Penny’s Guest-UnFROGettable

Hello friends!  Welcome to June!  The “lazy days” of Summer are here!  I’m hoping I can be lazy this Summer, but not sure about that! LOL

I’m very happy to share my project with you today as a guest design spot I won from challenge at Penny’s Paper-Crafty Challenge Blog!  This is a fortnight (bi-weekly) challenge starting today and the theme is always Anything Goes Using Paper!  Hope you will stop by the blog to see the team’s inspiration and play along!  Here’s the project I made for the challenge:

They gave me this super cute image called “Frogtini” by Pattie’s Creations to use, so I colored him up with Copics and added some stenciled waves at the bottom along with some blending of yellows and blues above him to create this relaxing scene.  I cut him out with a stitched circle die and layered him onto a silver mirror scalloped die cut circle.

I used a fun card sketch I found along with pulling some papers and a sentiment out from an older card kit I had in my stash to complete the card.  For the A2 sized top folding card base, I used a corner chomper to round the edges and then I used some more of the yellow ink over the background where the circle image was going to be for a bit of softness and color.

I embossed a strip of the silver mirror cardstock with a 3D embossing folder and rounded the edges of that strip along with the green paper strip to create my layout.  I popped up the circle image with foam tape over top.

Lastly, I white heat embossed the “unfrogettable” sentiment and cut it out with a coordinating die and placed it at the bottom of the circle with foam strips behind it.  I used the other part of the sentiment and stamped it directly above the frog’s head.

For some more finishing touches, I attached some green sequins, used a glitter brush pen for the frog’s sunglasses and covered the martini glass with Stardust Stickles along with some green Stickles for the centers of the green sequins.

  • Hope you’ve enjoyed my card today!  I had fun coloring him up!  Thanks so much for stopping in and I wish you a very hoppy and relaxing day!🐸

Challenges:

  1. Hand Stamped Sentiments Sketch
  2. As You Like It – Favorite Type of Embossing & why? (I really like both, but my all time favorite is the heat embossing because it’s so magical!)
  3. Crafty Catz Anything Goes with twist: “make us smile”
  4. Creative Fingers Anything Goes
  5. Daring Card Makers – Tic Tac Toe (I used across middle row)
  6. Cut It Up Anything Goes with a die cut (used two circle and coordinating sentiment dies)
  7. Gem of a Craft Anything Goes Cardmaking/Papercrafts

Who Let the Dogs Out?

Hello friends!  Hope that you’re doing well and enjoying the month of May so far!  As I’ve mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been very busy working on projects “behind the scenes” that I will be sharing at a later date.  The next couple of posts are scheduled as I will be away until next week.  But I need to catch you up on the new challenge for now…

Today starts a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog!   We are now onto the letter “D” and the hostess has chosen “D” is for Dogs  *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’ve pulled out this adorable stamp from my stash by Newton’s Nook called Birthday Barks and I’ve colored the stack of dogs along with a few extra balloon and gift images with Copic markers and cut them all out with the coordinating dies. (I’ve used a white gel pen for highlights and a silver gel pen for the bottom dog’s collar.)  Some of the balloons and gift images were glued on the blue background, but the stack of dogs and a few of the other images were popped up with foam tape.

I’ve used some papers from the Newton’s Nook Birthday Woofs Paper Pad and the blue background was made using a solid balloon image from my stash and stamping it with white ink.  I’ve black heat embossed the sentiment from the Birthday Barks stamp set and added a few clear sequins to the background.

This will make a great birthday card for a guy or girl!  (I’m sure I’ve probably missed someone’s birthday somewhere! LOL)  Hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and will stop by the challenge blog to see what the rest of the team has come up with.  Pull out those dog stamps and come join in the fun!

Thanks so much for stopping in today and I’ll be back with another post tomorrow!

Challenges:

  1. Allsorts Anything Goes (Happy Birthday!)
  2. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2521 Anything Goes
  3. Passion for Markers 4 legged Friends (colored with Copics)
  4. Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything Goes
  5. Krafty Chicks Anything Goes

B is for Butterflies!

Happy Friday my friends!  Are you ready for the weekend?  I know that I don’t have a regularly scheduled workday every day, but I can still always feel a weekend ahead! LOL  Hopefully I can enjoy some time doing some fun projects that I’ve been wanting to get to and go outdoors!  

Today starts up a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog!   We are now onto the letter “B” and the hostess has chosen “B” is for Butterflies (use more than TWO of them.)  *Remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter*  I hope you will find some time to join us in the gallery!  Here’s what I’ve created:

I do love me some butterflies!  I love using soft pastel colors for the Spring months too!  I have used this set before, but I have gotten it back out again for my mini slimline card today.  I’ve used the Taylored Expressions Beautiful Butterfly Wings & Coordinating dies to complete this.

I white heat embossed the three wings onto vellum and die cut them out.  I also used the die cut to cut out the colored cardstock butterflies for each one along with their center antennas.  Glued them together and set aside to work on the layout.

The base of the card is mini slim size of 3.5″ x 6″ side folded.  I die cut a white layer with the TE Pettie Scallop Mini Slim dies and then layered another white piece using the Stitched Mini Slim dies.  Before I attached it, I splattered some black paint over it.

I then attached each assembled butterfly to the layout design and added the white heat embossed sentiments between them with foam tape.  The sentiment came from the TE Fluttering By Mini Strips & a coordinating strip die.  I finished by added a rhinestone in the center of each butterfly.

**Just a special attention to the tab pages I’ve added at the top of my blog that shows I now have information about purchasing a handmade card from me as well as another page of craft supplies I have available for purchase if interested.  I will regularly update so check back often to see what’s there!**

  • Thank you for taking the time to stop in and share your support!  It really means a lot and I enjoy hearing from you!  Whatever your weekend brings, I hope there’s some good in there somewhere!

Challenges:

  1. Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything Goes
  2. Krafty Chicks Birthday
  3. AAA Birthday – Anything Birthday Goes (Happy 6th birthday!)
  4. Crafts Galore Encore Anything Goes
  5. As You Like It – Soft or Bold Colors? Why? (I prefer soft tones with calm colors as they seem more pleasing to me)
  6. Love to Craft Anything Goes

Y is for YUMMY!

Hello and happy Spring!  Hope you’re having a great March so far.  We just received about an inch of snow on Spring day, so I hope it starts getting warmed up from here!  I’m ready for warmer weather so I can cook out on the grill….YUM!  Speaking of that….

Today starts a new letter over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog and our lovely hostess would like to use “Y” is for YUMMY as the theme this time.  How fun is that!  Remember you have two weeks to join in the gallery to play with us.  Here’s my creation for this challenge:

I couldn’t resist getting out this fun “Food Truck” set from Riley and Company to color up!  I also paired it with the BBQ Riley to complete the scene full of yummy goodies!  The images were both stamped and colored up with Copics.  I used the coordinating die to cut out the Food Truck and I just fussy cut with scissors for the BBQ Riley.

Before attaching the images, I used a cloud stencil and blended the background and then took a piece of green cardstock to cut out a grass border for the bottom.  I ink blended the edges of the blades and then used a green Copic marker to add some shadowing for the stamped images before placing them down on the scene.  BBQ Riley was popped up with foam tape.

Here’s a closer view of the images.  I used a liner pen to draw “yum items” under the menu board on the truck with a drawing of a balloon.  I also used a silver gel pen to color in parts of the truck, the lights above the “food” word along with the utensils on BBQ Riley and parts of the grill.

I found a speech bubble and sentiment from my stash that I thought would be perfect for this card and stamped it above Riley’s head as he’s holding up a hot dog.

Do you like to stop and eat at food trucks?  What’s your favorite?  Last summer we went to a small town festival and they served some lemon shake ups at one place along with some BBQ shredded pork and it was so yummy!  We also like to grab some kettle corn to take home too.

Did I make you hungry now?!  Hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and I hope you’ll stop by the Alphabet Challenge Blog to come play along too!  We’d love to see your yummy creations!  Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by!  I enjoy reading your thoughts!  Have a great weekend!

Challenges:

  1. AAA Birthday Masculine
  2. Love to Craft Anything Goes
  3. 613 Avenue Create – Anything Goes with optional: Any Occasion
  4. Unicorn Boys/Men
  5. Passion for Markers Add a Sentiment (colored with Copic markers)
  6. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2511 Anything Goes
  7. Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends Anything Goes

Reveal of Inky Escape! (Craft Retreat)

Hello friends!  November has come with the pretty leaves on the trees and the coolness in the winds.  I always turn to comforting “things” this time of the year and it always gives me a sense of peace before the year comes to an end.  A warm fuzzy blanket, socks/slippers, sweaters, etc.  is what I usually turn to.   What is your comfort “thing”?

I promised to share with you the fun things we did over at the “Inky Escape” event that I recently attended and it was wonderful to see all of my crafty friends again for laughs and fun together.  I think I miss them already!

I lifted this fun photo from the Inky Stamper FB page as I don’t have any photos other than seeing what others took.  There were a total of 18 of us this time:

Everyone received a “swag bag”…but the case this time was a Christmas stocking full of fun goodies and one of them was that everyone received cute fluffy socks. I’m not exactly sure which one is me in that photo, but I did have a polar bear sock! LOL We each placed one foot in the circle and Chelsea took the photo.

And speaking of the “swag bag”/Christmas stocking…here’s what we each received:

When I got to the event, there was this black stocking on my table with the cute tag attached to it with my name.  Each person received a personalized tag on the swag bag, plus the “skull” dies that were used to create the tag which was inside the stocking!  There are my polar bear fuzzy socks (I’ve already washed them up by hand so the colors wouldn’t bleed in the wash…and they’re so warm and fuzzy!)  I also received the cute “Christmas bulb” drink holder with a candy cane straw and a little ghost stopper for the top!  We used these containers to hold the “Jingle Juice” that we drank at some point!  And then I received a light up Christmas bulb necklace that has different settings when you push the button the back.  The theme for this event was called “Merry Spookmas” which you can see the greeting for that on my personalized tag.  So fun!

And speaking of fun…here are all of the Make-n-Takes that we created during the event.  We sat and made 4 projects and then two of those projects were “bonus” makes using some other special items.  (There is a “story” about one of them, but you can check out each project up close in the gallery below.)

*If you are on my website, just click on each photo to enlarge and scroll downward to see more information about each photo while it’s enlarged.*

The first four make-n-takes were made using the brand new Inky Stamper release that came out during this event!  You should go check them out now on the website! (They’re all shown on the home page under “Featured Products”.)  My favorite is that darling “Gifter” stamp set!  I’m sure you’ll be seeing something from that set soon from me! *wink*


And since I was there to “crop” (as they say), I brought some things to work on that I really wanted to get done.  So I decided to pull out some more Inky Stamper images to color and make a “Sheetload of Cards” using the September Sheetload of Cards Template by Crafty Al.  If you’re not familiar with her, check out her You Tube Channel and look for all of her “Sheetload of Cards” videos to see how you can find instructions for each month. #SUYSSep2024 #ShowUsYourSheetLoad

I utilized her template to create the full 12 cards as demonstrated.  The dimensions of the finished card design is 3.5″ x 6.25″ which I really liked as it helped to use up the full 6″x6″ size of those paper pads!  Also, you don’t have to create envelopes for these as they fit perfectly inside those envelopes (3-5/8″ x 6.5″) that you can find at any office supply area of a store.

As you can see, I used a variety of images that I stamped, colored and cut out for each design.  I matched up my design papers to coordinate with the images.  All of the images I used are from Inky Stamper.  All papers come from a variety of Doodlebug Design papers.

Here’s a closer look at two of the cards I made from the set so that you can see how the card opens up and the greetings on the inside of each card. (Sentiments come from Taylored Expressions.)  You can also see the coordinating envelopes next to them with the matching critter stamped in grey ink.

These cards are on the way for a special charity for ill children patients to help lift spirts and I hope each one will!

I know there were so many things going on during the event that I was even surprised that I got all of these finished.  They were mostly finished with the exception of the greeting which I added when I got home.  I had plenty to do while I was there and also enjoyed all the activities too!

I hope you’ve enjoyed my post today as well!  I thank you so much for stopping in!

Lots of Inky Stamping to Catch Up On!

Hello friends!  I hope that you’re enjoying your August so far!  Recently, we’ve been experiencing much cooler temperatures than we normally have this time of year, so it’s been great to go out for a few walks.

I’m ALMOST caught up with things that I haven’t posted, with the exception of a few birthday cards that I’ll share later.  For today, I’d like to share some projects that I’ve made at an event I attended back in April along with a class from Inky Stamper.

But first, here are a few projects I’ve made for their recent challenges:

This is a tag I’ve made for the Inky Stamper Inkspiration FB Group July challenge.  The challenge was to make a tag and I thought I’d try out a fun idea of making a pocket for my tag that held another tag inside so that you could put a message and a gift card.

I’ve used some Limeade Dots/Stripe 12×12 Doodlebug paper to cut it out with and used a border die to help with the pocket decoration.  I cut another tag to place inside the pocket for a special message and to include a gift card.  At the top of the inside tag, I’ve made little “charms” with images from the Inky Stamper Margarita stamp set.  I’ve also stamped the background of the inside tag.  I don’t usually color with pencils, but this time I decided to pull them out.

To get the sentiment to fit around the pocket border, I had to curve the stamp a bit to make it work with the tag.  


Here’s another project I’ve made using Inky Stamper products for both the August Inky Stamper Inkspirations FB Group as well as the Craft Roulette episode #226.  (If you play along with Craft Roulette, Inky Stamper is a sponsor for this month.)

So the Inky Stamper Inkspiration FB Group challenge for August was to use a white pencil.  This happens to be a favorite to use for Chelsea with her images and it does make for a nice quick highlight.  So the images were just stamped on colored cardstock and I used the white pencil to highlight them with.

I decided to combine this with last week’s Craft Roulette Episode #226 with the parameters of – Project: “See-through” (I made a see-through shaker card) Colors: “Jungle” (I used greens and browns for my jungle) Element: “Teacher(s)” (The sentiment says it all!) Random: “Tangle” (There are a tangle of leaves inside shaker element.)

For all of the images, I’ve used the Inky Stamper Monkey stamp set.  The inside of the shaker was stenciled with a Tropical Leaves stencil from Taylored Expressions with green inks.  The circle was cut out with a retired MFT die.  I found some fun monkey shaker elements to put inside.


Back in April there was an Inky Stamper Inky Escape event that I attended and here are some projects that I made from the Make-n-Takes that were provided as well as some of the projects that I was working on using the new release that came out during the event:

(If you are on my website, click each photo to enlarge it and read the captions)

There is actually another Inky Escape coming up in October that I’m attending and I’m sure it will be fun with Halloween and Christmas theme combined!

While I was there, I worked on some more of my own projects using some of the new sets:

I decided to take and use one 6×6 paper pack from my stash and it seemed to go really well with the outer space theme and I love the purple colors from this set.  I’ve used the following Inky Stamper stamps sets:  Astronaut, Big Words, & Alien.

Click on the photos below to see a close up look at each card:


Before the Inky Escape Event, there was also an on-line class from Inky Stamper that I took part in and that’s because I thought the projects were super cute!  Here are the projects that were completed for this class:

These were both created with the Inky Stamper Hedgehog stamp set. The Journal Book ,  the Doodlebug DIY Snow globe and Doodlebug dimensional stickers/shaker balls were all provided with the class.  I decided to add a few extra elements with mine.  The tiny hedgehog on top of the snow globe was included in our box, but not apart of the projects…but I thought it would be fun to add it!


Speaking of Doodlebug, while I was at the Inky Escape Event, Chelsea had a few things on sale and I snagged a kit and special ordered the Doodlebug Frame with it.  So when I got back home and the frame came in, I wanted to do my project right away:

I have this displayed in my stamp room and I love the rainbow of colors in it with the different crafty tools in smile faces!  The size is 8in. x 8in. with a glass on the front.  Although it’s not really that visible in the photo, it is actually quite dimensional.

I think it goes well with the black frame that matches my black frame with the crafty squares swap group I was in.  (You can see that post here.)

Whew!😳 I’ve been really busy this year, but I don’t think you would’ve known this without my posting about it!  I’m glad that I’ve gotten caught up with things that I’ve done and hopefully I won’t be doing posts like this in the future!  It just seems like so much all at once!

Anyway, there we go and now I need to finish and send out a few birthday cards coming up, so I will catch up with that later as well!  For now, thanks so much for stopping in and keeping tracks of my sporadic postings!  I will be back to share a DT post for a challenge coming!

Have a happy crafty day my friends!

One for the Boys at Sparkles Monthly

Hello friends!  I hope you’ve had a nice weekend.  I spent mine doing house chores which is fine as there has been a heat advisory here for a couple of days, so I thought I’d stay indoors!

I’m here today to share my project(s) for the new challenge over at Sparkles Monthly with the theme of “One for the Boys“.  I’m always needing masculine cards, so this worked for me!

Cheers!  I’ve pulled out the Taylored Expressions Hoppy Days stamp set for this card.  I like the pun sentiments that go with it.  I stamped the “bubble pops” image above the beer in yellow ink and added some sparkle with Stickles.  I also used some liquid applique and heated it up for the “foam” on the beer stein.  The die set cuts out the beer stein as well as that oval platform underneath.  I cut off the excess on the side of the card after I popped it up with foam squares.

I stamped the pun sentiment in navy ink on the top left of the card.

I trimmed two thin strips of copper mirror cardstock then attached on each side of the pattern design before popping up the beer stein.

  • For the pattern details on the card, I used the Taylored Expressions Create-in-Quads Mod stencil set which actually makes 4 different card panels at once. (this particular one is retired, but click here for other sets.)  These are all of the four cards I completed:

I had the beer theme in mind when creating a card in the first place, but then I thought it would be fun to pull out one of these create-in-quads stencils to make a pattern and have four cards completed at the same time.

I was thinking of masculine colors to use and I came up with the Taylored Expressions colors: Blue Corn, Mushroom, Pineapple and Salt Water Taffy.  I used a full sheet of white cardstock and after the stenciling was finished, they were cut into 4 sections for card fronts.  All the card fronts were attached to Blue Corn A2 side folding card bases.

To continue with the masculine look of the cards, I’ve added some touches of Copper metallic with mirror cardstock and other details.  Each card was done a bit different and you can see the others in the gallery below with details.

If you’re on my website, click on each photo below to enlarge:

I hope you’ve enjoyed my set of masculine cards today!  Please be sure to stop by the Sparkles Monthly challenge blog to see the inspiration from the team and I hope you’ll play along!

Thanks so much for stopping in!  I appreciate you taking the time to join me here!

CHALLENGES:

  1. Daring Cardmakers – “Cheers!”(Beer card)
  2. Lil Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
  3. Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
  4. A Perfect Time to Craft – Anything Goes

A Cherry Hello and Catching Up!

Hello friends!  I hope that you’re enjoying your week so far!  Summer is now in full swing over my way and it certainly is feeling that way too!  

Where I live, June is also a time of year when the blooming cherry trees from May now turn into the cherries ready to be picked!  If you’ve never tried a cherry jam, I highly recommend it!  With the freebie image over at Beccy’s Place, it seemed like a great idea to make a card with it:

Without the sugar, cherries can be extremely tart and so it’s never something I would pick from a tree and eat especially with a pit in it!  I do love a good cherry pie though!

Coloring cherries is also fun!  I opted to use the non-colored version of the image and I printed it out twice because I cut out the front cherry and front leaf on the image to pop up with foam tape for dimension.  I used Copics to color it in along with the background circle it’s on.  I also added a white highlight with a gel pen.

I thought it would be fun to make a punny sentiment to print out “A Cherry” on my computer and then cut it out to weave into my white heat embossed “hello” cut from red cardstock.

I die cut the scallop circle which also cuts out the center that the cherry image is on.  I layered it onto the Doodlebug gingham paper and attached it to the white scallop rectangle that is all attached to a red A2 top folding card base.  I finished it with a couple of red rhinestones.


  • FOR THE CATCHING UP:  The last several months/year, it seemed like my blog posts were really random and sometimes I would go a few weeks before posting the next time.  I seem to struggle on and off with having no motivation to get crafting or even go into my craft room at all.  I know this happens from time to time, but it seemed to be up and down and all over the place which is why I took on joining a few challenge design teams.  It helped to get me a routine of at least getting motivated to get into my room on a regular basis anyway.  I didn’t want anything that was too strenuous, or I felt that I would give up completely.  This is also the reason why I do art journaling…it helped with “no pressure” on what I could create and use whatever I wanted.  After looking at things I’ve created, I still have things that I’ve made but never posted about!  So I thought I’d try to catch up with some of the things I’ve done and finally post it.  There will have to be some more posts to catch up with it too!

So here is the start of some of my catching up towards the end of last year…

Do you remember the 12×12 Sampler SWAPS that I was doing with my blog buddy group? (Patti, Shirley and Donna) We would swap out the squares and then finish it ourselves by adding the background papers and placing into 12×12 shadow box frames.  We had completed one for each season, but for this last one we decided to make one about our “favorite craft”.  Here’s all of the squares that is still hanging up on my wall right above my computer and next to a clock and other craft items I made.  I enjoy looking at it and seeing all of  the squares from fellow crafting friends.  This was fun to participate in and it really helped me with struggling motivation as well, so I’m glad I did it!  Plus, it is cool to have it for inspiration in my room!

I actually had this done AND photographed last June!  I forgot to get it posted on my blog.🙄

This is the square that I decided to do for this swap.  I do love lots of glitter, so of course there is glitter on the floor spilled over along with glitter on the “walls”.  If you don’t recognize these cute mice, they’re from Lawn Fawn Just Add Glitter stamp set.  For each square, I wrote each person’s name on the paper from the table.  Of course my name is on this one.


I was also asked to commission a card for someone’s very special birthday in November last year and forgot to post it as well:

I thought this one turned out so cute!  I was told this card was to be for a special lady’s birthday who turned 100 and that she really liked plants.

Of course my first thought turned to plants and green colors.  Then I thought, I don’t think I have any “plant” style stamps!  The only thing that I thought of at the time was this darling My Favorite Things Sittin’ Pretty stamp set from my stash.  I also thought it would be fun to have a banner going across a wreath with the special number over it.  I found the My Favorite Things “Fall Wreath” stamp set (not in store) and the banner came from an older (retired) Lawn Fawn set.

I also had a fern embossing folder that I embossed over green cardstock and then rubbed some gold wax over it to bring it out.  I gold heat embossed the banner and popped it up over the wreath.  I was just going to place the colored plants around it, but decided it would be cute to add the girl sitting on the wreath.  She’s there to wish the special lady happy 100 with all of those plants around her!  I added a border of grass at the bottom to help ground everything, added some gold foil for a layer and attached it to a green A2 card base.

Here’s what I did for the inside of the card:  I stamped the wreath off the edge on each side of the panel with green ink and then sponged around the edges with the lighter green ink.  I gold heat embossed the sentiment.

  • I hope you’ve enjoyed my new “Cherry Hello” card today as well as the projects that I am catching up with posting about!  There will be more coming!

THANK YOU FOR STOPPING IN!  I’M GRATEFUL FOR YOUR TIME AND THOUGHTS!

Challenges: (For Cherry Hello card ONLY)

  1. Beccy’s Place – June Freebie image (THANK YOU!) optional: Food
  2. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2425 Anything Goes
  3. Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Emboss it (embossed hello)
  4. Alphabet – ‘F’ is for Fruit
  5. Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes
  6. Penny’s Paper Crafty – Anything Goes Using Paper

Clean & Simple at Sparkles Monthly

Hello friends!  I hope you’re having a wonderful week so far!  We’ve been getting some rain, which is great for the freshly planted flowers.  I enjoy being able to sit on my covered porch and listen to it rain as long as it doesn’t get too stormy!

Today starts a new challenge theme over at the Sparkles Monthly Challenge!  For this month, we’d like to see your CAS (clean & simple) creations!  I look forward to seeing the inspiration in the gallery, so I hope you can join!  Here’s what I’ve made for this challenge:

Sometimes I can really struggle with a clean and simple design because I always feel like I need to add something more.  The end result is in the minimal embellishments and design.  This one got stuck in my head and came together rather quickly and I like how it turned out.

Most everything used on my card came from My Favorite Things.  I started with watercolor (Bristol Smooth) paper and the Watercolor Wash stencil and blended a rainbow of colors over it.  While the stencil was still in place, I took a water bottle to spritz water droplets over it and removed the stencil.  I let it dry and then clear heat embossed the sentiment that was stamped in a black pigment ink.  (The key to this is to make sure the watercolor area is completely dry before you heat emboss anything over it.)

I cut out the panel with a wonky stitched rectangle die.  I’ve attached it to an A2 side folding black card base.  I was pulled to splatter over this, but thought I needed to keep it simple, so I took some drip drops in “cosmic” color and added them randomly to the design.  

  • So, what do you think?  Simple enough you can do it too and enter it in the challenge, right?  If you need more inspiration, check out the challenge blog to see what the other design team members came up with for CAS.

Thanks so much for stopping in today!  I hope you have an amazing week!

Challenges:

  1. AAA Birthday – #61 CAS birthday card
  2. CRAFT – Birthday (Happy 15th birthday!)
  3. AAA Cards – #265 Anything Goes Birthday (Happy 10th birthday!) 
  4. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2419 Anything Goes

Mail Carrier Birthday and Class Results

Hello friends!  I hope that this Spring weather hasn’t gotten too crazy for you.  I know that this is a season of storms and tornadoes where I live in the Midwest, and I saw Iowa get some tornadoes come through.  It’s windy here, but luckily not that bad.  So, I thought this would be a good time to catch up sharing some things I’ve been working on!

My first project is a birthday card that I made for my son last month.  He’s a mail carrier and so I thought this would be fitting for him.  The mail carrier came from a MFT Birdie Brown stamp set (retired) that was actually a female with ponytails and a dress.  So, I’ve altered it and masked off the ponytails and drew in some shorts.  The mailbox die (retired) and other postal related stamps/dies all came from MFT as well.

For the background:  I’ve used a MFT cloud stencil and cut it out with a stitched rectangle die.  After coloring the image with Copics, I cut it out with another rectangle die and placed it over the red postage stamp rectangle.  I cut out the mailbox pieces and put it together over the cloud panel and added a few postal images at the top right corner along with the envelope in the background.  I finished it out with the birthday sentiment on the mailbox (retired) and a few white gel pen details on the image.

Although he’s a mail carrier, I didn’t have to mail this card to him, and I got to see him smile when he opened it…which is better than mailing it!😊


Last month, I also participated in the Taylored Expressions Virtual Stamp Joy.  I also just realized when registering for this event that I have participated in every single one of these since she started it during the pandemic in 2020!  I think the pandemic has really changed the world in several different ways, but I’m glad that this was one of them as I have enjoyed doing these.  There’s just something about getting a class event mailed to you and attending in your PJs while having snacks and crafting that I find appealing, I guess! 😉

Of course, doing virtual, I have lots of time to finish up projects, but I think I had them all completed within a week after the event…I just had to photograph everything and now I’m finally getting them on this post to share: (IF YOU ARE ON MY WEBSITE, CLICK EACH PHOTO TO ENLARGE IT-CLASS INFO AT BOTTOM OF PHOTO)

I had a busy month for sure!  I’m also in the middle of another session of classes that I’ve been working on and having to go back in my spare time to get through each one. During the exact same time as Stamp Joy was going on, there was another freebie class weekend that was going on, so now I’m going back and watching the replays to do little bits at a time…I have a little way to get through it still, but when I finish, I will share those results too.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my catch-up post today and have been inspired to have some fun even if you can’t be outside!  I’m sure when it gets a bit warmer, I will want to enjoy it, but for now, I’m going to play in my craft room!

Thanks so much for stopping in and have a great day!

Challenges: (top card only)

  1. Pearly Sparkles – For a Man/Boy
  2. Dragonfly Dreams – Use a Die
  3. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2415 Anything Goes
  4. Creatalicious – #276 Anything Goes with Optional: Use Something New (new postage dies/stamps from MFT)
  5. Ally’s Angels – #81 Anything Goes
  6. Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Stencil It (stenciled cloud background)