Sweet Sorbet Colours for Mojo Monday

 The last Mojo Monday challenge of the month has traditionally been "Round or Square", but this time they've changed it up and the challenge is to make a Tall and Skinny card!  Mine is 3 1/2" x 6" with a little bit of the circle extending over the side.  I'm in love with the colours of the Sweet Sorbet Designer Series Paper, which is one of the free products you can select whenever you spend $60 from Stampin' Up during Sale-A-Bration!  I used two pieces of the DSP in this birthday card.  I'm planning on doing a simplified version (no whitewash technique) for my Birthday Stamper's Dozen Class on today.

Here's my take on the sketch:

• The palette of the card is taken from the colours of the Sweet Sorbet DSP:  Crisp Cantaloupe, Sahara Sand, Summer Starfruit, and Pool Party.  Aren't they yummy??
• I used the Whitewash Technique on the Secret Garden flowers on the main panel.  I like how the Pool Party flower turned out but I'm not happy with the Crisp Cantaloupe one.  It needs more blending I think.
• The sentiment is from Label Love and it's stamped in Summer Starfruit and punched out using the Artisan Label Punch.  I punched out another label from Crisp Cantaloupe cardstock, cut it in half and adhered it to both ends of the sentiment, for the matte effect.

• That sweet twine in Crisp Cantaloupe is from the Sweet Sorbet Accessories pack.  It also comes in Pool Party and Summer Starfruit.

Enjoy earning all those free products in the Sale-A-Bration catalogue!  Call or email me today to order you some Stampin' Up products.  Or click on the links below to take you directly to my On-Line Store where you can shop at your convenience from home and it will be delivered directly to you!

• Secret Garden Clear-Mount Stamp Set
• Secret Garden
• Label Love Clear Bundle
• Label Love Wood Bundle
• Sweet Sorbet Designer Series Paper
• Sahara Sand 8-1/2X11 Card Stock
• Crisp Cantaloupe 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock
• Summer Starfruit 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock
• Pool Party 8-1/2 X 11 Card Stock
• Whisper White 8-1/2X11 Card Stock
• Sweet Sorbet Accessory Pack
• Artisan Label Punch
• 2-1/2 Inch Circle Punch
• Circles Collection Framelits Dies
• Envelope Punch Board

AYSI Challenge 005 and Parrots

Parrots are fascinating birds.  Some, like African Greys, are extremely intelligent and some have vocabularies in the order of 500 -900 words.  They have been known to use them in appropriate context.  One African Grey, upon meeting Jane Goodall, asked, "Got a chimp?" after seeing pictures of her with chimpanzees in Africa.

One my hubby knew about was left alone in a car with the family dog at a ferry terminal.  The dog who was on leash in the car, leaped out the window and was hanging by his leash, choking.  The parrot kept yelling, "Help!  Help!" until someone came and rescued the dog.

They are some of most colourful birds in the world as well, sporting brilliant hues of reds, blues, yellows, oranges and greens!








Which brings us to this week's As You See It Challenge, designed by the lovely and talented Amanda Turner!

Gorgeous fall colours, but my card has a kind of summery look to it, perhaps in denial that summer is well over now!

• In a city a couple of hours north of us, Kamloops, they have a little stretch of road known as the Marigold Mile. Although it isn't even close to a mile, it is planted profusely with bright orange marigolds and that's what I was thinking when I watercoloured the orange and yellow flowers from Secret Garden.  
• The white lily just kind of wandered lost onto the Marigold Mile and stuck out like a sore thumb!  I used an aqua painter, and our challenge colour ink pads to do the watercolouring: Crushed Curry; Pumpkin Pie and Gumball Green.

• The Crushed Curry DSP is from Sweater Weather.  The more closely I look at all the designs in that series the more I love them.  This one just sets up the cheeriness of this card.  
• I haven't used Gumball Green in forever.  Nice to get a chance to use this lovely stitched satin ribbon again for the second time in a week! (See this post.)
• Let's hear it for framelits!  Hip! Hip! Hooray!  It's so easy now to find perfectly coordinated mattes for all the basic shapes now.  You just have to pick the framelit next larger in size.  That's how I created the Pumpkin Pie matte for the image oval.
• And while we're cheering, let's hear another for Candy Dots!!  If your project needs a little somethin' somethin' after it's all put together, no need to tear it apart to add brads, just pop off one or three candy dots in the appropriate colour and add.  No mess, no fuss!

Okay, there you have it!  And isn't it Friday today?  Another cheer for Friday!  Woo hoo!  Have a great weekend!

Stamps:Secret Garden (w131940; c129144); Express Yourself *(w130336; c130339)

Paper:  Sweater Weather Designer Series Paper (132184); Watercolour Paper (122959); Pumpkin Pie (105117) and Very Vanilla (101650) cardstock

Ink:  StazOn Jet Black (101406); Classic Stampin' Pads in Pumpkin Pie (), Crushed Curry () and Gumball Green (); Stampin' Write Markers in Pumpkin Pie (105115), Crushed Curry (131262 as part of the Regals Collection) and Gumball Green (126856 as part of the 2012 - 14 In Colour Collection)

Accessories:  3/8" Stitched Satin Ribbon in Gumball Green (126848); Brights Collection Candy Dots (130931)

Tools:  Aqua Painter (103954); Ovals Collection Framelits (129381), Secret Garden Framelits (129372)

*Hostess Only stamp set 

Aqua Painters

Secret Garden Framelits

Secret Garden Stamp Set

Sweater Weather DSP

StazOn Jet Black

Gumball Green Stitched Satin Ribbon

Ovals Collection Framelits

As I sit down to write this post, all I can think about are the devastating floods in Alberta.  Some are calling it the worst flooding EVER in that area!  And it hit so suddenly without much warning for the evacuees.  We have family in the area and haven't heard from them yet, so we're hoping they're okay and haven't had to evacuate.

Albertans are pretty tough and resourceful, as evidenced by this photo from Shine FM, but as the flood waters continue to rise and the rain continues to pound down, it must be hard to stay hopeful.

This photo, from CJAY92 shows the High River living up to it's name!  One place particularly badly hit is Bragg Creek, a beautiful little village with some wonderful shops and art galleries.  Homes were actually being washed away in that part of southern Alberta.

Our prayers are with these residents, and we pray that the worst is over and that things will begin to be restored soon.




The card I wanted to share with you is a shameless CASE of a lovely card by LeeAnn Greff of Flowerbug's Inkspot.  I was looking for techniques using vellum for an up-coming Technique Night and I found her card on Pinterest.  It was so pretty, it was my number one choice for this technique.

 

• As you can see, I haven't changed the design much at all, except for to switch out the retired Baja Breeze with the new Coastal Cabana!
• The Secret Garden flowers were stamped with VersaMark ink on Stampin' Up's White Vellum cardstock, then heat embossed with White Stampin' Emboss Powder.
• Calypso Coral, Coastal Cabana and Daffodil Delight ink were sponged on the back of the flowers.  Ink takes more time to dry on the vellum, so I used the Heat Tool on the first setting to dry it more quickly.
• The coordinating Secret Garden Framelits were used to die cut each flower.   As you can see, you can do pretty much anything to vellum that you can to regular cardstock, but you need to take a little more care and time.  

• The sentiment is from the Lacy and Lovely Stamp Set and is stamped in StazOn Jet Black ink.
• I used Pistachio Pudding to stamp the leaves from Secret Garden on the Whisper White panel.  
• After first stamping the leaves and the sentiment, the panel was then embossed using the Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder. 
• The Rhinestone Basic Jewels were coloured with permanent Sharpie markers before placing on the flower centers.
• The flowers were adhered to the card with half a Dimensional each.

I hope you are warm and dry and safe today!  Count your blessings!

Stamps:  Secret Garden (w131940; c129144); Lacy and Lovely (w132025: c122887)

Paper:  White Vellum (101856), Coastal Cabana (131297) and Whisper White (100730) cardstock

Ink:  VersaMark (102283) and StazOn Jet Black (101406); Classic Stampin' Pads in Pear Pizzazz (131180), Coastal Cabana (131175) and Daffodil Delight (126944)

Accessories:  Rhinestone Basic Jewels (119246); White Stampin' Emboss powder (109132)

Tools:  Secret Garden Framelits (129372); Perfect Polka Dots Textured Impression Embossing Folder (117335), Heat Tool (129053)

Secret Garden Framelits

Secret Garden Stamp Set

Perfect Polka Dots Embossing Folder

Pistachio Pudding Classic Stampin' Pad

Rhinestone Basic Jewels

StazOn Jet Black Stamp Pad

VersaMark Stamp Pad

Kaleidoscope Stampers's Blog Hop

I am so excited to be a part of the very first blog hop by the Kaleidoscope Stampers!  When we go to team meetings and see all the creations of the members of the group, the talent is just so evident that we decided we needed a blog hop to share it with all our fellow stampers out in cyberspace.  And you, too, get to witness history as the Kaleidoscope Stampers present:  (drum roll, please)

 The First Ever Kaleidoscope Blog Hop!!

Thank you so much for joining us on our very first Kaleidoscope Stampers Blog Hop!  We are very excited to share what we have been working on with you.

You have likely joined me from Danielle's blog!  Doesn't she design the greatest cards?

 The theme for today's Blog Hop is the new Spring/Sale-A-Bration catalogue, with all cards showcasing products available in the catalogue and Sale-A-Bration brochure.  Here's my card:

This is the first time I have used the Secret Garden stamp set, though I have admired it for a long while.  It's the first floral stamp set to have framelits coordinated with it (if you don't count the Floral Frames Framelits, which coordinate with the Daydream Medallions stamp set, beautiful and flower-like but has no real flowers in it.)  Because these flowers can be die-cut with the framelits, I immediately thought of doing some water colouring.

I used a spring-like colour palette of Primrose Petals and Summer Starfruit.  I stamped the flower images in VersaMark ink and heat embossed them with black Stampin' Emboss Powder.  Then I used an Aqua Painter to pick up ink from the lid of my stamp pads and added it to the flower images with the darker colours in the center of the flower and the insides of each petal, fading to a lighter shade on the edges.  I spritzed them with water to let the colour puddle a bit in each leaf and let them dry.  When dry, I die cut them using the coordinating framelits and curled the petals a bit both up and down, to enhance the 3D effect, then used glue dots to adhere them to the image panel.

The background panel is Primrose Petals Core'dinations card stock, embossed with the Honeycomb embossing folder and sanded to bring out the design.  A little Primrose Petals lace from the Artisan Embellishments kit  adds a little interest to the bottom.  The sentiment is stamped in Jet Black StazOn ink and is from the Pop Up Posies designer kit.  Hope you enjoyed this design and you can get more great ideas from the rest of the participating blogs.

Hop on over to the next blog by the following the next link:

1.  Amanda Turner              

2.  Tamara Casorso               

3.  Kristin Noble
4. Tara Angus                                       

5.  Desirée Spenst                 

6.  Danielle Calder                 

7.  Heather Cooper               

Stamps:  Secret Garden (w129141; c129144); Pop Up Posies Designer Kit (w131395)

Paper:  Summer Starfruit (126839), Basic Gray (121044) and Whisper White ( 100730) card stock; Primrose Petals Core'dinations cardstock (129322)
Ink:  VersaMark Ink (102283); StazOn Jet Black (101406); Classic Stampin' Pad in Summer Starfruit (126991) and Primrose Petals (126858)
Accessories:  Artisan Embellishments Kit (129328)
Tools:  Secret Garden Framelits (129372); Honeycomb Embossing Folder (129378); Aqua Painter (103954); Stampin' Sanding Block (129367)