Newton’s Nook – Stamped Smiles

Thanksgiving Cuteness

Hello! Wishing a Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow for my U.S. friends! Just wanted to pop in here to share this fun little card I made to help me get into the Thanksgiving mood and I needed a bit of a giggle which is what I was doing as I colored these fun critters:

Aren’t these guys hilarious?! This is one of the stamp sets that was released during the Simon Says Stamp STAMPtember event this year and of course if you recognize the critters, then you know it was designed by Newton’s Nook. The stamp set is called “Talk Turkey” and was only available during this event. I don’t make very many Thanksgiving cards, but when I saw this stamp set come out, it just had me giggling and so I nabbed it up! I think I would certainly enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner with this crew!

For the card, I ink blended the background with the distress inks: Rusty Hinge, Wild Honey and Scattered Straw. I spritzed with water and dried the splotches with a towel. (I’ve done the same method with the sentiment strip too.) I then used some black and white paint to splatter over it and set aside to dry.

While waiting for the panel to dry, I colored up all of the images with my Copics. I’ve added some gold and white gel pen marks in certain places and then I fussy cut them all out leaving a white border around them.

I took a strip of green cardstock and die cut a grassy border and attached to the background panel. I cut both of these layers out with a stitched scallop die and then cut out the black embossed sentiment with a banner die. I then arranged all of the images where I wanted them and glued them down. I took the banner and popped it up with foam tape. I added the leaves and covered them with a glitter brush pen for a bit of sparkle. I attached all of these layers to a white A2 card base and cut off the sentiment strip along the edge.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and it made you smile! Thanks for dropping by!

Enjoy your Thanksgiving with love, laughter and lots of thankfulness in your heart.🦃

CHALLENGES:

Aud Sentiments – Anything Goes + sentiment
Creative Knockouts – Anything Goes
Colour Crazy Craft – Anything Goes with coloring
Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes
Shopping Our Stash – Triple Threat (3 of something- I used 3 different dies, 3 critters, 3 leaves)

November 24, 2021November 23, 2021

*Vicki*20 Comments

Christmas Cards, Projects and Cookies…ready for Santa!🎅

Hello friends! We’re here! We made it to Christmas Eve!😀 My cards have been sent out, my cookies are done and delivered as well as my other little gifts. This is quite a long post, so grab your hot cocoa or whatever your favorite beverage is and a Christmas cookie or treat and let’s see what I’ve been doing this past week:

So starting with my Christmas cards, I usually make around 40ish cards each year give-or-take and I only like to make a handful of them at a time for not only boredom of the same design, but for product depletion as well.

So back in July, I purchased this really adorable card kit from Taylored Expressions (included was the Frosty Background Cling and Clear Combo set + more.) that came with coordinated colored envelopes as well as the seals. So I made a set of four different colored designs in two of each one. The snowmen were popped up with foam squares over the backgrounds and I added some fun Snowflake bits that were included with the kit as well.

Next up is another set of cards I made using some more gorgeous products from Taylored Expressions. I’ve used the Seasonal Sprig stamp and die combo along with the stencil to color them in with. Some of these I ink blended the backgrounds, so I just used cardstock with a watermark effect and a white heat embossed sentiment. I used the die to cut an extra frame behind the stamped one for added stability. I made 4 of each design shown here for a total of 16.

I then made another set of four using the same products, but for these I gold heat embossed the image and sentiment and then used some watercolor for coloring it in with. I also got some of these coordinating envelope seals to use on about 10 of the 16 cards. (No longer available in store.) I’ve also partially ink blended the background behind the frame on these as well.

Here are some cards that I’ve actually made a total of 8 similar designs using the large wording background dies from My Favorite Things. I’ve used the “Sending Christmas Joy” and “I Really Miss You” dies for all eight of these, but only after I stamped the backgrounds. I used the MFT Knitted Sweater BG stamp and the Alley Cat BG stamp for a couple of backgrounds before I die cut them. Then I used the die cut letters to place into the other backgrounds on the cards to get that look. So it was like creating 2 cards with one cut and filling it all in. (For the Alley Cat background stamp, I ink blended the background and stamped it as a watermark effect over it and then took the “left over” ink from that to stamp it again to create an additional BG.) I then cut out each of the panels with the MFT Wonky Stitched Rectangle die and placed over a white A2 sized side folding card base. The penguin image is from the MFT Holiday Penguins set and the bird on the other one is from the MFT “Tweet Holidays” (Not found in store.)

And then of course you don’t want to waste any backgrounds you’ve made, so you make more cards! I’ve used a couple more images to personalize the design for people too. I combined the sets Newton’s Nook Whispering Pines and the Lawn Fawn Winter Skies. I think I took a set from them to create a sentiment to fit my cards as well. (not sure from which set.)

For the other card, I took this cute image from the Whimsy Stamps Gnome for Christmas stamp set, colored him up with my copics and cut him out with the coordinating die to pop him up over my card.

And then for these set of 4 cards, I’ve just die cut a snowflake from some glitter paper and glued in the center of the “O” on each design and popped up a sentiment over that with foam tape stamped and die cut from the Taylored Expressions Mini Strips – Holiday and Mini Strips die.

And as you remember in a previous post those “recycled Crystal Light containers” that I make, I made another set of three of them here. This time, I’ve used this snowman stamp. I just used my scissors to fussy cut those cute snowmen out as they were pretty simple to do and then I popped them up over an ink blended tag using the stencil over them. I used coordinating cardstock and silver heat embossed the sentiment strip at the bottom and of course added my “snowman soup” poem on the back of the containers. I’ve also added a layer of silver mirror cardstock behind the tags.

And I made a couple of these darling ornaments from a fairly “new to me” company that I was actually introduced to with product during my time as a {Cupcake Inspirations} sweetie DT when they sponsored a challenge a while back. P.S. There are a few more days left to enter their current challenge of “SNOWFLAKES” if you want to pop on over to join us too!!

But I was so taken with this darling image and kit from Inky Stampers from this Snow Much Fun Kit. You get the snowflake ornament (with string), the stamp set and die, papers, wobbler, along with glitter to complete it too! Well I wanted to make more than one, so I grabbed another set of Snowflake Ornaments from the store and just added my own papers and glitter from my stash to make it.

And of course, last, but certainly not least, here’s all of the Christmas treats that I’ve made to give out to family and of course for hubby to eat up as we went along too!😋 I have made from top left on down: Homemade caramel corn, white chocolate covered pretzels, peanut butter fudge, molasses cookies, chocolate covered caramel pecan clusters, scottish peanut butter cereal cookies, chocolate fudge, snickerdoodles and chocolate crinkles. Of course each family member has a favorite they like me to make and there are a couple of old recipes passed down from grandparents/parents that I like to add in as well. They’re all delicious and I enjoyed making them.

Whew! I’m ready for that “Looong winter’s nap” now!!🥱 I hope you’ve enjoyed my post today and it has brought you some inspiration and/or a smile somehow! I have received some beautiful Christmas cards and I so appreciate them and have them all displayed by being pinned around my garland in our pass-through in the living room/dining area. I think after a bit of rest, I need to finish up my projects for the “Bugaboo Christmas Chaos” that I haulted in the middle for to finish up Christmas projects….so I’ll be back soon with that.

In the meantime, I wish a MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!!🎅

December 24, 2020August 3, 2021

*Vicki*22 Comments

Sending a Smile to a Hunter and Winner on You Tube!

Hello friends! Welcome to the month of September! I cannot believe that Fall is at the door here! The weather has already started to cool us down a bit and Summer is starting to fade as you can see the flowers starting to die off. Now I will look forward to the changing color of leaves which is always amazing.

Today I have a project to share that I’ve made for the Splitcoaststampers Teapot “Make it Pop” challenge. This card is in need of a special SCS friend’s father who is having some difficulties with health and I wanted to help with a smile for him if I could:

“Pop” as he is lovingly called, enjoys the outdoors and hunting which is something that several men in my own life enjoy, so I knew that this would be a direction I was going in with some stamps I have from Newton’s Nook.

For the background, I took a woodgrain embossing folder before fully assembling the card.

Since this is a hunting theme, I thought it would be fun to make a camouflage background and so I’ve used the fabulous tutorial on SCS HERE to create the look. I also cut off a thin strip towards the bottom to add some interest to the design as well. Over top of the background, I layered the sentiment from MFT and also cut it out with a banner die. I used a grassy feilds border die from MFT for the strip at the bottom of the panel and stamped the “Pop…” over it in brown ink. I stamped and cut out the deer from the Newton’s Nook Serene Silhouettes set with coordinating dies. I also die cut a few green leaves with an older MFT die for a few accents inside and out.

When you open up the card…

vicki-mmtpt632-forpop-open-1

Because of the name “Pop”, the challenge was “Make it Pop”, we needed to show some sort of element like this on our design. So I found this really fun “Pop-Up Diorama” card tutorial on SCS for my design.

I’ve used an oval die to cut the center of my card and then used a piece of cardstock for the background to attach behind it. On this panel, I created a scene with blending inks and adding stamped and die cut elements from the Newton’s Nook Whispering Pines stamp set that I’ve also used the sentiment from on the inside.

For the rest of the card, I’ve used the same stamp set that I used on the outside of the card and arranged them to create this scene with different layers that are popped up.

Hope this helps bring a smile over to “Pop”. Thanks so much for stopping in today and I hope you were inspired in some way too!

Have a great day friends and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

Splitcoaststampers Teapot Tuesday – Make it Pop
International Art & Soul – Include an animal
Crafting Happiness – #64 Anything Goes
2 Crafty Critter Crazies – Anything Goes + animal
Moving Along with the Times – Create a Scene
Crafty Animals – Anything Goes + animal

September 3, 2020May 25, 2023

*Vicki*26 Comments

{Cupcake Inspirations} Birthday Celebration Day 5

Let’s keep on celebrating! We are on day 5 of celebrating over at {Cupcake Inspirations} with another feature of sponsors for our 500th “birthday celebration” challenge!! Yeehaw!🥳

Today, we are highlighting Newton’s Nook – check out the challenge blog for more details about this sponsor.

I adore the stamps from this company and already own some faves..including retired ones that I refuse to give up! LOL! I have recently gotten some new ones to party with though! Check it out…

Vicki-CIC500-Day5-NewtonsNook

Winston is one of the cute characters I adore! I’ve used the Sending Hugs stamp set with the coordinating dies. And the special thing about the coordinating dies is that they cut out the arms of each of the characters within the set so that they can be holding different objects! I think that’s too cute!

So I’ve colored up my Winston character with Copics and for the item he’s holding, you can see he has a cupcake, which is included in this set! I stamped, colored and die cut an additional cupcake next to the banner sentiment which was included with the set as well.

For the background, I’ve done some fun watercoloring. I’ve used a balloon image from a retired set “Winston’s Birthday” which is also where I’ve got his party hat from as well. Love it along with the “Winston’s BBQ” set that I won’t give up either! LOL!! I pull it out pretty much every Father’s Day! (I made a cute apron card with it this year and forgot to take a photo of it! Sigh….)

I photographed the card laying flat so that you could see the fun shaker contents inside the square frame! Lots of sprinkles, little cupcakes and balloon sequins in there! I thought it needed a pink glittery frame along with metallic shine on the party hat too! I finished it off with a metallic clear ribbon bow at the bottom.

Hope you’re having fun with the inspiration so far and I’ll see you again tomorrow!

Challenges:

2 Crafty Critter Crazies – Anything Goes + animal
Papercraft – #61 animals
Crafty Animals – Anything Goes + animal
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2033 Anything Goes
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Oh So Cute

August 20, 2020May 25, 2023

*Vicki*21 Comments

Pink Floral Sympathy

Hello friends! Welcome to June! We’ve certainly started off our June with hot temps! Trying to stay cool in the air condition and have some crafty time! How about you?

Unfortunately, it was time again that I needed another sympathy card and I don’t have any in my stash, so I’ve come up with one to send to the family of my GREAT aunt! She was always so great about sending me cards on my birthday even as she got older and it always made me smile!

So this is my final tribute to Aunt Rosella…RIP sweet lady.

I saw a couple of challenges going on and they actually inspired me to pull out an older stamp set that I’ve had and hadn’t used it but a couple of times and I think it’s really pretty. I’ve used the Beautiful Blossoms stamp set from Newton’s Nook for my card here.

I’ve used a sketch challenge to help me with the placement of the images and how I was going to layout the design. I’ve used a vanilla top folding A2 sized card base, die cut a scallop rectangle and then layered over another vanilla piece that was cut with a stitched rectangle die. I took a strip of pink cardstock and stamped the floral images over it with VersaMark ink and attached that along with the two square panels layered with some scalloped die cut square in black. Those vanilla panels were sponged along the edges with pink ink.

I took the floral images, stamped them over another piece of vanilla cardstock with some alcohol marker friendly ink and colored them in with my Copics. They were cut out with the coordinating die cut set. I used some foam tape to pop them up over the squares.

Upon closer view, you can see how I’ve done the sentiment here by heat embossing it over a piece of vellum with some Raven Sparkle EP and then fussy cutting it out. I used my Xyron matchine to make a sticker out of it and then I took the “sympathy” stamp from the Newton’s Nook “Super Sentimental” (No longer available) and inked it with the black ink under the vellum sentiment.

Of course it’s hard to see the shimmer over the flowers, but I’ve covered them some Spectrum Noir glitter brush pen and then lastly, I’ve added some clear sparkling sequins.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my sympathy card today and a reminder to all of us card makers to remember to build a small stash of these type of cards to have on hand. It’s something that I really need to do and always forget about doing it ahead of time.

I have more things that I’ve been working on coming soon, so I hope you’ll stop by again! Have a great day!😊

Challenges I’d like to enter this card for:

Newton’s Nook Inky Paws Challenge – Flowers

2. {Cupcake Inspirations} – CIC494 Color Challenge: Pink, Black and Cream

3. Sunday Stamps – SSC232 Sketch “Getting Squared”

4. The Paper Players – PP493 Tic-Tac-Toe challenge: I used flowers, die cut and embossing

June 2, 2020May 25, 2023

*Vicki*33 Comments

Believe Tag

Hello friends! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and maybe even took advantage of some great Black Friday deals today?! I was happy about shopping a little bit this morning and almost forgot to post about my tag here! LOL!

Vicki-NNTag-Day3

The scene on this tag was always a fun vision in my head from a child! I would imagine Santa in his sleigh flying over the moon under a snowy night sky. I love the peace and magic of it all with even little critters stopping to watch and listen to the magical sleigh bells ringing in the night.

I constructed my own tag the size I wanted and snipped off the top edges to make it look like a tag. It was made with Navy cardstock. I punched a hole at the top and made a reinforcer with white Glitterstock. I then took some white watered down paint and splattered it over the background for a snow fall effect.

I bought this set a few years back from Newton’s Nook called Whispering Pines and I’ve used the coordinating dies to create the scene at the bottom. I took some white Glitterstock for the snow the critters are sitting on.

For the “moon” I punched out a circle from vanilla cardstock and sponged around the edges of it. I took a glitter brush pen to go over it. The Santa’s sleigh was given to me from a fellow blog friend that I’ve attached over the tag. I die cut the sentiment from red cardstock.

Lastly, I’ve added some red striped ribbon from my stash and tied on a couple of silver bells with white twine around it. Those bells make a fun jingle sound like I imagine from my scene! 🙂

Vicki-NNTag-Day3-closer

Here’s a tad bit closer view of the tag. Here you can some what see the shimmer on the moon and the sparkle on the snow ground where the critters are.

Have a great evening my friends! I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

Crafty Creations – Anything Goes
Little Red Wagon – Snow
The Sisterhood of Crafters – Trees
My Time to Craft– Christmas Scene

November 29, 2019May 25, 2023

*Vicki*21 Comments

I’m back! It’s Been a Rough Patch!

Hello friends! 🙂 Are you still with me out there? (This is a bit of a long post to catch you up with what’s happened.)

Wow! It sure has been a while since I’ve been able to even TRY to get back into things. This was a really abrupt and rude unplanned disappearance from me and I was getting worried for a while about how I would even begin to start up again! I actually feel pretty “rusty” and unpracticed from my absence and I have a few things to share with you too!

Firstly, I want to thank you ALL from the very bottom of my heart for your wonderful comments, personal e-mail, cards and social media contact that I’ve heard from many of you. There were days that I just went to tears hearing from my fellow crafty friends as it came on a few days that I REALLY needed it the most! I thank you SO MUCH for that and it really helped to get me though some difficult pain days.

So what happened was a worsening of something that I believed to be a minor back issue that I thought would resolve on it’s own, but the issue grew worse and more painful to the point that I couldn’t sit, stand, walk or even getting out of bed was painful enough that I had a procedure to try and control the nerve pain. With this done, along with physical therapy and adjustments to my life style, I am feeling better now. It’s not COMPLETELY pain free, but it’s tolerable enough to do normal tasks for a period of time until I need to move around again. It’s just a life style adjustment that I can live with and hopefully fit in with what I love to do which is crafting! It really bothered me to just “walk away”, but sometimes when your health is in trouble, you just have to do what you have to do and heal. I have just learned that SEVERAL small breaks a day are better than none at all and I will pay for it later if I don’t! 🙂 Thanks for sticking it out with me!

———————————————————————-

And so with that, I would like to share a couple of things that actually took way longer to complete than what I would normally take the time to complete and it was actually the very last little bit that I had accomplished before I had to completely step out of my room for a while. My husband wouldn’t let me go back in there until he was sure that I could tolerate my pain ok. Still working through the exercises until my follow up Dr. appointment, but I think I’ll be fine from here…I sure hope so as I’m ready to ROCK N ROLL!!! LOL

I had made a couple of masculine cards:

Vicki-Brutus Monroe-Rock ON

Although I don’t have a black light, if you hold up the card to a black light, the watercolor background that I made will glow! It’s a pretty cool affect!

I took one of the foilable image panels from the kit and took several of the Neon Aqua Pigments and smooshed them over the background until I was happy. I tried to foil over it, but it didn’t completely get all of it. I added the strip of holographic paper at the bottom and the stamped elements along with the stars over it. For the sentiment, I heat embossed it with the EP that came in the kit and popped it up with foam tape. My bro seemed to like it and I think those neon watercolors turned out pretty cool! 🙂

Vicki-NN-FathersDay

This is probably one of my all time faves from Newton’s Nook called Winston’s BBQ. I think they have had this set for a while, but It’s a great one for masculine themed designs!

I’ve used a kraft cardstock background and stamped several of the images from the set all over the background with the same color of ink. For the main panel, I stamped Winston, the grill and sentiment together and colored with my Copic markers. I also sponged some blue ink around the edges of it for a “sky” looking appearance.

I’ve taken a strip of silver foil cardstock and ran an embossing folder through it to place across the center of the card. I used some foam tape to pop up the image panel over top. All of these layers were placed over an A2 sized white top folding card base.

Of course, last but not least, I wanted to share a card I had completed for a guest design card meant for June and that was completed at the end of May, but I was unable to share it before I had to leave for a while. This is the card I gave to my husband for Father’s Day and he really does feel like my super hero! 🙂

Vicki-PNDSuperBoyDog-June15

Isn’t this just the cutest?! I made this card using the adorable Paper Nest Dolls Superboy Owen and his sweet companion Superpuppy too! I had so much fun blending the background in the different colors! I added some blue stars stamped in the background. the city scape behind him was made with a city scape die cut layered a couple of times. I used some yellow cardstock behind the building for a lighted building affect. The wall was made using some gray colored cardstock and then a brick stencil with some red ink colored embossing paste to over it with. Then I just added the sentiment by white heat embossing it over a black strip that I die cut out.

Here’s a closer view of the coloring I’ve done on the images. I’ve used a silver gel pen to color in the buckle on his outfit. I fussy cut the images out after coloring.

Here you can also see the splattering that I’ve done with some white shimmer paint in the background with the blue stars.

Other news

I actually got a bit of really cool news while I was down and thanks to a lovely craft friend, she tagged me and let me know about this, but my set of Whimsy Stamps “Bee cards” were shown in the Making Cards & Papercraft Magazine for August 2019! Chosen as a “top spot” editor’s pick right inside the front cover! I was very surprised and to see what was said about it along with my blog address was pretty cool! So go get your copy of this magazine! It’s my first time having a peek at it and they’ve got some pretty neat inspiration in there!

Although I have been in a great deal of pain and mainly dealing with what came with it, of course my husband was great at trying to “distract” me from it and trying to get me to smile as much as possible. He knew first hand how I was feeling each day and like I mentioned above, he’s my super hero! So there were a few fun or smiling moments here and there while I was being patient with myself as much as I could anyway.

Vicki-backyard fireworks

I wasn’t able to do much to celebrate 4th of July, but going out in my backyard, my neighborhood seemed to have a pretty cool display! You can see the half moon at the bottom underneath the left side of the firework. Needed bug spray, but it was a nice night!

Vicki-Styx Concert

Back in April, hubby and I had gotten some Styx concert tickets and I was worried about going due to the problems I was having. Of course hubby said not to worry about it as our seats were great with no one behind us so I could sit, stand or whatever I needed to do! It was loud enough with the music and it took my mind off things plus I could always clap and sing the songs! 🙂 We took a good break in the middle of it so I could move around away from the seat too. It was a great concert!

Vicki-Black Eyed Susans

In my backyard, I have different flowers and I really enjoy going out in nature to see the flowers, birds, bees, etc. The flowers this Summer really helped me relax, smile and just enjoy the beauty that is around.

Some days were absolutely horrible, but there are also these days too…

Vicki-Purple Cone Flowers

Vicki-Iris

Vicki-red Iris

Vicki-orange Iris

Vicki-Yellow Iris

Vicki-Hydrengas

I’m soooo happy to finally be able to write up a post and now that I’m able to start getting back into my stamp room, I’m very excited to be able to come back to my design teams (who were ALL so absolutely wonderful with letting me have the time to heal and recover! It meant so much!) and I will be along again soon to share new creations now! Yay! Hope everyone is doing well and I’ve missed you!

Crafty hugs

July 29, 2019May 25, 2023

*Vicki*61 Comments

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!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

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:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

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: