A summer card for season

Hello, hello! :) Here's a summer birthday card that I made this week for the daughter of one of our close friends. She turned 8 and so I wanted to put a bunch of bright fun colors together to celebrate her birthday. The thought of combining the coral and the pink came by way of a fun accident. I had 2 scraps of those colors next to each other in my scrap bag and the combo caught my eye. I thought it looked fun and just went with it. So I actually had my own color inspiration! :) I hope that she liked it and that I have a few more of these color inspirations on a regular basis.

I used a fun set from CHF - the stamps had been getting a little dusty, so I thought it was time to re-visit and use them again, especially since it is SUMMER. Normally I would color in the images, but in this case I just used stamped them on different colors of CS. I like the look and have to remember to do this again.

...So maybe the break from my CHF stamps was a positive thing creatively for me. ;) Stay tuned to see what else I can come up with creatively.

RSCC #11 - Martini, anyone?

Here's my try this week for Dawn's color challenge.

Not a color combo I would think to put together on my own, but that's why I enjoy doing these. I've been on a streak - I've done a few of these color challenges in a row now (yay!). For some reason I was drawn back to this image, which was a freebie in an eP package sometime ago. I also used a combination of copics and prismas/gamsol to get all the colors in. I like the way this card turned out. Anyway, this will go into my stash of birthday cards for some figure use. Love when I can just come downstairs and find a card and be ready to go! And I think this is a card one of my friends would enjoy receiving.

Hope that you had a great July 4th weekend - I did! Lots of family time in the SUN! I can't believe the weekend is almost over. Busy week ahead, so not sure how much stamping will be going on in the following days, but I know that when I do, it'll be relaxing and very enjoyable. Have a great week ahead! :)

Deets:

Stamps: Rubber Romance; CS: PTI - Raspberry Fizz, Soft Stone; Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black and VersaMagic - Red Magic; Other: Copics, Prismas and Gamsol, Bitty Dots - New Leaf, SU dimensionals and Kaiser rhinestones

Lovely as a...Friend

I've been working on a couple of cards for a blog contest on MoxieWorld.com. She runs contests pretty often, and they are fun to try when I have a free moment. The current one running was to create a card that somehow incorporates a tree. This is one of the cards that I made. I picked Father Knows Best as my prize for "winning" PTI's GSS from a couple of months ago. I had always liked the set, but somehow it would always get bumped in my cart when it came time to order. I used the tree from that set, along with a sentiment put together from the Friends Til the End set. I colored in the leaves with copics to give it a little extra. I liked the way it came out and will save it to send to friend, for no reason other than just because! :)

(Can you tell that I've been using all the handy dandy tricks I learned on the sideoats and scribbles blog to edit my pics? LOL)

Deets: Father Knows Best, Friends Til the End; CS: PTI Kraft, Spring Moss and Melon Berry; Ink: Memento Rich Cocoa and PTI Melon Berry; Other: Bitty Dots ribbon (Melon Berry), Spring Moss button and Copics

Inspired to Relax

This month's blog hop theme was summer-inspired! We are supposed to pick something summer related and use that as a springboard. Given that it has rained all but 5 days in the month of June (a FB friend mentioned this tid-bit in his status update yesterday as it rained AGAIN!), I decided to look for summer inspiration in a magazine... where is is always sunny!

This pic called to me as soon as I say it and it definitely screamed lazy days of summer to me. How relaxing and inviting this chair looks!! I would love to curl up with a good book and kick my flip flops over the side too. :)

But since I can't, I made the card instead - LOL ... I used the colors, drink, pillow, sunglasses and flip flops and built my card around those things. I tilted the green label to mimic the pillow laying on the lounge chair. I think this makes for a fun summery way to say congrats to a friend. Thanks for checking out my try at the blog hop. Can't wait to see how everyone else was inspired by summer!

Deets:

Stamps: PTI Day at the Beach; Ink: Memento Rich Cocoa; CS: PTI New Leaf, Lemon Tart and Kraft; Other: Scarlet Jewel twill, white thread, dimensionals and Kaiser Rhinestones

Something very NEW for me...

I LOVE to take pics. I take them all the time of the kiddos... I try very hard to capture every moment in my family's lives. BUT, that does not mean I do it very well. So I've decided to try to get better at it (and hopefully get better pics of my cards in the process too).

This started when I stumbled upon this this really neat blog - sideoats and scribbles. It's a really neat blog... one that I'm still exploring, but the reason I stumbled up it was that I had seen Lisa's blog highlighted on someone else's blog because of the photography toots she (I think) started recently. Although she is also an amazing (and published) papercrafter too! :)

I tried the sharpening challenge this week, and in the process incorporated the white balance lesson as well. It's definitely a very beginner try at this, but I have learned so much already. I've had Adobe on my laptop, but think that before tonight had used only the automatic fixes for the pics. So let's give it a whirl with Scribbles Challenge #3.

So here is the original pic. This is one of the thank you gift card holders I made for my kiddos' teachers (I made a bunch of these, as my kids have lots of teachers to thank since they are in school and afterschool all day).

And here is my new and (hopefully) improved picture. Can you tell a difference?

I started by doing the levels adjustment, which was difficult since there was no white on my card (plus it was my first time!), so I focused on the top of the white cabinet that the card was sitting on. Then I started on the actual challenge by sharpening the images using the 2 filters. Lisa, your directions are really clear... but I definitely need practice though, as I wasn't sure how much to adjust without it getting too distorted and grainy. I had to try it a couple times, because I couldn't tell how the card was going to looking to look until I pressed "ok" to make the dialog box disappear. Maybe I should've sharpened more... not too sure yet. But I do like how the rock and roll technique I used for the limes really came through much clearer on the second pic. :)

So that ends today's experiment- LOL. I will definitely be following along Lisa's blog for both her creativity and photography tips and lessons going forward. And practicing lots too. I guess these techniques also go for photographs too, right?? (hmmm... question for another day/experiment - now it's time for bed!)

Deets:

Stamps: SU Tart and Tangy, PTI Day at the Beach; CS: Lemon Tart, Spring Moss; Ink: SU Kiwi Kiss and Always Artichoke (rock and roll technique); Other: Spring Moss grosgrain.

Another color challenge - snail mail

Whew, it's been a little while since I last posted. The last couple of weeks of school coincided with a busy run at work, hence not too much creating until last night. Here is my try at Dawn's latest color challenge. Loved the colors - I don't use coral-ly colors much, but I loved how the combo came together. :) I also love how PTI has matching copics and are starting to create more coloring sets. I like the look of cards created solid stamps, but I also really love to color and the result of those kinds of cards. It gives PTI even that much more versatility to all kinds of stampers and well as diversity so that all their cards don't necessarily have the same type of look.

This is my first time inking up this fun new PTI set, and I actually have a couple of ideas swirling around, so I am going to have to give them a whirl the next time I sit down at my craft desk. Hope your week is less soggy than ours. I think there is a rain cloud just parked long-term over NJ...

Deets: Stamps - PTI Vintage Picnic; Ink: Memento Rich Cocoa; CS - PTI Melon Berry, Berry Sorbet, Cream & Bitty Dots, SU Chocolate Chip; Other: PTI buttons!!, SU Ribbon, dimensionals

So Very...

Hello, hello (and good morning!) Quick card and quick post for today. I like how this card turned and LOVE that it was pretty quick in the making, once I figured out my layout and used up some scraps. It's not based on a sketch or anything - I just picked up a bunch of the aforementioned scraps that I had and went from there. This was the first time my set of Star Prints saw any ink and I must say that I love all the different patterns each of the stars have. Very versatile set with many uses. I also like the font - so very different from any other set I have, so it really stands out.

Anyway, it's raining here AGAIN today. The color theme for the week here - grey, grey and more grey. Where is the summer weather from the weekend? I am crossing my fingers that summer gets here by the weekend.