TGIF brought to you with some Sweet

Flowers, sequins, watercolors and some of my favorite stamps OH MY :)  Is that cactus just not so freakin' cute it makes you squeal just a little? (or is that just me?) Well can you guess who made it? Yep your right, Sweet Stamp Shop. I hope your not sick of me using their adorable stamps yet...

I also had fun playing with more watercoloring techniques. This time I used my distress ink pads on my craft mat. I watered them down and smooshed my paper into them for this fun free flowing look. I then double stamped my cactus, one on the watercolor paper and one on copic express paper. I then used my alcohol markers to color her and fussy cut her out (minus her spikes). I love how she looks so clean and perfect this way.

In case you didn't know Sweet Stamp Shop has a design team call up for their next 3 month term. Check out the details on their blog {HERE}. Well I hope this was enough to brighten your day today. TGIF and Happy Good Friday. 

Happiness is..

Today is a cloudy gloomy day here in Wisconsin which calls for a couple cups of coffee. I have to tell you that I am very thankful that I don't live in the northern part of Wisconsin like I did about 7 years ago. They were blasted with 17 inches of snow yesterday (C'mon Mother Nature it's April already!!!) Needing a couple cups of coffee is what inspired me to post this card today.

Coffee with friends- Precious Remembrance Stamps

I used my Precious Remembrance stamps again today (gush/love).  I used the Coffee Love stamp set to paper piece the coffee cup and was completely inspired by my friend Amy T. to finally stamp with felt. I don't do it nearly the justice that she does, but its a start ;)  I also used the Positive Thoughts stamp set to make those little 'coffee stains'. I had trouble photographing this card to show the embossing on the bottom matting layer but it adds so much texture to this card. The embossing folder that I used is one of the new releases from Elizabeth Craft Design.

Alright, enough of my ramblings for today. If you are traveling this weekend for the holiday please be safe and enjoy your company.

Wishing for warmer Wednesdays.

Warmer days- Sweet Stamp Shop Stamps

Today I'd pretty much be anywhere warmer. Wisconsin has been teasing us with spring for about two weeks now. One week it is 60 some degrees, which happily melted all of our snow, and the next week we are back to snow (Boo, Hiss!). Hence the reason I'm craving some warm sandy beaches and SUNSHINE. I'd like to imagine myself as this fun little Sweet Stamp Shop hippo.

I've had fun playing with my watercolor paints again and for some reason my favorite color to make this hippo is not the traditional grey but a fun tone of pink or purple. Make sure you check out the Sweet Blog for lots more inspiration. And if you didn't read earlier this week they just released some more adorable little critters. All I can say is EEEEK, they are so stinkin' cute and did I mention affordable at $7.95 a set.

What inspires you?

Welcome back and Happy Tuesday. Did any of you see the amazing eclipse lastnight? The pretty reds and oranges may have had a hand in inspiring me to post this card today.

Today I'm playing with some Precious Remembrance Shop stamps, some of my newest favorites. I adore the fonts that are in these sets and I love the quality too. I'm a huge fan of the acrylic stamps and sometimes they can lack in quality. Too soft and squishy is not a good thing when it comes to these types of stamps. I love the impression that you get from a good rubber stamp and these meet that expectation. I would compare them to Technique Tuesday or Peachy Keen stamps in the quality department.

Challenges- Precious Remembrance Stamps

I am also a a big fan of using what you have. This particular card uses things that I have had in my stash for a very long time. The fun and sparkly leaves, flowers and fun cork element are cut out from a Accut die and punch literally over 2 years ago. I keep them all organized in little clear pouches so that they will inspire me. That made this card so easy peasy to put together, literally about 7 minutes to make this card. I also like to use a single collection of paper to make everything tie together. In this case a 6x6 stack of My Mind's Eye paper.

That's all you get from me today... I hope you all have an awesome day. See you again tomorrow :)

It's a Sweet Monday

Today I had fun with some Sweet Stamp Shop Stamps. As you all know if you have followed me for any amount of time, I love their illustrations! They always spark my creativity, I think I have been a fan from day one of her opening up shop. Her as in, Nicole-owner of Sweet Stamp Shop- who embraces and embodies the word 'sweet' because she is so super nice. I don't know many companies with an owner as involved with their customers as she is.With out further ado here is today's creation:

Amazing- Sweet Stamp Shop Stamps

To color this fun card I shopped my stash and busted out my watercolor paints to fill in the balloons from the Admit One set that is on clearance right now in the Sweet Shop. This is a huge trend that is making a comeback in the industry. Can I tell you how happy this makes me? I have a gigantic stash of Twinkling H2O's and various other watercolor supplies that I can use again. Here is a picture of my stash.

 

Did you know that the Sweet Stamp shop is also having a bit of a release party today also? This may be one of my favorite releases that they have done in a while. (Don't get me wrong, I love them all. But I think I NEED all of the new releases this time.) You can join the Facebook party {HERE} for a special discount code good for today only and get 10% off the ENTIRE shop. Check out all the new releases {HERE}. All I can say is porcupines, octopuses and owls, oh my! Now go check them out and have a great day!

Happy Monday

I don't know about all of you but I had a pretty fabulous weekend. No complaints from me,  a night out with some friends and a holiday family gathering with good food and an easter egg hunt. Now if Jack Frost would only take a hike; April 14th and its snowing. So in the spirit of good ole rebelion  I thought I would share a bright, fun and summer-time-ish (is that a word?) card with you.

Hope your day is a whopper--Darcie Stamps

Not only am I completely in love with this Bo-Bunny paper I think this stamp set is just so freakin' cute with its matching flair. That adorable fish was the seller of this particular stamps set for me. Every time I look at this card I just smile. It's bright, its sparkly, its full of pattern and fun elements, what more could a person ask for?

Make it an amazing Monday! And stay tuned I have a pretty good line up of blog posts for you over the next few weeks.

Do you always like what you create?

Well I wasn't going to share this card because I'm not in love with it but a recent conversation amongst my fellow crafters and the stomach flu have made me think that just because I don't like it doesn't mean someone else won't. Do you love every creation you make? Does creating come easily to you? Those were the base questions of our recent Facebook conversation.

So without further ado, this is that same Avery Elle set that intimidates me so much...

Avery Elle Stamp set

This picture doesn't show the true qualities of this card either, I used shimmer mist on the "peach" flower directly on the stamp before stamping which lends to a super cool effect. It doesn't photograph very well though.

Sorry to be so short today but the stomach flu has hit our house and I need to go back to bed. :(

Fusion #5 Challenge

Happy Sunday and Happy March! Today I needed a little inspiration to give me a jump start and I love challenges for this. It just gives me a starting place whether its a sketch, color or photo inspiration and today the Fusion Card Challenge spoke to me. I have played along with this one before and everyone is always so nice! Here is this weeks inspiration...

With this challenge you can choose to play along with either the photo inspiration, the sketch inspiration or you can use both to create a fusion. I choose to use the sketch inspiration it just spoke to me. Here is my take on the challenge...

Fusion #5-sketch inspiration

 I love it when things just come together and I was doing a happy dance after I finished this card. First off who doesn't love sequins and a shaker card? This Simple Stories paper was so fun and bright reminding me that summer will come eventually! The stamps that I used were from Precious Remembrance Shop's Thanks Stamp Set. Have I mentioned how much I love the quality of Precious Remembrance Stamps? They are quickly becoming some of my favorites to work with.

Over all I think this is my favorite card from the week. Well enjoy the rest of your weekend and we will see you on Tuesday. I'm off to have a movie date with 3 of my favorite people :)