Today's color scheme is:  Not Quite Navy, Cameo Coral (Soon to be retired color!), and Certainly Celery.

I am doubling up on crafting challenges today by taking on the Color Throwdown challenge #97 and Always Playing with Paper Challenge #3 (sketch).  The Always Playing with Paper is a blog site that I stumbled upon just the other day.  If you get a chance—do stop by and check out this inspiring crafting blog!

The sketch challenge provided me a good reason to use my big SU! flower punch.   I teamed it up with the five-petal flower from the Petal Pizzazz stamp set.  The flower's center is a rhinestone from SU!'s Pretties Kit which I have had for ages.  To create the flower I first stamped the image on white paper using Not Quite Navy ink and next punched it out.

I purposely left the card without a sentiment.  It's always nice to have a sentiment-free card on hand to write your own special message inside.

Paper:  Certainly Celery, Cameo Coral, Not Quite Navy, White
Ink:  Not Quite Navy
Punch:  Large 5-petal flower punch
Stamp sets:  Petal Pizzazz
Misc:  Embosslits Sweetest Stem, Textured Impressions Square Lattice

Now, if I only I had some pizzazz toward life!

Today's color scheme:  Rich Razzleberry, Crushed Curry, Melon Mambo, an Razzleberry Lemonade DSP.  Card base is Whisper White.

The card's completed dimension is 3 1/4" x 6" (6 1/2 x 6—folded in half).  The Blossom Party BigZ die was used to create the flower.  The Scallop Trim Border punch (Sale-A-Bration catalog – pg.9) was applied along the card's bottom front flap.  A strip of 1" x 6" Rich Razzleberry was adhered to the card's inside to help emphasize the scallop trim border.  A strip of Razzleberry Lemonade DSP was adhered just above the scalloped border.  Truth be told—I had stamped the sentiment there and made a mess of it.  OK—go with Plan B!  I added Rich Razzleberry polka-dot ribbon to the card's front, assembled my flower (lots of flower choices with the Blossom Party BigZ die!!), added couple dimensionals to back of flower and stuck it to the card's front.

Now came another moment of truth.  Did I feel brave enough to try stamping the sentiment from Of the Earth (Hostess stamp set) with Rich Razzleberry ink to the card's front?  Downside—mess up and I get to start all over.  I took the plunge and whew—it turned out OK.

Here's another photo of the same card except I added a butterfly made using my Beautiful Wings embosslits die.   The little butterfly was a leftover from another stamping adventure and thought what the heck—let us see what the card looks like with the addition of the butterfly.

Enjoy your day!

Here's what the second card looks like:

The card base is SU!'s retired Purely Pomegranate paper and accented with Basic Black paper.  I randomly selected and stamped with Purely Pomegranate ink some of the stamps from the Circle Circus on both cards.  The sentiment was stamped with black ink and is from the Whimsical Words stamp set (Sale-A-Bration).  The butterflies were made with SU!'s Beautiful Wings embosslits die.  To me this is a "Gotta have!" die. 

How did I decide where to place my butterflies?  Easy—right over where I smudged some ink on the Whisper White paper.  Argh!  Smudges do happen.

Color Scheme:  Taken with Teal (card base) and Pumpkin Pie with Sweet Pea DSP.

The Sweet Pea DSP is matted on Pumpkin Pie card stock.  I used a sentiment from Whimsical Words (Sale-A-Bration – pg.8) and stamped it with Taken with Teal ink on a scrap piece of Whisper White.  It was punched out using the Scallop Oval punch and matted to a Taken with Teal Scallop oval die cut.  The scallop oval die cut was created using my Big Shot and Movers & Shapers Big Z die and the scallop  oval magnetic die.  Let me just say I have easily got my money's worth from the Movers & Shapers Big Z die!  The magnetic dies coordinate with SU! punches (IB&C – pg. 186-7) and I do love to mat!

SU!'s Beautiful Wings embosslits die was used to make little butterflies which I attached to the card's front.  OK—I also got carried away and attached them all over to the card's insides.

I love my SU! Sizzlet Dies and elected to use the "Many Thanks" sizzlet die (115972 – $5.50 – IB&C pg. 196) on today's card.  I grabbed a scrap piece of Chocolate Chip paper and ran it and the sizzlet die through my Big Shot.  The letter for 'thanks' were attached to Sweet Pea DSP using SU!'s Two-Way glue pen.  The two-way glue pen works best for me when trying to attach small items.  The small items get attached (and stay) without any fuss or muss. 

You may notice that I was not having the best day with paper piercing—that is just the way it goes sometimes!  What I did have a good time with was using my Scallop Trim Border punch (Sale-A-Bration – 118402) on Taken with Teal and Chocolate Chip paper.  Some other blog did a 'layering' of the Scallop Trim punches and I liked the look.  I hope you do too!  Hmmmm—what about three layers???

Before I forget—my card layout was inspired by the Card Positioning System card sketch 151. 

Stamp on and with Aloha!

OK—time to talk about today's card!   I took on StampTV's sketch callenge (stvscjh08).  My color scheme:  Rose Red, Taken with Teal, Old Olive.  It was an easy color scheme to decide upon since I used SU!'s Sweet Pea DSP (117161 – Occasions Mini-Catalog – pg. 33).   I seldom use Rose Red paper (card base) and the Sweet Pea DSP gave me a good reason to pull it out for today's card.

Did you notice there's minimal stamping on the card?  I selected a sentiment from Whimsical Words (Sale-A-Bration stamp set) and stamped it with Rose Red ink on a die cut made (Whisper White paperusing a Spellbinder die.  It was layered on a slightly larger same shape die cut from Old Olive paper.  I added 1" Rose Red ribbon around the card front and attached two butterflies made using the Beautiful Wings (118138 – Occasions Mini-catalog – pg. 24) embosslits die.  The embossed butterflies were made from scrap pieces of Sweet Pea DSP.

Stamp on and with Aloha!

The "love you much" sentiment (Well Scripted stamp set – Occasions mini catalog – pg. 19) was stamped with black ink in the lower right-hand card of the card front.  The Scallop Trim Border punch (Sale-A-Bration catalog – pg. 9) was used to punch a scallop border on a rectangle piece of saffron paper.  A strip of Shades of Spring DSP was added to the scalloped edge rectangle and the decorated panel was adhered to the upper part of the card.

Now for the butterflies!  I used my Beautiful Wings embosslits die to create Orchid Opulence colored butterflies from bits of this paper.  Three butterflies were added to my card although one can add as many or few as you like…and whatever color you think works best on the card!