Again, I managed to find two challenges that caught my eye. One is a color challenge from Color Q and the other is sketch challenge #107 from Taylored Expressions! When I first saw the colors, I thought – piece of cake! I love those colors. Well…several attempts later I realized it wasn't that easy. I rarely put that many strong colors together and it really did challenge me! Teal, Celery Green, Lavender and Lilac…gorgeous pallette.

Without further ado…my card…

A close up of the central image – colored with my very lightest Copic marker shades of green, blue green, blue violet and blue.  

I handmade each of the little lavender flowers

I think the hydrangeas are a perfect match for the color challenge, right?? I can't wait to show you all pictures when they are in full bloom. Makes me happy. 

Today's card was made for the Taylored Expressions sketch challenge #106. Click here to go to her blog.  I made a few attempts before I got an idea that I liked. I pulled out this super cute stamp from Denami with the stamping/scrapping girls. I tried and tried to find the right patterned paper and ended up with my old standby favorite of the mini checks! I wanted it to be feminine so I accented with a bright salmon pink and some glitter.

This is the design/sketch for the challenge:

 
Hi everyone! Thought I would share Easter cards today! I hope you are all ready for a lovely Easter day with your families and friends. Our day is spent at Church and then usually a nice brunch or lunch out.

Here are my Easter cards for this year:

A fairly simple design this time around. The beatiful background paper is a giant sheet of Japanese paper from Paper Source (love that store).  It was the inspiration piece…and so much prettier in person. I used Versamagic ink in Pink Grapefruit for the sentiment and butterflies. Some Prima flowers to complete the look. I love pink and green together…always!
 

The card below was my Easter card from a couple of years ago. I had saved one because I really liked how it came out. I was in a chocolate brown Bazzill paper phase back then. But I do like the brown offset by the pastels. Thought I would throw this card in today too.

Are your Easter baskets all ready??!!

Hi There! Well….yesterday and today were quite exciting here on the old bloggy blog! My Top Crop pick from Taylored Expressions yesterday resulted in HUGE interwebs traffic for me. 277 Blog views to be exact! Wow! I don't even know what to say. I am humbled and super excited to welcome new visitors! Even one person checking in from the Netherlands! Hi Holly! Thanks for the comments – I really appreciate each and every one.

Today I just have sort of a mish mash of this 'n that to share. Two cards and a couple of photos too. Let's see what we got.

This card was made from the Pure Innocence stamps from My Favorite Things. Is she not the absolute cutest thing? Her dress and pockets were paper pieced with some Basic Grey Paper. Her little collar was colored white with a gel pen. Copics were used to color the images.

 
This card is a simple Asian inspired card – again colored with the Copic markers. I colored the orange fish twice and then cut one out and popped it with some double sided foam tape. The water is 3-4 shades from the blue green color family. The background bamboo stamp is from Hero Arts. This would make a nice masculine card, perhaps.

 
Hydrangea update! They are BLUE! If you've ever grown hydrangeas you know they can get a little weird if not given the right plant food. They will revert back to pink! It's always nice to see the first ones pop their heads out to show me their true colors!

Hi All! Hope you are having a super fabulous weekend! I went to a 50th birthday Disco party yesterday and it was really fun! The cake had a mirror ball on the top. Great music. A candy buffett! Awesome. I think the birthday 'girl' had a great time. I know I did! It kind of scared me that I still know all the words to those disco songs. Good times!

My card for today is for two card challenges that I came across this week that called for stitching. I'm not that great with the paper + the sewing machine…but gave it my best shot. I really like this card – especially the colors. One challenge – Embellish Magazine – called for light pink, light aqua, kraft, and stitching. The other challenge – Shabby Tea Room – called for Spring theme and stitching.

Here is my card:

This card feels so vintagey – so I decided to take a sepia picture of it too:

Buddy Says…Life is just a bowl of cherries!

I think it's important to honor the friends that weather life's storms with you. They are there through rain and sleet and wind and snow and dark of night. I am deeply blessed to have many such friends. Today I made a card with the simple sentiment – Friends, rain or shine.

I have had this neat umbrella stamp for years but was never able to color it just the way my mind wanted it to be. So, I decided to give it a go with my Copics. All I can say is "WOW!" I think this might be the best coloring I've done to date! It came out exactly as I wanted. I really (REALLY) paid attention to the shading and blending and took my time. I hope you like it – and I hope the fact that I'm showing the process is helpful too. It's the beginning of a nice Spring weekend. Have a good one!

The finished card:

The red is done, moving on to the yellows…

This is what the back looks like – I think that's kinda pretty too:

I chose this blue dotted paper to look like raindrops. I decided to keep it simple with the papers and just used primary colors and no real patterned paper. Okay, that was hard! I NEED patterned paper…but it didn't work in this situation. I might get over it. The sentiment was printed on the computer.

If you are practicing your coloring – I want you to really look at this. See how all of the lighter parts are on the same side of every umbrella? That makes your eye believe that is the direction of the sun. This is very hard for me. I have been working on it though.

I feel like I need to play a Rihanna song in the background right now. Under my umbrella, ella, ella, ella…  Peace out chicadees!

Ya know how I love Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger! It's that time again! This week the trigger photo is of a pretty cotton sundress for a little girl. It just happened to be with my favorite colors (aqua, lavender and green) and plaid! I'm mad about plaid! An idea came to me pretty quickly. Here is the trigger image first:

 
What came to my mind was a pretty preppy Spring party dress for a soiree out on the lawn…Close your eyes…can you imagine the twinkling white lights and the champagne? And the lanterns hanging from the trees and the jazzy ensemble… Oh yeah, wait, come on back to me. Come back! I said COME BACK! Whew.

Okay, so here is my card-

Behind the scenes of making the plaid skirt for the dress…Giant stamp from Hero Arts. Three favorite colors of Versamagic ink. I only used a tiny bit of green and then criss crossed the other two colors.

Then I stamped the dress in black onto my plaid 'fabric' and cut it out. I stamped the dress again on my main paper and colored the bodice with my Copics – three shades. 

 
When I attached the skirt part I put the upper part on with mono-adhesive and the lower part with double sided foam tape to look like the skirt had some movement. The argyle pattern is stamped on the lavender card stock with versamark ink (Judikins stamp). I glued on a pretty pink flower corsage and a polka dot bow…There ya have it!

This would be a nice card for a special gal pal or even a bridal shower. So feminine and sweet!

Here's what's going on out in the front yard with my babies…my giant Nikko Blue Hydrangeas…I can't wait for their giant periwinkle pom poms to come out to see me! Here is a good start. Nature at it's finest, don't ya think?