Tag: handmade cards

A Single Flower at Sparkles Monthly

Hello friends!  Welcome to the start of a new week for mid-September!  I think Summer actually DID come back to us as we’ve set record high heats for this time of the year!  I think I’m ready for those cooler temps to come back! Ugh!  I know it won’t be long now and we can start enjoying trips outdoors as we look forward to picking apples and all Autumn festivities that we do!

Today is time to share a new challenge over at Sparkles Monthly and we have the theme of “USE A SNGLE FLOWER (floral image)”  this month.  Flowers seem to be everyone’s favorite.  Here’s what I came up with: 

Mine is a single sunflower image.  My husband planting them in our backyard this year and they were so pretty!  Of course, I forgot to take a photo of one before they died off.

The items I’ve used came from an older card kit from Simon Says Stamp including the stamp set called Sunflower Fields.  There is a single sunflower image that I thought would be perfect for this challenge, plus I can use more items from my stash!

For the size of the flower image, I wanted it to stand out, so I used a tag and twine from the kit and decided to make this a mini slim card size.

For the background:  I used a piece of watercolor cardstock and gold heat embossed the “Romantic Script” background stamp (retired) from My Favorite Things and then used some oxide inks swiped on glass with spritzed water to make a “smooshed” background.  I also used these same colors to watercolor my flower with. (except the green, I only used that for the flower)  I also used some gold watercolor to splatter over the tag.  I only splattered the tag because I didn’t think it would show very much over the card background.

I cut the smooshed watercolor panel to fit over a kraft side folding mini slimline card base.  I die cut the flower and the sentiment to attach over the tag, added some twine and then used foam tape to pop it up over the ink smooshed background.  Lastly, I’ve added some yellow sequins to finish it off.

I hope you will take some time to pull out a single flower and join us in the challenge this month!  Looking forward to seeing your creations!  Thanks so much for dropping by!

Challenges:

  1. Creative Inspirations – Anything Goes
  2. Ellibelle’s Garden Party – Anything In or From a Garden
  3. Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
  4. Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
  5. Penny’s – Anything Goes Using Paper
  6. Love to Craft – Anything Goes
  7. Crafts Galore Encore – Anything Goes

K is for Keep It Simple (CAS)

Hello friends and happy Friday!  The weather has decided to cool down quite a bit over the last couple of days and it’s been very nice to have the windows open for a change!  I think we’re supposed to have another spell of warm weather, but I’ll take the cool down for now!

Today is a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog!  Our next letter is “K”, and the hostess has chosen “K is for KEEP IT SIMPLE” (CAS style)   *Please remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter.*  I hope you’ll join in the fun with us.  Here’s the project I’ve made for this challenge:

That cat is not a fan of winter! LOL  I do love me some snark for the Holidays, so I thought this stamp set called “Holiday Grumplings” (retired stamp set) from Taylored Expressions would be great for a simple Holiday card.

I also think that CAS style cards are great for pulling out those left over scraps from your papers for little strips to create a simple layout, so that’s what I did here.  I stamped, colored with Copics the kitty and popped him/her up with foam tape over the snowflake strip.

Lastly, I just added a light brush with pink ink to the left of the kitty and then gold heat embossed the sentiment over it.  Placed the white panel over a pink A2 sized top folding card base and done.

  • I’m happy to report that I’ve spent some time going through my stash of cards and realized that I have several already finished and ready for sending out Christmas cards!  So I’m basically DONE for Christmas cards!  Yay!  The first time ever that I’m ready ahead of time!  NOW…hopefully I’ll send them out on time too! LOL

Hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and helped to inspire you to “KEEP YOUR CRAFTING SIMPLE” and join us for the challenge!  Look forward to seeing what you make!  Thanks so much for stopping in today! 

Challenges:

  1. Critter Crazy – Anything Goes with Featured Critter
  2. Crafty Animals – Anything Goes including Animal
  3. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2535 Anything Goes
  4. Merry Little Christmas – Anything Christmas Goes
  5. Creative Inspirations – Christmas in September

Mix It Up with a Fancy Fold

Happy September friends!  Can you believe we’re getting ready to get into the Autumn season already?!  It seems like the summer flew by, but I have to say that I’m so very ready for the falling leaves and all things Autumn to start up now…especially cooler temps!

Today also brings us to a new challenge over at the Mix It Up Challenge Blog.    The challenges always run for 6 weeks so there is plenty of time to enter.  The theme given for us this time is: Fancy Folds or you can always do the ‘Anything Goes” too.  Here’s the card that I came up with for the challenge using the theme:

This is a something I came across a while back and saved the tutorial for later to give it a go.  This is called a “Faceted Vertical Easel Card” and this is a 5″x7″ size.  I would give you a link to the tutorial, but when I started creating half-way through to come upon the layers, I noticed the measurements were not quite right, so I had to figure out an adjustment to make it work correctly.  I do love the look of it with its unique faceted design.  It’s basically just an easel style card with a bit of a design in the center fold area and going vertical instead of horizontal.  (If I make another again, I’ve decided another easier way to work it.

Since I was in the mood for the Autumn season, I decided to make my design with that in mind.  I started with a kraft cardstock base measuring 10″x7″ with all of the different scores/cuts for this design as well.  For decorating it, I’ve pulled out some Autumn papers by Photoplay in my stash and added a layer of glitter gold cardstock.  To make square aperture with the pumpkins, I pull a cardboard cutout from the paper pack to use with it, and then white heat embossed a sentiment and die cut to place on the bottom right of card.  Lastly, I’ve added some gold gems to both panels as well as the square panel in the center of the card.

I think what I like most about this is that it folds completely flat for mailing in an envelope.  Once the recipient receives it, you can slide it open to catch the strip on the right side of the card and it will stand up like the first photo in this post.

  • I hope you’ve enjoyed my fancy fold card today and you’ll hop on over to the challenge blog to see what the rest of the team has come up with.  I look forward to seeing the gallery and what fancy folds will be in there!

Thanks so much for stopping in today!  Have a great day!

Challenges:

  1. Creative Creases – Anything with a fun fold
  2. Penny’s challenge – Anything Goes using paper
  3. Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything Goes
  4. The Four Seasons Challenge – Fall
  5. The Crafter’s Cafe – Anything Goes optional:  Use Pattern Papers
  6. The Creative Crafters – Anything Goes

J is for JUMP

Happy Friday friends! 🎉 I see that we are nearing the end of August and that it’s time for kids to get back to school, which means, Autumn is heading our way!  I think I’m ready for cooler weather right now!  I just love all things Fall as it’s my favorite time of the year!  What is your favorite season?

Today starts up a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog!  Our next letter is “J”, and the hostess has chosen “J is for JUMP” (this can be anything that jumps!)   *Please remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter.*  I hope you’ll join in the fun with us.  Here’s the project I’ve made for this challenge:

I knew when I saw the theme for this challenge that I had to use a pile of leaves for “jump“!  I also think the best critters for that would come from Lawn Fawn of course!  Can you see the little “wee” mouse jumping out from the pile?!

I started with a white card front by blending some blue inks in the background for the sky.  I also used the Lawn Fawn Leafy Tree Backdrop: Portrait die to go over my ink blended sky background.  The frame and tree were cut out from dark brown woodgrain texture cardstock.  I used some green cardstock to cut the circle from the die set to place behind the tree as well as the LF Grassy Hillside Border die behind the tree and frame as well.

For the Autumn leaves pile and sentiment, I used the LF Jump for Joy stamp set/dies.  All images were colored with Copics and I white heat embossed the sentiment over the ink blended sky.  For the mice critters, I used the LF You Autumn Know stamp set/dies.  For the little bunny, I used the LF Butterfly Kisses stamp set/dies.  Some of the die cut images were just attached and others were popped up with foam tape for dimension.  I actually wanted my pile of leaves to be larger, so I stamped, colored and die cut two of them.  (I needed that little mouse on the right to be jumping out from the pile too!)

This was a fun one to make because I kept pulling out different sets to figure out which critters I wanted to use, but these cute mice get me every time.  It makes me look forward to seeing the colors, sights, smells and sounds of Autumn coming.  I hope you’ve enjoyed it too and I look forward to seeing all of the “jumping” that will appear in the gallery!

Thanks so much for stopping in today!  Have a great weekend!

Challenges:

  1. Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes
  2. The Creative Crafters – Anything Goes
  3. Sweet Stampin’ – Animals
  4. Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
  5. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2533 Anything Goes
  6. Creative Inspirations – Anything Goes
  7. Craft Rocket – Animals

Clean & Simple at Sparkles Monthly

Hello friends!  We’re still having some very warm temperatures with humidity making it worse. With seeing the kids starting back up at school, I am so ready for Autumn weather to get here!  Notice I didn’t mention the “W” word…just Autumn! LOL  Hope your able to have stable conditions wherever you are.

Today is time to share a new challenge over at Sparkles Monthly and we have the theme of “CAS (Clean & Simple)”  this month.  I always find this theme great for making a quick card when you need one.  Here’s what I came up with: 

Although I’ve only used one flower image for my card, I’ve also added a few die cuts and simple foiling on the sentiment to elevate the design a bit.

The flower image is actually the July “freebie” from Taylored Expressions when you place any order with them.  I quickly colored it up with Copic markers and then die cut the panel out with the TE Petite Scallop Gallery Builder die set and cut out another panel for the scallop frame around it with TE Blueberry cardstock.

For the sentiment, I used the TE Foil-It Sundry Sentiment panels and used the coordinating die set to cut it out.  I then used some silver Deco Foil over it.

Here’s a closer view of the flower and foiled sentiment pieces.  I forgot to mention that I’ve also dotted the center of the flowers with a silver gel pen.

For the finished card design, I used a regular A2 sized top folding horizontal white card base and then I cut an additional white card front piece from the TE Petite Scallop Rectangle Stacklets dies.  I also used the TE Diagonal Stitched Rectangle Stacklets dies to make the slanted stitch marks on the inside of the scallop panel.  (this doesn’t cut anything out, it just makes those lines around the edge.)

I placed this panel along with the flower and sentiment pieces over top to finish the card.

  • Hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and that you’ll stop by the challenge blog to see what the rest of the design team has come up with.  You have a whole month to join in the fun with us!  Hope to see your creation in the gallery!

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Challenges:

  1. Crafts Galore Encore – Anything Goes
  2. We Love Stamping – Flowers
  3. A Cut Above – Anything Goes with Die Cut(s)
  4. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2532 Anything Goes
  5. Penny’s – Anything Goes with Paper

 

I is for Ink Blending

Hello friends and happy August!  Hope you’ve been having a good start to your month so far.  I thought it was supposed to be the “lazy days of Summer”, but it sure isn’t feeling that way lately! LOL Now it seems like we’re getting ready for “back to school” time!  Where is this year going?!

Just wanted to share a new challenge up today over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog!  Our next letter is “I” and the hostess has chosen “I is for Ink Blending”   *Please remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter.*  I hope you’ll join in the fun with us.  Here’s the project I’ve made for this challenge:

I sure love to do some ink blending!  I love doing the dark to light with a watermark effect especially for ocean scenes.  So I started with a regular blend of blue ink colors starting light at the top and then working my way down to darker blues.  I think the colors used were Tumbled Glass, Salty Ocean, Blueprint Sketch and Blue Saphire Distress Oxide inks.  I then added the “Ray of Light” stencil (MFT store closed) over and ink blended with the same colors.  It was then spritzed with water and dabbed with paper towel for the bubbly look.

BEFORE I started any ink blending at all, I had an “Under the Sea” border die cut (MFT store closed) that I used to create a mask with labeling tape so that I could leave the border at the bottom for sand.  After the ink blending was finished, I ink blended some Antique Linen and Frayed Burlap Oxide inks to create the sand.  I didn’t worry about it getting into the blue area because the colors are much lighter in tone.  After ink blending was done, I cut the panel out with a “Wavy Pierced Rectangle dies” From Whimsy Stamps.

For the rest of the scene, I pulled out these cute ocean critters from Doodlebug called “Sea Life” (purchased from Scrapbook.com) that I stamped, colored with Copics and then fussy cut.  Even though I had the coordinating dies (no longer available), I didn’t want the white border to distract from the ocean scene.  It did come with an extra “seaweed” die in the set that I just cut out in white cardstock and then ink blended some green colors over it to add to the scene.  I also used a white gel pen for highlights and dots in the sand along with a brown marker and glitter gel pen for more details to the sand.

Here’s a closer view of some of the details. I tried tilting it slightly, but it’s hard to capture the sparkle from the sand with the glitter gel pen.

I know this looks really similar to my last post with the mermaid AJ page, but I think I was having some fun with these underwater projects, and I just sat and had a playing session with it.  I do hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and will join us in the challenge for some ink blending fun too!

Thanks so much for dropping by today! Have a great weekend!

Challenges:

  1. Four Season – Anything Goes Summer
  2. Critter Crazy – Anything Goes with Featured Critter
  3. Pearly Sparkles – Under the Sea
  4. Sweet Stampin’ – Use a Stencil + stamping
  5. Try it On Tuesday – Summer
  6. Cardz for Galz – Create a Scene
  7. Crafty Animals – Anything Goes with Animal(s)
  8. Allsorts – Animals/Anything Goes (various products mentioned and linked throughout the post)

Summer Days

Hello friends!  I hope that you’re staying cool during these Summer days!  For the most part, it’s too warm, humid or both outside, so I spend most days in the air condition.  Trying to organize things is what I’m attempting, but I end up crafting instead! LOL

I’m stopping by today to share that we have a new challenge over at Sparkles Monthly and we have the theme of “SUMMER DAYS”  this month.  This seems rather appropriate right now, so I hope you’ll join us.  Here’s what I came up with: 

I have used these penguins many times and I just love them!  This is an older set called “Penguins in Paradise” from My Favorite Things (store closed).  I thought they’d be perfect to use for this theme and I wanted to make a scene for them to do all of those fun Summer things that we do!

I started with another My Favorite Things die set called “Beach Scene Starter” that cuts out the sand/water/palm tree/shells/sun/clouds/land and then I used inks to ink blend them in various colors.  For the sand, I splattered several different watercolor colors and Copic Opaque White.

After placing my scene together, I stamped, colored (with Copics) and die cut the three penguins and beach ball that I added to my beach scene and popped up with thin foam tape.

I used a white gel pen to add highlights to the images as well as details to the water shore area, coconuts, beach ball and the shells.  I also took a glitter brush pen and went over the sun as well as the penguin’s shades for some shimmer.  The sentiment is from the  Taylored Expressions Mini Strips-Hello Summer that was white heat embossed over dark blue cardstock and cut out with the mini sentiment strips die.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and will join us for the challenge this month!  Please be sure to stop by the blog to check out the inspiration from the rest of the team!

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

Challenges:

  1. Four Seasons – Summer
  2. Love to Craft – Anything Goes
  3. Love to Scrap – Anything Goes
  4. Crafty Animals – Anything Goes + Critter
  5. Creative Moments – Use Die Cut (I used several)
  6. We Love Stamping – Sun/Sea/Sand or Anything Goes (within post details)
  7. A Cut Above – Anything Goes with a Die Cut
  8. Cupcake Inspirations – For the Birds (penguins)

G is for Girlfriend

Hello crafty friends!  Happy Friday to you!  Hope that you’re having a great Summer and a great start to your July month.  We’ve been busy doing lots of things and I got to visit my new grandson again which of course was wonderful!

I’m swinging in today to share a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog!   Our next letter is ‘G‘ and the hostess has chosen “G” is for GIRLFRIEND  *Remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter*  I hope you will find some time to play along!  Here’s what I’ve created:

Isn’t this the cutest image!  I found this adorable image called “Emmy and Wryn-BFF” from the Tiddlyinks store on Etsy.  I have always loved this artist’s images and I hope to be coloring up more of them soon!  

I colored the image with Copics and then black heat embossed the sentiment at the bottom and cut out the entire panel with a stitched scallop square die.  (P.S.  Have you heard that “My Favorite Things” has closed?)  Both the sentiment and die came from MFT.

I had a package of these pretty papers from another crafty friend laying around, so I pulled them out to use for this card.  I loved the flowers, so I cut a few of them out and popped them up in the corners with foam squares.  I added another strip of the papers in the center of the design behind the image panel that was also popped up with foam tape.

I finished with details on the images using a black gel pen for their eyes and a white gel pen for highlights.  I added some colored gems over top.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and that you’ll stop on over to the challenge blog to see what the rest of the team has come up with.  Thanks so much for dropping in!

Challenges:

  1. Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
  2. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2527 Anything Goes
  3. Crafts Galore Encore – Anything Goes
  4. Penny’s Paper Crafty – Anything Goes Using Paper

Mix It Up with Mixed Media

Hello friends and a happy July to you!  We’re celebrating July 4th Independence Day this weekend and I know it will be hot!  I think we’ll be watching fireworks from our TV inside the cool air this year!  Hope that whatever you’re doing this weekend that you stay cool and safe while you’re having fun.

Today also brings us to a new challenge over at the Mix It Up Challenge Blog.    The challenges always run for 6 weeks so there is plenty of time to enter.  The theme given for us this time is: Mixed Media or you can always do the ‘Anything Goes” too.  Here’s the card that I came up with for the challenge using the theme:

This was such a fun card to make!  I normally do mixed media on my art journal pages or a larger/3D item, but this time I wanted to make a card for this theme.  I pulled out some really fun AALL & Create products that I’ve been wanting to use and I thought this would be a good opportunity to try them out!  (I don’t know what it is about these wonky characters, but I think the weird eyeballs are so cute!)  I’ve used the “Coffee Time” stamp set with the girl, coffee cups and coffee beans at the bottom.  I’ve also used a Simon Says Stamp “Sunflower Fields” in the background and the “Sending Sunshine” sentiment.

To create the background: I’ve stamped a very large sunflower image in yellow ink over a white card base.  I’ve then used an AALL & Create “coffee stains” stencil with brown ink over top.  I then ink blended some more brown inks over the edges of the panel and then splattered it with both brown and white paints.  I took a pen and doodled around the edges and then attached it to an A2 top folding brown card base.  I had a left over strip from a collection of coffee backgrounds that I’ve made in a previous post you can see HERE and attached that to the bottom where I stamped the coffee beans in brown ink over it.  (I thought it would make for a good “grounding” for the coffee girl and cups to stand on.)

I’ve used another AALL & Create product called “Heart Nook” that I die cut some circles from, and I thought looked like coffee stains, in glitter cardstock.  I also cut an additional strip of that to go along the bottom strip of the card.  I then added the stack of coffee cups, the girl that I colored up with Copics and fussy cut out.  I white heat embossed the sentiment, die cut and popped both that along with the girl using foam tape.  I also separately cut out her eyeball and popped that up over her for extra dimension.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my coffee mixed media card today!  I had fun coloring her up and very happy to use more things from my stash too!  Please be sure to pop on over to the Mix It Up Challenge blog to have a look at what the rest of the team created and play along!

Have a wonderful July 4th weekend.

Challenges:

  1. Just Us Girls – Stencil Week (coffee stains stencil)
  2. Crafty Catz – Anything Goes
  3. Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
  4. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2526 – Sunshine (hope sentiment and yellow works!)
  5. Addicted to Stamps & More – Die Cut(s) and/or Stencil(s) – I used both!

F is for Feather(s)

Hello friends and happy Friday to you!  It’s been so crazy warm over my way and I’m hoping this day finds us with a bit of a break in temperatures.

Today starts a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog!   Our next letter is F and it was my turn to choose a theme for this letter, so I  have chosen “F” is for Feather(s)  *Remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter*  I hope you will find some time to play along!  Here’s what I’ve created:

I thought this would be a fun theme to play around with as you could just add a bird or anything with feathers.  I look forward to seeing the projects for this one!  I was happy to have this chance to pull out some things in my stash that I hadn’t used yet.

I’ve used the Taylored Expressions “The Thing With Feathers” stamp set and long with the “Wings of Love” stamp set for this card.

I started with a kraft colored cardstock cut with a scallop rectangle die and masked off the edges to ink blend and stamp a smaller feather around the edges with brown ink.  I then took the flying birds image from the “Wings of Love” stamp set and stamped it in white ink.  I also decided to add some white splatter over that.  This panel was then attached to an A2 top folding white card base.

For the large feather at the bottom: I used my VersaMark ink pad to just ink up the edges of the feather, then I silver heat embossed just the edges of the feather.  Without removing the feather stamp from my MISTI, I inked up the entire feather with VersaMark ink and then used a white opal embossing powder over the entire image.  Since this embossing powder is translucent, the silver edges that I embossed still showed through.  I die cut it out with the coordinating die and popped it up with foam tape at the bottom of the card.

The sentiment was stamped with grey ink and cut out with a coordinating die that I attached with thin foam tape at the top of the kraft panel.  I added some clear sequins to finish it off.

Thanks so much for stopping in today!  I hope you will grab your feather(s) and play along with us!  I’ll see you tomorrow for a new Art Journal Page!

Challenges:

  1. Gem of a Craft Challenge – Anything Goes
  2. Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes
  3. The Creative Crafters – Anything Goes
  4. Crafter’s Cafe – Anything Goes optional: masculine
  5. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2525 Anything Goes