Retiring SU! Stamp Set Mega Blog Hop

Hello there!  Welcome to my blog.  We're celebrating the upcoming new Stampin' Up! catalog by featuring sets that are bidding us a fond farewell.  If you are just joining us, be sure to follow the link at the bottom of this post to see all the gorgeous cards and projects my fellow Stampin' Addicts members have created for your viewing pleasure.  If you've arrived from Cindy's blog, didn't you just love her post featuring Spring Song?  My favorite was that last one - wonderful coloring and the Cameo Coral was perfect for that card!

One of my favorite SU! sets, Embrace Life, made it onto the Last Chance List this year, and I'm truly sad to see it go.  My projects all feature this gorgeous stamp set.  Now, I do have to warn you.  If you are a regular visitor to my blog, after seeing my projects, you might start to wonder if you've seen two of them before.  Well, the answer is yes, and no!  With one daughter graduating from middle school, another from elementary school, and myself wrapping up the school year where I work - all on the same day this week, life's been a bit hectic as of late!  I really wanted to participate in this blog hop, so the two cards I made were CASEs (copy and steal everything) of work I've done previous using Embrace Life.  Not to worry, I think they came out GOJUS as one of my favorite bloggers, Jan Tink, would say.  My third project is something new (made just today, just in time for this mega blog hop), and I know I'm going to enjoy using it - but first, onto the cards...

My first card is one I actually CASE'd from another favorite blogger of mine, Corinne 'Roxy' Somerville.  I've updated the card with new colors - my favorite color combo, Rich Razzleberry and Old Olive (can I tell you just how excited I am that SU! picked up Razzleberry as part of their new color system?!).  This card features not only a retiring stamp set, but also my favorite and now retiring designer series paper from this past year, Cottage Wall, as well as a retiring color, Orchid Opulence, and a retiring punch, Trio Flower!  Oh, wait!  Nearly forgot - it also features another retiring set - Itty Bitty Backgrounds, which has probably seen more ink than any other stamp set I've ever owned.  So sad to see that one go, too!  Here's the card:

My second card is one I made for my very first sketch challenge when I used to be a regular visitor 'over there' and of Beate Johns' blog.  It was for one of her weekend sketch challenges, and I've made several cards in the past using that great sketch.  So often I get stuck in a rut and use a standard greeting card size, and this one's great for breaking me out of that mold to do something different.  You might notice that once again, this card features my favorite, Cottage Wall designer series paper with the Razzleberry/Olive color scheme.  The blossoms were stamped using Old Olive and Rich Razzleberry markers to color the stamp, and then I used some Pale Plum from my chalks, added onto the image using a cotton swab.  I so love that polka dot ribbon to finish off the card.  Isn't it beautiful?

My last project is a card organizer.  Guess what designer series paper/color scheme I decided to use?  You get three guesses, and your first two don't count!  Yup, it's more of that gorgeous Cottage Wall paper and my favorite color combo again.  I printed out the monthly templates from the tutorial I originally saw 'over there'.  They're printed on Whisper White card stock, trimmed and adhered to the pockets of the organizer.  I used my Bind-It-All (which I sadly had to dust off) to put it all together.  The beautiful floral image was done using the fun reinker technique that was all the rage last spring/summer.  My card organizer also features the retiring Jumbo Outline Alphabet, another set I'm sad to see go.  Wanna see it?  Well, here it is:

This is a fun project to make, especially if you are like me and you make several of the same card (with different sentiments) and then wonder if you've already sent that one to someone, not wanting to send the same one again.  With his mom out of state, I often will use the same card design for both of our moms, and putting them in a card organizer as soon as they're made sure helps me keep it all straight.  Card organizers are also great so that you actually have a card ready to go when you realize someone's birthday is just around the corner, and time's tight.  I love it when I check my card organizer and find that I've already got the card ready to go, complete with a decorated envelope to match!  The tough part is just remembering to put the card in there once it's made, but I'm getting better at that part! 

I hope you've enjoyed my salute to Embrace Life!  Now it's time to head on over to Rhonda's blog and see what she's done with A Beautiful Thing.  My favorite is her last card - go check it out...love it!  Once again, thank you for stopping by today!

Click here to go to the next stop on the blog hop!

February Team Meeting Swap

This month's team meeting swap is a stamper's choice. Those participating have to make a card using a stamp set from one of SU!'s current catalogs. After making the double pocket purse last week, I decided to stay with the same color scheme for my swap. I used Embrace Life along with Itty Bitty Backgrounds. I think on the rest of the cards I'll VersaMark the background leaves instead of using Old Olive for a softer background.

Weekend Sketch Challenge #33, Stamp Simply Challenge 20 - Pretties

Last night I was visiting several of my favorite stamping blogs. When I visited Beate Johns' site, Fresh & Fun, I thought I'd give her weekend sketch challenge a try. After creating my card last night (and finishing it this morning), I realized my card also qualified for Sharon Johnson's Stamp Simply Challenge #20 - Pretties. This is the first time I've participated in Beate's weekend sketch challenge, and it was a lot of fun coming up with my card. I love Stampin' UP!'s textured cardstock (really wish they'd sell it in individual colors instead of by color family). I had recently mounted the beautiful Embrace Life stamp set but it hadn't seen any ink until last night. I used Taken with Teal as my card base, but when I put the strip of Bali Breeze designer series paper on, I quickly realized that I had cut it 1/4 inch too short! So, my card ended up with a border around it, which in the end, I like. With that mess-up, I added the Tempting Turquoise panel on the left to balance the Bali Breeze paper, adding a strip of Taken with Teal to cover up the line where they meet. I used a Taken with Teal marker along with an Old Olive marker to color the stamped image, then colored it in with my Stampin' Pastels, which is the first time I've used them since I got them nearly two years ago! I punched out my images with my largest SU! square punch and decided to turn them in various directions instead of having them all face the same way. I started out using some turquoise grosgrain ribbon to finish my card, but ended up with the 5/8 inch Olive grosgrain (first time I've used it). I played around with the sentiment for a while, and when I came up with the one you see, my daughter gave it her approval so that's what I used. I had planned to use some of the flowers from my Flower Fusion tin, but I didn't like the ruby red with the teals and turquoises as much as I liked the punched teal flowers I ended up using from my Spring Bouquet Flower punch. Another first for this card was the use of the half pearls from my Pretties kit. I can't believe it's been sitting there on the shelf all this time, and today is the first time I've used it! So, here's my entry for Beate's and Sharon's challenges - hope you like it!