August Paper Pumpkin Bicycle

Here it is September and it's time to start thinking of fall and all that goes with it.  But today is sort of a last hurray for summer.  This card was inspired by my grandson and his love of riding any and all of his riding toys be they tricycles, hot cycles (is that what they're called?), or bicycle.  His favorite pastime is going really fast!  So while the weather is getting cooler, we still have lots of time to play outside.  Here's my take on the Paper Pumpkin kit for August.  I seem to get stuck in needing to follow the idea that comes in the package.  Now, how silly is that?!  Today I've stepped out of the box and created something totally different.  Hope you let me know what you think...

Stamps:  Pedal Praise (Aug Paper Pumpkin), Gorgeous Grunge, and Pennant Parade
Ink:  Pool Party, Calypso Coral, and Real Red
Paper:  Pool Party, Calypso Coral, and Whisper White
Accessories:  Petite Pennants Builder Punch, Calypso Coral Baker's Twine, Subtles Candy Dots, and Dimensionals

If you've seen the Paper Pumpkin kit for August, you know this looks absolutely nothing like the suggested card to make.  That's what is so very much fun about these kits.  You can go simple and follow the idea, or go crazy and do whatever you want.

When I first saw the Gorgeous Grunge set in the catalog, I wasn't too sure about getting it.  Now that I have the set, I seem to use it all the time.  It has some great background filler stamps that work great for so many different things.  I used 2 of them on this card to signify clouds in the sky.  And the skinny lines make a great roadway to ride a bike on.  You just need to use your imagination a little bit.

Thanks for stopping by today.  Hope you've had a relaxing weekend and you're ready to get back to it tomorrow!  How come the weekend always flies by so fast?  I can never get everything done that I think I should.  Oh well, do the best you can and wing the rest!!  Have a great week...   Sharon

Sketched Birthday in Blue

I haven't spent much time checking out other blogs and stamping venues lately.  Just not enough hours in the day to spend oodles of those precious hours surfing the web to see what everyone is up to in the creative world.  But today I was looking for something in particular that I thought I'd seen somewhere (and it wasn't there!).  I did discover a sketch challenge though.  Oh, how I miss doing those on a regular basis to keep me creative!!  I thought today would be a perfect day to try my hand at the challenge, so here we go.  The sketch is found here at the Clean and Simple Stamping blog.  I had an idea that I thought would work and gave it a try.  Think I like what I came up with...

Stamps:  Sketched Birthday, Sweet Essentials, and Hello to You (Paper Pumpkin set)
Ink:  Indigo pad, Soft Sky, Calypso Coral, Island Indigo markers
Paper:  Soft Sky, Calypso Coral, and Whisper White
Accessories:  Big Shot with Tasteful Trim Bigz XL Die, Paper Piercing Tool and Mat, Essentials Paper Piercing Pack, 1 1/4" Circle Punch, 1 3/4" Scallop Circle Punch, Rhinestone Basic Jewels,  and Dimensionals

It was fun having a starting place of a sketch to work with.  I changed around my color scheme a couple of times, but that's not surprising.  The sketch didn't call for the scalloped layer under the main layer, but it looked too plain for my taste.  Dare I say almost boring?  And we can't have that!   So it was added to go along with the scallop punch.  I had planned to use the cute little Candy Dots for the embellishments, but ended up liking the rhinestones better.

I love the little chevron  background stamp from one of my Paper Pumpkin kits.  It's been used several times to give a fun pop of pattern and color.  These Paper Pumpkin kits are really handy to have around.

Well, that's it for this Sunday's edition of the stamping news.   I've been working on a couple other things today as well.  We'll see if they work out as planned and get posted for your viewing pleasure.  Hope you all have a great week.  And get those stamps inked and ready - it's time to stamp!     Sharon

Paper Pumpkin Possibilities

Just have to share what I did with part of July's Paper Pumpkin set.  I'm growing to enjoy this little fun package that comes every month.  I will admit there were two months that I wasn't too crazy about the packages, but I'm so glad I stuck with it a little longer.  The last several  months have been great!  July's package consisted of 2 stampin' spots, 3 cute texture background stamps, and several different banner sets.  Since I needed one for a birthday right away, it came at the perfect timing  And now I've got ideas to make some more as needed!  What a bonus!  Here's what I did with one set of banners...

Stamps:  Paper Pumpkin Kit July Edition
Ink:  Pool Party, Island Indigo, Summer Starfruit
Paper:  banner pieces from kit
Accessories:  skewers, white baker's twine, mini clothes pins, and Dimensionals (all from the kit too!)

As you can see, I stuck the banner in a batch of brownies.  In our family, seems like most of us prefer brownies to cake for our birthdays so that's what I make!  So easy and I sure don't complain about that!!

 I think my son-in-law Jesse enjoyed his birthday brownies!  If I'd really been thinking ahead, I would have made his card in a coordinating style and colors, but alas! that didn't happen!!  Sometimes I'm just lucky to get a card made at the last minute.  One of these years, I'm going to get organized and get all my birthday cards done way in advance.  Oh who am I kidding?!  That'll probably never happen in my lifetime!!  LOL

That's it for today.  I should have cards again tomorrow as we stamped cards for the military this week at church.  There's a couple I think you'll really like.  See you soon,  Sharon