End of the School Year

It's the end of the regular school year. Joshua, my darling grandson, is graduating from kindergarten. He had a wonderful teacher this year, so of course, I had to make a thank you card to go with his gift from Mommy. I  pulled out my Graphics45, An ABC Primer, for my card. The addition cards and background paper are from the pad. "Thanks" is cut from grungepaper using Tim's Word Play die. The letters are colored with barn door distress stains and then covered with rock candy stickles. The strip being held with the tiny clothespin is a replica of the behavior chart system they use in the class. Joshua just beams when he moves his clip up to "outstanding", so I thought it appropriate that his teacher be on outstanding too.
Grungepaper, stickles, the number cards, and the embellishment clip all add texture to this card, so I'm entering it in the Simon Says Stamp and Show some texture challenge. I love it when a card comes together like I planned.

Beauty and the Butterflies

The current challenge at Classy Cards 'n Such had me stumped at first. I have problems with color challenges especially unusual color combinations. I really thought that it would be difficult to combine yellow, orange, and aqua in a card. However, once I got started, it was a great combination. I stamped my image (Great Impressions) on white cardstock and painted it with Creative Inspiration Paints. I do love the shimmer of these paints.
My background was made by using the Cheery Lynn French Lattice large die to cut a sheet of two sided adhesive. I adhered the adhesive die cut to the aqua panel and then added Creative Inspirations Paints glitter to the adhesive. I now had a sparkly aqua background for my card. I added a framing panel to the image in orange. Two yellow and orange butterflies (Cheery Lynn butterflies and angel wing) and a crepe paper flower highlighted with yellow paint (Cheery Lynn miniature rose die) were added to embellish the card. Now here's a card that is bright and cheery.
You can get both Cheery Lynn dies and Spellbinders dies at the Classy Cards 'n Such web site.

Ticket to Ride

This week the challenge at City Crafter is ticket to ride-create a piece with transportation and a ticket. On my card I got to use my "On the Railroad" set of Tim Holtz stamps. I've been waiting for a chance to use these stamps. I also got to use the archival resist technique again from Creative Chemistry 101. I just love that technique. For my ticket, I used one of Tim's adage tickets.

Never Give Up Hope

This is my last posting for today. The Try That Technique challenge at Technique Junkies is challenging us to use the layered masking technique from the Feb/Mar 2012 TJ newsletter. I've been admiring this technique done by several of the other TJers. This was a great opportunity to try it for myself. 
I'm also excited because Cornish Heritage Farms stamps are back and now CHF is sponsoring a challenge. The theme is anything goes. Both the lighthouse and sentiment are from the CHF collection.

Wishing

The layout of my card is based on the SweetStamps challenge sketch. My card also meets the challenge at Kraft Monday which is emboss and embellish and the challenge at Frilly and Funkie which is kraft and twine. My background panel has been dry embossed and the embossing was lightly highlighted with distress ink. The front panels are kraft cardstock. The long front panel was also embossed and highlighted with distress ink. The stamp is a part of a larger SweetStamps stamp which was stamped with distress ink and colored with watercolor markers. The sentiment is from the Tim Holtz collection. The embellishing pearls and twine are from my stash.

Kind Words

Today has been a fun day. I spent quite a bit of time in the studio, so it'll be a long blog night tonight. This card was created for a couple of challenges. At Our Daily Bread Designs, the Shining the Light challenge is pink, black and/or grey, and white/vanilla.The Ink on my Fingers Sunday challenge is words. My background panel is from a dictionary page (lots of words) which I stamped with pink (worn lipstick distress ink) dahlias (ODBD). The sentiment is also from ODBD. The ribbon was white and dyed with worn lipstick distress stain.

One Layer and Masculine

Fridays do roll around quickly. It's Bloggers Challenge time again and this time we are to make a one layer card. It's not as easy as it sounds. To make my card I started with a piece of manila cardstock. To create the background color I used distress stains on the front of the card. Then I stamped my postage and frame stamp from Hero Arts. This stamp has a matching embossing folder which highlights several of the stamps, postage marks and center tag shape. I went over the embossed areas with antique linen distress ink and the edges with vintage photo. The sentiment is from Club Scrap. I did add the two brad like embellishments to the tag image. I think the resulting card has a very vintage and masculine look.
I'm also entering this card into Simon Says Stamp and Show one for the boys, into Tuesday Throwdown with the theme masculine, and into Three Muses with the theme postage stamps.