Peace and quiet

Sorry, I haven't had a chance to post for the past two weeks.  I'm adjusting to my added hours at work.  Right now, work is winning.   

I made this one for my son's 17th birthday about three weeks ago.  Here ya go, Julie, sorry I haven't been able to post it until now.  My youngest loves to hunt, so I thought this set from Penny Black would be perfect for a birthday card for him.

I started by stamping the row of pine trees in the back and then using the blending tool, I blended in blue and pink sky and added a bit of sun.  I then blended in the grass.  I added the larger pine trees, deer and birds.  I mounted the card on a piece of yellow and green card stock. Tim thought his card was awesome!

Recipe:  Penny Black's Nature's Friend stamp set, G-689 stamp by Art Impressions, Distress Ink in Broken China, Spun Sugar, Squeezed Lemonade, Peeled Paint, Shabby Shutters, Forest Moss and Crushed Olive.  Stampin' Up's Daffodil Delight card stock and green card stock that I can't remember where it came from.  Stampin' Up's Chocolate Chip marker.

Thank you so much for stopping by.

Happy Birthday - 2 challenges

Happy Palm Sunday! 

It has been a busy week and weekend around here.  My son and his fiance came home for the weekend.  It was so good to see them both and we made progress on their wedding invitations.  We have the layout chosen, now we just have to settle on some purple designer paper for the envelopes.

I did have time today to make a couple of birthday cards.  I have 2 birthdays to celebrate this week.  I am using Color Throwdown's colors this week on each card, but different stamps.  I really like how they both turned out.  

The colors I used are Stampin' Up's Primerose Petals, Daffodil Delight and Certain Celery.  Primrose Petals looks quite pink in this card. 

For my first birthday card for this week, I started with SU's Certain Celery card stock as my base.  The stamp set is SU's Flower Patch and the Happy die is also from SU called Hello You thin lit dies (a new die cut set I just got from SU yesterday).  After I stamped the flowers all over a piece of Gina K's Pure Luxury White card stock, I cut happy out of the center and set it aside (don't lose the center pieces, we need them when we assemble the card together).  I then glued 2 pieces of Certain Celery card stock together 4 times to make 8 layers and ran each 2 ply layer through my Big Shot and glue the 4 happy dies together to make the 8 layers.  I taped down the flowered card to the Certain Celery card stock base.  I glued the flowered happy to the green happy dies and put it into the open space on the flower card and added back in the center pieces to finish off happy.  I also cut out a banner from SU's Bitty Banners from SU's Daffodil Delight card stock and stamped birthday from SU's Crazy about You stamp set (also new yesterday) and pop dotted it onto the card. I added a piece of baker's twine and some pearls to finish off the card.

I do have to give credit to Make It Monday for the popped up die cut.  They did this challenge during 2014, but I never had a chance to try it until today.  

I am entering this card into Simon Wednesday Challenge "Anything Goes" and Djkardkreations' NBUS #4 challenge this week. Looking for some awesome inspiration?  Visit these two blogs and you will get a lot of inspiration from tons of beautiful cards!!!

Happy Birthday for three challenges

This is the 2nd birthday card I need for this week. It also uses Certain Celery as the base.  I used a piece of TH's distress watercolor paper.  I used my Certain Celery ink pad to put down color on a piece of acetate and added water for the smooshed technique.  I then used PaperTrey Ink's Meadow Greens stamp set and inked up the flower in both Daffodil Delight and Primrose Petal inks.  I used Certain Celery for the stems and leaves.  Again, I die cut SU's Happy from Hello You thin lit die cut set and again added 8 layers of Certain Celery card stock behind the white and green happy die cut.  I also used the banner from SU's Bitty Banners, and the word Birthdy from SU's Crazy About You stamp set.  I did cut just a bit off my banner this time.  I finished off the card with yellow bakers twine and pearls.  

Again, what great colors!  I am entering this card not only for this week's Color throwdown, but also for Simon Wednesday Challenge Anything Goes and Djkardkreations' NBUS #4 challenge this week, too.

Please visit all three blogs and check out some awesome cards that others have submitted.  Great places to visit for wonderful inspiration!

1 Card -- 2 Challenges

Don't you love it when one card works for more than one challenge?  I sure do.  My card is for both Make It Monday #205 (Confetti Cluster Stamping) and Color Throwdown #334 (use pink, orange and navy blue).

I originally was using a white card base and outlined the two butterflies, but as I was stamping the confetti, I was making a mess on my white card base.  I thought I was being careful, but not so much, so I ending up cutting both butterflies out.  I also think I used too many of the confetti stamps inked with Stampin' Up's Pink Pirouette ink, as my background looks more pink than just confetti.  I also used SU's Night of Navy and Tangerine Tango with the confetti stamps.  The confetti stamps came from the following PaperTrey Stamp sets, Country Fair, Shakers & Sprinkles, Sparkle & Shine and Friendly Flowers.

I used SU's Blushing Bride, Night of Navy and Tangerine Tango card stock and put the Night of Navy and Tangerine Tango through SU's Honeycomb embossing folder.  I stamped Happy Birthday (PTI's Keep It Simple: Birthday Mini Stamp Set) in SU's Night of Navy ink on a banner of SU's Blushing Bride card stock and pop dotted up the butterflies and the happy birthday banner.  To finish the card off, I added some pearls to the butterflies.  

 Thank you for stopping by and don't forget to check out the beautiful cards over at Make It Monday and Color Throwdown.

My Very First Tag...And More Smooshing

Hi, I've always admired my friend Marcia and her ability to make beautiful tags.  I've never successfully made a tag, until this week.  Such a small amount of space to fill and make it pop at the same time just wasn't working for me.  I even admire Tim Holtz's tags, too, and his 12 tags.  Just awe inspiring.  I saw a tag on Pinterest, my daily inspiration :) using Penny Black's die cut Rose.  I found the die cut at a local stamping store and immediately bought it, thinking I would replicate that tag.

Well, I watched Betsy Veldman on Nichole Heady's Capture the Moment blog for the latest Make It Monday and she was demonstrating the smooshing technique.  So I made a few card fronts using Tim Holtz's distress inks in Picked Raspberry, Orange Marmalade and Squeezed Lemonade.  I made one card, which I posted a few days ago.  You can see that card here.  I still had a card front left and thought the Rose die cut would look very nice on it and boom the tag came together in my head!  I cut the PB die in both Gina K's white and SU's Always Artichoke card stock, inked up the leaves to give them a little more depth the TH's Peeled Paint ink, glued the rose back together and set it aside for the time being.  I then cut the card front using PaperTrey Ink's Basic Bookmark Die #3.  I cut a piece of Stampin' Up's Always Artichoke from PTI's Basic Bookmark Die to add to the bottom of the tag.  I took Simon Says Stamp Falling Snow stencil and sponged Picked Raspberry, Orange Marmalade and Peeled Paint distress inks on the matching colors.  I also inked up Hero Arts Old Letter Writing stamp in the 3 colors, but you can't see it very well on here.  I glued down the rose and the Always Artichoke panel and inked up Friends for Life from Penny Black's Eloquence stamp set and added the green ribbon to finish up the tag.

Thank you, Marcia, Tim and Pinterest for all your inspirations!  I did it and I really liked how it turned out!  I never did replicate that tag on found on Pinterest, maybe another day.

Thanks for stopping by and please leave a comment.  I love and appreciate them all!

Why not Christmas?

Hi, I haven't entered a Merry Monday challenge in awhile, so I thought I would today, as I love working with blues.  The challenge is monochrome blues.  I started with a piece of Tim Holtz's water color paper.  The first thing I did was stamp some snowflakes from PaperTrey Ink's Snowflake Medley Stamp Set with VersaMark Ink onto the water color paper and heat embossed them with clear embossing powder.  I smeared some TH's Broken China and Tumbled Glass ink on to my kraft sheet and spritzed them with lots of water and "smooshed" my water color paper onto the watered down ink.  I also stamped some of the snowflakes with the watered down ink and stamped them on the water color paper after it had dried.  After those snowflakes had dried, and stamped a few more snowflakes with both the Broken China and Tumbled Glass ink to finish off the card front.  I adhered it to a piece of Stampin' Up Marina Mist card stock.  I added my finishing touch by die cutting out a snowflake from PTI's Snowflake Medley Die Collection out of SU's Marina Mist card stock and stamped Tis the Season from PTI's Signature Christmas stamp set with SU's Night of Navy ink.  I then covered the whole snowflake with VersaMark ink and Recollections Glitz embossing powder and heat set to add some dimension to the snowflake.  I added some ribbon and pop dots before placing the snowflake on my card. 

Thanks so much for stopping by and don't forget to check out MM Challenge #149 for some beautiful monochrome blue cards .

A Day to Celebrate

Hi, I haven't been able to play with Make It Mondays yet this year, but I had a little extra time this week, so I thought I would do some watercolor "smooshing".  What a fun technique.  I found this technique works best for me if I use watercolor paper.  So I started with a piece of Tim Holtz's Distress Watercolor Paper and TH's distress ink pads, Squeezed Lemonade, Spiced Marmalade, and Picked Raspberry.  Please check out Make It Monday's video that Betsy Veldman did demonstrating this technique.  I let my now "smooshed" watercolor paper dry overnight, mostly because I wasn't sure what I wanted to stamp on this card yet.  I decided on Butterflies.  I used PTI's Life is Beautiful and Beautiful Butterflies and Wet Paint III stamp sets.  I used Versamark ink on the bigger butterfly and a few of the smaller butterflies and the word Celebrate and embossed with White embossing powder.  I also stamped a few smaller butterflies with Tuxedo Black ink and added a few dots, which I also embossed with White embossing powder.  I wasn't going to emboss the white butterflies, but they weren't showing up very well with just HA's Unicorn Pigment ink.  I then decided to make a Mailes Belles type card and cut it on an angle through the word and added a small piece of glitter paper from DCWV Gltizy Glitter paper pack.  I picked up that idea from Jennifer McGuire.  IRL how my card turned out.  I am also entering this card into Simon Wednesday Challenge "Things that Fly".

Thank you for stopping by and don't forget to check out all the beautiful cards over at Make It Monday #204 using this technique and all the "Things that Fly" over at Simon Wednesday Challenge.  I hope to make another "smooshed" watercolor card yet this week.

Consider it CASED

Hi everyone,
This card on the left is from my good friend, Marcia.  I just loved the cheerfulness of this card.  It made me smile when I opened it.

I've had it setting on my shelf for awhile now, knowing that I was going to CASE this card.

I finally did so in February for my sister.  I had a bunch of birthday cards to make, so I thought I would make up a couple.

Here's what I came up with.  I started with a piece of Gina K's Pure Luxury White card stock and stamped PaperTrey Ink's Friendly Flowers in Stampin' Up's Tangerine Tango, Melon Mambo, Daffodil Delight and the leaves in SU's Garden Green inks.

I stamped Warmest Wishes on your birthday in Tuxedo Black in from SU's Blooming with Kindness stamp set.  I cut it out with a tag die from SU, sponged around the tag with SU's Tangerine Tango ink, and punch a hole for the orange ribbon.  I attached it to the card with pop dots, then cut out the word Sending from Simon Says Stamp in SU's Tangerine Tango card stock and glued that to the card.  I finished off the card with a few silver and orange sequins, mounted it to a piece of black card stock, then a piece of Gina K's Pure Luxury White card stock.  Mine is a bit busier then Marcia's, but I still liked how it turned out!  Thank you, Marcia, for sending me such a beautiful card and for letting me CASE it, too!

Just for Marica...

Hi, Marcia asked me to post a card I made that she CASED last week on her blog here. I made 2 of them, and just put different sentiments at the bottom.

I used Rubbernecker's 4 Poppies stamp and inked them up with Barn Door, Rusty Hinge and Crushed Olive Distress Ink Markers, then spritzed them with water before stamping them on TH's Watercolor paper.  I did take a water pen and filled in the color and added some dimension to the flowers.  After the flowers dried, I came back with TH's Black Soot Distress Marker and filled in the center of the poppies.  Again, using just a bit of water, I blended the black in.  When everything was dried, I used the blending tool and blended in Tumbled Glass, Crushed Olive and Spun Sugar distress inks.  I used Hero Arts Old Letter Writing stamp and inked it up with Distress Ink Brushed Corduroy, stamped off one time, wiped the ink off from the center and stamped top half of card.  I inked it up again, stamped off once, wiped off the center and bottom left of the stamp before stamping it on the bottom half of the card.  Both sentiments are from Penny Black's Eloquence stamp set, which I inked up with VersaMark and embossed with black embossing powder.  I finished off the card with some splatters of Pearl Ex, water downed black ink and some black bakers twine.  I mounted the card to black card stock and some old rust colored card stock.  I just don't remember where the card stock is from or its exact color.

Happy Birthday 3

This card, also being submitted in Simon Wednesday Challenge, I made was for my sister, but also for my friend Julie to see, as she has the stamp set, but just can't figure out how to use it.  So I wanted to show her another option.  I used Stampin' Up's Daffodil Delight cardstock and ink pad.  I stamped SU's Blooming with Kindness all over on a piece of Gina K's Pure Luxury White card stock.  I then took a blending tool and blended SU's Daffodil Delight ink all over the card, except on the center flower.  I took two circle dies and cut the flower out of the center, and then cut out a bigger circle from the now background paper.  I stamped Happy Birthday from PTI's Swoosh stamp set.  I put a piece of SU's Daffodil Delight seam binding ribbon across the circle and a piece of yellow twine around the seam binding ribbon.  I used pop dots on the center flower and to the piece of background cardstock to SU's Daffodil Delight Cardstock to finish off the card. 

Thanks for stopping by and remember to head over to Simon Wednesday Challenge.