May showers bring June flowers?

Yesterday was a free day for me. I spent it with my bestie stamping. The fun thing about stamping with a buddy is you get to use their stuff!! I "borrowed" her Altenew Botanical Gardens set. I stamped every darn piece and embossed with gold and watercolored the images with bright sunshiney colors. I then die cut the images and had fun placing them in a pleasing design.

playing with placement

 

 

My buddy Pat looked at the finished card and laughed. She said that is soooo not you. Where did this come from? She is right. I am more CAS and whimsical. This classic and elegant creation my have come from an alter ego.

We have had so much rain this May that I am hoping it will bring June flowers. Because of that I am entering this card the Time Out challenge.  The there is: 'May All your weeds be wild flowers'.

I am also entering this card at The Card Concept .

Sunshine brings flowers and my flowers are sunshiny colors, so why not enter this classy and elegant card!

 

 Done playing, time to get back to work! The pharmacology and pathophysiology of reflux and Barrett's esophagus. Woo hoo!!

Ombre blooms

So once again I was out walking with my good buddy Miss Patricia and we were yakking about stamping. the topic of Hero Arts ombre inks came up. I mentioned how I had them on my wish list at Simon says Stamp and Ellen Hutson. Pat said she had three, but she wasn't feeling them. She just didn't see the ombre. When we finished our walk she lent me the three HA ombre inks she had and said play with them. See if you like them any better than me. Well, if that wasn't a challenge!

I went right home and starting playing. Guess what? I thought they were amazing!! I want all of them. You definitely should use them on bold stamps with a lot of surface to stamp on. I started with the pink to red ombre  and the mint to green ombre inks and used the bold bloom set from Ellen Hutson. I loved how they worked and I could totally see the ombre. Can't you?

The bold pinky ombre blooms with the minty leaves totally felt like this inspiration picture from the Card Concept. And while my card is a bit more muted than this photo at Time Out challenges the blooms reminded me of the wall paper.

The pink card is going to my friend Margarita for her birthday. She is all about pink. But for Miss P, I made the same card with butter to orange ombre ink. I think the ombre is just a little more difficult to see with this ink than the pink to red ink.

Shopping Our Stash is having their 200th challenge!! Can you believe that! They want something BIG, BOLD and BEAUTIFUL. I used big and bold blooms and bold beautiful inks. I mean entering this card was a no brainer. Congrats to Shopping Our Stash for such an awesome milestone!

I hope you enjoyed this review of ombre inks. Let me know if you have any and what you think of them.

Peace on Earth

This is my last challenge with the Card Concept Wild Card team! I have had so much fun experimenting with the different styles. It forced me to stretch my wings in other directions. It is good to be tested. I think it makes you a better artist

The last challenge for 2014 at the Card Concept is a color challenge, using just soft neutrals. They can put you in mind of homespun krafty or elegant.

Today, I am staying in my comfort zone; clean and simple, but I have added a dash of elegant. How could it not happen since the dove die by Penny Black just reads elegant! I added the sentiment from Papertrey Inks wet holiday collection.

I have so enjoyed my time at the Card Concept and if they ever want me back, I am there.

I am wishing all of you the most blessed and joyous holidays and a happy healthy new year!

Tagarama

Lots of excitement on my blog today!! I am so excited to be part of Tracey from In My Creative Opinion's 25 Days of Christmas Tags! Tracy has been doing this for the last four years. You can check out her Pinterest site for the previous years creations.

Tracey has some great prizes from some fabulous and awesome companies. For a chance to win some these amazing prizes, just leave a comment on Traceys blog for each one of the days (plus the main prize drawing here) and you will be entered to win. you have until 11:59pm EST on November 27th to enter.   

You will also get an extra chance to win by commenting on my post! You have until 11:59 EST on  November 26th to comment. I will randomly choose one commenter and pass their name to Tracey include in the drawing.  Winners will be announced on November 28th on Tracey's blog.

The Card Concept this week is posting a snowman inspiration. When you check out the challenge you will see that the whole DT made snowmen tags. We are all participating in the Tracey's 25 Days of Christmas Tags.  

 Remember to leave a comment for a chance to win an awesome prize from Tracey and I hope that you will show us your best snowman creation over at the Card Concept!

Krafty Christmas

Only two more challenges and I will be done my  term as a wild card designer at the Card Concept.  Trying different styles of card making has certainly been an eye opener. I realize that I can embrace other styles as well. Today the challenge at the Card Concept is a "krafty christmas" with a photo inspiration.

Today, I went for a clean and graphic look. This stamp from Hero Arts just lent itself to that style.
I stamped it with khaki ink from Simon Says Stamp. I glittered the whole tree and added a glittered wood star for the top of the tree.  The saying is a combo of a very old Hero Arts christmas sentiment set and a die cut "merry from the new Papertrey Ink- wet paint holiday. I die cut the merry with red card stock to make it pop.

This isn't in my comfort zone, but I am so pleased with the results, this will definitely be massed produced to send out for the holidays.

Please join us for this great challenge at the Card Concept!

Thank Fall

The current challenge at the Card Concept is a photo challenge with the theme of "thank fall". Clever huh- "thank fall"? I love it- so fun. Besides I need ideas for my Thanksgiving cards and the theme and photo inspired me. 

I have only three challenges left on the Wild card team at the Card Concept and for the last three we get to pick our styles. Naturally, I drift towards the CAS categories.

One of my oft used techniques is to stamp or place images over top of a text stamp. It just creates such an interesting CAS look. For this card I had to go back to my older but well inked stamps. The text stamp from Hero Arts "Dictionary Greetings, I use ALL the time for this technique. I was pleasantly surprised to still see you could buy this set of stamps. I highly recommend it! The pumpkins are from A Muse. Looks like this set is only available on e-bay. The branch is StampinUp- unknown set.

Here is another look for the same idea using a new stamp from Great Impressions.

I wasn't as happy with this. I shoulda used four pumpkins instead of three. They look too squashed in. What do you think?

This works with this week's challenge at Just Us Girls so I am entering it there also.

Please join us this week at the Card Concept with your interpretation of this weeks challenge!

Sunflower hello

This week's challenge at the Card Concept is a photo challenge with a theme of country and sunflowers. My challenge as a wild card member was clean and graphic. Ardyth is the queen of CAG, so if you aren't sure what that means- check out her blog.

I originally did this card white on white, but it just didn't have the same punch as the white on black. 

 What do you think? I am hoping my good buddy the "beautiful Lydia" liked it. She loves all things sunflower, so I had to send her this card for her birthday!!

Please check out the Card Concept and show me how you would interpret the challenge.

Ghoul friends

Today's card challenge at the Card Concept is a color challenge. I sure screams Halloween doesn't it?

My challenge this week was clean and layered. I thought this would be easy, but not so much. I had it in my mind that I was going to use the dancing ghoul stamp from the now defunct stamp company Picture Show. So I had to work everything around the image and make the layers work.

How do you start a card? Do you start with a particular stamp or a layout and the stamps to fit that layout?

The fun thing about this card is I took sticky back paper and cut my own flame stencil and sponged the flames onto the card. The flames are all the same orange ink, I just try to lighten the sponging towards the bottom to create shade.

I hope you will join us at the Card Concept for this awesome color challenge!

Clean and simple, clean and simpler, clean and simplest

I have been waiting for this challenge since I was picked to be part of the wildcard team at the Card Concept. I have been through, classic and elegant, shabby chic and free style collage. Now I get to do what I feel is in my comfort zone- clean and simple!! 

We have a color challenge this week and what bright and happy colors we have. Lime, red and yellow, how can one be unhappy with these bright and cheerful colors.

So this week, I went with three similar cards. The first is the most clean and simple with each progressive card not quite so CAS but still with in the wheel house. The first just has a few flowers overlying the sentiment. The next I added a few more flowers.

Lastly, the same few flowers but I have added some popped flowers. All CAS but some just more than others.

What do you think? Which CAS card speaks to you? 

Please join us this week at the Card Concept for this great challenge!