Best Birthday

                      Good Morning!

          Sketch #566 at Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge provided me with an opportunity to use a Gel plate background made earlier this week with stencils, stamps and acrylic paints.  I backed it with heavier card stock and cut it in strips.  The leaf piece was in my folder from an earlier paint session. I stamped the Gina K Designs sentiment with Distress Oxide inks to try to replicate the paint colors.

It really does make me happy when a sketch inspires me to cut into those backgrounds.  They are too much fun to stay in a box.

Hope you will be inspired and will share your creation at AHSC this week.

Northern Cardinal

 

This week at Allsorts the challenge theme is THINGS THAT FLY or you may use the Anything Goes option if you prefer.

There are prizes for this month's challenges from AALL and Create and Aldridge Crafts

My stash of 'flying' stamps is very limited - I have lots of different beautiful butterflies, but only a few birds and I have used both the butterflies and hummingbird in my most recent posts. So I attempted to water color the Tim Holtz Cardinal die.  As I have painted it, this is a female Northern Cardinal. (I used Google images to find some color inspiration.)  The branches are heavily trimmed pieces from Altenew's Leaf Canopy set.  I need a lot of practice with my water coloring. haha!  But it was good exercise.  

Hope to see your creations on the Allsorts blog!

Slim Deco

               Try A Sketch On Tuesday has a new challenge!

This challenge will run from February 20-March 5th at TSOT

My card used Altenew stamps and dies.  The floral is Glowing Gardenia stamp, layering stencil, and die bundle. The Deco Frame die and and Essential Sentiments die were cut from purple card stock that somehow photographs much darker. This is a mini-slim line card.

The team loves seeing your creations!

Use Pink!

 It is my week to select the theme at Allsorts - so for challenge #768 I would like to see PINK projects. Though you may always choose the Anything Goes option.

There are marvelous prizes to be drawn at the end of the month from AALL and Create and Lavinia

My inspiration for you used many different products:                                                               

My Favorite Things  Best Friend  background stamp for aperture background                       Altenew Budding Wallpaper stamp and die Mini Delight set                                                     Gina K Designs Friendly Silhouettes sentiment stamp; ML 7 & ML9 for dies                        Provo Craft Swiss Dots embossing folder

Looking forward to seeing your creations on the Allsorts blog!

Friends & Coffee

 Happy Monday!  

There is a new sketch at Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge. I made my design team inspiration for you with my dear friend in mind. We meet most Saturday mornings for coffee and lots of conversation. We both rely on this session for laughter and real friend-therapy. This will go in the mail to her today :-)

The stamps and coordinating dies used are from Gina K Designs latest kit, and this set is titled Coffee Critters. I colored with Copic markers. The embossing folder used is Spellbinders, Tiled Hearts. Patterned paper from my stash.

Hope to see you at the Atlantic Hearts blog this week!

Happy Life Together

The theme this week at Allsorts is  Hearts. 

There is always the Anything goes option as well.

Prizes for this month are from AALL and Create and Lavinia

My card was inspired from a card made by Gina K. She used her heart dies and scallop die from Master layout 4 and that is the base for my card as well. But I have added some flowers from Altenew and a hummingbird die from Hero Arts. I used metallic watercolors on the bird. The floral and sentiment were heat embossed with Gina K Rose Gold powder.

The card was created for a dear friend to celebrate her marriage.

I hope you will check out the rest of the Design team creations and join us at Allsorts #767

Pretty in Pink

February is the month of hearts and loving messages. I enjoy sending cards and notes to my friends near and far. 

The new challenge at Try A Sketch A Sketch on Tuesday does have a heart, though you are welcome to substitute any shape for that element.  

I used a new cover plate die from Gina K Designs but cut two and joined them and backed with a pink card front.  It's more of an oval than circle, but still fine for the sketch I think.  I had some pink and gold scraps from an alcohol ink fun day and cut them into hearts. I selected a deeper pink strip, white heart embossed the sentiment, and backed it with some matte gold card.  The pretty pattern seemed enough without extra embellishment.

Note that this sketch does not have a sentiment,  no sentiment is required but feel free to add one if you choose. Please check out the rest of the Design Team inspiration at TSOT and we would love to see what you create with this sketch!

Allsorts BINGO Challenge

          A very fun new challenge at Allsorts for week 766!  Play some craft BINGO. 

Prizes from Stampendous

There are some delightful creations from the rest of the Design team at Allsorts. Check them out, be inspired and share what you create.

My card used several Distress Oxide inks on a new embossing folder from Spellbinders, Branching Out. The panel uses the de-bossed side. The butterflies are from Gina K Designs Wonderfully Made stamp and coordinating dies. They were stamped in black on a scrap of shaving cream background I made a while back. I would like to credit Alyson Mayo for the sketch design which she featured on a live You Tube last week she called Split Background.

Using the Center Vertical row of BINGO: Embossing, Green, Ribbon