Sites of the week

I love challenges!! I know that I have mentioned more than once, that I used to play the daily SCS challenges all the time. Since then, I have had a baby {now almost 2}, moved a time or two, and have been fortunate enough to be part of some very wonderful Design Teams. I didn’t realize until recently, that I still am a challenge junkie and I do participate in a lot of challenges…just in different forums. Today brings forth a couple of cards made for the Verve Project Parade Challenge.

Here is the inspiration picture that we were given to work with…

Here are the two cards that I came up with. The first one uses this week’s SKETCH FOR YOU TO TRY…

You are cordially invited to play along in this challenge…and possibly win $15 in Verve Bucks! All you have to do is play in this Vervalicious challenge with us! Leave a comment with a link to your project on this post by 12:00 pm (noon) Eastern Time on June 21st, and you will be entered for a chance to win! Using Verve stamps is not a requirement, although it doubles your chance of winning. We will have two winners, one randomly drawn from a pool of all entries, the other will be selected as our favorite from all the projects using Verve stamps. Both winners will receive $15 in Verve Bucks. We will announce the winners later that day.

Verve is also having a sale on their sentiment stamps. Check it out!

I think that the colors of Tiffany & Co. are so classy. I love the robin’s egg blue against black with the gorgeous white ribbon. Stampin’ Up!’s Cool Caribbean is the closest that I have to that classic blue color. As for the stamp set, I used one of the newest releases from My Favorite Things, Congrats All Around. I really like the versatility of this set. I used it for some baby projects HERE. For some added sparkle, and in the Tiffany’s theme, I added some bling bling…Swarovski crystals to be exact! The flowers panel is mounted on dimensional glue dots, as well as the center panels. As a last minute finishing touch, I paper pierced the right side of the long panel, which is slightly offset to the left.

We’re off to our Wiggles ‘n Tunes class this morning (so much fun!!). Hopefully I will get in some quality stampin’ time this afternoon. I have a couple cards to show you tomorrow for the Verve color challenge. You can see all of the DT’s projects on the Verve blog.

Unless it’s a real challenge! Whew, did Carole come up with one today!! LOL!! I have to admit that when I first saw the inspiration photo, I was a **bit** intimidated, but I figured “What the heck, let’s do it!?!” I often amaze myself when I end up using bright colors, so reaching right for them was a bit of a stretch for me. I grabbed SU!’s Summer Sun and a sheet of bright apple green paper that I picked up at Hobby Lobby some time ago. So, this is what I came up with for the TCP Tuesday Challenge…

Detail shot…

The inspiration pics can be found HERE on Carole’s blog. You can see that I did not use the bow shape directly, but rather used paper to create somewhat of a bow shape. Instead of flowers I used circles, but still stayed within the same color range.

More about TCP Tuesday…

1. Each a week one of the The Cat’s Pajamas DT members will host a challenge.
2. The challenges will vary {stamp, color, theme, sketch, etc.}
3. You will have until {this} Saturday night to complete the challenge.
4. Link your project on this week’s hostess’ challenge announcement. This week you will link your project HERE.
5. TCP stamps are not required, but of course, highly encouraged. {Unless it is a challenge calling for a specific stamp}
6. There will be one winner each month. They will be deemed that month’s Swankiest Stamper and get $25 in Cat’s Cash {money to spend on the TCP site!}.
7. When uploading to SCS, please use the keyword TCPTUES12 for this challenge.
8. Alma will post the entries from the week the following Monday on her blog.
9. The newly crowned Swanky Stamper will be announced on the First of the Month and have his/her winning entry posted on The Cat’s Pajamas website where he/she will reign for the entire month.

When you think monsters, you probably don’t think “sexy.” Truth is, neither do I. I went in search of a birthday sentiment and came across it and just couldn’t pass it up! The monsters are from Green Grass Stamps. I have had them FOREVER and yet they never saw the light of day…until now. My original intention was to make a boy birthday card. I really don’t need one, but I really wanted to use these stamps, and it just seemed fitting. Then I went diving into my MFT sentiments, and I have a lot to pick from in that category LOL, and this just popped out at me and I couldn’t just leave it sitting there begging to pair up with some monsters! So here ya have it…a “Hey Sexy” monster card…

Isn’t that paper just the cutest? I love me some polka dots! This is some paper that I picked up at the Great American Scrapbook Convention with Susan a couple weekends ago. It is from Treehouse Memories. It is from their Mainstreet line and the Department Store collection {have I ever said that all these paper sub-category names drive me CRAZY?!?!}. Definitely check them out, they might just give American Crafts a run for their money in my book!…and that says quite a lot!!!

Here are a couple detail shots…

I actually put some Sakura Stardust pen on this guy’s teeth. If you have seen the movie Monsters, Inc. you may recall at the beginning when Mike was prodding Sully while brushing his teeth by saying, “Fight that plaque! Fight that plaque! Scary monsters don’t have plaque!” I kept saying that over and over as I was finishing up the card. LOL! That’s actually what we say when we brush Ellie’s teeth. She LOVES that movie and thinks it’s funny when we say that to her.

Hooray for Saturday! Who doesn’t love the weekend!!?!! Being that I stay home, each and every day is just about the same. However, with this week being over {for the most part} means that I have a little less weight on my shoulders. I tend to produce better projects when under a little pressure. That means for a Friday night Copic class, which went AWESOME, I was preparing EVERYTHING on Thursday night {yes, even the card designs!!}. I am the same way with releases. Even if I have the stamps really early, I don’t sit down and get everything inked until the last moments leading up to the release. It seems to be working…for now at least. From time to time I will get ahead of the game, but then it seems like my mojo is on a low when I come back into the game. I know that this mentality will come back to bite me in the you-know-what sooner or later.

Before I get started on the Sketch For You To Try stuff, I just wanted to let you know that I changed up some stuff in the comments section on my blog. This is mainly in response to several people asking if I could get it to remember their info when they leave comments. Unfortunately, I cannot find how to do that. If you anyone with a Wordpress blog knows where that “on” switch is, let me know. What I have tried that works, is to double click in the name, etc. areas and your info should come up. I am no tech guru, so pleeeeease don’t ask me more about this because I might just have to crawl under my tech-tard {Julie word!} rock and hide. BUT, please let me know if it DOES work for you. Also, I have turned on comment moderation. If you don’t see your comment pop up immediately, it’s because I need to approve it.

Ok, and now on to BIZ-NESS! Here’s the sketch…

EDIT…
Be sure to check out the FANTABULOUS samples made by Amy, Carole, Shannan and Susan. Sorry I forgot to link earlier, as I wrote this LATE last night to publish in the morning.

Here’s my sample using Cornish Heritage Farms stamps. I used the Writing Paper scrapblock {Thank You LISA!}. I clearly did not use this to its full potential, but I love the pattern all the same. The other stamps are from the Making The Grade set. I am so in love with the Kim Hughes line that they have. I have a ton that have yet to be inked. If you know anyone with some spare free time, be sure to send them my way…LOL!! I wish!

Some other deets for you…The green color in my card is Spring Moss from Papertrey Ink. The DARLING black and white ribbon is from May Arts. Oh, how I have been hoarding it!! LOL! Notice that I made the circle panel a square on my card. Feel free to change the shape of panels like this, or even use that panel as an embellishment. With a different card, I may just use a large flower there. Have fun with it!!

June’s Guest Designer, Dawn Easton, has a super cute card.

Have a wonderful weekend!