What's up?

....  for me, it's another gorgeous day and my chore day, plus another fun afternoon of being creative.   I also have a card from yesterday that I will be sharing and one that I shared in one of my online groups and then disliked it SO much that it's not gone to my recycling....aka "Card Heaven".

      My first card is also the card that 'inspired' the title to today's blog post and is a fun little card I created for the current "Friendship" challenge being hosted over at Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday Challenge Blog. The adorable little birds are also one of the new SSS Exclusive Stamp and Die sets and I think they are so cute.  The set is ideally meant to be used for a new Mom and Daddy, but I think just changing around the sentiments, make it work for so much more.  And that's exactly what I did, by using the cute 'Slang Gang' term "Sup?" from this fun Paper Smooches Stamp set.  Love all these really cool saying...perfect for fun cards and especially those teens in our lives!!

  My next card was created for today's new Sketch Challenge over the OWH's Stars and Stamps Blog, which you'll find HERE!  I thought the sketch looked like a FUN one, so I was happy to play along.

This is a copy of the sketch, which I hope may inspire YOU to play along and also start donating some of YOUR cards to the wonderful group!!

Sketch #230

My Card

  As you can see, I used all neutral colors on this card, which I think makes it perfect as a Masculine card or one that one of our soldiers, might like to send home to their loved ones.   The sketch made it a fun and easy card to create.  I started with a Hero Arts Wet Cement Note card, along with some of my favorite "Dots and Stripes" paper from Echo Park.  I used a variety of punches and dies to cut my circles, and then simply combined the as shown in the sketch.  I added a little extra embellishments, some black sequins along with a wood veneer heart that I colored black, with a Wink of Stella marker.  I finished it up with the "Love you" sentiment which is from this fun SSS Stamp Set, designed by Kristina Werner.

  Moving on, I created two more cards and both cards were again inspired by Challenges, the first being a Fun Sketch Challenge at StampNation, along with the latest challenge over at "Addicted to CAS" where our theme is SUN!   And for me that's a perfect theme, since I love Sunny Summer days, just like we're having here today.  Not too hot, and not cold -- just one of those perfect "Blue Sky" days!!

   I had so much fun with this code word that I actually created two cards.  This was my first one and part of the inspiration, came from the Sketch Challenge at SN, but because you need to be a member to have access to all the details, I'm afraid I can not share the sketch!   I can say that I'm totally LOVING be part of this group and it's really helped me with my quest to learn how to create better cards and also to create really nice "Clean and Simple" Cards  -- which I just LOVE!!

    I started with an all white card base and pulled out a bunch of yellow and white scraps, which I used to cut the strips I have layered across my card.  I then pulled out this wonderful stamp set, another Simon Set called "Bring the Sunshine", which is just perfect for this theme  I love the sun-shaped stamped and that' what I chose to use and stamped it directly onto a piece of yellow patterned paper, and then punched it out and layered it on a piece of black and white polka dotted paper and popped it up on my card, using foam tape!!

  

    After completing that card, I remember that I had this fabulous sun themed die, also from Simon Says, and pulled that out to start working on my second card.  I die cut my sun, from more of the same left over yellow papers and then added it to a white base.  I also used the same SSS stamp set, as use on the card above, but this time I picked a different sentiment and used a combination in Hero's Yellow Shadow Inks to stamp it onto some white cardstock, which I then popped up off my card, again using foam tape.  The final touch was my little sun, which is actually a flair button from a set that I bought from Bossy Joscie, who has the more adorable buttons in her online store.   

  And that's it for today my friends!!  I did work on another really cute card, but it's for a little surprise, coing up soon!  You'll have to stop by again for more on that!   Wishing everyone a fabulous first full week of Summer!  Sounds like it'll be a very nice week here!  Yippee!!