Create With Connie and Mary 222

This week at Create With Connie and Mary we have got a great color challenge.  I think a lot of people have strong feelings (and not all good ones) about Summer Starfruit, but I actually think it's a pretty cool color so I sort of made it the focal point of my card.

When I started perusing blogland for a great sketch to go with these colors, I stumbled on iSpy Sketches where they are having a Friday Free For All.  You can pick any one of their past sketches for your card and I found one that I thought would be perfect to show off my pretty Summer Starfruit DSP.  This is the first time that I've participated over there so I thought it was pretty cool that I got to pick my own layout!  I chose #20.

I stamped my tag with the text stamp from Daring Adventure in Chocolate Chip.  Then I stamped the leaves from Summer Silhouettes in Gumball Green over that.  I added the small flower from the same set stamped with both Summer Starfruit and Chocolate Chip.  A couple of Gumball Green circles for an accent and some Summer Starfruit ribbon across the top and I had a card that absolutely loved!  Isn't that great when that happens?

The DT at Create With Connie and Mary have got some great cards with these colors to inspire you so be sure to head on over there and check them out.  I hope you can join us!

Hand Stamped Sentiments 121 and retro sketches 15

Today, when I should have been mowing the lawn, I went into my stamp room and made a card.  I feel a little guilty, but I got a bunch of new stuff yesterday and I needed to try some of it out!  The lawn will still be there tomorrow, after all.  Not to mention that Hand Stamped Sentiments has a really cool color challenge this week and I didn't want to forget to participate.  Paired with the latest retro sketch I think I made a pretty card.

I used a little old and a little new with this card.  The Daffodil Delight DSP is from Beyond the Garden and that beautiful flower is from the new Stippled Blossoms.  I was pretty sure that flower would look fabulous in yellow and I was right!  I'm a little excited about my bow.  I think it looks nice and I have a new gadget to make them.

I'm a huge fan of ribbon and bows on my cards, I'm just not a huge fan of making bows.  I am able to make a half-way decent one and some of my blogging friends have generously given me tips and tricks to make me better at it.  I've got the Bow Easy, but I don't like using it because I think the "fingers" should be longer so that there's less chance the ribbon slips off it.  I have this huge wooden bow maker that I bought years ago for tying ribbons on my Christmas packages and I realized that what I really wanted was a smaller version of that.  So today, I went down cellar and made this from a scrap of walnut (so fancy!) and dowels.

I've seen other similar bow makers for sale on other's blogs, but I'm cheap and I've got a cellar full of wood and figured it would be pretty easy to put together.  So far I like it.  It's super simple to use and the dowels move around so I can make different sized bows.  Yay me!

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