Verve Divas Inspiration Hop (March '14) - Where Dreams May Go!

Welcome to Verve's March Diva Inspirations Hop. It's the 5th of the month and that means it's hopping time! This month we've got a fabulous challenge that's sure to put a string in your step! So in addition to a comment prize hidden along the hop, you can play along with the challenge and link up your creation for a chance to win another prize!

Our March challenge is Spring Has Sprung:

It's time to ditch the winter blues! Create a card that sings Spring using inspirational quotes, pretty colors and florals or themes that celebrate new life. Whether you draw inspiration from the graphic or blaze your own trail, just show us what spring means to you!

I love this challenge just because it gives me hope that spring is around the corner! I used the stamp set Blue Skies for this challenge (such a great stamp set! such great sentiments!!!) and stamped the sentiment onto the notebook image stamp in this set and followed the sketch for the Mojo Monday challenge #335 (holy moly - 335 sketches!) Here is my take on the sketch and this challenge:

Here is a close up of my spring card - a little flower, some pearls, twine and some lacy pennants (from the ek success border punch)- I highlighted the one with a blue copic:

Card Ingredients:

Stamps: Blue Skies from Verve Stamps

Inks: London Fog, Tuxedo Black, Rich Cocoa

Papers: My Mind's Eye

Accessories: pearls, heart punch (mini), prima fairytale roses (teal), lace ribbon, foam dimensionals, ek success border punch, white sharpie gel pen, twine

I loved making this card - I seriously LOVE Julee's amazing stamps with these gorgeous fonts, sentiments and sweet images! Need a little inspiration? Check out the blogs linked below to see what the other Divas did with the challenge! It's sure to be a treat, and speaking of treats, we've got a prize for one lucky commenter along the hop! Check out the Verve Blog today for all the prize info and deadlines.

	1. Amy	11. Julee
	2. Anya	12. Teresa
	3. Betty	13. Stacey
	4. Jessica	14. Marisa
	5. Karen	15. Laurie
	6. Sankari	16. Maureen
	7. Sarah	17. Jen
	8. Sony	18. Christyne
	9. Susan	19. Charmaine
	10. Tiffany	20. Andrea

Our Craft Lounge - Let Your Dreams Take Flight

Hi Everyone,

The is my last week as Artist for the month of March '12 and I have had so much fun creating the cards for Our Craft Lounge stamps. My last card uses the Love is in the Air stamp set from OCL - love these balloons and the sweet sentiments. I masked the smaller ballon and stamped the larger one behind it and then stamped them separately on a different paper where I colored them with copies, cut them out and then adhered them over the initial stamped images.

Card Ingredients:
Stamps:  Love is in the Air from Our Craft Lounge
Paper: MME dp and white card stock from PTI
Inks: Memento Rich Cocoa, Tuxedo Black, Bahama Blue
Accessories: Dimensionals, ribbon from May Arts, liquid pearls, spellbinders nesties, scallop circle punch from SU! and copics

The clouds were masked with a scalloped circle (from a punch) and then I cut the image out with Spellbinders and matted it onto white card stock. The sides were sponged and then I put some different strips of DP from MME around the image and then added a little ribbon from May Arts. I love this sentiment - "Let your dreams take flight" - so inspiring and so beautiful and I love this font! Underneath the sentiment I added a little scallop layer and finished it up with some liquid pearls around the edges.

I have loved hanging with the OCL girls this month and want to sincerely thank Kendra for letting me play along this month with OCL and to all the lovely ladies for your sweet comments and encouragement! Thank you!!

Happy wishes to all!
Thanks so much for stopping by today,
Sankari :)

Taylored Expressions Sneak Peeks - Day 1

Good Morning Everyone!!!

I am so excited because of the stamp sets that Taylored Expressions will releasing this Friday, December 5th at 8amPST and all of the yummy sneak peeks of those sets that are starting from today on! Every 3 months, Taylored Expressions introduces a new stamp set in the TE Giving Tree Program, where a $7 from each stamp set will go to a particular charity. This is one of the reasons that I love being part of Taylored Expressions because it is so wonderful to know that I am helping to make a difference by supporting these charities and also by getting more awareness to the wonderful works that these charities do.

Today - all of us will be showing samples from the beautiful stamp set Discover Your Wings (designed by the awesome Nancy McKinney) and a percentage of the proceeds of this beautiful stamp set will go to benefit the Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep organization also known as NILMDTS. This amazing foundation is a charity that administers a network of almost 7000 photographers in the US and 35 other countries who volunteer their time to gently provide a helping hand and healing heart to famillies who have suffered the loss of an infant by offering gentle and beautiful photography services in a compassionate and sensitve manner. NIMLDTS is there for parents and famillies to help them in thei healing, bring hope to their future and to honor their child. They belive that it is through rememberance that a family and truly begin to heal. Taylored Expressions is honored to help support the work of this wonderful charity, I encourage you to go to their website and learn more of their wonderful work.

This is an organization whose work went right to my heart for many reasons - most of which are hard for me to talk about - and maybe I can in the future - but for right now - all I can say - is that I am so happy to support and organization that supports families to heal after an infant has passed away - what an amazing treasure they are giving that family and what a beacon of hope they are to help in this way. In the Sioux Falls Hospital where Taylor's SIL works, their neo-natal hospital gives cards with a dragonfly on it to famillies who have lost their children at the hospital as a sign of hope. Taylor will also be sponsoring a card drive for anyone who wants to send anything dragonfly related to donate to this hospital. Knowing this - that the dragonfly symbolized hope - I made this card for today's sneak peek - I love the dragonfly stamp and covered the wings in chunky glitter.

I wanted to create a matching ornament/ hanging diorama to go with this card - so I created this from this cutie patootie metal tin - which can be pierced with a crop-a-dile and then you can insert an eyelet and this allows you to thread a ribbon through and hang it up....

I covered the bottom of the tin with some Flower Soft and loved the feel of a meadow of flowers that this sweet butterfly is flitting about in :)

Here is a picture of the card and tin together as a gift set to give to someone special - for me the most important thing is to always dream - to have goals - to work towards them and to always know that dreams do come true....

Card Ingredients and Project details:

Paper: Kaiser Kraft and coordinations cardstock for the base

Ink: color box chalks, Memento Grape Jelly, Pear Tart and Desert Sand

Stamps: Discover Your WIngs

Accessories: dimensionals, stickles, chunky glitter from Martha, flower soft, metal container from my amazing friend, ribbon from stash, spellbinders, brad from Kaiser Kraft, bling from K&Company.

I loved making this hanging diorama and so I had to make another ornament with the beautiful sentiment: See Beyond - and loved embossing this gorgeous butterfly - I am hanging this right near my desk where I can always see it - and always remember that there is a Greater Beyond in this journey of life and to always remember the preciousness of this life:

Project Details:

Paper: American Craft

Stamps: Discover Your Wings

Ink: Memento Lilac Posies

Accessories: frame, ribbon from stash, EP bridal and bling from Kaiser

My last project - is something a little different - it has some Kraft in it (I am a total Kraft newbie :) I love these papers called Fancy Pants Kraft Kuts Girl Collection - that Taylor has in the store - and couldn't wait to emboss this gorgeous stamp image that is in this set of the flower silhouettes - I CASED this gorgeous card that Taylor made for the last TE sketch challenge #92 using these papers. The butterfly is paper pieced and I have to say that I love how this card turned out:

Here is a view from the side - the embossed images are actually quite sparkly - but it is a little hard to tell - love the feeling of embossing:

Card Details:

Paper: Fancy Pants Kraft Kuts Girl Collection and Prism Cardstock

Stamps: Discover Your Wings

Ink: Memento Aquamarine ink

Accessories: Sakura white gel pen, Spare Parts curly q's, circle punches, corner chomper, dimensionals, embossing powder, bling from Kaiser Kraft

The sentiments in this set are so inspiring - they can be for encouragement, for sympathy, for a thinking of you kinda card and I love how all of the different card making techniques that are also possible with this set like embossing, emboss resist, paper piecing, coloring, water coloring - and I can't wait to make more...

Speaking of making more - please check out the awesome creations from the Baker's Dozen this week - I know that they will amaze you!!! And Guess WHAT!!! You can WIN this stamp set!!! All you have to do is to leave a comment on each designer's blog for a chance to win!!! One lucky winner will be chosen at random and will be announced on Friday morning on Taylor's Blog!!! You have until 6am PST on Thursday to enter you comments!!!

Charmaine Ikach

Dawn Easton

Donna Baker (at the Stamp a Sweet Impression Blog)

Jackie Pedro

Jodi Collins

Jami Sibley

Karen Giron

Karen Motz

Laurie Schmidlin

Sharon Harnist

Nancy McKinney

and of course!: Taylor VanBruggen

Thank you so much for stopping by my little ole corner today!

Please stop by tomorrow for Day 2 of sneak peeks!!!

Hugs!

Sankari :)

Color Throwdown - Dream Big card

Hello All, 

I had a quick chance to play along at the color challenge that the A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! ladies at the Color Throwdown are throwing down this week, while my little ones had snack and were playing with their new hotwheel cars (yes, my little daughter is waaaay into hotwheels, can you tell, she has an older brother??? lol!)

I have been meaning to play along every week, and every week, I remember on tuesday night and then I promise myself that I am going to play the next week - and now weeks later, I am so psyched that I actually made a card and am posting it the day after the challenge went up! woo-hoo!!!  

This week's colors are soooo pretty together (tempting turquoise, elegant eggplant and green of choice) I didn't really have anything turquoise-y , so I went for the closest thing I had and.... I only had about 20 minutes - so I quickly threw this together. 

Card Details

Paper: DCVW

Ink: SU! Taken with Teal

Stamps: SU! Happy Harmony

Accessories: Stickles, Liquid Pearls, mini circle punch, corner rounder

There is a multi-media pack from DCVW that has these color flowers in it - so I cut a few out, created a wave on the white cardstock, stamped the sentiment and then punched out mini circles to create a scalloped edge and then added liquid pearls and dots... seriously quick --- I had to be quick to try to take a picture of it in the setting sunlight.. I love this stamp set - I think it is my favorite and it felt so good to pull it out and use it! 

The sentiment reads: Dreams come a size too big so we can grown into them." Isn't that just sooo inspiring? I love it!! And I love being able to dream... what are some of your big dreams? One of mine is to travel the world with my family and be able to enjoy the wonders of this beautiful planet -- and the other is to meet Johnny Depp, my secret crush (well, not so secret anymore :) since I was 12 ;)

Well, that's it for me.... well actually there is one more... I just finished my scrapbook layout for the Scrappy Sunday challenge - so that one I will post in a few minutes too :)

Hope you are all having a delicious Thursday!!

Thank you so much for visiting my little corner :)

Ciao for now, 

Sankari :)

Kristina Werner Color Inspiration Challenge #29 - Dream

Good Morning Everyone,

I am sorry for being such a bad blogging friend - these two weeks here have been a bit of a rough one... on top of the strep that my son has - he now has the croup... (just when you thought things were getting better...) He is such a good little guy and is so sweet about taking his medicine and covering his mouth around his sister and going to the bathroom to wash his hands.... totally melts my heart. This morning around 4am when I was lying awake after being up with him for 2 hours during a cough attack - I went upstairs to surf around and suddenly saw Kristina's Color Inspiration Challenge #29 was posted - what a great therapy these CI's are... I just stayed up since I was already awake and played around with these beautiful colors.

I love these colors and together - they are so cool looking. I love love love this rich dark purple and the blue and teals together felt so mediterraean - so that's what I went with. I created some waves on photoshop and cut them out and colored and shaded them a little more with my Prisma color pencils. A few of the front waves are popped up on dimensionals.

I really want to try Copics - maybe I could ask Santa for some? (Dear Santa, if you are reading this - I have been mostly good - and I didn't mean to take all the Reeses cups out of my son's Halloween bag :)

I added an outline of stickles (Eucalyptus) to the edges of the waves. The sun are four circles layered (white, 3 organge) with dimensionals - the last circle was sticklized for just a little bit of shimmer. I was going to tie a bow - but instead just laid the purple ribbon across the purple cardstock. Maybe I should have gone the ribbon bow route - (still not sure). The sentiment "dream" is from Clear Stamps - (i think Heidi Grace?)

These colors were so much fun to play around with - can't wait to use them again.

I am so grateful to all of you for coming over for a visit and all the sweet comments you have left about my little one's health - I hope to come over and visit you all soon.

Hope you are all staying healthy and happy!

Ciao for now :)
Sankari