bold and graphic plus pink

This inspiration photo caught my eye. Bold. Graphic. Pink. And very, VERY symmetrical.

 Well I can do all of the above - minus symmetric, that is!

It's very hard to catch in the photo, but the sentiment sticker and the bit of sheer fabric with stars on it (in a nod to all the textiles) are both mirrored gold in a nod to the mirror. Isn't that pink luscious - pink, purple and orange Dylusions ink smooshing happened for that.

But I decided to make a less busy BG so made a second card.

Kept this one super CAS, just coloring a scrap with Copic RV04 and heat embossing half of the sentiment ("birthday" is on the inside). And the row of hearts is die cut from silver mirrored CS.

diamonds stamp

flower die

dot stamp

sentiment stamp

hearts die

Come by tomorrow. I made another card that picks up on the neutral beiges in the photo ...

Besides linking these CAS cards to Card Concept #75, I'm joining the fun at AAA Cards, Stempelkueche and The Flower Challenge. Happy Birthday AAA Cards!!!

sweet and cool summery card

There's a cool, summery stamp set from Concord and 9th that finally came to live at my house and wouldn't you know it, this inspiration photo shows up in my feed.

Know which stamp set I'm talking about? The one everyone has had for a year already ...

popsicle stamp

That popsicle image gets me every time. And there are some super sweet (and fabulously font-y) sentiments too. I had a play at coloring the solid image stamp with markers, my kids' old sets, spritzing with water and stamping. Multiple times to get some depth.

Didn't use three elements from the inspiration so I'm not in the running to win, but I'm hooking up at Daring Cardmakers anyway. That inspiration is so light and lovely, don't you agree? And I'm joining the lovely ladies at CAS Watercolor and Happy Little Stampers CAS this month too.

first communion cards for little girls

Two neighbor girls celebrated their first holy communion this spring so of course I made them cards to match the bracelets (wunscharmband) which were part of their gift. One lilac, one yellow.

Distress Ink squishing, die cutting, heat embossing, inking-spritzing-stamping and a brad!

wing die

word die

wonky stitched rectangle die

alpha stamp

I'm linking up at Challenge up your Life #67, happy to have used two brads from my stash!

STAMPlorations inspiration #137

Welcome to another Tuesday inspiration from the STAMPlorations inspiration team where all the team members feature stamps from one of our talented stamp designers.

Today we're using Shirley's The Bees Knees stamps. From now until June 12 you can get Shirley's line of stamps at 10% off in the STAMPlorations store!

I just love the little trio of trees from Houses Extra. Aren't they perfect?

Houses Extra, Birds of Paradise

I paired the trees with the tiny sentiment and some mint road lines and black dots to get a boutique-y feel to my card.

TIP: I used a long and narrow lined acrylic block for the road line stamp. Taped the panel down to a lined cutting mat and eyeballed the lineup of the road lines by lining up lines on the acrylic block with lines on the cutting mat to make BG stamping a breeze.

Like my card? Do you like this set? If you'd like to see more cards using this stamp set check here and here.

Remember, this week all of Shirley's older stamps are 10% off, Houses Extra and Two of Us are even 20% off. Don't forget to use my discount code from the sidebar for an extra 20% off. And leave comments on the June inspiration posts to potentially win yourself a $10 GC to the store. Check out today's post here.

CUTplorations June

Long time no see, me and CUTplorations. Don't you love this sweet dragon cake Monika's friend made for her? It's our inspiration photo over at CUTplorations for June. And then we'll be taking a break until the Fall, so be sure to play along with us this time around.

Now what does that inspiration have to do with my card. you ask? Besides a round shape and a frou frou doily.

Well "dragon" in German is "drachen". And a "drachen" in German can also mean "kite". And DD and I just spent a week at the North Sea where we saw this.

I needed a birthday card for DD... so the inspiration led me to use blooms as kites in the sky! Kinda like these ground kites we saw. Where's the craziest place you've ever found inspiration for a card???

flower die

sentiment die

sentiment stamp

cloud mask

Hope you'll join us for some fun this month. Make a project using die cuts based on the CUTplorations inspiration photo. Be sure to use at least one STAMPlorations product and hook up to the gallery. Winners will be chosen by the DT. Here's the link.

And there's always my STAMPlorations discount code in the sidebar if you're feeling the need to get yourself some blooms-that-double-as-kites ;)

inspired by the golden hues

I had seen the inspiration photo for Inspired by All the Little Things and couldn't get it out of my mind. (Though I must not have scrolled all the way to the bottom of the photo. Didn't have that "Picked Raspberry" in memory when I was creating ;)

Here's how it inspired me.

Some bottles. Some gold. Some rich golden hues. And a touch of fresh green. Wouldn't some Picked Raspberry have been a nice touch with that smidgen of Altenew Frayed Leaf green? I used Distress Inks to watercolor and STAMPlorations products.

perfume bottle stamp

blooms stamp

sentiment stamp

There's still a little time left for the challenge if you feel inspired too... And I'm taking this card over to Simon Says Wednesday Challenge where it's Anything Goes this week. Have a good one.

easy peasy masculine card

When perusing Papertrey's May release posts I saw this card of Nichole's  and decided to make a card using the simple idea of die cutting a cover plate design and Copic coloring a few pieces.

I made a tricky/intricate card which you can see in this post. Today I'm sharing my easy-peasy-great-for-a-guy version.

cover plate die

sentiment die

Used a glue stick to cover the front of my cardbase before putting the die cut down and then inserting the pieces I'd pulled out to Copic color. Easy! Happy weekend!