Farmhouse Fresh Peaches and Cream

Hi y'all!

Last week we saw a roadside stand with fresh peaches-for-sale, so Summer is officially not far off!  I have fond memories of fresh peaches and homemade vanilla ice cream with my cousins Karen and Sherrie, and their parents Uncle Roscoe and Aunt Marie (my dad's sister)!  I must've been around 10 and it was close to my birthday. We ate enough peaches and ice cream to just about make ourselves sick!  

Do you remember those old hand-crank ice cream makers?  I was small and usually got nominated to be the one to sit on a pile of towels on top of the thing to keep it stabilized while the guys took turns cranking until the ice cream was ready.  🤣  

Isn't it funny the things that can inspire a card!?!  So I pulled out several Stamp Simply sets and a couple of paper pads and Copic markers and this was the result.  The colors of this background paper work really well with the designer prints from the other paper pad, and they make that peach really pop in the foreground.  On top of that, they seem pretty perfect for the nearly red hot temperatures we have been having lately!  

I use our Fishtail Banners dies all the time!  It's definitely a favorite! Here I added a few green pearls on that designer print for some contrast and counter-balance against the peach's one little green leaf!  

I used another sheet of the same brightly colored paper inside along with a sentiment and the little milk barrel from our Farmhouse series.  [With these stamp sets there's a straight line sentiment (Fruit) and this one (Farmhouse) where the words are stacked, so you can take your pick between the two!  I liked the way it looked with the milk can nestled in alongside so I used the Farmhouse one].

Supplies:

• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps Fruit of the Spirit series
• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Farmhouse Signage Bundle
• Stamp Simply Steel Dies - Fishtail Sentiment Banners
• Delicata Non-Tarnishing Ink Pad - Silvery Shimmer
• Carta Bella Gather at Home 6x6
• Craft Consortium Ombre 6x6
• May Arts 3/8" Crochet Lace - 15 yd Spool - White
• Gems
• Copic markers
• diluted white acrylic paint for spattering

Time for a Cup!

Hi friends!  I am excited to be posting today as a participant in the Spring/Summer Coffee Lover's blog hop!  

 

I drink tea too, but in the mornings I really love my hot cup of coffee to start the day.  This is definitely a coffee card...I used several Stamp Simply stamp/die sets and a Tim Holtz tab die to complete this project.   I even used a Latte shade of pearls.  There's some tea-dye distress ink too!   But it wouldn't be hard at all to make it a tea card instead if coffee is not your thing!  

This is a z-fold card and you can see from the side view why it's called that.  It is not at all hard to make if you know the "recipe."  (I first saw an example on Pinterest and followed the link to this blog post for the measurements.  I'm always browsing Pinterest for inspiration.)  I use a ruler and a scoring board to make the appropriate score lines and then make the one partial cut using a paper cutter with a rotary blade. 

Our Stamp Simply Coffee or Tea paper pad has some lovely blues and purples in addition to the gorgeous, rich creamy coffee golds that I'm using here!  These colors made me think of sunflowers too, so I added one to our tall mug, which is exactly the shape of the white mug I drink from each morning (Pottery Barn classic).    

Here's that tiny Tim Holtz tab die which hopefully gives the recipient a clue to pull here!  

It's Coffee o'clock!  Time for a cup!  ❤️  May your cup runneth over!

The dimensions of the fold are just perfect to hide a gift card inside. There's no pocket so you'll have to secure it with some adhesive, but I love that it is entirely tucked away, hiding there to be discovered once the card is fully opened.  (I need to make a run down to our favorite coffee shop, Spring Park Coffee, to get a real gift card to replace this sample AmEx place holder!  Yay, a justifiable reason to go, but who needs an excuse, right?!).   

Supplies:

• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Have a Cup on Us BUNDLE
• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Coffee or Tea?
• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Sunflower Season
• Stamp Simply Paper Pads - Coffee or Tea 6x6
• May Arts 5/8 inch Faux Linen Ribbon Sampler
• Kaisercraft Self-Adhesive Round Pearls - Latte
• Sizzix Thinlits Dies by Tim Holtz - Specimen (pull tab)
• May Arts Baker's Twine - 110 Yard Spool - Kraft
• Copic markers
• tea dye distress ink
• diluted white acrylic paint
• button from stash

To be eligible to win a drawing for a gift code, visit the Stamp Simply blog and leave a comment THERE.  

Enjoy the sale that is happening this Memorial Day weekend.  ❤️

Patriotic Stars

Today's project is a star easel card/ornament paying tribute to all of our United States active duty, retired, active reserve and reserve veterans.  Thank you for your service!  We salute and honor you!  

I love these papers so much that I'm resorting to cobbling pieces together between two paper pads to make a project!  I love that they are so perfectly mixy-matchy that that works!  

For today's card/ornament, I die cut lots of stars and glued them together in layers to make an easel card.  There are two layers of decorative papers with one layer of thin card stock sandwiched in between for each side. 

Here you can see what the card looks like from the side, with one single scored fold line across the top point of the star on only the back side.  

A sentiment and smaller star decorate the inside, where again you can see the way the card is adhered only via the top point.  

And even the back is decorated, so if you do choose to tie a ribbon through the middle and hang it as an ornament, there's something patriotic visible from any view.  

Supplies:

• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Patriotic Sentiments
• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Liberty Bell
• Spellbinders Stars Five
• Stamp Simply Steel Dies - Fishtail Sentiment Banners
• Echo Park Let Freedom Ring 6x6
• Echo Park Stars & Stripes Forever 6x6
• Luxury Pearlescent Metallic 105# Cardstock - Gold 15 ct
• red and blue distress oxide inks
• button and gold cord from stash

July 4th Tabletop Decor

Hi y'all!  ❤️  You *know* I love celebrating the 4th of July, so I'm here today with a little bit of patriotic tabletop decor!  I got this star bucket forever ago (I think it was from the $1 spot at Target) and decided it would make a great napkin keeper with a little dangly circular tag to embellish it.  It's just a few circles layered together with some embellishments and it hangs from the bucket handle via a slot/circle (Crop-a-dile + scissors) that slides into place.

Two-sided designer paper makes this project super easy and even more fun!  I used Spellbinders circle dies to cut a few printed layers and a mat to go between them, then embellished them with stamps and tag dies.  The 4 and the july tag are both Tim Holtz dies.  The month stamp uses a click together alphabet stamp set from a big box store.  This cute little flag star is from our American Eagle bundle.  

I stamped, colored and fussy-cut one star, then die-cut two more (unstamped) from gold metallic card stock.  I scored all three across the horizontal arms of the stars and stamped a sentiment onto one of the gold layers.  I adhered the fussy cut layer to a gold layer, then adhered the top triangles of the gold layers together with the "celebrate" sentiment showing on the inside, and finally glued the back of the star onto the circular card underneath.  

Here is a view from the back, where you can get a peek at the benefit of the two-sided papers and those cute printed sentiments that are part of the paper pack.  You can also see the back of the bucket which is really a luminaria with a cut-out for a tea light.  I filled mine with bandana-napkins whose patriotic colors are peeking through the star shaped opening.  

Supplies:

• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - The American Eagle Bundle
• Echo Park Let Freedom Ring 6x6
• Luxury Pearlescent Metallic 105# Cardstock - Gold 15 ct
• Spellbinders Nestabilities - Standard Circles SM
• Spellbinders Nestabilities - Standard Circles LG
• Sizzix Thinlits Dies by Tim Holtz - Countdown
• Sizzix Thinlits Dies by Tim Holtz - Tag Collection
• May Arts 1/8" Silk - 200 yard spool - Red
• Copic markers
• bucket (this one was from Target dollar spot a while back, I think)
• click together alphabet stamps for "july"

Inspired by a Morning Stroll

Hi everyone!  Can you believe it is May already?!  Time sure flies when you're havin' fun!  

We've already had a few days in the 90's so we've had to move our walks earlier and earlier to avoid the heat and humidity.  We try to stay in the shade and sometimes that means taking the "common area" walking paths through our neighborhood which takes us by several retention ponds.  Even though they are man-made, they're still quite peaceful and it's nice to take a pause to gaze at the plants, birds, fish and other wildlife that gather there.  Thankfully we haven't seen any snakes or gators!   

Those morning walks inspired this clean and simple masculine birthday card using our Autumn Silhouettes stamp set.  The designer paper I chose includes the colors of sand/water/sky and the stamps portray a familiar waterside plant.  I kept the layout and the embellishments simple and natural.  I used a bolder brown and a faint, shimmery copper to stamp the cattails, adding splashes of tea dye and faded jeans distress inks to draw the colors of the background into the foreground.  

Here's a peek at the inside.  This sentiment is from our He Lives stamp set.  

Supplies:

• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Autumn Silhouettes
• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - He Lives (celebrate sentiment)
• Sizzix Thinlits Dies by Tim Holtz - Tag Collection
• Craft Consortium Retro Summer 6x6
• Memento Full Size Dye Ink Pad - Espresso Truffle
• Delicata Non-Tarnishing Ink Pad - Celestial Copper
• May Arts Baker's Twine - 110 Yard Spool - Kraft
• distress inks for spattering

A grass carp (?) that is larger/longer than my forearm!