Play Date Cafe Challenge #55

It is time for another Play Date Cafe Challenge. Sarah selected the colors and the inspiration photo for the challenge. 

Our sponsor this week is Innovative Stamp Creations they are providing our wonderful prize this week and also provided the team with beautiful stamps to play with.  Here is my take on the colors using the lovely Take Flight stamp plate.

Continuing with my circle fascination I chose to tamp the image on a circle and color the images and sponge the edges with two shades of blue.   The butterflies were stamped a second time an colored using  shades of  red,and pink. They were cut out and attached to give dimension.  Simple little card with a tiny charm accent (Okay really an earring from a set I bought to accent cards.)

Here is the inspiration photo from Sarah:

Betsy Griffin Innovative Stamp Creations owner is our guest designer and has also created a beautiful project on the Innovative Stamp Creations blog.


If you are looking for more inspiration, go and take a peek at the rest of the design teams projects! Most of the design team ended up using the same images and I love the variety of designs using the same set of stamps.

The Play Date Cafe design team:

Sarah Anderson

Ruby 2 Shoes

Savannah O'Gwynn
Andrea Ewen

Julie Ranae

Lisa Somerville

Looking forward to seeing what people create using the colors!

Suzz

Play Date Cafe Challenge #54 -

The Play Date Cafe Challenge this week has great colors and a fab sponsor!

Our sponsor this week is  The Artistic Stamper. I had a hard time choosing my stamp but I was drawn to the sweet images from the  Mabel Lucie Attwell collection. There is a wonderful selection and I am definitely thinking about adding to my collection! :)

Here is the sweet inspiration photo:

The image was stamped using the Memento and colored with Copics. The paper is a combination of Memory Box and Websters pages. The flowers are Prima. The edges of the green paper are sponged using the Memento Pear Tart and Rich Cocoa.  

If you are looking for  inspiration the team has some fantastic projects to go look at!

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

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

Play Date Cafe Challenge #48

Julie selected  the beautiful inspiration photo for the Play Date Cafe challenge this week:. 

I selected this beautiful stamp set from Crafty Individuals to use on my cards. I ended up creating two cards.

My first card:

 

Recipe for Image Panels:

1. 
   
   Stamp trees using black pigment ink and emboss with clear embossing powder.
2. 
   
   Sponge grey dye ink on bottom of cardstock.
3. 
   
   Sponge lime green dye ink on middle of cardstack to top of trees.
4. 
   
   Sponge blue dye ink on top half of cardstock and around the edges.

After I finished my first card, I decided to keep playing. I had a piece of patterned paper sitting on my desk and I wondered if I could achieve a similar effect. The paper pretty much looked like the background on my card. (I was really pleased that it worked) and I created this easel card.  

Recipe for backgrounds.

1. Sponge Adirondack Brights Citrus all over white cardstock.
2. Take the Memento London Fog Dye ink and drag along the edges and front of the green inked cardstock.
3. Sponge edges with Ranger Distress Inks - Chipped Sapphire.
4. Stamp images with Sapphire ink.

Pretty simple but love the effect of the grey ink directly applied to the cardstock in random areas.

We have a great sponsor this week at the PDCC Crafty Individuals.  They provided the Design Team with stamps and a prize for the winner of the challenge.

Each design team member selected a different stamp set. You will have to go check out what they did with the colors and their stamp set!

Play Date Cafe design team

Sarah Anderson

Ruby 2 Shoes

Savannah O'Gwynn
Andrea Ewen

Julie Ranae

Lisa Somerville

I always enjoy seeing how people interpret and use the colors for the challenge. So many inspirational ideas! Have a wonderful Thursday!

Suzz

Play Date Cafe Challenge #47

This week Sarah selected  the great photo and inspiration colors for the Play Date Cafe challenge.

Isn't that house so sweet with it's turquoise door and trim? .

Combine the fun color combination with the wonderful stamps (Doodles & Daters) that our sponsor provided this week and you get this:

Our sponsor this week is Paperbag Studios.  I was thrilled to learn they were sponsoring our challenge. Love their stamps and was so excited to be able to use them in the challenge.

This card has a little story behind it. My friend and fellow design team member Lisa was able to come over and spend the day chatting, laughing and inking. We had a lot of fun and laughter.  During the day we both were working on our cards for this week's challenge. The images were stamped and our papers were selected.  At that point we decided to swap cards to finish the design.   The card you see above was really a collaboration of effort between me and Lisa. Thanks Lisa!  

Paperbag Studios is offering a wonderful prize to this week's winner.  A $25.00 gift certificate!

We also are lucky to have Roben-Marie, the owner and a designer of Paperbag Studios as our guest designer  this week! Make sure to stop over and see her creation at the PDCC.

The rest of the design team created some lovely projects using the same set of stamps and colors:

Play Date Cafe design team

Sarah Anderson

Ruby 2 Shoes

Savannah O'Gwynn
Andrea Ewen

Julie Ranae

Lisa Somerville

Have a fabulous Thursday!

Suzz

Play Date Cafe Challenge #45

It's Julie's turn this week to select the colors at the PDCC this week.  Look at the picture she selected this time, it looks like a barrel of fun. (Sorry I couldn't resist) Now I am thinking of the song "Roll out the Barrel" and of the Polka. :)

Love the colors. I know my red photographed a lot lighter than it is in real life. :)

I created two different cards to share. The first one is a mini card. It measures around 4" x 4". I was playing with this lovely background stamp from Hero Arts and liked how this little card came out. It will be a perfect card to house a gift card for one of the nieces. :)

 
The second card was created just for fun with a hen and her little chicks.

The stamps are from a variety of different companies and a few that I had never used. So I was very happy to pull them out and ink them up!

We have a fab guest designer this week... Sankari Wegman you can find her blog here: Sankari's Sunshine Corner.
As usual our Design Team has some great ideas that they have brewed up too!  We are also welcoming Andrea Ewen to our team. Welcome Andrea!

Play Date Cafe design team

Sarah Anderson

Ruby 2 Shoes

Savannah O'Gwynn
Andrea Ewen

Julie Ranae

Lisa Somerville

Hope you get a chance to join in the fun!

Suzz

Play Date Cafe Challenge #44

Sarah selected  the colors this week at the  Play Date Cafe Challenge.

She schemed up these colors to try to pair together colors that don't seem to work together easily.

Here is the color challenge photo:

using the colors Hot Pink, Mustard and Navy Blue...

I think my blue might be a tad light but otherwise I tried to stick close to the colors provided. 

I started with the main image had fun putting together my scene. I then decided to create an unusual way to display my card by turning the Easel card on it's side.

and putting a sentiment on the inside.  I really liked how it turned out. I will have to do this again. The only downside is it is difficult to photograph.

I also created an ATC with the same colors and using a collage stamp. I was pleased with how it turned out.

The other design team members have also created something wonderful projects using these unusual colors.

Sarah Anderson

Ruby 2 Shoes

Savannah O'Gwynn
Stephanie Kraft

Julie Ranae

Lisa Somerville

 Our fun  guest designer this week is Elise and her lovely  creation can be found at her blog Mama Cow Creations.

Our sponsor this week is Memory Box go over to the Cafe to see what the prize is.

We are also saying farewell to Stephanie Kraft.  I will miss her and her wonderful designs. She has been great to work with and I hope we get to do so again in the future.

This is going to be a fun challenge with these interesting color choices. Have a lovely Thursday.

Suzz

Play Date Cafe Challenge #43

Julie selected  the fun colors this week at the  Play Date Cafe Challenge from this wonderful picture from Martha Stewart. 

What a fun picture! Love those flags and saving that idea for a future card. :)

I started with my alcohol inks and blended together Willow, Juniper, Blending Solution and created a background on glossy cardstock. After the background dries, stamp script using StaZon blue solvent ink.  The dragonflies are stamped on light blue cardstock with green ink. Little glitter and some pearls and the dragonflies are ready to take flight. :)

The grass and sentiment are Stampin Up. They are stamped using StaZon green and blue inks.

Go check out the  other wonderful entries from the rest of the design team:

Play Date Cafe design team

Sarah Anderson

Ruby 2 Shoes

Savannah O'Gwynn
Stephanie Kraft

Julie Ranae

Lisa Somerville

 and our fun  guest designer this week is Paul B, and take a look at his  blog The Artsiders . 

Our sponsor this week is Creative Inspirations Paints who is offering up 12 jars of paint as our prize this week!

Can't wait to see the entries using these great colors.

Suzz

Play Date Cafe Challenge #42

Sarah selected  the fun colors this week at the  Play Date Cafe Challenge.  

I was inspired by the rich warm colors to make a masculine card. I searched around in my images drawer and found this image of the men fishing. 

And pulled out the scrap cardboard and everything fell into place quickly after that.

Here is another project using the colors from this week.

I heat embossed my die cut four times with the embossing powder. I then inked up the Hero Arts Three ferns with versamark and while the embossing powder was hot stamped it in to create an impression.  I then had an inspiration and added a layer of brown embossing powder into the fern impression and heated it up.  Very cool!  I then created a mini journal with pages to capture photos.

Now go take a look at all the other fabulous entries from the rest of the design team:

Play Date Cafe design team

Sarah Anderson

Ruby 2 Shoes

Savannah O'Gwynn

Julie Ranae

Lisa Somerville

 and our fabulous guest designer this week is Elise Durenberger, go check out her blog Mamacow Creations .  Our sponsor this week is Memory Box who is offering a lovely prize!

Hope to see you over at the Play Date Cafe!

Suzz

Play Date Cafe Challenge #41

This week at the  Play Date Cafe Challenge  Julie selected a picture of an Italian village. I was immediately inspired by the rich colors and the photo.  

After a few variations my village ended up looking like this.

Very simple rustic little village with lots of houses on the hill-side. Love this stamp and have played with it before but never finished it for a card so pleased to finally create a card with it!

Products:

• Hero Arts - Village
• Hero Arts - Life is not Perfect 
• Ranger Distress Ink - Fire Brick Red
• Watercolor Pencil - Golden Brown
• Raffia

Now go take a look at all the other fabulous entries from the rest of the design team:

Play Date Cafe design team

Sarah Anderson

Ruby 2 Shoes

Savannah O'Gwynn

Julie Ranae

Lisa Somerville

Our wonderful guest designer this week is Paul B.

Looking forward to what inspiration the photo and colors bring to you.

Suzz

Play Date Cafe Challenge #40 - Color Splash

This week is a color splash week at the  Play Date Cafe Challenge and  Sarah selected a lovely photo for the inspiration.  

Onto the sponsor for this weeks challenge!

Memory Box

I may be a little biased... But I was thrilled that Memory Box is sponsoring us this week.  They are providing a lovely prize.  I am also posting another card over on the Memory  Box Design Team blog Outside the Box today with the PDCC colors following our theme this week.

The Play Date Cafe Challenge design team had a couple of beautiful Memory Box butterflies to choose from this week to create their cards. I had the additional advantage of having the rest of the Memory Box stamps to play with as well.  Here is what I came up with:

I ended up with three projects as once I got started I couldn't stop.  Here is my other project:

To see the third project you will have to pop over to the Outside the Box blog and take a look. :)

The acetate and stamping was fun and something I don't do a lot of. So I really enjoyed using the acetate on all my projects.  (After I had created my cards I saw that Savannah had used acetate too!)

One tip on the alcohol inks and the StazOn Ink, you can stamp the solvent ink over the alcohol inks after they are dry.  Don't try putting the alcohol inks/blending solution onto the StazOn or it will dissolve. (I didn't do it this time around but when I first played with these items together you know I did!) 

Products:

• Memory Box - Elemental Damask C1390
• Memory Box - Vintage Scroll E1388
• Memory Box - Damask Butterfly D1350
• Memory Box - You are So Sweet B1374
• Memory Box - Wishing you the Happiest Birthday - B1354
• Versamark
• Hero Arts - Clear Tag
• May Arts - Silk Ribbons
• Ranger Embossing Powder - Lettuce
• StazOn - Jet Black
• Versafine - Black Onyx, Smokey Grey
• Memento - London Fog
• Ranger Alcohol Inks - Lettuce, Citrus
• Ranger - Alcohol Blending Solution
• Cuttlebug Embossing Folder

Play Date Cafe design team

Sarah Anderson

Stephanie Kraft

Ruby 2 Shoes

Savannah O'Gwynn

Julie Ranae

Lisa Somerville

Hope to see you over in the Cafe this week!

Suzz

Play Date Cafe Challenge #39

Julie selected the colors this week for the Play Date Cafe Challenge.   I have been wanting to create a card with just these colors.  There is nothing more stunning than all neutral tones and punch of black.    Here are the inspiration photos.

Here is my card using the inspiration colors. I felt like I could have made several cards using this color combination and probably will in the near future.

Love these mushrooms from Cornish Heritage Farms, when I ordered them I wasn't sure how I was going to use them and already have inked them up twice.   The butterflies and ladybugs are from Hero Arts. The lined paper stamp on the background is also Cornish Heritage Farms. (I stocked up since they are closing their doors and I love their stamps).

The inks are Hero Arts Shadow Ink Soft Sand, Ranger Distress Inks - Antique Linen, Versafine Black Onyx.

I used watercolor pencils to color in all my images and added a touch of this fun black glitter from Clearsnap.

The lovely sentiment is from StampScapes.

Now onto some really important stuff...

Like our fabulous sponsor...

Unity Stamps

who is offering up not one, not two but three stamp sets (retail value 75.00!) as the prize for one winner this week on the PDCC! Which sets you ask....

and

Aren't they adorable?

We also have a fantastic Guest Designer this week..

Maren Bendedict who you can find sharing her wonderful work on her blog Zany Not Crazy.

If you need any further inspiration we have our own wonderful PDCC design team creating their share of gorgeousness. Go check out their blogs.

Sarah Anderson

Stephanie Kraft

Ruby 2 Shoes

Savannah O'Gwynn

Julie Ranae

Lisa Somerville

I think this color combo is going to have so many fun projects and I can't wait to see the projects using the PDCC colors!


Suzz

Play Date Cafe Challenge #37

Look at the beautiful picture that Julie selected for this weeks challenge at the Play Date Cafe Challenge.  This weeks the colors are drawn from the picture and no color swatches. :) So you get to pick your inspiration from the color palette.

This week's picture fit right in with some fun trim I just purchased and wanted to use on a card.

The Cosmo Cricket Material Girl paper was a perfect match for the beautiful trim. Not only that but I love the rulers lines as it reminded me of the shelves in the inspiration photo.

I had the trim, the paper with the cut out circle, the dress form and the sentiment all figured out. Then I got stuck, I stamped the other images and didn't know what to do with them. I walked up to my daughter Tanya and asked her to figure out how to use the pieces on the card. I walked back 5 minutes later and voila!  She had placed the items just as you see them.

So nice to have a backup designer in the house!

Products:

• Hero Arts - Sew Artsy, Simple Handmade 
• Versafine - Toffee
•  Ranger Distress Inks - Wild Honey
• Hero Arts - Shadow Ink - Soft Sand
• Cosmo Cricket - Material Girl

Mariana Grigsby  is also joining us in the challenge this week as our guest designer!  We also have a fun prize from Jelly Bean Designs! 

The rest of the design team also created some beautiful projects using the inspiration colors. 

Sarah Anderson

Stephanie Kraft

Ruby 2 Shoes

Savannah O'Gwynn

Julie Ranae

Lisa Somerville

I think this week is going to be fun to see how everyone interprets and uses the color palette!

Suzz

Play Date Cafe Challenge #36 - Birdcage Fun

Love the colors Julie selected for this weeks challenge at the Play Date Cafe Challenge. I was thinking romance and if you look at her pictures they are for a wedding I think. :)

The Design Team also decided to challenge ourselves and play around with a few other elements. I won't say what they were but if you pop over to the Cafe you can see what else we decided to include as a common theme.  While you are over there check out the new badges for the PDDC!

Onto my cards for the challenge. Yep! Not one but two cards this week all for the price of one!

The first one was created with a touch of grey as my neutral color.  I loved how it turned out but then decided I wanted to try something else...  

My second card was created using a mask.  I created a mask from acetate using the Ranger Birdcage Die cut from Sizzix. 

Loved how they both turned out and they ended up looking very similar in design. :)

  Kelly Marie Alvarez  is also joining us in the challenge this week as our guest designer!  She is also sponsoring our challenge this week with a fabulous prize from her new release which will be available at Lawn Fawn! 

The rest of the design team also created some beautiful projects using the inspiration colors. 

Sarah Anderson

Stephanie Kraft

Ruby 2 Shoes

Savannah O'Gwynn

Julie Ranae

Lisa Somerville

Can't wait to see what other people create for the challenge this week using the colors.

Suzz

Play Date Cafe Challeng # 35 - Sunset

Look at the picture Sarah selected as the inspiration for this weeks challenge at the Play Date Cafe Challenge. So very fun!

I loved the colors together and the streaking on the chairs. It inspired me to pull out my dye inks and a sheet of acetate.  To see if I could achieve the streaks of color.  I made around 6 different background papers but I ended up using this background. 

Recipe:

1. Start with your lightest color first, for me this was the blue ink pad. Turn the ink pad so you can drag a corner of the ink pad across the acetate. This will leave a nice streak of ink. Repeat a few more times with the same ink and leave room for other colors in between.
2. Take your next color (mine was orange) and repeat the dragging of the ink being careful to leave space between the stripes. 
3. Repeat the inking process with the remaining colors (red, brown).
4. Spritz the ink with water over the entire sheet of acetate to get the ink fluid. 
5. Lay your paper on and pull off.  You can also flip the acetate and move the ink with your fingers.
6. Let dry.
7. Stamp images and sentiment using brown pigment ink.
8. Stamp butterflies using teal pigment ink and add stickles.

This week I am sharing a few pictures of my crafty space.  My craft space is in our former office area with the family computer.  This means I have many visitors in my craft area including our two dogs (Emma and Harry). 

My craft space is in the midst of some re-work. My DH has promised me some storage which won't get created until winter. (Indoor projects as he calls them) So be prepared for some overflowing containers and a little chaos.

When you come into the room on the left wall there is a book shelf and  next to it a variety  of plastic storage containers.

The bookshelf contains my flowers, sprays, copics,  mists, re-inkers and some of my punches. The plastic containers hold cardstock, embossing powders, stamps, punches, extra inks, scraps from cards that never got completed, more stamps and misc embellishments. 

The area directly across from the doors is my main desk area and a shelving unit. 

My desk is made from a piece of countertop that is awaiting the storage my hubby will make.The plastic containers under the desk contain stamps and 12 x 12 pattern paper/cardstock.  The bins on the right contain ribbons, punches and envelopes.  Where my feet are supposed to go you will see two scrap bins, one for white scraps and the other is all different colors sorted by colors. 

On top of my desk I have an inkpad holder that my DH made and I love it! I probably could use another one. I try to keep the supplies I use all the time on the desktop. I still have plenty of room to work with.  (from this picture you can't see that. :) 

On the right side of the room the embossing/cutting station and the family computer are located.

Hope you enjoyed the tour of my crafty space. 

  Lucy Abrams  is also joining us in the challenge this week as our guest designer! Lucy is fantastic and I was so happy to find out that she was guest designing for us.

The rest of the design team also created some beautiful projects using the inspiration colors. 

Sarah Anderson

Stephanie Kraft

Ruby 2 Shoes

Savannah O'Gwynn

Julie Ranae

Lisa Somerville

Last weeks challenge entries were all wonderful and can't wait to see the entries this week.

Suzz

Play Date Cafe Challenge #34 - Splash of Color

Julie selected the inspiration for the color splash weeks challenge at the Play Date Cafe Challenge. I love the color splash challenges! Highlighting one color with blacks, whites, and greys is always inspiring to me.

I needed to create a graduation card for my niece what a better way to use the black and white that are usually associated with graduation and popping in a little blue!

This was a lot of fun to create as I knew I was going to create a grid card and got to come up with different images and accents for the grids. I do have to give Nancy a shout out as the cloud background was inspired from her fun card.

The challenge this week is hosted by Lisa and she is going to share some pictures of her crafting area. I can't wait to take a peek. I am always interested in people's craft spaces.

Our sponsor this week is Limelight go to the PDCC to see the fab prize.   Mandy Cheshire  is also joining us in the challenge this week as our guest designer!
The rest of the design team created some awesome projects using the splash of color. 

Sarah Anderson

Stephanie Kraft

Ruby 2 Shoes

Savannah O'Gwynn

Mona Pendleton

Julie Ranae

Lisa Somerville

Look forward to seeing your interpretation of the colors!

Suzz