Classy Cards 'n Such Design Team

Happy Monday! To start the week off, I have some news:

I have been chosen by Classy Cards 'n Such as a guest designer for the next 3 months!

I am so excited about this opportunity to create with and share some really great new products!

Classy Cards 'n Such is a wonderful online store that carries all sorts of terrific items for paper crafting. I can hardly wait to show you some of the things I have been using and what I have done with them. Keep your eyes out for my first card to come later this week!

In the meantime, head on over to Classy Cards 'n Such and check out all they have to offer. From papers, ribbons and trim to dies, embossing folders and tools to rubber stamps, rub ons and stickers to rhinestones, pearls and bling..... well the list goes on and on so you'll just have to go and see for yourself :-)

But that's not all! I have a surprise for you, too! When you order from Classy Cards 'n Such, just use the code SARAH-10 and you will receive 10% off your total order!

How awesome is that?!

So start your week right and get on over there and have fun shopping! And please be sure to check back with me later this week when I share my first Classy Cards 'n Such creation!

Happy Monday!

Perfect Sentiments Challenge: Thanksgiving!

It's November! (Can you believe it?!) And over at The Perfect Sentiment our challenge this week is to make a Thanksgiving card. Of course, as with all the challenges at The Perfect Sentiment, there is a "twist" to it. This week it is to incorporate brads or eyelets in your Thanksgiving card.

When I made mine, our temps were in the 80's, so it seemed pretty early to be creating this Fall card. But, in the few days since, our nights have been cooling down and we are supposed to get some daytime highs only in the 60's this week. For Southern California, that's getting quite chilly! And looking at the calender and seeing November now, well, my card doesn't seem quite so seasonally inappropriate anymore!

Here is what I came up with in hopes of inspiring you to play along with us:

I hope you can see there is a lot of texture in this card. For starters, I roughed up the edges, and chose felt for the falling leaves. The satin ribbon adds some softness.

This rosette made using Tim Holtz's die was a great way to add texture and dimension for the center of the card. The large brass brad in the center is one of my faves from Stampin' Up!

The other brad I used was for the bird's eye. And as you can see here, the die cut doily in the background also gives some added texture.

I outlined the oval frame with copper Stickels and love how that looks. Then, I added another falling leaf.

After the card was finished, I sprayed it with a lot of Tattered Angel's glimmer mist in their Wheatfields color. I love all the shimmer from it!

I hope this card inspires you to play along with us this week. You have until 10:00EST next Tuesday to link your card up over at The Perfect Sentiment Challenge Blog, using the keywords PSC05 Thanksgiving. (All details can be found on the blog.)

Our sponsor this week is Stacey from Stacey's Creative Corner. And yes, she's also one of our wonderful design team members from The Perfect Sentiment :-)

Stacey will be donating this prize to our lucky winner:

(Regretfully, if you are a prize winner who lives outside of the United States, we are unable to award you a physical prize. By the time we have to do the customs paperwork and everything associated with sending parcels out of the United States, it always costs more than what the prize is worth in most cases, and this includes Canada, unless you have a Post Office Box in the United States. APO and PPO box addresses are considered US.) If you live outside of the U.S. and you win we will award you with a digital prize that can be sent electronically via email. Thanks for your understanding.

Please be sure to hop on over to check out Stacey's blog and to see her great Thanksgiving card, too!

And for more inspiration, you can see all of The Perfect Sentiments design team's beautiful and inspiring Thanksgiving cards by clicking on their names below:

Jennipher

Sami

Abby

Jan

Kimberly

Rochelle

Shaunna

Tere

Theresa

I am also linking this card up to the following challenges:

The Paper Players -Add a Fall element to your card

Stampin' Sisters In Christ -Use Fall colors in your creation (crimson, orange and gold or similar).

Moxi Fab World -Medallions challenge (Thanks, Rochelle!) :-)

Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you will be inspired to join in and make your own Thanksgiving card. And if you'd take a moment to leave me a comment, I'd truly appreciate it!

Wishing you many blessings,

~Sarah

Items used to make my Thanksgiving card include:

Card Stock: Stampin' Up! More Mustard; Close To Cocoa

Patterned Paper: K & Company

Ribbon: Michael's Basic Basic satin olive

Felt leaves from Target's dollar bin

Brads: Stampin' Up! large Antique brad on rosette, and vintage brad on bird's eye

Stampin' Up! Oval hand held punches

Stampin' Up! bird and branch punch

Tim Holtz rosette die

Cheery Lynn Designs Doily die

Copper Stickles

Tattered Angels Wheatfields Glimmer Mist

Perfect Sentiments Challenge 04: Season's Greeting with a Sketch

Another week has already passed and here we are again with a brand new challenge from The Perfect Sentiment!

I hope you had fun with last week's embossed get well cards. Now I hope you are ready for more fun this week making a Holiday card using a wonderful sketch! I am sure you'll want to join us on this one; Patti's Creations will be our sponsor this week- offering a prize to our lucky winner!

Here is the card I came up with to share with you and hopefully get you inspired to play along with us:

I started out with Stampin' Up!'s Baja Breeze card stock for my base. Then I stamped snowflakes from SU!'s Snow Swirled set in Baja Breeze ink randomly all over the front of the card.

I added a strip of Brushed Silver card stock, and PTI white card stock which I had run through my Big Shot using the poinsettia embossing folder.

I love these little stockings made with the Stitched stockings stamps and the stocking punch. And by putting silver glitter on the tops, heels and toes, the sparkle really makes the card light up! I adhered the tiny jingle bells with glue dots. Behind them is a strand of wired silver tinsel trim.

For the snowflake I used a Baja Breeze colored felt flurries snowflake and loaded it up with Dazzling Diamonds and a big sparkly rhinestone.

For my sentiment, I used SU!'s Christmas Punch set. This was stamped in Baja Breeze ink and cut with an oval punch. Then I dotted silver Stickles all around.

And there you have it: my challenge card for this week! Now, go over to The Perfect Sentiment and see the wonderful sketch for this card and join in on the fun! Also, be sure to check out all the other Design Team members to see their beautiful cards for more inspiration~

Jennipher

Sami

Abby

Jan

Kimberly

Rochelle

Shaunna

Stacey

Tere

Theresa

As always, thanks so much for visiting me today. I'd love it if you'd take a moment to leave me a comment and let me know what you think of this week's challenge.

Wishing you many blessings!

Perfect Sentiments Challenge 03

It's time for another Perfect Sentiments challenge!

This week the challenge is to make a card with a Get Well sentiment.

The twist~ Embossing! You can choose either dry or wet.

This week, one randomly picked winner will receive a "grab bag" of stamping related products with a minimum retail value of $15.00 (can only be shipped to a U.S. address).

So here's what I have come up with in hopes of inspiring you to play along~

As you can see, I actually did both wet and dry embossing.

My sentiment was stamped in SU! Purely Pomegranate ink in the middle of a Very Vanilla c/s layer punched out with the decorative label punch . It was embossed using Stampin' Up! Gold Glory embossing powder over Versamark ink, using an image from the Four Frames stamp set.

The layers behind the sentiment were die cut using Spellbinder's dies and dry embossed with the Cuttlebug dots embossing folder.

I wrapped some Stampin' Up! Lace ribbon across the top left corner, then put several mulberry leaves and prima flowers on top of it.

And a nice big brass butterfly finding down in the corner completes my card.

I hope you will be inspired to join us this week and share your embossed get well card creation at The Perfect Sentiment!

For more inspiration, please check out my fellow DT member's get well cards on their blogs:

Jennipher

Sami

Lynn

Abby

Jan

Kimberly

Rochelle

Shaunna

Shelly

Stacey

Tere

Theresa

As always, I thank you for stopping by today. I would so appreciate it if you'd take a moment and leave me a comment. I always love hearing from you! :-)

I hope you're having a great week, and that you have been inspired to create- and share!

Perfect Sentiments Friendship Challenge

It's time for another challenge from The Perfect Sentiment! It's hard to believe a week has already passed since the launch of our new challenge blog. We had so much fun and received some really wonderful submissions. Congrats to all who participated; your work is beautiful!

This week we are doing a friendship inspiration challenge. (I'll get to the details in a minute.)

HeartSongDesigns is our sponsor this week and will be giving a prize to our lucky winner.

Here's the card I came up with as my inspiration for you~

When you go the The Perfect Sentiment challenge blog, you will see the inspiration photo for this week. It will be obvious to you that the colors in the photo is where I got my colors from. That, for me, was the easy part ;-)

Although there are no flowers in the photo, it's just so unusual for me not to use flowers in the cards I make. This was no exception. I made this one by first stamping the big flower from Stampin' Up's Fifth Avenue Floral set onto Baja Breeze card stock in versamark ink. I then embossed it using brown embossing powder. After that, I stamped it again in versamark on vellum card stock and embossed with the brown embossing powder. I cut each of the images out and layered the vellum flower over the baja flower. The small amount of adhesive I used was done by placing glue dots just behind the knot in my ribbon and down in the upper left corner of my sentiment. This held the flower on, but allowed for the flower to have some dimension with the layering, as you can see here in the lower part of my photo.

I thought this little sentiment from A*Muse was a perfect choice. I love the size, the font and the simplicity of it. Again, I embossed with brown embossing powder.

You may not be able to tell from the photo, but I also embossed my baja cardstock layer using a Sizzix striped embossing plate to add a little texture and some subtle stripes.

I must say this really was a bit of a challenge for me! If you are familiar with my cards, you know this was not a typical card for me. It's more of a "clean & simple" style than I am accustomed to making. But it's what I was inspired to make from the challenge photograph. I started with the colors, then added the stripes in the ribbon, as well as the card stock layers. The circles in the photo came in to play through the dots in my background paper. I kept everything pretty straight and in line with each other, but I just couldn't resist adding a big flower for a little pizzaz!

So head on over to The Perfect Sentiments challenge blog to see the inspiration photo that inspired me to make my friendship card. Hopefully you will also be inspired to play along!

Just remember: your entry must be submitted by the deadline next Tuesday at 10:00pm EST!

And you can also check out all the other wonderful DT's cards and blogs here:

Abby

Jan

Jennipher

Kimberly

Lynn

Rochelle

Sami

Shelley

Shaunna

Stacey

Tere

Theresa

Thanks for visiting me today. I hope I'll see your friendship card soon, too!

CASE-ing Myself

I have CASEd myself! My card for you today is similar to the last card I posted. (See my Lacy Sympathy card HERE, made for The Perfect Sentiment blog challenge HERE).

The layout is basically the same: A square card, sentiment towards the bottom of the card, with lace tied behind it and a special bird above it.

There are many differences in the specifics, however. In my sentiment I used layers. I also did dry embossing rather than heat embossing.

For my bird, I die cut him using antique sheet music. Then I sponged ink around the edges.

I didn't use any flowers (I know- pretty rare for me!) but instead I tied a gold tone cross to the lace as my special embellishment.

Swirls of pearls in two corners finish it off.

So as you can see, CASE-ing (Copy And Share Everything) doesn't have to mean to copy exactly. By switching things around a little and changing colors, patterns, and embellishments you can make lots of varying cards from following one basic example. So next time you don't "feel the mojo" remember that you don't necessarily need to look any further than to your own cards for inspiration: maybe you just need to CASE yourself!

Supplies used:

Stamps: From Our Daily Bread Designs Get Well set

Ink: Stampin' Up! Always Artichoke; Crumb Cake

C/S: Stampin' Up! Always Artichoke; Kraft' Very Vanilla

Patterned Paper: K&Company; Vintage sheet music book

Embellishments: Cotton lace; Stampin' Up! Bird punch; Spellbinders Labels 6 dies; cross charm; pearls by ZVA Creative; Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder; distressing tool; dimensionals

The Perfect Sentiment- Brand New Blog, Brand New Challenge!

Welcome! I am so glad you stopped by today. It is a very special day!

Today, The Perfect Sentiments challenge blog debuts! I am really excited to be part of the design team, and have no doubt you will understand why when you hop on over there to see what it's all about!

First of all, let me tell you a little bit about the challenges and how we do things at The Perfect Sentiment. Then I'll share my card with you.

Every week, we will have a card-making challenge for you. But there's a bonus: there will always be a little something extra, or as we like to call it: a "twist"! This adds to the fun and gives you, well, and added "challenge" so to speak, and makes for some really great cards, too!

All of us on the Design Team will have cards we have made for the challenges to share with you. (You'll find a list of everyone's blogs below.) These will give you plenty of inspiration! Then, you can join in on the fun by creating your own card, submitting it to us and.... you just might win a prize provided by one of our wonderful sponsors!

To top it off, we also pick "The Perfect 3" each week. And one of them just might be you!

So lets get started. I will share my first challenge card with you:

This challenge is to make a Sympathy card. (So, that's where the sentiment part comes in.)

But the fun "twist" for this particular challenge is... lace!

Here is what I have come up with

I love this sentiment. And it fits well right in the middle so the message is pretty much the first thing you see. I embossed the frame in silver, to make it stand out a little more. I wanted to keep things soft and subtle, but also wanted a little "pop" and decided to do that through my embellishing.

I chose these flowers for a few reasons: to me, they just go hand in hand with a sympathy card. And I thought these particular ones were of the perfect color to pick up the peachy tones in the patterned paper and butterflies and in the white lace ribbon as well.

And when I made my bird, I decided to use lace, too. This was really fun! I die cut it out of chip board. I then painted it with pearl paint. Then, I die cut the pieces out of white lace, too. I took the lace and sprayed it with Tattered Angels glimmer mist and let it dry. Then I adhered the lace with Mod Podge, and brushed a little over the top as well. Finally, when it was completely dry I added a tiny pearl for his eye. I just love how it came out!

And here you can see a little more of my lace ribbon. I also added some pearl swirls, which I think provide a soft and pretty touch. And although I distressed the edges of the patterned paper, it still has an elegant feel to it. And, for just a little more "lace", I stamped the blush blossom card stock layer- and the punched butterflies- faintly with a lace background stamp in Versamark ink.

So there's my take on it! Please be sure to visit ALL of the design team's blogs to see their beautiful interpretations of a "lacy sympathy" card and to get even more inspiration!

Then, I hope you'll create your own card and share it with us! Please keep these rules in mind:

#1 Your card must be submitted to The Perfect Sentiment by Sunday at 10:00 p.m. EST. for a chance to win the prize.

#2 Identify your challenge. Today's challenge is Lacy Sympathy PSC01

I can hardly wait to see what beautiful card you create!

This week we are very fortunate to have a prize from Stef over at Glitterbabe Diji stamps! She will be awarding our challenge winner a $10.00 gift certificate to her store; enough to get yourself 3 Dijis!

Thank you Stef, for being our sponsor for our first challenge!!

Now go have fun checking out all these great cards made by the other members of our design team, and then have a blast creating your own! :-)

And remember... every Wednesday The Perfect Sentiment Challenge Blog will have another new challenge for you!

The Perfect Sentiment design team member's and their blogs:

Jennipher

Sami

Lynn

Abby

Jan

Kimberly

Rochelle

Shaunna

Shelly

Stacey

Tere

Theresa

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Items used in my Lacy Sympathy card~

Papers: SU! Brushed silver and Blush Blossom c/s; SU! Bella Birds dsp; PTI white c/s

Sentiment stamp: SU! Close As A Memory set; Border: ODBD Border stamp; SU! lace background stamp

Accessories:

Ellison chip board; Tim Holtz Caged Bird die; ODBD border die; Martha Stewart butterflies punch; Prima flowers; small paper roses by My Moments; Zva Creative pearls; white lace ribbon from JoAnn's; white lace material; Adirondack Pearl Acrylic paint dabber; Tattered Angels moonlight glimmer mist; Varsamark ink; SU! silver embossing powder; SU! dimensionals.