Author: *Vicki*

I love to create smiles with my handmade cards! I also enjoy papercrafts through art journaling, scrapooking and mixed media projects too!

Mix It Up With Veggie Stamping!

Hello friends!  Happy July!  I can’t believe that June is gone and the 4th of July Holiday is gearing up now!  I’m looking forward to some happy times ahead through the Summer and I hope you are too!

Today begins a new challenge over at the Mix It Up Challenge Blog and it’s always “Anything Goes with an optional theme“.  For the optional theme this time, we’d like to see some “Veggie Stamping“! (In other words:  use vegetables as your source for stamping with!)  I’ve never done it before, but I gave it a try!  Here’s what I came up with:

Now I’ve heard of people carving food as art, but I don’t think I’ve ever really seen anybody actually use vegetables/food as a stamp!  Have you ever tried this?  I encourage you to give it a try and join in the challenge with it because it was so much fun to play!

For my vegetable stamping, I didn’t want to use ink pads in fear of contaminating/ruining it, so I decided to use some acrylic paints instead.  I grabbed some veggies from the fridge along with a plate to hold the paints and cut the veggies to dip into the paint piles.  My husband decided to come around and snap a photo of what I was doing, so I thought I’d share my mess:

I was actually in the process of cutting out the “veggie flowers” when he took the photo, but I started with some acrylic paper because I was using paints and cut the paper large so I had plenty of room to play around.  It was a bit of trial to figure out how each veggie would look.  I thought it worked best to dry out the veggies as much as possible on a paper towel.  The coral large flower came from the red pepper.  I found that using a paint brush to apply it to the veggie was a better look.  Then I dipped the celery end to make the purple flowers.  The shallot was used to create the teal flower (the shallot was applied the same as the pepper) and I used the end of the carrot for the center of the flowers with yellow paint and then I used a broccoli to dab on the center of the flowers as well with some dark grey paint.

I then tried to arrange the flower bouquet how I wanted on my card base after cutting out the flowers.  I took a paint brush with (no kidding) celery green colored paint and painted the stems coming from each flower.  For the “leaves”, I used the same paint and dabbed the celery end around the stems.

I finished out my card by stenciling the brick background before attaching the cut out flowers.  I popped some of the flowers up with foam tape and then I white heat embossed a sentiment over dark grey cardstock and popped that up over the bottom of the bouquet.  This was attached to another panel of grey cardstock that I attached to a top folding white A2 card base.  I topped it off with a few gems.

  • So what do you think?  First time trying it out and just playing around having fun is all!  A little abstract for sure, but hopefully they do look like flowers on here🏵️!  I’m really looking forward to seeing what everyone does with this!  Hope you can play along too! (Remember you have 6 weeks to enter!  So plenty of time to play!)

THANKS SO MUCH FOR POPPING BY TODAY!  HAVE A GOOD ONE & I’LL SEE  YOU SOON!

Challenges:

  1. Addicted to Stamps & More – #471 Make Your Mark(I used paint)
  2. Little Red Wagon – #762 Layer It Up (I cut out flowers to layer on top)
  3. Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything Goes (Used a MFT stencil)
  4. CRAFT – Anything Goes
  5. Just Us Girls – #733 Stencil Week(Brick stencil)
  6. Creative Fingers – #281 Anything Goes

June Art Journal Page-Finding Happiness

Hello friends!  Happy weekend!  I hope you’re enjoying yourself with whatever you have going on.  It’s hard to believe that it’s almost time for us to celebrate the 4th of July holiday! 

We’ve been having higher than normal temperatures this time of year and you never really know if that humidity is going to circle back up in the air to create a thunderstorm.  Nature can be a wonderful thing though, and this is what the focus is for my page.

  • It’s time for the monthly Art Journal Page collaboration with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper)! We get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles along with a prompt for each month.  I know she always has great inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” June prompt of “DISTRESS”-(rough up/sand/rip, etc): 

So taking this approach with the prompt of “distress”, I thought it called for green colors and lots of nature collage type elements from my stash!  I have tons of those Tim Holtz ephemera packages, so I pulled those out along with distress oxide sprays.  I haven’t used those in quite a while.

For the background:  I started with a 5.5″ x 8.5″ (pre-punched holes with the Bind-It-All machine) very heavy weight canvas paper.  I started with a couple of pieces of ripped printed papers and distressed/inked the edges of it with Vintage Photo Distress Oxide ink.  I then took a Tim Holtz stencil and randomly applied paste over it.   After the paste dried, I placed the panel into a box and sprayed it with variations of water and distress oxide sprays in Peeled Paint, Rustic Wilderness, Fossilized Amber and Vintage Photo.  I added water and dried with my heat tool after each color until it was blended as I liked.  I took off the Vintage Photo cap and splattered a few drop with it.

Before applying the ephemera pieces, I had a solid fern stamp that I randomly stamped with Rustic Wilderness Distress Oxide ink.  I also stamped a few of those “rain drop” images randomly in the center of the page with black waterproof ink.  I removed the background color out of the images with a watercolor brush and then added back in a touch of blue color from an ink pad lid.  I used a white gel pen to add a highlight and covered the drops with a glitter brush pen.

Finishing the page, I’ve stamped the bug and magnifying glass, colored them in and added some acetate behind the magnifying glass, I ripped, sanded and distressed the edges of the page, the card behind the bird and randomly over the background.  Before attaching the pieces, I took some white pearl wax and rubbed over the stenciled paste areas.   I also sanded around the edges of the black sentiment strips.  I attached all of the ephemera pieces and popped the card and butterfly pieces with foam tape.  I added a safety pin to the card and glitter to the tops of the flowers in the corner.  (hard to see in photo)

  • The sentiment at the top reads:  if you want to find happiness, find gratitude.

Another prompt I worked on with this is the challenge over at Art Journal Journey which was “What Makes You Happy“.  So although nature helps with happiness for me, I find that happiness is multi-faceted with the purpose being exactly what the sentiment says.   I thought it went perfectly with this page.

Since my husband is retired and we now have time to take little road trips here and there and sometimes stop along the way to find an interesting trail or nature walk or park to explore.  We’ve had some great times doing this and I love being out in nature especially among the trees after a gentle rain.  The smell and coolness in Autumn are fabulous for this!

 Click on a photo to enlarge it if you’re on my website:

This was quite a wordy post, but I hope you’ve enjoyed my inspiration today and how it was inspired.  Thanks so much for joining me today and please check out Carol’s blog too!

Challenges:

  1. Art Journal Journey – What Makes You Happy
  2. Creative Artiste – #105 Anything Goes Mixed Media
  3. Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – June challenge ATG
  4. A Place to Start – Anything Goes optional:  Anything but a card
  5. Paperminutes – #852 Stencils

A Cherry Hello and Catching Up!

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)

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

Masculine Makes

Hello friends!  I hope you had a great weekend!  It’s been record heat and continuing to be all this week over my way and it’s way too hot to be outdoors for any length of time!  So I thought it would be nice to bring the outdoors to my craft room instead.

I wanted to share the card I made for my husband for Father’s Day:

My husband is an outdoor type and where he prefers to be most of the time.  We really have fun going hiking and visiting parks whenever we can and this seemed like a great start for making a card for him.

I’ve used several Taylored Expressions items for this card including:  Great Outdoors Layering Stencil & Clear Combo, Through the Woods, Wood Slice Background Stamp, and Hello Lovely sentiment set to make this card along with an entire set pictured below.

For the background:  I stamped the Wood Slice stamp over kraft cardstock (along with the envelopes to match) and then I splattered some black and cream color paints over them.  I took the panel cut the Ridged Circle Stacklets into the background.  I wrapped some twine around it and attached them to an A2 side folding black card base.

The stencil creates four different scenes all at once by layering the stencils with colors you choose and then you cut each one out.  I layered mine over black cardstock and attached to the kraft card front panels.  I stamped the trees and sentiments and also added those to each card with some of them being popped up with foam tape.

Here’s what the rest of the cards look like using the same products.  I changed up the scenes for each one but using the same colors for each stencil layer.  I changed the sentiment so that I have a masculine card for several different occasions too.  There are lots of males in my family to send cards to and I always seem to run out of them.

Thanks so much for stopping in today!  I appreciate your kind words and taking the time out of your day!  See you soon!

Challenges:

  1. Cardz 4 Guyz – Father’ Day
  2. Addicted to Stamps & More – Die Cuts & Stencils #470
  3. Crafty Catz– Make it Masculine #674
  4. Cupcake Inspirations – For the Guys #596
  5. Allsorts – Masculine or Anything Goes #785
  6. Papercraft – For the Boys

It’s Funny and/or a Pun at Sparkles Monthly Challenge!

Hello friends!  Happy weekend!  Wow, it’s been very warm outside and I’ve been spending my time indoors.  I hope to be sharing some more posts with lots of things very soon, so stay tuned in!  Today starts another challenge over at the Sparkles Monthly Challenge blog!

This time was my turn to choose a theme and I thought with Father’s Day, masculine cards are a good way to use those “FUNNNY and/or a PUN” on our cards!  To make someone laugh or at least smile, is the main reason why I love to make cards!  If you feel like having a chuckle with your cards, make one and enter this month!  I can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Here’s my card for the challenge:

Nothing better than a hot French fry, but a French fry with a smile and bow tie is too fun!😆  (This is an American term for this food, but I know they’re called “chips” in Britain…either way, delicious and fun!)

For this challenge, I knew I wanted to pull out a large card kit I had gotten back in 2018 from Simon Says Stamp partnered with Doodlebug to create the I Chews You kit.  (Most of the items are not available any more other than the stamp set that I’ve linked.)  I fell in love with all of the cute images and puns from the Doodlebug So Pun Friends collection!  In this card kit, there was a die that cut out the box and fries.  The sentiments came from some “Chit-Chat Clippings“.

I first took a piece of white cardstock for the front panel and cut it with a wonky stitched rectangle die and placed it over a side folded A2 red card base.  I then took a wonky stitched circle die and cut a circle from the Doodlebug So Much Pun paper pad.  I placed it in the lower right and cut off part of the edge of the circle sticking out past the white panel.

I took the die cut fry box and cut it out in red and white.  I used the white strip to make the band at the top of the box.  I cut out the fries and sponged around the edges and arranged them behind the box and attached it to the circle panel.

The sentiment bubble was inked around the edges and placed in the top left above the fries.  I added a black layer behind the box sentiment strip and cut off the edge sticking out.  Lastly, I thought it would be fun to add a smile face to the fry and then I stamped, colored and die cut a bow tie from my stash to add on the one fry.  I finished it with some Doodlebug Heart Sprinkles.

I really had a great time putting this one together and I hope you’ve enjoyed it too!  Hoping to pull out this card kit again and make several cards with it as there is still so many things in this kit that I never got a chance to play with!  (I have so many things I need to do this with!)😉

Please be sure to check out the challenge blog to see the inspiration from the team and I hope you will take some time to have fun and play along with us!

Enjoy your weekend and thanks for stopping by!  I’ll catch you soon!

Challenges:

  1. Crafts Galore Encore – Anything Goes
  2. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2423 Anything Goes
  3. As You Like It – With or Without Words and Why? (I feel like this is the main reason to send a card to someone that includes a sentiment.  I especially like the fun and/or pun for sending smiles.)
  4. Tic Tac Toe – TTTC249 (I used first row down:  layers, die cut, pattern paper)
  5. Penny’s Paper-Crafty – #573 Anything Goes Using Paper
  6. Aloha Friday – Masculine
  7. Creative Moments – #259 optional twist: Men and Boys

Try It On Tuesday GDT-Book Pages

Hello friends!  Happy June!  Hope you’ve been enjoying your month so far!  It’s going to start warming up at the end of this week which means I’ll probably start spending more time indoors with the air conditioning and hopefully have some time crafting!  Yay!

save guest tiot 24

I’m super excited to share my post with you today as I’ve been asked to be a guest designer for this challenge at Try It On Tuesday!  Always happy to be apart of the challenges and support them as much as I can as they help to inspire creativity!  

I’m loving the challenge theme for this one which is “BOOK PAGES”!  There are several different ways to go with it, but here’s my take with the challenge:

I am an avid reader and I do love turning the pages of a good book, but sometimes you can come across an old book that is in bad shape or even a book that has no meaning to you and that you might normally throw away.  I don’t do that, but I keep it instead for purposes of using in my crafts!  I do the same with magazines, etc.  Sometimes I use the illustrations for art journaling, etc.  I’ve even kept some for the purpose of gift wrapping.  How about you?  Do you keep things like this for anything?  If you do, then this challenge would be a great for using it up!  I’ve even seen some decorative papers that have a “book page look” which would be suitable, I think, for the challenge as well!

For my card:  I’ve used a cover plate die (unknown) and cut the pieces from a book page and then cut it again in black cardstock so that I could use the frames.   I took some brown ink to sponge around the edges and in the center randomly, so that it wasn’t so stark white.  I then splattered it with both black and white paints, wrapped some twine with a bow around and placed it on a side folding A2 black card base.

The flower image:  I took another book page and stamped/heat embossed the Bursting Blooms stamp from Taylored Expressions(retired/not in store) and cut it out with the coordinating die.  I had some fun watercoloring the image with some Daniel Smith watercolor samples and than I sponged around the edges with some more of the brown ink before attaching to the card with thin foam squares. (I also cut an additional piece of white cardstock for added thickness as some book pages can be thin.)

To Finish:  I’ve taken the Taylored Expressions Sundry Sentiments and white heat embossed the sentiment over black cardstock and cut it out with the coordinating die.  I attached it to the card along with some black rhinestones.

I love how this one turned out and I hope you do too!  Please be sure to pop on over to the challenge blog and check out all of the inspiration from the team!  I look forward to seeing your creation in the gallery as well!

Thank you for stopping in today and I’ll be sharing more with you soon!

Challenges:

  1. Allsorts – #784 Flowers Galore or Anything Goes
  2. Creative Fingers – #279 Anything Goes
  3. Alphabet – ‘E’ is for embossing wet or dry (heat embossed flower and sentiment)
  4. Krafty Chicks – #719 Stamps
  5. Time Out – Inspired by a Quote from Henri Matisse: “There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”

May AJ Page-Never Forgotten

Hello friends!  I hope that your month has been going well so far!  We’ve been doing lots of things outdoors and enjoying the time as much as possible until the temperatures climb higher and gets too hot.  I’m enjoying it now, but unfortunately, there will be storms this weekend in my area.

This weekend (Monday) is also Memorial Day for those of us in the U.S.  The date and name may vary by different countries, but it’s all about remembrance of our active military who’ve died.  I wanted to create my art journal page today in reflection of this.

  • It’s time for the monthly Art Journal Page collaboration with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper)! We get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles along with a prompt for each month.  I know she always has great inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” May prompt of “MATERIAL”-(use fabric/cloth in some way): 

For the “material/cloth/fabric” prompt, it got me thinking because I don’t sew very much.  Sometimes I get out my sewing machine, but rarely!  I do have some fabric scraps and I thought it would be fun to cut out some squares with pinking shears!  Then I had to figure out what to do with them!

For the background:  I used a 5.5″ x 8.5″ of canvas heavy weight paper with the pre-punched holes at the top made with my Bind-It-All Machine and painted over it with some Crisp Blue Americana acrylic paint.  Once dry, I sprayed some silver metallic over it.  (You can see some of the shine at the top.)  I didn’t know how busy looking the fabric squares would look, so I decided to stop there.

Although I did cut several different squares of fabric patterns, my eyes were pulled to the red, white and blues which were perfect for Memorial Day.  I pulled out only those type of colors and used some fabric glue to attach over the background randomizing the patterns.  I also took some silver and navy ribbons to attach at the top and bottom areas where the fabric squares stopped.

The poem was a memory that I had during a vacation time with my husband when we ran into a memorial with a park bench and this poem was engraved with birds around it.  I looked it up and printed it out on my computer over a parchment paper.  I ripped it out and sponged the edges.  I also printed out the “forgotten” at the top and cut it out in a banner.  The poem was popped up with foam tape over the fabric squares.  “Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep” – by Mary Elisabeth Frye

The stars and “never” letters were die cut and attached and I finished it with red rhinestones next to the “forgotten” banner.

  • Hope you’ve enjoyed my art journal page today and I really appreciate you stopping in!   I wish you all a wonderful weekend!

Challenges:

  1. Art Journal Journey – Poems
  2. Creative Artiste – Anything Goes Mixed Media
  3. Love to Craft – #80 Anything Goes
  4. Simon Says Stamp Monday – Let’s Art Journal
  5. Crafting Happiness – #176 Any Craft

Clean & Simple at Sparkles Monthly

Hello friends!  I hope you’re having a wonderful week so far!  We’ve been getting some rain, which is great for the freshly planted flowers.  I enjoy being able to sit on my covered porch and listen to it rain as long as it doesn’t get too stormy!

Today starts a new challenge theme over at the Sparkles Monthly Challenge!  For this month, we’d like to see your CAS (clean & simple) creations!  I look forward to seeing the inspiration in the gallery, so I hope you can join!  Here’s what I’ve made for this challenge:

Sometimes I can really struggle with a clean and simple design because I always feel like I need to add something more.  The end result is in the minimal embellishments and design.  This one got stuck in my head and came together rather quickly and I like how it turned out.

Most everything used on my card came from My Favorite Things.  I started with watercolor (Bristol Smooth) paper and the Watercolor Wash stencil and blended a rainbow of colors over it.  While the stencil was still in place, I took a water bottle to spritz water droplets over it and removed the stencil.  I let it dry and then clear heat embossed the sentiment that was stamped in a black pigment ink.  (The key to this is to make sure the watercolor area is completely dry before you heat emboss anything over it.)

I cut out the panel with a wonky stitched rectangle die.  I’ve attached it to an A2 side folding black card base.  I was pulled to splatter over this, but thought I needed to keep it simple, so I took some drip drops in “cosmic” color and added them randomly to the design.  

  • So, what do you think?  Simple enough you can do it too and enter it in the challenge, right?  If you need more inspiration, check out the challenge blog to see what the other design team members came up with for CAS.

Thanks so much for stopping in today!  I hope you have an amazing week!

Challenges:

  1. AAA Birthday – #61 CAS birthday card
  2. CRAFT – Birthday (Happy 15th birthday!)
  3. AAA Cards – Anything Goes Birthday (Happy 10th birthday!) 
  4. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2419 Anything Goes

Mother’s Day Flowers

Hello friends!  Sending a happy Mother’s Day to all of the celebrating moms this weekend!  It’s a beautiful day out today and tomorrow will be too, so I’m going out to plant some flowers that I’ve been wanting to do!   I hope that you’re having a nice weekend in whatever you’re doing.

I just wanted to share a card that I had made just for Mother’s Day:

Vicki-TE-MothersDay

I love how this turned out with all of those blooms bursting out from the antique pail!  I’m in the middle of going back over some classes that I’m doing, and this was one of them that I’ve switched up to fit this occasion.   The original card had carrots as a base and I didn’t have the flower dies they used, so I made my own version with what I had.

The antique pail, flowers, leaves, bow and foiled sentiment dies all came from Taylored Expressions.  The scallop rectangle frame came from My Favorite Things and some of the design papers I’ve used came from Scrapbook.com.

The background papers and large flower came from the same pattern papers as a couple of other flowers and dark green leaves.  I used some light pink ink to sponge some of the other flowers and center of bow.  The center of the scallop frame has some light green blending, so that it wasn’t so stark white behind the flowers.  I also sponged around the antique pail.

I arranged the flowers inside the pail and turned it over to attach with glue over the center of the scallop panel.  I popped up the front flower and added some colored gem dots to the center of the flowers and bow.  I attached some mirror cardstock to the back of the scallop frame panel to match the foiled sentiment.  The sentiment was attached over the pail at the bottom.

It took a little bit of time to cut and arrange all of it, but it was fun to fiddle with.  

Thanks for taking some time to stop by and I hope you’ve enjoyed this pail of flowers for Mother’s Day!  Have a fabulous weekend whatever you do! 🌼🏵️

Challenges:

  1. Creative Inspirations – Feminine
  2. The Paper Funday – Anything Goes optional: Flower Shoppe
  3. Craft Rocket – Flowers
  4. Cardz 4 Galz – Celebration (Mother’s Day or other)
  5. My time to Craft – Mother’s Day or Friendship
  6. A Place to Start – Anything Goes optional: For a Lady
  7. Aud Sentiments – Foiling and/or Flowers + sentiment
  8. Unicorn – For the Girls
  9. Get Creative – Ladies Only

Mix It Up with Inlaid Die Cutting!

Hello friends and happy May!  I hope you are having a wonderful week and have been enjoying your Spring season with lots of sunshine and flowers!  There’s always lots of things to do when the weather turns warmer, but that’s a good thing!

Today starts a new challenge over at the Mix It Up Challenge Blog!  There is always lots of wonderful inspiration from the team, so please go check it out and play along!  The challenges are always ANYTHING GOES with an optional theme. This month’s optional theme is Inlaid Die Cut (flat or raised)!  For these challenges, you have plenty of time to enter as they run for 6 weeks!  I look forward to seeing what you come up with!   Here’s the project I made:

I think this card turned out very well using the inlay die cutting technique!  I found the perfect dies, but of course you can use almost ANY dies you want to try this including your regular shaped die cuts!  I always find those frame style dies to be very easy to work with for this.

I received this cool freebie die from Taylored Expressions called “Simple Stems” and thought it would be perfect for this technique.  I also inlaid a sentiment die from my stash over top of the flower and inlaid that too.  I used the Taylored Expressions Frame in Frame 3 die set to create the middle pattern and glitter frame around the flower.  These were also inlaid into the white card front panel.  

It’s a little tricky at first to figure out in what order to die cut all of your pieces so that it looks right.  Mine is very flat which I find helpful for mailing out and with the cost of postage stamps going up again this Summer, I need to rethink the type of cards I make any more.  Here’s a photo so you can see that everything lays flat to the card front:

For the inlaid die cutting, I also find sticky sheets very helpful.  I took a piece of double-sided sticky sheet and placed it on the back of the white card front panel AFTER I had cut out the frame from it.  This makes the inside of the panel sticky so that I could lay all of my pieces on top and also keep it flush with the white card front panel.  Once I laid all of the die cut pieces, I took the backing off the sticky sheet and attached it the A2 top folding white card base with everything in place.  You also don’t have to worry about liquid glue oozing out.

It’s a simple CAS card, but it was so fun to do!  Hope you’ve enjoyed my card and take some time to check out the challenge this month!  Thanks so much for dropping in!  See you soon!

Challenges:

  1. Daring Cardmakers – “Something Old, Something New” (old glitter paper and new die cut + I used blue paper)
  2. Simon Says Stamp Monday – Feminine
  3. Moving Along With the Times – #166 Flowers