Groovy Artichokes & a Cool Sketch!

When you have a 2 1/2 year old grandson running around your house he certainly takes a toll on your energy {big sigh}!! Since last Saturday I have had my grandson, Cameron, which leaves me little time for stamping! It's been a long time since I've had a little one around the house and have gotten quite used to doing what I want when I wanted, and that includes stamping!!!

And so, that brings me to the two cards I have here for your viewing pleasure. The first one is for the color combo challenge which Emily posts on Tuesdays over on SCS. The combo this week was Always Artichoke and Groovy Guava. I used Whisper White textured for my neutral.

I used the new Season of Joy set from the Holiday mini collection 2007. And the fantabulous thing about all of these sets, and future sets in all minis, is that they are ALL die cut!! Took me less than 5 minutes to punch these out and mount on the blocks!! And since I completed this card after spending the day at the zoo with Cameron, I kept it pretty simple since I was really tired!! It was so hot & humid yesterday.

I stamped each of the flowers in Guava and then colored the center spots with my Artichoke marker. Each one is raised somewhat for visual effect. The scallop circle is Marvy's mega punch and is using the Guava dp. I layered with an Al. Artichoke circle. The leaves are made from the flower just stamped in Artichoke. The swirls are first stamped in Guava and rolled in Artichoke. The entire circle is up on dimensionals.

Paper piercing to two corners, two Artichoke brads, a green ice circle brad and linen thread finishes the card off. I used both SU! corner rounder punches on here. (The larger corner punch is now retired.) As I've been working on cards I have been making more and more Christmas cards lately. The way I figure it I'll more ready and less I have to rush through at the last minute!!

The second card is for this week's sketch challenge. To see what the blank sketch looks like click on the link in the side bar.

For this card I brought my favorite set, Looks Like Spring, and dusted it off!! I haven't used it for quite some time and I'm not sure why. I used the same color combo from Tuesday's challenge mainly because I had leftovers, but I really like this combo. Here I added Certainly Celery with the WW.

The Artichoke panel has reverse paper piercing along the top & bottom edges, Celery & WW panels are distressed on all edges and I stamped Flannel Plaid on the Guava base in Guava.

On the WW panel I stamped the diamond pattern in Cert. Celery and the lattice in Al. Artichoke (each of these were stamped off once). Then I over stamped in Guava the 3 flowers, also stamped off once.

The flower is stamped twice, once in Guava and in Cert. Celery with both rock-n-rolled in Artichoke. I then punched a smaller flower from the Spring Bouquet punch to layer on the two flowers and topped off with this extra large green crystal brad I found at Hobby Lobby.

For my strips I used the Guava double stitched ribbon and Artichoke & Celery gg.

I tried a new "label layering" using my scallop circle, 1 3/8" circle and round tab punches. I like how that turned out. The bottom edge is up on a dimensional to make it level with the main panel. I made this one a thank you card since I have two very career important job interviews next week that I am eagerly anticipating!! Wish me luck!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Stamping!!

~~~Ann~~~