Fancy Friday Blog Hop - Color Me Fancy

Welcome to the FANCY FRIDAY BLOG HOP!

My fancy friends and I are BACK! We loved working with each other so much that we decided to continue on with an all new blog hop to inspire you in fun new ways! Each month on the last Friday, we will bring to you new challenges of all kinds (color,sketch, stamp focus, etc) that you can even participate in!

This month's challenge was a color challenge! These regal tones are one that I normally do not work with but I love a challenge that brings me out of my comfort zone. The picture of the chair also was my inspiration for my card.

My card base is Island Indigo embossed with the Woodgrain Textured Impressions Embossing Folder. Added some Early Espresso sponging on the edges as well as some straight re-inker splatter with my Aqua Painter. Next color up was the Blackberry Bliss 3/8" Stitched Satin Ribbon. To get the curled ribbon to stay in place, just use a glue dot! Then came in Tangelo Twist...I wanted to try a new technique to me with the watercolor paper and clear embossing powder. I used the Choose Happiness Stamp Set flower. Tip: to get the ink off the embossed part, use a Blender pen to lift the color off of it. Overall I really like this look and I think my fancy friend Jane would be proud of me. She rocks this watercolor look! 

 Wanna chance to play along with the challenge and have a chance to win the Seasonally Scattered stamp set from the new Holiday Catalog? 

Be sure to leave a comment on any of our blogs with a link back to your creation, and ONE lucky participant will win! 
Here are the rules for the challenge: 
1. Leave a comment on one of our blogs with a link to your creation, comments/links MUST be left by Friday, September 19th 7:00 PM MST in order to be eligible for the prize. 
2. Please use the color palette provided. You can use any combination or all of the colors provided as well as any neutrals. Although SU colors are listed, you can use any colors you have on hand as long as they are similar. 
3. You MUST put a link in your post back to the challenge. 

*Winner will be announced during the September Fancy Friday Blog Hop! 

(the last Friday of September).

Thanks for stopping by! I hope this inspire you today!

Cindy

You saw Cathy Caines before me and now move on to 

Connie Collins by clicking on the next button below! 

Playful Polka Dot - MDS Blog Hop

WELCOME TO THE MDS BLOG HOP!

A bunch of us have joined together to share our passion for digital designing with Stampin' UP's My Digital Studio.  These ladies are SERIOUSLY talented in MDS and I am thrilled to be on this Blog Hop with them! You will find us blog hopping on the 2nd and 4th THURSDAYS of each month!  For the MDS Blog Hop this month, we all wanted to showcase the Weekly deals on Stampin' Up! Did you know that My Digital Studio downloads are included in this weekly special? It is a great way to catch up on some downloads that you may have missed out on and get them at a good discount!

Right now, the Playful Polka Dots Digital Kit  #126027 is one of the weekly deals for a bargain price of $5.97!!! The kit includes 4 Designer Series paper patterns, 55 embellishments, and one page 11" x 8.5" designer template page. Colors are Daffodil Delight, Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie, and Rose Red. I saw a scrapbook layout that I had to tackle and away I went with this page! 

Some things I did to make the Digital Kit on this project:

 I used the Designer Series pattern papers for my background layers. From there I went to the 55 embellishments in this kit. I used the circles, the flowers, many of the strips and the flag. Added my title with color matching. I left the background white to calm this busy busy page.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope this inspires you to go get that 
download today!!

 Cindy 

Click on the button to move on to see what Cori made!

Choose Happiness - Stampin UP Artisan Blog Hop

Welcome back to the Artisan Design Team Blog Hop! We are working on to our first box from Stampin' UP with products from the Annual catalog. Every Thursday of each week for one full year, all 16 of us from all over the world will post on our blogs an inspiring project for you! Be sure to get Google Translate so that you can read in your language all about how they created their projects too. Now on to my project this week.... 

 This stamp set was totally made for the shabby chic look! I am not quite the shabby chic or vintage stamper like some of my fellow Artisan team members but I was up for the challenge with this set. This is one card that anyone could make and do that shabby chic/vintage look!

Couple of things that I did on this card:
I used Naturals White Cardstock for my card base. Love this cardstock for a crisp white yet vintage look!
I stamped the flower in Calypso Coral and then used a Blender Pen to color it in more with the same ink color.
I used the Crushed Curry base tag and Coastal Cabana mini binder clip from the Tag a Bag Accessory Kit.
I used the Gorgeous Grunge Stamp set with Crushed Curry ink to get the splatter on the card. This is a must have stamp set!

I also made a custom envelope with the Envelope Punch Board and the Typeset Specialty Designer Series Paper. The Coastal Cabana strip comes from the Tag a Bag Accessory Kit. It is self-adhesive and wraps around the whole envelope. 

Thanks for stopping by! I hope this inspire you today to give this shabby chic a try!

Cindy

You saw my friend from Utah, Becky Cowley before me and now move on to my friend in France, Helene Legrand by clicking on the official next button below! 

MDS Monday Sketch Challenge #79

For this week's challenge over on MDS Monday, Holly's sketch challenged me want to do a digital card rather than a digital scrapbook page. I also just got the new Love Story Project Life Digital Kit. I absolutely love this kit in the real product but it is so much more versatile in MDS digital form. Hello? RECOLOR feature? Endless possibilities! Holly also requested in the challenge to use a overlay stamp in the background. This download has several stamp overlays. I used the pattern 3 diagonal stripes on my card background. 

Challenge Guidelines:

• Please create a new MDS project for the current challenge.
• Provide a link back to MDS Monday or use the Challenge Graphic above within your post.
• Link directly to your Post for this challenge, not your entire blog. (So we can find your project)
• You can create a Card, Scrap Page or 3-D Object with the Sketch.
• The Challenge will end on Saturday Aug. 29th @ 12pm EST. 
• Have fun! 

You can give the challenge a try and submit your own page if you click on the MDS Monday button on the right side! MDS Masters and I made it with MDS Monday runner ups are announced every week. 

 Thanks for stopping by! I hope this inspires you today to get into 

MDS Mondays and our challenges!

Cindy 

Sisters - MDS Virtual Crop Challenge

About once a month, my friend Monika Davis and I host a MDS Virtual Digi Crop event on our Facebook group MDS Virtual Digi Crop. Monika and I each post one challenge. You can do one or do both, whatever you are comfortable with. We chat and answer questions that you may have about MDS. We start at 7:30pm Eastern and finish up about 10:00pm Eastern. You can come and go as you like. We give you til the following day to post your projects on our group event photo album. Then we choose a Pick of the Crop and you get a fun little badge to display on your own blog or Facebook page.

Here was my challenge:

#1 Use only one download. It can be a digital kit or ensemble kit. For example; on my page I used the Spring Break II download which has designer series paper and a matching stamp brush set.
#2 Use a punch filled with a photo. I used the basic circle punch but you could use a hexagon or star or heart punch in place of the circle. Be creative!
#3 Use one font type in your text boxes that are the Title and Journaling. I used PUPCAT on my example for both the “sisters” and the quote on the bottom of the page.

 Thanks for stopping by! I hope this inspires you to join our Facebook group and come to our LIVE Virtual Digi Crops each month!

Cindy 

Crazy for Triangles - Stampin' UP Artisan Blog Hop

Welcome back to the Artisan Design Team Blog Hop! We are working on to our first box from Stampin' UP with products from the Annual catalog. Every Thursday of each week for one full year, all 16 of us from all over the world will post on our blogs an inspiring project for you! Be sure to get Google Translate so that you can read in your language all about how they created their projects too. Now on to my project this week.... 

I have been organizing my craftin/stampin studio room over the past two weekends. While doing that, I have come across some old photos from past special memories. This sweet photo was one of them. Now while I have been into digital scrapbooking and Project Life® by Stampin' UP® lately, a traditional scrapbook page was called for this special memory reminder for my girls and their Dad. Long story short, I was in Hawaii with my mom for a girls trip but before I left I bought tickets to the concert for them to do something fun together. My husband got to take his girls to their very first concert! It was the Cheetah Girls with Hanna Montana opening for them! (It was BEFORE Miley Cyrus got famous)  He is such a good Dad! Even took them to dinner, bought concert t-shirts for them and remembered to take photos of the whole thing for me! Yeah, I got me a good guy! ;)

As soon as I saw this pattern paper in the Confetti Celebration Designer Series Paper, I knew I had the theme. Triangles are hot trend right now! I took out my "not used as much" Petite Pennants Builder punch and punched out Strawberry Slush, Crushed Curry, Basic Gray, Kraft, and another one of the pattern from the DSP. I even took some of them and ran them thru my Big Shot with the Tiny Triangles Textured Impressions Embossing Folder to add a little texture. The base of this scrapbook page is our new Kraft 12x12 paper. Say YUMMO! The white heart Basic Hodgepodge Clip holds in place a Washi Tape covered What's Up arrow punch. I used the unraveled Strawberry Slush Thick Baker's Twine for a bow. No main title or journaling on this page but I went with quick sayings from one stamp set that pretty much tell the story all together. I stamped the And Many More Stamp Set with Strawberry Slush and used the Bitty Banner Framelits to cut them out. 

Thanks for stopping by! I hope this inspire you today to get out those old photos today!

Cindy

You saw my friend from Utah, Becky Cowley before me and now move on to my friend in France, Helene Legrand by clicking on the official next button below! 

Travel Expenses Journal- MDS Blog Hop

WELCOME TO THE MDS BLOG HOP!

A bunch of us have joined together to share our passion for digital designing with Stampin' UP's My Digital Studio.  These ladies are SERIOUSLY talented in MDS and I am thrilled to be on this Blog Hop with them! You will find us blog hopping on the 2nd and 4th THURSDAYS of each month!  For the MDS Blog Hop this month, we all wanted to showcase the Weekly deals on Stampin' Up! Did you know that My Digital Studio downloads are included in this weekly special? It is a great way to catch up on some downloads that you may have missed out on and get them at a good discount!

Front                                                  Back

I selected the Travel Journal Digital Kit #121071 which will be on the weekly deal starting August 19th so this is a sneak peak for you to get this kit next week!  It is a great travel download to complete a vacation album as it includes 13 Designer Series Paper and a stamp brush set called Sentimental Journey. As you can see I used the digital kit for another project...a travel expense journalfor my husband. The new soft cover journals are quite different now. They come in black spiral bound 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" or a perfect bound 5 1/2" x 8 1/2".  Both are priced at $12.95US/$15.95CAN. I have seen them in person and love them both! (Look for printing showcase soon on the MDS Blog Hop)  Would these not be perfect gifts for the traveling saleman you know?

Some things I did to make the Digital Kit on this project:

 I re-colored the Designer Series Paper with the car to Basic Gray. I also added the car in the stamp brush set on top of the layered DSP in Basic Black at 75% opacity. I used Crushed Curry brads and on the compass rose stamp. I used the Mis-stitched embellishment Espresso and re-colored it to Basic Black. The font used for "expenses" is called Respective at font size 64.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope this inspires you to go get that 
download starting Tuesday Aug 19th!!

 Cindy 

Click on the button to move on to see what Cori made!

Maritime Tag a Bag Gift Packaging- Stampin Up Artisan Blog Hop

Welcome back to the Artisan Design Team Blog Hop! We are working on to our first box from Stampin' UP with products from the Annual catalog. Every Thursday of each week for one full year, all 16 of us will post on our blogs an inspiring project for you! Be sure to get Google Translate so that you can read in your language all about how they created it. Now on to my project this week....

I have three wonderful nephews that currently live in Singapore and I have missed them so much! I have been collecting some goodies to send over for a belated birthday package and I could not just let them go there un-Stampin'UP at all! I had to come up with a packaging to hold all the goodies and be age appropriate for these 9 -11 year olds. In our box this month, was the Sea Street Stamp Set , Maritime Designer Series Paper, Age Awareness Stamp Set, the Tag a Bag Accessory Kit and the Polka Dot Tag a Bag Gift Bags. Now it is crazy to think that I combined all of those products to make one project but I did and they are perfect for those boys!

To create the gift card pocket, I cut the DSP to 3 3/4" x 5" and used Fast Fuse Adhesive on three sides to secure in place on the bag. You add Fast Fuse Adhesive to the end of the tag and add the plastic Gift Card to it. I love the idea of the Tag a Bag clips to be the pull tab!

To get the HAPPY BIRTHDAY placed perfectly on the label, I placed the Photopolymer stamps together on a clear block and then used the Stamp-a-ma-jig to stamp in place. So easy!

Thanks for stopping by! I hope this inspire you today!

Cindy

You saw my friend from Utah, Becky Cowley before me and now move on to my friend in France, Helene Legrand by clicking on the official next button below! 

MDS Monday Sketch Challenge #77

Joan over on MDS Monday DT brought a layered look for her sketch challenge this week. Overlapping images, overlapping DSP and overlapping photos and layered embellishments too!  I quickly went to capturing our first day of school around here! Now that my girls are older, I try to design a more mature school page in mind. They are more cool with that! I still add "school" like elements like the cream notebook paper and the traditional labeling of grade and location and not to mention the main title with the year. Then I put a feminine twist on it with the fancy fan background, the re-colored burlap ribbon and the re-colored flowers. And yes those flowers in the photo was my inspiration for colors but totally not planned that her notebook matched the flowers. HA!

Challenge Guidelines:

• Please create a new MDS project for the current challenge.
• Provide a link back to MDS Monday or use the Challenge Graphic above within your post.
• Link directly to your Post for this challenge, not your entire blog. (So we can find your project)
• You can create a Card, Scrap Page or 3-D Object with the Sketch.
• The Challenge will end on Saturday Aug. 16th @ 12pm EST. 
• Have fun! 

You can give the challenge a try and submit your own page if you click on the MDS Monday button on the right side! Follow the directions on the site to upload your page and link it from your blog or MDS.net. MDS Masters and I made it with MDS Monday runner ups are announced every week.

 Thanks for stopping by! I hope this inspires you today to get into 

MDS Mondays and our challenges!

Cindy 

Stampin' UP! Artisan Blog Hop - Watercolor Feather

HOORAY is right!!! I am so blessed and extremely honored to have been selected to be on the 2014-2015 Artisan Design Team for Stampin' UP!  My dream continues! WAHOO!

Here is a quick recap of the story on how I got "the CALL"
Wednesday June 11th around noon. Driving to Chick-fil-A for lunch after Vacation Bible School with my daughter Allison and dear friend Turner. Cell phone hooked up to the Bluetooth in my car rings. Dash display reads a number and Turner says "odd, that is a Utah number" SAY WHAT? I nearly wrecked!  It was Gwen, Christina and Melody from the Stampin' UP! home office! Panic sets in and I accidentally hang up on them! Seriously! They call me back right away and I pull over. "You have been selected to be on the 2014-2015 Artisan Design Team!" ME? NO WAY! A couple of thousand thank you's over and over again. Couple of hellos to everyone on the call. Little business on keeping it a secret totally or not until Convention. Said goodbyes and a chat soon. Jumped out of car in the Chick-fil-A parking lot and started jumping and screaming like a crazy woman! Turner and Allison had a good chuckle. My husband and other daughter Megan met us in the restaurant. I shared with them my news. My hubby was so happy and so proud of me that he had tears in his eyes. A DAY TO REMEMBER FOREVER!

Now remember I was told not to say anything until Awards Night at Convention! ARE YOU KIDDING ME? It was SO hard but I did my best. The most awesome part of Awards night was having all my stamping besties all around me and when they saw my name on that screen, they were the ones completely surprised this year!  That was fun for me!  I also did not know how many made the team or who else was on the team. They announced all the international members first and my mouth dropped to the floor! No way was I on an INTERNATIONAL DESIGN TEAM this big! I was so excited to see Mercedes and Becky from the 2013 Artisan team returning with me as well as some faces of super talented ladies that I have admired for some time. This year is going to be AMAZING!

The North American members of the 2014-2015 Artisan Design Team with Shelly Gardner shown on stage at Awards Night. (L to R; Shelly, Lisa, me, Sarah, Mercedes, Becky, Krista, Kaitlyn and Allison) Oh how I wish the other 8 members from South Pacific, Europe and Hispanic Market could have been on stage with us! 

We got a "specially made for us" Artisan box as we walked off stage. Inside the box was a Tiffany's bracelet with an engraved heart, our contracts, a rubber stamp with my name on it, and a welcome booklet with details on what is next. I also won $500 cash prize and $500 in products! Seriously amazing!!!!! 
THANK YOU STAMPIN' UP!

The next part of this story is what you all came here for... THE 1st ARTISAN BOX! It seriously compares to Christmas morning but way better!

It was packed full of essential products like adhesive, cardstock, inks, etc. Also it had some NEW Designer Series Papers and NEW stamps from the Annual Catalog! You will get to see more of it in the weeks to come.
I quickly pulled the stamp set A Happy Hooray from page 146 in the catalog. It was on my wish list and I was so excited to create with it. Just love the feathers! I also pulled the Watercolor Paper which a favorite of mine and got down to work! So here it is...

I first used Hello Honey Classic Ink Pad and my Aqua Painter to paint my background. I wanted a wash look but with a little bohek effect to it. I then stamped the feathers with Rich Razzleberry, Blackberry Bliss, Soft Suede and Hello Honey on the Watercolor paper. Some of them are direct stamped, or stamped off or even watercolored after stamping. I roughed the edges with the Stampin Distress Tool and cut some slits with my Paper Snips. The rest is Linen Thread and Hooray stamped in Blackberry Bliss on Very Vanilla.

Well, you as a reader are in for a special year on our Stampin' UP! International Artisan Blog Hop! Check back EACH Thursday on our blogs! You are surely to be inspired by all of us 16 lovely ladies from all around the world! Be kind and give us a comment or shot out when you are just crazy in love with our projects! We love to read them in any language!

Thanks for stopping by! I hope this inspire you today to reach for your dreams and create something from your heart!

Cindy

So you saw my buddy Becky Cowley before me and now move on to my new friend Helene Legrand in beautiful France by clicking on the next button below!

The 2014-2015 Artisan Design Team Members

Allison Okamitsu – http://nicepeoplestamp.blogspot.ca/
Barbara Meyer - http://barbaras-kreativ-studio.blogspot.com/ 
Becky Cowley - http://scrapjunkie-becky.blogspot.com/ 
Cindy Schuster - http://www.nutmegcreations.blogspot.com/ 
Helene Legrand - http://stamp2linotte.blogspot.com/ 
Inge Groot - http://patternedpapercrafts.blogspot.com/ 
Kaitlyn Zumbach - http://createwithkaitlyn.blogspot.com/ 
Keith Rueda - http://paperlandcreations.blogspot.com/ 
Kerstin Kreis - http://scraparound.de/ 
Krista Frattin - http://www.stampindolce.com/ 
Lisa Harlow - http://dwelldelightfully.com/ 
Mercedes Weber - http://mercedesweber.blogspot.com/ 
Sarah Sagert - www.sarahsagert.stampinup.net/blog 
Susan Wong - http://stampingsusan.blogspot.com/ 
Teneale Williams - http://tenealewilliams.com.au/ 
Victoria Hayes - http://craftingclare.blogspot.com/

MDS Monday Sketch Challenge #76

Happy Monday to you! and Happy MDS Monday as well! I was in charge of this week's challenge on the design team. I use one of the templates from the photo layouts in MDS as my inspiration for this challenge. I have always loved the look of large photos on a page and in this challenge I divided it up so that you could use the template for large wide photos for scrapbook page or wide layers for card. You could use three photos or like our designers have done, make one of them a layer for your journaling section. Finding a photo for this might be a challenge as well. Look for photos that you can narrow the height on and focus on the width.

Taking family photos can be so much fun! LOL All the planning of outfits for each person to wear (even dealing with men who dislike the whole matchy-matchy theme) and the location selection and the photographer.  But I have to say that our photographer Shala Wills is awesome! She is so sweet and even brought 2 assistants with her to get a perfect photo session completed. The idea of a family photo session was a gift to our Mom for last Christmas. We did this in May and they still have not been printed yet! But I have plans to do so ASAP!

I have to share one photo with ya that totally explained our photo session. It is priceless!

As you can see someone was tired of smiling!

You can give the challenge a try and submit your own page if you click on the MDS Monday button on the right side! Follow the directions on the site to upload your page and link it from your blog or MDS.net. Winners and honorable mentions are announced every week.

 Thanks for stopping by! I hope this inspires you today to get into 

MDS Mondays and our challenges!

Cindy