Birthdays, blue, Basic Grey, and balloons are just a few things that come to mind when I think about the letter b and my crafting. How about you? This week we challenge you to use this letter as inspiration and share with us what B stands for in your crafting!

Ashli is thinking of Birds this week…

I was inspired to use my Dina Wakley Bird Stamps this week to create a whimsical collage. Stamping the image in Black Archival, I then added plenty of colorful Acrylic Paint and Watercolors. Some hand drawn houses and machine stitching finish it off!

Suzz was inspired by butterflies and sunshine for this challenge.

With the weather being extremely cold and below zero temperatures I jumped at the chance to create a summery canvas featuring the beautiful Stamper Anonymous 2015 watercolor butterfly. To bring a little sunshine into my background I added texture with Wendy Vecchi Embossing Paste and sprayed it with the lovely yellow from Ranger Distress Stain Spray – Mustard Seed.

Meihsia was inspired to create an art journal page with beautiful butterflies.

Tim Holtz Rubber Stamp 2015 Watercolor Butterfly is so beautiful that I have to use it on my art journal right after I received it. I first applied Distress Spray Stain to make the background. The flower was stamped using Garden Flower Rubber Stamp 2015 and the sentiment was made with Tim Holtz Rubber Stamp 2015 Live with Your Dream.

Mona was inspired to create a layout featuring shades of blue, bricks and butterflies.

When thinking of the letter B, a brick textured and stamped brick background made for the perfect background for my layout. Pretty shades of blue and brown Distress Spray Stains made for the perfect color palette along with beautiful butterfly Remnant Rubs fluttering about.

B is for Barbara, and what did she make?

For me it was easy this week to find inspiration for our challenge. I prepared a card inspired by love with Core’dinations Cardstock and one adorable little bird. Tim’s stamps “Bird crazy” has completely captured me! I love their expressions, their forms and the chance to give them life with color. For the background I used Distress Watercolor Cardstock and a stencil with Distress stains. The “crazy bird” I chose is the most cute for me and his eyes made me immediately think about love. I hope to inspire you too!

Sandra thought of a bookmark for this letter B challenge

I don’t have a bookmark and need one since I started reading before bed again. I read paperbacks and did some measurements to determine the perfect size. I cut it out of Manilla Cardstock. As first layer I played with the new Cracked Pistachio Ink and Morrocan stencil. On top I applied a layer of Gesso with a Palette Knife and building more layers with Cracked Pistachio and Peacock Feathers Stain.

Michelle is packaging up some encouragement with Buttons, Brown Paper Bags, and Love!

In gift-giving, everyone knows that it’s the thought that counts. So why not proclaim your thoughts boldly? The Hand Lettered Encouragement sentiment is beautiful enough to be the focus of this gift bag. A simple token of love looks extra-special wrapped in glittered Bags with button trim.

Anna-Karin was thinking of birds and made an art journal page.

I cannot withstand a bird stamp and just got Tim Holtz Bird Crazy set. These birds are so much fun and they called out for a bright and happy page, done in my Small Creative Journal. The background was made with Distress Paint, and Archival Ink stamping. I also die cut branches for the birds to stand on, using the Branch Tree die, one of my all time favourite dies.

Andrea was inspired by Austin Kleon’s blackout poems and decided to try one of her own.

If you’ve never heard of Austin Kleon or his clever blackout poems, they are quite remarkable! With a Sharpie in hand, he blacks out 95% of the words on a newspaper page leaving only a few visible words which make up a poem. I was so intrigued by his concept that I tried it myself, only I used a book page instead of a newspaper and I traded in a black Sharpie for Dina Wakley’s paint, her Textures stamps, and Donna Downey’s Dandelion Pods stencil.

I (May) immediately thought about favorite shades of blue.

For me, few blues can compare with Salty Ocean! I just love that it plays nicely with fellow blues, greens, pinks, pastels, or even browns. Armed with some Gathered Twigs brown and a few new ideaology goodies I had a lot of fun creating this tag and being inspired by this color.

Don’t miss Emma’s tutorial on Wednesday, when she will show you what she created using the letter B as inspiration.

For more inspiration click on our design team’s blog links so you can see more photos (and full supply lists) for their projects. Leave them a little comment love while you’re there so they know how they’ve inspired you too, if you’re so inclined.

As always, Simon Says Stamp is giving away a $50 gift voucher that will go to a random entry chosen by random generator. To qualify all you need to do is create a new project that ties in (in any way!) with our theme and post it, along with a link back to this challenge, and add a link here. This challenge will end at 11:59pm on Sunday March 15th Eastern time. We will also be choosing some of our entries to put in the spotlight – a special honor where we talk about why we loved that entry in particular and award a special badge too! For the full rules, read the “challenge rules” posted in the side-bar here on our blog.

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