Fusion - Mother's Day

Our new challenge at Fusion is inspired by Mother's Day so I decided to make a Mother's Day card but I took a little poetic license.  I've got a niece expecting a baby girl in June, and though she doesn't know exactly when her mother's day will be, it will definitely be!  So this card is for her!

It's a girl so, of course, I incorporated some pink then threw in some polka dots and pink sequins as well.  It's so cute!  I was lucky to combine both the inspiration and the sketch at Fusion.  Maybe you will too?

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies
Stamps:  Little Ones (Lil' Inker Designs); Giraffe (Leaping Frog Creations)
Paper:  Solar White (Neenah); Pixie Pink (Avery Elle)
Ink:  Onyx Black (Versafine); Copics
Accessories:  Polka Dots embossing folders (Lifestyle Crafts); Traditional Tags STAX, Pierced Traditional Tags STAX, Slanted Sentiment Strips die (My Favorite Things); Pink Party Couture Mix (The Ton); seam binding ribbon; crochet thread

CAS(E) This Sketch 334 Meets Fusion

Hello all!  It's that time again when I attempt to combine the sketch challenge at CAS(E) This Sketch with the inspiration photo at Fusion.  This time around it's all about the hands!

After some contemplation I remembered that I actually had some handprint stamps in my stash.  So I stamped three of that image in varying stages of green - ombre style - then added a simple sentiment across them. 

Thanks for stopping by!  My teammies at CAS(E) This Sketch and Fusion have got some amazing cards to entice you to play along with us.  Hopefully you can join us in those galleries!

Supplies
Stamps:  Baby Prints (Stampin' Up!); Oh Baby (Katie & Co)
Paper:  Solar White (Neenah)
Ink:  Mountain Mist, Volcano Lake, Lagoon (Altenew); Nocturne (Versafine Clair)

CAS(E) This Sketch 291 Meets Fusion

I'm back with a new card for my combination of CAS(E) This Sketch and Fusion.  The sketch met with the baby theme and this is what came out!

Every other week I am fortunate enough to be able to combine the sketch at CAS(E) This Sketch with the inspiration challenge at Fusion.  And I've been lucky that each time the two have melded together perfectly.  Well this week I took a look at both challenges and figured there was no way I could combine the two.  I resigned myself to making two different cards for each challenge.  And then this past Monday I went for a walk and the crisp air must have cleared my brain because suddenly I had an idea for a baby card using "I'm not sure the sex of the baby colors," a shaker as the main accent, and a couple of other circles to round out the sketch.  In the end it was easy peasy.  Always a bonus!

We've got a great sketch for you at CAS(E) This Sketch and at Fusion you've got a choice:  a sketch or some inspiration - or combine both of them!  Whichever you choose I hope you can join us in either (or both) of those galleries!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies
Stamps:  Labeler Alphabet (Stampin' Up!)
Paper:  Solar White (Neenah); Certainly Celery (Stampin' Up!); Lemon Tart (Papertrey Ink)
Ink:  Certainly Celery (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories:  Blueprints 20 die (My Favorite Things); Pastel Sequins (Verve)

Addicted to CAS Guest Designer

Well I am pleased as punch to say that I'm a guest designer over at Addicted to CAS for their newest challenge!  The code word is "baby" which is very fortuitous for me because there just happens to be a whole bunch of new babies this year in my family so I've been making quite a few baby cards lately!

I really loved the sketch at Sunday Stamps and thought for a bit about how I could use it and still keep my card CAS.  I was pretty sure that I wanted to use a onesie as my focal image so after cutting out one with this pretty awesome plaid paper I used the die cut to emboss a couple more of them off the edge of the card in a topsy turvy way.  I think they are pretty hard to see in the pic, but trust me they are there!

I want to thank the ladies at Addicted to CAS for inviting me to play along with them for this challenge.  I am always humbled when a card I've made has caught someone's eye enough that they want to reward me with a guest designer spot!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies
Stamps:  Baby Face (Momenta); Welcome Baby (Sugar Pea Designs); Baby (Simon Says Stamp)
Paper:  Solar White (Neenah); Perfect Plum (Stampin' Up!); Perfectly Plaid Rainbow (Lawn Fawn)
Accessories:  Welcome Baby Accents die (Sugar Pea Designs); Clear Droplets (Pretty Pink Posh)

Freshly Made Sketches 337

My nephew and his wife had a baby boy last Thursday so I had babies on my mind when I sat down to make my card for the latest challenge at Freshly Made Sketches!  Our sketch hostess is Linda and her front and center layer has great possibilities.

I filled that layer with a super cute onesie and some blocks that spelled out "baby."  A rare "easy peasy" card for me!  At CAS on Friday they are looking for a cute stamp.  That's rather subjective but I think this onesie plus those blocks are pretty cute so I'm adding this over there as well.

Our Freshly Made Sketches design team has got some great cards to inspire you to play along with our challenge this week so be sure to check them out.  I hope to see you in the gallery!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies
Stamps:  Welcome Baby (SugarPea Designs); Baby Prints (Stampin' Up!)
Paper:  Solar White (Neenah); Baja Breeze, Smoky Slate; Twitterpated DSP (Stampin' Up!); Enchanted Evening (Papertrey Ink)
Ink:  Enchanted Evening (Papertrey Ink)
Accessories:  Welcome Baby Accents die (SugarPea Designs); Stitched Mini Scallop Square die (My Favorite Things)

CAS(E) This Sketch 267 Meets Fusion

Babies, babies are everywhere!  I've got three nieces who are all having baby boys this year so I need some shower cards as well as congratulations-you'll-never-sleep-again cards!  The sketch at CAS(E) This Sketch and the inspiration challenge at Fusion combined together to make this card:

I immediately zoned into the elephant and the soft shades of gray in the Fusion challenge.  I love using gray on my cards because the color is relatively neutral and gray is such an awesome color.  A softly polka dotted background and this card was done!  Easy peasy. 

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you can join us at CAS(E) This Sketch and Fusion!

Supplies
Stamps:  Baby Edwn (Pink Gem Designs); Baby Face (Momenta)
Paper:  Solar White (Neenah); Mint Julep (Papertry Ink); Smoky Slate, Vellum (Stampin' Up!); X-Press It Blending Card; Navy Blue Digital Papers (CharmePapeteria)
Ink:  Onyx Black (Versafine); Copics

CAS(E) This Sketch 258

How time flies!  Here we are at Thursday again and it's time for a new challenge at CAS(E) This Sketch.  This week the sketch made me think of a particular stamp that I've had for a while but never used.

The sketch has those vertical candles sticking up from the sentiment.  Well, in my mind, I saw a bunch of cute animals sticking up from their perch inside of an umbrella.  It's all about perspective!

The hardest part about making this card was finding a sentiment!  None of the baby sets I have in my stash had the exact combination of words and complementary fonts that worked well together so I went deep into my archives and found this oldy but goody from Stampin' Up!  There are a few babies in my future - none of them mine(!) - so this card is heading into my ready-made baby card stash!

Thanks for stopping by!  Head on over to CAS(E) This Sketch to see the inspiration from the design team.  Smashing as always!

Supplies
Stamps:  Baby Zoo Umbrella (Whipper Snapper Designs); Teeny Tiny Wishes (Stampin' Up!)
Paper:  Solar White (Neenah); Bristol Smooth (Strathmore); Wisteria Wonder (Stampin' Up!)
Ink:  Black Licorice (My Favorite Things); Jet Black (Altenew); Copics
Accessories:  Banner Trio die (WPlus9)

Lesley's Baby Girl Blog Hop

The secret is out!  Today is the day!  For these many long weeks friends of Lesley Croghan have been secretly planning a special baby blog hop just for her!  Our fearless leader in this super-secret mission is Lori Turner and I just want to start out this post by giving her a huge shout-out for conceiving of this idea, inviting a vast stamping community to play along, and for organizing the whole thing!

I am sure that many of you reading this know Lesley.  And if you don't know her personally I am sure that you have been touched by her in some way (even if you don't realize it).  She's been the driving force behind a multitude of stamping challenges all across blogland, many of which you might play along with every week.  She always has a word of encouragement for her stamping friends, a smile to offer, and is someone who I would really like to meet some day in real life!

Many years ago, back in early 2011, I got an email from Lesley asking me if I would like to be a guest designer at The Paper Players for the month of April 2011.  I was just a girl that liked to make cards and play along in challenges and here this rock-star was asking ME if I would like to join her band of merry card-makers.  Once I contained my excitement I said yes and I am forever grateful to her for giving me a chance to flex my card-making muscles and for encouraging me in this wonderful paper crafting community.  Although she probably didn't know it, she gave me the courage to continue on this crafty journey I had set myself on.

So today I get to be a small part of another community of friends that collectively thanks Lesley for her friendship, her mentorship, and her endless crafty inspiration.  Lesley is expecting a baby girl soon and I wanted to send her and her husband my heartfelt wishes for a healthy and beautiful baby with this wee card.

Now, there are quite a few of us like-minded crafty souls who have also made cards for Lesley and you can find them all here on Lori's blog.  There's a link party going on over there and we would love to have you join us.  Just make a baby themed card and link it to the gallery.

Over the last several weeks Lori collected all of our cards, packaged them up and sent them to Lesley with strict instructions to not open the box until today.  I wish I was there to see the look on her face when she saw what was inside!

Finally I am sending many blessings to you, Lesley and Corey, for a beautiful, healthy, and happy baby!

Supplies
Stamps:  Welcome Baby (SugarPea Designs)
Paper: Solar White (Neenh); Pixie (Avery Elle)
Ink:  Pink Pirouette (Stampin Up)!
Accesories:  Welcome Baby die (SugarPea Designs); Alpha Whimsy die (Paper Smooches)

colourQ 353!

Hello!  This week at colourQ there is a color combo that gave me a little case of the hiccups!  But never one to back down from a color challenge I persevered through a couple of iterations until I ended up with, of all things, a baby card!

Ha!  And now that I've posted this here I see that I completely forgot to use green!  Believe me, I had every intention to but I think I must have been so obsessed with explaining why I would use these colors for a baby card that I forgot that I had one more color to explain!

I should also mention that I am also playing along with the Sketch Saturday challenge, which is to pick a past sketch.  I chose #225.  And I'm also playing along with Addicted to CAS where the cue word is "welcome."

I was going to make a floral card using these colors but I kept coming back to the "welcome" challenge and couldn't get a baby card out of my head.  I really don't know why because these are some pretty strange colors for a baby card!  I didn't want it to be too pink or too blue, rendering it useless in those instances where the gender of the baby is unknown, so I thought the coral would draw some of the attention away from those colors and make it a little more neutral.  Too bad it drew the attention away from the green too! Yikes!

Despite my faux pas I hope you won't hold it against me and that you can join us in the colourQ gallery this week. We love to see you there!

Supplies
Stamps:  Grunge Cirque (Tim Holtz); Onesie Twosie (Taylored Expressions); Onesie Two-sie (Wplus9)
Paper:  White (Spectrum Noir); Night of Navy, Calypso Coral (SU)
Ink:  Blushing Bride, Night of Navy (SU)
Accessories:  Pierced Square STAX (My Favorite Things); Baby die (Simon Says Stamp); Decorative Dots embossing folder (SU)

colourQ 350!

I was overcome with the need to make a baby card when I saw the latest colors from colourQ.  I don't really need a baby card (especially one that is sort of gender neutral) but I'm not one to question my intuition, so a baby card is what I went with.

Do not pay any attention to the crooked "baby" sentiment.  I always save the negative from my die-cuts so that I will have perfect placement when I glue it into its final resting place. But for some reason I decided to glue this one down without the aid of the template.  BIG mistake.  It's crooked and I hope that when I finally give this to someone my little boo-boo will go unnoticed!

The challenge this week at Addicted to CAS is Stripes and my layout comes from the sketch at Can You Case It.

My colourQ teamies have made some beautiful cards with these colors so be sure to check them out.  I hope we'll see you in the gallery!

Supplies
Stamps:  Baby (Simon Says Stamp)
Paper:  White (Spectrum Noir); Pool Party, So Saffron, Blushing Bride, Old Olive (SU)
Ink:  Old Olive (SU)
Accessories:  Wonky Stitched Rectangle die (My Favorite Things); Baby die (Simon Says Stamp); pastel sequins (Verve)

Sweet Baby

A while back a co-worker asked me to make some baby themed cards for her.  She wanted about six of them to send to a friend who was expecting a baby.  I told her that I'd be happy to make some for her but I was secretly scared.  If you've been here before then you know that baby cards are not really my thing and I was a little afraid that anything I made would be kinda lousy.  But I'm nothing if not adventurous in my craft cave so for the last few weeks I've been busy doing baby card searches and pinning a few that caught my eye.

We don't know whether the baby is a boy or a girl so I've been trying to stick to neutral colors.  The card I've got here was inspired by THIS adorable card and features the colors from Colour Me (kind of unconventional for a baby card), the sketch from Pals Paper Arts, and conveniently, the baby theme at The Card Concept.  And I got to use a brand new stamp set so I'm linking up to Darnelle's NBUS challenge too (just under the wire)!

I'm not sure mine looks as quite like a bib as my inspiration card (I think it might those in-your-face colors), but it does look better in real life.  It's a cute concept and I'm pretty sure the recipient will like it!

My vacation is winding down (insert heavy sigh here) and it's back to work on Monday for me.  I've had some fantastic weather this week and got a lot accomplished outside in the garden digging up weeds and flowers that had gone rogue.  I love that feeling of a job well done!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Onesie Two-sie (WPlus9)

Paper:  Classic Ivory (Flourishes); Natural White (Neenah); Early Espresso, Daffodil Delight, Tempting Turquoise, Old Olive (SU)

Ink:  Early Espresso (SU)

Accessories:  Houndstooth embossing folder, Daffodil Delight seam binding ribbon (SU) 

Oh Yeah Baby!

On my quest to make a bunch of baby cards for a co-worker I decided to try my hand at a shaker card.  Lately I've been seeing them all over the place and although I'd never made one before I thought it would be fun to try.  The layout from Wanna Sketch as well as Kim's adorable card gave me loads of inspiration!

I love those little piggy toes peeking through the sequins!  I think I put too many in.  Sometimes they don't shake because they're stuck!  Even still I think it's pretty cute and I bet the mother-to-be will think so too!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Baby Prints (SU); Say What (Mama Elephant)

Paper:  Smoky Slate, So Saffron, Whisper White, Sweet Pea DSP (SU); acetate

Ink:  So Saffron, Smoky Slate (SU)

Accessories:  Pastel Sequin Mix (Verve); So Saffron button (SU); crochet thread

Oh Baby!

I need to make some baby-themed cards for an expectant mother and as luck would have it I don't really own any decent stamps for the job.  The card I've got to show you today I made with some cheap stamps I picked up at Michael's for a few bucks.  They were on the clearance rack and didn't cost much and after having used them today I can see why.  Despite the lousy stamps, the card came out kinda cute *wink*

I used the Sweet Sunday Sketch for my layout and as luck would have it, but not surprisingly, I missed that the bottom of my card is supposed to be different than the top.  I also used the colors from Cupcake Inspirations and before you wonder why I forgot the pink look really closely at the baby's mouth.  I feel badly that I didn't use more pink in the spirit of the challenge but since I screwed up the sketch I figured I might as well continue the theme with a screwed up color palette.  Sheesh.

Tomorrow is another day so hopefully I can redeem myself when I sit back down in the old craft cave.  Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Oh Baby (Hampton Art)

Paper:  Pistachio Pudding, Early Espresso, Whisper White, Pistachio Pudding DSP (SU)

Ink:  Early Espresso (SU); Tuxedo Black (Memento); Copics

Accessories:  Flower Daisies #2 (Sizzix); First Place Ribbon die (My Favorite Things); Farmhouse button (October Afternoon); crochet thread

Baby Shower and Butterflies

This is my third week being the guest designer at The Alley Way Stamps blog.  I've got a couple of cards to show you.

I'm heading to a baby shower later today and this is the card that I made for the sweet mom and baby-to-be! The cute image is from Spring Has Sprung and I thought it would be adorable for a baby card.  The little felt "buttons" add some lovely, soft texture I think.  I used the layout from retro sketches, but I couldn't bear (pun intended) to cut off the little cutie so he is intact on the right side of the card!

My second card uses the pretty colors at Just Us Girls and features the butterfly from Awesome Blossom.

Well, it's snowing again here.  The baby shower that I'm going to was originally scheduled for last week but was postponed because of the blizzard and now it might be in danger again!  It's coming down pretty heavily now and the wind is howling so I'm not entirely sure that I want to be out driving in this.  I guess I'll have to wait and see how the day goes.  Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

First card stamps:  Spring Has Sprung, Mad Gab (TAWS)

Accessories:  Sweet Pea Stitched Felt, Regal Rose DSP

Second card stamps:  Awesome Blossom, Chatterbox (TAWS)

Accessories:  Wintergreen DSP

Dynamic Duos 4 and Retro Sketches 13

It's like baby-ville around here lately.  That's right - don't adjust your set - you've arrived at the right blog.  I just don't normally do all that many baby cards.  But my cousin and his wife are expecting a baby soon and I needed a card for the shower next month.  By some strange cosmic interference, the colors this week at Dynamic Duos and the latest retro sketch were absolutely perfect for what I had in mind.

All I can say is good thing I bought some baby stamps recently.  I think this is the third baby card I've made this year alone.  And that's saying something - because I've had a long baby drought.  Yesterday, of course, was the baby blog hop in Rita's honor and today I switched gears to make a boy card in lovely shades of blue.

The hand stamp is from Baby Prints which I embossed in white.  The "baby" stamp is from a retired sentiment set called All Year Cheer II.  I did a little zig-zag stitch around my tag, just because I love doing that and I think it adds a little pizzazz to something that would otherwise be kind of blah.

I'm so glad you took the time to stop by!  See you soon!

It's an FMS Baby Blog Hop

Hello everyone!  And a very special hello to Rita!

Today is a very special Freshly Made Sketches day.  Usually we show you a sketch and some fabby samples from the clean team.  Well today, we've got that and more!  

Our own Rita is having a baby soon and after this week will be taking some time off from Freshly Made Sketches.  She designed the sketch this week and thinks we all made some pretty nice cards, but what she doesn't know is that we all made baby cards to celebrate this special event!  And even better, this week we're being joined by some old friends for a baby blog hop!

I found this very cute DSP in my stash.  I don't know what it's called but it's got some great colors like Tempting Turquoise, Regal Rose and Pretty in Pink.  Great colors for a baby card, I think!

So hop along with us as we celebrate our own sweet Rita!

Anne Marie Hile

Ann Schach

Cindy Hall

Erna Logtenberg

Jen Mitchell (that's me)!

Jennifer Timko

Kathy Turner

LeAnne Pugliese

Lesley Croghan

Linda Callahan

Nance Leedy

Tui Nathan

Tara Murphy Bourgoin