Believe to Achieve

I have to start this post by lamenting the need to make this card for one of my babies -- it is a "graduation" card as my eldest moves on from elementary school and becomes <gulp> a middle schooler! As hard as that is to accept, I really did have fun pulling this card together.

I started with the Adorable Elephants set by MFT, and colored my elephant & her balloon with Berol prismacolors and the flowers and butterfly with Staedtler markers. After that, it was just pulling it together: I exacto'd a slot for the balloon, cut the white and black panels from ODBD double stitched rectangles & the specialty paper panel from Authentique paper with the MFT blueprints 13 stitched rectangle.  The sentiment was from the SNS inspirational word art 2 collection I bought with this very daughter in mind, as she struggles with self esteem at times (& it has many other beautiful sentiments I thought would uplift her and others).

While I don't want to admit how old she is (or I!), I am certainly so proud of her academic accomplishments (brag alert: she's 2-3 grade levels ahead in every subject thanks to her amazing school and her hard work & God-given brain!), so i just had to ... make a card, of course!

Amazing Horizons

So, I was at a friend's house crafting the other night, and we combined our dies to make this fun card. I borrowed her Sizzix Basic Step-Ups die to make the base.  From my stash, we used the Memory Box Diving Dolphins die, Poppystamps seaside lighthouse die, Impression Obsession (IO) Shore Birds dies and stamped the sentiment & sailboat from Essentials by Ellen Stay Salty, then fussy cut the latter. The birds and boat were colored with pencils and sparkle pen. The clouds, beach, and oceans were made with sponged distress inks (and highlighted with sparkly blue and white gel pens). We added some sea grass via IO Tall Grasses and called it a SLOW card! It was interesting to see how differently our two cards turned out, as she favors warm colors and I cool ones...  She also challenged me to start posting to my blog again, so here I am!

Fishy Faith

My second entry in the chevron competition at CAS (CASology Week 205: chevron) feautured the other Rubber King fish I mentioned in my last blog. He too is from the Rubber King Pond Friends stamp and die sets, colored with their special markers. See how differently he turned out? Even a crafty but non-artistic person like me, with clearly defined favorite color combos, can look like a pro and make unique designs! This ocean was even more whimsical, using a My Favorite Things Polka Dot coverup die to create a bubbly haven for my little fishy.

The outer sentiment was die cut from a Paper smooches die in the religious words set. I then embossed it extra thick and mounted it on some delicate chevron paper from my Garden Party paper pad. I cut it out using Our Daily Bread Designs double stitched rectangles. Inside the card, I went with an ODBD Deep Waters stamp to complete my fishy's message. Enjoy!

Oceanic Joy

Chevron is my favorite go to pattern, so when I saw a competition based around it (CASology Week 205: chevron), I couldn't resist. I decided to use its "wave"-like properties by sponging a Memory Box stencil in Broken China. The panel was cut with MFT Blueprints-13 stitched die. I was also dying to break out my new Rubber King Pond Friends stamp and die sets, colored with their special markers, to make the cool little fish. It was a system I had coveted over a year ago at an expo, but didn't want to invest in starting from scratch, but this year, I gave in! What fun it is to blend colors like a pro, and make many different fish in just a few minutes -- truly CAS. (You'll see another one in my next installment. Now I just wish I had bought that seahorse too! ;-)) Finally, the sentiment is one of the Joy! Crafts seashore stamps.

Dimensional Thanks

Do y'all have one of those mother-in-laws? I do. The best kind ever. She loves her son. She loves me. But most of all she loves her grandkids. Her favorite gifts to give are time and love. How lucky are we?! So to thank the grandparents for coming for TWO WEEKS so we could go on the trip of a lifetime, I knew I needed to make something special. Those of you who know me know I usually stop at about 2 layers, rarely use pink, and recoil from frilly florals. Here I did all of the above and maxed out at 7 layers! Like I said...special. ;-) All the same, it is still and CAS card, true to myself.

Some tools used:
       ODBD stitched rectangles
       ODBD sending set
       ODBD fancy squares
       Mft blueprints 13

Over and above the layering, I popped up the diamond orientation portion with foam tape and added more height & pop with Dew Drops (poinsettia set and watery set).

I'm competing in: ODBDSLC275 Pop It Up or Add Dimension.

Seeing in the Dark

It's been a LONG while, I know. I was kind of overtaken by life with 3 little ones, but I am back in the creative mood again after a fun night of designing with a good friend recently. Time for Mommy's is where you MAKE it!

For this CAS design, I reversed the white and dark spaces to go with the beautiful sentiment by ODBD. The background is a simple mix of sponged Tim Holtz distress inks, cut out with the stitched MFT Blueprints-13 rectangle. The owl is a cute little graduation set (re-purposed here) from Impression Obsession. Add a branch and you have a punny but meaningful card to encourage a friend.

Challenge I'm playing in: CASology #200: CAS + Blog Candy!

Thanks (But)Tons

I started with Your Next Stamp winter greetings set, for both the image and sentiment, stamped in Versafine Majestic blue. It seemed appropriate as we have 30" and counting of snow today, in a SOUTHERN state! I cut the image out with an Our Daily Bread Design double stitched rectangle, and made a larger frame from another. I cut the sentiment out with DieNamics Fishtail Flags. I edged all the die cuts with Jim Holtz faded jeans, and sponged the frame with a combo of Holtz distress inks (salty ocean, faded jeans, dusty Concord). The photo doesn't show it, but the banner is popped up over the frame on my grey panel. Finally, I added button "snowflakes" for bling.

Competing in the CCNS #120 -- Buttons this week.
Epilogue: I got a top 3 mention for this one!