So Thankful for You

For today's card I played along with 2 Power Poppy challenges....the monthly Power and Spark Challenge is all about giving thanks, and the weekly Creative Confetti Challenge wants us to use our monogram to create our project.

For the giving thanks part I used a wonderful new clear set called Fortunes of Fall. The maize image is also a digital stamp and now it's a clear stamp, so I had to have this set when it was released recently! For the sentiment I used one of the ones from the new set "So thankful for you". Right now our 22 yr old daughter is home visiting us....her and her boyfriend moved to Oklahoma City a year and a half ago and we haven't seen her since they moved so it's wonderful to have her home for a week. We had an early Thanksgiving with her and her older brother yesterday and then we all got to watch the Northern Lights as a family after dinner, which was a wonderful treat. Usually I'm the only one awake when the aurora comes out to dazzle Alaska!

For the Creative Confetti Challenge my monogram is LMJ. Therefore I chose:

L= Layers

M= Maize (the corn image)

J=Jewel (there is a blue rhinestone placed on the ribbon in the image).

The J was really tough and I went back and forth between the jewel and jute twine but ultimately ended up using the jewel.

Thanks for stopping by!

Painted Pumpkins

I finally found some time to craft today so I played along with 2 challenges, both from Power Poppy.....this weeks Creative Confetti, which is a sketch, and the monthly Power and Spark, which is to create a project that celebrates your birthday month. I just had my birthday on Oct.11 so this is my birthday month, which means pumpkins, leaves and Halloween are perfect for a project!

For my card I used the brand new digital set Painting Pumpkins, I just love it! It has several pumpkin images to choose from but I decided to go with the pumpkins that had the Halloween faces on them. We go all out decorating our yard for Halloween but this year I'm running behind because we ran off to Seward for my birthday and now I'm playing catch up!

The colors on my image were pulled from the retired SU DSP I used and I added some burlap and ribbon behind the image to bring it all together.

Thanks for stopping by!

A Pop of Color with Santa

The current Power and Spark challenge over at the Power and Poppy blog is all about a pop of color....they want to see us create a black and white project with a pop of color. I thought it was going to be easy but I actually got stumped with this for a bit! I actually created a card before this one but didn't like it and started over, and this card is what came about.

I took the Flowering Santa stamp, stamped it in black and then used a rectangle die to cut it. I used red copics to color in the flowers in Santa's beard and then used my cool grays to color in the rest of Santa's beard and hair.

I cut out another die piece the same size as the image panel and situated that on the red plaid paper background (I spent last week in South Carolina and got to visit Hobby Lobby, this plaid paper is from a paper stack I got there. I wish Hobby Lobby would come to Alaska!), and then I layered the image panel across the black rectangle. I was going to put a sentiment across the front but didn't like how it blocked part of the image so just stamped an image on the inside panel instead.

Thanks for stopping by!

Inspired By Fabric for Power Poppy

The monthly Power & Spark Challenge over at the Power Poppy blog was a tough one for me this time around. We had to create a card inspired by fabric....something totally out of my comfort zone! I kept going back to the challenge all month, I cruised Pinterest to see if I could find anything that spoke to me and on Weds I finally found a picture of some fabric that I liked and that I felt I could create a card around, enabling me to get creating and just squeaking in for the challenge.

This is the image I chose:

And here is my card:

I used the red and yellows as my inspiration on my card, pulling in the green and blue also seen in some of the fabric in the photo. The circles on the cup in the image mimic the very circles found in the patterns of the fabric.

Thanks for stopping by!

From Your Biggest Fan

I've still got a few Power Poppy Hues to Use Challenges to catch up on, so these cards use the colors from Jan.30. I'm also playing along with the Power and Spark Challenge again with the theme of love. It's so easy to join this challenge with the Va-Va-Valentines Digital Set!

I took these colors and just switched them out on the elements...using the green for the fan blades on one, yellow on the other. I did the same with the background paper, just switching up the colors for each layer. I don't care for the color pink so I kept it to a minimum, using it only for the hearts and lettering.

 Nice and simple cards, just like I like it :)

Forget-Me-Not

I played along with Die Cuttin' Divas and the Power Poppy Power and Spark Challenges again. I love this sketch and thought it was the perfect way to highlight this awesome digital stamp from Power Poppy! The dies I used are the heart and the scallop border at the bottom of the card.

The Power and Spark Challenge is all about love and sparkle, you can choose to do both themes or one. I went with the love theme. We don't do Valentines Day in my house, we prefer to celebrate our love for each other every day, so I went with my favorite colors for this card, blue and green. Once again my hoard of paper came to the rescue as this DSP from SU went perfectly with my Forget-Me-Nots. The Alpine Forget-Me-Not is actually the state of flower of Alaska so I have a special fondness. I always look for the flower when out for a hike.

Love You

Today's card features a brand new digital image from Power Poppy called Blossoming Cherry. I really love this stamp because it makes me think of my grandma. Her and my grandpa used to travel all over the US by train and they used to go to Washington D.C. quite often. Grandma always loved it when the cherry blossoms in DC were in bloom, she thought they were so beautiful.  

I took the image and put it on my Word document twice, then I turned the branches to try and form a heart shape to fold around the sentiment.

There are a few challenges I played along with for this card.....the colors are from the current Power Poppy Hues to Use, the theme of love and the use of sparkle (I used silver Stickles in the middle of the open flowers) is for the Power Poppy Monthly Power and Spark challenge and last but not least the love theme is also for the Be My Valentine theme at The Paper Players.

So Happy I Found You

This month over at Power Poppy the Power and Spark challenge is all about love and sparkle, you can choose to do both themes or just pick one. I'm not big on sparkle so I went with the love theme.

New Valentines Day digi's were recently released at Power Poppy and this image is from the Va-Va- Valentines Digital Stamp set. How fun is it?! I have 2 mini dachshund puppies that LOVE to steal our socks so this image makes me think about chasing them through the house LOL I'm on a red and yellow kick, I love how bright and happy these colors are together, so that's what I used for my color palette.

My layout is from the new challenge at Die Cuttin Divas. As soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to use it! I have a feeling this sketch will end up being one of my favorites! My die cut is the oval that the image is placed on, it's from an MFT set.

Hi, Friend

I'm still playing catch up with the Power Poppy Hues to Use challenge, and these colors are from Jan.9. I'm also playing along with the Power and Spark Challenge again, which is to use a layout from PageMaps.

I decided to color in these gladiolas from the Dynamic Duos: Glads and Gerberas set. I love gladiolas, I used to grow them when I lived in the Lower 48 but haven't tried growing them here in Alaska. Using the hues I colored the flowers yellow and red, and the purple was brought in with the designer paper.

Blue Santa

I've gotten behind on the Power Poppy Hues to Use challenge and so it's my goal to hurry up and get the ones I missed done before the end of the week. This card is for last weeks Hues to Use, which is a lovely blue palette!

I'm playing along with the Daily Marker 30 Day challenge and my theme this week is winter/cold so I decided to use Power Poppy's Flowering Santa and color him blue. Nothing wrong with a blue Christmas :)

I tried to match my copics to the challenge colors as best as I could, hopefully I came close! My 19 yr old son really liked this card...it's rare to get a reaction from him when it comes to cards so it made me feel good that he liked it so much!

I'm also playing with the Power Poppy Power and Spark Challenge, which is to create a card using a layout from PageMap.

Poinsettia Christmas

For this card I played along with the current Freshly Made Sketches and the Portion Control Challenge at Power Poppy. The circles in the sketch were the perfect way to bring in the leaves of the poinsettia and the pomegranate berries, plus cutting off some of the image filled the bill for portion control.

Thanks for stopping by!

Stamps: Poinsettia and Pomegranates (Power Poppy)

Paper: Neenah Solar White, Mossy Meadow (SU retired)

Ink: Printer Ink

Copics: R35, R37, R59

R24, R27

YG11, YG63, YG67

G24, G17, YR24

Accessories: Cuttlebug, Avery Elle Wonky Stitches

 

Just for You Dahlia

This month at the Power Poppy blog Cindy Lawrence is the host for the Power and Spark Challenge and it's all about portion control. She wants us to use only portions of images, no full images allowed. Pretty fun idea!

I instantly thought of the Dahlia XL image for my card and I decided to use a retired die from SU to create my portion control. I cut out the die first and then stamped the image across it. By doing this the outer side edges of the flower were cut off, leaving the center as the main focus of the card. If I had chosen a smaller die I could take off even more of the outer petals but I really liked how this die looked with the dahlia so decided to keep it as is. 

I colored the image in with some orange copics and then decided to use some orange and black papers for the background to carry the color scheme. I wanted a sentiment on the front but didn't want it to be too overwhelming so I stamped the "just for you" on a strip of white and then cut it to create a small banner.

Thanks for stopping by!

Hollyberries and Bookmarks

This month for the Power and Spark Challenge at Power Poppy Stacy Morgan is the hostess and she wants us to create small projects, anything less than 4". I decided to go with bookmarks for my project, using the Hollyberries Digital Stamp set. I love Christmas and I love to read Christmas themed books during the holiday season so I thought bookmarks would be something fun and different.

I used Word to position and size the image and then lined up my die to cut out the hollyberries. I colored them in with my copics and then once I was done coloring I cut out the same bookmark shape in red and green cardstock to adhere to the back of the image panel. To finish it off I looped some ribbon through the top of the bookmark.

Stamps: Hollyberries (Power Poppy)

Paper: Old Olive (SU), Cherry Cobbler (SU), Neenah Solar White

Ink: Printer Ink

Copics: G40, YG25, YG66

R37, R59

E15, E18

C1

Accessories: Cuttlebug, MFT Tall Tags Die, retired SU ribbon in Cherry Cobbler and Old Olive

Geraniums on Kraft

This week the monthly challenge over at Power Poppy is all about coloring on Kraft. I have never done that before so I was pretty nervous, I'm not even going to lie. I gave it a try though and I don't think it came out too bad!

I used the Power Poppy clear set Geraniums Take 2 for my card. I stamped the image and then began to color it with my copics. I waited for each layer of coloring to dry before I added more ink as the color lightens up on the card stock as it drys. When I got to my desired darkness I trimmed out the image and went to work on putting the card together.

I was just going to do the strip of red patterned paper behind the image panel but the card base looked boring to me so I decided to use a retired SU background stamp and used Crumb Cake ink to get my background image. I then adhered the red patterned paper across the middle, popped up the image panel with dimensionals and then stamped the sentiment to the right of the image.

Thanks for stopping by!

Stamps: Geraniums Take 2 (Power Poppy), Print Pattern (SU retired)

Paper: Crumb Cake (SU), Cherry Cobbler DSP (SU retired)

Ink: Cherry Cobbler (SU), Memento Tuxedo Black

Copics

Accessories: SU Ticket Corner Punch (retired)

Sending Peace

I'm cutting it close again with getting the current Power Poppy Hues to Use challenge down before the new one comes out Tuesday but it's been crazy around my house. I spent the entire weekend painting my living room and the house was a disaster area while furniture was displaced. Hubby asked me to please not paint the living room again for at least another 10 years LOL

This card actually fits for 2 Power Poppy challenges...the Hues to Use and the Mix and Match. Sadly, I needed to make a sympathy card as a gal I used to work with lost her son in a motorcycle accident in Anchorage last week. I'm friends with one of her best friends and this card is going to the best friends, while I work on another card for the mom.

This digital stamp set was on sale in the Power Poppy shop and I didn't have it yet so of course I scooped it up. For the purple and light pink in the color challenge I incorporated that by coloring the flowers with those hues. I also used a light pink to do some shadowing around the flowers. It's hard to see on the purple flowers but I added Wink of Stella to them.

The sentiment is from the Olive and Oak digital set (which is the set I'm using to make the sympathy card for my former coworker), so that qualifies this card for the mix and match challenge, as the flowers are from the Ranunculus Digital Stamp set.

Stamps: Ranunculus Digital Stamp set, Olive and Oak Digital Stamp set (both Power Poppy)

Paper: Lucky Limeade (SU retired), Neenah Solar White, Sycamore Street DSP (SU retired)

Ink: Printer Ink

Copics: R0000, R000, RV52, R81

V06, RV66

YG09, YG11

Accessories: Lucky Limeade Ribbon (SU retired), Round Corner Punch, Wink of Stella

Let It Be

When I discovered Power Poppy earlier this year this free digital image instantly caught my eye. My husband is a HUGE Beatles/Paul McCartney fan, and this song happens to be one of my favorite Beatles song. Not to mention I love the leaves surrounding the letters. Perfect for a fall card! For the Power Poppy Power and Spark Challenge, CASE a Bloom Brigade member, I decided to CASE Cindy Lawrence's awesome card with this image.

Here in my part of Alaska we don't get a lot of vibrant fall colors, we mainly see yellow with some orange mixed in. I grew up in New England though and wow, the fall colors there will just blow you away. As I was coloring this image I thought about the street my grandparents lived on and how in the fall you could stand at the end of their driveway, look down the street and just see endless color. I'll carry the beautiful images of autumn back east in my mind forever, there is nothing like it.

I went with yellow, orange, red and green for my leaves, much like Cindy did (other than red). Cindy embossed her card base but I chose to use some patterned paper instead, pulling from the orange of the leaves. I then added a strip of patterned paper down the front like she did, using a design with nice bright colors to contrast against the orange background. I've never been great at coloring around images for a shading effect but I really liked how it looked on Cindy's card so I just went for it on mine. It didn't come out looking too bad! I did leave my letters white, while Cindy covered hers in glitter. Much to my daughters dismay I am not much of a glitter person.

Stamps: Let It Be (Power Poppy)

Paper: Tangerine Tango (SU), Neenah Solar White, Chocolate Chip (SU), International Bazaar (SU retired)

Ink: Printer Ink

Copics: YR04, YR18

R05, R17

Y08, Y19

YG63, G94

B0000, B000

Accessories: Dimensionals

My final test for this card was showing the hubby. I figured he would be picky about it but he loved the bright colors and how all the different colors on the card pop. It was nice to see that he really liked it!

Thanks for stopping by!