The first day of summer...

It's yellow for the sun!  It's yellow for happiness.  It's yellow for the first day of summer...
  No more school, no more early mornings, no more book bags all over the living room floor.  No more paper tornadoes.  No more breakfast before 7am.  No more worries... until fall.  Now, I'm on the Entertainment Committee... lol.

This card uses the Medallion stamp that has been retired this year by Stampin' Up.  The ink color of the medallion is Créme Brulee.  The ink color of the sentiment is Tulip; both made by Close To My Heart.  The paper and bling are from Michaels.  The ribbon is from A.C. Moore.  The sentiment stamp is from Hero Arts.  And once again, a very eclectic collection of supplies...

Things with wings...

This weeks Midweek Throwdown on the Stars and Stamps blog is to make "Things with Wings".  This card is one of the very first I learned to do.  My mentor Barb, sent me the stamps and inks along with directions.  This might even be "the card" that made me want to do cardmaking instead of scrapbooking... but I'm not sure.  If not, it's pretty close!  The butterflies are from a Stampin' Up set called Two-Step Stampin' Simple Sketches ( I never, and I mean never, understood why it was called "two-part" when it is CLEARLY a three-part process... but anyway).  The sentiment is from a collection by Hero Arts called Holiday Ribbons which I found on Ebay when I knew I wanted to continue making this card.  I'm so glad that the season is upon us again!  Ten of these are ready for my next box to OWH...

  

Find the Beauty...

This paper is part of a K&Company Specialty Pack that I found on sale a couple months back.  It has several sheets of very lovely flowered paper.  I'm very attracted to flowered paper... all flowered paper.   However, I haven't known what to do with this... until now.  This is a nice summer addition to my next OWH box.  Can't you just picture yourself in a field of sunflowers with a lovely summer breeze making it's way across the field?  Close your eyes.  Feel it?

Distressing... very distressing!

My new found friend Sherry, a fellow cardmaker for OWH, sent me an email with a similar card and I CASE'd it.  First, I heat embossed the image (Jumbo Peony by Stampendous) on white paper with clear emboss.  Then starting in the lower left corner, I began distressing with Tim Holtz distress inks going right up over the image.  Since I like rainbows, I switched it up till I got to the upper right corner.  Then (this is the fun part), I put the image between newspaper and ironed OFF the clear emboss.  I had the iron set to cotton.  Finally, I stamped the sentiment in the upper right hand corner using a Stamp-a-ma-jig to be sure it was straight.  And there you have it, a very distressing card...

Bring on the summer...

I am completely CASEing this from a fellow cardmaker, Tommi, on the OWH facebook page.  I thought it was so clever when I first saw it.  I figured it would sit in the back of my mind for awhile UNTIL I saw these flip-flops at Michaels.  I quickly snagged them with my 50% off coupon and came home to play.  Once again, a GREAT use of scraps!  And the "sand" is rice paper that my mentor Barb gave to me over a year ago.  The whole card is mounted on white, which doesn't show well here but let me tell you... it is gorgeous in person!  I tried other colors for the background but white just made it swim.  Get it, swim... 

And so begins our plunge into summer...