Sites of the week

Happy first Saturday of the month, Sketch for You to Try {SFYTT} friends! Only two more sketches for the year! I am so excited for everyone that has been playing along each month for their chance at winning an AWESOME prize on Christmas Day! Will it be you?

I’m already working on the sketches for next year and lining up some great sponsors! There will be a few things changing, but for the most part you can expect another year of fun sketches to play along with!

I appreciate all of the SFYTT sponsors…THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH! I had a lot of fun playing Waltzing Mouse Stamps last month! This month brings another awesome sponsor, VERVE STAMPS, who is offering up a set of choice to a random participant playing along with their Verve…

Here’s what I came up with using the new-soon-to-be-released {11-11-11} set, Bright Spirits…

Detail shot {are you swooning over the sentiment font, like me?!?}…

Last month we were sans a Designer of the Month, but this month I was a *little* more on top of things…thank goodness! Please welcome BRONI HOLCOMBE as the November Designer of the Month!…

A little about Broni in her own words…

I’m so honored to be Jen’s Guest Designer for November!
I’m a mother to 2 beautiful daughters, and a Nana to 3 young grandsons and an adorable granddaughter. I live in beautiful South Carolina where I’m an accountant by day for a major beverage distributor. I spend as much of my non-working time as possible in the paper-crafting world…either creating, or sharing and learning online.
I started stamping 6 years ago and was honored by being chosen as a member of the Splitcoaststampers Dirty Dozen design team a short 2 years later. Coloring is my passion, and Copic markers are my “weapon” of choice.
When I’m not crafting (or online), you can find me playing with the grandchildren, kayaking, swimming or planning my next trip to the beach!

Isn’t her card A-DOR-ABLE using the To the Moon set…

More inspiration for you to take a peek at…

Amber Hight
Amy Sheffer
Becky Carafa
Carole Burrage
Iwona Palamountain
Jen Tapler
Jodi Collins
Kerry Johnson
Megan Lock
Susan Liles
Terri Moore

Some of the Verve Divas are playing along, too…

Charmaine Ikach
Betty Wright
Andrea Ewen
Maureen Plut
Dawn Easton
Teresa Kline
Lynda Benden

Wanna play along? I hope you will!

1. The SKETCH FOR YOU TO TRY {SFYTT} will be posted on the first Saturday of each month on www.iheart2stamp.com at 8am EST and will stay open to participants until the last day of the month, unless otherwise noted.
2. This is for fun! Interpret the sketch as you wish and embellish as desired. There are no vendor restrictions, but we would love to see you use the sponsor’s stamps!
3. Each month we will have a Designer of the Month that will be chosen from past month’s participants.
4. Come and play with us on each and every sketch! On Christmas Day 2011 a prize package worth over $200 will be given away to one very lucky and loyal SFYTT stamper that participates in EVERY sketch for the year.
5. To be eligible for the prize package, you must complete ALL of the sketches by each of the deadlines AND link your creation to the link system on that month’s sketch post (the first Saturday of the month). Everyone except for SFYTT Sisters are eligible for the prize package, including Designer of the Month and international players.
6. When posting your sketch creation on your blog, please post the sketch and link back to the sketch post on www.iheart2stamp.com. When posting to online galleries, please use the keyword “SFYTT.”

Ok, it’s your turn! Happy stamping!

Are you ready for a palette of fall foliage for this week’s TCP Tuesday challenge? Your Hipster Hostess with the Mostess, Lori, is challenging you to use this seasonal mix…

This card was a bit of a labor of love…or something like that! Let’s just say this final project that you see is not the first {or even 2nd} go at it. All in all, I think I like the final outcome, but it was quite the trek to get to this…

Detail shot…

For this card, I used a couple different sets from The Cat’s Pajamas: A Beary Good Year and Simply Said. I’m pretty sure that I always put the coffee cup in PJ’s hand when using this set…LOL! What can I say?…the bear needs his coffee!

Want to play along with this color challenge and for a chance to win the entire next release? Here’s some deets to know…

1. Each Tuesday we will give you a challenge.
2. You will have until the end of the month to complete the challenge.
3. Add your entry to the Inlinkz Gallery on Alma’s blog or upload to the SCS Gallery, using the keyword TCPTUES182 for this week’s challenge.
4. TCP stamps are not required for this challenge, but highly recommended.
5. There will be one randomly chosen weekly winner, announced on Tuesdays who will win a Gift Voucher for use on The Cat’s Pajamas website.
6. There will be one winner, The Swanky Stamper, announced the 1st of each month. They will win several sets from an upcoming release and get to play along with us at our Pajama Party and Blog Hop.

Good Luck and Happy Stamping!

TGIF Friends! I’m pretty excited about today! I’m hosting the “Cupcakes and Crafties for Kiddos” playdate/party that I mentioned earlier this week. I’ll have 15 kids ranging from 3 months to 5 years invading my house…eek! We are making a spider hat and a toilet paper tube mummy for our crafts and will have lots of yummies to fill our lil’ monster’s tummies. I’m doing a photo booth like I did for Ellie’s birthday, so I should have some fun pictures to share soon!

This week’s TCP Tuesday is hosted by the super sweet and talented, Julie. She is challenging everyone to use acetate on their card. WOW!…I think it’s been awhile since I broke out the acetate. Now that we are wrapping up the Halloween craftiness, I am moving on to winter/holiday, so I thought that it would be fun to try out an acetate snowflake paired with the oh so cute SHEEPISH set from The Cat’s Pajamas…

Detail of acetate snowflake cut from the TCP Snowflake CutUps die…

I had to add a little something to the snowflake. I cut a red felt heart from the Heart Trio CutUps die. I love the warm texture of the felt to go along with the paper pieced {Echo Park paper} sheep image…

Want to play along? Be sure to check out THIS post on the TCP blog for all the details how you can win the next release in its entirety. I’ve seen the next release and OMG is it ever cute! So, get to stamping and good luck!!

While this doesn’t fit in with the challenge, I still want to share another TCP card that I realized that I had not posted yet from the current release.

This first card uses my favorite lil’ bunny taking flight in OH CHUTE…

This card was so fun to paper piece. If you’ll recall, I am NOT a technique-y person, and paper piecing is about as messy as I prefer to get. I really like how you can piece the whole parachute or each segment. Gotta have options!!

Alright friends, I gotta run and get ready for mayhem! LOL!!

The new releases continue to come at ya from YOUR NEXT STAMP! Today is extra special because there is a fantastic prize up for grabs! You may recall that YNS just started their newest product line…YOUR NEXT DIE! Karen, owner of YNS, is giving the HAPPY HOLIDAYS stamp and coordinating die set to one lucky commenter.

My project today, a tag, is in combination with this week’s YNS Challenge: ABC {Anything But a Card}.

You can find all the info, including PRIZE details, HERE on the YNS blog. I love ABC challenges, because anything goes! Tags, bags, boxes or anything you can come up with…as long as it’s not a card. Have fun with this one and let those creative juices flow! Think of it as a jump start on all those holiday crafties that you have been wanting to do…at least since you saw them on Pinterest, right?!

Here are a couple of detail shots. The Santa is from the new SEASONAL ICONS set and the awesome word block is from the HAPPY HOLIDAYS set {the one that is up for grabs…along with some seriously cool dies to one lucky commenter today!}…

I added some white Flower Soft to the Santa hat for some added visual interest and texture.

Word block embellished white itty bitty rhinestones and partially colored with Copics…

Ready for **YOUR** Next Stamp? Check out these details…

1. Karen’s got a little *early bird* special–Free surprise gift with every purchase PLUS Free Shipping to Canada and the US for orders over $30 (code is YNSHolidays) starting October 21st and ending Nov 2nd.

2. All the stamps and dies will be available for purchase at the YNS Store the day they are released and the full release will be available on November 3rd.

3. Be sure and check out the YNS blog and Facebook page daily for all the new stamp reveals and PRIZES!

Happy Tuesday all you The Cat’s Pajamas fans! This week I am your Hipster Hostess with the Mostess and I have a great inspiration challenge for you…

I LOVE ROCK ‘N ROLL, SO PUT ANOTHER DIME IN THE JUKEBOX BABY!

I apologize in advance if you are singing like Joan Jett for the rest of the day!

I took a little bit of the rock ‘n roll and a little bit of the color for inspiration to make this card…

Here’s a detail shot of the ticket…

This card came together pretty easily {mainly because I used my CPS card from a couple weeks ago as something to work from}, but when I got to putting away everything I counted 3 TCP sets and 5 CutUps dies that I used…

STAMP SETS…
-Admit One **new set**
-Idols
-Nightie Alpha

CutUps DIES…

-Big Ticket

-Pinking Border

-Big Scallop

-Heart Trio

-Home Tweet Home

Want to play along with this Inspiration Challenge? Here are a few details to know…

1. Each Tuesday we will give you a challenge.
2. You will have until the end of the month to complete the challenge.
3. Add your entry to the guestbook on Alma’s blog or upload to the SCS Gallery, using the keyword TCPTUES181 for this week’s challenge.
4. TCP stamps are not required for this challenge, but of course we love to see TCP fans use their TCP stamps!
5. There will be one randomly chosen weekly winner, announced on Tuesdays who will win a Gift Voucher for use on The Cat’s Pajamas website.
6. There will be one winner, The Swanky Stamper, announced the 1st of each month. They will win several sets from an upcoming release and get to play along with us at our Pajama Party and Blog Hop.