Hello, You-CCMC303, PP196

Hello there!  I'm back with a soft and pretty floral card today.  I used my Regarding Dahlias stamps to play along with a couple challenges this morning.  I was inspired by the sketch at the Create with Connie and Mary Challenge, and the challenge at The Paper Players was CAS Floral, so that worked perfectly for my card as well.

Check out my card!

I started with a Blushing Bride card base.  I stamped two dahlias in Versamark, one on Calypso Coral and the other on Crisp Cantaloupe. I heat embossed them both with white embossing powder and fussy cut them out.  After adding a few banners in Brushed Gold CS and Crisp Cantaloupe CS, I used some dimensionals to pop up one of the flowers and banners.  I stamped my sentiment in Gold Encore ink, and added a few gold sequins to finish it all off.  Perfect!  Go check out the two challenge sites and be inspired to play along yourself!  So much fun!

xo Anita

Sending Good Thoughts-FM160, CQC#241

Hello again!  This'll be my third post today, but I wanted to get this posted before my day got away on me!  I was inspired by the totally fun colour combo over at ColourQ and the challenge at Friday Mashup to make a get well card with their sketch.

Unfortunately I can't even just add this card to my stash.  We need to cheer up a young family member who ended up in the hospital last week, and finally after a few days of tests they discovered an infection.  I believe he's still in the hospital. but will hopefully return home this week sometime.

Here's my card...

I started with a base of Pool Party, on which I embossed the Dictionary stamp in Pool Party EP.  I stamped my Chocolate Chip layer with the Hardwood stamp and heat embossed my sentiment with Gold EP on a Pool Party banner.  Topped it off with one of my many, many buttons, and a little linen thread... and wah-la... DONE!

Thanks for taking the time out of your busy day to take a peek!  Seeya later!

xo Anita

Off the Grid Notecard! CMCC#11

It's the start of a new week, and to kick it (and my Spring Break!) off, I've got a great little notecard for you today!  I've wanted to try stamping on Crumb Cake cardstock for something different, so I finally did it on here!

I also used the great colour combo over on Colour Me...! as inspiration.  

I love the finished result.  I didn't add a sentiment as I want this to just be a card that I can use for ANY occasion.  I stamped my Flower Shop flowers in VersaMark, then heat embossed for a little shine and pop using my Tangerine Tango embossing powder!  My husband saw all my embossing powders the other day, and asked what they were, and then asked why I never use them!  Uh.... no reason really, I usually just forget... so here's to using them more often!  I finished it off with a few Candy Dots here and there to mimic the splatter stamp I used as well.

Hope you enjoyed my card!

xo Anita

Happy Birthday to You!

So... no more rain... we didn't get that much after all... certainly not enough to melt all our snow.  But we did get ALOT of sunshine and awesome warm temperatures which took care of almost all the snow anyway... so we're all happy here!

I've got another birthday card to show you today!  I really love this one.  It's perfect for that man in your life!  Take a look!

I used Brushed Gold cardstock  and also used Gold EP.  And the other 'golden' idea I had was to colour some rhinestones with my gold Sharpie! Oh, I also used my colour spritzer tool with my gold Sharpie... it worked perfectly!

Here you can see a bit more of the detail.  I really have to do heat embossing more often, it can pack a real punch!  The part of the First Edition DSP I used was all about kangaroos... which is perfect, because my husbands family is from Australia!  I know my father-in-law will really like that!

On this last one I coloured pearls with my gold Sharpie... and I think I like it better than the rhinestones.

Here's one more card that I made... totally different, but using the same stamp set.

This one is really bright and fun in real life.  Well... hope you've enjoyed my cards today.  We'll see you tomorrow!

xo Anita

Wonderful You - JUGS#222, CMCC#2

Mr. Brown came to the door yesterday with a big ol' box of goodies for me... so I sat down to play this morning.  I turned to the JUGS sketch challenge and used the fun colour combo at Colour Me...!

I used the Happy Watercolor stamp set and the Decorative Dots Folder from my box of new goodies and then the Loving Thoughts stamp set from the SU! catalogue.  Oh, I also used my new triangle punch for something.... can you tell what?  I flagged the ends of my sentiment banner with it!  This works even slicker (is that a word?) than the square punch does!  Perfect!

Check it out!

I used my embossing folder on a piece of vellum!  Love that look!  For my sentiment, I heat embossed with white powder on a Marina Mist banner!  I also scored and folded the banner so that the middle part would be popped up a bit off of the card!  Really pretty!  The colours on here are not nearly as vibrant as they are in real life... unfortunately it was a rainy day, so my lighting wasn't the greatest and I had to use the flash:(  

My card turned out just beautiful, and I can't wait to see who I will send it to!

Seeyou later!  xo Anita

A Wish For Peace - Merry Monday #88, CMCC#1

Hello again!  I found a new challenge blog yesterday, co-founded by the fantastic Hayley Kew and Tara Bourgoin.  It's a colour challenge, and sounds like it's going to be so much fun every week!  I hope to play along as often as possible!  Go check it out here... Colour Me...!  I combined their first colour challenge with the one at Merry Monday, which was to use an animal on your Christmas card!  I know it's juuuust past Christmas... but I may as well get a head start on this years, right?

I used my VERY ancient but one of my favourite Christmas sets A Wish For Peace.  I think the dove is beautiful and a real symbol of what Christmas is all about.  I stamped my images in Island Indigo, then using my SAMJ I stamped directly over it with Versamark, sprinkled my Heat and Stick Powder, then sprinkled and heat set my Dazzling Diamonds glitter.

It's soooo hard to catch the shimmer and shine in the photo... but with the last two photos you can hopefully get an idea!

 I was putting off taking these pictures because it is soooo dark outside today, but these will have to do!  Sorry!  It's been mostly very dark and dusky out there, so it won't get any better than this!

I had glitter absolutely everywhere, but see.... that's the thing I love about challenges... they seriously make you do stuff you wouldn't normally do (in a good way!)  I don't think I've used glitter more than a handful of times in the last five years!  It was in and on EVERYTHING!  My girls have this book on CD from the library all about this young girl who goes to a birthday party held at 'Glitterati', and that is the only work I could think of to describe my desk (and me!) when I was done!

xo Anita

Happy New Year! SCIC74

Good morning everyone!  I'm here with my first blog post of the first day of the new year!  We've had many reasons to be thankful in 2013, and now I want to wish you all the very best in 2014.  I want to thank you all for the many kind words and comments you've given me this year... I appreciate them all... each and everyone of them!  I hope you will continue to visit me here in 2014.  I'm not real big on 'making resolutions', but the one thing that I really want to do this year is give MORE CARDS TO PEOPLE WHO NEED THEM!  The elderly people in our church always have their birthdays posted, we always hear about the ill or those who've had hardships or been in the hospital, the discouraged and lonely, etc, etc... so this year instead of only remembering the happy things, like new babies and marriages, family birthdays, etc... I want to make cards (and give them!) for those who will not be expecting one from anyone, much less me and my family!  It will mean making ALOT of cards and possibly I'll forget a few, but it's really something I want to do this year... and every year! but lets start with this one! 

I also want to say thanks to my fellow Stampin' Celebration DT members... I love being on the design team with all of you, and am immensely grateful for having this opportunity!  Thank you!

So now... after a month of barely being on here, I'm back because it's the first of January, and that means we have a new challenge for all of you!  Take a look!  Isn't it so pretty?!

I just love this colour combo... and I actually could not decide in which direction to go.  I ended up NOT USING MDS!  What?!  Yes... I made a card for this challenge for once... I actually made a few... but this is the one that made the cut!

So... what do you think?  Will you play along with us this month?  You could be our Pick of the Party for January!  Check out the blogs of the other design team members to see what they have created.  You could be inspired!  We love to see what you do, so be sure to link up your project on the Stampin' Celebration blog so we can check it out!

Erica Cerwin - Pink Buckaroo Designs

Erin Gonzales -Hand Stamped Style

Cori Kozak - Creative Chat

Nina Dee - Deesigns by Nina Dee

Krista Jensen - Krista's Stamper Room

Anita Krul - My Paper Chronicles

Stampin' Celebration Inspiration Challenge

OK... one last thing... just because I haven't been posting on here through the last few weeks doesn't mean I haven't been creating anything!  My husband has had a week off and we have totally just enjoyed relaxing and drinking coffee and playing with the kids, and I'll tell you... I have made a TON of cards in the last couple weeks!  I don't have all the pictures of them yet... we've had some gloomy days not the greatest for picture taking... but I'm going to work on that and show you what I've been up to the last while!  I haven't forgotten about showing you the 21 digital pages that I made in less than a week either!  Yes... you read that right!  21!  And now that my mom has received her Grandchildren Brag Book (you know it's true Mom!) I can freely show it here too!  Stay tuned!

For You - FMS111, CQC#214

Hello again!  Another post for today!  

I wanted to link up with Freshly Made Sketches and the ColourQ for this one!  

 

I had to dig into my box of retired colours for this one!  Still have a teensy bit of Dusty Durango left, and lots of Bashful Blue!  Such a lovely colour combo.  I made my brother in law to be a birthday card.  Hope he likes it!  I used my Truly Grateful stamp set for the first time with this one.  Love it!  I actually used a few different stamp sets... Truly Grateful, Gorgeous Grunge and Chalk Talk.  The Bashful Blue ribbon I cut down from a 1" grosgrain with stitching on each edge, to a narrow one with stitching down the middle!  I heat embossed with Early Espresso embossing powder on the Early Espresso label for some added interest and detail.  I love little details like that!

 It's a great masculine card don't you think?  Thanks for taking the time to look!

Have a fabulous day!  xo Anita

Merry Christmas!

Hi Everybody!

Today's card was for the winter colour challenge at Create With Connie and Mary... but... I didn't get it linked up in time, but that doesn't mean it's too late to show you guys!  Take a look!

I love it... and have wanted to try the Christmas wreath idea with that stamp set and matching framelits for a while now.  It was pretty fun... and I used the Circles Framelits to cut out the inside of the wreath!  Give it a try!  

I am actually not real big on sending out Christmas cards... but there are always a few that I hand deliver to teachers and such... this one will probably be for my daughter's preschool teacher.  She's seriously the best!  My little lady LOVES to get dropped off, and always needs to give her hugs and kisses when it's time to go!  No tears when Mommy leaves her there!

Now... I am off to make some baby girl cards!  There's been a baby girl boom in my church lately... and one of them is my own sweet little niece, Kyla... who is already a couple weeks old!  Such a dear little thing!

Seeyou later!  xo Anita

Masculine Birthday! PP170, RS#88

Good morning!  Welcome to Monday!  It's another ab.so.lutely gorgeous day here in the Fraser Valley!  I'm going to take advantage of the sunshine and wash my bus after this, so let's get right to it!  I needed another birthday card, as it's my big brother's birthday tomorrow... so I pulled out my dusty Nature Silhouettes stamp set to play along at the Paper Players and their 'wildlife' theme.  I used the sketch at RetroSketches... and I was all set!

 Love the way my card turned out!

I embossed my Island Indigo panel with the woodgrain embossing folder, topped that with a Whisper White panel tied with some non SU! (sorry!) black and white baker's twine, a SU! black button and a little tag with the sentiment on it!  For my focal panel I heat embossed my stamped image with black embossing powder, then used my 1" circle punch for a mask for the moon, and using a mixture of 5 different blue inks, I sponged my night sky!  The colours I used were Soft Sky, Marina Mist, Island Indigo, Night of Navy and Midnight Muse.  Love the 'glowy moon in the night sky' effect when I pulled that sticky note off the moon!  Absolutely beautiful!  My brother will be impressed!

OK, I'm off to enjoy the bright sunny day.  Have a great day yourself!

xo Anita

Merry Christmas - PP#167, Merry Monday #79

Hi there!  It's a beautiful day here in the Fraser Valley... no time to be thinking about Christmas yet.... but I went ahead and made a Christmas card anyway!  I used the Merry Monday and Paper Players challenges to inspire me... and the end result is sure shiny and sparkly!

I used the emboss resist technique on here.  I heat embossed my tree in white, sponged some Midnight Muse and Pool Party behind, wiping the excess off of my embossing when I was done.  I also stamped some falling snowflakes in Pool Party, finishing off with my Midnight Muse sentiment and some Dazzling Diamonds to give my tree some sparkle!  

On my second photo you can see the Dazzling Diamonds a little better than in the first... but it's pretty hard to see.  It's there though... and in real it's just gorgeous!

OK... that's it for me.  Have a wonderful day!

xo Anita

JUGS210, DD#74

Hi Everyone!  Really quick post today!  It's a miracle I'm even on here!  I was busy, busy, busy in my scrap room, when my two year old decided that a nap was not on her list of things to do today... so... yeah.... try making a card with a technique you've never done, and she needs to know if Dora's head goes this way or that on the puzzle and if she can twirl your chair for you so you can have fun too... or if Mommy is gong to do the noisy thing yet... the noisy thing is my heat embossing gun!  So, technically if I wanted her out of my office... all I have to do is lay that thing on my table!  But, yeah, that's not so nice really, poor thing!  

So... very quickly now, so I can finish up!  Today's card is for the JUGS challenge of Die Inlay!  Never done this before, definitely will do it again... I'm thinking of starting with a base made of the starburst/sunburst technique I did a couple weeks ago and using the same flower I used in today's cards.  Be sure to check out the link to Jennifer McGuire's video... I see some more videos on her channel I'll have to check out when I have some time!  I am also linking up with the Dynamic Duos colour challenge.  Such a pretty colour combo isn't it?

Here are my cards... I couldn't decide which one to use... so there are a few here for your viewing pleasure!  Enjoy!

I can't decide which is my favourite... the one with more white space, or the other.  I think the one with more white space has a little more impact, but the other is so pretty with the strips of DSP.  What do you think?

So, there you have it.  I used strips of DSP from the Tea For Two DSP, Floral Frames Framelits (say that five times fast!), Very Vanilla CS as my card base, and a beautiful sentiment from the (retired) Elementary Elegance SAB set.  On one card I stamped it in Calypso Coral, and on the other I heat embossed in white on a strip of Calypso Coral CS.  I love the way they turned out and will definitely be doing this again!  Stay tuned!

xo Anita