Miss you lots

Happy weekend!  Today I've got a fun monochromatic card to share.  A few months ago I got the "Delicate Doilies" stamp set from The Alley Way Stamps, and I've had it in my head for awhile to layer them up to do a card like this for awhile.  In fact, I made one about a month ago, but the colors I picked didn't look right, so I scrapped the card and kept mulling over the idea.  Then, I got a few new stamp pads last weekend (two of which were teal) and I realized that now that I had four teal ink pads, I could do it in a monochromatic way.  They range from a pretty green-ish teal all the way to a dark blue teal, which made for nice contrast with the doily stamps.  The sentiment is from the same stamp set.

I layered the stamped page onto a piece of patterned paper from Recollections, and added two Recollections gems by the sentiment.  Then I put it on some teal-ish cardstock for the card.

This card is being entered into the following challenges:
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge- Monochromatic

I'm Back!

I'm settled into my new {temporary} craft room while we stay at our "summer home" (aka the apartment we rented while we look for a house in our new city).  I share my craft space with the office furniture, and yesterday my husband needed something out of the closet and told me "I think we need to get you a bigger craft space in the new house.  It's crowded in here!"  I didn't object to that.  :)

Anyway, things are back to the new normal for now.  Please excuse my pictures while we're here, there is not one drop of natural daylight even on the nicest days, so I have to try to use a combination of the kitchen and dining room lights on the kitchen counter in order to get a semi-good picture.

For my first challenge after my little break, I made this cute thank you card.  I started with a black card base, and then cut strips of bright colors and glued them on to the base.  I printed a freebie from The Alley Way Stamps and colored the fish colors that matched my strips of paper, then cut them out.  I stamped my "punny" sentiment with white ink using The Alley Way Stamps "Alphabet Soup."

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Pumpkin Spice Blog- Nature

Craftin Desert Divas- Use a Pun

Red Carpet Studio Challenges- Thank you card

The Alley Way Stamps- Be Inspired #27

Add a little color

The Alley Way Stamps is having another Be Inspired Challenge and I wanted to play along.  I love the colors that they choose to inspire us!  This week's color palate was so bright and colorful, that it made me think of their new freebie- a paintbrush!  I colored the paintbrushes in the four main colors of the picture, and had them "dripping" washi tape colors down the page.  I liked that the washi tape had flowers, because the chair in the inspiration picture had flowers on it.

Then I printed out the freebie sentiment that goes with the paintbrushes and put it over the washi tape.  I colored dots around a few of the letters to highlight it and it was done!

Yappy Birthday

There's another Be Inspired challenges going on over at The Alley Way Stamps!  I really like these challenges because they give you a picture and you can be inspired by whatever part of them you are, well, inspired by- colors, shapes, images- there's no right or wrong!

This week, I was inspired by the orange, black, and white color scheme and I got an image of stripes from the books in the picture.  I flipped the stripes on their side, and used some orange paper from Paper Studio's Basics pad.  I used some orange and white ribbon that I had in my stash and an orange button as embellishments.

For the main image, I used their freebie dog stamp.  I'm sure you've noticed that I love dogs!  I was so excited for this digi stamp, and I bet I'll be using it a lot.  I paper pieced it by printing it onto white cardstock and again onto black cardstock.  My printer was being a stinker and printed the lines lighter than I wanted, so I traced over the lines with a sharpie.  Then I used the leftover scraps from a border punch I had as the circles for his eyes.  

Last, but not least, I used my new Alphabet Soup stamps to stamp the sentiment!  They stamped really well- the only smudge that happened (on the second y) was a result of Sophie jumping up on my legs right as I stamped it- totally not the stamps' fault!  I guess that Sophie wanted to leave her own pawprint on my card.

A quick hello

Just stopping by to show you a little mail I got - I was one of the winners of a recent challenge over at The Alley Way Stamps and today I got my prize in the mail- it even came with a little bow!  I chose Alphabet Soup as my prize, because it's easier for me to stretch their freebie digi stamps if I can stamp my own sentiments on the cards. These are great because they're a bigger font than some of the other alphabets I have and I love the font!  I like to have a variety.  I love that their prize is to let you choose any stamp set you want.

I have a card that I've been working on for their current challenge, and I'll be using these stamps for the sentiment, so keep an eye out.  And head over and check them out.  Their stamps are so cute and their challenges are really fun!

Steamin' Hot

Surprise!  I had some time to get into my craft room this week (although admittedly this card was made in about 10 short crafting sessions instead of doing it all at once.)

This is an A2 card.  I used some pink cardstock as the card, then layered red cardstock and then a green patterned paper from one of my Christmas stacks.  I also used the red cardstock behind the sentiments to make them stand out.

The sentiments and picture are freebies from The AlleyWay Stamps.  I printed the sentiment three times- twice on regular white paper and once on a candy cane striped paper from the same Christmas stack as the green paper.  I paper-pieced the striped paper onto the white paper and colored in the heart with a red Sharpie, then pieced that onto the plain one as well.

I'm entering this card into the Be Inspired challenge at AlleyWay Stamps.  I was definitely inspired by the colors and stripes of their picture this week.

Bright Christmas trees

Are you in the Christmas spirit yet?  I'm working really hard this year to try to keep it magical.  Here's a card I made using free digital stamps from Alley Way Stamps.

I printed the trees at 4 inches and colored them with a hot pink and light green Sharpie, then cut them out.  I used the snowflakes Cuttlebug folder on the card base for texture, then put some sheer green ribbon over it for an accent.  You can't tell too well from the picture, but the three trees are adhered to the card using foam adhesive.

This card is being entered in the following challenges:

The Alley Way Stamps- Be Inspired
Little Scrap Pieces- It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Circus

When I saw the inspiration picture for this week's challenge at Alley Way Stamps, the first thing that came to mind was a boat.  But I don't have a boat by them, because I'm limited to the free digis (for now) because I spent all of my scrapbook budget for this month already on two albums and some page refills.  You gotta love when you need the basics.

Anyway, when I was perusing their free digis, I saw the circus tent and was immediately reminded of the inspiration picture.  The banners had really stood out to me, and the circus tent had a banner too.

I colored the tent with my colored pencils.  The word "party" is also one of their digital stamps, that I put into the flag before I printed it.  I used some blue cardstock, then layered it with patterned paper, then more of the blue cardstock that had been embossed using my Cuttlebug and a Lifestyle Crafts (aka Quickutz) folder.

My finishing touch was the three rhinestones on the lower banner.

This card was made for Alley Way Stamps Be Inspired #14 challenge.

Batty for You

I'm continuing my digi stamp exploration.  These are from Alley Way Stamps.  I used some patterned paper from my stash as the background.  I printed the bat and the sentiment on vellum, then cut them out.  The bat was colored with colored pencils and then glued onto white paper so that you couldn't see the patterned paper through it.  I used some stickles to outline the bat's wings.  Oddly, the stickles color that best matched the purple colored pencil was actually called Pink.  I love that little bit of sparkle.  He's popped up with adhesive squares for a little extra dimension.  

The sentiment on vellum was glued onto a strip of purple paper.  I used some orange washi tape to cover up the spot where you could see the adhesive through the vellum.  :)

I'm entering this into Alley Way Stamps' Be Inspired Challenge and My Crafting Channel- The gh'oul times.