So Much Inspiration...I Couldn't Resist!

I think this is going to be a very inspired post today!

I am not one to do multiple challenges....heck, I am lucky

on some weeks if I can get my own PDCC project done.

 But as I was cruising a variety of lovely challenges

(and there are many out there which I admire)

I thought it would be fun to do something using

'inspirational' photos...so here goes....

If there's one thing I love to do, it's layers!

Layers of paper, layers of ribbon or lace...you name it!

This card has at least four layers...it depends on whether

or not you count the focal point as an additional one.

Here are the challenges that I was inspired by:

Moxie Fab's Tuesday Trigger

{Sweets for the Sweet}

Cupcake Inspiration #96

{where my friend Sav is a guest this week}

CASE Study

{Mercy Kerin's beautiful card}

EtsyInspired #124

{Too Cute Kawaii}

and these other wonderful challenges 

with themes:

City Crafter #41 ~ Sew Fun

Flourishes ~ Bring Back Beautiful Vintage

Simon Says Stamp & Show ~ Show Some Love

Creative Inspirations ~ Love

I absolutely LoVe the acetate butterfly!

I absolutely LoVe the beaded lace!

I absolutely LoVe fabric flowers!

Before I go, it's time to announce the winner of the

blog candy giveaway from last week's

'March of the Snowman' Blog Hop

{which you can check out here}

Congratulations Monique!

Monique said...

Beautiful Julie.. Love the crochet / material combo looks fantastic 

with the seam binding and the snowman is cute cute cute!!! 

So glad you stopped by today...I hope you've enjoyed

this bit of inspiration, both on my part and on

the part of all these other amazing places!

Today's Project Recipe:

Cardstock: Bazzill, The Paper Company 
Designer Paper:  Webster's Pages

Ink: Ranger Archival in Mushroom, Tim Holtz Distress in 'Old Paper'

Stamps:  Studio G'

Embellishments: Recollections acetate stickers, flowers & beaded lace trim,
K&Co rhinestones

Tools:  Sewing Machine 

The Remedy for Love

Gosh....just the idea that someone would need to

look for a remedy for love.....feels a bit sad at first.

It's H{ippity} Hop Monday!

What a terrific way to start the week by 

feeding your creative needs with some

wonderful inspiration by all of the

Ippity chicks and fans listed

on the Ippity Blog.

So.....

What is the remedy for love?

 According to this wonderful quote, it's to 'love more'!

This is such a fun set from Ippity called

'Quotes A'la Happy'

Twenty fun, creative images 

just right for so many occasions.

I have an order going in to Ippity this week

and would LoVe for you to get in on it!

Place an order for this set or any other

Ippity set from my page here and you will

receive 10% off your entire order!

Order $50 or more and get your choice of

one of these stamps free:

You'll find all Ippity sets here!

This offer expires on Sunday, Feb 6th at 11:59pm CST.

One more thing.....

You know I am on the design team for

The Twinery, right?

Well, I wanted to make sure you were aware of

the newest colors which are now available and

are shipping immediately....

Aren't they gorgeous?

One of the most requested colors has been black

and it's now here for you!

I personally LoVe the Honeydew and am really

excited to know mine is on the way!

There's also a very fabby Valentine's giveaway going on

over on The Twinery's blog!

So glad you were able to stop by.

I hope you'll leave me a quick little note to

let me know you were here.

Make sure you stop back later tonight as I will be

announcing the winner of the blog candy from the

'March of the Snowmen' Blog Hop.

Today's Project Recipe:

Cardstock: Bazzill, The Paper Company

Ink: Ranger Archival in Black, Tim Holtz Distress in 'Frayed Burlap'

Stamps:  Ippity 'Quotes A'la Happy'
Die Cut Tools: Cricut 'George & Basic Shapes'

Embellishments:  The Twinery baker's twine in 'Maraschino'
Recollections & K&Co rhinestones

Tools:  Fiskar's Corner Rounder, misc markers

A Baby is....

Another very quick, but colorful post for today!

I always like to play with 'unusual' 

color combos for baby cards.  I get tired of

the same pink and blue pastel themes

(although I still think they are beautiful).

Thought it might be fun to enter this over at

Verve's Baby Love Challenge.

(I don't currently own any Verve : (  but they

are on my wish list for sure!)

So when I want to go bright and bold, I go straight to

Cosmo Cricket!  These papers are from the 'DeLovely'

collection and are really fun.

The sentiment on the die cut tag is from Verses Rubber Stamps,

but it doesn't stop there....

I inked the first portion of the stamp for the front

of the card and finished off the verse for the

inside greeting.

I love when you can do that with sentiments and

Verses stamps offer a wide variety of ways to

do just that.

Through this Sunday, you can get

20% off your entire order

over at Verses!

Just use the coupon code:

SNOW20

in the comment section of your order.

Well....it's time to get busy with completing a few

creations with deadlines attached, so I KNOW I

will see you soon!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Today's Project Recipe:

Cardstock: The Paper Company 
Designer Paper:  Cosmo Cricket 'DeLovely'

Ink: Ranger

Stamps:  Verses

Embellishments: baker's twine by The Twinery, Recollections gems

Tools:  Fiskar's Border Punch

Celebrating a Golden Birthday!

Happy Friday to all!

I have just a quick post for you today as it's a busy one

for me.  Tonight is our night to watch my two oldest

grandsons and Paul is home as well.

We are taking CJ and Caleb out to celebrate

CJ's report card...can I just brag? 

He has been declared

top of his 2nd grade class 

and also received 

'excellent' on all behavioral levels in class.

His choice for dinner.....''the mall where Papa works"

He went on to explain that as he likes Japanese food, we

would all get to choose a 'type' of food 

we like in the food court!

The dinosaur exhibit is also there and he is a huge fan

so we'll spend some time there and I am sure both

boys will be able to talk us in to a trip to 'Papa's store'.

Barnes & Noble is there favorite place to make

a stop because they both love to read.

Anyway......

My PDCC teammate Fiona suggested a challenge

for me that I was unfamiliar with.  This one is from

her homeland of Australia and I was thrilled to

have an opportunity to participate for this

special occasion. 

Inkurable Stampers is having a 

'Golden Birthday' Challenge.

My British husband has made it pretty clear that

the celebration of 'golden birthdays' is a very

American thing....so I was surprised to see it

celebrated in Australia, but apparently, it's new

to them as well!

A birthday card which includes the use of

gold made me reach immediately for these

wonderful EK Success 3-D stickers.

The gold glittered center of this cake is perfect!

I also embossed the bottom of this beautiful gold

shimmer paper with a sweet heart from Sizzix.

No cake is complete without a little icing, so I

used some of my favorite trim in white and pink

and added pearls at the top.

Quick reminder....you have until

midnight CST tonight to leave a comment on

my post here to have a chance to win some

pretty great blog candy.

I'd love to know you stopped by today, so I

hope you'll take a moment to say hello by

leaving a comment...I appreciate all of your notes!

Today's Project Recipe:

Cardstock: The Paper Company

Ink: Tim Holtz Distress Ink in 'Frayed Burlap'

Stamps:  Kristen Powers
Sizzix EF 'Heart w/Flourishes'

Embellishments:  EK Success Sticko 'Wedding Icons', ribbon, pearls

Tools:  Fiskar's Corner Rounder

Joy, Love and Beauty

Show of hands.....

Who knows what the color story is for this week's

challenge at The Play Date Cafe?

Here's another hint.....

Yep!

It's everybody's fave....

Creatively, there's something I just love

about black & white with a 'hint' of color.

Sarah selected this beautiful inspiration photo

for us and I got to work!

This was one of the easiest projects I've put together.

It was just a matter of choosing the DP, deciding where

it would go on the card and then a little stamping.

The only 'extra' that I added was a little

'watercolor-style' painting

around the edges of each flower petal using

dye-based in in a matching shade for the project.

You will love what the rest of our talented design team

has done with this color palette.

All of the fabby projects are on display over in

The Play Date Cafe.

Here's who you'll find along with your's truly...

Sarah Anderson  

Ruby McGuire

 Savannah O'Gwynn 

Andrea Ewen

Colleen Dietrich  

Fiona Shultz

Jaclyn Miller 

Jinny Newlin
Libby Hickson  

Michele Gross

Tracey Kuzniak

 So glad you stopped by and I hope you'll 

leave a quick little note to let me know

you were here : )

Today's Project Recipe:

Cardstock: The Paper Company

Designer Paper: My Mind's Eye

Ink: Memento in Grape Jelly, Ranger Archival in Black

Stamps:  Technique Tuesday, Unity

Embellishments:  Recollections Flowers, velvet ribbon

Tools:  Fiskar's Corner Rounder

Welcome to The March of the Snowmen Blog Hop!

It's so great to have you visit The Open Window today!

I am an official stop on the....

....and I am very happy to share my little

creation with you

and

give you the opportunity to win some

fabby blog candy along the way!

Did you get here from Joan's blog?

Hope so!  If not, why not pop back to the very

 beginning of the hop here

to start fresh...it's the best way to

not miss a thing!

I really enjoyed making this card because I find once

the holidays are over, I rarely use my snowmen stamps.

The winter season is looooong

and snowmen deserve a little shout out once in awhile!

I used Ippity stamps from 'Kissmas & Mistletoe'.

I am proud to say that this wonderful Ippity set is available

to order on my Ippity page here.

I inked up my little guy using Tim Holtz Distress Inks

variegating between two colors.

I did a tight zig-zag stitch on the machine, but quite

a bit of it is covered with the rest of the elements.

I recently purchased 100 yards

of plain white seam binding to do a little

custom-dying, so I had plenty of white to lend here.

I offered this card on display for the
Stamp With Fun Challenge too!

Now....want to win 

a little blog candy from me?

All you need to do is leave a comment here on my

blog and you just might win!

Of course, I would love for you to become a 

follower here at The Open Window too.

You'll have until 11:59pm EST
Friday, Jan 28th to leave a comment to win.
The random draw will be held during the weekend
and the winner announced on Monday, Jan 31st.

Once you leave here, make sure you hop over

to Kim's blog here......

and if I were you, I'd make sure you stop by

each blog because there's a whole bunch

of blog candy up for grabs.

Here's a list of all the participants in

The March of the Snowmen Blog Hop:

Angella Crockett

Barb Foster

Deb Felts

Holly Brown

Jen Carter

JenMarie Taylor

Joan Ervin

Julie Ranae

(you are here!)

Kim Sears

Laurie Willison

Linda Lucas

Lynn Stevens

Pam Imholz

Patti Gilliam

Sue Pelletier

Stacy Rogers

Melisa Waldorf

Have fun!

Today's Project Recipe:

Cardstock: Bazzill

Designer Paper: DCWV 'The Four Seasons' Stack

Ink: Tim Holtz Distress Inks in 'Faded Denim' & 'Vintage Photo'

Stamps:  Ippity 'Kissmas & Mistletoe'

Embellishments: Recollections pearls & flowers
Prima Crochet Flowers
Seam Binding in Winter White

Tools:  Fiskar's Corner Rounder

Who ARE These People? The Play Date Cafe Challenge

No...no...no....

I did not create this.....

I did not create this either.....

and I have no idea who this little sweet face is.....

But, I do know who this sweet face belongs to....

It's my way of teasing you with this week's

challenge over at The Play Date Cafe.

 The beautiful and 'sweet' creations above

belong to three of our talented designers

and you can find out who when you pop over

and check out the new challenge.

All of the designers are amazing and you will

love what they've done with this week's colors.

We also have a wonderful prize from one of

our favorite sponsors....

You can't win if you don't play!

So head on over and I'll see you there!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Clean and Simple Valentines

I spent a day last week playing around with these very

simple heart shapes, which I created using my Cricut.

I was inspired by an article I saw in the current issue

of Scrapbooks, Etc. and thought I would really

focus on CAS.

There really aren't many details to share.

It's all pretty self-explanatory, so I'll just share them with you.

I will mention that I find one of the easiest ways to

dress up a simple card is to add rhinestones and pearls.

I love textured cardstock...it always seems so much richer.

I have always loved this little sentiment from the

classic PSX rubber stamp company.

I have been hanging on to this one sheet of paper from

Sassafrass Lass for the longest time.

All of the hearts for these cards were cut from 

that single 12x12 sheet.

So glad you took a moment to stop by.

I am planning taking another inspiration from that same

issue to help my grandson create Valentine's

for his 2nd grade class.

He's coming over for the day tomorrow, so we

will be creating and I hope to share those

photos with you soon.

Hey....one more thing!

Hope you will mark your calendar as I

have been invited to participate with a very

talented group of ladies for the....

Today's Project Recipe:

Cardstock: Bazzill

Designer Paper: Sassasfrass Lass

Ink:  Versamark,Tim Holtz Distress Inks

Stamps:  Ippity, Unity, PSX, Studio G

Die Cut/Embossing Templates:  Cuttlebug 'Swiss Dot' EF

Cricut 'George & Basic Shapes',

Embellishments: Recollections rhinestones & pearls

Tools:  Fiskar's Corner Rounder