Happy Birthday Sweet Christine!

IT'S A SURPRISE PARTY!!! So, grab a handful of confetti, a bright balloon and come along for a fun birthday blog hop to celebrate a special birthday for our dear friend, Christine Okken!  One thing about birthdays, is that you always hope to spend time with those you care about and that's why we're here!  At Flourishes, we're just one big family... so we just wanted to celebrate a wonderful day with one of our loved ones.

Even though we're a day early, we'd like to say...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRISTINE!!!!!

Join along with members of the Flourishes family today and share some fabulous birthday inspirations, many happy celebratory birthday wishes and maybe even a slice of cyber cake.

Christine is one of those dear ladies who, even though we live hundreds of miles apart, we are as close as next door neighbors. We've only seen each other in real life a handful of times but gosh, it's like no time has passed at all between visits. She is such a sweet, thoughtful, caring, spiritual friend -- and I wouldn't trade her for anything! Christine - I hope you have the most blessed day and an even better year to come. Cheers to you dear friend!

On to my creation!

Christine is such an amazing card maker that making a card for HER? Oh my! I guess you could say I chickened out and kept my coloring to a minimum! :-)

I started with my Silhouette Cut File for Flourishes Spring Blossoms stamp set. After the shapes were cut, I took the small bracket pieces and stamped them using Tuxedo Black Memento Ink. Then, I colored it all up with Copic markers. (See below for the color collections that I used!) I then used the Flourishes Perfectly Pierced Victorian Oval die. While the die was still on, I did sponge on some Spun Sugar Distress Ink to cast a soft glow. I then took the Sentimental Favorites stamp set and stamped the Happy Birthday sentiment using Tuxedo Black ink. I matted up my image thanks to the Spellbinders Labels Seventeen and some scraps that I had with the True Friends paper pack and one of the new papers from Echo Park in the Style Essentials paper pack -- love all the designs in this pack! Add a little chevron ribbon, a little bling and.. ta da! done!

Here's a close up! You can see I did add a little glitz to the center of the flowers thanks to a little glitter glue!

And that, my friends is it! I have a perky and fun birthday card for an extra special lady in one of my favorite color pairings -- pink and green!

In honor of Christine's birthday celebration, we're giving away a special birthday present or two of our own!  Hidden among the Design Team's blogs today is a Mystery Blogger. Comment on her blog and you could be chosen as one of our birthday prize winners! The more you comment, the better your chances of winning. As well as one lucky commenter, we're having a birthday challenge too!

THE OFFICIAL RULES:  

• Simply create a NEW birthday themed card or project. 
• Entries need to be in by Friday November 1st at 6 PM EST.
• Those entries using Flourishes stamps will be counted for 2 prize ballots!
• You must link your creation in our InLinkz Widgit to be counted.
• You must have a link to our challenge in your blog post or gallery post.  Please feel free to use our Birthday Graphic too!
• If you upload to SCS please use the keyword FLLCWISH
• We'll announce the winners on Saturday on the Flourishes blog on Saturday November 2nd, so check back then to find out if you are a winner!

Hop along with our Flourishes family today.  Don't forget to leave some love for our fabulous designers today for a chance to win...

Aleksandra Mihelič
Allison Cope
Cheryl Lea
Deborah Anton
Dina Kowal
Heather Jensen
Jenny Gropp
Julie Koerber --- you are HERE!
Kathy Jones
Maki Jones
Meredith MacRitchie
Naomi Gong
Stacy Morgan
Silke Ledlow
Tosha Leyendekker

Don't forget to stop by Christine's blog, HERE, and send her some birthday wishes too! Thanks so much for stopping by! I'll see you back here soon! :-)

~Julie

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Don't Open Until Christmas!

Hi all and happy Monday! I have a fun, easy and super quick project to share that is perfect for the holidays! All you need is one super cute stamp set and a handful of Christmas themed papers. When all is said and done, you'll have a fun-filled way to dress up your Christmas packages with style!

Last month, Penny Black unveiled one of Becky Fleck's new stamp sets called Christmas Tags. Here's a peek!

Isn't it cute???? I see so many fun tags for the holidays! Here's a look at what I created using this stamp set!

I just love how colorful and fun they are! The paper I used is a mix from My Mind's Eye, October Afternoon and The Paper Studio (from Hobby Lobby). What's fun is the fact that I made five tags in about a half hour -- easy peasy! I started by scanning the stamp set and using my Silhouette Design Studio software to make a cut file for this stamp set. After I was done tracing the image, I did create about a 6% offset so that my tags would have a white base. I cut out the images and then, stamped almost the entire set on four different patterned papers so that I could mix and match patterns and layer. I stamped using Memento Tuxedo Black Ink, and Memento Lady bug. I added some May Arts gold and silver cording and a splash of seam binding ribbon and.... of course... bling! 

Here's a close up of each tag for you! 

What I forgot to photograph was the back side of at least one of these tags. As you can see by looking at the stamp set above -- this set has a fabulous little "To:" and "From:" stamp set so that you can add that to the back and make sure your packages are just as unique as you are!

If you want to check this stamp set out on the Penny Black site, just click HERE! And, Becky tells me that on the PageMaps blog, sometime soon she'll be doing a giveaway with this set -- so be sure to hop on over and see what she has in store!


AND, BEFORE I GO -- I need to give away the Address Book set that I promised to dole out last week! I put all the names in the hat and the winner was..... DIANNE who wrote...


"EXCELLENT work , three fabulous cards, very creative work doing three, you have show cased these stamps beautifully, thanks for sharing, hope you have a wonderful week, big hugs..October 22, 2013 at 10:35 AM"

Dianne, just shoot me your snail mail address and I'll get your stamp set popped in the mail! 

Thanks for stopping by!

~Julie

A Quick & Easy Card for Christmas!

Hello all and happy Friday! Today the Flourishes Senior Design Team is pulling out some of our sets that are on the overstock or retiring list and giving them a new spin! We always love when we can do that, because it makes you fall in love with those sets all over again! 

So, what did I choose for my creation today? A set that makes creating for the holidays super duper easy!

This card honestly couldn't be easier! I started with a Classic White card stock base, added a mat from the Santa's List paper pack (in fact, all the paper is from that pack!) Add a strip of polka dot and then mat it onto a little glittered paper. I had a scrap of this but there are actually red glittered border strips in the Santa's List Border Strips pack that would work BEAUTIFULLY! Here's where the stamping comes into play -- I stamped the Holly Background on to Flourishes Classic White using the Bamboo Leaves Ink Pad. After I was done inking and stamping, I went over all of the berries with a R29 Red Copic Marker from the Poppy Copic Collection. After the marker ink dried, I took a white gel pen and accented all the holly berries. Add a little paper piercing, mat it on some green decorative paper (also from the same paper pack) and almost done! The sentiment is from the Countrytime Christmas stamp set. I stamped it onto some Classic White Card Stock using Memento Tuxedo Black ink and then cut it out using the Petite Labels One die from Spellbinders. While the die was still on, I sponged on some Bamboo Leaves ink to add a splash of soft color. Punch some holes on both sides of the die cut, thread some red seam binding ribbon through, add a bow and ta da.... done! 

Here's a close up so you can see those fun holly berries! I have to say that you could actually get two cards by stamping the holly berries on a scrap piece of paper -- making creating this card even easier and super fast!

And that, my friends, is it!! I know you'll want to take a trip on over to the see what the rest of the Design Team has up their creative sleeves today:

Allison Cope
Christine Okken
Cindy Lawrence
Heather Jensen
Julie Koerber
Maki Jones
Silke Ledlow
Stacy Morgan
Tosha Leyendekker

Please be sure to give some extra love for our lovely Designer Maki Jones…Maki is taking a break from the design team and we’ll miss her very much while she’s gone!  She’s such a talented lady who has treated us to some amazing and creative designs these last few years on the Timeless Tuesday Team and the Senior Design Team.  The entire team is sending big hugs out to this super sweet lady! 

~Julie

A CAS Card Trio & some CANDY too!

Hi all! Time for some fun with Page Maps Monday! Let's get right to it! For my creations, this card sketch below was my starting point.....

And, because I have such a HUGE issue with creating clean and simple cards, I wanted to try, emphasis on "try", to create a cute little card trio taking this sketch and scaling it back a bit for a CAS design. 

So, here's card #1! I should mention, for all my cards I used a mix of Basic Grey Fact and Basic Grey Fiction paper pads. The card stock is Flourishes Classic White and Stampin' Up. The embellishments are all Prima. Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

I should point out -- for my creations -- I used Becky Fleck's stamp sets called Address Book and Charms. AND HERE'S THE FUN PART!!! If you leave a comment on this post, I have an extra Address Book stamp set to give away!!!! So, leave a comment if you want to have a chance at getting your hands on this one!

Card #2......

Card #2 close up for you!

Card #3.....

And a close up of Card #3 because of all the razzle dazzle with some glitter glue!

 And that, my friends, is it! Super easy! I think I will stamp on some envelopes and then give this to a friend to have a little set of note cards handy for all occasions. Don't you just love having a sketch to start with and get those creative juices flowing? I sure do! And, there are so many to pick from on the CardMaps tab over at PageMaps.com! While you're there -- check out some of the fun classes Becky is now offering at PageMaps U!!! Fun stuff!

Don't forget to leave a comment for your chance to win Penny Black's Address Book stamp set designed by the ever-so-talented Becky Fleck!

~Julie

I'm the host over at Flourishes today!

Hi all and happy Wednesday! I am the host today over on the Flourishes Blog and I would love it if you would hop on over and see what I whipped up! Here's a peek at the card I made....

I used the leaf and berry cluster from Flourishes new set Winter Berries to fashion this holiday wreath! Just click HERE to see my step-by-step tutorial!

I'll be back with more craftiness Friday... so be sure to stop on by then! 

~Julie

Time for a fun-filled sketch!

Hi all! Hope you all had a wonderful weekend! I'm here to share a little sketch and a bit of inspiration to kick off your creative week! It's Pagemaps Monday -- a day where I dig through the scores of sketches over at Pagemaps.com and pull one out of the "vault" of ideas to share! 

So, this one was from March of 2013.... 

I liked the long, vertical image and thought that Becky's set for Penny Black called Winter's Blossoms. And because I wanted a vertical image, the Amaryllis flower in the set was... perfect!  

 I stamped the image on Classic White card stock using Memento Luxe Rich Cocoa and then, I started to color it all up with Copic Markers. I have to say that while this is an Amaryllis flower I kind of made up the coloring on this one. I was inspired by this flower...

It doesn't look exactly like this gorgeous blossom above (looks more like a stargazer lily)-- but the coloring is similar! When I picked up my Copics,  I used R30, R32, R35, RV00, RV02, YG21, YG00, YG61, YG63 and YG67, Y26, Y28, and Y21. Here's a close up...

From there, mat it all onto some So This is Christmas paper by Carta Bella, add a doily, a half circle (I used the other half from THIS card!), add some ribbon, some bling and... ta da! Done! I haven't stamped a sentiment on the inside but I know I will take one of my Christmas themed sentiments when I am ready to send this one out!

Need some more inspiration? Like I said, it is only a click away HERE over at Pagemaps! If your mojo is ever running a little flat, grab a cup of coffee, tea or hot chocolate and spend some time taking a peek at the hundreds of different sketches for cards!

Happy Monday everyone. I have some fun up my creative sleeves and I'll be back to share with you soon! I even have some blog candy that I plan to give away starting in November -- after all isn't that a month that we vow to share our gratitude and I am grateful for all of YOU! So, stay tuned!

See you back here soon!

~Julie

Hey pumpkin!

Hey Pumpkins! How is your week shaping up? Things here are good -- the leaves are starting to turn and fall here creating quite the pretty scene! Autumn has arrived! And with autumn, Torico over at Birdie Brown ushered in a darling freebie image to get you all ready for the change of seasons! You can see her new image and download it HERE. 

And... here's my take on it!

Before I forget, the challenge over at Birdie Brown is to print this off and use it on a creation and then... link up on her post HERE to be in the running for three free images. Fun stuff!

I started by printing the image on Flourishes Classic White and then... I grabbed my Copic markers and went to town. I had a blast coloring up this little guy --- who wouldn't? I mean, isn't he the cutest thing? (See the list below for the Copic colors that I used) After I colored him up, I did use some white gel pen to add some accents. Mat it all on some kraft card stock and some Echo Park Reflections Fall paper and you're almost done! I added a border thanks to a Martha Stewart punch and then I added a wooden button and some fun jute twine. Ta da! Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

Here's a close up!

And that, my friends, is it! If you have never colored up digi stamps before, you really should travel over to Birdie Brown and see all that Torico has on her blog and in her Etsy shop -- too cute for words! I am a fan (as you can see by all my recent Birdie Brown cards). Sadly, she is going to be closing up shop at the end of November. I am so sad! So, I know I will be stocking up on images before it is too late. Check out what she's got to offer -- it's all good stuff!

Thanks for stopping by! See you back here soon!

~Julie

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