A Challenge Card for Mother's Day

First things first - Mum, Look away!

Okay, now on with the show.  Creative time has been a little short around here lately, and when that happens, I find that challenges are often just the kick start I need to get creating without too much mucking around and wasting of precious time.

For this card I used two different challenges for my inspiration.  The first was the Inkspiration Inspiration Challenge #21:

The second was the Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge #67 :

I used the 'Fifth Avenue Floral' and 'Short and Sweet' stamp sets, an assortment of inks and markers (saffron, pretty in pink, rose red, regal rose) and card (pretty in pink, regal rose, and pink pirouette) and finished the flower off with a half pearl bead from the pretties kit.  The patterned card started life as a plain white piece of card, but some stamping and sponging transformed it into a perfectly coordinated patterned piece instead.

Hoping to squeeze in a bit more craft time tomorrow - probably with the help of another challenge or two.   Blogging about it though, is a whole other 'wait and see' kind of story!

A Bold Bright Card with a Tropical Feel

It is no secret that the Bold Bright colours are not my most favourite - although I have been trying to use them more lately and have been pleasantly surprised more than once!  I do love the Kaleidoscope patterned papers though - they seem to me to be a slightly subdued version of those bold brights, and so not quite so scary!  They do make me long for a nice Fiji holiday though - I think they have a fun tropically kind of look.

So of course when I saw those wine glasses in Makeesha's inspiration photo, I thought of a nice fruity drink to go along with those tropical papers.  Here is the photo:

And here is the card:

I based this card on the latest sketch from Stamping 411 again, but abandoned the planned brads for knots in the ribbon instead.  Because the colours in the paper are not too bold and bright, I was able to use pumpkin pie ribbon, even though the card is a nice bright only orange, and I don't think it looks out of place.

Not quite a Fiji holiday, but it is sure to brighten someones day!

A double challenge card (with coral!)

Cameo Coral has never been one of my 'go to' colours, and I'm not sure it ever will be, but in small doses it can really make a project pop.  So of course I couldn't pass up the opportunity to take part in Makeesha's colour challenge, and use up a bit more of my meagre coral card stash.  These were the colours:

And to add to the fun I decided to make this a double challenge card, with Karen's Sweet Sunday sketch challenge as well:

 I used my favourite stamps - Fifth Avenue Floral, and bent the rules a little - instead of circles I decided to cut the flower out, and go with a bit of layering.

Here is a closeup of the flower.  That little splash of coral really does look pretty - don't you think?

(and now back to my pirate card production line - I am having fun!)