Balloon Bash in a watercolor background

It's a dreary weekend in Chicagoland!  Cold and rainy for an end of May weekend.  Perfect weekend to spend some time in my stamp room.  I feel like I haven't been able to make time to stamp so I decided it was time to carve out some of my own time today.

A little inspiration always helps...  Today I decided to try to play along with The Friday Mashup.

This week's Mashup! Challenge is:

• Create a project with "Watercoloring".
• Create a project using "the Sketch".
• or Mash it Up! and create a "Watercolored Project using the Sketch".

I wanted to use the new 2015-2017 Stampin Up in-colors.  I love the richness of these colors and I couldn't wait to use them!

For this card I used the Work of Art stamp set and played with my own version of a watercolor effect. I stamped the smaller watercolor swoosh in Mint Macaron, stamped off then sprayed the stamp with some water before stamping.  The water helped move the color around on the stamp.  The rest of the card was stamped and fussy cur with coordinating cardstock and stamp pads using the other 3 2015-2017 In Colors from Stampin' Up!  I can't wait until Tuesday when the new catalog goes live! Always good to refresh my stamp collection.

Have a great one!

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Stampin' Celebration Sketch Challenge - So Sweet

Happy Memorial Day for those in the US!  Can't believe summer is finally here! Time for a new sketch challenge from Stampin' Celebration!

I was very excited when the project for this design came together in my head!  I have to show you the additional inspiration!  This wall art from GrandinRoad caught my eye and I just had to recreate the effect with paper!!

Here is my take on the sketch and the flower!  For the flower I used Pink Pirouette, Crisp Cantaloupe, Calypso Coral, Tangelo Twist, and Cajun Craze (a color combination posted by Peonies and Paper Chains last year).  I die cut petals using the Bouquet Bigz L Die from the 2015 Occasions Catalog and pieced them together on a 2-1/2" circle.

I thought the flower needed a background so I used the Dictionary background stamp (retiring Stampin' Up! project).

I like the way the flower turned out!

Can't wait to see what you create using the sketch from Stampin' Celebration!

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Stampin Celebration Inspiration - Flying High

Welcome back for the May Stampin' Celebration inspiration sketch challenge.  I am excited for this challenge as I think the colors are nice and bright and happy! 

I happen to be in Japan this week for work, so it was fun learning about the Children's Day tradition!  Something I can discuss with colleagues who just finished celebrating Golden Week,

Anyway, I decided to use the colors and kites in my project.  Instead of finding a kite stamp I decided to make my own kites using the triangle punch from Stamping Up!.  I Punched two triangles and then but each triangle in half.  Then I pieced together the 4 pieces to make each kite.  Pretty simple and they ended up perfectly even on all sides ;0)!

For the flags on the kite I used the banner punch.  Again, it made nearly perfect flags!  I started cutting them by hand until I happened to realize that the shape matched the banner punch.  Much easier to punch each flag than hand cut them!

Have a great day!

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Mother's Love

A quick card to share today!  I had to send off some Mother's Day cards so they would reach their intended recipiet's in time!  I bought the Mother's Love stamp set from the Stampin' Up! 2015 Occasions catalog.  I liked the floral images and the sayings were very sweet as well.

I found a great sketch on Freshly Made Sketches 184 to use for the card.

I thought I could easily incorporate this design and the stamps.

I decided to go with a base of Calypso Coral and used the Birthday Bash Designer Series Specialty Paper in the background.  A great card for any occasion!

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Whew, you can never have too much happy!

Wow, a lot going on everywhere!  My day job is busy with a project I am working on, at home the warm weather brings opportunity for "projects" which includes planning and forecasting, and Stampin' Up! is preparing to transition to a new catalog!  Whew, exhausted just thinking about it all!

Anyway, I had time yesterday to go through my current Stampin' Up! catalog and track everything that is retiring, getting ready to make room for different goodies to come!  I checks on the Friday Mash-up FM207 challenge and it was perfect for this task!!  A sketch challenge using retiring (or retired Stampin' Up! products)!

After I went through and figured out what was retiring, it was easier to decide which stamps to use for this challenge!  Of course, I just had to use the 2013-2015 In Colors since those are certainly retiring!  I will miss Coastal Cabana and Baked Brown Sugar.  But, I am so looking forward to the new 2015-2017 In Colors!

I used the Positively Chevron background stamp, Yippie Skippee for the greeting and Stippled Blossoms for the flowers and leaves.

For the flowers I stamped the bottom layer with Crisp Cantaloupe and the top layer with Strawberry Slush.  I wasn't sure how well these colors would go together, but I love the effect!  For the leaves, for the bottom layer I used Pistachio Pudding and the top layer is Wild Wasabi.

I used a clip from the Essentials Hardware collection and Coastal Cabana baker's twine.

The only items I used on this care that are not retiring are the Whisper White cardstock and the Wild Wasabi ink.

Turned out great if I do say so myself!  now to clean out the rest of the retiring products to make room for new stuff!  Only 1 month to go!!

Happy creating everyone!

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog