Stampin' Sisters in Christ challenge 114 . . .What's Old is New Again

Happy Sunday stampers! It is time for another challenge from Stampin' Sisters in Christ. I am the hostess this week and our wonderful sponsor is Clear Dollar Stamps, offering a $15 gift certificate to one randomly selected participant in this week's challenge. My chosen verse is from Genesis 3:6 "When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it."

My challenge is for you to dig into your stash and use one of your first, or oldest stamp sets to create your project.

Here are my thoughts for this week:

Eve took the apple. That is one of many important messages in this entire story from Genesis. Why is it significant?

My daughter recently visited a friend’s after school group at a local church. Among the other activities they gave the kids a mini-message. All the kids in the room, they were told, were good apples. But sometimes in life, bad apples come along who tempt us to do bad things. It isn’t our fault, it just happens. (I found out later that same week that the pastor of that church in a talk with his congregation had thrown the bible down on the floor by the pulpit and told them they wouldn’t be using it anymore.)

No, we’re not all born as good apples. We all are born with sin. Our greatest strivings, the best behavior we can possibly conjure up on our own cannot hope to reach the perfection that exists in God. And we alone fall to temptation; it is not the responsibility of other people. This line of thought leads to salvation by works, not by grace. “If I can just remain a good, unblemished apple . . . “ But we cannot earn our way to heaven. Romans 3:23 “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Notice how quickly the blame game started, all the way back in Genesis. Eve blamed the serpent. Adam blamed Eve and even blamed God himself, by implication, for placing Eve there. But as it says in James 1:13 “When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.’”

Eve and Adam blamed others for their choice to disobey, to sin. And my daughter’s visit to that local church illustrates that the blame game, while as old as Adam and Eve, is still alive and well today. We still blame others or our circumstances for our own sins.

Insert your own name into that first sentence. “I” took the apple. I held temptation in my hand and then bit into it. I am a sinner.

There are so many problems with the blame game, but one primary issue is that as long as a person plays the blame game, “Its not my fault!” and can shove it onto another source, there is no acknowledgment that yes, I am a sinner. A sinner needs a savior. A sinner turns to Christ. Someone who blames other people or circumstances for their own actions not only gets stuck in a rut (a bad pattern for life) but never has a reason to turn to Christ for their salvation, they turn to excuses. Where have you turned?

This week’s challenge focuses on the fact that what is old is new again. Satan often recycles the same old messages and we don’t want to get caught up in the blame game that started way back in the garden of Eden! To remind us of this, pull out one of your oldest stamp sets, one of the first ones you ever bought and use it in a card.

I used the sketch from this past week's Mojo Monday challenge, I love their sketches, for me, a sketch gets the mojo going better than almost any other type of challenge. Mojo 213 right here.

Stamps: Garden Collage (SU)
Ink: Kaleidacolor Berry Blaze, Stazon brown, Antique Linen
Paper: PTI Autumn Rose and Fine Linen, Basic Grey Indian Summer
Other: spellbinders, prima roses, pearls, copic R99, PTI scarlet jewel satin ribbon, PTI tintype impression plate

Stampin Sisters in Christ challenge 75 . . . without words

Happy Sunday stampers! It is time for another challenge from Stampin' Sisters in Christ! This week's hostess is my dear sister in Christ in Florida Miesje! She selected this verse from 1 John 3:18 "Dear children let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth." Our sponsor this week is Clear Dollar Stamps and one lucky winner will receive $15 in a gift card to their store. Miesje's challenge is to create a card or project that uses no words on the front yet signifies love.

For my project you see a trifold or gatefold card; these are two samples I am going to send to my oldest daughter for her to help decide on a wedding invitation. My oldest baby is getting married in June and her colors are . . . anyone want to guess? :)

I was working with white, silver and brilliant or royal blue. Love without words . . . since my thoughts are focused on marriage this week I have been thinking of the different love languages that speak to each individual. Have you ever read Gary Chapman's book on the Five Love Languages? For someone whose language is acts of service or physical touch, you can use words, words, words all day long to very little effect. Studying your marriage partner, your children and other family members and learning their love language, then putting it into action, can have marvelous effects on helping a relationship blossom and grow.

For Miesje's thought on this bible passage and to see the phenomenally amazing creations of the other design team members, you can click on the home page for Stampin' Sisters in Christ.

So . . . opinions solicited here . . . which one do you like better? As you can see from the way it unfolds (see directions on Sharon Johnson's blog here), the back panel on the interior that is now solid blue would have the actual invitation panel and on the left there is a handy pocket to hold the response card. I was thinking on the narrow panel on the right I would place my daughter's and future SIL's life verses from the bible. And I'll let you know which my daughter selects once she sees them. Anyone want to come over and help me make 125 of these before April??? Have a blessed Sunday and hope you can play along this week.

For the top card, that also qualifies for the Mark's Finest Papers challenge #41 from yesterday to use a handmade flower on your card. I made a chiffon flower, one of the few times that a stamper gets to play with fire!

Allsorts Challenge #89: Love, love, love

Crafty Calendar Challenge #17: Love

Fussy and Fancy Friday Challenge #29: Valentine with no red or pink

Polkadoodle #5: With hearts

Claudia & Co. #73: Unique fold . . . I used a tri-gate fold with a pocket

Stamping Vacation February challenge: Pick 3 . . . I chose a border punch, vellum and heart (top card)

Crazy4Challenges #73: Valentine . . . the top card would make a lovely valentine

Card One --
Stamps: SU Belle Toile background, MFP Hearts, Hearts, Hearts, PTI Alphabet, WM flourish

Paper: Co'ordinations blue, white, vellum, silver

Ink: SU Brilliant Blue, silver craft, white craft

Other: MS edge punch, white EP, twinkling silver EP, chiffon, blue reinker, waterfall stickles, pearl beads, pearl embellishments

Card Two--

Stamps: SU Belle Toile background, PTI Fancy Flourishes and year two anniversary set (butterflies)

Paper: Co'ordinations blue, white

Ink: SU Brilliant Blue, white craft, bashful blue

Ohter: MS edge punch, irridescent ice EP, silver pencil, dazzling diamonds glitter, charm, pearls, clear rhinestones.

Giving Thanks . . . in soft pink

Happy Sunday stampers! Its time for a new challenge from the Stampin' Sisters in Christ challenge blog. This week's hostess is Laurie! (a recent birthday girl) and the verse she has selected is I Chronicles 16:34 "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever."

Our challenge is to make a card or project that expresses your thankfulness for someone or something they have done, or to make a card that encourages someone to be thankful.

And our sponsor this week is Rubber Stamp Shack. Be sure to check out the main blog here to catch a glimpse of what you might win. Also you don't want to miss seeing what the rest of the design team has created for this challenge, I think it gets better week after week!

My project uses one of the new notepads that Papertrey Ink just issued with their latest release. So handy for so many things! What you are seeing is the notebook cover, when you untie the ribbon on the side, it opens. My daughter is a faithful journaler as she reads her bible each morning. I watched her settle into her quiet time each morning before work when she was home from college this summer.

I know that one area in our lives that can always use a little encouragement is a reminder of what God has done for us, so I made her this little thankfulness journal/notepad so when she sits with her bible in the morning or goes to bed at night, she can jot down the precious gifts God has blessed her with that day or recently. I tried to make it as pretty and feminine as my lovely daughter is, and received a lot of inspiration from the Papertrey Ink designers and one in particular, Melissa Phillips. Check out her blog here.

We've had such rainy weather here lately, the photo is a bit dark, hard to get a good image when its all gray outside! We had one nice weather window this afternoon and took advantage of it to have a wonderful time at a local apple orchard. We came home with a half bushel of all different types of apples and three pumpkins.

The star is glitter covered chipboard, the scallops from a Martha Stewart punch on a shimmery vellum that overlays the music stamped BG. I used Tim Holtz antique linen ink for a soft, vintage look, not to mention DD is an elementary ed music major. The DP is from SU, but it matches perfectly with the blush ribbon from PTI.

The chiffon flower is handmade, there was a great tutorial on Priscialla Styles blog a bit over a month ago, you'll find the instructions here. I dyed the chiffon with Pink Pirouette ink and because the chiffon is so light and airy, you get a lighter shade of color when you dye it so again, it matches the ribbon nicely. A nice trick is to edge the chiffon with a bit of stickles for some extra shimmer, I think I used lacy white (?) stickles on this flower. I have two strips of PTI white velvet ribbon there as well, some pearls and a sentiment and some flourishes from the Stampin' Up set Elegant Notes. The little border around the pink paper is from a new PTI set, Take Note, helps frame things nicely. Thanks for looking and we hope you get a chance to participate in this week's challenge from Stampin' Sisters in Christ.

Virtual Stamp Night -- Preparing in the Okiya

On splitcoaststampers we're celebrating a VSN mini, or virtual stamp night mini, with five challenges to get your appetites whetted for the big weekend November 14-15 (I hope I have the dates right).

The theme for this VSN is masquerade, and each challenge had to fit in with that theme somehow. We also have 'masked' messages, so inbetween the <> marks below, see if you can figure out the secret. :)

I am one of the hostesses for a mini this evening and here are the details for my challenge:

One of the best books I've read in the last decade was Memoirs of a Geisha. Always hard to believe that it wasn't actually a biographical novel, but fiction. The geisha or maiko in the book spend a good deal of time preparing every evening for their work entertaining clients in the city's tea houses.

Their visual appearance is striking--the elaborate hairstyle, the gorgeous kimono and the white makeup that covers the entire face and most of the neck. The white makeup is all part of the costume, a mask of a sort that doesn't conceal the personality beneath.

The challenge to you this evening is to create a card that wears a mask, one that enhances the main image without hiding it, an accent.

You will need acetate and white craft ink. If you're very careful you can use your heat gun to speed up the drying time on the white ink, but make sure you don't hold it too close or hold it in one spot for too long, you'll melt the plastic.

When you stamp in white on your acetate, a few things to remember; first make sure your pad is nicely inked up.

Second, do a practice stamp on a piece of scrap paper.

Third, don't touch the white ink on the acetate until it dries or it will smudge! <(Ask me how I know this!)>
Fourth, if you do smudge it, a damp tissue will wipe off your first attempt at white stamping. <(Ask me how I know THIS! Sorry, I won't tell.)>

Another hostess suggested that if you don't have white craft ink, you could also < use another color, or use a white rub on.>

If you get a chance to play, check the thread in the VSN forum for details on how to post. Thanks for looking!

An Autumn pocket

Grace is now a design team member for Our Daily Bread Designs stamps. So well deserved! She issued a pocket card challenge and I haven't made a pocket card in such a long time. I've never made a criss cross pocket card so this was a good opportunity to try it out. I do not own any ODBD stamps so cannot enter their contest, but you should check out their web site to see the beautiful creations others have made!

My other friend, Kelly or schirmcat, issued her Word of the Week second challenge last Wednesday and it was the word 'impearl.' I don't know why it took me almost a week to make a card using pearls, but here it is! I painted twinkling H20s on the vellum leaves and I colored some white pearls with a copic marker to match my color theme because I needed them to be orange. The marker I used is actually apricot. The twinkling H20s don't really settle into or soak into the vellum, so they shimmer in spots, as though it rained the night before!

The stamp from Boho Backgrounds seemed to match the DP design pretty well. I stamped it in PTI Melon Berry, stamped it off first and then used it as a background for the sentiment, which is in PTI Avocado. The leaf swirl on the inside pocket insert is Inkadinkado in gold craft with gold EP. Thanks for looking.

Midnight Madness Bloom

My great-grandfather was a china painter. Glad I asked my mom to clarify that! I am lucky to have a whole piece of his china in a cabinet in my home. The style when he painted was very ornate, lots of gold, lots of floral images. When I saw the challenge this week on Midnight Madness (sketch 13) I wondered if it would be possible to recreate the look of old china for their sketch.

There is another story of glass and china that belonged to my grandmother. She lived overseas and when she died my dad shipped home a box of glass and china so family members could all have a remembrance. The airlines must have drop-kicked the box out of the cargo bay at 30,000 feet because we didn't have anything left but glass dust when they were finished. I would have loved to have had a piece even as large as the 'fragments' on the side of my card.

So this is a combination of a remembrance of my grandfather on one side and grandmother on the other.

First I stamped the flower from Blooming Beautiful in gold craft and embossed it an the bee, then painted the images in with a variety of twinkling H20s. For the flower I used sapphire, wild blueberry and plum on the blossom. For the side china bits I stamped Belle Toile on vanilla cardstock, gold embossed it, then for both pieces I did the cracked glass technique. For those of you who have never tried it, you cover your image with versamark, sprinkle on clear EP and emboss it. You have to repeat this step at least five times to get a nice, thick layer of gloss on your paper. Other people use UTEE, I don't own any. Then you put it in the freezer for at least fifteen minutes and then when you take it out, you bend the paper to form crack lines. I used creamy caramel ink and a sponge to rub some ink on the images and a bit of it goes into the crack lines to help define them better.

For the belle toile panel, then I cut it into the squares for the sketch, to look like random pieces of broken china that someone is trying to put back together. At least, that's the effect I was trying to achieve. The flowers are those new primas, little roses, in white. I took reinkers in pacific point and creamy caramel with an aquapainter and painted them to match the blossom and the background, then put a bit of liquid glue on them and dipped them in gold glitter. Sponged the edges of the vanilla cardstock with creamy caramel.

Thanks for looking.

Stamps: SU Belle Toile, Bloomin' Beautiful

Paper: Vanilla, PTI Ripe Avocado

Ink: gold craft, creamy caramel, pacific point

Other: versamark, clear EP, sponge, gold EP, twinkling H20s, gold ribbon (PTI), prima roses, aquapainter, gold glitter

Light up my Life

This is week four of the summer challenges at Cornish Heritage Farms. I already saw the card on there that I think will be the winner, it is gorgeous. Mine started out goofy and got a little bit more tame this morning. 

We had to create a scene for week four. Now, I mainly own background stamps from CHF, so this truly made it challenging for me. 

I had been playing with the Cracked Montana Earth and wanted to see what it would look like on black. It made a very interesting effect, I thought, in versamark and embossed with iridescent ice EP. I really like the way it shines. We had a bit of sun this afternoon so I could take the pic outside and show you the shimmer. 

I used the sunflower background stamp with a Kaleidacolor blue pad stamped on blue to imitate a sunflower field at night or at late, late dusk, cutting around the petals.  See the bit of sunset just finishing? That's from my highly coveted remainder of a roll of SU wide rainbow organdy ribbon. I think the colors in it really mimic the colors of a sunset and make a nice foil to my 'fireflies.' Okay, we all know they're dragonflies, but pretend here with me! I used twinkling H20s on all of them, in different colors, and found that the lemonade color really reminds me of firefly tails, that bit on the end. 

One of my favorite summertime sights is fireflies lighting up the night sky. So here they are, lighting up the sunflower field with the night sky in the background as the sun slowly makes its way to bed. The sentiment is computer generated. Thanks so much for looking.

Stamps: CHF sunflower and cracked montana earth backgrounds, SU Unfrogettable

Ink: SU black, Kaleidacolor blue breeze, versamark

Cardstock: Bordering Blue, black, Elegant Eggplant, white. 

Other: SU organdy rainbow ribbon, twinklig H20s, bling, iridescent ice EP

Virtual Stamp Night Swiss Cheese challenge

There are four VSN challenges being posted tonight on SCS, if you get a chance, hop on over and check them out. I will be a hostess in August, but tonight there are four other lovely ladies with cool stamping challenges for you to try. 

  This first challenge was by schirmcat and it is a swiss cheese challenge . . . you had to put holes in your card. I made the bird card first and then just couldn't help myself, the image of froggie in a little holey boat entered my head and I couldn't get it out. Getting it done in 45 minutes was the real challenge, but I think you get the picture. . . and here is my little poem to go along with it:

Little froggie went to sea within a leaky boat.

"Oh no!" cried he and tried to bail, alas! It will not float!

 

The dragonfly smiles on the sly, he knows what frog forgot!

An amphibian knows how to swim and find land on the spot.

 

Next time dear little froggie, should you play VSN,

Avoid the schirmcat's challenge or you'll meet an early end.

 

No boat had a chance to sail and the passengers to please

When the challenge that you entered was holey like Swiss cheese! 

Butterflies on the wing

For the second challenge, we were to make a spiral cut card. First time for me and what fun! I am definitely going to make one of these again. The instructions for it are here. 

The first photo on the left shows the inside, my little spiraling butterflies. Easy peasy Lemon Squeezy (as the one commercial says) when you use a punch. I took my Martha Stewart butterfly punch, opened the drawer where I (hoard) keep my DP and punched five times in different colored scraps of paper. Voila! A flock of butterflies to put inside my card. (do butterflies travel in flocks, packs, or something else?) I have no idea whose DP is whose, the minutes I cut a piece of the name off, and have scraps left, I'm lost. Anyway, thanks for looking and try this technique, it is a lot of fun!

Stamps: Stampin Up Winged Things, PTI Green Thumb sentiment additions

Ink: Black stazon

Paper: SU Tangerine something, PTI lemon, neenah solar white, assorted DP

Other: MArtha Stewart butterfly punch, labels 4 nestability, orange GG ribbon, blah, blah, blah

Manhattan Flower Invitation

You gals were so kind with your comments, thank you! That really was a post so my DD could choose the style invite she liked best, but I thought I'd post the one she chose and answer a few questions people asked. 

I don't know what SAI stands for, but I know it is her music sorority at college. The rose is one of their symbols and she specifically wanted that included, so when I saw the Manhattan Flower die from Stampin Up I thought it would be perfect for this project. I actually had a lot of trouble trying to figure out how to incorporate music into the theme and then my colors had to be red, gold and white. I didn't have enough GG red ribbon so bought some of this style from Mike's. If you can see it, I used a liquid glue pen on the very edges of the roses and applied just a touch of glitter. There was a lot of drying time involved with this card because the gold craft ink, as you gals all know, doesn't dry very quickly, and it had to be completely dry to add the 'You're Invited' sentiment on top. The rose paper looks like saffron but its really PTI's gold, a very yellow gold with a subtle shimmer. And the prototype started with just white paper but it looked too stark for some reason, so I switched to confetti white, kind of gives it the look of hand made paper. 

Ocean's 11 Sky challenge

I'm trying to get caught up on some of the Ocean's 11 challenges, one of two blogger's groups to which I belong, listed on the right. What a talented bunch of stampers! Please check out their work on their blogs.

  For this challenge we had to incorporate the sky somehow into our card, so here is my sky. I had some beautiful DP that I wanted to use but it is very bright and I had difficulty matching up the yellow. I only HAVE six or seven different shades of yellow, you'd think something would match. 

  I followed a sky tutorial from Mothermark's blog. She originated the idea. Basically you cut a template using scalloped scissors for your cloud shape, choose a blue inkpad and sponge and go for it. 

  Thanks for looking.

Stamps: Stampin Up Winged Things, PTI Life

Cardstock: SU Pink, Orange and Yellow, DP unknown, vellum, PTI white

Ink: Black, Melon Kaleidacolor (Life sentiment), Bashful Blue, Baja Blue

Accessories: Martha Stewart lace border punch, Fiskars threading water punch, ciao copics, black pen, SU pink GG ribbon, satin ribbon from Mike's

Blue Butterfly

This post is about authenticity. You might think its about the butterfly card to the left and it is mostly, but its about being real with my stamping. 

This is a card of covered up errors. :) I had fun making it but it is one of those ooops! what do I do now! cards. 

The piece of blue paper is covering up an unwanted line from the paper and cuttlebug folder going through my wizard. The butterfly? I colored it in and then saw that I missed a spot, grabbed the wrong color blue and had to color over the lighter blue I had originally intended for the butterfly. Then the sentiment, that 'thank you.' Ahhhh, I am always nervous about stamping directly on a large section of the card. How much easier is it to stamp on a little scrap and if that one doesn't work, toss it and grab a new little scrap? I stamped that sentiment six times on the back of an envelope for practice before I bravely stamped it on the card underneath the butterfly . . . aaaaannnd I botched it. So now you have the sentiment on a neat little oval glued over it instead. I could pretend to be a perfect stamper and a perfect person but I'm not. Isn't it nice we can go over things and fix and make it better? And tomorrow there is a fresh piece of paper waiting and a fresh new day. Thanks for looking. 

Stamps: Stampin' Up Winged Things, sentiment from Honey Bee by Papertrey Ink

Ink: black

Paper: Papertrey white for card base, neenah solar white for the scalloped lace (its thinner and goes through the punch better)

Other: cuttlebug edge folder, Martha Stewart punch, paper piercer, oval punch, SU dazzling diamonds glitter, ciao copic markers in various shades of blue and purple

Friendship Umbrella

I just found out last week that my friend Karolyn is posting a challenge every Thursday on her blog, a Twisted Thursday sketch challenge, and this card is for S2GSC5. I find sketch challenges the easiest, probably because its like following a recipe, the layout is all there, you just have to fill in the pieces! :) Its a sketch challenge with a twist and in this case the twist was to add some embossing. I used the SU background stamp Dots and Daisies and embossed it in white on the apricot, then used light colored copic markers to color in the daisies. I like how well the flowers in all three stamp sets coordinate when they were released at different time. The little bitty flowers are fom a stamp in the Pocket Full of Posies set, I colored them in and then cut them out individually. YOu need very, very sharp little scissors for that! The vellum kind of reminds me of a raincoat lining and of course, you need a button to keep the coat closed. Fun sketch, now I just need to find a good source for inexpensive large square envelopes and I can mail this to someone! Thanks so much for visiting. 

Stamps: Stampin Up Dots & Daisies (BG), Pocket Full of Posies, Blooming with Happiness

Cardstock: SU Apricot, Candy vellum, Designer paper, Pretty in Pink, Barely Banana, Papertrey White

Ink: Graphite black, white craft

Other: Copic ciao markers E37, Y00, R20, RV10, YR02, K & Co. 'Smitten' adhesive paper ribbon, Spellbinders petite scalloped circle and scalloped rectangle nestabilities, button, clear EP

Spring Peeps!

As part of our Ocean 11 blog group, the members are going to post challenges. The first was posted by Chirleen! We had to create a spring themed card that is 3-D. Sorry to have two shadowbox cards in a row, but when I think 3-D that's what comes to mind first!

  And what says Spring like Peeps! These peeps are naturally, sugar-coated (Martha Stewart chunky glitter) as is the scalloped circular opening to mimic those neat little sugar eggs you would get sometimes as a kid that had a sugar diorama inside. Remember those? 

  I have no idea where the DP is from, but I edged it with my sharpest pair of scissors to look like grass. The 'sky' paper behind the bunnies is part of that paper set too, I didn't stamp that. The wee flowers are cut out individually from a cute SU set (retired) called Pocket Full of Posies. Fiskars scalloped border punch and a bit of ribbon. Thanks for looking!