SUO Challenges: It's All Black & White

 Happy Tuesday,  y'all, and we've got a new challenge at SUO Challenges coming at you right...now!

Today we're challenging you to make a card in black and white.  And for me, this *IS* a challenge, I love color!  I'll admit I was a bit pouty about this one, ha.  Then I remembered some black and white patterned paper I have in my stash, and I made this:

The Beautifully Penned DSP from last year's catalog is retired, but there is another set in the current catalog called Perfectly Penciled.  I thought Hand-Penned Petals went with the paper well, so I heat embossed some flowers with white EP on black cardstock and there we go.  I chose the sentiment because anything is possible, including me making a card with only black and white ; )

Hope you'll give this challenge a go and post your card on the SUO Challenges blog.  Have fun!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Hand-Penned Petals
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Versamark
Paper:  Basic Black, Thick Basic White, Beautifully Penned DSP
Accessories:  Penned Flowers dies, Stylish Shapes dies, white EP, black rhinestones, Dimensionals

Wonderful Treasure

Mornin' y'all!  I had some "help" on today's card, in the form of a small child who insisted on holding the heat tool and cranking the Big Shot.  So here's what we made:

I took five pictures of this card and this is the best I could get, which is a bit on the blue side.  Both the floral image and the sentiment are embossed in gold, and then I watercolored the flowers.  I was inspired by the Inspired By... challenge:

I also used the sketch though I switched the positions of the elements because the sentiment looked better on the right side of the flowers.  I like those new Milky Dots, the Mango Melody ones do look kinda gold and will be fun to play with.  I used some Petal Pink dots on this card.

I've got about a half an hour until it's time for me to go to work, so I'm going to go sneak in some stitching time.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Hand-Penned Petals, Treasured Kindness
Ink:  Versamark, Petal Pink, Mint Macaron, Pool Party
Paper:  Petal Pink, Pool Party, Thick Basic White, Designer Daydream DSP
Accessories:  Stitched So Sweetly dies, Penned Flowers dies, Milky Dots, Dimensionals, corner rounder punch, Gold EP

Daydreaming with the Paper Players

Sunday again already!  That means it's time for a new Paper Players challenge, and Joanne has a great color combination for us:

You might recognize the colors as being from the Designer Daydream DSP that's a host choice in the Stampin' Up catalog.  So of course that's what I used to start my card:

Can't get enough of those deckled rectangles : )  I left out Pool Party and Old Olive and used the other four colors.  I started out by choosing that stripey pattern and built the card from there.  I stamped the flower image and sentiment in Blackberry Bliss ink, and then after the ink dried I colored the flowers with Stampin' Blends.

I made another card too, this time using the fill-in stamps instead of coloring with Blends, just to see which one I liked better.  No harm in having two get well cards in my stash.

Hope you'll have fun with these colors too!  Upload your card at the Paper Players blog.  Enjoy!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Hand-Penned Petals
Ink:  Blackberry Bliss, Stampin' Blends in Petal Pink, So Saffron, Mint Macaron
Paper:  Petal Pink, Thick Basic White, Designer Daydream DSP
Accessories:  Deckled Rectangles dies, Penned Flowers dies, Dimensionals

The Paper Players Design Team

Jaydee

LeAnne Pugliese

Claire Broadwater

Joanne James

Laurie Schmidt

Anne Marie Hile

Ann Schach

Cindy Beach

Christy Stanford <-- You are here : )

Jennie Maier

You Matter Spring Bouquet

Hey y'all, happy Friday!  Even though I was home with Ryan all day yesterday, I did manage to make a quick card while he was playing video games.

We've had a whole lot of sunshine here this week, which is great weather-wise but it makes taking pictures of my cards a challenge.  Can't really do anything about the harsh shadows on here.

Had to have another go at this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And this time I paired it with the CAS Colours & Sketches soft spring color palette:

And since that challenge is specifically CAS, I didn't add any embellishments except a bit of Wink of Stella in the flower centers, which doesn't show up in the picture anyway.

And with that, I'm going to grab Ryan and go outside to enjoy the beautiful weather, even if it is still chilly.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Hand-Penned Petals,  Happy & Heartfelt
Ink:  Soft Suede, Stampin' Blends in Soft Sea Foam, Fresh Freesia, Flirty Flamingo
Paper:  Soft Sea Foam, Flirty Flamingo, Thick Basic White
Accessories:  Wink of Stella

Fall Flowers

Happy Friday, y'all!  I was at work yesterday, working on my giant cross stitch piece (I can do that at work, it's great) and thinking it was about two in the afternoon when my phone alarm went off because it was actually FOUR and time for me to leave work and pick up the spawn.  Time flies when you're having fun, I guess!

Yesterday morning I made a quick card because we have lots of birthdays coming up in November and I need to get ready.

I used this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And the color combo from CAS Colours & Sketches:

And the theme from the Paper Players:

Now, two of those three challenges are specifically CAS, so instead of using patterned paper or something and adding a layer for the background strip on the sketch, I used some Post-It Notes to mask and used a blending brush to make a soft Night of Navy stripe directly on the card base.  And because I'm hard-headed, I took a deep, rich, dark color combination and made it light by applying ink to the fill-in stamps with a sponge and then stamping them.  So I used all the specified colors but I kept the card light and airy.  I did add some Wink of Stella to the flowers (because don't I always?) and some gold gems from a previous Paper Pumpkin kit for a little glitz, but I still think it's CAS....okay, maybe CAS-plus.

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Hand-Penned Petals, Peaceful Moments
Ink:  Night of Navy, Old Olive, Rich Razzleberry
Paper:  Thick Basic White
Accessories:  Stitched So Sweetly dies, Dimensionals, Wink of Stella, gold gems

Freesia Petals

Happy Friday, y'all!  I'm on my third cup of tea, it's overcast and pleasantly cool outside, and I have today off to do laundry (woo) and work in my craft room!  First project:  make a birthday card for my SIL!

Oh yeah, me and Fresh Freesia are going to be friends.  I loved it in this week's Global Design Project color challenge:

Oh yeah, green and purple is one of my all-time favorite color combos, love these colors together!  I paired them with this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

I did add a bit to the sketch, but I think it's still obvious that the sketch was my starting point, right?  I spritzed a piece of watercolor paper with water, then inked up an acrylic block and used it like a stamp.  I did have to sponge some of the ink off the block though, the first attempt looked very dark and blotchy but sponging up some ink before stamping it seemed to solve that problem nicely.  Then I just let it dry before I stamped the floral outline on top.  I dug some old Blackberry Bliss stitched satin ribbon out of the depths of my stash (I quit buying ribbon because I just don't use a lot of it and let's be honest, storage space is becoming an issue and my craft room is not tiny) as an accent behind my sentiment, and then busted out some opal rounds for embellishments.  I wish the opal rounds had a lower profile; I don't think they'd go through the mail with regular postage, but this card is going in a package so that wasn't a concern.  Most of the time I DO like to make my cards easily mailable though.

Okay, I've got three more hours until I have to pick up the kiddo.  I'm going to go USE it!  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Hand-Penned Petals, Peaceful Moments
Ink:  Fresh Freesia, Pear Pizzazz, Blackberry Bliss
Paper:  Fresh Freesia, Blackberry Bliss, Thick Basic White, watercolor paper
Accessories:  Stitched Rectangles dies, Tasteful Labels dies, Dimensionals, retired Blackberry Bliss ribbon, Opal Rounds

Anything is Possible

Hey hey!  How's your week going?

I love it when new colors are released.  It's fun to see how they fit in with the colors we already know and love and imagine new combinations :)  The brand new crop of In Colors actually works really well as a palette.

 

Thought I'd go for a different look with Hand-Penned Petals and use the filler stamps without the outlines, what do you think?  Fab Friday gave me the perfect excuse to use all five new In Colors on one card:

I paired that with the sketch from Try Stamping on Tuesday:

And thanks to those two challenges, I had my card made lickety-split!

Have a great Wednesday, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Hand-Penned Petals
Ink:  Fresh Freesia, Polished Pink, Evening Evergreen, Soft Succulent, Pale Papaya
Paper:  Fresh Freesia, Soft Succulent, Pale Papaya, Thick Basic White
Accessories:  Tailored Tag punch, Dimensionals

New Blooms!

Hey y'all!  I had a nice, quiet day at work yesterday, which was nice since I started off the day by accidentally dumping half a bottle of water in my backpack (I thought the lid was closed...it was not).  How's your week starting off?

On Saturday, at long long long last, I got my new catalog preorder!  Ya know, for the catalog that goes live TODAY :p  This box, dude.  I hadn't gotten any shipping updates in two solid weeks, it just said it was "en route to the next facility", so finally on Thursday I gave up and called Stampin' Up! to say that it hadn't arrived yet.  They started looking into it but I finally got the notice from our post office that it had arrived on Friday, so I guess it was just waiting for me to call SU!  Then of course I couldn't pick it up on Friday because of our little jaunt to the ER for Ryan.

Anywha, I got a teensy bit of time in my craft room on Sunday and I couldn't resist busting out a new stamp set and some new colors!

I love, love, love the inspiration pic from Just Add Ink.

 
I was going to mask off the card front and sponge an ombre effect, but why reinvent the wheel when I have ombre DSP?  So the stripe is So Saffron from the retired Color Theory DSP stack (lookit me using up a bit of stash) and the flowers are stamped in three NEW In Colors--Evening Evergreen for the outline (I am going to looooooooooove this deep, dark green!), Pale Papaya for the flowers, and Soft Succulent (dear SU!, I am sure there are other adjectives that start with S, we already had Soft Suede and Soft Sea Foam and Soft Sky for Pete's sake) for the leaves and the sentiment, which is from the newly retired Butterfly Gala.  I added some Wink of Stella to the flowers but of course it doesn't show up much in the photo.

Hope your day goes smoothly, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Hand-Penned Petals, Butterfly Gala
Ink:  Evening Evergreen, Pale Papaya, Soft Succulent
Paper:  Thick Basic White, Color Theory DSP
Accessories:  Penned Flowers dies, Dimensionals, Wink of Stella