Mod Squad - Christmas challenge

A little Christmas in July here and making this for this week's challenge on Mod Squad to make a Christmas card. I used about 3 colors of my Distress Oxide inks for my background. The stamps are from Unity and I used versafine black to stamp my image and sentiment. The speckles are stamped using oxide inks with an old and very often used retired SU stamp from a set called Itty Bitty backgrounds (I think),  I was a little disappointed that the strip that looks black behind the sentiment which is really blue and also a gold metallic strip. I just don't photograph metallic paper very well.

CCEE1830 National Refreshment Day

Here it is the last Thursday of July, and the calendar says it is National Refreshment Day!
Lynn has given us some great challenges for July. So, here is what she is asking for this final week of her hosting us this month:

One way to beat the heat of summer is with a cold refreshment. Do you cool down with a glass of lemonade, a rainbow snowcone, an ice cream cone, a cold bottle of beer, or something else? Whatever it may be, share with the CCEE Stampers your favorite cool-down treat in your design this week.

Join in on the fun and share your design with us! If you post to an online gallery, please include keyword CCEE1830.

When I looked through my stamp collection of summer treats, this snowcone seem to bring up some old summer memories from childhood of looking forward to a snowcone at the Little League baseball games we would attend. The refreshment stand was my favorite place to go.I am sure that is where I spent most of my dollar allowance for the week. 

Color Throw Down challenge #503

This is for the Color Throwdown Challenge #503 this week. I used the gray on my background stamp and splatter stamp. I used colored pencils for my coloring of my image.
                                         

Shopping Your stash #434

This was for the sketch challenge on Splitcoaststampers this week and also for Shopping Your Stash challenge to use kraft paper. Since I have been on a tighter craft budget this summer, I got out some of my old favorite summer stamps from previous years. The shells are from Flourishes, whose stamps I dearly loved when they were in business. The sentiment is from Sweet and Sassy stamps. I have had it for years as well and it is one of my favorites I use each week in my cardmaking for church. The design paper was a deal I found at Tuesday Morning a month or more ago.

Retro Rubber Challenge #91

I have been having such fun just experimenting with techniques and color combinations for my Distress Oxide inks. When I saw the sketch challenge over on Retro Rubber challenge, I just had to use one of these wonderful backgrounds that came out of my playing around with inks. Here are the results:

Two of the stamps I used were older ones in my collection that I used. One was the little swirly vine from SU and the other one is the sentiment from Sweet and Sassy. I have had both of them for over a year or more. The SU stamp may have seen ink for the first time on this card, while the sentiment from Sweet and Sassy comes from one of my old favorties from them. I use it quite often because they long and narrow and work into my spaces on cards well.

I used 3 old stamps from my stash: Sweet Summer, which was an old Sale-a Bration stamp from SU, an old itty Bitty bg stamp (which are the ink dots) from SU from 2002. I also used this sentiment stamp from Sweet and Sassy Stamps from probaby about 4 years back. I also used an old border punch from Martha Stewart.

CCEE1829

Hello to all our CCEE followers! Lynn here to share with you this week's challenge.

"Back in the day when I was a young mother, one of the first trips I planned during the summer break from school was a day at the zoo for my son and his cousins. We all loved watching the crazy antics of the animals. This week in honor of zookeepers' week, I am challenging you all to include at least one (more if you want) zoo animal on your card."

Those of you who choose to share your card in an online gallery, please include the keyword CCEE1829.

I used some great design paper on kraft and used  these lions from an old retired stamp set from Stampin' Up. Retirement means fixed income at my house, so since I have made a major investment in my stamp collecting over the years when I worked, I am now getting around to using some of these things I have had and not made much use of. It's been fun pulling out so many of these old gems 

T is for Tropical and tree

When checking on challenges to do today I found that on CAS on Sunday you were to add  a splash of watercolor and for the Just Add Ink challenge this week you were to do something for the letter T. So, here is my tropical tree, with some watercoloring in the bg.  I love this old SU palm tree from a retired set. I used distress oxide inks to do my watercoloring. Kept it clean and simple by using white paper.

CCEE1828 National Simplicity Day

It's Lynn back again to share with you the second July challenge. 

July 12 has been declared National Simplicity Day in honor of Henry David Thoreau who was a devoted advocate of living a life of simplicity. So on this lazy day of summer it's time to simplify. My challenge to you is to create a clean and simple one layer card!

Please include keyword CCEE1828 if you choose to play along and post your card to an online gallery.

I used white cardstock, a stencil, a stamp, and a punch. Pretty basic stuff for this simple card. 

Color Throwdown Challenge #501

This is for today's Color Throwdown Challenge to use gray, yellow, and kraft. These are done with Distress Oxide inks and Unity stamps.

Having fun with Oxide inks

I am giving a little love to an old, favorite stamp of mine...this palm tree. It is from an old Stampin' Up set. I tried the gel plate impressionsim technique for my oxide distress inks for a technique challenge and then I found this challenge over on Paper Playful:
http://www.fashionablestampingchallenges.com/

This was a fun new way for me to use my inks so thought I would share the results. I inked my largest acrylic block with some of my oxide ink colors, spritzed it with rubbing alcohol and this was the resulting background. Then I stamped the palm tree, the circle for the sun and the sentiment. I colored the tree with colored pencils

CCEE1837 The Impossible card

Hi, friends. Lynn McAuley here! I will be hosting the CCEE Challenges for the month of July and hope that you will want to join in on the fun.

Suddenly I am seeing the Impossible Card popping up everywhere I turn. This new fun fold is based on a famous card trick so it isn't really all that new! I thought it would be great if the CCEE Stampers put their own "twist" on this design with their creations this week.

Here is a link to a tutorial by Maymay Made It Crafts that will show you what it is all about! It demonstrates the Impossible Card in several varied sizes.

Won't you join us in creating an Impossible Card. It really is simple and not at all impossible!!

If you post to an online gallery, please include keyword CCEE1827.

Spotlighting zinnias

Decided to take part in the Back to Basics and Beyond Challenge this week. The challenge is to do "spotlighting."  I love this stamp I have had for a while that I ordered from Flourishes. Marcella Hawley is the artist and I just love her floral pieces.  Thought this flowers on this design paper reminded me of these zinnias so used it and pulled out that bright orange to be the card base. I colored with alcohol markers and stamped the image with versafine black.

CAS card with "thumping"

I made this card for the Addicted to stamps #299 CAS challenge and also for the "thumping" challenge over on ModSquad Challenge today.  The flower stamp is from Stampin' Up and the sentiment is from "My Favorite Things."  I used Stampin' Up markers for the flowers and versamark and gold embossing powder for the sentiment.

SOS371 and CAS Colours and Sketches

These are the colors for the CAS Colours and Sketch challenge this week:
grapefruit grove, daffodil delight, and highland heather. I used the ink and rubbed it across the inside an embossing folder, spritzed it with water and smashed my white paper inside of. Then I covered some white paper with the grapefruit grove and highland heather inks. I stamped the flower over it and then fussy cut them out. The sentiment is from Stampin' UP.

The challenge for the shopping our stash challange  was to use geometric patterns. So I picked this old embossing folder from my collection, and printed with it. The stamp is an old favorite from Stampendous.

Unity CAS challenge

This is my card for a challenge going on over at Unity. I love their wonderful red rubber stamps. I used my oxide distress inks to make my background.