Growing in Unity Blog Hop

Hello Everyone! A happy Sunday to everyone. Today I am excited to be one of the stops on the Growing in Unity Blog Hop. Today’s hop features crafters who were featured as a Growing in Unity girl in May and June of this year.

This means another chance for prizes too! Two lucky commenters on the hop will will a prize pack from Unity. So, make sure you leave a comment on all the blogs, including the Unity blog. Winners will be announced on the Unity blog.

Once you’re done at my blog, head on over to the next stop, Linda’s blog.

I actually have two projects today. This first one turned out better than I ever expected. I had started this card for my Growing in Unity week back in May, but didn’t get it finished in time. Was I intimidated by the watercoloring? Perhaps. But, I went for it this time and look at it! This is Beach Girl and the sentiment comes from A Summer Story {KOM 5/16}.

My other card was also created from the A Summer Story {KOM 5/16} kit. The background was created with the florals in the kit. I then stamped the butterfly (lightly) onto the white paper and put the sentiment over top of it. It’s a great, simple thank you.

Don’t forget your comments! Here is the official hop order, just in case you get lost along the way.

Unity Blog
Anna Natalia
Shannon Horch
Suzanne Shaft
Heather Bolli (ME!!)
Linda Pekrul
Lynda Lindley
Lee Ann Barrett
Belinda Beshirs
Suzi Baker McKenzie
Monica Edwards
Alyson Kerr Esposito

Sketch Saturday #473

Hello Everyone! Welcome to a new sketch challenge over at Sketch Saturday. Every Saturday a new sketch is posted and you have until Friday the following week to enter for a chance to win a prize from their terrific sponsors. We hope you’ll come play with us!

Today is Sketch #473, shown below. The sponsor this week is DigiStamp Boutique, which is a new sponsor for me. I am working with the Alvin Squirrel set. I picked the cute birthday image for this sketch.

Here is this weeks’ sketch:

And, here is my card with Alvin!

I wanted to pick a fairly vertical image so that I could split it over the two panels. This image worked fairly well for the project. I raised the yellow balloon off the main image with a second image printing and a couple of pop dots.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you come and play along with us! One lucky challenge entrant will win a prize from our sponsor. Head on over to the Sketch Saturday blog to link up your new creation using the sketch. Good luck!

Creating with Prickley Pear Rubber Stamps!

I was working on my blog earlier this week and realized that I hadn’t posted a couple Prickley Pear creations! Normally, I post the same time they appear on the blog. But, for whatever reason I must have scheduled them for the company blog and totally forgot to do my own post. Whoops!

So, here are a couple of projects that I missed posting.

On July 4th, we posted our Stars and Stripes inspiration. We’re a pretty global Design Team, so not all of us were thick into Fourth of July celebrations. As an alternative, I used stars and stripes in my creation.

The star centre tag was made by combining four banners cut from the Banner Die Set. I then layered on pieces of the Row Houses clear set, cut out with the lovely matching dies. The edges were distressed and inked up, too. This was a Try Stampin’ on Tuesday sketch, but of course…late to post, late to the party (aka link up).

My other card today is a Christmas card because it’s never too early to think about those, right?

This card uses the Three Part Tree clear set. The sentiment comes from the Christmas Banner set and has been stamped onto the matching Banner dies.

There’s more great inspiration from the Design Team if you swing by the Prickley Pear blog, so swing by and check us out! While you’re there, feel free to browse the Prickley Pear store. And, don’t forget to follow us over at the Facebook page for more great inspiration!

Mystery Image Swap – June 2017

Helloooo!! I’m back with my June 2017 Mystery Image Swap card. It’s Ruby’s pick this month and she selected a super fun image for us…along with an interesting challenge to make an interactive card.

As you can see, I’m waaaay behind on this one, thanks to some vacation time, but I finally got a chance to sit down and create.

I decided to go with a shaker card. I have so much trouble with these, but I saw a recent tutorial with a suggestion I thought might solve my problems (the lack of “shake”) and wanted to try it out. This is probably the best one I’ve made. Not quite perfect, but not quite so hopeless!!

I will see you shortly with the July image! Thanks for visiting!

Dueling Darlings – July

It’s the 15th again!! Time for another DDD challenge.

This month is extra, extra special because the kit this month came from Paola and…..ME!! Yes, we were the hosts this month and so we got our brilliant Canadian minds together and came up with a mouthful for these teams to create with.

Our theme is Midsummer’s Night Dream, inspired by the Shakespeare play. I haven’t seen Paola’s kit selections, but I selected this Cutie Butterfly (eh, fairy) image from CC Designs and added it to some nature themed papers.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find some “night” papers, so we’ll just pretend that Shakespeare had a small typo and meant to make it a Midsummer’s Day Dream.

One additional item that Paola and I included was a request to include a maple leaf somewhere, in honor of the Canadian hosts and Canada’s 150th year of confederation on July 1st.

My card was created using the Stamps & Fun challenge (SFC305).

Thanks for swinging by and I’ll see you next month for the newest DDD kit!

TCCCB – Steampunk

Hello, welcome to the mid-month challenge with The Crafter’s Cafe Challenge Blog!

Twice a month we roll out fantastic challenges for your to play along with and we work with great sponsors so you get to see art from a wide variety of talented artists.

Our challenge this fortnight is Steampunk. Normally, this isn’t a style I am drawn to, but it was kinda of fun to put this challenge together! Give it a try, you have nothing to lose.

We do have three sponsors this May 15th challenge, but the one that I get to play with is Digi Stamp 4 Joy. The image selection this time is Red Robin Applique Bird.

I’ve added stamps from my Prickley Pear gears die and stamp set, since they fit this theme nicely and add great embellishments.

This creation uses the sketch over at Sweet Sketch Wednesday (#116), included below. I’m also entering this in the following additional challenges: A Vintage Journey, July All Squared Up challenge and The Paper Shelter, Punches and/or Dies challenge.

Come on and play in this great challenge! You can link up your entry over at The Crafter’s Cafe Challenge Blog from now through the end of the month. Come and check us out!

 

Prickley Pear Poinsettia Tree

Hello Everyone! Well, it’s been an interesting couple of days on my blog. You may have seen my post about my broken blog pictures. I previously used Photobucket to store my images and Photobucket went and changed their terms of service recently and now wants more money than I’m willing to spend to allow third party linking.

I believe I have a solution to the problem, but it will take me awhile to get everything fixed. 2017 and parts of 2016 are back up and functional. If you go back further than that, you may still encounter problems until I get everything fixed.

Just before this all happened, I did have time to sit at my craft desk and play along with the CAS(E) this Sketch challenge (229). Here is the sketch I was working with:

And here is my creation:

The centre tree was created with the Prickley Pear Tree 2 die. I then cut out the smallest flower from the Poinsettia Leaf die set and stamped it with the images from the Spring Poinsettia set. The outline was done in a slightly darker color than the main part of the image to set it off. Doesn’t it look beautiful?

The sentiment is also from the Spring Poinsettia clear set.

Thanks for stopping by today!