Stampin' Sisters in Christ challenge 28 . . . Prayer and Praise

This week's challenge hostess is the lovely and talented Pamela whose scrapbook pages always leave me with my jaw on the floor. They're always so detailed and fresh. Her chosen verse this week is from Colossians 3:17 "And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."

Her challenge is this . . . You have free reign of what you want to do this week. But here's the deal: I want you to actively do this as an act of worship to our God. Before starting, pray. Thank God for your gift. While working, feel free to pray more or perhaps sing out to Him. Put your focus on Him and remember that it is He who gave you your gift (however good or bad you think you are at this)and remember that it makes Him happy to see you at work. Do this challenge as if you were doing it for Christ himself!

I want to thank Pamela for helping put our focus back on the creator, the one who gave us this gift of stamping, the gift of creativity. Its a great idea to think daily upon and thank and praise the Father for every good gift we have in this life. I would assume that anyone reading this is a stamper or crafty in some way, can you imagine your life without it? What a marvelous gift!

I was listening to Sounds of Majesty on Moody Radio while I was making my card and praying for a variety of friends who have challenges in their lives right now. I hope to always glorify the Lord through my creations. Hope you find a chance to get in prayer and create along with the design team this week.

Our sponsor this week is Christian Paper Crafts, which is donating a stamp set, and you can read more details on the home page at Stampin' Sisters in Christ here. Thanks for looking.

On the Waterfront . . . Virtual Stamp Night on SCS

Did you know it is Virtual Stamp Night weekend on Splitcoast Stampers? Check out the main thread here. There are challenges issued every hour. There were a few last night and there is a stellar lineup of challenges today, all focused on themes taken from the Winter Olympics. Maybe we couldn't go to Vancouver, but we can ink up our stamps and honor the Olympics and have some fun at the same time, while we make projects or cards!

The idea behind VSN is to complete a stamping challenge in 45 minutes, that is part of the fun. But as the challenge hostess for the 1:00 P.M. EST timeslot I got a bit carried away with my sample and please note, as one poster asked, I DID NOT make this in 45 minutes, not at all! But as the challenge hostess I get that privilege. I intend to use this card for my oldest daughter's birthday in April. She loved mermaids when she was small. I even made her and her younger sister mermaid tails out of fabric that they could wear in the bathtub so they could pretend to be mermaids. When I saw this new set being released by Crafty Secrets this January, I had to have it. And then I had to try to dress up my card as much as possible.

First I followed a technique I found in BadSherry's gallery on SCS to use Tim Holtz Ranger Distress inks to make a watercolor sort of background. Taking the ink pads, I swiped them across a sheet of wax paper, spritzed them with microsprayer to get the ink to bead up, then taking a piece of plain white cardstock, you lay it down on the wax paper on top of the colors. Lift it up, dry it off with a heat gun and then turning the paper, reink it on the wax paper again. If you use complementary colors they run and pool together nicely. I've used this technique before and thought it would make a wonderful background for the detailed mermaid stamp. I think I used peeled paint, two blues and a purple ink. Then taking an aquapainter, I used the green ink pad (peeled paint) to enhance the mermaid's tail a bit. I also overlaid a bit of watercolor wonder crayon in blush on the mermaid's arms and face.

The chiffon flowers I pulled from a tutorial several months ago on Priscilla Styles blog for Midnight Madness. I used three different ink color to brush on the chiffon so that the flowers would have a bit of a mottled look. When else do you get to play with fabric and fire on the same day? I edged the flowers with waterfall stickles. They take for-evah to dry.


Used a Martha Stewart branch punch to help enhance the flowers and buttons, coating them with Dazzling Diamonds glitter. Used a Sakura gelly roll silver pen for some detail enhancement on the main panel . . . and the rest is pretty self explanatory. Thanks for looking. Hope you get a chance to play along with VSN this weekend.

February PTI blog hop!!

Time again for another PTI blog hop, wow, how the months fly by. This month for the February blog hop challenge, the instructions were as follows:

"Since we just finished up our 3rd Anniversary Festivities, we thought we would do something extra
special for this month's Blog Hop! Design Team Appreciation Day! Your challenge is to go through the
Design Team gallery or any of the Design Team Members' blogs and find a project that is especially
inspirational to you! Then recreate the project with your own spin, making it unique! Be sure to share a
link and photo of the original project that inspired you! And you can also use this opportunity to thank
the team for all their contributions this past year! "

I really do wish to thank the design team for all the wonderful inspiration they provide, the jaw dropping creations, the color. There's a reason why we call beautiful things in this hobby 'eye candy.' The design team always provides wonderful eye candy and I think I especially appreciate it in the winter when most everything around me is white!

We were supposed to choose a designer's creation to emulate and I would have liked to have done one from each, maybe I can make that a side trip for myself over the course of the next few months. They're all so talented and I almost felt guilty just choosing one. I selected one of Betsy Veldman's projects found in this post of hers here. I liked the strips of images on kraft, the paper piercing and the scallops. This is Betsy's card below:



For my creation I used vintage cream on kraft instead of white and different stamp sets except for the Giga Guidelines. I turned my card on its side as well because it just seemed to fit the teapot shape better. I was not fortunate enough to snag one of the scallop dies on release night so I used a 1/2-inch hole punch to cut out circles and create my own scallops. I also liked the look of Quilter's Sampler with the teapot and couldn't quite figure out how to incorporate it without covering up too much of the kraft background. You do that paper piercing and you want folks to see it! So I made little buttons out of the quilt squares by first layering them on regular cardstock for firmness, punching two holes in them and then putting on a nice thick layer of crystal effects glue. To me they kind of look like little potholders or something or a trivet to place the teapot on.



The ultimate designer at Papertrey is of course, Nichole Heady and although she didn't seem to include herself as a member of the design team, I thought I would take one of her recent creations and make a sample of that as well. Papertrey wouldn't exist if she hadn't started it and she deserves kudos aplenty! Here is her card from the introduction of Asian Fusion. I liked the colors, the simplicity and the buttons.



I decided to see if Green Thumb could achieve this look. I don't know if I reached zen, but here is my take on using Green Thumb to make a version of Nichole's card using Asian Fusion.



Teapot Card
Stamps: Papertrey Ink Damask Designs, Giga Guidelines, Background Basics: Spots and Dots, Hearts, Tea for Two, Quilter's Sampler
Ink: SU Pink Pirouette, black stazon, PTI vintage cream
Cardstock: PTI vintage cream, kraft, SU Pink Pirouette, Basic Grey DP
Other: glitter, twine, crystal effect, labels nine nestability, paper piercing tool

Aqua Card
Stamps: Papertrey Ink Green Thumb, Background Basics: Spots and Dots
Ink: Versamark, Aqua Mist, Spring Moss, Avocado, Chocolate
Cardstock: PTI white, Aqua Mist
Other: random ribbon, PTI aqua mist ribbon, Avocado buttons

Papertrey Peeps . . . Aimes' porridge packaging challenge

I thought midafternoon sun might provide enough light for a good photo, apparently its a bit too much. One of these days I'll learn to be a decent photographer. ANYway, Aimes issued us the latest challenge on Papertrey Peeps and she chose a selection of containers from her absolutely favorite porridge company as inspiration. We got to select a box for our card and I was attracted to the purple container because although I love purple I don't use it very often. The container also had a medium sort of dusty blue, a bit of gray and white lettering, so I was working off of that. I went to the Card Positioning Systems web site and used a previous sketch layout.
If I were more clever with the computer I'd post the inspiration box, but instead, click here and you'll see it on the blog. You should go there anyway and see Aimes' card, its pretty fabulous.

Thanks for looking! Hope you have a great day!

Stamps: Papertrey Ink
Ink: black
Paper: Plum Pudding, Lavendar Moon, some blue from SU, perhaps ballet? . . . it was a scrap, gray, white, PTI guidelines DP
Other: Martha Stewart lace border punch, cuttlebug folders, yadda, yadda, yadda . . .

Stampin' Sisters in Christ challenge 27 -- Time . . . Sunrise

Happy Sunday stampers! Our hostess today from Stampin' Sisters in Christ is the lovely Laurie, who selected this verse from Esther 4:14 "For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to a royal position for such a time as this?"

Her challenge is to make a project using a time piece or in some way denoting time. Our sponsor this week is Designed to Delight, a cute digital stamp company and one random winner will receive a $10 gift certificate for playing along in the SSIC challenge this week, follow the link to the home page for more details and to read Laurie's wonderful thoughts on the scripture she chose. I have two cards to share with you today simply because I tried using two different stamp sets while I was playing with my ink.

I've always loved the song by Wayne Watson, "For Such a Time as This," based upon this verse from Esther I believe. Here is part of it:

For such a time as this
I was placed upon the earth
To hear the voice of God
And do His will
Whatever it is

That's what Esther did, she did God's will despite personal danger. She was a brave, courageous, smart and godly woman. And notice she didn't just rush in headlong without a plan either, she asked her people to fast and pray for her prior to approaching the king with her dinner invitation. If you want to read all about it, the entire story of Esther's courage and how she saved her people is written in the book of Esther in your bible.

We are all as individuals placed upon this earth for a reason too. Just like Esther we are to do the will of God and bring him glory. You too were placed here for maybe one particular hugely important moment in time or for a lifetime of service in small but meaningful deeds. But there is a reason, probably more than one. :)

For my cards, I am depicting a scene of time -- sunrise--the beginning of the day, when everything is fresh and new and opportunities abound. I used wax paper and Tim Holtz ranger distress inks with a spritzer to create my background for the trees, stamped in black craft and embossed with clear EP. Thanks for looking.

First card:
Stamps: Stampin' Up Lovely as a Tree
Paper: PTI Berry Sorbet, Spring Rain, SU Apricot, Nenah solar white, The Paper Studio DP
Ink: Black craft, Tim Holtz ranger distress inks in mustard seed, dried marigold, worn lipstick, broken china, faded jeans, peeled paint
Other: clear EP, PTI spring rain button, summer sunrise dotted ribbon, nestabilities die (bird), labels 4, oval, Cuttlebug 'with love' embossing border

Second card:
Stamps: PTI Through the Trees
Paper: PTI Spring Rain, vanilla, lemon tart, Neenah solar white, SU Kiwi Kiss, Melissa Frances "Lilly" DP
Ink: black craft, Tim Holtz ranger distress inks in mustard seed, dried marigold, worn lipstick, peeled paint, broken china
Other: clear EP, SU apricot large GG ribbon, PTI sweet blush satin ribbon, cuttlebug Frills embossing border, nestabilities petite scalloped circles, PTI buttons in berry sorbet, summer sunrise, lemon tart

Compose a Card . . . Engagement

Engagements are cropping up amongst my oldest daughter's friends like dandelions in the Springtime. (I said the "S" word, yes! Even though it is weeks away!) This week's challenge on Becky Oehler's blog, Compose a Card #4, is a more elegant color combination and layout than last week and seemed to suit this particular friend of my daughter's. She is training to be an opera singer and just got engaged this past weekend. Would you believe I looked through my stash and I do not have a nice, elegant 'Congratulations?' I have to remedy that. I smudged the sentiment a little bit, I'm so mad at myself, but I don't think she'll notice it.

Wedding just seems to go with chiffon and pearls. . . I worried the flower is a bit large, but its tough to make a small chiffon flower. I edged it in gold stickles for a bit of contrast, plus the only color stickles I have in green is a bright Christmas color, not a good match for an avocado/kiwi bit.

The card still looked a bit too somber with the black edging so I softened it at the last minute by using one of Nichole Heady's tricks of using sticky tape and glitter. Thanks for looking.

Stamps: PTI Life, SU set Reverse Prints, sentiment from Best Yet
Paper: Black, white, PTI avocado
Ink: Black craft, Kiwi kiss (for dying the chiffon)
Other: double sided sticky tape, white glitter, white ribbon, PTI vintage buttons cream, pearls, chiffon, gold stickles

Compose a Card . . . Daydreams of You

This card sort of kind of fits Becky Oehler's latest challenge, compose a card. You can find details on her blog here. I was actually thinking of it for a few days and I just couldn't wrap my mind around making a card that measured 5x7. Also, I'm trying to collect a stack of cards to send to Operation Write Home and their preferred size is A2, so this card measures A2, but does adhere to the general proportions and colors in Becky's challenge.

Can you tell I'm Johnny-one-note lately? I just love the Through the Trees set and for some reason, I keep using this tree image when what sold me on the set was the birch trees. :) I just really like it and I really like it in white. I pictured this card as a daydream, dreaming of the love you have for someone you miss. So I deliberately chose the 'thinking of you' sentiment rather than 'I love you' because the card really expresses missing someone in a romantic sense. Thanks for looking.

Stamps: PTI Through the Trees, hearts background set and random flourish
Paper: Tangerine, Spring Rain, Raspberry Fizz
Ink: white craft, versamark
Other: white detail embossing powder, Martha Stewart heart punch blanks, fiskars edge punch, rhinestones