Rising to the Challenge

Took advantage of a weekend away for Fathers Day to carve out some time to boot up My Digital Studio and rise to some challenges for inspiration with a scrapbook layout of my wonderful kitty Nevada and our recent road trip with her ... one of the things I do love about My Digital Studio is it allows me to scrapbook anywhere and well since the boys were off doing their boy fun a girl needs to be able to play too!

I was inspired by my online friends Maggie and Rhoda over at My Stamping Best Friend and their June's Color Challenge to make use of the wonderful new 2013-14 In Colors of Coastal Cabana and Strawberry Slush with Basic Grey combined with this wonderful Hexagon inspired June layout challenge of Sketch 348 from over at Scrapbook Challenges which I had a whole lot of fun playing along with cause I am loving the little Hexagon punch from Stampin' Up both in its digital version and the traditional punch!

Hope everyone has had a wonderful Father's Day today!

Happy Stampin'
Margaret

Guest Designing - what an honour!

Over at the A La Card Monkey blog I have had the honor of being asked to be a guest designer showcasing this wonderful Holiday sketch that will go live tomorrow morning - so you get a little sneak peek tonight!

Here is my take on the sketch ... as you can see i opted for a holiday other than Christmas as all my Christmas cards are addressed and en-route to loved ones ... so I chose to get a head start of my Valentines cards! I just love this Little Friends stamp set from Stampin' Up ... perfect for just about any holiday!

Here is a close up to showcase my DIY glitter paper in the Tempting Turquoise color using versamark, heat and stick and fine glitter as well as adding a little bling to the little girls flower and sash for extra bling! 

The sentiment I chose here is from Petite Pairs and I added some Cottage Garden accents to my one piece of paper, the sentiment and my envelope.

Would also like to thank the ladies over at Just Add ink  and the Color Q for the Color inspiration on my card from their color challenge photos seen here - they were both so similar this week I could not choose which ones ... so I opted for Old Olive, Pink Pirouette, Melon Mambo, Tempting Turquoise and Silver for the 'bead' representation.

Thank you to everyone who stops by to leave comments on my blog - I work from home running an Early Learning program with young children so being able to read adult offered comments during quiet time really makes my day!

Happy Stampin'
Margaret

Technique Tuesday - Selective Embossing

Thought I would share the Technique Card we made at our last class ... each participant gets a 6x6 sample with instructions for their Inspiration book to recollect on later....this card showcased the Cottage Garden stamp set with the Square Lattice, Designer Frames and Elegant Bouquet emboss folders.

With the sample we practice a couple of things from negative selective embossing to create the stampable rectangle space on the pink square lattice embossed cardstock for our sentiment to 'double embossing' as seen here with the Designer Frames with the Elegant Bouquet embossed inside it!

Happy Stampin'

Designer Framed Elegant Bouquet

Yup - yet another Selective Embossing offering - having so much fun playing with this technique - the color combo is Melon Mambo and Pretty in Pink  with a hint of Wild Wasabi!

The back layer of card is stamped with flowers from Cottage Garden stamp set in Melon Mambo on the Pretty in Pink cardstock which is then run through the Square Lattice emboss folder and a strip of Whisper White attached after it was punched with the Scallop Trim punch.

Then the magic happens ... the Whisper White square was run through the Designer Frame to get our frame and than I reran it through the Elegant Bouquet using selective embossing to place the flowers inside the frame and hand cut around the frame to create the floral accent point on the card but before it was popped up on a couple dimensionals I had some fun with the floral frame...

... by playing with the Versamarker ... I heat embossed the various parts of the frame with different embossing powders ... Silver on the frame, Wild Wasabi on the stems and Melon Mambo flowers and than added a little more bling with some Rhinestones!

Happy Stampin'

Island Floral Easel Card

An Easel Card featuring the Cottage Garden stamp set, Island Floral Bigz Die, the Scallop Edge punch and of course more of our amazing In Colours of Pear Pizazz, Poppy Parade, Daffodil Delight and Peach Parfait ... yummy!

Back to the Garden again

More fun with the Cottage Garden stamp set and the in colours! Tangerine Tango, Daffodil Delight and Pear Pizazz with the Early Espresso ink for stamping and shading!

I love the butterfly fluttering off the page technique as well!

Another card featuring the Cottage Garden stamp set ... and the current in colours tangerine tango and pear pizazz papers! Also showcasing the Petals a Plenty Emboss Folder!

Cottage Wall

This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending the Stamp for the Cure fundraiser presented by a fellow demo Caroline Locke ... a totally awesome event and for an amazing cause close to my heart - funding cancer research and finding a cure!

The event featured the Stamp set Cottage Wall and the coordinating designer series paper Sunny Garden from the current catalog .... of which the new wonderfully inspiring IN colours coordinate with!

Below is one of the projects we created at the event - a decorated DVD case which can be used to give as a CD album of photos to a loved one, a collection of music on CD or you can remove the insert and decorate both sides and use it as a memory or gift card box!

Inside of the DVD container ...