This is my second post of the day, but it's the first time I've had a chance to play around with the Summer Card Camp challenges. Here are this week's colors and sketches:

Truthfully, these are the most difficult colors I can ever remember trying to work with. After I finished the first two cards, I realized you only needed to use four of the five colors. That certainly would have been easier! 

The first card, and my least favorite, was supposed to be Sketch #2, but it ended up looking more like Sketch #3.

Looking through my embellishment drawer, I came upon these wooden start stickers (Studio Calico?), the patterned papers are from Paper Source (purple) and the Hip Hip Hooray paper pad by American Craft. The sentiment stamp is one of my oldest wooden stamps (St. Louis Stamp Design). I managed to get the fifth color in there with some My Mind's Eye enamel dots. I think the funky light at the bottom of the card is because the banner extends off both ends. 

I'm happier with the second card.

I haven't used this border die cut from Memory Box yet, so I thought it would be perfect for Sketch #3. I used three patterned papers, two from Bo Bunny and one from American Craft, added some pink gems (there's that fifth color again!), and a tiny banner I hand-cut for the sentiment from Star Prints (Papertrey Ink.) This card is getting linked to the Moxie Fab Birthday Card Challenge.

My favorite of the three cards is this last one where I tried a double-stamping technique Jennifer McGuire shared in a video. 

I used Mama Elephant's "Trifecta" stamps to create the background. It's a border stamp with three rows of tiny triangles. First I stamped it in purple, and then went back and slightly offset the blue triangles. This is the kind of thing that usually is a disaster for me, so I'm really please that I only had to do it once. The rosettes are an oldie but goodie and I'm not sure who made them (another find in the embellishment drawer. The die cut banner and sentiment are a set from Simon Says called "Tilted Banners." 

I'll be linking this last card up with the Moxie Fab "Trendy Triangles Challenge." 

This month's challenge for the Papertrey Blog Hop was a color challenge. There were six gorgeous color combinations to choose from based on the "Fruits of Summer." You can see them all here. This color combo screams summer to me, so that's where I started.

I was hoping to use the new birthday stamps I ordered this month from Papertrey, but for some (yet unknown) reason, the package arrived in Rochester, but was returned to Papertrey Ink before it ever got on a mail truck! I was so disappointed, but turned to the Wonderful Words: Birthday die cut for my card.

I die cut the word in each of the five colors, carefully cut the letters apart, and reassembled the word. "Wishes" was selectively stamped from the Think Big Favorites #16, and I die cut the stars from the Star Gazer dies. It's a pretty simple card, but I'm happy with it. I'll be entering it in the Moxie Fab Birthday Card Challenge as well. 

You can find lots more colorful inspiration here today.

I don't often play along with the Tuesday Trigger at Moxie Fab World, but I love the color combination for this week's challenge and decided to get my mother-in-law's birthday card done a few days early.

I've seen Maile Belles use this design on lots of her cards recently and decided I'd give it a try. I like the overlaid sentiment panel quite a bit and think I'll use it again.

Papertrey Ink came out with this floral set "Happiness in Bloom" a few months ago, but I held off as I surely have lots of floral stamps. I already owned the dies which were released several years ago, though, so this month I broke down. Their recent floral sets have included a variety of ways to double or triple stamp the flowers which makes them much more interesting. Everything on this card came from that stamp set.

When I first saw the challenge at Case Study, I didn't have anything in mind, but then the CASual Friday challenge to use an arrow on the card came along, and I had an idea to combine the two challenges. I'm really happy with the way it turned out.

I don't usually do too well stamping a pattern, but the triangles from the Mama Elephant "Trifecta" set were easy to work with. The sentiment with the arrow came from Papertrey's "Live, Love, Life."

ETA: I'm linking this to the Moxie Fab "Trendy Triangles Challenge."

Both of these cards meet the challenge at Simon Says for "Anything Goes."

Papertrey's June blog hop challenge was to use a "touch of gold." It really is one of the hot trends right now, and I had a variety of ideas. But, once again, time ran short, so I decided to go with a simple design and created a set of cards that I'll be able to pull out when needed. Another piece of inspiration came from Papercraft Magazines 350 Cards & Gifts issues which features a whole section of card sets. I made three birthday cards and three thank you notes. Let's start with the birthday cards.

I started by embossing a Nestability Classic Rectangle on the card front. I ended up using three pieces of Papertrey's new shimmer cardstock which I love, and three pieces of regular cardstock. The blue and black are shimmer cardstock, and the purple is Royal Velvet. Then I embossed the Boutique Borders: Birthday stamps in the middle of the embossed rectangle. Simple and elegant. Here's a closer look:

Here are the thank you notes.

I found several sentiments that fit between the beautiful boutique borders and tried three different ones. I kept the cardstock lighter and only the back card is a shimmer cardstock. The first card uses one of my all-time favorite "thank you" sentiments from Impress. I've had it for years. The others came from Papertrey's Round and Round and Autumn Abundance. I'm quite sure this Boutique Borders will become a  go-to set. You can check out the loads of inspiration right here.

 Here's one final card for the CASual Friday Birthday Bash celebration.

This is one of those cards that had multiple iterations before it was done. I wanted to use the new Wonderful Words: Birthday die as well as the patterned papers from Lawn Fawn's Daphne's Closet that came with the Simon Says March card kit. I tried a lot of different ideas, but finally ended up with a birthday banner and a card I'm quite happy with. The card stock (all Bazzill except for Neenah Solar White) came from the kit as well. 

The banner dies are Papertrey Ink's Countdown banners folded in the middle, and I selectively stamped Big And Wishes from two different sets:  Birthday Bash and 2012 Birthday Tags. 

Spring has finally sprung here, and it's simply gorgeous. I've managed to walk over ten miles in the last several days, walking when I normally would have driven—to the library on Friday, a walk through the park on Saturday, to breakfast with Tracy on Sunday, and to meet a friend for lunch this afternoon. So good to be outside again instead of on the treadmill!

Here's another birthday card, this time based on this week's Retro Sketch challenge. I had some flowers stamped from this project, and this sketch seemed perfect for them.

I tried a couple different patterned papers for the right-hand side of the sketch, but they all seemed too busy, so I did a partial embossing with the Cuttlebug Polka-dot embossing folder. I couldn't find any good way to add a bow either. I tried twine, thin ribbons, and twine, but my CAS style won out on this one.

The flowers are stamped with Papertrey Ink's Rosie Posie and Rosie Posie Step 2 stamp sets, and the sentiment is from Papertrey's Daydreamer set. I die cut the circle with a Spellbinders Small Circles die. The inside sentiment reads, "Hope all your birthday wishes come true."

Linking this to CASual Friday's Birthday Bash challenge and Simon Says Anything Goes.