Asian Elegance *TWO cards*

Amongst the many swaps I'm partecipating in , one of them is the 'Asian Elegance card swap' hosted by Fran (better known as philsmom on SCS).
I always loved Asian themed cards -so much so that I've been hosting the 'Asian Flair' swap annually and received gorgeous cards in the process...so when I saw Fran's swap
I gladly took the opportunity to be on the partecipating end and took two spots, hence you'll be treated to two cards today .....*wink*

The first one was made using one of my favorite Asian stamp set : ' Dream Garden ' from SU...this is only the second time I used this pretty silhuette  of a Geisha  girl chosing to use the wet embossing tecnique with  a hint of  sponging  in between the design and around each white circle nesties.                                                

                                                                                           

Below is the inside of the card where I used SU 'Kanji' for the symbol and sentiment.

 1st Card Deet:
Versamark, Burgundy Embossing Powder, So Saffron inkpad, Cranberry Crisp inkpad, circle nesties,lacey nestie,beaded circle nestie,gold organdy ribbon, Provo Craft CB Asian pkg folder, blender pen, black gems,bravo burgundy & basic black card stock,
DCWV d/p 'The Far East Stack' .


                               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~♥♥♥~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For my second card,  I used another SU set called ' Asian Artistry'.
Although I had this set for quite sometimes, it is the first chance I finally got to use it.
This is another wet embossed card, perhaps with a lil more elegant tone to it with a mixture of silver, black and grey over a very pretty flowery background that has
the feel of real fabric.
I also added a touch of color to make the black embossed panel pop....

        Below is the inside of the card  showing a pretty inked quote from same set...

 2nd Card Deet:
Versamark, silver embossing powder, Prismacolor colored pencils, silver cord, punched black trim, dot sparklers (bird's eye), basic grey and basic black card stock, light blue pearls, DCWV d/p 'The Far East Stack'  plus a gorgeous silvery fabric like d/p .

There you have it my friends....what do you think?

Personally, I am very happy with both results and , hopefully, Fran is going to

like them as well...

 ♥ Thanks for stopping by! ♥

Black and White Simple Elegance

Hello girls,
tonight I'm posting one of the two wedding cards I made for a recent wedding...
Both were made for my collegues to chose from, since we all were going to sign in.
The other card was the one chosen by the group - some of you may have already seen it here :
http://www.paola-sama.blogspot.com/2012/03/wedding-card-punch-art.html

This card was fun and easy to make, partly due to its luscious designer papers which I absolutly love. it is from  'DCWV- Glittered Alphabet Premium Stack'....It is glittery, fun and somber at the same time .The light grey diamond shaped background is hard to see here....it's very faint in fact, but it sure adds a hint of elegance both on card front and on the inside too. The stamped bride and groom silhuette was first clear embossed, cut out and placed over a nestied heart cut out from same d/p ,then propped w/dimentional. Lots of  'diamonds' were placed all around the heart for a  'blingy' effect......

The inside was embellished using dry embossed tecnique, black glitter and a hint of black lattice

 border from a MS punch. Sentiment is from SU!....

Close up of the heart encased silhuette and , below, embossed envelope to match

the inside of the card.

Thanks again for stopping by, I love it when you visits...

♥  God Bless friendly bloggers! ♥

Something New Using Something Old!

It is the 28th!!!.........and if YOU follow my blog regularly then you must know what that means....YUP...It is Calendar Girls time!!...wowww....this month Jeanette had a pretty darn nice challenge for all of us and I am excited about it...

From Jeanette's own post:"....It’s time for our first challenge of 2012. Can you believe we’ve now been together as a blog group for an entire year? That is exciting! I want to celebrate who we are and the fun we’ve had together. Sooooooooo my challenge for January is this:
Something New Using Something Old!

What do I mean by that? This isn’t exactly what it seems. It’s not a vintage theme, though you can make your card/project vintage if you’d like. What I do want you to do is look back over your Calendar Girl posts/creations from the year 2011 and choose one of the images you used. Then I want you to create something entirely different with the same image. It cannot look at all like the previous Calendar Girl creation; nor can you use the same papers/embellishments/etc.

Inside of my card.....plenty of room for another sentiment or more....

Below you can see the shiny surface from the wet heat embossing tecnique used on the panel and the hummingbird.

Jeanette also said:"...When you post to your blog – on January 28 – I want you to also post a picture of your 2011 card/project that used the same image so we can see the two and how different they are. "

I am not able to pick just one picture, so I am adding the link to my 'old' pictures here for you to check and compare the  'Old and New':

http://www.paola-sama.blogspot.com/2011/05/calendar-girls-may-challenge.html

What do you think ? ♥
Leaving ya with something to ponder eh? :o)
Blessings and Sweet Dreams wishes to you all...
it's past 2:30 am here and I am in dire need of some sleep after the long
 ( yet fruitful and rewarding day) I finally had ...PTL ♥

Deets:
Stamp:SU- Elements of Style
Ink: Onix Black; Versamark
C/S: SU-Black
D/P: DCWV- Glittered Alphabet Premium Stack
Accessories:Fleur de Lis Stampbeatility, oval nestie, black organdy ribbon,
silver cord, self adhesive black pearls ,silver pearl, clear embossing powder,
dimentionals,diamond stickles,
Tecnique: wet embossing
Now go and check all the wonderful creation from the other Calendar Girls
feast your eyes on their links below and leave them some luv too!  ♥

April (SCS - Aprilo) April's Alley
Barb (SCS - barbaralynn) Barb's Inkin' into Retirement
Carol (SCS - momcgw) Lost in my craft room
Debbie (SCS - djones) The Ink Igloo
Jeanette (SCS - Forest Ranger) Cre8tive Play
Kelly (SCS - MiamiKel4) Sandcastle Stamper
Michelle (SCS - pattem) Ink'n General
Paola (SCS - Sama) That's Amore  *you are here*
Tami (SCS - BlueInks) BlueInks Design
Terry (SCS - terry0926) It's Totally Terry

One Hundred Year Birthday Celebration!

THIS IS MY SECOND POST OF THE DAY....
for the DUELING DARLING CHALLENGE PLEASE SCROLL DOWN...♥

          .....well...it's 100 yrs celebration for TWO people that is!.....ehehehe

Our wonderful neighbours ,Bill and Kathy, celebrate their Big FIVE-O
Birthday on the same day...yesterday to be exact....and had their house filled
to the rim with friends,children and balloons....plus food galore too!
Hubby and I joined them a bit later as we ended up with unexpected company
as I was putting the finishing touches on the birthay couple's card...
(mmmm nothing like the eleventh hour eh! yikes....)

Yup...lots and lots of black and white dots here with just a touch of color thrown in the mix...

sorry for the writing....

I forgot to take a picture of the inside of the card BEFORE  I added a few words to it :/

Yes, I am sure U noticed a missing 's' on the word 'birthday'....but be as it may and since I was in a rush, I was counting on the happily celebrating couple NOT to notice it too much....ehehe...
 They were way too busy having fun to pay attention to a lil silly extra 's'....Yeah!!! * wink*

Card Deets:

Stamps:SU 'Happy Everythig' ; SU 'Elements of Style'; SU 'Fresh Cuts';
SU 'Classic Alpha Numbers' and 'Whimsical Numbers'
Card Stock:  SU Black and SU Vanilla
Designer Paper: 'Black and Ivory Fusion' by K & Company ; 'Premium Alphabet Glittered Stack' by DCWV
Ink: Onix Black, Rocket Red and Versamark
Accessories: Embossing Powder: White, Drk Red, Clear ; Heart nesties -scalloped and plain- ;
Label Ten nesties ; scalloped punch ; 1 1/4 circle punch ; satiny ivory ribbon ;  Merlot and Regal Red fine glitter ; Lily White glitter .
Tecnique: wet embossing

Sure glad Bill and Kathy liked my labour of paper-love made just for them!
We are very fortunate to have them as our  neighbours!♥
Hope you liked my take on this card too :o)

♥ Sending a multitude of blessings your way ♥

THIS IS MY SECOND POST OF THE DAY....
for the DUELING DARLING CHALLENGE PLEASE SCROLL DOWN...♥

Calendar Girls December Challenge

Yeahhh! It's that time of the month for the Calendar Girls to reveal their challenge...

Who are the Calendar Girls? ♥  You can check them out here:

http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/forums/blogging-groups-f290/calendar-girls-blog-group-full-10-members-t512917.html

Look what our dear Jeanette had in mind for this month....that woman is a GENIUS I tell ya! *wink*

 "Who loves a secret?  I know I do! Let's have a secret ONE-WORD challenge for the month of December. This is how it will work. Each Calendar Girl will come up with a one-word challenge for the Calendar Girl who follows her on the list. It can only be ONE WORD, but it can be any word (glitter, three, apple, blue, holiday, sponging, friendship.... whatever word you choose!) Then secretly email or PM that ONE WORD challenge to the next person on the list and she will create a card that in some way represents that word. On December 28th, she will post to her blog a picture of her card and the ONE WORD secret that she has used. Because it's a busy time, please email or PM your ONE WORD to your secret partner no later than the 28th of November so she will have ample time to create during the busy holiday season. Okay? "
So as not to confuse anyone:

Jeanette will send a word to Kelly
Kelly will send a word to April
April will send a word to Terry
Terry will send a word to Barb
Barb will send a word to Carol
Carol will send a word to Michelle
Michelle will send a word to Debbie
Debbie will send a word to Paola
Paola will send a word to Tami
Tami will send a word to Jeanette

This is the inside of the card....Noticed what I used as a golden strip for the inside of the card?

Yup! the gold sticky strip from a Ferrero box of chocolate that was opened

in front of me as I was creating and...voila'! Another recycling idea was instantly born...LOL

 Final result:
If you observe the first photo posted, you can compare it to this one and see that something was added to the card....I thought it needed something and this morning I added some golden baubles and a cute lil red and gold star. I hope you can see how beautiful this designer paper truly is....it embodies lots of joyful cherubs and heavenly stars....

Would you like me to reveal the secret word given to me by lil dj??  It's about time eh??  ♥
The special word Debbie kindly gifted me with is  ♥ CELESTIAL ♥
and I simply LOVED her choice! ♥ Thank you Debbie .

I didn't want to use any blue (sky) background though....I chose to use one of my favorite colors instead (dark red) ....hope you like the result.

Can't wait to hop along and check what all the other Calendar Girls' words challenge were!!

Thanks for stopping by.....I always appreciate your visit and your comments....

Blessings to all!!

Card Deets:

Acrylic stamp sets from a garage finding-don't know its name

Versamark & Versamark pen

Designer Paper from Kaisercraft 'December 25th Collection'

Designer Paper from 'My Mind's Eyes'

Card Stock 'Cherry Cobbler' from SU

Accessories: Gold Glory embossing powder,scalloped punch,

gold baubles, red/gold star,dimentionals, gold tape (recycled from Ferrero choc. box)

Tecnique: precision cutting, wet embossing,

__________________

SOTC ~~~June~~~

*Click on any pictures if you wish to enlarge*

My wonderful friend Kadie ( who, a few years ago, cemented together the Sisterhood Of The Traveling Cards) was the hostess with the mostess for the month of June...
Her requests for June was to make a card with girls' sports in mind ,OR to use our favorite Team's colors....(at least that is my interpretation of  miss Kadie's challenge,hopefully I didn't mess up!! :/ )

Hence I used a combos of green and blue colors for my card, in support of my love for the  awesome Vancouver Canucks' Hockey Team .:o)
{Yes, we lost the Stanley Cup, but we are still Champions regardless!!}

Must also admit that I am so behind with all of my blog postings lately....*sigh*
kind - of - hard to play catch up but I shall give it  a try :o)

Here's a lil close up of the card, inside and out~~

Card Deets:

Stamps:

On The Green (SU) ,
Element of Style sentiment (SU),
Bella sentiment (inside)

Ink:
Night of Navy, Wild Wasabi, Versamark

Card Stock:

Pacific Point, Garden Green
Designer Paper by Reninisce

Accessories:

Clear embossing powder,Argyle C/B folder, pacific point ribbon,
twine,buttons, square nesties,oval punch,glue dots, dimentionals

Tecniques:

Clear image wet embossing, dry embossing,sponging,layering



I sent 4 of these cards off a tad late  -even though I took all the necessary crafting items along to finish this swap , and at least three others while on vacay- but there was NO time for crafting!!  too much fun was had being adventurous...lol
I truly don't expect any swaps cards back...but I still wanted to partecipate regardless,since I have yet to ask for a monthly 'pass'  *wink& smile* :o)

~~~~HOPE YOU LIKE IT!!!~~~~~until next time ~~~*ciaoooo*  :o)


This card was submitted for the following challenges:

http://paperprettiesblog.blogspot.com/

http://7kidschallengeblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/challenge-26-texture.html