Quick thank you

Isn't this die cute? It's one I had admired on several cards, and lucky me won it on the Sketch Saturday blog hop.
This card was inspired by the current BE Inspired challenge at The Alley Way Stamps. I love the delicate little flowers on the tin of cookies, and pink and pale green are one of my favorite color combos, so this seemed like the perfect occasion to try my new die. I cut the die once in green, then a second time in pink, and applied the pink bits where I wanted some colorful flowers.
The sentiment is from The Alley Way Stamps, Delicate Doilies set. Embossed with white detail EP.

I'm entering this card in these challenges:

The Alley Way BE Inspired #54: Photo inspiration
CRAFT Challenge #265: Thank you cards
Creative Inspirations #271: Clean and Simple.

Glittery Christmas

Isn't it funny how there are techniques you know how to do, but you just never bother to try them? It wasn't anything amazing, but I've never before just put down a strip of double-sided tape and sprinkled it with glitter to create a ribbon of glitter. It's kind of a nice effect.
I also used a glittery embossing power on the tree because Holly Jolly Christmas wants to see lots of glitter in the current challenge. I was going to try to enter this in Sarn's Rudolph Challenge, but I don't think I have two Christmas cards in me right now
Details:  The Christmas tree stamp is from Victorine Originals, the sentiment for Another Stamp Company.  The paper are all from a Echo Park stack, where I am using up snippets.  The white EP is called Winter Wonderland, from Stampendous, purchased either at Hobby Lobby or Mikes. 
The sketch is from Papertake Weekly Challenge. I went back into their sketch vaults and used Sketch 79.

I am entering the card in these challenges:
Holly Jolly Christmas: Lots of Sparkle
Papertake Weekly Challenge: Sketch Free-for-All
Simon Says Wednesday: Anything Goes
Pixie's Snippet Playground #131 -- snippets
Word Art Wednesday #138: Anything Goes.

Ice-cream-colored room

HGTV is kind of the default TV station in our house, which really has nothing to do with this card, except to say you just don't see bathrooms like this on HGTV very often. And speaking of not seeing things very often, that is sort of the challenge at Simon Says Monday Challenge. Specifically, the challenge is "I ought to use this more," using supplies or techniques we tend to overlook. I have several in this card, including:
Digi images (this one by Bird). I automatically look through my rubber or clear stamps first.
Ribbon. In proportion to how much ribbon I own, I don't use enough.
This die. It's a lovely frame, but most images aren't that big, so I don't use it much.
Glossy Accents. I used a ton on the mirror in this image. I can go months and months without using the stuff, but when I use it I love the shine.

The image is colored in pencils, and there's some silver gel pen on the claw feet on the tub, and on the frame of the mirror, which soaked up the last of the gel in the pen. (Yippee, an excuse to go to the craft store).

For Clear It Out Challenge, we were supposed to use the color of our favorite ice cream flavor. Mine is mint chocolate chip, hence the pale green. I also like anything with raspberries, so that's the purple-ish color.

I'm entering this card in these challenges:
Simon Says Stamp Monday -- I Ought to use this more
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday -- anything goes
Clear It Out -- Favorite Ice Cream Color
Word Art Wednesday #138 -- anything goes
Sister Act #62 -- anything goes

For a friend

First off, has Google been tampering with Blogger?  I can only see one blog post where there should be a whole scroll of lovely blogs you people have posted.  There's a "see more" button, but it's not working. If anyone knows if there's a way to fix it, or if you're having the same trouble, please let me know.

This card is for a friend who is having knee troubles. Bad knees run in my family, so she has all my sympathy for what she's going through. I pulled out a couple of old Stampin' Up sets for this. The flower is a two-step, and I think that might be the best I've ever done at lining up the two stamps.

The green layers are Coredination paper -- I embossed with Swiss Dots and sanded the dots. Frankly, probably not the best EF to use for that particular technique. The bottom layer looks black, but it's actually a deep purple that matches the deep purple spots on the ribbon.

I'm entering in several challenges

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday -- friends
Crafty Ribbons #94 -- ribbon with spots
Loves Rubber Stamps #108 -- Spots and dots
Creative Inspiration #270 -- add a bow
Sketch Saturday #315 -- the sketch
Pixie's Snippet Playground #130 -- All the papers are from the cut-up snippets file.

Ivory and Gold

Last week Di featured a card in the Snippets challenge that was made from a variety of white snippets. It was gorgeous and sort of  inspired me to try this card.
I had a snippet of vellum that was just the perfect size for the wreath die. The rest of the card is just bits and pieces of different ivory and white card stock.  I created a chance for additional layers when I tried embossing the sentiment on the linen texture layer.  I don't have detail gold EP, and the gold EP ended up as an unreadable blob rather than a nice sentiment, so I decided to stamp it in gold ink on a little slip and layer it right below the ribbon.
There are gold stickles on the wreath in place of berries. Each layer is also edged with gold ink.

I'm entering the card in these challenges:
Ribbon Girl June Color Challenge -- use ivory
Feeling Sketchy -- Sketch #93
CRAFT Challenge #263 -- Christmas
Holly Jolly -- 3 layers or more
Pixie's Snippet Playground #129 -- All paper is from the snippet file
Clear it Out -- Anything Goes
Simon Says Monday Challenge -- Anything Goes
Word Art Wednesday -- Anything Goes

Celebrate summer

Here’s a quick card to celebrate summer.

The stamps are from Purple Onion Designs, and while I’ve used the beach scene before, this is the first time the sentiment has seen ink.  I used a Technique Junkie Technique called Washi Medallion for the sentiment, and that Washi tape has been sitting around for months just  waiting to be used.

The image is colored with pencils.  Buoyed by my success with Glossy Accents on the parrot eyes (see last post), I used it on the lemonade glass in this scene. The blue panel is embossed with the Swiss Dots folder.

I’m entering this card in these challenges

The Paper Shelter #162,  Summer

Simply Create Too #63 – your country’s colors (USA/red, white, blue)

Loves Rubberstamps #107, CAS

Sister Act #61, Anything goes

Paper Crafting Journey, Anything goes

Word Art Wednesday #136, Anything goes

Crafty Girls Challenge, Anything goes

Rainbow of parrots

I love rainbows, including rainbow colors on cards, so when I saw The Alley Way Stamps latest inspiration challenge, I was all in. If you follow the parrots from right to left, you'll see the old rainbow ROY G. BIV in neat little pairs on the birds: red/orange; yellow/green; blue/violet.
I knew I wanted to use bright colors, so I decided to try paints instead of my usual pencils. (No matter how bright or dark I think I've colored something, people always leave comments: "Love your soft colors.")  I found an old set of dry watercolors (so limited I had to mix my own orange and purple). Just for fun, I flicked a contrasting color on each parrot rectangle.
Since I set the parrots to dry  before assembling the card, a though occurred to me while they were drying -- why not use Glossy Accents on the eyes?  It worked out brilliantly; they look like goggly eyes, only better.
The parrot is from TAWS set Land Ho; the sentiment is a freebie download from their  website.

The card is entered in these challenges:

TAWS BE  Inspired #53.
Simon Says Monday Challenge: Paint 
Creative Inspiration 269:  Bold,Bright Colors
Word Art Wednesday #136: Anything Goes
Loves Rubberstamps #107: CAS
Sister Act #60:  Anything Goes

The Fault in our Stars

It's Virtual Stamp Night weekend at SCS, and one of the challenges was to do a card inspired by a book. Since I just finished a re-read of The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, which I wanted to do before going to see the movie, that book was fresh in my mind and a perfect choice for this challenge.
 Briefly, the book is about two teens who meet in a cancer support group. They are both fans of a reclusive author who lives in Amsterdam, and one of the teens uses his "Make-a-Wish" to get them a trip to Holland so they can beet the author. At that point, he gives the girl a bouquet of orange tulips as a hint.  So I made this card with a bouquet of orange tulips.
While the book may sound depressing, it's not -- it does have sad moments, but it has hilarious moments as well. So, the sentiment "Live as if everything is a miracle" seemed appropriate.
For this card, I used Feeling Sketchy Sketch 91, but I angled the strips to leave lots of room to draw attention to my lovely sentiment.
Any paper with color is a snippet; I chose two oranges plus an orange print; the orange plaid turned out to be a brilliant idea when I realized I could use a little contrasting blue to make the whole thing a little less "aggressively orange" (which is how I think Hazel, the heroine, describes that bought of tulips).

I have not seen the movie yet -- if you have, what did you think of it?

I would like to enter the card in these challenges:

Pixie's Snippet Playground #128 -- use snippets
Feeling Sketchy #91 -- sketch
Word Art Wednesday #135  -- anything goes
Papertake Weekly -- anything goes
Loves Rubberstamps Challenge 106 -- anything goes
Sister Act  #60 -- anything goes

On the waterfront

Summer is definitely here, and this little waterside scene looks pretty inviting to my eyes.
Here's my attempt at making a masculine card  that will suit for Father's Day or a birthday. The stamp is an old one, and I'm not positive, but I think it is from DRS. It is colored in pencils and cut out with a Spellbinders Label die.
The star is a random little tag I had around. The rim was silver metal, so I used some Ranger alcohol ink to color it brown. Stars seem vaguely nautical, right? After all, sailors used to navigate with the stars. (That's my story, and I'm sticking too it)

I am entering the card in these challenges:

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday, Masculine
Die Cut Divas June, masculine with blue/green/brown/gray
Really Reasonable Ribbon #96, Masculine with trim (baker's twine)
Sketch Saturday #312, choose a sketch (this is Sketch Saturday sketch #304)
Clear it Out, masculine with stars.