Patriotic Apron Card

Hello friends!  

I have been knitting up a storm lately and one of the projects on my needles is a flag shawl.  I dyed the yarn myself and cast on on April 12th just after our astronauts returned from space and as our troops continued to patrol the waters of the Strait of Hormuz.  Every stitch has been a prayer.  I'm currently on stripe 9 of 13 so I still have quite a bit to go, especially considering that the shawl gets wider the further you knit. 

I am looking forward to finishing my shawl in time for Memorial Day and the 4th of July...thinking of those holidays brought the idea of the typical holiday gatherings to mind...so often, they involve the grill and some sparklers and fireworks and so the idea for an apron shaped card took hold.  

This card is a standard 4.25 x 5.5 inch card with oval "armhole" shapes cut into the top (easy to do with oval die cuts or even with a pair of scissors).  The card front actually has two pockets.  One is formed by the baby bib with its strings snipped off, and the other is made from patterned paper glued across the card bottom.  That one is a wide, deep pocket that could hold some tags or a gift card standing on end to peek out from under the pocket's top edge.  If the person isn't into cooking, maybe a BBQ dinner gift card would be fun to share.   

The inside includes more patriotic stamps and shapes along with the Pledge of Allegiance.  I love this version of "Old Glory" and truly loved including the Pledge alongside.  I remember standing with my hand over my heart to recite the Pledge every morning at school (pretty much the entire 13 years of my before-college education!), and it makes me sad to think of how rarely the opportunity occurs to publicly renew that commitment in this day and age.  I love it when the anthem is played at sports events as a "sing-along" rather than a performance.  It is always so moving, and makes me feel so proud! God bless America!  

Supplies:

• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Patriotic Stamp Bundle DUO
• Stamp Simply Steel Dies - Welcome Baby Basics (top apron pocket, stars, hearts)
• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - The Pledge of Allegiance
• Seam Binding Sampler - Vintage Neutrals - 40 yards
• Echo Park Stars & Stripes Forever 6 x 6
• Luxury Pearlescent Metallic 105# Cardstock - Gold 6 ct
• Copic markers
• distress oxide ink

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Graduating Class of 2026

 

Hi y'all!  

It's amazing to say, but this year marks 50 years ago that I graduated from high school!  1976 was America's bicentennial year, and I remember feeling so proudly patriotic.  I hope that this class of 2026 who will graduate during America's 250 will be filled with pride and patriotism too.

I have been reminiscing about our graduation ceremony, how we all moved our tassels from right to left after receiving our diplomas, and then after all of the pomp and circumstance was over we joyfully tossed our mortarboards into the air!  All of that is what inspired today's project.       

Tim Holtz's Countdown is such a great diecut set for making grad cards and pairs so well with our graduation series, and this year it just made sense to add our flag as a backdrop for the numbers.    

I kept the inside simple with a few stamped stars and an absolutely perfect sentiment!  I still believe in dreaming big (American) dreams and diligently pursuing them!  One of our stamps says it perfectly:

Dream BIG!

Greet the future with anticipation.

Work hard.

Remember your roots, your manners and your way home!

God bless you, and God Bless America!

Stamp Simply

Supplies:

• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Graduation Bundle TRIO
• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - The Red, White & Blue Bundle
• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Patriotic Sentiments (stars)
• Sizzix Thinlits Dies by Tim Holtz - Countdown
• Craft Consortium Scorched Wood 6x6
• Copic markers
• various distress/oxide inks
• gold cord

Taste & See

Hey y'all!  Happy to see you! 

We have had a little swarm of bees outside our back door...it's supposedly peak season from February/March til May here, but because of our year-round warm climate it can happen pretty much any time here in Florida.    

I had so much fun sitting up in my studio playing with papers and inks to make this card.  What can I say?  Mardi Gras colors 💜💚💛 make me happy and this particular designer print is like Mardi Gras colors and more!  It was early morning so I sat there with my second cup of coffee just enjoying the moment.

These prints (with the exception of the green background print from Craft Consortium) are all from our very own Stamp Simply Coffee or Tea paper pad.  So many fun designs!  I love them all and it made me happy to use several on this one card! 

Here's a peek at the inside.  Makes me think of sitting at the family table topped with a plaid "fleece-backed vinyl" table cloth, a lacy doily and fresh flowers adorning the center.  (In reality there is indeed a fleece-backed vinyl tablecloth, just not purple plaid, and the doily is not Battenberg but crocheted lace and HUGE, made by Patrick's cousin Connie's husband Mel).  

Stamp Simply

Supplies:

• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Coffee or Tea?
• Stamp Simply Steel Dies - Have a Cup on Us
• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Vintage Peony Bundle (bees)
• Stamp Simply Steel Dies - Fishtail Sentiment Banners
• Stamp Simply Paper Pads - Coffee or Tea 6x6
• Craft Consortium Over the Rainbow 6x6
• Sizzix Thinlits Dies by Tim Holtz - Mixed Media #1
• Seam Binding Sampler - Rich Pastels - 40 yards
• Dritz Cheesecloth - 36" x 3 yards
• Stamp Simply Steel Dies - Two Sprigs
• Flowers
• Gems
• distress oxide inks
• tea dye distress ink
• white acrylic paint (splashes)
• gold thread

To everything a Season...

Hi everyone!  I hope you've had a wonderful holiday week!  Ours was lovely, quiet and relaxed!  We have had a bit more yo-yo weather, running the heat one day and then needing the AC the next.  The last few days have been grey and overcast.  Not my favorite, but we really need the rain so I am not complaining!  Good weather to stay inside with stamps, ink and paper, needles and yarn, fiber and spindles!    

I've been seeing lots of St. Augustine beach photos on social media lately, and that's partly what inspired this project.  A little paper sunshine is a good thing when skies are grey!  I was going for a sea oats and sandy boardwalk kinda vibe.  I've also been loving all of the Artemis II/Integrity coverage that has been on TV and online. Having seen those amazing photos I have been contemplating the majesty and glory of the heavens, and meditating upon His purpose and plan, especially over this past Easter weekend.           

Here's the inside.  I hope this greeting made you smile!  

Supplies:

• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Autumn Silhouettes
• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Typewritten Year Round Greetings
• Craft Consortium Ombre 6x6
• Craft Consortium Wood Textures 6x6
• Melissa Frances Self-Adhesive Round Pearls - Cream
• May Arts Baker's Twine - 110 Yard Spool - Kraft
• Seam Binding Sampler - Rich Pastels - 40 yards
• distress oxide inks
• Sunny yellow Copic marker (to color the pearl)
• button from stash

Stamp Simply

We're in the midst of a storewide sale, so be sure to visit the Stamp Simply blog and store to celebrate Spring!  

The Way, the Truth, and the Life

Hi y'all!  Happy Holy Week, and Happy Easter!    

My card for today represents a journey!  It might even be called a pilgrimage of a sort.  

A pilgrimage is a purposeful, often spiritual, journey to a sacred place or shrine, undertaken for devotion, penance, or personal transformation. It signifies a deep, respectful visit to a meaningful site—either religious or secular—representing a break from daily life to seek profound meaning.

I'll share the card first and then you can scroll further to read more about the inspiration for it.  You'll see why, when I sat down to stamp, I was immediately drawn to these beautiful greens! Definitely a case of one craft influencing another!  If you're here for only card-making, you can check out the card and then skip the rest.  

While the colors were inspired by Iona Abbey and my freshly finished hand-spun yarn, the verse on the front was why I chose to make another gate-fold card.  He is The Way.  The Shepherd sits at the gate and His sheep know His voice.  

I used beautiful papers in various shades of green from three different Craft Consortium paper pads for this project.  

I also used verses from our Good News series (product of the week) and the Eucalyptus leaves from one of our sympathy sets.  If you look closely, you'll also notice a tiny bit of gold heat embossing on the top left of the inside.  

Here's a close-up of the verse at the bottom right corner of the inside.  

Stamp Simply

Tomorrow (Easter Sunday) there'll be a new product of the week, which means that TODAY is the LAST DAY for a discount on the Good News series!  

Supplies:

• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - The Good News Bundle
• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Eucalyptus Silhouettes Bundle
• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Jesus
• Craft Consortium Beach Hut 6x6
• Craft Consortium Ink Drops Organic 6x6
• Craft Consortium Over the Rainbow 6x6
• Gems
• Seam Binding Sampler - Rich Pastels - 40 yards
• Petaloo Botanica Sugared Minis - Gold Sienna
• Brilliance Pigment Ink - Graphite Black
• Versamark ink
• gold embossing powder
• tulle
• metallic gold cord
• various distress oxide inks

Two years ago I took my first tour of Scotland and one of our stops along the way was the Abbey of Iona.  Upon my return I purchased some spinning fiber inspired by the lichen-covered stone of the Abbey.  (The fiber was prepared by the Green Orthodox nuns of Inglenook Fibers.  Steffie, one of the Inglenook nuns, had also taken a trip to Iona at around the same time I had, and had come back with a collection of gorgeous photos that inspired several color ways).    

Here is the Inglenook fiber in the Iona Abbey color way, and Steffie's photo that inspired it.  

The next year I took another Scotland tour and took my spindle and Iona Abbey fiber with me. 

 

I continued to spin throughout that trip, and after returning home. It took me months to leisurely spindle through all those little tufts of fluff.  I started September 28, 2025 and finished just last week, March 27, 2026.  You can probably imagine that spinning, especially spindling, is quite calming, soothing, and meditative (revisit that Pilgrimage definition!).  It is a really wonderful prelude to other "slow stitching" crafts.  I love it so much!  The colors and textures really speak to me.  

In the end, when I lined them up in pairs in gradient color order, all those little turtles looked like little Brussels sprouts waiting to be roasted.  LOL!

I joined them end to end and wound them into a two-ply plying ball.  

I plied them on one of my spinning wheels and this is the resulting skein, ~ 700 yards of sport-weight yarn.  (So think about that...1400 yards of spinning singles and then another pass through for 700 yards of plying).  Once it is plied, it is soaked and then hung to dry to set the twist.

I was very excited to have finished this very sentimental spin, and immediately went searching for an appropriate pattern for the yarn even though I really already have too many projects on my needles. I couldn't help it, I couldn't wait to make something with it!

I'm so excited to see how the stitches will play out in this tweedy yarn, and to watch the gradient develop as this shawl becomes larger.  So far, I really love it.  This is a mystery knit, so the pattern is released in a series of clues.  I'm currently working on Clue 4 of 7 (the last clue will arrive on April 25th).  This next section is a bit of chevron lace.  

I am so happy that I have several more Scotland-inspired Inglenook color ways to spin.  I will meditate my way through the series, savoring every second of this silky fiber as it slides through my fingers and winds its way onto my spindles.  Who knows...maybe you'll see another spinning inspired project or two as time goes on!  

Next up:  Iona Golden Sunrise!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend, and a very blessed and happy Easter!  

With Sincere Condolences

Hi everyone!  

It seems as we get older, we need sympathy cards more and more frequently.  On this particular occasion I wanted a simple card with understated elegance, with scriptural references and Christian symbolism.  The card measures a standard 4.25 x 5.5 but with the score lines offset so that when closed the edges meet slightly off-center.  

This photo of the belly band captures the colors of this project a little more accurately.  There's a peek of beautiful Grunge Light designer paper from underneath a die cut quatrefoil pattern that reminds me of stained/leaded glass, topped with our layered cross dies and accented with pearls. 

Here's the inside, with the belly band along side.  Every time I see this sentiment, it always reminds me of the hymn, "Great is Thy Faithfulness."  I hope it brings comfort for this family in the loss of their beloved brother/husband/father/uncle/grandfather.

Supplies:

• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Sympathy Sentiments Set 2
• Craft Consortium Baroque 6x6
• Craft Consortium Grunge Light 6x6
• Sizzix Thinlits Dies by Tim Holtz - Mixed Media #1
• Stamp Simply Steel Dies - Crosses
• Melissa Frances Self-Adhesive Round Pearls - Cream
• distress oxide inks

Here's a reminder of this week's product of the week!

Stamp Simply

Blessed are the Peacemakers

 

Welcome, friends!  

Today's Stamp Simply project brings together a couple of paper pads and a couple of stamp sets for a quick and easy vintage style card. I've used this particular plaid for several masculine cards...it is one of my favorites in a collection that is largely Christmas themed.      

The Vintage Emporium paper pad has a few sheets featuring sepia photographs.  I'm no historian but I believe they range from the Victorian era through maybe the 1920s (?!).  They sorta remind me of a photo I've seen of my dad when he was around three years old (late 1920s), so I wanted to use one.  That's what prompted the use of this particular verse.

So here's one of those photos alongside another sentiment from the same stamp set, with some random partial stamping using the "Love is patient..." verse from one of our background mini stamps.  I think this combination of verses works very well together, making a nice card for anyone in a leadership role...first responders/police, military, government service, etc.  I'm praying for all of the folks in those roles.  

Supplies:

• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Blessings/Beatitudes Bundle
• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Scripty Background Minis Set 1
• Stamp Simply Steel Dies - Fishtail Sentiment Banners
• Spellbinders - Labels 59
• Craft Consortium Vintage Emporium 6x6
• Craft Consortium Tartan Plaid 6x6
• Ribbon
• distress/oxide inks
• buttons from stash

Stamp Simply

Easter Blessings

Hello again!  

If you're like I am, your projects are most often fairly fast and easy, often even clean and simple, but every once in a while it just feels right to make some extra effort to make something a bit more special.  Today's card is one of those projects.  It is a little bit fussy to put together but imho, the end result is worth it.  

The card begins with a 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inch piece of card stock scored at 2 1/8 (yay for using some paper scraps!).  When I made my card I mistakenly thought that I could glue the mat and designer paper layers onto the card base and then cut through the entire thing with one pass of the circle die.  WRONG!  So I will advise you to do as I say and not as I did!  Carefully measure and die cut the separate pieces before glueing them together.  While you do need to accurately measure so that everything will align properly, doing it this way should be much easier and neater in the long run!  

One more word of wisdom!  It would be a good idea to use heavier card stock or even cut and glue an additional layer for the gold "frame" and for the flowers to give them extra strength.  That will help prevent bending when this uniquely shaped card is opened/closed.  

I mentioned that I wrestled with cutting through all those layers! The inside edges on mine looked a little ragged, so I found a way to neaten them and make them a little more presentable.  I really love how green and full of life this designer paper makes this card feel!  I also enjoy putting that little trio of pearls onto the card front...threes are repeated here in a couple of places and it feels so right to include a little symbol of the Trinity on an Easter card.  ❤️❤️❤️

If you have been visiting my blog for a while, you might know that this is one of my favorite Stamp Simply stamp sets!  One of the reasons I wanted to make this card with this stamp set was because the graceful curve of the daffodil stems looks so lovely against the edge of this card's circular window.

Stamp Simply

For God so loved the World

 

Hi y'all!  Hope you're having a great week!  

The days are getting longer, and hopefully even in places other than Florida there are a few signs that Spring is on its way, or at least just around the corner.  It's the time of year when people of faith turn their hearts toward God and celebrate His greatest gift.  

Those ideas came together for a (masculine?) card for this week's Stamp Simply project.  I love this Vintage Emporium paper and the way it lends itself to this particular scripture.  Thumbing through paper pads and die cuts, this is what came to mind.  The tree line is cut from a scrap of a print from the Grunge Light paper pad which had colors that echo those in the Vintage Emporium map.  

Here's the inside.  From this angle the sentiment seems quite camouflaged because this print is definitely "grungy" but the sentiment is easier to see IRL.  

I love it because it feels so earthy and garden-ish which is the way Florida feels these last few weeks. 

Supplies:

• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Salvation
• Stamp Simply Steel Dies - Farmhouse Pierced Nested Hearts
• Stamp Simply Steel Dies - Country Church
• Craft Consortium Vintage Emporium 6x6
• Craft Consortium Grunge Light 6x6
• Gems
• distress oxide inks
• white acrylic paint "snow"

Stamp Simply