Happy Sunday! I have a quick post for you today. It's the fabulous LeAnne's turn to host our Paper Players challenge this week and it's Clean and Simple Week with a theme! I decided to reuse a layout from a couple of weeks ago and bring out my Stampin' Up! Playful Pets! Here's the challenge: I used some of the DSP from the suite down the side and stamped and colored my cat. I used one of my Ellen Hutson essentials dies to edge the focal layer and adhered it over the top of the paper on the card base.... Continue reading

Happy Sunday. It's the fabulous Anne Marie's turn to host our Paper Players challenge this week and it's color week. I used Stampin' Up! Forever Fern as the main focus of my card. What colors does Anne Marie have for us? Mmmmmm...... looks like I missed something from the challenge! I didn't notice the PLUS GLITTER OR FOIL until I moved the badge across! ugh! it would have been so easy to add a foil leave or a touch of glitter pen. How on earth did I miss that? Sorry, Anne Marie! I must admit that when I first saw... Continue reading

Happy Monday. Quick post for you today - featuring two cards both made using the sketch at Freshly Made this week. One of the cards uses Stampin' Up! Geared Up Garage and the other Poinsettia Petals. Firstly, here's the sketch from FreshlyMade For the card using Geared Up Garage, I flipped the sketch to the horizontal. I used on old Tim Holtz embossing folder for the embossed background and the gears and car are from the Geared Up Garage stamp set and dies. For the second card, I kept the sketch on the vertical and used the stamps and matching... Continue reading

Happy Saturday! The design team across at Atlantic Hearts have another fabulous sketch for us to use this week. I love playing along for two reasons. #1 the sketches ... they always challenge me and I really like that. #2 the design team always stop by and leave personalized comments - and that's rare for a lot of challenge sites! We do that at the Paper Players and I know how much time it takes to consistently do that - so cheers to the DT at AHSC :-) Now, on to this week's sketch: It took me a little while... Continue reading

Happy Sunday! It's my turn to host our Paper Players challenge this week and it's theme week. For my card I used Game On from Stampin' Up! I think it is ideal for masculine cards. Oh, and I love the montage that Nance put together for our badge this week! For some reason, I thought this was Clean and Simple week... but it isn't! However, my card is :-) I stamped and fussy cut the chess pieces and added a little shading to some of the pieces with my Copic markers. I used the "board" piece to create a vertical... Continue reading

Happy Saturday! Day 3 of my vacation and I got to spend a little time in my crafting cave. For today's card I used Stampin' Up! Love of Leaves and played along with the sketch at CTS and the inspiration list at Festive Friday: I went with leaves, gold, stitching (and brown) I played around with some Cajun Craze ink and watercolor paper. By layering the levels of water and drying in between, I was able to get a little depth on the water color paper with the ink. I then splattered some gold watercolor ink on top and die-cut... Continue reading

Happy Friday! So glad it is a long weekend! I didn't get much time in my crafting cave today as I had hoped. However, I was able to play along with two challenges - Atlantic Hearts Sketches #384 and Color Throwdown #609. I used my favorite Stampin' Up! set, Prized Peony for my card and mixed it with some Stampin' Up! Playing with Patterns DSP. Here's the sketch from AHS: and the colors from ColorThrowdown: I began by stamping the main flower from Prized Peony and colored them with my red-violet and green markers. I cut some DSP from the... Continue reading

Happy Thursday! Today is the first day of our long weekend. I don't go back to work until Wednesday! So, I got some time to play along with a couple of challenges. The first features one of my favorite old Stampin' Up! sets called Hey, Chick. It's Sale-a-Bration set from 2017 and is one of those sets that I will always keep. I just love it! When I saw the sketch across at AAA - and the optional theme, I tried to mimic a film roll, although, it really is a polaroid strip! So, I didn't quite accomplish the optional... Continue reading

Happy Sunday! It's the fabulous Ann's turn to host our Paper Players challenge this week - and its Tic-Tac-Toe week! Here's Ann's board: I also played along with the new Just Add Ink challenge - which is a masculine challenge: For my card, I decided to use some paper from the World of Good Memories and More pack. For my Tic-Tac-Toe - I went with the right hand side vertical - patterned paper, dots and wood. I choose a piece of wood paper from the In Good Taste DSP pack and paired that with two journal sized cards from World... Continue reading

Happy Saturday! I have another card made using the Beauty Within set from Altenew. My last cards made with this set all featured the coloring stencils. This time, I went old-school and colored the flower with Copic markers. I was inspired by the sketch across at casethissketch this week. I stamped and colored the flower and leaf. I fussy cut them because I didn't want white edges from the die-cuts. That's because I colored behind the focal elements and the white border really would have popped too much. I added the script stamp from the Very Versailles set on top... Continue reading

Happy Wednesday! It's hump day and we are coasting down to the weekend :-) I have a card for you tonight made using the sketch across at CasethisSketch and the theme from JustUsGirls. For my card, I pulled out an old favorite from Ellen Hutson called Latte Love. That set had me at catpuccino :-) Here's the sketch: and the theme: I was drawn to the perfectly placed coffee beans around the coffee cup and it reminded me of the sketch at CTS. So, i started with that and then got to work on my coffee cup. I had a... Continue reading

Happy Tuesday. I have another card using the Altenew Beauty Within set for you today. I made this card inspired by the colors across at Just Add Ink. I didn't have the exact colors, but got as close as I could. This card really needed re-photographing as my new lighting set up is showing a little too warm and I can't quite get it right. So, the card is really bright white, and the colors not quite as insipid! I couldn't rephotograph it, as the card is already in the mail! Here are the colors from Just Add Ink: I... Continue reading

Happy Sunday. Again :-) If you are looking for my Paper Players post - you can find it here. I created a card using a set from Altenew called Beauty Within. I haven't purchased anything from Altenew in quite a long time, but I fell in love with this set, especially as it comes with stencils for coloring. I love it, but was a little frustrated that they didn't provide stencils for all three flowers, just two! I love the sketch across at Freshly Made this week - it's really unusual. Cecile did say that we didn't have to use... Continue reading

Happy Sunday! It's the fabulous LeAnne's turn to host our Paper Players challenge this week and it's sketch week. I decided to use Toile Tidings DSP and the fabulous cardinal from Toile Christmas. I really do love this Cardinal and it's one of those sets that will be around in my craft room for a while! Here's my card: I hope you will join us and play along this week. We would love to see what you do with this sketch. If you are looking for some inspiration, the design team have some fabulous cards for you: Ann Claire Jaydee... Continue reading

Happy Saturday! I have a card that fits two challenges... I took the sketch from AtlanticHearts and three items from the inspo list at Festive Friday. (bright colors, sparkle and rhinestones) I used my old Tim Holtz sunrays stencil for the background and stamped a unicorn from a set that I got free in a crafting magazine that Lou brought me back from one of his trips to Australia a few years ago. I can't remember the magazine but I love the stamps. They are perfect for kids cards. As this is going into the pack for Cards4Kids, I thought... Continue reading

Happy Monday! I have a quick post for you tonight featuring the new Stampin' Up! Love of Leaves set. I used it with the colors from the As You See Challenge this week - which is color week: I stamped the leaves using Crushed Curry and Cajun Craze and added touches of Bermuda Bay with a frame and also with some "dots". Here's a closeup: I used my stylus to create the Bermuda dots by placing the stylus directly on the inkpad and then "stamping" the stylyus onto the card. I die-cut the rectangle from the middle and mounted it... Continue reading

Happy Sunday! It's the fabulous Claire's turn to host our Paper Players challenge this week and it's CAS week and Claire has a very timely theme for us: I think we can all agree that this is probably not a normal back to school year! Instead of the usual route, I decided to use the Stampin' Up! Making a Difference digital set. This set was created to support the response and recovery fund for COVID-19 and has some fabulous scripty sentiments that are perfect for many occasions in the current climate. I used the "just breathe" sentiment - love the... Continue reading

Happy Saturday! I got a little time in my craft cave today and played along with the fabulous new sketch at AtlanticHearts they really do have great sketches! I hope you will pop along and check out the wonderful design team and submission cards - and play along! I had this idea in my head to use some of my favorite SU DSP - Whale of a Time. I also inked up the fish stamp from the Whale Done stamp set with Night of Navy ink and stamped it multiple times to make it look like a shoal of navy... Continue reading

Happy Wednesday. It's the end of the middle of the week and the weekend is on its way! I'm sharing another card I made during my time in my crafting cave this week. I used the sketch across at CaseThisSketch as inspiration Such a pretty sketch and I love the fact that it was the sketch from back in the day - sketch #45! I decided to ink up my Forever Fern using three inspiration colors from the Color Dare challenge. I went with Smoothie, Sapphire and Glacier - well as close as I could get :-) Here's my card... Continue reading

Happy Tuesday! I played along with AAA when I was in my crafting cave this week. They have a cool CAS challenge that is asking us to do something beachy - and do it on the edge :-) I initially had an entirely different card planned, but it just wasn't working for me. I then thought about the beach and what I love about it. And, I have to say, it isn't sitting cooking my skin! Those days are LONG gone. Note to my younger self: everything they tell you will happen when you spend too much time in the... Continue reading

Happy Monday. I have a very quick post for you today. I did get into my crafting cave for a couple of hours yesterday. One of the cards I made is for the Freshly Made Sketches sketch this week and I was inspired to use my Detailed Doves Dies from the new Stampin' Up! mini catalog. I love these dies and this will be one of the Christmas cards I make to send out this year. You can see that I had to flip the sketch to make it work for the dies. Die cutting and assembling the elements of... Continue reading

Happy Sunday. It's the fabulous Joanne's turn to host our Paper Players challenge this week and it's color week and it was another chance for me to showcase my favorite Stampin' Up! set - Prized Peony: So, I have to be honest, Melon Mambo is one of my least favorite colors. I just find it a little too bright for my taste. I love what other people do with it, but I do like that Joanne paired it with Night of Navy to offset it. However, I did take the chicken way out this week and used it sparingly! I... Continue reading

Happy Saturday! I managed to escape to my crafting cave today. It was a good day to be there. It has been really muggy and very overcast and rainy. So Charlie and I spent some quality time - he on the chair fast asleep and me playing with inks and stamps. I found some inspiration across at AtlanticHearts. They always produce sketches that force me to stretch my creativity and I love that. Here's this week's sketch: I decided to ink up my Forever Blossoms flower and pair that with some strips of DSP from the Peony Garden set and... Continue reading

Happy Friday. Where has this week gone? It's been another one of those weeks with long work days that just run into each other! I am hoping to get into my crafting cave this weekend to recover some of my equilibrium! I have a card for you using the Stampin' Up! sets Very Versailles and Free as a Bird. Another two sets that will stay with me long after they have retired! I was inspired to use them because of the sketch across at As You See It It's a really unusual layout and I decided to use a background... Continue reading

Happy Monday. I did get into my crafting cave yesterday and managed to make a couple of cards. Tonight's card uses one of my old favorite sets - Seas the Day from Hero Arts. Here's the sketch from Case this Sketch I stamped three elements - two of the seagull and one sea shell, colored them and then fussy cut them. I separated a stitched rectangle layer to give place for the sentiment. I adhered the two pieces together and stamped the tree stump directly onto the card base. I colored it with pencil instead of my Copic's so that... Continue reading