Making Condolence and Get Well Cards

Hello friends! I hope that you’re having a great start to your week and are staying safe and warm in your world.

Today I’m sharing a collection of creations that I never seem to have in my stash because it’s never really something that I think about when creating…and I always seem to be making them as needed rather than having a few on hand. Even though, a couple of these were needed, I decided to make duplicates to have on hand this time around.

As you can see, this is a pet sympathy card I created, and one was needed to send to a friend that had recently lost her special companion. For anyone that has lost a pet knows how this feels and I wanted to be sure to send something special her way. It’s always great to have one on hand when needed.

I’ve used this wonderful stamp set from Whimsy Stamps called Furever in Our Hearts. I started by ink blending the background with distress inks in Candied Apple, Carved Pumpkin, Squeezed Lemonade, Mowed Lawn and Blueprint Sketch on a piece of Neenah Solar White. I sprayed the panel with water and used a towel to blot up the water droplets. I then took some white shimmer paint mixed with water and splattered it over top with a paint brush.

I cut out the panel with a Lawn Fawn Cross-stitched die. I used my Brilliance Black pigment ink to stamp the paw prints and sentiment over top of it so that it would show up over the background. I die cut a couple of clouds out (MFT I think) and lightly sponged the bottom of them and placed them over the areas I wanted with popping up the one cloud using foam tape at the top of the paw prints. I layered this panel onto a piece of black cardstock and then layered them both over a white A2 sized top folding card base. I finished it off with a few sparkling clear sequins.

Another card that I needed was for someone that had recently been through a surgery, and I actually didn’t have any more “get well” in my stash… again, so I decided to create a duplicate of this one too. This set of cards along with the set of cards below actually were the results from the previous OOAK event I had attended, and these were part of a class I had taken. So, this class actually came in handy!

All of the papers including that beautiful die (from Memory Box-Verdant Leaf Collage), Get Well Soon die, and dewdrop water droplets came with the kit. I subtly changed up the design given for the class by adding black paint splatters and changing up the die cut lettering and the layering of the papers. I really liked doing more of that ink blending and then having it fade to the white for a soft look. The outside woodgrain frame was popped up with foam tape.

And here’s the second set of cards created within the same class using the same Memory Box die and ink blended colors. I changed up the layout with these as well by making the card base black (instead of white like shown in class) and instead of the sentiments used in class, I created my own version with the Whimsy Stamps Deepest Sympathy clear stamps and the WS Sympathy Heartfelt and Condolences die set. I also added the black paint splatters to the ink blended panels like on the set above.

I thought these sets made for some really nice cards to have on hand when needed. I’m not sure that I would’ve actually sat down to make up these types of cards in production if I hadn’t have taken the class, so I’m glad I did.

Thanks so much for stopping in today! Hope I have inspired your crafty inspiration in some way! I’ll be seeing you soon!

Challenges:

Crafty Calendar – Anything Goes
Happy Little Stampers – Anything Goes with Dies
Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
Stamping Sensations – Anything Stamped with optional add a die
Addicted to Stamps and More – Make Your Mark
Watercooler Wednesday – All About Occasions
Penny’s Paper-Crafty – Anything Goes using paper

Creating Calendars…Do You Need One?

Hello friends! How are you dealing with the 2022 year so far? I hope that you have a fantastic start and look forward to a brilliant and crafty future ahead of you! Speaking of starting a New Year, I realized that I needed to start my crafty calendars…which really should’ve been started sooner!🙄 I actually enjoy putting them together, especially the coloring as it’s very relaxing for me.

I’ve had this set of calendar cards along with this stand since this last Spring from Taylored Expressions and of course I’ve waited until recently to get them finished up! I’m glad I did though as I think these will be so fun to look at and chuckle to change out each month:

Tee hee! What got me interested in Taylored Expressions from the start were these adorable and funny Grumpy characters that she has in one of her product lines! (You may have seen a “Grumpy” calendar I’ve made in the past on THIS POST.) She has LOTS of different types of calendars and accessories to choose from, but this is a set that had come out this past year. I thought this would be a fun way to help motivate me this year for creative inspiration!😁

I’ve taken a white piece of cardstock cut to size my calendar stand that would accommodate the tear-off calendar pad and hold the “snarky cards” in place with the gold clip. I’ve used some TE inks and blender brushes to blend over top of the white piece. I then used the TE Striped Squares stencil to go over it using the same colors and then mounted this piece over a black cardstock layer. (This piece and the changeable cards are held to the stand with the gold clip.)

Here are all of the completed cards in the set that I can change out each month or whenever I want. I’ve used the TE Clipboard Calendar Cards-Snarky for my own personal calendar that I’ve colored up with Copic markers. The frames were colored with coordinating colors that matched up with the rainbow stenciled background for my calendar front. Really enjoyed coloring and giggling while making this set!

I also wanted to show you the back side of this TE Walnut Wood Clipboard Stand so that you can see how I store all of the extra cards on my calendar when I need to change one out. You can choose to add a package of the TE Calendar Storage Sleeves with the stand if you get one, but I thought this whole system was a nice and sturdy option of creating a calendar that you can personalize for yourself or for a gift. I ended up creating a calendar last year for Mother’s Day and gave it as a gift. I used the TE Clipboard Calendar Cards-Sweet for that one and did some foiling on them. (Just don’t forget to purchase the next year’s tear-off calendars to replenish the recipient for next year!)

And I also wanted another calendar for my computer area which also brings a smile to me each month! I bought a calendar set last year from Inky Stamper and really enjoyed flipping the cute characters each month as the year went on. Happily, she came out with another new calendar set for this year and I happily purchased it BEFORE it ran out! (So sadly, it sold out quickly!)

With these calendar kits, the stand, the monthly calendar cards as well as all of the pattern paper strips, stamped and die cut characters and sentiment strips ALL come with this kit! I think it’s a pretty good bargain for all that was included with it. Of course, you have to color and put together each card…but THAT’S what the fun is about!

And here’s a look at the entire set of calendar cards that I colored and put together. There were instructions for each card along with the Copic markers used in the examples. For some of the cards, I already owned the stamp set, so I added a few extra details to some of them and I also added a few of my Inky Stamper Gems and Sequins mixes to some of them. Square dots and a strip of gold enamel dots were also included to decorate with.

So, I had an awesome time putting this one together as well! I look forward to seeing every single month throughout the entire year!

Since I had a couple of left over Taylored Expressions 2022 Tear-Off calendars, I thought it would be fun to just create a “calendar card stand” for crafters and give them out to whoever wants one!

EDITED UPDATE: All of the calendars have been claimed! Sorry if you’re looking to get one as I have no more left. Hope everyone enjoys their calendar all crafty year!

So, I had 5 of these calendars left over and I knew I wasn’t going to use them, but of course I didn’t want to just throw them out either! So, I took the TE Big Grumpy Bear and the TE Big Grumpy Cat sets to help motivate a fellow craft friend throughout the year! TEE HEE! I’ve made a rainbow-colored background for these by taking the TE Art From the Heart background stamp and stamping it with black over a white piece of cardstock. I used some TE ink and blender brushes to blend in the rainbow colors. I stamped an extra background image to color in some of the images and fussy cut them out for accents.

I attached the “Grumpies” over the background and layered the calendar with a black layered piece behind it to go over top of the “Grumpies” with their “feet” underneath so you can see them. I then added the fussy cut out images that I colored in a corner of each one.

I made a “stand” for this by creating a valley fold piece to attach in between the top folding A2 black card base. This will make for a permanent stand to display your calendar through the year! (And hopefully motivate someone’s crafty process throughout the year) I receive so much inspiration from many of you crafty friends, so it would be nice if I could possibly reciprocate that in some way!

Check out each one of these calendars I’ve made below in detail! Just click on the photos to enlarge them if you’re on my website:

So now that we’ve got the year started and in place, let’s hope for a really creative and productive one ahead!

I have some more craft projects that I’ve been working on as well as a really BIG craft project that I’m taking on for the love and excitement of it all! I look forward to sharing with you soon!

Thanks for stopping in and I wish you a happy, healthy and productive rest of your week!

Challenges:

Sweet Stampin’ – NEW (stamped New Year calendars with new products!)
Critter Crazy – Anything Goes + critter
Creative Inspirations – Anything Goes
River of Creativity – Anything Goes
Penny’s Paper-Crafty – Anything Goes using paper
CRAFT – New (New Year calendars with new products!)
Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
Colour Crazy Craft – Anything Goes + coloring

Hey! Let’s Squash It! I’m Guest Designing!

Hello friends! I hope you’re having a great week! I’m stopping in today as a guest design spot winner to share a fun new challenge today over at the Let’s Squash It! Challenge Blog!

I’ve just recently discovered this challenge blog a few months ago and thought it was fantastic because I have so many embossing folders and I know I only use them a fraction of the time creating cards. I thought that this would give me some inspiration to use them and learn fun new techniques with them to stretch out the use as well! I had won on a previous challenge so was asked to be a guest designer for them in this month’s challenge! How exciting!

So, for the challenge this month, they ask that you “use some stenciling over your cards and then use an embossing folder over it“. So, this had me thinking and I don’t really recall doing this before! So of course, you start pulling out tons of stencils and then grabbing the embossing folders to see what looks you might achieve with the idea and here’s what I thought of…

I love how it turned out! I’m so thrilled that the card is pretty much flat first of all. It has only the card front layer attached to the card base and then the sentiment strip. Great for mailing a Christmas card!

I took the Taylored Expressions Rectangle Masking Stencils and then also added a Snowflake Masking Stencil (unknown from my stash) so that I could line it up properly over the rectangle area. I started by ink blending with TE inks in a rainbow color pattern in a diagonal direction. BEFORE removing the stencil, I sprayed it with some Shimmer Spray. I lifted off the snowflake mask being careful to leave the remaining rectangle stencil in place and then I took the “negative” snowflake from the stencil to cover it up. I then used some blue tones of TE ink over the rectangle stencil in a straight across direction with the rainbow snowflake being covered up. Once I was happy with the ink blending, I removed all stencils.

Lastly, I took the entire stenciled panel and ran my Sizzix Winter Snowflakes Textured embossing folder over top of it. That added bit of an embossing folder really stepped it up! I also rubbed over top of the impressions with a white ink pad on the colored sections to make it pop a bit more.

I white heat embossed the sentiment from Taylored Expressions Mini Strips Holiday and die cut it out with the TE Mini Strips Asymmetrical Die over a TE Blue Corn cardstock piece which was what the card base is cut from too. Popped up the strip with foam tape and finished with some silver sequins.

So, I hope you’ve enjoyed my creation today and that you’ll pop on over at the “Let’s Squash It!” Challenge Blog to check out the challenge this month and play along with us too! Looking forward to seeing what everyone’s comes up with for this one! Thanks for stopping by today and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

Creative Inspirations – Wonderful Winter/Feeling Festive
Crafty Creations – #427 Anything Goes
Crafty Calendar – Anything Goes
Dragonfly Dreams – Christmas/Winter
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes
Christmas Crafts All Year ‘Round – Letters ‘U’, ‘V’ or ‘W’ for inspiration (I used “W” for winter!)
Merry Little Christmas – Anything Christmas Goes

Color Challenge Reminder for {Cupcake Inspirations} – Hugs Enclosed

Hello friends! I hope that you’ve had a great weekend! The weather has really started to cool down over the weekend and I can feel the Autumn breeze in the air right now!

I’m swinging in today to remind you about our current color combo challenge over at {Cupcake Inspirations} and the second card I’ve made using the colors GREEN, PINK and LIME:

If you remember my card from last week, I had so much fun blending the green ink colors on the grass, I thought I’d continue with another panel of the ink blending on this background too! I also spritzed it with water and then once it was dry, I stamped the images from a Simon Says Stamp Crafty Friend stamp set with black ink. I’ve used the stamp set throughout the card with the cut out scissors and envelope accents and the strip across the pink piece too.

I did white heat emboss the sentiment from the stamp set over the black strip on the heart. I used just a set of Hero Arts Inifinity Heart dies to cut out the pink heart and another will vellum behind the heart and pink strip. The pink heart was popped up with craft foam and so was that little envelope over top of it. I did run the pink die cut heart through a Tim Holtz embossing folder and rubbed some white ink over it.

The blended ink and stamped background was cut out with a stitched rectangle die and layered over a black and then a green panel, which was then layered over top of an A2 sized top folding white card base. I finished the card with some pink die cut hearts and some Studio Katia Cupid’s Kiss Crystals. (So happy to have again pulled out an older card kit!)

Here’s a closer look at the images on my card. I just fussy cut the envelope and scissors WITH my scissors.😂 For the open areas in the handle of the scissors, I just took a small hand held circle punch to create the circle openings.

I have taken one of the pink hearts that I die cut for my background and used one over the tiny envelope on the heart. The crystals add a nice bit of sparkle to the design too.

I think this will be a nice card to send out to one of my crafty friends! I think maybe we could all use a crafty hug right now so maybe this will help! Thanks so much for stopping in today and I’ll see you again soon!

Challenges:

A Bit More Time to Craft – #124 Anything Goes
QKR Stampede – #404 Anything Goes
Creatalicious – #195 Anything Goes optional: use a punch
Aud Sentiments – Anything Goes + Sentiment
Creative Knockouts – #368 Anything Goes
Creative Fingers – #193 Anything Goes

Color Combo for {Cupcake Inspirations}

Hello friends! I hope that you’ve had a very pleasant weekend! I enjoyed spending some time visiting with my son for his birthday as I haven’t seen him for a while, so it was nice to laugh with him. If you haven’t checked out the card I made for his birthday, check out my last post for the blog hop along with a video I shared!

Today starts a brand new challenge over at the {Cupcake Inspirations} challenge blog! We are Playing with a fun color combination this time using the colors: Lime, Pink and Green It’s not only a yummy cupcake, but yummy colors too! Looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with!

Here’s my take with the colors for my first card for the challenge:

For some reason, the first thing I thought of was gnomes! So I grabbed this really adorable Gnome Matter What clear stamp set from Whimsy Stamps and colored up that gnome and frog pair! I fussy cut them out and made a grassy hill for them to sit on by ink blending a panel that was spritzed with water and then cutting it out with a mushroom border die from Lawn Fawn.

I also used the Lawn Fawn Watercolor Wishes paper pack in the pink shade for the background behind the grassy hill which I stamped the sentiment over and gently rubbed some more pink pastel over it.

The entire panel was cut out with my fave Wonky Stitched Rectangle die from MFT and layered over a bright pink A2 sized top folding card base.

A closer look at the images, you can see how I’ve got them colored up with Copics, but I’ve also added the usual details to the images with a white gel pen for the gnome’s cheeks and flower center. I went over the flower with a glitter brush pen. I’ve also added some dots to his shirt with a metallic green gel pen and then went over his buckle with a gold gel pen.

I’ve just attached the gnome with liquid glue, but I’ve used foam tape to pop up the frog pair and then I’ve added some more dots with the white and green metallic gel pens and then went over their eyes with glossy accents for shine.

I think maybe this is a fantastic message for all of us right now. That gnome looks pretty chill!😉

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

Challenges:

Love to Scrap – LTSCB137 Anything Goes September
Crafty Catz – #518 Anything Goes optional: gems and/or glitter
Creative Craft Cottage – Include an animal (frogs)
Colour Crazy Craft – Anything Goes + coloring

IT’S GIVE AWAY TIME!!

CLOSED!!!!

-Please note that I have sticky noted this post to the top of my blog, you will need to scroll down for new posts.-

Hello friends! It has been quite some time that I have had a little give away on my blog and since I’ve started up this new place, I have thought about it many times. Since my birthday is tomorrow, I thought it would be a great idea to give someone else a fun present instead! I have many things going on during the month of October and it will be hard to accomplish everything, so this is another way of saying thanks for stopping in and sharing your support with me!

Here’s what I’m giving away and I hope it’s something many of you would love to get:

I have added several of my favorite items that I enjoy using in this package. Everything is brand new and unopened of course as I already have these items! 🙂 – I have also ordered two more Distress Oxide inks to include in this package (not shown above) that will also be included in this give away! – Of course I will be throwing in a couple of other little fun surprises tucked inside of the parcel too!

That’s a package well worth over $85.00!!! Wow! Yes, I know I’m crazy, but I’m crazy about all of you and being able to share the love of my crafting with you all is something enjoyable that I get to do every day! I’m honored to have you join with me on this journey and that’s why I do it! 🙂

**EDITED TO ADD MORE GOODIES!!!***

The Distress Oxide inks that I’ve described above came in! Yay! PLUS, when another order came in, I realized that these other items are a few more “extras” that I don’t need, so I put those in there too! Plus, there is another stamp set that I forgot to take a photo of even after this addition! LOL! So I’m guessing this parcel will probably be well over $100.00 by the time I’m sending it out!! LOL!!

Best of luck my friends and thanks for joining me!!

*I will announce the winner right here on my blog on Tuesday, October 30th and I will also personally e-mail the winner using whatever e-mail address was provided to me in the InLinkz below.*

So what do you need to do to win?! You have choices to make! The first choice is a really easy one to do. All you have to do is enter your name along with your e-mail address (so I can contact the winner) through the InLinkz shown below. No matter what, if you are at all interested in winning this prize, please enter that by October 29th! – This is open to anyone world wide
IF you would like an EXTRA entry to win, then just share the photo above with a link to my blog post on how to enter! If you do this, then please leave me a comment telling me that you’ve shared it….no need for a link….just tell me that you’ve shared it on your blog, on Facebook, on instagram, etc. Please leave a SEPARATE comment for each time you share it! You get another chance for each time! – I know there are some people that were wondering where I went from my last blog and were trying to find me…so I’m hoping that the people who were looking for me can find me here again to follow along if they choose to do so.
Additional Optional EXTRA entry to win – I’m all about spreading smiles as far as I can with my handmade creations. I would love it if in honor of my birthday you can find a special person or a special place/charity that takes your card donations and send a special smile to someone. That would make my day! – If you do this, please leave me another comment about that!

Whatever way you choose to enter, I thank you for any and all of your support especially with the changes that have gone on through my blog and life! I enjoy seeing your lovely creations, visiting your blogs and sharing my crafty life with you. So glad that we are enjoying it together!

Fluttering By

Hello friends! Have you already seen a couple of different styles now on my blog? LOL! I’m trying to get one on here that I think I would be comfortable with for a while…so far I’ve settled on this one! 🙂

So I’ve been “outta the loop” for a while and feel a bit rusty, but I thought the BEST place for me to start is with some of those card kits that I keep on hoarding and then it just sits and never gets used…so I’m going to stop hoarding and start using! Besides, all of the contents are already right together and you can’t go wrong with that, right?!

So I’ve pulled out an April 2018 Simon Says Stamp card kit (sold out) with some butterflies and thought it would be great to work with! I needed some “pick me up” cards that I’m sending out to a couple of fellow crafty friends who need a lift in spirit and hope this will help send a smile their way:

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This card was simple as I just used some papers from the kit, colored the images with my Copic markers and attached to design. I colored some white glitter paper with a yellow Copic to get that color above the patterned paper.

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This is probably my favorite one as I love the pop of black everywhere. I used some of the Mermaid Lagoon Oxide ink from the kit to ink blend, distress with water and then added the Copic colored butterflies.

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This one was inspired by Sheri Carrol’s card design. I obviously like her design better, but I find it amazing just how different a design can turn out from each person.

I saw that the Coffee Lover’s Blog Hop just started today (Yay!) and so I hope to be back later this evening with something fun for that! I haven’t played in challenges for a while and it’s always fun to create using some fun themes!

Hope you’ve enjoyed my butterfly cards today and please let me know if you’ve stopped by so I can see what everyone is doing! Would love to know how you are!

*Don’t forget to share a smile today! 🙂

I would like to enter one of these cards into the following challenges: