I’ve Been Published!

Hey friends! This is just a quick post to share my excitement with you about having a card I made for Whimsy Stamps published in the December 2019 “Handpicked” article on p. 38 of the Making Cards & Papercraft Magazine!

Vicki-published in Making Cards magazine

I would’ve shared this a bit sooner, but I wanted to take a photo of the issue in hand with me here. The stamp set that I’ve used for my card is from the brand new December release at Whimsy Stamps called “Winter Wonderland“. It’s a clear stamp set with lots of really sweet snowman images in it! It’s one of my faves from the new release too!

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Here’s a photo of it that I took myself before sending it along to the magazine back in October. 🙂

I won’t go into great detail about it, but I’ve also paired this with the Whimsy Stamps Winter’s Magic Blue Digital Papers Collection as well as the Whimsy Stamps No-See All Seasons Tree die set (snowflakes only die) for my card design.

If you get the magazine, then you can see below in the article how it was put together.

Here’s a closer view of the image and you can see the bits of glitter over it.

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This was just a really fun card to make and quite simple to put together too! I really enjoyed it and how fun to get published with it as well!

Thanks so much for stopping in and letting me share my excitement with you!

P.S. I have a spot along the sidebar of my blog where there will be a photo of the magazine to click on my blog post link in case you’re interested about my card.

Cute Card Thursday – Anything Goes with Reindeer Farts

LOL! Hey friends! Did I grab your attention with my title today?!

Today starts a brand new challenge over at Cute Card Thursday and it’s an easy ‘ANYTHING GOES!’ Since it’s the first Thursday of the month, we are being sponsored by Whimsy Stamps! Yay! So please be sure to remember to add whatever creation you’re working on over in our gallery this week!

*News update: This will be my last challenge as a design team member for Cute Card Thursday. I have really loved being apart of the team and the wonderful ladies over there for over a year and a half. I wish them all well. I’m sure I’ll be playing along in future challenges of course!*

Here’s the card I made with products from our sponsor:

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BWHAA!! HA! HA! Yep, I’m most positive it’s probably been that cold out over my way! LOL! It’s supposed to get down to the teens next week! Brr!

This hilarious digital image is called Reindeer Farts by Dustin Pike from Whimsy Stamps. It comes with the sentiment which I wouldn’t want it without that! LOL! This image was released back in October, but with all of the Halloween going on, it sort of didn’t get a good “spotlight” on it, so I thought now would be a good time to pull it out and perhaps send it out to my brother for Christmas…which he’ll get a kick out of! 🙂

I started out with a white cardstock panel cut with a stitched rectangle die with the printed out sentiment at the top of it. I pulled out the Whimsy Stamps Snow Flurry clear stamp set and white heat embossed some snowflakes in the background. I ink blended some Distress Oxide Inks over top of them in the colors: Salty Ocean, Wilted Violet, Mermaid Lagoon and Blueprint Sketch. I spritzed some water over it, dapped it with a paper towel and once completely dry, I stamped out some more snowflakes in a few of the Distress Oxide Inks over that to give it a little depth. The ink marks left over the white snowflakes were easily wiped away because the heat embossing resists the inks. I covered this entire panel with a Shimmer Spray. (You can see it in the photo below!)

I layered this piece onto a purple cardstock base and then layered it over a blue piece of cardstock cut from a stitched A2 sized rectangle die which was then mounted over a top folding A2 sized white card base.

I’ve used some White Glitterstock and cut a “snow hill” for the deer with a stitched hillside border die and glued that to cover the entire bottom of the card. I also took another strip of that Glitterstock and used my MS goo border punch to create the small border above the sentiment, which generates a more “cold feeling” to the card.

I’ve printed out the deer image with Copic Blending Card, colored it up with Copics and then fussy cut it out…including the “fart cloud” and popped it up over the snowy hill with some foam tape.

Before attaching it to the glittery snow hill, I took a couple of Copic markers to create a bit of shading for the deer standing on the snow. I also took a white gel pen and added some dot markings on the back of the deer.

You can also see where I’ve added some glossy accents to his eyeballs and I even took some Star dust glitter and added it to the snowflake in the “fart cloud”.

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Well I hope you got a giggle from my card today! LOL! This will be a fun one to send along!

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

Challenges:

Creatalicious – #176 Anything Goes with optional Winter
Sparkles Christmas– Winter Wonderland
A Bit More Time to Craft – Anything Goes
Crafts Galore Encore – Anything Goes
Cute As a Button – Anything Goes with optional twist: Let it Snow!
Cardz 4 Guyz – Christmas Critters
Creative Inspirations – Festive Fun

Tidings of Joy with Whimsy Stamps

Hello friends! It’s December and that means Whimsy Stamps has fun things coming out!

I have this really sweet card just perfect for this time of the year….

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Today I’m sharing this really sweet image called “Christmas Manger” by Crissy Armstrong. Isn’t this just as precious as can be! You may remember a card I did last year IN THIS POST with a penguin style manger. Really love Crissy’s sweet images and I’m thinking I may have to start collecting her mangers she comes out with each year now! LOL!

After coloring up this image, I’ve fussy cut it out while I worked on the background design. I started by ripping a piece of masking paper and covered the bottom portion of a square 4″ piece of cardstock. I took a “Light Ray” stencil and ink blended some Chipped Sapphire distress ink over it. While the stencil was still on it, I took some white watered down paint and splattered over the background. After removing the stencil, I let that dry while cleaning up my stencil and work area. After it was dry, I took some Scattered Straw and Mustard Seed distress inks and blended over top. I then took a glitter brush pen and went over each of the yellow strips in the background. (I also covered the tops portions of the images too. You can see this all better in the photos below.) Lastly, I’ve used the other side of the masking paper that I ripped to cover up the sponged rays and ink blended with Rusty Hinge, Walnut Stain and Ground Espresso. I used a marker to add some shading around the image and glued it down.

For the card, I’ve used a navy 5.25″ square card base and I’ve also used it as part of a layer behind the image panel along with a piece of gold mirror cardstock. It’s hard to completely see this, but I’ve printed out some digital papers from the Whimsy Stamps Christmas Red, Gold and Green collection as well as the Whimsy Stamps Rustic Wood and Brick Collection. The background was sponged with the same colors that I’ve used for the bottom of the image panel. I’ve used some twine for the center strip area and tied a bow along the side with it. The image panel layered with the Gold Mirror cardstock was popped up with some craft foam over that.

I’ve used a wooden star that I’ve heat embossed several times with some Gold Sparkle EP which is what I’ve used to heat emboss the sentiment at the bottom of the image panel from the Whimsy Stamps Holiday Mini Sentiments. To finish it off I’ve decided to add some Studio Katia Sparkling Crystals.

Here you can better see the sparkle and shimmer on the yellow “light rays” as well as the tops of the images where the light might be shining on them. I’ve got the image colored up with my go-to Copic markers.

You can also see the sparkle and shine on the wooden star and sentiment from the gold sparkle embossing powder. Plus of course the shine from the gold mirror cardstock.

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I hope you’ve enjoyed my card today! I sure had fun putting it together and I know someone special that this needs to get sent to as soon as I can! Time is running out for it to make it on time! Oh yes…that dreaded time running out is near isn’t it?! LOL

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I appreciate you being here! I will be seeing you again soon my friends!

Challenges I’d like to enter this card for:

Creative Knockouts – Winter/Holidays
Daring Cardmakers – Anything Crafty with theme Shining Lights
Crafty Friends– Anything Goes
Merry Little Christmas – December Anything Christmas Goes
Country Views– Stars
Crafty Animals – #33 Anything Goes

Teddybear Tags for 2 Crafty Critter Crazies

Hello friends! Welcome to December! We have already arrived at the final month of the year! Can you believe how quickly this year went by?! The first of the month means it’s time for a new challenge to start over at 2 Crafty Critter Crazies! Remember that it is an always “ANYTHING GOES + A CRITTER“. I love adding critters to my crafty projects so it’s easy for me! 🙂

Since I’ve been on a tag making binge, I’ve got some more to share today:

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Isn’t this the cutest little bear?! We’re sponsored this month by Beccy’s Place and I have opted to try out this cute freebie that she has offered on her blog called Stanley’s Bauble.

I thought he was too cute and I wanted to try coloring him up in a couple of different ways and even a couple of different sizes too!

I just took my Sunny Studios scallop circle tag dies and die cut a couple of them in my selected color choices of course to match up with his bauble and then I’ve die cut some coordinating circles and pattern papers to match. He was fussy cut out and placed over top of the tag. I’ve added some silk ribbon for both and added a twine bow around them.

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Here’s closer view of the Stanley’s Bauble red and black tag.

For this tag, he’s a bit larger than the other an he was popped up over the tag with some foam tape. I’ve colored the bauble hanger with a gold gel pen and then went over the red bauble with a glitter brush pen.

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Here’s a closer view of the smaller tag. The light has caught this one just right to where you can really see the glitter brush over the blue bauble. I’ve also colored his bauble hanger with a silver gel pen.

The circle layer behind the snowflake paper was cut from some silver glitter paper. I’ve taken a Simon Says Stamp sentiment strip and cut it out, sponged it with blue ink and glued it above the bear. Since he was smaller than the other bear, I had room for a sentiment. He was just attached with glue this time.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these teddy bear tags today!

Challenges:

Fab ‘n’ Funky – Anything Christmas Goes
Penny’s Paper Crafty – Anything Goes
Polkadoodles – Anything Goes
QKR Stampede – #374 Anything Goes

Wintertime Penguin Tags

Hello friends! I’m on a roll with the tags and back again to share some more fun tags that I’ve been working on!

Vicki-DDSWintertimePenguins-tags Check out these adorable penguins having some fun doing winter activities! Penguins are probably one of the top animals that I love! I have SO many penguin stamps in my stash and seem to keep on collecting more of them…so of course I was super excited to be able to add this Wintertime Penguins Pairables set from Digi Doodle Studios to my collection as well! 🙂

There is seriously so much fun you can have playing with this digital set and if you like penguins as much as I do, then stay tuned in as I will be sharing even more creations using this same set in December! You will see what I mean by all the different things you can do!

For both of the tags, I’ve used several dies from my stash to create my own tags. I took a stitched scallop circle die (MFT) and cut two of them out in the blue and pink colors along with a small tag cut with the same colors for the very top.

On one of the scallop circles, I used a circle die (Hero Arts) to cut out the center to create the “frame” for the front. I then took some snowflake papers (MFT) and cut out another circle that was slightly larger than the opening to attach behind it. I also took some pretty shimmer white paper and cut a “snow slope” for both penguins with a stitched border die (Lawn Fawn) and then cut it out with the same circle die as the snowflake papers.

I silver heat embossed the sentiments along with some snowflakes and then added my colored penguins over top. Then when I flip it on the back side I can put my “To: and From:” on it.

Vicki-DDSWintertimePenguins-tag-pink Here’s a closer view of the pink tag. For the digital image, I used Word on my computer to add the penguin and place it over one of the “ski” images from the set and enlarged it to make it look like a snow board instead of a ski! Then printed it out.

I’ve used my Copics to color her up and fussy cut her out. I even added some shadow on the snow hill for her. I took a glue pen and covered her hat trim with glitter.

Lastly, I found some more pink ribbon and tied some silver bells over it with some white twine in a bow.

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And for this little guy…he cracks me up….I made him using Word again, but this time I actually took the “sled” image and sized it down so that it would fit on the penguin’s feet to make it appear as if he is ice skating! I did it for each foot. LOL!

I’ve colored him up with the Copics again only using more blue tones instead of the pinks and did the similar traits to it like the other one. I did use a clear metallic gel pen to color the “blades” of the ice skates.

Hope you’ve been enjoying my tags so far! Thanks so much for dropping by.

Challenges:

Digi Choosday Crafting – Anything Goes
The House That Stamps Built – Anything Goes N2719
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything Goes
Aud Sentiments – Christmas or Winter Sentiment
Krafty Chicks aka 4 Crafty Chicks – #483 Monochrome

Believe Tag

Hello friends! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and maybe even took advantage of some great Black Friday deals today?! I was happy about shopping a little bit this morning and almost forgot to post about my tag here! LOL!

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The scene on this tag was always a fun vision in my head from a child! I would imagine Santa in his sleigh flying over the moon under a snowy night sky. I love the peace and magic of it all with even little critters stopping to watch and listen to the magical sleigh bells ringing in the night.

I constructed my own tag the size I wanted and snipped off the top edges to make it look like a tag. It was made with Navy cardstock. I punched a hole at the top and made a reinforcer with white Glitterstock. I then took some white watered down paint and splattered it over the background for a snow fall effect.

I bought this set a few years back from Newton’s Nook called Whispering Pines and I’ve used the coordinating dies to create the scene at the bottom. I took some white Glitterstock for the snow the critters are sitting on.

For the “moon” I punched out a circle from vanilla cardstock and sponged around the edges of it. I took a glitter brush pen to go over it. The Santa’s sleigh was given to me from a fellow blog friend that I’ve attached over the tag. I die cut the sentiment from red cardstock.

Lastly, I’ve added some red striped ribbon from my stash and tied on a couple of silver bells with white twine around it. Those bells make a fun jingle sound like I imagine from my scene! 🙂

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Here’s a tad bit closer view of the tag. Here you can some what see the shimmer on the moon and the sparkle on the snow ground where the critters are.

Have a great evening my friends! I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

Crafty Creations – Anything Goes
Little Red Wagon – Snow
The Sisterhood of Crafters – Trees
My Time to Craft– Christmas Scene

Happy Thanksgiving with Gold at Cute Card Thursday!

Happy Thanksgiving! (For those that celebrate the Holiday) I will be busy today visiting with my family and having dinner. I look forward to seeing my boys as it’s been a few months without seeing them! So it will be fun!

Today starts up a brand new challenge over at Cute Card Thursday and the theme for this week is “GOLD!” Really fun and versatile metallic to use in your creations, so I look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with for this!

In conjunction with the Thanksgiving Holiday today, I thought my creation for this week’s challenge needed to reflect that:

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Since the main goal of the challenge is using gold, I kept the main focus on doing that, plus there are a couple of challenges going on that helped me figure out how to put it all together. (see bottom of post for challenges.)

I have pulled out a stamp set called Plaid Tidings and used a plaid foilable toner sheet for the strip in the background.

I started out with an A2 sized top folding white card base and used a Darice embossing folder to emboss the leaves over the kraft background panel. I took the toner printed plaid sheet and Gold Static Foil Transfer sheets and layered it over a piece of Bazzil Gold Mirror Cardstock and another piece of white cardstock. I attached this to the embossed background.

For the background panel and the cut out leaves, I’ve used the “Kissing Technique” to add the plaid image over the leaves. I sponged around this panel along with the leaves with some kraft colored ink and attached the white panel to another piece of the gold mirror cardstock. I’ve added some gold ribbon around it and used some foam tape to pop it up a bit.

Here’s a closer view at some of the details in my card design. (You can better see the foiling done over the plaid with that Gold Static foil!)

For the sentiment, I heat embossed it over white cardstock with some Gilded Embossing Powder. I die cut it out with a circle die and sponged some more kraft colored ink around this and then attached it to another circle layer of the gold mirror cardstock.

I attached this over the square leaves and ribbon panel and added a gold ribbon bow at the top of it. To finish it off I added some gold sequins filled with Ranger Gold Stickles.

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Hope you’ve enjoyed my GOLD Thanksgiving card today!

Have a beautiful day! I’m thankful today for my wonderful family and lovely crafty friends that I have right here! I appreciate you being here with me!

Challenges:

Try Stamping On Tuesday – TSOT436 sketch
Daring Cardmakers – Natural, Gold and White
Shopping Our Stash – SOS409 So Thankful
Stamp, Ink, Paper– SIP206 Thankful
Crafter’s Castle – Anything goes November
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP1947 Anything Goes

I’m Going to be Tagging You!

Hello friends! This year I’ve been really inspired with all of the cool tags I’ve been seeing lately during this festive season and I wanted to join in on the fun too! So you’re going to be seeing lots of tags from me scattered within my postings for the next several days!

The inspiration that I’ve been seeing comes from Tracey’s 25 Tags of Christmas Event and this is her 9th year of doing it! Every day there has been some really cool and inspiring tags, so I had to join before the time runs out! I did make a tag earlier…but a few more are to follow starting now:

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I’ve been wanting to pull out a few of my stash that I and haven’t had a chance to take the time to play with! So I decided making tags would be a quick and fun way to play around a bit! These were really fun to make!

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The “Joy Coffee” tag was something that I had actually started during the “Coffee Lovers Blog Hop” this last time and never got around to posting it! I was trying to combine the two events together as the inspiration for that tag came on Day 1 from Jen Schow’s tag for Altenew inspirational tags post. I like how she cut out the wording on her globe and I thought I’d do the same idea with the word “joy” over my coffee cup.

I’ve used the Cozy Coffee stamp set and colored in the coffee and fussy cut it out. I stamped the sentiment from the same stamp set, but only cut out the word “joy” from it and popped it up over the cup. I also took the hearts from the stamp set and stamped them over the kraft background with kraft colored ink.

I’ve taken the Holiday Essentials stamp set and heat set the snowflakes in the background of the tag with white EP. Also for the background, I took some metallic gold watercolor and splattered some over it as Jen did on her tag and I liked that subtle look to it.

I’ve taken some gold thread and made a nest under the cut out coffee cup that was popped up with some foam tape over the tag. (The tag itself was an old die cut from my stash BTW!) Added seam binding and twine at the top.

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For this tag, I was really inspired with Kim’s tag on Day 4 of the Uniko post. LOVED the monochromatic red with all the sparkle!

I really love the glitter paper and I didn’t have a large enough tag die that I wanted to use, so I took a tag from my stash and traced around the backside of the Red Glitter paper and cut out my shape. I had some rounded rectangle dies (Hero Arts) which I made a frame with the white glitter paper.

Within that frame I took the Holiday Essentials stamp set again and used several of the images to stamp over a piece of white cardstock with red ink. (It was fun to create a stamped background panel for this!) I heat embossed one of the sentiments from the stamp set over a red piece of cardstock with the White Sparkle EP…it sparkles really pretty IRL! I die cut the sentiment out with a banner die and tucked it behind the white frame I made with the stamped images.

I finished the tag with some sparkling clear sequins with some White Blizzard Nuvo Glitter Drops in the center of each one and then I added some white organdy ribbon with a bow at the top.

Hope you’ve been inspired in some way as I’ve been inspired to create these! Thanks for stopping in and I will have a new post to share again with you tomorrow so stay tuned!

Challenges:

25 Days of Christmas Tags – Day 1 and Day 4
Always Fun – #138 Anything Goes
The Holly & Ivy Christmas Challenge – Anything Christmas Goes
Try it On Tuesday – Inspired by a Song or Christmas Carol (I was inspired by “Joy to the World” on the first tag and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” on the second with music notes!)
Through the Craft Room Door – Anything Goes

It’s Winter at Cute Card Thursday!

Hello friends! Brr! Can you feel it? I sure can where I live! Although winter is not quite here yet, it will be around very soon! ‘Tis the Season to make wintry type creations and that is the theme this week over at the Cute Card Thursday Challenge Blog…so hop on over and join us! We look forward to seeing your creations!

Here’s what I’ve created for the challenge:

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This week we are being sponsored by Di’ Digi Stamps and I have actually used the digital stamp designed by this company that is available at Kit and Clowder.

This is my first try at creating a “northern lights” background and I thought it was was fairly simple to do. I thought this sweet image was perfect for it! I’ve used some dies from My Favorite Things for the glittery scallop frame as well as the sentiment and the iceberg dies in the background.

After coloring up the image, I fussy cut it out for the top layer of the design. It was that simple because that glittery star was left in place while I created the background, so I’ve printed it out twice and placed the fussy cut image over top. For the “water” I took a fine line marker and made my own markings around the piece of ice the critters are on.

I also sponged around the edges of the “water” die cut panel and also white heat embossed the sentiment in the corner and added some more ink over top of that to pop it out a bit more.

Here’s a closer view of the colored up image with Copics. You can see where I’ve taken a glitter brush pen over the piece of ice they’re on. On the star above them as well as the little critter’s hat trim, I used a glue pen and added some glitter over top. I kept the colors more wintry than Christmas for this design.

For the “stars” or “snow fall”…however you want to look at, I’ve taken some watered down white paint and splattered it with a fan brush.

Sometimes when you have an idea in your head, you feel like it will come together fairly simply and quickly, but for some reason, this one kept me occupied for way too long! I had to reprint several times and had a couple of attempts at trying to line up everything correctly too! It just seems way faster in your head sometimes! LOL!

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This was also my first time using one of these images too! They’re really adorable and I enjoyed coloring this one up for my aurora borealis sky!

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

Challenges:

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Starry, Starry Night
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP1946 Anything Goes
Through the Craft Room Door – Anything Goes

Come Aboard the Penguin Polar Express!

Hello friends! I hope that you are having a wonderful week so far! I have a cute wintry card to share with you today:

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Isn’t this the cutest little clan you’ve ever seen?! It looked to me that the polar bear was sliding around and having fun on the ice, so the penguins decided they wanted in on the fun too and are trying to hitch a ride! LOL!!

As you may recognize the sweet penguins from artist Crissy Armstrong, this image has come out this month in digital format called Penguin Polar Express. I really adore her sweet images.

For my card, I have followed a sketch to make my card and thought it would be nice in blue colors and sparkle. So I printed out some papers from the Whimsy Stamps Winter’s Magic Blues digital papers and used them for my design. I’ve also cut out some white Glitterstock for some of the layers as well as some blue cardstock for a finished top folding 5.25″ square card. The scallop square panel was popped up with foam tape and the circle image panel was popped up with a die cut piece of craft foam.

I finished it off with some clear metallic ribbon and snowflake sequins that was dotted with some Nuvo White Blizzard Glitter Drops.

Here’s a closer view of the “gang” I’ve colored up with Copic markers. I was concerned about the colors of all of the different hats the penguins were wearing, but thought the colors really make the image stand out from the card. I dotted their cheeks with a white gel pen.

You can see where I’ve taken a glue pen and added some sparkle to the left penguin’s hat trimming. I also took the glue pen and went around the circle of the image and added some glitter there too. I colored the bottom of the image with Copics and covered it with a shimmer brush pen to make it look like ice. (You can see it better below.)

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