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 glitterstock 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):

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

*Vicki* from Stamped Smiles31 Comments

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!🎃💀👻

*Vicki* from Stamped Smiles19 Comments

Flying Dragon for 2 Crafty Critter Crazies

Hello friends!  Welcome to May!  Yay!  I’m so happy that my flowers are finally up and blooming!  It always brings a smile to face when I see the coloful blooms!

~Today’s post is a pre-scheduled post as I am away at our annual “Painting Divas” Craft Retreat with some local friends.  I am teaching a class today which is why I’ve been a bit MIA around social media and my blog as I’ve been preparing for it.  I promise that I will share photos of our event later at the end of this week.~

Today is the 1st of the month which also means the start of a new monthly challenge over the 2 Crafty Critter Crazies challenge blog!  All you have to remember is that you need to use a critter somewhere on your creation…that’s it!  The sponsor we have for this month is Fabrika Fantasy:

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I have used this adorable digital image kindly provided to us from our sponsor called Flying Elf.  I love how that dragon is looking up at her! 🙂

After coloring her in, I’ve taken a cloud stencil and sponged in some clouds behind her to give the appearance of being in the air!  I’ve used the ink foam blending tool and distress inks for that.  I then cut out the image panel with a cross-stitch rectangle die from Lawn Fawn and then used a cloud border die also from LF to cut out along the bottom that also adds to the “cloudy” feel of the design.  I stamped a sentiment from a My Favorite Things stamp set.

I wanted to add a “magical” element to my design, so I found some really cool cosmos looking papers from my stash and added that as a layer underneath the image panel which I popped up a bit with foam tape.  I then added a purple shimmer ribbon with a bow around the bottom portion and layerd it over a piece of gold mirror cardstock and then an addtional piece of black cardstock that was layered over a white A2 sized top folding card base.  Lastly, I added some black pearls in the upper right of the image panel.

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Here you can see a closer view of the coloring I did on the image.  I’ve colored it in with my Copic markers.  Then on her belt, the trim on her boot and the middle of the dragon bridle, I colored those in with a gold gel pen.  Such a cute image!

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Here’s a better view where you can see the shine from the gold mirror cardstock.  It helps to add a “magical” feel to the design I think.

Please do hop on over to the 2 Crafty Critter Crazies challenge blog and have a look at what the rest of the design team has come up with for inspiration!  Get our your critter products/images and come enter our challenge this month!  We can’t wait to see what you come with!

Thanks so much for dropping by!  I appreciate you being here with me!  Hope to catch up with you all at the end of this week to see what you’re up to!

I will be back tomorrow with another pre-scheduled post and something new!

*Vicki* from Stamped Smiles24 Comments