Tea Time for Three

While straightening out my stamping area (a never ending process) I found this tea cup stamp with 3 tea cups on it. This reminded me of the "three" challenge at Less Is More. I loved the color combo at Dynamic Duos and for the layout I used the sketch from The Paper Players.

The Dynamic Duos Colors:

The Paper Players sketch:

Back to creating cards in my Butterfly Garden.

Sentiment as the Focal Point

Thanks to the great gals at CAS(E) this Sketch for their creative ideas. I struggled to find an original idea for the sketch this week. The DT had taken all my ideas.....ha......like I could possibly compete with them! lol

Here is the sketch for the challenge.

Back to creating cards in my Butterfly Garden.

LIM Three's

The challenge this week at Less Is More is to create a CAS card using THREE of something. In addition to using THREE on our card, there is a request that we comment on THREE other participants.YEA!!! I'm all for that...a lot of work goes into these cards, not to mention the amount of time necessary to stage, edit, crop, upload the photos, write the post, copy paste, copy paste, link etc. Based on the number of visitors, the percentage that leave a comment is low. Thanks to the gals at LIM for requesting comments. Now on to my card:

I am longing to see that bright yellow mass in the sky...I think it is called the "SUN", but it has been hidden for so long that I almost forgot what it looks like. So I decided to use 'yellow' on my card (a color I never use) to mimic the sun.

Back to creating cards in my Butterfly Garden.

The Art of Stenciling

It has been years since I used stencils, in fact it has been so long that I didn't even know I had stencils! When I saw the challenge at Less Is More I figured that I would have to sit this one out! I pondered my different options, even tried to make my own stencils (as they suggested) but I was not very successful. When I opened the 'stencil' drawer, pulled out the box of brushes "VOILA"....I found real NBUS stencils! Now if I only remembered what I learned in that stenciling class. lol  After about 5 different times, I finally got a 'smudge-free' piece of paper! Consider this a labor of love. ha ha ha

A touch of 'stickles' was added to the flower centers, various dye inks were used for the coloring.

Back to creating cards in my Butterfly Garden.

Black Tie

It is 'Black Tie' week at the Dynamic Duos challenge. The colors this week are 'black and more mustard' with the dessert option of 'dry embossing'. Who doesn't like dessert? So of course I added some dry embossing to my card.

The piece of fabric I bought while in Hawaii (along with several other pieces that I planned to use on cards). The fabric was in the NBUS pile (never been used stuff).  So glad it was just the right colors for this challenge :-).

Back to creating cards in my Butterfly Garden.

Spring Flowers

Okay so I am officially 'done with this crazy' winter! The lion-lamb thing with March is way too crazy. Tuesday is was 56 degrees...a beautiful lamb day....then Wednesday it was 19 degrees, the worst blizzard in 15 years and an accumulation of 20" of snow...now that's what I call a LION!Today is Thursday and it is 17 degrees! YUCK!!  No one ever told me that coming in like a lamb and going out like a lion could happen in a 48 hour span!

Today I was longing for "spring" so I sat down to play with some lovely spring-like flowers. My distress inks were still out so I decided to use them again for Virginia's View Challenge. The sketch at Freshly Made Sketches was just perfect for my floral image. All flowers have roots so....the cue card "roots" challenge at CASology was so appropriate. The challenge at Craft-Mojo was 'Spring Flowers'. Now that my friends is a win-win situation!

All stamps are from Flourishes. I particularly like the .. Love is patient, love is kind verse that is lightly stamped behind the 'Love' sentiment.

Back to creating cards in my Butterfly Garden.

Spring Watercolors

It is "one layer week" at Less Is More. I found a brand new challenge at Virginia's View. This challenge is the first of many, I am sure! Cant wait to see what other challenge Virginia has in store for us. Virginia is challenging everyone to create a card using a 'water coloring' technique. I am also using this card to play along with the One-Layer Simplicity Challenge #3---Just Add Water!

I love the challenge of creating a "one layer card" and I had forgotten how much I enjoyed water coloring.
This card was made with water color paper and colored using mostly Distress Inks and of course 'water'!

With just a few colors you can get a lot of shading using the water color technique!

Back to creating cards in my Butterfly Garden.

Carnival

Since it is Mardi Gras time, the challenge at CASology seemed very appropriate. The cue card word is "carnival". I used one of those 'gotta have it' stamps that has never met an ink pad! the layout that I followed was from the CASe This Sketch challenge.

Back to creating cards in my Butterfly Garden.

Thanks, SPRING

'THANKS' that 'SPRING' is just around the corner....is the theme for the challenge at The Paper Players.  So while playing with papers..ha, ha..I twirled up some quilling papers and made this card for their challenge.

Back to creating cards in my Butterfly Garden.

Spring Flowers

Only about 16 days till 'Spring' officially arrives, at least that's what the calendar says. Let the countdown begin. The temperatures should be in the low 20's today, which will feel like a heat wave after a wind chill factor of -2 yesterday.

This card using the sketch from CAS(E) This Sketch was created with 'SPRING' in the back of my mind. I have had enough of that 'white color'!! Or is white the 'presence of all colors'?

This is the sketch that I used to create this card.

Back to creating "SPRING" cards in my Butterfly Garden.

SPRING PLEASE

Okay enough of this global warming stuff! The temperatures hovering in the teens with the wind chill factors into the negative numbers is waaaay to warm for me! Yeah, right! If this is global warming I would hate to see global cooling.....lol.

There is a great challenge at Less is More...use YELLOW and GREEN. Now those are great Spring colors! So I sequestered myself in the Butterfly Garden, imagined it was "SPRING" and started creating. I still had some of those 'positive' die cut pieces left from HERE, so I figured this was a good starting point!

FYI...I have only 7 of those die cuts left. I have completed 15 cards so far. I can definitely see the light at the end of the'die cut' tunnel.

Back to creating cards in my Butterfly Garden.