A Good Day

According to my favorite Stamplorations' coffee-related stamp set (designed by my lovely friend Becca Cruger for her Big Grins line) "A good day has both coffee and you"! Of course a truly GREAT day might have coffee, you, and the awesome Coffee Loving Cardmakers' Fall/Winter Blog Hop!   

The seasonal theme requirement of the Coffee Lovers' recent hops has been suspended, but we're in the midst of some beautiful fall weather here in central New Jersey, plus I had some Colorbursted collage leaves leftover from another project, so I went autumnal.

I used Becca's Literary Caffeine-ations for my sentiment, and that adorable to-go cup (which I paper pieced from appropriately colored scraps) is from a set appropriately called A Cuppa Love. By the way, Stamplorations is having a "Season of Thanksgiving" sale until November 30th with LOTS of things 25% off, so you should probably check that out!

While you're at it, hop over to the Stamplorations Blog and take a look at their current challenges, including the November Theme and Photo Prompt which inspired my choice of colors! 

Then be sure to go over and check out the cards linked up for the  Coffee Loving Cardmakers' Hop... there were already over 800 amazing cards when I added mine to the list!

I Like You a Latte

I never get tired of making coffee cards, especially when I can use my Eyelet Outlet Coffee Brads, Heart Brads, Sequins and Paper Flowers! 

This card is extra special because I used a STAMPlorations set called A Cuppa Love* designed by my amazing friend Becca... aka the Damsel of Distressed Cards... and an ARTplorations stencil called Dots 'n Beans; both of which I was lucky enough to win in last fall's Coffee Loving Cardmakers Blog Hop. So it seemed only fitting to use them in the Spring/Summer Hop, which is taking place right now!

I tried literally all of my brown and tan Oxide colors with the Dots 'n Beans stencil, and every single one looked awesome. But I wanted a slightly lighter, brighter, Spring vibe, and eventually I had a brainwave to try Spun Sugar. Weirdly enough, that was The One, lol! I stamped the sentiment in (appropriately enough) Ground Espresso, colored the mug with Tombows, cut it out and added a Heart Brad. I was happy with my cluster of mug, Paper Flower (with Coffee Bean Brad center!) and sentiment, but somehow it needed just one more thing. I'm not saying the answer to, "What does this card need?" is *ALWAYS* Eyelet Outlet Sequins, but that does turn out to be true a fair amount of the time, and they did the trick here!

Be sure to visit the Coffee Loving Cardmakers Hop to see all the amazing cards, then start planning what you will make to get a shot at all those awesome prizes!!! ♥

*Becca's A Cuppa Love stamp set is so awesome that it has sold out at STAMPlorations. 

Luckily she has a whole line called Big Grins, and I predict you will love them as much as I do! ♥   

More Coffee, Please!

But don't let the title put you off if you're (gasp!) not a coffee drinker, because this fortnight at Shopping Our Stash, the challenge is called "Hot Beverages for Cold Nights" and we're making cards that feature ANY hot beverage, so you're still good to go with tea, cocoa, gluwein, warm milk, hot cider; I suppose one could even make a case for soup? I went with coffee, though, because it's my favorite.

I confess I was psyched when I saw this challenge, because I knew I had the awesome "Literary Caffeine-ations" Stamp Set my friend Becca Cruger designed for Stamplorations (she has her own line called Big Grins by Becca Cruger; just sayin'...) and I haven't used it in a while, which seemed like a shocking oversight... but perfect for SOS! Last week I also found a few stray sheets from Prima's Pretty Pale in the vaults at my lss, Paper Anthology, and since it's one of my alltime favorite paper collections, I obviously had to use that. I broke out my Stephanie Barnard coffee cup dies, a few miscellaneous Eyelet Outlet Flower Brads and some ancient burlap sunflowers. Et Voila! 

I thought this card was going to have more autumnal shades in it; but in the end, it wound up being just tans, browns and yellows with lots of white. So it may be disqualified from Stamplorations' October Theme and Photo Prompt Challenge, and I will completely understand. Their challenge did inspire me, though!

I hope you'll hop over to see what the SOS gang have made, I guarantee you'll find some inspiration there... I know I always do! ♥

coffee tawk :)

this week at shopping our stash it's all about our "caffeine fix" so we'd like to see your best coffee or tea themed projects!

"literary caffeine-ations" stamp set by becca cruger for STAMPlorations; patterned paper: amy tangerine/american crafts; crate paper, recollections + scraps of glossy white cardstock for the lid and faux polaroid; flair + felt dimensional sticker: american crafts; ink: stewart superior india ink; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape

i've been really into free-form paper piecing lately, so i built a takeaway coffee cup using a clipart image as a template, some super-fun papers and a really cool (really ollllllllllllld!) dimensional felt element for the center bit. luckily i had the *perfect* stamp set for the sentiment, "literary caffeine-ations" from STAMPlorations designed by my lovely blogging friend becca cruger. check it out:

i used the current (awesome!) retro sketch (#186) though admittedly i've played around with the proportions in a big big way:

the other SOS designers have some pretty fabulous projects to show you as well, darlings... why not hop over and check those out, then come play along, won't you?! ♥