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Paper Players: Sketch Challenge

A sketch challenge is not often where I start for a card design, but as soon as I saw the sketch from The Paper Players, I knew just what I wanted to do.

One of my recent purchases from The Greetery was the Tile Style stamp set. It’s a beautiful set of tiles in two sizes. I used three of the larger ones for this card. The tiles were stamped and then die cut with one of the Shortbread Shapes: Rectangle Labels.

I embossed the blue panel with a Stampin’ Up embossing folder and added it to a white card base. I purchased the embossing folder several years ago from eBay, and never had the packaging so I don’t know what it’s called. The Thinking of You White Gold Foiled Greeting Tab from Memory Box worked perfectly for the sentiment. The gold foiling prompted me to use two gold hearts die cut from Simon Says Holiday Shapes. They were added with tiny pieces of dimensional tape.

It’s always good to have another encouragement card in the stash.

Color Hues 135

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Carol has chosen the new colors for the 135th Color Hues.Challenge:

I purchased the Spellbinders Sunflower Serenade last summer but have never used it. I wanted a Clean and Simple card and it was just perfect. I die cut it from yellow cardstock and added some ink blending to the middle of the flower before adding the centers in two shades of brown (one of our acceptable neutrals.) 


Two squares were cut with Ellen Hutson’s Essential Squares. A slightly smaller one from My Favorite Things Black and White Basics paper pack and one size larger from black cardstock. I miss MFT; their patterned paper packs are one of my favorites. After layering those onto a white card base, I added the sunflower with a square of dimensional tape. 


The sentiment is one of Memory Boxes Gold Foiled Greeting Tabs. After adding the greeting, I wanted some gold with the sunflower. I tried a couple gold leaves, but they were too much, so I went with my favorite Pinkfresh Studio gold pearls.


Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate your visit and your comments as well! I hope you’ll hop over to the Color Hues Challenge blog to check out the fabulous designs created by our team and our Guest Designers, Barbara Campbell and Diana K. We would love to see you add a card to our gallery. It’s open until 9:00 am on June 29th.  

This card is off to Darnell’s NBUS and to the A Cut Above Challenge—Anything Goes with a die cut.

Sending Sunshine

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It’s been awhile since I’ve enrolled in one of the Online Card Classes, but when the latest class was announced I signed right up. It was called Brighter Days and the kit which I ordered from Concord and 9th includes stamps, dies, and stencils designed to create encouragement cards. After Christmas and birthday cards, I send more thinking of you cards than any other category and far more than I would like to send! It’s probably a function of my age that so many people I know are in need of encouragement.

The class ran last week. I watched all the videos but never got time to create any of the cards. Yesterday I sat down with the class supplies to create a card for a good friend who definitely needs a bit of sunshine. This is a combination of ideas from the class but not one that was presented by the instructors.


The first step was to decide what size card I wanted. I ended up with 5″ square card and cut a panel 4 1/4″ square for the stenciling. Kristina Werner designed all the products for this class and her expertise shows in the design of the Rainbow Rays Stencil which puts a white space between each of the rainbow colors. The three stencils separate the colors as you ink so the next stencil always covers the one you just inked. It means a lot less masking!


The clouds and sun were die cut from white paper, and I ink blended the sun. They are from the Weather Together Dies. All three clouds were attached with dimensional tape. There is a rectangular die for the sentiment included in the kit, but it was a bit bigger than I needed, so I turned to Ellen Hutson’s Essential Rectangles. I love the fonts of these sentiments. I used another of the stamp sets, Easier and Brighter, to create the inside sentiment.


This card is going to the Colorful Options Challenge which somehow I never seem to get to. Rainbow is always an option there. And it’s off to NBUS for all the new products used and works with Darnell’s I.D.E.A.S. Week 1: Inking.