Category: Thinking of You/Miss You

M is for Mythical

Hello and happy Friday to you friends!  Welcome to the month of October!  We’re still having some unseasonably warm weather right now, but next week it’s supposed to cool down a bit along with maybe some rain which we really need right now.  Hope that wherever you are that things are going well for you!

Today is a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog!  Our next letter is “M”, and our hostess, Tee, has chosen “M is for MYTHICAL CREATURE(s)” (fairies, gnomes, unicorns, dragons, vampires, zombies, etc.)   I think this will be a fun one for Halloween!  *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:

These little grumpy guys from Taylored Expressions always make me giggle and I fell in love with this set a few years back and had to snatch it up!  I pull it out sometimes to make a funny card to send someone.  There are other characters from this set called “Mythical Grumplings” (looks to be a retired set) that are super cute!

Because he’s a grumpy dragon, I mainly used green colors to color him up and for the base/background design.  I used a heart stencil with green ink and overlayed some translucent sparkle paste over it.  I die cut a cloud for the dragon to stand on as well as die cut a heart from shimmer vellum for the dragon to stand out a bit over all of that green color.  I popped both the cloud and dragon up over the vellum heart and added to the background.

I layered it over a scallop white layer and a green A2 top folding card base.  I also white heat embossed the punny sentiment and die cut it out with a stitched banner die.  Sponged the edges with green ink and attached to the top right of the heart panel.

  • I hope you’ve enjoyed my mythical creature card today and that you’ll consider hopping on over the to the challenge blog to see the inspiration from the rest of the team and join in the fun to play along too!

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  Wishing you a happy weekend ahead!

Challenges:

  1. Try it On Tuesday – Animals (real or imaginary)
  2. The Divas That Cut…Paper! – Anything Goes
  3. Crafts Galore Encore – Anything Goes
  4. CRAFT – Grandparents/Anything Goes
  5. As You Like It – Square card or Not & why?  (I most usually make A2 sized cards because it’s what fits best with my envelopes and I can get 2 card bases from one sheet of 8.5″11″ cardstock.  It makes crafting cards more simple with this size.)

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:

  1. Creative Inspirations – Anything Goes
  2. Ellibelle’s Garden Party – Anything In or From a Garden
  3. Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
  4. Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
  5. Penny’s – Anything Goes Using Paper
  6. Love to Craft – Anything Goes
  7. Crafts Galore Encore – Anything Goes

F is for Feather(s)

Hello friends and happy Friday to you!  It’s been so crazy warm over my way and I’m hoping this day finds us with a bit of a break in temperatures.

Today starts a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog!   Our next letter is F and it was my turn to choose a theme for this letter, so I  have chosen “F” is for Feather(s)  *Remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter*  I hope you will find some time to play along!  Here’s what I’ve created:

I thought this would be a fun theme to play around with as you could just add a bird or anything with feathers.  I look forward to seeing the projects for this one!  I was happy to have this chance to pull out some things in my stash that I hadn’t used yet.

I’ve used the Taylored Expressions “The Thing With Feathers” stamp set and long with the “Wings of Love” stamp set for this card.

I started with a kraft colored cardstock cut with a scallop rectangle die and masked off the edges to ink blend and stamp a smaller feather around the edges with brown ink.  I then took the flying birds image from the “Wings of Love” stamp set and stamped it in white ink.  I also decided to add some white splatter over that.  This panel was then attached to an A2 top folding white card base.

For the large feather at the bottom: I used my VersaMark ink pad to just ink up the edges of the feather, then I silver heat embossed just the edges of the feather.  Without removing the feather stamp from my MISTI, I inked up the entire feather with VersaMark ink and then used a white opal embossing powder over the entire image.  Since this embossing powder is translucent, the silver edges that I embossed still showed through.  I die cut it out with the coordinating die and popped it up with foam tape at the bottom of the card.

The sentiment was stamped with grey ink and cut out with a coordinating die that I attached with thin foam tape at the top of the kraft panel.  I added some clear sequins to finish it off.

Thanks so much for stopping in today!  I hope you will grab your feather(s) and play along with us!  I’ll see you tomorrow for a new Art Journal Page!

Challenges:

  1. Gem of a Craft Challenge – Anything Goes
  2. Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes
  3. The Creative Crafters – Anything Goes
  4. Crafter’s Cafe – Anything Goes optional: masculine
  5. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2525 Anything Goes

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
Dimension Class-markers over die cuts
Dimension Class-stacked die cuts for layers
Dimension Class-liquid watercolor smooshing with die cuts
Interactive Class-Light Up Card
Interactive Class-Light Up Card pushing button to activate it
Interactive Class-Pop Up Card
Interactive Class-Pop Up Card when you pull up on the tab to reveal message and flowers pop up
Interactive Class-Rip Strip Card – when the recipient pulls on strip, it reveals message
Interactive Class- Spinner Card – bee spins and moves along curved track
Session 1 -stenciling on perforated paper
session 2 – watercolor panels using Karin Brush markers
session 3 – stamp a stack using quad stencils to make four cards
session 4 – marker coloring
session 5-ink blending on stamp and embossing over image
session 6-calendar easel card with message pad
session 7 – ink blending over glitter cardstock
Summer School-double foil technique and using marker
Summer School – clear foil
Summer School – foil paste and sprayed foil techniques
Summer School – Foil paste over color cardstock

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!😊

E is for Embossing

Hello and happy Friday!  Thank you so much for the congrats from my last post about the baby!  I look forward to meeting our new family member soon!  It’s starting to get really warm over my way, so it’s a great time to be indoors with the cool air and craft.

Today starts a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog!   Our next letter is E and the hostess has chosen “E” is for Embossing (heat or dry)  *Remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter*  I hope you will find some time to play along!  Here’s what I’ve created:

I absolutely love to emboss!  I first fell in love with stamping because of the magic of heat embossing and then fell in love again when those embossing folders came out!  So I’ve decided to do both versions for my card.

I haven’t had a chance to use this Drifting Flowers embossing folder from Simon Says Stamp.  I thought it was so pretty!  I wanted to emboss in black and try out my Lisa Horton Interference Inks with it, so after I embossed it, I used my finger to rub white ink over the raised areas.  I then used the LH Interference Inks over that once it dried.  (I can’t remember exactly what colors I used, but it basically started as an experiment and I had several pads open!)  I also used a silver ink pad to rub the centers of each flower minus the large one.

I should also mention that some of the white ink was very slightly rubbed over the open areas as well because I got a white streak on it…so I just continued to rub all over those areas until blended in.  I didn’t mind the look.

While the inks were drying, I silver heat embossed the sentiment and cut out it with the coordinating die.  I additionally cut out two more for added thickness and attached to the panel.  I layered this embossed panel onto a mirror silver layer with both of these layers getting rounded on two ends with my corner chomper.  I added these onto a chomped top folding A2 black card base.  Lastly, I added some silver sequins.

Please be sure to stop by the challenge blog to see the inspiration from team as well!  I look forward to seeing your embossed projects in the gallery.  Thanks so much for stopping by today and I hope you like my card.  See you soon!

Challenges:

  1. Crafty Calendar – Add a Sentiment
  2. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2523 Anything Goes
  3. Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Fur, Feather and/or Flowers
  4. As You Like It – Favorite: to add a sentiment or not and why?  (I most always have sentiments on my cards because I feel it’s important when sending a greeting card to someone and it’s hard for me to leave it blank.)
  5. The Flower Challenge – Embossing (heat/dry)

Pearly Sparkles Guest

Hello friends again!  I have two posts going up for today, so please see my post for the Mix It Up Challenge details in the above post when it goes live or click HERE.

I’m so excited to have been asked to be a guest for this month’s Pearly Sparkles Challenge!  I always love playing along in challenges and supporting them when I can as I always find inspiration in using my supplies when I play!

So for May’s Challenge, they would like to see:  BLACK, WHITE PLUS ONE OTHER COLOR in your project(s).  Here’s the card I made for this theme to inspire you:

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do for this, but I thought you couldn’t go wrong with some flowers.  I pulled out a long forgotten stamp set from Taylored Expressions called “Picked Posies” (no longer available) and black heat embossed the images over watercolor paper and used one pink watercolor brushed over the petals.  I die cut each flower with the coordinating die.

I made the rest of the card layout with all black and white elements.  I stamped the TE Checking In Background stamp in black ink over a white panel, placed this over an A2 sized top folding black card base.  I also used the TE More Easy Edgers die to cut an additional piece of white cardstock and placed it over the stamped checkered background.  I also used some more of the elements from the flower stamp set and stamped some more black images on that background before I attached the watercolor flowers on it.  I centered each flower with a black rhinestone.

For the sentiment, I white heat embossed over black cardstock using the TE Hello Friend Stamp & Die set.

  • Thanks so much for stopping in today and I hope you’ll check out this challenge to see what the rest of the team has to inspire you with so you can play along too!

See you again tomorrow!

Challenges:

  1. Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
  2. 613 Avenue Create – Anything Goes with optional: splash of color
  3. Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
  4. Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes
  5. Crafter’s Cafe – Anything Goes optional: Female
  6. Double D – Springtime Flowers

X is for X’s and O’s

Hello friends and happy Friday!  The weekend starts and we’ve had some snow blowing around over our way with wind and colder weather, BUT next week it’s supposed to be warmer with Spring-like temps…but that’s the Midwestern climate!   It will level out later in the month.

Today is another new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog!  Our theme for the next two weeks is “X is for X’s and O’s (as in hugs & kisses)“.  We look forward to your entries!  I had some fun with this one:

I’ve had this Tic Tac Toe set for years and never even broke it out to use!  It was from the My Favorite Things “X’s and O’s card kit (obviously no longer available).  I also used those adorable My Favorite Things Bitty Bears (retired) to help with the hugs and kisses part.  I’m so happy to be using something from my stash and especially something that I haven’t used at all!

The card was pretty simple as the die cuts for the tic tac toe square were cut in different colors, found some polka dotted papers to match and also used those same papers to paper piece the heart on the top bear.  I stamped the sentiment from the kit, popped up the colored and die cut bears with foam tape and added a few purple gems.

Before attaching all of the elements, I applied the polka-dot striped paper to a white front card base that was cut with a double-stitched rectangle die also from MFT, and then attached to an A2 top folding white card base.

  • Thanks for stopping in today and I hope you’ll join in the X’s and O’s with us over on the challenge blog!  Have a great weekend and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

  1. Crafty Animals – Anything Goes with animal(s)
  2. Critter Crazy – Anything Goes with Featured Critter(s)
  3. The Divas That Cut…Paper! – Critters plus a die cut
  4. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2509 Anything Goes
  5. The Neglected Stuff – Anything Goes with neglected item (my neglected item is that MFT X’s and O’s card kit that was never used circa 2017!) About time, huh?!
  6. Crafts Galore Encore – Anything Goes

Mixing It Up With Layers!

Hello friends!  WOW!  That last month went by really fast!  I think it’s because I was busier than usual on my blog, but that’s great that all of the crafting got me through the cold month quickly!  I know it will still feel cold in March, but hopefully it will start warming up little by little!  Until then, I still need to wear some layers!

Speaking of LAYERS… That 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 this time around is: LAYERS or you can do the ‘Anything Goes” too.  Here’s the card that I came up with for the challenge using the theme:

Aren’t these hedgies cute!  I’ve had this stencil set for a while and haven’t had a chance to use it until now and I thought it would be fun to try out the Triple Time Stamping technique.  (If you don’t know what I’m referring to, check out this video on You Tube HERE.)  I thought this would be a great way to insure several layers on my card.

The cute hedgehogs come from the Taylored Expressions Hedgehugs Stamp & Stencil Combo.  I used the technique to layer the panels together and then stamped and stenciled the hedgehogs and then layered each panel with the Spearmint cardstock.  The smallest layer on top was popped up with foam tape.  (I added the white shimmer ribbon around the middle and front panels before attaching to the card.)

I used the coordinating die to cut out some extra hedgehogs and I popped them up with foam tape over a white metallic heart.  I also white heat embossed the sentiment from the TE To the Point stamp set and cut it out to pop up under the “kissing hedgehogs”.  I’ve also added a few more tiny die cut hearts from the white metallic paper.

I THINK I’ve got about 7 layers all together not including the card base.

  • I hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and will stop by the challenge blog to see all of the inspiration from the team over there!  I would love to see your creation in the gallery too!

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

Challenges:

  1. Gem of a challenge – Anything Goes
  2. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2508 Anything Goes
  3. Little Red Wagon – “Tiny Dancer” (tiny things)  I used tiny white hearts
  4. Penny’s – Anything Goes Using Paper
  5. Simon Wednesday – Anything Goes
  6. Just Us Girls – Stencil Week

“U” is for Underwater

Hello friends!  It’s already closer to the end of our first month for 2025 and I hope you’re staying warm and/or cozy where you are!  

Today I’m excited to share that I’ve joined the Alphabet Challenge design team!  I’ve been playing along with the challenges for a few years, so this will be a fun one!  Please be sure to check out the challenge blog to see how to play as we go through the alphabet letters every-other week (fortnight) for each new challenge.

Blog Badge

For this challenge, we are at the letter “U” for Underwater and here’s what I’ve come up with:

Now how cute are these smiling underwater critters?!  It was hard to believe that going through my stash that I didn’t have much of any underwater critters besides mermaids, but last year I saw this adorable Doodlebug Sea Life stamp set on sale and decided to add it to my collection.  This is the first time I’ve used it.

For the background:  I’ve taken my Distress Oxide inks and ink blended the colors Salty Ocean, Mermaid Lagoon and Blueprint sketch over some Bristol Smooth watercolor paper.  I sprayed it with water and blotted it up with a paper towel.  I used a stitched wave die cut border at the top and another wavy landscape border die for the sand at the bottom with kraft cardstock.  I’ve used markers and gel pens to create “dots” for the sand and then attached it to the ink blended panel.  Once I had it all attached, I cut out the entire panel with a stitched rectangle die and then attached it to an A2 sized top folding kraft card base.

I stamped several of the images and colored them with Copic markers and die cut them out with each coordinating die.  The “seaweed” was part of the coordinating die set that I inked over in green Oxide inks and then attached all of the images to the underwater scene.

Lastly, I white heat embossed a sentiment from the stamp set (it says:  “with oceans & oceans of love”) in the top corner of the card base and stamped some blue solid hearts from the set for “bubbles”.  I couldn’t resist adding some googly eyes to the crab too.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and hop on over to the challenge blog to play along with us!  I look forward to seeing your underwater creations in the gallery!

Thanks so much for dropping in and I’ll see you tomorrow for my monthly Art Journal Page!

Challenges:

  1. Allsorts – Close to Nature/Anything Goes
  2. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2503 Anything Goes
  3. Little Red Wagon – #791 Can You Feel the Love Tonight (love theme)
  4. Critter Crazy – Anything Goes with Featured Creature
  5. Crafty Animals – #90 Anything Goes with Animal(s)

Thankful for Fall, Pumpkins and Coffee!

Hey friends!  Just poppin’ in with another card I made and wanted to get it in before the deadline ends…which I normally don’t always do!😁

I have been playing along (with the exception of the last few years) with the Coffee Loving Papercrafters “Coffee Lovers Blog Hop” which has been going on since 2014!  It’s hard to believe it’s been around that long, but looking back at the posts that were shared recently for “a look back”, I had a different blog platform and there I was playing along 10 years ago!  Really appreciate all of the fun that Amy has provided to us through the years as well as the many sponsors that have been apart of it.

I’ve pulled out some stamp sets from one of the sponsors (Newton’s Nook) new and older from my stash in honor of this occasion:

That is the cutest cup of Pumpkin Spice Latte that I’ve ever seen!  I’ve used the NN Newton’s Mug stamp set with coordinating die to stamp, color and cut him out.  He was popped up with foam tape over the background.  For the pumpkin image on top of the mug, I’ve used an older NN stamp set called “Love a La Carte” (No longer available).  I just stamped, colored and fussy cut the image to place over the mug.  I also added some gold glitter on the heart above it.

For the background:  I cut a piece of paper with the NN Frameworks die set and pulled out some watercolors for the background and then splattered some gold after the background was dry.  I layered this over the brown cardstock.  I also used a piece of that brown cardstock to white heat emboss the sentiment which came from an older STAMPtember collaboration set with NN called “Talk Turkey“.  I cut it out with a banner die and attached it to the side of the scallop panel.  The leaves under the mug and over the watercolor panel were from the NN Autumn Mice stamp set and coordinating dies.  

I was trying to also follow along with a fun sketch from the Inky Paws Challenge (see below) and so I’ve pulled out some more papers from the NN Coffee House Stories paper pad that I thought went with the coloring on my cup and attached it to an A2 top folding brown card base.  I also added a strip of gold glitter paper to bring out the touch of glitter on the tiny heart above the pumpkin.

  • That’s it for today!  I hope you’ve enjoyed my coffee card or have been inspired to create something fun too!  I’m off to check out all the other entries for more inspiration!  Have a wonderful weekend ahead!

Challenges:

  1. Coffee Loving Papercrafters – #fallwinter2024clh 2024 Fall/Winter Coffee Lovers Hop using coffee, tea, cocoa, and/or apple cider
  2. Inky Paws Challenge – #234 sketch
  3. Double Trouble – #179 Lotsa Layers
  4. Inspiration Station – #67 inspirational photo (the coffee, leaves and pumpkin inspired me)
  5. Crafty Animals – Anything Goes + animal
  6. Critter Crazy – Anything Goes with a Featured Critter
  7. Inkspirational – #328 Layer It (layered leaves and panels)
  8. Shopping Our Stash – #534 Time for a Hot Drink