Sending Aloha

 Hi peeps,

I hope everyone is having a great Saturday. I had fun catching up with friends who live in the Chicagoland area this morning via phone. It was quite the long call as we hadn't talked in almost a year! How does the time fly?!

When I first started out in my current career (30 years this year) I traveled quite extensively. Some years I would clock over 265 days away from home. One of the best parts of my territory was Hawaii, easy to get to from the west coast. One of the best parts is my Uncle and his family settled there when he retired from the Navy, so instead of having to stay in hotels, I always stayed with them. By then, their kids were all out of the house so I had my own bedroom and bathroom and I was met at the door every evening with a glass of wine. 

I had started my stamping hobby a few years prior and so I was always on the lookout for stamps when I traveled. There were stores around Ohau called "Made in Hawaii" and they had some beautiful hand made gifts. They also had wooden art stamps with Hawaiian images and I collected several over the years. Here's a photo of a few. I have many more. I picked these out because I used some to make the card in this post.

My friend, LeAnne, is hostess of the current As You See It Challenge. Her recipe for a masculine card includes neutral colors, twine, die cut and embossing folder. Now,  I certainly have many newer stamp sets that I could have used, but sometimes I like to open up my wooden stamp drawers and see what jumps out. Today, it was Hawaii. Maybe because I'm starting to want to travel? Who knows, but here's my masculine Hawaiian card using LeAnne's recipe. I've used Jacquuie's Freshly Made Sketch for the layout.

The background is ink blended using Distress inks in Frayed Burlap, Vintage Photo and Gathered Twigs. (While the iPhone takes pretty good photos, this one does not do justice to the blended inks. They are very shimmery with a warm gold under tone.) After the ink dried, I stamped the map image with GKD Charcoal Brown ink.  I used the GKD Master Layouts 1 to cut the stamped panel and the mat in brown. I used two EFs, first the SU linen folder and then the Tim Holtz Burlap. I stamped the other various images on a piece of GKD Sandy Beach paper then cut them out using a SU stitched rectangle die and cut brown mats for each piece. The twine is actually a piece of SU burlap ribbon that I cut down. The three stamped rectangles are popped up with SU Dimensionals.

I used the map again here on the inside of the card with the Aloha greeting. 

So who is ready for some Hawaiian sun? Hopefully, we'll feel safe to travel again in the not too distant future. Until then, we have memories.

Have a great rest of the weekend, and thanks for looking in.

Colleen

Supplies

Hawaiian themed stamps by ©RSP Honolulu Hawaii, Gina K Designs Sandy Beach and Charcoal Brown card stock, Charcoal Brown ink, and Master Layouts 1 & 2, Distress inks in Vintage Photo, Gathered Twigs, Frayed Burlap, Tim Holtz Burlap embossing folder, SU Linen 3D embossing folder, Stitched Rectangle dies, SU Burlap ribbon, Dimensionals, Honey Bee Warm Wishes stamp set (sending)

Happy Trails

Hello peeps,

I hope your weekend was relaxing. I did some cleaning in our back yard yesterday morning, and then some reading in the afternoon. Today, I did some stamping in the afternoon. Besides the card in this post, I got Mr. Personal Chef's birthday card done too. He has a birthday two weeks from yesterday. I'll post his card later in the week. No danger of him seeing it as he does not read my blog.

Since it's Sunday, a new Paper Players Challenge is up for us. It's CAS week and I used the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches to help me along.

To make my masculine themed card, I pulled out an older set by Taylored Expressions called S'more Fun. It's one of the TE Stamp of the Month sets from August 2013. This is a side fold, one layer card other than the card stock used to make the sketch elements and I did fussy cut out the trailer and pop it up using Dimensionals. 

Both the inside and outside of my card use images from the stamp set. Most of the inks and papers are also from TE.

Unfortunately, I don't think there will be many hitting the trails with their trailers this Memorial Day holiday weekend.

Thanks for looking in and happy new work week,
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: S'more Fun set by Taylored Expressions
Paper: TE Buttercream, navy, kraft and red card stocks
Ink: TE ink cubes Blue Corn, Key Lime, Fruit Punch, VersaMark
Other: Silver Detail EP, heat tool, Misti, Dimensionals, Gina K Connect glue

Thanks A Latte

Hello all,

I hope you're having a great weekend so far. Today is Sunday, and that means it's time for a new Paper Players challenge. Laurie is our hostess and this week we are playing Tic-Tac-Toe. I think these are some of my favorite challenges to do.

For this one, I decided on the right side, down option of masculine-red-diecut.

I used a sketch from Sunday Stamps Weekly from a few weeks ago. The coffee stamps and dies are from Reverse Confetti. The patterned papers are Lawn Fawn, and I found these enamel stars in my stash from Doodlebug which I thought made great embellishments to go along with the stars in the patterned papers. The curved banner is the new SU punch.

The large cup is die cut from white card stock. Then I stamped the tall coffee cup onto the red patterned paper and fussy cut it for paper piecing. The "coffee" was stamped on white and fussy cut and placed into the top of the cup.

Here is look at the inside with more stamps and dies from Reverse Confetti. The cup and coffee are paper pieced here as well.

It's funny that I don't drink coffee but I love all of the coffee related paper crafting creativity we see around blog land lately. Go figure!

Stop by the rest of the DT's blogs for more awesome Tic-Tac-Toe inspiration. You'll find them here:

The Paper Players Design Team

Claire Broadwater

Jaydee

Joanne James

Laurie Schmidt

LeAnne Pugliese

Nance Leedy

Sandy Mathis

Linda Callahan

Hannelie Bester

I know you will all have loads of fun with this challenge and I can't wait to see what everyone creates. 

On a personal note, our East coast vacation is coming to an end. We fly back home to San Diego on Tuesday.We've had a fabulous time!

Thanks for stopping by,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Be A Barista and Caffeinated Cups sets by Reverse Confetti

Paper: Taylored Expressions textured red card stock, X-Press It Blending card stock, Lawn Fawn patterned papers

Ink: Memento tuxedo black, SU Riding Hood Red, Hero Arts Cup O Joe and Soft Brown

Other: Reverse Confetti dies, Die-namics large banner die and Fishtail Flags Stax dies, 

SU Banner punch, Doodlebug enamel stars and dots, the Big Shot and dimensionals