Hoppy Scrappy Birthday Blog Hop!

I’m so happy (or should I say "hoppy"?!!) that you are joining us for the very first Scrappy Birthday Blog Hop celebrating my friend April’s favorite color - GREEN!

If you are coming from Cherie's blog you’re on the right track. If you just joined us, you can go back to the beginning (April's blog HERE) to enjoy the entire hop along with us. We’ve had so much fun doing this hop, and we have a wonderful line up with some oh-so-talented creators. You will see some lovely projects and have a chance to win some blog candy along the way, including a fun grand prize for this hop from April.

This hop runs all day on April 30th, so you have plenty of time today to check out each project!

1. April Nourse http://curlsngrins.blogspot.com/
2. Mandie Wade http://mandiesscrappin.blogspot.com/
3. Jennifer Blue Hawkins http://scrapaholicjen.blogspot.com/
4. Emily Lahham http://www.createserendipity.net/
5. Deborah Foti http://www.scrappingmamma.net/
6. Corrine Paul http://celebratingordinarymoments.blogspot.com/
7. Lisa Tehonica Pontious http://honeybearzdesigns2011.blogspot.com/
8. Stephanie Jones http://missprissygraceann.blogspot.com/
9. Lucy Kelleher http://love2createitall.blogspot.com/
10. Theresa White http://treasures4lifeby-t.blogspot.com/
11. Martha Galvez http://pattisscrapingtime.blogspot.com/
12. Lisa Norris http://prettypaperprettyribbons.blogspot.com/
13. Cherie Pemberton http://www.gracefulcardmakers.blogspot.com/
14. Jen Rubio http://www.jenrubio.blogspot.com/
15. Lisa Peters http://handmadewithlove-lisa.blogspot.com/

What would a birthday be without gifts? This gift could be yours because there is also an overall grand prize just for hopping with us! The grand prize is sponsored by April from Curls & Grins Creations (the first blog on the hop). In order to be eligible for the grand prize you must leave a comment on every blog in the hop and become a follower of April’s blog.

Your next blog to visit on the hop is Lisa's blog at
http://handmadewithlove-lisa.blogspot.com/.
Happy hopping!

Finally, before you go, here are some details about my hand-stamped card (shown above): It's a 6x6 card that uses b&t paper from both the Sophia X7131 and Bliss X7132B paper packs. The stamp sets I used include A Little Everything D1408, Fun Times B1309, and Soul Mates D1254. As I came up with my design for this card, I was careful to also meet the requirements listed below so that I could also use this same card design for the "Humble Artists Swap" that I am a participant in. So I ended up duplicating this card 4 more times to mail them out to my HAS friends in February as well (I hope you enjoyed them ladies)! The challenge for the HAS this time was to create a card that meets all of these requirements:
Must be square and at least 5x5"
Must depict an animal
Must be LOVE themed
Must use only neutral colors with only one other color
(excluding all shades of red!)
Must have 7 layers of paper, stacked and countable, all in one place
Use at least 3 embellishments
And...just for the fun of it...let's add some liquid glass!

Two cards to "Fall" for!

(I hope that title doesn't seem too vain for this post, I'm just TRYing to be clever with my title here, lol!) I love the Autumn here in Barstow when the weather finally starts to cool down and I feel the mood strike me to start stamping bunches of colorful autumn leaves (since we don't get as many "real" autumn leaves here in the desert, lol)! The Heart2Heart blog challenge this week is to stamp and create something with either "leaves" and/or "trees" and as usual lately, I haven't had much time for creating this week (other than the few hours I spent on a scrapbook layout I'm prepping for a gathering coming up next week). But... I do have tons of things I've created in the past that I have been wanting to share here on my blog for ages, so I couldn't resist taking advantage of this opportunity to share some fall-themed creations with you all, and here... they are!

The standard size card (above) is one I created back in 2007 for the "Humble Artists" swap I was a participant in. The Nature's Vein stamp set (D1232) that I used for the leaves was one of my favorites back then and must still be a favorite of many since it hasn't retired yet in all this time and is still available to order! I also used a lot of scissor distressing, sanding, and ink distressing on this card. The white streaks on the cocoa cardstock "half-oval" shape is white acrylic paint that I added with a fan-shaped paint brush (easy)! The other stamp set that I used to stamp the background is Goodness of Life C1286 which is now a retired stamp set I believe.
My 2nd card (just above) is also a standard size card that I designed a while back (in the fall of 2008 - a few of you may remember creating this card with me at my Open House!). It uses the Perfect Day papers and the Treasure Life stamp set (D1306) that is shown on page 53 of our current Idea Book. The leaves here were stamped with cocoa ink while the flowers were stamped and set with clear ink and embossing powder so I could do the "embossing resist" technique. To get the embossed image to resist the ink, I just used sponge daubers with cocoa and sorbet inks to sponge in some color around the flowers (and then used a tissue to wipe off the excess ink that resisted from sticking where the embossed image is). It's very simple do but allows for such a "wowie!" effect! So I hope I've inspired you even just a little today - Welcome Autumn!! - my favorite time of year!

My Humble Artists swap card for May!

Some of you know that I participate in a card swapping group known as the Humble Artists. The 9 members of this group take turns coming up with the challenge guidelines and then we all create our cards to mail to each other every other month. This time around Jamia Bankhead came up with our swap requirements and the cards were due to be mailed out by May 10th. Jamia did a great job coming up with some challenging guidelines. Here is what was required of everyone:

1. Create a tall card 4 X 9 1/4, must fit in a legal size envelope
2. Stitch or sew on the card
3. Use 3 different ribbons
4. Use buttons as an accent, may use floss, hemp or twine with buttons
5. Use at least 4-5 layers
6. incorporate a tag somewhere on the card
7. Make something on your card 3D
8. Have FUN!!

As you can see, I think I managed to meet all of the requirements! This was a great challenge for me, and after a few unsuccessful drafts that I decided to scrap, I am very pleased with the final result.

My card design is inspired by our new Wishes (card confidence program) - Top Band (p. 100). I stamped the clouds with white daisy ink on vellum and layered that over outdoor denim cardstock. I used our new Back Country Level 2 paper packet and two new stamp sets - C1368 Treetops and D1365 True Happiness. I liked my card design enough that I even mailed one to CTMH for the Make It from Your Heart contest (monthly consultant artwork contest), which is something that I used to enter all the time, but haven't been able to make time for more recently. I am really excited about this card and the fact that I finally came up with something I like enough to enter in a contest. I hope you like it too!

Humble Artists Swap Card (using my first "Color Me Challenged" color combo!)

I just mailed my swap cards last week for the "Humble Artists" swap group (due Sept 10th) that I participate in. The guidelines for this swap this time around were:

-We will create a 6x6 card.

-Please use at least a little bit of any one of the 5 new My Reflections paper packs in the new Idea Book!

-You must use something you can see through (clear buttons, vellum, transparency, organdy ribbon, liquid glass, etc...).

-You must use some element on the card that is round or curved (you know how popular circles and scallops still are).

-Please use any kind of dimensional element.

-Finally, include at least three different stamped images on your card (the images can be from the same stamp set or different sets).

For this card I also used colors from the first color challenge posted on the NEW "color me challenged" blog!! (http://colormechallenged.blogspot.com/). Colors are Vanilla Cream, Vineyard Berry, Juniper, Sorbet, and Desert Sand. If anyone wants to play along and create a card using any of the guidelines listed above I would welcome you to do so and share the link to it here in the comments section if you can!! One thing I really love about my humble artists swap is seeing how different everyone's cards turn out considering we're all using the same exact guidelines! Once I figure out how to post links to some of the other swap participants artwork on their blogs, I will do that here too, but for now I am still learning and haven't figured that out just yet. I'm just happy to finally be posting and using my blog - lol!!