Celebrate Sunflowers, I'm thinking of you

 

Thre is a technique called Josephs coat that I hadn't tried, and decided now was the time.  If you are looking to try it, just do a search on you tube and you'll find several tuts for it. You start with white paper and end up with what I have as a background.  

I have been going to buy this set,  Celebrate Sunflowers all year, and finally got it. It's a great set with lots of ways to use it. 

After making my background I glued it to the slightly larger Just Jade piece then to a white card base.

For the top flower I cut from Mango Melody for the outlines of the sunflower, and took a piece of white, sponging or brushing color from Just Jade, Calypso Coral and Mango Melody over areas of the paper, then cut my background part of the sunflower.   I also stamped and cut 3 leaves from white and brushed on a bit of the Jade over top.  

Thanks for stopping.

Easter Greetings, #fms476,

 

I love making a very simple card with something very special on it.  

In this case I used a retired embossing folder, I love embossing folders, there is so much you can do with them and they are so affordable.  

My inspiration for today's card came from the weekly challenge at Freshly Made Sketches here. 

 There are some gorgeous cards to check out over there. 

I used Rococo Rose and Misty Moonlight, both are incolors for Stampin Up.   I embossed my folder then used my craft white SU ink pad to lightly rub over the top of the paper. It left white on raised areas.  An alternative is to use a brayer to take ink from the ink pad and roll onto the background part of the folder before embossing, and then you'll have a white background for your rose colored card. 

I also used the brand new Brilliant Wings dies. And Rhinestones from the Noble Peacock rhinestones set of  colors. 

 

I hope I've inspired you just a bit.  

 

Butterfly Easter card, Freshly Made Sketches #474

 

I'm working on my Easter cards. And I'm doing them a little different this year, the Easter sentiment in inside, and I'm making them pretty spring cards with a simple message on the front. 

One great way to get started is using a challenge, so this one is for this weeks Freshly Made Sketches.

Hop on over to see what everyone else made.
 

I'm using a retired die set for my butterfly, Butterfly thinlits, and Bold butterfly.  I've kept it because I just love the whole set along with a couple other pieces like a stamp set and 2 punches with butterflies. 

The floral die is from the Ornate Border Dies, a gorgeous set of border with an equally pretty stamp set.  

My colors are: Rococo Rose, So Saffron, and white. I watercolored a piece of watercolor paper using my ink pads and water brush, and cut the top part of the big butterfly out of that, then punched the 2 little ones out of the left over.

I used the Noble Peacock Rhinestones on my large butterfly, and reg rhinestones on the two little ones. 

I hope I have inspired you some. Thanks for stopping.

 

Wonderful Romance, Just wanted to say

 

As a Stampin Up demo, most of what I buy in the stamping field is from Stampin Up.  But, I've always been a crafter so I'm always looking at what everyone is doing.   I get reg emails from several sources, often I find product SU doesn't have that looks like fun.  What started as make up brushes has come over to stamping now. I had that first for elsewhere.  SU wisely decided to carry them too, they are fab if you haven't tried them.

I remember when I first started stamping. There wasn't much to be had besides stamps. Stampers would buy lots of different things from all kinds of strange places to use.  One I remember well was from the lumber yard.  It was a product meant to tape walls together and it started showing up on cards. It was a lot of fun back then, but stamping has only gotten better and more fun.

So, I saw a card from one of my mailings that hit a nerve, and this is my take from it. It's not the same anything, it just spoke to me and I went off with an idea. The stamp set here is retired, but it's very much a favorite of mine, it's called Wonderful Romance and has matching dies. There are extra pieces to cut, but I liked it simple this time. 

I used Mango Melody, Soft Seafoam, Gorgeous Grape and white.  

My top layer of card stock was embossed using the Tasteful Textile 3D embossing folder. I love that it lets you add something subtle so your eye is drawn to the center.    I just stamped and embossed on vellum and softly colored on the back side adding my purple centers on the front.  I love the little extra that the dots give to the design. 

This is going out as an Easter card this year. Just got 3 or 4 more to go.

Thanks for stopping.

Art Gallery Thinking of you, JAI#541

 

If I had to choose a favorite tool it would have to be embossing folders, there is just so much you can do with them, especially considering how inexpensive they are.  

This is the Parisian Flourish folder, and I'm using it for the Blended background challenge for Just Add Ink this week. 

It's a gorgeous folder and I added another gorgeous item, the flower in the Art Gallery bundle that is in the new Mini.   It'll be good until the end of June.  

Colors: Rococo Rose, Coastal cabana, Dafffodil delight, Garden Green, Bermuda Bay Black and White. 

Normally I use white on the top on something like this, but something told me to try black, both on top and as a small frame under my background piece. I really like the way the black frames it.

I also used Stitched So Sweetly dies on this for that black cut out.  I considered using a bit larger die in the same set to make a frame instead, but I do love the pop you get this way.

I hope you enjoy.

Stampin Up, Purple birthday card 2. Hydrangea Haven

 

If you saw the last purple card I posted, that was birthday card #1, this is purple birthday card #2.   Such a gorgeous set, will be keeping this forever.  

I layered the 2 pieces together, (DSP and Grape CS) and cut them using the Curvy die at the same time, then slid purple out from under to where I wanted it and glued those down to the white card that was on top of the Highland heather card base after wrapping with the purple ribbon.

I stamped my flower using gold embossing, and die cut that out. Then I used my water brush and ink pad to add just a bit of the lighter purple, then a few blotches of the darker purple, did the same with the greens, Soft sea foam and Granny apple green.

Stamped Happy Birthday from the Piece of Cake set, and gold embossed that too.  Then cut out using a die from Stitched Sweetly dies. 

That was about it, if you haven't seen #1 just scroll down.  Thanks for stopping by. 

Stampin Up Happy Birthday, Just Add Ink #539

 

I have 2 birthday girls coming up in Feb, so one down.  I recently got the Forever Gold DSP, and I can see it's going to be very useful!   The Happy Birthday from the Happy Birthday to you stamp set is embossed in gold as well.   

Here is the link and info to the challenge, Just add ink.

 

 

 

 

I've added the banner and border. I would have loved to use a bow as well, but I have to stick this in an envelop and that can be troublesome with that bow on it.

The color is Gorgeous Grape and the DSP that is so very pretty is the Hydrangea Hill.  The whole set, DSP, stamps and dies are all gorgeous.   

So, that is how simple this is, the gold center was just popped out of the foil sheet and applied. I used the Rectangle stitched dies to create my frame.     If you know anything about Feb birthdays you know that purple is required, my girls are huge purple fans.  

I hope you enjoyed. 

Cut the Cake, #FMS468 Birthday card

 

Hard for me to believe I haven't posted since the first of Dec.  So, here is my first challenge card for this year for Freshly made sketches.  Cute and simple and one of my favorite people is the host of this one.

This one is for my oldest grand, I've given up trying to remember just how old he is, but lets just say 30 something.  He's a car guy so I thought this was a good one for him.  I do struggle with masculine cards, but when they have themes to work with it does help.  

Colors: Real red, Misty Moonlight, White, Mossy Meadow and Granny Apple green.\

The DSP is from a pack of the 2020-2022 incolor 6x6 paper pack. I love how it looks like denim, just works.   I had a lot of fun with my water brush and ink pad just picking up some color and spreading it around.  I think I'm getting better at that.  I used a silver pen on the grill, just kind of scribbled it on, it's an old car and a bit run down, my favorite kind.  

I thought it was a bit too bland so I added the piece that was run though the Tasteful Textures 3D embossing folder, just added a bit of interest.  

Hope you enjoy.

Just Add Ink #533. Peaceful Snowflakes

 

The Just Add Ink challenge for this week is to just add S.  My S is snowflakes. I love snowflakes a lot, so I have a whole slew of them that will live with me for a very long time. 

If you haven't tried these challenges, you should. Not only are they fun, but they help you get your Christmas cards done. At least they do me.  I'm going pretty simple this year, this is simple but so peaceful and pretty.   

The paper is Snowflake Splendor DSP, so many gorgeous patterns and colors and a hold over from last year, so lucky you if you have some left.

I also used the Stitched Nested Label dies, I cut my paper the largest size, then went down one size to cut into my white top piece and glued them together.  A snowflake die and pretty rhinestone top it off.  The sentiment is from Wrapped in Christmas.    Oh, and my base color is Coastal Cabana.

I hope you enjoyed. 

Merry Christmas

Peace on Earth, Paper Players #519

 

I must say, I probably have lots of cards that would have met the tic tac toe board this week.  But this one was so much fun to make.

I did the top row across, patterned paper, die cut and embossing. 

Most of this is really old. The star stamps was a 2 box set and the heart framelets came with.  But it's one I probably will never part with, how can something like this go out of style? It just can't.   I paired it with purple as you see, just to be a little different and because I love purple, but it would look gorgeous in Bermuda bay too or many other colors, I just think with the silver and white back ground Bermuda bay would really stand out.

The sentiment is new, from a set called Wrapped in Christmas, It just seemed to fit this card.  

Here is the challenge and the tic tac toe board to play from. 

There are lots more pretties to see at the site, and maybe you'll join in?  Thanks for stopping and I truly hope I've given you some inspiration.

Curvy die Christmas at Stampin Up

 

I have 2 for you today, both using one of the dies from the Curly die set. This set is avail for sale on the 3rd of Nov. It's really different and a lot of fun.  It has an every day stamp set and an optional Christmas stamp set, the dies work with both. Here I just used the one die to cut my paper.

The paper is Brightly Gleaming, it came out last year, but carried over.  I'm pretty happy about that as it's gorgeous, this is only one of the beautiful papers in the set.    The branches that are stamped are from the Peaceful Boughs stamp set. That also carried over and is in the current annual catalog.

Unfortunately, the bells did not carry over, but I love them.  Sometimes I get carried away with Christmas sets and don't get enough time with them, so here I am using this one this year. The foil is copper as is the embossing on this, the over lay on the bell is also copper foil.  

I fairly easy card, sometimes we need that just to get enough done, right?

Card #2.  I used the same Curvy die, but cut a 2nd piece from gold foil to match the gold deer. I love using deer on my cards and we have quite a few right now. This one is Dashing Deer, and did not carry over, however there is a really cute deer in Nature's Beauty along with some other little animals.

The paper here is Toile Tidings which didn't carry over. Another pretty easy card.  

So, hope you got some ideas from these.  If you are like me and behind already, it's time to get those Christmas cards done to mail our right after Thanksgiving.

Happiness and Love at Christmas, #JAI528

 

This was a fun and simple challenge from Just Add Ink this week.  The Snowflake Splender DSP was calling to me, I just love this paper, but then blue is my color! Add some purple and I'm in heaven. 

Here is the challenge, check it out to see all the wonderful projects!

All stuff I love and use a lot, especially on Christmas projects.   I'll tell you a little secret, I love Christmas stamping!  I just can't help myself, and I have so many yummy Christmas stamps, dies, embossing folders and on and on, that my head swims when I sit down to make something. What to use, what to use.    I had started this to make a card the other day, so the Misty Moonlight CS and the DSP were already set to go. The Beautiful Bought dies worked great under the ornament.

So, the ornament is cut from Silver foil, I think the Gorgeous Grape and Highland Heather worked fantastic with the foil. I added Noble Peacock Rhinestones for some extra bling. 

I hope you enjoy and also that it gives you some ideas of your own, but feel free to CASE.

 

Hark the Herald, Angels Sing, Stampin UP, Christmas card

 

So many ways to use this new set. I used just the Poinsettia dies and the Plush Poinsettia DSP along with Red Velvet paper and a sentiment from For Unto Us. With some gold embossing. 

Some of the dies in the set work on some of the paper to cut one version of the Poinsettia and a leaf out. I thought it would be fun to combine that paper with the red velvet paper and a neat die cutout. 

 To make it easier to place the text, I cut a smaller piece of white and stamped and embossed on that so then placed it and glued it down right where I wanted it. 

Now, what to do with that pretty cut piece!

Poinsettia Petals, #JAI524

 

A Color from Just Add Ink for Inspiration this week.  Such pretty colors, Mint Macaron, Merry Merlot and Rococo Rose. 

Hop on over to see all the pretties or join in yourself. 

I used some of the Plush Poinsettia DSP over top of a piece of Mint Macaron to give it some color. 

I did a bit of watercoloring lightly on my gold embossed poinsettias. cut some other pieces in the set out using Merry Merlot as well as the Merry from a retired set.  Added in a couple of rhinestones and done. It's simple, but with plenty of texture which I love. 

Thanks so much for stopping by.

 

 

Gather together fall, #FMS454

 

I'm coming in at the last min here. I'm having issues with being able to get my photos onto my computer from my camera. Yup, the old fashioned way. My computer isn't cooperating. So, having to figure out how to take them of my phone.   I know, lots of people upload to FB right from the phone, not this person. LOL. 

 Anyway, I decided a needed a new fall set, and I do love these leaves with the pronounced embossing built in.  

Today I'm taking my inspiration from Freshly Made Sketches, check them out here to see the challenge and all the goodies.

 

The set is called Gather Together, stamps and dies.  I used Rich Razzleberry, Mango Melody and Cinnamon Cider.

I first took watercolor paper and spritzed with water, then dropped color on from my refills that I had put into the lid of my colors and also added a bit of water to.  After it was dry I die cut my leaves, I ended up with as dark a color in places on my leaves so after dry I added just a bit more color in spots.

I added the leaves to a piece of the new Plaid Tidings DSP, and added all that to a bit larger piece of Cinnamon Cider. Wrapped with linen thread, used my blends to add color to rhinestones and added those. I popped up that whole piece before adding it to my Mango Melody base card.  The sentiment was stamped on vellum and added when dry. 

Thanks for stopping by! 

It almost feels like fall, Paper Players #508

Paper players has a wonderful color challenge for this week, great fall colors, and I had fun with it.
Check it all here here.

I started out using Very Vanilla for my base card, then a piece of Pretty Peacock that I used one of our new narrow embossing folders on. The set is called Meadow Moments.  The new folders fit in the brand new (so new that as of right now, it's not available just yet.) small sized cut and emboss machine. It is made just like the full sized one and I think it has a big wider mouth then any of the other small ones out there.
I just love how the leaves come down the side, then have a few dots and a leaf here and there further in. 
I used Positive Thoughts stamps, Natures thoughts dies and Season of Layers dies (retired) for all my leaves and feather and butterfly. I used silver foil for one of my leaves as well as the shape cut with VV on the top with the sentiment.  A few rhinestones and I was done.

I hope you enjoy, I sure had a good time making it.

Christmas Skate, #fms451

The skate if from a set called Free Skate, and was in last years Holiday catalog. It was my favorite set in that catalog but for whatever reason was not carried over. But I still love it.
My inspiration this week is from the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches.

A simple sketch and so easy to use, I really enjoyed playing with it. Find the challenge and all the other projects here.

I combined SU Seaside Spray incolor with our new Misty Moonlight incolor, they are fabulous together.  I added in some Silver foil and some Soft Seafoam for my holly.

I stamped the snow on White, and layered that over a piece of Seaside Spray. Then layered silver pieces die cut with the Rectangular Stitched dies, over Misty Moonlight, cut just a bit larger. 
I stamped and die cut my skate, then added the silver die cut for the skate runner and the holly attached to ribbon.  The rhinestones are from the new Mini (holiday) catalog, Blue Adhesive backed Gems. 
I hope you enjoy.

Poinsettia Petal, Paper Players #506, Think Christmas

I know it's a little early, but I'm going to be a bit slower at getting my Christmas cards done this year, so hope you'll put up with me. 

Inspiration for this was provided by the Paper Players challenge. This week it is a Tic Tac Toe challenge, I did the top row across and tossed in some embossing, ribbon and gems to boot.  Stop on by and take a look.

So, I used the Stampin Up Poinsettia Petal bundle along with Tis the Season DSP. The amount of choices for using DSP is huge for this bundle.  It has it's own 2 sets, one of which is a flocked vellum! And the other has lots of Poinsettias. Plus 2 more sets in Christmas colors that work beautifully at the very least.

Although the DSP is real red, I used Poppy Parade for the berries as I thought they just worked better. But you can decide for yours.
Thanks so much for stopping by.

My favorite Stampin Up Christmas set for this season 2020, Freshly Made Sketches #448

My inspiration for this is from Freshly Made Sketches for this week.    Click on the link and check all the fabulous projects out.

The bundle is the Poinsettia Petals bundle, there is a suite as well with lots of goodies to go with. My favorite of those is the 2 12x12 packs of DSP. On is a standard pack with lots of poinsettias, and one is vellum with flocked images. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm itching to.  For this card, I used a paper from another set, 'tis the season.  Lots of general fun Christmas designs.

I used silver glimmer paper on the  center cut edges just for some extra bling.  I lightly colored the white die cut pieces with my real red watercolor pencil and smoothed it out using a water brush.

The sentiment was cut out using the new Lovely Labels Pick a Punch.
I hope you'll take a look at FMS, and thanks for stopping by.

#fms446, A Doxie Birthday

I keep meaning to make some cards this size, so thank you Linda at Freshly Made Sketches for using this size for her sketch challenge this week.

So, come see all the fun cards done in this size, it takes a #10 envelop by the way. 


So, this is my youngest daughter's birthday card.  She is a doxie mom and as most who are doxie moms, they love anything doxie.   I fell in love with these pups! Look at that one running to get a piece of the cake.  
I used Soft Suede, Gorgeous Grape, Highland Heather, Misty Moonlight, Just Jade. And some watercolor paper.

I hope you enjoy, have a great weekend.