GCA #136 - The Colors of America!

Hello all!!!  Did you think I forget?  Had a stamp class today and finished cleaning up.  Always have fun spending time with my stampin ladies.

A week from tomorrow will be July 4th.  And for those in America, that means lost of celebrating and honoring the colors of our country.  So the challenge for this week is to use the colors of:

RED
WHITE
BLUE

That's it.  No special focus on images or anything, just use the above colors on your project and have fun!  I'll have my sample up in just a bit.

Upload your creation to either your blog or to an online gallery and post a link to your creation to this blog entry by July 2, 2011 at 12 midnight. I will choose the winner the next day. If you upload your card to SCS, PaperCraft Planet, Stampin' Addicts, Stampin' Connection (for SU! demos) or Stamp TV, please put GCA136 in your keywords. That way everyone can see all of the wonderful creations at once!



Even if you can't make the drawing deadline, PLEASE feel free to participate in the challenges and upload your creations at any time. I would love to see it!

Happy Stamping!!!!


~~~Ann~~~~ 

GCA #135 Winner is....

...... Flipsi AKA Sabine from Germany!!!!  You really should visit her blog, Flipsis Stamp Corner, and see amazing works of art.  She does some very unique tags.  That is what she made for her entry for this weeks challenge.  Thanks for playing along Sabine.

Is this neat or what???  Thanks to everyone who played along this week,stopped by for a peek or left comments.

Up next:  GCA #136 - The Colors of America!

Happy Stamping!!!!

~~~~Ann~~~~

Do Not Open Till....

Hello all!!!!  Thursday means another sketch over at the Creative Sketches blog.  But this week is the added the twist of also making your card a holiday card!!!  Any holiday will do, I just chose to make a Christmas card.  Never to early to get started on those!

I started with a Cherry Cobbler base, top folded, and layered with a piece of Deck the Halls dsp.  I also used the Deck the Halls fabric for my "ribbon", which I actually tied all the way around the card front!  (That means inside too, which I rarely do.)


The sketch shows the front panel straight, but I slightly tipped it once I picked out my stamp set to use.  The set I used on here is Winter Post and will be found in the new 2011 - 2012 Idea Book & Catalog due out July 1st!

What is hard to see in the photo is the piece on the smaller Cherry Cobbler panel.  This was actually sprayed with the gold Smooch Spritz onto Whisper White and dried.  It does curl it up as it's drying, but I was able to straighten it out and I did use the Tombow glue to adhere it.  Then I knew it was going to stay down!  This was actually left from another idea that didn't pan out.  I also spritzed the Soft Suede marker over some areas before stamping the postmark in Cherry Cobbler.

The couple were stamped in brown staz on and water-colored with the ink from the stamp lids and an aquapainter.  Once that was dry I went over some areas with a marker for highlights.  Soft Suede ink was sponged around the edges and the smallest of the pearls put on each scallop.  The "Do Not Open" tag is stamped in Cherry Cobbler onto the same gold Smooch paper and punched out with the Designer Label Punch.  A lot of dimension going on with the image panel too!

I was trying for a vintage look here.  Did I succeed??

Happy Stamping!!!

~~~Ann~~~

Summer is here and Getting Creative with Ann is back!!!!

Hello all!!!!  Well, getting back into the swing of things is much easier said than done!  Now that I actually feel like I have creative thoughts flowing in my head I seem to run out of time to put them together!!  I have alot of sketches and notes, but not a lot of completed projects!!  Ever happen to you?  Hopefully that changes now.

This week, actually June 21st, is the actual first day of summer.  Are you ready?  I know that I am.  Before we know it, all that white stuff will be here again and it will be cold and icky out!!  Until then, lets celebrate summer!!!

Anything you can create that celebrates the beauty and fun of summer is up for grabs!  Show your love for summer fruit, the water, beverages or whatever! 

What's better in summer than lemons, oranges and friends?  Odd combo, but it's summer so does it matter???  This cute set, Tart and Tangy, is soon to retire at the end of the month.  I have really liked using this set and am sad to see it go.  But, in the new catalog there is an equally cuter set to take it's place.  The sentiment comes from Simply Said, another retiring set.

I started here with a Whisper White card base and layered with Daffodil Delight and another layer of WW.  The bottom part was put through the Big Shot using the Perfect Polka Dots folder.  Strips of sticky strip just above the embossed part holds the ribbon down.  And the white pom-pom trim is not SU!  I was trying to make the lemons and oranges look as if they were "attempting" to balance on the card, sort of going with the saying.  Make sense?

Now, as I stated in my post here, I am making some slight changes to the GCA.  Primarily with the "stampin' goodie" packages that I send to the winners.  As much as I love to send these packages out, for multiple reasons I find it is not realistic for me to do so.  Time is my biggest factor with many changes happening at work that are going to be pulling me away from home more often.  In place of the stampin' goodie packages I will be choosing one person each week as that week's "Creative Stamper".  The card will be highlighted on my blog and a link to the stampers blog, or gallery, will be provided.  I really want to come up with a "blinkie" to give out to each "Creative Stamper", but I have very limited knowledge about putting those types of things together.  If anyone out there knows how, or know where I could get the info to do so, I would soooo appreciate the direction.

I am also looking into the Mr. Linky program for adding your entries too.

Upload your creation to either your blog or to an online gallery and post a link to your creation to this blog entry by June 25, 2011 at 12 midnight. I will choose the winner the next day. If you upload your card to SCS, PaperCraft Planet, Stampin' Addicts, Stampin' Connection (for SU! demos) or Stamp TV, please put GCA135 in your keywords. That way everyone can see all of the wonderful creations at once!

Even if you can't make the drawing deadline, PLEASE feel free to participate in the challenges and upload your creations at any time. I would love to see it!

Happy Stamping!!!!

~~~Ann~~~~ 

My Friendly Butterfly - DIC151

Hello all!!!  WOW!  Two posts in one day!!!  This is short and sweet and for now.  I'll give you all the details this evening when I return from work.

The inspiration challenge from UDI this week is a calm and serene butterfly with a rainbow.  I love butterflies.

Head on over there to check out the inspiration piece and play along.

Happy Stamping!!!!

~~~Ann~~~

Creative Sketches Color Challenge - From a Strawberry!!!!

Hello all!!!!  Boy does it feel good to be back to stamping and blogging.  I am humbled and overwhelmed get well wishes and thoughts of concern.  So much love out there in blogland and stamping!!

Anyway, this week over at the Creative Sketches blog it is a color challenge - inspired by a Strawberry!!!  The colors are Real Red, Whisper White, Wild Wasabi and Soft Suede.  I had a hard time not making a Christmas card with these colors!!!  LOL!!

I saw the sketch for the Mojo Monday this week and decided to try it out too!  I really liked the mix of stripes and circles.  I also paired this with a new fave technique of mine: Faux Mother of Pearl.  The large butterfly is done with Real Red and the smaller on with Soft Suede.  The sentiment comes from the new Level 1 hostess set in the Summer mini.

Check out the Creative Sketches blog and play along if you have a minute.

Happy Stamping!!!!

~~~Ann~~~

Where in the World has Ann been......????

…..well I haven’t been out seeing the world, that’s for sure!!! Yes, I know it’s been over a month since I last posted. And in my last post I commented that I had been dealing with dreaded migraines. I actually wound up at the emergency room one afternoon because it got so bad.

Needless to say, my doctor has seen me more this past month than he usually does in a year! I feel like I’ve been poked and prodded from every end. Not really, but almost!!

So, long story short, and not to bore you with my issues, the month of May is pretty much a blur to me. We played around with my medications, taking some away and adding some. One he added is Topamax. Anyone who suffers from migraines and takes this medication knows that when you first start it, it practically can drain you of all your energy. That is one reason why I have resisted going to it, but it just came to the point where I had no choice. And on top of that I have not been sleeping well at night for some time, so that meant I barely made it through the day and the thought of stamping, and blogging, at night was not happening. Even the weekends were spent sleeping or just laying on the couch.

However, I am extremely happy to say that I am on the road back to “life”! The Topamax appears to be doing what it needs to for the initial dose, but I suspect it will need to be increased. All of the tests I went through have come back normal (so I have proof that I am normal!!!), except for the sleep study I had. Still waiting for the results, but I believe that I will be doing a second one with a CPAP machine on.

And I finally feel like stamping, and blogging, again. It really hurt that I couldn’t stamp or blog. I love sharing my work with all of you and I so appreciate each and everyone of you that stops by to visit. So you can expect to see more postings again from me.  Like, starting tomorrow!!!!  The Getting Creative with Ann challenges will resume this Sunday, June 12th. Some changes are coming, but I’ll post that in another post.

Again, thank you to all who have continued to stop by, send me emails to see how I was and just say hi. I wasn’t ignoring you, but computer time wasn’t a top priority either.

Happy Stamping!!!!!
 
~~~Ann~~~