CSSC #6 WINNERS

Thanks to all who played my sixth challenge. There were some really creative entries!

Here are my winners for the July challenge:

The winner is Libby with this fabulous card:

I love the bright colors, and that she stamped her diagonal design.

And the two honorable mentions are Cat:

Awesome coloring, and I like the contrast of the black stripes.

and Annie:

A simple piece of patterned paper for the diagonal element. And I secretly love that she fussy-cut the bottom half of the flower because of a smudge. :)

Congratulations, ladies! Feel free to grab your badge from the CSSC Rules & Badges page, and display it proudly on your blog. You've earned it!

And Libby, please contact me (email in the right side bar), to claim your prize!

I'll be back on the first with a new sketch!

Thanks, again, for your support! xo

SOS #212: Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend

It's Tuesday, and time for a new challenge at Shopping Our Stash. This week's theme is Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend, and we want you to use bling!

As I was thinking about my card, I realized how little bling I use these days. I guess that's why they call it a challenge, right?

Also, for about the past two weeks, I've been pondering other uses for the Simon Says Stamp Splashy Waves Wafer die. I had this idea I could turn the waves upside down and use the pieces to build a cake. I've been playing with this for a while, and when I added in the bling factor, this happened:

I would make it larger, but I don't want to blind you. I did direct-to-paper with two of the new Simon Says Stamp inks, and die-cut the layers. After a while I figured out I needed to trim them to make the layers different widths.

I knew I wanted to punch or die-cut some tiny flowers to use to cover up the scallops, and I ended up using an old SU punch, and I punched the flowers out of a remnant of shiny silver paper. Then I opened and used most of a pack of Hero Arts gems.

I then wondered how to make a cake plate. I looked through my Miscellaneous stamp sets, and voila! I have a cake plate! Who knew?!?!? I stamped it in Hero Arts Silver and clear-embossed it.

I then pulled out a different Avery Elle set for the sentiment, also stamped in silver and clear-embossed.

The orange layer is more direct-to-paper with the same orange ink.

Wanna see some shiny? Here you go:

Okay, I'm done now. The end.

Got bling? Why not pull it out, use it, and come play the SOS challenge!

Thanks for stopping by!

Stuff I used: Vat of clear embossing powder, SU flower punch, remnant of silver card stock, and the following:

InLinkz.com

SOS #211: Don't Get Stressed, Get De-Stressed

It's Tuesday, and time for a new challenge at Shopping Our Stash. This week's theme is Don't Get Stressed, Get De-Stressed, and we'd like you to make a card or project depicting something that helps you relax ... de-stress.

In my world, nothing beats an early morning walk on an almost-deserted beach, so this is what I made:

I don't usually do tag cards, but my idea was to use one of the new Simon Says Stamp wave dies as a template, and they are not very wide, and I didn't want to deal with it. Can you say: lazy?

You can barely see the scallop-y edge of the sand. I used Hero Arts Soft Sand and a foam dauber to apply the ink. Later I realized applying the blue for the sea/sky wasn't going to work quite right, so I just "blended" the two colors. I think the idea still comes across.

Also, along the way, I seem to have forgotten how to blend Distress inks. That's just one color: tumbled glass, and yes, it's blotchy. I tried a few times before this one, using multiple colors, and it did not go well, so I cut my losses and just used one color here.

I busted out my Lawn Fawn Life Is Good stamps and dies and made the tree. Then, against the norm, I stamped some birds from the set. If I make a sky, it needs birds. This is the only stamp I've used to do that versus just drawing them myself.

Pretty paper ... it needed a layer of pretty paper. I went to my stash of OMG YOU CANNOT TOSS THIS papers, and pulled out this piece of old SU DSP. I thought the colors in the stripes worked with the colors on the tag.

THEN (no, we're not done), I realized the card base was really WHITE, so I pulled out my trusty cloud mask, my Hero Arts Soft Sky ink, and a sponge, and filled in the card base with clouds. Then I attached the tags and called it finished.

So, how do you relax? Walk on the beach? Bottle or two of wine? Grilling dinner? Running 20 miles? Why not make a card about it and come on over to SOS and play along?

Thanks for stopping by!

Stuff I used: Divine Twine from Whisker Graphics (only 200 yards left to go!), and the following:

InLinkz.com