Thankful for Fall, Pumpkins and Coffee!

Hey friends! Just poppin’ in with another card I made and wanted to get it in before the deadline ends…which I normally don’t always do!😁

I have been playing along (with the exception of the last few years) with the Coffee Loving Papercrafters “Coffee Lovers Blog Hop” which has been going on since 2014! It’s hard to believe it’s been around that long, but looking back at the posts that were shared recently for “a look back”, I had a different blog platform and there I was playing along 10 years ago! Really appreciate all of the fun that Amy has provided to us through the years as well as the many sponsors that have been apart of it.

I’ve pulled out some stamp sets from one of the sponsors (Newton’s Nook) new and older from my stash in honor of this occasion:

That is the cutest cup of Pumpkin Spice Latte that I’ve ever seen! I’ve used the NN Newton’s Mug stamp set with coordinating die to stamp, color and cut him out. He was popped up with foam tape over the background. For the pumpkin image on top of the mug, I’ve used an older NN stamp set called “Love a La Carte” (No longer available). I just stamped, colored and fussy cut the image to place over the mug. I also added some gold glitter on the heart above it.

For the background: I cut a piece of paper with the NN Frameworks die set and pulled out some watercolors for the background and then splattered some gold after the background was dry. I layered this over the brown cardstock. I also used a piece of that brown cardstock to white heat emboss the sentiment which came from an older STAMPtember collaboration set with NN called “Talk Turkey“. I cut it out with a banner die and attached it to the side of the scallop panel. The leaves under the mug and over the watercolor panel were from the NN Autumn Mice stamp set and coordinating dies.

I was trying to also follow along with a fun sketch from the Inky Paws Challenge (see below) and so I’ve pulled out some more papers from the NN Coffee House Stories paper pad that I thought went with the coloring on my cup and attached it to an A2 top folding brown card base. I also added a strip of gold glitter paper to bring out the touch of glitter on the tiny heart above the pumpkin.

That’s it for today! I hope you’ve enjoyed my coffee card or have been inspired to create something fun too! I’m off to check out all the other entries for more inspiration! Have a wonderful weekend ahead!

Challenges:

Coffee Loving Papercrafters – #fallwinter2024clh 2024 Fall/Winter Coffee Lovers Hop using coffee, tea, cocoa, and/or apple cider
Inky Paws Challenge – #234 sketch
Double Trouble – #179 Lotsa Layers
Inspiration Station – #67 inspirational photo (the coffee, leaves and pumpkin inspired me)
Crafty Animals – #89 Anything Goes + animal
Critter Crazy – #92 Anything Goes with a Featured Critter
Inkspirational – #328 Layer It (layered leaves and panels)
Shopping Our Stash – #534 Time for a Hot Drink

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

Margarita and a Rainbow

Hello friends! I hope you’re having a great week so far and that you’re able to keep cool as I know it seems to be pretty warm for many of us in the U.S. It’s a great time to do some crafting, so I thought I’d share a few cards that I made that I needed. (Scroll down in this post to see the ‘rainbow’ card.)

I think a margarita sounds pretty refreshing in this heat! Newton here seems to be enjoying it anyway! All of the stamps I’ve used are from Newton’s Nook and I’ve made this card for a special person’s birthday. This person I’m making this card for had gotten me hooked on mango margaritas and I wanted to represent that in the card. (Note the salt rim on the glass.) The color is more a strawberry color, but I wanted to go with the colors for the Inky Paws Challenge. (See below in the challenge list.)

I stamped the “happy birthday” sentiment (retired set from Newton’s Nook) repeatedly in the background on the pink panel and then I splattered it with white Copic and water with a brush. The panel was cut from the Newton’s Nook Framework die set and layered with colors that match with the challenge. The blue card base was repeated stamped with the taco and I stamped, colored and cut one out to place behind Newton with the margarita. I took a strip of Doodlebug green polka-dot paper and white heat embossed the sentiment. I cut a tiny strip off and turned it over to glue at the top of the strip. I used foam tape to add the margarita kitty, finished it off with white twine and sequins with a spot of Stickles in the centers.

Challenges for margarita card:

Inky Paws – #203 color challenge
Country View – 4 legged friend
The Diva’s That Cut Paper – Birthday theme
NBUS – #52 July (Never Before Used Schtuff!) New Newton’s Nook products!
Crazy for Cats – Anything ‘CAT’ goes optional: festive
Daring Cardmakers – summer drinks
Simon Says Stamp – Anything Goes

Here’s another card I wanted to make for Beccy’s Place challenge using the free image that was provided this month and I thought it would make a great card for encouragement to send for a special cause I’m donating for:

I’ve used the non-colored version of this image and before printing it out, I’ve added a sentiment at the bottom from the Seasonal Window digital set from Beccy’s Place. (There are quite a few uplifting quotes in that one.) I colored the image with Copics and added a bit of shimmer on the sun with a glitter pen.

I think I’ve made this popped up frame around the image more complicated than what it needed to be, but I cut out the scallop frame twice for thickness, and also printed out a piece of the rainbow looking papers that was also a part of this month’s Beccy’s Place Challenge free image. I cut it out with the scalloped frame and attached it to my double thick frame layers. The image was placed over a black cardstock and the popped-out rainbow frame was placed over the image keeping a portion of the black frame showing. These layers were mounted over a 4 1/2″ square white card base.

Hope that you’ve enjoyed my cards today! Thank you for stopping in and I’ll be seeing you Saturday for another Art Journal Page!

Challenges for ‘rainbow’ card:

Beccy’s Place Challenge – July Anything Goes using Beccy’s Place image optional: animal(s)
Crafts Galore Encore – Anything Goes
The Corrosive – Anything Goes
The Crafty Addicts – Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes
Love to Scrap – Anything Goes
Love to Craft – Anything Goes

Christmas Fun with Kits and Classes

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

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

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

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

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

Challenges:

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

What’s Up With Washi and Camping Fun!

Hello friends! Hope you’re having a great week so far! Today, I have some cards I made for my GDT month at Inky Stamper using washi tape! I have loads of washi tape because I have a “squirrel moment” when I see it and think how pretty…and it’s not that expensive and easy to craft with and whatever excuse I can come up with!😁 Then it sits around unused!

This is why I’m glad that the “Washi Tape Challenge” came up for this month in the InkyStamper Inkspiration FB Group! You just need to use at least 1 Inky Stamper product and your washi tape…any you have! I decided to go for 2 cards:

For both I cards, I took a scrap piece about 4.25″ x 5.5″ of black cardstock and covered it diagonally with 3 different types of washi tape. One was from the Inky Stamper Doodlebug Lily White Swiss Dot washi tape, another from some metallic shiny silver washi tape and another from some clear sparkly washi tape in my stash. The white turned up almost grayish over the black and the clear sparkle turned up differently as compared to it on the crab card in the background over white cardstock. I thought it was cool the different looks I got with it.

I then decided to use some dies to cut it out with and then cut the remainder in different sized strips for my cards as well so I wouldn’t have to waste the rest of it…

Vicki-InkyStamperGDT-Washi Challenge-cat

For this card, I took a “hello” die from my stash and cut it out of the washi tape piece I created on the black cardstock piece. I then cut out the “negative” sentiment with a rounded corners rectangle die and layered another piece of black cardstock behind it that was cut out slightly larger and popped up over an A2 card base that I’ve also layered with more of the washi tape strips I cut out from the left over. I added this cute kitty from the Inky Stamper Cat stamp set along with the sentiment at the bottom. I thought it would be fun to add a couple of paw prints at the bottom in white ink from the Inky Stamper Dog stamp set. Lastly, I thought it needed some Doodlebug Twine too!

Vicki-InkyStamperGDT-WashiChallenge-crab

And for this card, you see that I’ve taken the die cut “hello” sentiment from above and added it to the crab’s claws to hold up in the air…so fun! I still had a couple more left-over strips from above and added that to the top and bottom of the scene I’ve created on this card.

So, for the scene, I’ve used the cute Inky Stamper Crab stamp set along with the sentiment at the bottom. The sparkly looking “sea” in the background comes from a couple of different glitter washi tapes I had in my stash. I then used a border die cut to cut it out to go across the card front. Die cut some waves for the sand and tucked in all of the stamped and colored elements over a stenciled cloud background. I added this card front scene to an A2 sized black card base.

How about you?! Do you hoard your washi tapes? I sure had fun playing around with it making these cards and I think it’ll be fun to sit and play some more with it as I have so much of it! I think it was fun to die cut too!

Just wanted to share some projects with you I’ve made this past weekend from a Craft Camp that I went to with Inky Stamper. We made lots of fun projects: (click on photos to enlarge!)

First photo shows a fun keychain made with a special knot technique that was new to me! The flamingo accent is from a shrinky Dink! The wood slice is stamped and sponged with ink. I put a magnet on the back of mine. The second set of cards was made from a stamp set received in the camp kit from Anthony’s Paper Craft (new to me store) and the last set of cards is a brand new Inky Stamper Flamingo stamp set with an interactive card and mini card! Had lots of fun!

Thanks so much for stopping by today! Really hope you’ve enjoyed my washi tape cards and you can come join in the challenge with us this month! Have an amazing crafty day!

Challenges:

Aud Sentiments – Anything Goes + sentiment
Allsorts – Add some sparkle
Sweet Stampin’ – Feature an animal
Lil Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
Crafty Sentiments – Anything goes

Boo!👻 It’s Halloween!!!🎃

Hello my crafty friends!! Today is Halloween and I thought it would be a great time to share several Halloween themed creations that I had made during the Whimsy Stamps Virtual Retreat! I’m actually STILL working on the project kits because there were SO MANY of them and I’m such a slow crafter there was no way that I could’ve done them within that weekend time frame! It sure was so much fun and so many treats along with it! So happy that I decided to join the virtual event! I encourage everyone to join the next!!

So what I decided to do was to go through all of my 23 kits and pick out the Halloween themed ones to get them finished up before Halloween so that I would have them to share and give out! Enjoy the spooky creative fun:

Kit 1 – spooky green behind the eyes! Slimline design

Kit 2 – Slimline design with a spooky graveyard! The cockroach bugs were a nice little “surprise gift” from our lovely instructor for the first two kits! LOL

Kit 5 – All Copic coloring and something brand new to me was coloring a scene freehand! So scary!! But I made it!

Kit 7 – a slimline die used two different ways…LOVED the ink blending!

Kit 10 – Cutest little treat box! Added crystal eyeballs to my skull and sparkled it up with sparkly clear EP. I’ve rubbed white ink around the black edges.

Kit 11 – The ink blending on this was awesome too! I have so many new combos now! The black sparkly die cut is my fave!

Kit 16 – Last but not least, this really adorable card made me giggle the whole time! I’ve added some glossy accents to the eyeballs.

So there are still SO many more kits left to do and I look forward to crafting them and sharing more with you as I go too! Obviously these kits were created and put together by the talented group of people for Whimsy Stamps, so they’re the ones that get the credit for the creativity on these, and therefore, I won’t enter these into any challenges.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my share from the retreat and I’ll be sharing more soon!

I also have finished one more treat bag that I’ve made with the special Halloween Creative Kit from Brutus Monroe:

I used the stencil from the kit to ink over the stencil from the kit and then added the fun stamped and colored elements over the pattern paper from the kit. I used the spooky graveyard stamp and heat embossed it over the pattern paper with Raven Sparkle EP including the moon image at the top left.

I even used the ribbon and sequins from the kit to decorate with and then added a tag from my stash to tie on the bow.

This is the little poem that I’ve attached to the back of the bag that was a fun little print out from Brutus Monroe as well as the colorful strips that I’ve used on the top and bottom portions of the image panel on the front of the treat bag. I thought they were fun little elements to add and give out to my goblins this year! LOL!

Hope you’ve enjoyed my Halloween projects and thanks so much for dropping in!

**Please don’t forget to add your “Monsters/Ghouls” projects to the {Cupcake Inspirations} challenge too!

Want to wish all a very happy, spooky and SAFE Halloween!🎃💀👻

Meow-lloween Party for 2 Crafty Critter Crazies

Meow friends! 🙂 It’s October and I’m always excited about this month because there are so many fun Fall activities that happen and I also really enjoy the Halloween atmosphere around this time. I hope you’ll enjoy the fun right along with me!

Today, I’m excited to bring you my creation for a brand new challenge for this month over at 2 Crafty Critter Crazies! Remember that it’s always an “anything goes” challenge PLUS you need to use a critter on your creation!

This month we’re being sponsored by Beccy’s Place and was generous to supply the team with an image to play with:

Vicki-2CCC31-Beccy's Place

I just fell in love with this adorable kitty from the Scaredy Cats digital set. I think he’s all dressed up and seriously ready to “get this meow-lloween party started“!!

So fun to pull out some Halloween papers and colors for this card. I usually like to add in some purple somewhere if I can, so I found some ribbon and thought it matched up with kitty’s hat.

I couldn’t help but to add a few more elements to this kitty by taking a spider image from a Tim Holtz stamp set and adding it to kitty’s hat. I also stamped the stars at the top along with the sentiment from a Simon Says Stamp Halloween stamp set from last year…I think. The web up in the corner is an older die from my stash that I usually pull out for Halloween creations.

Here you can see how I’ve colored up this fun kitty with Copic markers. I’ve also colored the belt buckle on the hat with a gold gel pen.

I used some Wilted Violet to sponge around the edges of the kitty panel after I stamped the stars at the top.

While I was filling the sequins with gold Stickles, I added a few dots to the starry sky for just a bit more sparkle.

Vicki-2CCC31-Beccy's Place-flat

Hope you’ve enjoyed my fun “meow-lloween” card today!

Thanks so much for stopping in today my friends and be sure to check right back again here today as I have another post coming soon!

Challenges:

Tuesday Throwdown – Anything Goes
Creative Moments – Anything Goes + optional twist: masculine
CRAFT -Animals
The Paper Players – PP461 Tic Tac Toe

It’s Critters at Cute Card Thursday!

Hello friends and happy Thursday! We are getting ready to start the weekend and I’m ready to have some time to catch up on a few things! How about you? Do you have any plans for the weekend?

Today starts a new challenge over at Cute Card Thursday! Yay! The challenge for this week is probably a favorite of mine which is “critters“! Looking forward to seeing all those critters in the gallery this week! 🙂

My project for today is another one of those that I had actually wanted to start last year, but of course it gets pushed aside for another day, so here’s the day I start! When I went to a stamp convention this last Summer, I really enjoyed the vendor booth for Taylored Expressions and just fell in love with these grumpy critters:

LOL! I plan on making myself this fun little calendar for my stamp room. I also thought about making a couple more of them for some gifts too! So here’s my start with them. Really simple and fun little calendar cards to make up! I have a die coming that will help to display all of the months which I will share later on. So stayed tuned for up-coming Calendar months made with the Taylored Expressions Calendar Grumplings stamp set!

So is this how we all feel when January rolls around? LOL!

When I went to the stamp convention, I picked up this package of the 2019 3×4 calendar cards that were pre-printed with a special little rectangle on top with a decorative background print on it. This is where I’m using the spot to create my “calendar scenes”. There are dies that you can get that fit these to help you create your designs.

So I took the unhappy/surprised kitty and colored him in with Copics and cut him out with the coordinating die. I took the frame from the calendar scene die set to cut out a frame with black cardstock and then placed some ribbon behind it to make it appear like curtains. and then I had a speech bubble punch which I punched from white cardstock and stamped the sentiment over it and sponged around the edges with some gray ink. I took some foam tape and popped the speech bubble up over the scene. I mounted this card onto some coordinating colored cardstock. I wanted to keep these smaller, but I could see this work for some really cute cards too!

And here’s the February Calendar Critter with the grumpy love pig!! LOL!

I stamped, colored him in with Copics and a red gel pen for accents and cut him out with the coordinating die set. I also took the frame die from the calendar scene die set and cut it out from some red glitter cardstock and attached it over the pink heart background.

I then popped him up with foam tape and stamped the sentiment right next to him. I took the heart sequins and glued them around the pig. I used a gel pen to draw a heart around Valentine’s Day. Lastly, I layered this calendar onto a piece of coordinating pink cardstock.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my “Grumpy Calendar Critters” today and please be sure to stay tuned in for more months in the future! Thanks so much for stopping in!

Challenges:

Use Your Stuff – numbers (hope a calendar counts!)
Crafty Creations – Anything Goes
Crafting By Designs – Layer it Up

Kitty Celebrates Up in the Air!

Hello friends! I’m excited to start with this cute one for today:

Vicki-SnS-Kitty clouds

Tee hee! Kitty got a little “carried away” with celebrating, I think! I have used the NEW Kitty Celebrates rubber stamp set for my card. I’ve stamped him over Copic Blending Card paper and colored him in with Copic markers and then fussy cut him out.

So before attaching him to my card, I thought it would be fun to add some Nuvo Crystal Drops in Morning Dew (Gloss-dries clear) and apply a layer over my balloons to give them a shiny balloon look! I then set kitty aside while I worked on the rest of the card.

For the background of my card, I made a nice “blue sky” by taking some Watercolor Paper and sprinkling some Nuvo Blue Blitz Shimmer Powder over it and then spritzing some water over it and letting it run all over the panel until I achieved the look I was going for. (LOVE the subtle shimmer over it too!) and then set it aside to let it dry.

The next thing for me to do was to create some “fluffy clouds” for the kitty to be among:

So, I took some cloud dies from my stash and cut them out with some Sticker Paper.

These sheets are sticky on one side, so I carefully peeled the release paper and handled them with some tweezers and applied some of the Twinkling Clouds Flocking over top of the sticky side, rubbed them with my finger to secure and tapped off the excess. I now have some really cool soft and fuzzy clouds to attach to my blue sky!

So now all I have left to do is assemble everything for my card! I started by taking the clouds and adhering them to my background with some dimensional Glue. I then cut down the watercolor blue-sky panel with a rectangle stitched die that fit the size of my card. Then I needed to add my sentiment, so I took the sentiment from the same stamp set and stamped it with a black pigment ink and added some Sparkle EP and heat embossed it. I layered this die cut sky panel over a piece of black cardstock which was then layered over an A2 sized top folding white card base. Lastly, I’ve added the fussy cut kitty over top of the sky background panel with some foam dots and then randomly added some drops with the Nuvo White Blizzard Glitter Drops over the sky panel.

Vicki-SnS-Kitty Clouds5

I think this turned out really cute and I sure had fun making it! Here I’ve laid it down so the light catches the details of the sparkle in the clouds, the sentiment and the glitter drops in the background as well as the shine over the balloons too!

Hope you’ve enjoyed my card for you today! Thanks for dropping in!

Here’s some challenges I’d like to enter this card for:

Simon Says Stamp Monday – ‘B’ is for: Balloons, Blue Sky, “Best Day ever”
Tuesday Throwdown – Anything Goes
Addicted to Stamps & More – Anything Goes
The Male Room – Celebrate
Little Red Wagon – House Pets

Snowflakes at Cute Card Thursday

Hello friends! It’s time already for a new challenge over at Cute Card Thursday and as I can feel it growing even cooler by the day outside, I find that this challenge is very fitting and a great way to keep going on my Christmas pile! We would like to see some “Snowflakes” on your creations this week! We look forward to seeing what you come up with!

Our sponsor for this challenge is All Dressed Up Stamps. They’re kind enough to provide an image to use for this challenge, so here’s what I’ve come up with:

Vicki-CCT555-ADU-Snowflakes

This image is so sweet with the pup and kitty delivering their letters to Santa for Christmas is coming soon! 🙂 The image I’ve used is called Christmas Post from All Dressed Up Stamps and it already had some snowflakes within the image, but I always feel that snowflakes are big, small and fall everywhere, so I decided to add a few more with items from my stash.

I’ve colored my image with Copic markers and used some gel pens for the eyes, cheeks, parts of the mailbox lettering, center of snowflakes as well as adding some adding some random dots in the background for tiny snowfall flakes. I’ve also had this Christmas Postmark stamp set in my stash and thought it was perfect to use as a sentiment for my card. I stamped the circle, punched it out and layered it with another scallop circle that was punched from red cardstock. I stamped the wavy lines post mark image behind that on the image panel. The image panel was cut with a Wonky Stitched rectangle die.

Vicki-CCT555-ADU-Snowflakes1

Here’s a closer look at the image and how I’ve colored it. For the top of the mailbox, the snowflake on the circle postmark and for the snow-covered ground, I used some glue in those areas and then sprinkled some Diamond Dust glitter over top of it for some nice sparkling snow coverage. (I love using that stuff for snowfall!)

You can also see the silver snowflake sequins that I’ve attached and then I’ve added some silver Stickles to the centers of each one. I’ve layered this image panel to a red cardstock layer and then added some foam tape to the back of it and mounted it over my card front.

Vicki-CCT555-ADU-Snowflakes2

So, for the card front panel, I took a white piece of cardstock measuring 4″ x 5-1/4″ and ran it through my die cut machine with a snowfall embossing folder and then I mounted this to a white top folding A2 sized card base and added the layered image panel over top.

Thanks for stopping by and have a fabulous day!

Here’s the challenges I’d like to enter this card for: