Happy Nurse's Day!

To all my fellow nurses in blogland...Happy Nurse's Day! Yes, we still call the shots and to me, it's still a great profession and I don't regret for one minute that I became a nurse! When I saw Maureen's sketch for the Viva la Verve challenge, I knew I wanted to use this digi image from Prairie Fairy Designs. Isn't she a hoot?! I colored her with Copics and layered 3 wonky rectangles (love the name of those Nesties!), added seam binding and a computer-generated sentiment. I added Crystal Effects to her glasses. I also discovered a new (to me) challenge called Fairy Fun Fridays, so I'm entering this card into their #52 "Here Come the Girls" challenge. That's all from me...gotta get back to some cleaning.
PAPER: Modern Homemaker by October Afternoon, Hawaiian Shores by PTI, White

Flower Power

This week's challenge at Raise the Bar is a flower theme and we are to use 3 different floral papers. I used the Mojo Monday sketch challenge for the card layout and chose papers from the Stella & Rose "Gertie" papers by My Mind's Eye. Floral images are the first ones I tend to grab...no matter what the challenge - guess that's why you don't see many masculine cards in my gallery - lol! I combined old and new Verve on this card - old flowers from the Great Friend set and new leaves from Bloom and Grow and new sentiment from Faithful Phrases. The edges of the flowers were sponged with Rose Red ink and the layers were popped with foam dots. What else did I use?
Baker's twine, SU scallop edge punch, Hodge Podge Hardware from SU, SU small oval punch, Leaves die from Verve, Kaiser silver pearls, Seeing Dots EF, Rose Red grosgrain ribbon (SU).
It's a beautiful, sunny day and I'm off work...heading out to do some shopping. Have a great day blog friends!

For Your inspiration

It's time for another picture inspiration on the For Your Inspiration blog and this time, Steph has chosen a gorgeous castle with a dramatic sky. The grayish clouds reminded me of large scallops in the sky, so that's what inspired me to layer the 3 rows of scallops using a Die-namic border die. I could only imagine some classical music wafting from the windows of this majestic building, so that's how I came to use a music BG. The weathered stone of the building led me to distress my card with sponging as well as roughing up the edges. Not sure what inspired me to use the dark pink, except I needed a pop of color besides the touch of green - lol! I'm anxious to see how you would interpret this picture, so join in on the fun and post your creation HERE.
What did I use?
STAMPS: Music BG by Me & Carrie Lou, Hope Blooms by Verve - flowers, Bloom & Grow by Verve - leaves.
PAPER: Raspberry Fizz, Simply Chartreuse, True Black, Neenah Classic Crest Solar White, scraps of DP for scalloped borders - ? source.
INK: Versafine Onyx Black.
ACCESSORIES: Leaves die from Verve, Satin Ribbon (PTI), Button, Baker's twine, Lace trim, Large scallop Die-Namic (MFT), Wonky Rectangle Nesties, Rhinestone, Distressing tool, Sponge.

I have to give credit to my good friend, Teresa Kline, for also inspiring this card. I CASED one of her beautiful shabby chic creations that I fell in love with...unfortunately, I don't have a link to her card, but I will link you to her blog if you want to see an endless parade of beautiful cards!

CTD & MFTWSC

I always look forward to the MFT Wednesday Sketch Challenge and combined it with the Color Throwdown challenge to use Blushing Bride, Early Espresso, Kraft, & Baja Breeze. Here's where I'm hoping the challenge police won't come after me. The blue is more of a greenish blue, but in my defense...I did sponge the edges of the leaves with Baja Breeze ink...that should count, right? A MS doily tag was layered on a Jillibean Soup corrugated frame. Roses were made using a petal roller tool on 3 different die cut pieces - love those dies from MFT! Here's what else I used...
STAMPS: Sentiment by Verve (retrieved this tag from my scrap pile and don't recall the set it came from).
PAPER: Blushing Bride, Early Espresso, Neenah Classic Crest Solar White, DP by My Mind's Eye (Stella & Rose "Mabel" line).
INK: Baja Breeze, Chocolate Chip
ACCESSORIES: Corrugated frame (Jillibean Soup), Doily tag (MS), Rolled rose and mini rolled roses dies (MFT), Foliage Shapeabilities by Spellbinders, Butterfly punch (MS), Dazzling Diamonds glitter, Blushing Bride ribbon (SU), Arch Lattice border punch (MS), Border die by Tim Holtz, Corduroy brads.

Pinwheel for the CC

I'm finally getting to play for the Color Challenge on SCS where Betty has given us some delightful colors this week: Cherry Cobbler, Crumb Cake, Black, Ivory or White with a dessert option to add sparkle and shine. As you can see, I declined dessert! Wish that were true IRL - lol! I embossed the kraft panel with a new butterfly EF by Sizzix...hard to see it in the photo. The leaves are die cut using Spellbinders' Foliage Shapeabilities. The pinwheel flower was die cut using Laura Pryor's new die at Lil' Inker Designs. The coordinating sentiment is also from her company. We've been without power most of the morning, so it was interesting making this card in semi-darkness as there are no windows in my craft room...only the sunlight that came through the doorway. Have a great day!
PAPER: Jolly Holiday by SU, Simply Chartreuse (PTI), Crumb Cake, True Black

Teapot Tuesday

The teapotters are to bring cottages and flowers this week...cottages for the royal newlyweds to peruse for a possible future home and flowers to keep Realtor Rose happy! For all the details of Mothermark's adventure, you can read more HERE. I had no cottage images in all my gazillion stamps, so had to resort to this DP from SU's Welcome Neighbor pack. A bit of floral trim, a couple of Verve flowers with brads and some die cut leaves made this a quick and easy one!
STAMPS: Hope Blooms (Verve)
PAPER: Pumpkin Pie, Welcome Neighbor 6x6 pad (SU)
INK: Versafine Onyx Black
ACCESSORIES: Trim by Wrights, Brads by American Crafts, Foliage Shapeabilities by Spellbinders.
This week's card destination is to Charlotte in Everett, Washington...a friend of a fellow teapotter who is in end stages of cancer and could use some cheering up.
Don't forget to join in the Last But Not Least sketch challenge on Deb Horst's blog...we'd love to have you play with my sketch...you have until the end of May to join in!

CAS CASE of Susan

Susan, aka LateBlossom, is the featured stamper on SCS this week. She has a fabulous CAS gallery and initiates the weekly CAS favorites thread in the general stamping forum. I admire those stampers who consistently create stunning CAS cards as I'm one of those insane embellishers and layerers! LOL! I chose to CASE this card. I used a different BG stamp, different sentiment and used faux buttons instead of flowers. This card also uses today's CAS Color Challenge to use chocolate, sand, baby blue & white. Yes...this is a ONE layer card! :-) Here's what I used:
STAMPS: Plaid Background Block by Hero Arts; Jeremiah 29:11 by Verve.
PAPER: Neenah Solar White, Crumb Cake
INK: Soft Sky, Chocolate Chip
ACCESSORIES: Large corrugated button by Jillibean Soup, Button Die-namics by MFT, Satin ribbon, Lace.