Stampin' Sisters in Christ challenge 100 . . . creatures

Happy Sunday stampers! It is time for another challenge from Stampin' Sisters in Christ! We are welcoming two guest designers for the month of August, Traci Major and Teresa Kline! Both of them love the Lord and create beautiful things and if you visit the main blog you can see all the creations from each member of the design team! I am your hostess this week and I chose this verse:

Psalm 148:7-10 “Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all ocean depths, lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds that do his bidding, you mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, wild animals and all cattle, small creatures and flying birds. . .”

Wishing you a blessed Sunday in the Lord! Have you had a chance to go to church today? We all hope you have a place to connect with members of a local body of believers and join them in worship.

We can worship the Lord any time though, not just in church. The psalms can be soothing, encouraging or even exciting! Imagine if our ears were on the right frequency to hear all of creation praising the Lord, as it talks about in this psalm!

In 1 Chronicles 16:23 it says, “Sing to the Lord, all the earth; proclaim his salvation day after day.”

“Let heaven and earth praise him, the seas and all that move in them!”
Psalm 69:34

“The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork.”
Psalm 19:1

However, the job of praising our creator also is ours, in fact it is primarily our job. In Luke 19:40 Jesus said that if men should hold their peace, or not praise God, “even the stones would cry out.” Let’s not outsource that job to a stone, let’s use our voices and praise Him!

Each of the design team members has a wonderful praise song linked in their blog post, or song to recommend that will get your heart moving closer to the Lord in worship.

I love to listen to praise music as I create! I have so many favorite songs, but one that I like that we sang at the church we attended before we moved is a Chris Tomlin song, “Sing, Sing, Sing.” You’ll find it here on youtube.

Once you’ve enjoyed your praise tour, in this week’s challenge we invite you to use any type of creature from tiny (like an ant or a bug) to a very large creature (whale, or elephant) on your card or project. Our sponsor this week is Doodle Pantry, and I used one of their ant images in my card. I colored them with prismacolor pencils and covered them with crystal effects to make them shiny, because ants are usually a bit shiny. I colored the leaves with prismas as well and used some paper scraps to piece together a background for them. Have fun and enjoy singing!

Divas by Design . . . Summertime!

Summer is here! And the Divas by Design challenge blog invites you to make your summer themed card for this next two week challenge period.

The divas have a lovely crop of summer cards on the main blog here for your viewing pleasure and we do hope you'll join in! The sponsor this round is Di's Digital Downloads and you will see a lot of cute bears and summer images in the design team creations. I look like I missed the memo, was out of town taking care of my mom for a few days.

I chose pink lemonade as an iconic summer symbol, although if you like it you can have it any time of year. I used the wrinkle free distress technique to make the lemonade with spun sugar and worn lipstick Ranger distress inks. Drew in some ice cubes using a silver gel pen so they wouldn't be too prominent. Tried to make it look as though frost was covering the top of the glass, you know how your cold drinks sweat a bit in the heat when you're outside, so I put rock candy crackle on the upper part of the jar. Don't know if it looks like a drink or if the glass looks like it is going to shatter. :)

Thanks for looking and hope you can play along!

Stamps: Papertrey Ink Friendship Jar, Stampin' Up Fresh Fruits, Flourishes borders

Ink: black, Ranger distress spun sugar, worn lipstick

Paper: DP, white, pink, yellow

Other: PTI impression plate, ribbon, lace, Rock Candy crackle, silver gel pen, buttons

PTI Stamp a Faire challenge 10, CPS 228

Squeaking in under the wire, Papertrey Ink has one final challenge for Stamp a Faire, number ten, where you are to stamp one image underneath another overstamped image, using a lighter color for the background layer and a darker color on top.

I chose Background Basics: Botanicals in versamark on Fine Linen then overstamped with one of my favorite PTI sets, Life, in kiwi kiss, lavendar moon, plum pudding, poppy, ballet blue, celery and violette.

The sentiment is from a new set called "Encouragement" from Layers of Color that I couldn't wait to ink up, has a great assortment of scriptures and sentiments that I know I'm going to find very helpful.

I sort of followed the newest sketch from Card Positioning Systems, number 228, it was a great guide to get started on this project, along with the PTI challenge. Thanks for looking, have a great evening!

Other paper layers are rustic cream, baja breeze and kraft with a touch of SU DP and some seam binding ribbon, PTI chartreuse button and twine.

Papertrey Ink blog hop July 2011

Papertrey Ink July blog hop yo! This was an inspiration photo hop and from the inspiration photo I took the imagery of the window, chose the mums to play off the flowers in one of the pillows. The white impressed base of the card from the scored bench in the photo and the medallion on the other pillow in my aqua background stamped with guidelines images. I have just a touch of orange as a nod to the orange curtains. The wee bit of ribbon and fine linen button are a play off of the shades in the window. I had a lot of fun with this and hope you did too! Looking forward to hopping later, have to feed the family first!

Thought I would show the pencils I used to color in the vase and flowers. Thanks for looking!

Stampin' Sisters in Christ challenge 99 . . .black and white

Happy Sunday stampers! It is once again time for another challenge from Stampin' Sisters in Christ! This week's hostess is the uber-talented Grace, who selected this verse from Isaiah 55:8-9 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Her challenge is to create a card in contrasts of either black and white or ivory and black.

Our sponsor this week is Layers of Color! I was traveling and had to get my card together in a hurry. I had some LOC stamps on their way but they arrived while I was gone, I am anxious, however, to ink them up. Especially! the sentiment set that one lucky winner will receive who plays along this week. I ordered it first thing, I LOVE it!

As I said, I was traveling and have no other thoughts to share on the verse this week other than Isaiah is full of beautiful passages and I know Grace's thoughts will bless you.

Hope you can play along, we look forward to seeing your creations in the gallery!

Papertrey Ink Stamp a Faire challenge

This is for the Papertrey Ink Stamp a Faire challenge number nine, to look at a stamp or use it in a new way. I am not sure this qualifies, but the first thing that came to mind is that when you drive around in the summer, you see all sorts of creative holders for flowers and yes, I've seen people use cars as planters.

So instead of the car you drive, this is my car as planter, complete with the rust you'd accumulate if it sat a while in the yard in the elements. Thanks for looking, happy stamping!

Stamps: Papertrey Ink Enjoy the Ride, Garden Variety

Ink: black, kiwi kiss, new leaf, hibiscus burst, pure poppy and tumbled glass

Paper: Spring moss, soft stone, white, patterned paper scraps

Other: ribbon, glitter, button, nestability, rock candy crackle, copics

Stampin' Sisters in Christ challenge 98 . . .let's dance!!!

Happy Sunday stampers! It is time for another challenge from Stampin' Sisters in Christ and this week our lovely blog founder Kris is the hostess who has selected this verse from 2 Samuel 6:14 "And David was dancing before the Lord with all his might, and David was wearing a linen ephod."

Her challenge is to make a card that 'moves' (i.e. tilt card, slider, pop up, waterfall, etc.) You can check on splitcoast stampers for lots of great resources on cards that move; the reason I have two shots of my card is to show the motion, I made a tilt card, first time for me, and the lowest sunflower blossom moves.

Our sponsor this week is Designed2Delight @ http://designed2delight@blogspot.com and one lucky winner will get a $10 gift card to her store.

In this verse of 2 Samuel, we're actually picking up part two of a short story about David; this is his second attempt to bring the ark back to its rightful place. The reason the first try failed is a story for another day, because in his second attempt, David finally got it right and this scene focuses on David's whole-hearted devotion to praising the Lord as he returns the ark to Jerusalem. As king and ruler of the entire army, he might have considered himself too dignified to dance before the ark, but not so.

One of his wives, Michal, daughter of Saul, chastises David for his behavior, but his response to her shows where his heart is; in verse 21 and 22 he tells Michal, "I will celebrate before the LORD. ²² I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes."

All of creation praises the Lord, as it says in Isaiah 55:12b "the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands."

The king of Israel danced, the trees of the fields even clap their hands, how have you worshipped and praised the Lord lately?

We invite you to create a card that moves for this week's challenge, looking forward to seeing your projects in the gallery!

For my card I chose to use the tilt card tutorial from splitcoast, you will find directions to their resource section here. I like the image on this stamp because it reminds me of illustrations from some old story books my mom had when she was a small child, dating back to the 1930s, so I chose retro style papers and colors for this card. Thanks for looking and have a great day.

Stamps: Mark's Finest Papers "Planted with Love"

Ink: black archival

Paper: kraft, blue, green and don't know the manufacturer of the DP

Other: prismacolor pencils, PTI button, Fiskars edge punches, velvet ribbon