More Coffee!

Can there ever be enough coffee or coffee stamps?!  Not in my book!  :)  

We already have several great Stamp Simply coffee stamp sets, but we are releasing some adorable new additions to the collection! I had so much fun playing with them and combining them with some of our other sets just to see what I could come up with!

The first card I'm sharing is simple and straight-forward, using stamps only from the new set.

There are cups in varying shapes, styles and sizes with accompanying dies that make card-making so fast and easy.   The front of my card features a striped cup colored with Copic markers. 

I used the cute polka-dot cup for the inside.  It was fun pairing the new set with this broken porcelain mosaic designer paper.

I don't know about you, but I always drink my coffee with a little cream and sugar, so I decided to go for an extra challenge with this new set by doing a little paper piecing, "repurposing" and mirror stamping with these new stamps and our Seasonal Decor set to come up with some cute coffee accessories.  

This creamer is one of the new cups with the addition of a spout cut from the pitcher in the Seasonal Decor set.  

The sugar bowl is made by mirror stamping the handles, adding a portion of an upside down cup bottom with a little knob made from a trimmed piece from the candlestick, also from Seasonal Decor.

The sentiments from this second, slimline card are from one of our earlier coffee stamp sets just to illustrate the fact that everything seamlessly mixes and matches.  So much fun to let your imagination run with ideas for using them in different combinations!  

This taller card made it easy to add a pocket for a gift card.  

Supplies for May Your Cup Overflow:

• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Have a Cup on Us BUNDLE
• Prima Pretty Mosiac - 6x6
• Stamp Simply Steel Dies - Fishtail Sentiment Banners
• Spellbinders Nestabilities - Standard Ovals SM
• Spellbinders Nestabilities - Standard Ovals LG
• Seam Binding Sampler - Vintage Neutrals - 40 yards
• Seam Binding Sampler - Spring Pastels - 30 yards
• Petaloo Botanica Baby Blooms - Fuchsia
• Kaisercraft Self-Adhesive Round Pearls - Latte
• Copic markers

Supplies for Tall Coffee with cream and sugar 

• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Have a Cup on Us BUNDLE
• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - A Cup of Java (Coffee)
• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - All Season Decor (pitcher "spout", candlestick "knob")
• Craft Consortium Baroque 6x6
• Carta Bella Gather at Home 6x6
• Spellbinders Nestabilities - Standard Rectangles SM
• Spellbinders Nestabilities - Standard Rectangles LG
• Kaisercraft Self-Adhesive Round Rhinestones - Silver
• Copic markers

Proud to be an American

Hello all!

Usually my cards take shape from the outside in, but today's card was inspired inside-out by one of the printed rectangles in a new pad of designer paper.  It's another super simple design since most of the patriotic cards I make go to male recipients and for them, the less fuss and frills, the better.  

You'll have to look closely to see that the oval that is positioned behind the flag is stamped with text.

Since the text on the front turned out to be so faint, I decided to try stamping the inside with stamped off brown ink before stamping the metallic ink on top.  It came out a little darker than I had hoped, but I like the fact that it is more easily visible.   It adds some nice detail to the card without being labor intensive.

Since I can't even read this sentiment without hearing the song in my head, I just had to include the little music staff from God Will Take Care of You.  The stars are from our Patriotic Sentiments set.    

Supplies:

• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - The Red, White & Blue Bundle
• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Patriotic Sentiments
• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - God Will Take Care of You
• Echo Park Let Freedom Ring 6x6
• Memento Full Size Dye Ink Pad - Tuxedo Black
• Delicata Non-Tarnishing Ink Pad - Celestial Copper
• Spellbinders Nestabilities - Standard Ovals LG
• May Arts Metallic String - 300 Yard Spool - Gold
• Copic markers

Yooper's Kitchen Decor

Hey everyone!  

My husband is currently in the kitchen cooking up a batch of his amazing red sauce and it smells so heavenly in here!  Olive oil, sweet onions and lots of garlic!  He hasn't even gotten to the tomato part yet!    

Since he is of Italian heritage, we eat a lot of Italian food in our household, although now mine has to be gluten-free and I miss the real thing sometimes.   Patrick is from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and it seems like it's Italian everything everywhere when we visit up there!  That is what gave me the idea for a Yooper Kitchen card for this week's Stamp Simply project.   

This card makes me smile because we actually have quite a bit of Yooper decor IRL...in fact, I drank coffee from Patrick's Yooper coffee mug just yesterday morning!  Almost every Christmas my sister-in-law sends him some Yooper something.  He often wears an orange UP hat that makes everyone do a double-take.  Some people think it is a Tennessee Vols hat until they look a little closer...then they usually have to ask what it is because it is mostly only real Yoopers who recognize the shape of the map of the UP.  

Small print designer paper and some wood grain texture paper made this an easy card to make and even keep flat for easy mailing.   The pitcher was stamped on printed paper (I thought that it looked like an olive branch) but the olive oil bottle and  "Love" box were stamped on white card stock and colored with Copic markers.

Here's the inside, which includes the definition of Yooper and a big bold 906!  Yooper actually is Patrick's nickname from when he first joined the Navy way back when!  We were sooooo tickled when these Stamp Simply Yooper sets came out and it has been fun to play around combining them with other sets that we have!

Supplies:

• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - All Season Decor Bundle
• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Upper Peninsula of Michigan (Yooper) Bu...
• Carta Bella Gather at Home 6x6
• Craft Consortium Wood Textures 6x6
• Memento inks
• Copic markers

Happy Mother's Day!

This week marks six years ago that my son Matthew and I took our trip to Italy with the Orange Park Chorale. Seeing all those photos pop up in my memories on FB was what inspired my card for this week.  

I have to laugh because this is one that I may just have to keep for myself!  But that is what is so special about hand-stamped cards...they can be made to be so very intentionally personal for the one who'll receive them.

I love the look of this Prima vintage paper, with its soft colors, lovely script fonts, beautiful scenes from Italy and the postcards/travel theme.  How perfect!  I used our Stamp Simply Summer Roses floral cluster to frame a scrap of the paper, adding a few small accents from the paper pad along with a Mother's Day sentiment stamped and die-cut with a fishtail banner die.  It made me happy that the sentiment was narrow and everything could be arranged to allow the script and the background Ink Drops paper's colors to peek out from underneath.  Everything came out softly shabby chic, which I love.

The Prima paper reminds me of Venice (and the Bridge of Sighs), although the pad is actually scenes from Capri.  

The Ink Drops Candy paper reminds me of the colors of one of the photos that I took right before one of our concerts there, so you can see why this card might feel sentimental to me!  (I might have to make a scrapbook page using the same elements!)      

Our trip took us from Venice to Florence, Lucca, Sienna, and Rome, with four concert stops along the way.  On our very last day there we sang for Mother's Day at the Vatican! 

I doubt any Mother's Day will ever top singing together with my son at the Vatican in St. Peter's Basilica the way we did on Mother's Day 2016!  It was the trip of a lifetime!

On this Mother's Day I will be missing my own mother, hoping to hear from our son, and gratefully celebrating my Mother-in-Law although we won't be able to be together.  Yay for FaceTime, right?!  And I am also hoping that someday soon my husband, son and I can take another fabulous trip abroad!  (Of course, after nearly two years of Pandemic restrictions, I am happy to go just about anywhere!)

I hope you will be inspired to look through your photos and memories and stamp something sentimental and special for you and your loved ones!  Happy Mother's Day to you and yours! Enjoy the weekend!

Supplies:

• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Floral Cluster Bundle with Die
• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Typewritten Year Round Greetings
• Prima Capri - 6x6
• Craft Consortium Ink Drops Candy 6x6
• Stamp Simply Steel Dies - Fishtail Sentiment Banners
• Memento Full Size Dye Ink Pad - Rich Cocoa
• Delicata Non-Tarnishing Ink Pad - Celestial Copper
• Kaisercraft Self-Adhesive Round Pearls - Latte
• Copic markers
• tea dye distress ink