Mix It Up with Inlaid Die Cutting!

Hello friends and happy May! I hope you are having a wonderful week and have been enjoying your Spring season with lots of sunshine and flowers! There’s always lots of things to do when the weather turns warmer, but that’s a good thing!

Today starts a new challenge over at the Mix It Up Challenge Blog! There is always lots of wonderful inspiration from the team, so please go check it out and play along! The challenges are always ANYTHING GOES with an optional theme. This month’s optional theme is Inlaid Die Cut (flat or raised)! For these challenges, you have plenty of time to enter as they run for 6 weeks! I look forward to seeing what you come up with! Here’s the project I made:

I think this card turned out very well using the inlay die cutting technique! I found the perfect dies, but of course you can use almost ANY dies you want to try this including your regular shaped die cuts! I always find those frame style dies to be very easy to work with for this.

I received this cool freebie die from Taylored Expressions called “Simple Stems” and thought it would be perfect for this technique. I also inlaid a sentiment die from my stash over top of the flower and inlaid that too. I used the Taylored Expressions Frame in Frame 3 die set to create the middle pattern and glitter frame around the flower. These were also inlaid into the white card front panel.

It’s a little tricky at first to figure out in what order to die cut all of your pieces so that it looks right. Mine is very flat which I find helpful for mailing out and with the cost of postage stamps going up again this Summer, I need to rethink the type of cards I make any more. Here’s a photo so you can see that everything lays flat to the card front:

For the inlaid die cutting, I also find sticky sheets very helpful. I took a piece of double-sided sticky sheet and placed it on the back of the white card front panel AFTER I had cut out the frame from it. This makes the inside of the panel sticky so that I could lay all of my pieces on top and also keep it flush with the white card front panel. Once I laid all of the die cut pieces, I took the backing off the sticky sheet and attached it the A2 top folding white card base with everything in place. You also don’t have to worry about liquid glue oozing out.

It’s a simple CAS card, but it was so fun to do! Hope you’ve enjoyed my card and take some time to check out the challenge this month! Thanks so much for dropping in! See you soon!

Challenges:

Daring Cardmakers – “Something Old, Something New” (old glitter paper and new die cut + I used blue paper)
Simon Says Stamp Monday – Feminine
Moving Along With the Times – #166 Flowers

Once Upon a Time GDT-Cat in the Hat

Hello friends! I can’t believe that February is gone and we’re moving onto March! That month went by quickly, but now I can look forward to Spring coming, which is a good thing!

I had won a guest spot over at the Once Upon a Time Challenge blog in January, so I’m sharing my project for the March month’s book title: “The Cat in the Hat“! I remember this book so well as I read it so many times as a child! You can be inspired to create with this book/book cover to make your project for this challenge:

3cat in the hat

I chose to use the cover photo for my inspiration and I remembered something that I had which went perfectly with this theme in mind too:

I kept my card simple because the book cover photo was simple as well. This is a digital image by Bugaboo Stamps (no longer in business) that I’ve had in my computer for a long time. I still pull one out from time to time as they’re so great to color with! The file name on my computer was “Cat in Hat“. Really love that quote from Dr. Seuss!

I printed the image out twice. Once to cut out the entire image panel and then another to color just the cat’s head, cut out and pop up over the image for dimension. I felt compelled to color the background behind the cat in blue to match the cover photo. It was easy to color because the cat was done in black and white with a pop of red color in certain areas. I also added some glossy accents over his nose.

The image panel was layered over a piece of red scallop and then attached to a top folding white A2 card base. I thought it would be a great card to send for encouragement to someone.

I hope you can play along in the challenge as I’d love to see your take with this book! Thanks so much for stopping by and sharing some time with me! I’ll be back shortly with another challenge post, so stay tuned!

Challenges:

Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes PIP2408
Simon Says Stamp Monday – Fur or Feathers
Digi Choosday – Anything Goes
Gem of a Craft – Anything Goes

Bugging Out With Sketches

Hello friends! I hope you’re having a good week so far and staying safe wherever you are in the world. Sending hugs to all experiencing a troubled time. I hope that my post can bring a smile to you today.

I needed to create some get well type of cards and so I thought I’d try to incorporate some challenges while working on them which helps me to concentrate more in what I’m doing and maybe think outside the box a bit.

My first card is made with the Beccy’s Place Challenge freebie this month and she also challenged us with a sketch which I’ve decided to use for my card. (see sketch below) I was really happy to use up some more pattern papers with it and I also decided to add a tiny dragonfly at the top to enter another challenge and to adhere to my “bug” theme today!

I printed the image in black and white and colored with Copics. The dragonfly and the center pink strip were stamps that I cut out and added to the design. The rest is pattern paper from my stash except the scalloped kraft border in the center that I cut out with a die. I stamped the sentiment and cut it out to go with my twine around it. *You will notice in ALL of these cards that I’ve used some sparkly gems. I wasn’t aware until posting them! I must be on a kick of wanting to use them!*

Challenges for 1st card:

Beccy’s Place – August challenge + sketch
Paper Dragonfly Creative – Anything Flies (Goes) or Party
Kreativ-Tanten – Anything Goes
The Crafty Addicts – Anything Goes
Crafty Calendar – Anything Goes
Dragonfly Dreams – Dragonflies

And for this next card, I’ve played with a large bug:

Around my area this time of year, you can hear the sound of these cicada bugs with their distinct noise throughout the trees. My husband likes the sound when a bird catches one! EEW! This bug is a cute one from Inky Stamper called Cicada and I’ve colored it up with pencils this time. Hard to see, but I’ve also added some shimmer with a glitter pen on his wings.

I’ve used the Picket Fence Tree Bark stencil over kraft on the background and then splattered it with brown and white paint. The leaves under the bug and the accent came from the Lisa Horton Variegated Leaf EF+die that I cut over light green cardstock. I used some metallic green wax to go over the details in them. I also used some gel pens to make some doodles around the strip, the circle and under the sentiment along with following a sketch. (details below) You will also notice more sparkly gems! I’m also entering this in the Inky Stamper FB challenge this month which is using an IS bug image.

Challenges for card #2

Sketch Saturday – #732 sketch + twist: add a doodle
Creative Knockouts – #501 Anything Goes
We Love Stamping – Masculine
Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes
A Place to Start – Anything Goes optional: leaves/trees
The Corrosive – Anything Goes

For my last card I decided to keep this one simple’ish’:

So, I know these aren’t real bugs because I’m not squealing, but these guys are too cute! They’re popping up out of the dirt for a special greeting! I mixed in both a new and older stamp set from Lawn Fawn on this one. I’ve used another sketch for this one and decided to keep it very simple. The hardest part of this was the coloring which honestly wasn’t all that difficult either because they’re small images. I’ve also added some shimmer with a glitter pen on the wings and of course, there’s those sparkly gems again!

Challenges for card #3

Sunday Stamps – SSC316 in the corner sketch
The Paper Players – CAS using any Bug
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Clean and Simple
Krafty Chicks – CAS (Clean and Simple)

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I appreciate your time and thoughts! I’ll be seeing you again on Saturday with another AJ page!

NO STAMPING ALLOWED at Sparkles Monthly

Hello friends! It’s been a bit since my last posting! I’m still crafting, but I’m also enjoying the outdoors lately too! I’m just not making the time I need to post on my blog here! However, being on a design team helps to keep me focused on posting and hopefully it’s something that will bring motivation because I need it! So I will try and get some more posts in!

Today starts a new challenge over at the Sparkles Monthly Challenge and the theme is “No Stamping Allowed!” This may seem a bit challenging, but I look forward to seeing what people come up with for it! Be sure to check out the blog to see what the design team has come up with for inspiration! Here’s what I’ve made for the challenge this month:

I was trying to channel something that would work and realized that I had these fun strip dies from Taylored Expressions and I wanted to play with some new colors, so I ran with that on the middle of my card front by alternating the strip colors.

I also die cut a frond three times and glued them together for thickness and sturdiness. I attached it over the colored strip panel and then added a sentiment that was already toner printed so that I could foil over it with silver Deco Foil. I also had a die that cut it out which was popped up with foam strips and added to the bottom of the die cut frond. Lastly, I’ve just added some silver glitter drops randomly over the card front.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my non-stamped card today and will think about joining in the challenge with us this month! Thanks so much for stopping in! Have a great week!

Challenges:

Craft Rocket – Use Dies
NBUS – #51 June – new colors and dies
Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
A Place to Start – Anything Goes and/or twist: flower + one other thing
Penny’s Paper-Crafty – Anything Goes using paper
The Crafty Addicts – Anything Goes
CAS on Friday – Leaves

Going CAS at Sparkles Monthly

Hello friends and happy Wednesday! Today starts a new challenge over at the Sparkles Monthly Challenge Blog and this time we would like to see your CAS (or “clean and simple”) creations! I hope you will hop on over to see the inspiration from the team and consider joining in the fun with us!

Here’s the DT creation that I’ve made for it:

Sometimes I feel that CAS can actually be even more difficult than regular cards and I struggle with thinking I’ve added too much, or it doesn’t look right. I think it’s more of me over-thinking something, though!

It was my son’s birthday yesterday and I thought this would be a great opportunity to make a card for him. He’s a postal carrier, so I thought this cute owl from the Lawn Fawn Special Delivery would work great for this. I started with the LF Stitched Cloud Backdrop and the LF Stitched Rectangle Frames dies to create the main focal panel. I lightly blended some blue ink in a circle before adding the Copic colored postal owl popped up with foam.

Over some red cardstock, I white heat embossed the sentiment. (I don’t remember which LF stamp set it came from) I die cut it with a banner die and popped it up over the cloud panel. I also had an extra die cut heart lying on my table, so I thought it would be great to add with the owl.

Thanks so much for stopping in today! Hope you’ve enjoyed my CAS card and have been inspired to join us this month with your take on the challenge too!

Challenges:

Country View – Birthday card for a man
Love to Scrap – Anything Goes
613 Avenue Create – Anything Goes optional: CAS
Lawn Fawnatics – All things birthday
Sunday Stamps – SSC304 sketch

Time to Get Your Grumpy On!

Hey there friends! Hope you’re having a wonderful week so far! We’re getting closer and closer to Halloween already!🎃 I haven’t made as many Halloween makes as I usually do, but as the day gets closer I’ve been more in the mood to pull out some things to have fun with my stash and my thoughts turned to “Grumpy”.

If you’re not familiar with “Grumpy”, this is the Big Grumpy Cat from Taylored Expressions. I absolutely love the “Grumpy” and “Grumplings” line and I don’t pull them out as much as I’d like to. Since it’s closer to Halloween, I’ve also pulled out the Big Grumpy-Halloween accessory set to go along with him too! (The only thing I used from this set was the witch hat and the sentiment.) I’ve stamped, colored and cut out each of these items for my card.

The #TEMakerChallenge has the theme this month of using Oreo & Sugar Cube with the option of adding any other pop of color. I’ve decided to pop in an orange color for mine. The theme was also “Sparkle & Shine” through foiling, heat-embossing, glitter paste or sparkly cardstock.

So, for the “Sparkle & Shine” I’ve taken a Foil-It Spiderweb panel and foiled some orange Deco Foil over it. I then took one of the Frame in Frame 3 dies to cut out the middle of this panel, added some acetate over the opening and made it into a shaker panel. I die cut the same frame as well as the Little Bits-Spiders die from some black Glitter Cardstock. I attached these pieces onto the web panel along with adding the Grumpy Cat with his hat string and extra spider attached to him over the acetate. I attached double-sided foam around the opening and added some “shaker stars” in the colors orange, black and silver. And lastly, I thought it would be fun to pop up a left-over ghost I had from a previous project at the top! (I think the ghost is in fear of the “witch switch”!) 😂

I also have another “grumpy” card to share…

So this card was made to send a smile to a friend. I’ve used a cat for this one as well from the Taylored Expressions “Grouchy Grumplings” set which I don’t believe is available in the store any longer.

I kept it a simple card by stamping, coloring and cutting out the grumpy. I ink blended a circle that fit him with blue ink, white heat embossed the sentiment and cut it out from the TE Stitched Banner Stacklets. I popped grumpy with foam tape over the sentiment banner and circle. I also used some TE decorative papers from my stash and cut out a banner with it using my scissors. A corner chomper was used to round the top left corner of the card to finish it off.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my “Grumpy” projects today and have been inspired in some way! Really appreciate you stopping in!

Challenges: (Top card only)

Country View – Halloween or Harvest
Craft Rocket – Autumn/Halloween
Crafting Happiness – Halloween
Aud Sentiments – Halloween/Fall + Sentiment
Crafty Gals Corner – Halloween Colors
Colour Crazy Craft – Anything Goes + coloring
Allsorts – Add a Sentiment
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes
Double D – Orange & Black

Challenge Up Your Life with a RAINBOW!🌈

Hello friends! I don’t know about you, but I’m so happy to see the month of May starting! That means the flowers will be coming out along with the warmer weather! It’s also a great time of the year to see a rainbow perhaps?!

#147_regenbogen_CUYL

Today I’m super excited to be joining the “Challenge Up Your Life” challenge blog as a guest designer! I had previously won a Top 3 and a future guest design spot from a past challenge I had entered, so I’ll be joining them as a guest for April, May and June challenges! Today their new monthly challenge for May is “RAINBOW“. Hope you can share your lovely creations with us this month! (Check out the challenge blog for details and inspiration!)

Here’s my guest design creation for this month’s challenge:

Nothing better than to look up into the sky and see a rainbow! What’s also fun is to be able to create your own and especially on a card to send to someone to brighten their day! I’ve used a previous card kit from Taylored Expressions that contained these products: Make a Rainbow Stencils, Over the Rainbow clear stamp set, Rainbow Cloud Duo dies, and Over the Rainbow Sentiments clear stamp set to create this card. I ink blended the different colors through the rainbow stencil and stamped the orange dots over the rainbow as well as a few hearts in light blue ink. The sentiment was also stamped with black ink over top of the rainbow. I then die cut the one cloud twice from white cardstock and ink blended some light blue around the edges of it and popped it up with foam tape at the ends of the rainbow.

Then the card front panel was run through the die machine using the Taylored Expressions Diagonal Stitch Rectangle dies (Which actually doesn’t cut anything out but creates the lines.) I layered it onto a piece of black to make the rainbow pop a bit more and then attached it to an A2 sized top folding TE Pineapple card base. I also topped it off with a couple of TE Bits & Pieces-Full of Heart sequins.

I knew the minute I went to create for this challenge that my zippered pouch from Taylored Expressions that has the “A Rainbow of Possibilities” sticker over it was what I was going to grab! All of my rainbow things are in it! Makes it easy to grab when you know everything is in there!

I hope you’ll stop over at the challenge blog and join with us to share your rainbow too!

I hope you’ve enjoyed my card or been inspired! Thanks for stopping by and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

Sweet Stampin’ – Rainbows & Rainy Days
Arty Divas – Anything Goes
Penny’s Paper-Crafty – Anything Goes
Krafty Chicks – All Occasions (encouragement)
Creative Fingers – Anything Goes

One Layer Challenge and More Riley Fun!

Hello friends! Hope you’re having a great week so far! I have a few cards to share with you today that I’ve made over the weekend having some fun.

Vicki-InkyStamper-FebCAS

I love the cute little grin this goat has! This goat along with all of the images used are from the same stamp set by Inky Stamper. This month, the Inky Stamper FB group challenged us to create a ONE-LAYER only card…not even ribbon/twine, etc. could be used! I haven’t made one of these CAS or one-layer cards for quite some time, but I enjoyed the play with it.

So I’ve used masking paper to create this by stamping the goat over masking paper, stamping the goat over the front of the card and then placing the cut out masked goat to cover him up. I then die cut a circle over another piece of masking paper and placed the left over piece on top of my card where I masked my goat image. All that was left was the circle opening and this is where I ink blended the opening with distress inks. I also stamped the small line of grass with green ink.

I took off the circle mask along with the goat mask. I colored up the goat with Copic markers and then I stamped the triangle image from the same stamp set along with the sentiment. I then added 3 black gems and colored the inside triangles with a glitter brush pen. I also used my corner chomper to round the two bottom corners.

This last weekend there was another OOAK event and there was another fun card kit from Riley and Co. I didn’t attend the entire event, but joined in to see what the new release was about while I was making my cards from the kit. I’m pretty sure that there are no more of these kits left as they sold out of the first batch and had to make more.

The critters are so fun to color, and I really loved these papers from the kit as they have me anxiously awaiting Spring to get here! I’m bundled up, drinking hot liquids and trying to stay warm, but nothing beats a warm Spring Day! 😁

To get a better look at each one of these cards up close along with what’s going on for the insides, check out the gallery below. If you’re directly on my blog website, you can click on each photo below to enlarge it:

The cat’s bugged out eyeballs is too funny! I’ve used foam tape to pop up his sign.

Just wanted to share my recent makes as I’m still trying to work at finishing up some Valentine cards along with getting going on the wedding invites. Sure enjoy seeing the wonderful inspiration from everyone and hope that you’re all staying safe and warm friends! Thanks for stopping in and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges (Top Goat card ONLY):

Challenge Up Your Life – Triangles
Happy Little Stampers CAS – “Inky”
CAS on Friday – Male
Krafty Chicks – Stamp Act
Just Add Ink – Minimalist

Finishing Up Summer School With Cupcake Creations!🧁

Hello friends! Hope you’ve had a great week! Wow…it’s Finally Friday! I’ve been SO busy “behind the scenes” and I will be getting to all of that later on, but I needed to squeak in with the final creations for the MFT Summer School!

I finished up Day 2 with my “smile rainbow” and now for Day 3, they’re asking for a “symmetry” style of creation. I was told that basically it’s something that if you were to split it in half, it would be exactly the same on the other half…so this is what I thought of:

Vicki-MFTSummerSchool-Day3Symmetry

I was so excited about getting the My Favorite Things Cupcakes card kit, so I was determined that I was going to pull it out and use it for the rest of my Summer School cards! LOL! It’s such a cute set with the dies and sentiment stamps! I really had fun!

I used some papers from the kit and sponged ink around the edges of everything pretty much. I just used the two cupcakes side by side for the symmetry class. I just have opposite colors of sprinkles. I added the red cherry on top, covered with the glitter brush pen and then some glossy accents. (The glossy accents really got a work out!😮)

Vicki-MFTSummerSchool-Day4Ombre

So Day 4 class was “ombre” and that pretty much called to me to use the stencil from the card kit (sprinkles in background) and then I just heat embossed white over white and then used inks for the emboss resist technique moving the colors from lightest to darkest to get that classical “ombre effect”. I also added a die cut cupcake that I used the same ink effect over it. I die cut the words from the kit with the dark papers I used for the base of the card. I finished with some sparkly crystal accents to finish it off!

Vicki-MFTSummerSchool-Day5WhiteSpace

And last but certainly not least was Day 5 “White Space” class. I don’t often make cards like this, but I honestly love those CAS style cards, but I always want to “teeter” on the fine line between CAS and not…so I always think I’m not doing CAS. I’m just not comfortable with the “CAS” definition or “rules” of what is or isn’t CAS. I just feel happiest doing whatever happens to work out in my plan for a design…that’s pretty much it! Be happy and you’re good!

I used this class to also follow along with the MFT sketch challenge going on as it looked like it was a good sketch for making a “white space” design.

I started by masking off the square and sponging lightly around it, I white heat embossed the sentiment over a black strip and added some silver ink over the stencil again and then attached the cupcake over top with the papers…and added the cherry on top with glossy accents too!

I finished it off with another little flag die from the kit and some silver sequins! I like how it turned out! I think I deserve a cupcake after all the creations I made!!😋

I hope you’ve enjoyed my creations today and I really appreciate you stopping in to see what’s going today! Have a fabulous weekend!

Challenges:

MFT Summer School– Day 3 Symmetry
MFT Summer School – Day 4 Ombre
MFT Summer School – Day 5 White Space
My Favorite Things – Wednesday Sketch Challenge MFTWSC502 (my last card and I flipped the sketch on the side)
Crafty Creations – #412 August Anything Goes
Craft Rocket – #73 Birthday
Creative Fingers – #191 Anything Goes
Arty Divas – Bonus Birthday Challenge
Crafty Friends – #142 Anything Goes

Otterly Missing You!

Hello friends! I wanted to say thank you for adding your comments from my last post about the card kits! LOL! I see that I’m not alone! You’ve all actually really inspired me to get them pulled out and use them despite how old/new they are! Loved the idea about making several cards and sending them along to charities too! Always love reading your feedback! 🙂

Today I wanted to share with you another card I made with the oh so adorable Digi Doodle Studios “Otterly Love” Pairables set that you may remember my card from last week that I’ve posted HERE. I’ve used it again for my card below:

Vicki-DDSOtterlyLove-Jan16

His sweet little face gets me every time! 🙂 As in the previous card I made with this set, I’ve arranged the digital images from the set how I wanted them to look on my design and then just printed it out.

After coloring up my image panel, I die cut it out with a cross-stitch rectangle die and set it aside. I cut a white A2 sized top folding card base and then layered a white heart embossed (folder from Stampin’ Up!) card front panel that was also cut with the cross-stich rectangle die. I used some watered down ink (Strawberry Slush from Stampin’ Up!) and a fan brush to splatter some color over it. I also CAREFULLY took the image panel and splattered some more over that panel as well.

I then arranged the rectangle layers including the gray colored cardstock (Smokey Slate from Stampin’ Up!) panel and attached them to the embossed card front panel. I tied some of that triple stitched ribbon (from Stampin’ Up!) around all of these layers and added a bow with it before attaching it all to the card base. Lastly, I’ve added some clear sequins.

Here’s a closer view of the Copic coloring I’ve done on this cute critter posing on his little rock. (I thought he needed a bit of ‘water’ around him.)

You can see the hearts and along the bottom of his feet where I’ve added some shimmer with a clear glitter brush pen. I’ve also used a white gel pen for his cheeks and eyes.

Vicki-DDSOtterlyLove-Jan-flat