So once again I am a day late in posting my Sunday cards, but this week I have a really good excuse.  Yesterday morning I was up at 5:30am and out the door so I could go ‘punish’ myself while I ran my first 1/2 marathon in like 7 years.  The race went well-ish, thank you for asking.  I have a slight injury, that I am rehabbing in both my hamstrings, and my left calf, so come like mile 10 things were not going well and my left leg stopped having fun.  But I finished the race.  However, when I got home, I was done.  My legs, ribs, and back only wanted to lie on the couch, so guess what, that was what I did.  Yeah me.

And you should have seen me try to climb the stairs last night, that was hilarious.  And I really want to throw out there a huge thank you for my wonderful loving husband.  He made dinner (tacos) for all of us, and was super dad with bed times and stuff.  Love that man.

So yes, I am a day late.  The work was done, but because Saturday night I wanted to go to bed early, I did not write out this post, and yesterday was a bust, so here I am on Monday morning, a holiday to bout, writing out the post.  But the plumber is coming to fix a leaky toilet, and I’ve sent the family away to hike for a few hours, so it isn’t a bust.

But cards, that is why you are here, to see card challenge posts.  I am continuing with my love and friendship theme today so if you don’t like hearts and flowers, good, cause I don’t really do hearts and flowers.

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Our first card is a color challenge from Colour Q.  They had some fun greens this week, including glorious green, certainly celery, coastal cabana, silver and white.  And I know what you are thinking, none of these colors say valentine’s but I was going to make it happen.

But before I made it happen, I had a pretty huge fail.  I tried to do something, and idea, and it just didn’t go well or right, or what I wanted to say.  I wanted to do a little cupid, on a wall covered in fern, with another shade of green in the back ground.  However, like it said, it did not work out how I wanted it to.  But guess what I am sharing it, even if it is not the card I’m linking up.  I feel it is important sometimes to show things that failed.  Moments that just do not work out.  Cards that become ugly.  And I think it is important to show that.  Let people know that it happens to everyone, all the time.  So there is the ugly card.  I mean, I guess it is fine, but it is not what I wanted.

So, I scraped my idea, and rethought out the colors.  I made the decision that I was working with greens, so maybe I should just stick with greenery.  Then, I figured if I only stamped inside my heart stencil, maybe I could be a little love card still.  I pulled out my stamp pack from Avery Elle called Fabulous Florals and picked out several leaves and three shades of Distress Ink, cracked pistachio, shabby shutters, and evergreen bough.  I stamped out the images, inside my stencil and left it at that.  I pulled out my Brilliance silver pigment stamp and stamped the sentiment from Avery Elle Love Notes stamp pack and added the dashed corner detail.  So very different from where I wanted to begin, and so much better, at least in my opinion.

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Okay, now we have a change of pace with a CAS sketch challenge from Freshly Made Sketches.  This one is fairly simple, which can always be toss up of whether it will makes things easier or not.  I find sometimes simple sketches are far harder to work with then the complicated one.  However, today was not one of those days, because I instantly knew where I wanted to go with it.

I have this great little (retired) die lock and key from Savvy Dies Heart and key, that I

wanted to use for the any shape part of the sketch.  I blended both my Brilliance Gold pigment ink, and my Memento Rose Bud ink over the die cutes to give them a bit of a two tone color. (On a side note, a lot of what I use is retired or older stamps and dies because I really like a good deal and fundamentally, really hate paying full price for anything, be it cloths, toys, or art supplies).

I then pulled out my Hero Arts Owh Lil’ Hoot stamp set, and pulled the cute little elephants out. I colored them in with both my blue grey Spectrum Noir alcohol markers and my warm grey Copic markers.  I stamped out the sentiment from Avery Elle Love Notes in both Tuxedo Black and Rose Bud Memento ink.

I pulled in a piece of stock pink paper (no clue from whom cause it is that old) and finished laying out the sketch.

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Now, we are going to change gears a little here, and while the colors say love, the card says Christmas.  I hear you all screaming, but wait it is January…a christmas card, but over at ‘Tis the Season, it is christmas cards all year long.  I do love how they use a different color palate then just your traditional one for the holidays, and allow our brains to work.  The colors

they have given us are a blush, a cream, a coral and what I can only assume was a rose, but that may have been wrong.

Anyway, I pulled out some snowflake stamps to highlight the cool little snow dude in the snow globe, and stamped them out using Distress Ink in shades of worn lipstick, antique linen, tattered rose, and spun sugar.  When I finished stamping, I misted the card to soften the stamps.  Being that this is the first challenge of the year for ‘Tis the Season, I had to use my sentiment stamp that said the same thing.  I stamped it out in Archival rose mater so any left over water would not run the sentiment.  And I know it looks like I mis-stamped it but that is really how the stamp stamps.  Finally I added a few off white sequins to the whole thing and badly adhered the card stock to my beige card.  Yes, it was too late when I realized the card was off center.  Oh, well, live and learn.  Otherwise, I like the card and its nontraditional look.

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The final card today is another color challenge but this time from Color Throwdown.  This week they are asking us to use such lovely spring colors, I am longing for poolside and a frozen drink with an umbrella in it.  They wanted us to use any shade of green, orange, yellow, and gray.  They might be spring feeling, but I am still in the throws of winter love, so I had to figure out a way to make the two mix.

I pulled out some good card stock and mushed in both scattered straw and spiced marmalade Distress ink on to it.  I then die cut two birds from Savvy Dies Sparrow die.  I did one facing the right way, and other other upside down so they could face each other.

I grabbed another piece of card stock and this time mushed both mowed lawn and hickory smoke Distress ink.  I stamped the feathers and sentiment from Avery Elle Love Notes.  I stamped the feathers in Gray flannel Memento Ink and the sentiments in mowed grass.  I like to think it fits both the challenge and my love notes goal.  I do like how both birds coloring is so different yet the same.

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That’s it for today.  I should be back tomorrow (lets be honest I won’t cause the Tuesday post has never happened on Tuesday) with a few more cards and a lot more love.

Now, off to the freezing cold pool for some laps to get the soar out of my tired muscles.