Hoppy Easter

This is the first of my Easter cards this year, inspired by Addicted to Stamps and a sketch at Sunday Stamps.  Experimenting with creating water color plaids provided me with a few sheets of pastel plaid.  A piece of one was used here for the banner. The stamped image is from a retired Close To My Heart set, Sensational Season, and was colored with Zig Clean Color brushes. The sentiment is from Simon Says Stamps, My Kind of Peep. The stitched circle is a SSS die, and was popped with foam.

 

I am linking to: Addicted to Stamps #143- Pastel Colours

 

and Sunday Stamps, #148 Sketch

 

Daisy Friend

Lovely sketch over at My Time to Craft, Sketchy Time Challenge #341
So I pulled out an old Close To My Heart set - a wood set that I just can't let get away...such simple fun.  I stamped on glossy paper and used Copics to color. I fussy cut and popped up one daisy with foam tape.

Inside sentiment

 

 

Happy Everything

Two challenges today with this cheerful one-layer card. 
Check out the sketch at CAS(E) this Sketch #212 and the
Use a Stencil Challenge at Just Us Girls #384



I used a brand new (to me) sticky stencil from Inkadinkado, Distress inks with the mini blending tool(salty ocean, tumbled glass, spiced marmalade), and a sentiment from Close To My Heart (Finding the Words).  Pretty Pink Posh sequins for some sparkle.

Summer Festival Memories

Last summer I had the opportunity to be in Japan for 10 weeks.  I stayed with my son who works there teaching English at a kindergarten.  It was such a pleasure to be with those children and to be part of the Kids Garden school for that time.  The last day of their first semester was July 19th, and they celebrate the start of their summer break with a festival - food, dancing and traditional dress.  They strung lanterns across the play yard. I even performed a dance with the children and we all had special fans.  It was a magical evening.  

These sweet dies are from Frantic Stamper Inc. I have used lots of lovely papers from Japan to create my scene. I sent this card to the school yesterday to let them know how often I think of them and thank them for sharing such special times with me.

 

Seattle Landmark

  CASology week 239 challenge!
There is a bit of tension between Tacoma and Seattle. It's the kind of thing that can develop between siblings.  I moved from New York to Seattle, and then to Tacoma a few years later.  Tacoma is a much smaller town, but has all the wonderful PNW stuff: waterfront beaches, shipping port, huge park and zoo, several world class museums, University of Puget Sound, vibrant community theatre, symphony, excellent restaurants. Our landmark is the Tacoma Narrows Bridge (once 'Galluping Gerty' of 1940- recently featured on Rachel Maddow). But since I have no stamp for that, I've invoked the more famous regional one.


The Space Needle and heart/sun are from Impress. The sentiment is from Papertrey, Doodlie Do.
I used Distress Inks to blend and a Sakura Gel pen for the silvery raindrops. Yesterday we had snow, rain, sunshine, hail, and then more snow...all in one day.  We've got it all here in the beautiful, sometimes surprising, Pacific Northwest♥

 

 

 

Lucky

It's been a busy month and a happy one.  I am indeed lucky to have great friends and many things that keep me involved.  Crafting has been on-going, but blogging has fallen far behind.  So I am happy today to share my latest set of cards and link them to DragonflyJourneys #87 to play along with their St. Patrick's Day 'Lucky Charms' theme.  All the cards were paper quilted with 1" squares, and then dry embossed with several different kinds of folders to give the quilted appearance and texture. I just love paper quilting!!  I am having trouble with Paint and my camera....so colors do not look as vibrant as they actually are.

A thin strip of shiny gold paper added at the bottom, and the sentiment edged with metallic gold marker.detail of the card above