Just Add Glitter – Stamped Smiles

Hello friends! I hope that you’re enjoying your week so far! Summer is now in full swing over my way and it certainly is feeling that way too!

Where I live, June is also a time of year when the blooming cherry trees from May now turn into the cherries ready to be picked! If you’ve never tried a cherry jam, I highly recommend it! With the freebie image over at Beccy’s Place, it seemed like a great idea to make a card with it:

Without the sugar, cherries can be extremely tart and so it’s never something I would pick from a tree and eat especially with a pit in it! I do love a good cherry pie though!

Coloring cherries is also fun! I opted to use the non-colored version of the image and I printed it out twice because I cut out the front cherry and front leaf on the image to pop up with foam tape for dimension. I used Copics to color it in along with the background circle it’s on. I also added a white highlight with a gel pen.

I thought it would be fun to make a punny sentiment to print out “A Cherry” on my computer and then cut it out to weave into my white heat embossed “hello” cut from red cardstock.

I die cut the scallop circle which also cuts out the center that the cherry image is on. I layered it onto the Doodlebug gingham paper and attached it to the white scallop rectangle that is all attached to a red A2 top folding card base. I finished it with a couple of red rhinestones.

FOR THE CATCHING UP: The last several months/year, it seemed like my blog posts were really random and sometimes I would go a few weeks before posting the next time. I seem to struggle on and off with having no motivation to get crafting or even go into my craft room at all. I know this happens from time to time, but it seemed to be up and down and all over the place which is why I took on joining a few challenge design teams. It helped to get me a routine of at least getting motivated to get into my room on a regular basis anyway. I didn’t want anything that was too strenuous, or I felt that I would give up completely. This is also the reason why I do art journaling…it helped with “no pressure” on what I could create and use whatever I wanted. After looking at things I’ve created, I still have things that I’ve made but never posted about! So I thought I’d try to catch up with some of the things I’ve done and finally post it. There will have to be some more posts to catch up with it too!

So here is the start of some of my catching up towards the end of last year…

Do you remember the 12×12 Sampler SWAPS that I was doing with my blog buddy group? (Patti, Shirley and Donna) We would swap out the squares and then finish it ourselves by adding the background papers and placing into 12×12 shadow box frames. We had completed one for each season, but for this last one we decided to make one about our “favorite craft”. Here’s all of the squares that is still hanging up on my wall right above my computer and next to a clock and other craft items I made. I enjoy looking at it and seeing all of the squares from fellow crafting friends. This was fun to participate in and it really helped me with struggling motivation as well, so I’m glad I did it! Plus, it is cool to have it for inspiration in my room!

I actually had this done AND photographed last June! I forgot to get it posted on my blog.🙄

This is the square that I decided to do for this swap. I do love lots of glitter, so of course there is glitter on the floor spilled over along with glitter on the “walls”. If you don’t recognize these cute mice, they’re from Lawn Fawn Just Add Glitter stamp set. For each square, I wrote each person’s name on the paper from the table. Of course my name is on this one.

I was also asked to commission a card for someone’s very special birthday in November last year and forgot to post it as well:

I thought this one turned out so cute! I was told this card was to be for a special lady’s birthday who turned 100 and that she really liked plants.

Of course my first thought turned to plants and green colors. Then I thought, I don’t think I have any “plant” style stamps! The only thing that I thought of at the time was this darling My Favorite Things Sittin’ Pretty stamp set from my stash. I also thought it would be fun to have a banner going across a wreath with the special number over it. I found the My Favorite Things “Fall Wreath” stamp set (not in store) and the banner came from an older (retired) Lawn Fawn set.

I also had a fern embossing folder that I embossed over green cardstock and then rubbed some gold wax over it to bring it out. I gold heat embossed the banner and popped it up over the wreath. I was just going to place the colored plants around it, but decided it would be cute to add the girl sitting on the wreath. She’s there to wish the special lady happy 100 with all of those plants around her! I added a border of grass at the bottom to help ground everything, added some gold foil for a layer and attached it to a green A2 card base.

Here’s what I did for the inside of the card: I stamped the wreath off the edge on each side of the panel with green ink and then sponged around the edges with the lighter green ink. I gold heat embossed the sentiment.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my new “Cherry Hello” card today as well as the projects that I am catching up with posting about! There will be more coming!

THANK YOU FOR STOPPING IN! I’M GRATEFUL FOR YOUR TIME AND THOUGHTS!

Challenges: (For Cherry Hello card ONLY)

Beccy’s Place – June Freebie image (THANK YOU!) optional: Food
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2425 Anything Goes
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Emboss it (embossed hello)
Alphabet – ‘F’ is for Fruit
Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes
Penny’s Paper Crafty – Anything Goes Using Paper

Happy weekend! It’s very hot here today as we are under a heat advisory! So thought it was best to stay indoors and keep working on my “catch-up” posts! This one is a bit different than my usual papercrafting posts, but it’s my finished projects from the crafting retreat I had with friends right before the wedding and why I was so busy! But first, I’d like to share a fun “thank you” card I made for my friend that hosted it all:

And as you know from my last post, I was on a Lawn Fawn fever mode, so this was also made for my friend that hosted the fun “Painting Divas” retreat for us! This ADORABLE set called Just Add Glitter was a perfect set to use to create a card for the theme as well as those products to accompany it with the Art Supplies dies, Canvas and Easel as well as the Paint Splatter Background Stencil too!

For the background, I created a scene with a brick stencil from my stash that I’ve had for years which was blended on with some grey ink. The bottom solid grey portion of the scene I used that paint splatter stencil and some Distress Oxide colors and blended in over it. By using the oxide inks, the colors showed up better over the grey.

I used these same colors of Oxide inks to sponge over the die cut pieces from the Art Supplies dies as well as the “masterpiece” splatter on the “canvas” and the brick wall splatters. I’ve used some LF Woodgrain paper to cut out portions of the “wooden” pieces and the rest of the pieces were cut from white cardstock and then just colored with Copic markers. I arranged the scene to make it fit the way I wanted and then attached it down with some of the pieces being popped up with foam tape. (The sentiment on the rainbow canvas blob was from a freebie stamp the company is famous for adding to your order.) I had fun making this one and I chuckle at the “I arted” sentiment! 😅

Painting Diva Vicki 2022

For the “Painting Divas” Retreat, we had projects with different teachers and of course you probably recall the Mixed Media birdhouse I did from my past blog post. CLICK HERE TO VIEW POST The theme was on that cute little sign as we arrived…”Gnomes & Fairies & Unicorns & Glitter”…how fun is that?!! We were to create a decorated gift bag to bring with us using the theme and enter for a contest…but totally forgot to bring mine back home for a photo to show! LOL (I am hoping that we get together to share some photos as I wish I had taken more than what I did!)

I took a quick photo with birdhouses everyone finished for my class, and it was so fun to see everyone’s interpretation of how they made their own. I enjoyed seeing what everyone did! (I think two of these are missing in this photo.)

Now, I am not an avid decorative painter and don’t spend a whole lot of time doing it, but a couple of girls at this retreat are, and have been doing it for many years! (even longer than I have been a paper crafter…which is a LONG time! LOL) So I have had the privilege of learning a bit about it. I’m glad to have this time to share something together and doing when we can. I appreciate it and the memories that are made. 🥰

Below is my gallery of projects that I did for each class. I did this in order of when each class was taught. If you’re directly on my website, just click on each photo to enlarge it and also see the description of what the dimensions and types of surfaces that were used. All were hand painted by me using acrylic paints.

Painted over a canvas board measuring 8″ x 10″ with addition of 3 stars, buttons and knob for nose. You could make a face or paint a gnome, so of course I painted a gnome for mine. I went on my own and added twine to the star…not sure I like it.

I have one last project to share which is something I recently finished up before this painting retreat, but it had been sitting around the last few years as an un-finished box not being used.

A few years back, I had gone to a paint convention and purchased this brush box that was hand-made by an older gentleman and vendor at this place. I started it quite a while back and finished up the top portion of the box doing some ombre painting. I added the wooden lettering on the front and some glitter paint to the lettering after it was sealed.

And here’s what the inside of the box looks like with all of my brushes stored in it. (Well most of them anyway! LOL) What I like is that there are separate compartments so that I can organize the different types/styles of brushes in each. The brushes are protected and dust-free. The dimensions of this brush box are 11″ x 7″ x 4″ deep all made with wood. The hardware was removed and then replaced after painting and sealing.

Like I mentioned, I don’t always do decorative painting like this, but since it’s already part of my life and I have accumulated things related to it, I will probably do some things here and there. It’s like a mixed media thing for me as I don’t always do that, but sometimes I enjoy getting things out for something different. I like many different crafts which makes this all so fun for me. It’s nice to have a variety of interests to keep enthusiasm going!

How about you? Do you have interests in other things besides paper crafts?

Stay COOL and safe out there today friends…how do you like to keep cool?

Thanks so much for joining me today and I hope you were inspired in some way on your visit!

Challenges: