Beachy Season's Greetings

Greetings, Unity friends! For today's Friends With Flair, I'm sharing a beachy Christmas card I made for a dear friend. She, of course, has received it by now, so it's safe to trot it out.

I used Unity's Beach Cottage Collection and Ornamental Season Itty Bitty. I just had to add some texture with a torn strip of sand paper!

I'm linking up to:

• Unity's Friends With Flair
• Unity Stamp Company Challenge: use non-traditional Christmas colors
• Sunny Challenge: Seasons Greetings

My kids are home on Christmas Vacation until next Thursday, so I don't know how much I'll be around the ol' blog here. We are having fun playing and hanging out!

Thanks for stopping by!
Emily

Nautical Birthday

Popping in for a super-quick post here. It was a whirlwind day and I'd hoped to get this up earlier, but some days you hafta take what you can get!

I'm playing along with this week's Flourishes Timeless Tuesday Challenge, FTTC195, which is to be inspired by this inspiration board:

I thought it was the perfect opportunity to add to my stash of masculine birthday cards with an ultra CAS card sporting lots of neutrals. I used stamps from A Guiding Light and Taglines from Flourishes and, really, not a whole lot else.

I hope you are gearing up for a great weekend. Thanks for checking out my little slice of bliss today!
Emily

Bazzill Beach House Giveaway

Happy Friday! Can you believe it's already November? I must admit that I've really let the time get away from me. Over the summer, Bazzill Basics Paper asked if I would like to try their new Beach House patterned paper collection and offered to send me two Beach House collection 6x6 pads, one for me to keep and use for myself and one to give away to one of my blog readers. Of course, I said I'd love to!! But the new papers arrived while I was away on our month-long vacation in August, and once we returned I was too overwhelmed to even crack open the new papers. But I'm finally caught up and was able to take time this week to play with them, and I loved what I saw!!

The 6x6 sheets in this mini pack are double-sided. There are a total of 12 different prints, with four sheets of each double-sided combo, for a total of 24 sheets in the pack. And guess what? These sheets are textured!! I LOVE that!! They have a lovely pebbly feel to them and add wonderfully subtle dimension to a card. I also love that the colors used in these patterned papers coordinate with the cardstock colors in Bazzill's Card Shoppe collection.

The prints in the Beach House collection are rather eclectic, I think. And that's a good thing!! They have a fun nautical feel to them, especially color-wise, but aren't overly beachy. There are some nice classics small-scale prints that would be perfect for paper-piecing, as well as some collage-type prints incorporating both ocean-life motifs (think whale, crab, coral, shells) and less obvious ones (such as bicycles, playing cards, cafe receipts, alphabet typography, manilla tags, vintage card game score sheets). I happened to use some sea shell stamps in the card I made with my Beach House papers, but you could easily use them with so many other themes!!

The card I made today is an anniversary card for my in-laws:

I used four different prints from the Beach House collection (House Tags, Weathered Wood, Receipt Dots, and Nautical Stripes), plus two coordinating cardstocks from the Card Shoppe collection: Whirlypop and Peanut Clusters. The shell images are stamps in the Beach Cottage Collection from Unity Stamp Co., and the sentiment is from another Unity set, It's All About Love.

 
My card design was inspired by one of the two sketches featured over at Chick Challenges with Ippity this week.

I'm also linking this up with my friend Jessi's challenge over at Playing in Paradise to make an anniversary project. 

OK, now for the fun part--the part you've all been waiting for: the GIVEAWAY!! Bazzill Basics sent not only a Beach House Collection 6x6 paper pack

but also a 56-sheet multipack of their Card Shoppe cardstock

to give away to one of my readers. Want a chance to win? All you need to do to be in the running is leave me a comment on this post using the word "OCEAN" before 11:59 p.m. EST on Thursday, November 8, 2012. I'll draw one "ocean"-using commenter at random to win  both the patterned paper and cardstock, then post the winner here on my blog on November 9. If I can find the winner's email address, I'll email her as well!

Questions? Feel free to ask! You don't need to be a follower of my blog to enter the giveaway, but I'd love it if you do become one!

A huge thanks goes to Bazzill Basics for letting me try out their amazing patterned papers and cardstocks! And thanks so much for dropping by.

May you find a little slice of bliss in your day today!
Emily

Surfboard Trio

How about a little something bright and summery today?

I'm sharing this card to show off the DeNami Design Product Spotlight stamp for this week, the fabulous Surfboard Trio!

Like, cowabunga, dude! You can snag this totally rad stamp on sale this week. Just add it to your cart. That's so sick, right?

(OK, I can do surfer speak for only so long. I do believe I've just timed out!)

I stamped the surfboards on four different colors of DeNami cardstock (Golden Tangerine, Iridescent Emerald Green, Magenta, and Desert Orange) and cut them out to form a tropical frame for that sweet little Hula Chickie, which I colored with Prismacolor pencils and blended with odorless mineral spirits and a paper blending stump (you can find a tutorial on this method HERE). I just couldn't resist jazzing up the corners of my chickie frame with a few sparkly Robin's Egg Blue Rhinestones.

Be sure to paddle on over to the DeNami blog to check out what the rest of the DeNami dudettes cooked up with this surfin' safari stamp!

So glad you could catch a wave over to visit my blissful beach today! Mahalo!

Emily

PS This is also another entry for Kim Kesti's Crafty Month challenge--to create a card that combines at least one new item and one item from your stash (at least one year old). For this card, my new items are the Hula Chickie and Surfboard Trio stamps, and my old item is the scalloped square punch. I do believe that is the oldest punch I own!

Stamps: Surfboard Trio and Hula Chickie by DeNami Design

Paper: Golden Tangerine, Iridescent Emerald Green, Magenta, Desert Orange, Amethyst, and Sky Blue cardstocks from DeNami Design

Ink: Palette Noir Black hybrid

Accessories: Prismacolor pencils, odorless mineral spirits, paper blending stumps, Kaisercraft rhinestones, square punch, scalloped square punch, Corner Chomper

Technique: gamsol magic

Make a Splash!

I was so inspired by Amy Tsuruta's post yesterday about a little boy named Sebastian (and Yvonne's post, too) that I just had to make a card to send to him. He will be having surgery soon and his wonderful elementary school teacher, Ms. Brown, would like to fill his hospital room with handmade cards that surround him with love. I hope that this card will make him smile:

I based my design on the current Jan/Feb Sketch Challenge at The Craft's Meow. All of the stamps I used are TCM and come from: Just Sayin' (speech bubble), It's a Shore Thing (whale, sentiment, droplets, waves), and Sending You Sunshine (sun).

The patterned papers are some {very} old DCWV and something I picked up at Target's Dollar Spot several summers ago. They may not be terribly current, but they certainly are cheery, and that's what I was going for! Those sparkly star diecuts are from Jessi, bless her heart!!!

To encourage crafty gals to brighten Sebastian's day, Amy has very generously offered the chance for a prize to those who promise to send him a card that they make and link it up to Cards for Sebastian on her blog. I would have done this without such an enticement. Thanks for championing Sebastian's cause, Amy!! This world needs more Amys and Ms. Browns. :)

Thanks for stopping by!
Emily

A Sand-sational StampinB Challenge

We've been working on getting ready for weekend company (arriving tonight), so it's been a jam-packed week so far. The kids have been a huge help with the housecleaning. It's above and beyond what they are normally expected to do, so I told them I'd contribute to their vacation souvenir funds if they pitched in with the extra. It's amazing what a little incentive will do!! I'm actually hearing things like "Mom, can I clean the little windows around the front door?" and "Is it OK if we scrub the toilets?" How can you turn down offers like those? I'm teaching our 8YO to vacuum (not that it's a tricky job or anything, but his 8YO mind doesn't find it intuitive to move the vacuum in an overlapping stripe pattern to cover the entire floor!). So far he is super enthusiastic about vacuuming, and the fact that we have a cool, kinda techie Dyson vac (with some definite 8YO appeal!) doesn't hurt. ;)

I've still got lots to do to get the house ready, and I'm trying to get ready for next week's July Stamp Release for Mark's Finest Papers, too. So this will be short!

Today I'm sharing my card for the new Stampin' B's DT Challenge hosted this week by Anne. Her challenge is to make a beach scene that includes sand, either real or stamped. I was thrilled to have an opportunity to use the new It's a Shore Thing stamp set that I won from The Craft's Meow last month. I stamped the sand hill images directly onto a sheet of cheap sandpaper from a pack that I picked up from Dollar Tree. So, there's my real sand, Anne!! And I'll warn you now, go get your sunglasses. This is a bright one!

I thought I'd enter this over at Moxie Fab World for the Stamp It! Cards Week Challenge--to create a card in which stamping is the predominant element. I'm also entering this in the The Craft's Meow July Card Sketch Challenge. Here's the sketch:
Thanks for dropping by today! Be sure to stop back in tomorrow for my last Blogoversary Celebration post for another chance at some blog candy. (Be sure to check out the Day 1 and Day 2 celebrations for additional chances. You can enter all three drawings through Sunday, July 10.)
Emily

Card Recipe:
Stamps: The Craft's Meow "It's a Shore Thing" set
Paper: various cardstock from The Paper Company, DP from the Target Dollar Spot, sandpaper from Dollar Tree
Ink: Palette L'Amore Red, Versafine Onyx, Palette Reflection Blue
Accessories: SU 3" scalloped circle punch, SU 2.5" circle punch, SU scalloped border punch, CM corner rounder, Prismacolor pencils, brads, baker's twine from The Twinery

Retro Seahorse

First, I have some news to share: I'm pleased to announce that as of today, I am a member of the Stampin' B's Design Team!! Each Thursday, one member of the Stampin' B's team issues a card-making challenge, and we invite you to be inspired and play along--just for the fun of it! :)

Today's challenge was issued by my SCS friend Brenda, known to many as Benzi. Her challenge was to use a charm on our cards. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!!! I was excited to dig into my collection of fun charms from Mark's Finest Papers for this adorable brass seahorse. For some crazy reason, seahorses make me think of retro 50s & 60s bathrooms, (I know, weird, huh??). I was picturing pearly seahorse plaques in a mint green and pink bathroom, so I Googled "mint pink bathroom" for inspiration for this card--and found it in spades!!





Fun stuff, right? Does it remind you of your grandmother's house??

I used images from the Mark's Finest Papers Flourished Sea Creatures stamp set and some lovely pearlescent Sparkle Finish card stock (also from MFP) for my 50s flashback card. I love how it turned out!! Here are a few close-up photos.

Thanks for checking out my little slice of bliss today!!

Supplies:
Stamps: MFP Flourished Sea Creatures
Paper: MFP Frosty Mint Sparkle Finish Card Stock, MFP Pink Freeze Sparkle Finish Premium Card Stock, MFP China Blue Eyes Linen Finish Card Stock
Ink: Palette noir black, Palette waterlily green, Palette toile pink
Accessories: scoring tool, dimensionals, sheer ribbon from MFP, brad, seahorse charm from MFP LARGE Seashore Brass Charms pack

One Blue Fish

The weather was just beautiful here today! So much drier than the muggy stuff we had over the weekend. For the first time in weeks, we didn't need the a/c and were able to air out the house. Why is it that (dry) fresh air smells so good???

The kids played outside this morning for a loooooooooooong time and I got in a good chunk of work done on my current freelance project. Woohoo!! Then the kids joined me after lunch in our "stamping nook" (read: dining room table no longer practical for dining purposes for all of the crafting paraphernalia covering it). We had a great time with today's SCS CAS challenge: to be inspired by the title of the Dr. Seuss children's book: One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. A fun challenge to be sure!

I was inspired to use this awesome seahorse image. It's another sneak peek from the soon-to-be-released Flourished Sea Creatures stamp set from Mark's Finest Papers. I am really having fun with all of the great images in this set, which includes the coral and seaweed images I used today, too.
My colors were inspired by this week's Curtain Call Color Challenge: Act 40. I thought these colors were perfect for a masculine card, so I'm also entering this in the MFP Speedy the Cat's Friends Challenge #13, to make--what else?--a masculine card.

To make this card ultra quick, I used the Poppin' Pastels technique on the seahorse panel, applying tempting turquoise chalk after stamping the images in Versamark ink. Simple! To give this some interest yet keep it clean, I added a few score lines behind the image. I couldn't resist giving my ocean floor a sandy bottom by adding a torn strip of my soon-to-be signature cheap-o Dollar Tree sandpaper.

I love how this quick and easy card turned out! Thanks a bunch for dropping by to check out my happy project for the day. :)

SUPPLIES
Stamps: MFP Flourished Sea Creatures
Paper: MFP Pensacola Sand CS, SU CS: real red, old olive, basic black
Ink: Versamark, Palette l'amour red
Accessories: Stampin' Pastels, sponge applicator, scoring tool, foam tape, Dollar Tree sandpaper
Techniques: Poppin' Pastels, scoring

A Pair of Masculine Cards (and a SNEAK PEEK)

Up until about four months ago, I had never done any watercolor painting. Oh, sure, I had those cheap-o little eight-pot watercolor sets in elementary school, but in retrospect I hardly think that counts. So in March I did my first post-grade-school watercoloring for (what else?) a card challenge. This challenge was for using any kind of paint. Well, aside from poster paint, which hardly belongs on a card, the only kind of paint I had in the house, was--guess what?--a cheap eight-pot watercolor set that belongs to one of my kids. So I used it and rather liked the result, but noticed that the cheap kid watercolor paints are--surprise!--not that great. Plus, painting on regular cardstock is the pits: water soaks in too quickly, the color doesn't soak in uniformly, the paper warps horribly, and the colors don't mix well. So I started asking some questions and two SCS friends with lots of watercolor painting experience came to my aid. I discovered that there actually is paper designed specifically for watercolor painting (watercolor paper, who knew??) and that you could watercolor paint using dye inks (which is great because that I already have, in abundance, and wouldn't require yet another cash outlay for stocking up on all my must-have colors in yet another medium). So I bought a pad of good quality watercolor paper and some sable brushes, and ever since I've been dabbling in the joys of watercoloring.

And I truly mean dabble--I have absolutely no training in this art; I'm just making it up as I go along. I do try to pick up technique tips, mostly by studying the (accomplished) work of others. I need lots of practice, and I'm learning through trial and error. But I've never had such joy in figuring something out as I go along. I am addicted to watercolor painting! It is so relaxing and calming. Every time I watercolor an image, everything else melts away, and I have this deep feeling of satisfaction. Because watercoloring is sort of inexact, it's also rather forgiving. Going "outside the lines" and leaving gaps in the color are part its charm. It goes quickly, looks so artsy, and gives me such a sense of accomplishment. I am in love!

One drawback that I've found with watercolor painting on stamped images, though, is that because good-quality watercolor paper is often highly textured, it can be difficult to get a clean impression on watercolor paper. I've found that deeply etched rubber images usually work best. It's not as easy to get a decent impression with clear photopolymer stamps. It's possible, but sometimes it takes me several stampings to get one that looks good (and I hate to waste expensive watercolor paper!). So I don't watercolor as often as I'd like, but today I figured I was due some watercoloring bliss and indulged in two cards. Woo-hoo!

With my first card, I used a wonderful Repeat Impressions image that I bought recently with a $25 gift certificate I won in the RI What If? Wednesday sketch challenge in May. It shows the Portland Head Light in Maine. We visited this lighthouse two summers ago, and I have a bunch of photos of my parents and kids standing in front of it. I knew this image would be perfect for watercoloring, and since we've actually seen it in person, I had to have it! Recently one of my best friends suggested that if I needed an idea for a birthday card for her son's upcoming ninth birthday, he loves lighthouses. Perfect! So today's card will go to him. I used the current RI What If? Wednesday sketch for this card. I also used this Embellish Magazine challenge:

Now for my second card, I am sneak peeking a Mark's Finest Papers set called Regal & Proud, which will be released in August. Both the mountain image and sentiment come from the Regal & Proud set. I made this masculine congratulations card for today's SCS sketch challenge. Can you believe that I used only one challenge in the making of this card? I know, so very uncharacteristic of me. But I seem to have gotten so wrapped up in making the sketch work with this mountain image I wanted to use, that I forgot about all other possible challenges that I could possibly work in!

I had so much fun with my watercolor painting today. I love how both cards turned out!! My mom loves all things lighthouse, so I'm thinking of [MOM SPOILER ALERT!!] making her a set of lighthouse note cards for Christmas using this RI stamp. I think that will be a lot of fun, and I know it's something she would love, especially if it features a lighthouse she's seen in person!!

Thanks for dropping by today and reading this looooooooooooooooooooong post of mine! If you would like more details about the supplies I used in these cards, please click here for the lighthouse card and here for the Mark's Finest Papers card. See you back here again soon!

Fishy

Luckily I got an early start on the card I wanted to make for today! I have lots to do later on. But I'm so glad I took the time to play now, plus I'll still have plenty of time for the to-do list this afternoon!
So this card came about from several sources of inspiration, including the Color Throwdown #101 colors: At first I wasn't sure I liked these at all. I usually keep a notebook of the challenges I like to play in and will jot down the current challenge of the week in my notebook when it's posted. Then I scan my list for inspiration when I'm ready to make a card. So when I jotted this one down in my notebook, I was pretty sure I'd be passing on it. But as I looked at the CAS sketch for today's Clean and Simple challenge on SCS and the Mark's Finest Papers Flourished Sea Creatures stamp set that I wanted to sneak peek today, it all clicked! Suddenly those CTD colors were perfect :)

I used my Martha Stewart deco fan punch-around-the-page (PATP) punch set to make a frame that would be in keeping with my ocean theme for today's card! Although it's probably hard to see in my photo, I made a grid to stamp my little fishies in by scoring with a stylus along the cutting groove in my paper trimmer. The poor stamper's equivalent of a ScorPal! I don't have kiwi kiss, so I used old olive ink for my fishies and stamped off once. The texture-y pattern on my crumpled paper flower comes from multiple stampings of the coral stamp in the Flourished Sea Creatures set.

Want a peek of the inside of the card? Well, OK, then! Here you go: The fish and kelp images come from the MFP Flourished Sea Creatures set; the sentiment is from Stampin' Up (On Your Birthday). For supplies and links to the challenges I entered with this card, please click here.

A friend of mine has a huge list of family birthdays that she and her husband celebrate. It's too much of a financial drain to give everyone on the list a gift, so she likes to send really nice cards to mark their loved ones' special days. For the past two years at Christmas, I've given her a variety pack of handmade birthday cards, and she loves them!! They have a great time sorting through the collection and picking out the perfect card for each recipient. And they use every card. I just LOVE that they use them rather than hoard them! I've been putting aside cards for her Christmas gift this year, and this one will be perfect for it. So far I've been lacking masculine cards (although I know this could be used for men or women).

Oh, I almost forgot! My smile for this morning? When my DS and DD called me outside to the driveway to show me the synchronized scootering routine they've been working on. The cutest thing ever!! :) Thanks for checking out my little slice of bliss today!

Exciting News (and a Crabby Card)

Today I have some news that I am so excited to share: I am the newest member of the Mark's Finest Papers Design Team!! I've just been added as a Jr. DT member at MFP for a six-month stint. This is my first time on any design team, and I'm so excited to dig right in.

So today's card is my first MFP DT project. I made this for the MFP Speedy the Cat's Friends Challenge #12, to use red, orange, and yellow. I've enjoyed playing this weekly challenge from its beginning back in the spring. The challenges are easy, don't require using MFP stamps (although you can score a second entry in the random drawing if you do), and there are PRIZES: free MFP stamp sets! For every 50 entries in the challenge, another random winner is drawn. Fun!

So what went into creating this card? I was inspired by the layout of this lovely card by Latisha Yoast as a result of today's Featured Stamper challenge on SCS. I was also inspired by this gorgeous sea glass necklace from Mermaid's Tears Jewelry through this week's EtsyInspired Challenge.

The crab stamp I used is a sneak peek from the MFP set Flourished Sea Creatures being released in August. I colored the little crab with colored pencils, odorless mineral spirits, and a paper blending stump. The sandy "beach" under him is ripped from cheap-o sandpaper from Dollar Tree, and I picked up that cute crabs background paper last year in Target's Dollar Spot. (Do you detect a "Dollar" theme here??) The gingham ribbon and seashell charm are from Mark's Finest Papers.

For more information on the supplies I used and the challenges I entered, please click here. Thanks for dropping by!!