Butterflies and Easter Eggs

It's the first week of spring and only 2 weeks until Easter. The theme for this week's A La Card Monkey Challenge is Spring - and what is more associated with spring than Easter? I embossed a piece of Island Indigo card stock with dots and some Lucky Limeade with butterflies and swirls. I attached them to white cardstock with a bit of Baja Breeze pleated ribbon in between. The sketch (see below) used the Pennant Bigz die, but I don't have that, so I just cut a triangle out of Twitterpated DSP and attached another piece of the BB ribbon. I stamped the image with Early Espresso and colored it with various markers. I cut out the basket and attached it with dimensionals to a die cut flower. The butterflies are punched from the same DSP and the Island Indigo cardstock. They have pearls on their bodies.  Here's this week's  sketch:

I want Candy!

Blog candy that is! It's challenge #100 over at A La Card Monkey, and to celebrate, they're giving away blog candy. Look at the loot:



Somebody this week is going to win all that! I hope it's ME! Here's the sketch for this week's challenge:



Not surprisingly, the theme is "Celebrate!". Here's my card:

I've been wanting to try a pinwheel for awhile, and this seemed to be the appropriate time. I followed the tutorial on Terry Su's blog here. It was pretty easy once I got the hang of it. I used Play Date DSP for the pinwheel and Twitterpated DSP on the rectangle. The card base is Early Espresso and the other cardstock is Daffodil Delight and Marina Mist (I think). The sentiment is stamped in Marina Mist and I added two bright brads. It doesn't show up very well, but there is Early Espresso baker's twine "attaching" the pinwheel to the banner (both of which are attached with dimensionals).

Color / Sketch Challenges

I thought I'd try something new (for me) and do a card that met a color challenge and a sketch challenge. First the card:

The colors are from the Paper Players challenge #86. The challenge is to use the colors Crumb Cake (I used it for the card base and sponged around the image), Pear Pizzazz (in the Twitterpated DSP and the grass on the image), Wisteria Wonder (the floral embossed strip & Snoopy's water dish) and Pool Party (the "rick rack" stripe, the border around the image and outlining Snoopy).

The sketch:

Is from technostampers challenge #212. I'm entering this card in both challenges.

Springtime Flowers

It's time for some flowers for this week's Monkey Challenge. The crocuses are blooming in my yard  and hopefully it won't be long before the daffodils, tulips, hyacinths and lilies follow suit! This week's challenge over at A La Card Monkey (number 99 and counting - only one more week to Blog Candy!) is Flowers + sketch. Here's the sketch:


For my card, I started with a Crumb Cake base, added Tea Party DSP inside and out. Trimmed it in pink to pick up the pink in the DSP. The flower is from the Goody Goody Gumdrop set. I stamped it first in Early Espresso, then colored the stem and leaves with Old Olive, the petals with Bashful Blue and outlined the whole thing with Certainly Celery. The sentiment is also stamped with Bashful Blue and then punched with the Decorative Label punch. BB was also sponged around the edge of the image and the sentiment. I added some Vintage Flowers, a yellow pearl in the center of the flower and a pink grosgrain ribbon to complete the card.

Monkey Happiness

Happiness plus sketch is the theme for this week's A La Card Monkey challenge (#97 and getting closer to blog candy). I started out intending to make a Birthday card, but it didn't end up that way:

As I was combining the Sweet Stitches DSP with the polka dotted ribbon, it just seemed to scream "Easter" more than "Birthday". And Easter is a happy time too, right? It's an end to winter and a welcome to all the newness of spring. I'm not sure exactly which blue the cardstock is, it was in a multipack. I added a layer of white embossed with the polka dot embossing folder. The bunny is stamped with Early Espresso and then I cut him out and attached him to the scalloped circles. I added a couple of buttons for a little added dimension. If you want to play along this week, here's the sketch: