Cloudy at Sea

Cloudy at Sea

The Cloud challenge (CCNS82) couldn't have come at a better time, as I had just purchased the nautical Impression Obsession Dies and some clouds, inspired by our April beach trip, but hadn't yet played with them. Here's what I came up with (sorry the picture is at such a rakish angle!):

Now that I have seen my friend's take on the same scene, I am decidedly less pleased with myself than I was when I created this... At any rate, the sky is sponged with salty ocean and tumbled glass over cloud masks, stamped with a sentiment from ODBD, and then I popped up clouds from both an Impression Obsessions set and a ODBD set. The ocean is made from torn strips of paper I had sponged with mostly peacock and salty ocean (lighter layer) or faded jeans, salty ocean and dusty concord (horizon layer). The island was torn from cappucino card stock over-sponged with tea dye. The lighthouse comes from the IO nautical set, which I punched from both black and white to get the striped. The lights were filled in with Stickles to give them texture and glow.

As a side note, while none of my designs has ever won, I found out this morning I did win a random drawing via one of my entries (April SHowers), so I'm taking that as a victory! Exciting!

I'm also playing in the scripture challenge at Our Daily Bread Designs.
Thanks for visiting!

April Showers

April Showers

This is my first ever entry into an Our Daily Bread Challenge (ODBDSLC235) -- finally got some of their great stuff in order to be able to play along (ok, this one I borrowed from a friend, but I have more, I promise!) ...

The background is sponged with a combo of Distress Inks in pistachio, pine and bundled sage to create a spring look, then die cut from my MFT Blueprint 13 stitched die. The ODBD sentiment was stamped in VersaMark and embossed using white powder. My tulips were cut from a Penny Black die, first in green, then from watercolor papers I had sponged in either Pickled Raspberry/Marmalade or Marmalade/Mustard Seed/Fired Brick and popped up with Joy! Foam pads. The smaller flowers are from a Martha Stewart hydrangea punch from designer papers and hand cut stems. I popped up the larger ones and shaped the tiny one, then added pink and green rhinestones.

Cherry Thankfulness

Cherry Thankfulness

Today I am playing along for the first time at Classy Cards N Such (CCNS81) at the behest of a friend with lots more experience! Their concept this week was cherry or dogwood blossoms, and given the sight and fragrance of cherries all around right now here in DC, I took that path. My other inspiration was a color combo I saw while stuck watching the Masters Golf Tournament with my hubby (can you say bored if all I noticed was the juxtaposition of spring green, deep blue and hot pink in the azeleas/sky?!). Thus was born my concept.

For my background, I sponged a combination of distress inks (peacock, salty ocean, faded jeans, dusty concord, pistachio and pine). I cut the Penny Black Dancing Blooms cherry stem twice in chocolate for thickness, and once in paper I had sponged spiced marmalade/pickled raspberry to get my cherry blossoms. I added my Stampin Up sentiment in Versamark, and picked it because I thought the concept of giving a receiving so nicely fit the cherry blossom, since ours here are all a gift from Japan. Then I added blue, green and clear rhinestones (which I'm sorry to say photographed as all dark). I cut my panel using the MFT Blueprints 13 stitched border die and adhered it to a matching chocolate base I made from paper in the same family as my cherry stem. Voila! I hope you like it.

Other Challenge I am playing in: Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: Clean and Simple