Trick or Treat

Happy Halloween!  Hope you have fun plans for today.

We will be taking our youngest out for two rounds of  trick or treating. Once by our house and later at Grandmas. The kids love trick or treating at Grandmas as where she lives has trick or treating after dark. We get to run around in the neighborhood that my DH grew up in which is really fun for everyone.  This year is a bit of a transition for me... My oldest son and middle daughter are not trick or treating with us they are both going to parties. It will be strange to not have them running off and coming back to join us with our youngest.

I have one last Halloween card to share that I made for Tanya (youngest).  I asked her if she wanted a card that moved and she said yes... of course!  So I made a fun little spinner card for her. 

I love this little witch. She looks like Wendy from Casper the Ghost.  The background is this really fun coverall from Impression Obsession and the sentiment is from Hero Arts.

Hope you have a wonderful Halloween!

Suzz

Get Sketchy and Just for Fun

I was over at Lisa's house yesterday and we worked on a few different projects together.  We pulled out the sketch from Get Sketchy #62 and decided to play along with our  blogging friend Mona's  Cupcakes Creations Color Challenge.

Combine those three factors and this is what I created yesterday.

Here is the Get Sketchy inspiration sketch:

Here are  the yummy colors from Mona:

The cardinal stamp is from Heartfelt Creations and there are so many wonderful cardinals in their sets that I had a hard time choosing which one to use. The image was colored using watercolor pencils.  The papers are from Stampin Up and Basic Grey.

Thanks Lisa for a fun visit! (and for sharing your supplies!)

Have a lovely Saturday.

Suzz

There is No Place like Home

I thought I would share another one of my projects for Artistic Outpost.  This is another image from the fun OZ collection.  Look how cute Toto is with Dorothy warning her of something. :)

I paired up the gingham with the closest paper I could find which was from October Afternoon. Dorothy was stamped multiple times and pieced together. My favorite touch was the tiny ribbon tied on her pigtails.

Hope you are having a lovely day!

Suzz

Play Date Cafe Challenge #53 - Color Splash

It is a color splash week at the Play Date Cafe Challenge!  Sarah selected the colors and the inspiration photo for the challenge.

We were lucky enough to receive some beautiful stamps from Mark's Finest Papers to use in our projects this week.  They sent us Flourishes and Frame Set with some gorgeous flourishes, frames and sentiments.

I created this card using the stamps from the set. I apologize as my ribbon looks much lighter in my picture than it is in real life.

The second card I used some beautiful Toile pattern paper for the bottom but I did add one stamped feature. You will have to guess what it is. :)

and here is the beautiful photo for our inspiration:

Marks Finest Paper will also be providing a beautiful stamp set from their November release as our prize this week!
If you are looking for more inspiration, go and take a peek at the rest of the design teams projects!

The Play Date Cafe design team:

Sarah Anderson

Ruby 2 Shoes

Savannah O'Gwynn
Andrea Ewen

Julie Ranae

Lisa Somerville

Hope your Thursday is wonderful!
Suzz

Artistic Outpost - OZ Collage Release

Today is release day for Artistic Outpost. The release is of an Oz collage and I love all the images. I have been happily stamping away with the new stamp plate and couldn't share anything til today!

Here is the Oz Collage from Artistic Outpost (Mounted, Unmounted)

Here is one of my projects created using the fabulous Lion and Tin Man.

As soon as I saw the lion I thought of an easel card with raffia as fringe like a mane. The background paper is actually a section of the original book "The Wizard of Oz".  I found it on-line and cut and paste it into word and printed it out onto cardstock.

Stamp the image on a circle using Versafine Vintage Sepia. I colored mine using watercolor pencils. Sponge edges using Memento Bahama Blue. Run tape around edge of back of circle multiple times. Cut small strips of raffia. Fold in half and attach to edge of circle.Attach second circle to cover back after all raffia is attached. 

Cut card base using 5 1/2" x 11" brown cardstock. Score at 2 5/8" on front of card. Cut background paper pieces 5 1/4" x 5 1/4", 5 1/4" x 2 1/4" (2 pieces). Sponge edges of background paper using blue dye ink and brown dye ink. 

Attach background paper. Cut strip of brown cardstock 1/2" x 5 1/4". layer strips of raffia across middle of inside of card. Layer one strip of brown cardstock over raffia.  Accent with raffia.

Attach circle to bottom half of front of card. Create sentiment using stickers.

In celebration of Artistic Outpost's Third Anniversary, all rubber stamps are 20% from now until November 5th. That includes all unmounteds and mounteds. Simply use the code: Anniversary at check out to receive your discount.

The design team has created some really beautiful projects and cards which you can go see in the Artistic Outpost Gallery. The design team is also sharing fabulous projects on their blogs:  

*Lisa Somerville *Gerrie Johnnic *Lynn Stevens *Barbara Washington *Connie Paxman *Stephanie Severin*Suzanne Czosek

Have a wonderful day!

Suzz

Simon Says Stamp and Show me spooky

Show us something Spooky is the challenge this week at the Simon Says Stamp and Show.   This is my Halloween card for my daughter. It started out as a card for my son but ended up with the stylish witch from Artistic Outpost.  My dd will like the colors on the card and hopefully the image!

What you can't see on the card from the picture is there is a sheer piece of purple fabric over the embossed paper. I re-cycled the fabric from a bouquet of flowers. Tied the knots to represent a quilted fabric. 

One more Halloween card to go!

Have a lovely day.

Suzz

Moxie Fab - Trigger Tuesday and Spooky challenge

Cath over at Moxie Fab World offered up a spooky Trigger Tuesday and featured a spooktackular post challenging us to create a spooky card.  Both of these fit into my need to create Halloween cards for my kids.

Here is the inspiration photo for Tuesday's Trigger:

As soon as I saw that tombstone I thought of my cute graveyard stamp. (cute and graveyard?) Anyways I was inspired to create a window card with the graveyard stamp on the inside and out. But my favorite part is the flying bats and sentiment.

Usually when I make the Halloween or any holiday cards for the kids there is one card they all want. I am thinking this might be the one.  :) Anything interactive is something they always love.

I used a bunch of different stamps if you need the names or numbers drop me an email and I will look them up for you.

Have a wonderful day and thanks for stopping by!

Suzz

 

Congratulations Kaeli!

 

My oldest daughter Kaeli was confirmed yesterday. This card was made for her. I used  this beautiful Kioshi paper from Basic Grey and the lovely sentiment. This is also for the Cards blog challenge this week which is to use bling. 

This also was inspired by the soft PDCC colors this week, don't forget there is still time to play in our anniversary celebration!  Go here to see the wonderful prizes and inspiration from the Unity Design team.

Have a blessed Sunday! 

Suzz

Masculine Cards

I created a series of cards for my November class at my LSS.  I used Artistic Outpost and created a series of  masculine cards.

Here is the first card I created. Love this stamp plate, Cracker Jack  it consists of  vintage baseball images.  Baseball is very popular in our house so this stamp plate is going to get a lot of use.   :)

The next card was created using the Steampunk stamp plate. The images work beautifully with the Graphic 45 Steampunk paper.

 

The last card is from the Old Grist Mill stamp set. 

 Sorry about the triple card post. :) 

Glad you stopped by and hope your weekend is fun! 

Suzz

2S4Y - Sparkly Wreath

Love this beautiful garland wreath from Memory Box  and had visions of the chunky glitter frosting the branches. 2S4Y Kazan's sketch #64 this week inspired me to put my vision on a card.

Here is the lovely sketch:

 

The wreath, sentiment and paper are Memory Box. The glitter is Twinklettes Diamond Dust. I distressed the paper using my paint dabber from ranger to soften the edges of the Pattern Paper. 

Thanks for stopping by! 

Suzz

Card Patterns Sketch #86

I had on my desk my sweet new stamps and papers from Memory Box.  I was inspired by the adorable deer paper from the Tinsel collection. I followed the wonderful sketch #86  from Card Patterns this week.

Here is the sketch:

As always, I tend to diverge from the sketch slightly. But wanted to pull out the snow globe stamp and the deer stamp to make a little holiday display. :)

Products:

• Memory Box Tinsel Paper
• Memory Box Pearls Berry
• Memory Box - C1397 Light bulb Reindeer
• Memory Box - Plain Snow Globe D1407
• Memory Box - Mistletoe
• Memory Box - Merry Christmas B925
• Holly leaves - Hobby Lobby Christmas Picks
• Felt Ribbon - Hobby Lobby
• Felt scarf - (From my daughter's felt scarf craft project)
• Twinklettes Chunky Glitter

Have a happy Friday!

Suzz

Play Date Cafe #52 - Let's Celebrate

This week is a special week for the PDCC.  We are celebrating our one  year anniversary! We have fun prizes, special designers and fun posts all week at the Play Date Cafe Challenge!

Our challenge this week involved selecting colors from the inspiration photo and using a Itty Bitty stamp set provided by Unity!   My stamp set from Unity was Rain or Shine.

Julie selected the lovely soft and pretty colors this week:

 I was inspired by the different pinks, yellows and peaches and decided to make it rain umbrellas.

Very simple little card with some sponging, piecing and stamping.  I love the idea of the wind pulling up all the pretty umbrellas and sending them flying across the sky.  As long is it isn't me in the downpour without  my umbrella. :)

Now onto fun stuff like prizes, sponsors, and guest designers!

This week we are lucky to have Unity and Cosmo Cricket sponsoring the PDCC with wonderful prizes!

We also have special guests designing this week as part of the celebration.  The alumni designers  from the PDCC will be playing along.

Stephanie Kraft

Mona Pendleton

Julie Campbell

Sandi Kelly

In addition to that... the Unity Design Team will be playing along this week at the PDCC. Every day there will be new projects posted where you can go and get inspiration.

And last but not least each of the PDCC team has made a card using a different Itty Bitty set and the inspiration colors. Stop by their blogs and see what they have created!

The Play Date Cafe design team:

Sarah Anderson

Ruby 2 Shoes

Savannah O'Gwynn
Andrea Ewen

Julie Ranae

Lisa Somerville

Have a lovely day! Thanks for stopping by.

Suzz

Memory Box October Release Celebration

Memory Box is having a blog blitz this week on the Outside the Box blog sharing  the October release and other fun opportunities for prizes.

I am kicking off the celebration with this  project:

The instructions on how to create these projects are over on the Outside the Box along with the details on how to win.


Hope you are having a lovely Monday. We are cold and rainy today.

Suzz

Get Sketchy Challenge #60

I am a big fan of grid cards because of Jacqueline's beautiful cards.  I had all these scraps from yesterday's card sitting on my desk and decided to use them up for the Get Sketchy Challenge #60.

Love this color combination and adding the little bit of blue and green glitter is fun.

The Peacock stamp is from Hero Arts and the background panel with the script is also Hero Arts. The other stamped background is Elusive Images and the Paper is October Afternoon. Ribbon: May Arts and the peacock feather is from a holiday pick at Hobby Lobby.

Have a lovely Saturday!

Suzz

Play Date Cafe Challenge #51 - Christmas Gifts Galore

Another fun challenge this week hosted by Sarah at the Play Date Cafe!  We have wonderful sponsor so I ended up creating a few projects using their die cuts.  This is a picture of the complete set of projects.

Here is Sarah's wonderful picture for the color inspiration:

What serene lovely colors. Here are a few closeups of the projects.

I received a card with the Fancy Frame Window A2 card.  I decided to layer it onto another piece of Ocean Breeze.

The image is from Hero Arts  Christmas stamps. The embossing folder is Cuttlebug. The inks are Versamark, Hero Arts Shadow Ink Sand, Versafine Deep Lagoon. This project didn't end up using the minty green and doesn't have all  the colors for the challenge this week but does have the wonderful die cuts so I included it with my other projects.

The second project was the inspiration for all my projects as I had a cake box from the wedding die cuts and thought what a great Christmas Tree it would make.  I stamped the Hero Arts Christmas tree on the front and back using Versamark ink and heat embossed with silver embossing powder.

Sponge some blue dye ink and accent with beige and minty green pearls and you have an elegant Christmas Tree.

The next project was a beautiful Trapezoid box die cut. I stamped the Stampendous Holiday Quad Cube repeatedly using Versamark and heat embossed using white embossing powder. Then I created a little tag using Juniper Adirondack dye ink and Hero Arts stamp for the sentiment.

The last little tuck top cube box is adorable and was fun to emboss and decorate with tulle and snowflakes.

All the wonderful boxes and die cuts were provided by our sponsor this week Creative Cuts & More.
If you head over to place an order you can receive a 10% discount by using the code: CC&M10Lisa.

The design team all had different die cuts to play with and created some very inspiring projects. 

Play Date Cafe design team

Sarah Anderson

Ruby 2 Shoes

Savannah O'Gwynn

Andrea Ewen

Julie Ranae

Lisa Somerville

Have a lovely day! Looking forward to viewing all the entries this week, as always!

Suzz

Moxie Fab World - Perfectly Placed Pleats and 2S4Y Kazan #63

 Happy Tuesday!

Cath over at Moxie Fab World challenge is Perfectly Placed Pleats,  and 2S4Y sketch #63  from Kazan inspired my vintage Christmas card.

Kazan's  lovely sketch #63: 

Rosemarie's card is so pretty and a lovely vintage card and got me thinking about pulling out my Cosmo Cricket Christmas paper and my vintage Santa stamps. I spent about a half hour messing with the pleats on my star. A lot of work but I liked the effect.

Supplies: Cosmo Cricket Holly Jolly, Penny Black (Sentiment), Inkadinkado Paper Artsy (Santa), Ribbon May Arts.

Hope your day was lovely!

Suzz

Vintage Santa

 I love my non-traditional colors for holiday cards.  This card was no exception:

I was very excited to learn that it was selected to be in the December Crafts N Things!  Yeah!

The details on how to create it and the supplies listed are actually part of the cards featured over on the Crafts N Things on-line bonus features here.  There are so many beautiful projects in Holiday issue and I love to look through it for inspiration.

Hope you are having a wonderful Monday!

Suzz

2S4Y Roses and Butterflies

I created two cards for the 2 Sketches for You challenge Laura's Sketch #62. Way on either end of my design style.

Here is the second one I created:

Love that Webster's Pages paper. So much of the background was already there. I added the Hero Arts Rose and the Verses Sentiment.  The butterfly is also Hero Arts. Stamped in Versafine Vintage Sepia and colored with my trusty watercolors.

I started with this card which is for a class I will be teaching in November for Masculine cards. I was  inspired by Lisa's card here.  The image is from Artistic Outpost, called The Outpost, love this set.

Here's Laura's lovely sketch:

For some reason blogger is turning it on itside and I can't figure out why. :)  But I want to get this in before the challenge ends.

Thanks for stopping by... Off to make a card for my dad's birthday!

Suzz

Mojo Monday #159

Playing in the Mojo Monday #159 Sketch this week.  Here is my take:

The sketch:

I wanted to do something different and thought it would be fun to do the framed easel card with a circle popped up.  I searched through my stamp sets and found this beautiful set of  Clear Art stamps from Crafty Secrets. These little fairies are so adorable and the fun flowers and mushrooms. Very whimsical.

Well I hope you are having a lovely Saturday! 

Suzz

Simon Says Stamp and Show - Your Numbers

The challenge is to use numbers on a project for Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge this week.  Should be easy right. :)

I have a collection of Bingo cards that I have been wanting to use so I pulled one out and created this:

The background of the bingo card was stamped using versafine Olympia green and embossed using clear embossing powder. Sponge with yellow and orange dye ink.

Stamp the children (Artistic Outpost Sleigh Ride) using versafine black onyx and watercolor. Clear emboss the image of the children.

The papers are all from the wonderful Graphic 45 Christmas Collection. I just added a little distressing and sponging. The snowflakes are punched using a Martha Stewart punch.  The snowflakes had a little glistening added by using Diamond Dust and a Glue Pen. :)

Hope your Friday is wonderful!

Suzz

Play Date Cafe #50 - It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Okay not really... With temps in the 80's in September we are having a beautiful fall!  This weeks challenge at the PDCC involves using holiday colors to go along with our beautiful stamps form Elusive Images.  The color challenge this week is Green, White and Melon.  I was lucky enough to receive the Christmas Tweetings Stamp Set to play with.  I created this:




When I saw the sweet birdhouse and wreath I knew the needed to be set out on display in a window. :)

The color inspiration photo was selected by Julie  for the Play Date Cafe challenge this week:. 

We have a fab sponsor this week at the PDCC.  Elusive Images is our sponsor and they are providing not only a prize for the winner of the PDCC but also a prize for each of the fab four winners!  Five opportunities to win!

I am also excited because my good  friend Lesley is part of the Elusive Design Team. So be sure to stop by her blog Crafty Love n Hugs and say hi!

Our special guest designer this week is Glenda Waterworth, owner of Elusive Images stop by the  Elusive Design Team blog and see what the design team created!  Stop by Glenda's blog and see the beautiful project she created for the challenge.

The Play Date Cafe design team:

Sarah Anderson

Ruby 2 Shoes

Savannah O'Gwynn
Andrea Ewen

Julie Ranae

Lisa Somerville

Hope to see you in the Cafe!

Suzz

Get Sketchy #58 - Challenge and some Pumpkins!

Happy Tuesday!

 I am in a circle groove.  Saw this sketch from Get Sketchy Challenge #58 and loved the circles and lines.

Can you see the lines and circles in my spiderweb?  I was thinking how to incorporate the lines and circles from the design and the spiderweb caught in my mind. The spiderweb is a Hero Arts cling and it is a really nice size spiderweb stamp.  The baby spiders and sentiment are from an Inkadinkado set. The Big spider is from a Hero Arts Designblock and I used it to get the shape and then colored it in.

I already was thinking Halloween because I created these fun Chipboard pumpkins Sunday and shared them over on the Outside the Box blog.

These pumpkins are glimmer misted, sponged with rusty hinge and black dye ink.  They are stamped using versamark or versafine black onyx  and embossed using clear embossing powder or zing orange embossing powder. The stamps are Memory Box Spooky Collage and Halloween Collage.  I also used these really fun Clearsnap design adhesives which are in the shape of the spider and web and are rub-ons. They are double sided adhesive so I can stick them on the project and then use glitter, flocking, foil etc.  Very fun. I used the Clearsnap black charcoal glitter to add the accents to my spiders. 

Thanks for dropping by!

Suzz

Hero Arts World Cardmaking Day Celebration and Caardvarks Challenge

Two challenges and two cards for both challenges. Hero Arts is having a celebration this weekend for World Cardmaking Day.  The challenge is to create a project using your favorite colors.  The second challenge sponsored by Hero Arts this week is the Caardvarks challenge to create a clean and simple card. (stop laughing I can do this)

So I created two cards this morning using green, brown, and blues as these are the earthy colors I usually am drawn to in creating my cards. But I really love color, and could have chosen a bunch of different combinations.

The clean and simple part was a little trickier.

The first card is from the Hero Arts Cuckoo clear stamp set. I thought wouldn't it be fun to have cuckoo clocks hanging down like ornaments?  My aunt and uncle used to have a wall of clocks which would all go off every hour and of course they were all off by a few minutes. So when we would go to visit and have to sleep on the floor in their family room we would listen to them all go off every hour for about 5 minutes. LOL! I had forgotten about that until I was making this card. The papers are scraps from different papers.

It started off clean and simple and turned into more shabby chic. :) I was so happy to find this Hero Arts stamp at my LSS. When I asked where they had purchased it because I knew it wasn't in any catalogue I had seen from HA they said it was part of a lot they bought from another store that was closing. I love it. The soft image of the Madonna and child is beautiful. 

Yesterday I wasn't able to create much and I was so pleased to get this in this morning before church. Hopefully there will be more inking time later today.

Have a blessed Sunday.

Suzz



Happy World Card Making Day - 2S4Y card

Happy World Cardmaking Day!  I am going to try to play along with some of the fun activities so I hope to have another post later. :)

I wanted to get my 2S4Y challenge in with Kazan's sketch # 62.

The sketch looks like this:

and my card looks like this:

I love these bunnies in their Christmas outfit and thought how sweet they looked. I added the star above so they could be looking at something in the distance.  

Hope you are busy inking it up!

Suzz