Inking Royalty Blog Hop

This is the first Inking Royalty Blog Hop of the year!  I’m super excited to be joining the Royalty today!  It has just simply been to long.  I love this amazingly talented group of paper crafters. This year we will be hopping with the theme “A Year of Celebrations” So, let’s get on with the hop

 Welcome to InKing Royalty’s January Blog Hop! During this year’s blog hops, we are enjoying a year of celebrations. This month’s projects celebrate Valentine’s Day, so prepare yourself for lots of hearts and beautiful showcases of love. We are excited to share our creations with you today! After you read my post, I hope you’ll hop over to the next person on the list at the base of this post.

I love to take Valentine’s Day and celebrate all my awesome friends. I decided to make a card using two wonderful stamp sets. And a color combination that is a personal favorite.

Tropical Chic is one of my favorites!  I so love using this stamp set. This stamp set just screams use me make a happy card!!!

Tropical Chic Stamp Set

Especially in spring and summer using all the “Lilly” inspired colors.  Today’s color combination is more of a winter day with light.  Smoky Slate and So Saffron.  I can just see the So Saffron light peaking through the Smoky Slate winter clouds giving us hope of warm sunny skies.

The second stamp set is another summer fun stamp set.  The sentiment “life is good with a friend like you” make it perfect though for a friend’s Valentine’s

Friend Like You Stamp Set

This set is full of fun scene building element.  But, to be truefull it is the sentiments in the stamp set that won me over.

Who said Valentine’s had to be all Red and Pink with hearts galore??  If you know seriously tell me below in the comments.

• The first thing was picking the color combination.  I wanted to use Yellow and gray.  I’m completely obsessed with it at the moment.  I’m actually working on a granny square afghan right now that is yellow, gray, and green.
• Yellow and gray make a great floral combination. And that’s really what I had in mind.  When the last time I actually created what I set out to creat??? Who knows, but the fun is seeing where the idea leads
• The flowers are stamped in so Saffron and in Daffodil Delight. That gives a little color variation

Thank you for stopping by today. I hope you’ll hop along to the next stop on the blog hop, Candy Ford

Each of your comments makes me smile! Please, comment HERE.

There’s lots of inspiration to be found in this group – and you don’t want to miss it! If you get stuck during the Blog Hop, please use this line-up as a guide:

1. Brian King at Stamp with Brian
2. Ann Murray at Murray Stamps Ink
3. Jennifer Spiller at Westside Paper Creations
4. Candy Ford at Stamp Candy
5. Pam Morris at Tap Tap Stamp
6. Julie DiMatteo at The Paper Pixie
7. Sheryl Abernathy at Elegant Sentiments
8. Lynn Kolcun at Avery’s Owlery
9. Shawn de Oliveira at Shawn Stamps
10. Jackie Beers at Blue Line Stamping
11. Sue Jackson at Just Peachy Stamping
12. Linda Krueger at The Stamp Coach
13. Sheryl Sharp at Sharp Notes by Sheryl

Here a little peak into the Granny Squares.  The squares were originally going to be mostly gray with a little touch of green and yellow. But, when I started working on them the green just had to be the main color! The other immediately recognized the Granny Square as a pot holder. I wish I had some of my Grandmother’s crochet pot holders. Anyway, enjoy the rest of the blog hop

Go and be creative and please hop along-

January Blogging friends blog hop

Welcome to the Blogging Friends Blog Hop. This month everyone is feeling the love!  I’m feeling the love for a sweet friend who surprised me during Christmas with a awesome gift.  We don’t normally exchange gifts but, she shared a little extra cheer with me.  I have had in my mind to make her a special thank you card.

Thinking about what I wanted to create,  I decided to go with a very clean and modern feel.  I think this is the perfect time of year to go back to your roots of creativity and re-explore.  For me that’s clean and hopefully modern card making. I find this style of card making my favorite!  I also have recently fallen back …head over heals for heat embossing.  I’m just completely obsessed with adding matalic to cards.

• The color combo real red, night of Navy, and petal pink
• Stamp set To A Wild Rose  used with versa mark ink and gold embossing power.

I had a hard time getting a good picture of the real red and heat embossing.  It has been raining and very dreary. So no natural light witch is how I like to take pictures.  Then the overhead lights at work distort the color.  Anyway, the card in real life is full of red, pink, and shinny gold with that Navy card base to ground it all.

Thank you for hopping along with us!  I hope you enjoy all the inspiration along the way

Today’s card was completely inspired by the super talented Yana Smakula. Her modern take on card making just totally wow’s me!!!!

Peace out my crafty loves-

One Word “Autumn”

Welcome to InKing Royalty’s September Blog Hop! This year’s Blog Hop themes are inspired by a single word – and this month our projects are centered around AUTUMN. There is so much to love about the transition from summer to winter, and we are excited to share our Autumn-themed projects with you today! After you read my post, I hope you’ll hop over to the next person on the list at the base of this post.

Fall is such a fun time of the year! Football game, crisp air, pumpkins, leaves changing color, and here in the south cotton boles for decorating.  Unlike the days of old, the machines leave a lot of cotton behind.  I have more than one memory of going out to the “country” and finding the picked cotton field.  Why???? So we could use the leftovers for decorating in fall arrangements…

My Granny’s family moved from the North to Mississippi to make a life for themselves. One of the things they grew was cotton.  And my Granny has many a stories about picking cotton. The entire family participated in the process.  They were extremely pour and It was what put food on their table. So, when I see cotton I think about my sweet Granny and the hope of a better day.

Just in case you haven’t figured it out, I’m using the Country Home stamp set. This set is so very versatile! I love the galvanized pitcher and the boquets of fall foliage.

Country Home Stamp Set

The cattails and cotton bur  remind me of my childhood home.  Thought, I’m not sure we ever had artichokes around for flower arrangements.

Thank you for stopping by today.  I hope you’ll hop along to the next stop on the blog hop, Cand Ford at Stamp Candy. There’s lots of inspiration to be found in this group – and you don’t want to miss it!

I have been having issues with my white balance in my photography of cards ever since we moved. I just have not found that spot that has the perfect lighting. Below is a second picture of today’s card. The colors are more true. But, unfortunately the details of the card were not captured.

Each of your comments makes me smile! Please, comment HERE.

If you get stuck during the Blog Hop, please use this line-up as a guide:

1. Brian King at Stamp with Brian
2. Linda Krueger at The Stamp Coach
3. Lynn Kolcun at Avery’s Owlery
4. Robbye Hamilton at Miss Hammie’s Crafts
5. Jackie Beers at Blue Line Stamping
6. Sue Jackson at Just Peachy Stamping
7. Shawn de Oliveira at Shawn Stamps
8. Jennifer Spiller at Westside Paper Creations
9. Candy Ford at Stamp Candy
10. Sheryl Sharp at Sharp Notes by Sheryl
11. Julie DiMatteo at The Paper Pixie

I’m going to leave you with a story from my Granny’s younger days picking cotton with her family.

Granny was in the field picking cotton with her brother Larry and her father, Popee. Larry often tried to find a green cotton boll, which was as hard as a rock, and would throw it to hit Granny when no one was looking. The bolls would leave red whelps and bruises on Granny and hurt like the dickens. This memorable hot afternoon Larry found his weapon, rared back and aimed the green boll at Granny. Just as the boll left Larry’s hand Granny bent over. The hard boll missed Granny but landed solidly upon Popee’s head. He promptly said, God Dame, where did that come from?

Well, that was the day Larry decided to never throw another cotton boll at Granny!

Go and be creative my friends-