Inspiration Everywhere!!

Good Saturday afternoon everyone! Hope you're all having a splendid day! It is hotter than hot here today--and we have a pool party to go to in an hour, lovely! Hopefully it will start cooling off a bit, we'll see. I just wanted to thank everyone again for participating in my blog candy--it was fun seeing what everyone's answers to the question were. Although I'm a bit embarassed to say how long it can take me to make just 1 card after reading all of your answers. But I'm an honest kinda gal and & I won't lie to ya'--it can take me anywhere from 30 mins (simple cards) to up to 3 1/2 hrs (most of my cards lie in between). Of course that's with interruptions like potty breaks, taking the dogs out and attending to my kids needs (or whines :)). I almost never leave a card for the next day, once I have my idea I like to run w/ it. I always pick out my stamp first and then move on to the dp, after that it's all up in the air as far as what I do next. If I really like a sketch challenge I'll try that out, but sometimes my cards take on a life of their own, ya know? I never glue down anything until I have all my elements in place, which can take me awhile because I like to fidget w/ it & try different things (not to mention my perfectionism butting in)! Anyhoo...

My card for today started with some inspiration I got from the cover of this catalog. If you've heard me blab before, you know how much I love French Country and toile fabric (even my craft room curtains are b&w toile)--love it! So when I saw this cover, I remembered that I had some BoBunny toile dp that would match (I have just about every toile dp there is on the market-lol). I also wanted to participate in 2 challenges again, the first one being the Sarah Kay Weekly Challenge and the Spoon Full of Sugar Challenge #8. The Sarah Kay challenge is using a sketch and Spoon Full of Sugar is to make a card for girls using Sugar Nellie stamps. I really liked the chairs tied with ribbon/fabric in the inspiration piece so I tried to incorporate that into the card-I didn't have gingham ribbon to match so I just used white satin instead. This stamp is called "My Sweet Lil" from Sarah Kay that I got from Sweet 'n Sassy. If you're looking to get some of these stamps(becuz Sweet 'n Sassy is sold out right now) try http://www.7kidscollegefund.com/ because they are getting a whole bunch in on July 20th. I colored her with Copics and added Diamond Glaze to the hair bows and ball for shine. The cs and polka dot dp are from PTI and the ribbon is from American Crafts. The sentiment is from Verve Stamp's "Petals & Stems" set--they have the best sentiments & I just love them all. Lastly I added some colored buttons to finish it all off. Alright, I'm off to the pool--yippee me!! Hope you like the card.

The pictures above are of the basket of Blog Candy entries and the #1 winning entry from Peggy. Somewhere in my mess of a craft table I have Shannon's entry too, but I can't seem to find it...not surprising if you saw my desk :) Ladies, in case you are looking for my email its on the sidebar or here at sjdean@smartneighborhood.net.

Till then...

Suzanne