AHHHHH!!!!!!  Hear that…that’s the sound of a girl who for the first time in almost 2 months got to craft simply for the joy of it.  Ahhhh!!!!   I feel so much better.

Needless to say, the move that started back at the end of May, and the unpacking process that started at the end of June is finally coming to an end.  We are more or less settled in the new place.  All bout about 5 boxes are unpacked, and frankly I just don’t want to do it, so I am leaving it for another day.  And like the crazy person I am, I decided to take an online class (for fun not career) right after a move and finally is at a pretty good place, so I decided that I would simply take a couple of hours while the kids were on a play date at the neighbors and the husband was at work just to create for the simple joy of it.

I didn’t realize how much I needed that.

So I thought I would share the couple of cards I made for different challenges around the net.  Hope you enjoy!

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First up is an inspiration challenge over at Muse.  This week my design sweetie teammate Kim Higgins over at Cupcake Inspiration is this week’s Muse designer.  I love seeing friends and teammates designs being featured!!!

I was really inspired by the butterflies and the green striped paper.  So I pulled out some green paper with stripes and die cut it with some Craftin Desert DivasStitched Scollop Dies.  I added a bit of mowed lawn distress ink to the scallops and a bit of twine to the bottom.  I distressed some wild honey around the white parts of the card, and added a Ki faith sentiment and a Graphic 45 butterfly.  The butterfly got a little bit of copic coloring, and I left the card at that.  The orange took over a little more than I intended, but I love how the ‘grass’ turned out.

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Next up is another inspiration challenge from Altenew’s July Inspiration Challenge.  Check out those gorgeous colors in the picture of the roses.  I was totally inspired by the colors in this pic.

I pulled out my Apple Tree stamp set and used distress inks to layer the colors on some watercolor paper.  I don’t have many colored inks that aren’t distress, so I had to take advantage of them to make this layering stamp work.  However, the texture of the paper really created a cool effect.  Then using a little festive berry Distress Paint, I added dots of ‘apples’ on the trees and around the card.  I trimmed the watercolor paper down and added some red glittery card stock behind the watercolor paper and added a sentiment from the Birch Land stamp set.

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The Paper Players is having a clean and simple Summer Fun in the Water challenge.

I decided to pull out some stamps from Gerda Steiner for this one.  (If you check my blog regularly, you’ll know this is the second time this week I’ve pulled out the stamp set, but I can’t help myself…they are just too cute?)  I stamped out all four piggies and add a float under each of them, and then simply colored they with my copic markers.  I used two shades of orange (YR02, YR68, YR09 and YR21, YR23, YR24) and two shades of teal (BG23, BG15, BG 18 and BG70, BG72, BG75).  I trimmed the cardstock down just a little and  added some teal card stock behind it.  A few strokes of BG70, BG10, and colorless blender to indicate water, and I called the card done.

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The team over at Art Impressions is having a Bling, Glitter, or Glossy challenge this week.  I struggle with bling and glitter, but I do enjoy quite a bit of glossy, so I was game.

I pulled out the new (to me) AI Road Trip stamp set and stamped out the car full of girls.  I colored them in with my copics, and then added a bunch of spectrum noir glitter pen and then filled the whole card in with some glossy accents.  I trimmed the cardstock up and backed it with some black card stock.  Then I added some red printed paper and matted that in black card stock as well.  I added a few clear crystals and then filled  a few dots in with some more glossy accents.  I wish the pic showed how shinny the car ended up, but it looks like a sweet cherry ride IRL.

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Finally, today we have a CAS challenge from the gals over at Less Is More Challenge.  This challenge is the dreaded one layer card challenge this time with a colored cardbase.

Black is a color right…so I choose a black card base.  I stamped out one of the new Honeybee Stamps mermaid stamps (Under the Sea) in some white ink and stamped out a sentiment from the Honey Bee Happiness sentiment stamp set.  I colored in the mermaid with my Spectrum Noir colored pencils, trying to keep my white lines.  However, in the end, I took my white gel pen and traced over the lines around her.

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Okay, that’s it for tonight.  However, if you like what you see sneak in here on Thursday…I’ll have a new (and I know it has been a really long time) Youtube coloring video up!