Jen's Sunshine Blog Hop

Many thanks to everyone who participated in the Hop! The Winners can be found HERE.

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Welcome to my stop on the Jen's Sunshine Blog Hop! I've had the pleasure of working with Jennifer at Pile It On, and boy does she keep everyone's spirits up! So Jen, this is for you and for all the Sunshines in my life!

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Paper Makeup Stamps & Party Time Tuesdays Challenge Blog proudly presents 

"Jen's Sunshine" Blog Hop

Today we take time to honor our friend and fellow crafter Jen Scull.  If you are here hopping with us, then I am sure you know Jen is battling breast cancer.  She has been fighting this nasty disease since February.  On behalf of Jen, we thank you for being here.

I made a Magic Picture card with an SVG file I made:

Original inspiration for magic picture cards: Extreme Cards & Papercrafting
Magic Card tutorial: SplitcoastStampers
My SVG file for Magic Picture Card: free download at 4shared.com

We ask as you hop along with us, please consider donating at least $1 using the paypal donation button at any stop along the way.  Your donation will go directly to Jen. Thank you.

It wouldn't be a hop without prizes.  To see a full list of the prizes up for grabs, please visit 

Paper Makeup Stamps

and

Party Time Tuesdays Challenge Blog

To be eligible to win a prize from our sponsors, collect the hidden letters located throughout the hop.  Once you spell out the secret phrase, please email Jenn Cochran at partytimetuesdays@hotmail.com.  This will get you entered to win one of several fabulous prizes.

This hop will remain open till Tuesday Sept.4th

Winners announced Sept. 7th

Happy Hopping!

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I'm entering my card into the following challenges:

Charisma Cardz - lace

Come and Get It Challenges - 3D Flowers

Eureka Stamps - Anything Goes
My Crafting Channel SVG Challenge #4 - Anything Goes + an SVG file
My Heart Pieces Digital Stamps Challenge - Your favourite colour (Love yellow! It was the color of childhood bedroom, and also how I painted my study in the attic)

Thank you for visiting,

Wingin' it with Card Cupids

It's time for another Card Cupids Challenge! This fortnight we're being sponsored by Wings and Willows, so we have the fun & easy theme of "Wings".

I used Rainy Day by Wings and Willows and the Everyone Needs a Little Rain sentiment by Paper Makeup to make this silly card:

I just love this rubber ducky paper; I've had it for...oh, ever. Years and years. I've also had this ribbon for a long time; maybe a year? The butterflies are cut with Stampin' Up!'s Beautiful Wings Embosslits Die. Wow, I love this product! I colored the debossed polka dots with a Gelly Roll pen. I colored the pearls with a blue Copic.

Inspiration/Challenges:

Fat Pages & Cards with Attitude: Anything Goes

Inky Impressions Challenge: The Great Outdoors

My Heart Pieces Digital Stamps Challenge: For someone Special [who could be more special than a Card Cupid recipient!]

Pixie Dust Challenge: Rain or Shine

Tammy's Scrapin Corner: Anything Goes

Hope you'll join in with us for this challenge, and be a Card Cupid! The only requirement for our challenges, other than the theme, is to send in at least card to Card Cupids (the simple instructions are here). 

Best,

April showers bring ... wet flowers

Thanks to the team at Free Digital Stamps (such a great daily resource for free digis; I also like how they're very respectful of artists' rights) I just discovered Sharon's beautiful work over at Steady On!, and as soon as I saw her groovy "brollies" I just had to work with them! Don't you just love how they fall‽

I won this Paper Makeup digi sentiment for participating in one of their Digi Makeover Challenges a few months back. Love Dolly Parton!

Inspiration/Challenges:

Mojo Monday #235: Sketch (left)

Paper Playtime Challenge #71: April Showers / Use an umbrella + any type of Die Cut (the circle and border are dies I used with my Big Shot)

Card Cupids February Drive: CPS Days 9 and 14 + Motivational Rock

Using the the sketches from Days 9 and 14 of the CPS 5th Anniversary Celebration, I made birthday cards for Card Cupid's February Drive:

CPS Day 9, Sketch #5

I cut down this Thomas the Cat pre-colored diecut from Lili of the Valley to match the rest of the shapes. I combines the balloons & sentiment from a Bentley Bear stamp set, and found a perfect matching cake in a set from Our Betty.

CPS Day 14, Sketch #45

I was really inspired by the Cropped Digi Image theme at Digi Makeover Challenges: it worked really well with Gab in the Groove from Just Some Lines. I stamped the white silk ribbon with a Great Impressions stamp in three colors of dye inks (pink, Fire Brick, and brown); this was inspired by the recent tutorial at the SP & Company Stamps blog. Thanks!

Update: The card I made for the Cropped Digi Image Challenge at Digi Makeover won the random prize! Thank you!

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This month's challenge at Card Cupids is to "create a motivational card for a child", so I grabbed this cute DJ digi from KennyK Downloads, a sentiment from Create with TLC, & a fun Guitar Hero stamp set from StudioG (I think) and made this bright number (without any help from CPS!):

I'm thinking that I will add a "Happy Birthday" sentiment and send it in as part of their Birthday card drive.

Thanks to all for the inspiration! (All my cards for the CPS Celebration are archived here.) 

Autumn Camus #2

This is my second card using this Albert Camus quote Wordart freebie from Paper Makeup (my first card is here). I wanted to revisit the idea of a vase with leaves in it (which I've actually done in real life, but our leaves are all wet and yucky right now). I also wanted to make a card for the current Digi Makeover Challenge.

The only vase stamp I have, from SP & Company's For Every Woman set, comes with a Gerbera Daisy, so I used masking to incorporate a leaf stamp. I paper-pieced the vase, and, as you can see, got lots of mileage out of my Martha Stewart flower border punch! I made Shrinky Dink buttons and sewed them onto the card with orange thread.

I followed the current Mojo Monday Sketch, where I got the tag idea. Mom recently sent me a baggy full of mini tags with color-matched eyelets, so I tied one onto the card with baker's twine. I colorized some of the Wordart text color, and hand-colored the tiny leaf.

Inspiration:

Paper Makeup / Digi Makeover Challenge 8: A Color Challenge

Mojo Monday #212: Sketch

Autumn Camus #1

Paper Makeup recently offered a Wordart freebie with a lovely quote by Albert Camus: "Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower." A sentiment so nice, I used it thrice! (Thank you Paper Makeup!) I'll be posting the other two soon.

This was the first card I made; I really wanted to make a vase with leaves in it, so I cut a vase with my Cricut using the Walk In My Garden cartridge, and added some stamped & colored leaves.I wasn't working with a set color theme, but the main images are on kraft paper, and the off-white background is a leaf-embossed cardstock.

The window element was actually an afterthought... it seemed like a nice way to set the scene, and it gave me a chance to incorporate the cute carved tree digi stamp by SJ's Little Musings (see more photos below).

I cut the window frame on the Cricut, but everything else was done with punches.

I'm entering this card into the Forever Autumn Oldie But Goodie Challenge as well as the Fall challenge at Celebrate the Occasion. One of the requirements at the Oldie bu Goodie Challenge is to use a stamp older than 6 months... I've had the tree digi stamp about 8 months, and the leaf stamps are years old!

That's my not-so-mini schnauzer Allen in the photo above. Here's the card closed:

And the inside:

Hope everyone is doing well. The weather is acting up all over the world it seems; sending you all warm, dry, and safe wishes!