Pemberly Sympathy Card

The most difficult cards for me to make are sympathy cards.  So I rely heavily on my sister consultants for inspiration.  Recently my boss lost her father and thanks to Vicki Wizniuk, I modeled my card after one of her beautiful sympathy cards. For the flower I used the Card Word Puzzle rose and stamped it directly onto the Crème Brulee decorative paper with Outdoor Denim ink. 

I love using dimension and this card has a lot of dimension.:

Below is the inside of the card.  Allisa Chilton is another consultant that is an inspiration to me.  Her cards are gorgeous on both the inside and the outside so I try to make the card's insides less plain.

Papers: Pemberly WOTG papers (Ret); Outdoor Denim, Desert Sand and White Daisy cardstocks

Stamps:  C1494 Card Word Puzzle
Ink:   Outdoor Denim Exclusive Inks; Buttercup alcohol markers

Embellishments:  z132 Color Ready Seam Binding Ribbon

Other: Spellbinder circle and scallop dies.

 

 

Elegant sponged cards

I really love some of the beautiful bulky cards I see people make but I always wonder how they are going to mail those cards.  Today, I am presenting some elegant single layer sponged cards.  The first time I saw these all I could say was WOW!  I saw them on Melinda Everette's blog and she saw them on Heather Telford's blog.  My rendition of those cards are below.  I did 8 card combinations (because this was my monthly workshop).  I wanted everyone to have colors to choose from and wanted to give everyone a variety of images to work from.  If you are like me, I always want to make what I see!  Attendees got to make 6 of the 8 cards.  It was a customer appreciation workshop!

CTMH colors used:  Sunflower, Sunset and Cranberry

CTMH colors used:  Blush, Petal and Gypsy

CTMH colors used:  Creme Brulee, Desert Sand, Chocolate

CTMH colors used:  Sweet Leaf, Topiary, Moonstruck

CTMH colors used:  Heavenly Blue, Sky, Dutch Blue

CTMH colors used:  Sunny Yellow, Sunflower, Orange (retired)

CTMH colors used:  Grey Flannel, Grey Wool, Black

CTMH colors used:  Sunny Yellow, Pear, Lagoon

Every time I finished one of these cards, I kept thinking "This is my favorite color combo."  "No, this is my favorite color combo."  But I just love all of them for two reasons:  they look elegant and can be easily mailed!

Color Throwdown Challenge

I found this great little blog that has a color challenge.  The blog is called The Color Throwdown and since I enjoy anything that helps spark my creative juice (which flow rarely and slowly), I decided to take the challenge this week.  The colors intrigued me.  Here is the challenge--nice colors:

I tried to stay true to the color scheme which looked to me to be lots of white, then mostly the orange color, a bit of yellow and a pop of magenta and green.  While it's not my very favorite card, it's growing on me from last night when I made it.  I used Raspberry, a color that Close To My Heart retired about 7 years ago (right after I became a consultant) but it's still one of favorite colors fits the bid for the color challenge!

And here is a little better look at the dimensional elements:

Papers:  White Daisy, Raspberry(retired) Cardstocks
Stamps: D1470 Dreams Come True; C1494 Card Word Puzzle; D1436 The Present
Ink:  Sunset, Sunflower, Juniper, Raspberry(retired) Exclusive Inks
Embellishments: z1338 Sunset Mini Medley; z1336 Pearl Adhesive Gems; z1701Neutral Assortment Baker's Twine
 
I do love these colors!  They just look so cheery and I think this makes the perfect get well card. 

Live Simply, Stamp Generously!

A Dotty For You Birthday

As I said earlier this month, May is the month of Birthdays. One of my friends and stamping buddies just had a birthday.  I just love how neat the Dotty For You papers coordinate!  This came together so quickly and easily!

I just love how this all coordinates so beautifully!  Here is a snapshot of the inside of the card. This is the sketch I used for this card from Freshly Made Sketches:

I never get to see enough of the innards of people's cards so I'm still working at the perfect innards.  There should be an innards contest.  Would that be interesting.  OK, I digress....

Papers: Dotty For You papers; Colonial White, Grey Wool Cardstocks 
Stamps: C1494 Card Word Puzzle;  
Ink: Lagoon, Sweet Leaf, Grey Wool Exclusive Inks 
Embellishments: Lagoon Mini-Medley Accent Collection; z1709 Just Blooms Paper Shapes

Wishing my friend Shelley a Happy Birthday!  And wishing everyone a Happy Stamping day!

Happy Mother's Day

Today is the day we honor motherhood and the positive influence of a mother's love.  The most perfect and beautiful of God's creatures on Earth was a mother (Mary) who brought to us her perfect Son. So in honoring mother's everywhere I wish you all the most perfect Mother's Day. 

I have two mothers in particular that I honor today, my daughter Sarah who is the mother of my two year old granddaughter Zoe, and my daughter-in-law Amanda, who is the mother of my grandchildren Hannah 10, Mikayla 7, and Xander 2.  How blessed we all are to have you both!

This is the Mother's Day card I made fashioned from a card made by Allisa Chilton, a very talented CTMH Consultant.  When I saw this paper from the "Dotty For You" special paper pack I thought "what a dull paper in such a splendidly vibrant paper pack."  After seeing Allisa's beautiful card I fell in love with this paper!  The rose is made from 4 embossed flowers cut and layered together.  The tulips were my present.

A closer look at the layering, next:

Papers: Dotty For You papers; White Daisy, Grey Wool Cardstocks

Stamps: C1494 Card Word Puzzle; D1283 Say It In Style (Retired)

Ink: Grey Wool Exclusive Inks

Embellishments: z1707 Bitty Opaques Pearl Adhesive Gems; z1336 Cream Opaques Adhesive Gems; z1732 Bulk Color-Ready Seam Binding Ribbon


Happy Mother's Day everyone.  I hope you all were able to share your day with friends and family!