Willow for Grace ~

Good Morning!  WooHoo...it's Friday!  I have a set to show you today that I made for a little girl, Grace.  You can read all about it here on Jennifer McGuire's blog.  Little synopsis on Grace: she's a 10 year old girl that just lost her twin sister to cancer.  Ugh.  I can't even imagine.  Jennifer has opened up a card drive for her to lift her spirits.  I encourage you all to make a card for her or look through your stash for something to brighten her day! 
When I read about this, I knew it was time to ink up my new favorite line of stamps - Lil Lolitas.  I was lucky enough to win Willow on the first peek and the new 60's Mod Ivy on the second peek.  {I can't wait for my new stamps to get here!!}  I colored Willow with Copics and went to my reader to decide what sketch to use...Mojo Monday #146 to the rescue!

The background paper was the inspiration for the color scheme - such fun, bright colors!  I am truly addicted to the Hawaiian Shores Copic trio - love, love, love it!  I didn't buy the paper because I have a few sheets of SU Bermuda Bay left - can you say exact match??  I was rearranging my desk in the Stamp Cave and found these little floral embellies again.  I thought they resembled the flowers Willow is holding, so I colored them with Copics, stacked two together, added a dab of glue to the center and sprinkled it with some fine yellow glitter.  I like how they frame her.  The sentiment was embossed down in the right corner and needed to be balanced, so black pearls were added to the remaining corners.

I wanted to send Grace a little something extra.  I was a huge reader as a child - still am - so I thought she needed a bookmark; hopefully, it is something she will use and will make her smile.  I also stamped out some cute stamps for her to color on her own - a mixture of Motivet, CC Designs, Greeting Farm, Kraftin' Kimmie, etc.   Thanks so much for stopping by today!  Hope you all have a great day! :o) lyss        

Because I can't help but play along in other challenges, here is the list of challenges that this also applies to:

Mojo Monday #146

Lil Lolita Boutique Challenge #5: Ribbon

Cute Card Thursday #120: Summer (colors or theme)...I'm going with summery colors ;o)

Oh Alice! Chapter 20: colors red, white and blue...Hawaiian Shores is kind of in the blue family, right??

SUPPLIES ~
STAMPS: Lil Lolita Willow; Verve Artful Elegance
INK: Memento Tuxedo Black; Versafine Onyx Black
PAPER: PaperTrey Ink True Black and dp; SU Bermuda Bay
OTHER: Copics {pictured below}; bridal flowers (Michael's); PTI Pure Poppy satin ribbon & Hawaiian Shores grosgrain; Kaisercraft black pearls; Doodlebug yellow glitter; Tombow Mono Multi glue; Sakura white gel & clearstar pens; jumbo eyelet (Hobby Lobby leather section); Filigree clear embossing powder

Sweet Strawberries ~

Hello!  As I've mentioned before, I scour tons of challenge blogs weekly {among all the other blogs in my reader} and try to combine as many challenges as I can.  This card was conceived last week for the Flourishes Timeless Tuesday challenge of fruit - problem is, I was too lazy to crawl into my cave and stamp out some strawberries to color!  I had the card finished when I decided to check on the deadline time - I was an hour overdue! Oh well! I've combined 4 other challenges for this card: JUGS Challenge 40 {sketch},  Cute Card Thursday 119 {Let's Get Fruity},  Crazy 4 Challenges 44 {Two or more ribbons} and The Pink Elephant 119 {3 layers, 2 die cuts and ribbon}.

I chose the largest strawberry image from the Flourishes Strawberries set for the focal image.  It's colored with Copics (of course!).  The centers of the flowers are dotted with Liquid Pearls in Lemon.  The image is big, so I popped some of the leaves and flowers out of the die cut and lined around the cut parts with a black Copic marker.  This helps to cover any areas where I didn't cut perfectly up to the line or cut across the line and gives it a more finished look.  I used my newest border punch from EK Success - I love it!  Looks just like strawberry leaves to me ;o)  3 layers of ribbons were used (all scraps!) - black saddle stitch, a red grosgrain and a thin black satin.  I'm in love with this black satin too - it's cheap, from WalMart I think, and it ties oh.so.easily!  If you know anything about me, you know how much trouble I have tying bows!

The inside is finished off with the border punch again and a matted sentiment.  That's about it for this little card!  Hope you're having a great middle of your week!  Thanks for stopping by today!  Toodles!!  :o) lyss

SUPPLIES ~
STAMPS: Flourishes Strawberries
INK: Memento Tuxedo Black
PAPER: PaperTrey Ink Pure Poppy, True Black & DP; SU Wild Wasabi
OTHER: Copics {C1, R01, R02, R14, R17, R27, RV00, Y11, YG11, YG13, YG17}; Sakura black multiliner; Spellbinders Classic small & large Circle nestabilites and Scallop circle nestabilities; PTI vintage buttons pure poppy; black embroidery floss; EK success border punch; PTI True Black saddle stitch ribbon; random red grosgrain ribbon & black satin ribbon; SU dimensionals; Liquid Pearls Lemon

FHF: Kaleidoscope Krew's Color Challenge #4 ~

Good morning! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend and get the luxury of having today off as well.  We had a nice relaxing and cool day, barbecued and even set off a few fireworks.  It's the first Monday of the month - which means that it's time for another Friends Having Fun Kaleidoscope Krew color challenge!  The colors are Vintage Red, Patriotic Blue and Tattered White - all American and vintage/distressed.  What a perfect challenge for this week!  I chose to work with PaperTrey Rustic White and Stampin' Up! in Night of Navy and Bravo Burgundy.  Now, you have to be nice to me...this is one of my first scrapbook pages.  I posted a card with this stamp in the middle of June.  A comment was made that I just had to make a scrap layout with it, so here I go!  {biting nails}...

I used the current challenge on The Pink Elephant for the layout.  I wanted to get a picture of my little guy at a parade or wearing his daddy's Army coat, but then I remembered this picture taken with my Grandfather's WWII veteran hat.  The picture is actually pieced because I couldn't figure out how to isolate the hat and keep it in color and yet keep the Zaniac in sepia tones.  I really need to learn how to use my Photoshop to it's full potential! LOL

The Burgundy background is stamped with a large wood block script stamp - man, I haven't used one of those in ages!!  I then sponged around the edges in the same Scarlet Jewel ink.  I cut out a bunch of stars in the cream and navy and distressed up the edges of those too.  The title area of the sketch showed it in a long line - I'm a very literal person, so I was going to do just that...stamp it out in a long line on cream cardstock. 

Then a light bulb went off!  The For the Brave stamp is red rubber on cling foam with the image printed on the back.  I was able to ink up just the area of the sentiment that I wanted, stamp it, clean it and ink up the next area - perfect for placing on one of the stars!  I used just the two boys on this layout and colored them with Copics.  As I said before, I'm a literal person, so I had to use a multiliner to draw in one more stripe on the bottom of the flag so it could begin and end in red.  While I was at it, I drew in a shirt on the little bear.  Zane's favorite stuffed animal is his little Pooh bear.  Hope you like it! This was fun...even though it took me about 4 hours to get this one page done!  Hopefully, if I keep this up, I'll get a little quicker on making a page.  Please bop around to the other Krew's blogs to gain some more fabulous inspiration! 

Alex  ~  Alison  ~  Danielle  ~  Laura

Thanks for stopping by today!  Have a great beginning to your week! :o) lyss

This layout also qualifies for the following challenges:

Crazy for Challenges C4C44: Use 2 or more ribbons

Oh Alice! Chapter 20: Color Challenge Red, White & Blue

The Pink Elephant Scrapbook Challenge #14: sketch and color challenge Red, White & Blue

SUPPLIES ~
STAMPS: Eat Cake Graphics For the Brave; Stampabilities Le London Script 
INK: Ranger Distress Antique Linen; Memento Tuxedo Black; PTI Scarlet Jewel
PAPER: PTI Rustic Cream; SU Bravo Burgundy & Night of Navy
OTHER: Copics {B39, B95, B97, C1, C3, E00, E02, E43, E44, R20, R39, R59, R89, W7, Y26, Y38, 110 Spcl Black}; Spellbinders Petite Oval (large & small), Star, & Classic Square (small & large) nestabilities; PTI Vintage buttons Enchanted Evening & Scarlet Jewel; PTI Scarlet Jewel twill; PTI Rustic Cream twine; Bobbin Ribbon cream twill; SU dimensionals