Birthday BEAR Hugs & ICAD Week 5!

Happy Friday friends! Just stopping by to share a few creations that I’ve been working on! I can’t believe how crazy busy this week has been, but I’m still pressing on and having as much fun as I can stand in my craft room! 🙂

I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve pulled out some of the huge stash of My Favorite Things stamps, so I played around with some challenges! Check it out:

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How cute is that bear peeking out from the gift box?! So, keeping with the challenges, I’ve used the MFT sketch and color challenges to base this card on. I also wanted to play along with the birthday project challenge as well…so killing several ‘birds’ at once here. (See all challenge details below.)

I pulled out the MFT Ripe Raspberry card stock for the base of my card and used the MFT Beary Special Birthday stamp set with the sentiment in white ink to stamp all over the background of the base. I colored the sweet bear and cut him out with the coordinating die and popped him up with foam tape at the bottom of the card. For the top panel, I took the MFT Mini Clouds Edges stencil and created a cloudy sky on white card stock. (I didn’t have any but was trying to match up the colors with the MFT Blue Yonder for the color challenge.) I then cut this panel with the MFT Stitched Basic Edges and then cut out a MFT Blu Raspberry piece of cardstock with the MFT Stitched Scallop Basic Edges die and layered it underneath the cloudy sky background. I attached this to the Ripe Raspberry card base.

I took the bunch of balloons from the same stamp set and colored them with coordinating colors, I fussy cut just the balloons because I took the image and stamped it on the cloudy sky background so I could pop up the balloons with foam tape. I also covered the balloons with some Spectrum Noir clear sparkle glitter pen. I then took a sentiment from the same stamp set and heat embossed it in white embossing powder over some MFT Black Licorice card stock and cut the strip with fish tails and then popped it up over the balloon strings with foam tape. Lastly, I added some Pretty Pink Posh sparkling clear sequins and added some silver Nuvo glitter drops in the center of each one.

I can’t believe that I have fully completed week 5 of the ICAD challenge so far! Although things have been a bit hectic, I am determined to continue on with these index cards each day…I am surprised by how they turn out sometimes too! Here are the weird and random tiny pieces of art I’ve created each day this last week:

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I truly am hoping that this will help me to become a better artist. I am proud of myself for pushing on when I want to just give up sometimes, but that’s exactly why I need to challenge myself to continue when it gets hard. I’m also happy to pull out media that I’m either not familiar with or pushed to create beyond what I am comfortable with…like drawing! LOL! I can’t wait to look back at these all at one time when I’m done!

Have YOU challenged yourself lately?

Thanks for stopping by today! Hope you’ve enjoyed my creations!

Challenges I’d like to enter my ‘Happy Bear-day” card for:

MFT ‘The Birthday Project’ – Use a bear image on your birthday card
MFT Color Challenge – Blu Raspberry, Ripe Raspberry, Black Licorice & Blue Yonder
MFT Sketch (MFTWSC392) – sketch
The Paper Players – PP400 – Celebration

Watch Out for Crabs!

Hello friends! I hope that you’ve had a wonderful 4th of July celebration yesterday!

It’s been a while since I’ve posted! I have had MANY crafty things going on “behind the scenes” and I will be sharing all with you at another time, so please excuse the gaps in my postings until then. Hopefully in a few weeks it will calm down a bit and I can post about what I’ve been working on! 🙂

It is already time for another CUTE CARD THURSDAY challenge again! Where in the world did that week go?! Really easy peasy “ANYTHING GOES” challenge for you this week, so I hope you will consider adding whatever you’re working on this week to the gallery over there. The team has plenty of inspiration and there is a wonderful prize from our sponsor, Whimsy Stamps! I have used one of their images on my card for today…check it out!

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Tee hee! This crab is just too funny and cute! I have used the Whimsy Stamps digital image called Crabby Cranston. I colored him with Copic markers and fussy cut him out and attached him to my beach background with foam tape.

To create the background, I have masked off the top portion, blended some distress ink and then spritzed it with water to give it some texture for the beach sand look. I’ve also taken a few markers and gel pens to add even more texture to it. I then masked off the bottom portion and blended some more distress inks for the sky. I had an old beach sign image (given to me by a friend) that I stamped over top of the sand before I attached the crab.

I cut out the beach scene with a MFT Wonky Stitch rectangle die and printed out my own sentiment that was cut with a MFT banner die to attach at the top of the scene panel. I then mounted this to an A2 sized top folding white card base. I then added some Pretty Pink Posh sparkling clear sequins and added some clear Stickles to the centers of each.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my “Life Lesson” for today! 🙂 Thanks so much for dropping in and I will be back again tomorrow with another week of ICAD and another fun creation I’ve been working on!

challenges I would like to enter:

Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
Just Us Girls (JUGS447) – Wild Card Week Anything Goes
613 Avenue Create – Anything Goes w/optional twist: create your own background
Paper Craft Crew (PCC297) – By the Sea

Masked Floral Eclipse and ICAD Week 4

Hello friends! Posting a bit later than what I had wanted today, but sometimes I get caught up in other things going on and just keep crafting when I have totally forgotten that I need to post something…especially if you can’t remember if you’ve posted or not! LOL! Does that make sense? I hope so!

I just love all the beautiful blooms that are coming up around the house as we continue with Summer! It is a bit hot outside and I’m only out for a brief time watering and that’s about it right now. So I decided to take the idea of flowers indoors with a card!

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I created a floral bouquet and then used the “Eclipse technique” (click link for a tutorial on Splitcoaststampers.com) for my design using all Lawn Fawn products on my card!

I started off with the Fab Flowers stamp set and made several masks from Post-It Notes and cut them out as needed to create the bouquet on white cardstock. I’ve used several colors of Stampin’ Up! inks pads which is what I have the most of in any ink pads I own. I masked off the flowers that I needed so that I can put the ones that I wanted to show up in the front. I’ve also used a white gel pen to create “dots” all around the flowers.

After completing my masked floral bouquet, I used the LF Scripty Hello die and cut it right in the center of the bouquet. When I first tried this technique, it freaked me out, but it’s pretty cool how it turns out! I also cut this out several times with black cardstock to stack them up and place behind the stamped bouquet on the front.

I finished the card by cutting out the panel with the LF Stitched Rectangle Stackable and the LF Fancy Scalloped Rectangle Stackable in black which I mounted onto a top folding A2 white card base. I then added some clear sparkling sequins filled with Clear Nuvo Crystal Drops in the centers.

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Here’s a closer look at what the technique looks like on the card. It shows up best when you put dark cardstock behind it. it takes a bit of planning and maneuvering, but it’s totally worth it when you’ve done.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my Friday floral bouquet!

And now of course I have the Week 4 ICAD 2018 index cards to share with you!

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I have noticed that as I go along, some days I just don’t want to put much effort into it and others I find spending a great deal of time putting one together. LOL! I guess some days you just “feel it” and other days you don’t! These may seem a bit weird, but if I was able to share the prompts and ideas behind each one, they would totally make sense…. but for now, I’m just enjoying the process and being able to get out and play with all the different media that I either don’t use or want to learn more about.

I hope you are enjoying seeing the results each week. I know I enjoy looking back at them each week rather than seeing each one for the day it’s done. It gives a different perspective and makes me feel proud for completing one every day despite what’s going on around me!

Thanks so much for dropping in and I wish you a fantastic weekend! Stay cool!

Challenges I’d like to enter my floral card in:

Lawn Fawnatics – Flowers, Floral and Foliage
Crafty Creations – Anything Goes (#369)
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything Goes

A Clean & Simple Cute Card

Hello again friends! It’s Thursday and time for another Cute Card Thursday challenge! Woot! This week’s challenge is a Clean and Simple or CAS style theme! I hope you can play along with us and share your CAS creations too! We can’t wait to see what you come up with! Here’s the card that I’ve made:

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I have used our sponsor’s image for this week from Kinda Cute called Girl and Balloons digital stamp. I wanted to use some soft colors for the balloons and I have used my Copic markers to color in the image.

I have also taken some distress ink and a cloud stencil to create the cloudy background behind her. I’ve also added a stamped sentiment from my stash. I cut the image panel down to size so that it fit inside the black stitched and scallop rectangle die cut and mounted it over top. I used some foam tape and mounted this entire piece onto a white A2 sized top folding card base.

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In this photo you can better see the details with the Spectrum Noir Glitter brush pen as well as the hightlights I’ve made with a white gel pen in her cheeks and balloons. I had fun coloring this cute image! Hope you’ve enjoyed it too!

Please be sure to stop by the Cute Card Thursday challenge blog to see the challenge details, find inspiration from the rest of the team and to add your link to the challenge this week! Hope to see your creation there! Thanks for stopping in and see you again tomorrow!

challenges for this card:

Addicted to CAS – Girl Power
Seize the Birthday – Anything Goes
Daring Cardmakers – What a Wonderful World (inspired by the “I see skies of blue and clouds of white” lyric) – this song always inspires me to look on the brighter side of the world…great challenge, thank you!
The House That Stamps Built (J2718) – Anything Goes

Pink Christmas

Hello friends! I am sort of “off track” with some other crafty things on my “to do” list and a bit behind in fact! I have soooo many things ahead of me to get ready for and I promise I will be sharing more on that later, but scanning through my groups on Facebook, I saw a post where a challenge was getting ready to end, so I just decided last minute while I was working on other things, that I would challenge myself to get a card made before the deadline ended! Yeah, I do that to myself…keeps the creative “MOJO” flowing, right?! I feel good about it because it is a head start for a Christmas in July card stack that I hope to get going on! Here’s what I came up with:

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I created this card for the FB Group Sparkle N Sprinkle Creative Challenges. The deadline was right before midnight last night, but I got it done yesterday afternoon and wanted to post it within the group before the deadline ended and then I wanted to share it with you here today on my blog. The condition for this challenge is pretty much anything goes as long as you have used a Sparkle N Sprinkle stamp/digital image somewhere on your design. I have used the SNS Christmas Baubles stamp set that I actually received from a card kit a while back. Instead of using it for the intended purpose of the card kit, I switched up the design a bit to make it my own.

I took the cardstock from the kit for the base as well as the pink cardstock from the kit for behind my decorative paper and under the bauble. I die cut an oval from the pink cardstock in the kit as well as a larger oval from some gold mirror cardstock. The bauble and holly were colored with Copics and gold gel pen. I then fussy cut them out. I took the pink oval and heat embossed the holly image randomly over it with the SNS Vanilla Ice EP. I layered it over the gold circle and added the images. The holly image was popped up with foam tape around the oval. I die cut the decorative paper and pink cardstock with stitched border dies and placed it on the top folding white A2 card base. I gold heat embossed the sentiment at the bottom of the card base and then I used some gold ribbon from my stash to create the bow and placed it over top of the decorative papers and bauble. I also used the Nuvo White Blizzard Glitter Drops to go over the berries. Looking at it now in the photo, it looks wet, but they were dry and so glittery IRL!

Hope you’ve enjoyed a little hint of Christmas coming your way! It helps to beat the heat a bit and get a good start for the up-coming busy Holiday Season! 🙂 Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Challenges to enter this card:

Crafty Cardmakers – Wet or dry embossing
The Merry Christmas Challenge – Anything Goes + Christmas
QKR Stampede #301 – Anything Goes
Crafting from the Heart #212 – Anything Goes
Artistic Inspirations #203 – Anything Goes

Scooping Up a Card or Two Plus ICAD Week 3 results

Hello friends! You ever have one of those weeks where no matter how you try to make ends meet, something always goes wrong to mess you up again and get you off track? This week was just one of those weeks! No matter how hard I tried to stay on top of things, something would go wrong and so much so that supper has been really late almost every night. So I am glad to post something here and glad it is Friday honestly! LOL!

I have a mixed bag of creations to share with you today, so I hope you enjoy this post and get some sort of inspiration with it!

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Let’s start with this fun birthday card I made using that piece of background paper that I made at the stamp convention! (If you don’t remember it, check out THIS POST to see it!) It seemed to be the perfect colors to use. I actually die cut the background piece using the Lawn Fawn cross-stitched rectangle dies and then heat embossed the sentiment. I took the ice cream cone image, stamped and colored it in and cut out that panel with the same die as the background. Mounted it over black along with the background piece, added some glitter touches with gel pens, Spectrum Noir glitter pen for the heart and then covered it with glossy accents. I then added a black piece of twine to the cone and then took those gorgeous colored pearls from the card kit and glued them in the upper right corner of the design. All was mounted onto an A2 sized card base.

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And speaking of the Stamp Convention goodies, I fell in love with the sparkly bird card that I made from one of the vendor booths and bought up a couple of packages of the kits they had! (Each kit contained enough to make 12 cards!) The sparkle against the transparency looks amazing! I embellished the corners and added the sentiment with the foil stickers from the kit. The paper and envelope are furnished in the kit…pretty much just assemble…can’t get any easier than that! Check it out from Stamp On It! (They have many of them!)

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So as you know from the last couple of weeks of postings that I’ve been participating in this Daisy Yellow ICAD challenge. You can find my postings about the past ones I’ve created by clicking on the “ICAD” archives link at the top left of this post.

As mentioned before, I cannot share the prompts or themes, but it is something that I work on each day…yes…no matter how hard it gets, I’m getting out my index card and playing around with something! Today’s card is not shown (it’s in next week’s grouping), but I’ve noticed that my “makings” are in conjunction with the mood I have for that day…pretty interesting I’d say! If you haven’t looked into this challenge, I encourage you to give it a try. Some days are just hard to figure out what you’re going to be doing and other days you just know. 🙂

So that’s all the shares I have for you today and hope that will be enough to tide you over until next week as I will have a bit more time for a routine after this horrible week is now over with! LOL! I thank you for your continued support by following, liking, commenting or just looking, it is always appreciated! Enjoy your weekend!

challenges I’d like to enter my ice cream cone card for:

Crafty Gals Corner – Anything Goes
Aud Sentiments – Anything Goes + sentiment.
Seize the Birthday – Anything Goes

Going in Circles for Cute Card Thursday

Hello friends! It’s another Thursday that has gone by this month already! This Summer seems to be going very quickly and I hope you’re out enjoying it!

There is another fun challenge this week at Cute Card Thursday! I hope you will join with us to share your “Circles” themed creations! Here’s the creation that I’ve come up with for my card:

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I have decided to make a circle shaped easel style card along with using even more circles within my card design! With the exception of the circles for the card shape, everything else I’ve used is from My Favorite Things stamps! I thought it would be fun to take the Stitched Tripple Peek-a-Boo Window die to cut out the circle windows to fit these adorable pigs in from the Hog Heaven stamp set. I cut out an additional circle for behind the window and sponged some different colors of distress ink behind them. I colored and die cut the images out with the coordinating dies and popped them in various places behind the circle windows as well. I stamped the sentiment and cut it out using some circle dies and this works as a “stopper” for my easel card design. I popped it up with some foam tape. I stamped the flowers from the same stamp set.

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And here’s a closer look at the front of my card. I just love how the top piggy is leaning over the circle and window and the bottom piggy is peeking out with a wave from the bottom circle window! I thought he needed a little twine bow tie too! Finished it out with some circle sequins with a little glitter Stickles in each center.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my card today! Please be sure to stop by the challenge blog to see the other wonderful circle creations from the team! See you tomorrow!

challenges:

Allsorts – Use at Least 2 dies (3 circle type dies)
Crafting From the Heart – Anything Goes
Tuesday Throwdown – “You’re On My Mind”
Addicted to Stamps & More – Make Your Mark (ink blending + Copics)
Sunny Day Crafting – Any Animal on Project

Father’s Day Makes

Hello friends!

Hope that you had a good weekend! Since the celebration is over and there are no “peekers” to worry about anymore, I can post the cards that I’ve made!

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This truck image is part of my purchase from the Stamp Convention that I went to from the Rubber Cottage booth. As a matter of fact, I purchased a kit from them which is where the embossing folder and silver metallic paper comes from on my card.

I just colored the truck with Copics, cut it out with the die and popped it up over the “tree scene” with foam squares to make it look like the truck is driving into the scene. The papers in the background along with the tree image and rest of the card comes from some old Stampin’ Up! products in my stash…too numerous to count all the old! LOL!

This next card was made especially for my husband:

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This one took me a bit out of my comfort zone as I basically watercolored the entire scene. The only set of watercolors that I own are the Kuretake Gansi Tambi ones. I really do like using them, but the pans are starting to empty out on a few colors now. So I’ve been looking into different kinds to see if I will try some new ones. Do any of you have watercolors that you like using?

I did have a bit of help with the trees from the Newton’s Nook Whispering Pines stamp set. I took the images, scribbled some watercolor crayons (very old SU! ones!) over them, misted them with water and stamped them where I wanted them to be. I used my paint brush to move around the colors a bit so they blended with the scene a bit more.

I stamped the silhouette images from the Newton’s Nook Serene Silhouettes and the greeting from the Winton’s BBQ set with black ink using my MISTI tool several times as it was watercolor paper which is always hard to get a complete impression on. I also used a Spectrum Noir clear glitter pen to go over the blue for the water area. Layered onto a piece of black and then onto a white side folding A2 sized card.

Sometimes it can be a challenge making masculine cards appropriate for each male you need a card for, but I think I did fine keeping in mind the people they went to and they were really fun to make! Hope you’ve enjoyed them too!

I would like to enter these challenges:

Try it On Tuesday – For the boys
Crafty Creations – Anything Goes
Creative Moments – Anything Goes
Watercooler Wednesday (WWC174) – All About Occasions – Father’s Day
Crafty Catz – Anything Goes
Crafty Friends – Anything Goes

King For a Day and ICAD 2018-week 2 results

Hello friends! The weekend is upon us and I’m told it’s going to be a hot one here, so I think I will be hosting the Father’s Day celebration inside where it’s cooler!

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Thought it would be fun to take the Lawn Fawn Wild For You stamp set and use the lion with the crown image for a Father’s Day card. I colored the image and crown and cut it out with the coordinating dies. I stenciled some clouds on the stitched circle background and stamped the sentiment from the same set by curving it to fit the circle along the edge and then die cut a couple strips of grass and cut that with the same stitched circle die. I nestled the lion in between. Layered that onto a mirrored gold circle die cut from the Lawn Fawn Zig Zag Circle dies. I’ve also used the cloud stencil to cover the background of the card along with my envelope for the card. I used the rectangle stitched dies to cut out the front panel of my card and attached a banner cut from some LF papers. The sentiment comes from the LF Happy, Happy Happy stamp set and dies.

Also, wanted to share the second week now of the ICAD 2018 Challenge that I’m doing! Yes, I even took things with me to the Stamp Convention last weekend and worked on the days that I needed to so I stayed with it. Never stamped in a motel room before, but luckily there was a nice sized desk to spread stuff out on! 🙂 – check out the details if you want to join in the fun too! Nope, it’s never too late!

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It looks pretty random, but that’s what this challenge is for…pure randomness in creating and I think that’s what I love about it, not to mention that I don’t feel as pressured because it’s just playing on a little index card! The coffee one was made with a coffee cup I had sitting on my desk…it smells lovely! This is how my mind works…randomly in thoughts and so different from day to day. Hope you like seeing the results each week!

Thanks for stopping in as I always enjoy seeing what you have to say! Not sure if any of you are receiving my replies, but I truly appreciate each one and your support in my love of creating. If you would like for me to visit your blog, please don’t be shy…leave me a comment and let me know you are here! Have a wonderful weekend!

I would like to enter the Father’s Day “lion” card in these challenges:

Lawn Fawnatics – Cards for Guys
Cardz 4 Guyz -Father’s Day
Sweet Stampin’ – Father’s Day
Splitcoaststampers “Free For All” Challenge (F4A33) – Father’s Day

Sun, Sea or Sand at Cute Card Thursday

It’s that time of the week again, my friends, for another CUTE CARD THURSDAY CHALLENGE! The theme for this week is an appropriate “Sun, Sea or Sand” challenge. As hot as it’s going to be this weekend, I think I’d take the sea waters out of those three choices! 🙂 But since I’m inside the air conditioning, I decided to go ahead and use all three of them for my card today:

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Our sponsor for this week is All Dressed Up Stamps. I have chosen to use this fun Summertime digital stamp for my card. I first printed out my image and colored her in with my Copics. I then used the Molotow masking liquid – (Dick Blick was the cheapest found for me in the U.S.) to cover it up (yeah, it gave me a bit of a heart attack, but it worked!) and once it dried, I used several different stencils and distress inks with a blending tool to create the beach scene behind her.

I have used a craft knife to cut a small slit in one of the waves just enough for the beach ball (MFT Penguins in Paradise) to fit inside so that it looks to be floating along the water. I just used my Copic markers to make the dotted lines for the beach sand. The sun (Lawn Fawn Spring Showers dies) was die cut from some glitter paper that I also colored with a yellow Copic marker. The sentiment along the edge is from a Tim Holtz sticker book. The front panel cut from MFT Wonky Stitched dies and mounted on a top folding A2 sized white card base.

I hope you will stop by the Cute Card Thursday challenge and check out the rest of the inspiration from the design team and join along with us this week! Thanks for stopping by and enjoy your day!

These are the challenges I’d like to enter this card for: