Tuesday Morning Sketches Celebration Week 3

Over at Tuesday Morning Sketches a celebration is going on. A year anniversary is happening with challenges that let you pick your own sketch (one of the 52 from the year) to participate. This week's sponsor is Lindsay's Stamp Stuff. They have very cute images over there so be sure to take a peek. And in order to win, be sure to head over to the challenge blog, find a sketch that speaks to you, and create!

Back in February I was a guest designer for Tuesday Morning Sketches. I was just tickled to be asked to design! It was my very first "gig." Now, as a means of celebrating the year previous guest designers were asked to help with each week of the July month by creating a card from their favorite sketch.

Using three images from the Birds & Branches set from Lindsay's Stamp Stuff, the sketch that spoke to me was Sketch #44.

Here's the sketch:

And here's my take:

I decided to fussy cut around the entire image and set it upon some blue Bazzill swiss dot paper. Then, as the theme this week is "thinking of summer," I used some fun patterned paper. I made the card base and my mat to match my coloring of one of the bird houses in the image. The images are super simple to color and even easy to cut out. Thank you, Lindsay's Stamp Stuff, for being this week's sponsor!

Remember, you have until Sunday to get your entry in! Be sure to check out what the other designers did with the summer theme here.

Thanks for stopping by.

CAS Fun

Today just called for a cute and simple (CAS) type of card today. I thought I would finally get to the Swapping Sistahs kit Ren-Yi sent us for June too. Yes, the kit was supposed to be for June, and here it is July! (Sorry Ren-Yi!) Once I dug into it though, and with some inspiration from the latest Tuesday Morning Sketches sketch, this card came together quite easily. Unfortunately I started right away and didn't take a picture of the papers that were sent....oops! I did use three of the four provided and supplemented with some green that went with my focal image, which was part of a patterned paper of birds and birdcages...very cute!

So here's the sketch:

And here's my take:

Enjoy! And be sure to check out the other ladies in our little swap, including 2010 Gallery Idol winner Belinda! Yea, that's right, I know a paper-crafting celebrity...lol!

Working Girl Card

I decided to get one of my stamp sets from Christmas inky today. This stamp set is Who's That Girl - Digital Girl from My Favorite Things. I think this set is a fun take on the working girl. Maybe this girl on my card is Barbie as a Computer Engineer....at least maybe I'd like to think so. And as I'm a computer engineer that likes to stamp, I figured the sentiment was perfect. I put the working girl in a cube, but made sure that she's had a little fun and decorated it with a little framed picture.

This card follows the Tuesday Morning Sketches color challenge, The Pink Elephant's sketch challenge, and has paper piecing (love to paper piece!) for Joanne's Blogaversary challenge. I love having a sketch to follow for layouts or cards and the colors just came as a continuation of Who's That Girl's dress and fancy shoes. :)

Thanks for stopping by!

DETAILS:
Paper - Solids (Martha Stewart, DCWV), Patterns (K&Company)
Image - Who's That Girl - Digital Girl (My Favorite Things), Ink (Colorbox - dragonfly), Technique (paper piecing)
Embellishments - Border punch (Fiskers)
Sketch - The Pink Elephant #55

Tuesday Morning Sketches Guest Designer Week 4!

Can you believe we're already into week 4 of February? I sure can't. Today marks my fourth and last week as a guest designer at Tuesday Morning Sketches. It's been a great month and very fun to go "behind the scenes" of a challenge blog. I now have greater respect for those that put up such great challenges and moderate their design teams. It's a lot of work! Melissa of Tuesday Morning Sketches has been absolutely fabulous and very organized. I don't know how she does it week after week, but she's great at it. :)

So this week's Tuesday Morning Sketches challenge is a little different. We're doing a color challenge this week! The colors this week are Chocolate Chip, Light Orange and Vanilla. Our sponsor this week is InfinimentScrap. Be sure to check them out sometime this week.

Here is my card. I decided to use Waltzingmouse Stamps for this little project. I had not gotten my little house scene stamp from Claire's Irish Blessing set inky yet. Shame on me! I thought the stamp did well on its own with Colorbox cocoa ink and didn't need coloring. I think this lets the card keep to the color requirement better too. What do you think?

With that, I have finished my guest designer role for February. It has been a great experience. Thank you, Melissa! Look for me participating in this great challenge blog in the future. And I hope you consider playing too.


DETAILS:
Paper - Orange Solid (Bazzil), Brown (Wausau Papers), Vanilla/Cream (Paper Factory)
Image - Irish Blessings (Waltzingmouse Stamps), Thinking of You (Studio G), Ink (Colorbox - cocoa)
Embellishment - White Gel Pen (Sakura), Dimensionals on sentiment
Sketch - Get Sketchy 26

Tuesday Morning Sketches Guest Designer Week 3!

We're into the third week of February! Can you believe that? It seems that February just started!

I'm coming off a very fun Valentine's Day weekend with my husband, where one of my presents was a handmade card by DH himself!!! I am so special. He worked at my desk while I was away (he shooed me away) and created this beautiful card, even finishing the inside! He also enjoyed his card and mailbox that I had ready for him.

  

Also, while we usually spend a lot of time together at home on the weekends, this past weekend just seemed even more special. While I know others are getting dumped on with lots of snow (not something that I miss in the slightest), here in California we got some nice spring-like weather on Saturday. We were supposed to be working on our iPhone app but it was much too nice to stay inside ALL day!

So we went on a bike ride around the Stevens Creek Trail by the south bay. The trail isn't that far from our house and when we left the busy road and started on the trail it felt as if we were in a different place. Definitely the way to forget that you're in the busy SF Bay Area! We even did some off-trailing and rode in some mud (his idea). Maybe not the best idea, but it was still fun. Here's a picture of DH showing off the mud on his elbow....

Anyway, you might be looking for my Tuesday Morning Sketch card....

Here it is! This week's challenge was a real challenge for me. I had to modify the sketch a little bit so that I made sure to fit in the great image of Audrey from The Stamping Boutique (this week's sponsor). As I don't get to use the color purple much in my projects, especially with my recent project of our Peru Honeymoon book, I thought it fitting to make everything purple for this week's card. All in all, I think the card turned out better than I thought it would. If you can't tell I'm a paper piecing girl and don't pull out my colored pencils very often. I am glad that I got to use some paper from my stash that has been there for quite some time. Thanks again to Melissa and The Stamping Boutique! 

Be sure to check out the challenge this week....it's the judged challenge so you'll want to do your best! A great prize is in store for the winner, the top 5, and then new this week is the opportunity to receive one of the DT's (including this one) cards for free! With those kinds of odds, who wouldn't want to play this week!?!

Thanks for stopping by...

DETAILS:

Paper - Solids (Martha Stewart), Patterned (Paper Pizzaz)

Image - Audrey With Pleated Dress Digi (The Stamping Boutique)

Embellishments - Coloring (Crayola Colored Pencils), Ribbon (Target), Button (Michaels), Twine (Joanns)

Sketch - Tuesday Morning Sketches #33

Tuesday Morning Sketches Guest Designer Week 2!

Thank you everyone for your nice comments about my Tuesday Morning Sketches project for week one of my guest designer position. I'm back again in this post for my week 2 assignment. This week's sponsor is DRS Designs, with the offer to win a $10 gift certificate to one lucky participant in the challenge! Here's the challenge sketch...

This little card was time consuming but a nice change of pace for me. I wanted to check out what all this "sewing on cardstock" stuff was all about, and while I don't have a sewing machine, I thought hand sewing would work just fine. I do like the effect that my jagged little stitch does to the overall effect of this card, but SEWING BY HAND TAKES FOREVER! Add on top of that the bright idea to create my own patterned paper (with stamp H342 Open Heart Border) and paper piecing with Basic Grey Sugar Rush. This is one time consuming card....but it turned out even better than I expected and just how I was imagining it.

A fun part I like about this card is the ability to use one of my other DRS Designs stamps I got awhile back (A420 Tiny Frog). Also, I thought it only appropriate to have a little more fun by completing the inside of the card too.

One consolation for all this work on this card is that even if I did have a sewing machine, I don't know if I would have gotten all these stitches to come out like I did by hand. That circle was hard enough by hand! But I'm not afraid to try a new technique and maybe you'll see more sewing on my cards in the future...

Thank you to Melissa at Tuesday Morning Sketches for the great opportunity to try out this sketch and Cathy at DRS Designs for the stamps and sponsoring!

Hope you enjoyed your visit!

DETAILS:

Paper - Patterned Paper (Basic Grey Sugar Rush 6x6), Solid White (DCWV)

Stamps - H342 Open Heart Border and A420 Tiny Frog (DRS Designs)

Embellishments - Ribbon (Joann's), Dimensionals for circle (3M), Embossing Powder (A La Mode), Glue Pen Handwriting (Sakura)

Techniques - Sketch (Tuesday Morning Sketches #32), Paper piecing, Hand-sewn stitching

Tuesday Morning Sketches Guest Designer!

Woot! If you can't guess by the title of this post, I'm the guest designer over at Tuesday Morning Sketches for the month of February! Melissa asked if I would be on the team for this month way back in November and I've been looking forward to it ever since. :)

Today kicks off my first design team project for Tuesday Morning Sketches. Here's the sketch:

And here's my interpretation:

I thought this sketch went perfectly for a little purse project that I've wanted to do ever since I found the directions here. This is the second little purse that I made and they are just so fun to do. I do find that what makes these great is that the base is merely one full sheet (no cutting) of 12x12 paper. My goal was to find a two-sided 12x12 that allowed me to embellish the sketch on the outside but still be fun on the inside. Here's a picture of the inside:

I love how this Martha Stewart paper has the cross hatch on the outside but then polka dots on the inside. :) The directions are quite simple to follow. My first one had ribbons around the long sides like the directions show, but for this one I wanted to make sure to focus on the sketch elements. The other side has the sketch flipped with another red flower. Velcro self-adhesvies finish the deal and now I have a little purse gift bag for something fun for a friend for Valentine's Day, how great is that?

Now it's your turn. :)

I'd love if you would join me over at Tuesday Morning Sketches for this week's sketch. There's a great prize in store from KL Stampin N Scrappin (two stamps!). There's also much more inspiration on what to do with Melissa's sketch from the Tuesday Morning Sketches DT and the KLSS DT, so check it out here.

Being the guest designer this month is very exciting! Melissa has lots of fun lined up this month and I can't wait to show you my next projects. Thanks for coming by!

DETAILS:

Paper - Martha Stewart Cross Hatch/Polka Dots, DCVW Solids

Embellishments - American Crafts Striped Ribbon, Petaloo Flower and Bling Flower, Pebbles Brown Ruffle Ribbon, White Gel Pen, Self-Adhesive Velcro Tabs

Sketch - Tuesday Morning Sketches

Purse Directions - Found Here