MUSE3 - Happy Birthday

This card is for this week's Muse Challenge. This week our Muse is Laurie Willison's beautiful card here:

I focused on the bright citrus-y colours, the horizontal band, the neutral card base and the pearls (which I coloured with Copics - it worked really well!).

Have you played along with Muse yet? It's really interesting. You don't have to do anything to be a member other than play along. You just get inspiration from the Muse of the Week, link up your card, and then you comment on at least 3 other entrants and finally (and this is the really fun part) you get to vote on your top 3 - right on the blog itself, it's easy as pie! That way, the winners are actually chosen by the participants. Cool, right? I hope you'll play along!

CASology 30 - Fairy Tale

Today's CASology Cue Card is Fairytale!

Did you get it? Or are you thinking that I've gone right over the edge on this one? Again. OK, I'll put you out of your misery. It's Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (each represented by 3 dots of a rainbow colour). I can't explain where this idea came from - it just hit me (very hard on the head!) and I had to do it.

I used a new MFT snowflake die, shimmery blue and white cardstock and various colours.

Now, it's time for a Fairytale ending - and you get to create it! Don't forget to link up your card before the deadline (4:00 pm CST on Sunday).

(By the way, we investigated (in the name of cue card authenticity) and Fairy Tale (two words) is a noun. Fairytale (one word) is the adjective (as in fairytale ending. So now you know! lol!)

Here are links to the blogs of the other Design Team members - go see how this week's Cue Card inspired them!

Tracey McNeely
 Rosemary Dennis
Melissa Chipperfield
Meghan McMillan
Maureen Merritt
Judy Marino 
Jen Wills

and this week's Guest Designer: Darnell

CFC88 - Love Letters

For this week's CAS-ual Friday challenge, to use letters creatively.

After I saw some of the amazingly creative entries, I had almost decided not to play along this week. But then I had a brainstorm - the crosses are the 't' from Stampin' Up's Contempo Alphabet, stamped in Early Espresso.

I used a large circle mask to create the hill, a small circle mask to create the sun and a Michael's sentiment.

I love this new Lemongrass cardstock I got from Avery Elle - it's a wonderfully fresh yellowy green - perfect for Easter and spring!

ETA - this card was chosen as a CFC Favourite! So exciting!

FS313 - With Sympathy

This week's Splitcoaststampers Featured Stamper is Janette Olen (blessingsx3)

I chose this card of Janette's to case:

I did not sign up for this online card class that everyone who's anyone seems to be taking, but I have watched the posted 'homework' enthusiastically. One technique that really caught my eye was the colouring on kraft cardstock. I love how the colours pop on it!

I used a Ditto image and Papertrey sentiment, embossed in white and then coloured with 3 shades of green markers.

FFC01 - Jesus is Wonderful

There's a new Christmas challenge called Festive Friday. The challenge this week is a colour challenge:

I love this colour combination for Christmas and decided to get started on my Church Christmas cards - I'm making 300 this year, so I need to stay on top of them. This new challenge will be a good bi-weekly reminder for me to make at least 40 a month! I usually make 12 of each design, so that I can balance between the fun of designing new cards and the efficiency of mass-production.

I used a Stampabilities background stamp called Jesus is Wonderful and a manger stamp from Market Street Stamps, all embossed in silver and then matted on white and red.

Happy Birthday to my Mother In-law

Today is my Mother-in-law's birthday. For this card, I stamped the Pick a Petal petal in Versamark and embossed in clear. I then sponged the Rose Bud ink over top of the embossing, making it darker near the flower's centre. I added a silver brad and mirror card for sparkle and a simple Papertrey sentiment, stamped in Night of Navy.

MUSE2 - Fabulous!

This week, our Muse is Suzanne Dahlberg and her amazing card:

I focused on the beautiful bright colours, the black sentiment and hearts, the overlapping circles across the centre and the rounded top corners.

You may be interested to know that as I was stamping (and restamping) this, I changed back to my old fabric Stampin' Up inkpads. Ever since I've started having to reink the new ones (I've even watched the videos about how to do it), I've been unhappy with the coverage - and when you're stamping a pattern like this, there is no place for a badly stamped circle! I'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic - I find the fun goes out of it when I can't count on my tools working.