Mojo Monday March Contest

I won't get as far as saying I'm getting better at getting a project done in time for a contest. This week, everything just fell into place at the right time. Mainly, new stamps from PTI arrived a couple days ago (yeah!) and this sketch gave me the perfect reason to get them out and ink them up.

I love love love the new Friends 'Til The End Stamp Set. While I was shopping, I added Damask Designs, Dawn McVey's first stamp set designed by her. There are so many possibilities (as with so many sets!), that I couldn't resist.

Okay, so those are the two sets from PTI that I used on my card. I also used Simple Stitches (CTMH). I just finished up a layout the other day using one of CTMH's new paper packs, Emporium. The colors are so yummy. :-) So I used the same color scheme on my card: Vineyard Berry, Twilight, Crystal Blue, Sweet Leaf. I added Vineyard Berry ribbon and stickles to the middle of the flower. I popped the flower with foam dots and that cool label on which the flowers are random stamped is done using a Nestabilities die by Spellbinders.

The sketch:

and my card:

Over The Rainbow

I created this card for a color challenge contest last month. Although, it was more of just a color challenge for me since I wasn't able to get to it in time to be eligible for winning. It's a fun color combo and one that I'd like to use again with different stamps and papers. The stamp set is the first set I bought from Papertrey Ink - Beautiful Blooms. I love PTI stamps and the design team always comes up with such neat ideas and beautiful creations each month during releases. PTI just celebrated their 2nd Anniversary last month. Nichole Heady certainly knows how to throw a party. It was so much fun logging in each day for a couple weeks to see what she was up to and what was coming next. It's going to be another great year of stamps and guest designers and new products!




CTMH Colors I used: Twilight, Holiday Red, Creme Brulee, Olive Green

PTI colors:

Try something with these colors today (or tomorrow...or soon!)
Happy Creating!
Kim

Sweet Contest for January PageMaps

Becky Fleck is having a contest over on her blog. It was a great opportunity for me to get a LO done and enter a fun contest.

Here is the sketch:




And here is what I did with it:




This is a LO of my DS 2.5 yrs ago loving every moment of this cotton candy chow down. I don't let my kids have many sweets so when they get a special treat, they devour it. My daugther completely devoured hers, but Trevor here couldn't finish the last several bites. I would've happily eaten the leftovers 'cause I happen to love cotton candy too (and didn't get one for myself...) but as the pictures show, he didn't just grab bites with his fingers so the leftovers were sticky and gooey - yuck. No thanks! Anyway, I was happy to find this BasicGrey paper that had some touches of pink so I could actually get away with pink on my son's layout! Woo hoo!

I used waxy flax in some of the buttons, some old SEI letters, a Maya Road felt arrow, my circle coluzzle for the circle, some of CTMH's new clear shapes and stamped some of the papers with CTMH's new Boutique Borders and an older set, Spot-On-Backgrounds.

Thanks for looking. Have a great day!

Happy Creating!

Happy New Year!

I don't think it would be very realistic of me to say my New Year's resolution is to update my blog more often. I do have some things to share but uploading, editing and posting took a backseat to December activities and I'm sure they'll end up in that backseat again many times this year.

I thought I was being so good that last post...woo hoo...3 posts in one week or something like that. Unfortunately other things get neglected when I focus on crafting and blogging so finding that balance is key I suppose. Maybe that'll be my goal for 2009 - balance - just like Oprah.

So I created a SideMap for Becky Fleck this month. I wanted to do so much more but had to keep it simple in the end because of time.




This is my sweet daughter last month. I had her all dressed up, hair done and ready to get her picture taken. She wouldn't have anything to do with it. Try as he might, the photographer could not for the life of him turn her frown upside down. And he tried. He's really good but even the best can't make a determined kid change her mind. So we got home and I did my own photo shoot in our backyard. I think I managed to snap a few good shots, but didn't get that portrait setting I was wanting by any means. Oh well. I still ordered some of the serious pictures the photographer took so she can see just how stubborn she was as a toddler. They are pretty cute even though there's not a hint of happy in the pictures.

I love that Basic Grey papers don't need much embellishing since the patterns are usually so beautiful. I added a stamped heart, a chipboard bird (with another stamped heart on its body), the two tags and stamped a flourish background on the pink cardstock. Simple and speedy!

Go to PageMaps to check out all the new "maps" for the month!

I have more cards and such to share for another day. Come back....sometime in the near future.

Happy Creating!

Record Breaking

Two posts in one day and 3 cards! Wow. Don't stop me now. LOL.

Okay, so I had all the colors out for Marjorie's Color Challenge this last week (Outdoor Denim, Tulip, Ocean, Crystal Blue) and I always end up with scraps that are too big to throw away (I really don't throw any scraps away actually - not good for organization!). So I decided this week that I'd make at least 3 cards using the same color combo. I ended up checking out a couple other sketch challenges this week that I brought to my craft corner.

I love my Bellas but I haven't used them in a while so I hopped on over to the Bella Board and found the Bella Sketch Challenge for the week.

Here is BSC55:




Since my cuttlebug was out for my other card, I was motivated to use it again for this card. The embossed cardstock really makes a difference!

Besides Prezzie Bella, I used CTMH's Oct SOTM (Annotations) and Spot-on Backgrounds for the polka-dotted flower.

For my 3rd card in this color combo, I worked with the Mojo Monday Sketch 61 for the week.




I used an old CTMH booking set for the snowflakes, Magical Christmas and Say-it-in-Style Stamp Sets. I've become the proud owner of a couple Martha Stewart Punches recently and the scalloped border is one of those. I touched up the snowman's snowflakes with some stickles and those gems are from the $1 bin at Michael's (last year sometime...). The ribbon is from Michael's too (in the Christmas ribbon section - which I LOVE!).

Be sure to scroll down for my other post from today that shows my 3rd card.

Have a great weekend!!
Kim

Blog Candy Inspired

There's nothing like some fun free crafting goodies to get the creative juices flowing! Marjorie is celebrating 40K hits on her blog with some blog candy. Not only do I follow her blog because of her color challenges, but she always posts such inspiring cards and layouts. She's a mommy of two young girls and it is inspiring to see how much creating she is able to do too...and post! So here is my card based on her sketch. It also uses the colors she posted for her last color challenge. I used (shhhh, don't tell anyone) a SU! stamp. I only have it 'cause my sister gave it to me for my birthday. :-)



All CTMH cardstock here with the SU! stamp (I think it's called Big on Christmas). I ran the Tulip cardstock through my cuttlebug with the swiss dots embossing folder (love that folder!). I sanded the dots to expose the white core. I used a booking stamp set from a few years ago for the snowflakes on the Heavenly Blue CS and sanded the textured Ocean CS. I added some red and ocean ribbon that I probably got from Michael's and put an Outdoor Denim button on top. The stamped image is on pop dots to give the card some dimension.

Here is the sketch I followed in case you'd like to give it a try too.



Thanks for looking!
Happy Creating,
Kim

Love is Blooming

Another post so soon? Yes, I'm back with more and it's only been 2 days since my last post. We'll see how long I can keep it up!

I made this card for Marjorie's Color Challenge a week or so ago. The colors are: Tulip, Petal, Pansy Purple and Creme Brulee. I also used Taylor's Sketch TECC40 for the card layout.

Mostly CTMH products were used with a couple exceptions. I love the hearty tree from Stamping Bella . The sentiment from CTMH's Blooming Flourishes stamp set goes along with it perfectly. I also sprayed this card with the Maya Road Gold Metallic Mist. I love the shimmer!

Here's a closer picture of the shimmery goodness:



I have more to show you but I'm out of time for blog posting so come back soon and I will too!

Happy Creating,

Kim