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:

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything Goes
Krafty Chicks – #766 Birthday
AAA Birthday – Anything Birthday Goes (Happy 6th birthday!)
Crafts Galore Encore – #135 Anything Goes
As You Like It – Soft or Bold Colors? Why? (I prefer soft tones with calm colors as they seem more pleasing to me)
Love to Craft – #86 Anything Goes

Pearly Sparkles Guest

Hello friends again! I have two posts going up for today, so please see my post for the Mix It Up Challenge details in the above post when it goes live or click HERE.

I’m so excited to have been asked to be a guest for this month’s Pearly Sparkles Challenge! I always love playing along in challenges and supporting them when I can as I always find inspiration in using my supplies when I play!

So for May’s Challenge, they would like to see: BLACK, WHITE PLUS ONE OTHER COLOR in your project(s). Here’s the card I made for this theme to inspire you:

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do for this, but I thought you couldn’t go wrong with some flowers. I pulled out a long forgotten stamp set from Taylored Expressions called “Picked Posies” (no longer available) and black heat embossed the images over watercolor paper and used one pink watercolor brushed over the petals. I die cut each flower with the coordinating die.

I made the rest of the card layout with all black and white elements. I stamped the TE Checking In Background stamp in black ink over a white panel, placed this over an A2 sized top folding black card base. I also used the TE More Easy Edgers die to cut an additional piece of white cardstock and placed it over the stamped checkered background. I also used some more of the elements from the flower stamp set and stamped some more black images on that background before I attached the watercolor flowers on it. I centered each flower with a black rhinestone.

For the sentiment, I white heat embossed over black cardstock using the TE Hello Friend Stamp & Die set.

Thanks so much for stopping in today and I hope you’ll check out this challenge to see what the rest of the team has to inspire you with so you can play along too!

See you again tomorrow!

Challenges:

Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
613 Avenue Create – Anything Goes with optional: splash of color
Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes
Crafter’s Cafe – Anything Goes optional: Female
Double D – Springtime Flowers

April Art Journal Page-Recycled Spring

Hello friends! I hope you all had a wonderful Easter and have been enjoying the wonderful Spring weather outside! We have all sorts of blooms and buds everywhere which is really exciting to see! I think I need to trim some lilacs from my bush to put in a jar and enjoy the lovely smell from them!

Today is our monthly AJ page with my crafty friend Carol (from Crafty-Stamper) who is collaborating with me to “SMASH OUR STASH”! We get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles along with a prompt for each month. I know she always has great inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” April prompt of “RECYCLE/UPCYCLE”:

Flowers are everywhere, so I thought I’d place them all over my page today too!

For my “recycled” elements, I have used a floral napkin in the background which gives it some wonderful texture and I’ve also painted some white paint over it for a “wash” so that it wasn’t so bright and vibrant and too busy for the background. I splattered some black and gold watercolor over it as well.

I found a darling image with these gorgeous Spring birds perched on the fence, cut it out and popped it up at the bottom with foam tape.

I thought that a strip of gold cardstock (left over from a project) would make a nice bright accent to go with my gold embossed “HELLO SPRING” sentiment and gold splatter.

I’ve also “recycled” an old part of an ATC project and half of a doily to add on the side with the sentiment and I’ve tied some old twine around that ATC panel.

Lastly, I’ve added some flowers and a butterfly from my old collection of ephemera pieces left over from years ago!

I hope that you’ve enjoyed my art journal page today and it gives you all the feels of Spring in the air! I had fun putting this one together! Thanks so much for dropping in!

(Feeling a little bit under the weather this week and I’ll catch up as I can! Thanks for understanding!)

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Spring Birds
Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – April No Cards
Creative Artiste – #114 Mixed Media projects
Neglected Stuff – April (doily, Tim Holtz ephemera)
Simon Says Stamp Monday – Blooming Blooms

February AJ Collab-You Are Enough

Hello friends! I’m back again today to share some more inspiration with my Art Journaling!

Today starts another AJ page with my crafty friend Carol (from Crafty-Stamper) who is collaborating with me to “SMASH OUR STASH”! We get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles along with a prompt for each month. I know she always has great inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” February prompt of “MUSIC” (of course!):

Really had fun with this page as it’s got that bright and cheerful background which is a great reminder to yourself especially when the world looks black and white.

I was able to pull out several stash items like the DecoArt Fluid Acrylic Paints, the stamp sets and dies, some of which, I’ve had for a long time and some never used!

For the background: I started with a canvas cardstock 140# measuring 8.5″x5.5″ and attached a music sheet of the same size over it. (I have tons of sheet music ephemera!) I then used the DecoArt Fluid Acrylic Paints to go over it in a horizontal bright rainbow. Once dry, I splattered white paint over it. I also went around the edges with a black paint marker.

The flowers at the bottom came from the Taylored Expressions Botanical Beauty Background (retired), that I stamped in black and colored with cool grey markers. I liked that it covered the entire width of my panel. I used a coordinating die to cut it with and attached to the bottom. I layered a black strip at the very bottom…because I thought it needed it.

Moving to the top of the page, I used a Lawn Fawn Little Heart Strings border die cut out with some shimmer vellum. (I also used the same vellum for the butterfly wings.) I attached this to the top of the page with double sided adhesive strip. I glued down the tiny hearts. This is the first time I’ve used this die because I had to cut it apart! The butterfly dies came from a very old My Favorite Things die set that is no longer available…not sure of the name even. The sentiment at the top over the heart string border came from the Taylored Expressions “You Are” that was white heat embossed over black cardstock and cut out with the coordinating die. I attached it over the border.

Lastly, I used my Cricut Machine to cut out some single music notes in black glossy cardstock and I attached those to the center of the die cut butterflies. I used some black Stickles glitter and put “dots” on the heart strings border, the butterflies and the center of the flowers.

Here’s a song that inspired me for this page:

and if you need to hear this today, just know that YOU ARE ENOUGH too

Thank you so much for stopping by today and sharing your kind comments and support! I read them all and appreciate it! Hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – MUSIC
Moving Along with the Times – #175 – Things with Wings
A Cut Above – Anything Goes + die cuts
The Neglected Stuff – #1 challenge (I’ve used musical sheet ephemera, paints, butterfly dies)
Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – No cards
Creative Artiste – #112 Anything Goes Mixed Media
We Love to Create – Anything Goes Mixed Media

“W” is for WINGS

Hello friends and happy Friday! It has been very cold over our way and I’m staying indoors as much as I can which means some crafting time is happening! I do like looking from my window and seeing the chickadee birds along with the squirrels in the feeders! I enjoy seeing those bright red cardinals, but I don’t get to see those as often.

Today is a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge and we are on the letter “W”. The hostess has went with the theme “W is for “WINGS“. You will have 2 weeks to join us, so I hope to see your creations in the gallery! Here’s my card using this theme:

Since it’s so cold out, I decided to skip on over through winter and go straight to warm spring/summer with a dragonfly! We usually don’t see dragonflies over my way until it gets pretty warmed up. (It has to be above 60 degrees Fahrenheit, on average, for them to come out.) I also was happy to finally pull out a stamp set that I got from STAMPtember of last year created by Kitchen Sink Stamps. Unfortunately, this company is no longer operating. There are a couple of stamp sets available for purchase on the Simon Says Stamp website I see. But this particular stamp set called “All Aflutter” was only available during the STAMPtember event. I’m happy to get it even though I didn’t make it in time to grab the die set before it sold out, but it’s a beautiful set. It’s actually the only Kitchen Sink Stamps I own.

I started out with the green flower stems at the bottom. This is a layering stamp set, so they very cleverly put the numbers in order to stamp. I then added three purple colors for the flowers to go on top of the green stems. I stamped the sentiment from the set with the “Hi” done in purple ink. I ink blended like colors around the card panel.

I stamped the dragonfly body onto the card panel BEFORE stamping the sentiment for the placement of the design. I attached the card front to a purple A2 top folding card base.

Dragonflies have to have that shimmer on their wings! It’s so hard to take a photo of the shimmer from the glitter pen and I wanted that to come through for my dragonfly wings!

The dragonfly was stamped in the corresponding layers for his body and wings on a separate piece of cardstock. The lightest grey was the wings. I used my scissors to fussy cut him out and blended some light blue ink around his wings. I glued the middle section of him only so that I could pop up the wings a bit.

Lastly, I added some shimmer to his wings with the glitter pen and attached some gems.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and you’ve been inspired to join in the challenge with us! Be sure to check out the rest of the inspiration from the team!
Thanks for stopping in and I’ll be back tomorrow with my AJ collaboration with Carol!

Challenges:

Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes
Creatalicious – #286 Anything Goes + optional: use green
Lil Patch of Crafty Friends – #248 Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2507 Anything Goes
Moving Along With the Times – #175 Things With Wings
A Place to Start – #020325 Anything Goes + optional: Things in the Sky

Art Journal Inspiration-Happiness, Harmony & Joy

Hello friends! Brr! It’s a very cold start to the week over my way, so that means I’m staying inside the warmth and crafting up some fun to share! I’m really enjoying putting together these pages this month as I get to pull some things from my stash that I’ve really been wanting to play with. This gives me a chance to use things for myself in whatever way I want because I don’t give these pages away and I think I find it to be a bit more “freeing” to do or try things that I may not normally do on a card.

Maybe I can encourage you to try something for yourself! I have more inspiration to share for the “MUSIC” prompt I’m hosting this month at Art Journal Journey:

For this page, I pulled out an AALL & Create stamp set that I’ve been wanting to use “Call the Tune” and I wanted to use the trumpet from the set. I always think of trumpets as a bold and happy musical tune, so I thought flowers and my favorite colors would make me feel happy too!

For the background: I started with an 8.5″x5.5″ watercolor panel and watered down some purple and turquoise acrylic paints so that I could use them like watercolor. Once dry, I attached some musical note tissue paper off the side and I also stamped the trumpet image in black on the top of the page. I then used the flower image and gold heat embossed it on the bottom and top of the page. I then took some black paint to splatter over it. Lastly, I took the AALL & Create Reverse Triangles Stencil and some metallic white embossing paste over it in random areas. Once that was dry, I went around the edges with the black Distress Crayon.

Moving towards the bottom of the page, I stamped the flower image twice, colored them with Copic markers and fussy cut them out to line the bottom of the page. Before attaching them, I splattered them with gold watercolor and white Copic Opaque. I also used the black Distress Crayon to go underneath the flowers before I attached them.

The musical notes were cut from my Cricut Machine with black glossy cardstock. I also attached a few select words from the AALL & Create Motivation Station Ephemera pack and used a black marker to line around each one.

I stamped another trumpet image and colored it with Copic markers and then fussy cut around the colored images to attach over the black image I stamped on the page. I even used a knife to go in between the sections of the trumpet. It was a bit tedious, but worth it.

I finished the page off with some gold Stickles in the center of the flowers for a touch of sparkle because sparkle makes me happy too!

So what do you think? Does this page bring happiness to you? It gets me looking forward to Spring and seeing some flowers grow! I’m going to go check out the fun musical inspiration in the Art Journal Journey gallery and I hope you check it out too! Thanks for dropping by today and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Music
Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – no cards
Creative Artiste – #112 Anything Goes Mixed Media
We Love 2 Create – Anything Goes Mixed Media/Paper Crafts

Merry Christmas Makes PLUS GIVE AWAY!!!!

Hello friends! Just wanted to pop in to wish you all a Merry Christmas and to share some final Christmas creations that I’ve made basically within the last few weeks! Some of these are cards that I’ve sent friends and family and some are recent makes for Craft Roulette challenges.

Scroll below this post to see the give away!

First up are the last few weeks of the Craft Roulette challenges:

(I got out my stretchy pants to play along!)😉

(These are money holders for Christmas with recycled wrapping paper)

(This is a diagonal joy fold card design)

(Tri-Panel Card for me was 3 layer panels on the front! LOL)

(Always stepping on those tiny gems on my floor!)

Hopefully the next several cards have been received by everyone they were sent to, but if not, maybe the surprise will be which one you will get! I don’t like making several at one time, so I’ve split up the design in sessions using the Taylored Expressions Make It Merry Stamp Set along with the Happy Half Sheets: (I’ve made my own “map” with the images)

Lastly, I’ve made several of these photo frame cards using the Lisa Horton Framed Poinsettia Stencils/Die/Embossing Folder: (Using a photo recently taken for our 25th wedding anniversary)

Hope you’ve enjoyed all of my Christmas projects this year and a very special thank you for being apart of the crafting journey with me! I’m so thankful for the friends I’ve met along the way!

ALERT!! GIVEAWAY!!

Since this is the season of giving, I would like to gift someone that would like to receive this set that I have collected myself (over the entire year as an extra) to give away to someone:

Vicki-December2024-giveaway Vicki-December2024-giveawayback

If you’re NOT familiar with Taylored Expressions, this is a collection of the “freebie” rubber stamps that a person receives when placing an order. Each month the stamp image changes to something else. I have not only collected a set for myself, but I’ve also collected another entire set (12 rubber stamps) to give to someone else that would like one! I have included the sturdy laminated Collection card, in addition, a sturdy plastic sleeve in which to store it all in. Plus, I’ve also included a set of 2025 tear-off calendars in a package of ten to go with it!

You can purchase these in the store here under the Pretty Postage Collection, but I’m giving them all away in one set for the entire year as I’ve collected them. I did NOT include the Pretty Postage die set that cuts out the images, but you can purchase your own by clicking on the link.

If you are interested in this give away from me (no affiliation with any company), please just leave me a comment below to tell me that you’re interested in the give away. THAT’S ALL YOU NEED TO DO, BUT YOU HAVE TO TELL ME IF YOU’RE INTERESTED IN GIVE AWAY!
You will need to leave your comment below by January 3rd, 2025 to enter. I will announce here on my blog who won by January 5th, 2025. (The winner will need to be in contact for mailing out prize.)
P.S. If you have been collecting and looking for one you’re missing, let me know which month and I’ll see if I have it as I have several months that are extras! (I know that I do NOT have any August left, though.)

Just wanted to send out a little Christmas cheer to a crafty friend! It doesn’t matter where you live, I will be happy to mail it out…so please don’t let that stop you! It’s just a special gift from one crafter to another to enjoy!

Thank you for making my crafting journey a special one and for joining me here to share inspiration with one another! Looking forward to more in the coming year!

Wishing you and yours a VERY Merry Christmas with lots of joy and love!

(I will be back after Christmas (Saturday) to share an art journal page with you!)

Christmas Florals for Sparkles Monthly Challenge!

Hello friends! I hope you’re having a great month so far and looking forward to a great weekend ahead! I know it’s starting to get “crunch time” with the Holidays quickly approaching us in a few weeks, so it’s time to get those Holiday cards finished up and sent out!

Today starts the November challenge over at Sparkles Monthly and for this month, our hostess is asking to see Christmas Florals on your project. Be sure to stop by the blog to see what the rest of the team has created for you. Here’s my project for this challenge:

When I saw this challenge, I knew what I wanted to pull out to play with right away! I’ve pulled out the beautiful Taylored Expressions Scattered Holiday Blooms Bundle. I also wanted to use the Scattered Holiday Blooms Foil Panels which I foiled in gold.

After I foiled the panel, I used the coordinating layered stencils to go over it. I was almost thinking that I might not want to cut the panel out after blending it because I liked it so much, but I wanted to try out the die that cuts each of the blooms out. I love that the center of the large poinsettias has an extra cut in the center to lift up the edges too. I ended up layering two of the poinsettias together for each one for even more dimension. I layered some of the leaves around them and they were popped up over the card with foam tape again.

For the background of the card, I used the TE Sketched Plaid embossing folder over a toffee cardstock. I took some gold ribbon and wrapped it around the two corners with the top one in a bow. I then attached this over a white top folding A2 card base. I used my corner chomper to round the corners of the base and toffee card panel.

Lastly, I die cut the “JOY” letters in white and gold mirror cardstock and attached them by slightly off-setting them before placing on the card front. I added the holly to the “O” and a few more of the tiny blooms that were cut out from the blended panel to finish off the card.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my card today or have been inspired to get those holiday makes going by joining in the challenge with us this month! I look forward to seeing what you create! Thanks so much for stopping by and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

Creative Friday – #372 Christmas
Crafty Catz – #682 Anything Goes with optional: ribbon/twine
Pammies’ Inky Pinkies – PIP2445 Anything Goes
Krafty Chicks – #742 Christmas
Just Us Girls – #753 Word Week: JOY
Crafts Galore Encore – #129 Anything Goes
Love to Craft – #83 Anything Goes
Merry Little Christmas – #59 Anything Goes Christmas
Let’s Craft & Create – Anything Goes with optional: use a bow

Hello Flowers & Catch Up

Hello friends! I hope you’ve had a great week so far! It’s a rainy day, but I have some errands to do as it will be a busy weekend so I wanted to get some things done. I also have some more catching up to share with you at the end of the post too!

I made a card using some older Newton’s Nook products I have and played along in a few challenges as well:

I am not sure if I used this stamp set or not before that I received a few years back from Newton’s Nook called Versatile Vases (retired), but I think it’s a great set with lots of versatility.

I stamped the flowers, then stamped the vase over top of it to make it look like the flowers are inside the vase. I colored with my Copic markers and cut out the panel with the Newton’s Nook Framework Die Set and then cut another panel with pink cardstock for the frame around it. I then stamped the hello sentiment at the top right corner of the panel.

I followed along with the sketch (see below) for the Inky Paws challenge and used some pink ink to stamp the solid flower image from the Versatile Vases set and layered it over a pink cardstock layer. The purple dotted paper came from the Newton’s Nook Birthday Woofs Paper Pad. I arranged each panel over a white top folding A2 card base, but before attaching the purple dotted strip going horizontally behind the flower panel, I wrapped some white twine around it and added a bow with it.

I used some foam tape to pop up the flower panel and then added some purple rhinestones to the center of each flower.

It’s a very simple and sweet card perfect for sending a smile!

I’m still catching up with some projects that I had been working on earlier this year and never had a chance to post each thing I was doing at the time.

You may remember the “Stamp Joy Virtual Event” that I did back in March and I shared those in my post here. During the exact same time I was doing that, there was another event going on through Scrapbook.com called SBC Fest which was recorded so I watched it later and participated in the classes as I had time. I finally finished what I wanted out of it in May and so here are the things I made except for the scrapbooking classes as I wasn’t interested in those projects. (I used items mostly from my stash.)

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

I’m getting closer and closer to posting my “catch-up” projects! I have one more event that I attended this Spring and a class that I haven’t shared yet, but will post soon!

Thank you so much for taking the time to stop by, for leaving me a comment or just catching the photos of what I’m doing. I hope you enjoy my sharing as much as I’m enjoying creating.

Have a wonderful day!

Challenges: (Top card only)

Inky Paws – #228 sketch
Cupcake Inspirations – #599 Pink & Purple
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2430 Flowers
Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes

Mix It Up With Veggie Stamping!

Hello friends! Happy July! I can’t believe that June is gone and the 4th of July Holiday is gearing up now! I’m looking forward to some happy times ahead through the Summer and I hope you are too!

Today begins a new challenge over at the Mix It Up Challenge Blog and it’s always “Anything Goes with an optional theme“. For the optional theme this time, we’d like to see some “Veggie Stamping“! (In other words: use vegetables as your source for stamping with!) I’ve never done it before, but I gave it a try! Here’s what I came up with:

Now I’ve heard of people carving food as art, but I don’t think I’ve ever really seen anybody actually use vegetables/food as a stamp! Have you ever tried this? I encourage you to give it a try and join in the challenge with it because it was so much fun to play!

For my vegetable stamping, I didn’t want to use ink pads in fear of contaminating/ruining it, so I decided to use some acrylic paints instead. I grabbed some veggies from the fridge along with a plate to hold the paints and cut the veggies to dip into the paint piles. My husband decided to come around and snap a photo of what I was doing, so I thought I’d share my mess:

I was actually in the process of cutting out the “veggie flowers” when he took the photo, but I started with some acrylic paper because I was using paints and cut the paper large so I had plenty of room to play around. It was a bit of trial to figure out how each veggie would look. I thought it worked best to dry out the veggies as much as possible on a paper towel. The coral large flower came from the red pepper. I found that using a paint brush to apply it to the veggie was a better look. Then I dipped the celery end to make the purple flowers. The shallot was used to create the teal flower (the shallot was applied the same as the pepper) and I used the end of the carrot for the center of the flowers with yellow paint and then I used a broccoli to dab on the center of the flowers as well with some dark grey paint.

I then tried to arrange the flower bouquet how I wanted on my card base after cutting out the flowers. I took a paint brush with (no kidding) celery green colored paint and painted the stems coming from each flower. For the “leaves”, I used the same paint and dabbed the celery end around the stems.

I finished out my card by stenciling the brick background before attaching the cut out flowers. I popped some of the flowers up with foam tape and then I white heat embossed a sentiment over dark grey cardstock and popped that up over the bottom of the bouquet. This was attached to another panel of grey cardstock that I attached to a top folding white A2 card base. I topped it off with a few gems.

So what do you think? First time trying it out and just playing around having fun is all! A little abstract for sure, but hopefully they do look like flowers on here🏵️! I’m really looking forward to seeing what everyone does with this! Hope you can play along too! (Remember you have 6 weeks to enter! So plenty of time to play!)

THANKS SO MUCH FOR POPPING BY TODAY! HAVE A GOOD ONE & I’LL SEE YOU SOON!

Challenges: