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!

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! ♥