Same Colors...Three Cards

Lately I've been thinking about the holidays, not just Christmas, but all of them and how we use the same color combos for all our projects. At least I seem to. We tried to break out of our mold a little for our September card class when we made Halloween cards. Don't get me wrong, some of these combos are tried and true, but do they have to be the base of every holiday card?

I got the Patterned Pines hostess set from the Holiday Mini Catalog, as well as Four the Holidays, also from the mini. It gave me a chance to make a couple "holidayish" cards using a color combo that has been stuck in my head for a while. I feel that Melon Mambo is extremely bright and have looked away from it for too long. The problem is always what color to pair with this insanely bright pink. Guess what color I picked? Taken with Teal, another somewhat bright color. What was I thinking? I did try and tone it down a little by using Kraft CS and Chocolate Chip CS. I ended up making three cards, all different, and yet used the same colors on each. I don't know if I got it just right yet, I mean what was in my head, but I will keep working on it.

This layout is from Clean & Simple Stamping and it was FLT #56. I love how simple all her layouts are. I also embellished with some little sticky rhinestones.

This layout is courtesy of Mojo Monday. This was actually back from when Mojo Monday had it's 100th sketch birthday. This was the MojoMaria Sketch. You can see how quick I am about using all the sketching I find. I stamped the snowflake in Melon Mambo and Taken with Teal, then I used VersaMark and inked all over the white CS. Last I sprinkled the whole thing with Iridescent Ice embossing powder and made it shine. It's hard to see in the picture, but boy does it sparkle.

Last, but not least, I again used a Mojo Monday Sketch from Week 100, but this one was MojoTeresa. I stamped the trees in VersaMark ink and embossed with clear powder. I then sponged all around the trees with Teal ink. The clear embossing resists the ink making the trees pop.

I really hope you enjoyed my very bright holiday cards!

Gobble, Gobble

We all know that Thanksgiving will be here before we know it. Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and pumpkin pie. Yum! I bought the Gobble, Gobble single stamp from the new Holiday mini catalog. Honestly, I didn't know if I would even use it. I am glad that I did. It is kind of cute. Not that you would need to make cards for Thanksgiving, but it could have lots of other decorative uses, like placesetting name tags. My family isn't really that kind of family. We are a paper plate kind of family. No nametags required.

The inspiration for this card should be credited to Mojo Monday Sketch 105 for the layout and the Autumn Pottery Barn photo at Pals Paper Arts for Inspiration PPA9. Thanks to both websites for getting me out of my stamping funk! By the way, I used the Thoroughly Modern DPS, Dusty Durango, Always Artichoke, and Kraft CS. Thanks for looking.

Splitcoast Stampers CAS24 Color Challenge

Mom and I decided to participate in another challenge. This time we accepted the Clean and Simple #24 (CAS) challenge on Splitcoast Stampers. This is a challenge that comes out every Monday, but you can always participate at your own speed and you can go back and do older posts as well. So the whole idea to participating is that your card should be simple to recreate or to make a bunch of or clean in design or looking uncluttered. Again another fabulous place for me to go. This week the challenge was to use Turquoise, Orange, and Yellow in a clean and simple way.

For my card I decided to go back to the Clean and Simple Stamping blog and choose a layout I liked. I decided on last weeks post Fall-To Layout #50. I loved this layout because you could use it in so many different ways. I know I did.

So here is the card I came up with. I used the Flight of the Butterfly stamp set and the new Butterfly punch! The bright colors were toned down a lot because of the huge amounts of white space.

Mom decided to use the Mojo Monday #96 layout for her card.

She said she didn't hear me say that the card was for the Clean and Simple challenge, so her card is a little brighter than mine. I still think she did an amazing job!

Kind and Caring Thoughts JCI44 and MM94

I think I am starting to get the hang of this challenge thing. I decided to make a card this week based on the layout from Mojo Monday. Click here to visit the site http://mojomonday.blogspot.com/



The color pallet came from Stacey's Staming Stage and her new weekly installment of the Jewelry Color Inspiration. I found these colors much easier to work with than the last one I did.
Check out her site here... http://stampinwithstacey.blogspot.com/

Ta-dah! Here's my creation. I can't get enough of the Kind and Caring Thoughts set, obviously because I have used it on most of my new cards and challenges. The DSP is older, but I loved the pattern. I love the way this card turned out!

Kind and Caring Thoughts WCT49 and MM93

Okay so I have been finding these great blogs that offer just what I need...color combos and card layouts. I decided to try my hand at combining the two, unfortunately I found that I didn't have any Groovy Guava CS left, after 2 years of not being an In-Color color, so I swapped it with Apricot. It's a little too orange, but it's the closest I had. I found the color combo at a site called Color Throwdown. Click here to check it out. http://colorthrowdown.blogspot.com/



Next, I used a layout from Mojo Monday. They post a new layout each Monday. You are able to submit your creations using that week's layout for others to see. Of course, I was a day late and I couldn't link up to Mr. Linky on the site. Better luck next time for me. Visit Mojo Monday's site here for more layout ideas. http://mojomonday.blogspot.com/



So tah dah...here's my card using all these great resources. I used the Kind and Caring stamp set, which is a new hostess set and the words are from Great Friend. I kind of like it, but I would have liked it more with Guava CS. Oh well...Enjoy!