a not-my-style adventure

One of the benefits of trying different challenge blogs is trying styles and combinations I wouldn't think of as my own. I can tell you that the color prompt at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown - red OR blue plus black AND white plus gold OR silver intrigued me, and reminded me of the #stampingsunday prompt from Sara Levin to use Back to Black designer series paper.  I like the Back to Black paper, and I like the effect of adding color to it, but it's much more graphic than I usually feel comfortable with.    I can tell you that when I went looking for a sketch, the one Amy designed for Jingle Belles seemed perfect.  I can tell you that I wanted to use my favorite Kinda Eclectic stamp set for a Christmas card and that prompted me to use only items that can be purchased from the annual catalog, even though the Holiday catalog is full of great supplies.  But I can't tell you how this card came out of all of that at my hands, with its multiple narrow layers and boldly graphic non-traditional style:

stamp sets - Sassy Salutations, Kinda Eclectic; ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Versamark; Stampin' Write marker - Real Red; Stampin' Emboss powder - Gold; card stock - Real Red, Basic Black, Whisper White, Red glimmer;  designer series paper - Back to Black; punch - Itty Bitty Accents

I like it, though - and that's why I play along with challenges.

#stampingsunday Christmas in July adventure

You may have noticed that there are no holiday-only stamp sets in the new annual catalog.  There are some carry-over sets available, and two brand-new sets have just been released, but I decided to stick with annual catalog stamp sets simply to challenge myself.  In addition, I wanted to use just green and white for the challenge at Merry Monday:

stamp sets - Daydream Medallions,  Sassy Salutations; ink  - Pear Pizzazz, Old Olive; card stock - Pear Pizzazz, Whisper White

I thought the medallions looked like wreaths, but now I'm unsure about how well I like it.  It's not a difficult one to make multiples of, though, so I'm considering including it as one of the selections for my Card Buffet this month.  Let me know what you think, please?

edited to add - While browsing the Merry Monday submissions (many beautiful cards, you should browse, too!) I found Simply Create Too (a challenge I've not seen before!) where it's Christmas in July.  Since that's the #stampingsunday theme that got me started this week, I think I have to link there, too!

#stampingsunday adventure

Perfect Pennants was our #stampingsunday assignment this week, and I needed a Father's Day card for my amazing husband as well as a birthday card for a friend.

For my husband, Paper Craft Crew offered up a great sketch that worked well with the colors from ColourQ for a clean and simple offering, which happened to be the challenge of the week at Addicted to Stamps + More:

stamp sets - Perfect Pennants, My Paper Pumpkin Framed Love & Hey Man; ink - Calypso Coral, Coastal Cabana, Pacific Point, Summer Starfruit (retired); card stock  - Calypso Coral, Naturals White, Pacific Point; punch - Decorative Label

Because I used My Paper Pumpkin stamps, I'll also link this at My Pumpkin Challenge as well as at Friday Mashup and The Pink Elephant for their Father's Day challenges.

For my friend's birthday I was hoping to break out some new supplies - you can see them on this Try Stampin' on Tuesday sketch:

stamp sets - Perfect Pennants, Petite Petals; ink - Blackberry Bliss, Hello Honey; card stock - Hello Honey, Sahara Sand; designer series paper - Moonlight; washi tape - Watercolor Wonder; punches - Scalloped Tag Topper, Petite Petals, Envelope punch board

Freshly Made #stampingsunday adventure

#stampingsunday is a new idea started by the Artful Inker, another Stampin' Up!® demonstrator, featuring specific stamp sets on Sundays.  (You can read about it here if you'd like to know more.)  You know me - always ready for a new adventure - so here's a card I created with this week's featured stamp, Chalk Talk.  The sketch for this week at Freshly Made Sketches includes a tag, which I thought would be perfect for this stamp set and the coordinating framelits:

stamp set - Chalk Talk; ink - Coastal Cabana, Tangerine Twist; card stock - Coastal Cabana, So Saffron; washi tape - Retro Fresh; 1/4" stitched ribbon (retired) and Baker's Twine - Whisper White

In an unusual twist for me, there was no color challenge involved in this creation - I simply used the colors of the Retro Fresh washi tape.