More is More

Happy Friday!  I’m so happy to be feeling better and looking forward to my stamp class tonight!  I missed out on the Taylored Expressions Sketch Challenge last week, but I’m back for today’s really fun and different sketch.  I started out thinking I would make a mini tall card, but once I got to work with the images from Let’s Do Coffee I realized the card would need to be slightly larger.  I ended up with 8.75″ x 4″ – just a little shorter than a standard business size envelope.

Card base is Kraft cardstock and is layered with Real Red, Black and dp from the October Afternoon Thrift Shop 8×8 pad (love love love this paper collection!)  The size of the dp is what determined the overall height of this card which started out at 9″.  Two of the cups were paper-pieced and the others were colored with Copics.  All 3 of the large cups are covered with a heavy coat of Glossy Accents.  I used various punches, some buttons from my stash and some Zva flourishes for this playful layout.

I’m anxious to see what the rest of the Sketch Crew has come up with – let’s go check ’em out!

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you have a wonderful weekend.  I’m pretty sure mine will be better than the last one!  😉

It’s Good Friday – the day we celebrate Jesus’ death on the cross.  And the only reason we can celebrate such a horrific event is because we know that HE IS RISEN!  The grave couldn’t hold Him and because of His death and resurrection we can have the gift of eternal life.  Amazing grace!

My Good Friday/Easter card is also a sample for Taylor’s sketch today – TESC107.  I hope you’ll play along with us.  Let’s see what the rest of the Sketch Crew has created today:

Card notes:

Stamps – TE Easter Blessings

Paper – white, Sage Shadow, Close to Cocoa

Ink – Sage Shadow, Close to Cocoa, White Craft, Versamark

Other – white and clear embossing powder, punches – circles and Martha Stewart border, Nesties – circle and scalloped rectangle, two CB/Sizzix embossing folders, Kasier Craft chocolate pearls, Taylor’s Tiny Twinkles, pink glitter glaze pen, foam tape.

Design specifics:

Cross was stamped in Sage Shadow ink on white cardstock and then die cut with a circle nestie.  Then cross was stamped and heat embossed with white craft ink and white ep on Sage Shadow cs and cut out.  That second cross was popped up with foam tape over the first one.  Dots from a pink glitter pen were added to the vine for a tiny pop of color. The little circle elements are two images from the set, stamped onto white cs and punched out with a 3/4″ and 1″ circle punches.  They were then covered with Versamark and clear ep and heat embossed before being attached to the card.  Tiny Twinkles were added to each as a finishing touch.

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you have a blessed Easter weekend.

Happy Friday!  So as I mentioned earlier, I spent the week being on call for jury duty having to call in every night (and even once mid-day) to see if I would have to report.  Well yesterday I did have to report to the courthouse at 8:30 am.  Thankfully I had the closest courthouse to us – which is unusual – so I was thankful about that!  I did my one day and I am now done for at least a year.  It was a close call, for awhile there yesterday afternoon I really thought I might get seated on a jury for a spousal abuse case.  It looked like they might go through everyone in the room before they agreed to keep the 14 needed.  Finally at 4:00 they had their panel and my number had not been called into the jury box.  It was excruciating sitting through the whole process…especially some of the stuff people say in trying to get kicked off the jury…oh my!

PHEW!  Now onto Friday and the FUN STUFF!!!!

Fridays are Sketch Challenge days at the Taylored Expressions Blog and we’d love to have you play along!  Every so often Taylor offers a fun added BONUS to playing the weekly TESC… PRIZES!  And today is one of those days as Taylor is offering BONUS PRIZES for TESC106.  You’ll have through April 2nd to play along and enter your card for a chance to be named a Top Crop and win your choice of FREE STAMP SET from the Taylored Expressions Store.  Winners will be announced on April 5th.  You do not have to use TE stamps to enter. Get all the details to play on Taylor’s blog

For my card today I used TE Favorite Peeps.  When I saw the 3 little mini panels at the bottom I immediately thought of the image of 3 chicks in the Favorite Peeps set.  In order to punch them out with the SU label punch I actually stamped them separately, one at a time and then punched them.  It’s easy to just ink part of the stamp with a Memento Dew Drop.  Although I usually use a full sized Memento pad it’s great to also have the dew drop size for omitting part of an image.

Images were colored with Copic markers and I sponged sky with a cloud template and Baja Breeze ink.  Most of the eggs were covered with Smooch Illuminate and the bow was painted with Smooch Sassy Pink.  The grass is an image in the stamp set.  The little words at the bottom are from SU Everyday Flexible Phrases.  I added a Doodlebug brad, a butterfly bellie and tons of stickles in yellow and fruit punch. 

Now let’s see what the rest of the Sketch Crew has cooked up this week:

Next week I hope to share some new stamp room organization (that is IF I get in there and get it organized – LOL!) with you as well as my new kitchen curtains!!!  Hope you have a great weekend.  Thanks for stopping by.

Recipe –

stamps: TE Favorite Peeps, SU EFP

paper: So Saffron, Regal Rose, Crate Paper Twirl Collection, TE Choice Snow White

other: punches – SU border, label, large oval, scallop oval, Doodlebug Boutique brad, butterfly, stickles (yellow, fruit punch), Smooch (illuminate, sassy pink)

Happy Friday!  Boy, for a week with nothing scheduled it sure ended up being busy!  It’s all good though!  Here I am with my 5th day in a row blog post (be sure to scroll down and take a peek if you haven’t been here earlier this week) and it’s time for the Taylored Expressions Sketch Challenge – TESC105.  As soon as I saw the sketch I knew I wanted to use Basic Grey Green at Heart 6×6 along with a coordinating Green and Heart Gummy embellishment!

I found that SU Rich Razzleberry and Always Artichoke coordinate wonderfully with the Green at Heart papers. I used a retired SU set, Block Party, for my focal panel.  The image was stamped on white cs with Artichoke ink.  Then I covered the entire panel with Versamark and heat embossed with clear embossing powder. When you see the card in person it really makes a big difference in the overall look.  I used  a couple of border punches at the bottom (SU scallop and EK  Success Parisian), some liquid pearls and a ZVA Creative crystal flourish for the finishing touches.  Oh and I added Taylor’s Tiny Twinkles to the Gummy.

Now let’s see what the rest of the Sketch Crew has cooked up this week:

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you have a fantastic weekend!

Happy Friday!  I am looking forward to my stamp class tonight and I decided to use the Taylored Expressions Sketch Challenge for one of my class cards.

The designer paper on this card all comes from the 6×6 pad that’s available from SU as a SAB freebie with order.  I used Pretty in Pink and Bermuda Bay cardstock to coordinate with it.  I’ve been dying to make one of these scalloped poofy flowers ever since I saw one on Cindy Lawrence’s blog.  She linked over to a tutorial by Dawn McVey which makes it very easy.  I’m looking forward to teaching the girls how to make these in class tonight.

Let’s see what the rest of the Sketch Crew has come up with this week:

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a great weekend!

Happy Friday!  If all has gone according to plan, I’m in Iowa as this post publishes.  Today is a big day at Taylored Expressions…it’s release day with 3 new stamp sets, 2 Key Ingredients kits and more new products…and it’s also the 1st Anniversary of the Whimsical Wishes line of stamps at TE by Nancy McKinney…and of course Taylor has a sketch for us!  You’ll need to hop over to Taylor’s blog to get all the info, but one of the fun things TE has going for the celebration is the 2 original WW stamp sets, Branching Out and Branching Out Coordinates, are on sale for 25% off this weekend only.  These 2 sets happen to be my all time favorites from TE so I jumped at the chance to use them on my sketch sample today.

I just love building little scenes with these sets!  Paper I used is SU Pink Flamingo.  The big metal brad thingy is retired SU.  Oh and I flipped the sketch on it’s side.

There’s going to be so much creative goodness to look at today…I hope you have a nice hot cup of coffee.  Once you get to Taylor’s blog you’ll get links for all of the Baker’s Dozen.  In the meantime let’s check out what the Sketch Crew has come up with this week.

Hopefully by the end of the day tomorrow I will be much more skilled in the use of my Copic markers!  Anybody in SoCal interested in some beginning Copic classes?  *grin*

Have a great weekend!

Happy Friday!  Time for another fun sketch from Taylor.  This one is really easy and super versatile so I’m really looking forward to what everyone on the sketch crew has come up with.  When you want to play with a sketch how do you proceed?  With a stamp set or a main image or with colors or papers?  This time my card took a little different turn from my original thought (which is nothing new for me – LOL!)  When I first saw the sketch I could just picture another card for the Dragonfly Card Drive.  Then I got in my stamp room and started to envison Tena from Bakery Business baking up a batch of birthday wishes (in fact I still want to make that card.)  Then I remembered how I’ve been wanting to play more with the TE A la Carte images Animals in Love.  I looked through them and decided the owls would be perfect for this sketch!

Next I rummaged through patterned papers and Key Ingredients and decided this would be a great time to break out the pack of October Afternoon Cherry Hill I’ve been wanting to play with. You know I love to use pops of black in my cards and at the CHA SuperShow one of my favorite samples was a card created by Karen Giron featuring these owls in black rather than the brown I would have always imagined.  Ever since I saw that card I’ve wanted to stamp these cute owls in a black tree.  The image was stamped in Brilliance Black and heat embossed with clear eP.  It was then colored with a combo of Copics and Spica  Glitter pens – it’s really shimmery in person.  Card base is SU Kiwi Kiss as is the ribbon.  I added some red rain dots and black stickles.  Sentiment is retired SU.  Line of hearts is from Animal Love Sentiments.

Now let’s check out what the rest of the Sketch Crew has created this week:

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you have a fantastic weekend.  Make time to stamp!