Monkey Business

I have one seriously neglected blog,  Excuses - the usual: life, family, and work.  

It's time to breath some life back into these digital pages.   What better way to do that than to post about a wonderful card making evening with my beautiful daughter.   

These two cards were made using some card kits that I purchased from my wonderful Stampin' Up Demo - Chris Galbreith.

Above you can see some of the dimension.  Below is a peak of the inside of the card. 

Manhattan Floral Birthday rs120

It's been ages since I posted.   I have been so tied up in that 9-5 job that pays the bills, it's in sane.  Things are starting to let up, so I'm looking forward to tending to my blog more often.

This card was actually for work.  My boss' birthday is this weekend and we celebrated at work today with cake and gave her this card signed by everyone in the group.  I really had a hard time a creative block, but thankfully I broke through and this was the result.

I went to one of my favorite sketch blogs for inspiration.   This sketch from Retro Sketches did the trick.  

All of the stamps and papers are from Stampin' Up.  I don't often stick to a single product line, but for this card, everything just went together so well.  The roses are stamped with Versamark, heat embossed with white embossing powder, water colored using an aqua painter and ink directly from the stamp pad and then cut out by hand.  Same process for the leaves.   The greeting is stamped onto the ribbon with Staz-On ink.  The roses and top layers are popped up with dimensionals.

The inside of the card is simple and elegant.   The greeting is stamped with Versamark and heat embossed with black embossing powder.   Each corner is dry embossed with an embossing folder.

Supplies:
Stamps: Stampin' Up (Fabulous Florets, Fifth Avenue Floral, and Curly Cute)
Printed Papers: Stampin Up (Pockets of Posies, Urban Oasis)
Cardstock: Stampin' Up (Basic Black, Baja Breeze), Neenah (White)
Accessories: Stampin Up ribbon, pearl accents, white embossing powder, black embossing poweder
Tools: Martha Stewart corner rounder, Stampin' Up embossing folder (Manhattan Rose)

Wonder-flowery Thank You

As with everything in life, now and then it's time to take a break so that we can come back and enjoy that something we love anew.   That'a pretty much what it felt like for me as I pulled out some stamps, papers, dies and perused some of my favorite challenges today.  

I wanted to create a thank you card for my fun and crazy aunt that sent this amazingly large two foot chocolate Easter bunny for my kids to enjoy.   The colors from this week's ColourQ 239 challenge did the trick.  It's such a fun combination, it reminded me of my wonderfully fun aunt.  I combined it with this wonderfully flexible sketch challenge from Cardabilities #98

 Here are inspiration challenges for this card.   

ColourQ 239 and  Cardabilities #98

Ingredients:

Stamp: Stampin' Up (Banner Greetings)

Ink: Stampin' Up

Printed Paper: Echo Park (Victoria Gardens)

Cardstock: Stampin' Up

Embossing Folder: Paper Studio

Border Punch: EK Success

Die Shape: Spellbinders

Flowers: Prima

Brads: Misc

Chevron Mother's Day Blossoms

I'm dusting off some materials and stamps I haven't used in a while.  This card is also a Mash up of two challenges: Dynamic Duos and Retro Sketches. 

 This card features all Stampin' Up products, from the DSP and cardstock to the stamps used.   

And here's the inside of the card.   

The challenges that inspired this card.  

Dynamic Duos

Retro Sketches

Koi and Fishy

This card uses Bombshell Stamp's  Koi Tattoo stamp set.   This set goes perfectly with this month's featured stamp set - Lotus Garden.

The image is stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black ink and colored with Copic alcohol markers.  The card features papers from Basic Grey's Konnichiwa collection.  Those designer printed papers go perfectly with both of the above linked Bombshell Stamps stamp sets.

Some of the tools used to create this card are Creative Memories Custom Cutting System - Ovals, and a Cuttlebug Embossing folder from the Plum Blossom set. The triangle punch is from Stampin' Up.  Accents include some pearls and ribbon.  

The inside of the card is simple with a border punched using a punch from Fiskars and a bit of ribbon. 

Bombshell Blog Hop

You should have arrived here from Alaine's blog where I'm sure you saw some wonderful creation inspired by Washi tape.   Sad to say my work is still under construction and delayed due to a headache.  I worked way too many spreadsheets at work today.

But please be patient and come back for a visit to see my card.   In the mean time, please hop on to Kelli's blog.

Bombshell Blog: http://bombshellstamps.blogspot.com/
Alison: http://alisonsrandomthoughts.blogspot.com/
Marnie: http://www.papertivity.blogspot.com
Kim: http://www.craftypinkanchor.blogspot.com
Alaine: http://missalaineousmosaics.blogspot.com/
Monika: http://paperchrome.blogspot.com/ (You are Here)
Kelli: http://www.cajunstampingqueen.blogspot.com/
Kathi: http://kathstales.blogspot.com

Dynamic Duos Pick

One of my favorite challenge blogs is Dyanmic Duos. If you're looking for a fun challenge that's not to fussy and leaves loads of room for creativity, Dynamic Duos is perfect for that.   So I was thrilled when one of my cards again got chosen as a runner up this month.  

Click here for more info on the card below:  CLICKY

Bombshell Blog Hop - Under Construction

You should have arrived here from Alaine's blog where I'm sure you saw some wonderful creation inspired by Washi tape.   Sad to say my work is still under construction and delayed due to a headache.  I worked way too many spreadsheets at work today.

But please be patient and come back for a visit to see my card.   In the mean time, please hop on to Kelli's blog.

Bombshell Blog: http://bombshellstamps.blogspot.com/
Alison: http://alisonsrandomthoughts.blogspot.com/
Marnie: http://www.papertivity.blogspot.com
Kim: http://www.craftypinkanchor.blogspot.com
Alaine: http://missalaineousmosaics.blogspot.com/
Monika: http://paperchrome.blogspot.com/ (You are Here)
Kelli: http://www.cajunstampingqueen.blogspot.com/
Kathi: http://kathstales.blogspot.com