EtsyInspired #140 - PeadenScottDesigns

Good morning! Are you ready to be EtsyInspired?? Today we're visiting with PeadenScottDesigns. This shop specializes in pop-up greeting cards, gift tags and note cards. Some of them are just so amazingly clever! If you're a Mormon, you really need to check out the LDS temple cards. Seriously.

Anyway, I chose these sweet thank you cards as my inspiration. I couldn't resist the umbrella. It gave me a great excuse to pull out one of the Paper Makeup Stamps Moody Girls I've been holding onto for a while. The layout is Pretty Patterns Sketch #11 and the colours are from the Play Date Cafe Challenge #84 (almost forgot to add that in!)
Our sponsor this week is Through the Craftroom Door. One of our winners this week will receive a year's subscription to the online publication. A second winner will be able to choose 2 cards from PeadenScottDesigns.

Since we've gone biweekly with our challenges, you've got until
noon Pacific time on Friday, June 17, 2011
to play along. Check out the rest of the DT and see what they've got to share today.

Angi
Ashley
De
Ellie Augustin - Guest DT!
Emily B.
Jackie
Joy
Kerry
Ruby
Savannah
Sherry
Virginia

Birthday Chloe

Quick post to go with a little challenge card. She's for Operation Write Home's Birthday Bash. InStyle Stamps hosted a challenge specifically for them. I CASE'd Taylor Usry's card, because I thought it was so cute. No bling, because it makes it difficult to mail from overseas. I also changed the colours a bit and used some paper from Basic Grey's Cupcake collection, since it was so fitting.

Of course I can never resist playing along with Etsy Inspired. Challenge 107's shop is called indigotwin, where I found this cute little mouse carrying a present. Adorable little guy, isn't he?
Bday Chloe is a digistamp from InStyle Stamps. You'll be seeing more of those from me. I have printer ink again! Woohoo!! The birthday sentiment is from Paper Makeup Stamps' Birthday Cheer set, which was designed by the super awesome Shaela Odd. It's a really versatile set to have and stamps from PMS are very high quality. Service from both companies mentioned is tops!

That's all from me for now. I've got several cards I want to get done (and you might get to see them in a couple weeks...cross your fingers for me, 'kay?) plus more homework. So far, so good in that area. Best semester I've had in ages.

Catch you later peeps!

Getting Buggy for VSN

VSN is over and the winners have been (mostly) chosen. As usual, that was the hardest part for me. Some of my top choices had already been picked for honours by other hostesses, so they were knocked out of the running automatically. In a way, that makes things a little easier, because I have fewer great cards to choose from, but on the other hand, sometimes my absolute favourite cards become unavailable for me to choose.

There were a good half dozen cards I wanted for first place and another several I wanted as runner ups, though. Alas, I was limited to one each. They'll be posted on the main VSN page as soon as all the hostesses have chosen their winners.

The following is my challenge, as it was written on SCS:

Written originally as a poem by Katharine Lee Bates in 1895, and set to music composed in 1892 by Samual Ward for a 1600's hymn, America the Beautiful was was first published in the combined form we know today in 1910. The first stanza is the most widely known, not counting the chorus, and it is what my challenge is based upon.

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!

My challenge for you is to make a card using the colours AMBER and PURPLE. You may use small amounts of white and one other neutral (such as black ink for line image stamping), but please make amber and purple your main colours.

If you'd really like to go for it, the last verse contains the line "Thine alabaster cities gleam" - which calls to mind the translucency of vellum, but this is not completely necessary. That's just for those who feel like an additional challenge.

I'm pretty happy with how mine came out, although I've been thinking about going back and adding vellum to the bees' wings. I've had this Buggy Sayings set from Paper Makeup Stamps for a while now. I got it from Ashley (thank you!!) maybe a year ago? I've used the butterfly from it, but not the bees or this sentiment.The patterned paper is SU's Razzleberry Lemonade, which I really like a lot. Solids are Rich Razzleberry and Crushed Curry. The bees are painted with twinkling H2Os, which do shimmer, but I don't think they're quite as shimmery as Creative Inspirations paints. I think the CI paints are thicker and smoother, too.

This was also my card for Jen del Muro's July 31 SFYTT, which I'm relinking to here instead of my SCS gallery.

Blogging Two of My Challenge Cards

Happy Saturday! As a special request, I'm blogging the next two cards I've made for the Dare to Get Dirty Challenges. I do have them posted to my Splitcoaststampers Gallery, so I apologize to anyone who has seen them there.

This little orange card is going to be Holly's 12th birthday card. My main challenge will be in not misplacing it! Orange has been her favourite colour for years. It is starting to be supplanted by purple, but it hasn't been entirely replaced just yet. She did see it as I was making it and said she likes it much better in orange than she would have in purple. As far as a surprise, I think we'll be okay. She's lot like me. She'll have forgotten all about it by December!

Stamps: Our Craft Lounge - Anna Mae; GinaK - Wishes & Dreams
Ink: Versamark; Ranger Distress Ink - Rusty Hinge, Spiced Marmalade
Etc: Circle Nestabilities, Cuttlebug Embossing Folders - Swiss Dots, D'vine Swirl

For the fairy card, I challenged myself to see how many challenges I could accomplish in one card and not have it look like a train wreck. I think I accomplished that! Usually mixing this many patterned papers together makes me super nervous, but I think it came together. I did use papers from one line, so they were meant to coordinate.

The other thing I wanted to do was to use some of my new Creative Inspirations paint that Ashley sent to me to try out. Wowie, does this stuff go on so super smooth! The shimmer I got didn't photograph all that well, but believe me, it is seriously there in person. And don't you just love these Beautiful Day Fairies from Paper Makeup Stamps? I sure do!

Stamps: Paper Makeup Stamps - Kirsten
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper: Basic Grey Lemonade; PTI
ETC: Copic Markers, felt flowers, button, claret embossing powder

That's all from me for now. I've still got 13 challenges to go. I'm in the middle of another project and looking for the right ribbon. I've been through more boxes and I'm still missing my ribbon stash, a box full of paper, a box of stamps, and that illusive embroidery project.