Friday, May 23, 2025

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:

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.  ❤️


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Thursday, May 15, 2025

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:

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Thursday, May 8, 2025

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:
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Thursday, May 1, 2025

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:


A grass carp (?) that is larger/longer than my forearm!  
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Thursday, April 24, 2025

Thinking of you, dear friend!


Hi everyone!  I have always believed that Spring is wedding season, but sadly this Spring I have needed a steady stream of sympathy cards.  Many of my friends have lost a spouse, one or the other of their parents,  and one friend lost a beloved pet.  

I find sympathy cards difficult to make and typically try to keep a "well" of such cards available but this year I have simply been unable to keep up.  One "silver lining" of being behind is that the card can be much more personalized than a generic/from-the-stash kind of card would be.   Such is the case for today's card, made for a knitting friend who recently lost her mother.  


My friend loves color so I chose a lovely print from one of the Ink Drops series (feminine and in "adjacent" colors that are not too somber) to combine with a medley of sentiments from several Stamp Simply stamp sets.  

This project is made from a 6 x 10.5 inch piece of card stock scored 3.5 inches from each end so that it folds into a finished 3.5 x 6 tri-fold card.  The off-centered window die-cut through the front allows the image stamped onto the middle panel to peek through.  


Then when that front flap is opened you can see the entire floral image and the sentiments clustered around it.  


There are so many beautiful colors of dahlias!  Adding a tiny bit of grey shading around the images helps to subtly "ground" everything and makes it look a little more finished.    


This is the very center/inside, visible when the second flap is opened.  There's a scrap of that same beautiful paper and a sentiment from another stamp set.  As I have mentioned many times before, I LOVE that these sets have a variety of sentiments in this gorgeous font that can be mixed and matched to your liking.  There are even a few of the same sentiments that are arranged differently, such that one layout or the other might prove advantageous for a particular project (that was true for this card where a single straight-line "thinking of you" fit better than the two-line indented one).  

While this card will indeed be sent as a sympathy card, this combination of sentiments would be appropriate for a much broader variety of circumstances.  

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Thursday, April 17, 2025

1776

Hi everyone!

If you've been here before you probably know that my husband served in and retired from the US Navy and that I love making patriotic cards!  You might even remember that my birthday is close to the 4th of July and that I graduated from in 1976, serving on the Bicentennial Commission during my last few years of high school.   No surprise then that the 4th of July is a big deal in our household!    

Of course, we have yet to celebrate this year's Independence Day, but 2026 will be its 250th anniversary!  Lots to look forward to!  (I had to look it up...one of the names for it is the "semi-quincentennial!" What a mouthful!)

Stamp Simply has a fabulous assortment of patriotic stamps that make patriotic cards easy and really fun to make because you can mix and match everything to get exactly the look you want.  

For today's project I made a mini slimline card (finished folded dimensions 3.5 x 6 inches) which gave me a little more wiggle room for the width of that "1776" than a standard A2 card would have.  

First I prepared the card front, stamping the text collage in the background with shimmery copper ink and adding a strip of designer paper to the top of the card.  I filled in any blank spots with sentiments from the Liberty Bell stamp set.  Then I stamped, die-cut and colored the bell images with Memento/Copic markers using coppery colors before adhering them directly onto the card front.  

The numbers, die cut from a couple of sheets of designer paper, were adhered with dimensional adhesive squares.

I added a big red bow embellished with a small tag stamped "USA," tied on with some string through a heart-shaped button from my stash.  (I'll be sad when I run out of these; I can't even remember where I purchased them...JoAnn I think 💔).

Here's the inside, where I stamped sentiments from a couple of our other patriotic sets and layered more of those designer papers.   


The mini slimline card is made using an 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of card stock trimmed to 7 x 8.5 inches, scored at 3.5 to fold into 3.5 x 8.5 inches and then trimmed to its final finished 3.5 x 6 inch size.  The fun thing about that is that there's a little flap of card stock left over, onto which "coincidentally" these tiny tags from the designer paper fit just perfectly!  They're cute and fun and fast!  You barely even need to trim them.


Supplies:
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Thursday, April 10, 2025

With Sincere Condolences

 


Hello again!  I'm here today with a feminine sympathy card in colors that remind me of my own dear mother.  (She loved these colors and wore them quite often.)  I was shuffling through paper pads and thought that these two pads from Craft Consortium looked so soft and pretty together.  The layout is one from a while back at Deconstructed Sketches.  


I love using this kraft card stock with these shimmery ink drops prints.  It looks especially pretty when layered with colored card stock and some shimmery ink for the edges and for stamping the sentiments.  That little bit of sparkle seems to soften everything and meld all the colors together (and in this case the extra layers of card stock lend some stability to the thin base layer which is not much thicker than copy paper)!   

The flower I used as an embellishment was my second choice because I am out of my favorites!  This one was a bit bright in comparison to the rest of the card so I tipped its edges with a Copic marker to tone it down and help it to blend in better.  (I've linked to the one that would have been my first choice in the supplies list below).  The variegated ribbon beneath the flower echoes all of the lovely colors in that beautiful paper.  The silk is so soft and elegant!    


Here's the inside.  More of that shimmery paper and a heartfelt sentiment!    

Supplies:
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Thursday, April 3, 2025

Sending You Cheer!


Hi y'all!  Glad to see you!  I hope you're having a great week.    

I have an online friend who's really been having a hard time lately. She is currently in the hospital, so I thought a hand-made card might cheer her up a little!  


I shuffled through my papers and stamps looking for the right combination of sentiments and some cheerful papers.  I found the sentiments in our Pitcher of Daisies and Floral Cluster Summer Roses stamp sets.  


The "Gather at Home" designer paper pad from Carte Bella had a bunch of coordinating prints in soothing colors with a printed tag that will work just perfectly for Alexis.  I hope she'll be able to go home soon!  This JOY fold card is great for using various prints together because it gives you lots of surfaces to decorate!  It's definitely a favorite of mine!  Here's Beate's JOY fold card tutorial on Splitcoast Stampers.


I even had lots of little scraps of the paper tucked into the cover of the pad, and I was able to use a few of those to embellish the inside, saving the larger pieces for another project.  Nice!  


Here's another one of those printed tags adhered to the back of the card along with another little Farmhouse pierced heart.  

It would have been easier to mail without the bow on the front but I just couldn't resist adding one!  

Supplies:
And now for those who are interested, a little follow-up regarding my Sock Madness progress since last week.  


That was a really cool pattern and joining it from flat to in-the-round was quite magical...but it was one size only and turned out to be absolutely ginormous!  


I continued knitting through the heel flap and gusset into the foot but in the end just couldn't stay motivated to continue knitting an entire pair of socks that I knew would not be wearable.  Too bad I could not get either of my fellas to agree to wear this hot pink!  ;)   


I stacked the qualifier and Round 1 socks on top of the pink Round 2 sock just to show their relative size.  The white ones are nice and snug and fit just the way I like, the blue ones are a little looser, and that pink one, whoa!  It will end up in the frog pile and maybe someday I'll knit a pair using modifications for a smaller size.  I haven't decided whether I'll use this yarn for the same but smaller pattern or if I will reclaim this awesome yarn for something else. Only time will tell!


Not finishing that pair means that I cannot advance to the next round of Sock Madness, but I'm ok with that, ready to get back to spinning and to knitting other things than socks!  So I immediately started spinning some "Lenten Roses."  This fiber is gorgeous and it's spinning like a dream!

Have a great week everyone!  
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Thursday, March 27, 2025

Warm and Cozy

It's March Madness which (for many knitters) also means Sock Madness on Ravelry, so I have been knitting nearly non-stop for weeks...breathing, eating, sleeping and dreaming about sock knitting!  So when it was time to make this week's Stamp Simply project, is it any surprise that it's also about knitting?!  Although it uses some of dies and sentiments from Stamp Simply, it is definitely something a little different and I'm grateful to Sharon that she allowed me to stray quite a bit far from "stamping center" for this one!  My hope is that it will inspire you to think a little more broadly about ways to use your stamps and that you'll enjoy the way your crafts/hobbies might intersect in the process.  

One of my dear card-making friends recently sent me a wonderful box full of gorgeous yarn.  She's having wrist pain and therefore has decided to take a rest from knitting.  After I'd posted a photo of my Sock Madness socks on FaceBook, she blessed me with a gift of some of the skeins from her stash (a huge box!) and I immediately put one set of sock yarn to good use.  I want her to know how grateful I am for her generous gift!  I'll share a photo of my socks so far after telling you more about this week's card.

To me, this designer paper print (Craft Consortium Watercolours designer paper pad) looks a lot like knitted or woven stitches.  I decided to go a step further and knit a tiny scarf using some baker's twine.  It was a little bit of a challenge to knit with because of its cotton content and high twist but I was pleased with the way it turned out.  I used a pair of US 1 double-pointed needles (cast on 6 stitches, knitted in stockinette stitch, slipping the first stitch of every row) and once it seemed long enough I transferred it to a pair of toothpick "needles."  

 

I had planned to glue a pretty bead onto the end of each toothpick to make them look a little more like actual knitting needles but the centers of the beads that I have were too small for the size of these large cocktail toothpicks.  

But doesn't this sentiment from our Boho Pumpkins set work just perfectly for this card/occasion?!  


Here's the inside, stamped with a thank you in a lovely combination of fonts from another of our sets, Delightful Dahlias.  

Supplies:
Hopefully Winter is on its last huzzah for this year, but that doesn't mean that I'm ready to put my wool away!  I spin and knit pretty much year round.  

Sock Madness is a game for knitters (hosted online on Ravelry) that works more or less like musical chairs...there are fewer spots on the team than there are players and the available slots decrease in number as the players advance to the next round.  The patterns are usually unusual and quite challenging, with intriguing construction and unfamiliar techniques that really stretch a knitter's skills.    

Here are a few progress shots of my sock for Round 2.  This pattern is named Chattahoochee by Shuyi Wu.  


It's knitted flat in a chevron stitch from self-striping yarn, then folded so that the chevrons align and can be stitched into a tube.  The process of changing from flat to round is really quite magical and mesmerizing to see.     


In this photo the cuff is toward the bottom left.  The heel/sole stitches will be picked up and knitted along the remaining edges (both sides of the "L" at the top right) and then knitting the toe (at the top) will be the final step.  

You can tell I still have a good way to go to finish this one, and then of course, I'll have to knit its mate, but it is a lot of fun and always an incredible learning experience.  I am a relatively slow knitter and require frequent rests to avoid repetitive motion stess/strain, so we shall see if I can manage to make it into Round 3. 

Thanks Melissa, for this fun Neapolitan self-striping yarn and its coordinating hot pink mini-skein, and for all of the other beautiful yarn that you sent!  I really hope I can do it justice although I'm sure it will take me years to knit through it all!  xo

Thank you everyone for your indulgence for today's project!          
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