Weather Related at Sparkles Monthly

Hello friends! When I read about the weather from other areas, it always amazes me how different and even to extremes the weather gets especially during this time of the year! I hear everything from rain, sun, snow, tornadoes, flooding, cold, warm, hot, etc. So where do you find your own weather to be at right now? In my area, we have reached past the snow, but it’s still pretty cool at night…so I know that Spring and the rain is here for us with a bright spot of flowers/sprouts starting to come out in the Midwest U.S.

With this in mind, we have a new challenge over at Sparkles Monthly and we have a very fitting theme of “Weather Related” (rain, wind, sun, etc.) this month. Would love to see lots of different varieties of weather related projects, so I hope you’ll join us. Here’s what I came up with:

I was so happy to finally get a chance to use this adorable set by Lawn Fawn called Beary Rainy Day as I’ve had it for a while, but never used it until now.

I started with a kraft A2 sized top folding card base and stenciled some white clouds over it. I then splattered some navy watercolor paint over it.

While that was drying, I worked on my scene. For the background, I took some blue oxide inks in Blueprint Sketch and Salty Ocean and ink blended them on the stitched die cut panel. I used some water to spritz over it for a watermark look. While that was drying, I took another stitched panel and ink blended some Mowed Lawn and Rustic Wilderness Oxide inks for the grass area and die cut a hill to place at the bottom. Before I attached it, I also die cut a white picket fence to go behind it. I placed this scene onto a piece of navy cardstock and attached to the card base.

To complete the scene, I’ve stamped, colored with Copics and die cut the critters, rain puddles and clouds. I used the coordinating raindrop die with the set and just die cut a few raindrops in silver glitter paper to add to the scene. Lastly, I white heat embossed part of the sentiment on navy cardstock, cut out with a banner die and then just stamped the sentiment at the bottom in navy ink. Also hard to see in the photo, but I’ve added some shimmer to the puddles with a glitter brush pen.

That’s all from me today! Hope you’ll stop by the Sparkles Monthly blog is see what the team has come up with using this theme and join us in the challenge! Thanks so much for stopping in as I love to read your comments!

Challenges:

Craft Rocket – #124 Layer it Up
Addicted to Stamps & More – #490 Die cuts and/or stencils (clouds stenciled and variety of die cuts used)
Penny’s Paper-crafty – #594 Anything Goes Using Paper
Crafty Gals Corner – #266 Fill in the Blank: “Adorable puddle jumping!”
Time Out – #286 Pick 2 from list: I picked Stencil & Water + Spots ( I was inspired to stencil some clouds and add some spots (splatter) to go with the colors/clouds of my scene and I was inspired by the water with the rain, puddles and watermark for ink blending)

Thank you to all the challenge blogs for keeping us all inspired to create and play along with our supplies! I try to play along as much as I can.

Playing With Paper Blocks and Bunnies

Hello friends! Easter is coming for us for very soon and I’ve been enjoying all of the Spring that’s starting to come up outside with flowers and buds on the trees! It’s still a little cool, but hopefully the weather will even out and stay warmer!

Since I’ve been trying to get motivated for Easter, I’ve pulled out some papers from my stash and have been inspired to CASE (copy & share everything) a friend that really inspires me to use things I have! First, I’d like to share a fun Easter card that I’ve made for a sketch challenge that I was inspired by as well:

That sitting bunny is so cute! (Thank you Carol…more on that later in post!) If you check out the sketch from the Sketch Saturday challenge blog (see in challenge list below), you will see all of the fun angle strips in the sketch. I thought it would be fun to pull out some Easter papers from my stash. I wasn’t sure how to do the background until I saw that this sitting bunny worked perfect for a part of the paper pad that had this wheelbarrow image in it! I cut it out from the paper and placed the bunny on it.

For the background of the card, I thought it would be fun to use my stencils to create a scene with grass and clouds. The wheelbarrow bunny fit in the open area and then I used the angles from the sketch to cut pieces with the same Easter paper pad. I just eyeballed everything by marking notches and lining those notches in my paper trimmer to get a straight cut. Even the solid paper on the base layer came from the paper pad. I just cut it A2 size to fit over an A2 top folding white card base.

The sentiment was stamped and cut out with the coordinating die. I added some shadow under wheelbarrow with a green marker (not really the color I wanted, but it worked), and colored a bit of pink on the bunny too. I added teal rhinestones next to the sentiment and done.

Next, I wanted to share something else that I was inspired by from my friend Carol at https://ourlittleinspirations.blogspot.com who sent me a very cool card and kind gift:

She always inspires me with her “snippet” creations and coming up with cards like this one to utilize those pattern papers we hoard so much! The pattern is very pleasing to the eye and so I wanted to create one myself! With all of the papers I have, I’m sure I could make a zillion cards! 😆 I also love how she used a monochromatic green theme with it…which I will need to try another one with this idea! You should go check her blog out and be inspired too!

Also, she was very kind in sending me these die cut sitting bunnies & stools! I do not know exactly where this bunny is from, but I’ve seen it around the craft world. So cute! Thank you so much for your kindness and inspiration my friend!

So here’s the card that I created inspired by Carol. I really love plaids and I thought it would be fun to re-create her design which I measured out her pieces and cut based on what I thought they were. It was really fun and not as hard as it looks like it might be. I wrote the measurements and cut from the same Easter paper pad as I used on the card above. I started with a white base…that way if I messed up, it wouldn’t matter too much. The sentiment piece was also from the same paper pad. I just white heat embossed the sentiment and added some stitch details with a white gel pen.

I used one of the sitting bunnies that Carol provided me with, and tried to match up what I had from my stash the best I could to die cut some hearts along with the A2 side folding card base.

I brushed the hearts with a glitter brush pen and called it done.

I had so much fun playing with these paper blocks and bunnies! I hope you’ve enjoyed my creations and inspiration today as well! Thanks so much for stopping by! C U SOON!

Challenges:

Sketch Saturday – #746 optional twist: feature an animal (top card)
Simply Create Too – Bunnies & Blooms #198 (top card)
Make My Monday – Spring, Flowers, Weather, etc. #221 (top card)
Fab ‘N Funky – Spring #591 (top card)
Daring Cardmakers – Spring is in the Air (top card)
The Paper Funday – Anything Goes optional: dies #63 (top card)

It’s Graduation Time!👩‍🎓

Hello friends! It’s started to really warm up over my way, so now it’s time to stay indoors and have some crafty play in the cool air! I will be trying out some new goodies too! Yay!

A few weeks ago or so, I was commissioned to create some graduation cards using certain school themed colors for a few local grads in my area so I wanted to share what I came up with.

I made a set of 3 graduation cards each one of a different style/design and I was told the color theme for each school/college to use along with the instruction of adding a pocket or place holder to fit a gift card inside. So I pulled out what graduation themed stamps I had in my stash and came up with a few different designs you can see below…

Vicki-Gradcards-custom-Gown

I dubbed this card “hassle with the tassel”!🤣

The colors were to be purple and gold. I just used my paper trimmer to trim out my cardstock to make the “V” line to mimic a grad gown and then I created the grad cap with a square piece of cardstock. The tassel was made with some gold metallic thread which was so very slippery that I went through like 4 “globs” of it to create a final tassel that looked decent enough to attach to the cap! Oh my goodness!🤨

I used gold mirror cardstock for the accent layers and I had a greeting for the sentiment from an older Stampin’ Up! set in my stash…(hadn’t pulled these out since my youngest graduated back in 2015!) I added the year along the neckline.

Vicki-Gradcards-custom-Gown1

And then to add pockets, as instructed, I took the Lawn Fawn Diagonal Gift Card Pocket die for the inside corner of the card along with stamping a sentiment for the grad. (All of these cards were made for females graduating, so I knew this would work!)

Vicki-Gradcards-custom-Spring

For my next card, my colors were blue and yellow. Being limited on my grad stamps, I’ve used the same greeting as the card above, but this one was used in a slightly different way.

I wanted to have this card look like the “appearance” of a graduation cap flying in the air. So I took this “Spring Card” idea to make it so that although it lays flat to place in a regular A2 sized envelope, it springs up like this for display. I added some stamped clouds in the background along with the year and greeting at the bottom.

Vicki-Gradcards-custom-Spring1

When you turn the card over on the back, you can see that I’ve stamped a greeting along with leaving a blank spot for a message or to sign a name.

You can also see the little area at the top where the thumb hole spot is to place a gift card inside the pocket that I created. Thought that was a fun little card display for the grad!

Vicki-Gradcards-custom-Twist

And for this last card, the colors were the same purple and gold colors to work with. I still wanted to work with the grad cap scheme as my supplies were somewhat limited and I wanted to come up with some different and unique designs for each.

So this is my take on a “Twist Turn Card”. This was so fun to do and actually super simple! I took parts of an older stamp image I had and used it for the stamping on this design. I die cut some numbers for the year and of course the design of the card mimics the square grad cap. The tassel actually came from a Stampin’ Up! balloon die set and fit nicely with this.

Vicki-Gradcards-custom-Twist1

So when you open up this card, this is what it looks like on the inside with a nice little gift card slot at the top along with a stamped sentiment on the inside and space to write a personal message too.

Thanks so much for dropping in today! I hope you’ve enjoyed my graduation themed cards and were inspired! If you’d like to know how to make any of these cards, just let me know and I can show you!😉

I have some fun things coming…so I’ll see you soon!!

Challenges: