Q is for Quote

Hello friends! I hope that all of U.S. friends celebrated a wonderful Thanksgiving! I have a couple of scheduled posts while I’m away for today and tomorrow. It’s a busy time of the year and I’ll try to keep up with my “blog duties” the best I can.

Today is a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog! Our next letter is “Q”, and this time it was my turn to pick a theme with this letter and I’ve chosen “Quote” I hope you will join in the fun with us! *Please remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter.* Here’s the project I’ve made for this challenge:

I’ve always loved using quotes for things and you can catch me with my kids saying quotes from movies all of the time. We can say a quote and know exactly where it came from. Some people don’t understand what we’re talking about which makes it even funnier!😉

I’ve pulled out a Catherine Pooler stamp set called “Notable & Quotable” that I don’t remember where I purchased it from, but I fell in love with the quotes in it. It also came with the flower images in the set too.

For the background, I used a My Favorite Things “abstract” stencil and blended over it with several different colors. I then took a couple of the floral images from the stamp set and stamped over the stenciled “blobs”. I then white heat embossed one of the quotes from the stamp set and cut it out with a stitched oval die and then layered another stitched oval vellum layer behind it. I popped it up with foam tape over the center of the background and then attached the entire layer over a white top folding A2 card base. Lastly, I added some clear sequins with Stickles in the center of each one.

Thanks so much for stopping in today! I hope you like my card and will come join in the fun with us! I’ll be back again tomorrow with my monthly Art Journal Page!

O is for Oval with One Word

Hello friends! Happy Friday and happy Halloween too!🎃 I might be having a few treats tonight, but hopefully without any tricks involved! 😉

Today is a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog! Our next letter is “O”, and our hostess, Helen, has chosen “Oval with One Word Sentiment” I hope you will join in the fun with us! *Please remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter.* Here’s the project I’ve made for this challenge:

I usually make cards with a specific theme, but I rarely make cards with just an “any occasion” involving a simple sentiment like “hello”, so I went with this in mind for the challenge.

I started with a Taylored Expressions Foil It-Framework panel (one of the panels had a nice oval shape), and foiled it with a gold foil. While I was foiling, I also decided to foil the sentiment from the TE Foil It-Timeless Greetings and cut it out with the coordinating die.

After foiling, I pulled out the TE Masking Stencil-Framework (coordinates with the foil panel) and used it to stencil the center oval with the TE Mini Slim Stencil-Trellis in light blue ink. I then took the left over ink from the blending brush and lightly went over the entire inside oval shape. On a separate piece of white cardstock, I stenciled the TE Cottage Charm Stencil & Die Combo and attached the floral spray on each opposite ends of the foil oval. I was trying to go for Autumn style colors for the flowers, but the red tone looks a bit more pink in the photo now that I’m looking at it. I still like it though.

I attached this panel onto a light blue A2 side folding card base, popped up the gold foil sentiment in the center with foam tape and added a couple of gold gems.

I hope you like my card today and you will pop on over to the challenge blog to see the inspiration from the rest of the design team. Looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with!

Thanks so much for dropping in and I’ll be back tomorrow with another post and challenge!

Challenges:

Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2543 Anything Goes
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – Anything Goes
Krafty Chicks – #792 Anything Goes
Triple B – Birds, Butterflies, Blooms (must use at least 1)
The Creative Crafters – #93 Anything Goes

L is for Love Letter

Happy Friday friends! I hope that you’re having a great week and looking forward to the weekend ahead of us! We’re planning on being outside and have fun with family! It’s still warm, but hopefully we can get away from the 90 degree (F) weather!

Today is a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog! Our next letter is “L”, and our hostess, Veronika, has chosen “L is for LOVE LETTER” (include handwriting & hearts) *Please remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter.* I hope you’ll join in the fun with us. Here’s the project I’ve made for this challenge:

I always think of handwriting as the most sincere form of a love letter for sure, but I do not like my handwriting at all….so I prefer the typewritten style! LOL I thought the Just Write card kit I got from Taylored Expressions would work great for this challenge.

I fell in love with Lori Craig’s card including the colors of it, so I wanted to duplicate it! I didn’t have everything she used in hers, but I like how it turned out! The background was done with a 3D Lots of Love embossing folder over a stamped cork background. I swiped white ink over the popped up hearts to try and bring them out a bit more. The lined notebook paper inside the typewriter came from the TE Love Letters Clear Stamp & Die combo which is also where I got the “XOXO” to stamp on the heart at the top. I also used the hearts from this set to stamp on the notebook paper.

Here’s the inside of my card where I used one of the Just Write-Insiders panel for my card and included the stenciled pen and stamped an “ink spot” all included with the card kit.

I thought this would work for my “handwriting” portion of the challenge. *wink* I could’ve signed it to be completely official, but I don’t know who will be receiving this card right now, but it will be ready to go when the time comes.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and that you will be joining in the challenge with us! Thank you so much for stopping in today! Wishing you a wonderful weekend ahead!

Challenges:

Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2537 Anything Goes
Ally’s Angels – #98 Anything Goes
The Creative Crafters – #92 Anything Goes
Creative Knockouts – #555 Anything Goes

A Single Flower at Sparkles Monthly

Hello friends! Welcome to the start of a new week for mid-September! I think Summer actually DID come back to us as we’ve set record high heats for this time of the year! I think I’m ready for those cooler temps to come back! Ugh! I know it won’t be long now and we can start enjoying trips outdoors as we look forward to picking apples and all Autumn festivities that we do!

Today is time to share a new challenge over at Sparkles Monthly and we have the theme of “USE A SNGLE FLOWER (floral image)” this month. Flowers seem to be everyone’s favorite. Here’s what I came up with:

Mine is a single sunflower image. My husband planting them in our backyard this year and they were so pretty! Of course, I forgot to take a photo of one before they died off.

The items I’ve used came from an older card kit from Simon Says Stamp including the stamp set called Sunflower Fields. There is a single sunflower image that I thought would be perfect for this challenge, plus I can use more items from my stash!

For the size of the flower image, I wanted it to stand out, so I used a tag and twine from the kit and decided to make this a mini slim card size.

For the background: I used a piece of watercolor cardstock and gold heat embossed the “Romantic Script” background stamp (retired) from My Favorite Things and then used some oxide inks swiped on glass with spritzed water to make a “smooshed” background. I also used these same colors to watercolor my flower with. (except the green, I only used that for the flower) I also used some gold watercolor to splatter over the tag. I only splattered the tag because I didn’t think it would show very much over the card background.

I cut the smooshed watercolor panel to fit over a kraft side folding mini slimline card base. I die cut the flower and the sentiment to attach over the tag, added some twine and then used foam tape to pop it up over the ink smooshed background. Lastly, I’ve added some yellow sequins to finish it off.

I hope you will take some time to pull out a single flower and join us in the challenge this month! Looking forward to seeing your creations! Thanks so much for dropping by!

Challenges:

Creative Inspirations – #30 Anything Goes
Ellibelle’s Garden Party – #7 Anything In or From a Garden
Creative Fingers – #307 Anything Goes
Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – #261 Anything Goes
Penny’s – #605 Anything Goes Using Paper
Love to Craft – #88 Anything Goes
Crafts Galore Encore – #139 Anything Goes

J is for JUMP

Happy Friday friends! 🎉 I see that we are nearing the end of August and that it’s time for kids to get back to school, which means, Autumn is heading our way! I think I’m ready for cooler weather right now! I just love all things Fall as it’s my favorite time of the year! What is your favorite season?

Today starts up a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog! Our next letter is “J”, and the hostess has chosen “J is for JUMP” (this can be anything that jumps!) *Please remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter.* I hope you’ll join in the fun with us. Here’s the project I’ve made for this challenge:

I knew when I saw the theme for this challenge that I had to use a pile of leaves for “jump“! I also think the best critters for that would come from Lawn Fawn of course! Can you see the little “wee” mouse jumping out from the pile?!

I started with a white card front by blending some blue inks in the background for the sky. I also used the Lawn Fawn Leafy Tree Backdrop: Portrait die to go over my ink blended sky background. The frame and tree were cut out from dark brown woodgrain texture cardstock. I used some green cardstock to cut the circle from the die set to place behind the tree as well as the LF Grassy Hillside Border die behind the tree and frame as well.

For the Autumn leaves pile and sentiment, I used the LF Jump for Joy stamp set/dies. All images were colored with Copics and I white heat embossed the sentiment over the ink blended sky. For the mice critters, I used the LF You Autumn Know stamp set/dies. For the little bunny, I used the LF Butterfly Kisses stamp set/dies. Some of the die cut images were just attached and others were popped up with foam tape for dimension. I actually wanted my pile of leaves to be larger, so I stamped, colored and die cut two of them. (I needed that little mouse on the right to be jumping out from the pile too!)

This was a fun one to make because I kept pulling out different sets to figure out which critters I wanted to use, but these cute mice get me every time. It makes me look forward to seeing the colors, sights, smells and sounds of Autumn coming. I hope you’ve enjoyed it too and I look forward to seeing all of the “jumping” that will appear in the gallery!

Thanks so much for stopping in today! Have a great weekend!

Challenges:

Ally’s Angels – #97 Anything Goes
The Creative Crafters – #91 Anything Goes
Sweet Stampin’ – Animals
Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – #260 Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2533 Anything Goes
Creative Inspirations – Anything Goes
Craft Rocket – #128 Animals

Clean & Simple at Sparkles Monthly

Hello friends! We’re still having some very warm temperatures with humidity making it worse. With seeing the kids starting back up at school, I am so ready for Autumn weather to get here! Notice I didn’t mention the “W” word…just Autumn! LOL Hope your able to have stable conditions wherever you are.

Today is time to share a new challenge over at Sparkles Monthly and we have the theme of “CAS (Clean & Simple)” this month. I always find this theme great for making a quick card when you need one. Here’s what I came up with:

Although I’ve only used one flower image for my card, I’ve also added a few die cuts and simple foiling on the sentiment to elevate the design a bit.

The flower image is actually the July “freebie” from Taylored Expressions when you place any order with them. I quickly colored it up with Copic markers and then die cut the panel out with the TE Petite Scallop Gallery Builder die set and cut out another panel for the scallop frame around it with TE Blueberry cardstock.

For the sentiment, I used the TE Foil-It Sundry Sentiment panels and used the coordinating die set to cut it out. I then used some silver Deco Foil over it.

Here’s a closer view of the flower and foiled sentiment pieces. I forgot to mention that I’ve also dotted the center of the flowers with a silver gel pen.

For the finished card design, I used a regular A2 sized top folding horizontal white card base and then I cut an additional white card front piece from the TE Petite Scallop Rectangle Stacklets dies. I also used the TE Diagonal Stitched Rectangle Stacklets dies to make the slanted stitch marks on the inside of the scallop panel. (this doesn’t cut anything out, it just makes those lines around the edge.)

I placed this panel along with the flower and sentiment pieces over top to finish the card.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and that you’ll stop by the challenge blog to see what the rest of the design team has come up with. You have a whole month to join in the fun with us! Hope to see your creation in the gallery!

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Challenges:

Crafts Galore Encore – #138 Anything Goes
We Love Stamping – Flowers
A Cut Above – Anything Goes with Die Cut(s)
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2532 Anything Goes
Penny’s – #603 Anything Goes with Paper

I is for Ink Blending

Hello friends and happy August! Hope you’ve been having a good start to your month so far. I thought it was supposed to be the “lazy days of Summer”, but it sure isn’t feeling that way lately! LOL Now it seems like we’re getting ready for “back to school” time! Where is this year going?!

Just wanted to share a new challenge up today over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog! Our next letter is “I” and the hostess has chosen “I is for Ink Blending” *Please remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter.* I hope you’ll join in the fun with us. Here’s the project I’ve made for this challenge:

I sure love to do some ink blending! I love doing the dark to light with a watermark effect especially for ocean scenes. So I started with a regular blend of blue ink colors starting light at the top and then working my way down to darker blues. I think the colors used were Tumbled Glass, Salty Ocean, Blueprint Sketch and Blue Saphire Distress Oxide inks. I then added the “Ray of Light” stencil (MFT store closed) over and ink blended with the same colors. It was then spritzed with water and dabbed with paper towel for the bubbly look.

BEFORE I started any ink blending at all, I had an “Under the Sea” border die cut (MFT store closed) that I used to create a mask with labeling tape so that I could leave the border at the bottom for sand. After the ink blending was finished, I ink blended some Antique Linen and Frayed Burlap Oxide inks to create the sand. I didn’t worry about it getting into the blue area because the colors are much lighter in tone. After ink blending was done, I cut the panel out with a “Wavy Pierced Rectangle dies” From Whimsy Stamps.

For the rest of the scene, I pulled out these cute ocean critters from Doodlebug called “Sea Life” (purchased from Scrapbook.com) that I stamped, colored with Copics and then fussy cut. Even though I had the coordinating dies (no longer available), I didn’t want the white border to distract from the ocean scene. It did come with an extra “seaweed” die in the set that I just cut out in white cardstock and then ink blended some green colors over it to add to the scene. I also used a white gel pen for highlights and dots in the sand along with a brown marker and glitter gel pen for more details to the sand.

Here’s a closer view of some of the details. I tried tilting it slightly, but it’s hard to capture the sparkle from the sand with the glitter gel pen.

I know this looks really similar to my last post with the mermaid AJ page, but I think I was having some fun with these underwater projects, and I just sat and had a playing session with it. I do hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and will join us in the challenge for some ink blending fun too!

Thanks so much for dropping by today! Have a great weekend!

Challenges:

Four Season – Anything Goes Summer
Critter Crazy – #101 Anything Goes with Featured Critter
Pearly Sparkles – #110 Under the Sea
Sweet Stampin’ – Use a Stencil + stamping
Try it On Tuesday – Summer
Cardz for Galz – #256 Create a Scene
Crafty Animals – #97 Anything Goes with Animal(s)
Allsorts – #829 Animals/Anything Goes (various products mentioned and linked throughout the post)

Summer Days

Hello friends! I hope that you’re staying cool during these Summer days! For the most part, it’s too warm, humid or both outside, so I spend most days in the air condition. Trying to organize things is what I’m attempting, but I end up crafting instead! LOL

I’m stopping by today to share that we have a new challenge over at Sparkles Monthly and we have the theme of “SUMMER DAYS” this month. This seems rather appropriate right now, so I hope you’ll join us. Here’s what I came up with:

I have used these penguins many times and I just love them! This is an older set called “Penguins in Paradise” from My Favorite Things (store closed). I thought they’d be perfect to use for this theme and I wanted to make a scene for them to do all of those fun Summer things that we do!

I started with another My Favorite Things die set called “Beach Scene Starter” that cuts out the sand/water/palm tree/shells/sun/clouds/land and then I used inks to ink blend them in various colors. For the sand, I splattered several different watercolor colors and Copic Opaque White.

After placing my scene together, I stamped, colored (with Copics) and die cut the three penguins and beach ball that I added to my beach scene and popped up with thin foam tape.

I used a white gel pen to add highlights to the images as well as details to the water shore area, coconuts, beach ball and the shells. I also took a glitter brush pen and went over the sun as well as the penguin’s shades for some shimmer. The sentiment is from the Taylored Expressions Mini Strips-Hello Summer that was white heat embossed over dark blue cardstock and cut out with the mini sentiment strips die.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and will join us for the challenge this month! Please be sure to stop by the blog to check out the inspiration from the rest of the team!

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

Challenges:

Four Seasons – Summer
Love to Craft – #87 Anything Goes
Love to Scrap – #174 Anything Goes
Crafty Animals – #96 Anything Goes + Critter
Creative Moments – #272 Use Die Cut (I used several)
We Love Stamping – Sun/Sea/Sand or Anything Goes (within post details)
A Cut Above – Anything Goes with a Die Cut
Cupcake Inspirations – #622 For the Birds (penguins)

Mix It Up with Mixed Media

Hello friends and a happy July to you! We’re celebrating July 4th Independence Day this weekend and I know it will be hot! I think we’ll be watching fireworks from our TV inside the cool air this year! Hope that whatever you’re doing this weekend that you stay cool and safe while you’re having fun.

Today also brings us to a new challenge over at the Mix It Up Challenge Blog. The challenges always run for 6 weeks so there is plenty of time to enter. The theme given for us this time is: Mixed Media or you can always do the ‘Anything Goes” too. Here’s the card that I came up with for the challenge using the theme:

This was such a fun card to make! I normally do mixed media on my art journal pages or a larger/3D item, but this time I wanted to make a card for this theme. I pulled out some really fun AALL & Create products that I’ve been wanting to use and I thought this would be a good opportunity to try them out! (I don’t know what it is about these wonky characters, but I think the weird eyeballs are so cute!) I’ve used the “Coffee Time” stamp set with the girl, coffee cups and coffee beans at the bottom. I’ve also used a Simon Says Stamp “Sunflower Fields” in the background and the “Sending Sunshine” sentiment.

To create the background: I’ve stamped a very large sunflower image in yellow ink over a white card base. I’ve then used an AALL & Create “coffee stains” stencil with brown ink over top. I then ink blended some more brown inks over the edges of the panel and then splattered it with both brown and white paints. I took a pen and doodled around the edges and then attached it to an A2 top folding brown card base. I had a left over strip from a collection of coffee backgrounds that I’ve made in a previous post you can see HERE and attached that to the bottom where I stamped the coffee beans in brown ink over it. (I thought it would make for a good “grounding” for the coffee girl and cups to stand on.)

I’ve used another AALL & Create product called “Heart Nook” that I die cut some circles from, and I thought looked like coffee stains, in glitter cardstock. I also cut an additional strip of that to go along the bottom strip of the card. I then added the stack of coffee cups, the girl that I colored up with Copics and fussy cut out. I white heat embossed the sentiment, die cut and popped both that along with the girl using foam tape. I also separately cut out her eyeball and popped that up over her for extra dimension.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my coffee mixed media card today! I had fun coloring her up and very happy to use more things from my stash too! Please be sure to pop on over to the Mix It Up Challenge blog to have a look at what the rest of the team created and play along!

Have a wonderful July 4th weekend.

Challenges:

Just Us Girls – #781 Stencil Week (coffee stains stencil)
Crafty Catz – #697 Anything Goes
Creative Fingers – #304 Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2526 – Sunshine (hope sentiment and yellow works!)
Addicted to Stamps & More – Die Cut(s) and/or Stencil(s) – I used both!

Lots of Stamp Joy and Summer School Sessions!

Hello friends! I hope you’ve had a wonderful week and looking forward to a great weekend coming up! We are having a heat advisory for the next several days over my way, so I thought it would be a great idea to stay indoors and craft! I also thought this would be a great time to catch up with some posts sharing some things that I’ve worked on the first part of this year that I hadn’t gotten a chance to share with you.

LONG POST – pull up your chair with your favorite beverage and enjoy!

I thought I’d share the Taylored Expressions Virtual Stamp Joy that I did back in March. I actually spent the weekend attending the classes and creating as I followed along. I managed to get all of the projects done the day after the event was over, but failed to post all of what I had made due to the fact that I was busy helping two different people move…and then life just got really busy after that as well! LOL

*I also have added an additional event from Taylored Expressions this last weekend called “Summer School” which concentrated on foiling techniques. Although I’ve done foiling before, I sure enjoyed seeing new products and learning a few new techniques too! (These four cards are at the end of the gallery photos below)*

If you’re on my website, just click on the images below to enlarge the photos and view any details underneath each one. ENJOY!

Dimension Class-ink blending and splattering die cuts

I always love to learn new things with stamping/crafting along with all of the fun new products that come out too! I know I REALLY don’t need to purchase more things, but when cool stuff comes out, it’s really hard to pass it by! I think doing these classes and joining in on different challenges help me to use these fun things up!

So I hope you’ve enjoyed my post sharing all of the things that I’ve been doing! I will have another post sharing more things that I haven’t shared yet too! In the meantime, I’ve also been working on a scrapbook which has been fun and something that I haven’t done in a really long time! A baby can do that to you! LOL

Thanks so much for stopping in today my friends! I’ll be seeing you soon! Have a great weekend!😊