You Are Not Alone Ukraine

Hello friends! Welcome to the weekend and hoping it’s a good one for you.

So as I’m sure you’ve been seeing lots of card makers pulling together in making some beautiful inspiration with the Ukraine flag colors and Sunflowers in support. I’m seeing where there is some sort of card auction going on over at Instagram too, but I’m not on there to see anything. It has moved and inspired me, so I would still like to help support in some way as a card maker to share some inspiration and hope for peace in the world too.

So my first thought was to turn to one of my favorite sunflower stamps which comes from the Taylored Expressions Wheatfield Dreams and I thought they would be appropriate for me to pull out some of my Karin Brush markers to watercolor. I’ve also used the coordinating die for the set to die cut the flowers.

For the background, I’ve used some watercolor paper and some Ranger Blue Ribbon Oxide ink for the background by smooshing the ink pad onto my glass mat, spritzing with water and smooshing it over again with layers of water, smooshing, drying, spritzing, etc. I also used the Taylored Expressions Heart to Heart stencil with the same ink and foam tool to go over top of it.

I prepped the background with an anti-static tool and white heat embossed the sentiment from the Taylored Expressions Beautiful Soul stamp set. I cut down the sides of the watercolor paper and added some strips of yellow cardstock to the edges and attached it over an A2 sized top folding white card base.

I then glued down the die cut sunflowers except for the one in front where I used some foam tape to pop it up.

I took a white gel pen and added a few light dots in the center of each flower for some highlights and then took a glitter brush pen for some shimmer to the petals, but it’s so hard to see in the photo. I decided to water down some white paint to add a few splatters.

Lastly, I’ve taken some heart shaped clear dew drops and attached a few to the background.

I’m pleased with how the card turned out and hope you’ve been inspired in some way too. Thanks for stopping in and sharing your wonderful inspiration and lovely thoughts my friends. Take care of yourself and one another.

Challenges:

1. Festive Friday – ###0104 Choose 3 from list: I chose Flowers/Plants, Encouragement & Stencils Festive-Friday-0104challenge-card

2. Freshly Made Sketches – FMS525 FMS Final 525-001

3. Happy Little Stampers Watercolor – March Anything Goes Watercolor

An Electric Connection and Happy Mail Love For Valentine’s Day!

Happy Valentine’s Day friends! Today is the day all about hearts and love! Although I’ve already sent out my Valentine cards, I have a couple of lovely individuals who take a peek at my blog from time to time…so I have to wait until they’ve received their cards before I share them here!😉 It’s somewhat hard to “hide” my crafting since hubby’s now retired! LOL So here’s the cards I made:

I just KNEW the minute I saw this Taylored Expressions Love Lights Stamps & Stencil Combo set that it was something perfect for making cards for my retired electrician hubby! This set also coordinates with other products and so I started by foiling the TE Foil It-Love Lights panel and then ink blending with the stencil set. I had to use blue as this is hubby’s favorite color. So, I’ve used the TE Sprinkles and Potato Chip inks. The cardstock is TE Sprinkles. (I used softer tones for the Valentine feel.) I also used the coordinating TE Mini Strips-Watt’s Up sentiment set that was silver heat embossed over the TE Sprinkles cardstock and cut out with the TE Mini Strips-Asymmetrical Die. I just love the punny sentiments that go with this set!

The tiny light bulb for the accent I used actually came from a TE ‘freebie’ with one of my orders, so I die cut the light bulb with white glitter cardstock and lightly sponged some yellow ink in the center. I die cut the center and bottom of the bulb with silver brushed cardstock and glued it onto the light bulb. I die cut a circle from some vellum and also sponged this with yellow ink and glued the light bulb on top of it and attached it to the side of the card nestled with the sentiment strips that were popped up with foam tape. He will have gotten this one this morning.

And here’s another card that I sent to someone very special! It’s a simple card, but wow it was so much fun to create with using the Simon Says Stamp Limited Edition Happy Mail Love card kit! (Looks like it’s still available at the time I’m writing up this post, but not sure how long it will stay available.) I so love those CUTE Doodlebug products and there are so many of them including the stamp set that goes together in this kit! I wanted to play some more with it, but I have so many other things to focus on, so I’ll have to come back to it later! LOL

I’ve used the Doodlebug background papers from the kit and cut it out with a Lawn Fawn Cross-Stitch die and also cut a strip of ‘grass’ with green cardstock at the bottom using the Lawn Fawn Grassy Border die. The heart papers were attached over a red piece of cardstock from the kit and layered onto a top folding A2 white card base. The grass border was attached over the red cardstock and heart background papers. This gave me the room to take the CUTE Doodlebug LOTS OF LOVE Odds and Ends Ephemera die cut shapes to create my scene with! This pack came in the kit and there are SO many pieces! I’m sure you could go on and on making cards! The bird and bunny die cuts were popped up with foam tape. It’s hard to see in the photo, but I’ve taken my glitter brush pen to all of the hearts on the images and the cheeks on the cloud.

I think these cards did what was intended which was to create smiles during this cold winter season! I sure hope that it has done the same for you as well! 😉 Wishing you a happy Valentine’s Day with all of my heart! ❤ Thanks for stopping in and I’ll be seeing you soon!

Challenges:

Moving Along With the Times – Love/Anniversary/Wedding
Creative Inspirations – With Love
The Paper Funday – Anything Goes optional ‘Hugs & Kisses’
613 Avenue Create – Anything Goes optional ‘Whimsical Valentine’
Everybody Art – Love and/or Heart
Try It On Tuesday – ‘All Loved Up’
Cardz 4 Guys – ‘Love’ cards
Little Red Wagon – Be My Love/Valentines

Huge thank you to those that keep the challenge blogs going!

Donut You Want a Sweet Birthday!?🍩

Hello friends and happy Friday! Wishing you a wonderful weekend ahead as we head into Valentine’s Day on Monday! With this holiday, I’m always reminded by the sweet treats and memories of my children passing out their Valentines, making special boxes to hold them in and classroom parties with lots of goodies! I thought it would be fun to incorporate those thoughts into a fun birthday set and a small treat with NO ‘REAL’ SUGAR ADDED!

I can never turn down a good donut, how about you? I had so much fun creating this set with the Taylored Expressions Donut Days Cling & Clear Combo and decorating them! This was created with the February #TEMakerChallenge color combo and theme in mind when putting the set together. I’ve used both the TE Spearmint & Peaches ‘N Cream ink and cardstock for these. I’ve added some Chocolate Truffle, Toffee and White EP as well.

To create the “donut box” on the card, I’ve stamped the TE Argyle stamp only without using the stencils and then I’ve cut it out with the TE Box Top Stacklets die to give the frame look for the donuts to be placed in! (Note the small treat container was decorated on the front with the left-over middle piece from the frame…so save everything!) I then took the stamped frame and ran the TE Pierced Lattice Cutting Plate over it for an added design. To assemble the box of donuts, I took a piece of tissue paper, crumpled it up and glued the decorated donuts together over it. The back of the frame with foam tape was then centered over the donuts so it was popped up. I ripped the excess tissue paper and attached the card together. I used some of the TE Peaches ‘N Cream cardstock and white heat embossed the TE Mini Strips Donut Worry and cut them out with the TE Mini Strips die.

FOR THE TREAT HOLDER –

I found this really fun video tutorial for a Hand Sanitizer PocketBac box container using my envelope punch board. (CLICK NAME FOR THE TUTORIAL!) I always love finding new ways to use a tool I have especially in a totally different way than what it was intended for! I didn’t wrap decorative paper around mine like she did, but like I mentioned above, I saved the center of the cut-out frame and cut it down to size to decorate the front. I took one of the sentiments and donuts left over from the card, wrapped some twine around it and tied it so the bow is centered inside the donut hole.

I do love me a good pun…so please feel free to pun away my friends!!😅 Maybe you can come up with a “hole in one”!

I hope you’ve enjoyed my birthday sweet treats today and thanks so much for stopping in!

Challenges:

Penny’s Paper Crafty – Anything Goes using paper
Watercooler Wednesday – Helen’s “All About Occasions”
Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
River of Creativity – Anything Goes
Crafty Calendar – Anything Goes
Lil Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes

Thank you to all of the wonderful challenge blogs and keeping them going!

One Layer Challenge and More Riley Fun!

Hello friends! Hope you’re having a great week so far! I have a few cards to share with you today that I’ve made over the weekend having some fun.

Vicki-InkyStamper-FebCAS

I love the cute little grin this goat has! This goat along with all of the images used are from the same stamp set by Inky Stamper. This month, the Inky Stamper FB group challenged us to create a ONE-LAYER only card…not even ribbon/twine, etc. could be used! I haven’t made one of these CAS or one-layer cards for quite some time, but I enjoyed the play with it.

So I’ve used masking paper to create this by stamping the goat over masking paper, stamping the goat over the front of the card and then placing the cut out masked goat to cover him up. I then die cut a circle over another piece of masking paper and placed the left over piece on top of my card where I masked my goat image. All that was left was the circle opening and this is where I ink blended the opening with distress inks. I also stamped the small line of grass with green ink.

I took off the circle mask along with the goat mask. I colored up the goat with Copic markers and then I stamped the triangle image from the same stamp set along with the sentiment. I then added 3 black gems and colored the inside triangles with a glitter brush pen. I also used my corner chomper to round the two bottom corners.

This last weekend there was another OOAK event and there was another fun card kit from Riley and Co. I didn’t attend the entire event, but joined in to see what the new release was about while I was making my cards from the kit. I’m pretty sure that there are no more of these kits left as they sold out of the first batch and had to make more.

The critters are so fun to color, and I really loved these papers from the kit as they have me anxiously awaiting Spring to get here! I’m bundled up, drinking hot liquids and trying to stay warm, but nothing beats a warm Spring Day! 😁

To get a better look at each one of these cards up close along with what’s going on for the insides, check out the gallery below. If you’re directly on my blog website, you can click on each photo below to enlarge it:

The cat’s bugged out eyeballs is too funny! I’ve used foam tape to pop up his sign.

Just wanted to share my recent makes as I’m still trying to work at finishing up some Valentine cards along with getting going on the wedding invites. Sure enjoy seeing the wonderful inspiration from everyone and hope that you’re all staying safe and warm friends! Thanks for stopping in and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges (Top Goat card ONLY):

Challenge Up Your Life – Triangles
Happy Little Stampers CAS – “Inky”
CAS on Friday – Male
Krafty Chicks – Stamp Act
Just Add Ink – Minimalist

Stinky Love

Hello friends! Happy Friday and I hope that you’re having a great week so far! I’ve been having some fun creating a couple of Valentine’s Day cards with a fun/snarky inside greeting.

So, I absolutely fell in love with these STINKIN’ CUTE skunks from Lawn Fawn! A few weeks ago, I caught a live on FB and enjoyed the crafty products shown with these Lawn Fawn Scent with Love stamps! I wanted to play with them and decided to order it! I didn’t have them on hand during the video, but I decided to do my own spin from their cards once mine showed up in the mail.

I didn’t use the heart stencil they had as I decided to use my TE Heart of Hearts Layering Stencil on both of these cards. I’ve used some clear glitter paste over the first layer without using the largest heart, let it dry and then used some red ink for the second layer. The red strip was embossed with a 3D heart folder. I’ve used the Lawn Fawn Scripty Love die that was ink blended faded with the red ink and layered over another die cut sentiment with glitter cardstock. All of the images were colored with Copic markers and die cut with coordinating dies. I’ve used some black glaze and white gel pens for accents. I just glued all of the pieces down with the exception of the skunk that was popped up with foam tape.

OK, I had shared the inside of the card that the recipient will be receiving as I thought they would get a kick out it. 😆 I’ve used the SSS Sassy Insides stamp set for the inside of both of these cards. I finished with the Valentine sentiment and the tiny hearts from the Lawn Fawn set.

And so this is also a “spin off” from the second card they did on the live, but I decided not to add another layer to it; instead, I used the large heart within my stencil to center these darling hugging skunks. I did about the same thing that I did on the card above with different colored inks. The only thing popped up is the skunks over the sentiment banner that I cut out using the MFT Stamps banner dies. I think this turned out so cute for a one layer simple card.

And then here’s what the inside of the card looks like with another sentiment from the same SSS stamp set that I’ve used on the above card! 😆 I think this one was so appropriate for using with the skunks!

So I’m thinking that these cards would be something fun for the recipients to receive in the mail. It’s a great time of year to get something to chuckle about especially if it’s unexpected! I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing them too!

Thank you so much for stopping in today! I wish you a happy and wonderful weekend ahead!! See you soon!

Challenges:

Lawn Fawnatics – Lots of Heart
Make the Cards – Valentine card
Unicorn – Red (top card only)
Crafty Animals – Anything Goes with animal
Pearly Sparkles – Anything Goes
NBUS – #35 NEW SKUNK STAMPS! YAY!
Critter Crazy – Anything Goes with animal
Double D – Hearts
Aud Sentiments – Love Sentiment

Vintage Anniversary and Commissioned Ones Too!

Hello friends and happy February! I feel like we just started a new year and it’s already into the second month! I will need to get going on a couple of Valentine cards really soon! Today, I wanted to share a card I had made for my parent’s 57th wedding anniversary along with a few other anniversary cards I was commissioned to make that I had forgotten to share until I made my parent’s card! LOL!

I really like how this one turned out! If this looks familiar to you, then you may recognize it from a past Simon Says Stamp card kit. (This one came from a Valentine 2020 kit.) I thought that the papers in the kit looked “Vintage” and I really liked that, so I thought I’d try to go for that style in my card.

I used the heart rose stamp image from the kit and colored it with Copics and fussy cut it out. I also copper heat embossed the leaves from the stamp set included in the kit over some green cardstock and fussy cut those out as well. The sentiment was also from the same set as the leaves, and I copper heat embossed that for the bottom right corner of the card. It’s hard to see from the shine, but it says: “Happily ever together” and was fussy cut as well.

I started with the Vintage looking papers and cut a piece down to size and inked up along the edges with Vintage Photo distress ink and layered it over a side folding A2 white card base. I pulled out a piece of shimmer vellum that I ran through a Sizzix 3D heart embossing folder and layered it over top of the background. I also took some of the ephemera from the kit and added those to parts of the background after sponging the edges of that too. (See the “ticket” in the top left.)

Finally, I arranged the heat embossed leaves along with the heart shaped rose over top. I glued the leaves and then popped up the rose with foam tape along with the heat embossed sentiment. I added some shimmer to the leaves with a shimmer brush pen and then took some sequins from the kit to attach over the card and filled with Stickles glitter.

I think this would be a special Valentine card as well for someone! 😉

At the end of last year, I was also commissioned to make a 50th wedding anniversary card for someone. I was just given the detail that the wedding photos were shown with the colors black and white…so I based my card using that idea.

I always think that wedding/anniversary style cards look especially elegant with die cuts and embossing, so I dig through my die cut and embossing folder stash. I’m sure you can imagine me sitting on the floor with things everywhere! LOL!! Do you do this too when you’re not sure what you want to do and/or what all you have?

So I found this really pretty Memory Box die cut with the heart in the center that I wanted to use and thought some glitter paper behind it would be so pretty. This is why my card is a square shaped design. Since it was celebrating 50 years, I thought it would be appropriate to add some gold in there too and die cut the numbers for the center of the heart as well at the border pieces on the top and bottom of the heart. (Not sure where that die came from as it’s old. The number dies are really old too!)

I layered this onto the glitter paper and gold foil paper. I stamped a sentiment (Taylored Expressions-The Inside Scoop Anniversary used both inside and out of card.) and die cut it out with a banner die and popped it up under the heart with foam tape. I layered this onto a white 3D embossed background that was layered over a black top folding square card base. I attached a gold ribbon bow over top.

I stamped a sentiment for the inside of the card and you can see that I’ve decorated the inside of the card using the same die cut border with gold foil cardstock. The papers I’ve used for the borders on the inside were also used to create a custom envelope for this card. Sometimes if I don’t have the envelope on hand, I make my own envelope. Sometimes I prefer to do this for special cards anyway.

And this is another card that I had been commissioned to do for someone that wanted a card for an anniversary on Christmas Eve. I was given the detail about them spending time at Disney World and seem to be a fan of Disney along with it being their 25th anniversary…so my card was based on those details.

I have no Disney character type stamps/products at all. My thought was to create something with a “winter/Fairytale” theme which is why I turned to my Cricut machine for help. I was lucky enough to find the carriage and horse image that I cut out using brushed metallic silver and silver glitter cardstock for the different pieces. I also found a castle image that I cut from the brushed metallic silver as well. I used black cardstock for the base and insides of the cut-out images. After I cut out the castle, I ran it through a brick embossing folder to give it that brick castle look. I also die cut the numbers from Taylored Expressions Cap It Off Numbers dies. I attached the numbers in the center of the castle and attached a silver ribbon bow over top of the numbers.

Since I had my main cut out images for my card, I was able to create my scene and size based on those. My finished card measures approx. 7″ x 5″ which is not a regular size for me, but I thought it was fitting given the type of card it was along with the cut-out images. I started with a piece of blue cardstock and generously sprayed it with some Pearlescent Cosmic Shimmer previously received from a class I took. It gives a really stunning look, and the shimmer doesn’t show very well from the photo either. Once dried, I die cut both the snowflakes and snow border at the bottom from some white glitter cardstock. Both dies used for them come from Lawn Fawn. The trees behind the bottom snow border were cut from some pearl white paper with an older Stampin’ Up! die set in my stash.

I attached the sprayed blue background over a piece of silver metallic cardstock after wrapping a silver ribbon around the center. I then attached the trees and added the snow border at the bottom. I added the castle and snowflakes next being careful that everything was showing the way I wanted and then I popped up the carriage with foam tape.

This whole scene was placed over a white 7 x 5 top folding card base. I also took some silver glitter to add to the little flag ends on the castle. I thought with all of the glitter and shimmer it didn’t need any more embellishment! I was happy with how it turned out because I wasn’t quite sure it would!

There was a custom envelope that was also made for this card using some pretty silver pattern paper from my stash.

Everyone seemed to be pretty pleased with how the cards turned out for them and I was very happy to have had the privilege of being a part of someone’s special day too!

Speaking of wedding anniversaries, I’ve been given the honor to create wedding invites for my son’s wedding coming up this Summer and I know I’ll be getting really busy putting those together as well! So that will be coming up really fast and I hope I can keep up with things! LOL

Thanks so much for stopping in today! I hope that you’ve enjoyed my creations or been inspired in some way! See you soon!

Challenges (TOP CARD ONLY)

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything Goes
Krafty Chicks – All Occasions
Crafty Catz – Anything Goes with optional add flowers
Colour Crazy Craft – Anything Goes with coloring (Copics used for heart rose image)
Creatalicious – Anything Goes with optional love
Simon Says Stamp Monday – Use embossing folder (3D heart folder over vellum piece)

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:

*Cheerful Sketches – Jan sketch
Taylored Expressions FB Fans Group – TE Maker Challenge Jan
Happy Little Stampers – Jan Stencil Challenge ATG + stencil
CRAFT – Anything Goes
Colour Crazy Craft – Anything Goes + coloring (Copics used)
Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes

Making Condolence and Get Well Cards

Hello friends! I hope that you’re having a great start to your week and are staying safe and warm in your world.

Today I’m sharing a collection of creations that I never seem to have in my stash because it’s never really something that I think about when creating…and I always seem to be making them as needed rather than having a few on hand. Even though, a couple of these were needed, I decided to make duplicates to have on hand this time around.

As you can see, this is a pet sympathy card I created, and one was needed to send to a friend that had recently lost her special companion. For anyone that has lost a pet knows how this feels and I wanted to be sure to send something special her way. It’s always great to have one on hand when needed.

I’ve used this wonderful stamp set from Whimsy Stamps called Furever in Our Hearts. I started by ink blending the background with distress inks in Candied Apple, Carved Pumpkin, Squeezed Lemonade, Mowed Lawn and Blueprint Sketch on a piece of Neenah Solar White. I sprayed the panel with water and used a towel to blot up the water droplets. I then took some white shimmer paint mixed with water and splattered it over top with a paint brush.

I cut out the panel with a Lawn Fawn Cross-stitched die. I used my Brilliance Black pigment ink to stamp the paw prints and sentiment over top of it so that it would show up over the background. I die cut a couple of clouds out (MFT I think) and lightly sponged the bottom of them and placed them over the areas I wanted with popping up the one cloud using foam tape at the top of the paw prints. I layered this panel onto a piece of black cardstock and then layered them both over a white A2 sized top folding card base. I finished it off with a few sparkling clear sequins.

Another card that I needed was for someone that had recently been through a surgery, and I actually didn’t have any more “get well” in my stash… again, so I decided to create a duplicate of this one too. This set of cards along with the set of cards below actually were the results from the previous OOAK event I had attended, and these were part of a class I had taken. So, this class actually came in handy!

All of the papers including that beautiful die (from Memory Box-Verdant Leaf Collage), Get Well Soon die, and dewdrop water droplets came with the kit. I subtly changed up the design given for the class by adding black paint splatters and changing up the die cut lettering and the layering of the papers. I really liked doing more of that ink blending and then having it fade to the white for a soft look. The outside woodgrain frame was popped up with foam tape.

And here’s the second set of cards created within the same class using the same Memory Box die and ink blended colors. I changed up the layout with these as well by making the card base black (instead of white like shown in class) and instead of the sentiments used in class, I created my own version with the Whimsy Stamps Deepest Sympathy clear stamps and the WS Sympathy Heartfelt and Condolences die set. I also added the black paint splatters to the ink blended panels like on the set above.

I thought these sets made for some really nice cards to have on hand when needed. I’m not sure that I would’ve actually sat down to make up these types of cards in production if I hadn’t have taken the class, so I’m glad I did.

Thanks so much for stopping in today! Hope I have inspired your crafty inspiration in some way! I’ll be seeing you soon!

Challenges:

Crafty Calendar – Anything Goes
Happy Little Stampers – Anything Goes with Dies
Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
Stamping Sensations – Anything Stamped with optional add a die
Addicted to Stamps and More – Make Your Mark
Watercooler Wednesday – All About Occasions
Penny’s Paper-Crafty – Anything Goes using paper

Winter is Shaping Up With Interaction!

So after getting my calendars ready to start the year off, which is easy to sit and craft during the cold snowy winter where I live, my mind turned to winter when creating! Sometimes it’s nice to create with a “snowflake/winter” theme because I think they can be used interchangeable for Christmas or just a “warm winter greeting” for someone! (Or… because you might be late sending one out or for those friends overseas that won’t arrive one time!)

Today I’m sharing a card that I’ve made for this month’s Inky Stamper challenge on FB with the theme: “Shaped Cards.”

Vicki-InkyStamper-Janchallenge-shapedcard

Isn’t she cute?! I was trying to come up with a different shape besides a regular circle, etc. So, I looked up “coloring pages for kids” free online and found this one that I resized to what I wanted and printed it out over some light purple cardstock. I used another printed one as a template so that I could cut another one out over a folded cardstock piece to create a shaped folded card design. (You can partly see the back piece in the photo.) The sparkly “ball” at the top was just die cut out from a scallop circle die with sparkly silver cardstock.

For the card front, I used the Inky Stamper Snow Angel stamp set to stamp the snowflakes in the background with some purple ink. I white heat embossed the sentiment over and wanted it to stand out a bit more, so I sponged some more light purple ink over top of it. I colored “Rosie” over Copic blending card and used the die to cut her out with. I’ve die cut a couple of the large snowflakes from Lawn Fawn with white cardstock and layered them over the beanie hat. You can see that “Rosie” is popped out a bit over that snowflake, which is where I’ve added a “wobbler” to her.

I finished the card with some sparkly Icicles sequins mix. I filled the centers of them with some Silver Stickles.

Because of the “ball” on top and the length of the “beanie band”, it needs to be in a 5.5″ square envelope to mail. You could also make your own envelope which I do all the time anyway. But the 5.5″ size fits perfectly.

*Speaking of Inky Stamper things, this past prior weekend there was an OOAK event (on FB) that Inky Stamper was a part of, so of course I wanted to get the kit and play along too! Here’s my results:

The top card is an interactive “Theater Fold” design. (All of the pieces were included with the kit along with an instructional video/class.) She usually always includes a mini bonus card which measures about an ATC size. (3.5″ x 2.5″) She used the “icicles” from the stamp set, but I decided to stamp and cut out another snowflake for the front of mine. I added a pretty gem to the center of it.

And of course, that’s not the ONLY fun I had during the OOAK event! I decided to play along with the always cute and funny Riley and Co. as well! Here’s the set of cards created from that class:

I just thought these were so cute with the cow images and their little outfits along with the “Funny Bone” sentiments! The instructions came with the kit which were really easy to follow along with. I basically looked at the photos and put together the pieces from the kit. For the clouds, I decided to pull out some sparkly white flock to cover them with. They have a nice soft feel to them! They just make me chuckle and I think it will be fun to send along to someone who needs a smile! 😉

*If you are visiting my website, then you can check out each one of these cards in the gallery below by clicking on the photos to enlarge them: (I’ve found some coordinating envelopes from my stash for each card.)

I sure hope that you’ve enjoyed my post today and have been inspired in some way! Really appreciate you stopping in and I’ll be seeing you soon!🥰 Stay warm!

Challenges (For Winter Beanie Hat Shaped card ONLY):

Challenge Up Your Life – Winter Fun
Papercraft – Winter Wonderland
Creatalicious – Anything Goes with optional winter
Make My Monday – Winter-Wherever You Are (snowy and cold!)
Make the Cards – Encouragement (You’re unique sentiment)
Aud Sentiments – Anything Goes + sentiment

Hello! Welcome to 2022!

Hello friends! I hope you are all doing well and looking forward to a promising year this go around! I sure am! I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I was having a bit of a hard time with having lost my “MOJO” for a period, feeling really down and not myself at all. Christmas came and then on top of it, I’ve gotten sick. I am starting to feel a bit better now, so I decided that the only way to get through all of this is by doing what I’ve always felt to be therapeutic, which is to keep on creating! I just need to get back into the mindset of it again is all, but I do enjoy it when I’m creating as I’m sure my fellow crafty friends can relate to!😉 Appreciate your kindness to me always.

Since I really haven’t created much lately other than Christmas cards (as you can see from my previous post below), I’m going to share some projects that I had done at the end of last year including some commissioned cards I was asked to do:

Last month was a birthday card for my dad, so I’ve pulled out a special birthday kit that came out sometime last year from Simon Says Stamp. Everything I’ve used on the card including the embossing folder, stamps, sentiment strips and paper all came from the kit. It may be hard to see in the photo, but I’ve foiled over the “super happy” sentiment strip that was included with the kit and glued it over top of the cake slice.

I’ve added some glitter over the candle flame, the yellow stars and the inside of the white embossed “birthday” strip under the cake slice. I pulled out the blue colors from the striped paper to color the image with using Copic markers and die cut it out to glue over top of the sentiment strip and embossed oval layer.

And speaking of birthdays, I was commissioned to do a 50th birthday card for a guy that is a professional painter and enjoys grilling outdoors. The first image that came to my mind was this really cute LOTV image. I printed him out and thought it would be fun to incorporate the birthday number above “the painter” to make it look like he’s in the process of doing it while the paint is dripping everywhere. So while the boy painter was printed out, I stamped and embossed the numbers above him.

My husband had the idea of the little grill along the edge going “up in smoke”. So I created a “ground” area for the ladder and the grill to be on. I stamped the grill image, colored it in and then a liner pen to draw the line to establish the separation. I then ripped the corner above the grill and sponged some Black Soot distress ink around the grill and corner edging. I didn’t want the background to be white or black, so I dug out some brick style pattern paper to place behind that corner area before attaching it to the card base. Hopefully there were some chuckles from it!

So for the inside of the card, I thought it would be fun to take this corner border die that I received from a Halloween class and make it look like the red paint drip continued on the inside. Then I found this really funny sentiment to go along with the grilling bit too! I also sponged some more of that Black Soot distress ink around the edges.

These were really fun cards to do and I enjoyed the coloring process so much! I find that coloring images really helps me get through some creative blocks…even if it’s a simple image or something that I don’t use, so I’m thankful to at least to be able to do that. Hopefully I can get back into what I enjoy doing here.

I know people sometimes struggle with masculine style cards, so here are a few examples of cards that I came up with for men. Hope it helped with some ideas for you too! Thanks for stopping by today and I’m glad you did!

Challenges: