Above & Beyond

Good morning fellow crafters!  How about a fallish card to kick off the weekend?  I had a variety of inspirations for this one but mostly it came from my head.  Found a great new (to me) challenge site too, Stampin' Celebration which hosts monthly challenges.  Yep, I have an entire month to make it, edit, post and enter.  Yippee, my kind of deadline!  For September their challenge is to be inspired by the fallish photo they provided which I linked at the bottom of this post. 

 

I always think of texture when I use fall colors, not sure why.  So I whipped out the woodgrain embossing folder which is horizontal instead of verticle so doesn't show up the best in my lighting this morning.  (Hence the last picture)

 

 Here's a shot of the inside, gussied up but still fairly simple.  The Apothecary Accent die cut was leftover from the front of the card so had to put it to work.  Aren't those Comfort Cafe DSP patterns just perfect?  Love them! 

 

Here's the "other" shot of the texture- if this photo seems odd it is because the card is standing on its side.  And here is the Stampin' Celebration inspiration photo:  

 

 

Thanks for stopping by again and have a great weekend!

~Kristin

 

SUO Supplies

Stamps:  One in a Million

Colors:  Naturals Ivory, Soft Suede, Cajun Craze

Accessories:  Apothecary Accents framelits, Blossom punch, Triple Layer flower punch, Boho Blossom punch, Naturals Buttons, Big Shot, Woodgrain embossing folder, Paper Piercing pack essentials, dotted scalloped ribbon border punch

 



Beautiful Things

Quick post today... trying to get this in for the deadline today at the new sketch blog Freshly Made!  Isn't this sketch fabulous??  I can think of lots of possibilities but really wanted to use this new set with some beautiful fall colors for another blog I found, SUO Challenges, to use fall colors!  So thrilled that I found time today to search for a few new challenge sites- love them both! 



Thanks for visiting today!
~~Kristin

SUO Supplies

Stamps:  Faith in Nature, French Script

Colors:  More Mustard, Concord Crush, Soft Suede, Naturals Ivory

Accessories:  Big Shot, circle punch, Concord Crush ribbon, linen thread, Scallop dotted border punch, Square Lattice embossing folder

Rolling Acorns

Quick post today... using the sketch FTL114 from the Clean & Simple Stamping blog and this week's color combo challenge from SCS CC2945 (Cajun Craze, Early Espresso and Peach Parfait) I came up with this card.  It's not quite as simple as the beautiful sample by Heather on the Clean & Simple blog... I just couldn't be satisfied for some reason.  But it is still pretty simple I think.  I used the acorn from my old set Autumn Fest (since I still had it out from the scrapbook page a few days ago) and decided to make it roll in the autumn wind. 

One is cut out by hand and popped up for some dimension and interest.  Cajun Craze card base is embossed with the Square Lattice embossing folder (you're seeing a lot of that from me lately, eh?!). 

Gotta run to an honor roll assembly that starts in 20 minutes.  Thanks for stopping by!

~Kristin

SUO Supplies

Stamps: Autumn Fest, Fabulous Phrases

Colors: Cajun Craze, Early Espresso, Peach Parfait, Very Vanilla

Accessories:  Big Shot, Square Lattice embossing folder, Pinking Hearts border punch, linen thread

"Easely" my favorite!

OK OK,dumb play on words!  But I do love this sentiment and this IS my first Easel card... just go with it, would ya?!  I've been wanting to do this type of fold but just had never taken the time to figure it out until now.  It is so easy too.  This card measures 8.5x4.25" and is scored at 4 1/4" and 6 3/8", but you could also do this with a standard half sheet of cardstock.  For a fabulous tutorial by Beate and all the measurement options CLICK HERE. 

I combined a number of different stamp sets on this one.  Started with the grass and sentiment from Inspired by Nature, added fussy cut flowers from Greenhouse Garden and finished with the uh.... pigeon is the only word that keeps coming to mind, no it's a pheasant.  Yeah, the pheasant (stamped off once for a subtle look) from Autumn Days.

Wondering about the color combo?  Certainly Celery, Cajun Craze, More Mustard and Early Espresso.  This sketch is from Stampin' 411's Saturday Sketch Challenge. 

Thanks for stopping by today! 
~Kristin

SUO Supplies

Stamps: Inspired by Nature, Autumn Days, Greenhouse Garden

Colors: Certainly Celery, Cajun Craze, More Mustard and Early Espresso, Very vanilla

Accessories:  Chantilly Lace ribbon, Antique brad, scallop edge punch

To my Wonderful Husband

Oh boy did I struggle this week. I guess because Garden Green and Crushed Curry are not my 2 favorite colors. I didn't feel very inspired making this card and fully intended to make another one with these colors just so I'm satisfied but didn't get around to it yet. I do have something in mind so maybe I'll get to it later today... although I have a tutorial I'm supposed to be working on that you've requested.

Most of this card is pretty self-explanatory but one thing I did want to point out is the edges of the card. I used the perforating tool on the Cutter Kit and just free-handed some rolling lines on all four sides. I felt they sort of mimic the path a fallen leaf might take before it hits the ground.

Anyway, so glad you stopped by today. Now please go visit the Diva blog to view several other samples and to play along with our challenge.

Gotta run, chat with ya later!

~Kristin

SUO Supplies

Stamps: Branch Out, Wonderful Favorites

Colors: Chocolate Chip, Kraft, Garden Green, Dusty Durango, Crushed Curry

Accessories: Cutter Kit, Vintage Brads, wide Chocolate grosgrain

A Diva Color Challenge! {DCBD146}

This week the Diva's are challenging you to try out this cool almost retro color combination! I love unique color combos- that is about my favorite part of stamping- so this one was fun! Unfortunately I didn't have a lot of time to stamp yesterday with my mom and sister and niece here from out of town.

When I finally remembered that I needed to take some time to make this card I only had about a 1/2 hour before having to leave to take my daughter to gymnastics. Of course from there I always go play volleyball and don't usually return until after 11pm.

Well, if you ever wonder how a card might turn out if I'm rushed, have a 2-year-old on my lap for some of the time and kiddos interupting while stressed, this is it: I'm not even sure I enjoyed making it- but I am happy with how it turned out. It is unique for me, I NEVER do strips of words like that on a card and not sure why I chose to this time. The stamping isn't perfect but I decided to go with it anyway! I do love the red button and also the touch of Bermuda Bay- like I said I adore color!

Well, I hope you'll go visit the other Diva's on our blog and their personal blogs then play along with us! We'd love to see what you create with this fun color combo. I was planning to try this again today but my PJ's have inspired me to try something else (a color combo) so I might just do that instead. And no I won't take a picture of my PJs- unless I cut off my head in the pic! ;)

OK, gotta run! I've got lots more to show you this week so I do hope you'll come back. And please stop in to say hi so I know you've been visiting!

~Kristin

SUO Supplies
Stamps: Autumn Days, sentiment from Of the Earth hostess set

Colors: Soft Suede (the best new neutral!), Bermuda Bay, Very Vanilla, Real Red

Accessories: Spiral punch, Vanilla EP, distressing tool, Playground buttons (I'm almost out!), linen thread

CAS Workshop cards

My workshop went well last night- I thoroughly enjoyed sharing my excitement over the Big Shot and other Stampin' Up! products and I think everyone had a nice time. Here are the projects everyone got to complete. The first is a simple Get Well card using Thoughts and Prayers stamp set. Very straight forward and quick to complete. The ink is Chocolate Chip, cardstock colors are Soft Suede, Dusty Durango and More Mustard and the DSP is Autumn Traditions. Accessories are the Modern Label punch and wide vanilla grosgrain ribbon.

Here's another version of one of my favorite designs of all time. I used it for this card with Lovely As a Tree way back in 2006 and it has been used again and again since then by lots of people. That card happened to be my most viewed most commented card EVER in my gallery that has 841 photos in it!! Here is another time I used it for a masculine retirement card. Here's another one using a butterfly die cut as a mask.

This one uses Sincere Snowflakes with Bashful Blue, Sage Shadow and Brilliant Blue. Sentiment is from Many Merry Messages.

OK, that's all for today! Thanks for stopping by!

~Kristin

Day Two of Try Outs!

Well, here is my second try out card. It is quite different from the ideas I had swirling but that's the fun of seeing where you end up right?!! This time we were given a sample card and told to basically use it for inspiration. To get the image of the tree I "inked" my stamp with bleach (be sure to rinse your stamp with water if you do this!) then stamped. It took a few tries until I got it right. The color that comes from bleach on Soft Suede is a near perfect match to More Mustard so that is how I came up with the card base color.

The strip of DSP is from Autumn Traditions. Stapled on some ribbon to keep it simple and distressed the edges a bit. That's it.

Hope you like it. Here is the inside. I stamped the tree again, then using my In Color markers I colored this sentiment from Holidays & Wishes (retired) to make a gradation effect that is all the rage right now I guess. If you try this be sure to do the lightest color (Crushed Curry here) first, then gradually go darker so as to not ruin your makers. I just did the Curry in the center then the top is Dusty Durango and the bottom is Soft Suede. Man I love having In Color markers!!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

~Kristin

SUO Supplies

Stamps: Branch Out, Stem Silhouettes (retired), Holidays & Wishes (retired)

Colors: Soft Suede, More Mustard

Accessories: Soft Suede dotted grosgrain, stapler, Autumn Traditions DSP, bleach, white ink, distressing tool, keytag punch, In Color markers