Stamped Smiles

Holiday Sweets for {Cupcake Inspirations}!🥧

Hello friends! Hope that you’ve enjoyed your weekend! Thanksgiving is coming up this week and the full Holiday Season has begun and one of the things that most people are thinking about (at least my family anyway!) are those wonderful “Holiday Sweets“! Yum!😋

This is also our new challenge for the next 2 weeks over at {Cupcake Inspirations}! So I hope that you are able to start (if you haven’t already) thinking about creating something crafty with those “Holiday Sweets” in mind and join along in the fun with us! Here’s what I’ve come up with for this challenge:

I remember times with my kids when we did the “milk and cookies” you leave for Santa along with your nice letter about some things you wish for him to bring you. We always wrote the letters to Santa and made sure that we put out the cookies…and usually hot cocoa on Christmas Eve. There were always candy canes on the tree to pluck off to stir your hot cocoa with as well!

I remembered this fun little Simon Says Stamp Christmas card kit (Christmas Squad) that I hardly made a dent in to use at all, so it was really great to pull out these adorable Doodlebug items with a “milk and cookies” theme in the papers and images! I had unopened packages of cut out images which is the table with the lamp, Santa letter and mug on it. I took the doggie image from the stamp set, stamped, colored and used the coordinating dies to cut it out with and popped it over the table image panel with foam tape. This panel was cut with a Wonky Stitch Rectangle die as well as the background papers. I layered everything over an A2 sized top folding red card base. The image panel was also layered over some of this red cardstock as well after sponging around the edges with some light blue ink.

Lastly, I took a sentiment from the same stamp set and white heat embossed it over another piece of red cardstock that was cut out with a banner die and popped up underneath the image panel with foam tape. (I thought it was the perfect sentiment to add especially for this year to someone you miss!)

Here’s a closer view of the images that I’ve put together onto this panel. The pup was colored with my usual Copic markers and I’ve used a silver gel pen to color in his collar tag with.

I also had some Doodlebug stickers with the kit and added the bitten cookie with a smile face next to the other cookie on the table. I also added a candy cane enamel sticker to the table as well as the heart enamel stickers above the table.

The strip of papers in the center of the card came from the backside left over piece that was cut out from the milk and cookies panel in the background. The colors matched up nicely with the images.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my “Holiday Sweets” card today and it has brought you a smile, a special memory or inspiration. If you need more inspiration for this challenge, please be sure to check out the {Cupcake Inspirations} Challenge Blog to see the rest of the DT sweeties and what they came up with! Can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Thanks for stopping in and I’ll be seeing you soon!

WISHING YOU ALL A VERY HAPPY, HEALTHY AND BLESSED THANKSGIVING

Challenges:

Simons Says Stamp Wednesday – Christmas
CRAFT – Christmas
Cardz 4 Galz – Cute Christmas
Cute Card Thursday – Sentimental
Crafty Catz – Anything Goes optional Christmas

November 22, 2020November 21, 2020

*Vicki*24 Comments

Choose to be Grateful for Crafty Chefs

Hello friends! I hope that you’re having a wonderful week so far! The weekend is here, but it sure has been a beautiful couple of days this week with sunny and warm days so hubby and I were able to go out to walk around a bit before the snow starts hitting us!

Something that is great to go out in nature to see are the critters with the birds and the silly squirrels…we have them EVERYWHERE! They’re busy gathering and burying their food for winter time around here. My thoughts turned to the Simon Says Stamp “Big Thanks Autumn” November card kit (sold out, but not papers) as I love all things Fall/Autumn and this card kit with those beautiful papers spoke to me and I wanted to create with it to make my project for this month’s Crafty Chef’s Group recipe from our lovely friend Meg’s recipe:

There were some blue colored A2 card bases already cut and scored inside the kit, so I used one for my side folding card base here and then layered a dark brown cardstock piece from the kit as well as a piece of copper mirrored cardstock which was then layered over a piece of the decorative papers (I mentioned above) in the kit, which is also where the critter, mushrooms and leaves images came from on this card.

The leafy background paper was cut from a MFT Wonky Stitched Rectangle Die and then I took a strip of the copper mirrored cardstock across the bottom third of the layered pieces and also added some twine wrapped around the bottom of the layers before popping them up with craft foam over the card base. I die cut a branch from a die in my stash and then fussy cut the images out from the papers included in the kit which were glued or popped up with foam squares over the panel. I sponged some Tea Stain Distress Ink around the edges of these pieces before attaching.

Lastly, I’ve taken one of the sentiments from the sentiment strips sheet included in the kit and ran it through my laminator with a piece of copper Deco Foil. (I think that is a cool way to add a little extra something to those sentiments.) I made a banner out of it, sponged it with some of the ink I used for the images and popped it up over the leafy background piece with foam tape.

Here’s a closer look at the critters I’ve cut out and how I’ve arranged and popped some of them up to create my scene. There was also a very pretty SSS Autumn Sequins Mix included in the kit and I took some of those and added it to the layout and then filled the centers with some Gold Stickles glue.

For the Crafty Chef’s recipe that was given, here’s what I MUST use:

Mirror cardstock
3 layers or more
ribbon (I hope my twine counts!)
image of garden visitors (birds, hedgehogs, etc)

CAN do items:

Sparkle/Glitter (I used sequins and Stickles)
pearls/gems (I did not use) *passed onto next chef
dry embossing (I did not use)

If you’re interested in joining this pressure free and just for fun crafty group, just CLICK HERE to join the Facebook Group and you can even take turns coming up with the recipe if you’re interested. There is a new recipe given for each month and no pressure to follow along or even when you want to follow along and play…which is great and I’m happy to be able to use up some of the goodies from my stash (NEW AND OLD) and just have fun with it.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my creation today as well and I will be seeing you all again soon! Thanks so much for stopping in today friend, as I’m very grateful for you!

Challenges:

2 Crafty Critter Crazies – Anything Goes + animal(s)
Crafty Animals – Anything Goes + animal(s)
Creatalicious – #199 Anything Goes optional Autumn/Thanksgiving
The Paper Girls – #212 Thankful/Grateful
The Divas That Cut Paper – Thanks or Thanksgiving
A Bit More Time to Craft – #128 Anything Goes
Lil Patch of Crafty Friends – #146 Anything Goes
QKR Stampede – #408 Anything Goes

November 20, 2020November 20, 2020

*Vicki*30 Comments

A {Cupcake Inspirations} Color Combo Reminder with a Slimline

Hello there friends! I hope that you’ve had a wonderful weekend! It’s slowly getting cooler as we go along with this month and even some snow in the forecast. I love the Autumn Season and will try to hold onto it for as long as I can! So with that, I’d like to remind you about the halfway point of our challenge:

There are still a few days left to enter your project for the Yellow, Orange and Red color combo challenge over at {Cupcake Inspirations} so I hope that you can join along with us!

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**Also, there is currently a design team call going on right now if you’re interested in being on the “Cupcake Sweeties” team. CLICK HERE for more details**

Today, I have a fun Autumn style slimline card to share with you today using the beautiful color combo:

So I’ve been wanting to pull out my Aqua Pigments to have some watercolor play time! I pulled out a piece of Bristol Smooth watercolor panel that I cut down to a slimline size approximately 3.25″ x 8.25″ because I knew that I would be layering it over top of a Raven top folding 3.5″ x 8.5″ slimline card base.

The Aqua Pigments that I’ve used on this background have a gorgeous sparkle in them and I’ve tried to capture that in the photo, but it’s so sparkly and pretty in person! I’ve used Sparkle Yellow, Heirloom Carrot (subscription only) and Firecracker (subscription only) Aqua Pigments that I’ve dripped randomly over my glass mat, sprayed with some water for more movement and “smooshed” the panel over it and let them run and drip together. Once dried, I’ve splattered over it with gold and black paints.

A while back, I got me the beautiful Leafy Slimline Die from Pink and Main that I cut out with some brushed gold cardstock from my stash I’ve had for quite a while. I also used the Blessings Slimline Dies to cut the sentiment including the shadow underneath with vellum and the words with Raven cardstock glued down over the leaves.

I’ve added the leaves frame die cut over the watercolor background and mounted it to the card base. Lastly, I’ve added some sequins and crystals from an Autumn mix embellishment pack. I filled the centers of the red sequins with some Nuvo Red Berry Crystal Drops.

Hope you’ve been inspired today with my slimline design! Thanks so much for dropping in and please be sure to stop by and check out more inspiration using the color combo over on the {Cupcake Inspirations} Challenge blog to see more! I’ll be seeing you soon!

Challenges:

Make My Monday – #135 Elegant Fall/Autumn
Not Just Cards – Anything Goes November
Crafty Gals Corner – #213 Thankful
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Thanks/Thanksgiving
Creative Fingers – #197 Anything Goes

November 15, 2020November 13, 2020

*Vicki*23 Comments

Bright Birthday and More Whimsy Retreat Projects!💡

Hello friends! Hope that you’re having a great week so far! Hubby and I are trying to figure out how this “retirement thing” goes together! LOL! I think we’ll be having so much fun and we’re just really excited about the future and what we’ll be doing.

Speaking of which, this past Sunday he also celebrated a birthday and of course I had to make him a card that was suited for an electrician. I had to add a bit of humor about his age on the inside, but this is what I came up with:

I’ve had this Stampin’ Up! Sunburst die and stamp set and haven’t used it that much since I bought it. (quite a while ago! Not quite sure how old.. LOL) I thought it would make a great light beam for my VERY old Simon Says Stamp ‘Watts Up’ stamp set that was from a past card kit. (circa 2014/2015)…yep, all old!

I die cut the sunburst from some yellow and gold glitterstock that I glued together slightly off-set and then attached it over a side folding A2 sized black card base. I stamped the sentiments over a couple of the yellow strips with black ink taking care to make room for the circle panel.

I then stamped the lightbulb over a white piece of cardstock and colored the base with Copics and used a marker draw a line above it for the string. I took a solid heart from the stamp set and heat embossed it with some Gold Metallic Gilded EP and then sponged some yellow ink over the bulb for some glow. I die cut it out with a circle die and then layered over another die cut circle black piece and popped it up over the sunburst layers with foam tape.

I tied a bow with some black twine and glued it to the light bulb base. I also stamped the bulb in a lighter gray ink over the envelope and added a string to that as well with a gray marker. (The inside of the card said: “Old is the new black.” 😆)

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And I also wanted to share that I’m still plugging away on the several kits that I received from the Whimsy Stamps Virtual Retreat last month! These are really amazing projects and I’m having lots of fun putting them together still! (Christmas will be coming next..so stay tuned for those!):

This is a fun interactive card with a pull tab at the top where this cut little dragon slides upwards towards the sky! This kit 9 came with an A2 sized envelope, but I had to make my own envelope slightly larger to accommodate for the pull tab sticking above the card. I’ve added doodle lines around the edges and shadow stamped a sentiment at the bottom for my own added details.

This set was from kit 14. The hexagon shaped box was super fun and even came with the candy! There was also an extra stamped and cut out bee, so I used it to make another card… shaker style! I used the left over honeycomb die cut piece as a stencil on the card as well. I used the envelope that was provided in the kit above and decorated it for this A2 sized card instead. (I know someone that loves these candies…so they might get a surprise at some point! 😉)

And lastly, this was from kit 15 and TOTALLY different than what was photographed in the booklet! First of all, I received a plant image with a die cut speech bubble sentiments and thought it might be cool for a Halloween card on another project, so I saved those to use later. I received an EXTRA stamped sunflower image from kit 22 that I had posted earlier and decided to use it for this card here. I colored it similar to that one and cut it out, but cut off a portion of it on this design. I also changed up the background ink blended colors and splattered some gold paint on this one. Love how it turned out. This will be for an Autumn anniversary card for someone coming soon.

Hope you’ve enjoyed all of my projects today! Thanks so much for stopping by and I’ll be seeing you soon!

Challenges (For the Birthday Lightbulb card ONLY):

Retro Rubber – Anything Goes + stamps older than one year
Cardz 4 Guys – Birthday for adult male
Creative Moments – Anything Goes
Crafty Calendar – Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes
Shopping Our Stash – Tic Tac Toe (I used middle across: String/twine, 5 year old stamp, bright colors)
Watercooler Wednesday – All About Occasions (birthday)

November 13, 2020November 12, 2020

*Vicki*31 Comments

Beautiful Autumn Color Combo for {Cupcake Inspirations}

Happy Monday morning friends! Hope you all had a great weekend! The weather has actually been really beautiful this past week and it was wonderful to get outside and look at the pretty colors of the trees changing around us. I know that it won’t last long and the temperature will begin to really drop soon…so always need to enjoy it while it’s still here!

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Today begins a brand new challenge over at {Cupcake Inspirations} and there is a beautiful color palette to inspire your creativity to play along with us! We’d love to see the colors: Red, Orange and Yellow on your creations this time and we look forward to seeing what you come up with! Here’s what I’ve come up with for this week’s inspiration:

I fell in love with these cool dies that were included in my Brutus Monroe September 2020 Inspiration Box and thought they would be perfect to use for pairing with some blended inks in a background!

I started with a watercolor panel and used Squeezed Lemonade, Mustard Seed, Carved Pumpkin, Crackling Campfire and Fired Brick Oxide Inks to blend over it. I spritzed over it with water to form the droplet watermarks and once dried, I splattered the panel with both gold and black acrylic paint using a fan brush. Once this panel was finished drying, I put each leaf die cut down to cover my panel and die cut it, but left them in place. While leaving the leaves in place, I used the MFT Wonky Stitched Rectangle Die and cut out the panel with it.

I wanted the leaves to stand out a bit more in the background, so I die cut each of the leaves about 3 times each with black cardstock and layered them together with the ink blended ones on top.

I took the sentiment from the Brutus Monroe Autumn Bundles stamp set and heat embossed it over a strip of Raven cardstock with some Gilded EP. Once I cut down the strip, I ran it through the die cut machine to get the Wonky Stitched Rectangle die marks along the edges. I mounted this panel over a gold mirror cardstock and then over an A2 sized top folding black card base. Lastly, I added some gold sequins that were included in the Inspiration Box and filled them with some gold Stickles in the centers.

Here’s a closer view of the leaves and you can see the pretty embossed pattern in the leaves.

Really like how this turned out and I hope you did too! Be sure to take a look over on the {Cupcake Inspirations} Challenge Blog to see the rest of the inspiration from the design team and join us for this fun color combo!

Thanks for stopping in today and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

Love to Scrap – LTSCB139 Anything Goes November
Dream Valley – #236 Dies and/or Punches
Arty Divas – #31 Anything Goes
Crafty Creations – #415 Anything Goes
The Paper Funday – #23 Anything Goes optional: Thankful

November 8, 2020November 6, 2020

*Vicki*29 Comments

Retirement Time and More Whimsy Stamp Workshop Retreat Projects

Hello there friends! It’s hard to believe that we’ve made it to November and rounding the corner to end 2020! It’s been a very strange year all the way around, but I have to say that it’s a bitter sweet day today as hubby will have his last day of work on his 40 year career as an electrician. So today I’m dedicating my post to him:

This would be a perfect situation for my hubby and something he talked about all the time…which was to go out to the lake, relax, enjoy some fishing time on a boat including staying in a cabin. Sure look forward to spending some time with him doing just that next year too!⛵🌅 He is a hard worker and certainly deserves it.

The stamp set that I’ve used for this card was a perfect scene image from Whimsy Stamps called Happy Place. I colored it up with Copic markers and cut it out with an oval die and layered another oval piece from black cardstock.

I found some papers in my stash that I thought would be perfect with this, so I’ve used the Whimsy Stamps Pierced Border Trio Dies to cut it with to fit half-way on my A2 white side folding card base. Before attaching the piece down over the base, I took some Mustard Seed Oxide Ink and sponged across the middle of it and then used some Tumbled Glass Oxide Ink slightly at the top. I then attached all piece including the image panel.

I took the sentiment from the Happy Place stamp set and stamped one of the sentiments at the top of the oval panel and then I white heat embossed the “relax” sentiment over black cardstock and cut it out with the Whimsy Stamps Quick Strips die set, glued it along the edge and trimmed off the excess. Lastly, I’ve added some Whimsy Stamps It’s a Party Enamel Dots.

Then of course I wanted to share the inside of the card which you can see that I’ve used the same image from the stamp set from the front of the card and just stamped that in a lighter grey ink color. I masked off the edge of the inside of the card so it didn’t stamp completely. I also used it in the same way on the envelope as well.

For the greeting, I took the Whimsy Stamps Happy Large Word Die and cut it out with some black cardstock and then attached it with liquid glue. I stamped the “retirement” greeting right underneath it from the Whimsy Stamps Happy Sayings stamp set with black ink.

It may be hard to tell in the photo above, but I’ve also taken a glitter brush pen and went over the sun as well as the water for some added sparkle.

This card was actually fun to put together and I was thinking about the future and all the things we had talked about the last few years and getting ready for this day. Things are a bit different than we had envisioned of course, but we will have “our time” for sure. We’re so excited about it!

This card is being handed to him this morning while we have our coffee before he leaves for work on his last day!😀

And now I also have some more finished kits that I’ve been working on since the Whimsy Stamps Virtual Workshop Weekend! I’m still really enjoying finishing them up and still have MANY more to do! I’m so amazed at how much we received and very happy that there were several Christmas projects which I’ll be working on next! For now…here’s more of the finished kits:

This was for kit 12 and I LOVED the cute dragon in the purples! This card is going to my youngest grandchild as she is my “PURPLE girl”!!

This is the INSIDE of Kit 12. It was a really cool “FUN FOLD” design! I put my image off to the edge so I had room to write a message.

This was for Kit 6 and the entire scene was made using Copic coloring including the sky background! The squirrel and pumpkins were popped up with foam tape.

This was for kit 21 and my first time practicing with no-line coloring!

This was for kit 22. This mega large sunflower is gorgeous! Loved coloring and fussy cutting it out!

I hope you’ve enjoyed my projects and post today! I sure have been having fun just playing and trying out different things with my cards. I do look forward to finishing up these kits as we get near the Christmas time! So be watching for more of those!

Thanks for dropping in with me today and I’ll see you again soon!

Challenges: (For Retirement Card ONLY)

Colour Crazy Craft – Anything Goes + coloring
A Perfect Time to Craft – Anything Goes Nov
A Bit More Time to Craft – Anything Goes
Crafts Galore Encore – Anything Goes Nov
Love to Craft – LTCCB52 Anything Goes Nov
QKR Stampede – #407 Anything Goes
Lil Patch of Crafty Friends – #145 Anything Goes
The Corrosive Challenge – #11Nov Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2044 Anything Goes

November 6, 2020November 5, 2020

*Vicki*26 Comments

Dia de los Muertos with Monsters/Ghouls for {Cupcake Inspirations} Reminder

Hello there friends! I hope that you’ve had a wonderful Halloween weekend! It always go by so fast for me which is why I’m so happy that there is STILL one more week left for our {Cupcake Inspirations} Challenge with the theme “Monster/Ghouls“! (This can be interpreted in several different ways…not just for Halloween!)

So I hope that you will be able to share something for our current challenge before it ends this week! We look forward to seeing your makes!

Now, I realize that Halloween day is past us, BUT…my sister-in-law celebrates her Mexican tradition of Dia de los Muertos which is “Day of the Dead” and it starts on Halloween at midnight and ends November 2nd. So I thought I would share this fun “ghoul” card representing the Holiday that I’ve made for her:

I don’t own any “sugar skull” type of stamps, but I have seen some and think they’re really cool looking! I did have this stunning card panel from the Brutus Monroe Halloween Creative Kit that is printed on toner ink so that you can foil over it.

I started by ink blending over it with Worn Lipstick, Spun Sugar, Shabby Shutters and Peeled Paint Distress inks and then I took some Rose Gold Deco Foil and ran it through my laminator to get that pretty foiled background. I then cut it out with the MFT Wonky Stitched Rectangle die and mounted it over an A2 sized top folding Raven card base.

For the Sugar Skull, I cut it out with my Cricut Explore machine in the several different colors and paper pieced it onto the white skull using a piece of sticker sheet behind it. It was popped up over the card with foam tape.

I printed out the words on my computer and die cut it out with a MFT border die and sponged around it with some Worn Lipstick and Spun Sugar inks that I’ve popped up over the card with foam tape. Lastly, I added some rhinestones on each side as well as the eyeballs.

I also forgot that I used some black detail stickers in the corners of the design. I’ve added some to the inside and then printed out a Spanish poem relating to the Holiday.

Hope that you’ve enjoyed my “Day of the Dead” card creation and please be sure to check out the {Cupcake Inspirations} blog to see the rest of the inspiration from the team and add your project to the challenge as well!

Thanks so much for dropping by today friends and I’ll be seeing you soon!💀

Challenges:

Crafty Cardmakers – “Things that go BUMP in the Night” (sadly closing blog. Best wishes)
Aud Sentiments – #263 Anything Goes + sentiment
Krafty Chicks – #531 Anything Goes (Happy 10th birthday!)
Cute Card Thursday – #658 Sparkles
Creative Fingers – #196 Anything Goes

November 1, 2020October 31, 2020

*Vicki*26 Comments

Boo!👻 It’s Halloween!!!🎃

Hello my crafty friends!! Today is Halloween and I thought it would be a great time to share several Halloween themed creations that I had made during the Whimsy Stamps Virtual Retreat! I’m actually STILL working on the project kits because there were SO MANY of them and I’m such a slow crafter there was no way that I could’ve done them within that weekend time frame! It sure was so much fun and so many treats along with it! So happy that I decided to join the virtual event! I encourage everyone to join the next!!

So what I decided to do was to go through all of my 23 kits and pick out the Halloween themed ones to get them finished up before Halloween so that I would have them to share and give out! Enjoy the spooky creative fun:

Kit 1 – spooky green behind the eyes! Slimline design

Kit 2 – Slimline design with a spooky graveyard! The cockroach bugs were a nice little “surprise gift” from our lovely instructor for the first two kits! LOL

Kit 5 – All Copic coloring and something brand new to me was coloring a scene freehand! So scary!! But I made it!

Kit 7 – a slimline die used two different ways…LOVED the ink blending!

Kit 10 – Cutest little treat box! Added crystal eyeballs to my skull and sparkled it up with sparkly clear EP. I’ve rubbed white ink around the black edges.

Kit 11 – The ink blending on this was awesome too! I have so many new combos now! The black sparkly die cut is my fave!

Kit 16 – Last but not least, this really adorable card made me giggle the whole time! I’ve added some glossy accents to the eyeballs.

So there are still SO many more kits left to do and I look forward to crafting them and sharing more with you as I go too! Obviously these kits were created and put together by the talented group of people for Whimsy Stamps, so they’re the ones that get the credit for the creativity on these, and therefore, I won’t enter these into any challenges.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my share from the retreat and I’ll be sharing more soon!

I also have finished one more treat bag that I’ve made with the special Halloween Creative Kit from Brutus Monroe:

I used the stencil from the kit to ink over the stencil from the kit and then added the fun stamped and colored elements over the pattern paper from the kit. I used the spooky graveyard stamp and heat embossed it over the pattern paper with Raven Sparkle EP including the moon image at the top left.

I even used the ribbon and sequins from the kit to decorate with and then added a tag from my stash to tie on the bow.

This is the little poem that I’ve attached to the back of the bag that was a fun little print out from Brutus Monroe as well as the colorful strips that I’ve used on the top and bottom portions of the image panel on the front of the treat bag. I thought they were fun little elements to add and give out to my goblins this year! LOL!

Hope you’ve enjoyed my Halloween projects and thanks so much for dropping in!

**Please don’t forget to add your “Monsters/Ghouls” projects to the {Cupcake Inspirations} challenge too!

Want to wish all a very happy, spooky and SAFE Halloween!🎃💀👻

October 31, 2020October 30, 2020

*Vicki*19 Comments

An Autumn Anniversary

Hello friends! It’s been so cold over my way and even snowed the other day which is a tad bit early for this time of the year. I’m still trying to hold onto to Fall a bit longer as I know that the Holiday/Winter Season will be approaching us very quickly now! It seems that Autumn never gets it’s due justice and goes by so fast!🍂

I’m popping in today to share a card I’ve made for hubby to help celebrate our special day of 21 years together🥰:

I adore this sweet image by Crissy Armstrong for Whimsy Stamps called “Your Love Lifts Me” as I thought it was a great representation of how I feel about hubby and how I wanted it to reflect on my card for him. He will have already received this card by the time this posts…so it’s OK if he sees this!😉

I’ve stamped the image over a panel of Copic Blending Card off to one side of it and then cut it out with a stitched rectangle die. I took a piece of orange colored cardstock and used the same die to cut it with, but I cut this piece in half, stamped the sentiment over it and sponged around the edges of it with some Vintage Photo Distress ink. I also took the Whimsy Stamps Everyday Mini Sentiments set and white heat embossed it over a piece of brown cardstock that was cut out with the Whimsy Stamps Quick Strips die set and attached underneath the sentiment and cut off at the edge.

The few leaves over the design was stamped from an older Simon Says Stamp set and colored with Copics. I then added some more Vintage Photo sponged around the image panel and attached the orange sentiment panel over top of the colored image panel and wrapped some twine around the center of it. I layered this panel over top of an A2 sized top folding brown card base. I’ve added some sequins filled with gold Stickles in the center along with a few more dots.

Here’s a closer look at the Copic coloring I’ve done over the image. I’ve kept it pretty simple and decided I didn’t want to add white dots to their cheeks like I usually do. I don’t know why there are times I do and times I don’t. This time it just seemed to call for none.

I used a light blue marker to color in the background and then with the same colors that I’ve used to color in the leaves, I took the markers and made my own leaves on the ground surrounding the couple. I even stamped some more of the leaves on the inside of the card as well as the envelope and colored them.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my Autumn Anniversary card today as I sure had fun colored this sweet image.

I’m very lucky to have such a wonderful person to share my life with in the past 21 years and look forward to our times together in the future. Thank you for stopping in today friends! See you soon!

Challenges:

Colour Crazy Craft – Anything Goes + coloring
Allsorts – Celebration Time
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2043 Anything Goes
Watercooler Wednesday – WWC295 All About Occasions

5. Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything Goes

6. The House That Stamps Built – O2820 Anything Goes

October 29, 2020October 28, 2020

*Vicki*26 Comments

WARNING: Spooky post with Monsters/Ghouls for {Cupcake Inspirations}

Hello there friends! Halloween is very quickly approaching us at the end of this week and it’s one of my favorite Holidays ever since I can remember and it was such a fun memory of things I passed onto my own children to have fun with as well. We have lots of fun memories together. I know there are some people that don’t like it…or maybe the “scary” things that come from it, but for me, the more scary, the better! (With the exception of the little ones, I don’t like to scare people that don’t like a good scare…but for me, it’s all in fun and make believe.) This is the reason for my warning post title…just in case you happen to not like it. It’s totally fine if you don’t!😉 – OR clowns!! LOL!

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Today starts a fun new challenge over at the {Cupcake Inspirations} Challenge Blog with the theme of “Monsters/Ghouls“. Looking at the photo, you can opt to make a cute little colorful monster/alien type of birthday card if you’re not into the Halloween or scary, so just another way you could interpret the challenge idea if you wanted to.

But here’s my scary “monster/ghoul” creation I made for the challenge:

He is a bit on the spooky/scary side, isn’t he?! I have been looking for a creepy clown image like this for a couple of years and finally Whimsy Stamps came out with this “Creepy Clown Sleep Tight” rubber stamp set and I knew I had to grab it up and specifically in reference to the movie “It” by Stephen King who’s a favorite author of mine. My younger son is really into these type of things too, so this one’s going to him!

I started out the background with a piece of watercolor cardstock that I used some Black Soot Distress ink to sponge in some clouds with using a cloud stencil from my stash. I then took some Wilted Violet Distress Oxide Spray and water and let the color run into the background with the sprayed water. I also watered down some more Black Soot ink and made some splatters with a brush over it. I then black heat embossed the Whimsy Stamps Spider Web Frame over top of it, cut it out with the WS Zig Zag Stitched Rectangle die and then added some more Black Soot ink around the edges. I layered it over an A2 sized top folding black card base.

For the creepy clown image, I black heat embossed it twice over a piece of Bristol Smooth Watercolor panel and then used my Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers and a water brush to color it with. I fussy cut it out and then just cut out the hands only of the second image, and used some foam tape to pop the hands over the image and then the entire clown image over the frame background. I white heat embossed the sentiment from the “Creepy Clown Sleep Tight” set over a piece of black cardstock and then die cut it out using the WS Quick Strips die set. (Note: I used a partial die cut method to lengthen the die so that it would fit the sentiment.) I sponged around it with white ink and then glued in place under the clown image.

If you “dare” to take a closer look at mister creepy clown here, you see how I’ve colored him and cut him out.

I did use some brighter colors as he’s a clown and I really wanted him to pop from the design. I used a silver metallic gel pen to color in the bells on his hat and then I’ve used some glossy accents over his yellow colored eyeballs to make them pop out a bit more as well. The teeth were left white, but I used a white gel pen to color them in a bit for more prominent whiteness. It is such a detailed image so it was fairly easy to color.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my good Monday morning scare for you today!😱🤡😂

So if you’re still making some Halloween type of creations or you have some cute, creepy, fun monsters/ghouls on your projects, be sure to share them with us over on the {Cupcakes Inspirations} challenge blog in the next 2 weeks! We are looking forward to seeing your makes!

Whimsy Stamps still has their 31 Nights of Halloween Event going on, so I’ll be entering this card in that as well.