One card - three challenges!

This never happens!  I started to make a card for The Paper Players #805 using Jaydee's fun sketch when I spied with my little eye the 'leftover' panel from that fabulous Maple tree trunk that I cut at Carrie's house.  If you know me at all, I really try to use the negatives from die cuts and will specifically arrange a die thinking ahead to how I might use it later... later happened today!

I first cut the panel down using my old faithful Wonky Rectangle die from MFT.

Then, I masked my tree using one of my Penny Black essential masks and added a moon in Fossilized Amber ink blended Black Soot over the rest of the panel and backed it to make the tree trunk black!

I reached for a favorite Halloween die set from SSS: Big Bat - but just used the

sentiment - using the second color in Color Hues #142: burnt red.

Just us Girls #843 is asking for Halloween dies! This Bat Trio from SSS spooks me-

and the 'hey, boo' is my go-to for my granddaughter, Lola.

Nothing left to do but give it all a spooky spritz of TH Mica spray and voila!

ONE card - THREE challenges done and dusted!

                                                            

I have spent a great deal of time in my studio playing cards with all of those wonderful Altenew sets Carrie sent me home with... I'll be sharing those soon, I promise.  

Until then, we're still blooming butterflies but the weather is making it pretty hard on these delicate little friends of ours.  The sun is shining today, and I hope it warms up enough for their wings to strengthen for that long flight to Mexico!

Have a great weekend my friends!

=] Michele

Freshly Made Sketches #756

Kim has a fabulous design for Freshly Made Sketches #756!  Tell me, does this get your creative juices flowing?

When it comes to choosing what goes into that main box, I wanted

to pay homage to the one flower in my porch pot that never lets me down:

the Geranium!  Oh, the Coleus are still going strong, too - hey, why haven't I

ever seen a stamp featuring those?  I digress... here's my card:

Another SB Betterpress-ed sentiment from Yana pressed in brown

along with lots of Fall-ish colors bring those deep reds to life, right?

HoneyBee's Burlap EF always does the trick for texture.

Okay, that's all folks except to invite you to COME PLAY! And if you want 

even better inspiration, go see what Kim and the DT have to offer - they

always knock my socks off!

=] Michele

My Sunday shenanigans!

Sunday afternoon in my studio was a delight - tunes on YouTube, sun outside my window, my hubby doing a little yard work, and chicken roasting for dinner!  Does it get any better?  

Here are the cards I made... first a few made with another wonderful borrowed Altenew set from Carrie: Sulfur Cosmos!

Stamped with Obsidian ink, and stenciled with these inks:

Then a bit of extra details using Prismacolor pencils...

    

When I reached for those pencils, I found a pad of Strathmore Toned Gray paper.

Then the ol' grey-lovin' brain kicked in...

... which turned into this...

A 5x7" card with oyster grey base, Prairie Grass postage frame,

and an embossed panel [SB Summertime Waves] and an

Altenew Press plate set for the sentiment.

Last but not least, this fabulous moodboard from Inspirational #377 pulled on my heartstrings...

See if you can find the cupcake that was the inspiration for my card!

Okay.  Granted my sunflower is not as orange - but you'll forgive me, right?

A bit of texture from Kristina's Finishing Touches from Concord & 9th, some white metallic splatters, and a Betterpress-ed sentiment and I'm good to go!

Hope you had a fantastic weekend!

=] Michele

Craft Roulette #338 with Therese!

My sweet friend Therese was the guest designer on Craft Roulette on Friday evening but as much as I wanted to go live with her and Mary Gunn FUNN, it just didn't work out.  However, I watched the replay and couldn't wait to get my hands on those fun parameters... here they are just in case YOU want to play, too!

I hadn't heard of a Joyfold card - thank goodness there were many beautiful renditions available on YouTube!

Her Element is: starts with K - I used a much-loved embossing folder to KNIT my card front!

Dusty Hues are my favorite Colors - this time I reached for Gina K's Dark Sage cardstock from my trip to Wisconsin with Sue, Marcia and Bobby many years ago!

Torn Paper is the Random spin... do any of you have this old tool in your supplies:

It worked its charm to create my 'torn edge' ruffle!

Okay!!  Ready to see my card?

My brilliant friend Donna Mikasa featured an embossed triangle tree

for her 'seconds' at Freshly Made Sketch this week - 

I just had to CASE it!  Mine was cut using a very old triangle die set from Scrapbook.com that was a free gift w/purchase.  I've embossed it

using a SSS Holiday Greenery EF.

And the inside was easy peasey by just adding a slip of dsp

and a Betterpress-ed sentiment!

Thanks so much, Therese and Mary - I had a blast creating my card!

=] Michele

Just us Girls #842 and Four Seasons

 

It's time to bring out our stencils this week at Just us Girls #842 or, as I have

done, break out a stencil set that you borrowed from a friend!

You may remember I recently entered Altenew's Inspiration Challenge

hosted by a gal from Michigan - after a bit of commenting back and forth,

we discovered we only live 17 minutes from each other!  Carrie invited me

over for an afternoon of playtime and I accepted her kind invitation to play.

[I have to say I felt like was cheating on Marcia - but with all my sweet friend

has on her shoulders this year we just haven't been able to get together since early Spring. We have a date in the making soon - thank goodness!]

Carrie sent me home with all kinds of goodies to play with - including the

wonderful Sweet Harvest collection from Altenew that she used for her

fabulous inspiration piece at the challenge.  You can see that one HERE. Take

note of the apples she photographed as they were the models for my

'simple stenciled' branch of Honeycrisps!

Accompanied by one of the fantastic sentiments in the set, and

Altenew's Organic linen embossing that I added a little splash of color to.

Starting with a layer of melon ice CP ink and allowing it to shine

through the reds helped give them the glow I was looking for.

After stenciling, I went back and added a bit of extra shading and

splatter to give them a little more interest.

Here are a few more of the cards that I've made using Carrie's supplies:

Second helpings can't hurt, right?

This set is Altenew's Winterberry Poinsettia set.

I've paired it with a sentiment from Honeybee's Peace, Love, Joy set.

Each of the berries was 'kissed' with Stickles!

One more... you know me and trees... and leaves!

All four of the layers in this Majestic Maple Tree set were cut from watercolor paper and

blended with the inks below.  I was sad that the colors seemed to dry-back a bit

but loved it mounted onto this SU! Timeworn Type embossed and distressed panel.

The sentiment is an oldie from PTI's Larger than Life: Fall sentiments set of stamps.

It seems like a perfect fit for The Four Seasons Challenge of September 2026!

Thanks so much for spending some of your time with me this week!

I always appreciate it so much!

And a BIG thank you to Carrie for sharing her home and Altenew supplies with me!

=] Michele

CAS Mix Up September 2026

Bobby is hosting the September 2026 challenge at CAS Mix Up and wants to see sunflowers [who doesn't?] and using water coloring!  

After putting my thinking cap on, I landed upon a wonderful embossing

folder from Stampin' Up called 3D Sunflower.  It's a beauty - I love it

so much I water colored TWO but you'll see the second in a few weeks as

it worked out beautifully for an upcoming FMS challenge!

After searching the interwebs for Sunflower Varieties I came upon

this wonderful photo from Little Yellow Wheelbarrow:

I settled on the bottom right corner and brought these inks to the table:

It took more time than I thought it might and I am not sure I've

done that beautiful bloom justice... maybe I created my own variety!  here it is!

Looking back, I think there needed to be a bit more yellow but

at the end of the day, I loved it anyway and didn't want to ruin

the monochromatic color by adding green to the leaves. Even the sentiment

[from Pinkfresh's With Sympathy] was stamped in Aged Mahogony ink.

Hope they like it! I might go back and try another!

=] Michele

Freshly Made Sketches #755

My dear friend Donna is our designer this week for Freshly Made Sketches #755... I couldn't wait to play, and we hope you will be just as excited about it! 

Are you hearing carols? Or maybe you're conjuring a mountain scene?

As of this moment, I haven't seen Donna's card, but I sure look forward to it!

Here's mine:

I couldn't help but use one of the many sentiments I had

already created, plus the trees, from Reverse Confetti's Triangle Tree set -

sorry, Donna - no circle!

More cute Christmas papers from Scrapbook.com's Noel collection.

And the STAR of my card: Li'l Gnome from SSS - guess what?  He was

a gift from Donna many years ago - seemed just about perfect!

Thanks, Donna, for the fun Sketch!

You all have until September 28th at 3pm EST to play, too!

=] Michele