IO " What's Your Hobby" Challenge

Impression Obsession's new challenge is "What's Your Hobby".I got this one ready as soon as I saw this challenge was coming up. I have a few hobbies, but gardening is the one this is about. I am crazy about bulb type flowers and the iris is my hands down favorite. My gardens are covered with snow, but I'm making my plans for the spring.

The iris is stamped on vellum and heat embossed in gold. I coloured the image on the back side of the vellum. This fabulous iris stamp is F1094.
You can play along here : http://mitrafriant.typepad.com/impression_obsession_news/2013/02/whats-your-hobby-challenge.html
You could win a $ 25.00 gift certificate to the IO shop, which is a really great prize !

JustRite Challenge #090 Part 2

Thought I might just have another card I could squeeze in under the wire. This one is much more Spring themed, although in spite of torrential rain, we still have lots of snow.

On this one I took the daisy stamp from the Botanical Medallions & Banners and stamped it all over and coloured them in with Copics. The Thank You stamp is from the Be Happy set.
The JustRite Friday challenge is on their blog here :  http://justritestampers.typepad.com/justrite-inspiration/2013/02/justrite-friday-challenge-090-sketch.html

JustRite Friday Challenge #090

The JustRite challenge for this week was to use the posted sketch. The sketch is really nice and the examples the DT made were beautiful. Using a sketch should be easy, but our weather has been crazy and it has put me in migraine world where there seems to be a severe shortage of ideas. I'm feeling rather blue, so I finally got a card done and it's rather blue too.

This was impossible to get a good photo of. The background is the JR Harlequin Script stamp on black cardstock with a mix of blue and purple Perfect Pearls which gives it a gorgeous sheen IRL. The gold border is another JR stamp, Lace Borders Two. The sentiment is from the fabulous JR Grand Sentiments set, it is stamped on a metallic blue cardstock, which is also the wide stripe and the card base. The wide stripe has a printed transparency on top. The gold piece behind the flower is a Spellbinders die from the Vintage Lace set. The flower was made by me using dark blue satin and a big Glitz bling. All the outlines are done with a gold Krylon pen.
To see all the amazing entries for this challenge go to : http://justritestampers.typepad.com/justrite-inspiration/2013/02/justrite-friday-challenge-090-sketch.html

Woodpeckers

We had a snow storm on February 9th, so we had all the feeders full for the birds. Most of our feeders are in a Magnolia tree which is close to our kitchen window so we can easily watch the birds. During this particular storm, we had two visitors that don't usually come so close to the house, although we often see one of them in the back yard. They both ate at the suet feeder that day, so I was able to take some nice photos. At first I thought it was a male and a female Downy Woodpecker, but by going through all the photos, I realized that it was a Downy and a Hairy. The Downy is the black&white one with a shorter beak, while the Hairy is the one with the red on his head and has a longer beak.
 I made this layout for the CropChocolate contest this week, which required the use of wood grain. I thought Woodpecker pictures and wood grain were a good match!

I used MME Miss Caroline Dolled Up papers. I love MME and the Miss Caroline collections are my favorites. I just can't get enough of it!

IO - Shades of Green

I love the colour green, pretty much in every value, hue or shade. So I was excited to see Impression Obsession's " Shades of Green" challenge. So I whipped out my trusty IO Gary Robertson stamps, and thought, "Darn, I can't use a lighthouse". LOL! But I was saved by the barn(s) ! I could easily use one of those. I have two already,and there are two more like them that I am crazy about, but I have a long running argument with myself ( shades of Smeagol/Gollum)about whether I need more barn stamps. " I wantsss it"/ "Shut up already!". This has led to a stalemate and made it difficult to pick new stamps. I want new stamps that I can be happy using as much as the IO stamps I already own. I have lots of stamps from other companies that never see the light of day, so without further ado, my green card featuring IO's Daylily and Barn stamp # G1155.

The word "LOVE" is also from an IO stamp set, but I kind of flubbed it a bit so it looks different, but it was from the "I wish for you" set (Cl227). The image looked fine all in green, but I added a little orange chalk because of the ribbon.
If you have some Impression Obsession stamps and want to play, here is the spot to go : http://mitrafriant.typepad.com/impression_obsession_news/2013/02/shades-of-green-challenge.html

If you don't have any IO stamps, then you should check them out, because they have ( I want to say, lighthouses and barns), many, many fabulous stamps that can live in the light and be your favorites too !

Hydranga Card- JustRite #089

This has been a learning experience ! I didn't realize I needed three different blog posts to enter my three cards to this week's JustRite "Anything Goes" challenge. Live and learn!
So here's my third entry using  my favorite JustRite stamp set," Botanical Medallions & Banners".On this last card I used the stamps I thought I bought this set for. A gorgeous flower image and a great frame !

Sadly, my favorite things about this didn't photograph well. The frame has a
coating of Diamond Glaze, which makes it look enameled, and there is embroidery
with gold thread near the top of the card.
This is a great stamp set, and has really become a go-to set for me. I like it when I get use out of a whole set, rather than just part of a set. I noticed that this is a favorite with a lot of the entries this week. So be sure to check them out here : http://justritestampers.typepad.com/justrite-inspiration/2013/01/justrite-friday-challenge-089-anything-goes.html

Second one for JustRite #089

Here's the second card for this week's JustRite's Challenge," Anything Goes".Once again, it is using the "Botanical Medallions and Banners" set that has become my favorite. It started off going to be the card for the last challenge, but I wandered off from the sketch and ended up with this. It doesn't have a lot of stamping, but it does show the other banner stamp from the
set and I'm in love with how it just adds the touch I wanted for this card. It also
has one of the little word stamps "Love", behind a TH fragment. See what I mean
about using every little stamp from the set?

 

You can see the stamp set here: http://www.justritestampers.com/ProductDetail.aspx?productid=CR-03705
There is still time to play along in the challenge here :
http://justritestampers.typepad.com/justrite-inspiration/2013/01/justrite-friday-
challenge-089-anything-goes.html

JustRite Challenge #089

This time the challenge on the JustRite blog is called "Anything Goes", the only real requirement is to use your favorite JustRite stamp set or stamp and explain why it's a favorite. Sounds easy enough, right ? Wrong ! I have quite a few JustRite stamps, and I use them frequently. I have some of the JustRite Original Xmas Sentiments that  really started my love for this company. So I really thought hard about my stamps sets and decided that my favorite is "Botanical Medallions &Banners". You can see this super fab set here : http://www.justritestampers.com/ProductDetail.aspx?productid=CR-03705
I'm going to enter a few cards using the Botanical Medallions & Banners because I love this set and use it all the time.
The reason I picked this set is not just because the flower images are beautiful and fun to colour, the sentiments are wonderful and the oval medallion frame shapes are lovely. Those are the reasons I bought the set. The reason it's my favorite is because I use ALL of it, I was surprised to discover that the banners would become a huge favorite, and I like the swirl too.

 

This card is a Webster's Pages Die Cut paper that I added colour to and attached to cardstock that I cut to match the shape. The birdcage is a rub-on on vellum. I drew the bird on patterned paper and stamped it using the swirl from the JR set. "On Your Special Day" is the other JR stamp I used.

There is still time to play along in the challenge here : http://justritestampers.typepad.com/justrite-inspiration/2013/01/justrite-friday-challenge-089-anything-goes.html
But at least check out the other entries, they are OUTSTANDING !