Splitcoast CAS Design Team competition

The past couple weeks or so have been taken up by focusing on the Clean and Simple Design Team competition for the summer season. The theme was a trip to the amusement part and I wanted to share my entries with you.

Challenge 1: You are walking into the amusement park and meet the photographer who wants to take your picture. Make a card that 1)has a person, character, or group as a focal point, 2)add a tiny bit of bold, flashy ribbon, bonus points for adding texture as well, 3)keep it clean and simple.
Click here for details on supplies.

Challenge 2: Make a card with a summer theme.
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After challenge 2, Jen narrowed the field to 20 people who would continue to the semi finals. I made this list! WooHoo!

Challenge 3: Make a clean and simple card using pop dots (aka dimensionals) to create height and dimension on your card. Since I always use dimensionals on my cards, this was not a big challenge for me, so I tried a technique I had seen before and liked.
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Challenge 4: Create a clean and simple card with a moveable part. It was fun seeing the great variety of cards that everyone made! I made a viewmaster card.
Let me say right now that I will probably NEVER make one of these EVER again!
Click here for details on supplies.

So now the tension has built to a very high level. Who will make the finals? Ten people would be chosen, and I made the cut! Love it!

Challenge 5: At the close of the day at the amusement park, we visit the water park. Make a clean and simple card with a water theme. I was having a difficult time deciding what to do. Not that I had no ideas, but that I had too many! I made three cards and entered these two:
Click here for details on supplies.
Click here for details on supplies.

What a GREAT time we all had. The last night was tense, particularly since Jen posted the guest designers a few at a time and left the design team to last! But I made the design team this summer! So for the next 3 months I'll be designing for Splitcoaststampers CAS design team! Cooool! I've tried for this for five competitions and I finally made it!
So, I invite you to join the fun in the SCS CAS challenge forum every Monday for wonderful challenges!

Redo-ing those old cards that don't quite make it...

The CAS challenge at SCS this week is to re-make an old card. Well, I have a bunch of cards that are downright ug-ly. Well, at least now I think so. Then there are some in my gallery that have pictures that don't and never did do the cards justice. I'm not going to delete them, but I think I will try to improve many of them. Here are a few:


This was an old (2005) Christmas card. See how it looks now:

Stampset: Christmas Cardinals
Paper: 110# White, Real Red, Summer Sun
Ink: Basic Black
Other: Watercolor pencils with aquapainter, SU! paper piercing set


I liked this spring card then, but it is better now:

Stampset: Spring Garden, Itty Bitty BG
Paper: Cameo Coral, Mellow Moss, White
Ink: Cameo Coral, Mellow Moss
Other: sponged some Moss on the edges of the images, Cuttlebug Swiss Dots Embossing Folder

Oh, why do we even admit to making those old cards!?

Taking time...

I am realizing that if I want to do this right, I will have to "make the time" for what I really want to do. I am definitely not a journaler, and I have a 'learning difference' that makes it difficult for me to get what is in my head down on paper...or in the case of this blog...on the computer screen. But I will have to JUST DO IT! as the saying goes.

I quit my job to be available to my kids...being a grandma...and that is what I am doing. It gives me lots less hours in the day to do other things, but it is oh, so rewarding. I love my little ones...Owen and Eden, Emerson, and Danika and Maeilyn. They are little miracles! And the oldest just turned three...the youngest is three months old! Three came in just 4 months!

I'm doing a sampler quilt class/club right now. The quilt has 9 large squares, all different. We had a choice of three different color themes: Christmas, rose/green, or a black/red tulip design. I chose the last one...and am having fun with it! It is TOTALLY out of my comfort zone for colors. I'll post some pictures of my squares in a couple of days (hopefully)!

I made a collection of cards this morning. I have decided I prefer the clean and simple style. I like looking at the complex ones, and I make a lot of them, but I think I like the simple look better. My hubby does, for sure! Here are some of them. I apologize for the dark pics...will use a bit more light next time.



This card has no layers! The stamp set is Time Well Spent, from Stampin' Up. Stamped with Basic Black and colored with watercolor pencils and an aquapainter. It is for SCS Inspiration Challenge #68.



This is one of the graduation cards that I made for all the guy grads at church. The girls got the Swiss dots CB folder instead. Simple, but elegant. The stamp is from Hero Arts, and the mortarboard is from a package I got in the scrapbooking section at WalMart.

Thanks for visiting today!