A Wonderful Wednesday....

   It's another amazing "Blue Sky" day with lots of sunshine and warm temps and the huge snow bankings are almost all gone and hopefully will be in another day of sun!   Now, I can't wait for the Spring weather to move in and hope that winter is in the past and that we are done with the bitter cold and the snow.  I'm such a fan of warm sunshine and absolutely love Spring and Summer.   Summer is my favorite and also when I feel the very best, so I always hope it's a nice long season and that we have a nice Spring too.

   Spring has been on my mind often and it's been a part of my creative process lately too, especially since I started enjoyed the wonderful March Card Kit from Simon Says Stamp.  I think it's fast become my favorite to date and I have another card today, that was created with the pretty papers that were included in the kit and are from Lawn Fawn.

   My next card is one I started yesterday, as soon as I saw the new challenge that was posted over at CAS-logy, which has become a new favorite.  I am sharing this week's CUE and hope I can inspire YOU to play along.  You can find ALL the challenges details over at the CAS-ology!!

Challenge # 35 - Cue Card

My Card

 UPDATE:   I found out this evening that this my fun little "Alien" card was the WINNING card over a CASology and I am beyond excited.  I truly love this challenge and have only recently really started to learn how to create fun CAS cards.  It's a style that I've grown to love more and more and playing in this challenge has truly helped me to learn!  I'm also very honored and can hardly believe I WON!!   Thank you very very much!   It's been ages since I have won a challenge and it sure feels nice to feel like I finally have my MOJO back!!  This is my first in of this year!  THANK YOU!!

  As soon as I saw the challenge, I knew that I wanted to use one of the adorable "Alien/Monster" digital images, by Hero Arts.    I also knew I wanted to Paper-Piece him and searched my selection of digital backgrounds papers, until I found this adorable purple zig zag paper, which is actually a "Freebie" from Sheri K Designs.    I love combining digi elements in my cardmaking, also known as Hybrid Cardmaking and have that I really love the papers from Shery K Designs, and also buy all my Hero Arts Digital Images over at Two Peas.    I also now have a wonderful library of digi images and there are oodles of wonderful designers who sell them from the blogs, online stores and even at Etsy!   

     I actually use Microsoft "Word" program to print out all my Digi images/papers, to do the paper-piecing on the computer.     I learned how easy it was to paper-piece digitally, from this awesome tutorial that was shared by Arielle Gordon, over at The Pink Elephant, a couple of years ago!   It's by far, the best tutorial I have seen and the best part for me, is that I don't need any special photo program, it's all done easily and Word!!    Once I have all my images and papers added to my page (document), I am ready print.  I then simply change my paper to a nice quality cardstock, specifically one that I love to color on with my Copics.  For me that's the Cyrogen Iridiscent White, that I have always purchased from Patricia, of The Paper Temptress.   Then it's simply a matter or cutting and coloring and putting it all together, which I did by adding a fun little Sentiment from Paper Smooches, that I cut out using a brand new die "Phrase Bubbles" from Hero Arts.

   And speaking of HeroArts, the gals over at the Hero Flickr group, have started a fun little "Weekly" discussion, where this week's question was tell us ALL, what you MOST favorite Hero Arts Wood Stamp is.   For me, and most of the others, that was a hard question, but since we could only pick one, I knew for me it had to be one of the newest and that is Leafy Vines.  I absolutely LOVE this stamp and every time I see it on a card I love the card too.   That question, also inspired me to get mine out and to create some new cards, and that's when I noticed that my is actually in Cling, but it is also sold in Wood!  It's one a few stamps that Hero has sold in both ways!!   Interesting !  I know that the NEW "Everything Flowers" image is another one sold in both Wood and Cling, but I wonder WHY??    Do you know?

  Moving on, these are three new cards I created using the same stamp aka -- One Stamp - Three Ways and their be more to follow and I stamped it about six times yesterday in a variety of colors and inks!!  These just happen to be the two cards I have finished.  I'm also planning to work on a card for the current challenge at Hero Arts and made both of these into Friendship Cards, thinking that was one of the themes, this month -- Wrong!!!   The theme I had been thinking of is actually "Hello" cards!!   DUH!  I need to re-read the challenges before I start, so I don't mix them up!!  Tomorrow, I'll plan to create my HELLO card!!

   

   As you can see they were all done in different colors and the third card, was one I created my own card in a fun shape using my Grand Nestabilities.  I also stamped onto some pretty pink and white patterned paper using Versamark, which I then heat embossed with "Melon Mambo" Pink Embossing Powder from Stampin' Up.  I then simply added a little "Love Always" sentiment (from a Hero set) and a cute matching punched heart, with a pink button and bow.  

   My last card is actually the very first card that I finished this morning.  I needed to get this one done and out in the mail, as it's for my nephew's Birthday, which is on Friday!!   I also struggle with Masculine cards and it seems that I'm always waiting until the end to get them done, as I'm often torn on ideas.  Luckily, today I was inspired by a new card that Shari Carrol has created and it's this fun "Hexagon" card that was posted on Hero's Blog today.  I don't own the Hexagon Die Set, (well not yet, but it's in my cart on at Etsy), and I plan to purchase it on my next order from A2Z, before the 17th, so I can use their latest promo code!!  I'm loving shopping more and more at A2Z and love that they've been offering these exact incentives to save me money!!  They also have tons of Hero Product, making it a great store for me!!

    I did think about simply using my Silhouette, but because I initially wanted lots of colors, I knew it would be faster and easier to use a die and that's when I decided to go with squares from this wonderful new die set that is one of my faves --- created by Kristina Werner.  At first I had thought about basically "CASing" Shari's card, using squares in male deep colors, but then when I saw how I could use the die to cut all three squares in a row, that's exactly what I did and more of a window like card, much different than Shari's but still inspired by her idea!! 

   As you can see, I cut all three squares from a piece of embossed cardstock and then added the green lined patterned paper behind each of the windows.  I then ran a simple line of Washi tape down the center and punched a little circle to give this card a graphic like design.  I stamped the Happy Birthday Sentiment onto a scrap of the same paper and then layered the entire top onto a solid black card base   Because I needed something for the inside to write on, I used more of the green paper and added a contrasting strip of black to make it all match well, as shown in the next photo.

  In the end, my card doesn't look anything like Shari's but her card was definitely what inspired me to start with squares.  This is why I love browsing blogs and why I have so many on my Google Reader.  I love to see what the designers come up with, especially my favorite's like -- Shari, Kristina and Jennifer!!   Oh and speaking of my favorite designers, they will all be sharing even more in the next class that is being hosted over at Jennifer and Kristina's Online Card Classroom, which starts on Monday!   It's called Pattern Play and you can still sign up and start the LIVE class with us all on the 18th.  I can't wait and am very excited to be taking another awesome card with these gals.   Hope to see you there and I know I have already noticed lots of my online friends, have already signed up and shared some of their latest cards in the Gallery!!   Awesome!!