Ode To Julie :)

Splitcoast Stampers has a Featured Stamper, and this time it's none other then Julie Korber, from Flourishes!! SCS is asking us to pick a card from her Gallery and CAS it, as a fun challenge. I really, really had a hard time deciding on what card to CAS! She has some super talent, and some of her cards gave me some great inspiration :)
But I decided on this one:

I really love the shape, the colors and the use of stitching and punched borders :)
Since I am supposed to CAS it and not copy it exactly, I did keep many things the same, including the color scheme, but I decided not to use a ribbon and stitch on the edges.

I used Flourishes "Clematis & Butterflies" butterfly stamp, stamped in Memento "Desert Sand" ink and colored in with Tombows. I used: 243,451,373,990.
Then I added the Crackle Glaze, let it dry, cut it out and added B01 (Mint Blue) Copic color just to enhance the blues in the wings. I cut out a base from a Spellbinders Classic Circle die and layered that over a Spellbinders Scalloped Circle diecut. I stamped the butterfly image on the circle diecut too. I used Bazzil "Aloe Vera", "River Reed" and "Creamy White" CS and paper from K&Co. I used the Lace Doily diecut from MFT for my border edge, then I added silver pearls for some sparkle.


~ Splitcoast Stampers "Featured Friend" - Julie Korber

~ Flourishes Bring Back Beautiful "Beauty of a Technique Challenge" : Crackle Glaze Medium

Happy Mother's Day!!

I'm sure you may have noticed I've been "Out to Lunch" for a while. Well, I am excited to say that I have been "training" for my second Revlon Walk/Run for Women's Cancer, tomorrow!!! It's a 3K, and I have been training hard, walking 8 miles a day so I can be in tip-top condition to beat my time of 1 hour 44 minutes, last year. It's not a contest, but I want to get more exercise and raise awareness too. Many may or may not know but we lost my sister-in-law, Julie, last January to Breast & Bone cancer, so this is pretty important to me. I am also walking for our family friend Sue Larson, who passed away in February, and a young 16 year old lady who has a rare form of cancer, who is the niece of my favorite LSS owner. My husband and two girls (one will be in a stroller - LOL ) will be with me this year :) I say all that to also say that some will not be able to have a Mother's Day this year, so please remember to hug your Mom today :)


So since I have been absent Flourishes has thrown down a few challenges. One is Bring Back Beautiful "The Beauty of A Flower" and a Release Week "Word To Your Mother" Challenge. So I was able to combine two of them into my Mom's Mother's Day card.



I used Flourishes "Cherry Blossoms" flowers and the sentiment from "Spring Bouquets" colored in with Tombows, cut out and popped up on popdots. The paper is from Graphic 45 Baby 2 Bride "Endless Love" and the last pieces of a Melissa Francis decorative edge paper. The pearls are from Kaisercraft. I used the following Spellbinders:


Classic Square
Lacy Square
Fleur de Lis
Large Scalloped Circles
and a Corner Rounder


I am happy with how the card came out, I had quite a few glitches on it :) The inside joke is that every card I make has a mistake on it, the trick is to hide what went wrong. This one I forgot to do two things, one being to stitch along the edge of my DP and to add my coordinating cardstock under the DP!! Hopefully Mom won't notice - LOL! :) I hope you can see the Melissa Francis decorative edged paper in the back ground, it's So Hard to photograph! If I have time this weekend, I'll try to retake it so you can see it better. My hasty picture isn't doing it enough justice as it looks better in person.


It feels good to be creative again, and I'm glad to be back :) I hope to balance the great exercise progress but still have enough time and energy to make cards!

Happy Mother's Day, Ladies!!! May you have a Weekend/Day worthy of all you do! You deserve it, speaking as a mother myself !! :)


Update: I took another pic, but that one washed out the coloring and you couldn't even see the decorative edges along the card :( So I changed it back to the original card picture :)

Katie's Daisies

And I'm back to wish you all a very happy and belated 2011 New Year!! I'm sure you wondered where I was, and I wish I could tell you I just got back from spending New Years at an exotic island somewhere, but I didn't. I was sick :(  But I managed a couple cards in that time, amazingly, since I sure didn't look or feel human - LOL :)
I'll post those two soon, but today I'm going to focus on a card that I woke up today and NEEDED to make. Yesterday, I went online and read about a lady named Katie Renz, on both Splitcoast Stampers and on Clear Dollar Stamps blog, who has stage 4 cancer. I do not know Katie personally but I DO admire her lovely creations and ideas, on Clear Dollar Stamps. I wanted to make Katie a card saying that I am one of many praying for her. If I was sick and discouraged, I would love to receive cards from fellow scrappers too.

 

I used Flourishes "Gerbera Daisies" set, coloring them in with my Tombow 991 and "Spiced Marmalade" Distress Ink. Then I added some Crackle Accent on to of them for some vintage interest. 
The butterfly was an after thought. It just needed something and I saw the butterfly stamp in the "Gerbera Daisies" set so I stamped, embossed, and cut it out. Tombows were used to color it in, then I added teeny-tiny thin rivulets of Diamond Glaze in the veins of the butterfly, and added glitter. But I couldn't see the glittery veins, so I added more Diamond Glaze and filled it in a little more, to stiffen it and show the glitter a little better.

I didn't intend for the card to be so "dark", since we are heading towards springy colors soon, but everything fit together so beautifully, I just couldn't dismiss the paper because it wasn't the right season :)

Flourishes has the following challenges at the moment: A Sketch, A Timeless Tuesday Challenge "Flowers", and a Bring Back Beautiful "Vintage" challenge. I thought I would combine them all in this card. The Vintage aspect for me, is the fact I bought these papers when I first started scrapbooking 5 years ago, but never used them!

May You Be Blessed

My favorite stamp company, Flourishes are having challenges galore, lately and I want to join in everyone of them, but it's overwhelming me :) So I made a card that would conquer at least two of their challenges. My problem being, is that one of them, is Warm Winter Wishes challenge. The challenge being that we are challenged to use Blue on your holiday card... I do not understand why, but anything blue stumps me. I mean I was utterly perplexed with this one! But since I love a good challenge that stumps me, I forged ahead and did my best :)

Here is my card I am entering into the Warm Winter Wishes (Blues) Challenge and the Bring Back Beautiful (Ribbon) Challenge.

 

I seem to only have Midnight Blue from Staz-On (re-enforcing the fact I steer clear of anything blue!), so I had to use that and if you can't tell, it's a Strong color of blue! :) So I took the less is more approach.

I used my Midnight Blue on my Rubber Stampede "Acanthus Background" stamp, and stamped it out on some clear transparency to make a pattern. I then used my Quickutz Christmas Tree die to make little trees to put on my panels. The panels are made out of Spellbinders Long Rectangles, and the tag is a Spellbinder Tag, with a dark blue ribbon threaded through. The sentiment stamped on the tag and the inside is from the Flourishes "Winter Bouquet" stamp set.

Looking at this card, I know it's not my best work, but I like the shapes, so I'm going to work on this blue phobia I seem to have :) And I'll keep trying and maybe come up with a better card for these two challenges :)