heat embossing – Stamped Smiles

Guest Design Spot For Retro Rubber Challenge and Playing Tic-Tac-Toe!

Hello there friends! I hope that you’ve had a great weekend and found some enjoyable moments for yourself! I had a nice and cozy weekend with my hubby!

Today, I’m thrilled to share my post for the Retro Rubber Challenge Blog as I’ve been asked to do a guest design spot for their challenge! Retro Rubber is known for their challenges in which they challenge you to pull out those neglected older stamps from your stash and use them! (They ask that you use a stamp that is at least 1 year or older to enter). For this particular challenge, they’e asking you to follow along with a fun Tic-Tac-Toe board as a reference for your project:

RRCB 127

For my card, I was going for a diagonal direction one way, but it ended up fitting with several different directions on this board! LOL! I just had fun playing I think:

(My card below utilizes the top row across, and diagonally in both directions!) Squares used for my card are: green, twine, pattern paper, die cut or punch, sympathy and nature.

Vicki-RRCB127GDT-EHMondoHydrangea

Isn’t this such a pretty floral stamp?! Hydrangeas are pretty much my fave all time flower! The colors amaze me and I have a line of them in my backyard along my fence and look forward to seeing them bloom every year! I take photos of them too!

Well I have this container sitting on a shelf in my stamp room where this particular stamp and die set is just “staring at me” awaiting for me to pull it out! I didn’t realize that it was actually a 3 year old set until I pulled it out, but do you remember this Mondo Hydrangea from Ellen Hutson by Julie E? Fell in love with it immediately, purchased it and think I may have used it one time! I was excited about pulling it out to make my card for today as it’s one that I really love! 🙂

I started by heat embossing the image with some Brutus Monroe Gilded EP and then used my Clean Color Real Brush markers and a water brush pen to blend out the colors over the images. I then used the Mondo Hydrangea coordinating dies to cut out all of the images. I also took some vanilla cardstock to die cut the top border with the MFT Stitched Scallop Basic Edges die as well as cut it out along with the green pattern papers with the MFT A2 Stitched Rectangle STAX die. These layers were attached over an A2 sized vanillia top folding card base.

I’ve used a sentiment from the Whimsy Stamps Furever in Our Hearts stamp set and heat embossed that over that vanilla die cut panel as well. (Adorable pet sympathy set to have on hand!)

The flowers were popped up over the design with foam tape, but before I attached the large hydrangea to the card, I took some metallic gold twine and tied a bow around the stem. Lastly, I added some clear confetti sequins.

Here’s a closer look at the watercolor I’ve done over the flower. I don’t do this very often, but it’s always satisfying when I play around with it! At first I thought it would be intimidating to color, but it’s really not. I just added layers of watercolor as I wanted it to look. You can really see where the EP shines on this!

I had thought about adding some glitter over it, but wanted to keep it soft since it’s a sympathy card.

Vicki-RRCB127GDT-EHMondoHydrangea-flat

It seems that I hardly ever have a sympathy card on hand when I need one, so this will be a great one to have on stand by for my collection.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed my card today and have been inspired in some way! Please be sure to stop on over at the Retro Rubber Challenge Blog to check out the wonderful inspiration from design team and play along with us! We can’t wait to see what older stamps you have in your stash too!

Thanks for stopping by today and I’ll see you soon!

Other challenges I’d like to enter this card for:

Cute Card Thursday – Green
Krafty Chicks – KCC491 All Occasions
Crafty Catz– #490 Anything Goes + optional twist: Flower Power

Tidings of Joy with Whimsy Stamps

Hello friends! It’s December and that means Whimsy Stamps has fun things coming out! Have you checked out December’s release at Whimsy Stamps yet? There are lots of really cute digital stamps in the store! CHECK THEM OUT HERE!

I have this really sweet card just perfect for this time of the year….

Vicki-WSChristmasManger-Dec3

Today I’m sharing this really sweet image called “Christmas Manger” by Crissy Armstrong. Isn’t this just as precious as can be! You may remember a card I did last year IN THIS POST with a penguin style manger. Really love Crissy’s sweet images and I’m thinking I may have to start collecting her mangers she comes out with each year now! LOL!

After coloring up this image, I’ve fussy cut it out while I worked on the background design. I started by ripping a piece of masking paper and covered the bottom portion of a square 4″ piece of cardstock. I took a “Light Ray” stencil and ink blended some Chipped Saphire distress ink over it. While the stencil was still on it, I took some white watered down paint and splattered over the background. After removing the stencil, I let that dry while cleaning up my stencil and work area. After it was dry, I took some Scattered Straw and Mustard Seed distress inks and blended over top. I then took a glitter brush pen and went over each of the yellow strips in the background. (I also covered the tops portions of the images too. You can see this all better in the photos below.) Lastly, I’ve used the other side of the masking paper that I ripped to cover up the sponged rays and ink blended with Rusty Hinge, Walnut Stain and Ground Espresso. I used a marker to add some shading around the image and glued it down.

For the card, I’ve used a navy 5.25″ square card base and I’ve also used it as part of a layer behind the image panel along with a piece of gold mirror cardstock. It’s hard to completely see this, but I’ve printed out some digital papers from the Whimsy Stamps Christmas Red, Gold and Green collection as well as the Whimsy Stamps Rustic Wood and Brick Collection. The background was sponged with the same colors that I’ve used for the bottom of the image panel. I’ve used some twine for the center strip area and tied a bow along the side with it. The image panel layered with the Gold Mirror cardstock was popped up with some craft foam over that.

I’ve used a wooden star that I’ve heat embossed several times with some Gold Sparkle EP which is what I’ve used to heat emboss the sentiment at the bottom of the image panel from the Whimsy Stamps Holiday Mini Sentiments. To finish it off I’ve decided to add some Studio Katia Sparkling Crystals.

Whew! Yeah, it took a bit to create! LOL!

Here you can better see the sparkle and shimmer on the yellow “light rays” as well as the tops of the images where the light might be shining on them. I’ve got the image colored up with my go-to Copic markers.

You can also see the sparkle and shine on the wooden star and sentiment from the gold sparkle embossing powder. Plus of course the shine from the gold mirror cardstock.

Vicki-WSChristmasManger-Dec3-flat

I hope you’ve enjoyed my card today! I sure had fun putting it together and I know someone special that this needs to get sent to as soon as I can! Time is running out for it to make it on time! Oh yes…that dreaded time running out is near isn’t it?! LOL

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I appreciate you being here! I will be seeing you again soon my friends!

Here are the Whimsy Stamps products used on my card today with affilate links:

Challenges I’d like to enter this card for:

Creative Knockouts – Winter/Holidays
Daring Cardmakers – Anything Crafty with theme Shining Lights
Crafty Friends– Anything Goes
Merry Little Christmas – December Anything Christmas Goes
Country Views– Stars
Crafty Animals – #33 Anything Goes

Cards From My Heart

Hello friends! With this not cooler, but COLDER weather we’ve been having, it looks like it may be a hard winter ahead and I’m already feeling it in my body unfortunately. So with the heating pad and warm slippers, I’m still crafting on! 🙂

Today I’d like to share some cards that I have made for my hubby using some of the adorable stamps from Lawn Fawn …which I love:

At the end of October hubby and I celebrated our 20 year anniversary and I made this card for him to let him know how I feel about him after all these years. This would be something that we would certainly do where we live! We always enjoy looking at the night sky together.

I started with some watercolor paper and blended some distress inks for the background and spritzed it with water. I then made sure it was completely dry before white heat embossing the stars that I colored in the centers with a gel pen. I then took a white gel pen and added more “dots” in the sky.

I’ve used Upon a Star and the Winter Skies stamp sets for both the images and sentiment. I took the Little Town border die to add over top of the starry sky and layered it onto a navy card base that has some more die cut stars (from Upon a star coordinating dies) at the top sponged with white ink.

For the sentiment, I had to piece together a couple of words from different sets to get it to say what I wanted it to. I cut it out with a long banner die from My Favorite Things.

Here’s a closer view of the sky and the images. For the fox couple, I black heat embossed it and then used my Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers to color them with and then popped them up over the corner of the scene with foam dots.

I actually used a color palette and sketch from a challenge blog, but missed the deadline to post it, but I think it turned out great and hubby enjoyed it. He said, “Yes, this is something we would do!” He also likes the color blue.

Here’s another card I made for hubby as his birthday was this last Friday:

Although this one is a bit simple, it has a really fun interactive element to it! If you’ve known me for a while, then you may know that my husband is an electrician, so this card was very fitting for him!

I have used the Lawn Fawn Turn Me On stamp set and coordinating dies along with the Life is Good stamp set for the sentiment and the Push Here stamp set to make this card. I also have a large stash of Lawn Fawn papers that I’ve used for this which I don’t think are available any longer.

I used vellum for the light bulb that was heat embossed over it and then I colored it yellow on the backside of the vellum to place behind the die cut opening from the blue panel. That was die cut with the coordinating dies. I stamped and colored the light switch as well and also die cut it out over the blue panel. I then white heat embossed the sentiment and cut it out with a sentiment banner die from MFT. It was sponged with white ink and glued over the blue panel.

The best part of this design is that when you push on the light switch, the light bulb turns on! I’ve used the Chibitronics to create this feature.

You can see here what it looks like when you push on the light switch!

You can also check out this quick few seconds video to see it in action below: (CLICK HERE if you want to see it on You Tube.)

Although this looks like a pretty simple card, mechanically it had it’s difficulites with the light up interior portion of it and it was met with some challenges and patience as I had to keep testing it to make sure it worked right! At one point I had to tear it apart because the battery accidentally flipped over! I also had to use like 4 layers of foam tape so that the light wouldn’t continuously be on all the time! LOL!

It was all worth it though as it was for the love of my life and he really did appreciate the efforts that went into making it as he even took it to work with him so that he could show it to his fellow co-workers! LOL! They seemed to be pretty impressed with it and even offered some advice on how much to charge for something like this! LOL

The card was thick due to the amount of foam on it, so it didn’t fit into a regular envelope. Since it went to hubby, I just hand delivered it to him! 🙂

Hope you’ve enjoyed my share of creations today that I made for hubby! I will be seeing you again soon! Thanks for dropping in friends…I will be visiting soon!

Challenges:

Lawn Fawnatics – Cards for Guys
Creatalicious – Anything Goes with optional: For a Man
Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
Cardz 4 Guyz – All Wrapped Up (top card with scarves)
Get Creative – Anything Goes
Through the Craft Room Door – Anything Goes
Retro Rubber – Anything Goes + stamps older than 1 year (ALL listed are at least 1 year or older!)

Whimsy Stamps New Release with 2 Christmas Tails

This is the second post from me today. Please CLICK HERE to see the first post for 2 Crafty Critter Crazies or scroll down below.

Hello friends! It’s October 1st which also means it’s time for a brand new release for Whimsy Stamps…I’m back to share a card I’ve made for the brand new digital release at Whimsy Stamps! CLICK HERE to check them all out!

Today I’m sharing a Christmas card I’ve made using an adorable image:

Vicki-WS2XmasTails-Oct1

These adorable critters are having some festive fun! This image is by Crissy Armstrong called “2 Christmas Tails“. It had previously been released as a rubber stamp, but now you can grab it in digital format starting this month!

This is an unusual size and card opening for me on this card, but I wanted to be sure that the image fit completely on the design I was creating.

So I started with a 4.5″ x 5.75″ side folding white card base. I took a piece of red foil paper and clear heat embossed the snowflakes over it from the Whimsy Stamps Basic Christmas Backgrounds clear stamp set. I mounted this over a piece of gold foil paper, added the striped paper in the bottom corner, the oval cut image panel and tied a glitter ribbon around the layers and mounted it to the white card base.

I took the Whimsy Stamps Christmas Large Word die and cut it from some of the gold foil paper and layered it over top of the gold foil banner I created by black heat embossing the sentiment. I finished it off with some snowflake rhinestones above the critters.

Here’s a closer look at how I’ve colored in these adorable critters. The photos never show everything about the details of the card, but it’s so cool in person! 🙂

I’ve used Copic markers to color this in. You can view/purchase Copic markers from Whimsy Stamps or you can click on the underlined numbers below for a particular color that I’ve used to color with:

Santa Hats & Candy Cane – R39, R37, R35, R32, BG000
Bunny – E35, E33, E31, E30, R20, R00, C3, C1, C0
Mouse – W7, W5, W3, W1, R20, R00
Bell – Y28, Y26, Y21, YG13, YG11
Ground/Shadows – E84, E81, C1, E0000

I used a white gel pen for hightlights on the candy cane and parts of the bunny’s tail. I also covered the bell with a glitter brush pen. I took a glue pen and added some clear glitter over the hat trimmings. To get the blue faded color around the image, I used the oval die I cut it out with as a “mask” to blend some blue distress ink softly over it.

Vicki-WS2XmasTails-Oct1-flat

I hope you’ve enjoyed my Christmas card today and have been inspired in some way!

Thanks so much for joining me today and I’ll be seeing you soon!

Please be sure to stop in and check out the Whimsy Stamps blog today and throughout the entire month of October! Today kicks off the annual “31 Nights of Halloween” blog celebration! There are lots of fun ways to win…so be sure to check it out!! 🙂

Here are the following Whimsy Stamps products with affiliate links that I’ve used on my card today:

Challenges I’d like to enter this card for:

Crafty Creations – Anything Goes
The House That Stamps Built – S2519 Anything Goes
Creative Knockouts – Anything Goes
Crafty Catz – #476 Anything Goes
QKR Stampede – #365 Anything Goes
Simon Says Stamp Monday – Let’s Get Ready for Christmas
Crafty Cardmakers – Add a Critter
Sketch Saturday – (I turned sketch)

Cute Card Thursday is Sentimental

Hello friends! Hope you’re having a great week so far!

Today starts a brand new challenge over at Cute Card Thursday and the theme for this week is “Sentimental“. We look forward to seeing your interpretation with your creations for this challenge! Our sponsor is Crafty Doodle Chick, so be sure to play along for your chance to win!

Here’s how I’ve interpretated the challenge this week:

Vicki-CCT601-Sentimental

I really love sentiment stamps and sometimes they just seem to get used when you need to add a sentiment with your design. I actually like to use them as not only the focal point of a design, but I like to also use them for backgrounds!

For my card today, I have used an older Simon Says Stamp card kit. (Nov 2016) I really loved the font and the wording in this set and the different sizes that you can mix together. The images are from the SSS Thankful Heart stamp set.

I started by stamping two of the images from the set with white ink over the A2 sized top folding card base and then added some papers from the card kit on the bottom portion. I took a piece of white twine around the center of the card and added a button and bow.

The heart was die cut from a piece of cardstock from the kit with a stitched heart die and then I white heat embossed the sentiment and added some craft foam behind it before attaching it to the card. I’ve also added a couple of hearts that were cut from white cardstock.

Very simple card, but a good one to have on hand for someone! I hope you’ve enjoyed it and please be sure to join along with us this week!

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

Challenges:

Double D – Focus on the Sentiment
Aud Sentiments – Anything Goes + Sentiment
Retro Rubber – rrcb120 – Anything Goes + stamps older than 1 year (circa 2016)
Shopping Our Stash – embossing
Sweet Stampers – Use a Sentiment
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything Goes

Grateful for Brutus Monroe

Hello friends! Happy Saturday! Yay! The weekend is finally here! 🙂

I’m sharing a card I made today for the Brutus Monroe blog. Be sure to subscribe for updates and more inspiration from the design team! Christopher (owner of Brutus Monroe) has posted a 10 minute video on the un-boxing of this month’s September inspiration box if you haven’t see it yet – CLICK HERE!)

Vicki-BMGrateful-Sept7

I really love all things Fall including the beautiful colors you start seeing from the leaves on the trees. Nothing better than a nice walk in the brisk cool air! This is what has inspired my card today too!

I knew I wanted to used this beautiful Golden Gourd EP and heat set this sentiment from the Grateful stamp set with it. I think it’s awesome just to have a nice sentiment like this be the focal of your card sometimes. It was heat set over a piece of Alabaster cardstock and then I sponged around the edges with the Phone Book Surface Ink. I wanted a bit more sparkle, so I took my Embossing Ink pad and rubbed it along the edges of the panel and heat embossed some of the Vintage Sparkle over it.

And of course I wanted to do some foiling too because it’s just fun especially when you have these cool Vintage Wallpaper-Foilable Washi Sheets to do it on! I used the Deco Foil Spring Grass transfer sheets over it and then used more of that Phone Book Surface ink to sponge around the edges and also heat set some more of that Vintage Sparkle over the edges too.

For the background, I took a piece of Alabaster cardstock measuring 4″ x5.25″ and covered it with the Embossing Ink pad. I used some more of that Golden Gourd EP and heat set this entire piece. Then I took the foiled strips and attached them over top of this panel and layered onto a top folding A2 sized Jurassic card base. I also layered the embossed sentiment panel over a piece of this same cardstock.

I then added the sentiment panel over the card front with some BM foam tape and then added some die cut leaves that I sponged with ink and then a couple of gold sequins with some gold glitter in the centers for more sparkle to finish it off.

Here’s a closer look at the heat embossed sentiment, background, and the sparkle around the edges where I heat embossed too. The EP looks really stunning in person!

Vicki-BMGrateful-Sept7-flat

And here’s another look at the foiled washi strips too with the card laying flat.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed my Fall creation today and were inspired in some way! Thank you for joining me today as well as the entire week! THAT really is something to be grateful for! See you soon!!

Below are the Brutus Monroe products used on my card today with affiliate links:

3x4 June 2019 Inserts

Challenges I’d like to enter this card for:

Creative with Stamps – Autumn
Unicorn – #47 Autumn
The Male Room – Autumn
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Stamp It
Aud Sentiments – Fall/Autumn + Sentiment
Daisy Chain – Autumn is Coming

Embossing for Cute Card Thursday

Hello friends! I hope you’re having a great week so far! Many thanks for the kind thoughts about my post yesterday and the video tutorial. I think I get a bit nervous thinking I’m going to mess up instructions, but perhaps I’ll get the hang of it! 🙂

Today starts a new challenge over at Cute Card Thursday! This week it’s all about “embossing“! Now there are a few different ways to emboss and I happen to love them all! So you could do heat embossing, “dry” embossing with an embossing folder or even maybe do some embossing paste! However you emboss it, we look forward to seeing what you come up with! Here’s the card I made for the challenge:

Vicki-WSPenguinTOT-CCT596

TRICK OR TREATS?!! Oh my word now how stinkin’ cute are these penguins?! Don’t they look like they just rang your door bell for Halloween?! LOL! That penguin image that I’ve used here is from an August Digital Release (previously released in red rubber) from Whimsy Stamps called Penguin Trick or Treaters and oh were they fun to color!

I was inspired to create with them for this embossing challenge, so I took a piece of Bristol Smooth Watercolor Paper and stamped the stars from the Whimsy Stamps Basic Christmas Backgrounds clear stamp set with a pigment black ink. I covered it with clear embossing powder and heat set them. Then I went over the stars with some distress inks (Mustard Seed, Carved Pumpkin, Wilted Violet & Blueprint Sktech) and ink foam blending tool. I also spritzed some water over it for the water dropplet look.

All of the panels including the card base were cut from the Whimsy Stamps Notched Squares die set. So I took the finished colored panel and attached it over a black die cut panel and then I took a piece of orange cardstock that was die cut and ran an embossing folder over it. (We Are Memory Keepers-Next Level Gemstones) I rubbed a white ink pad over it to pop out the details in the embossing and then I mounted it over the die cut black card base.

After coloring the penguins, they were fussy cut out and popped up with foam tape over the colored panel. I had an older Halloween set of dies that I couldn’t part with from Whimsy Stamps and I cut out some bats from black cardstock and attached those to the starry background. I also added some drops with some Tonic Studios Silver Glitter Accents for a bit of sparkle.

Here’s a closer look at these cute little trick-or-treaters and how I’ve colored them up. I have used the following Copic markers to color them with. CLICK HERE to view/purchase Copics from Whimsy Stamps or click numbers below for specific colors:

Penguin bodies – C8, C3, C1, 0blender, R00, YR27, YR24, Y35, White gel pen
Pumpkin – YR27, YR18, YR14, YR21, R20, YG67, YG63, YG61
Candy Bag – E33, E31, E30, wrote letters with Copic liner
Sherrif Costume – E89, E87, E84, E81, W5, W3, W1, Silver gel pen
Pirate Costume – R39, R37, R35, R32
Witch Costume – V17, V15, V12, YR07, YR04, Silver gel pen

Vicki-WSPenguinTOT-CCT596-flat

I think these look like a fun group to go trick-or-treating with, don’t you?! 🙂

I hope you’ve enjoyed my fun Halloween card today and were inspired in some way! Please be sure to stop by the Cute Card Thursday blog and have a look at the inspiration and come play along with us this week! Thanks so much for stopping in and I’ll see you soon!

Here are the Whimsy Stamps products I’ve used on my card today with affliate links: