#TGIFC141 - Color Challenge

Hey everybody! I'm back with another fun challenge from TGIF today! If you missed my announcement last week... I am thrilled to say that I have been invited to join the amazing design team over at TGIF Challenges and this is my second week joining in the fun!

This week's challenge is a color challenge... Yikes! I usually shy away from color challenges because they are often colors that I don't usually reach for. I guess that's why they call it a "challenge," right? Well, this color scheme of Night of Navy, Island Indigo and Fresh Fig was no exception. Fresh Fig is a color I tend to steer clear of. When I do use it I like to add bright colors to it to change it up a bit. I decided to watercolor so that I could mix the three colors to get shades of color that I really love. Here's what I came up with...

I used Fresh Fig, Island Indigo and Night of Navy with my Aquapainter to watercolor in this image from a new stamp set called Lots of Lavender (147194). During Sale-A-Bration/SAB (happening now) you can get this set for FREE with any $50 purchase! I like free stuff so I find this to be pretty amazing. After watercoloring the image, I used my Fine-tip Glue pen to add a thick layer of adhesive to the image. It added some nice texture and shine without hiding the watercoloring. That strip of DSP is also in the new SAB catalog and is another one of your "freebie" choices.

These framelits are also new and in the SAB catalog (yep, FREE with a $100 purchase!) and they are "amazing." Those beautiful little embellishments are actually clear (new in the Occasions catalog) and I've colored them with my Night of Navy Stampin' Blends alcohol marker. My background is Shimmery White Cardstock spritzed with an alcohol and Island Indigo ink mixture.

That's it for today. Please let me know if you have any questions. We would love to have you play along with #TGIF141 for this week's color challenge. If you'd like to play along, or, just check out what the rest of the Design Team has made then head on over to the TGIF Challenges Blog to see some other fun projects. 

Thanks for stopping by my blog today. It's always great to have you! If you're interested in purchasing any of the supplies I've used in today's project please let me know or click the "shop online" button below. I'm here to answer any questions that you may have.

Have an amazing day!

Maria

mariawillis@hotmail.com

Want to shop with me? No problem, just click the button below. 

Let me know if you have any questions!

Email: mariawillis@hotmail.com

Want a great discount on Stampin' Up! Products and to have a fun new stamping family? Join me on this fun adventure! I can't wait to be your super excited Stampin' Up! side kick and support lady! In case you didn't know, you can join Stampin' Up! just for the discount and never sell a single product. If you want to know the details just let me know. If you're looking for a discount on your favorite hobby (stamping and paper crafting with Stampin' Up! products) and want to earn money doing it... let me know! I'd love to talk with you whatever your interest might be! If you want to see a little more info go ahead and click the button below. Looking forward to hearing from you!

Creating Kindness Blog Hop: Because We Care

Hello Everybody! I'm glad to have you here today because today is another fabulous Creating Kindness Design Team blog hop. Our theme today is Because We Care and it such a fitting theme for this time of year when we have so much opportunity to care for others.

I have a few different things to share with you today and I'll be the first to say that my photos aren't spectacular as I hadn't actually planned to share these first two (until I realized that they fit this theme perfectly), but, stay tuned for a third project with a VIDEO TUTORIAL (bottom of post). I live in a tiny, little mountain town in California, USA. Our town's recreation department recently purchased an abandoned country club with the intention of turning it into a rec center for our community to use. This would be so great for our community as our summers are hot and we do not have a community pool. It would also be fantastic for our local youth to have a safe place to go for summer activities. Now that the property has been purchased the Recreation Department is in desperate need of funds to renovate the property. Our town held a fundraiser (an epic Chilli Cookoff!) with a huge raffle to try to help the Rec Department out. I donated a huge stamping/crafting basket and a gift set of cards to the raffle. 

My basket was full of card and project kits many of which were put together from leftover Paper Pumpkin Supplies. I also added Stampin' Write Markers, adhesives, embellishments, some finished cards and projects and some treats as well (chocolate). I have no idea who won it but I sure hope they loved it!

Here's a pic of the card set I donated. It was a set of four different customs cards. I closed them up in an acetate box and added a belly band to pretty it up. 

I also did something fun at the On Stage event in Salt Lake City, Utah this past month that I think fits the theme of "Because We Care." There is of course a small back story... Earlier this year (April) I attended the OnStage event in San Diego. I had been selected as a stamper for one of the Display Boards and I spent the time leading up to the event stressing out about creating pretty things for my display board. I didn't have time to prepare swaps and I decided that I would just have to be ok with that. But, guess what...?  My heart was absolutely melted by the kindness that so many showed to me that day. Many people asked me to swap with them and of course I didn't have anything to give. The first time that someone smiled huge and pressed a beautifully wrapped chocolate bar into my hand and told me to "take it anyways..." brought the hugest smile to my face. And folks, it didn't stop there. Many more people gifted me beautiful handmade creations throughout the day. I went home feeling so happy, so lucky, to be part of this beautiful community. 

This time as I prepared for OnStage I had originally decided not to do swaps because I was so busy and didn't need the stress. But then I remembered the kindness I had experienced in April and decided that if I could only get ten swaps done then hopefully that would be enough to put a smile on a few people's faces. I suddenly felt that it was really important to pay it forward. I ended up making over fifty "swaps!" Of course, they didn't end up being swaps as I gave them away to anyone who wanted one. Thirty of them were these treat boxes that I'm sharing with you today. The other 20-30 were smaller and had sticky hands inside (I love sticky hands!). 

Anyhow, the most special part of my day came when I was explaining why I was just giving my swaps away to a table of people. I explained how good I felt being the beneficiary of other people's kindness and that I just wanted to do the same. I was Paying It Forward I guess. One woman at the table was so thrilled! She was so happy and excited that she said she was gonna do this same thing at the next OnStage! How cool! I plan to do it again too as seeing people's happy faces as they received an unexpected gift was really quite the treat. Ok, I'll stop rambling now. Here's my project.

Each of these little boxes held a Hanuta treat, was wrapped with a DSP belly band and had a touch of Black Shimmer Ribbon popping out the side. 

The sentiment pieces were stamped with Basic Black Archival ink onto Shimmery White Cardstock and spritzed with Island Indigo, Lemon Lime Twist and Berry Burst (rubbing alcohol mixed w  re-inker in a spritzer). Please not that if you got one of these from me and your colors blended more than splattered like these examples.... It's because I accidentally refilled my re-inkers with water and it does give a different look than the alcohol mixture does. So, some of my sentiment pieces had a splatter look and some of them blended and bled together a bit more. 

Want to see how I put these together and get some measurements too? Here's a quick video tutorial for you. Enjoy, and then check out the description in my video to see a list of awesome videos from my Creating Kindess Friends. 

So glad to have you stop by today and I'll see you back here soon! I hope you'll continue the hop by clicking the button below and heading over to see what the fabulous Cheryll Miller has made to share today!

Maria

BLOG ROLL:

Want to shop with me? No problem, just click the button below. 

Let me know if you have any questions!

Email: mariawillis@hotmail.com

Want a great discount on Stampin' Up! Products and to have a fun new stamping family? Join me on this fun adventure! I can't wait to be your super excited Stampin' Up! side kick and support lady! In case you didn't know, you can join Stampin' Up! just for the discount and never sell a single product. If you want to know the details just let me know. If you're looking for a discount on your favorite hobby (stamping and paper crafting with Stampin' Up! products) and want to earn money doing it... let me know! I'd love to talk with you whatever your interest might be! If you want to see a little more info go ahead and click the button below. Looking forward to hearing from you!

Grid Paper Paper Notecards

Hey Everybody! Happy beginning of the week to you. Thanks for stopping by my blog today because I am excited to share something with you... I've been working on creating some fun background pieces with spritzing and splattering and watercoloring. I like to use Stampin' Up!'s Grid Paper to protect my work surface when I am getting messy. The other week I looked down at my grid paper and realized it was a really fun piece of art in itself. I decided to use it to make a set of birthday cards that I could give to my friends and I love how grungy and fun the set came out.

The huge Lemon Lime Twist blob on this card is what really caught my eye so I made sure that it wasn't covered up when I designed the cards.

I used the same Happy Birthday sentiment from the Big on Birthdays Stamp Set, heat embossed in white on Basic Black Cardstock for each card. Each background is different and fun in its' own way since the grid paper shows a collection of messes from different projects I've been working on. 

I wanted to keep with the grungy, messy look and thought some washi tape would be great for embellishing these cards. The Pick a Pattern Washi Tape and the Year of Cheer Specialty Washi Tape made for a winning combo. The geometric look of the Pick a Pattern went perfectly with the Grid Paper and the metallic finish of the Year of Cheer tape added some industrial looking flair.

I used the Starburst Punch with some Silver Foil to layer behind my sentiment. On each card decided to switch up the embellishments by using either Metallic Black or Silver Thread and Different enamel dots or rhinestones. 

Here's a look at the whole set together...

I already had the pleasure of giving one of these cards to a friend for her 25th birthday this weekend. 

So, let's hear it... Have you used your scratch paper or grid paper on your cards before? Looking forward to hearing back from you. If you've done something like this before please leave me a link in the comments below. I'd love to check out your work too!

Ok, Thanks for stopping by and if you have time tomorrow please come back as I've got something really exciting share. As always, if you have any questions please ask! Feel free to leave me a comment below or to email me directly at mariawillis@hotmail.com

Have an awesome day!

Maria.

Want to shop with me? No problem, just click the button below. 

Let me know if you have any questions!

Email: mariawillis@hotmail.com

Want a great discount on Stampin' Up! Products and to have a fun new stamping family? Join me on this fun adventure! I can't wait to be your super excited Stampin' Up! side kick and support lady! In case you didn't know, you can join Stampin' Up! just for the discount and never sell a single product. If you want to know the details just let me know. If you're looking for a discount on your favorite hobby (stamping and paper crafting with Stampin' Up! products) and want to earn money doing it... let me know! I'd love to talk with you whatever your interest might be! If you want to see a little more info go ahead and click the button below. Looking forward to hearing from you!