Shades of Blue at {Cupcake Inspirations}

Hello friends! Hope that you’ve had a great first weekend of December and are ready to roll on with the spirit of the Season! I know the world is a bit different, but it’s been great to get out the Holiday decorations and try to keep things as “normal” as we can be. We went out and drove through our local park filled with Christmas lights while sipping some Starbuks coffee and the baking of cookies always gets me in the spirit. What do you like to do around the Holidays?

Today, I have a new challenge to share with you over at {Cupcake Inspirations}:

The new challenge for the next two weeks is a color challenge in “Shades of Blue“! You need to be sure to use at least three different shades of blue when making your project. So any theme or occasion you can think of just use these colors! We look forward to seeing what you come up with for this challenge! Here’s my project:

I think my favorite colors to decorate with for Christmas are blue and silver! So I knew I wanted to pull out this GORGEOUS stamp set from Whimsy Stamps called Elegant Ornaments and have a play with it!

I started with a Bristol Smooth Watercolor panel and took the Whimsy Stamps Beaded Curtain Stencil and went over the top with some Blueprint Sketch, Salty Ocean and Tumbled Glass Oxide Distress Inks. I ended with the lightest color and faded it into the white. I took the lightest color and also went over the top of the panel too. I then cut the panel out with the Whimsy Stamps Zig-Zag Stitched Rectangle die.

I then took a couple of the ornaments along with the sentiment from the stamp set and heat embossed them where I wanted to place them with Ranger Liquid Platinum EP. I took my Zig CC Real Brush Markers and colored in the heat embossed ornaments and blended them together with a watercolor brush. I then stamped the “curved beads” images in navy colored ink and then heat embossed the strings to the ornaments so that it all looked layered.

This image panel was layered over a piece of silver mirror cardstock and then layered over an A2 sized side folding navy cardbase. Lastly, I added some blue sequins and filled the centers with some Nuvo Dazzling Blue Glitter Drops.

Here’s a closer look at the ornaments and how that pretty embossing powder looks. I noticed that the navy beads caught some of the EP when I heat embossed the strings to the ornaments, but I don’t mind that as I think it gives a bit of shimmer over them and gives more depth to it. The card looks very pretty and sparkly and I’m happy with how it turned out.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed my “shades of blue” creation today and it has inspired you to pull out your blue colored goodies to play along with us! Please be sure to check out the {Cupcake Inspirations} Challenge Blog to have a look at the wonderful inspiration from the rest of the DT to help inspire you more!

Thanks so much for joining me here today and I’ll be seeing you soon!😉

Challenges:

Cute Card Thursday – Anything Goes
Dream Valley – #238 Christmas
Winter Wonderland – Anything Christmas Goes
52 Christmas Card Throwdown – Pick a Precious 2020 Challenge – February 52CCT6-20 3 shades of blue
Through the Purple Haze – #174 Holiday – Make it Blue
Crazy 4 Challenges – C4C564 Elvis “A Blue Christmas”
Merry Little Christmas – MLCCB29 December Anything Goes Christmas
The Paper Funday – #24 December Anything Goes optional: Christmas/Holiday
Crafty Calendar – December Christmas theme

Guest Design Post for Retro Rubber Challenge Blog

Hello friends! Really excited to share my post today as a guest designer for the new challenge over at the Retro Rubber Challenge Blog! One of the cards I had previously entered had been chosen as a top pick and I was also invited as a guest to participate for this challenge.

Please remember that when you enter your creation for this challenge blog that you MUST include a stamp that is at least one year or older on your creation

I was so inspired by the warm and cozy feeling of the image with the candle, so my thoughts turned to an older stamp set that I’ve had in my collection for several years:

Both the candle and sentiment came from a rubber stamp set by Whimsy Stamps called “Peace on Earth“. It is no longer available and I’m thinking it was circa 2010. There is ONE digital image available that derived from this set called “Peace Angel“. (If you were familiar with Whimsy Stamps as far back as I was, you may remember the whole set and that this candle image was included with it.) I obviously still love the set and won’t part with it! 😉

I’ve got it stamped and colored with Copics over the white panel along with the sentiment from the same stamp set in red ink. The ribbon on the candle was paper pieced with some old pattern paper in my stash. I also used the same paper to die cut a couple of stars for the corner.

The image panel was cut out with the Whimsy Stamps Zig Zag Stitched Rectangle die, layered with red cardstock and then popped up with foam tape over a grey woodgrain embossed panel that was also cut out with the same die set. I ran some white ink over the grey woodgrain piece to bring out the texture in it a bit more. I layered these panels over a red top folding A2 sized top folding card base.

I’ve also used the “Stampin’ Up! Pretty Pines Thinlit dies” for the accents along the edges of the image panel. I die cut the pinecone pieces as well as the pine branches and arranged them over my design. I took some Gina K Glitter Glitz Gel and added it over those die pieces as well as around the edges of the grey woodgrain panel and the top of the stars. Lastly, I’ve added a double twine bow in the center of the stacked stars.

Here’s a closer look at that candle image and how I’ve got it colored up and paper pieced on my design. I’ve also taken some Ranger Stickles icicle and added some in the center of the flame in the candle.

You can also see the “snowy glitter” effect from the Gina K Glitter Glitz Gel. It dries hard and doesn’t come off! I like how it has sort of an icy look about it.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my creation today and have been inspired in some way! Please be sure to stop on over at the Retro Rubber Challenge Blog to take a peek at the inspiration from the design team and how they were inspired by the beautiful photo as well! Hope you will be able to join along in the fun too!

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

Challenges:

Crafty Catz – #529 Anything Goes optional “Baby it’s cold outside”
Cut It Up – #214 Christmas + die cut
Allsorts – #600 Christmas flowers, Wreaths and Trees (hope my pines count)
Sunday Stamps – SSC245 Winter Warmth color challenge

HOliday Sweets Challenge Reminder for {Cupcake Inspirations}🥧

Hello friends! Hope you had a wonderful weekend! I first would like to say a huge thank you to those that have mentioned they were going to send out a Christmas card for Danny (mentioned in previous post below). I think it will be so exciting to see how many cards he receives and from where around the world! I think this will help bring him much needed cheer!

Today I have a fun creation with more inspiration for our “Holiday Sweets” challenge over at the {Cupcake Inspirations} blog! So, I hope that you will drop on over, check out the inspirations from the rest of the sweeties and come share your delicious Holiday Sweets creations with us!

I’m still in a “cookie” mode and looking forward to making some traditional Christmas cookies in my own kitchen soon…so I’ve played around with a recent card kit I’ve received:

I’ve created a cozy and festive table scene full of delicious Christmas cookie treats using several products from an older Christmas card kit and a few other items. First of all, the cookies from that kit were super fun to put together! It comes with all the dies and stamps you need to decorate a (craft) cookie with!

I started my card with an A2 sized top folding kraft cardstock piece and used some of the Winter Cabin Papers to create my scene for the “table” and background. The cookies were all created with the stamps, dies and some paper from the kit, but I added some White EP for the frosting and some red Nuvo Crystal Drops for decoration. There was a felt circle cut in the kit that I cut off to attach over my “table” to place the cookies on. I also heat embossed the sentiment from the stamp set in the kit with Raven Sparkle EP and die cut with a banner from my stash. I went around the edges of it with some white Ink.

The hot cocoa mug came from a previous card kit that I stamped, colored and cut out to place on my table scene. I took the whole scene and layered it over a black piece of cardstock included in the kit and added it to my card base.

Here’s a closer look at those cookies! You can see that the die cuts have cut the images out right up next to the image line. I also took a glue pen and added some chunky style glitter from my stash to make some of the cookies look like they’re sugar coated. You can also see the sparkle from the EP in my sentiment.

Probably hard to see the bit of shimmer inside the cocoa mug and on the candy cane that I covered with my glitter brush pen, but it’s all shimmery and sparkly in person. I colored up the mug with my Copic markers and fussy cut out the image.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed my cozy Christmas cookie scene here and are inspired to pull out your favorite Holiday sweets to play along with us too! Please be sure to stop by the {Cupcake Inspirations} Challenge Blog to see more inspiration from the DT Sweeties! Looking forward to seeing your creations there!

Thanks for popping in today friends! I’ll be back very soon with a special post!

Challenges:

Simon Says Stamp Monday – Food and/or Drink
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything Goes
Aud Sentiments – #265 Anything Goes + sentiment
Creative Knockouts – #378 Christmas Delight
Creative Fingers – #198 Anything Goes
Christmas Kickstart – #43 ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas (cookies for Santa!)
Merry Little Christmas – MLCCB28 Anything Christmas Goes

Card for Santa’s Friend and Christmas Projects from Whimsy Retreat!🎅

Hello there friends! I hope that you enjoyed Thanksgiving Day for those of you that celebrate. It’s difficult not being able to celebrate the holiday in the usual way with sitting at the table with family and I really miss them all so much and look forward to being able to hug them tightly in the future. I did have a nice dinner with hubby and we stuffed ourselves, also enjoyed spending time with each other.

After Thanksgiving comes the “Black Friday” shopping which I don’t go out and do in the department stores anyway let alone during this time, but I do enjoy taking advantage of deals online! Did you shop any sales or plan to this weekend?

Today I have a Christmas card that I’ve made for a very special individual with Down Syndrome. He has a very weakened immune system and is unable to go out and visit Santa like he usually does (6 times at least each year)! Santa is his friend, and he doesn’t understand why he can’t see him and thinks he’s been “bad” this year. 😥 Although he is an adult in age, he doesn’t understand with his mental handicap and his mother has asked if people would help in sending a Christmas card to him. Of course, THIS is the reason I love making cards! Here’s the card I made for Danny:

I was trying to go through all of my stamps that had a Santa and the first one that came to my mind was this older Stampin’ Up! stamp set called “Jolly Old Saint Nick” and it’s one of my favorite images for a Santa! I love how he’s got that “wink” going!

I colored him up with Copic markers and cut it out with a stitched round rectangle die and then layered it over a piece of red mirror cardstock that was cut with a rounder punch. For the design of this card, I’ve used a current sketch challenge (see below this post). I found some festive papers in my stash and cut the strips that I rounded the corners on with the punch as well. For the middle strip, I used some more of the red mirror cardstock and ran it through a brick embossing folder before attaching it to the other pieces. I layered them over a white A2 sized side folding card base that I also rounded the corners on as well.

For the sentiment, which also came from the same stamp set, I heat embossed it with Brutus Monroe Christmas Eve EP over a piece of white cardstock and cut it out with a banner die and cut off the edge of the card.

Here’s a closer look at Santa and how I’ve colored him in. I couldn’t resist giving him white highlights on his cheeks with a gel pen. You can see the beautiful mirror effect with that embossed middle strip as well as the pretty sparkle in the sentiment from that EP I mentioned above.

And of course, I wanted to make the outside envelope that it’s getting mailed in just as fun! I took a diagonal striped stencil and inked it up with red ink along the bottom on both sides. I also had a fun “Postal Christmas” stamp set (unknown) and stamped a few of those all over the envelope in red and green inks. I sure hope that he enjoys this card and helps to bring a smile to let him know that Santa KNOWS he’s been good! 😉

I had also told you in a previous post that I was still working on projects from the Whimsy Stamps Virtual Workshop that I participated in during October…well I’ve just been slowly enjoying completing them as I go, and I saved the Christmas projects for last for this reason! LOL! I’m getting closer to finishing up all of those projects! (Only 3-4 left to do I think!) For now…here’s some Christmas projects from the retreat:

This was for kit 8. What’s fun about this card is that there is an action wobbler behind the pile of treats she’s holding! I had fun coloring her up and I couldn’t stop playing with the wobbler! LOL! PS: This is a good reminder for the {Cupcake Inspirations} challenge too!😋😉

This was for kit 13. I slightly changed up the card, but not much. I actually made a shaker with the jar and put some acetate behind it and then I also added a tag and silver ribbon at the top of the jar. I paper pieced the fairy’s gift box instead of coloring the strips too. I love the colors in this one!

This slimline card was for kit 17. All of the dies were actually really fun to color and arrange to create a scene with. I didn’t change things up too much with this one other than covering the bottom snow with glitter and then adding a sentiment onto the bottom of the frame. I splattered the sky with white paint instead of using a white gel pen.

And this fun bookmark was for kit 18. The ink blended colors were similar to the above card, but I colored in the letters with a white pencil and then used a gel pen to trace around the letters. I white heat embossed some snowflakes and added doodles with gel pens as well as pearl drops. I also added some tinsel ribbon to go along with the twine given. I might use this as a tag…not sure yet.

That was a rather long post! I’m a bit behind and trying to catch up with my projects, posting right now. I hope that you’ve enjoyed my projects today and have been inspired to get some festive projects going! I’ll be back very soon with another project and challenge reminder soon!

Challenges for Santa card only:

Try Stampin’ On Tuesday – Sketch
Creative Moments – Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2047 Anything Goes
Always Fun – #190 Inspired On a Movie (“The Santa Clause” starring Tim Allen)
Sweet Stampers – #50 Christmas
The House That Stamps Built – N2520 Anything Goes
Sweet Stampin’ – Spots or Stripes
Christmas 24 – #22 Santa Claus

Holiday Sweets for {Cupcake Inspirations}!🥧

Hello friends! Hope that you’ve enjoyed your weekend! Thanksgiving is coming up this week and the full Holiday Season has begun and one of the things that most people are thinking about (at least my family anyway!) are those wonderful “Holiday Sweets“! Yum!😋

This is also our new challenge for the next 2 weeks over at {Cupcake Inspirations}! So I hope that you are able to start (if you haven’t already) thinking about creating something crafty with those “Holiday Sweets” in mind and join along in the fun with us! Here’s what I’ve come up with for this challenge:

I remember times with my kids when we did the “milk and cookies” you leave for Santa along with your nice letter about some things you wish for him to bring you. We always wrote the letters to Santa and made sure that we put out the cookies…and usually hot cocoa on Christmas Eve. There were always candy canes on the tree to pluck off to stir your hot cocoa with as well!

I remembered this fun little Simon Says Stamp Christmas card kit (Christmas Squad) that I hardly made a dent in to use at all, so it was really great to pull out these adorable Doodlebug items with a “milk and cookies” theme in the papers and images! I had unopened packages of cut out images which is the table with the lamp, Santa letter and mug on it. I took the doggie image from the stamp set, stamped, colored and used the coordinating dies to cut it out with and popped it over the table image panel with foam tape. This panel was cut with a Wonky Stitch Rectangle die as well as the background papers. I layered everything over an A2 sized top folding red card base. The image panel was also layered over some of this red cardstock as well after sponging around the edges with some light blue ink.

Lastly, I took a sentiment from the same stamp set and white heat embossed it over another piece of red cardstock that was cut out with a banner die and popped up underneath the image panel with foam tape. (I thought it was the perfect sentiment to add especially for this year to someone you miss!)

Here’s a closer view of the images that I’ve put together onto this panel. The pup was colored with my usual Copic markers and I’ve used a silver gel pen to color in his collar tag with.

I also had some Doodlebug stickers with the kit and added the bitten cookie with a smile face next to the other cookie on the table. I also added a candy cane enamel sticker to the table as well as the heart enamel stickers above the table.

The strip of papers in the center of the card came from the backside left over piece that was cut out from the milk and cookies panel in the background. The colors matched up nicely with the images.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my “Holiday Sweets” card today and it has brought you a smile, a special memory or inspiration. If you need more inspiration for this challenge, please be sure to check out the {Cupcake Inspirations} Challenge Blog to see the rest of the DT sweeties and what they came up with! Can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Thanks for stopping in and I’ll be seeing you soon!

WISHING YOU ALL A VERY HAPPY, HEALTHY AND BLESSED THANKSGIVING

Challenges:

Simons Says Stamp Wednesday – Christmas
CRAFT – Christmas
Cardz 4 Galz – Cute Christmas
Cute Card Thursday – Sentimental
Crafty Catz – Anything Goes optional Christmas

Choose to be Grateful for Crafty Chefs

Hello friends! I hope that you’re having a wonderful week so far! The weekend is here, but it sure has been a beautiful couple of days this week with sunny and warm days so hubby and I were able to go out to walk around a bit before the snow starts hitting us!

Something that is great to go out in nature to see are the critters with the birds and the silly squirrels…we have them EVERYWHERE! They’re busy gathering and burying their food for wintertime around here. My thoughts turned to the Simon Says Stamp “Big Thanks Autumn” November card kit (sold out, but not papers) as I love all things Fall/Autumn and this card kit with those beautiful papers spoke to me and I wanted to create with it to make my project for this month’s Crafty Chef’s Group recipe from our lovely friend Meg’s recipe:

There were some blue colored A2 card bases already cut and scored inside the kit, so I used one for my side folding card base here and then layered a dark brown cardstock piece from the kit as well as a piece of copper mirrored cardstock which was then layered over a piece of the decorative papers (I mentioned above) in the kit, which is also where the critter, mushrooms and leaves images came from on this card.

The leafy background paper was cut from a MFT Wonky Stitched Rectangle Die and then I took a strip of the copper mirrored cardstock across the bottom third of the layered pieces and also added some twine wrapped around the bottom of the layers before popping them up with craft foam over the card base. I die cut a branch from a die in my stash and then fussy cut the images out from the papers included in the kit which were glued or popped up with foam squares over the panel. I sponged some Tea Stain Distress Ink around the edges of these pieces before attaching.

Lastly, I’ve taken one of the sentiments from the sentiment strips sheet included in the kit and ran it through my laminator with a piece of copper Deco Foil. (I think that is a cool way to add a little extra something to those sentiments.) I made a banner out of it, sponged it with some of the ink I used for the images and popped it up over the leafy background piece with foam tape.

Here’s a closer look at the critters I’ve cut out and how I’ve arranged and popped some of them up to create my scene. There was also a very pretty SSS Autumn Sequins Mix included in the kit, and I took some of those and added it to the layout and then filled the centers with some gold Stickles glue.

For the Crafty Chef’s recipe that was given, here’s what I MUST use:

Mirror cardstock
3 layers or more
ribbon (I hope my twine counts!)
image of garden visitors (birds, hedgehogs, etc)

CAN do items:

Sparkle/Glitter (I used sequins and Stickles)
pearls/gems (I did not use) *passed onto next chef.
dry embossing (I did not use)

There is a new recipe given for each month and no pressure to follow along or even when you want to follow along and play…which is great and I’m happy to be able to use up some of the goodies from my stash (NEW AND OLD) and just have fun with it.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my creation today as well and I will be seeing you all again soon! Thanks so much for stopping in today friend, as I’m very grateful for you!

Challenges:

2 Crafty Critter Crazies – Anything Goes + animal(s)
Crafty Animals – Anything Goes + animal(s)
Creatalicious – #199 Anything Goes optional Autumn/Thanksgiving
The Paper Girls – #212 Thankful/Grateful
The Divas That Cut Paper – Thanks or Thanksgiving
A Bit More Time to Craft – #128 Anything Goes
Lil Patch of Crafty Friends – #146 Anything Goes
QKR Stampede – #408 Anything Goes

A {Cupcake Inspirations} Color Combo Reminder with a Slimline

Hello there friends! I hope that you’ve had a wonderful weekend! It’s slowly getting cooler as we go along with this month and even some snow in the forecast. I love the Autumn Season and will try to hold onto it for as long as I can! So, with that, I’d like to remind you about the halfway point of our challenge:

There are still a few days left to enter your project for the Yellow, Orange and Red color combo challenge over at {Cupcake Inspirations} so I hope that you can join along with us!

Today, I have a fun Autumn style slimline card to share with you today using the beautiful color combo:

So, I’ve been wanting to pull out my Aqua Pigments to have some watercolor play time! I pulled out a piece of Bristol Smooth watercolor panel that I cut down to a slimline size approximately 3.25″ x 8.25″ because I knew that I would be layering it over top of a Raven top folding 3.5″ x 8.5″ slimline card base.

The Aqua Pigments that I’ve used on this background have a gorgeous sparkle in them and I’ve tried to capture that in the photo, but it’s so sparkly and pretty in person! I’ve used Sparkle Yellow, Heirloom Carrot (subscription only) and Firecracker (subscription only) Aqua Pigments that I’ve dripped randomly over my glass mat, sprayed with some water for more movement and “smooshed” the panel over it and let them run and drip together. Once dried, I’ve splattered over it with gold and black paints.

A while back, I got me the beautiful Leafy Slimline Die from Pink and Main that I cut out with some brushed gold cardstock from my stash I’ve had for quite a while. I also used the Blessings Slimline Dies to cut the sentiment including the shadow underneath with vellum and the words with Raven cardstock glued down over the leaves.

I’ve added the leaves frame die cut over the watercolor background and mounted it to the card base. Lastly, I’ve added some sequins and crystals from an Autumn mix embellishment pack. I filled the centers of the red sequins with some Nuvo Red Berry Crystal Drops.

Hope you’ve been inspired today with my slimline design! Thanks so much for dropping in and please be sure to stop by and check out more inspiration using the color combo over on the {Cupcake Inspirations} Challenge blog to see more! I’ll be seeing you soon!

Challenges:

Make My Monday – #135 Elegant Fall/Autumn
Not Just Cards – Anything Goes November
Crafty Gals Corner – #213 Thankful
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Thanks/Thanksgiving
Creative Fingers – #197 Anything Goes

Bright Birthday and More Whimsy Retreat Projects!💡

Hello friends! Hope that you’re having a great week so far! Hubby and I are trying to figure out how this “retirement thing” goes together! LOL! I think we’ll be having so much fun and we’re just really excited about the future and what we’ll be doing.

Speaking of which, this past Sunday he also celebrated a birthday and of course I had to make him a card that was suited for an electrician. I had to add a bit of humor about his age on the inside, but this is what I came up with:

I’ve had this Stampin’ Up! Sunburst die and stamp set and haven’t used it that much since I bought it. (Quite a while ago! Not quite sure how old. LOL) I thought it would make a great light beam for my VERY old Simon Says Stamp ‘Watts Up’ stamp set that was from a past card kit. (circa 2014/2015) …yep, all old!

I die cut the sunburst from some yellow and gold glitter stock that I glued together slightly off-set and then attached it over a side folding A2 sized black card base. I stamped the sentiments over a couple of the yellow strips with black ink taking care to make room for the circle panel.

I then stamped the lightbulb over a white piece of cardstock and colored the base with Copics and used a marker draw a line above it for the string. I took a solid heart from the stamp set and heat embossed it with some Gold Metallic Gilded EP and then sponged some yellow ink over the bulb for some glow. I die cut it out with a circle die and then layered over another die cut circle black piece and popped it up over the sunburst layers with foam tape.

I tied a bow with some black twine and glued it to the light bulb base. I also stamped the bulb in a lighter gray ink over the envelope and added a string to that as well with a gray marker. (The inside of the card said: “Old is the new black.” 😆)

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And I also wanted to share that I’m still plugging away on the several kits that I received from the Whimsy Stamps Virtual Retreat last month! These are really amazing projects and I’m having lots of fun putting them together still! (Christmas will be coming next. So, stay tuned for those!):

This is a fun interactive card with a pull tab at the top where this cut little dragon slides upwards towards the sky! This kit 9 came with an A2 sized envelope, but I had to make my own envelope slightly larger to accommodate for the pull tab sticking above the card. I’ve added doodle lines around the edges and shadow stamped a sentiment at the bottom for my own added details.

This set was from kit 14. The hexagon shaped box was super fun and even came with the candy! There was also an extra stamped and cut out bee, so I used it to make another card… shaker style! I used the left over honeycomb die cut piece as a stencil on the card as well. I used the envelope that was provided in the kit above and decorated it for this A2 sized card instead. (I know someone that loves these candies…so they might get a surprise at some point! 😉)

And lastly, this was from kit 15 and TOTALLY different than what was photographed in the booklet! First of all, I received a plant image with a die cut speech bubble sentiments and thought it might be cool for a Halloween card on another project, so I saved those to use later. I received an EXTRA stamped sunflower image from kit 22 that I had posted earlier and decided to use it for this card here. I colored it similar to that one and cut it out, but cut off a portion of it on this design. I also changed up the background ink blended colors and splattered some gold paint on this one. Love how it turned out. This will be for an Autumn anniversary card for someone coming soon.

Hope you’ve enjoyed all of my projects today! Thanks so much for stopping by and I’ll be seeing you soon!

Challenges (For the Birthday Lightbulb card ONLY):

Retro Rubber – Anything Goes + stamps older than one year
Cardz 4 Guys – Birthday for adult male
Creative Moments – Anything Goes
Crafty Calendar – Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes
Shopping Our Stash – Tic Tac Toe (I used middle across: String/twine, 5 year old stamp, bright colors)
Watercooler Wednesday – All About Occasions (birthday)

Beautiful Autumn Color Combo for {Cupcake Inspirations}

Happy Monday morning friends! Hope you all had a great weekend! The weather has actually been really beautiful this past week and it was wonderful to get outside and look at the pretty colors of the trees changing around us. I know that it won’t last long, and the temperature will begin to really drop soon…so always need to enjoy it while it’s still here!

Today begins a brand-new challenge over at {Cupcake Inspirations} and there is a beautiful color palette to inspire your creativity to play along with us! We’d love to see the colors: Red, Orange and Yellow on your creations this time and we look forward to seeing what you come up with! Here’s what I’ve come up with for this week’s inspiration:

I fell in love with these cool dies that were included in a past card kit and thought they would be perfect to use for pairing with some blended inks in a background!

I started with a watercolor panel and used Squeezed Lemonade, Mustard Seed, Carved Pumpkin, Crackling Campfire and Fired Brick Oxide Inks to blend over it. I spritzed over it with water to form the droplet watermarks and once dried, I splattered the panel with both gold and black acrylic paint using a fan brush. Once this panel was finished drying, I put each leaf die cut down to cover my panel and die cut it, but left them in place. While leaving the leaves in place, I used the MFT Wonky Stitched Rectangle Die and cut out the panel with it.

I wanted the leaves to stand out a bit more in the background, so I die cut each of the leaves about 3 times each with black cardstock and layered them together with the ink blended ones on top.

I took the sentiment from the Autumn Bundles stamp set and heat embossed it over a strip of black cardstock with some Gilded EP. Once I cut down the strip, I ran it through the die cut machine to get the Wonky Stitched Rectangle die marks along the edges. I mounted this panel over a gold mirror cardstock and then over an A2 sized top folding black card base. Lastly, I added some gold sequins that were included in the Inspiration Box and filled them with some gold Stickles in the centers.

Here’s a closer view of the leaves and you can see the pretty embossed pattern in the leaves.

Really like how this turned out and I hope you did too! Be sure to take a look over on the {Cupcake Inspirations} Challenge Blog to see the rest of the inspiration from the design team and join us for this fun color combo!

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

Challenges:

Love to Scrap – LTSCB139 Anything Goes November
Dream Valley – #236 Dies and/or Punches
Arty Divas – #31 Anything Goes
Crafty Creations – #415 Anything Goes
The Paper Funday – #23 Anything Goes optional: Thankful

Retirement Time and More Whimsy Stamp Workshop Retreat Projects

Hello there friends! It’s hard to believe that we’ve made it to November and rounding the corner to end 2020! It’s been a very strange year all the way around, but I have to say that it’s a bitter sweet day today as hubby will have his last day of work on his 40 year career as an electrician. So today I’m dedicating my post to him:

This would be a perfect situation for my hubby and something he talked about all the time…which was to go out to the lake, relax, enjoy some fishing time on a boat including staying in a cabin. Sure look forward to spending some time with him doing just that next year too!⛵🌅 He is a hard worker and certainly deserves it.

The stamp set that I’ve used for this card was a perfect scene image from Whimsy Stamps called Happy Place. I colored it up with Copic markers and cut it out with an oval die and layered another oval piece from black cardstock.

I found some papers in my stash that I thought would be perfect with this, so I’ve used the Whimsy Stamps Pierced Border Trio Dies to cut it with to fit half-way on my A2 white side folding card base. Before attaching the piece down over the base, I took some Mustard Seed Oxide Ink and sponged across the middle of it and then used some Tumbled Glass Oxide Ink slightly at the top. I then attached all piece including the image panel.

I took the sentiment from the Happy Place stamp set and stamped one of the sentiments at the top of the oval panel and then I white heat embossed the “relax” sentiment over black cardstock and cut it out with the Whimsy Stamps Quick Strips die set, glued it along the edge and trimmed off the excess. Lastly, I’ve added some Whimsy Stamps It’s a Party Enamel Dots.

Then of course I wanted to share the inside of the card which you can see that I’ve used the same image from the stamp set from the front of the card and just stamped that in a lighter grey ink color. I masked off the edge of the inside of the card so it didn’t stamp completely. I also used it in the same way on the envelope as well.

For the greeting, I took the Whimsy Stamps Happy Large Word Die and cut it out with some black cardstock and then attached it with liquid glue. I stamped the “retirement” greeting right underneath it from the Whimsy Stamps Happy Sayings stamp set with black ink.

It may be hard to tell in the photo above, but I’ve also taken a glitter brush pen and went over the sun as well as the water for some added sparkle.

This card was actually fun to put together and I was thinking about the future and all the things we had talked about the last few years and getting ready for this day. Things are a bit different than we had envisioned of course, but we will have “our time” for sure. We’re so excited about it!

This card is being handed to him this morning while we have our coffee before he leaves for work on his last day!😀

And now I also have some more finished kits that I’ve been working on since the Whimsy Stamps Virtual Workshop Weekend! I’m still really enjoying finishing them up and still have MANY more to do! I’m so amazed at how much we received and very happy that there were several Christmas projects which I’ll be working on next! For now…here’s more of the finished kits:

This was for kit 12 and I LOVED the cute dragon in the purples! This card is going to my youngest grandchild as she is my “PURPLE girl”!!

This is the INSIDE of Kit 12. It was a really cool “FUN FOLD” design! I put my image off to the edge so I had room to write a message.

This was for Kit 6 and the entire scene was made using Copic coloring including the sky background! The squirrel and pumpkins were popped up with foam tape.

This was for kit 21 and my first time practicing with no-line coloring!

This was for kit 22. This mega large sunflower is gorgeous! Loved coloring and fussy cutting it out!

I hope you’ve enjoyed my projects and post today! I sure have been having fun just playing and trying out different things with my cards. I do look forward to finishing up these kits as we get near the Christmas time! So be watching for more of those!

Thanks for dropping in with me today and I’ll see you again soon!

Challenges: (For Retirement Card ONLY)