Inspiration Week: Day 2

Today's inspiration focus is on stamps. With all the wonderful stamp companies out there, we are so fortunate to have about a gazillion stamps to choose from. This is both a blessing and a curse. Sometimes it's just hard to narrow down the choices...or keep our purchases reasonable because of all the deliciousness out there.

After studying the SU catalog closely, I decided to buy the new butterfly set that is basically an add-on to Flight of the Butterfly. I have and love the first set, but the text, houndstooth, and flourishy butterflies called to me. Plus, I wanted the coordinating punch. As soon as my goodies arrived, I dove right in to see what I could do with them.

In this case, I let the inspiration come from the flourishy butterfly itself. It's so pretty and soft and curvy, and I wanted to showcase it for max impact. As you'll see later, it makes a delightful one-layer card, but here, I wanted to create a bit of a frame for it to spill over. I also wanted to use that GAWGEOUS sentiment, which reminds me of the sentiments in Happy Harmony, one of my fave SU sets ever.

The matte frame helps the sentiment and butterfly relate to each other visually, and the crisp lines and high contrast of the colored mattes contrast nicely with the curves of the butterfly and sentiment. Remember, lines love curves, and curves love lines. I did briefly flirt with the idea of using the ticket punch on the corners but restrained myself. I'm so glad I did.


The brown pearls on the butterfly echo the brown of the sentiment, too, adding a bit more unity to card.


When you get a pretty stamp, ask yourself, "What is the LEAST I can do to make this stamp shine?" Often, it's really not very much at all.

Today's Give-Away: Another stamp set from Mark's Finest Papers, loaded with stamps to inspire! Just like yesterday's, this give-away is open to everyone. The deadline for entering all of the Inspiration Week Drawings will be Saturday, September 25, at noon Eastern time. The winners for all the give-aways will be announced on Sunday.

Today's Question: What stamps inspire you the most? Is it a particular theme (nature, vintage, cutesy, Christmas), image (frogs, leaves, kids without mouths, backgrounds), or brand?

See You Monday

Howdy, y'all. I'm feeling under the weather and am going to take a short break from blogging. I'll be back on Monday with a give-away and, hopefully, a new card.

Have a great weekend!

City-Slicker Card and a Happy Day

My card for today has a problem. Can you identify it?


What sort of leaves are on this apple tree? Could they be, dare I say, oak? Nature may never have made a tree that looked like this, but I sort of like it anyway. Besides, if I send it to a city slicker, she won't know the difference.

And yes, there are four apples. I tried three, but it really needed the fourth. I contemplated adding a fifth so I'd have the magic odd number, but that felt like too much. So four it is. Or should that be "four are it"? Whatever.

Look and see what I got Tuesday!!!


This was my first SU order out of the new catalog. Y'all may have some idea of the restraint I exercised in getting only two new colors. And two sets. And one punch. Oh the owl called to me, but alas, the butterfly won.

I hope I can play with all these goodies tomorrow. Life has conspired to keep me out of the craft room. MUST do something about that.

What new stuff have you bought recently that is calling to you to play?

Falling Leaves

When I ordered Papertrey's All Booked Up, I also got Falling Leaves, a small $15 set that is utterly fabulous. I've already used every stamp in it on a number of cards, and this is one of my favorites!


More Mustard, chocolate chip, and a bit of layering, just like I do with my turtlenecks and sweaters in the fall. The simplicity of the stamp images makes me giddy. They are so easy to work with! Plus, the sentiments in this little set are wonderfully fall-ish.

Y'all already know how much I love fall.

And yesterday I picked up this year's issue of Papercrafts Christmas Cards and More, or whatever it's called. Anyway, all I can say is

THUD!

It may take a few days to even know where to begin in praising this magazine. I'm so excited about Christmas now!

Fall and Christmas. This time of year is a crafter's paradise!

One-Layer Wednesday 20: Three Plus One

This week's OLW Challenge is to use three images plus one sentiment:


Hee, hee! I'm so proud of not using ANY embellishments on this card...it just doesn't need them. The images are nicely detailed, as is the sentiment, so anything else is simply unnecessary. So if you want an extra challenge, avoid using any embellishments...but that's not required.

For my card, arranging the three butterflies in a visual triangle adds balance to the asymmetry of the images, and also plays up the curvy flourish of the sentiment. But this challenge invites lots of different layouts, from loose and flowing to very linear and angular.

OLW20 Rules

1. A one-layer card is defined as a single piece of cardstock folded in half.

2. Make a card that has three images and one sentiment. You may use three coordinating images, as I did here, or repeat one image three times. Just keep it to three images. Remember to keep embellishments to a minimum.

3. Please share your creation by posting your card online and then using the InLinkz button in the sidebar of Simplicity to link to it.

4. Most important of all...HAVE FUN!



Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts
ink: Memento
paper: PTI white
accessories: scallop scissors to round the corners slightly

A Little Business and Blender Pencils Defined

1. The entries for OLW19 are STUNNING! I'm blown away by the quantity of entries as well as their quality. Y'all are the best!

2. To celebrate the awesome readers of Simplicity, I'll be having some give-aways in the next few weeks. Keep your eyes peeled.

3. Why do we say "keep your eyes peeled"? It sounds painful. But you know what I mean.

4. The blender pencil I referred to in today's earlier post is an actual Prisma pencil. You can see one HERE with an excellent description of how they work. They are very easy to use and really awesome for those of us finicky types who don't want to mess with odorless mineral spirits or baby oil. It's the best 88 cents you'll ever spend to help with colored pencils.

Flirting with Colored Pencils

Not only is this a colored background card with a die cut on it (thanks again, Angela!), but the image is colored with colored pencils.

Miracles DO happen!


How-To Tips: Colored pencils are fun to use, and especially on this image because of its fairly small coloring areas. I colored lightly with several shades of each color, and then used a blender pencil to blend the shades smoothly.

Colors are a little bit off in the photo. The base is SU's Almost Amethyst, and the book plate was inked with Memento Grape Jelly. The whole thing is a bit more purple than blue as it shows on my screen.

I love the colors on this card. It just makes me so happy. But of course, tomorrow, we'll be back to lots of white space that's actually white and just one layer.

Thank you for tuning in to my little flirtation with color!