Hello beautiful

Today I'm sharing I card I made for the February Essentials by Ellen Pin-Sights Challenge.  The board this month is gorgeous!

The thing that stood out to me the most was the beautiful bucket of flowers.  I really love red and purple together, so that was my starting inspiration for my card.

I decided to use a technique that I saw on Melissa Phillips blog, LilyBean Paperie.  Here's the LINK if you'd like to check out her gorgeous cards!  To start my card I die cut the largest flower die from Mondo Magnolia using a piece of scrap paper to use as a stencil.  I taped my stencil onto some Tim Holtz watercolor paper and used my ink blending tool and several inks to apply random color.  The red is Barn Red distress ink and I used 2 shades of purple that I got from Club Scrap years ago so I'm not even sure who they're made by.  When I was happy with the colors I added some water droplets.  Next I used a text stamp from Waltzingmouse Stamps and Barn Red distress ink and stamped on top of the flower (with the stencil still in place).  After removing the stencil I added some splatters using both the red and purple inks mixed with some water.

To make the vellum flower I die cut the middle flower shape from Mondo Magnolia from vellum paper and then embossed the center portion of the flower on the vellum with white embossing powder.  The word "hello" is from Mondo Magnolia.  The die cut "beautiful", and the hearts, were cut using Concord & 9th's Beautiful You dies.  It's hard to see in this picture but after I cut the shapes I coated them with Versa Mark ink and white embossing powder and embossed them.  I wanted the white to match the white in the center of the flower.  And one of the things I love best about this card is the cool border die which is from Sugar Pea Designs.  This is my first purchase from that company.  I saw a card made by Amy T. using this die and I had to have it.  What I love about it is that it cuts an A2 card front just as you see here.  So many times I want a very subtle border around my cards and this fits the bill perfectly!  I'm sure you'll be seeing it on a lot of my cards.

That's all from me for now.  I'm headed out of town in 2 days for a week at my Mom's in GA so I won't be on the blog very much for the next week or so other than with my scheduled DT posts.  See you when I get back!

The Challenge #62

Happy Monday, hope you had a wonderful weekend!  Today at The Challenge we have a masculine inspiration challenge.

This challenge was quite a challenge for me lol!  The first thing my eye was drawn to was the map on the wall, and of course I have no map stamps or papers.  I could have gone with just the colors, but I really wanted to pick something out of the room.  I saw the hat, but I have no hat stamps.  Then I spied the camera on the table (almost missed it!), and I thought, BINGO, I have a camera stamp, and it's a Tim Holtz camera stamp which gives it a masculine feel.  Hooray and score!  Next I pulled out the slide frame die from PTI since it worked with my theme.  As for paper,  I wanted to use some kind of brown on my card because the big brown leather couch really stands out to me, so I searched through my paper pads and found the brown arrow paper in a Studio Calico THATAWAY paper pad and I thought it would be perfect with the stamped image.  All of the papers on my card are from that paper pack.  I cut a few little arrows with a die from MFT and stacked several layers to give them more dimension.  I also added several layers to just the outside piece of the slide frame for dimension.  The card is finished with a bit of twine.  For as much as I angsted over what I was going to do for this challenge,  I'm very pleased with how everything came together.  Ahhh, such is the life of a card maker!

I hope you'll try your hand at the inspiration photo, can't wait to see what you create!  Be sure to pop over to Lesley's blog to see her card and what the rest of the DT has created!

Have a fabulous week!

 

Happy Easter

I'm sneaking in with a last minute card for the February Reverse Confetti SFYTT.  I was waiting for the Hippity Hoppity stamp set to arrive, along with the Lawn Fawn plaid paper pad that I'd ordered from Simon Says Stamp, to create my card.  I had an idea in mind for the sketch, and although my original plan didn't work out I'm very happy with the card I ended up creating.

I stamped some of the tiny images from Hippity Hoppity onto the larger hearts from the Love Note Confetti Cuts and colored them with Copics.  I used the heart outlines from Stamped Note Confetti Cuts to "frame" the Love Note hearts.  I used a piece of the Lawn Fawn plaid paper and cut out the scalloped frame from Love Notes.  If you look closely at the card base you'll see that I stamped some dots (PTI) using light blue ink, I felt that the white background needed a little something but I wanted it to be very subtle.  I finished my card with some light blue bakers twine.

I'm so glad you stopped by today, hope you have a wonderful weekend!

The Card Concept #49

Well hello there, so glad you stopped by today!  I have a card to share that I'm entering in the current Card Concept challenge in the freestyle collage category.  I fell in love with the gorgeous colors in the inspiration photo and had to try my hand at making a card!

The flowers are from Concord & 9th's Floral & Flutter Dies.  I cut them from white card stock and then used a variety of inks and my ink blending tool to color them (Hero Arts Fresh Peach, PTI's Harvest Gold, and Spiced Marmalade distress ink).  For the background I used Cracked Pistachio distress ink and my ink blending tool to lay down some soft color, then I stamped the leaves from Concord & 9th's Wildflower stamp set with Cracked Pistachio for a very subtle look.  I added some splashes of Spiced Marmalade and Cracked Pistachio to the background also.  The sentiment is from Concord & 9th's Beautiful Words stamp set.  I added a few highlights to the flowers with my white gel pen and some Wink of Stella (which you can't see in the photo unfortunately!), and finished the card with gold sequins.

That's all for now, hope you have a wonderful day!

Fusion Card Challenge

Today I'm playing along with the Fusion Card Challenge-Pretty in Pink!  I really love the inspiration photo, the colors pack a real WOW factor in my book!!

I also have a close up of the cake, I added Wink of Stella which you can't see at all on the above photo.

I used the Eat Cake & Celebrate stamps and dies from Concord & 9th to make my card.  They're having a special this month to celebrate their 6 month anniversary and I got these stamps and dies for FREE with a purchase!

To make my card I first stamped the card base with the stripes (Watercolor Stripes from MFT), using Wplus9 Little Piggy ink.  Next I stamped the word "celebrate" repeatedly on a white panel using Versamark ink and white embossing powder, then I added the blue color by using my ink blending tool and Hero Arts Navy Shadow Ink.  The candles were stamped on white paper using the Little Piggy Ink.  I stamped the sentiment and cake using the Navy ink, and added some clear embossing powder to them.  You can do this with the Hero Arts and Wplus9 inks if you do it very quickly, the powder will stick.  I colored my cake with Copic markers and added the Wink of Stella.  I added a the star accents above the sentiment with a cute little stamp that's in the Eat Cake & Celebrate set.

I don't normally buy the dies to match when I buy stamps, because it more than doubles the price of my purchase, but OH MY how I loved having the die here to cut out that cake!  It makes me feel positively SPOILED lol!  I might have to just bite the bullet and start purchasing fewer stamp sets so that I can get the matching dies, particularly when the stamps are more complicated to fussy cut.

Hope my card inspires you to create today!  Thanks for stopping by :)

Caught a bug?

I'm playing along with the Paper Smooches February Challenge-Fun & Cute today!

This is my first time inking up these cute little bugs from the Healthy Vibes stamp set.  Aren't they funny?!  I colored them with Copic markers.  The sentiments are also from the Healthy Vibes stamp set.  The hexagon shapes were cut with MFT dies, and the patterned paper is from the Elle's Studio Cienna collection.  I'm sure this will cheer up whoever receives it (thankfully nobody I know is sick at the moment :) 

Have a wonderful day and thanks for stopping by!

The Challenge #61

Hello there!  It's Monday and that means it's time for another great challenge at The Challenge!  This week we have an inspiration challenge for you, and it's a beauty!

I love this shabby chic kitchen, there are so many lovely textures and if you look closely there are more colors in this picture than you might see at first glance.  For my card today I was inspired by the beautiful bowl of flowers, the pink and green, and of course the luscious wood grain.

I stamped 3 of the hydrangeas from Winnie & Walter's In Bloom: Addie's Garden onto white card stock and heat embossed them in white, then I fussy cut them.  I added 2 shades of light grey Copic markers to the flowers to make them stand out a bit more.  The die cut leaves are from PTI.  I cut the word "home" (a die from Winnie & Walter), and used the negative piece rather than the positive, popping it up with foam tape.  The sentiment "there's no place like" is from Winnie & Walter's Happiest of Holidays with Evelin T. designs.  I based my card layout on the current sketch at Freshly Made Sketches and I'll be entering it there.

The Challenge design team has created a variety of beautiful cards to inspire you, please be sure to check them out on Lesley's blog!

Welcome Spring

It isn't Spring yet, but it sure did feel like it here in PA today.  We got into the high 50's which was a nice change from the frigid temperatures we've had this winter.  The weather put me in the mood to make this card for the Winnie & Walter Belated 2nd Birthday Bash.  I'm entering this in Gayatri's Create Your Own Background challenge.

I used several Winnie & Walter stamp sets on my card.  The flowers and leaves are from In Bloom: Anna's Flora and In Bloom: Elsa's Flora.  I colored them with Copic markers.  The sentiment, which I embossed on vellum, is from The Big, The Bold and Seasons, and the birds are from Happiest of Holidays with Evelin T. Designs.  I left them white because there was plenty of color going on already and I wanted to make the background the star of the card. 

Hope you're having a terrific weekend, thanks for stopping by today!

Hello friend

I've really dropped the ball with the 30 Day Coloring Challenge, I had high hopes when it started that this time I would color for each of the 30 days.  HA!  Who was I kidding lol?!  It's not that coloring for 5 minutes a day is that difficult, but there's no way I can keep track of it by taking photos of my coloring and making sure I'm posting it either on social media or on my blog, that's too much pressure for this gal ;)  I do something at my craft table almost every day of the week, and most days that does involve some kind of coloring, so technically I guess I am playing along well enough.

Yesterday and today I was able to practice my Copic coloring and I'm really proud of the results I achieved.  I used a new stamp set from Concord & 9th, their Wildflower stamp set, and randomly stamped a bunch of the flowers and berries on some white paper.  I colored with my Copic markers and when I was finished I had no idea what I wanted to do with it.  Then I saw a picture someone had posted using the birds die from Concord & 9th and I thought they would be perfect with my floral background.

I added the sentiment which is from the Layers of Love stamp set, and my card was complete.  I do love how this turned out, as I've mentioned before I'm quite smitten with everything Concord & 9th has released to date and am having a smashing time playing with their products!

Have a wonderful day, thanks so much for stopping by!

Sparkle & Shine Challenge #24

It's the 15th of the month and that means it's time for a new challenge at Sparkle & Shine!  Our sponsor for this challenge is Right at Home.  The winner of the challenge will receive a $15.00 gift card to their store!

I have to admit that this image stumped me a bit when I first saw it.  You could pull certain colors, or all the colors, go with the chevron pattern, or a combination of any of these.  In the end I decided to just look for a colorful chevron pattern in my paper stash.

I wanted the chevron pattern to take center stage, so I decide to die cut this large butterfly from PTI using the paper.  I also cut a solid butterfly out of black glitter paper and place it underneath, slightly offset.  You might be able to see the glitter in the paper just a tiny bit but it was hard to capture it in my photo.  The word "sending" is also cut from black glitter paper, using a die from Simon Says Stamp.  The "you smiles" sentiment is from the SSS Sending & Wishing stamp set.  I used a Simon Says Stamp border die to cut the bottom of my white card stock panel, and the very bottom of the card is colored with Worn Lipstick distress ink and splattered with some water droplets.  I do love how this card turned out, big, bold designs like this are my favorite!

I hope you'll play along with us at Sparkle & Shine, and be sure to check out what the other design team members have created, their cards are sure to inspire!

The Challenge #60

Hello!  We're back today with a new challenge for you at The Challenge!

I'm also entering this card at the Winnie & Walter Belated 2nd Birthday Bash Challenge in Kelly's "over the edge" challenge.

I used the Winnie & Walter Mini Scenery: Do you see what I see? stamp for the background of my card.  I stamped it 3 times "off the edge" and embossed with white embossing powder.  I colored the 3 images using distress inks and my ink blending tool (Hickory Smoke, Fired Brick, and a combination of Spun Sugar and Wplus9 Little Piggy inks for the pink image because the Spun Sugar was just too light).  I made the white "frame" for the card using 2 sizes of rectangle frame dies from MFT, and the word "thanks" is from Winnie & Walter.  I cut 4 of the words and stacked them up for dimension, and covered the top with some white glitter.  The glitter doesn't show up very well on my photo, but it adds a beautiful shimmer to the card irl!  The clear sequins are the finishing touch.

I hope you'll join us this week at The Challenge!  I love this color combination of pink, red, grey and white and I hope you're inspired to try making a card with it.  Be sure to hop on over to Lesley's blog and see what the other design team members created.

Have a wonderful week!

Freshly Made Sketches #223

Happy Valentine's Day!  I had some time today to play with my new Concord & 9th goodies and decided to make a card for the current Freshly Made Sketches challenge.

I used the butterfly from the Floral & Flutter Dies and patterned papers from the Pebbles Family Ties 6X6 paper pad to make my card.  The word "beautiful" was cut from gold glitter paper using the Beautiful You Dies, and the sentiment is from the Beautiful Words stamp set.  I finished my card with a few sequins from Pretty Pink Posh.  I just can't seem to get enough of the beautiful products from Concord & 9th, they inspire me to create beautiful things!

Thanks for stopping by, hope your day is filled with lots of love!

Home sweet home

Well hello there!  So happy you stopped by today :)  I have a card to share with you that I made for the Winnie & Walter Belated 2nd Birthday Bash Challenge, this one being for Heather H's gold + watercolor challenge.

For this card I did my watercoloring first, using distress inks on watercolor paper (Picked Raspberry, Orange Marmalade, Mustard Seed, Worn Lipstick, and Candied Apple).  After the watercolor was completely dry I stamped the house from This Awesome House using Versamark ink and embossed with white embossing powder.  I stamped the word "home" on vellum paper and embossed in gold, and the words "sweet home" on black card stock and embossed in white.  The sentiment is from the Happiest of holidays with Evelin T. Designs stamp set.  Next I cut LOTS of little hearts from gold card stock using the row of 5 hearts in the Essentials: Audrey Cutaways dies.  So glad that die is in there because I would have hated to have had to cut 1 heart at a time lol!  I arranged them randomly at the bottom of my card with just a few falling from the top.  This is how I think of my home, sweet, colorful, and filled with love!

Have a wonderful day, sweet friends!

Thinking of you

Hello there!  Today I'm playing along with the February CASEplorations Challenge where they're CASEing the very talented Anita in France, and the February STAMPlorations CAS Challenge.

I CASEd the card below, also by Anita.

Anita has such a clean and simple style that I really love and I tried to capture that in my card even though it's not my go to style.  I love the colored hearts across the bottom of Anita's card with their warm colors.  I used flowers from Eclectic Florals and stamped them using warm inks from Wplus9  (Gala Red, Little Piggy and Hayride), and Hero Arts (Fresh Peach).  The tiny dots stamped around the flowers are a stamp from Winnie & Walter, and the sentiment is from STAMPlorations Trendy Feathers.  I added a few gold sequins to my card because Anita used gold on her card, and I think they were the perfect finishing touch!

Thank you for visiting me today!

Birthday wishes

Hello!  Today I have another card that I'm entering in the Winnie & Walter Belated 2nd Birthday Bash challenges, this time in the Floral Challenge with Lydia!

My card was inspired by Kathy Racoosin's gorgeous card HERE.  I love how Kathy stamped her flowers on vellum and placed them over plaid paper.  Plaid is all the rage right now in fashion and home decor and I for one love the trend.  It's funny because when I was a kid (and I'm 57 years old now), plaid was huge in fashion and home decor.  The phrase "everything old is new again" is so true, if you wait long enough almost everything seems to come back into style!  I didn't think I had any plaid paper in my stash but I searched and found this piece in an old paper pad.  I used the beautiful sunflower from In Bloom: Anna's Flora and stamped it on vellum using MFT Black Licorice hybrid ink.  I hit the vellum with my heat gun and it dried very quickly and completely which was great because there was no danger of smearing ink.  I cut the tag from the Noelle Cutaway die set and stamped a sunflower on it using Wplus9 Falling Star ink and CTMH Parchment ink for the flower center.  I wanted just a pop of color above the black and white flower outlines and this did the trick.  The sentiment is from A Tree For All Seasons.  I added some bakers twine, and a few die cut paper sequins which I coated with glossy accents and a bit of fine glitter, to finish the card.

Hope my card inspires, thank you for dropping by today!

Coffee makes everything better

Good morning from snowy PA!  I'm enjoying sitting at my kitchen table drinking my first cup of the day, watching the snow fall gently outside my kitchen window.  What a lucky lady I am getting to enjoy two of my favorite things in life at the same time, coffee and snow!  I created a coffee themed card (no snow involved lol!) to enter in the current My Favorite Things sketch challenge.

I love this Cool Cut die from My Favorite Things, and this is my first time using it on a card.  To make this card I first watercolored the background panel using Tumbled Glass and Broken China distress inks.  The cup (which I also cut from watercolor paper) is colored using Ground Espresso distress ink, and for the hearts and straw I used Worn Lipstick and Picked Raspberry.  I cut the dome lid from some plastic packing material, love how realistic it looks!  The bottom part of the sentiment is from Hug in a Mug.  I don't have the sentiment set that goes with the Cool Cup die, and I needed the word "coffee", so I stamped it using the Sophisticated Script stamp set from Concord & 9th.  After assembling my card I added some glossy accents to the hearts.  I adore this card, probably because I adore frappucino's!

Hope you have a wonderful day, thanks so much for sharing a tiny bit of it with me!

Thankful for you

Hello there!  I made a card today for one of the challenges going on this month for Winnie & Walter's Belated 2nd Birthday Bash.  This is for Mayuri's challenge, Inlaid Die Cutting.

I used dies from Essentials: Audrey's Cutaways to create all the cuts on my card.  I used distress inks and my ink blending tool to add color to the die cut pieces and background.  The sentiment is from Happiest of Holidays with Evelin T Designs.  I finished the card with some black and white bakers twine.  I just love how this turned out, the colors make me hap hap happy!

Freshly Made Sketches #222

Good Monday morning, lovelies!  I'm so happy you stopped by!  I have a card to share that I'm entering in the current Freshly Made Sketches challenge.

I colored this cute elephant image from Wild Rose Studios a few days ago for The Daily Marker 30 Day Coloring Challenge and thought it would work well with this sketch.  I cut the image using a Reverse Confetti die (the postage edge).  The sentiment (both the "Sending" die cut and "You Valentine's Day Hugs") are from Simon Says Stamp.   I love how quickly this came together, I might just have to get into the habit of coloring some images when I'm in the mood and have them ready to go to make a card.  Normally I do the whole process start to finish, but it was kind of fun mixing things up!

Have a lovely week!

CAS(E) this Sketch #158

I have some treat bags to share with you today that I made using the sketch from CAS(E) this Sketch as my inspiration!

I used products from Concord & 9th to make my bags.  They sell papers that are the perfect weight to make your own little treat bags, along with dies that allow you to cut the curved pinked edge that you see at the top of the bags.  They have a really good video on their blog explaining the die set which is called Bags & Tags Dies so if you're interested in making your own tags and bags you should check out this versatile die set!  The flags underneath the circle sentiments are also cut from the paper (it's double sided).  The sentiments were stamped using the Lots of Blots stamp set (Gala Red and Little Piggy inks from Wplus9).  The pretty sequin trim is also from Concord & 9th, and it comes to you wrapped on the clothespin like you see in the picture, isn't that FUN?!

Thanks for stopping by, have a wonderful day!

I happen to adore you!

Hello and happy Saturday!  I decided to play along with the current Fusion challenge because I loooove the graphic and had just the thing in mind I wanted to make!  I'm also entering this into the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge because the theme is "have a heart"!

I used the heart die from Concord and 9th's Layers of Love dies and a tall card panel (finished card size is 9 X 3 3/4 but there's a small border around the panel that I cut the hearts from).  I used the inserts from the cut hearts and colored them using distress inks and my ink blending tool.  For the top heart I used Mowed Lawn and Peeled Paint, for the middle heart I used Spiced Marmalade and Ripe Persimmon, and for the bottom heart I used Blueprint Sketch and Dusty Concord.  After I was happy with the blending I sprinkled the hearts with some water droplets, and then I added some paint splatters to them.  Next I stamped the sentiment (from Concord & 9th's Love You, Mean It stamp set), on the orange piece.  I inserted the colored pieces back into the white outline piece, wrapped some black and white baker's twine around the top, then applied foam tape to the back and added it to the card base.  To finish the card I tied a bow with some baker's twine, leaving long tails, clipped it with the tiny clothes pin, and glued that onto the top heart.  I love how this turned out, it makes me happy :)

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

 

STAMPlorations February Challenge

Hello and welcome to my blog!  I'm so excited to be joining the STAMPlorations February Challenge today as their guest designer!

This month's challenge is STAMPS & TRIPLETS.

You can also use this sketch if you like.

As you can see, I decided to use both the sketch AND the Stamps & Triplets theme.

I've had my eye on the Trendy Butterflies stamp set and the coordinating Shower of Flutters stencil for awhile now, and was thrilled to be able to finally order them!  To make my card I first used the stencil and applied distress inks (Tumbled Glass and Broken China) with my ink blending tool, using the darker Broken China around the edges and then switching to the lighter Tumbled Glass, which I let fade out into the "sky".  Next I stamped 3 of the pretty butterflies using Wplus9 Cockleshell ink.  Then I used a text stamp from Unity along with Wplus9 Fairy Dust ink, which is VERY light, and randomly stamped some text on my background.  You can barely see that on my photo but I wanted it to be very subtle.  The sentiment, which is also from Trendy Butterflies, was stamped using Wplus9 Silver Lining ink.  I love these colors together and am very pleased with how my card turned out.

I want to thank Shery for inviting me to join the talented crew at STAMPlorations for this challenge, I'm really honored!  I hope you'll hop on over to the STAMPlorations blog and join in the fun!