Good morning & Happy Friday! Well, I managed to post a card on Monday and then took a hiatus from the blog until today. Jon has been gone on a retreat for the past couple days so it’s about all I can do to make sure Madi and I are showered and fed each day. *wink* My MIL arrived yesterday so I had some time to get a little work done (including making this card for today’s sketch which is hardly considered work, right?). I hope you’ll have some time to play along in the next few weeks because this sketch that Jen designed is super fun! Here it is:

Here are the sketch requirements:

Create a card using the above sketch as inspiration. You’re not required
to use TE stamps to play, but there’s a bonus prize if you do! To be
entered into the prize drawing you must link your card using the In
Linkz provided below by Thursday, May 10th. And of course there are
prizes that are up for grabs:

1. I will randomly select one person from all of the challenge links to
receive a $10 gift certificate to the TE Store! If you used
predominantly TE Stamps on your project you’ll receive an extra $10
bonus for a total $20 gift certificate!

2. I will select my favorite card to win Top Chef honors! The winner of
the Top Chef will play along with the sketch crew and have her blog
and card design featured here on the TE blog.

The random winner of a $10 gift certificate to the TE Store is Jennifer and she created this ‘love’ly card. Congrats! Please email me to claim your prize!

And the winner of our Top Chef honors is Rosemary who created this gorgeous card using the latest TE Key Ingredients kit and Make it Amazing stamp set! I love the addition of the cork layer behind the butterfly!  Rosemary will be
joining with the sketch crew for TESC158 and we’ll learn more about
her then!

But for now it’s time to welcome this week’s Top Chef and long-time TE customer, Colleen Begley! We asked her a few questions to learn a little more about
her:

Thanks for your kind words. Here are my answers to the interview questions:

Q: What is your favorite stamping technique?

A: I’d say currently I have two. I love to color images and I love to paper piece images. 

Since I discovered Copics, I’ve been doing more and more coloring.
I’ve taken the Standard Certification Class (Lori Craig taught the class
and it was fabulous) and I try to practice all of the techniques
we learned. I love blending colors and I love how the shading looks on
stamped images. As for paper piecing, it just gives so many options on
how the final image will look. FYI: the key to paper piecing is a great
pair of detail scissors.

Q: What is your favorite TE stamp set?

A: Really? You expect me to choose just one?  (I think that I have almost all
of them.) I guess I would answer this by choosing a line of TE stamps. I
love the Moka line because the stamps are great images to do my two
favorite techniques above. However, I do love all of my TE sets.

Q: What is your favorite TE die?

A: Again, hard to choose just one, so I’m going with types. I think
the two I would pick are the TE Impressions plates because I love the
texture they add and the border dies.

Q: What is the crafty item that you can’t live without?

A: Why everything! Seriously though, I’m a layer girl. I LOVE lots of
layers on cards. So, the things I couldn’t live without are patterned
papers and my Big Shot and dies.  Periodically, I will try to do one
layer cards, minimalist cards, etc. because I just love the look of them
when I’m cruising around blog-land. But, when I do them myself, I just
never think they work and I know it’s because they just aren’t MY style.
It’s pretty funny too, because for the longest time, I put off buying a
die-cutting machine. I just didn’t think that I’d use it that much. Boy
was I wrong! I think I use my Big Shot on 99.9% of my cards. As for
patterned papers, I’ll give Taylor’s Key Ingredients a plug here. I’ve
been subscribing to the monthly KI for a few years now and I just love
the variety of patterned papers that I now have in my stash.

Thanks so much for letting us into a piece of your stamping world, Colleen! It is always so much fun to see what you do with TE stamps and dies! Make sure you scroll down a bit to check out Colleen’s card using this week’s sketch and then head over to her blog, Colleen’s Creative Corner to see all of her beautiful work!

For my project I decided to grab the Embrace Beauty set. The solid circular images seemed to be perfect for this sketch and I didn’t have a lot of time to create so I needed something that didn’t require coloring. I started by stamping the image onto woodgrain patterned paper from the My Mind’s Eye Dolled Up 6×6 paper pad. I love stamping solid images onto patterned paper! Then I layered the image onto Spellbinders Fleur De Lis Doily cut from a gingham patterned paper. I added a satin bow, sentiment in Dark Brown Chalk Ink and Ivory & Cream Lotus Whimsies to finish it off. It’s not my usual style, but I really like how it turned out!

Don’t miss the rest of the sketch crew creations below. These girls rock the house!

 Created by Cassie Trask: A Day in the Life of a Homeschooling Mom

 Created by Colleen Begley: Colleen’s Creative Corner

 Created by Jami Sibley: More is More

 Created by Monika Davis: M.A.D. Stamper

Created by Tracy Clemente: Eat, Sleep, Stamp

 Created by Rachel Sztonyk: Gingerbread Gal

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