Honoring a Very Special Mother

The title of this post on Mother's Day may lead you to believe that I am honoring my Mother.  While my Mother could be titled the best mother of all time, I hope that I honor her every day.  This post is dedicated to my mother's cousin and she holds a very special place in my heart.  She recently became the grandmother to the most beautiful twin boys.  After that joyous event, she was diagnosed with primary peritoneal cancer.  Things have moved quickly, she just had surgery to remove what they could and will begin chemo this week.  I am praying that she will have many years to come to spend with those beautiful babies and grace the rest of us with the joy she brings.  This card is for her.

I am playing along with 2 challenges today.  The challenge at Simon Says Wednesday Challenge is "Lets Get Sentimental" and requests that Tim Holtz products be included.  The second challenge is a fabulous sketch at TGIF Challenges.

  

The banner on the card was created by direct stamping a Versamark pad over the Tim Holtz Lace stencil.  I randomly sprinkled Tim Holtz Broken China and Dried Marigold distress embossing powder and a few sprinkle of Adirondack Espresso embossing powder.  I heat set and then slightly distressed the cooled embossing powder.  The main panel is Stampin Up Pool Party card stock in which I direct stamped a Stampin Up Illuminate pad over the Tim Holtz Lace stencil to subtly mimic the design on the banner.  The main panel and banner were matted with Stampin Up Early Espresso card stock.  The sentiment is from Stampin Up Best of Greetings and was stamped on Pool Party and embossed with the Espresso embossing powder.  The sentiment was layered on a piece of peach card stock from my stash which was cut with the Labels Collection Framelits from Stampin Up.  I ran an Early Espresso marker around the edge to make it stand out a bit more.  My final embellishment was a knotted and flagged piece of Stampin Up Early Espresso Quilted Satin ribbon.

Here is a close up of the sentiment and the texture on the banner piece.  I love the juxtaposition of the rough distress embossing with the floral image of the stencil.

Happy Stamping,

Dana

Mother's Love for Fab Friday

I'm a late bloomer with Stampin' Up's 2013-2015 In Colors.  I was immediately drawn to Baked Brown Sugar as I am always interested in great neutral colors (so excited to see the new Tip Top Taupe).  However, I'm not much of a pastel gal and I saw these colors as pretty pastel.  I have been busy working on decorations and favors for our niece's wedding and her colors closely match Crisp Cantaloupe and Mossy Meadow.  I'm now a convert of this collection of colors now that they are going away. As such, I thought I would play along at Fab Friday as they are honoring these outgoing colors.

I stamped the flower stem from Stampin' Up's Mother's Love set in Baked Brown Sugar on very vanilla, the leaves are in Pistachio Pudding and the flowers in Crisp Cantaloupe.  I added a few Pistachio Pudding splatters with the Gorgeous Grunge set.  The wavy lines on the main panel are from the Chalk Lines set and then embossed with the Lovely Lace embossing folder.  Both the main panel and the flower panel were matted with Baked Brown Sugar. A simple bow of crochet trim finishes off the card.

I hope you enjoyed my card and thanks for stopping by!

Happy Stamping

Dana

You Made My Day with #TGIFC01

Welcome all!  I decided to participate in a brand new challenge at TGIF.  The design team at TGIF is amazingly talented and I have quietly followed many of their blogs for some time now.  My very best wishes to them for great success on this new endeavor.

This week is a color challenge and I immediately fell in love with the color combination even though I don't think I would have thought to pair these three together.  Take a look at the inspiration projects from the design team as well as the challenge participants and I suspect you will fall in love with this color combo as well.  Here are the challenge colors:

And here is my interpretation of those colors:

I used the Stampin Up Nature's Perfection set to create my card.  I stamped the wild flower stem in crushed curry on a piece of whisper white and matted it on pool party card stock.  I embossed the large flower image on crushed curry twice with calypso coral embossing powder and lightly water colored  a little calypso coral for added dimension.  I fussy cut and layered the images with dimensionals.  I also embossed the sentiment from Stampin Up A Dozen Thoughts in calypso coral and ran through my big shot with the Project Life framelits.  I also layered this on a scrap of pool party.  I hope you enjoyed my card and I wish you a fabulous day!

Happy Stamping,
Dana

I'm a Lurker

Ok, I'll admit it, I've been a lurker for some time now.  I would occasionally dip my toes in the water and post a comment on a blog or share my work with others.  My observations of the paper crafting community is that there are some amazingly talented and creative people out there.  But even more than that is the spirit of the community, the generosity, the friendships and kindness I have seen.  I want to be a part of that and hope to be a more active participant.  I have quietly participated in challenges, CASED and obtained inspiration from so many blogs.  I admit, I'm having fun trying my hand as in a more active role.

I needed a birthday card for Glen's niece.  I wanted something slightly whimsical without being fussy so I selected the Because You Care stamp set by Stampin Up.  I was challenged with the direction to go with color.  I knew I didn't want pink for this particular card and remembered the fun colors in the colorQ challenge.  Out of this process this card was born and my entry in this challenge.

My thanks to those who take the time to stop by and to those who create and participate in the challenges that give so many of us inspiration!

Happy Stamping,
Dana

Bokeh Technique

I've been anxious to try the bokeh technique that has been so popular lately and I finally got around to it and here is my interpretation.  I hope you enjoy it and have a wonderful day!

Hi All,
Glen and I recently celebrated our 18th Anniversary and I thought I would share the card I made for him.  This was such a fun card to make!  The car is cut from a Marianne Design die, which is so fun with the gold foil paper as it really highlights the built in embossing feature of these dies.

The heart gold foil vellum was layered over whisper white cardstock.  The "love" and little hearts were cut from Blackberry Bliss paper and embossed with clear embossing powder to give them a little extra dimension.

I hope you enjoyed this card, Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoy a fantastic day!

Dana

Well, life has gotten in the way and I haven't taken to blogging as I originally hoped.
I was spending some time checking on some of my favorite blogs and came across Darnell's NBUS (never before used schtuff) blog and thought I might just have to play along.  I needed a gift bag and thought of the lovely SU Butterfly Basics bundle I purchased a while back but haven't yet had the opportunity to use.  I was lucky enough to get it before it went on back order.  I love, love, love this set!  It was so easy to create this gift bag and it just seemed to come together on it's own.  I am thrilled with the results.

Click here to go to Darnell's NBUS Blog!