The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew...

Since we've officially announced it to our families now, I can share this card with you. I made it to announce the arrival of another member to our family come early May. I thought it turned out pretty cute! I got the window idea from someone on splitcoast but the overall layout and design is the result of my own fiddling. After doing Diana Gibbs' color challenge with Sage Shadow and Chocolate Chip, I find that I really love the two together and the Pretty in Pink is such a nice accent!

Supplies:
Chocolate Chip, Sage Shadow, Pretty in Pink, Very Vanilla cs
Teeny Tiny Wishes, (non-SU) pregnant lady silhouette stamp, Warm Words stamp sets
Sage Shadow marker, Chocolate chip ink
White gel pen
Scallop edge punch, 1" circle punch
Brown and pink stitched grosgrain ribbon (non-SU)

That Old Black Magic

"Aunt" Karen Barber was also in attendance at Fall Fest and it was a treat to meet her at last as well. She showed us how to do her black magic with white gel twist technique, which produces a truly stunning card. I'll admit, my backgrounds need some work--hers are so perfect as to look like dsp! She also told me how to make the center medallion look like lacquer--you smear the whole versamark pad over the oval after you've finished with it and then emboss, emboss, emboss (and burn your fingers a few times!).

Supplies:
Melon Mambo, Shimmery White, Basic Black cs
Charming, Short and Sweet stamp sets
Melon Mambo, Whisper White craft ink
Large and small oval punches
Die cut ovals
5/8" Whisper White satin ribbon
Medium half-back pearls

Happy Fall Fest

I'm just getting around to posting the make-n-takes that we made at Tina Rosenkranz' Fall Fest last weekend, which was fun, if exhausting. We got to experiment with the Build-A-Bear dies, sweet treat cups and observe many cool demonstrations. The highlight for me was to meet Michelle Zindorf and learn at the feet of the master. Karen Barber was also there, teaching her fabulous technique of black magic with white gel twist. I'll post those cards in the next few days. The little red "buttons" are really 1/4" circle punches with white gel pen accents--pretty neat, huh?

But for today, here is the sweet treats card we made:

Supplies:
Whisper White, Real Red (textured), Ballet Blue, brushed silver cs
Always Artichoke, Real Red, Ballet Blue ink
Sweet Centers and Delightful Decorations stamp sets
Red polka dot grosgrain ribbon
Sweet Treats cups
1/4", 3/4", & 1-3/4" circle punches
white gel pen

Melon Mambo Warm Wishes

Another card CASE from Kristin Kortonick--I loved the color combination, but what I really liked was the unusual use of the polka dotted window sheets from the Night and Day dsp set, which I happened to have! I didn't know what I was going to do with those window sheets and Kristin's layering idea was brilliant! I didn't have the butterflies or sentiment, so I swapped in the Together Forever flower (love it!) and the Warm Wishes sentiment. This card was super fast and came together in about 10 minutes (which was perfect since that's all the time I had to make it!)

Here's Kristin's card:Here's my version (they are the same color--I just couldn't get the melon mambo to come out true to color):

Supplies:
Whisper White, Basic Black, Melon Mambo cs, Night and Day dsp
Together Forever, Hugs and Wishes stamp sets
Basic Black ink
Melon Mambo polka dot grosgrain ribbon

Nursery Necessities CASE

I found a neat card from a German stamper, Andrea Roose, on splitcoast a while back and liked it a lot. It went into my "make this card someday file" and sat for a few months. A few weekends ago, we went to the baptism of a friend's baby and I needed a card to go with the gift, and thought voila! This is the card! The only thing I changed was that the sentiment is in English (obviously) and I used the modern label punch and put it below the sailboat instead of next to it the way Andrea did. I also lacked the 3/4" circle punch and so had to go up a size on the birdies.

Here's my version:
Supplies:
Whisper White, Bashful Blue, Pumpkin Pie, So Saffron cs, Washington Apple dsp
Nursery Necessities stamp set
Bashful blue, So Saffron, Pumpkin Pie markers, Bashful blue, Pumpkin pie ink
White gel pen, paper piercing tool
Circle mat, modern label punch, 1" and 1 1/4" circle punches
Scallop edge punch

An Apple a Day...

I found this cute scrap of retired DSP in the piles of paper scraps that I got from Kristin about a month and a half ago and was determined to use it, since I have the Tart and Tangy set that it coordinates with, but what with this and that, just got around to it now. It actually was more challenging to use it with the stamp set than I would have thought! It turns out that having a big pattern like that is hard to work with. I ended up just using one strip of the large piece (which wasn't big to begin with--about 3x5) as an accent on this super simple card. I had this idea a few days ago about using a window to frame an image. I wanted to have a vertical row of punched out windows, but it was impossible to get them lined up properly and there wasn't enough room on this layout for as many as I wanted. *Sigh* Maybe I'll have another go at it with a different layout and stamp set. Anyway, here is the result:

Supplies:
Kiwi Kiss CS, Retired Summer Picnic DSP
Rose Red Marker
Tart and Tangy, Sweet Sentiments stamp sets
Scallop square punch

CASEing Diana Gibbs

Did I mention that I love Diana Gibbs' work? I found this card on her blog a while back and thought it was great and wanted to CASE it. I can't find the original post, so I'm just putting the card in this post.

Here's Diana's card:


I happened to have everything on the card (a first for me!) after my Rich Regals Markers arrived (yeah, Marker Club!) so I set to work this morning. I actually made two of these because I needed a card for one of my blanket parcels and this came together quickly. I decided to make another because I liked it so much! (Plus I had stamped two butterflies and didn't want to let it go to waste!) The other new thing I tried on this card was to dye the ribbon. I didn't have the basic gray taffeta ribbon (it was the only thing I was missing!) so I took some 3/8" white grosgrain and used a sponge dauber to stain the ribbon basic gray. Worked like a charm! And so fast (if slightly messy). But, wait, you say, the dsp is different! Au contrare, my friend. It is from the same dsp pack: A Walk in the Park (now retired). I could have used the same exact paper as Diana, but I wanted to jazz it up a little and make it my own!

Supplies:
So Saffron, Whisper White, Basic Gray CS, A Walk in the Park dsp
Kiwi Kiss, Basic Gray ink, So Saffron marker
Great Friend stamp set
3/8" white grosgrain ribbon (dyed to match with Basic gray ink)
sponge dauber
dimensionals
paper snips (great for cutting out butterflies!)