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!
Hello friends and happy Friday! The weekend starts and we’ve had some snow blowing around over our way with wind and colder weather, BUT next week it’s supposed to be warmer with Spring-like temps…but that’s the Midwestern climate! It will level out later in the month.
Today is another new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog! Our theme for the next two weeks is “X is for X’s and O’s (as in hugs & kisses)“. We look forward to your entries! I had some fun with this one:
I’ve had this Tic Tac Toe set for years and never even broke it out to use! It was from the My Favorite Things“X’s and O’s card kit (obviously no longer available). I also used those adorable My Favorite Things Bitty Bears(retired) to help with the hugs and kisses part. I’m so happy to be using something from my stash and especially something that I haven’t used at all!
The card was pretty simple as the die cuts for the tic tac toe square were cut in different colors, found some polka dotted papers to match and also used those same papers to paper piece the heart on the top bear. I stamped the sentiment from the kit, popped up the colored and die cut bears with foam tape and added a few purple gems.
Before attaching all of the elements, I applied the polka-dot striped paper to a white front card base that was cut with a double-stitched rectangle die also from MFT, and then attached to an A2 top folding white card base.
Thanks for stopping in today and I hope you’ll join in the X’s and O’s with us over on the challenge blog! Have a great weekend and I’ll see you soon!
The Neglected Stuff – Anything Goes with neglected item (my neglected item is that MFT X’s and O’s card kit that was never used circa 2017!) About time, huh?!
Hello friends! I have a mix of projects that I’ve recently been working on and wanted to share my latest since I’ve gotten all caught up with the projects that I hadn’t posted.
I had a few birthdays come up and of course I forgot to take photos of a few of them before I sent them out the door and now they’re long gone! (DOH!) But I did remember to take photos of these:
I fell in love with the stack of party pups from Newton’s Nookand I always wanted to try out one of those cool card layout dies! The person that I’m sending this to loves his dog and I know the dog also has some “friends” she visits with, so why not a “PAW-ty” of them together!
I’ve used the NN Birthday Barks stamps & diesand colored it out with Copic markers. I stamped and heat embossed the sentiment in the top right square and added a stamped paw print from the stamp set. All the images were popped up with foam squares.
For the background, I took the NN A2 Card Layout 2 die and cut the frame with all of the stitched pieces using the NN Birthday Woofs Paper Pad. These dies make for some quick and easy cards without much thinking involved which is great when you’re in a hurry!
Next card was made as a thank you for a pizza night using one of those Ooni Pizza outdoor grills. I’ve never had one and so of course being the pizza lovers that hubby and I are, we gladly excepted! Very good pizza it was! I wanted to thank them for having us and made this card:
I’ve used this really cute pizza set from My Favorite Things and I was happy to pull some papers I had for years and years to help pull it together.
I’ve used the MFT A2 Stitched Rectangle dies to cut the checkered pattern paper as well as the light blue panel. I’ve used the MFT Stitched Mini Scallop Rectangle dies to cut the white piece behind the blue panel. (The red and white checkered paper is so old…got it at a stamp event so many years ago and hoarded it of course!)
Decorating the pizza was so much fun and I used the same ingredients we received on our Ooni pizza which was a handmade crust, tomatoes, pepperoni, Canadian bacon, cheese and sprinkled with basil leaves. All of the cut pieces to make the pizza came from the MFT Pizza Maker dies and the sentiment came from the MFT Pizza My Heart sentiment set (I don’t see it on the website, so I’m not sure if it’s available any longer?) I stamped it with black pigment ink and heat embossed with clear embossing powder. I’ve also used the same size stitched rectangle die as the blue panel to cut off a portion of the pizza to make it fit into design.
Lastly, this is a card made hot off the press tonight using the current Craft Roulette parameters! So if you missed it, go catch tonight’s latest episode #228 and play along! This is the card that I’ve made with tonight’s parameters:
I decided I wanted to also use the image from Beccy’s Place August Freebie challenge and add myself another challenge on top of the 4 parameters! I loved the image as it looked so refreshing! I played around with the image on my computer and added an extra one next to it, but flipped it around and placed it behind the other one. I also typed up my own sentiment underneath to go with the “Monday” parameter with Craft Roulette.
Project: I used a Geometric Square stencil for the background with yellow ink and to fit Beccy’s extra twist challenge which was to use something old from your stash, I did dust off those square sequins and brads that I’ve had for years and years to add on the front of the cups. (Now the image reminds me of those Recesses Peanut Butter shakes! YUM!)
Colors: Bee Garden colors are obviously the black and yellow and I had to add in some orange for the guest Irene who is a #teamorange color person.
Element: Monday was typed up within the sentiment.
Random: Use A Marker(s) which the image was colored in with Copic markers.
Ok…so that’s it for me this weekend! I needed to get this posted this evening because I would be missing out on a challenge that I wanted to be sure to play in before time runs out and that will be in like a couple of hours!
Thanks for dropping by today friends! I hope you have an amazing weekend!!
Hello friends! I hope that you’re enjoying your week so far! Summer is now in full swing over my way and it certainly is feeling that way too!
Where I live, June is also a time of year when the blooming cherry trees from May now turn into the cherries ready to be picked! If you’ve never tried a cherry jam, I highly recommend it! With the freebie image over at Beccy’s Place, it seemed like a great idea to make a card with it:
Without the sugar, cherries can be extremely tart and so it’s never something I would pick from a tree and eat especially with a pit in it! I do love a good cherry pie though!
Coloring cherries is also fun! I opted to use the non-colored version of the image and I printed it out twice because I cut out the front cherry and front leaf on the image to pop up with foam tape for dimension. I used Copics to color it in along with the background circle it’s on. I also added a white highlight with a gel pen.
I thought it would be fun to make a punny sentiment to print out “A Cherry” on my computer and then cut it out to weave into my white heat embossed “hello” cut from red cardstock.
I die cut the scallop circle which also cuts out the center that the cherry image is on. I layered it onto the Doodlebug gingham paper and attached it to the white scallop rectangle that is all attached to a red A2 top folding card base. I finished it with a couple of red rhinestones.
FOR THE CATCHING UP: The last several months/year, it seemed like my blog posts were really random and sometimes I would go a few weeks before posting the next time. I seem to struggle on and off with having no motivation to get crafting or even go into my craft room at all. I know this happens from time to time, but it seemed to be up and down and all over the place which is why I took on joining a few challenge design teams. It helped to get me a routine of at least getting motivated to get into my room on a regular basis anyway. I didn’t want anything that was too strenuous, or I felt that I would give up completely. This is also the reason why I do art journaling…it helped with “no pressure” on what I could create and use whatever I wanted. After looking at things I’ve created, I still have things that I’ve made but never posted about! So I thought I’d try to catch up with some of the things I’ve done and finally post it. There will have to be some more posts to catch up with it too!
So here is the start of some of my catching up towards the end of last year…
Do you remember the 12×12 Sampler SWAPS that I was doing with my blog buddy group? (Patti, Shirley and Donna) We would swap out the squares and then finish it ourselves by adding the background papers and placing into 12×12 shadow box frames. We had completed one for each season, but for this last one we decided to make one about our “favorite craft”. Here’s all of the squares that is still hanging up on my wall right above my computer and next to a clock and other craft items I made. I enjoy looking at it and seeing all of the squares from fellow crafting friends. This was fun to participate in and it really helped me with struggling motivation as well, so I’m glad I did it! Plus, it is cool to have it for inspiration in my room!
I actually had this done AND photographed last June! I forgot to get it posted on my blog.🙄
This is the square that I decided to do for this swap. I do love lots of glitter, so of course there is glitter on the floor spilled over along with glitter on the “walls”. If you don’t recognize these cute mice, they’re from Lawn Fawn Just Add Glitter stamp set. For each square, I wrote each person’s name on the paper from the table. Of course my name is on this one.
I was also asked to commission a card for someone’s very special birthday in November last year and forgot to post it as well:
I thought this one turned out so cute! I was told this card was to be for a special lady’s birthday who turned 100 and that she really liked plants.
Of course my first thought turned to plants and green colors. Then I thought, I don’t think I have any “plant” style stamps! The only thing that I thought of at the time was this darling My Favorite Things Sittin’ Prettystamp set from my stash. I also thought it would be fun to have a banner going across a wreath with the special number over it. I found the My Favorite Things “Fall Wreath” stamp set (not in store) and the banner came from an older (retired) Lawn Fawn set.
I also had a fern embossing folder that I embossed over green cardstock and then rubbed some gold wax over it to bring it out. I gold heat embossed the banner and popped it up over the wreath. I was just going to place the colored plants around it, but decided it would be cute to add the girl sitting on the wreath. She’s there to wish the special lady happy 100 with all of those plants around her! I added a border of grass at the bottom to help ground everything, added some gold foil for a layer and attached it to a green A2 card base.
Here’s what I did for the inside of the card: I stamped the wreath off the edge on each side of the panel with green ink and then sponged around the edges with the lighter green ink. I gold heat embossed the sentiment.
I hope you’ve enjoyed my new “Cherry Hello” card today as well as the projects that I am catching up with posting about! There will be more coming!
THANK YOU FOR STOPPING IN! I’M GRATEFUL FOR YOUR TIME AND THOUGHTS!
Challenges: (For Cherry Hello card ONLY)
Beccy’s Place – June Freebie image (THANK YOU!) optional: Food
Hello friends! I hope you’re having a wonderful week so far! We’ve been getting some rain, which is great for the freshly planted flowers. I enjoy being able to sit on my covered porch and listen to it rain as long as it doesn’t get too stormy!
Today starts a new challenge theme over at the Sparkles Monthly Challenge! For this month, we’d like to see your CAS (clean & simple) creations! I look forward to seeing the inspiration in the gallery, so I hope you can join! Here’s what I’ve made for this challenge:
Sometimes I can really struggle with a clean and simple design because I always feel like I need to add something more. The end result is in the minimal embellishments and design. This one got stuck in my head and came together rather quickly and I like how it turned out.
Most everything used on my card came from My Favorite Things. I started with watercolor (Bristol Smooth) paper and the Watercolor Wash stenciland blended a rainbow of colors over it. While the stencil was still in place, I took a water bottle to spritz water droplets over it and removed the stencil. I let it dry and then clear heat embossed the sentiment that was stamped in a black pigment ink. (The key to this is to make sure the watercolor area is completely dry before you heat emboss anything over it.)
I cut out the panel with a wonky stitched rectangle die. I’ve attached it to an A2 side folding black card base. I was pulled to splatter over this, but thought I needed to keep it simple, so I took some drip drops in “cosmic” color and added them randomly to the design.
So, what do you think? Simple enough you can do it too and enter it in the challenge, right? If you need more inspiration, check out the challenge blog to see what the other design team members came up with for CAS.
Thanks so much for stopping in today! I hope you have an amazing week!
Hello friends! I hope that this Spring weather hasn’t gotten too crazy for you. I know that this is a season of storms and tornadoes where I live in the Midwest, and I saw Iowa get some tornadoes come through. It’s windy here, but luckily not that bad. So, I thought this would be a good time to catch up sharing some things I’ve been working on!
My first project is a birthday card that I made for my son last month. He’s a mail carrier and so I thought this would be fitting for him. The mail carrier came from a MFT Birdie Brown stamp set (retired) that was actually a female with ponytails and a dress. So, I’ve altered it and masked off the ponytails and drew in some shorts. The mailbox die (retired) and other postal related stamps/dies all came from MFT as well.
For the background: I’ve used a MFT cloud stencil and cut it out with a stitched rectangle die. After coloring the image with Copics, I cut it out with another rectangle die and placed it over the red postage stamp rectangle. I cut out the mailbox pieces and put it together over the cloud panel and added a few postal imagesat the top right corner along with the envelope in the background. I finished it out with the birthday sentiment on the mailbox (retired) and a few white gel pen details on the image.
Although he’s a mail carrier, I didn’t have to mail this card to him, and I got to see him smile when he opened it…which is better than mailing it!😊
Last month, I also participated in the Taylored Expressions Virtual Stamp Joy. I also just realized when registering for this event that I have participated in every single one of these since she started it during the pandemic in 2020! I think the pandemic has really changed the world in several different ways, but I’m glad that this was one of them as I have enjoyed doing these. There’s just something about getting a class event mailed to you and attending in your PJs while having snacks and crafting that I find appealing, I guess! 😉
Of course, doing virtual, I have lots of time to finish up projects, but I think I had them all completed within a week after the event…I just had to photograph everything and now I’m finally getting them on this post to share: (IF YOU ARE ON MY WEBSITE, CLICK EACH PHOTO TO ENLARGE IT-CLASS INFO AT BOTTOM OF PHOTO)
This was the “Strip Class” where we used the TE Strip dies in various ways…I made a few extras!This was the “3D embossing Class” with a few new to me techniques…so fun!mini slim balloonscoloring class with mini slim size calendarink blend background and I made an extra with left over circle from panel.set of 4 using TE “Happy Half Sheet” which back in the day were called “maps”.super cute interactive card with a pull tab slider!multiple masking techniques used on thisfun card with stenciled lunar paste background
I had a busy month for sure! I’m also in the middle of another session of classes that I’ve been working on and having to go back in my spare time to get through each one. During the exact same time as Stamp Joy was going on, there was another freebie class weekend that was going on, so now I’m going back and watching the replays to do little bits at a time…I have a little way to get through it still, but when I finish, I will share those results too.
I hope you’ve enjoyed my catch-up post today and have been inspired to have some fun even if you can’t be outside! I’m sure when it gets a bit warmer, I will want to enjoy it, but for now, I’m going to play in my craft room!
Thanks so much for stopping in and have a great day!
Hello friends! Happy March! I’m happy to see this month come as signs of Spring start popping out everywhere! Pretty soon the flowers will start coming up too! Are you ready for Spring?
Today starts a new challenge over at the Mix It Up Challenge Blog! There is always lots of wonderful inspiration from the team, so please go check it out and play along! The challenges are always ANYTHING GOES with an optional theme. This month’s theme is FANCY FOLD! For these challenges, you have plenty of time to enter as they run for 6 weeks! I look forward to seeing what you come up with! Here’s the project I made:
These birds are ready to party! How fun are those party hats?! I’ve found this really cool take on a “Z” fold card, but this one has been named “Diamond Z Fold Pop-Up Card“. There are so many variations of this that I found on You Tube, but they’re all the same concept of the two diamond shapes on front and then an additional diamond pop-up mechanism on the inside that moves when you open the card. (Click on the card name for a tutorial.) The only thing I did differently than hers was using scallop square die cuts and I covered the pop-up mechanism on the inside with pattern paper so it’s not as noticeable.
I’ve used the My Favorite Things (retired) Birthday Chicks that I stamped, colored and die cut out and arranged over the design. I’ve also used the My Favorite Things (retired) pattern papers and of course the same for the scallop stitched squares. For the white squares, I’ve used a MFT cloud stencil with blue ink for the clouds and the sentiment was white heat embossed and cut out with a banner die.
When this card is closed, this is what it looks like. Notice that you do not see the bird on the inside panel next to the bird on top of the balloon as he is hidden until you open it.
It folds up just like a Z fold would and it’s A2 and ready for a regular A2 envelope. I’ve placed an extra panel on the back of the card for a special handwritten message and decorated it a strip of pattern paper and another party bird. I didn’t put anything on the inside stars pattern because I thought it took too much away from the front of the card and you don’t want an inside message to show on the front of the card. It takes a bit of maneuvering to decorate images and sentiments as to where to put them strategically on the card, but it was so fun!
I hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and go check out the challenge to come and play along with us! I really look forward to seeing all of the different fancy fold projects in the gallery this month!
Thanks so much for dropping by and I’ll see you soon!
Hello friends! I hope that you’re having a great start to your week! We’re almost there as Christmas approaches us quickly! I’ve been enjoying the Season and having fun keeping busy. Currently baking cookies and decided to take a break from that to sit and make a post about all of things that I’ve been doing besides posting!😆
This is just one of the several similar cards that I created for my Christmas cards this year. It came from a Christmas in July card kit from Taylored Expressions. It mainly used the Wreathed in Joy Stamp & Stencil Combo set. There are dies you can cut them out with as well as foilable panels which is shown on this one.
I do not like to make several of the “same thing”, so I’ve changed them up to different colors, layouts, etc. So you can see the different versions I’ve done below. (If you are visiting my web page, just click on each photo to see it enlarged.)
*Apologies for the messy stack for photo taking…it was a lot to do all at once!
Most of these are blue and silver which is my favorite color combination for Christmas colors, so I did about 6 of these.
I think these look the most vintage with the soft tones. Only 2 of these.These are more traditional looking with the red and greens, plus some were foiled and some heat embossed. There are 4 of these.These are all pretty similar with the larger wreath used. I changed up the green colors a couple of times. There are 6 of this kind.
I thought these would be enough for all of the Christmas cards to send out, but I realized going back through my list that I wasn’t going to quite have enough.
So I’m glad that at the beginning of this month I took a Hero Arts Stamp-a-Longand made several different types of Christmas cards. Here are the results of these below: (Again, if you’re looking on my web page, just click on the photos to enlarge them.)
background using sprays and coloring die cutssimple CAS cardnorthern light mixed media techniqueemboss resist background and dimension die cuttinggift tag card with a pocket inside for holding a gift cardreverse die cutting on gatefold cardlayering tree stamp and gatefold cardusing die cut plate for stencilingWatercolor CAS projectsusing a die cut plate for embossing and masking
mirror stamping technique and rub-on background
So some of these were also taken and used for sending out more Christmas cards. I’m glad that I did the projects for this class or I probably would not have had enough cards.
BUT WAIT! That’s not all! I’ve also made a few other Christmas items that I’ve also sent out. I’m also sharing some gifts and gift tags that I’ve made from a Taylored Expressions Advent Calendar that I got this year. I made some more cards and tags. (I tried out wax melting which is something I’ve never done…it was fun) Others are from classes I took or participated in Craft Roulette for.
If you’re on my web page, just click on the photos below to enlarge each one.
a craft roulette challengeanother craft roulette challengeInky Stamper OOAK classcraft roulette challengestencil from my advent calendarmelted wax, tags, pine sprig die and stamp set from advent calendar
I usually make these every year along with a poem on the back for the hot cocoa ingredients. This one is called “Santa’s Soup”. I might add a few other fun items in there as well! The people that get one of these knows to look inside right away!
Wow, so that was a lot! I know that my blog has been pretty sparse with posts lately and I am finally getting around to posting the things that I’ve been working on, so I hope you’ll get that and you’re able to take some time for yourself this season and enjoy the peaceful quiet moments!
I will be sure to take a moment and catch up with everyone before Christmas arrives. In the meantime, it’s back to cookie making! Thanks so much for stopping in today!❤️
Hello friends! I hope that you’ve had a great start to your December month! I promise I haven’t been hiding, but it’s a busy time of the year and I’ve been doing all of the Holiday things, so my time has been limited. I’m glad to have just now finished up some Christmas cards!😉
Speaking of Christmas cards, I have something fun to share with you today!
Last month I had won a top 5 in a challenge and was asked to be a guest designer for this Try it on Tuesday challenge! I really enjoy playing along in the challenges to keep motivated, so I was thrilled! For THIS challenge, the theme is “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” which inspired me to pull out this fun Santa stamp for a chuckle:
So, this is Santa’s excuse for being late! Like me, he’s NOT hiding…just delayed!😆
The stamps and die cuts came from an older My Favorite Things card kit I had called “Stuffed Santa“. I had fun putting this one together and was the beginning of the cards made to send out this year. (It was my plan to be early, but you know how THAT goes!)
For the background: I ink blended in a couple of blue oxide colors with the center panel fading to the lightest color. I sprayed the panel with some shimmer spray for that cold frosty shimmer sky. I then splattered some white opaque Copic mixed with water for the snowfall.
The Santa, hands, sentiment bubble, and lights around the chimney were all stamped and colored with Copic markers. I die cut them out along with the chimney, snow and rooftop pieces. I die cut the pieces with white and used my Copic markers to color in the chimney, roof, window and lights around the roof line. For the sentiment panel on the house at the bottom, I cut it to size and used my Copic markers to color the same as the roof peek. I added the sentiment to it, and made this the “base” for the house.
To finish it off, I added some chunky glitter to the die cut snow on the chimney and roof. I also used a glitter pen to add some sparkle to the inside window panels and the Christmas lights. I also used some foam squares to pop up the sentiment bubble and Santa’s mittens.
Hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and that you’ll play along with this fun challenge over at Try it on Tuesday as well! Thanks so much for dropping by!
Hello friends! I hope you’ve had a great start to your November so far! It’s been a few minutes since I’ve posted, but I have to say that I’ve been pretty busy in the background! Hoping to share what I’ve been up to soon!
Today begins a new challenge over at the Sparkles Monthly Challenge! This month, we’re looking to see some WINTER ANIMALS! I hope you can join in the fun with us! A reminder that this will be the final challenge for the year as we’ll be on Holiday break until January. Here’s my take on the theme:
My first thought of a winter animal is a penguin of course! I’m a huge fan of them and have so many in my collection…including other than stamp related! These guys are really enjoying winter on this scene! I’m using theMy Favorite Things Playful Penguins stamp set and I started with a stencil from MFT that has “pond” shapes and lightly stenciled the soft blue for a place for my “ice platform” to be.
After creating the “ice pond”, I used some tape to mask off the bottom portion so that I could ink blend a sky at the top. I used some White Opaque Copic and splattered it over the sky area. I then used another MFT stencil to create some snow drifts in the background.
The two penguins, igloo, ice pad and sign were stamped, colored with Copic markers and die cut out to be placed over the scene. I added the flattened penguin to the ice pad and then had the igloo in the background while the sign and penguin are waiting at the side of the pond. I used a pen and wrote “FREE RIDES” on the sign.
I finished it off with a glitter pen over the “ice pad” and igloo and then used some Stardust Stickles over the snow on the sign. I thought it needed some more snow falling down, so I took some sequins and added it to the scene.
If I were on that scene, I would probably be more like the flattened penguin on the “ice pad”!😆 How about you? Do you like the snow?
Thanks so much for joining me here! I hope you like my penguin card and will sharing your favorite winter animal in the challenge too! Have a great day!
