Thursday, February 23, 2023

Happy Day Iris


Hello again!  I'm here with a pretty-in-pink Mother's Day card today.  Since I made it on Mardi Gras I just had to add those sparkly beads!  Do they make you think of playing dress-up with your mother's hats and old costume jewelry?!  Or maybe remind you of dressing up and wearing corsages for Mother's Day and Easter Sunday?!  I love it when a card makes me feel nostalgic!


I used nested squares to die cut through the Ink Drops designer paper so that the white layer underneath would show through and frame the little floral square, which is from the My Valentine paper pad.


The irises were colored with Copic markers in soft hues to match the designer papers.  Yay for stamps with matching dies!  It's nice to not have to fussy cut (you have to be in the mood, right?!)  


I stamped the sentiment directly onto the Ink Drops paper and splashed everything with Delicata ink to make it sparkly.  


Here's the inside, with more of both the Ink Drops and My Valentine designer papers and another Happy Day Iris sentiment.

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Thursday, February 16, 2023

A Florida Thank You!

 

Hi everyone!  I hope you're having a great week so far!  

From the moment it arrived my fingers were itching to play with this gorgeous Craft Consortium Ink Drops Sunset designer paper!  What a riot of glorious color!  Since our Stamp Simply team featured graduation cards last week, a Florida thank-you idea immediately came to mind.  

If I had wanted to go all out I could have made it University of Florida orange and blue but since our son is an FSU grad, I just couldn't go that far!  No, this version has nothing to do with football at all.  Just a funny play on words to go along with all this gorgeous orange which makes me think of those Florida orange juice commercials!  


On the front, a triple layer of lovely ribbon and laces.  I used Stamp Simply's trio bundle of Fruits of the Spirit to stamp the sentiments outside and in.  


The orange was colored with Copic markers, textured by blotting with an embossed paper towel dampened with blending solution.  The inside was generously splashed with orange juice diluted distress oxide inks. 

Mmmm, I can just taste that delicious Florida orange juice!  Can't you?!  :wink:  Makes me wanna go to Grumpy's for brunch because they have the best fresh-squeezed OJ ever!



Fruits of the Spirit Series
ON SALE NOW!


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Thursday, February 9, 2023

Congrats Grad

 


Graduation season is not far away, so this week our Stamp Simply team is sharing ideas for cards for grads.  


My card showcases our Congrats Grad dies along with our beautiful Man of Knowledge stamp set.  The papers I used are from pads by Echo Park and Craft Consortium.  


I love the neutral colors here (and the classic/vintage feel), but it would be just as fun to make in school colors with a change in papers and marker colors.  


The panel I used inside is one of the many cut-apart tags that are part of the Echo Park Graduation pad.  

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Thursday, February 2, 2023

Valentine Hugs and Kisses!

 

Hello again y'all!  

I am having more fun with My Valentine designer paper!  I used a couple of their printed tags and some Stamp Simply sets to make this cute ensemble.    


The bag was made following Beate's 2-5-7-10 tutorial on SCS.  I'm planning to fill it with hugs and kisses candies.


The tag is made with the Tim Holtz tag dies set.  Those darling sentiments are from our Stick Family series.


There's a Tim Holtz Postale envelope on the back...


...with another little ATC love note inside.  The sentiment here is from Typewritten What You Mean to Me.  The one stamped directly on the large tag is another Stick Family sentiment.

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Thursday, January 26, 2023

Spring Green Daffodils


Hello friends!  I'm here today with a Spring green card to chase those Winter Blues away!  Makes me wish I had thought to force some bulbs to bloom early.  I love doing that with paperwhites at this time of year.  


They truly are one of my favorite flowers so I could not resist making a very Clean and Simple card with this beautiful Stamp Simply stamp set.  It came together in a jiffy using bright green Craft Consortium Ink Drops Earth designer paper, some Copic markers, silky white ribbon and a few dies. 


In the photo those splashes of copper ink look like splashes of dirt (maybe they make you wish to get out and dig in the garden?!), but in real life they are so shimmery and absolutely beautiful.  

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Thursday, January 19, 2023

Valentine Postale

 


Being the wife of a career Navy man who was deployed a lot over the years, I've sent more than a few love letters in my time, so this card brings back lots of memories and makes me smile!  It was a lot different back in the day, before the invention of email.  Back then the turnaround time for a round-trip message from home to the ship and back took around two months.    


Today's Valentine project features Stamp Simply stamps, dies by Tim Holtz, with designer papers by Carte Bella and Craft Consortium.  It's so much fun to coordinate these darling papers!  


The My Valentine two-sided 6 x 6 paper pack has several cute ATC style cards in addition to full sheets, so I used the letter die from the Tim Holtz Postal die set to trim one of those pre-prints to fit into one of the die cut envelopes.  


On the flip side, I added a sentiment and die cut heart.  


The inside is a sheet of Craft Consortium Ink Drops paper with a stamped sentiment.  I die cut another heart from the designer paper (and saved it to use on the back of the card, see below) replacing the opening with a heart die cut from a scrap of gold pearlescent metallic paper.


Here's a peek at the back.

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Thursday, January 12, 2023

Hello Beautiful


My Valentine is my guy who likes no-frills masculine cards, but every once in a while it is really fun to make something really pink and girlie, the kind of card I myself would like to receive, the kind that we all identify with when it comes to the traditional Valentine's Day card (right alongside roses and a box of chocolates!)

This Stamp Simply project started with a piece of pretty Baroque paper that reminded me of lovely woven fabric for home decor or women's fashions, which then inspired the pleats, lace, ribbons and floral accent for the layout. 


I love browsing the fabric stores to find the perfect fabric pairing for an outfit, so I similarly flipped through my Ink Drops and Grunge paper pads to find a couple of great matches to use together here.  Using a light application of Victorian Velvet distress ink on the edges of all the papers helped to unify the colors and give the design a more elegant, finished look.  


The floral accent is a combination of seam binding, variegated silk ribbon, jute thread and paper flowers atop some beautiful Venise lace.  I love how the colors and textures all work together.  


The inside includes another scrap of beautiful Ink Drops along with a Valentine's Day sentiment.  

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Thursday, January 5, 2023

The Vine


Happy New Year everyone!  I hope your 2023 has had a happy start! 


It has been blissfully quiet here in our household, one of the reasons I always treasure the week between Christmas and New Year's.  I usually participate in some sort of "12 Days" celebration...for the last several years I've participated in two fiber offerings that count down from Christmas Day to Epiphany, so I've been enjoying opening a little "gift" of fibery goodness each morning, this morning's being the last since tonight is 12th Night and tomorrow is Epiphany.  Here's a peek of the first five days of one set.  I'm still working on spinning the first singles of Day 4. (You can see a spun "turtle" for the first three days.  I'll spin a second singles for each day from the remaining fiber and ply the two singles together). 


These gorgeous little "sticklebatts" of fiber are too luscious to rush through, so I like to take my time spinning them to savor the beautiful colors and the feel of all the lovely textures as they pass through my fingers.  It will probably take me a while to finish them, especially since I am spinning the entire 11 ounces with spindles (one Jenkins Finch which is a Turkish drop spindle, the other a supported spindle from Woodland Woodworking).  


My Stamp Simply project for today is a simple card of encouragement using paper, sentiment and dies all along the same theme, The Vine.  I love this passage of scripture which seems to hit home all the more fully in the bleakness of Winter.  (I, for one, am glad that Winter Solstice is behind us and that we are headed once again toward longer days and shorter nights.)  


For my card the sentiment is what inspired the Vine theme, but your inspiration can come from *any*where!  Browse our stamp sets and beautiful Kaisercraft papers for all kinds of ideas!

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Thursday, December 29, 2022

2022 Favorites



It's become a tradition for us to look back over the last year and choose our favorite makes, so here are some of mine!  I say "some" because these are only a few!  

Just click on the caption below each card to visit the original post, and then close the window to come back to this one.  


Easter Blessings



With Sympathy



God Bless the USA!



Kinder Grad Congrats!



My Refuge and Fortress



Happy Father's Day!



"Pocket Money" Bag Tags





Happy New Year from our family to yours!  It is our prayer that 2023 will be a year filled with good health, happiness, and lots of love!



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Thursday, December 22, 2022

Merry Christmas!

 

Just a few more days and Christmas Day will dawn!  It seems that there is always more to do right up until the big day arrives, so it's nice to have a couple of quick and easy cards on hand.  Maybe you still need a couple of cards, or a little "Me time" in the stamping studio but only have a few minutes.  This pair of cards is super fast to make using both the "positive" and "negative" of one pass through the die machine.  


The first step is to cut some designer paper to layer on top of your base card stock.  It is better if the print is not too busy and the stamp you choose is not too detailed.  Stamp the image on the designer paper, position the die over the stamped image and run it through the machine.  Remove the stamped image, set the "positive" die cut aside for now, and glue the remaining paper with its "negative" open space onto the card base.  Stamp the image through the opening onto the base card stock.  Color it using your favorite method (here I used Copic markers).  


Stamp a sentiment and embellishment for your card.  I stamped and die cut two of the same sentiment and snowflake for both cards just to make it faster and easier.  


Here's the super clean and simple second card with the positive die from the plaid paper set up on dimensional adhesive dots.  The shimmery gold card stock makes even this simple design feel elegant.  

A splash of diluted white acrylic paint or Snow Tex to both cards gives them a more Wintery holiday feeling.  With so much of America 30 degrees below normal temperatures this Christmas, that seems appropriate!

I hope you and your family have the very merriest Christmas! Happy Holidays!

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