Lawn Fawn Fever!

Hello friends! I have LOTS to catch up on with all of the blogging of projects that I’ve been working on over the last few months, so I will probably share several projects within one post until I can get caught up!

I know that Christmas in July is going on everywhere right now, so I thought I’d share that along with a few other projects I had going on during my “Lawn Fawn Fever” episode! I have loved their cute little critters for so long and hope you enjoy what I’ve made:

It’s been a while since I even played along with a Lawn Fawnatics challenge, so I decided to join this one which is asking to see your Lawn Fawn “Fun with Food” challenge projects. What could be more fun than sharing Christmas cookies?! I’m not sure I’d share any with mice…but these guys are too cute and add some more fun to the scene. They’re a bit older and I know I’ve had the set for several years as it was one of the STAMPtember sets called “Merry Christmouse“.

I used some older Lawn Fawn papers from my stash to create the table and backdrop setting and then cut it out with the Lawn Fawn Outside In Rectangle dies. I used the following sets which include the one mentioned above for my scene: How You Bean?, How You Bean? Christmas Cookie Add On, and Thanks a latte. I Copic colored them and even added a few stamped images over the cookies including some Chunky Glitter.

For the mouse hanging over the hot cocoa cup, I cut around his arms to fit over the cup. I popped up the candy cane as well at the mouse next to the jar for depth on the scene. I added some touches of glitter and then on the mouse Santa hat, I took some liquid applique and heated it up until it was puffy. The sentiment was white heat embossed over the dark chocolate cardstock and then I just used my scissors to cut it out and attach at the top. Really fun scene to create!

I also took part on Friday with the “Hive Five Kit” class they did using the adorable new Hive Five card kit they came out with recently.

For the first card, I made my sentiment too high, so I had to “arrange it” how it worked for me, and I wanted it to be a birthday card instead. The other project was just the hexagon tag. I changed mine into a shaker and then added to a card. I also added the speech bubble on this one.

The products included with the card kit were really fun and I’m glad I got it!

The majority of this card came from a fun little kit that my sweet blog friend Shirley gifted me included with a SWAP that I was in with her. (Details of that are below.) Really love that she included the backdrop for the sky which worked out perfectly! I actually already purchased this awesome Lawn Fawn Platform Pop-Up die along with the Platform Pop-Up Add-on and the Upon a Star stamp set and dies, but she was so very kind to have all of these pieces already stamped and cut out for me! I just colored in the critters and the stars, added a few more here and there along with some glitter, white heat embossed the sentiment over the navy cardstock and put it together.

I hadn’t even broken out my Platform die at the time, so this was my first time putting one together! It looks a little more intimidating than what it really is, so I had lots of fun with it! Thanks so much for sharing the fun with me my friend! I can’t wait to attempt another one soon! (Thanks for helping me with my addiction! 😁)

And as I had mentioned above, I was asked if I’d be interested in joining this “Summer Sampler SWAP” with my wonderful blog friends Patti, Shirley and Donna along with a few other ladies to take part with! When it was described to me, I quickly realized that I had seen these 12″ x 12″ sized papercraft stamped samplers all over Pinterest. Of course, I had thought to myself that would be fun to create and never did.

Each square is 3-1/4″ and we each were to use the same color for the back layer so it was all similar for the finished project to coordinate well. So 9 of us created 9 squares, kept one for ourselves and then mailed out the others to each person in the swap. Really fun to see everyone’s idea here with the theme of “SUMMER” too! I love them all and thought how fun that each one is so different from the others!

This is my finished 12″ x 12″ shadow box framed piece with everyone’s squares that I’ve attached to a wood panel background paper. I have it hanging on the wall. I think this would be so fun for each season or even gifts! Hope we can do another one!😉

And here’s the square that I did for the swap. I zoomed in to take the photo and it’s behind the glass, so it’s not a real great look at it, but as you see, I’ve used Lawn Fawn again! LOL

I had some fun 4th of July papers and thought it would be neat to make somewhat of a shaker element with confetti stars. I’ve used the Lawn Fawn Dandy Day Flip Flop set along with a mouse from the Bubbles of Joy set for the front of my square. I was trying to give the impression that the mouse had a sparkler, and the sparks were flying while the other mouse was enjoying the show. I used glitter and die cut a star from silver glitter cardstock for the center of the dandelion. I added a red bow at the top. I thought with using a shadow box frame that the dimension wouldn’t be an issue and it wasn’t.

There’s always something fun to keep me hopping, so I know you’ll see more soon including the wedding & painting class projects! I promise I’ll get there! Thanks for dropping by!!

Challenges:

Lawn Fawnatics – Fun with Food (first card)
Crafty Gals Corner – Christmas in July (first card)
Krafty Chicks – Christmas (first card)
CRAFT – Christmas (first card)
Jingle Belles – BLING on the Holidays! (first card)
Double Trouble – Christmas in July Thing 1, Thing 2 & Thing 3 (I’ve used old stamp sets, papers and added some fun bling on my cookies -plus added to the partner challenge in first card!)
Alphabet – ‘H’ is for Holidays (first card)
My Time to Craft – Christmas in July (first card)
Papercraft – Christmas in July

Pray Until Something Happens With Inky Stamper

Hello friends! How is your Summer going? It seems like it is really flying by for me! After getting back from the wedding, I have a PILE of things to get finished up, literally! I signed up for classes knowing that I couldn’t participate during the class time, but figured I would finish them up on my own, so along with doing that I’ve decided to also throw in a current challenge project as well and share that today:

So, this cute little fella came from Inky Stamper called Praying Mantis, of course. The challenge for the month of July in the Inky Stamper Inkspiration FB Group calls for “watercolor” of any kind and so I pulled out my Zig CC Real Brush markers to color him with, cut him out with the coordinating die and even added a bit of the Liquid Pixie Dust on his wing.

For the watercolor on the background, I’ve used an Inky Stamper Watercolor Panel and ran a few different colored Distress Oxide ink pads over it without touching the colors. I then spritzed it with water to saturate and let the colors run together over it. I picked up any extras on my glass mat to completely cover the panel and then I took the Picket Fence Geo Squares Stencil and laid it over top while it was wet, pressed it in and let it just sit until it was dry. I picked up the stencil that had dried ink on it, spritzed it with water and turned the stencil the other way with the ink on it and pressed it onto the panel again and let it dry. This is how the darker ink color showed up on the lighter end. I took some green and black watercolor to spritz over top. Really fun background to play with!

I then white heat embossed a sentiment over a black strip and attached it to the bottom portion of the background and then die cut the panel with a double-stitched rectangle die. I used foam squares to pop up the bug and wrapped some Doodlebug Limeade Twine under the sentiment. This panel was layered over a black piece which was attached to a top folding A2 white card base. I finished it with some Doodlebug rhinestones.

And continuing on with my “Inky Stamper projects”, There was an OOAK event a few days before I left. I didn’t have time to do my projects during the time but finished them up when I returned. We made this fun and unique fold design with a gorgeous butterfly and then of course the mini card to go along with it.

For mine, I colored the butterfly with Copics, popped up the wings with foam tape and added some of that Liquid Pixie Dust which is hard to see in the photo. Then for the mini card, I used some watercolor to color the hydrangea with. The sentiment was white heat embossed.

Super fun projects as always! (I usually make my “mini card” into TWO ATCs, I just did the one so far here.)

And for my last set of “Inky Stamper projects”, this was for a special class Chelsea held during the time that I was gone. Even though I wasn’t able to attend the fun and games with them live, I went ahead and purchased the kit anyway so I could watch the video at a later date to make all of these fun projects centered around this ADORABLE Sloth!

I pretty much followed along with the way the class projects were made. I added some gold thread on the card in the back with the clocks so that it could hang from the sloth’s claw. I added a glittery heart for the treat container for the sloth to hold as well. The candy inside the container are slow pokes!! 😂 Super cute and fun projects to make! I sort of treated myself to the candy while I was creating!

I also think that there were a few days where I could relate to the sloth too, but glad to get things done!

Really hope you’ve enjoyed my projects that I’ve shared today and are inspired in some way too! Thanks so much for stopping in today…I’ll be sharing more soon! 😉

Challenges: (For top card only)

Happy Little Stamper Watercolour – Anything Goes + watercolor
Happy Little Stamper Stencil – Anything Goes + stencil
Aud Sentiments – Anything Goes + sentiment
As You Like It – Favorite warm/cool colors and why? (Always been attracted to the cool tones even as a child!)
Krafty Chicks – Week 1: Stamp Act
Crafty Catz – #603 Anything Goes
Creative Fingers – #235 Anything Goes
Colour Crazy Craft – Week 27: Anything Goes + coloring
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2228 Anything Goes

Cowboy Courage and Dad Jokes

Hello friends! Hope you’ve had a great Fourth of July weekend and staying cool through this really hot week too! I had planned on scheduling a post or two while I was gone last month, but time just didn’t let me get there and I’m a bit behind, but I wanted to share a couple of masculine cards I made for some men in my life for Father’s Day:

Up first is this card I made for my dad. He’s a huge John Wayne fan and so I thought it would be fun to print out one of his famous quotes for a card. After printing it out, I stamped the large rope lasso image around it from the Whimsy Stamps Cowpoke clear stamp set. I printed the quote over a piece of kraft cardstock and stamped with chocolate colored ink with the rope frame and colored it with Copics. I also cut the other images from the same stamp set over White Copic Blending Card and colored it with Copics. I just fussy cut them out with scissors and placed them over my card front with some foam squares. I cut a section of the horseshoe out so that it “appears” as if it’s hanging around the lasso and glued it over each side of the lasso.

I thought it would be fun to add some more details to mimic the boots by die cutting the loopy stitched borders from the Whimsy Stamps Straight Edger Die Set and then I ink blended around the edges with chocolate ink. I also did this with the envelope you see behind the card too.

He really liked this one! I remember as a child sitting with him sometimes and watching those really old “cowboy movies”. LOL

The next card I made was for my husband…

This card was PERFECT for him! Most of the time, the kids would always tell him that his jokes were NOT funny, but the fact that HE thought they were so funny is what made them laugh! 😂 And then he would claim that they were laughing or smiling, so he knew they liked them!😄

So, when I saw this Dad Jokes stamp set from Lawn Fawn, I knew it would be a good one to have on hand for cards with him. I kept this card a simple one with a grassy stitched border and then I used one of those woodgrain papers from Lawn Fawn and also die cut the LF Father’s Day Border using the same woodgrain paper for it.

I positioned the little chicks to the side with the *crickets* sentiment above them and then the other one laughing while the little chick with the tie is telling the “dad joke”. I popped up the speech bubbles with foam squares. You will also see that I’ve stamped another “dad joke” on the envelope with some ha ha ha next to it as well.

**Side note: My husband’s favorite “dad joke” from the stamp set was…”What’s brown and sticky?…A stick!“** He had to tell that one to the (adult)kids of course! 🙄

Hope you’ve enjoyed my masculine cards today or had a smile! Thanks for dropping in and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

The Male Room – Monochrome (Top card only with brown tones)
Alphabet – ‘G’ is for Giggle/humorous card (Second card only)
Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
Corrosive – Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes
Penny’s Paper-Crafty – Anything Goes using Paper

So Proud of You Commissioned Grad

Hello friends! Just popping in to share a commissioned graduation card that I made for someone a few weeks ago. I love making grad cards and was happy to help accommodate a personalized one for a special person in someone’s life.

She didn’t even realize that she told me her grandson’s name, and all she mentioned was the school colors to go by. So I decided to have fun with personalizing an infinity shaker this time:

Vicki-TEgradshaker-comm

For the background of this card: I’ve started with the Taylored Expressions Bokeh Stars Layering Stencils blended over a white 4″ x 5.25″ cardstock piece with coordinating colors assigned to me using a burgundy/silver school color scheme. I’ve decided for the inside shaker bits, to die cut a few sized stars with the burgundy (TE Mulled Wine) and some Brushed Silver from my stash. I also had some TE Sparkly Stars Bits & Pieces to add to them. I turned the stenciled panel into an “infinity shaker” by using a TE A2 Infinity Shaker Panel and attaching it to a A2 sized “Mulled Wine” side folding card base.

For the front of the clear shaker panel: I die cut a frame from the Brushed Silver cardstock with the TE A2 Thin Frame Cutting Plate that was also attached to a Mulled Wine die cut banner that I’ve silver heat embossed the “so proud of you” sentiment from the TE Mini Strips-Grad stamp set. I personalized the silver frame by die cutting the letters from the TE Cap It Off Alpha die set with the same Brushed Silver cardstock. I attached these letters before setting the frame in place and then just cutting the frame off where the letters meet up with it. Lastly, I thought of the Lawn Fawn Hats Off to You stamp set, stamped, colored it in to match up with the colors and added a bit of sparkle to the tassel with a silver gel pen and cut it out with the coordinating die. I popped it up with foam squares so that it is tilted over the “C” in the name.

The envelope was decorated with the year by die cutting the outline with the Mulled Wine cardstock from the TE Cap It Off Numbers die. I also used one of the Mulled Wine stars I previously cut for the shaker to place in the middle of the “0” as well.

Here’s the “action” of the infinity shaker…

I think I enjoyed seeing those stars move around from edge to edge on this one! LOL You can never have too many confetti stars shaking around to celebrate the grad, right?!⭐

And of course I made a greeting for the inside of the card stamped in the same Mulled Wine color along with a few stars stamped in there. I used another piece of the die cut frame in Brushed Silver cardstock to go around the stamped panel and attached to the inside of the card.

You can see on the front of the silver envelope in the corner, that I’ve added a couple more of those die cut stars to decorate it as well.

She seemed pretty pleased with the card and of course very proud of her grandson.👨‍🎓

I hope you’ve enjoyed my project too and thank you so much for stopping in! See you soon!

Challenges:

{Cupcake Inspirations} – Graduation
Crafty Catz – Anything Goes with optional “Celebrate”
Country View – Seeing Stars
Crafty Calendar – Anything Goes
Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes

Challenge Up Your Life-Fun in the Sun

Happy June 1st friends! This month will bring us into the Summer months which means it’s time for all of those fun outdoor activities! I’m also getting ready for lots of things going on this month including my son’s wedding! So I know I’ll be busy! How about you?

This is my last time to be joining the “Challenge Up Your Life” challenge blog as a guest designer. I’ve had a great time with them as a guest for the past three challenges and appreciate being asked! Today their new monthly challenge for June is “Fun in the Sun“. Hope you can share your lovely creations with us this month! (Check out the challenge blog for details and inspiration!) And here’s my take on this theme:

What could be more fun than a cute little fairy sipping a drink floating on a lily pad?! Love those shades too!

There happened to be a good sale on a few digital stamps from LOTV recently and so I snatched a few and this was one of them that I fell in love with. This one is called Water Lily, of course. (The sentiment also came from the same company.) She looked like she was having some “fun in the sun” for sure, so I colored her up with my Copic markers and die cut the panel out with a stitched rectangle die. I’ve also used a scalloped stitched die to cut out a piece of pink cardstock to go with some of the colors in the image.

For the background papers, I’ve found some great *yellow rainbow paper from Lawn Fawn and then I used a *sun die from My Favorite Things and cut out with some yellow glitter cardstock. (*These items have retired) I took a wave die from Lawn Fawn and cut out a strip from vellum and used my blue marker to add some color towards the top of the waves. To attach the strip, I wrapped it around the layers and glued it from behind. I then added the ribbon with the bow and attached these layers to an A2 top folding white card base.

Here’s a closer look at the image with the coloring I’ve done. I’ve used a gold gel pen to color in her head band and then a silver one to color in the little “dots” on the ends of her glasses. I used a glitter brush pen over her sunglass lenses as well as her wings.

I finished the card off with a few colorful sequins.

So does that look like something you’d be having some “Fun in the Sun” with?! I know I sure would!😎

I sure hope to see you playing along with us this month with your creations! I also hope that you’ve enjoyed my inspiration as guest designer for these challenges the last few months. Thanks for your support friends!

Challenges:

Creative Knockouts – For the Kids
Colour Crazy Craft – Anything Goes with coloring
Crafty Catz – Anything Goes optional “All About the Girls”
Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
Allsorts – Anything BUT birthdays
Everybody Art – Glitter and/or Pearls
Creatalicious – Anything Goes optional: lots of bling/glitter
Creative Moments – Summer is Here

Massive Mass Producing!

Hello friends! I hope that you are having a great week so far! After the little “heat wave” hit us, I’ve been enjoying some ‘nicer’ outdoor temperatures, finally. As you may have read in a previous post, I had been working on my son’s wedding invites as well as some thank you cards for them to send out afterwards. I will be sharing that later on, but today I have some other “mass production” that I’ve been working on in addition to those:

First up, I’d like to share a set of cards I’ve made for the Taylored Expressions Fans FB Group challenge for May which calls for “4-8 mass-produced cards. (similar or identical)” & the colors “Poblano Pepper with Confetti Cake“. I do not own the Poblano Pepper, but I do have a small cube of Confetti Cake ink.

I’ve been wanting to create several sympathy cards so that I had them on hand instead of making at the last minute for one, so I was happy to get these made. I decided it was just easier to make them identical so that I didn’t have to decide how to arrange or cut my papers, etc. I’ve used the Taylored Expressions Diamond Botanicals with dies as well as the TE Diamonds Masking Stencils for the main image. The background uses the TE Pierced Lattice Cutting Plate over a piece of Toffee cardstock.

Here’s a close-up look at one of the cards. I stamped the floral image in black ink as well as the sentiment from the stamp set and then took one of the Diamonds masking stencils with some Confetti Cake Ink to softly blend around the edges of the sentiment area with it. I also used a blender brush to blend around the edges of the cut Toffee layer too.

Since I only had the Confetti Cake ink color, I matched up the coordinating colors with my Copic markers and colored in the image using only those color tones. I think it worked out great for sympathy cards. After I colored up the images, I used the coordinating die cut and popped it up over the Toffee cut panels with foam tape squares and then layered it over a side folding white A2 card base. I finished each one with some of those coordinating TE Pastel Tiny Diamonds. (Although the suggested listed coordinating colors on the website don’t have the Poblano Pepper or Confetti Cake, I thought it matched up rather nicely to this anyway.) I think these cards work out great for mailing too.

And speaking of sympathy cards and Taylored Expressions, I thought it would be great to create a nice gift set too:

If you remember one of my previous posts, you may remember where I created a greeting card gift set (CLICK HERE). I’ve went along with the same idea here and made them all sympathy related cards using my own acetate box and some Taylored Expressions products. These were all quick and easy to pull together using the Taylored Expressions Done for You Alcohol Ink Background Panels along with a previously released card kit stamp set/die.

I decided to heat emboss several of the fern images with white, gold and silver over a few of the panels, some over white and vellum and then cut out. I placed them along with the heat embossed sentiments cut out and arranged them over the panels. I matched up the cardstock that I had from my stash with the panels to create the completed cards.

Here’s a gallery of a few of the cards up close along with the finished gift box tied with a ribbon: (Just click on each photo from my website to see them enlarged.)

I think this will make a nice gift for someone as I always hear people saying they never have a sympathy card on hand when they need one or for those people that don’t make their own cards too.

And lastly, I’ve made a couple sets of mini slimline style cards using the Taylored Expressions In the Garden-Triple Slim Layering Stencil:

I quickly fell in love with this quad type of stencils especially with these gorgeous florals! I love the way these floral panels are different from one another, and you can stencil them all up with the same color in one pass! I needed a couple of Mother’s Day cards, so making all of these at once sure came in handy for bonuses too!

Using the “craft-along” video from Taylor and Heather, I used the same, or similar colors that was used, added my black splatters and then used the TE On Occasion with dies as well as the TE Get the Word Out-Mother’s Day with dies for the sentiments where I white heat embossed over black cardstock and cut out. I just glued to the panels and attached each panel to a white mini slimline card base.

And then here’s another set of mini slimline cards using the same products as above except I used Toffee instead of the white cardstock for these. I also stamped the sentiment with dark brown ink over white cardstock and then cut them out to place over the stenciled panels.

I also used both dark brown and white paint to make the splatters over these. I also used the TE mini slimline stitched and scallop die cuts for these cards and then layered them over top of a Toffee mini slimline card base. I’ve also added a few TE white rhinestones for a bit of sparkle too.

I also think that these would make great greeting card gift sets as well! So, then it’s just a matter of which ones to keep and which ones to give away as a gift!?🤔

Hope you’ve enjoyed my mass production post today or have been inspired in some way. Thank you so much for taking the time to drop in and say hi as I enjoy hearing from you!

Challenges:

Creative Friday – No patterned paper (top set of cards only)
Colour Crazy Craft – Anything Goes with coloring (top set of cards only)
Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
Sparkles Monthly – Floral Frenzy
Lil Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes
Stamping Sensations – Anything Goes optional: Flowers/Fauna

Some Inky Stamper Escaping!

Hello friends! It has not only warmed up over my way, but we went from about 50 degrees to straight up 90 degrees within the last few weeks! I think it’s supposed to slightly cool down in a few days, but I’m happy it’s warmer anyway. Hope that you’re all doing well too. Been wanting to share with you what I’ve been up to, but first I have this fun card I recently made:

I thought this was so fun and easy to create! If you’ve ever made a gate-fold card, try one of these interlocking ones! I love the way it opens up from just a traditional card. This is the first time I’ve tried one of these and I’ve made it for this month’s Inky Stamper Inkspirations FB Group‘s challenge…which is to make a gatefold card.

I’ve also used one of the brand-new stamp sets that came out from Inky Stamper called “Iguana“. I’ve stamped the images out on Bristol Smooth watercolor and used my Zig Brush Markers to color them in. The stamp set has a coordinating Iguana die, but I fussy cut the cactus out to place behind him. I white heat embossed the sentiment from the stamp set and die cut it out with a banner die to place at the bottom of the card.

You will notice that I’ve only attached HALF of the panels on the front so it can be opened freely with the circle frame interlocking with the circle image panel.

To complete the decorating, I’ve used the Doodlebug Swiss Dot paper pad and added some Picket Fence Reflections Gems for a few accents on the front. I also took a few markers to add some stitch lines.

Here’s what the card looks like when it is completely shut. You just have to be sure that the two circle panels can freely open without interference, which is why I had to cut a very small piece from the Iguana’s tail so it could close properly. I honestly don’t think it takes anything away from the design.

And then when the gatefold opens, you can see my inside sentiment. I’ve taken a strip of the paper I’ve used on the front and added it to the inside to make it all cohesive. (I think I’ll add some stitch lines to it now that I’m looking at it.)

And speaking of “Inky Stamper“, I had a really fun time not this past weekend but the prior weekend taking part in the “Inky Stamper Escape Event”! I spent the weekend crafting, doing some fun make’n takes, shopping and meeting the special people behind the company! So very exciting and so much fun…especially meeting new friends!

SO EXCITED to have met Chelsea and Kim! Really enjoyed the time and trying out all of the new things!!

Here we are! This is the crew that stayed for the weekend although there were several others that stopped in to partake in the make-n-take fun or do some shopping. It was so fun to meet some new friends and get to know them too!

And of course here are the Make-n-takes we did with all of the new release items! Lots of interactive fun with a waterfall card, shaker card, slider card, mini treats and even a mini card with a cool foiling technique.

The swag bag was too cute with a special tag that had my name on it, an Inky Stamper pin and lots of fun goodies inside (not shown). Plus an Inky Stamper mug with some yummy goodies inside too! Aside from being spoiled, it was fun to be able to stamp with friends while working on some of my own projects. Really great time and special thanks to Chelsea and Kim for making it a memorable one.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my gatefold card and post today! Thanks so much for stopping in as I enjoy hearing from you!

Challenges:

Inky Stamper Inkspiration FB Group – gatefold card
Crafty Friends – Animals and/or birds (including insects)
Crafty Animals – Anything Goes + animal(s)
Krafty Chicks – Stamp Act
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes
QKR Stampede – Anything Goes
Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes

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

ATCs, Greeting Card Gift Set, Pet Sympathy and Class Results too!

Hello friends! It seems that I have went MIA on you, but I promise I’m still here! I’ve been really busy “Behind the Scenes” as they say and have many things going on at once that I’m trying to juggle, but I do have TONS of things to share that I’ve been doing and hope you enjoy seeing them! (LOTS of photos!)

First up I have a couple of fun Summer themed ATC sized cards using some Inky Stamper sets called “Splash” and “Chaise Lounge“. (Still not wanting to warm up much for Spring…so I’m wishing for HOT summer now!😁) I made them for this month’s theme of “ATC sized or mini cards” challenge in their FB group. I started out with a sunray stencil and used some yellow glaze paste and once dried I added some watercolor over it which was resisted by the glaze which gave me this look for the background. I splattered it and then added some strips of blue dotted paper cut from a wave border and then I ripped a piece of gold at the bottom. I cut cut with a scallop die and layered over a black 2.5″x3.5″ piece of black cardstock folded in half and went around the edges with a gold ink pad.

I white heat embossed the sentiments from each stamp set and then cut portions of them out with my scissors to attach over the backgrounds. The images were colored with Copics, fussy cut out and popped up with foam tape over top.

Next, I wanted to share a “Greeting Card Gift Set” that I have made and gave as a gift for someone. I used this wonderful product idea from Taylored Expressions called “Stamp & Give Card Kit 1” and it’s something that I had wanted to put together for a very long time on my own, but this product came along recently which pushed me into gear with no excuse of gathering things together on my own as this was already together for me. All I had to do was do the stamping and stenciling. I coordinated the colors with what was in the set. I like the fact that the recipient of this give set can choose which greeting they want to use for each card and the package of greetings are ready with a foam strip on the back of each one. For my designs, I’ve used the TE “Floral Flurry” Background stamp and stencils which I received from the “Stamp Joy Virtual Event” that I had attended. (not in store as it was exclusive for the event…photos at the bottom of post for that!) I’ve added 3 gems randomly to the fronts of each card.

With the kit, it comes with all of the envelopes, card bases, glassine bag to hold all of the sentiment strips, the card fronts and even the acetate box to put them all in. I just added some ribbon once I put all the cards inside. I certainly plan on doing some more of these greeting card gift sets soon! I think it’s always nice to have a set of themed cards all together and ready to go when you need to grab one quickly!

Unfortunately, next up I needed a pet sympathy card and I thought you could never go wrong with paw prints and hearts. I’ve kept this simple and pulled out some favorite Whimsy Stamps “Fill My Heart” and “Furever In Our Hearts” stamp sets for the paw prints and the sentiment. I’ve also used the My Favorite Things “Paw Prints Die-Namics” to die cut a couple of paw prints over the heart that I’ve punched out from red cardstock along with some smaller hearts above it.

I’ve used a glitter brush pen to make the hearts sparkly looking. This was all done over a kraft colored card front that was cut with a double-stitched rectangle die and placed over an A2 sized white card base.

I really need to get a set of pet sympathy going so that I already have them on hand as needed because it seems like I’ve sent many out and don’t have anymore…and I need another one already. I actually need to make sure I have several sympathy cards in general on hand, so I know I’ll be replenishing that soon too.

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And lastly, I thought you might want to see all of the projects that I made during my classes and make-n-takes that I’ve done during the Taylored Expressions “Stamp Joy Spring Virtual Event” from last month…gosh, It’s been that long already and I’m just now posting them!🙄

The first four cards were from the classes on the first day (using the same product/style line), and the others are from the second day with all of the Make-n-Takes. If you’re visiting directly on my website, just click on each photo below and it will enlarge so you can see it better along with the typed details about it!

This is the first card in the TE Stamp Joy class series using the “Floral Flurry” products that I also used in the greeting card gift set above in the post. We used some markers on this for details and did some foiling. This is a “special” card….see next photo for the inside.

I’m really far behind in catching up with whatever the challenges currently are as well as seeing what’s going on with my fellow blogging friends, so I will get going as soon as I can!

Thanks so much for stopping in and I’ll see you soon!😘

Challenge Up Your Life With Splatters

Hello friends and happy April 1st! We’re moving right along into Spring now and it seems that I’m still waiting for the warmer temperatures to come rolling in any time now. Hope that you’re enjoying the season wherever you are.

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 today their new challenge for April is “SPLATTERS“. Hope you can share your splattering makes with us this month! (Check out the challenge blog for details and inspiration!)

#146_Kleckse_CUYL

Here’s the card that I’ve created for this month’s challenge:

I haven’t used my alcohol inks in a while, and I just got some new Black Alcohol ink cardstock to try out. I started by dropping some alcohol ink “mixatives” and added a few other metallic and non-metallic alcohol inks over it. It seemed that the Pearl “mixative” was a good base to layer other colors over top of it. I pushed the colors around a bit with an air blower where I wanted but left some black area in places too. I then took a brush and loaded it with some silver metallic alcohol ink and splattered over the panel. I thought the black made for a really easy galaxy style background with great results.

Once I was finished with the look, I also took some silver foil that picks up places over the “wet looking” areas of the alcohol inks. This is such a shiny and shimmer look!

The stamp I chose to use for the card comes from the Taylored Expressions Gus & Gertie-Best Buds stamp set and dies. I stamped and colored the image on white cardstock, then cut it out with the coordinating die. The die also cuts the stars next to the image, but I just cut this die out again in silver mirror cardstock for just placing the stars where I wanted them on my card. I also took a strip of regular black cardstock and silver heat embossed the sentiment from the stamp set and layered it over more silver mirror cardstock.

The alcohol ink panel as layered over the silver mirror cardstock and attached to an A2 sized top folding black card base. And before popping up the colored image with foam tape, I splattered some yellow over the moon and then once dry I covered it with a glitter brush pen. It’s so hard to capture it all in a photo, but hopefully you can see some of the details if I point it out.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my card today with the “splatters” theme and come join in the challenge with us this month!

Thanks so much for stopping in and enjoy your day!

Challenges: