In Style Stamps sketch challenge

I ordered some of the cutest rubber stamps from In Style Stamps (on sale 50% off!), and knew I wanted to play along with their sketch challenge. It ends tonight, so I figured I better get busy!

Really Reasonable Ribbon Blog Hop

Well, I guess by now, you have figured it out! I was asked to join the Really Reasonable Ribbon DT! I am so thrilled - I love playing with ribbons and figuring out cool new things to do with them. I look forward to sharing some of those ideas with you over the next several months. You should have arrived from the very talented Mindy's blog. If you have stumbled across this blog hop, you won't want to miss anything - so go back to the RRR blog and start there. Also, if you haven't signed up for the fabulous CANDY that Bonnie is giving, today is the last day! You need to sign up here.


As I looked through the idea requests that people made on the Really Reasonable Ribbon Blog, I noticed that many people love the wide ribbons, but aren't quite sure how to use them. Today, for my card, I will show you one way.

I used the 1.5 inch Celery Satin ribbon to form the base of a double-layered tailored bow. I added the 5/8" pink velvet ribbon for my second layer. To finish off my ribbon embellishment, I used a couple of the adorable hand-painted buttons that RRR carries. These are so cute in person!

To make the tailored bow, I cut 5 pieces of celery ribbon - 5", 7", 9", 2", 3". I made 3 separate loops of ribbon, using the 5,7, 9 inch pieces. I secured each loop with a small piece of scor tape. I then finger pressed the loops flat and stacked them on top of each other. Then I wrapped the 2 inch piece of ribbon around the loops and taped down on the backside. This formed the basic "tailored bow". I decided I wanted to add another layer with pink velvet, so I cut small pieces of ribbon (about an inch long), and just tucked them around my folds and secured these with the scor tape as well. The Final piece of celery ribbon (3") was used to make the tails. I trimmed the edges and cut it in half, and taped to my bow. I know this may be a little confusing without pictures. If you would like for me to add a more detailed tutorial, just let me know - I just didn't have time to get that done this week, but wanted to give you some clues to what I did.

Are you ready for more inspiration? Then you need to hop on Amber's blog to see her fantastic creation. We hope you have a wonderful National Scrapbook Day and enjoy the hop!

Challenges:
JustRite Stampers - sketch
Stamptacular Sunday - Sew Special
Creative Card Crew - April Showers bring May Flowers
Flourishes - Vintage
Peachy Keen - picture inspiration
Spoon Full of Sugar - 3-D Something
Delightful Sketches - punches
Quixotic - How Distressing
Simon Says - Buttons, Bows, Bling
Crafty Catz - Spots
Cute Card Thursday - make your own element (ribbon embellie)
PaperPlay - pretty pastels
Pixie Dust - pic inspiration

Mother's Day with the Beary Scrap

Is this an exciting week at The Beary Scrap or what? Not only have the Beary Scrappy Gals given you tons of Mother's Day eye candy this week, we also had the privilege to welcome a very talented new gal to our team - Elise of Paper Love Affair. Elise, we all love your work, and can't wait to see the lovelies you will have in store for us! And did you notice....today is our first BEARY SCRAP CHALLENGE! Now you are going to get to play along with us, and have a chance to win wonderful prizes from Kimm! Be sure to check all of the details here.

When I think about making Mother's Day cards, I usually think of nostalgic, childhood images. So although this cute stamp, Tilda carrying a Lamb, was actually an Easter image, I loved the idea of using her for Mary Had a Little Lamb. Don't be afraid to re-purpose out of season stamps - it makes it really fun to find new ways to use them! I colored her with copics (oh, I know you are shocked! LOL)

Speaking of finding new ways to use your products...remember a few weeks ago when I showed you the video with the glimmer screens? Notice the flourish behind Tilda? I took one of my glimmer screens and traced over it using puffy paint, sprinkled with glitter, and let it dry. The new flourish peels right off (and doesn't mess up your Glimmer Screen at all).

For the lamb, I used the new Nursery Rhymes Cricut cartridge - and cut it out of Grunge Paper, and sheet music dp. I loved adding the little bow around the lamb's neck!

Don't forget to sign up for our blog candy, if you haven't done it yet! You have until May the 5th.

We'll see you back this week to inspire you and to see some inspiration from you!

Challenges:
Midnight Madness: sketch
Flourishes Timeless Tuesday - vintage
Stampin' Sisters in Christ - Mother's Day
Stamptacular Sunday - Sew Special
Shabby Tea Room - Picture inspiration/Comforts of Home
Papertake Weekly - Do Something Different (making the flourish from puffy paint)
Spoon Full of Sugar - 3-D elements
ABC - "S" Sparkle
Delightful Sketches - punch
Quixotic - How Distressing
Simon Says - Buttons, Bows, Bling
Your Next Stamp - Going Dotty
Cute Card Thursday - Make your own element (flourish)
PaperPlay - Pretty Pastels
Pixie Dust - picture inspiration

Cupcake Treats!

Well, I am on a diet, so although today is my birthday, I'm trying to stay away from sweets, but thought that I could share a little virtual birthday cupcake with all of you!

Shawne will be adding this digi set in the Studio 313 Exclusive Designs Store, in the next day or so. My papers are all her digi papers from the Sweet Thang Vintage line, and the digi stamp is from the Hey Sweet Thang line. I love how easy this is to coordinate everything. We also started a new challenge today, so don't forget to come join us!

Here are my challenges:
Oh Alice - food
Stamp Something - sketch
Stamp, Scrap, Doodle - girlie
Pile it On -Make it Sweet
Simon Says - Buttons, Bows, Bling

I Can See Clearly Now!

Have you been over to check out Shawne's cute line of digital stamps and papers at Studio 313 Exclusive Creations? She has a really awesome website with great images - and she has a great challenge going on for the next two weeks - use a clear element on your project.

For my card, I used Siren of the Sea. She is colored in copics. I had some great coral reef paper from Anna Griffith that was perfect for my mermaid. I added my clear { and sentiment "Live" from a set of clear embellishments from Fancy Pants - I added a little stickles to them to help them show up a little more.


Isn't this a fun challenge? What are you waiting for? Jump on in!

Here are my other challenges for this card:
Sketch and Stash - sketch ( and the digital image is new)
Stamptacular Sunday - Sew Special
Crafty Angels - Summer
Crazy Challenge - Buttons, brads or eyelets
Papertake Weekly - Do something different (using the clear embellies with stickles)
Spoon full of Sugar - 3-D elements
Lili of the Valley - here comes summer
Quixotic - How Distressing
Simon Says - Buttons, Bows, Bling
Stampavie and More - Distressing
Stamp, Scrap , Doodle - girly

Challenge Day at Michelle Perkett Studios

Today is my last day to post for the Michelle Perkett Studios DT. I have had so much fun coloring her delightful images, but it's time for me to step down and let someone else have a chance to play. Michelle, thank you so much for giving me the honor to serve on your first DT! And I wish you many years of continued success!

This week's challenge is a sketch. My card is a little simpler than usual, but I love how the side panels kind of look like curtains for a stage, and the Princess for a Day, is ready to take her curtain call bow.

I made my ribbon flower by simply pulling the pre-stitched thread to gather the ribbon into a flower. How easy is that?

Here are my challenges for this card:
One Stitch at a Time- flowers
Paper Sundaes - recipe ( 2 cs -green, gold; 3 DP's - clouds, leaves, side stripes; 1 flower )
Sketchy Colors - green and gold as main colors
The Town Scrapper - Girlie part 2
Pollycraft - make your own flowers
Meljen's Designs - For the Little Ones
Alota - Mother's Day

Candy and Blog Hop from Really Reasonable Ribbon and

Really Reasonable Ribbon has some great candy up for grabs, now through May 1st. And on the 1st, they will reveal their new design team with a fun blog hop. Here are the details from their blog. You will need to go to this post to enter to win.

May 1st is National Scrapbook Day, and more importantly, it's the day we are going to announce our NEW DESIGN TEAM!!!! So............we're having a party! We will be giving away a surprise pack of ribbon and embellishments to celebrate. I'm not good at keeping secrets, so I'm giving you a sneak peek at the prize below.


Here's what you need to do to enter the drawing:


#1 Subscribe to our blog via email at the top of the left column and also become a follower. We love having you come by and see us, and we don't want you to miss any of our great projects.


#2 Tell your friends, post about it on your blog, twitter about it, or facebook it. We have some super changes coming and we want to get the message out.


#3 Leave a comment on this post and tell our new design team members what you'd like to see on the blog in the upcoming months. I'm sure they'd love to hear from you!


The draw will take place on Saturday, May 1st and we will select the winner using Random Org. The winner will have 48 hours to contact us to claim their prize.

Please be sure to stop by on May 1st to welcome our new design team and see if you won!

Be sure to check out their store for some wonderful ribbons!

Queen for the Day!

I hope everyone had a fabulous weekend! It rained on and off here, but that is great to clear away some of the pollen. Can you believe Mother's Day is just a few weeks away? Time goes so quickly!

The challenge at Karen's Doodles this week is to make a for Mom or a Girly card. I think mine could be used for either. I used one of Karen's newest images, Rosie the Queen. This card has a ton of details that might not show up so great in the picture. I glued swarovski crystals on Rosie's crown and shoes. Rosie is mounted on a piece of green velvet SEI paper, that I ran through the cuttlebug with the script folder, and then I highlighted all of the embossed areas with gold Smooch. This gave it a really nice, aged gold patina. I made the organza flower, and yes, I feel these will be addicting!

Please link your creations up at the Karen's Doodles USA blog, for a chance to win some of Karen's wonderful images.

Here are my challenges for the card:
Sketch Saturday - sketch
Alota - Mother's Day
One Stitch at a Time - Flowers
S2G- Flowers
Stamp, Scrap, Doodle - Girlie
Kaboodle - Embossing
Pollycraft - Make your own flowers
Pixie Cottage - Mother's Day

Happy One Year Birthday to Sweet Pea Stamps

Sweet Pea Stamps is celebrating their one year birthday, and have been having tons of giveaways at the blog and their DT's blog.

I don't have any Sweet Pea stamps (yet), but am hoping to win some from DT - Traci's blog!

I hope you have many more years of producing great stamps!

Challenges:
Caardvarks: monochromatic
CPS - sketch
Paperplay - no patterned paper
Pixie Dust - Tag
Crafty Pad - Recycle (the rafia came off of a package)