Verve Release for May

This is my submission for the new release happening tonight on the Verve blog.  Julee and the Divas have been cooking up some pretty spectacular cards with sneek peeks of the new sets!  There is one with some hot air balloons!!!  I also see a fun tree on the banner, so I am quite anxious for the new sets to be revealed tonight!

I used a "Plain Jane" very elegant flower for the main image stamped in Memento Tuxedo black on a very sparkly Prima card stock.  I added some MS glitter to the centers and stamped extra flowers and cut out the centers to use on the scalloped border.  The beautiful "tiles" block from Wishful Elegance was stamped onto a textured white Neenah cs and I coloured in the little "petals" with a Copic.  The dp is from K & Co. and I like the freshness of it.  This card is to give to my husband tomorrow for our 29th wedding anniversary.  The beautiful sentiment is also from Wishful Elegance.  I hope my husband likes it, as I rarely give him cards because he thinks cards are for mailing and not for giving in person!  Thanks for taking a peek!

Purple Wisteria- Zinnias- confused, me too!

Good morning!  I am so behind with challenges and this last card I made isn't even for one of them!  I decided to make this one just for fun without following any criteria, so here it is.  I was really anxious to ink up this new Lockhart zinnia stamp and to use some of this beautiful Wisteria paper from BG.  Now, you know I am not a purple lover, but some flowers and cards are just great matches for this family.  I started by stamping the zinnia image onto a textured white car stock with Memento Tuxedo black ink and coloured with my Copics.  I chose these colours to go with the Wisteria paper and I love how both papers I used are a perfect compliment to SU's River Rock. (can somebody please speak to Shelli about bringing it back as a neutral colour, Lydia, are you reading this?)  I used Martha Stewart's picket fence punch and punched the fence out of Elegant Eggplant, crazy right?  Who ever heard of a purple picket fence, but I do like how the whole card turned out, so, let me know what you think!  Cheers!  Thanks for taking a P{{K

chriss

~recipe~

stamps Lockhart zinnia, SU birthday sentiment from Birthdays Count

ink Mem. Tux. blk

paper SU elegant eggplant, river rock, Basic Grey Wisteria 6 X 6 pack

access. MS punches picket fence & butterflies, Copic markers, corner rounder, SU oval punch

Porcelain Wedding Day for WSC81

Another challenge, how I love to participate in them, but I do have my favourites.  This is one of them AND it's still the weekend!  The wedding cake was stamped in white craft on certainly celery and clear embossed and then mounted on one of the sheets from BG Porcelain pack.  I sponged over it with a dauber and River Rock and liked how it was a good match to the flowered Porcelain sheet I planned on using for the main background panel on the card.  It also brought out the white embossing lines.  The rest is pretty self explanatory and the details are below in the recipe.  Don't know that the circular pattern of crystals shows up very well in the photo, but it is quite pretty irl.  Thanks for taking a peek!

cheers!, chriss

~recipe~

stamps Lockhart wedding cake, SU sweet little sentiments

paper BG Porcelain, PTI Bitty Dots

access. crystal-say it w/crystals, SU circular & oval punches, lace from Ellen Hutson

Dad's fishing vest

Hi there!  I know that there is not anything botanical about this card, but I couldn't resist using this new fishing vest stamp from Lockhart that I purchased from Ellen Hutson's shop when  I saw Sharon's #87 challenge "for the guys" that she issued to make a masculine card incorporating some man ribbon or twine.  This is probably the most masculine card I have ever made and the sketch was borrowed from Julee's Mojo 86 from this last Monday.  I made my cs a little grungy by holding it and lightly smearing over the ink pad.  Hope you like it!  Thanks for taking a peek and hope you have a great start to the week-end!

~recipe~

stamps Lockhart fishing vest, SU fancy flex phrases, Nature prints

ink Mem. tux blak., SU always artichoke

paper SU really rust, always artichoke, kraft

VERVE Project parade for April & WT218

Here is my project for Julee's Verve May parade and it also qualifies for Julia S. WT challenge over at SCS, that never happens!

  My friend Alma at work has a birthday coming up next month and she and I share a lot of laughs at work.  I have known her for 5 years now and will be adding this to her birthday gift.  She loves this Aveda product and never allows herself to buy it, so I think she will like it!  It is a tin that I covered with BG Lime Rickey dp.  The tin formerly held mint tea and although I do love iced mint tea, I really bought it for the tin!  I loved this window it had in it.  The flowers from Grateful Elegance really dress up this gift I think and I tucked in a half flower under the HPH and ribbon sliders from SU.

Thanks for taking a peek today, cheers!

chriss

~recipe~

stamps VERVE Grateful Elegance

paper BG Lime Rickey, SU old olive

ink SU pumpkin pie, Mem. Tux. blk

access SU HPH for the sentiment frame & ribbon sliders, Copics, Spellbinders rectangle nestabilities, orange ribbon fron Smith & Hawken

  

gardeners know the best dirt...

This is my 2 challenge card for today, the weekend sketch challenge provided by Cambria and the ways to use it challenge issued by Julia, to use Kraft card stock.  My image from Lockhart was stamped in craft white and clear embossed and then I coloured in with Copics.  The little white daisy petals were not showing that much, so I took a blender pen and added some white craft ink just outside of the embossed edges.  The panels were cut from an older SU pattern pad which just happened to be Kraft!  I coloured in the open petal flower with a Copic to draw in a little more colour.  I used my Spellbinder oval Nestabilitoes to mount the stamped image on and I added a little dragonfly sticker from my stash.  My sentiment is also a lockhart stamp!  Thanks for taking a peek, and I hope you have are having a great week end!

cheers!, chriss

Forget-me-not wedding cupcake

Here is my Mojo85 sketch challenge card.  This week's challenge is for a prize over on the Mojo blog (you can click on the Mojo icon on my sidebar and it should take you there.)  The design was in my head for a couple of days before I could sit down this afternoon and finally put it together.  I started by stamping in Sahara Sand on white card stock and colouring my beloved cupcake stamp from Karen Lockhart that I purchased from Ellen Hutson's store.  I just love it!  I decided to make it into forget-me-nots as I am missing that flower this time of year up in the great white north.  I had hundreds of them on one side of our property mixed in with lilly of the valley clumps and they were so pretty together in bloom, but Austin does not have these little pretties, so I had to indulge on this card.  Julee's Wishful Elegance set is truly beautiful and I used the sentiment and the background stamp that reminds me of elegant enameled tiles.  I stamped this in white craft ink and clear embossed.  The lace edge is also from Ellen's store and to my surprise, it is a perfect match to sahara sand!  Hope you like it.

ch{{rs!....chriss ~recipe~

paper SU sahara sand&marigold morning, Papertrey itty bitty dots paper pack

stamps Verve Wishful Elegance, Lockhart flower cupcake

access. trim from E. Hutson, champagne dew drops, SU white taffeta, copics, Sakura clear sparkly pen (a gift from my friend Yvonne)

Inspiration found!

Inspiration really can be found all around us!

I had some time to play this morning before I had to leave for my work outside of the home and was inspired to start on the VERVE challenge for May's 1st week.  This is the sketch we have been provided for guidance on this Vive la Verve challenge with a twist, the twist being to create a card using an inspiration in your home.  Well, anyone that knows me, even just a little, knows that I love flowers.  I always have my windowsills dressed with a flowerpot or three and plants in them.  I love ferns also, but these little mini kalanchoes are currently in my family room window and I have been enjoying them for over a month now, so this was my inspiration for this first week's challenge.  Hope you are inspired today with the abundance that nature provides to us each and every day!

For the little flower pots, I free hand cut them from a coffee sleeve from WF and painted them with white liquid pearls and then went over the dried surface with a Copic marker for a bit of a yellow sheen.

~recipe~

stamps VERVE Floral Symphony, Wishful Elegance & a surprise SMILE stamp from Julee in my last order!

ink SU summer sun, pumpkin pie

  paper   SU so saffron, pumpkin pie

  access. linen brad from MM, coffee sleeve from WF, SU

taffeta ribbon, liquid pearls 

Special friend tea card/ a 2 challenge card!

My second post today, I know, I will try to be more regular, but this was one challenge that I could not pass up!   It was issued on Nichole Heady's "Capture the Moment" blog (owner of Papertrey Ink stamps) and it really spoke to me.  There are several photo's that the designer team each used as inspiration to create something.  Nichole passed on the challenge to her readers, so here is mine!  I chose Heather's photo (love the greens and blues and the little cup of tea) and created a card with the best little teapot image set and sentiments that I have seen.  My colours are a little darker than the inspiration piece, but I love these richer tones.  I was able to use the cute "Tea for Two" set released in April from Papertrey INK and the Itty Bitty Dots 8" X 8" paper pack.  Lovely colours in the package!  I also paired it with another paper pack I have had for a little while from SEI, "Black Orchid"  For this card, I stamped the teapot onto the SEI paper that has a hint of a mini diamond bg on the paper.  It reminded me of an enameled teapot.  I have been hoarding this May Arts ribbon for a very long time and actually did use it on a Mother's Day card in a previous post, but today I layered 3 strands of MS baker's twine (another hoarded product)in the center of the tiny spring green daisies.  Although I love this ribbon's design, I do find the green a little, well, green.  The green isn't so bad with the added twine imho ;)   I also used the twine with a few buttons that I had in my stash (not a trendy crafter's button stash, just some buttons that have fallen off of clothes over the last 30 years and I think the turquoise one was from a shirt in the early 80's, geesh I am such a hoarder)  Well, here's the card.  I also used a sketch layout from Jen del Muro's blog i{heart}to stamp SFYTT  Hope you like it.  I had such a fun time creating this!

~recipe~

stamps Papertrey Ink

paper Papertrey Ink Itty Bitty Dots, SEI Black Orchid

ink SU basic gray

access. buttons, MS baker's twine, CB Swiss Dots, May Arts ribbon

Ch{{rs!  chriss

Hello Chica!

Hello everyone!  It's been a little while since I have posted, but I have been working on a couple of things, stamping and gardening.  I do have a card today, finally!

I received a new set of stamps from Cornish Heritage Farms earlier in the week called The Landing Pad.  Really cute trees and a nice assortment of tree accessories.  Here is what I came up with using the Sketch challenge from the Splitcoast site last Wednesday...yikes, it's already Saturday!

Well, thanks for taking a peek at the card and here is the

~recipe~

stamps  CHF The Landing Pad by Kim Hughes

paper          BG Archaic, SU choc. chip

ink     SU basic gray

access.  Nestabilities blossom die, scalloped long rectangle

  Copic markers

ch{{rs!, chriss