Clean & Simple Wreath

Cased this gorgeous little wreath idea using the Pocket Silhouettes from my upline mentor Liz's  - so pretty and elegant in real life and QUICK and well perfect for this weeks challenge over at Clean & Simple! 

I used the Certainly Celery and Old Olive inks for my wreath, red glitter paper for the berries punched from the Cupcake builder and finished it with some real red grosgrain for the bow and the sentiment from Many Merry Messages.

Pop on over to the Design Team at Clean and Simple and check out their inspirations from this sketch along with the other entries!

Happy Stampin'
Margaret

Clean & Simple 159

Playing along this week at the Clean & Simple Card challenge ... Challenge 159

 Here is my Clean & Simple Christmas Card ... done in 10 minutes or less .... Baja Breeze Monochromatic card done in Embossed Serene Snowflakes with the sentiment from Tree Trimmings and a few Rhinestones for some bling factor!

I love the Clean and Simple card challenges - just wish I could get them posted in time more often!

Happy Stampin!

Clean & Simple Color Throwdown

Loved this fun layout from over at the Clean & Simple Challenge 137 ... been working really hard on keeping my class cards more simple so that they are not three hours long so these challenges are really helpful ...

Was also inspired by the Color Throwdown #138 ... Navy, White and any color so I chose Melon Mambo!And than with those inspirations I came up with the following Strength and Hope Campaign card featuring the Ribbon Border and a Vintage Flower Adornment ... this turned out way more sparkly in real life!

Here is an attempt to catch the sparkle on the butterflies ... I stamped them with Melon Mambo and sponged with Night of Navy and than covered with Versamark and sprinkled with Iridescent Ice emboss powder and heated - GORGEOUS and of course some Rhinestone gems to finish off the bling!!!!

Thanks for stopping by and thank you to everyone who leaves such warm comments - they make my day!

Bare Essential Challenge

This is a card inspired from our April Team Challenge combined with the Clean and Simple layout ... our Team challenge was to create a card using one stamp set, one ink color, one embellishment and two cardstock colors...those of you who know my card making style know how much of a challenge that really was for me - but I managed with a little creative 're-inking'!

I chose for my Stamp set the Because I care set, for my one ink color I chose Certainly Celery, my one embellishment is the 'connected strip' of Rhinestones which I cut three off of and my two colors of cardstock are Old Olive and Whisper White!

So now looking at my card you are likely thinking HEY there are more than two colors there ... that is where re - inking comes in .... I used my brayer on my Whisper White cardstock to create two tones of Certainly celery on my second layer background image and than stamped the Because I care hydrangea on the lighter side!

I also used the brayer on the paper ribbon I cut out to make it look like it was Certainly Celery cardstock as well and than stamped the sentiment on Whisper white with the Rhinestones for that added flare!

I admit that the Clean and Simple challenges are always a true challenge for me - but are VERY helpful in inspiring me to be creating the quick and easy cards for classes and workshops!

Thanks for stopping by!

Clean Simple Colour Q Challenge Cards

Happy New Year Everyone - may 2011 be full of abundance and prosperity for all!

Today's card offering palette is inspired by the Colour Q Challenge #65

As well as the layout inspired from the Clean & Simple 121 challenge a challenge that is my New Years resolution to take more often as I tend to design cards that are more time consuming that workshops and classes allow for so the inspiration from these challenges should help me to learn to find the elegant beauty that can be found in clean and simple!

So I think I did a pretty good job here combing both challenges! The colour palette of the Crumb Cake card stamped the En Francais background stamp in versamark and than the clean and simple inspired Old Olive cardstock strip run through the Plenty of Petals emboss folder and accented with the Scallop Trim border in Basic Black. Embellished with the 5 Petal Flower done in Basic Black, Basic Grey and Whisper White and accented with a Build a Brad button stamped with the Tiny Tags 4 You sentiment. The sentiment which I placed on the Word window punch layered with the Modern Label punch is the 'With Sympathy' stamp from Teeny Tiny Wishes.

This is a sentiment that you always regret needing but unfortunately I had a friend who has lost her father this holiday season and wanted to send her my condolences with a nice handmade card sending vibes of strength during her time of grief!