Thursday, June 28, 2018

Enjoy the Little Things!


Do you subscribe to any card-making newsletters?  The most recent SCS newsletter contained a link to this Double Triangle Card tutorial, so I had to try it for today's card for Stamp Simply!  I love that this interesting fold uses one piece of 8.5 x 11 card stock, sliced diagonally in half to make two cards.  By reversing the direction of the folds you can change the orientation of the card. It's kinda fun and different.

The real trick with this design is to make sure that the focal point is adhered only on one of those diagonal panels.  Otherwise the card won't open.


It offers lots of opportunity to use up those pretty prints of coordinating paper.  I am really enjoying this Authentique Seafarer paper and had to squeeze in one more sorta patriotic card since Summer is officially here and it's almost the 4th of July.  I was going for a nautical, sandy beach/splashing waves/sea salt and spray kind of a feel.  Some fishing net and sea shells would be awesome on a design like this too!


If you look closely you can see that the sentiment is stamped with a mixture of the Delicata silver and gold inks.  That seemed to match the grey-beige colors in the paper better than either color alone.  I also rubbed the ink pads onto my craft mat and used lots of water with an old paint brush to splatter the colors onto the white card stock.  After all, the beach is pretty messy!  ;)

I hope you enjoy your weekend!  And if you are one of my fellow Americans, Happy Independence Day!  

Here are the supplies I used for today's card:
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Thursday, June 21, 2018

Happy Birthday!


Today's easel card for Stamp Simply was inspired by my mom! Today would have been her 90th birthday were she still living.  She loved books, and in fact, worked for many years at the Westlake Branch of the Calcasieu Parish Library.  She had a wonderful collection of books on a wide variety of subjects.  There were always stacks of books on the stool that sat beside her rocker and on her nightstand.  She kept one at arm's reach in just about every room in the house, including the kitchen!  She especially loved cookbooks!


There was a special of Little Women on TV not long ago, and I was really excited to watch it, mainly to see the costumes (in the midst of sewing my own 1860s attire, you might remember)!  I look at this vignette differently now than I would have before, noticing the details of the trim on their dresses, the collars and cuffs, the way their hair is worn.  When I was stamping, I was happy to find a way to nestle things together without having to cover anything significant, because this paper is SO lovely!


Here is a detail shot of the floral cluster.  The green of the leaves, orange of the flowers, the yellow burlap string, yellow pearls and vibrant blue faux canvas ribbon bring all of the colors of the paper together into the embellishments, while the tulle and lace add femininity and softness.  


The birthday greeting on the front is echoed by the traditional greeting that peeks from inside when the easel card is propped open.

Here are the supplies I used, all from Stamp Simply:

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Thursday, June 14, 2018

Happy Flag Day!


Happy Flag Day!  Today's card for Stamp Simply was inspired by those painted palette projects that you've seen all over Pinterest. This is the same paper that I used for my card last week, this time cut into strips and glued to a piece of white card stock.  The star is die cut from white card stock, inked with distress oxide ink, then sprinkled with water.  After stamping and heat-embossing the sentiment, everything was splattered with diluted gold ink.


You can see the embossing and the barn wood texture of the patterned paper a little better in this close-up.  I had planned to use some gold glitter-dot ribbon and blue faux canvas ribbon, but in the end decided that clean and simple was the way to go!


And here's the inside.  Again, clean and simple.  I love this stamp set!  And the nice thing is that there's still time to order it for patriotic cards for the 4th of July!  

So blessed to live in this great country and so very proud to be American.

Here are the other supplies that I used, all from Stamp Simply:
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Thursday, June 7, 2018

You are the BEST!


Father's Day is just around the corner!  I really miss my own sweet daddy, but I still enjoy making cards for my son to give my husband.  In his book, less is more...he is definitely a no frills kinda guy.  


Because of that, I wanted this card to be bright and colorful but still clean and simple.  This sentiment from Stamp Simply All Occasions Sentiments 2 and the designer paper from Authentique Frontier gave me the idea of a "Home on the Range/County Fair Blue Ribbon" style of a card.  I figured he would not object to this ribbons-without-bows design.


The inside of the card is "leather" designer paper, so I thought it might be cool to make the sentiment appear "branded."  I stamped it first with white chalk ink, then moved the paper ever so slightly before stamping it again with Tuxedo Black.

My cuttlebug cutting plates are in really sad shape, so there are some rough spots on those gold foil stars.  I really need to order some replacement plates!  

Here are the supplies I used:
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Thursday, May 31, 2018

Spring + Summer Coffee Lovers Bloghop with Stamp Simply


Hello everyone!  It's the last day of May, which means three things:

First...it's my brother's birthday, and my great niece's, his granddaughter!  Happy birthday Tom and Faith!  
Second...we're drawing near the end of the Spring + Summer Coffee Lovers Bloghop.  
Third...in honor of the blog hop, Stamp Simply is having a sale on everything in our Coffee/Tea section.   Check out those dates.  The sale is almost over.


I'm headed to a sew-in for the weekend so I was drawn to this Miss Betty designer paper!  (It's gonna be so much fun hanging out in a house full of ladies, with coffee/tea, sewing machines, and wine, probably in exactly that order!).  This pack has those printed/perforated tags and borders to punch out, so I combined those with our Stamp Simply dies and some Spellbinders too, for a card with lots of layers and little details.  


I couldn't resist adding a little birdie to the front of the cup.  When I was a young girl, we used to go to Oakley House where Audubon had been inspired to draw/paint many of his bird studies.  Over the years of regularly visiting there (my grandmother lived not far from there in St. Francisville, LA) my mom purchased quite a few of the collectible dinner plates, cups and saucers that were for sale in their gift shop.  I loved going there, so this little birdie is in fond remembrance!  The birds and their Spring songs are a perfect fit for today's hop theme.  

The hexagon on the die-cut cup was fussy-cut from the designer paper, die-cut with the Stamp Simply pierced heart die, and then layered atop the birdie tag from the paper pack.  It was the perfect size to peek through the tiny heart opening.  If you look closely under that pretty flower and coffee-colored ribbon, you'll see a paper Battenburg lace doily reminiscent of the fabric one your grandmother might've had.  


The inside of the card has more of that great patchwork designer paper with a stamped sentiment and the heart that was cut from the hexagon on the card front.  

Here is the full list of supplies I used for today's project, all from Stamp Simply:
Be sure to visit the original post for this week's Spring + Summer Coffee Lovers Blog Hop to check out all the great sponsors, prizes, and creative projects that have been submitted!  
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Thursday, May 24, 2018

We will never forget!


Hello everyone!

Here in the US we are gearing up for a long holiday weekend that for many hails as the official start of Summer.  Most Americans are thrilled to have a day off from work/school on Monday to celebrate (maybe with a trip to the beach or with a cookout?!) but that really isn't all that this holiday is about.  Our freedoms are definitely worth celebrating, but I hope you'll take the time to remember those whose lives were lost to secure and protect those freedoms. Since we are a (now retired) military family, certain names and faces come to mind as we remember...and we will never forget.


And so today I am here with a very simple, clean and graphic Memorial Day card.  I used just a handful of supplies and let that shiny gold foil card stock speak for itself!  The gold peeks through the negative space of the striped designer paper, and the positive shapes decorate the inside.


Here are the supplies I used, all from Stamp Simply:
I hope you have a fabulous weekend!
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Thursday, May 10, 2018

Deepest Sympathy


Several weeks ago I made a sympathy card using prints from Graphic 45's Little Women designer paper pad.  Although today's Stamp Simply card is made with a similar combination of inks, paper, and embellishments (I must have Little Women really on my mind since it's supposed to air Sunday night!), it has a slightly different look.  


I used a craft knife to cut slits in the vertical stripes of the triple tear die cut to insert the smaller circle die, allowing the stripes to frame the sentiment.


There's just a sprinkling of distress oxide ink on the sentiment and inside to bring out the blues of the  small flowers in the designer paper.

I am sad to have needed several sympathy cards in recent weeks, but I am glad that there are such lovely stamps to use to create hand made condolence cards to send to bereaved friends.
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Thursday, April 26, 2018

Star of Hope!


Hi everyone!  I've been having fun with our newly released stamps, and today I am here with a quilt block patriotic card.  This particular quilt block pattern is called Star of Hope.  :)  Lucky for you and me, there are a lot of ideas on Pinterest for cards with quilt blocks, including patriotic designs, so there's plenty of inspiration out there.  


I cut squares of designer paper with a die and then cut them in half or quarters to complete the block design.  I embossed the sentiment on the designer paper to help it stand out more clearly, but other than that, it was all just simple stamping and a little splattering of diluted ink with a paintbrush.  

I kept trying to put ribbons and flowers on this card, but it just really wanted to be clean, simple, and graphic.  So there you go! Sometimes it seems as though a card takes on a life of its own!

Here are the supplies I used:
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Wednesday, April 25, 2018

All Occasion Sentiments and Patriotic Blog Hop - Stamp Simply Clear Stamps




Welcome to today's Blog Hop. This week we are showcasing three sets from our NEW April Release. Last week we concentrated on graduation and other congratulatory events using two of our new sets. This week we will concentrate on the remaining three sets - All Occasion Sentiments SET 1 and SET 2 and Patriotic Sentiments. Combine these sentiments with images, sentiments or Scripture from our other sets and your options are limitless! Hop along with us. The link list is a bit further down.

I love playing with distress oxides, so I pulled out a masculine paper pad, some harmonizing colors and a get well sentiment from one of our new stamp sets,  All Occasion Sentiments SET 1, to make this masculine card.  It's fun to see how the colors play together in different combinations and on different kinds of paper and I love this layout with the designer paper peeking through from underneath.  

I wanted this background to have a rugged, outdoorsy feel to go along with the designer print so I used earthy tones and then faintly went over them through a woodgrain stencil with a damp blending tool. Hard to catch on camera but IRL you can see the subtle effect.  

The sentiment is stamped on one of the punch-out dies that is part of the paper pad.  I liked the way it looked and fit on top of a retired Spellbinders label die, with enamel accents clustered around it.  


Ha, you KNOW when a fella doesn't even feel up to hunting or fishing, he must *really* be sick!  Better send him a card, quick!  ;)

Here are the supplies I used on today's project:
Be sure to make your way through the rest of the hop to see what lovelies my design team mates have created using our new sets.  And come back to my blog tomorrow because I will have another card using them then as well.
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Thursday, April 19, 2018

Congratulations & Best Wishes


Hello again!  I am back today with another card from Stamp Simply's new Graduation and Beyond release.  I love and adore how versatile these stamps are and how well they combine with stamps from previous releases!    


For today's card I combined two sentiments from a new set with the "ampersand" from our Welcome Fall set.  I thought a wedding/anniversary card would emphasize the versatility of these stamps and decided to go for a "White Lace and Promises" sort of look.  The lacy designer paper is a dark grey-olive color, and IRL the sentiment panel matches very well, but for some reason (maybe all the silver and shimmer?) it freaked my camera out and in the photos it looks nearly grey-black.

I stamped the sentiment in Versamark and heat-embossed it with white detail embossing enamel so that splattering silver ink over it would not smear the lettering.  There is also some very faint stenciling to add a bit more shimmer.  

This is the largest die of this particular die set, and so I had to find an alternative way to create a border behind it.  I cut another die of the same size from white card stock, trimmed it from point-to-point both horizontally and vertically, and glued it to the back of the darker one leaving a small gap between the pieces.  I used small left-over "negative" pieces from the fancy tags 2 die to cover the spaces, and topped those with pearls.  Hopefully the recipient will have no idea that this was a stop-gap measure!  


There is more of the stenciling and splattering on the inside, along with another beautiful sentiment.  I was hoping the design would be reminiscent of a beautiful mesh-like leaded glass window with light shimmering through the panes.

Here are all the products I used to create today's project:
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