Nothing like a cup of cocoa

This is a quickie I made for the mini VSN held at Splitcoast Stampers over the weekend. The challenge was to make a card featuring a hot drink, and I had just recently gotten this free digi from The Alley Way stamps (It's free all November, so check out her blog).

The layout is from 365 Cards, the Sunday Sketch #256. 

This really did go together very quickly. I paper pieced the band on the cup -- I just hand-traced the little band and free cut it. It took a little trimming, but it seemed far more efficient than printing out the whole image for such a little piece.

Purple and more purple

This week's Off the Wall Craftiness (OTWC47) challenge was to use purple -- dark purple and light purple -- and white in a card. (See in the inspiration photo at right). I combined that with a VSN challenge to use a background stamp without using the whole stamp. To meet that challenge, I inked a script background in light purple, die cut ovals from it, then added a flower silouette in dark purple.

The layout for this card is based on Card Positioning System's current challenge, CPS207.

Credits: flower stamp by Endless Creations, sentiment by CTMH, script background unknown. Inks are Versamark Petunia and SU Eggplant Envy. Ribbon is Martha Stewart.

Soaring with Etsy

The Etsy Inspired Challenge is celebrating 100 weeks. Wow! I started doing the challenge one Saturday when Ashley and I were both VSN hostesses at SCS, and I noticed her little tagline about the Etsy Inspired Challenge. I think it was like EIC15.

This week's shop is Cathy Walters, a photographer who makes really interesting pendants. I was inspired by her pendant called Soar, which features a hot air balloon. Those things fascinate me -- every once in a while one flies over my house, and several years ago, one made an emergency landing in a neighbor's yard. (That counts as big excitement in my neighborhood.)

This is a digistamp from Bird's Blog, colored with pencils and OMS. The buttons were added for the Ways to Use It Challenge this week at SCS, and the layout started to be the SCS sketch challenge for the week, but my image was too big and I had to eliminate some elements from the sketch. The papers are all by Making Memories.

Join me for VSN

Hope you all can join me at Virtual Stamp Night Saturday at SCS. (If you've never done VSN, it's a series of challenge, one posted each hour. You have 45 minutes to complete a card for the challenge.)

The theme this time is "food chef" and tomorrow's offerings are "Snacks". The first challenge goes up at 5 p.m. Eastern, and your's truly hosts the challenge that kicks off at 6 p.m. I can't reveal what it will be, but you will need at least one of the supplies on this list.

If you don't want to do the challenge, please join me on the chat thread -- We can talk about stamping, food, the new Harry Potter movie, or anything that interests you. I'll be chatting from 6-7 p.m. Eastern. Hope to see you, or at least your card.

Nestie envy and a quick solution

I've found myself really coveting nesties lately. I love the look of matching layered circles or ovals, and am coming to appreciate some of the other shapes as well.

I do have some pre-cut ovals and circles that I picked up a few years ago at the Paper Cuts booth at a stamp show. Unfortunately, they just don't nest as well as Nesties, and I have have a limited range of colors (mostly white and cream) as I had to buy them in packs of 25.

During VSN, I played around with these shapes and found I could easily create a scalloped border for them. How? Simply trace the oval or circle onto another piece of cardstock, then take a scallop-edge scissors and carefully cutting out the shape. Cut with short strokes, moving the scissors/paper frequently so the bottom edge of the scallop is always hitting your traced line. The result isn't Nesties-perfect, but it really looks pretty darn good

One tip: trace your circle on the "wrong" side of the paper if are using printed paper or two-sided paper, so you don't have to worry about your pencil lines showing.

Here is a card I created for VSN using this method. I have some other decorative edge scissors, maybe I should experiment.

Get ready for VSN

It's VSN weekend at SCS. I've had the privilege of being one of the hostesses this go-round. Actually my challenge was several weeks ago as part of the mini-VSN day.

I came up with an usual challenge called blackjack, where various elements of a card were given a point value (stamped image 5 points, layer 1 point, etc) and challenged people to use the scale and create a card that would win at blackjack, meaning equal 21 points. Basically, it was a variation on a limited supply challenge.

Here is the card I created as a sample. Main image is by Autumn Leaves, and the sentiment is from a Faerie Song plate called Faeries Frolic. (I used several of the images from the plate in various challenges for the VSN mini). Points were 3 layers = 3 points, 2 stamped images for another 10, 2 patterned papers at 3 points each added another 6, and the 2 brads were worth a point each, for a total of 21.

I went out to look for yard sales this morning. I came across a little old lady who was selling a bunch of stuff super cheap. She had rolls of ribbon priced at 10 cents -- and that meant if she had 10 different ribbons wrapped around one paper-towel-type roll, you got them all for 10 cents. I grabbed several rolls. I'm not sure how useful some of it might be -- the satin is kind of old and faded looking, and stained where she had the ends taped to the roll. But there were a few I had to have, including a double-sided satin in my favorite shades of celery and a pale peachy-pink, as well as a red-and-white cotton gingham. Both of them appear to be in good shape. Once I find a use for them, I'll post a picture.