Mojo Monday Hope Blooms Birthday Card

I wanted to use the largest flower in the Verve "Hope Blooms" set for this week's Mojo Monday #398 sketch below. Typical spring colors just didn't appeal to me. Somehow the first three colors from the DRS Challenge photo below seemed natural for this flower. Here's the result using Verve stamps and scraps of CTMH papers.

         

I stamped the flower with CTMH Black dye ink and let it dry for a few minutes before coloring it. I colored it with several Copic markers, three yellow Copic markers and two yellow red Copic markers. After cutting it out  I also cut along the lines to separate each petal.

I used several items starting with the letter "B" for the Scribbles Design Challenge. In addition to the Hope Blooms stamp and the Birthday sentiment, I used seven black buttons of different sizes. The burlap ribbon was from CTMH an I wish I remembered where I got the spool of twine. It's thin and really easy to thread through buttons and to tie.  The leaf was cut from Spellbinders Shapeabilities "Foliage" die.

Thank you for visiting! May the Lord bless and keep you!

I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:

Creative Knockouts #90 - Sentimentally Yours
DRS Thursday Challenge #175 -colors above
Little Red Wagon #290 - To Die For - use one or more dies
Mojo Monday #398 - sketch
Scrapy Land Challenge #18 - Birthday + any brand die sold by Scrapy Land (mine is Spellbinders)
Scribbles Designs Challenge #29 - B is for . . . (black buttons, burlap, birthday, bloom)
Southern Girls #111 - Spots and Dots

Inchies Floral Birthday Card

God has blessed me with so many lovely friends. I think about them all the time even when I don't get to see them. Here's a card I made for one today.

If you're a papercrafter, do you have a lot of leftover scraps like I do? I was trying to decide what to do with a bag of leftover "inchies"  when I saw the challenge and inspiration at Speedy Fox and Friends/ Mark's Finest Papers. They gave me the idea for this card for a friend's birthday. I included a strip of Basic Grey that had different colored sections of checks that were about the same size as my inchy squares. All of the papers I used were from my scraps drawers.

I stamped the retired CTMH flower stamp using retired Cotton Candy ink and the center with Sunset Ink.  The stem and leaves were stamped with Sweet Leaf ink then shaded and slightly enlarged with Copic marker YG25. Just outside the center of the flower I shaded with a little Copic marker RV00 and drew details along the center of each petal with R83, Rose Mist. Here's the close-up that also shows the Liquid Pearls I dotted on the center.

The embellishments were retired Bubblegum pink organdy, pink and green glitter cardstock, and pink glitter gems, all from CTMH. The orange patterned DP and the base of green dotted DP are both from CTMH and the checked/plaid paper was Basic Grey.

Thank you for visiting! May our loving God bless and keep you and yours4!

I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:

Come and Get It - Ribbon and Bling
Marker Pop - flowers (colored with Copic Markers)
Monday Morning Challenge #6 - Pretty Flowers
Speedy Fox and Friends #262 - make a background with inchies
Stamp and Create - May Flowers
Stamping Sensations May Challenge - Flower Power
Stamps and Fun = Creativity #250 - use 3 designer papers
TimbroScrapMania #109 - flowers

ODBD Shining the Light - Encouragement

My husband's aunt is in her 90's. She's always been an exceptionally lovely person, both in appearance and in spirit. I've always admired her gentle, cheerful, kindness. But now we're being told that she's dying. Her daughter is going through what I did a few years ago. Faced with the imminent death of a beloved parent can be so difficult. I've been sick and couldn't/shouldn't expose her, so instead of visiting, I made this card with encouraging words. She's an only child so the burden must be difficult with no one else to share the pain. But I know she has Someone Who is always there, sharing and easing the pain. So I wanted her to know I'm lifting her up in prayer, but so is the Lord.  Here's the message of the sentiment I used:

May you feel His hands

lifting you up in prayer

during this difficult time.

The stamp set is one from Our Daily Bread Designs called Lift Up Your Hands. The hands were part of that set, but can be found now as a single here.

I used the sketch from Our Daily Bread Designs Shining the Light Challenge #238 and the color challenge #250 from Pals Paper Arts.

  

Here's a close-up of the unique butterfly from Petaloo and the CTMH sparkles (although the photo's blue colors are off on this one. The blue isn't really violet.):

Thank you for visiting! May the message of this card encourage you or help you to encourage someone else. 

I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:
Come and Get It - Ribbon and bling
Craft for the Craic - May-Wings
Our Daily Bread Designs Shining the Light Challenge #238 - sketch above
Pals Paper Arts Challenge #251 - color challenge above
Quick Quotes #51 - add flower or butterfly (both of mine are from Petaloo)
Word Art Wednesday #183 - anything uplifting and family friendly

Papers - My Mind's Eye Kate & Co "Cambidge Court;"  Close To My Heart Hopscotch PML card (the one with sentiment); CTMH Twilight and white daisy cardstock
Stamp - ODBD "Lift Up Your Hands"
Inks - CTMH Crystal Blue, Black
Embellishments - CTMH long retired pink gingham ribbon, sparkles flourish; Petaloo butterfly and pink flower

Taste of Summer Layout 3 - Coolin' Off

Sometimes I have photos with colors that don't seem to match any paper I have, so I postpone scrapbooking them. I just discovered that the CTMH special this month had paper that matched yellow, purple, and juniper colors at one of the parks where I take my grandkids. This park has a water park feature where they get wet, then they play on the equipment to dry off. It's hard to believe that in six days they'll be out of school for the summer and I'll be taking them on our little "field trips" each day.

Summer photos of activities like picnics or parties could work well with this paper, too. I hope this will give you some ideas of your own. (If you'd like to see my Taste of Summer Layout 1 and Layout 2 here are their links. I have three more that I'm working on, too.)

Here's a close-up of the left page. You can see the yellow glitter cardstock behind the stamped lemons. The white glitter tape and gold sequins go well with these papers.

The right page:

If you have the Close To My Heart Artbooking cartridge and the Explore, you can find these die cuts on my Taste of Summer Design Space file.

Thank you for visiting! I'm sharing this layout with the following challenge:

Moving Along with the Times - Get fruity

Mojo Monday for Much Happiness

Here's a card I made for a dear friend who inspires me with her art as well as her life. In her art, she always shares the new techniques and materials she uses. I seem to hear the latest from her before I see it on the web! In life, we share the same Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and the physical challenges we both face as well as the way He answers our prayers. What a blessing she is!

I used some of my old Basic Grey papers and ribbon (the one on top). I chose these three colors from the challenge at Just Us Girls:  TEAL, YELLOW, and GREEN. The ribbon and the inked edges have just a bit of  CORAL. The sketch is from Mojo Monday this week. To continue the green theme challenge from Clear It Out, I used a green scalloped circle stamped with New England Ivy ink and one of the flower layers is a green felt flower.  The yellow resin flowers and the teal sequins are from CTMH. The stamp I used is from Verve's "Brighter Days."

 

I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:

Clear It Out - green and my old green stash items - old Basic Grey paper and ribbons, green felt flower
Crafty Boots Challenge - ribbon (or lace)
Crafty Gals Corner #19 - May flowers
Fan-Tastic Tuesday #85 - anything goes (square/rectangular) with twist - add some flowers
Just Us Girls Challenge #293 - use at least 3 of the colors
Mojo Monday #397 - sketch
Word Art Wednesday #183 - anything uplifting, family friendly

Taste of Summer Layout 2 - Sweet Birthday Cake and Cricut File

I discovered a few photos I hadn't scrapbooked showing one of my grandsons discovering his first, sweet birthday cake. I must admit, this grandson was the cleanest of them all. There was only a little icing on his forehead and hand.  Of course, his father was the same way as a baby. He didn't want any mess on his highchair or himself and could eat meals at that age without getting food anywhere, unlike his older sister who was always covered with food! 

I used the CTMH National Scrapbooking Month special paper pack and stamp set, both called Taste of Summer. Oranges were on the front side of one of the patterned papers and the chevron pattern was on the back. Because of the oranges I chose the sentiments "yummy" and  "orange you sweet" from the featured stamp set along with three other stamp sets I'll show below.  Here's the simple layout with these fun photos:

I stamped the honeycomb pattern (Desert Sand ink) and "SWEET as honey" sentiment (Sunset ink) from "Honeycomb."  (Stamps are pictured below post.)

The "Oh My happy" sentiment and the bee and bee line are from a fundraising stamp set for Operation Smile called "Happy Everything."  Three dollars from the purchase goes to Operation Smile. I stamped Sunset ink stripes from an old stamp set to make the middle strip for each page. I wanted a light pattern that wouldn't interfere with the bee and bee line. Here's the close-up.

 The embellishments I used were simply gold sequins and white shimmer trim.

Here's my Cricut Design Space project file that has cuts sized for the stamping on this project. A few of the cuts are for the other layouts I've made and will post throughout the week.

(Taste of Summer Cricut cuts.)

Thank you for visiting!

I'm sharing this project with the following challenges:

613 Avenue Create #123 - anything goes with birthday celebration option
Allsorts Challenge #310 - more than 2 die cuts (mine has 9 separate die cuts)
Crafting When We Can #94 - one for the kids
Inspiration Destination #32 - anything goes
Lil Patch of Crafty Friends #9 - anything goes
Penny's Paper-Crafty Challenge #226 - anything goes
Scrapper's Delights Challenge #44 -  anything goes
The Stamping Boutique - Die cuts (or punches)

Taste of Summer Layout 1 - Grandparents Day Breakfast

They say confession is good for the soul. So I should confess that I've become a hoarder. I seem to hoard photos and papers. So Saturday, on National Scrapbook Day, I printed photos and planned layouts all day to work on this week. Lucky for me, this is also National Scrapbook Month, so I still have time to redeem myself from some of the hoarding! The special this month at Close To My Heart is a paper pack of 12 summer-colored/themed double-sided papers.  By adding white backgrounds, I'm getting at least six layouts so far from this paper. You can find that paper here on my other website.  I also used the special stamp set that goes with the paper.

Here's one of several layouts I'm making this week:

Today the first one is about our breakfast at Grandparents Day at the Christian school where four of my grandchildren attend. It means so much to me as a retired teacher to see them learning a LOT, making dear friends, and learning character qualities that make them such a blessing! Knowing that they have Christian teachers who lead them to follow the Lord through life's ups and downs is priceless. I still need to add journaling strips, but you get the idea.

I stamped the oranges and glued them onto circles of orange glitter cardstock. I also added a few strips of white shimmer trim.  Amazingly, one of the photos had my grandson puckered up ready to kiss his little cousin who was visiting with his other grandma. So of course I used the Pucker Up sentiment from the stamp set as the title. I had extra 6" x 4" photos so I used a flip flap for the extra photos in the bottom right section of this left page.

(The "happy" sentiment is from an Operation Smile fundraising stamp set.)

I'm sharing this layout with the following challenges:

Clear It Out Challenge - anything goes with any old stash (old orange glitter cardstock under oranges)
Inspiration Destination #32 - anything goes challenge
Jo's Scrap Shack Fun-day Friday Challenge #87 - anything goes
Love's Rubber Stamps Challenge #150 - anything goes
Penny's Paper Crafty Challenge #226 - anything goes
Ruby's Rainbow Challenge #103 - anything goes

 Thank you for visiting. Come back each day if you'd like to see more of the Taste of Summer layouts.