Curtain Call Inspiration Challenge--Back to School

It's time for a new Curtain Call Inspiration Challenge!  Our theme this week is Back to School, and the timing couldn't be any more perfect as my two kiddos start 3rd grade and Kindergarten next week.

We have another wonderful sponsor this week:  The Alley Way Stamps is offering their Learning Curve stamp set to the LEAD this week, so be sure to play along for your chance to win!

My mojo has been absent lately, so I kept my design simple with just a strip of patterned paper and some stamped images from Paper Smooches' Smarty Pants.  I added just a few swipes of Copic marker to add a little something to the images without having to color.

Cardstock:  WPlus9 Design Studio (Kraft)

Patterned paper:  Fancy Pants

Stamps:  Paper Smooches (Smarty Pants)

Ink:  Stampin' Up! (Chocolate Chip), Copic marker

Tool:  corner rounder

This one might be going to my husband, my very own absent-minded professor, as classes start at the College next week, too.

I hope you'll join us for our Back to School challenge!  Be sure to visit the Challenge blog to be inspired by the Design Team and link up your creation.

Have a great day!

CAS-ual Fridays #69--Embossing

Welcome back, friends!  We've made it to the end of another week!  I am definitely ready for the weekend.  What do you have planned?

One of my favorite things about the weekend--a new challenge at CAS-ual Fridays!  Now before you think I've gotten stuck on last week's Top of the Class challenge, let me introduce this week's theme:  embossing!

You can choose heat or dry embossing (or both!) on your clean and simple design, just be sure to link it up for your chance to be a Guest Designer at CAS-ual Fridays and win a gift certificate to use at Simon Says Stamp.

My Paper Smooches stamps have been getting a lot of use lately.  :)  For this card, I paired images from Smarty Pants with the small pocket from WPlus9's A Pocketful.

The white "stitching" on the pocket is heat embossed, and I used PTI's Book Print impression plate on the white panel to go with the school theme.  The pocket was given some added texture with the Linen & Canvas impression plate, too.

Cardstock:  Papertrey Ink (Pure Poppy, Enchanted Evening), WPlus9 Design Studio (White)

Stamps:  Paper Smooches (Smarty Pants), WPlus9 Design Studio (A Pocketful)

Ink:  Memento (Tuxedo Black), Versamark, Copic markers

Tools:  Papertrey Ink (Book Print, Linen & Canvas impression plates), WPlus9 Design Studio (pocket die), corner rounder

Other:  Filigree (embossing powder)

I absolutely love embossing, so I can't wait to see all of the inspiring designs in the gallery this week.  I hope you'll join us.  :)

Thanks for stopping by!  Have a great weekend!

CAS-ual Fridays #68

Please scroll down for my 12 Kits of Christmas post!

Hello there!

Just zooming by with this week's new challenge at CAS-ual Fridays!  This week's theme is Top of the Class, and we want to see your clean and simple back to school creation.

We have another fantastic sponsor this week:  it's Pretty Paper Studio!  They've offered up a generous prize for our winner this week.  Thanks, Pretty Paper Studio!

There are lots of exciting announcements and teasers on the CAS-ual Fridays blog today, but you'll have to hop over there to read for yourself.  ;)  All I can say is that we have a fabulous new Girl Friday joining us this week, and I'm thrilled to have her on the team.  

My card is super easy and straight-forward, so I'll keep this brief.  :)

I stamped the pencil image from Paper Smooches' Smarty Pants repeatedly in Basic Gray ink, adding one in black ink and facing the opposite direction.  I colored it with Copics, added a stitched border, and put the panel on a red card base.  

The sentiment, also from Paper Smooches, was stamped onto a red banner, trimmed, and added with foam tape.

Cardstock:  Papertrey Ink (Pure Poppy), WPlus9 Design Studio (White)

Stamps:  Paper Smooches (Smarty Pants, Sentiment Sampler)

Ink:  Stampin' Up! (Basic Gray), Memento (Tuxedo Black), Copic markers

Tools:  Papertrey Ink (banner die)

Accessories:  thread

The Girl Fridays have lots of fun school-themed projects to get you going this week, so stop by to see what they've done!

Thanks for your visit today!

CAS-ual Fridays #67--Banners & Flags

Another week has come and gone, can you believe it?  I hope my friends in the Northern Hemisphere are making the most of the last days of summer.  My little family has been busy trying to squeeze in as much fun as possible before school starts.  How about you?

It just wouldn't be the start of another weekend without a new CAS-ual Fridays challenge, of course.  :)  This week we want to see your clean and simple designs using banners and flags!

I never really jumped on the banner trend, though I love seeing them on other people's cards and layouts.  To get my creativity flowing, I did a quick search on Pinterest and came across this fantastic quilt:

Source: flickr.com via Christina on Pinterest

This design really spoke to me with its bright patterns on a crisp white background and perfectly stitched seams.  It was super easy to turn it into a card, too.

Using a banner die, I cut all of the banners from papers in the Fancy Pants Off to School collection.  The red banner was stamped with a paper clip from Paper Smooches Smarty Pants set.

All of the banners were adhered to a white panel that was debossed with the Linen & Canvas impression plate, as a nod to the fabric in the inspiration piece.  I stitched across the tops and added tiny bows on the edges.

With such a busy background, I didn't want a fussy sentiment treatment, so I simply punched a circle from lined paper, stamped a sentiment from Smarty Pants, and adhered it with foam tape.

Cardstock:  WPlus9 Design Studio (White)

Patterned paper:  Fancy Pants (Off to School)

Stamps:  Paper Smooches (Smarty Pants)

Ink:  Stampin' Up! (Chocolate Chip)

Tools:  Papertrey Ink (banner die, Linen & Canvas impression plate), EK Success (circle punch)

Accessories:  thread

The other Girl Fridays have even more fun and clever uses of banners and flags to share today, so stop by and leave them some love, too!  I can't wait to see your entry in the gallery!  :)

Thanks, as always, for your visit!  Have a fabby weekend!

Card Patterns sketch #167

Hello, friends!  I hope you're enjoying your weekend so far!  I'm just popping in to share my card for this week's Card Patterns sketch, which is another "keeper".

Our sponsor this week is a wonderful shop I recently discovered called Freckled Fawn, and they carry a fabulous assortment of washi tapes and accessories.  They've generously offered up a gift certificate to a random participant this week, so be sure to enter your creation for a chance to win!

For the Design Team, this was a "stash" week, meaning we were free to use any supplies we wanted on our design.  I decided to make a card for my little guy, who had his last day of preschool on Friday (sniff, sniff).  His favorite color is green, so I used SU's Garden Green as my card base, masking and stamping a panel of chevrons in Versamark.

The focal image is an assortment of stamps from Paper Smooches' Smarty Pants set, which I stamped and colored with Copics.  

I was stumped for a while about what to use for the banner element of the sketch, and I would have loved to use a ruler, but I settled for a strip of grid patterned paper from Fancy Pants' Off to School collection.  I punched a hole in each end and wrapped it with baker's twine.

Cardstock:  Papertrey Ink (True Black, White), Stampin' Up! (Garden Green)

Patterned paper:  Fancy Pants Design (Off to School)

Stamps:  Paper Smooches (Smarty Pants), Lawn Fawn (Chevron Backdrops)

Ink:  Memento (Tuxedo Black), Versamark, Copic markers

Tools:  Fiskars (hole punch)

Accessories:  The Twinery (Maraschino baker's twine)

Stop by the Card Patterns blog for more inspiration, then be sure to link up your design for a chance to win this week's prize!

Thanks for stopping by!  I'll be back soon to share the card sets I made for my son's teachers.

Have a good one!