Signs of Spring

I made a card for my Skipping Stones Design Team March post and loved it so much that I decided to make a set. I do not like to make the same card over and over with the exact same papers etc., so this is a variation on that initial theme. For me, Spring days are full of birds chirping, flowers blooming and of course, coffee drinking. Lately I have been enjoying the lovely pastel cups at Starbucks. 

Today is also the last day of the Spring Coffee Lovers Blog Hop and I will be linking this card there. If you are in need of some inspiration and love coffee ( or tea or hot cocoa ) , please check out the Blog Hop. There are over 1000 link-ups this time -- an amazing record !! Shout-out to Amy Tsuruta and Chaitali Narla for coming up with the idea for this fabulous Hop back in Sept.2014.

• Using  Memories Black India Ink, I stamped the cup from  Skipping Stones Design Coffee Volume #2 and the sentiment from Best of Birds on white cardstock and cut them our. I also stamped the cup on a piece of  Crate Paper "Farmhouse" and cut out the sleeve portion.
• On a piece of polka-dotted patterned paper from We R Memory Keepers "Flower Girl" collection, I stamped the bird from SSD Heartsong 2 in the lower right corner and the music notes from  SSD Best of Birds above where the coffee cup would be placed.
• Portions of the bird and the top of the coffee cup were colored with Tim Holtz Distress Markers and Faber Castell PITT Artist Pens. A hint of shimmer was made using Wink of Stella Clear Brush Pen.
• I adhered the sleeve to the cup, then placed it on the left side of the patterned paper, underneath the steamy music notes. I was quite proud of thinking of that idea !! A paper-punched heart  ( using Pink Paislee "Memorandum" ) was adhered above the bird with the sentiment popped up on top with foam dimensionals.
• For some cute finishing touches, I added a bright green glitter heart to the coffee-cup sleeve and a strip of grass washi along the bottom of the patterned paper. 

I hope you've been inspired by my card. It's a dreary.rainy day here in Virginia Beach,VA, but any day off work is lovely to me !!  Stay creative and have a wonderful weekend !!

Debra Davison/ Meticulosity

Heartsong 2

Best of Birds

Coffee 2

Let Your Dreams Bloom

Another installment of our blog collaboration is here and I guess you could say that we have gone International. Our March guest is my friend, Liz McGuire from Glasgow,Scotland. She is amazingly talented and has been on many Design Teams as well as being published in numerous paper-crafting magazines. We wanted Liz to choose our theme for this month's posts and she came up with this Inspiration Board. Don't you just love these colors, especially with Spring right around the corner ?!?!

As soon as I saw this, I immediately thought of a stamp set that I have had for awhile but have not gotten inky yet. I'm sure you have some of those in your stash,don't you ? I had fun paper-piecing on this card - one of the techniques that I love using, It allows me to combine 2 of my loves - stamps & patterned paper !!

• I started off with a patterned card base by My Mind's Eye that was a perfect color for this challenge. I kind of have a "thing" for boxes of patterned cards. 
• I stamped the succulents and sentiment from the Unity Stamp Company stamp kit Succulent Salutations, which was their June 2016 sentiment kit. It is an amazing kit with the main image, 14 sentiments, a flower and 2 cute birds. My ink pad was  Memories Black India Ink.
• The images/sentiment were stamped on Stardust cardstock and several pieces of scrap patterned paper that were luckily in the colors from this month's Inspiration Board. See, it helps to keep those scraps !! At least, that is what I have been telling myself all these years ...
• A yellow doily was folded and placed in the upper L corner. The sentiment was stamped, then punched out with my ever-faithful square paper-punch. I then stapled it to a contrasting square of patterned paper and attached it to the doily with a Pop-Up Glue Dot.
• On the main image of succulents, I paper-pieced the R and L vases and the middle succulent. I then colored the remaining areas with my Tim Holtz Distres Markers. For some shimmer, I used a Wink of Stella Clear Glitter Brush Pen. 
• A strip of glitter washi was placed at the bottom of the image as a shelf for the succulents. Tombow Adhesive was used to adhere the stamped images, paper-pieces and doily onto the card.

This month's card has been brought to you by an amazing cup of Jamaica Me Crazy coffee in my wonderfully colorful mag. I hope that you are inspired by our Inspiration Board chosen by Liz and that you liked the card I created. Now it's time for you to head over to  Crafting Junky to see what Celeste came up with. I hope you will also take a look at Liz's blog  Buttons for Brains - I am sure that she has outdone herself !! We welcome your comments on each of our blogs and also invite you to follow each of us. Thank you SO much to Liz for helping us broaden our horizons and taking this collaboration to another level !!

This is where I blog ....

Succulent Salutations

Debra Davison

Meticulosity.blogspot.com