Verve May 2014 Spotlight Hop ~ Day 3

Welcome to Day 3 of Verve's May 2014 Spotlight Hops!   If you have come here from Charmaine's blog you are right on track.  If you just happened up on the Hop, you can follow the list below to get caught up.  Everything previewed this week will be available in the Verve online store Friday night, May 23rd.   

Today's featured sets are Be Blessed, Sprightly Springs Die Set, and the Luke 1:45 Plain Jane.  

Be Blessed is my favorite set of this release.  No surprise there as you know I love flowers, all the more when they are Verve flowers with matching dies and coordinating leaf dies.  Makes me swoon every time LOL!

I tripped across this tutorial on You Tube for making a "card in a box" and though I am not a  project person, this one caught my attention as I was looking for something special to make for my mom's 80th birthday.  I used both the solid and outline flowers from the set and cut them out with the coordinating Petal Point dies.  The Sprightly Springs dies provided the leaves, and I tossed in a few hearts from the Heart Quartet die as well.  From there, it was basically creating a bouquet from all the pieces.  Sure hope she likes it as I had great fun making it!

My second card uses the Luke 1:45 Plain Jane.  I just love Verve's Plain Janes!!  I used some K & Company papers, the Banner Bundle die set, a touch of lace and some butterflies to showcase this fabulous verse.



Want to win some shiny new Verve? We'll be picking a random commenter on one of the hop spots below to win today's featured products!  So be sure to leave a little comment on all the blogs below to increase your chances! Check out the Verve Blog for today's full set reveals and all the prize info and deadlines!

Thursday, 5/22/14
Today's Prize: Be Blessed, Luke 1:45, Sprightly Sprigs Die Set 

1. Julee 8. Maureen 2. Charmaine 9. Jen 3. Marisa 10. Laurie S. 4. Teresa 11. Andrea 5. Chaitali 12. Christyne 6. Stacey 13. Sarah 7. Amber

 

Time to hop over to Teresa's blog to see her fabulous creation using today's showcased sets.  Tomorrow is our last day of hops and you want to come back for that one as there is a big prize up for grabs wink, wink :)

What's In It?

Happy 80th Birthday:
Stamps:   Be Blessed (Verve Stamps) 
Paper:   Dots and Stripes (Echo Park), Pretty in Pink, Mint Medley, Night of Navy, Creamy Caramel, Black (Stampin' Up)
Ink: Black, Night of Navy, Pretty in Pink (Stampin' Up)
Accessories:   Sprightly Springs, Petal Point and Heart Quartet Dies(A Cut Above by Verve), Border Numbers (PTI), Labels 18 and Heart Nestabilities (Spellbinders), Bird Punch (Stampin' Up), Scor-Pal, Black, and White Half Pearls, Bling, Black Buttons, Twine, Glue Dots, Double Sided Tape,  Dimensionals  

Luke 1:45 Plain Jane:
Stamps:   Luke 1:45 Plain Jane (Verve Stamps) 
Paper:   Brenda Walton Madeline (K & Company, Always Artichoke, Basic Grey, (Stampin' Up), Cream Linen
Ink:  Black
Accessories:  Banner Bundle Die Set (A Cut Above by Verve), Scalloped Oval Nestabilities (Spellbinders), Butterfly Punch (Martha Stewart), Ribbon, Black and White Half Pearls, Dimensionals 

JUGS 3D/Template Challenge

 

I must say it was delightful to be able to stamp again!  With the kids home for a two week Spring Break my stamping time has taken a back seat.  I am also guilty of filling any down time with some reading - a treat I don't get very often when we are running full tilt with kids' activities etc. during the school year.  Thank you JUGS for the Guest DT spot as I very much enjoyed being in my stamp room after a week off! 

This week's JUGS challenge is to make a 3D/Template Decorative Clear Box with a simple note card set (flat), customizable with sentiment tags/labels (see sample ).

When I first saw this challenge I was a bit worried...okay a lot worried LOL....as I don't do many 3D things and I had to get into CAS mode, but once I got into it, I had a lot of fun.  There is just something satisfying about making something with your hands that looks great in the end :) 

Since the challenge stipulated making a flat card (aka CAS one layer card), I went with one of my all time  favorite Stampin' Up sets, Terrific Tulips.   Tulips are my favorite flower, and with them starting to push through the ground in my front flower bed I'm giddy with excitement.  Not wanting to wait until they bloom, I decided to bring them to life  in my stamp room.

My five card set contains tulips in different colours.  I used a Martha Stewart border punch along the bottom and added an itsy bitsy knot in my ribbon along the top of the card to balance things off.  The sentiment tags are stamped onto Labels 10 nesties and I ran my Tim Holtz Antique Linen distress ink pad around the edges  for a bit of definition against the card.  You simply need to select the sentiment you want to add to it.

We'd love you to join us!  It's the perfect way to get a hostess gift or year end teacher gift made.  Simply link your project to the JUGS Challenge Blog for a chance to be selected as this week's winner.  If you don't have a blog, you can use an on line gallery with the keyword JUGS130.

Kids are back in school next week so hope to be able to enjoy my stamp room a bit more!  Until then, have a fabulous weekend and thanks for stopping by!

 

What's In It?
Stamps: Terrific Tulips and Sincere Salutations (Stampin' Up!)
Paper: White and Pretty in Pink
Ink:  Certainly Celery, Pretty in Pink, Positively Pink, Only Orange, Almost Amethyst, Lavender Lace, So Saffron, More Mustard, Real Red
Accessories:  1/4" Celery Grosgrain Ribbon, Martha Stewart Border Punch, Labels 10 Nestie

Verve Project Parade Triple Play Part II

I had so much fun making the mailbox for my daughter's student teacher I had to make a few more.  I have several friends who are elementary school teachers so these will definitely come in handy :)   They are also going to be an entry in Verve's Triple Play Project Parade. 

I kept the design the same for all of them, just switched up the DPs and colours on each one.  Had a ball making them and wish I had a few more so I could dole them out to a few more teachers or moms with small kids.

However, the fun ended when I had to try to take a picture of all three of them at once. As you can see, I ended up using the light box again as my windowsill could not accommodate three of them at one time without a major structural engineering feat in order to get a photo platform LOL.  I tried my best to show you as much of the mailboxes as I could, and thought I had mastered it, but just noticed the one on the right wasn't angled properly so it got cut off a bit - ugh. It has the same design as the other two on the side, just used different colours. The finishing tough was a snowflake added to both sides of each mailbox "flag" :)

Thanks for coming by today :)  Have a fabulous Sunday!




What's In It?
Paper:  Echo Park, Chocolate Chip, Real Red, Night of Navy, Not Quite Navy, 
Accessories:  Circle and Label 16 Nesties, SU Border Punch, Martha Stewart Snowflake Punch, Half Pearls, 1/4" Grosgrain Ribbon, Double Sided Sticky Tape, Glue Dots, Dimensinoals

Verve Triple Play Contest

This is my entry for Verve's Project Parade Challenge.  This time Julee's challenged us to a Triple Play contest in which you have to create a trio of things - three tags, a gift set with three items, etc.

This trio was a gift for my daughter's Student Teacher who wrapped up  her teaching stint on Tuesday.  Since she will be teaching at the primary level, I decorated a Target mailbox I've had in my stash for some time and turned it into "Santa's Mailbox".  I figured it would be a lot of fun to put in her classroom (kids can write letters to Santa etc.). Here's a side view as it really doesn't show up in the picture.

I paired it with a matching coaster box (here's the link to the tutorial on SCS) full of Lindt chocolates and some Christmas cards. Unfortunately, I ran out of the matching DP for the cards - ugh - so had to go with this card instead and tossed matchy, matchy out the window.  A great way to mess with my anal side and stretch me a bit LOL!  I happy to report, she loved it.

Thanks for stopping in today, and sorry for the dark picture.  I had to resort to my light box as I couldn't get all these items on my window ledge at the same time LOL!





What's In It?

Card
Stamps: (SU) Best Yet
Paper: Read Red, Brushed Silver, White
Ink:  Black
Accessories:  SU Scalloped Border Punch, Martha Stewart Snowflake Punch, Half Pearls, Dimensinoals


Coaster Box
Stamps:  (SU) Season's Sketches
Paper:  Night of Navy, Real Red, DP
Ink:  Black
Accessories:  Square Coasters,  Echo Park Wintertime DP, Cuttlebug Snowflake Die, Martha Stewart Snowflake Punch, Marvy Snowflake Punch, Labels 16 and Square Nesties, Zip Dry Glue, Crop-a-dile, Half Pearls, Raffia, 1/4" Navy Grosgrain Ribbon, Dimensionals

Mailbox 
Paper:  Not Quite Navy, Real Red, Echo Park Wintertime DP
Accessories:  SU Border Punch, Label 16 and Circle Nesties, Martha Stewart Snowflake Punch, 1/4" Night of Navy Grosgrain Ribbon, Glue Dots, Half Pearls, Dimensionals

Embrace the Angled Panel And Make It Your Friend

I must admit when I saw Mercy's sketch this week I went "ugh" because I have such a hard time with off-angle panels.  Don't  know what it is about them, but they work me over pretty good.  However, I "embraced the angled panel and made it my friend" LOL!

I had a wonderful light bulb moment (have to take them when I can because they don't come too often LOL!) and decided to use the ribbon flower tag I had made for one of the last Verve release challenges.  It was the perfect focal piece and allowed me to make one of the fastest cards I have ever made.  Oh that I could be this creative this quickly on a regular basis!! 

The hardest part of this card was trying to decide what additional colour to add to the mix.  I dearly miss the Colour Combo Site which had Stampin' Up colours on it and allowed you to select colours and then provided colours you could mix with the ones you chose.  If anyone has a site they use for this, please let me know!  After a few tries, I settled on Certainly Celery for my punch of colour and called it a card.

Have a fantastic day and thanks for sharing a part of yours with me (((hugs)))

What's In It?
Paper: Night of Navy, Certainly Celery, Pretty in Pink
Accessories:  Swiss Dots Embossing Folder, SU Scalloped Border Punches, Label 4 Nesties, 1/4" Lavender and Celery Grossgrain Ribbon, Blue Button, Twine, Glue Dot, 1/4" Hole Punch, Dimensionals

Olympic Medals and Daisies

It feels SO good to be able to stamp again!! Kids are now back in school and mommy gets some play time of her own :D

I chose this apron picture for this week's Verve inspiration sketch.  I loved the bright colours of the cupcakes and with Spring now "officially" here and my tulips beginning to sprout, it was an easy decision.  

The first thing that came to mind when I saw the sketch was "Hey, this looks like three Olympic Medals" LOL!  Think our trip to the Mint to see the medals and watching the Paralympics are still fresh on my mind! 

Pushing that thought aside, my next idea was to use butterflies and a bling trail for the vertical panels, but the trails left a lot of white space so I settled on flowers because the stems filled up the white space very nicely.  I wanted to go with tulips as these are tulip colours, but I don't own a tulip punch or the new SU bird punch with the "tulip petal wing" and was too lazy to try to create my own, so I ended up making daisies with a Martha Stewart punch.  I flipped the sketch so I would have a bit more room and used scalloped squares to frame the daisies.  I Swiss Dotted (this is a stamping word, right  lol!) the black panel to give it a bit of umph, crimped the flower stems and leaves for some texture and mounted the finished panel on a white base with some dimensionals.  I'm not totally happy with the outcome, so I just  may have to try the butterflies after all, but for now, this will have to do because I'm waaaay behind on this month's Verve sketches!

Thanks for popping in.  Off to work on more cards!




What's In It?
Paper:  Pink Passion, Green Galore, Lavender Lace, Basic Black
Accessories:  Scalloped Square Nesties, Martha Stewart Daisy Punch, 1/2" Circle Punch, Crimper, Swiss Dots Embossing Folder, Dimensionals

The Results Of My Reuse and Recycle Hunt

The final Verve Release Challenge was to reuse/recycle something.  I  had to go on the hunt for something to use because nothing came to mind right away.  It felt like I was going on an Easter eggs hunt without knowing what I was looking for :D  My search ended when I found a shoe box in the basement.  My daughter is in the "leave everything everywhere" stage so I thought I would make her a nice box to be able to put all her hair accessories in (at least that is my idea of what the box is to be used for, she may come up with a totally different use for it LOL!).  I dug into my slowly shrinking pack of Costco DP and found this lovely rose paper.  I sometimes wonder if I'll ever get through it all.  My mind obviously wasn't in Costco mode when I bought it....ahem, large volume store!  I will press on and one day it will be gone :D

My daughter is a very girly girl (unlike her athletic, practical mother) so this DP was perfect.  I covered the box and the lid with the DP and added a white trim around all the edges.  As you can see from the picture, I wasn't on the ball enough to think of using one piece of white paper punched on both sides to trim around the lid rather than using two different pieces and having a dividing line show on some of the sides - ugh!  A Project gal I am not LOL!  Next I ran some pink grosgrain ribbon around the lid and added a bow to the middle of each side for a little something.  Just before I finished, my daughter came into the room and asked who the box  was for because she just loved it - score!!

With this, my Verve Release Challenges are done - yeah!  Thanks for walking through these challenges with me.  It's been a busy weekend! Now all that is left to do is wait and see whether I get lucky enough to win some Verve.

Just to let you know, I may be a bit scarce over the next two weeks due to my kids being off on Spring Break.  My little guy has more energy than the rest of us combined and isn't one for sitting around much, so for everyone's sanity, we need to get out and about LOL! 

Thank you all for your your wonderful comments and visits.  They truly make my day.  Have a great week and hope to be back soon!





What's In It?
Paper:  Costco DP, White
Accessories:  SU Border punch, Double Sided Tape, Glue Dots, Tape

Valentine's Treat Box

One of the Verve Release Challenges is to make a treat box of some sort.  I followed the link on this challenge's thread and found a wonderful little heart shaped treat holder template.  You can find it here if you are interested.

It caught my eye since I just love hearts and with Valentine's Day but a month away, it would be a perfect "trial run" for something I could make all my after school daycare kids as a little Valentine's Day gift.

I printed the template on to white card stock, cut it out, and used my Scalloped Heart Nesties to cut out the red base and the heart Nesties to do the DP.  I added the sentiment and a red bow on the front and finished things off with a ribbon handle.  The treats for this template actually don't show up as there is a little flap that covers them about 3/4 of the way up the heart.  Guess you could alter the template by making the sides go up further and not adding the "lid",  but since I am not much of a 3-D item maker, I kept to the template :D  Simple things for simple minds I say LOL!

Just one more Verve challenge to go and I'm all done :D  That is, except for keeping my fingers and toes crossed to be one of the lucky winners at the release party.  If you aren't busy this Friday night, come on over and join the fun on this thread.  The Divas always have amazing samples using the stamps from the new release and there are lots of wonderful people to chat with, as well as new friends to meet :D

That's it for now.  Back soon with another challenge.





What's In It?
Stamps:  A Happy Heart
Paper:  Real Red, Doodlebug Design DP
Ink:  Real Red
Accessories:  Scalloped Heart and Heart Nesties, 5/8" Red Satin Ribbon, 1/8" Hole Punch, Glue Dot

Heart Pizza

The fourth Verve Release challenge was to make a mini pizza box. These are so fun to work with!  I was originally going to go with a Christmas theme but then came across this funky DP I got last year and decided to change directions.  This will be perfect to use for my daughter on Valentine's Day.

The box itself is very easy to make.  You start with a 6" x 11" piece of paper.  Score the 6 inch side at 1" and 5" inches and then rotate it to the 11 inch side and score at 1, 5, 6 and 10 inches.   Then you cut the horizontal score lines of the middle square on each side as well as one of the score lines on the top squares so you can fold it into the pizza box.  The tutorial for the pizza box can be found here.  From there, you can have fun decorating your box however you wish.  Just make sure you decorate before you assemble the box -- I almost goofed on this part (it was late and I was tired) but thankfully I clued in before it was too late LOL!


I covered the top of my box with the DP and then cut out a scalloped circle with my Nesties and ran it through the Swiss Dots embossing folder for some texture (plus it matched the dots in the DP -- any excuse to use this EF I say LOL!).   From there I punched out a heart with my Marvy heart punch, stamped the sentiment on the heart, added a silver half pearl on the dot of the "i" and finished it off with a big, pink bow.  The edges of my pizza box were decorated with the Martha Stewart Heart Border Punch.  I couldn't get a good angle of the box showing more than one side, so you'll have to believe me when I tell you it goes all the way around the box LOL!  There you have it, all ready to be filled with something special and fun on Valentine's :D

Four challenges down and just one to go -  the gift card.  This will be perfect as I need one for my mom for Christmas.  Have a great evening and see you tomorrow with my gift card and if I get lucky, my Mojo card.






What's In It?
Stamps:  A Happy Heart
Paper:  Real Red, Doodlebug Design DP
Ink:  Real Red, Pink Passion
Accessories:  Martha Stewart Heart Border Punch, Swiss Dots Embossing Folder, Marvy Heart Punch, Silver Half Pearl, Pink Satin Ribbon, Dimensionals