It's Sunday and time for another challenge over at The Paper Players. Thank you to everyone who played along with my CAS bird challenge last week - there were some fabulous entries. This week the lovely Sandy is hosting and she has a sketch challenge for us - my favourite! Here is her sketch:

I decided to use the colour palette over at Colour Me for my card today - I haven't had the opportunity to play along with these lovely ladies since I finished my Design Team post over there at the start of the year, so time to say 'hello ladies!' to Hayley, Tara and the team. I just so happen to be using another stamp in the 'Time To Celebrate' hostess set that I used on my Paper Players card last week - take a look:

The temptation to use a feather in my design as per the sketch was high, however there are some wonderful examples using feathers by other members of the Design Team, so I decided to look at what else I could use and settled on the hot air balloon instead. My top mat layer is a piece of 'Flashback' DSP, the circle pattern perfect to echo the central circle of the sketch. I embossed a piece of Very Vanilla cardstock with the now retired 'Cloudy Day' embossing folder and sponged the sky in Pool Party around the clouds and framed this with a Real Red circular frame cut with my Big Shot and Circle Framelits. I added a simple sentiment banner with a little fussy cutting around the 'y' in 'you', then mounted the hot air balloon with dimensionals for a little lift. I stamped the balloon on very Vanilla and coloured it with my So Saffron Stampin' Write marker and the lightest of my Cherry Cobbler Blendabilities. I also added a little Crystal Effects to my stars for some additional dimension, although that's quite difficult to see in the photo below: 

That's my card done and I hope you like it. I love the stamps in the 'Time To Celebrate' hostess set - if they are your thing too, please get in touch if you would like to host a party to lay your hands on your very own set. Before you reach for your ink pads, do visit the other design team members to see what interesting ideas they've had this week:

I look forward to seeing how you interpret Sandy's sketch this week - so many possibilities! 

Back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Time To Celebrate Clear Stamp Set	Flashback Designer Series Paper	Big Shot Die-Cut Machine	Circles Collection Framelits Dies	Big Shot Magnetic Platform
Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad	Stampin' Blendabilities™ Markers Cherry Cobbler Assortment	Sponge Daubers	Pool Party Classic Stampin' Pad	Real Red A4 Card Stock
Very Vanilla A4 Card Stock	Subtles Stampin' Write Markers

Today is the first day of the half-term holiday, so that makes for a late blog post today! Just time to squeeze in a card for this week's challenge over at The Color Throwdown where there have a lovely bright colour palette to work with this week:

I had another of the birds from the 'Time to Celebrate' stamped and laying on my desk, so decided to colour him up using my Bermuda Bay, Old Olive, Cherry Cobbler and Wisteria Wonder Blendabilities - here's my card:

A different layout to yesterday's card and again using some 'Sweet Taffy' DSP but both combined to give quite a different look and feel to yesterday's card. I have taken a real shine to this bird stamp - there's something so whimsical about it and the other stamps in this set. The 'Time To Celebrate' stamp set is a hostess set that can be earned exclusively by hosting a party (or placing an individual order of £150 or more). If you would like to host a party, please do get in touch. 

That's all from me today - short and sweet! Back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Time To Celebrate Clear Stamp Set	Sweet Taffy Designer Series Paper	Whisper White A4 Card Stock	Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad	Real Red A4 Card Stock
Old Olive A4 Card Stock	Perfect Plum A4 Card Stock	Stampin' Blendabilities™ Markers Cherry Cobbler Assortment	Stampin' Blendabilities™ Markers Wisteria Wonder Assortment	Stampin' Blendabilities™ Markers Old Olive Assortment
Bermuda Bay Assortment Stampin' Blendabilities Markers

It's Sunday and time for this week's challenge over at The Paper Players - and this week it's a double does of excitement as I am hosting my very first challenge with this wonderfully talented group of ladies. 'Feathered friends' is the theme of my clean and simple challenge this week so I'm looking for a bird (or two!) on your card! Here is the wonderful challenge badge that the lovely Nance has created for this week's challenge:

This is one of those challenges when I was truly spoilt for choice - there are lots of great bird images around at the moment. I decided after my busy week that I was definitely in need of some theraputic colouring, so decided to reach for the quirky bird stamp in the Spring-Summer hostess set, 'Time To Celebrate':

Since this bird doesn't look like any I've ever seen in my garden, I decided to throw caution to the wind and colour him in some totally tropical colours and really go to town! I used my Daffodil Delight and Rich Razzleberry Blendabilities markers and a Tempting Turquoise Stampin' Write marker and got colouring. I love that you can colour images like this and you really don't need to be any kind of expert to get a good result. Here's a close up of my bird so that you can see just how imprecise my colouring is: 

I really would urge anyone who is reading this and not tried colouring with Blendabilities to give it a go - I guarantee you'll like the results! I paired my bird with a piece of brightly coloured 'Sweet Taffy' paper and added a few simple banners in co-ordinating colours to finish off my card. I love the colours I used on my card today - Brights are my favourite of the Stampin' Up! colour families, and whilst there isn't a huge amount of 'white space' on my card due to my piece of bold, patterned DSP I love the finished card, which I think still has a clean feel with minimal layers and embellishments.

Before you reach for your ink pads, do visit the other design team members to see what interesting ideas they've had this week:

I look forward to seeing your bird projects in the gallery this week, whether chirpy, quirky or just plain feathered! The children are on half-term holiday this week so we are having a more restful week than usual. I was almost ready for a sport-free day today, when Ben was selected to play in a basketball tournament this afternoon. He is really excited about it though as it's his first one and he LOVES basketball, so is really looking forward to it.

Back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Time To Celebrate Clear Stamp Set	Sweet Taffy Designer Series Paper	Whisper White A4 Card Stock	Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad	Circles Collection Framelits Dies
Big Shot Magnetic Platform	Big Shot Die-Cut Machine	2-1/2 Inch Circle Punch	Pumpkin Pie A4 Card Stock	Rich Razzleberry A4 Card Stock
Daffodil Delight A4 Card Stock	Tempting Turquoise A4 Card Stock	Stampin' Blendabilities™ Markers Rich Razzleberry Assortment	Stampin' Blendabilities™ Markers Daffodil Delight Assortment	Brights Stampin' Write Markers