since I was dying to use a brand new stamp set which I just bought, I decided on a birthday card.

Which stamp set?  I can just about hear people asking the question.  Well, I won't delay any longer.  This week I finally got an Art Impressions set which I had ordered a little while ago.  Bonnie Krebs, the original artist, has done a wonderful job creating this adorable set of Sloths.  The image of the one in the birthday hat, hanging off a branch "spoke" to me.

I wanted this to be a bright and happy card and so, after using a white card base, I used a "skinny" layer of Soft Suede as a matte for the gorgeous new Pineapple Punch In-Color.  It's such a clear and bright yellow and sets off the Real Red of the "celebrate" die-cut sentiment and rounded matte for the main image.

On a piece of Whisper White I stamped that wonderfully goofy Sloth and had a ball colouring him.  For the balloon, I coloured the image using Real Red even though it is mainly covered with that cute Real Red Honeycomb embellishment (sadly retired).  For the party hat I continued with the red and yellow theme.  To finish up the image panel, I used my aqua-painter to add splotches of Pear Pizzazz, Coastal Cabana, and Old Olive to give an illusion of leaves and sky peeking though.

What can I say?  He makes me smile.  I hope he makes the birthday boy smile as well.

For a look at the wonderful creations by our Watercooler Artists, check out our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge blog.  And then feel free to link up your own special occasion card.

I'm also entering my birthday card into the Addicted to Stamps & More Challenge #300 - Birthdays
And also into the Sunny Day Crafting Challenge #26 - Any Animal

WWC177 - Charlotte's Feminine "Anything Goes" Challenge

Oh, so much happening today.  First of all, Happy Birthday to our neighbours to the south, celebrating their 4th of July.  Second of all, we have a brand new Watercooler Artist who is joining our team this week, Crystal Komara, who many of you may already know from her Super Stamp Girl blog.

Last but definitely not least, Charlotte is hosting our awesome Feminine "Anything Goes" Challenge this week.  I'm dying to show you the card I designed!

I'm still sorting through my all-too-horrifically large stash of stamping products.  Of course it's a lot of work but every once in a while it's like striking gold.  (Okay, I'm easily excited.)  This time I found a sheet and a half of some Designer Paper which I absolutely LOVED when it came out and stashed away so that it wouldn't all be used and disappear.  (How sad is that?  Paper should be used.  Right?)

Well this retired paper inspired the entire card which I created.  You can see, it's all about the dandelion seeds in black, floating across the white background.  Simple, yes.  Striking---oh my goodness, yes!  And so I took my Fairy Celebration stamp set and stamped the little fairy sitting on the toadstool, surrounded by flowers.  Once the ink had thoroughly dried, I used my stitched oval framelit to cut it out.  Then I used my scalloped oval framelit to cut out a piece of Basic Black cardstock as a matte.

Because I wanted the card to be predominantly black and white, I coloured only the top of the toadstool and the little fairy, leaving the rest of the image black and white.  Because I'm still in love with the colour pencil/Gamsol technique of colouring, I turned to my set of Derwent Colourself pencils and had a ball bringing the little fairy to life.

For my sentiment I did much the same as I did with the image, using a sentiment from the Beautiful You stamp set matted on a Basic Black scalloped oval.  That pretty coard under the sentiment is black and as shiny as can be.  It's in the new Annual Catalogue and is simply called Black 1/8" Cord.  Its impact is not so  simple.

I hope you'll check out the cards created by the other Watercooler Artists at our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge blog.

I've also entered this card in the Just Us Girls Challenge #447 - Anything Goes

And also the Try it on Tuesday Challenge - Things with Wings

ATSM #299 - CAS (Just a Little Note...)

I'm so excited to begin as a member of the Addicted to Stamps & More design team.  Since this week's challenge is all about clean and simple, I went wading through my stamps for inspiration.  Thanks to Tim Holtz, inspiration didn't take long in coming.

I love this coneflower!  It was such fun to colour, especially since these wonderful flowers come in a variety of colours.  For this one I stuck to my mauves and lilacs, using my beautiful Coloursoft pencils by Derwent and then smoothing them out with Gamsol.  For my sentiment, I used the brand new Highland Heather ink which came out in the Stampin' Up! Annual Catalogue.  To finish up and add a bit of pattern, I cut the white matte onto which I attached my fussy cut flower with a new Gina Marie designs set of dotted-line dies.

Check out the awesome creations by the rest of the team and link up your creation.

WWC176 - Kath's "All About Christmas" Challenge

It's Kath's turn to host a challenge this week and this time it's "All About Christmas".  I love this challenge and have a nice little stash of Christmas cards building up, waiting to be filled out and sent at the end of the year.  Such a "painless" way to do it!

I had the worst time with this card!  Oh, making it was fun and no trouble at all, but getting a decent photograph was such a pain that I almost decided to make a different card.  Why, you ask.  Well, I'll bet you think this is a blue and white card, right?  You would be wrong.  This card is definitely blue.  In fact I've used one of my favourites, the Pacific Point cardstock.  Everything else is silver.  The background to the die-cut oval piece, the scalloped edge around the embossed piece, and the heat-embossed sentiment:  all are silver.  Try as I might, they all photographed white. 

In person this card looks elegant and absolutely gorgeous.

I've used the Sparkle embossing folder.  I've also used the Hometown Greetings Edgelits.  And that sentiment?  That's from the Nature Sings stamp set.  Don't they all work well together?

I hope you'll check out the awesome samples by the other Watercooler Artists over at our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge blog.

I'm also entering this card into the CHNC Challenge #391 - Christmas Anything Goes

WWC175 - Marsha's Masculine "Anything Goes" Challenge

I love our Masculine "Anything Goes" Challenge.  It gives me the opportunity to build up a stash of cards to which I can turn when the many men in our family have another birthday or a special event.  This week Marsha is our host for this challenge.

Just a reminder about our Design Team call which will end with this challenge, on June 25th.  I hope to see your card linked up with a DT so that we can consider you for our team.

For this week's challenge, I decided to use the new Sitting Pretty bundle.  Isn't that bulldog adorable?  I love him and the way you can either colour him from "scratch" or use the provided second stamp to colour him.  I decided to use a combination of Soft Suede and Crumb Cake because I have several bulldog friends with those colours.

I wanted an interesting background and so used the embossing framelit in the bundle to create that slate floor upon which he's sitting so pretty.  After doing the embossing, I lightly sponged over the slate with some Smoky Slate ink.  For the brick wall behind him, I used the brick stencil from the Pattern Party Decorative Masks and some of my white Embossing Paste (with a couple of drops of Sahara Sand ink stirred in).

Since this is a birthday card, I embossed the front of my Basic Gray base cardstock using the Polka Dot Basics ef.  The next layer is the beautiful new In-Color, Lovely Lipstick.  I used the Balloon Bouquet punch for my balloons, cutting the large one from a piece of Pineapple Punch and the smaller one from a piece of Lovely Lipstick.  The little heart is cut from Red Foil.

I loved creating the little birthday banner using the Duet Banner punch and the coordinating Thoughtful Banners stamp set.  My inks are, again, the Pineapple Punch and Lovely Lipstick.

I hope you'll check out the wonderful creation by the other Watercooler Artists at our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge blog.  I look forward to seeing your creation linked up, too.

I'm also entering my card into the Stinkin' Inkers Challenge - The Guys Have It.

And also in the Try It On Tuesday Challenge - For the Boys.

You're Incredible!

As I continue to sort through my retired stamps, I come across sets which I've kept simply because they work perfectly for kids, especially boys.  One of the sets I came across this morning is the Everyday Hero stamp set.  I love the way you can put the images together to make the card more "girlie" or more"for the boys".  After all, super-heroes should not automatically be boys (or men). 

Using the new Gray Granite to stamp on, I used the Basic Gray to stamp the city scape at the bottom of the piece.  I wanted it to be twilight or dark and this combination worked well.  It also allowed me to stamp the big "expression frame" using the new Lovely Lipstick.  Having that in place, I heat embossed the sentiment "You're incredible!" using White embossing powder, placing it between the city scape and the "frame".  Then I free-handed two "WOW" sentiments using an embossing pen and then heat embossed those using White embossing powder.

My "hero" would fit perfectly into that "expression frame".  The stamps in the set let you mix and match heads, bodies, and capes.  It's such fun because there are almost endless choices.  Mine wound up being a blond guy wearing a blue mask and a blue cape.  His costume is a vivid red and yellow.  Of course I used my Stampin' Blends to do the colouring.  Once I had mounted the super hero using Dimensions, I used a narrow Whisper White matte and then attached the whole piece to my base of Coastal Cabana.

This was a fun card to create.  I've decided to enter it into the TGIF Challenge #tgifc164 - Doodle bug since I've hand drawn the two "wow's" and also drew in some lit up windows in the city scape.

And I'm also entering it into the Try It On Tuesday - For the Boys challenge.

WWC174 - Gail's "All About Occasions" Challenge

Oh what fun!  This week's challenge is hosted by Gail Allen and is "All About Occasions".  I love this challenge because there is such a wealth of occasions to choose from during the year.

I had been playing around with an idea for a while and decided it was time to see  if reality could come close  to my imagining.  It all began with the gorgeous Share What You Love Specialty Designer Paper pack.  Those of you who have it will know exactly what I mean.  This paper is enough to inspire anyone.  And while I absolutely love the weight  of it and the indescribable look of the translucent and pearlized finish on the one side, it is the other side of one of the designs which set me on the road to my design.  The pattern which I used has no addition of shimmer but it makes me think of someone watercolouring the series of small circles.

There are some awesome colours in this particular designer paper and so it was easy to choose the colours I used for both the watercolouring and the mattes.  My mattes are Mint Macaron and Rich Razzleberry.  For the die-cut birthday and the paint "dripping" from it, I used Mint Macaron, Rich Razzleberry, So Saffron, Pear Pizzaz and Grapefruit Grove.  Those colours are all echoed in the background designer paper.

I've been  going through my retired stamps and came across the Talented Trio set (which I've decided to keep) and realized that I hadn't yet stamped with the little artist.  Well this card took care of that omission.  For her I used the Rich Razzleberry and So Saffron for her smock and the Mint Macaron and Rich Razzleberry for her paint brushes.  I really enjoyed using my inks and AquaPainter for this card.

I hope you've enjoyed checking out my card and reading about the materials.  You'll find more when you visit the blogs of the other Watercooler Artists featured in our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge post.  I look forward to seeing your awesome cards linked up to the challenge.

By the way, you'll see we're also having a Design Team call.  Sadly we lost two of our team members because of personal and family responsibilities.  I'm really going to miss Penny Hanuszak and Tenia Nelson.  Now it's time to see who wants to be part of our awesome team.

WWC173 - Tenia's Feminine "Anything Goes" Challenge

This week Tenia Nelson is hosting our popular Feminine "Anything Goes" Challenge and, of course, you know that I love this particular challenge.  A lot of my stamps are more "girly" than neutral and so I most frequently create cards with a feminine touch.

At the moment I'm going through a huge sorting job.  What am I sorting?  I've decided that I am borderline "hoarder" with my retired stamps and so I have instructed myself to be more realistic and actually keep only those stamp sets which I know I will use.  What good are a whole lot of "oh, but I love it stamps" when they're not being used?

This stamp set which I've used, Indescribable Gift, is one that I'm on the fence about.  In its lifetime with me I've used it perhaps four or five times.  Each time I love it and love colouring it and make promises about using it more often (which I consequently break).  Again, when I used it this time I began to fall in love again.  I think, however, it's with the act of colouring and not necessarily with the stamp set.  And so this is my "goodbye" play with this particular stamp set.

Aren't the blossoms stunning, watercoloured with the gorgeous new Lovely Lipstick ink?  And the leaves, too, with the combination of Tranquil Tide and Granny Apple Green inks?  The new colour refresh which Stampin' Up! introduced with the new Annual Catalogue really is exciting and refreshing.  Certainly, I'll miss several of the retired colours but, oh, how beautiful the new colours are which replaced them!

I've layered the Tranquil Tide with Whisper White for my background.  The fun stamped textures are from the Artisan Textures stamp set and used the Tranquil Tide and Granny Apple Green inks.  For the off-kilter square in which I've stamped my image, I used a matte of Lovely Lipstick.  The textures behind and around the blossom are also from the Artisan Textures set and were stamped with the Balmy Blue (off-stamped once).

So "goodbye" to this lovely stamp set and "hello" to our challenge.  I hope you'll check out the awesome samples created by our wonderful Watercooler Artists at our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge blog.

WWC172 - Anything Goes

I love it when a fifth Wednesday comes along in a month because it means that we have a "wide open" Anything Goes challenge.  Sometimes I've created a fancy box or another type of 3-D project but this time I kept it simple.  But that's the beauty of the Anything Goes challenge.

Like I said, I decided to keep my project simple this time.  I love the Stampendous House Mouse designs.  There are so many adorable little critters, many of whom have been  given names because they have so many adventures together.  I found one which simply "spoke" to me and so, of course, I had to have it.  It's a tiny little mouse, nestled among the pussy-willows, eyes shut and clearly taking a nap. 

Because it's all about the image, I made my card clean and simple.  My base is the Heavy Whisper White, the next layer is Mossy Meadow and the final layer is Whisper White.  First I stamped my image on the Whisper White and then, after it had fully dried, I used my Derwent Coloursoft pencils, bringing the mouse and pussy-willows to life with the colours.  Using the Gamsol afterwards to blend and smooth out the colours was next to magical.  I also added a bit of soft blue around the image and stamped some "bubbles" using Soft Sky, just to finish it off.

The sentiment is one of my favourites and is from the retiring Hostess Feathery Friends set.  I added a few black rhinestones to finish off.

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

I'm linking this card to the following challenges:

Creative Moments Challenge #144 - Anything Goes/Animals

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge Blog - Simon Says Anything Goes

HMFMC #267 - Anything Goes

WWC171 - Heidi's "All About Christmas" Challenge

It's my turn to host our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge and I couldn't be more thrilled.  My challenge is the "All About Christmas" Challenge this time.  How cool is that?  I can add another card to my growing stash of Christmas cards.

I bought the Apron of Love bundle a few months back and so far only got so far as to open the stamp case, look at the stamps and then put it away again.  For some reason it didn't "speak" to me or get my creative juices flowing.  Until now!  This time I opened that stamp case and began using those stamps.  And those matching framelits.  I had so much fun!

Of course one of the key points to getting my creative juices flowing was that I was sorting my retired Designer Paper.  I had put that chore off far too long, as you can tell from the paper I pulled out to use for this card.  This is the Candy Cane Lane Designer Series Paper which actually retired at the end of December, 2016.  And I still love it!

My colours are all pulled  from the designer paper:  my base is Whisper White.  The layers are Real Red, Crumb Cake and Early Espresso.  Do you see the embossed design on the Early Espresso?  I created that by putting my paper through the Big Shot twice, laying the paper first slanted one way and then the other, using the Simple Stripes embossing folder.

I cut the apron from a piece of the previously mentioned designer paper and the pocket as well.  The baking mitt is stamped on Whisper White using Real Red.  The rolling pin is cut from the gorgeous (and carried over) Wood Textures designer paper while the whisk is cut from Silver Foil.  The spatula and wooden spoon were both cut from Very Vanilla and then coloured.  And finally, the Merry Christmas sentiment is heat embossed in White on Real Red cardstock.

But the fun begins inside the card.  I decided to use the adorable gingerbread people from the Cookie Cutter Christmas bundle.  I stamped them on Crumb Cake cardstock using Crumb Cake ink.  Then I cut them out using the coordinating punch.  To bring out their eyes and mouth, I used black and Real Red.  For the white icing "piping", I used the White Chalk marker.  They're standing on a "cookie sheet" of Silver Foil.  I used the sentiment from their stamp set since it seemed to say it all so well.

For the background, I turned to the same Designer Series paper again.  The diagonal stripes in Real Red, Crumb Cake and White looked great behind those adorable gingerbread people.  I liked it so well that I used a similarly striped piece of retired Washi tape at the foot of the card.

I hope you've enjoyed my little creation.  Pop Up cards are such fun to make and to receive.  

I trust you'll check out the wonderful creations by the other Watercooler Artists over at our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge blog.  And then I hope to see your card linked up for my challenge.

I'm also entering my card into the Merry Monday Christmas Challenge #291 - Add sweets, canes or cookies to your card

The Addicted to Stamps and More #293 - Holiday

And in the Fab 'n Funky #395 Challenge - Christmas

WWC170 - Penny's Masculine "Anything Goes" Challenge

It's time for another Watercooler Wednesday Challenge and today Penny is our host.  I love the masculine "anything goes" challenges since I always wind up needing a lot of masculine cards, what with my husband, brother-in-law, son-in-law, grandsons, nephews and friends.  Our masculine challenge is my opportunity to add to my "stash".

I'll admit it was hard to decide what to do for this card.  I had so many different ideas, using current sets, retired sets and even the new ones which I had a chance to pre-order from the new catalogue.  Finally I decided on one of the new ones, the Enjoy Life stamp set, which has some awesome images and sentiments.  Since I had decided not to use the retiring Truly Taylored set, I turned to the gorgeous designer paper in that suite, the True Gentleman Designer Series paper.  I love that wonderful mix of colours and, to compliment the pattern I chose, used coordinating papers and ink.  My base  is Crumb Cake followed by a layer of Tranquil Tide and then the patterned paper.  Then I cut out a piece of the retiring Chocolate Chip using my Stitched Squares framelits and a piece of the Very Vanilla using my retired Squares framelits.

Since the darkest colour in the patterned paper is the Night of Navy, I decided to stamp my image and sentiment onto the Very Vanilla piece using that ink.  The image is so strong and the sentiment is just perfect and so I added nothing else.  Sometimes less is definitely more.

I love the way this card turned out.  I'm looking forward to using it for either a birthday card or "hello" card sometime soon.

I hope you'll check out the awesome cards created by our Guest Designer, Stephanie Lanzalotto and the other Watercooler Artists over at our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge blog.  Better still, link up your own for us to enjoy.

I'm also entering this card in the Cardz 4 Guyz Challenge #194 - Men's Hobbies (bicycling)

WWC169 - Charlotte's "All About Occasions" Challenge

I love the "All About Occasions" challenges, don't you?  This week Charlotte is our host and I just know there are going to be some awesome cards for this challenge.

With Mother's Day coming up within days here in Canada, of course I decided to make a card with that in mind.  Since my own Mum has passed on to a kinder, more joyful home, I decided to make this card for my beautiful daughter.  Shera-Lee is an awesome Mother to her two boys and deserves to be celebrated each and every day, especially on Mother's Day.

For this card I decided to use a combination  of products, both brand new to the upcoming Annual Catalogue and, unfortunately retiring with the current Annual Catalogue.  The ones retiring are the gorgeous Myths & Magic Specialty Designer Series paper which I've used for my base.  It has bubbles which are embossed in an irridescent, glittery design.  It looks amazing in this photo but even more so in real life.  The other retiring product which I've used  is the sentiment from the Birthday Blossoms set.

The rest is all new product and it's exciting to showcase it for you.  Don't you just love the heron and water-lilies from the new Lilypad Lake Bundle?  And that gorgeous paper in the foreground under the sentiment is from the new Share What You Love Specialty Designer series paper  which just takes my breath away with those wonderful pearlized pages.

The sun  rising in the distance is from the fun Waterfront stamp set while those clouds are from the Lift me Up set.  I've used my inks and AquaPainter to add the soft colours.

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

I'm also linking this card up to the following challenges:

Crafty Animals Challenge #14 - Anything Goes

Addicted to Stamps & More #291 - Anything Goes

Delightfully Detailed and Overall Fun

There are some fun products coming up in the new Stampin' Up!  Annual Catalogue.  I'm playing with a few now and they're all available to us beginning June 1st.

I was lucky enough to be able to attend our OnStage in Red Deer this year.  OnStage is like a mini convention linked all over the world, in the many countries which have Stampin' Up! Demonstrators.  One of the perks of going to OnStage is getting to see all the new products early.  Another perk is getting a few of those products as gifts or as an early pre-order.  Some of the products which I used for this awesome little card were gifts and I can hardly wait to get more.

The little notecard base which I've used is a new product, the same size as our current notecards, but in Very Vanilla with a gorgeous water-colour wash over them.  The one I've used here has a Mint Macaroon wash and is so pretty even without anything added.  But of course I've had to add things.  One of those things is a stunning laser-cut floral design which has a Very Vanilla side and a Whisper White side.  I've, of course, used the Very Vanilla.

Another new product I've used is the fun and versatile Whisper White Polka Dot Tulle ribbon which is being introduced.  It's easy to colour using our inks, but in this case I've simply attached it over a piece of the new Grapefruit Grove cardstock.  Doesn't that show off the Polka Dots beautifully?

And as a last goodbye, I've added a butterfly cut from the new Share What You Love Specialty Designer Series paper.  I'll miss the Bold Butterfly framelits and the Butterflies thinlits.  If you don't already have them, remember, they won't be in the new Annual Catalogue.

I'm entering my card in the Let's Craft and Create Challenge #137 - Anything Goes

And in the Dream Valley Challenge #178 - Add Ribbon or Lace

WWC168 - Helen's Feminine "Anything Goes" Challenge

I'm so glad that we're having a Feminine "Anything Goes" challenge this week.  Helen Finlay is our host and we have some absolutely awesome samples over at the challenge blog.  But this post is all about my card.  I had such fun creating it!

I think everyone has heard about some of our returning colours.  For this card I turned to two of them, since they're featured in the Specialty Designer paper which I've used.  I'm in love with the paper!  Many of the designs have a pearlized finish to some of the images and the shine is wonderful.  For that very reason I've included some silver foil in my card, to match that wonderful shine.

I've had fun including a couple of the new stamp sets and thinlits, too.  This wonderful butterfly, for example, which I've heat embossed in white on Blackberry Bliss is from the Painted Glass Bundle. To add some shine I've used the Clear Wink of Stella in places.

I've used the thinlits from the same bundle for this dainty frame, cut from Rich Razzleberry and attached over a layer of Silver Foil.  The sentiment in the centre is heat embossed in white on a piece of Blackberry Bliss and is from the new Enjoy Life stamp set.

Of course the lovely floral background is from the new Share What You Love Designer Series paper which, as I've mentioned, has a wonderful pearlized finish in places.  Some of those flowers which appear white are actually blue but the light has caught them and they shine as brightly as the silver I've used elsewhere.  In person this is stunning!

My base is the Heavy Whisper White and then I've added a layer of the returning Mossy Meadow, then a layer of Silver Foil and finally the wonderful printed piece.  My butterfly and the sentiment square are both raised on Dimensionals.  As for any other embellishment---well, simply put, I don't think I needed any.

I can see many more projects being created with these products.  I'm in love!

I hope you'll check out the awesome creations created by the rest of the Watercooler Artists over at our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge.  And then feel free to link up your own creation for us to enjoy.

I'm also linking my card to the following challenges:

Pause Dream Enjoy Challenge #18 - Lots of Layers

Fab & Funky Challenges #392 - Wet or Dry Embossing

Double "D" Challenges - May Flowers

Crafting by Designs - Anything Goes May Edition