Riley and Company – Stamped Smiles

Christmas Fun with Kits and Classes

Hello friends! We’re headed into the home stretch now for Christmas and the end of the year! Are you ready yet? Well I thought that I would try and get some Christmas cards made up and have some fun with it rather than trying to rush things too much.

Tee hee! This one makes me giggle! While I was making up some squares for my sampler swap group, I thought I’d use this same MFT Stuffed Santa kit (that I had gotten last year) and made a card along with making the squares too! The squares I made turned out cute too and I’ll share those later on. I added some glitter to the snow on the image and on his gold belt buckle too. The background was white heat embossed with the MFT Christmas Greetings Background and then ink blended with blue inks. Finished off with snowflake sequins and Stickles glitter in the centers of each.

And here’s another set of cards that I made from a previously purchased kit by Riley & Co using the cute Riley as the Grinch stamp. The stamp was included along with the kit and so I just thought it would be nice and easy by just coloring him up, adding my own sentiment and putting it together. So now I want to watch the movie!😄

And lastly are some cards that I put together during an OOAK event with the classes that I selected to get the kits for and just enjoyed the process of putting them together. **If you are on my website, you can click on the photos below to see them up close and larger**

So although I’ve shared several projects here today, I have more craft-making going on so I’m going to shorten up my post and hope that you enjoy the inspiration! I appreciate you stopping by today! See you soon!

Challenges:

Christmas Crafts All Year ‘Round – Waiting on Santa (top card! LOL)
Christmas Kickstart – Christmassy
Crafty Friends – Traditional Christmas Colors (2nd card)
Jingle Belles – Wrapping Up Christmas 2022
Winter Wonderland – Anything Goes Christmas
Sweet Stampin’ – Christmas Creations
Moving Along With the Times – Christmas

December 7, 2022December 6, 2022

*Vicki*20 Comments

Some Summer Session Sets

Happy August friends! This Summer has really flown right by me this year, how about you? Before you know it we’ll be getting ready for all things Fall…which is my favorite time of the year!🍂 I haven’t been feeling well for the last several days and haven’t done much crafting, but I do have some sets of cards that I’ve made sometime during these Summer months, but haven’t posted, so I’d like to share them with you today.

Taylored Expression had released an adorable collection of fish themed products this Summer that I thought would be so fun for several different occasions, and not just for those that like to fish, but for anyone for any occasion too!

The first white background card on the left was created with the TE Hook, Line & Sinker Stamp & Stencil Combo. The stencil is really nice to create different effects in an easy way without lots of coloring. I like that the TE Hook, Line & Sinker Dies cut out some of the mass produced stenciled fish background too! (I saved one for the other card as well and still had a few more left over for another project.) After I created a couple of the stenciled fish backgrounds, I cut out a panel with a wonky stitched rectangle die and placed it over a Kraft A2 card base. I added some TE Drip Drops for the “bubbles” on the extra fish and you can see that I’ve covered the body of this fish with a glitter brush pen.

The second card on the right was created with the TE Just Keep Swimming Stencil with Toffee Ink color for a watermark look. I splattered some white and black paint over the background. The fishing pool as well as the sentiments for both cards came from the TE Reely Great Stamp & Die Combo. (It includes the fishing pool die cut with it.) You will also noticed the tiny little sparkly fish on both of the cards which were cut from the TE Little Bits-Fish die with some blue and turquoise glitter cardstock. The ‘frame’ around the sentiment on the first card as well as the green frame for the second card were extra pieces in my stash previously cut out with the TE A2 Thin Frame Cutting Plate. (I save the extras to use for other projects.)

Of course I didn’t “invent the wheel” on these as it was simple by following along with the TE “Hugs & Fishes Craft-a-Long Class” which I got for free with my stamp/combo purchase when it came out. I tweaked it slightly, but sometimes it’s nice to just create and follow along without having to think about what to do with it.😁

This next set of cards was actually pretty fun and easy to put together:

Continuing on with more Taylored Expressions products, I’ve used the TE Create-in-Quads Hexagon Layering Stencil Set. Taylor had recently come with this series sometime last year I believe and they seem to go over pretty well. (I think I had previously made Christmas cards and some Mother’s Day type of cards earlier this Spring with other “Create-in-Quads” sets.) It seems like a lot, but when you see how easy it is to knock out four cards at once…which I did with Christmas last year…it’s such a time saver with wonderful results!

All of these cards were finished off with the TE Oh No You Didn’t stamp set & dies (love this set)! A couple of the cards use the TE Simple Strips-Snarky stamp set that were white heat embossed and cut out. The other cards have sentiments that were foiled from the TE Simple Strips In Reverse-Everyday Occasions and die cut. And of course I didn’t want to waste too much of the foiled panels, so I again took my TE A2 Thin Frame Cutting Plate to cut a couple of the frames with it. I also stamped out a couple of extra stars here and there from another TE stamp set, but I can’t remember which one I used. (I think it was from a previous card kit I have that’s no longer available…but any star will do!)

And again, no need to reinvent the wheel as I believe this was another class I received for free from a purchase. You can check out the Create-in-Quads Hexagon Craft-a-Long Class if you’re interested in it. I think I changed up the colors and details a bit for mine, but very similar in style.

**👀 Be on the look-out for another TE project set from me using another Create-in-Quads I recently got and can’t wait to use! I’m also going to have some things to give away too! STAY TUNED!!!

I had also attended a class from Riley and Company sometime this Summer as well:

I have loved that little Riley moose character for years, but Tanya (owner) does several of these on-line class events and she comes out with some really cute class kits. This kit had everything you need to make the projects and this one also included the sentiment die as well as a full 6×6 packet of papers in the coordinating theme.

I looked in the store, but I don’t see any of these kits available currently, but if you’re interested in seeing what kits she offers, check out – “Cool Kits”

For my projects, the giraffe was the only pre-cut image to color. All of the other bee images came from the papers that were included with the kit that you were to fussy cut from. Since the sentiment die was also included, I die cut all of those pieces for my card too. I decided to step-up my cards with some glitter cardstock along the edge of the giraffe card and then I die cut the “gold glitter honey drip” on that card from the Riley and Company Corner Goo Die. I also added little details like the “flying trail” of the bee with a marker and using a glitter brush pen on the bee wings. If you’re interested in the sentiment die that came with this kit, check it out HERE.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my Summer Session Sets today and have been inspired or brought a smile! Thank you so kindly for your time to stop in and have a look! I really appreciate it!

Challenges:

Pearly Sparkles – Anything Goes
Moving Along With the Times – Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes
Addicted to Stamps & More – Die Cuts and/or Stencils (I’ve used both!)
Happy Little Stampers – Anything Goes With Dies challenge
Crafty Calendar – Anything Goes
Creative Inspirations – Anything Goes

August 12, 2022August 11, 2022

*Vicki*27 Comments

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

February 8, 2022February 7, 2022

*Vicki*25 Comments

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…check it out in the video below:

The wobbling action doesn’t move around in the video as it does in person. I think my camera slows down the action or something. (weird) And of course I finished the card with some sparkly Icicles sequins mix from Inky Stamper too. 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 apart of, so of course I wanted to get the kit and play along too! (I think that these have recently been sold out.) But the stamp set used for the kit was this fun Penguin stamp set you can still get in the store. 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.) I participated in the OOAK FB event to play along. 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

January 18, 2022January 17, 2022

*Vicki*34 Comments

Having Some Halloween Fun!🎃

Hey friends! I know it’s well into October and so you may be wondering where in the world have my Halloween posts been? Today was gloomy and foggy out…and it’s getting evening, so it was a good time to post! If you know me, then you know I love all things Halloween, but I’ve actually been in the background lurking with my Halloween projects! Bwhaa!! I just haven’t had time to sit and make a post for them yet. The reason for that is, of course, I’m taking too many classes and doing events that I’m like a “mad scientist” in the background with all of the crafting things, but haven’t been sharing them! So, I’ve decided to set aside some time to create a post with all things Halloween! (Don’t worry, there will be more special ones coming too!)

Now isn’t this one a cutie?! I’ve received this free digital image especially from the Whimsy Stamps World Card Making Day Event on Facebook that they usually hold every year and have some fun games and challenges. This image was created by Crissy Armstrong of course and she even did a cute little tutorial with it, so I had to color it up!

I’ve used Copics for the coloring and even made a shadowy creepy black/gray grass along the bottom of the pumpkin. The hat buckle was colored with a gold gel pen. The sentiment came from an older Whimsy Stamps candy corn set I had in my stash. For the background, I’ve used my favorite Whimsy Stamps Spider Web Frame background stamp to go around kitty. I then used a couple of different Distress inks to sponge around the edges and then spritzed water over it & blotted it up with a paper towel to make it even “creepier” looking. I layered it over an orange layer from my stash and then placed this over an A2 sized top folding card base. I also die cut a bat from an old freebie from Whimsy Stamps years back to glue at the top of the scene and covered it with a glitter brush pen. Super fun!

Now I want to enter this into the annual Whimsy Stamps 31 Nights of Halloween that they do every year! Check out the event with lots of Halloween inspiration & fun if you’re interested! I always love to play along and I think Whimsy Stamps has some of THE best products for crafting Halloween! CHECK THEM OUT HERE!!

And this is another card I made for the Whimsy Stamps WCMD Event challenge using a fun Autumn/Halloween mood board. (The event is over, but it was super fun!) The first thing about the mood board I noticed was all of the orange and fun jack-o-lanterns that popped out at me. Plus, this was another cute freebie digital image given to us during the event.

So I colored up this dragon using mainly orange tone Copics with a “candy corn” effect. I also used it for the die cut sentiment at the top that was cut out from the Whimsy Stamps Boo die set. Hard to tell in the photo, but I covered it with the glitter brush pen too. I popped up the “dragon guy” over a piece of the Whimsy Stamps 6×6 Haunted Paper Pack cut with the Whimsy Stamps Zig Zag Stitched Rectangle Dies. It was all layered over a white A2 top folding card base. I also added some yellow Stickles to the pumpkin’s face.

And since I’ve been doing so many classes, I thought I’d just create another gallery full of Halloween projects that I’ve done. I have actually been working on some books and journals as well as mixed media projects and not sure if I’ll get them finished up before Halloween as I’ve been busy, but it’s always fun to get creative and messy especially for all things creepy and spooky!💀 Hope you enjoy! – (If you’re viewing this on my website, just click on the photos to enlarge them to see)

This was a fun one I made using a sketch for the Inky Stamper’s World Card Making Day Event! I had to pull out the Spider set and stamp up the eyeballs for the background! The spider was die cut out over the circle with an added wobbler on him! So fun!

Whew! Was that a lot of Halloween or what?! Many of these things just give me a big chuckle and I just think they’re so fun especially now that I’ve looked back on them. Although many of these project were created earlier this Summer, I thought it would be a good time to share them with you. #MakeHalloween365 I still have more Halloween up my sleeve soon, so stayed tuned!

If you haven’t entered my give away yet, there’s still a few days left if you want to leave me a comment saying you’re interested! CHECK OUT THE POST HERE I will announce the winner by Oct 11th.

Thanks so much for stopping by this evening and I hope you’ve enjoyed my Halloween projects here! HAPPY CRAFTING

Challenges:

Crafty Animals – Anything Goes with animal
Pearly Sparkles – Autumn and/or Halloween
Colour Crazy Craft – Anything Goes with coloring
Critter Crazy – Anything Goes with featured Critter
The Crafter’s Cafe – Anything Goes
Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
Two Old Bats – Anything Goes Halloween
Crafty Calendar – Halloween

October 7, 2021October 7, 2021

*Vicki*33 Comments

{Cupcake Inspirations} Birthday Celebration Day 8 – Halfway Reminder! Cupcakes or Bust!

Hey there friends! We’re now at the half-way mark of our wonderful “Birthday Celebration” challenge over at {Cupcake Inspirations}!

Have you been adding your birthday/celebration themed creations to the gallery yet for your chance to win a prize from one of the amazing sponsors we’ve enjoyed sharing the inspiration with?! If you haven’t, we hope you will be able to join in the fun with us as we’re really loving the wonderful projects we’ve been seeing so far!

Today I thought it would be fun to create a unique card with my friends for {Cupcake Inspirations} as well as another of an old favorite from our sponsor Riley and Company that was also featured for yesterday! I have loved this adorable moose for many years and so I couldn’t help but use another image to create something for a little chuckle….

Vicki-CIC500-Day8reminder-RileyandCo

I had so much fun with this easy to make card! I’ve used my Cricut Explore to print out and cut the shape of the cupcake. I actually did this twice so that I could make a folding card with the shaped design. I made a score mark on the bottom cupcake along the left side and glued it together so that it would open up on the right side.

I’ve taken this really adorable Riley and Company “Or Bust” stamp that I’ve had for a few years and stamped and colored him up. Since the space above the “or bust” words is empty, I filled it with a sentiment from a MFT set that was perfect! 😂 I then fussy cut him out and popped him up with foam tape over the card.

I used a gold metallic gel pen to color the frame of the sign he’s holding, wrapped some gold metallic ribbon around the cupcake with a bow and a cupcake button in the center and then finished it off with some glitter over the sprinkles on the top of the cupcake.

Hope that you’ve enjoyed my fun little shaped card today! Thanks for dropping in and I’ll see you on Day 10 for more inspiration with another sponsor!

Challenges:

Cut It Up – #207 Old School + die cut (Have had this Riley for years! Used Cricut)

August 23, 2020May 25, 2023

*Vicki*19 Comments

{Cupcake Inspirations} Birthday Celebration Day 7🧁

We are rolling now! We are on day 7 of celebrating over at {Cupcake Inspirations} with another feature of sponsors for our 500th “birthday celebration” challenge!! Super cool!!

Today, we are highlighting Riley and Company – Please check out the challenge blog for more details about this sponsor.

I have loved this little moose for many years and have collected some stamps from them over the years including some recent ones and I always get a chuckle from either the moose or the “Funny Bone” sentiments! So I had to help with featuring this sponsor:

I had to combine this funny sentiment with the cupcake theme and I thought it would be so fun to have little Riley peeking out from the edge holding a cupcake!😂

I took one of the images from the Basic Dress Up Riley, colored him with Copics and cut him out with coordinating dies. The sentiment was white heat embossed over a strip of black that I added Riley partially to the back of before attaching it to the background paper. I’ve also added a couple of banners and tied some black twine around the top of the card. I used a cupcake image from my stash, colored and cut it out and popped it up with a foam dot over Riley’s hand.

I finished the card with some sequins and some clear glitter Stickles.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my inspiration card for today’s sponsor and be sure to play along with us soon! Thanks so much for dropping by and I’ll see you again tomorrow!