Fairy Garden

Hi friends! It's Sunday and that means time for a new challenge at The Paper Players! This week, I have the pleasure and honor of being your hostess with a Clean and Simple challenge: Magical. There are so many ways you can go with this: fairies, unicorns, mermaids, gnomes, or anything your imagination can dream up! 

I had so much fun with this card! I combined three different stamp sets to assemble my fairy garden, and if you scroll down you'll see what my inspiration was. There are a lot of images, but I tried to keep things clean and simple with lots of white space and minimal layers. Of course I had to add some glitter on the wings, because what's a fairy without her fairy dust?!

I'm also linking this up to our "vibrant color" challenge at Seize the Birthday, though you can also make an "anything goes" birthday card.

Now for my inspiration... There is a park a few miles from my house, and it has a trail which is a one mile loop around a small lake. I've been there many times over the years, but this time was different. 

One by one, I came across one fairy garden after another, all created by  other park-goers just for the enjoyment of others. 

There must be at least a dozen fairy gardens now, and there is even a gnome fishing in the creek. 

Nobody damages or steals anything, and every time I go back now I see that people have added more to it. It's quite magical!

Fairies, gnomes, even Smurf's... everybody is welcome in this garden!

Stamp Sets: Pixie Dust, Cupcakes (Avery Elle), Roses for You (Simon Says Stamp)

Card Stock: Solar White (Neenah)

Ink Pads: Tuxedo Black (Memento)

Markers: Copic

Accessories: Dazzling Diamonds Glitter (Stampin' Up)

Thanks so much for stopping by! Please leave a comment, and then head over to visit the rest of the Design Team at The Paper Players. We hope you'll play along with our challenge this week, too! 

Inky hugs :)

Coloring Outside the Lines

Hi everyone! It's time for a new challenge at Seize the Birthday! 

This time around the "Toppings" options is "Vibrant Colors". However, you can also chose to do an Anything Goes birthday card, the choice is yours!

When I think of vibrant colors, the first thing that comes to mind is my Zig Clean Color Brush Markers. They deliver the most vibrant color of any other ink that I own. I heat embossed my image with white embossing powder, and deliberately colored outside the lines as I thought this image was conducive to that technique. It's also kind of fun to do! I didn't want to cover up any of the image, so I chose to do a sentiment heat embossed on vellum.

My row of colorful flowers looks just like those in Darnell's inspiration challenge at Inspired By All The Little Things! Thanks, Darnell! 

Stamp Sets: Ranunculus Field (Stampendous), Birthday Greetings (Altenew)

Card Stock: Watercolor (Strathmore), Vellum (Bazzill), Sea Glass (Simon Says Stamp)

Ink: Versamark, Clean Color Brush Markers (Zig)

Tools: Heat Tool

Accessories: White Embossing Powder, Moonshine Sequins (Simon Says Stamp)

I'm so glad you paid me a visit today! If you have a moment please leave a comment, then visit the rest of the wonderful Design Team at Seize the Birthday. We'd love for you to play along, too!

Inky hugs :)

Enjoy Today

Hi friends! It's Sunday and that means time for a new challenge at The Paper Players! This week the sweet and talented LeAnne is our hostess with a color challenge.

Though I love the inspiration photo and actually do have a lavender stamp, I decided to go in a bit of a different direction. I've been into using more meaningful sentiments lately, and decided to use a quote I printed off my computer, and work the rest of my card around it. With a little adjustment of the rows, I was able to get it to follow the shape of my single blossom, which I colored with Copic markers in the challenge colors. I die cut the image and stacked it up on two additional layers of black card stock for some added depth. 

I love this sketch from Cecile at Freshly Made Sketches! I visualized my card immediately. Love when that happens :) 

My card also seems to work perfectly with the gray and purple hues for the inspiration challenge at the Altenew Blog. Love when that happens, too!

Stamp Sets: Beautiful Lady (Altenew)
Card StockL Solar White (Neenah), Smoke, Black (Simon Says Stamp)
Patterned Paper: Welcome Home (Carta Bella)
Ink Pads: Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Markers: Copic
Tools: Big Shot, Beautiful Lady Die (Altenew)
Other: Sentiment printed off my PC

Thanks so much for stopping by! Please leave a comment, and then head over to visit the rest of the Design Team at The Paper Players. We hope you'll play along with our challenge this week, too! 

Inky hugs :)

Hipster Birthday

Hi friends! It's Sunday and that means time for a new challenge at The Paper Players. This week the sweet and talented Laurie is our hostess with a theme challenge: Musical. I love this challenge and knew just what I wanted to do with it! 

My eldest son is a music-loving city dweller. His birthday is in a few days, and this card is for him. In the summer, almost all of the restaurants where he lives have outdoor tables and live music, and I tried to capture a little of that. I gave my hipster-musician-dog a city background, and followed up on the music theme with an embossed background. I had a lot of fun making this card, and I hope I accomplished the Brooklyn vibe I was going for! 

The inspiration for my layout came from the sketch challenge at CAS(E) this Sketch! The circle element was just the right size for my little scene.

Stamp Sets: Rock and Paws, Mini Messages (Mama Elephant)

Card Stock: Solar White, Desert Storm (Neenah), Black (Simon Says Stamp), Textured Black (Recollections)

Ink Pads: Tuxedo Black (Memento)

Markers: Copic

Tools: Big Shot, Rock and Paws Dies, Cityscape (Mama Elephant), Stitched Circle Dies (Lawn Fawn), Circle Dies (Sizzix), Music Embossing Folder (Crate Paper)

Thanks so much for stopping by! Please leave a comment, and then head over to visit the rest of the Design Team at The Paper Players. We hope you'll play along with our challenge this week, too! 

Inky hugs :)

Toucan Party

Hi everyone! It's time for a new challenge at Seize the Birthday! 

This time around the "Toppings" options is "Birds". However, you can also chose to do an Anything Goes birthday card, the choice is yours!

I decided on a fresh, summery color scheme of yellow and green for my little toucan birthday party. One can wish, right? I mixed up some background patterns, and the pineapple background was created using a background stamp and Zig markers. The rest of the card is pretty self-explanatory. I love these cute toucans! 

Stamp Sets: Toucan Party (Newton's Nook) Pineapple Background Stamp (My Favorite Things)

Card Stock: Solar White (Neenah), Garden Green (Stampin' Up)

Patterned Paper: Brights Stack (Stampin' Up), Summer Fun (Echo Park)

Ink Pads: Tuxedo Black (Memento)

Markers: Copic, Clean Color Brush Markers (Zig)

Tools: Big Shot, Toucan Party Dies (Newton's Nook), Circles Framelits (Sizzix)

I'm so glad you paid me a visit today! If you have a moment please leave a comment, then visit the rest of the wonderful Design Team at Seize the Birthday. We'd love for you to play along, too!

Inky hugs :)

Sunny Daffodils

Hi everyone! A late post today - getting this in at the nick of time for a couple of challenges. Though this is a simple card, it was a little more complicated than it looks. The daffodil stamp is just a single bloom, and I had seen this video from Jennifer McGuire on how to do mirror stamping, so I thought I'd give it a try. My first effort using black ink didn't come out nearly as well as Jennifer's, so instead I decided to use Desert Sand ink which worked much better. I stamped the reverse of the daffodil first, make a reverse mask, and then stamped the original image. I colored the images with Copic markers and colored pencils. After that, I decided to keep the rest of the card simple. This was a learning experience for me and I look forward to trying this technique again. 

I'm playing along with three challenges today. I was inspired by the daffodils at Inspired By, and the sunny yellow chair at The Card Concept. My daffodil stamp is from 2015 (and this is the first time I'm using it, my bad!) so I am also sharing this at Retro Rubber. 

Stamp Sets: Just Darling (Clearly Besotted), Backdrop (Neat and Tangled), Creative Vases (Hero Arts)

Card Stock: Solar White (Neenah), Always Artichoke (Stampin' Up)

Patterned Paper: Welcome Home (Carta Bella)

Ink Pads: Tuxedo Black, Desert Sand (Memento)

Markers: Copic, Pencils: Prismacolor

Tools: Big Shot, Nesting Rectangle Dies (Hero Arts), Misti Stamping Tool (My Sweet Petunia)

Accessories: White Bakers Twine (Recollections)

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you'll leave a comment!

I See It's Your Birthday, PP386

Hi friends! It's Sunday and that means time for a new challenge at The Paper Players! This week our sweet and talented Claire is hostess with a sketch challenge. 

I loved this unique sketch right away, but had no clue what to do with it at first. I did know that I wanted to use some patterned paper for the center panel, so looked through all my patterned paper stacks until settling on this one. So that was my inspiration, and I just love the glasses! 

I usually don't go for snarky sentiments, but I saw one like this on Pinterest and it just cracked me up. I thought it was just perfect for my glasses theme, too. It wasn't printable, so I typed out my own in MS Word. Click on the image if you need to make it bigger!

The theme this week at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge is Road Trip. Now I realize this might be a bit of a stretch, but don't you need your glasses before getting behind the wheel?! 

Stamp Sets: I See You (Simon Says Stamp), Endless Birthday Wishes (Stampin' Up)

Card Stock: Ivory, Black (Simon Says Stamp), Pimento (My Mind's Eye)

Patterned Paper: I See You (My Mind's Eye)

Ink Pads: Tuxedo Black (Memento), Lipstick Red (Simon Says Stamp)

Tools: Big Shot, I See You Dies (Simon Says Stamp), Circles Dies (Sizzix)

Accessories: Bakers Twine (Stampin' Up), Enamel Dots (My Mind's Eye)

Thanks so much for stopping by! Please leave a comment, and then head over to visit the rest of the Design Team at The Paper Players. We hope you'll play along with our challenge this week, too! 

Inky hugs :)