Good Monday to you all.  Hope your week is starting off wonderful.  Or at least as wonderful as mine.  I got to walk my kids to school with my husband this morning and then we got to walk to get coffee together.  This is a rare treat in my world, and I always absorb the beautiful moments where I get my husband at unexpected times.

And this week is shaping up to be one of those few rare weeks where I have a little extra time and very few things on the schedule.  It is really exciting.  A slow week.  Unfortunately a slow week also means I must jump into the spring cleaning…YUCK.  Lets see how much I can pro-craft-inate this week.

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First up this week we have a color challenge from the color gurus over at Color Throwdown.  They have moved to the warmth and hope of spring, giving us the colors kraft, light green and pale pink.

I decided that I would embrace the spring theme and decided to showcase a tree just blooming for spring.  I pulled out my Big Shot die cutting machine and a couple different die sets from My Favorite Things and die cut lots of branches, different sized leaves and a few acorns because they were just so cute.  I also pulled out my Brusho watercolor powders and sprinkled and sprayed some watercolor paper with pale green Brusho and light red Brusho.  I liked how each leaf and flower looked different.  I assembled the different pieces, layering them each.  I added a sentiment from Paper Smooches with both leaf green and tree branch Archival Ink.  I added a bit of pink paper behind the scene and called it a day.  I hope this card gives those with snow all around them (unlike my too warm climate here) hope for spring.

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Up next we have a neat little clean and simple sketch from the designers over at Freshly Made Sketches.  I like how off center the little scene in this card is and I like the opportunity for layering of printed papers.

First I pulled out a couple of coordinating papers in a muted and understated printed papers.  I like how the shades of brown and green almost looked grungy (a style and look I so do adore).  Then I pulled out a cute little stamp from Penny Black and colored her in with my colored pencils to match up with the chosen papers.  I assembled the different layers trying to keep everything neat and organized.  I think the card ended up being very sweet.

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Up next we have another color challenge from the queens of color over at Colour Q.  They have also leap for the hope of spring, but instead of giving us light pale colors of spring, we have been given bright bold colors of poppy parade, daffodil delight, lucky limeade, tempting turquoise and white.

I knew flowers would be an easy approach to this card, but

I did not wish to go easy and tried to give a bit of a rustic look to a card.  First I took a bit of fossilized amber distress ink and blended it into a stencil leaving a dream weaver look to my card stock.  Then I stamped out four different feathers in four different shades of distress ink, fossilized amber, mermaid lagoon, mowed lawn and festive berries.  Finally I stamped out a sentiment using the red, blue and green shade across the words.  I added a bit of twine to the bottom of the card.  I don’t know if I quite achieved what I was going for, but I think the card worked in the end none-the-less.  It is diffidently a different type of card for me.

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Finally today we have out weekly mashup challenge from the gals over at Friday Mashup.  This week the designers are challenging us to mashup both a birthday card and a project using stencils.  What a fun combination.

I pulled out a tied dyed stencil from Crafter’s

Workshop and started blending five shades of Distress Ink.  I blended the shades from the center out from lightest to darkest, using the shades tumbled glass, salty ocean, mermaid lagoon, blueprint sketch and chipped sapphire.  I then pushed the colored sheet of card stock through an embossing folder in my Big Shot.  The folder was from Darice and had a nice birthday sentiment on it.  Then I pulled out a birthday stamp from My Favorite Things and watercolored her in with distress inks.  I added her to the card with a bit of dimensional tape and a sentiment from the scrape of paper.  I think I managed to achieve the mash-up nicely and I liked how the stenciled ink look on the embossed paper.

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That’s it for today.  I’ve got a workout I have to go muddle through.  This Saturday I have a bit of an adventure race with some girl friends so I must make sure I’m ready to run.

I hope you all are enjoying the start of your week, and that you find sometime in your schedule to do a little pro-craft-inating.