Amy R's challenge

Beautiful sketch from Amy at Prairie Paper & Ink this week.

I'd not played with my Oriental stamps in a while, so I pulled out a set that I got years ago at Michael's and a stencil that I got at a Scrapbook Expo a few years ago, along with CTMH Creative Basics Emporium paper pack. I stamped the lights in Black Brilliance, then colored them with my PrismaColor pencils and used Gamsol and stubs to blend the colors. I used my stencil brush to color the fan. Spiral clip is CTMH Pewter and the ribbon is CTMH Vineyard Berry.

Amy R's challenge

Amy's got another fun sketch this week!Prairie Paper & Ink

I flipped Amy's sketch longways because I wanted to use an oldie but goodie stamp set, Splish Splash and the new Moon Doggie paper pack. I pulled out my Deckle Edge Nestabilities dies to cut the stamped image. Used my PrismaColor pencils to color the image, then used Gamsol and stubs to blend. I used my wave ruler and tore the piece of Indian Corn Blue cardstock in keeping with the wave theme of the card.

Amy R's challenge

Amy's got another great sketch this week! Prairie Paper & Ink

I pulled out my Autumn Leaves Pretty Poppy mat stack and CTMH May SOM, Be Yourself and Connections (for the flower) stamp sets. I used my Frame-up Nesties, used Sweet Leaf to sponge ink on the dots before I removed the die. Put the center back in the frame and stamped the girl and came back with my Sweet Leaf to color the flowers on her dress. The flower is CTMH Just Blooms that I sponged a bit of Barn Red on the edges of the leaves then used the starburst stamp from Connections to stamp the center.

Amy R's challenge

Amy's got a guest designer this week! Tammy Fielder sent her a bunch of sketches a couple of weeks ago when her mojo went AWOL! And Amy liked them so much, that now once a month, Tammy will be a guest designer. Check out Tammy's and Amy's sketch at Prairie Paper & Ink.

I needed a masculine birthday card, so that was the direction I took with this sketch. I used the new CTMH Back Country paper pack, along with CTMH stamp sets Treetops and Happy Birthday. I masked off the trunk of the tree and stamped the top in CTMH Olive and the trunk is Barn red. Small green brads from my stash are in the centers of the swirls on the tree top. I used my Nestabilities Scalloped Circles and pop-dotted the tree on the circles. The Barn Red "brads" I used a hole punch to cut them out of Barn Red cardstock and once they were adhered, used a bit of Glossy Accents on top of them to mimic brads. Love that you can do that and have any color "brad" you want!

Amy R's challenge

Amy's got another great sketch for us this week. Prairie Paper & Ink

Since I've had the Bella paper pack out, I figured I'd just go ahead and continue to play with it! I cheated a bit and used the beautiful and versatile Fancy Cut Botanicals for my flowers. There are three sheets of preprinted and scored flowers, centers, leaves and swirls per pack in the colors Juniper, Tulip, Creme Brulee, Sorbet and Lilac for $3.95. Great deal and so quick and easy to use! Pop them out and you're good to go! All of the flowers are pop-dotted. Sure wish that showed up in the picture! I used brads and buttons from my stash for the centers. Also a piece of White Daisy Waxy Flax and Creme Brulee ribbon.

Amy R's challenge

Amy's not feeling her mojo right now, so she dug into her archives and updated an oldie but goodie sketch. I think everybody should go to her blog, Prairie Paper & Ink and show her some love and do her sketch this week.

I turned the sketch on it's side to make the new Nestabilites Deckle Mega Rectangles fit! I used the new CTMH Bella paper pack, along with a new stamp set, Endless Friendship for the flower. There is Prisma Glitter on the flower center swirl, but it doesn't photograph well. Some of the petals are also pop-dotted but it doesn't show well either. The sentiment is from an old SOM, Simple Beauty.

Amy R's challenge

Vacation's over, so it's back to my challenges! I'm sorta combining things with this challenge. With every new Idea Book release, I do a swap with my 3rd Upline, Susan. So I'm using Amy's sketch to make my cards for the swap.

This uses the brand new, not yet available to customers, Moon Doggie paper pack and Extreme Happiness stamp set. Colors used are all CTMH, Desert Sand, Indian Corn Blue, Cranberry, Garden Green and Sunny Yellow. The flower has black embossing powder on the center and extra shading done with a sponge and ink. The leaf, flower and stamen all are pop dotted for dimension. The ribbon is custom colored using CTMH Create A Shade paint and Cranberry Reinker.

Amy R's challenge

Amy's got another versatile sketch up at Prairie Paper & Ink this week.

I needed a card for my friend Evan, who had to have an emergency appendectomy earlier this week. He's doing much better, resting comfortably at home, but it was a couple of scary days while they tried to figure out what was wrong with him.

I pulled out CTMH Stardust paper pack and CTMH Bird Basics stamp set. The bird wing has some Prisma Glitter cuz even guys need some glitter in their lives! I got to use my brand new EK Success Swiss Cheese punch on this card too!

Feel better soon, Evan. Keep the heavy lifting to a minimum!

Amy R's challenge

Amy's got another great sketch this week. Check it out!

http://prairiepaperandink.typepad.com/amyr/2009/03/friday-sketch-55.html

I was at Michael's the other day and they had a really cute Mat Stack by Autumn Leaves called Pretty Poppies marked down. Forty sheets of patterned paper, 6.5" x 4.5" for $2.39!!! Needless to say, it came home with me. Even though I'm on a use it up kick, I could not pass that up! This card was designed using three of those papers. The mailman brought me a nice surprise yesterday too! My new Nestabilities Labels Four dies. The rest are still on back-order. Maybe I'll have them before CHA July!! So I opened those bad-boys up and used them to cut the Citrus Leaf and White Daisy cardstock. I used CTMH Treasure Life and Grey Flannel for the background flowers. I cut the poppy out of one of the pieces of DP and pop dotted it onto the background stamping. I used my EK Success scalloped border to cut the black cardstock. The brads were white! I put Glossy Accents on them and dipped them in Sparkle n Sprinkle Spirited Green glitter.

Amy R's challenge

Amy gave us another great sketch this week at Prairie Paper & Ink.

I was in need of a masculine card, so that's what I did with my challenge card. Paper pack is CTMH Heirloom (retired). Stamp set is CTMH Raccoon & Friends (retired). Twill is CTMH, as is the chipboard ribbon slide. I did change up the position of the ribbon, moving it from the bottom of the card where Amy had it to the top. Otherwise, I followed the sketch pretty closely.

Amy R's challenge

Amy gave us her first sketch that she did, just updated a bit for this week's sketch. Check it out here:Prairie Paper & Ink

Her first card was a Bella, so I decided to dust off my first Bella in honor of that! Grumpabella was my first and still my favorite! I'm still on my "use up the old paper packs kick", so this is CTMH Paper Garden. I used my Coluzzle to cut the circles. Grumpy is colored with Ranger Perfect Pearls and colored pencils. Chipboard is CTMH. Ribbon is from my stash.

Amy R's challenge

Poor Amy was lamenting the fact that they had another blizzard yesterday and how she's ready for Spring. Maybe I shouldn't rub it in that we will be in the 80's on the west coast of FL this weekend!

Anyway! She gave us her 1 year anniversary sketch this week on Prairie Paper & Ink. I saw a really cool idea on the Spellbinders Blog & Community Forum blog this morning. Use your Nestie dies to cut a window in the front of your card. So I incorporated Amy's sketch with that idea and made Amy a Spring card! The background is stamped with CTMH Intrinsic Backgrounds stamp. The tree is from CTMH Four Seasons and is stamped on the inside of the card. The sentiment is from CTMH April Word Puzzle. Papers are from CTMH Emporium Creative Basics paper pack, as is the Vineyard Berry grosgrain ribbon. Bling dotting the "I" is unknown from my stash. The scallop on the bottom is my new EK Success punch that I exchanged for the dots one I didn't like.

Amy R's challenge

Such a pretty sketch from Amy at Prairie Paper & Ink this week. I used CTMH Key To My Heart paper pack for this one. I got a new stamp set the other day and it hadn't seen ink yet. Oh! The horrors! So the swirl and circles across the top of the card are CTMH Connections stamp set. I just stamped a bunch of circles, then cut them out with my Coluzzle and randomly placed them on the swirl. The flower and leaf images are from CTMH Life's Creation stamp set. The frame is a CTMH Dimensional Element.

Amy R's sketch

On a roll with sketches this morning! Amy gave us a fun sketch this week. Prairie Paper & Ink

I have decided that I'm no longer going to hoard paper for something "special!" I'm gonna use it. Because if I'm making a card for YOU, don't you want to feel special? Like I've used my "good" paper and embellishments for you?! So with that in mind, I pulled out some old MM Boho Chic papers and ribbon. I used a Bazzill Chips round and covered it in MM ribbon, then stamped my sentiment (CTMH Thoughtful Seasons stamp set) on a piece of cardstock cut with my circle punch. The flowers are first and second generation stamped in Chocolate using CTMH Treasure Life stamp set.

new challenge

I don't know how long I've been reading Amy R's blog Prairie Paper & Ink and yesterday it finally smacked me right between the eyes that she does a challenge every week. Somedays...OK! MOST days I can be dense! So as soon as I saw her challenge for this week, I knew I'd finally found a use for the bamboo embellishments that came on some bamboo sheets I purchased when Linens N Things was going out of business. I thought at the time how redundant it was for them to put the little bamboo embellishment on the package...like you weren't aware you were actually buying bamboo sheets! But I saved those little suckers! Not knowing when or on what I would use them, but knowing that I would use them! Because they are bamboo, I had to do an Oriental theme card. So I pulled out CTMH Unforgettable pp. The stamp is a JudiKins that I bought from an online friend. The image is Black Embossed, then I came back in with CTMH Juniper ink for the leaves and CTMH Creme Brulee ink for the flower and CTMH Sorbet ink for highlights. The edge of the cream paper has been sponged with Cocoa for some dimension. I ran the Junpier cardstock thru my Cuttlebug with the Swiss Dots folder, then punched the edge with my MS punch. The brown button is one from my stash, origin unknown.