Many THANKS (Mille Merci)--Atlantic Hearts Sketch #13

 Don't you love SERENDIPITY? 

I'm not talking about the spaceship from the sci-fi series Firefly, although that is a Bredeson family favorite (EDIT: I always get it wrong--the spaceship is SERENITY!).

I mean when the stars align to produce several good things at one time.

Last week, a co-worker asked for some design help, decorating the favour boxes for her upcoming wedding. I brought some examples in, showed her the various options for adhering ribbon, and sent her off to Michael's for paper flowers. She couldn't find anything she liked as much as the one I had made, so we decided to have a crafting session at noon-hour. We made 24 adorable, dimensional flowers in 60 minutes (there's a craft-dash moment for ya!). So, good thing #1 was that Erika can now proudly tell all her guests that she made and decorated the beautiful boxes herself.

Good thing #2 is that I now know her colour scheme. 

I had planned to make her a gift of some thank-you notes; now they will be colour-coordinated with her wedding theme.

Good thing #3 is the sketch from Atlantic Hearts this week.

I thought it lent itself very nicely for use with a new stamp-n-punch set.  I bought this from a Stampin' Up friend, specifically because all the sentiments were in French (Erika is francophone).

So here's the result of all that happy coincidence:

The shades of blue are all CTMH: Outdoor Denim, Pacifica and (retired) Dutch Blue.

I incorporated a button, although not exactly where specified on the sketch.

Good thing #4 was "shopping the stash" for the ribbon treatment. 

The satin ribbon is an inexpensive Michael's purchase, but the bow is faux. Its actually a length of ribbon folded in three, and tied to the main strip with a piece of navy Scrapper's Floss from Karen Foster. Did you buy any of that stuff ~8 years ago? It was all the rage but I could never figure much use for it. Now that's changed!

I made half a dozen cards in this design,

and plan to make another 1/2 dozen with a different sketch, featuring more of the Dutch Blue shade.

Most serendipitous!

For more crafting magic, visit Atlantic Hearts to see the sketch up close; DT projects will be posted on the site this Wednesday, and you have until Sunday night (July 28th) to link up and show us your stuff!

Happy crafting,
Caroline

Supplies Used:
Cardstock: White Daisy and Outdoor Denim (CTMH)
Inks: Outdoor Denim, Pacifica, Dutch Blue (CTMH)
Buttons: CTMH blue collection
Lil'Inker Designs' Stitched Mats--Rectangles die
Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder
Fiskar's Eyelet border punch
Ribbon: Michaels
Scrappers Floss by Karen Foster
Punch-n-stamp set "Médallions séduction Stamp Set " Stampin'Up

Color My Heart "Daring" Challenge #25

Hello Crafty Friends!

Welcome to my first official posting as a member of the 2013 

"Color My Heart" Color Dare Challenge" Design Team.

This week's assignment is to use the two primary colors 

RUBY and INDIAN CORN BLUE.

I created a bunch of thank-you cards, with a "subway art" design. I used stamps from several different sets, mostly from Close to My Heart, and a couple from Paper Smooches.  As we were limited to just the two colours (I added the neutral WHITE DAISY), I did some second-generation stamping and stamp-swiping to add some variety, as you can see here:

I alternated mat-colours, using contrasting Twinery twine to embellish the cards. The stamped panel is popped up over the card base with foam tape.

I had seen a tutorial by Jennifer McGuire, where she gave some tips for mass-produced cards (link to her blog HERE). She did a minimum of stamping by creating a prototype, then using that lay-out to position multiple stamps on one block, so all stamps of one colour were done at the same time.  I tried this with the word-stamps I intended to colour RUBY:

It worked pretty well! The other words were stamped individually, as I was varying the ink intensity, but having those first stamps as landmarks sped up the process.

So, head on over to the Color My Heart Color Dare blog to see the creations by the other DT members, and to link up YOUR project to this week's Dare. 

You have until next Thursday to play along.  AND there are new blog badges for the challenge winners!  

Can't wait to see your take on RUBY and INDIAN CORN BLUE.  

Come have some Colorful fun!

Happy Crafting,
Caroline

Supplies Used:

Card stock in White Daisy, Indian Corn Blue and Ruby
Inks: Indian Corn Blue, Ruby
Twine: Denim and Maraschino, from the Twinery
Foam tape
Stix-to-Anything double-sided tape.