Million & One for Pals Paper Arts

Planning for this week's blog posts, I wanted to join in on Pals Paper Arts Colour Challenge today, and this week, I am featuring retiring products to help you decide if there are some products that you need to get before they are gone for good on June 2.  Million & One is a set that is on the retiring list and I just love the script used for this set. The colour palette for the challenge is as you see below:

Really, I would much rather be showing you sneak peeks of the new Annual catalogue, but I'm not at home and there is a box of new products sitting inside my front door waiting for me to get there. You can imagine how antsy that makes me feel! But as much as I love getting new stamping products, I love these two even more, and I haven't seen them for six and a half months:

               

This little girl on the left is One Year Old today and I wanted to be there for her birthday!  So I'll just have to wait for a few more days to play with my new stuff.

Let's look at how I used the colour challenge shades in this card:

• The card base is Baked Brown Sugar, as are the vines from Flowering Flourishes, a stamp set that you will be seeing more of in the new Annual Catalogue.
• Hello Honey is the colour of the stripes in the DSP from the Lullaby Designer Series Paper which is retiring and the cardstock that forms the matte for the sentiment label. Some of the Petite Petals are stamped in Hello Honey as well and punched out with the Petite Petals Punch. The bow on the sentiment is made from Hello Honey Satin Stitched Ribbon which is also retiring.
• And the sentiment from Million & One is stamped in Coastal Cabana ink as are a number of the little Petite Petals flowers. The background panel is backed with Coastal Cabana. As Coastal Cabana is one of the retiring 2013 - 15 In Colours, any products using that colour will be retiring.

Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the Stampin' Up! products used to make this card today!

Product List

*Million & One Wood Stamp Set [126375]	*Million & One Clear Stamp Set [126377]	Flowering Flourishes Clear Stamp Set [126367]	Flowering Flourishes Wood Stamp Set [131998]	Petite Petals Wood Stamp Set [133152]
Petite Petals Clear Stamp Set [133155]	*Lullaby Designer Series Paper [133695]	*Baked Brown Sugar 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [131296]	Hello Honey 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock [133678]	**Coastal Cabana 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [131297]
Whisper White 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [100730]	**Baked Brown Sugar Classic Stampin' Pad [131174]	Hello Honey Classic Stampin' Pad [133643]	**Coastal Cabana Classic Stampin' Pad [131175]	*Hello Honey 3/8" Satin Stitched Ribbon [133671]
Petite Petals Punch [133322]	*Labels Collection Framelits Die [125598]	Big Shot [113439]	Liquid Multipurpose Glue [110755]	Glue Dots [103683]
Stampin' Dimensionals [104430]	SNAIL Permanent Adhesive [104332]

* Retiring June 2/15

**Retiring and Sold out

Elegant Birthday

First, I have to apologize for my camera. My old faithful Sony Cybershot has decided to stop focusing consistently. I'm looking for another camera to use, but in the meantime, editing the heck out of my photos so you won't feel sick looking at them. I would have waited for a better camera, but I had to give this card away to a good friend for whose birthday I was already late. So it was this camera or no card and this was a really elegant birthday card that I wanted you to see.

I've known Cynthia for about 20 years and she's always been a loyal and caring friend.  I was away for her big birthday recently, but I wanted to let her know that I remembered and cared about her, so I wanted to design the perfect card for her.  She is someone who has an innate sense of elegance and I wanted my card to reflect that.  She also looks very good in the regal colours, so I chose Elegant Eggplant as my card base and paired it with Wisteria Wonder and Whisper White.

• The lovely designs are from the stamp set, Flowering Flourishes, a set I haven't used often, but always intended to. 
• The butterflies stamped in Elegant Eggplant ink are from Papillon Potpourri.  I punched out the largest with the Elegant Butterfly punch and the small one with the Bitty Butterfly punch.  I also punched one of each size from a Silver Foil Sheet and silhouetted the butterflies with them.

• The sentiment is from the Perfectly Penned stamp set and has just the right flourishes to go with the design.
• Various sizes of Rhinestone Basic Jewels adorn the flourishes.

If you are into Digital Scrapbooking and Cardmaking, this is the week for you.  My Digital Studio is offering lots of great deals daily.  

For today, Wednesday, Nov. 6 the deal is: 

11/6 Nobody's Business Photobook Template

The remaining deals this week are:

11/7 Autumn Traditions Kit

11/8 Afternoon Daydream Kit

For more information follow this link.

Stamps:  Flowering Flourishes (w131998; c126367); Papillon Potpourri (w132058; c123759); Perfectly Penned (w128703; c122892)

Paper:  Silver Foil Sheets (132178); Elegant Eggplant (105126), Wisteria Wonder (122922) and Whisper White (100730) cardstock

Ink:  Classic Stampin' Pad in Elegant Eggplant (126969) and Wisteria Wonder (126985)

Accessories:  Rhinestone Basic Jewels (119246)

Tools:  Elegant Butterfly Punch (127526) and Bitty Butterfly Punch (129406)

Bitty Butterfly Punch

Elegant Butterfly Punch

Flowering Flourishes Stamp Set

Papillon Potpourri Stamp Set

Rhinestone Basic Jewels

Pals Paper Arts Under the Wire

Good Monday Morning!  I spent yesterday, after getting home from church, trying to get my Design 101 class together.  It's a bit trickier to plan because, rather than have everyone duplicate a card, I am giving them some variable options, so figuring out what to cut and how many of each is definitely challenging.  We will be learning how to use a layout sketch tonight and so I've taken sketches from some of the sketch challenges I've completed over the year and gradually offered them more and more choices, from colour and card orientation, to stamp sets to use and embellishments.  Each of the 3 projects gets more and more input from each of the participants.

It was late when I finished, but I still needed a blog post for today, so I decided to do the Pals Paper Arts Challenge #170 for last week, and I posted late Sunday night instead of early Monday morning, so I just squeaked in under the wire!  Phew!

I found the colour challenge palette a bit odd.  I don't think I would have ever come up with this on my own.  Here it is:

I was partly inspired for this card by a Pinterest card in black and white with a rosette and flourishes.

I don't know whose design it is because the link just led me back to the Splitcoast Stampers Home page.  If you know, please leave me a comment so I can give the proper recognition.  Anyway, I loved it at first sight and you can see how it influenced my design.

• I used A Round Array stamp set to create the circlet for the top of the rosette, which is made from Eastern Elegance DSP in Crushed Curry. I punched it out using the coordinating 7/8" Scallop Circle Punch and several other Scallop Circle punches for the other layers.  The one that might stump you is the Early Espresso layer.  That was actually the result of a mistake.  Let me fill you in:
• I found the greatest Stamp Set for this card, one that I had rarely, if ever used before:  Sent with Love.  Only after I had everything together, did I remember that it had been retired last year.  I thought I had cleaned out all my retired stamp sets.  I guess not!!  The Early Espresso layer is stamped with one of those images, but I liked it so much, I kept it and just put another image over top.

• I inked up Flowering Flourishes with Midnight Muse ink for the flourish you see on the Whisper White and added some Pearl Basic Jewels.
• Where you see the flag with one of the sentiments from Banner Greetings in Early Espresso, was actually a sentiment from Sent with Love, that I had to cover up.
• Anyway, I'm happy with the results, and maybe the colour combo isn't as weird as I thought!

Just a reminder that you still have time to play the "As You See It Challenge" for this week.  I hope you will give it a try!  Check out the rest of the Design Team's samples!  I know you're going to love them.

Stamps:  Flowering Flourishes (w131998; c126367); A Round Array (w129087; c129090); Banner Greetings (w129711; c129714); Sent with Love (retired)

Paper:  Eastern Elegance DSP (130131); Early Espresso (119686), Midnight Muse (126843), Crushed Curry (131199) and Whisper White (100730) cardstock

Ink:  Classic Stampin' Pads in Midnight Muse (126860) and Early Espresso (126974)

Accessories:  Pearl Basic Jewels (119247)

Tools:  Designer Rosette Bigz XL die (125594) *; 7/8" Scallop Circle Punch (129404); 1 1/4" Circle Punch (119861); 1 3/4" Scallop Circle Punch (119854) and the 2 3/8" Scallop Circle Punch (118874); Sticky Strip (104294); Big Shot (113439)

*needs Extended Premium Crease Pad (117630) and Extended Cutting Pad (113478)

A Round Array Stamp Set

Banner Greetings Stamp Set

Designer Rosettes Bigz XL Die

Eastern Elegance DSP

Flowering Flourishes Stamp Set

Pearl Basic Jewels