Inspired by All the Little Things: March 2017

LauraJane

Leigh Penner

To The Full

Marcie Sharp
Sharp Designs

Sheri Gilson

Silke Ledlow

Wanda Cullen

Culinary Creations

...and of course one from me!

Tracey McNeely

In My Creative Opinion

We hope you will play along with us!

The linky will close on Friday, March 31st at 12:00pm. (PST)

Some simple rules to keep things organized and enjoyable:

Please use the graphic for your post and link back to this post.
Any posts that are offensive will be removed.
Please comment on the submissions of others...we all love the support!
Yes you can combine with other challenges but NOT other inspiration challenges please.
Have fun and challenge yourself!

An InLinkz Link-up

Saturday, March 18, 2017

Inspired By the Little Things #48

Hello and welcome to Inspired By All The Little Things! This is a weekly inspiration challenge blog and each week we feature a wonderful designer who inspires us as an artist!

This week as my guest designer, I have invited my talented cyber friend...

Leanne Elliott!

I asked Leanne to share a bit about herself...

1. What is the name of your blog? When and why did you start it?

Banking On Crafts http://bankingoncrafts.blogspot.ca/ I started my blog February 2, 2010 , when my friends figured I needed to share my cards/crafts with others, enter some challenges, and apply to be on some design teams. My friend Tamie picked out the name for me.

2. What is your style of card making?

I am not sure what the word would be for my style, maybe Lots of Layers, I do like adding lots of details layers to my cards, CAS is what I call hard for me, they are lovely, but all that white flat space scares me.

3. Who inspires you as a designer?

The design teams I am on, the talent is phenomenal and just amazes me to see what they create each week/month, so no one specific.

4. What sort of things inspire you as a card maker? Photos? Sketches? Other designers?

Sometimes I see nice ideas from Pinterest or Splitcoaststampers, but other times it just comes from my head, I envision what a theme or challenge is and I try to recreate it on paper, sounds corny I know. I also like videos with new techniques to try, and then put my own spin on it, sometimes it works other times it's a flop. If making a card for a specific person in mind, I go with what I think they like, my friend Lori likes coffee, so she would get a card with coffee cups/beans something like that.

5. Share something about yourself that we may not know?

I work in my home office, I have been working for the bank for 15 years as a Mortgage Specialist Assistant. So with crafting it has worked out well.

Here is Leanne's card using this week's inspiration!

The challenge designers have also created a card for this week's inspiration! I hope you will play along with us this week! We would love to have you join us!

Kimberly Lackenbach

LauraJane

Leigh Penner

To The Full

Marcie Sharp
Sharp Designs

Sheri Gilson

Silke Ledlow -- I'm on Spring Break :)

Wanda Cullen

Culinary Creations

And one from me - Karen Day

Karen's Creations

We hope you will play along with us!

The linky will close on Friday, March 24th at 11:55am. (PST)

Some simple rules to keep things organized and enjoyable:

Please use the graphic for your post and link back to this post.
Any posts that are offensive will be removed.
Please comment on the submissions of others...we all love the support!
Yes you can combine with other challenges but NOT other inspiration challenges please.
Have fun and challenge yourself!

Inspiring Stand Outs for Challenge #47

Thank you all so much for joining us this week for the Inspired by Challenge #47. We loved seeing how you were inspired in all of your creative projects.

A special thank you to Michelle Lupton for being our Creative Guest this week!

Both Michelle and I have chosen our stand outs!

These are the submissions that have earned a special Inspiring Stand Out badge this week. Please go ahead and display the badge on your blog!

Michelle's Choice:

Eliz Stewart

Michelle says: "I really like #8, Eliz Stewart - such fun making a rainbow from a piano keyboard!"

Karren's Choice:

Creamaria

"This card by Creamaria has it all! So much texture and interest and both the music theme and the rainbow colors were included. Fabulous card!"

Congratulations to our winners and thank you to everyone who played along with us this week! We will be back in one hour with a brand new challenge!

The next challenge goes live at 5:00 am PST.

Saturday, March 11, 2017

Inspired By All The Little Things #47 featuring Michelle Lupton

Hello, it's Karren here! Welcome to Inspired By All The Little Things! This is a weekly inspiration challenge blog and each week we feature a wonderful designer who inspires us as an artist!

This week I have invited...

Michelle Lupton

I asked Michelle to share a bit about herself...

1. What is the name of your blog? When and why did you start it?

My blog is called "Handmade by Michelle" - I know, pretty boring, but when I started it, I was not really aware of very many cardmaking blogs. I only discovered the whole world of card challenges in July, 2011 after I started my blog in February 2011. I started my blog as a way of keeping track of my own cards, and recording where I got inspiration from.

2. What is your style of card making?

I like to try different styles, but I always return to CAS cardmaking. At the end of each year, I post a bunch of my favourite cards from that year to my blog, and from those cards, you can tell that I love white space, I'm not into a lot of layers, I love a rainbow and blues and greens, and I like using stencils and watercolours and Distress Inks. My latest love is Zig clean colour real brush markers.

3. Who inspires you as a designer?

Oh, there are so many! For techniques, I love Jennifer McGuire. For Copic colouring, I adore Kelly Latevola. For her use of colour and her inventiveness, Laura Bassen. For her mastery of soft and pretty, Debby Hughes. And for their versatility, Jessica Frost Ballas and Therese Calvird. I am also inspired by all my teammates at A Blog Named Hero, and at the Fusion Card Challenge.

4. What sort of things inspire you as a card maker? Photos? Sketches? Other designers?

Quite often, I am inspired by stamps and inks - I will often just grab a stamp and some inks and start from there. I do love looking through Instagram and Pinterest, and will often take an idea from another cardmaker - a way of using a product, or a technique, or a colour scheme - and try to use it without directly copying it. I used to always follow sketches to the letter, but now I am more likely to let the stamp guide what the card ends up looking like, rather than making the stamp fit a sketch.

5. Share something about yourself that we may not know?

Um, my Instagram profile says I'm a "card-making, choir-singing, cupcake-baking science nerd". I have also been described as having a serious case of introversion ;)

Here is Michelle's stunning card using this week's inspiration!

The challenge designers have also created a card for this week's inspiration! These ladies just inspire me SO much!!! I hope you will play along with us this week! We would love to have you join us!

Kimberly Lackenbach

LauraJane

Leigh Penner

To The Full

Marcie Sharp
Sharp Designs

Sheri Gilson

Silke Ledlow

Wanda Cullen

Cullen-ary Creations

And, finally, a card from me (Karren)

We hope you will play along with us!

The linky will close on Friday, 17 March at 11:55am. (PST)

Some simple rules to keep things organized and enjoyable:

Please use the graphic for your post and link back to this post.
Any posts that are offensive will be removed.
Please comment on the submissions of others...we all love the support!
Yes you can combine with other challenges but NOT other inspiration challenges please.
Have fun and challenge yourself!

Inspiring Standouts for Challenge #46

Thank you all so much for joining us this week for the Inspired by Challenge #46.

We loved seeing how you were inspired in all of your creative projects!
These are the submissions that have earned a special Inspiring Stand Out this week.
Please go ahead and display the badge on your blog.

A special thank you to Lindsey Larsen of Occasional Crafting
for being our Creative Guest this week!

Both Lindsey and I have chosen our stand outs.

Lindsey's pick is #4 by Teresa Kline:

"I feel like Teresa's card captured the feel perfectly!"

And my pick is #3 by ElizStewart:

"I just adore the wonderful scene she created!

Her card makes me happy and makes me wish I owned that stamp set!"

Congratulations ladies and thank you to everyone who played along with us this week!

We will be back in nine minutes with a brand new challenge!

The next challenge goes live at 5:00 am PST.

Saturday, March 4, 2017

Inspired by all the Little Things #46 featuring Lindsey Larsen

Hello and welcome to Inspired By All The Little Things! This is a weekly inspiration challenge blog and each week we feature a wonderful designer who inspires us as an artist!

Hey there, Leigh here.

Lesley requested a break while she's preparing to have her baby

and asked me to fill in for her for the next few months.

This week I have invited a friend who I not only

admire as a stamper, but also as a person,

as she is as lovely on the inside as she is on the outside:

Lindsey Larsen of Occasional Crafting.

I asked Lindsey to share a bit about herself...

1. What is the name of your blog? When and why did you start it?

Occasional Crafting - I started my blog on a whim. It was during some PTI anniversary festivities, and they were hosting tons of challenges. I'd made cards inspired by challenges before, but never shared them because I didn't have a blog. Literally just minutes before the midnight deadline I decided to start a blog. I had no idea what I was doing and frantically tried to think of a name. Occasional Crafting is what popped into my head because that was the truth...I had a baby and time to craft was a rare occasion. When I typed the web address I accidentally hit "s" twice...a typo that has always bugged me. I started my blog in 2012 but have taken huge (like 6+ months) breaks at different times.

2. What is your style of card making?

I'm on a never ending quest for a cleaner more simplified life, so I am happiest when I stick to a clean and simple card making style.

3. Who inspires you as a designer?

Who doesn't is probably a better question. I'm inspired by so many people for lots of different reasons. Often I am equally if not more inspired by the card maker as a person than by their cards. I guess I just love to surround myself with good, uplifting people and the fact that they share a similar crafty love is a huge bonus. :)

4. What sort of things inspire you as a card maker? Photos?
Sketches? Other designers?

Everything! I'm constantly scribbling ideas and color combinations on scraps of paper or napkins, tearing pages out of magazines (usually children's clothing), and snapping pictures of things I see.

5. Share something about yourself that we may not know?

Hmmm...I don't have anything really interesting, so here are a few random things. I love to try out new recipes, my weakness is buying children's books, I crave salty over sweet 99% of the time, I'm a speech pathologist by trade and still really love learning especially about things related to my field, I wish I was an awesome gardener, and I rarely buy anything right as it is released. Most often I research and ponder (often for hours) before making a purchase.

Here is Lindsey's card using this week's inspiration!

The challenge designers have also created a card for this week's inspiration!

These ladies just inspire me SO much!!!

I hope you will play along with us this week -- we would love to have you join us!

Kimberly Lackenbach

LauraJane

Leigh Penner

To The Full

Marcie Sharp
Sharp Designs

Sheri Gilson

Silke Ledlow