Playing With Paper Blocks and Bunnies

Hello friends! Easter is coming for us for very soon and I’ve been enjoying all of the Spring that’s starting to come up outside with flowers and buds on the trees! It’s still a little cool, but hopefully the weather will even out and stay warmer!

Since I’ve been trying to get motivated for Easter, I’ve pulled out some papers from my stash and have been inspired to CASE (copy & share everything) a friend that really inspires me to use things I have! First, I’d like to share a fun Easter card that I’ve made for a sketch challenge that I was inspired by as well:

That sitting bunny is so cute! (Thank you Carol…more on that later in post!) If you check out the sketch from the Sketch Saturday challenge blog (see in challenge list below), you will see all of the fun angle strips in the sketch. I thought it would be fun to pull out some Easter papers from my stash. I wasn’t sure how to do the background until I saw that this sitting bunny worked perfect for a part of the paper pad that had this wheelbarrow image in it! I cut it out from the paper and placed the bunny on it.

For the background of the card, I thought it would be fun to use my stencils to create a scene with grass and clouds. The wheelbarrow bunny fit in the open area and then I used the angles from the sketch to cut pieces with the same Easter paper pad. I just eyeballed everything by marking notches and lining those notches in my paper trimmer to get a straight cut. Even the solid paper on the base layer came from the paper pad. I just cut it A2 size to fit over an A2 top folding white card base.

The sentiment was stamped and cut out with the coordinating die. I added some shadow under wheelbarrow with a green marker (not really the color I wanted, but it worked), and colored a bit of pink on the bunny too. I added teal rhinestones next to the sentiment and done.

Next, I wanted to share something else that I was inspired by from my friend Carol at https://ourlittleinspirations.blogspot.com who sent me a very cool card and kind gift:

She always inspires me with her “snippet” creations and coming up with cards like this one to utilize those pattern papers we hoard so much! The pattern is very pleasing to the eye and so I wanted to create one myself! With all of the papers I have, I’m sure I could make a zillion cards! 😆 I also love how she used a monochromatic green theme with it…which I will need to try another one with this idea! You should go check her blog out and be inspired too!

Also, she was very kind in sending me these die cut sitting bunnies & stools! I do not know exactly where this bunny is from, but I’ve seen it around the craft world. So cute! Thank you so much for your kindness and inspiration my friend!

So here’s the card that I created inspired by Carol. I really love plaids and I thought it would be fun to re-create her design which I measured out her pieces and cut based on what I thought they were. It was really fun and not as hard as it looks like it might be. I wrote the measurements and cut from the same Easter paper pad as I used on the card above. I started with a white base…that way if I messed up, it wouldn’t matter too much. The sentiment piece was also from the same paper pad. I just white heat embossed the sentiment and added some stitch details with a white gel pen.

I used one of the sitting bunnies that Carol provided me with, and tried to match up what I had from my stash the best I could to die cut some hearts along with the A2 side folding card base.

I brushed the hearts with a glitter brush pen and called it done.

I had so much fun playing with these paper blocks and bunnies! I hope you’ve enjoyed my creations and inspiration today as well! Thanks so much for stopping by! C U SOON!

Challenges:

Sketch Saturday – #746 optional twist: feature an animal (top card)
Simply Create Too – Bunnies & Blooms #198 (top card)
Make My Monday – Spring, Flowers, Weather, etc. #221 (top card)
Fab ‘N Funky – Spring #591 (top card)
Daring Cardmakers – Spring is in the Air (top card)
The Paper Funday – Anything Goes optional: dies #63 (top card)

Feeling Tropical at Sparkles Monthly

Hello friends! I hope that whatever state you’re finding yourself right now, that you’re able to find a bright spot in your day somewhere. In watching the news, there are so many variable patterns in the weather and my heart goes to those in Hawaii dealing with the wildfire disaster. My card today is not only for the DT challenge, but also a tribute to our tropical friends in Hawaii.

There’s a new challenge today over at the Sparkles Monthly Challenge with the theme of: TROPICAL and/or BEACH

Since I live in the Midwest area, I don’t get a chance to see too many scenes like this, but maybe someday hubby and I will get a chance soon! The inspiration for my card came from my computer background photo and I loved the look of the water with the setting sun. Everything I’ve used on my card today came from Lawn Fawn.

The entire background was done with stenciling using the LF Beach Sunset Stencils and inks. I added that mice couple from a freebie stamp set that came with one of my orders. I colored them pretty dark with cool grey tones so that they blended into the beach and looked like a silhouette. The sentiment at the bottom was white heat embossed from the LF Butterfly Kisses set. I’ve used a glitter brush pen over the sun and purple reflective water. I think I got a little carried away with the white gel pen, but I was trying to make it look like the dark areas were highlighted with some of that setting sun over it and there’s just no removing any lines! (If you’ve done this, then you know what I’m saying!)

I hope that you’ve enjoyed my Tropical themed card today or found some inspiration with it. Thanks so much for dropping in and please check out the challenge details with inspiration from the DT and play along!

Challenges I’d like to enter this card for:

Four Seasons – Anything Goes Summer
Crafts Galore Encore – Anything Goes
The Paper Funday – Anything Goes optional: Great Outdoors
Penny’s Paper-Crafty – Anything Goes using paper
Get Creative – Summer Nights
My Time to Craft – Stenciling
Creative Fingers – Anything Goes

NO STAMPING ALLOWED at Sparkles Monthly

Hello friends! It’s been a bit since my last posting! I’m still crafting, but I’m also enjoying the outdoors lately too! I’m just not making the time I need to post on my blog here! However, being on a design team helps to keep me focused on posting and hopefully it’s something that will bring motivation because I need it! So I will try and get some more posts in!

Today starts a new challenge over at the Sparkles Monthly Challenge and the theme is “No Stamping Allowed!” This may seem a bit challenging, but I look forward to seeing what people come up with for it! Be sure to check out the blog to see what the design team has come up with for inspiration! Here’s what I’ve made for the challenge this month:

I was trying to channel something that would work and realized that I had these fun strip dies from Taylored Expressions and I wanted to play with some new colors, so I ran with that on the middle of my card front by alternating the strip colors.

I also die cut a frond three times and glued them together for thickness and sturdiness. I attached it over the colored strip panel and then added a sentiment that was already toner printed so that I could foil over it with silver Deco Foil. I also had a die that cut it out which was popped up with foam strips and added to the bottom of the die cut frond. Lastly, I’ve just added some silver glitter drops randomly over the card front.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my non-stamped card today and will think about joining in the challenge with us this month! Thanks so much for stopping in! Have a great week!

Challenges:

Craft Rocket – Use Dies
NBUS – #51 June – new colors and dies
Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
A Place to Start – Anything Goes and/or twist: flower + one other thing
Penny’s Paper-Crafty – Anything Goes using paper
The Crafty Addicts – Anything Goes
CAS on Friday – Leaves

Playing with Roulette and Colors

Hello friends! Hope your week is getting off to a great start. I can’t believe that January is over and we’re starting a new winter month already, but at the same time I’m already feeling like this cold weather can move along faster to Spring!

Today I have a couple of creations that I’ve made using those Inky Stamper products and playing a little “Craft Roulette” too! Chelsea was on Craft Roulette and if you’ve never seen it play out in action, take a look at the You Tube channel to see what it’s about! She was on episode #146 and here’s my card that I’ve made with her perimeters:

I had so much fun with this and I’ve never made a tag shaped accordion card before, but it was stuck in my head to give it a try and pull out the Inky Stamper Craft Room set to create it. The “Roulette Wheel” spun on: Double Tags, shelf/shelves, 2 shades of green and something in the background.

The two shades of green were easy with using the Doodlebug Paper Packs and adding in a few other greens to the coloring. I’ve also made two tags and placed them inside the pocket area in the middle of the accordion design. I used a stencil in the background of the other two panels and of course I added some crafty goodies to the shelves in Rosie’s craft room! The accordion card was easier than I had anticipated and just made a mini slim line size design by cutting off the edges to create the tag shape. The hole and reinforcers were made using punches and dies. You can see that I’ve colored up, cut out “Rosie” in her craft room where she is cutting her design going through her creative head!

When it’s all folded up and closed, this is what the card looks like. I could always add a sentiment on the back, but I thought this would be fun to send to a fellow crafter for sure! I just wish my shelves looked this organized! And I always try to use another thing from my stash as I pulled out lots of twine that gets thrown in a bin, so it was nice to use for the tops of each tag area. (Maybe on the back of the card, the crafter can add items to use up on their next project and display it! LOL)

And here’s another card that I’ve done for the January challenge on the Inky Stamper Inkspiration FB Group which was to use: Black, white plus one other color:

I decided to pull out the Grasshopper set and make everything in the background black and white, but just color the grasshopper in green. All of the elements including the sentiment came from the same stamp set. I splattered some black paint over the background and the images were colored with some cool gray Copic markers. I white heat embossed the sentiment over black and cut it out with a banner die.

Behind the white panel, I took a piece of the black floral paper from the Doodlebug Floral & Graph Paper Pad and attached that to a white top folding A2 card base. It was a fun and easy card to put together!

Thanks so much for “hopping” over here today! Hope you’ve been inspired or smiled!😊

Challenges:

Cardz 4 Galz – Shaped Card (top card-tag shaped)
Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
Passion for Markers – use die cuts (both cards use dies and are colored with Copics)
Creatalicious – Anything Goes optional love &/or hearts (top card has hearts)
Papercraft – Anything Goes
Sparkles Monthly – Friendship (both cards evoke friendship to me!)

Apple Picking Fun

Autumn is always a favorite time of the year with the changing of the Season: cooler temps, pretty colors and being able to go out enjoy all of nature with its bounty and beauty. There’s also nothing better than freshly picked apples from the orchid too! It’s something that I love to do with my husband every year at our local orchid.

So, when Lawn Fawn came out with this adorable set along with a free craft-a-long class, I knew I wanted to participate!

This is the first card we created using the LF Apple-solutely Awesome stamp set and dies. For the class, we actually stamped, colored and cut out all of the images that we would be using for both of these cards. I think the fun thing about this set is arranging the images to figure out where you want to place them for your scene. Since it was a class and I didn’t have to think too much, I decided to just follow along with what I had and just enjoy the process.

I didn’t have the stencil set that they used for the class, so I had this Pink & Main Leafy Stencil that I thought would work out fine and I just blended different colors with some Oxide inks. The white panel was cut with the LF Small Stitched Rectangle dies, popped up over the stenciled leaf panel and the sentiment was stamped at the bottom before attaching the images.

I’ve already sent this card to someone that gifted us some homemade applesauce…YUM! (Already gone!)

And here’s the second card we created for the class using the same stamp set and stitched rectangle dies. I had fun with that “cider jug” and adding a bit of sparkle to the contents inside with my glitter brush pen.

For the sentiment, I die cut it out with some LF Woodgrain Cardstock and ink blended some brown Oxide ink at the bottom of the die cut. I used some foam strips to pop it up over the panel. The white panel was done the same as the above card. I used the same stencil as the above card as well but only kept the yellow tones for this one as it seemed too busy with all that was going on with the card.

So, although this was a class that I mainly followed along with except for a few minor changes, I had fun making these while getting into the Fall spirit! I hope you’ve enjoyed them as well! Thanks for stopping in!

Challenges:

Four Seasons – Anything Goes Fall
Crafty Friends – Use More Than One Die
Happy Little Stampers Stencils – Anything Goes + stencil
Stamping Sensations – All Things Autumn
We Love Stamping – Autumn Colors
Addicted to Stamps & More – Die Cuts & Stencils

Time to Get Your Grumpy On!

Hey there friends! Hope you’re having a wonderful week so far! We’re getting closer and closer to Halloween already!🎃 I haven’t made as many Halloween makes as I usually do, but as the day gets closer I’ve been more in the mood to pull out some things to have fun with my stash and my thoughts turned to “Grumpy”.

If you’re not familiar with “Grumpy”, this is the Big Grumpy Cat from Taylored Expressions. I absolutely love the “Grumpy” and “Grumplings” line and I don’t pull them out as much as I’d like to. Since it’s closer to Halloween, I’ve also pulled out the Big Grumpy-Halloween accessory set to go along with him too! (The only thing I used from this set was the witch hat and the sentiment.) I’ve stamped, colored and cut out each of these items for my card.

The #TEMakerChallenge has the theme this month of using Oreo & Sugar Cube with the option of adding any other pop of color. I’ve decided to pop in an orange color for mine. The theme was also “Sparkle & Shine” through foiling, heat-embossing, glitter paste or sparkly cardstock.

So, for the “Sparkle & Shine” I’ve taken a Foil-It Spiderweb panel and foiled some orange Deco Foil over it. I then took one of the Frame in Frame 3 dies to cut out the middle of this panel, added some acetate over the opening and made it into a shaker panel. I die cut the same frame as well as the Little Bits-Spiders die from some black Glitter Cardstock. I attached these pieces onto the web panel along with adding the Grumpy Cat with his hat string and extra spider attached to him over the acetate. I attached double-sided foam around the opening and added some “shaker stars” in the colors orange, black and silver. And lastly, I thought it would be fun to pop up a left-over ghost I had from a previous project at the top! (I think the ghost is in fear of the “witch switch”!) 😂

I also have another “grumpy” card to share…

So this card was made to send a smile to a friend. I’ve used a cat for this one as well from the Taylored Expressions “Grouchy Grumplings” set which I don’t believe is available in the store any longer.

I kept it a simple card by stamping, coloring and cutting out the grumpy. I ink blended a circle that fit him with blue ink, white heat embossed the sentiment and cut it out from the TE Stitched Banner Stacklets. I popped grumpy with foam tape over the sentiment banner and circle. I also used some TE decorative papers from my stash and cut out a banner with it using my scissors. A corner chomper was used to round the top left corner of the card to finish it off.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my “Grumpy” projects today and have been inspired in some way! Really appreciate you stopping in!

Challenges: (Top card only)

Country View – Halloween or Harvest
Craft Rocket – Autumn/Halloween
Crafting Happiness – Halloween
Aud Sentiments – Halloween/Fall + Sentiment
Crafty Gals Corner – Halloween Colors
Colour Crazy Craft – Anything Goes + coloring
Allsorts – Add a Sentiment
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes
Double D – Orange & Black

Friendly SWAPs

Hello friends! The weather has been really nice over my way so I’ve been taking advantage of it by enjoying the outdoors before it starts changing into more chilly temperatures. All of the prize winners have contacted me and the packages have all been sent out. I have received notice that the U.S. winners have gotten their packages and hopefully the overseas will be arriving soon. My thoughts are also with those that were affected from Storm Ian and hope for healing and recovery as soon as possible.

Although it’s been a while since I last posted, I have been working on some things for SWAPs and a few other cards that I had created as well to share with you.

please click on the photos below to see them close-up

Within a FB Group that I’m in, we could choose to join an ATC SWAP with the theme of “Friendship” and these are the cards that I had created. I swapped with two others and then kept one set of three for myself. I was excited because this is the first ATCs I’ve sent overseas and really enjoyed making the collection. I thought the butterfly theme with similar colors would work keeping the “Friendship” in mind…

And then below are the set of ATCs I’ve received from my SWAP partners in return. The first lady sent her ATCs from Australia and the other lady was from the UK I believe. Love them and was excited to receive them to add to my book.

I was also involved in another “Stamped Sampler SWAP” making those squares like I had done with my Summer one if you remember that with my friends Patti, Shirley and Donna. This time our squares were the theme of Autumn/Fall using the Stampin’ Up! colors Pumpkin Pie and Mossy Meadow. It’s so fun to see them come in and then put it all together in the frame! Here’s how mine finished out:

For my Sampler frame, I used some different colored woodgrain pattern paper to attach the squares to and this frame is a bit different than my Summer Sampler (Check it out in THIS POST if you want to see that one.) It can stand on a table surface or you can hang it up. I also decided to add a burlap bow at the top of the frame using a hot glue gun.

This is the Sampler Square that I had made using the adorable fox from the Taylored Expressions Woodland Squad Die & Clear Stamp Combo set. The background was stamped with the TE Four Seasons Stamp & Stencil Combo set using ONLY the background stamp in one color. I then using some gold acrylic paint to splatter over it. I also added a twine bow to the fox. I believe we’re going to be doing another one for Winter too…stay tuned!

My friend Patti had also sent me an extra card kit from one of her classes along with her SWAP square, which I thought was so nice…so I had some fun putting it together as I don’t have this set which I believe is a Stampin’ Up! one.

The card kit had all of the pieces in it along with the stamped birds cut out, the stamped branches and sentiments (even on the included envelope) along with cut glitter clouds and flowers! There was a sheet with photo and instructions so I just followed along except I die cut some leaves for the branches from a piece of scrap green paper I had. Now I have a cute little birthday card ready to send out, so thank you for the fun Patti!😉

And speaking of birds and Stampin’ Up!, I had to make a sympathy card for someone that lost their pet bird. I was looking through my stash and found an older Stampin’ Up! set with a bird silhouette which I thought would be good for a sympathy card like this. I was inspired to pull out more of my older Stampin’ Up! stash to use so I used some old punches, ribbon and paper for my card as well.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the inspiration today and I thank you so much for stopping in! If you have any questions about my post, please let me know. Have a great day and see you soon!

Challenges:

Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes (Bird sympathy card)
The Corrosive – Anything Goes (Butterfly ATCs)
Crafty Animals – Anything Goes + animal (Fox Square and/or Bird sympathy card)
Fab ‘N’ Funky – Embossing wet/dry (Bird sympathy card)
Creative Knockouts – Anything Goes (Butterfly ATCs)
Sweet Stampin’ – Anything Goes EXCEPT birthday (Bird sympathy card)
Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes (Butterfly ATCs)

Challenge Up Your Life-Fun in the Sun

Happy June 1st friends! This month will bring us into the Summer months which means it’s time for all of those fun outdoor activities! I’m also getting ready for lots of things going on this month including my son’s wedding! So I know I’ll be busy! How about you?

This is my last time to be joining the “Challenge Up Your Life” challenge blog as a guest designer. I’ve had a great time with them as a guest for the past three challenges and appreciate being asked! Today their new monthly challenge for June is “Fun in the Sun“. Hope you can share your lovely creations with us this month! (Check out the challenge blog for details and inspiration!) And here’s my take on this theme:

What could be more fun than a cute little fairy sipping a drink floating on a lily pad?! Love those shades too!

There happened to be a good sale on a few digital stamps from LOTV recently and so I snatched a few and this was one of them that I fell in love with. This one is called Water Lily, of course. (The sentiment also came from the same company.) She looked like she was having some “fun in the sun” for sure, so I colored her up with my Copic markers and die cut the panel out with a stitched rectangle die. I’ve also used a scalloped stitched die to cut out a piece of pink cardstock to go with some of the colors in the image.

For the background papers, I’ve found some great *yellow rainbow paper from Lawn Fawn and then I used a *sun die from My Favorite Things and cut out with some yellow glitter cardstock. (*These items have retired) I took a wave die from Lawn Fawn and cut out a strip from vellum and used my blue marker to add some color towards the top of the waves. To attach the strip, I wrapped it around the layers and glued it from behind. I then added the ribbon with the bow and attached these layers to an A2 top folding white card base.

Here’s a closer look at the image with the coloring I’ve done. I’ve used a gold gel pen to color in her head band and then a silver one to color in the little “dots” on the ends of her glasses. I used a glitter brush pen over her sunglass lenses as well as her wings.

I finished the card off with a few colorful sequins.

So does that look like something you’d be having some “Fun in the Sun” with?! I know I sure would!😎

I sure hope to see you playing along with us this month with your creations! I also hope that you’ve enjoyed my inspiration as guest designer for these challenges the last few months. Thanks for your support friends!

Challenges:

Creative Knockouts – For the Kids
Colour Crazy Craft – Anything Goes with coloring
Crafty Catz – Anything Goes optional “All About the Girls”
Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
Allsorts – Anything BUT birthdays
Everybody Art – Glitter and/or Pearls
Creatalicious – Anything Goes optional: lots of bling/glitter
Creative Moments – Summer is Here

Cheerful Sketches Guest Designer “Gnomie”

Hello friends! I think we’re getting closer and closer to Spring! I sure am ready for it, how about you? Let’s welcome the warmer weather and pretty flowers to come!

Herschaalde kopie van RON ILONKA

I had previously made a winner/top 3 for a challenge I had entered which was exciting to have also won a place to be a future guest designer for one of the challenges too.

So this month, I’m very excited to be joining my friends over at the Cheerful Sketches challenge blog as a guest and they always have a beautiful sketch along with lots of inspiration for it each month! So please be sure to check them out and play along if you can! Here’s the lovely sketch they’ve provided for me to work with this month:

This is a very nice sketch and open to lots of different interpretations as well, so I had fun playing with it along with an image that was provided to me from a current sponsor for the challenge and here’s what I came up with:

Everyone loves the gnomes and this one is too cute riding his snail friend! I’m using the “Grumblebonce Rides Again” from Dr. Digi’s House of Stamps for my card today. I’ve colored him up with Copic markers, added details with gel pens, glitter under the snail and glossy accents on the snail’s eyeballs. I die cut the image with a stitched circle die and ink blended around the edges before attached to another loopy circle die cut from brown cardstock.

I found some fun papers fitting for the image with red plaids and a strip of mushrooms that I’ve attached over another loopy die cut strip I’ve had in my stash forever. I wrapped some gold ribbon around it and attached to the red plaid papers that are attached to a 5″ square top folding brown card base. Before attaching the red plaid papers, I used a distress tool to rough up the edges. I’ve popped up the image with foam tape and added 3 gold enamel dots in the upper right corner.

With the card now laying flat, you can better see some of the shine from the sentiment at the bottom. I found these fun gnome style sentiments that can be foiled. So I used some gold foil and ran the strip through my Minc Machine. I sponged some blue and brown inks over it and then added some die cut mushrooms behind it and layered a piece of brown cardstock to layer behind it.

I placed the mushroom sentiment at the bottom with a portion of it with foam tape and the other parts just glued to the circle sentiment panel. I think it turned out pretty cute and I had fun coloring it up!

So please be sure to check out the challenge and come play along!

Thanks so much for dropping in and I’ll see you soon!

A Snarky Friend

Hello friends! It’s getting closer towards the end of the month and so it has motivated me to get going on some challenges that are about to end soon. So I’ve grabbed my supplies and had a fun play…

Tee hee!😁 This one makes me chuckle and I think it would be so fun to send to a special friend for Valentine’s Day or even at any time of the year! Most all of the products I’ve used for this come from Taylored Expressions. Along with many people, I do enjoy those “snarky” products they sell!

To start, I’ve based my card on a sketch for a challenge that’s about to end and worked with the Taylored Expressions Easy Strips 1/4″ and Easy Strips 1/8″ dies for the bottom right side of the card using the colors Blue Raspberry & Dijon cardstock. The colors are part of the TE Maker Challenge for January as well which is about to end too which is why this was my choice for this card. I cut the panel in half diagonal based on the sketch and used a white cardstock for the top right area and blended some TE Blue Raspberry ink with the TE Superstar Rotating Stencil. Layered these onto some Dijon cardstock which was layered onto the white top folding A2 card base.

For the image panel, I stamped the “TE Grouchy Grumplings” (Sorry, it’s been retired it looks like! LOVE that snaggle tooth! 😆) and the TE Shenanigans sentiment on the same panel layered over a piece of Blue Raspberry cardstock that was popped up with foam tape. The image was colored with Copic markers. I also stamped the TE Simple Strips-Snarky with black ink over a piece of Dijon cardstock that I cut out with the TE Simple Strips-Asymmetrical die and attached at the top right corner of the card.

To finish off the card, I die cut the stars from the TE Gathered Stars die from Dijon cardstock, glued over the card and then covered with a glitter brush pen. I also added some TE Tiny Diamonds over the stars to match the Blue Raspberry color of the cardstock. For the image panel, I used a black pen to doodle around the edges and then covered the heart with glossy accents.

Hope you’ve gotten some chuckles or inspiration from my card today! Thanks for dropping by! I’ll see you soon!

Challenges: