October Challenge - con't

Darlene must have jumped all over this one...no pun intended. She headed to the grocery store and picked up brown paper lunch bags. She cut ears, stamped Rosewood Easter Eggs across the bottom and coloured them. Next she added googlie eyes, drew on a mouth, fluff nose & fishing line whiskers. The tag is Rosewood Flourish Easter Egg stamped on shiny gold card stock. This cute little bag could be made in any size to deliver gifts from the Easter bunny or they would make great favour bags for a children's party.

Lauralee's bag is as usual a work of art. She stamped the Hero Arts background stamp in brown ink, coloured in the hearts with a red Marvy marker and highlighted the image with a white gel pen. She used a Nestibility to cut the heart shape in the bag and then lined the bag with some beautiful hand made paper. Walnut Distress ink on the edges of the bag adds dimension. Lauralee created her tag with the same heart shaped Nestibility in white card stock. She attached the cut shape from the bag to complete her tag. A twine bow, some walnut distress ink and raffia make an adorable bag & tag combination.

Cassie had brightly coloured bags to work with. She used a coordinating stamp and punch set from Stampin' Up to create the butterflies which she coloured with chalk. Her tag was a die cut that she stamped with Rosewood Paper Swirl and coloured with Bic Mark-Its. Cassie stamped Rosewood Friend on scrap paper, trimmed it out and dragged the edges with the red Mark-It to pull it all together.

Barb's card was layered onto a cream coloured card that she distress with olive pigment ink. The brown card stock was passed the CB folder swirls. She stamped Rosewood Northern Pine which she cut in half and layered onto green card stock. She used the same sentiment on her bag. Barb also created a similar layered image on the reverse of her bag. I apologize for the lack of a photo for the reverse of Barb's bag.


Barb had a fantastic interpretation of this challenge. She created her bag from newspaper based on instructions she found here. She did tell me that she made the bag a size bigger than the instruction make. I'm not sure where the sentiment is from but she created a great focal point by setting the brown mat off centre. The tag was created using her Cricuit "A Child's Year" cartridge. Don't you just love that shape?

Barb's Sept Challenge

As I posted here Barb forgot to bring her cards to our last play day. So in an effort to get caught up, here is the card she created for our September challenge. Barb used the Rosewood Framed Sunflower cut it into the 6 sections, layered onto black cardstock and then popped the squares onto another brown mat. She used a gorgeous punch to create the decorative edge and then added some dollar store paper flowers & ribbon to finish this stunnig card. Such a pretty colour combination.

June Card Challenge - Continued

I thought I had better finish posting the June challenge cards before I get the August challenge cards in my hand. Geesh, I can get behind in a hurry!

Jess' card makes great use of some beautiful vellum we had stashed. She cut the shapes with Nestibility dies and layered them onto the base. In hindsight and with a bit more time, we should have added another element in the bottom right corner. Jess is a teenager and pulled this card together the night before the cards were due. Sigh, like most of her homework....

This is the first visualization I had for this challenge. The minute I saw the sketch I thought of a tri-fold hold. In my mind I thought it would work but then I started second guessing the design and made the second card shown. I used a Nestibility die to cut the hearts, MS butterfly punch, a Fiskars heart punch and some dollar store bling. The bling by the way was gorgeous in the package but was somewhat challenging to apply neatly to the card.

The second card is a gate fold card that uses a bunch of different papers to make up the layered hearts. This card seemed to demand a tone on tone colour palette and I am sure you will notice the slightly squished bling and the nip out of the corner of the heart. Yes, I messed it up a bit but it serve as a reference for me. The other girls got nearly perfect cards.



Barb has used her Cricuit to full advantage for this card. Every time I see her cards I think about making the leap to ownership a little more. She added some bling and used some of her paper stash to complete this card. A beautiful card.

Barb made this bonus card, using her Sesame Street Cricuit cartridge. Who doesn't love the Cookie Monster. A really cute card that completes the elements of the sketch.


Cassie's card replicated the challenge sketch almost perfectly. She stamped a Rosewood heart with Brilliance (for shimmer). The Nestibility hearts were given a good work out for this challenge. Since Cassie chose to position the hearts near the bottom of the card, the addition of ribbon was necessary. We don't own that much ribbon so Cassie took a white polka dotted ribbon and coloured it with a Bic Mark It, instantly co-ordinating ribbon.

Jacqui's card was absolutley stunning. She used a beautiful Magenta stamp for her central image., which she had purchased the previous month after play day. Then she used her Cricuit to cut a little blue bird, the branch and the word "love". (I love that script!). A perfect card stock for the base, some ribbon and she layered the images to create this wonderful card.

May Challenge Cards

Our May Challenge was given to us by Lauralee, seen here. The twist with this challenge was to create a tone on tone card.

Barb used her Cricuit to cut the flourishes. She used Cuttlebug Flourished Frame to make her central frame. Her sentiment is stamped and embossed on vellum then centered in the frame. A coordinating ribbon added the finishing touch.



I don't own a Cricuit but Barb, Jacqui & Darlene do. Barb used a Cricuit cartridge to create a spectacular envelope to match her card. Who wouldn't want to receive this set in the mail? Maybe I will have to ask for one for Christmas....hint, hint



Donna really outdid herself with Lauralee's May Challenge. She created this incredibly beautiful card using only black cardstock. She used a flourish folder to mimick the design challenge Lauralee gave us to work with. Layered Nestibility label to create a striking design element.



Darlene used gorgeous blues to create her card. All of the sparkle on Darlene's card comes from Cobalt Tapestry Embossing Powder. She used it on the Spiral Frame that is stamped top and bottom and she used it to edge the ovals. Sorry Darlene didn't identify the makers of the stamps she used.



Cassie made the reds sing in her cards. She used Inkadinkadoo Floral Flourishes embossed with Red Sparkle to create her flourish element. She punched layered ovals and added a Tim Holtz diecut bird from his new set Caged Bird. Not a complicated card but very effective


Tomorrow I will add the rest of the challenge cards, including this month swap mistress' work who is such an overachiever. Kidding Lauralee, just kidding.

April Challenge Cards

The April Challenge was selected by Darlene this month shown here.
These sketches are really challenging for us.

Barb asked if she could join our challenges and this is the card she created. Barb has a Cricuit and used it to cut the images as well as the word "love" which she cut and layered to give dimension. My photo really doesn't do Barb's card justice.



It was Jess' turn to participate in the challenge this month and she made this rather quick card. The bows are from dollar store hair ribbons as is the bling. The sentiment is Inkadinkadoo stamped on a Spellbinder tag which was popped onto the base card.



Laurilee's card was beautiful as always, although she said this challenge was really difficult for her. She cut the 3 scalloped circles with a punch and ran it through Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder and layered onto some gorgeous Bo Bunny paper. Then she used the Martha Stewart butterfly (her favourite punch all time the note says) from the same paper and added glitter. Co-ordinating ribbon was attached under the punched strip. The tag is a Nestibility stamped with a sentiment from Papertrey Ink and edged with Martha Steward pink ink. Laurilee always send great instructions with her cards.





The front of my card was embossed with the Sizzix Floral Flourish folder. The images from Inkadinkadoo Round Frames set were stamped 6 times; one set was cut out and popped over the bottom 3 images. The edges dragged with Memories Midnight blue and layered onto blue cardstock.



Darlene's card this month is quite different from her previous cards. The images are cut from her Cricuit and embossed with gold. She also embossed the edges of the green paper she used underneath the images. The stamped sentiment is Rosewood stamps also embossed in gold. Darlene used the most interesting wood grained paper layered onto her white base card. I will have to ask her exactly how she did the embossing on this card when I see her next.



The card Donna finally settled on turned out beautifully. She cut the butterflies from a Spellbinder Shapeability. She layered them onto the brown ribbon and added dollar store bling. The sentiment is Hero Arts.



Cassie decided she wanted to make this challenge as well. Her card made use of a Martha Stewart edge punch and a Spellbinder Nestibility Scalloped Cicle. She alternated the circles over a piece of ribbon and added a sticker to the centre circle.



I guess I will have to show the results of next month challenge brought to us by Laurilee in 2 posts next month. If you would like to join our challenge, let me know and I will let you know where to send your images. I will post the May challenge tomorrow.