Yesterday (Monday) I got happy mail in the form of three stamp sets from the Craft's Meow (along with some stamps and dies from another company). I have used two of those TCM sets for my card... Happy as a Lark and Lark Additions. The color story comes from the current Dynamic Duo of Island Indigo and Pool Party. I don't have Island Indigo, but I discovered that Close to My Heart's Twilight is a very close match... yay!! Card pretty much explains itself... stamped the woodgrain image using Pool Party, trimmed it out and roughed up the edges. Stamped the bird using Twilight and trimmed it out. Embossed the background using my SU! honeycomb embossing folder and then roughed up the edges. The banners were cut from Pool Party and Island Indigo card stocks with my MFT Fishtail Flag Layers Stax dies and the edges roughed up. Sentiment was stamped using black ink and then everything was layered up. Easy peasy!! 
The other day I needed some inspiration for a card I needed to make and so I took a little drive to my favorite stamp store, Impress Rubber stamps. While I was there I spotted a set of embossing folders from LifeStyle Crafts that I just had to buy. One of the folders has a honeycomb design and the other little bees... too cute! I used the honeycomb folder for my card, as well as a cute little set from The Craft's Meow called Thanks Bee to Thee. This week's ColourQ combo was a bit of a challenge for me to find good color matches, but I think I succeeded. I used cardstock from PTI, Close to My Heart, Bazzill and Stampin Up! The hexagons were cut with a set of Taylored Expressions Hexagon Stacklets from the Bazzill and PTI cardstocks. When I originally finished there were only three hexagons, but then I looked at the sketch, again, and decided I needed to add one more. In retrospect I think I should have left it off. Oh well... 
Back in December I got this fun set from The Craft's Meow called Christmas Cheer. It has a cool retro kinda look to it that I really liked. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make anything with it during the holiday season so I was determined to use it this month. The ColourQ combo this week is yellow, navy blue, grey, kraft & white which I think works well for a winter card. I stamped the snowman using navy blue ink and then trimmed him out. The large snowflake in the background is a cool new die from My Favorite Things called the Snowflake Doily die. The banner was cut with my favorite MFT dies... Fishtail Flag Stax dies. Not sure I really like the snowflake embossed white cardstock piece, but maybe it will grow on me, lol!
in order to get this card completed i really had to search through my stuff to find something close to sahara sand (note to self: buy some sahara sand cardstock!). finally i found one last scrap of pti soft stone cardstock. soft stone is lighter than sahara sand, but still works fine and shows up nicely against the white, i think. i used the craft's meow set simply delightful. the medallion was die cut using spellbinders plain circle dies and then matted with a second plain circle cut from soft stone. the flags were cut with my well loved and well used my favorite things fishtail flag stax dies. the background was embossed using the stampin up! fancy fans embossing folder. the little glitter dots up in the corner were originally white, but i custom colored them using a dark red copic marker. 
as indicated the layout is based on the current sketch from the craft's meow. i used two different craft's meow sets: celebrating you and beautiful spring. the butterfly from beautiful was stamped using versamark watermark ink, silver embossing powder applied and then heat set. after that was done i trimmed it out and added silver rhinestones to the body. i cut a white circle with my spellbinders plain circle die and then cut a mat using grey cardstock. the little banner was cut using the verve pennant trim die. i stamped the sentiment from celebrating you in grey ink on the white cardstock strip and then created the fishtail end using my 1" square punch... a little trick i learned from my bloggy friend, michelle. i included this detail shot so you can actually see the silver embossing. this is actually the second version of the card. the first one turned into an utter disaster. the only thing i saved from it is the butterfly. the rest of the card ended up in the recycling basket. i don't often throw an entire card into the recycling basket so that first card was pretty bad!
I love white on white cards and so decided to make a white on white card, but broke things up a little bit by adding in some velllum. I used both dry and heat embossing on the vellum to add further interest. The layout is based on the current sketch from The Craft's Meow. I stamped the flower from the Craft's Meow set Beautiful Spring on the vellum using watermark ink, applied white embossing powder, heat set it and then trimmed it out. The tag was die cut using my ODBD tag die. The strip of vellum was embossed using the Stampin Up! Fancy Fan embossing folder. The card was finished off with a white button, white twine and some white Venise lace.
Once, again, I adhered very closely to the sketch. Mainly because I have never made a card using hexagon shapes which are all the rage right now and I really wanted to use my The Craft's Meow Thanks Bee to Thee set which has hexagons in it. I think the card is pretty self-explanatory. I stamped the hexagon images, trimmed them out and then arranged them as you see. The little bee from the set was stamped three times, trimmed out and Black Diamond stickles added to the wings. Some kraft colored bakers twine was tied in a bow, adhered to the hexagons and then I added the bees. 
I recently purchased some lovely items from the Funkie Junkie and one of the items was a length of sweet red ruffled gingham trim. I just had to make something with it right away and the above mentioned challenges were the perfect opportunity. I purchased some other lovely trims from Linda and can't wait to use them. If you haven't ever checked out Linda's store, you really should. She has some really lovely items for sale. I followed the sketch fairly closely except that I did not add the sentiment flag as shown in the sketch. I felt I had too much going on at the bottom of the card and thought simply stamping the sentiment on the card front worked much better. I added some Buttercup Stickles to the center of the flower, but I now think that might of not been the best idea. I will also be popping this into the current Sunday Share at Frilly & Funkie as I purchased the gingham trim from the Funkie Junkie store. 
Hello, friends!! Hope everyone in the US is enjoying the long weekend. Have a couple of cards to share. I made one using the current colors from ColourQ, but missed out on getting it posted in time for the challenge and the current Deconstructed Sketch. I'm not entirely happy with the card as I don't think I combined the colors very well, but that is the point of a challenge... to challenge yourself! The stamps are from the Taylored Expressions limited edition set "Vintage Dreams", as well as another TE set "Make it Amazing". The patterned paper and the brads are from one of my TE Key Ingredients kits -- March, I think. The cardstock is PTI. And I think I can officially say that I absolutely LOVE my Fishtail Flag Stax Die-namics dies from My Favorite Things. They are the coolest dies evah!! I couldn't figure out where to put a sentiment so I cut a fishtail flag using the smallest die in the set and stamped it with the sentiment from "Make it Amazing". I clipped it to the larger fishtail flag using a mini binder clip that was embellished with a twine bow. 
The second card is for the current The Craft's Meow sketch challenge. The challenge lasts for the entire month, but for some reason I just can't seem to get my card done any earlier than several days before the challenge closes! Anywhoo... for this card I used some really pretty papers from a Me & My Big Ideas 8x8 paper pad. My sister-in-law gave me the pad for Christmas and for someone who knows nothing about papercrafting she managed to pick a really good one! The stamps are from The Craft's Meow, of course, two different sets, Beautiful Spring and Thanks Bee to Thee. The sentiment from Thanks Bee to Thee didn't fit on the fishtail flag I diecut, so I masked off the bottom portion and inked up only the "thanks". Worked pretty good. I stamped the large butterfly on some of the patterned paper using black ink and trimmed it out. The smaller one was stamped on white cardstock using pink ink and trimmed out. The two were then layered together and the rhinestone added. I really like the very clean look of this card.
I used a very pretty set from The Craft's Meow called Simply Delightful and a piece of patterned paper from the MME Blush pad. All cardstock is from PTI (kraft and Vintage Cream), as are the buttons and cream ribbon. The flowers were stamped using SU!'s Crumb Cake in and then trimmed out. I used my Taylored Expressions banner die to create the little banner that the sentiment was stamped on. The scalloped border was created using a EKSuccess border punch. It has a really long and funny name that quite frankly doesn't have alot to do with the type of border created by the punch! How funny is that? So, there you have it... a sweet and simple little card.
For this particular TCM challenge we were given a birthday inspiration photo and asked to make a birthday card. I decided to go with some of the bright cheerful colors that can be found in the inspiration photo. My card actually used three different TCM sets: Fly Free, Butterfly Kisses & Simply Delightful. The layout for my card comes from this week's Deconstructed Sketch. All the patterned papers are from Stampin Up!. I have way too much SU! patterned paper and so I'm on a mission to use them up. I have noticed lately that a lot of people are finishing the interiors of their cards and so I thought I would give it a try with this card. I kept it pretty simple, though. 
For this card I used the beautiful Craft's Meow set: Fly Free. I used the beautiful Teresa Collins Carolina Breeze 6x6 pad for all the papers. I just love the color combo of yellow, grey, black and white. So very elegant! I stamped the birdcage using Memento London Fog and then trimmed it out. Some Diamond Stickles was added to the little butterfly on the cage door. The sentiment was stamped using Tuxedo Black ink and matted with black cardstock. I little crystal flourish from Recollections finished off the card. A very faithful reading of this month's sketch.
The Timeless Tuesday challenge host this time is Heather and she provide a beautiful inspiration photo and asked us to make a card using at least three of the colors from the photo. I think I some how managed to use almost all the colors to be found in the inspiration photo!! The stamps I used are from the Craft's Meow set Butterfly Kisses. I stamped the little fairy girl twice using So Saffron ink. One was trimmed out completely and the second only her wings. I then applied a thin layer of Diamond Stickles to the second wing. After it was dry I attached it to the main image and added the rhinestones. Because I wanted the piece with the sentiment stamped on it to extend beyond the edge like it does in the sketch I trimmed 1/2 inch off one side of the card base, making it 4.25 x 5. The sentiment strip is 5.5 inch, thus making the entire card 4.25 x 5.5. All the papers are from Stampin Up!, including the little oval that the fairy girl is layered on.
