Sweet Treats for Sparkles Monthly

Hello friends! I hope that you’re having a great week! Do you have any up-coming plans this weekend? I think I’m going to catch up on some craft things because it’s going to be a bit cooler and rainy over my way. The flowers are starting to come out and some of the daffodils have bloomed…so I hope the weather holds!

Today begins a new challenge over at Sparkles Monthly and Helen would like to see some “Sweet Treats” this month! I always think of birthday cards with this theme, so I thought I’d get ahead and make another birthday card to add to my stash especially since my son’s birthday was yesterday! So here’s my card for this challenge:

YUM! I’ve used the Simon Says Stamp Sundae Afternoons set and had lots of fun coloring up this image, and as I did, I was thinking of all of the different flavors of ice cream and toppings!

I realized that I needed a background and a surface for the sundae to be placed on, so I created a background with a cutting plate and sponged over the area where I was placing the sundae image. I also took a strip the same size and sponged the top area where the sundae would set on and then cut both pieces out with a stitched rectangle die. I also used some fun polka-dotted papers from my stash and added another stitched rectangle piece behind it before placing in on an A2 top folding white card base. The die cut background front panel was popped up with foam tape.

For finishing it off, I stamped the sentiment at the bottom from the stamp set, added some shimmer with a glitter brush pen over the whip cream on top and the fruit slice. I took some glossy accents over the cherries, toppings and jellybeans. I also added a few clear bubble drops to the background.

This was a really fun card to create and now I have a birthday card ready for someone! I hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and have been inspired to join the challenge with us this month as I’d love to see what everyone comes up with!

Thanks for dropping by and enjoy your weekend ahead!

Challenges:

Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes PIP2410
Penny’s Paper-Crafty – Anything Goes Using Paper #567
Crafts Galore Encore – Anything Goes #121
Love to Craft – Anything Goes #79
Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes #225
The Male Room – Food & Drink #184

I Scream, You Scream

Did you say “We All Scream for Ice Cream”? or did you think this was about Halloween? Well although that season is quickly approaching and I do love all the spooky things, this one is actually about ice cream today. As hot as it has been and going to be this weekend, it might be nice to have! However, I do have some on my card today:

I made a birthday card for someone that loves a local ice cream parlor that sells lemon ice cream, so that’s why it’s all in the bright yellow colors! I’ve used some yummy goodies today from Newton’s Nook for my card. I also followed along with a sketch challenge for the Inky Paws Challenge, and it’s about over, so I needed to get it in! (see details below)

I pulled out the NN Summer Scoops stamp set and stamped a couple of the cones, colored and cut them out with the coordinating dies. I also took a strip of vellum and heat embossed the sentiment in black over the pattern and black layers. The striped pattern was from the NN Birthday Woofs paper pad, and I used the largest of the NN Frameworks die set to cut it out. For the center of the striped panel, I used the heart die from the NN Furr-ever Friends die set and cut out the center where the vellum sentiment strip was placed. I added a piece of yellow cardstock behind the heart so that the sentiment would show up and layered the striped panel onto a black layer which I placed over a top folding A2 sized white card base. After popping up the ice cream cones, I added two black strips above and below them to fit the sketch design.

The Summer Scoops set also had the extra heart which I colored and cut out to place next to the sentiment. I added some shimmer to all of the hearts with a glitter brush pen and then I took some individual sprinkles from the NN Celebration Embellishment Mix and glued those on top of the ice cream. I saved the twine that came with my order from Newton’s Nook and tied a couple of bows to go on top of the ice cream cones. It was the perfect color to go with the sprinkles!

Of course, I need to make the envelope yellow too and I stamped an additional cone image on the bottom left corner of that too. And yes, the birthday person was also gifted some lemon ice cream!

I hope you’ve enjoyed my lemon ice cream card today or found some inspiration with it! Thanks for dropping by and I hope you’re able to enjoy yourself something refreshing this weekend even if it isn’t ice cream! 😉

Challenges I’d like to enter:

Inky Paws Challenge – #204 Sketch challenge using NND product
Cupcake Inspirations – CIC575 Add a bow/ribbon
AAA Birthday – Game #52 Anything Goes Birthday
The Crafty Addicts – Anything Goes
Tic Tac Toe – TTTC222 I used middle down: patterned paper, free, birthday
Penny’s Paper-Crafty– #553 Anything Goes using paper
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2332 Anything Goes

Inspired By Crafty Friends❤

Hello there friends!

I have to say thank you for your lovely comments and thoughts! Sometimes, you just never really know about something or how someone feels unless you are told or you ask! I’m really amazed that there are people I didn’t realize that actually cared if I posted something! Even if you have stats on your postings, you still don’t know who really DOES like to see what you’re posting. I’ve had some blog friends that have been around for MANY years, even before this blog platform and I’m so thankful for you guys! I am always truly inspired by you all for sure! Thanks for being around!❤ (Even if you don’t comment!!) 😉

I have another card that I didn’t get a chance to share as it was created at the end of February and I never fit it in to post, but I pulled out a very old stamp to play with because I was inspired by a friend to use it:

Vicki-ShellysPenguin

Maybe you have heard or seen the Whipper Snapper Designs stamps? I’ve had this adorable little penguin for a while now and I think he’s long gone from the website. I don’t see him in the store, but the name on the side of the wood stamp is “Ice Cream Penguin” and no date. I have a small collection of their stamps and they’re all older as I haven’t bought anything from them in years and not sure why really. I hold them in high regard like my old Peanuts Gang/Snoopy wood rubber stamps as you can’t find those any longer either! I don’t part with them! LOL!

Anyway, inspired by my friend Shelly that was featured on Splitcoast Stampers as the FS681 “mcshmidty” Featured Stamper. This is a challenge where you find a project from their online SCS gallery and use it as inspiration to create something. Here’s the card she made that I fell in love with in her gallery:

IMG_6447_12216_by_mcschmidty — card by Shelly Schmidt “mcshmidty” on SCS

I thought it would be fun to use an older stamp I had (I love penguins) and create a birthday style card with it. I have a few birthdays to celebrate in the colder months, so I was just trying to think ahead and I liked that this could be a masculine or feminine card to give out too! I can’t remember where I pulled the pattern paper from, but the colors really caught my eye! Instead of the strip like Shelly has on her card, I made my strip into a banner. I used a snowflake instead of a sun and two enamel dots.

I stamped and colored him up with Copic markers. I used some liquid applique for the end of his hat and dotted his cheeks with a white gel pen. I used glossy accents over top of the cherry on his ice cream cone.

The sentiment was pulled out from an older My Favorite Things stamp set that I white heat embossed over black cardstock and cut apart. I also used MFT stitched die cuts for the banner and circle image.

Vicki-ShellysPenguin-flat

I must’ve been in the mood for ice cream before I took a blog break as I just realized my last post had ice cream too! LOL!! Hope you like my card as I was really inspired by my friend’s card to make it!

Thanks for dropping in and I’ll be seeing you soon!!

Challenges:

Splitcoast Stampers Featured Stamper – FS681 mcshmidty
Crafty Animals – #38 Anything Goes + animal
2 Crafty Critter Crazies – #38 Anything Goes + animal
Challenge Up Your Life – #123 Animals
QKR Stampede – #396 Anything Goes
Lil Patch of Crafty Friends – #131 Anything Goes
Crafting Happiness – #47 Anything Goes/optional: birds

I’m Still Crafting!!🎨

Hello there friends!! 😀

I’m doing well and healthy as is my family! I sure hope that all of my fellow blog friends and readers are staying healthy as well! Thank you from the bottom of my heart for reaching out to me and asking about my well being! I really miss you guys!

I haven’t posted since I’ve not been on any design teams and I sort of just “took a personal break” from posting anything on my blog or social media. The first reason being was that I had lost some “MOJO” and was really struggling with getting inspired and wasn’t really “happy” about what I was creating. As I had mentioned before, it really does happen to us and sometimes it’s harder to “get over it” at times. With all that is going on in the world right now, I also had other concerns on my mind as I’m sure many of us have. So my blog break became even more extended. Now that I’ve “been away”, I’m stuggling with what exactly I want to do. I miss my blog friends very much and really enjoyed having this way of communitcating with you all…after all…we love crafting together and we have that in common and it’s something to be happy about to come together for! So I’m sharing my heart to heart update with you!

WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING??????🤔

Yes! I’ve been crafting, but I just haven’t really taken the time to create a post about it. As you know with blogging, you know that you not only need to take a photo of it, but you have to edit it, watermark it, create/type up the blog post, link all the things and then share it to all of these other social media platforms..so, with that, I just didn’t take the time! LOL! And….I’m still trying to decide if blogging is something I should continue. PLEASE, share with me your thoughts.

While I’ve not been posting, I sure have been crafting! I signed up to take several different classes! I had planned on going to a couple of retreats that were obviously canceled, so I decided that the online type classes were a way to go and to try to boost up some of that lost MOJO! While not posting about it, I actually think that may have helped! I was able to freely create with no time restraints and I didn’t have to worry about typing up a post for social media and “judgment”. It just turned out to be whatever it was! So MAYBE posting about whatever comes up for my crafting is a little more “freeing” and it can be whatever it turns out to be? I don’t know, I guess I will find out!

____________________________________________________________________________________________

I will try and start with about where I left off from the beginning of April and just go forward from there! Lots of things have been going on “behind the scenes”! LOL!

Vicki-BMicecreamBday

This is a card I had actually made back in March for a birthday card for someone and just never posted it. I had pulled out an older birthday card kit and used the stamp set along with the papers from the kit.

I also used the circle shaker pouch as well as some dies from My Favorite Things to create the shaker panel. the confetti and sequins all came from the card kit I used.

I used Copic markers to color in the ice cream cone and then I also die cut a heart from the Glitterstock that was included with the birthday card kit and glued it on top. I took some white twine as I felt a bow on the cone would help tie everything together nicely. I white heat embossed the sentiment over a strip and swiped some white ink along the edges of it. It was glued over top of the polka dotted paper and die cut out with a stitched rectangle die.

Vicki-BMicecreamBday-flat

As you can see, I even took an additional image from the stamp set and stamped the envelope to match. (something I’ve been trying to work on when making cards)

I didn’t photograph it, but I also used a gift card pocket die on the inside of the card to tuck a gift card in. Those little pocket dies come in handy for when you want to mail a gift card!

So please let me know that you’re here and what you think!

Thank you for your continued support during my crafty journey!! I have more things to post that I’ve been working on, so I’ll be seeing you soon!!

Challenges:

Crafty Cardmakers – #256 Celebrations
A Bit More Time to Craft – #115 Anything Goes
Creative Fingers – #185 Anything Goes
Stamp & Fun = Creativity – #367 Eat & Drink
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2018 Anything Goes

Celebrating 10 Years of Whimsy Stamps!

Today kicks off a weekend of fun to celebrate Whimsy Stamps 10th birthday! Yay!!! If you’ve been following along with me for a while, then you know that I have been a design team member at a few different times throughout the 10 years and I’m honored to be a part of the team again to help celebrate their 10th birthday!

I also wanted to share my birthday card inspiration:

Vicki-WS-IGhop-DoggieIcecream

So what could be more fun than this little Doggie Ice Cream digital stamp to help celebrate with! I have printed him out twice (I’ll explain below) and colored him up in the following Copic markers:

Doggie body: E27, E25, E23, E21, R20 (cheeks) and white gel pen
Doggie bib: BG78, BG75, BG72
Ice Cream bowl: C8, C5, C3 (Used C3 for ground shadow under image)
Ice Cream/bottom scoop: R85, R83, R81
Ice Cream/top scoop: E53, E51
Cherry on top: R39, R37, R35

I have taken some older Whimsy Stamps paper packs (this one no longer available called “It’s a Party”) to use for the background of my card design…he has to have a party scene after all, right?!

I then took a thin strip of black card stock to go along the edge of the paper to give it a nice finishing touch. I also took another piece of black cardstock and white heat embossed the fun sentiment from the Whimsy Stamps Bold Statements clear stamp set and then cut a banner and attached it alongside the black strip. Lastly, I’ve added some fun matching Whimsy Stamps “It’s a Party” enamel dots to finish off the design.

A closer look at my image, you can see that I’ve added some glossy accents to the cherry on top of the ice cream as well as the pup’s nose. I’ve used a Spectrum Noir glitter brush pen to over the ice cream scoops and then I took a liquid glue pen and sprinkled some more glitter under the pup image before attaching him to the paper.

The reason I printed out this pup twice is because I wanted to add some dimension to it. I colored and fussy cut out the entire image and attached him over the glitter ground. I took the second image and only colored his head/bib and the ice cream images. I fussy cut those out, then turned them over to rub a tool over which make it curl around the edges a bit. I used some foam tape to attach them directly over the image and it gives a nice dimension to it.

Vicki-WS-IGHop-Doggieicecream-dimension

Here’s a peek of what that dimension looks like underneath. Because the edges curl, you don’t see much sticking out, but it gives a nice dimension to your image.

Vicki-WS-IGhop-DoggieIcecream-flat

Hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and I hope you take part in the celebration with us at Whimsy Stamps in any way you can! I also wanted to thank each of you for the kind support you’ve given me with my Whimsy Stamps creations, it means so much!

Enjoy your celebration weekend and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges I’d like to enter this card for:

Addicted to Stamps & More – Make Your Mark
Crafty Creations – Anything Goes
Tuesday Throwdown – Anything Goes
Watercooler Wednesday (WWC200) – Occasions
CRAFT – Anything Goes

Scooping Up a Card or Two Plus ICAD Week 3 results

Hello friends! You ever have one of those weeks where no matter how you try to make ends meet, something always goes wrong to mess you up again and get you off track? This week was just one of those weeks! No matter how hard I tried to stay on top of things, something would go wrong and so much so that supper has been really late almost every night. So I am glad to post something here and glad it is Friday honestly! LOL!

I have a mixed bag of creations to share with you today, so I hope you enjoy this post and get some sort of inspiration with it!

Vicki-BM-SprinkledwithLove-cardkit

Let’s start with this fun birthday card I made using that piece of background paper that I made at the stamp convention! (If you don’t remember it, check out THIS POST to see it!) It seemed to be the perfect colors to use. I actually die cut the background piece using the Lawn Fawn cross-stitched rectangle dies and then heat embossed the sentiment. I took the ice cream cone image, stamped and colored it in and cut out that panel with the same die as the background. Mounted it over black along with the background piece, added some glitter touches with gel pens, Spectrum Noir glitter pen for the heart and then covered it with glossy accents. I then added a black piece of twine to the cone and then took those gorgeous colored pearls from the card kit and glued them in the upper right corner of the design. All was mounted onto an A2 sized card base.

20180622_111655

And speaking of the Stamp Convention goodies, I fell in love with the sparkly bird card that I made from one of the vendor booths and bought up a couple of packages of the kits they had! (Each kit contained enough to make 12 cards!) The sparkle against the transparency looks amazing! I embellished the corners and added the sentiment with the foil stickers from the kit. The paper and envelope are furnished in the kit…pretty much just assemble…can’t get any easier than that! Check it out from Stamp On It! (They have many of them!)

Vicki-ICAD2018-week3

So as you know from the last couple of weeks of postings that I’ve been participating in this Daisy Yellow ICAD challenge. You can find my postings about the past ones I’ve created by clicking on the “ICAD” archives link at the top left of this post.

As mentioned before, I cannot share the prompts or themes, but it is something that I work on each day…yes…no matter how hard it gets, I’m getting out my index card and playing around with something! Today’s card is not shown (it’s in next week’s grouping), but I’ve noticed that my “makings” are in conjunction with the mood I have for that day…pretty interesting I’d say! If you haven’t looked into this challenge, I encourage you to give it a try. Some days are just hard to figure out what you’re going to be doing and other days you just know. 🙂

So that’s all the shares I have for you today and hope that will be enough to tide you over until next week as I will have a bit more time for a routine after this horrible week is now over with! LOL! I thank you for your continued support by following, liking, commenting or just looking, it is always appreciated! Enjoy your weekend!

challenges I’d like to enter my ice cream cone card for: