A Blog Called Wanda

Guest Designing for WPlus9 Today - Tropic Fever!

Hello everyone! It's Monday, and I'm very happy to be sharing some cards today on the WPlus9 Blog! Hope you are having a wonderful day! I'm so excited to be joining the crew at WPlus9 as a guest designer again. I've been a fan for a very long time! I really enjoy working with this company and always jump at the chance to create with WPlus9. Be sure to pop over to the WPlus9 Blog and leave some love there! K? K! Thank you!

 

Last year, when WPlus9 launched their tropical themed release, well, my jaw about dropped to the floor! I immediately wanted all of it, and the ideas started flowing right away! I love anything with a tiki, tropical, flamingo vibe. And I love to create with bright bold colors. When Dawn asked me to guest design for today, I went straight for this collection. I have two cards to show you, so let's get started! In the midst of Winter, I'm bringing you a bit of Summer! I can hear the palm trees swaying... If I close my eyes! 

 

What's better than flamingos and flowers? Not much! I started this card by die cutting the beautiful Trellis Background 2 Die from bright white paper. I cut and folded a horizontal A2 card base. Here's the tricky part... I cut the top of the card base off, leaving about 1/4 of an inch left at the top. Then I lined the inside of the card base with pretty blue paper. I used liquid glue to glue the edge of the Trellis Die to that little folded over part at the top of the card. This makes the Trellis Die Cut piece the front of the card now! I set this part under a stack of books to make it lay flat and continued to make the rest of the card. 

 

I stamped and die cut out leaves, flowers and the flamingo using the Tropic Fever Stamp Set and the Flock Yeah Stamp Set. I colored all the images in tropical colors using Copic Markers. 

 

Next I die cut out a black panel using a Stitched Rectangle Die. I used the Flock Yeah stamp set to stamp the sentiment and heat emboss it with white embossing powder. Now all of my pieces were ready to assemble. 

 

I used small foam squares to attach the center sentiment panel and the flowers, leaves, flamingo to the front of the card. This is a bit tricky since the front of the card is a trellis! However, there is enough room to attach the foam squares so everything will hold tight. On the back of the trellis, I die cut another black rectangle and mirrored that to the front one. 

 

Here's a side shot so you can see how it looks when it opens! And, see the tiny strip of paper at the very top where the trellis die is attached?!

 

For this next card I used the Flock Yeah Stamp Set along with a new WPlus9 set called Summer Citrus. Those pineapples! Oh my! The sentiment is from the Southern Sentiment Stamp Set. It all works together so nicely for a Hello card!

 

sed Stitched Rectangles Dies to die cut a green layer and a white layer for the front of the card. The finished card is an A2 size cut from white cardstock. I used Mermaid Lagoon and Tumbled Glass Distress Inks to create a blue background on that top layer. I splattered Mermaid Lagoon Ink and Copic Opaque White ink over the blue blended background. 

 

Next I stamped and die cut the palm trees, the pineapples and the little flowers. I colored them in with Copic Markers. I also used Copic Opaque White ink to splatter white over the images and then set them aside to dry. I stamped the sentiment in rich black ink in the upper corner of the card. This is only part of a larger sentiment. I masked off the other part of the sentiment with washi tape and only stamped the "hello" portion. 

 

I layered the green and blue layers onto the card base. I used foam squares to attach the palm trees and pineapples to the card. Then I sprinkled a few clear gems to finish it off!

 

Here's a shot of my Copic Marker color selections for this card.

 

And one last shot to show you my layers and a close up of the ink blending and splattering!

 

 

Big thank you to everyone at WPlus9 for inviting me to be a guest designer today! I had fun working with these beautiful stamps and dies. I hope I've inspired you to create something today. Aloha! I've been really busy in my studio and the cards are stacked up to share! YAY! Mostly because of the 30 Day Coloring Challenge. I gave myself an extra challenge! LOL. To actually make cards from all the images I'm coloring! I'll be back on Thursday with a super cute card featuring MFT Stamps. XOXO

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You Have My Heart! Happy Valentine's Day 2019!

Helloooo my loves! Happy Valentine's Day! Wishing you a day filled with love, happiness and good things...you know, like chocolate! Can't believe it's mid way through February already. I have the feeling 2019 is going to go by fast! I can tell the season is changing because all my crafting lately is bright colors and leaves and flowers and rainbows! Ready for fresh things and new beginnings that Spring always brings. My husband is super busy at work this week so we'll be going out to dinner this coming weekend to celebrate Valentine's Day. We are pretty low key about these things after 26 years' worth of Valentines! Hope your day is lovely.

I have a funky, artsy card to share today. A few weeks ago I colored these cool water color hearts. I set them aside for a bit, but then finally got a card idea! I love the artistic look of the watercolors, gold and black together. It's an A2 card finished size. Not too many layers on this one...but I added some sewing! 

 

To start, I made a white A2 card base and set it aside. I used watercolor paper for the background piece. I had SO MUCH FUN dripping my favorite gold paint down the paper! I started with a very juicy brush and held the brush at the top of the panel and just let it drip! I kept adding more and more paint until I thought it looked good! I dried it with my heat gun and it was ready to go.

 

I had made these hearts a while ago. I die cut them from water color paper and then loosely water colored them in shades of red, purple and pink. Perfect valentine colors! I kept is messy and artistic. I love how they came out! I lined them up on the paper the way I wanted them and then used my sewing machine and a zig zag stitch to attach them to that top panel. I didn't want it to look perfect so I went back and forth a few times across the hearts. 

 

The sentiment was heat embossed with white embossing powder onto black cardstock for contrast. It was affixed to the card using foam tape. 

 

Here's a photo of just the hearts when I was making them. They are also splattered with gold paint.

 

 

 

Look at all that yummy dripping paint! 

 

 

 

From my heart to yours today! XOXO

Thanks for stopping by on this day of L O V E! Have a fantastic day! I'll be back on Monday with a fun tropical post! XXOOXXOO

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Pretty Peonies from Spellbinders artist Stephanie Low!

Hi friends! Happy Monday! Are you ready to be creative this week? I am for sure! And it's Valentine's week so there's love in the air too! I hope you had a good weekend. I rested and did some crocheting. Most of our plans were for outside and everything got cancelled because of the rain. That's okay though. We need the water, and I never mind a rainy day. Actually rainy days are my favorite days. Here's to a great week!

Today I'm excited to share a project made with the brand new stamp release from Spellbinders, and Artist Stephanie Low. I am the guest designer today over on the Spellbinders blog! Please CLICK HERE to head over and share some love there too! BIG thanks to the crew at Spellbinders for inviting me to be a guest with them. I'm happy for this fun opportunity. My card is a super bright floral creation made with the beautiful new Large Peonies stamp set and watercolors. Spellbinders has recently merged with Fun Stampers Journey so I used products from both companies. 

I love to water color flowers. That's my favorite thing to water color actually. This finished card is an A2 size, made with a kraft card base. I layered pretty bright pink paper and then a layer of watercolor paper and then those pretty blooms!

 

To start this card, I stamped several blooms and leaves onto watercolor paper. I colored them with vivid shades of pinks and greens and let them dry. I used the awesome Lots of Dots Background Die Cut and watercolor paper to create the dotted background. Then I added a wash of blue watercolor paint. I set that aside to dry also. 

 

The sentiment was heat embossed with gold embossing powder onto a strip of vellum. I wrapped the vellum around the dots layer before I assembled the rest of the card. 

 

 

 

Here are my step out photos! After the flowers were colored, I added paint splatters and white paint splatters. All these pieces are watercolor paper.

 

 

To put the card together, I layered the hot pink onto the kraft base. Then I wrapped the vellum around the dots layer. This part was attached with foam tape. Then the flowers and leaves were added, also with foam tape. One of my very favorite FSJ products is the Rainbow Drops. OMG I just look at them on my desk and they make me so happy!!! I'm trying to use them and not hoard them, so I added a sprinkling of the pretty blue drops onto my card. 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by today! THANK YOU to Spellbinders for having me as a guest today! I hope you all have a wonderful week! Get crafty! Have a Happy Valentine's Day! (I have one more heart themed card, so I'll be back on Thursday to share it!) XOXO

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A love letter with watercolor roses...

Hi friends! It's one week until Valentine's Day and my craft room has been a flurry of hearts and flowers lately! I really got into Valentine's Day this year for some reason. Made lots of cards and had fun doing it too! I am also inspired by the 30 Day Coloring Challenge which is really making me think, and getting me to create something each day. It's leading to all kinds of fun. I'm rediscovering some of my older stamps and dies and trying new/old techniques. This card I'm sharing today took on a life of it's own last weekend. I thought - I'll just mess around with these cool roses dies. Well, before you know it, I was doing all kinds of Instagram stories and water coloring and inking and distressing and embossing...Oh my! And a card was born. I love it when that happens... When creativity takes it's own organic pathway. Something cool usually emerges. So today's card is a "more is more' creation full of techniques and stuff. It was a labor of love - literally! Ha! This post has lots of pictures, and I also saved the Instagram stories of my step by step process if you want to see that too. Let's go!

Here is my finished vintage Valentine inspired card!

 

The finished card is an A2 size white card base. I covered the top of the card with red cardstock. This way, the inside of the card will be white. Then I layered an embossed layer, then the heart, then the roses and love die! This card is heavy! Gonna need some extra postage for this one! LOL. I used loads of distress inks to 'vintage' it up. It was fun!! The roses are in pieces (you'll see later in the post) and I watercolored them, and the leaves. Like I said - SO FUN!

 

Here's a close up side view of the roses and leaves. Here you can see all the different layers. I glued them together using quick dry clear glue. 

 

In this side view you can see all the card layers. The love die was glued on at each end and left 'free' in the center to float over everything else. 

 

I looooooove these Tim Holtz Ideaology charms! This bird was perfect for a love letter!! 

 

 

 

Each rose has four die cut pieces. I watercolored them in shades of dusty pink/rose. One rose is dark in the center and gets lighter and the other one is the opposite. I was experimenting to see which one I liked the best. I die cut all the pieces out of watercolor paper so they would stand up to my coloring. When they're dry, you glue them together! It's magic. 

 

Here are my roses and leaves before all the splattering and distressing! The leaves are in two die cut pieces before you glue them together. 

 

I splattered the roses and leaves with Vintage Photo Distress Ink mixed with water. Then I used a sponge and inked around the edges. YUUUMMMMM.

 

 

 

Now on to the card... I die cut a heart out of watercolor paper. I used the Tim Holtz Random Quotes stamp set because one of the stamps is a love letter in pretty script! It was perfect! I tried two different ones because I didn't like the first one - it was toooo blurry. On the blurry one, I sprayed the heart paper with water first and then stamped into it. For the second one, the one that I ended up using, I inked the stamp, then sprayed the stamp with water, then stamped onto dry paper. Just the right amount of 'messiness' for this project.

 

The next step was to ink up the heart and splatter it! (Of course)

 

I had this cool embossing folder from We R Memory Keepers in my stash. It looks like old wallpaper to me! I embossed it onto watercolor paper. Then I used Distress Inks and water to water color each of the roses! LOVE!!! Then I distressed the edges and inked everything up. Doesn't it look like I just peeled it off the wall of an old house!!?? 

 

Now it was finally time to assemble! I glued on all the pieces with glue and foam tape! Then I added a few pearls! I'm now thinking that instead of a Valentine, this might make a great wedding card?! 

 

 

 

And some random photos of stuff! The light was so pretty the day I was photographing this project!!

 

 

If you're still reading along - yay! It was a long post! I was so excited to share this with you! Hope you have a lovely day! It's almost the weekend! XOXO

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Gung Hay Fat Choy! Happy Lunar New Year 2019! The Year of the Pig!

Hello crafty friends! Happy New Year! Gung Hay Fat Choy! Today is the celebration of Chinese Lunar New Year so I'm posting a card I made to mark this special occasion. I love to make festive and pretty cards for this wonderful celebration. I have lots of friends who celebrate this beautiful cultural tradition, so I like to acknowledge it by creating something special each year. (CLICK HERE to see my card from last year) Do you and your family celebrate the Lunar New Year too? This year is the Year of the Pig. Is it your year? CLICK HERE for the list of the years and the corresponding animals. I am a DRAGON! Yep! Gotta love that. 1964 was a very good year indeed. I have lots of Dragon friends. We are strong and fierce! 

People born in the year of the Pig are loved for their kind, honest, helpful and forgiving nature. Pigs believe in maintaining peace and harmony and they dislike anything which causes conflict. Those born under the Pig zodiac sign are self-indulgent and enjoy the finer things in life. The twelfth sign of the Chinese zodiac, Pig is one of the most likable signs out there. Pigs are honest, forgiving, good-tempered, cheerful, generous, and compassionate. They are responsible and determined. They will never refuse to give those in need a helping hand, but they rarely seek help from others. They are idealists who will do anything to keep the peace. They will remain committed for life to their friends and their principles, and would never do anything dishonest. Famous people born in the Year of the Pig include: Hilary Clinton, David Letterman, Stephen King, Elton John and Carrie Underwood!

I don't have any pig stamps so I used the gorgeous "Lion Dance" stamp set from Mama Elephant. I love this set soooo much. I used it last year too! The perfect dragons and sentiments. For the fireworks, I used the "Around We Go" stamp set, also from Mama Elephant. I tried a new technique of blending tone on tone with the same color ink and paper. I really like how it came out. Very dramatic on the red!! My card features red and gold with embossing and bright colors. I used an old stamp I had in my stash - the Chinese Calligraphy symbol for Double Happiness. This is usually a symbol to be used for wedding cards - but I thought - can't go wrong by wishing someone Double Happiness!! Plus, it's just such a beautiful stamp...

 

My card is a long skinny card - finished size 4x8 inches. I wanted room for everything! Especially those dragons! Here is a close up of the Double Happiness stamp. I embossed it in pretty gold embossing powder onto a stitched circle die cut. I used traditional colors of red, gold and black. It's so classic and strong! 

 

I colored the dragons with Copic Markers and then added accents with Diamond Stickles. The sentiment was heat embossed in gold onto a strip of black paper. The 2019 numbers are from a very old stamp set (maybe 25 years old) and the company is no longer around. I love the characters. I also heat embossed the numbers directly onto my top layer. The card base is black, and then layered with a bit of gold paper.

 

Here is a close up of the ink blending and the fireworks. It's all tone on tone with shades of red and mahogany. I inked three shades of Distress inks onto the red layer. Then I stamped fireworks in red and mahogany. The effect is subtle and I really like how it came out. I used my Finetec Gold paints to splash gold everywhere! I was trying to evoke the feeling of a Chinese New Year parade. I used to go to the San Francisco Chinese New Year parade every year when I lived there. MAGIC. Pure magic. The colors, the sounds, the cheer. A true feast for the senses. 

 

This is a second version.... For this one I also sprinkled gold embossing powder onto the red paper and heated it. A little bit of a different look!! 

 

The dragons and the sentiment were attached to the card using foam tape.

 

I made some red envelopes using the Venice Envelope Die from Mama Elephant. Unfortunately it's not available any more. It has a die to make the small envelope and then a separate die to make the perfectly matching layering pieces. I used red and gold again of course. SO pretty.

 

 

 

 

GOOD CHEER and HAPPY NEW YEAR! Happy Lunar New Year - Year of the Pig! A chance to go out and celebrate a beautiful cultural tradition. Have a wonderful week everyone. I'll be back with a Valentine card on Thursday! (You may have seen the step out photos on Instagram stories!) XOXO

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Sweet kitties from Pretty Pink Posh!

Hey everyone! Happy Friday! How are you?? Did you survive the polar vortex this week? I hope everyone is safe and sound and enjoying the start of a new month. I felt sort of guilty this week as the temps hit 70 degrees here, and I was outside taking pictures of apple blossoms and daffodils. We didn't even have Winter this year in Sacramento. I feel like it was hot all through Fall and then one day of cold, and it's warming up again. Definitely a different pattern this year. I am super grateful that I don't have to shovel snow or wear ten layers of clothing. Californians are weather wimps. I digressed....just really meant to say I hope everyone is safe and sound. Happy February!

I haven't posted on my blog for a while. Not sure what happened, other than life. I have been a busy bee and time just got away from me. I was so excited that Kathy Racoosin started up the 30 Day Coloring Challenge again today! Just the push I needed to get out the markers and make something...but what to make? Lucky and I came in the studio and poked around and it came to me! Cuddly Cats from Pretty Pink Posh! Yay! I haven't inked up this set yet, so it was time. Today is the one year anniversary of the day my sweet boy Buddy passed away. I think of him every day, and especially today, so a kitty card was the perfect thing to make. 

The Daily Marker 30 Day Challenge always pushes me to use my supplies, and I love that. I try to challenge myself to use different mediums and switch things up. Maybe try a different technique or be a bit more daring. Bust out the colored pencils more, or try a new Copic method... Have you joined the fun?? I love how it creates a sense of community when we are all posting our coloring on Instagram and Facebook every day! (And you know I love Instagram!)

I colored two kitties to look like my two favorite boys - Lucky and Buddy! I think they would have been sweet friends. How did I get so blessed to have two such sweet furry kids in my life? I feel like those of us who have been lucky to be touched by an animal soul never are the same. This past year many of my friends have lost sweet pets. It's so hard. But I always think - wow, it was good to know that kind of love. Now, on to my card...

 

I started with a white A2 card base and kept the entire card really clean and graphic. I used the fun and fabulous Stacked Edges Dies to make some diamond strips out of grey paper and then splattered white paint on them. Next I stamped and die cut out the two cats and the yarn.

 

I colored the images with Copic markers and added accents with a white gel pen. I die cut a stitched rectangle and stamped the sentiment across the bottom of it in black ink. I mounted the grey diamonds across the center of the card using foam tape. 

 

The cats are so cute!! I love how the stamp set has cats that face both ways - so you can have them facing each other, or facing the way you want them on your project! 

 

I searched through my stash for a stamp set that had tiny paw prints! I found a Paper Smooches set, and stamped the paws in the corner of my card. I finished it all off with a few enamel dots. (of course).

 

 

 

Here is my super sweet studio assistant helping me choose Copic Marker colors! LOL.

 

And then he went to sleep on the job! I love how he has to be right next to me all the time. Lucky truly has healed my broken heart and is such a good boy. He is eleven months old now! 

 

Here's a photo of some pretty blossoms I took yesterday when I was out doing errands. Spring is definitely arriving early in Sacramento!

 

Thanks for stopping by my blog today! Hope you have an amazing weekend! And, I hope you get some time to create! I'll be back next week with a fun and bright project for Chinese New Year! Until then, take care! XOXO

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Smile! Pretty Butterflies from Pinkfresh Studio

WOOHOOO! Happy Friday, friends! Why am I happy it's Friday? I don't work in an office at an 8-5 job anymore.... But my husband does! So I'm happy it's Friday since I will have my best friend to hang out with for a couple of days. Our weekend looks pretty boring right at the moment but I'm sure we'll find something to do. Tonight I have crocheting/knitting meetup! The weather is sunny and the flowers are starting to bloom already around here. We saw some plum blossoms the other night already. I hope to get some time in the craft room too! What are you up to this weekend? Hope you have a good one!

Today I'm sharing a card made with lovely LOVELY stamps and dies from Pinkfresh Studio! OH GOSH, how I love Pinkfresh Studio! They have the prettiest, most feminine florals and innovative dies. One of my favorite companies for sure! If they're new to you CLICK HERE to see their entire collection! My specific links for the products used today is at the bottom of my post. I have had this awesome 'smile' die cut for a while and finally used it! The word is all hooked together in one die - it's not separate letters. Super easy to die cut onto an A2 card front! Then I added my favorite gingham, and some soft florals and butterflies. I am inspired by the coming of spring so I used a light and fresh color palette of green and aqua.

 

I started with an A2 card base in crisp white paper. I cut a white layer just a bit smaller than the card front and die cut the 'smile' into it. I used black mist to spritz a few splatters onto that panel and set it aside. I cut a piece of pretty aqua gingham paper the exact size as the top panel and adhered that to the card front. Then I placed the white top layer over the gingham using foam squares. 

 

Next I stamped and die cut out the florals, leaves and butterflies! I colored them all in the same Copic marker colors and matched the colors to the gingham. This makes your project all come together nicely. 

 

 

 

I'm using my new Waffle Flower Enamel Dots like crazy!! Here I added a few clear ones and one white one for the flower center. Just so sweet and simple. 

 

My tip for attaching butterflies to cards.... I use foam tape in a small strip just under the body of the butterfly. I press it down really hard to make sure it's attached. Then I used my fingers to gently bend the wings upwards to look like they're flying! As you know, I love lots of dimension on my cards!!

So SMILE! And have a great weekend! Thanks for flying by today to see my card! XOXO

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Bee Mine Valentine!

Hi everyone! Today I'm buzzzzzing by with a fun bee themed valentine card! Will you BEEEE mine? Please!? This card was a joy to make, and combined several of my favorite things! Lots of color, Copic Markers, Distress Ink blending, and cute stamps! All the stamps and dies used today are from Honey Bee Stamps. Supplies are listed at the bottom of my post as always! I got this card idea because I made a winter/Christmas card using the awesome Bee Bold Alphabet dies and I loved that card! (CLICK HERE to see it!) I wracked my brain - how to make a Valentine card with the same sort of layout and design?? Hmmmm. What word to spell out? Sweet? Love? Kiss? And then, in the middle of the night, I got it! BEE MINE! And then the entire card came together. I couldn't decide between red letters or pink - but I'm glad I decided on the hot pink. It's so happy! Picked Raspberry Distress Ink is delicious!

The finished card is 5.25 x 5.25 square. I needed some room to spread out! LOL. Sometimes a design needs a smaller card, or a bigger card, or a longer card! Don't be shy about making your card size fit your elements. I love me a big ole square card sometimes! 

 

This card started with a white card base cut and scored to size. Then I layered yummy hot pink textured cardstock. For the top layer I die cut a white square with a pretty stitched edge. Next I die cut the letters out and set them aside. I stamped and die cut the two bees next. Then I die cut the honeycombs from my favorite yellow cardstock. I stamped the word Valentine directly onto the top layer and stamped tiny pink hearts on that layer also. 

 

I really love the font in the words from the Brie Mine stamp set!! 

 

To make the letters pink, I used two shades of Distress Inks and ink blending tools. I did the Spun Sugar at the top of the letter and faded into Picked Raspberry at the bottom of the letters. I put on a lot of ink - because I wanted a huge impact and punch of color. Once the ink was dry, I splattered the letters with white ink (because that's my jam! LOL). The letters were arranged onto the square layer using strips of foam tape.

 

I colored these sweetie bees with Copic Markes and added white gel pen accents. I also added Clear Wink of Stella to the wings so they would shimmer in the light. 

 

Next it was time to put it all together! I arranged everything until I got just the right look and then attached it all to the card with foam tape.

 

 

 

 

I already have some other ideas for cards like this coming up! It's fun to color the letters and spell out whatever you like! You could make a card with a person's name on it, or their school or something meaningful just for them. It's one of the best things about being a crafty gal. Customizing things! BEEE MINE and have a happy, bizzy week! See you soon with another project. XOXO

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Crochet Journal Project with Echo Park and Simple Stories!

Hi crafty people! Happy weekend! Hope you have some fun things planned! It's been raining alllll week here. We're hoping to get in a day trip to Napa this weekend for the Lighted Art Festival. We'll see if the weather holds out! And there is an eclipse Sunday night with a full moon. I think my hubs is going to go out and photograph it with the photography club! Again, we'll see if the weather holds out for that too. Geez, Wednesday we had a record rain total. Most rain in one day for the past 40 years! And, of course, that was the day I had meetings and errands to do! I should have used a boat instead of my car! I survived and it's all good. I have a fun project to share today! It's something that's been in my head for a few months and I'm eager to use it now that it's made! It's a crochet journal! I intend to write down all my projects and notes about the stitches and type of yarn used... That way if I want to make something again - or if someone has a question - all the information is right there at my fingertips! I've been keeping it all in a spiral notebook so far. 

Now, funny story... The one great thing about being a craft supplies hoarder is that you can shop at your own house! LOL. I had ALL the supplies needed for this journal in my room. Hahaha. I've been saving this beautiful paper pack for a special project. And now I've used it. That feels good. The paper collection is called I'd Rather Be Crafting - and it's from Echo Park! It's so pretty, and colorful and fun. CLICK HERE to see the entire collection (Paper, stencils, stamps, enamel dots...) I had this perfect sized binder from Simple Stories in my studio too! Yay! I started this project late at night so it was good that I didn't have to go out shopping. 

No stamping in this project. Paper, die cut letters, stickers, twine.... But no stamping! It was a fun project - no stress. I didn't use wet glue - everything is held together with lots of scor-tape. That makes for a smoother finished look. (I am inept at using the right amount of liquid glue). I hope this will inspire you to create your own journal! Maybe for crafting, but also for notes, or recipes or even a pretty scrapbook! 

 

The journal is approximately 9x8 inches. It really is the perfect size! I started by covering the front of the journal with the scissor/ruler paper. Then I added everything else. The letter dies are from Taylored Expressions and I die cut them from some woodgrain paper in my stash. I used lots of the pretty stickers to decorate everything!

 

I made this little bouquet by using the flower stickers and the cute banner. I wanted to pop them up on foam tape in a little cluster! So I die cut some circles to frame my bouquet! It came out perfect!

 

Twine, stickers and enamel dots...

 

My cute assistant was very helpful in choosing which papers to use! LOL.

 

 

 

 

 

Coming along....

 

 

 

This is the back cover!

 

 

 

 

And the inside of the front cover using the scallop edge stickers...

 

 

 

 

That's it for today! Do you like making paper projects like this? I really enjoy being able to customize things for myself and as gifts. It's so special to have a one of a kind item to use! Best wishes for a happy and blessed weekend! See you soon! XOXO

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My Favorite Valentine - with Waffle Flower Stamps!

Hey hey hey! How are you? I'm busy again this week, which is excellent! And I have lots to share with you! I seriously crafted all weekend. It was great! I had no deadlines and no pressure so I just went around the studio and made cards with whatever I wanted. YAY for that! LOL. I made a cool journal and three cards. After I make my cards I always lay them out on the kitchen table for my hubs to look at them. He is very supportive and loves to look at the details. He is a good person to help with ideas too! After I laid them out on the table I noticed one main thing - all three cards had bright, vivid colors and LOTS of white space! Hmmmmm. Maybe I'm feeling like being light and airy like Spring cleaning?? LOL. Definitely moving on from the dark moody colors of Christmas and winter. I can't wait to share them all. 

For today, I'm using a brand new stamp set from Waffle Flower called Favorite Valentine! EEEEEP. SO adorable. It has a little boy and girl that face each other, and then loads of accessories for them to hold in their hands. I loved it the moment I saw it. And this stamp set has matching dies. This is my first set from Waffle Flower that has their 'new' die system. ALL OF THE DIES ARE ALREADY CUT APART!!!! What??? Yes, you heard me. Woot woot! Nina is a genius. Yay. 

 

I started with a white A2 card base from Neenah Solar White 110 pound. I layered soft and subtle grey gingham (From Sunny Studio) and then one more layer of white. (See I told you - LOTS of white space!) For the top layer I die cut a stitched rectangle... I gently inked just the top of that rectangle with Broken China Distress Ink. Perfect. 

Next I stamped and die cut out all the images: the girl and boy, the banners, CUPID!, the flowers, letter and balloons... And colored everything with Copic Markers. I added accents with a white gel pen and also added a bit of Diamond Stickles.

 

 

 

I used a couple of different stamp sets on this card. The banner is from one set and the xoxo is from another set. Supplies are listed at the bottom of my post. For the sentiment I used white embossing powder on deep black paper. I always love that look. It's so crisp.

 

I added a few white enamel dots on the card. These are new enamel dots from Waffle Flower! YES! An entire package of white and clear enamel dots! With lots of small ones! Again, Nina is a genius. You need these. (I bought four packs).... 

All of the elements are affixed to the card using foam tape for dimension and pop.

 

 

 

 

I'm definitely in the mood for Valentine crafting! We have a month to get ready. Everything is so cheerful and happy with pink and hearts.... I love it all. Are you Valentine crafting yet? What are you working on?? Have a blessed and beautiful day! XOXO

P.S. Side note.... I am NOT going to Creativation (CHA) this year. It starts on Friday and I have severe FOMO right now. I am going to miss all my creative friends and I'm going to miss reporting back and telling you guys the scoop. Mostly I'm going to miss the hugs and laughter!!! It just didn't work out for me to go this year for lots of reasons. I can't wait to see all the news from everyone else though. Just wanted to tell you guys, because I know some of you wait for me to fill you in every year.

SUPPLIES FOR TODAY!

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Crochet - Granny Square Baby Blanket!

Hey everyone! How is your weekend going?? We've had rain rain rain here the past week or so. I love that! I feel all cozy and feel like reading and drinking coffee and making stuff. Winter is in full swing in Sacramento! Finally. The rain is much needed here and I'm grateful. Last week I had so many fun activities and meet ups. Seems like everything goes on pause during the holidays and then the week after New Years we all want to get back to our normal routine. I was ready - ready for things to get back on track - food, exercise, crafting...all of it! 

I finally finished my first big crochet project! I've made a few scarves, but only one big thing so far. I'm so happy to share it with you! One of my sweet blogger friends had a baby girl recently! I am so happy for her because she wanted to be a mama so badly, and I know she is going to be amazing as a mom! Her story was one of the 'good news' stories of last year. I wanted to make her something special for the nursery. The photos I saw of her nursery had grey and white and pops of bright colors (and pom poms!). I chose some pretty yarn colors in baby soft yarn (Caron Simply Soft - supplies and colors below) and set to work! This is a Granny Square Crochet Blanket! 

I am a brand new crocheter and I made this! YEAH! The reason I'm telling you that is because I want to encourage you to do it to! If I can make this, you can! When you are a new crocheter, your best friend is YouTube. There are so many people (kind and generous people) who post instructional videos on how to do everything! I suggest you search for the pattern you want to make and then find one of the You-tubers that 'speaks' to you - that you like their voice and pace. That's what I did to make this - I watched a ton of videos and then started... I belong to two local Crochet/Knit meet ups that have experts - and they were always willing to give me help and a tip along the way. Yarn peeps are just like paper peeps - sweet and helpful (and they just hoard yarn instead of 12x12 patterned paper! LOL).

The pattern for my blanket is a Granny Square. It's about 40x40 inches finished. But, the good part is you can keep adding rows forever! Make it whatever size you want it to be! I changed yarn color after every round. After I finished the square blanket, I added a shell stitch crochet border in white to polish/finish it off nicely. Then I made some pink pom poms for all the corners using my Clover Pom Pom Maker. I attached the pom poms with a tied bow, so she can remove them if they get in the way - or for washing. 

 

These colors are just like a bowl of candy! And it's sooooo soft and squishy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cutest photo shoot photo-bomber ever! Hee hee. What a helpful guy!! 

I'm listing my supplies and colors below. I bought one skein of each color and I used an H hook size. I made the entire blanket, border and pom poms and still had yarn left over. I would say I used about 75% of each skein. So the yarn goes a long way. I'm still learning how to gauge how far the yarn goes and how to read the labels/weight etc.

I'm loving learning something new. I hope you've enjoyed my project too! What are you working on right now?? XOXO

SUPPLIES FOR TODAY!

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Pretty Pink Posh 5th Year Anniversary Celebration Blog Hop - Pinata Party!

Hi there? Are you ready to party? Fiesta? Celebrate? YEAH! Welcome to my stop on day two of the awesome three day blog hop to celebrate the new release from Pretty Pink Posh! Also, it's a celebration of Pretty Pink Posh's Anniversary! Congratulations Paulina! I love you and wish you years and years of continued success!

I'm truly excited to be included in this three day party and can't wait to show you guys my card. It's BRIGHT! Please read all the way through to the bottom of this post for the list of blogs on the hop, supplies, prizes and discounts! It's all good! I hope you're having a good week so far. 

When I received my package of goodies from PPP the stamp set that jumped right out at me first was Pinata Party! It's an awesome birthday set that has a UNICORN pinata!! What??? How adorable and fabulous is that?? Very. So I busted out the vivid colors and the Copics and created this birthday card. 

 

I started with a white A2 card base (You can't see it under the stripes!) To create my colorful striped background I used the long narrow strip die from the Stitched Borders 3 die set from Pretty Pink Posh. I die cut a bunch of those strips from yellow, green, pink and blue cardstock. Then I layered those strips down onto a thin piece of white cardstock. After I trimmed all the edges I adhered that striped piece directly onto the card front. 

 

Next I stamped and die cut out the pinata, the banners and the balloons (Balloons are from the Birthday Friends stamp set). I colored all the elements using Copic colors that matched the cardstock colors. These colors are so cheerful it makes me smile. 

 

The white panel on top of the stripes was created as my party background. I die cut a stitched rectangle and gently inked around the edges with an ink blender and Broken China Distress Ink. Then I used the same color Distress Ink to stamp the confetti over the blending. I stamped that fabulous birthday sentiment in rich black in the lower left corner.

 

I attached all the pieces to the card using foam tape. I added a few clear gems and a bit of twine for my banner string. You can barely see it, but I also used a Clear Wink Of Stella pen to add glittery, shimmery accents to the unicorn, the confetti and the balloons. 

 

 

 

 

Thank you so much for stopping by on my blog today! If you're new here because of the hop - welcome! Glad to have you! Take care everyone! All the extra details are below. Enjoy the celebration and the blog hop! XOXO

No party would be complete without gifts and a party favor, right? During the celebration, save 10% off your order using the coupon code provided below.

PRIZES: Pretty Pink Posh will be giving away THREE $25 gift certificates to random comments left on the different stops every day! That’s right, there are a total of NINE $25 gift certificates over the three days! Comments must be left before January 17th at 11:59 PM PST. Pretty Pink Posh be announcing the winners next week, so be sure to return to the PPP blog to see if you are one of the winners!

 

BLOG HOP LIST FOR DAY TWO!

Pretty Pink Posh blog
Laura Bassen
Eloise Blue
Melody Rupple
Nicky Meek
Cathy Zielske
Dana Kirby

Amy Rysavy
Suzy Plantamura
Wanda Guess

 

SUPPLIES FOR TODAY!

 

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Reverse Confetti New Release Blog Hop - January 2019 - Warm Hugs!

Hello everyone! Happy New Year again! A whole week into 2019! Hope your year is off to an awesome start! Thank you for all the kind comments on my last post. I love doing that blog hop every year. It's so positive and fun. My year has been pretty uneventful so far. In fact, I've been sort of lazy! My hubs had time off work and we really just slept in and did fun stuff together. I haven't been crafting too much. I finished two more crochet projects though! And I'm ready to kick it back into gear in the craft room. Today I'm sharing a card made with the awesome new release from my friends at Reverse Confetti! Yeah! 

The January release from Reverse Confetti is live now! It's sooooo fun and cute and perfect for Valentine's Day and LOVE! I'm so ready to move on from holiday cards and on to Spring things! Are you? I fell in love right away with the new set called Big Bear. OMG he is fabulous. The matching die for the bear stamp has slits in it so he can hold a heart, a coffee mug, a letter, or some flowers. EEK. I made a sweet and simple greeting featuring that guy. I'll be using him a bunch - maybe on the front of envelopes too! I also used the brand new paper pad launching from Reverse Confetti! 

 

I started with a white A2 card base and layered the pretty striped paper to cover the entire card front. Then I layered bright red cardstock with a white stitched rectangle. I wrapped the heart paper around those two layers and attached them to my card with foam tape to make the foundation of my card. Next I stamped and die cut the bear, heart and banner and colored everything with my Copic Markers. 

 

I used another one of my favorite Reverse Confetti Sets - Weather it Together - to stamp the tiny hearts on the white layer. I die cut a stitched circle and then attached the bear and the banner with foam tape!

 

I wanted this guy to look soft so I colored him with a light brown Copic (E31) and used my Copic Blender pen to soften the color even further. Just a bit of pink on his cheeks and ears and he's so sweet. I LOVE his pink scarf! I matched the scarf to the color in the patterned papers. 

 

 

 

This is me - sending you warm hugs today! 

 

 

Best wishes for a great week! I'll see you soon with another fun blog hop later in the week! Take care! XOXO

THE NEW RELEASE IS LIVE NOW! 

SUPER FUN BLOG HOP LINEUP TODAY!

LOTS OF INSPIRATION FROM THE NEW RELEASE!

Reverse Confetti Blog

Amy Kolling

Melissa Phillips

Julee Tilman

Amy Sheffer

Tricia Barber

Kelly Lunceford

Lisa Henke

Leanne West

Wanda Guess

Heather Hoffman

Amy Tsuruta

Kathy Schweinfurth

Michelle Short

Audrey Tokach

Jeanne Jachna

Ali Farmer

Deanne Kuntz

Ashley Tucker

Lindsay Lajola

 

SUPPLIES FOR TODAY!

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Season's Givings Blog Hop - Happy New Year 2019!

EDITED 1-5-19: MY WINNER IS ANNE STURGEON! WOOHOOO! CONGRATULATIONS! THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR ALL THE KIND AND WONDERFUL COMMENTS. HAPPY CRAFTING! XOXOX

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2019!

MANY BLESSINGS FOR AN AMAZING YEAR AHEAD!

Thank you very much for coming by my blog today to celebrate "Season's Givings" with a giant blog hop and awesome prize giveaways! This is my fifth year doing this great hop! (CLICK HERE TO SEE last year's post!) Big giant THANKS TO LATISHA for organizing this amazing blog hop! I hope you are having fun looking at everyone's blogs! What a great way to start off the new year right? The entire hop link list is at the very bottom of my post. And every blog has a prize! There are all kinds of beautiful projects to look at and loads of great prizes! 

This blog hop is all about us thanking YOU, our awesome followers and readers, for supporting us and sharing our joy of crafting. For lots of us, the main reason we blog, is that we develop wonderful friendships with a greater creative community and we uplift and inspire each other. Truly, thank you for joining me on my blog journey. If you are new to my site - welcome! I hope you find something you like and I'm happy to have you here today. Welcome to Season's Givings 2019! 

Also, if you are a new visitor to my blog - again, Welcome, and Thanks for coming by! If you want to know more about my style, please read my most recent blog post with my year end wrap up of projects (CLICK HERE). Also, you can find me on Instagram (@stampcatwg), Facebook (A Blog Called Wanda) or on Pinterest (Wanda Guess). I love sharing via social media! This past year I really got into Instagram Stories too! 

PRIZE ALERT! EVERY STOP ON THIS AWESOME HOP HAS PRIZES! It's our way of saying thanks! I have a great prize package of goodies to give away to one lucky winner (see photo below)! In order to be eligible to win my prize package, please leave a comment on this blog post and tell me your New Year's resolution for crafting and creativity! I will draw the winner on Saturday, January 5th and notify you via email. What projects are you going to work on in 2019? Maybe a new technique? New style? Favorite new supplies? I want to know! I did this same question last year and just loved all the answers!! Happy Hopping today and Happy Crafting in the new year! XOXO

This is the prize package for my stop on the hop! Wooohoooo!

 

And, since it's New Year's I want to share a project with you! I made a graphic and classy black and gold New Year card to start the crafty new year off right! I used the Bee Bold Numbers dies from Honey Bee Stamps and gorgeous New Years stamps and dies from Pretty Pink Posh! It all worked together so nicely. And let's pop the champagne! I always love black and gold for New Years...I almost always use these colors. A bit of shimmer too... 

 

I started with an A2 card base in rich black cardstock. I layered gold paper then another layer of black cardstock. Next I die cut out 2 0 1 9 three different times - in black and in gold. I used foam tape to layer the number dies onto the top black layer. This is my base/foundation for the card. I really like how graphic that is! 

 

I die cut the New Year Script die (from Pretty Pink Posh) out of gold paper. It's so pretty and delicate! Then I stamped, die cut and colored the top hat and the champagne bottle. Everything was colored with Copic Markers. I did a bit of paper piecing to add gold accents to the bottle and top hat. 

 

 

 

I snapped a pretty picture after I die cut out all those numbers! Loving that new sequin mix from PPP!! CLASSY!!

 

Here's a quick pic of my work mat with just the numbers on the card. At first I thought I could fit four rows of numbers, but only three would fit...

 

I used clear glue and my tweezers to attach the script die cut to the card. It was like surgery! LOL. But well worth the effort. It looks like it's floating on the card. I used foam tape to affix the top hat and champagne bottle to the card.

 

 

Thank you for coming by! HAPPPPPYYYYYY NEWWWWWW YEAR! We are going to have lots of fun creating together in 2019 I just know it! I wish you and your family a blessed, happy, healthy, and successful new year! Love ya! Mean it! XOXO

ENJOY THE HOP!

DON'T FORGET TO ENTER TO WIN ALL THE PRIZES!

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO SEE THE ENTIRE AWESOME BLOG HOP LIST!

9 Year Blogaversary! And, my end of the year wrap up for 2018!

Hello my dear blogging friends! Today I'm celebrating my NINE YEAR BLOGAVERSARY! Wowza! That means it's time for my annual end of the year wrap up post! Only a little bit of 2018 left! I look forward to writing this post each December, and sharing with you my favorite projects from the past year. CLICK HERE to read my wrap up from 2017! This year end post helps me finalize my year and reflect on my creative journey. I feel like I grow in new ways each year, both as a person and as an artist and blogger. Having my blog is a lot like having a diary or a journal and it's really cool to look back at almost a decade worth of cards and projects all in one place! I am so grateful to have this little place on the internet to share with the world and with you my creative supporters and friends. Thank you for being part of it all with me! It wouldn't be the same without the interaction from you, and all the friends I have made through the years. You bless me all the time with your kindness and love. 

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas! And, Happy New Year 2019! Be sure to check back here on New Year's day because It's the Season's Givings Blog Hop day! All of the bloggers in the hop are giving away prizes! TONS and TONS of prizes! It is always really fun! You don't want to miss it, I promise! I look forward to that each year too! YAY! I have a cool, graphic new year card to share in the blog hop! 

My word for 2018 was TRUTH. Here's what I wrote last December: "There is only one truth and it is solid, stable and unchanging. My identity is anchored to the truth of who I am to God. Lack of being anchored in the truth causes us to rise and fall with circumstances. The truth keeps us from drifting afloat. Gives us hope. The other facet of this is that I often don't want to SEE the truth as it is put before me. I want to always believe the best in people and situations, and that gets me hurt. Truth is a more realistic way of navigating this harsh world... So TRUTH has two meanings for me. I've already started using this in my journaling and planning for 2018." I feel that the word truth carried me through some difficult times this year. I learned a lot about myself, but the truth never changed...My faith is stronger and God always pulls me through as he did in 2018. My family is stronger and we are looking forward to new beginnings as the clock turns to 2019. 

My word for 2018 is FOCUS. This word has a lot of meaning to me as a photographer! But as a person it means FOCUSING on what is important, what matters... I tend to get sidetracked easily from the things that are best for me. I get caught up in what other people need or want from me and I put myself to the side. I need to FOCUS on my goals, my dreams, the things that will be good and healthy for me. I also need to consistently FOCUS on the Lord and what He is doing with my life and fulfilling my purpose. This word feels right to me right now. 

Do you choose focus words or resolutions for the new year? I'd love to hear! Leave me a comment about your hopes for the new year! 

Something I love to do here on the blog at the end of the year, is to take a look back on my creative journey from the year before! This annual post is kind of like a cyber scrapbook! Thank you for joining along with me in 2018! We had some good times! This was my first year in nine years that I decided to not be on any design teams. I feel like I got back to my stamping roots so to speak and I really created from my heart this year. It felt good. I had some awesome opportunities to work with companies and people I love and admire. It was a good year creatively! This post is #1485 total! WOW! That's a lot of blog posts! LOL. I've enjoyed each one!

Six years ago, I started the tradition of recapping my favorite projects from the past year. I get so much nice feedback about this! Here are my favorites from 2018... There are a lot! So grab a cup of coffee or tea, and settle in! I hope you enjoy the look back with me! 

To see more information about each project,

please click on the the individual photos!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!

I appreciate all of you so much,

all of your love and kindness and support!

I wish you the very best year ever! Cheers to 2019!

Honey Bee Stamps - Piece of Cake!

Hi everyone! Guess what? We survived Christmas! I hope you had a wonderful holiday and that you're still basking in the memories of presents and good food! We had a very nice and mellow Christmas at our house. Ate too much, watched Christmas movies all day and were generally lazy! It was foggy and perfect weather.... And, I spent some time in my studio making a fun birthday card to share with you!

All the Christmas stamps and dies are put away now and I had a hard time thinking of what I wanted to make first! I decided to use the brand new Honey Bee Stamps release! I LOOOOOVE the new stamp set called Piece of Cake! I'm going to be using that one a lot for birthday cards. It's the perfect blend of cute, classic, stylish and fun. I hope you like my card - lots of pink! I used distress inks to create a blended background and also used distress inks to water color my images. 

 

This is an A2 sized card. I created my own card base from Neenah Solar White Cardstock. I layered one more layer of white and then the top layer is a Scallop A2 die cut also from Honey Bee Stamps (supplies at the end of my post). I always need birthday cards, right? I'll talk more about the background a bit later in this post. I stamped and die cut out all the images - from Arteza watercolor paper. It's my favorite right now. I used a palette and my distress inks and a small paint brush to color the images. 

 

Here is a close up of the color scheme... Pink, blue and red is always a favorite. But, of course, my cake had to have chocolate frosting!! There are splashes of Clear Wink of Stella on the cake plate, the tag and the fruit.

 

That perfect red balloon is from another of my favorite Honey Bee Stamps sets called Celebration Box. I added the tag under the balloon and string when I attached everything to the card with foam tape. 

 

The scallop rectangle die was cut from Bristol Paper. I find that it works great with ink blended backgrounds. I used Spun Sugar and Worn Lipstick to gently blend ink only around the edges. The center is still white. Be very sparing with the ink at first. You can always add more! 

 

In my mind, this card had confetti going on... Hmmmmm... What to use for confetti?? So I went through all my Honey Bee Stamps stamp sets and found SNOW! Yes, those little dots at the top are the snow stamp from Jingle All The Way! I stamped it in Worn Lipstick ink just around the top of the panel! Yay! Festive. 

 

 

That's it for me today! Time to get busy making New Year Cards! What's going on in your studio?? What is next on your crafting agenda?? I'm going to crochet meetup tonight and I need to figure out what I'm making! Have a beautiful day my craft pals! XOXO

SUPPLIES FOR TODAY!

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Merry Christmas 2018 from the Guess Family!

Wishing you and your loved ones a 

VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

From my home to yours!

Love, Mark, Wanda & Lucky Guess

Sending Warm Fuzzies!

Hey there friends! What's happening? I hope everything is going great in your part of the world! Lots going on here, but nothing really, if that makes sense... My computer crashed on Sunday so I had to buy a new one and it's so time consuming and frustrating to get everything all organized and back to working the way you like it. My computer also crashed back in May, so that's the second time this year. UGH. Like really UGH. I've been out of commission for a bit here on the blog as a result. Looks like everything is working now. (Fingers crossed) Most of my Christmas cards are mailed (yay!) My shopping is done! The hubs and I have been trying to get out and do Christmasey things. We are very lucky that there are a lot of things to do around here that are free. We are taking advantage! I'm already trying to look forward to a new year. 

I am done making Christmas projects for this year, but I figure I can still make pretty Winter projects right? I've been really wanting to use these new stamps and dies from Ellen Hutson called Snow Days. I made this pretty and festive card to share with you today! Mittens, felt, pom poms??? What's not to love? I hope you get the warm fuzzies I'm sending your way today! 

 

I started with a white A2 card base. Then I layered my favorite pink cardstock for a pop of color! The top layer is kraft cardstock splattered with Copic Opaque White to look like snow flurries. I stamped the sentiment in rich Onyx Black Ink before I did the 'snow.' 

I die cut the mittens using the Snow Days dies. Then I ran them through the Carta Bella Fair Isle Embossing Folder to add a pattern! LOVE! Then I used the mittens dies a second time to perfectly die cut those felt cuffs. I adhered the felt and the pom poms with all purpose clear glue.

 

 

 

Here's a close up of the mittens. Once I embossed them I kind of thought the pink was too bright. I wanted to tone the color down a little bit. So, I used white pigment ink and a big sponge dauber and gently went over the pattern with white ink. OOHHH frosty! That was just the right touch. I also spritzed the mittens with Frost Shimmer Spritz. You can't really tell in the photos but they are slightly shimmery too - like snow! EEP. 

 

I glued a double bow of pretty Lawn Fawn Twine and then glued the ends down where I knew I would attach the mittens. The mittens are attached to the card with foam tape. I tucked a few snowflakes in here and there. I really love this color combo - lime, pink and aqua - you guys know I use it a lot! Super fresh and happy I think!

 

 

I'm sending you lots of warm fuzzies in this last week before Christmas! Can you feel them? Take care, and have a beautiful, blessed, and happy day! XOXO

 

SUPPLIES FOR TODAY!

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Merry Christmas Snowmen!

HELLLOOOOOOO! As I'm typing this blog post I'm thinking this might be my last Christmas card post for this year! Not sure if I'll have time to make any more Christmas cards or not! I still have a few ideas, and some pretty (unused) stamp sets on my desk! We'll see what happens! I really like this card, so if it's the last one, I'm okay with it! LOL. Merry Christmas 2018!! This card combines stamps from three of my favorite companies. I love to combine stamp sets and dies to make my own design. This card is wintery and cooooooool. 

The finished card is a horizontal A2 card base in white with one other layer, also in white. Pretty simple color palette - white, blue and red. LOVE. I can almost feel a cool breeze go by when I look at this card. Haha. And, who doesn't love tiny snowmen!? 

 

Those big alphabet dies are from Honey Bee Stamps. The snowmen stamps and dies are from Mama Elephant. And the pretty snow background and the 'christmas' word are from Right At Home Stamps. The letters were colored with Distress Inks and the snowmen were colored with Copic Markers. 

 

EEEEEP! How adorable is that guy?? Peeking out from behind the letter! Just saying hi! On the top layer, I used the pretty Snow Flurries background stamp and stamped it in Tumbled Glass Distress Ink. I placed it just on top of the panel. The stamp is huge and would actually fill that whole space! 

 

To make the letters I got a piece of white paper and used a sponge dauber to put down Tumbled Glass and Mermaid Lagoon Distress Inks. Then I splattered snow onto the paper. I dried it really quickly with my heat tool. Then I used the Bee Bold Alphabet dies to die cut out the word M E R R Y. I attached the letters to the center of the card and stamped the sentiment below it in rich black ink. Then I added some cute snowmen!! (I stamped and die cut the snowmen out and colored them with Copics.)

 

This is my paper I used for the letters. I also had sprinkled some clean water onto this panel - before the white snow splatters!! 

 

 

 

 

 

This card has lots going on, but still looks simple and cute! And it has dimension - but will be flat enough to mail! I have loads of ideas for more cards like this!! Never enough time - too many ideas!

 

 

Have a happy, fun, festive and creative day, my friends! XOXO

SUPPLIES FOR TODAY!

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Celebrate Christmas!

Hi there! Hope today finds you happy and smiling! I'm having a good week so far. It's my hubs' birthday this week so we did some low key celebrating and there was cake! YAY! My chapter of Tuesdays Together is doing an awesome event today and I'm really looking forward to that. Then before we blink again this year will be in the rear view mirror! 2018 was not a fabulous year so I'm not sad about saying goodbye to it! I need to start making New Year Cards too! EEKS. 

Today I'm sharing another one of my favorite stamp sets from this season. It's called Bells and Baubles and it's from Right At Home Stamps. I LOVE their stamps! Yay! I wanted to put my own twist on this stamp set. So instead of using all the layering stamps, I chose some of the smaller decorative stamps and heat embossed them onto the ornament shaped die cuts. Then I colored them with Distress Inks. Fun! This is an A2 card finished with a white A2 card base. Let's take a look...

 

I cut and folded my white A2 card base. Then I cut a layer of Rock Candy Cardstock (the perfect shade of medium gray) and splattered snow all over that layer! I used a white gel pen to draw some sparkles onto the grey also. Then I heat embossed the sentiment with white embossing powder - in the lower right hand corner. I set that aside to dry. To make the ornaments I die cut the ornament shapes out first. Then I used the small detail stamps to add the designs - also with white heat embossing. I used bright colors of Distress Inks and sponge daubers to add the color to the ornaments. I also splattered snow on them. I really wanted them to look like pastel vintage 60's ornaments!

 

Here is a close up of the sentiment. Such a pretty pretty font! I only used part of the stamp! I used washi tape to crop off the other words so I just had the word 'celebrate' on my card. 

 

For the top of the card, I used the very pretty die set from Hello Bluebird Stamps - called Holly and Pine. It's perfect for winter cards! I die cut the branches from silver cardstock and cut the bow from pink cardstock. Then I added a big ole gem at the top! Silver thread makes for the ornament strings...

 

 

Thanks for coming by today! Hope the rest of your week is fantastic! XOXO See you soon!

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Beep Beep! Hello Christmas!

Hi crafty friends! Happy Weekend! Hope you're out having fun and enjoying the season. I'm finishing up the last of my Christmas projects and posting them. Some stamping companies have already moved on to Valentine's Day projects! EEK! I am running out of time to share holiday cards with you. I have a few more! My cards aren't mailed out yet either! Never enough time at the holidays right?? 

BEEP BEEP! I have a cute and happy card to share on today's post! A little Christmas car, loaded with presents, and driving over the river and through the woods! This card was super fun to make! I used stamps and dies from Ellen Hutson and Impress Stamps...oh and an action wobble too!

 

I started with a red card base, A2 size. Then I used bright white cardstock and die cut it using the pretty Snowfall Backdrop die from Ellen Hutson. I stamped the sentiment in black onto the bottom of the snowy layer and set it aside. I stamped the car stamp and cut it out with some small scissors because I knew I wanted it to pop off the page!

 

It was pretty easy to cut out this stamp - not too many small parts! I used a black pen and wrote the word 'merry' on the license plate! I colored the car in using my Copic Markers in Christmas colors. 

 

I die cut lime green Christmas trees from the Ellen Hutson Winter Window Die set. I tried to create a little forest for my car to drive through. Now the super fun part! I used an action wobble to attach the car to the card! It shakes down the road! LOL! (Kind of like how I drive!). It's super cool in person. Have you ever used action wobbles?? They lay flat for mailing but then they pop up when the person opens the card. 

 

Here's a side view of the wobble! It's a teeny tiny plastic spring! 

 

I love wood mounted stamps....I have a pretty good collection, but I always like to add new ones!

 

 

 

 

That's my card for today! Best wishes for a great week to come! XOXO See you soon!

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Something Different! A crochet project!

Hi everyone! How are you? Hope you're having a great week! My husband has been away for work all week and it's been a crafting marathon here! Lucky and I have been staying up very (too) late every night crafting and watching too much tv! I can't sleep when my husband isn't home so I end up all wonky. I can't wait to see him Friday night! The house seems too big and too creaky when I'm here alone. Anyhoo - lots of crafting happening! LOL. 

If you follow along with me on Instagram and/or Facebook, then you know I've finally learned how to crochet...and I finally finished a project! This quest to crochet started over a year ago. I took some lessons at a local store but it didn't sink in. Then I took some more classes at Michael's. But I just never finished anything. I really wanted to, though! As luck would have it, I recently became aware of TWO awesome knit/crochet meet ups right near my house! I vowed to stick with it, and I joined both of the groups! I have met the loveliest and most talented ladies through the meetings! And, they have encouraged me and helped me along. Yay! I think I'm on my way now! I have finished two scarves and started a blanket. It's so fun now that I know what I'm doing. LOL. I'm doing basic stitches until I get my confidence up. I can't read a pattern yet.  But I'm having a blast. Turns out that yarn people are just like paper people.... Crafty girls are the best. 

Since my blog is also my way of documenting my creative journey,  I wanted to post about my first project here! I'm sure that a lot of you are also yarn hoarders?! Am I right? I have found that it's been good for my creative juices to do something different. New ways to look at colors and textures and try something that challenges me. I'm loving it so far. I have oodles of yarn already and projects in my mind. I'm going to start a journal to remember everything. Oh, and of course a Pinterest Board! 

Here's my finished scarf - and styled the way I wore it out the other day. HOW fun to receive compliments and say "I made it!" Love that. It's simple, really. Just row after row of double crochet stitches until I ran out of yarn. Then I added fringe to the bottom. Well, because, fringe is better! 

 

In progress... I accidentally threw away the label for the yarn! But I did some research and found out the brand and type. It doesn't have a dye lot system because each skein is hand dyed. It's called Malabrigo. It's all my favorite deep rich Fall colors. SO so pretty! One of the cool things about this hobby is that it's so easy to bring it with you. You just need your project, yarn, hook and scissors and off you go! 

 

I am totally addicted to this type of yarn - that has multiple colors in it. I like watching how the colors match up as you stitch along. And it looks so pretty when it's finished. I think it's easier to hide my mistakes too!! 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by and for sharing something new and different with me! I hope your day is extra fabulous! XOXO

AMAZON LINK TO MALABRIGO YARN

Your Friendship Warms My Heart!

Hi crafty friends and Happy Monday! I hope you had a most delightful winter weekend! We have been very busy - that's how December is right? Going, going, going all the time! I love it though. There are so many fun things to do! Craft shows, lights, shopping, coffee, friends... It's awesome. This weekend we went to a beautiful barn market not too far from our house, and I'll share some photos of it at the bottom of my post, after the card. I loooove stuff like that! Being outside on a beautiful winter day, seeing the handmade goods. I'm going to wrap up the rest of my Christmas cards this coming week I think. Time to start the process of addressing and mailing them out. (I'm bad at that part)! 

Now, on for my card for the day. I COULD NOT WAIT TO SHARE THIS!!! OMG these new stamps from Concord & 9th called "Winter Wear" are maybe the most adorable stamps everrrr. I was smitten like a mitten right away! I bought them and had them sitting on my desk when I woke up one night at 2am with an idea! Ha! So that next morning I stamped and colored and tried again until I was able to execute my idea. I'll explain later! Here's the finished card...

 

These stamps!! Oh gosh, how much fun to make this card! The face, the scarf, the hat and the glasses are all different stamps so you can mix and match. There are two girl faces and several other accessories - so you can make it however you want. I love it when I can customize things. So I made this girl to look like me! She has glasses...and she loves buffalo plaid and she's wearing a snowflake pin - just like me! So the idea that woke me up at 2am was that she needed a buffalo plaid scarf! This scarf stamp is NOT checkered. I did that with my Copic Markers. Yes, it took a while, but I love the result!

 

 

This card started with an A2 card base is vivid Christmas red! I layered vellum and then kraft paper. On the vellum paper I splattered Copic Opaque White with a toothbrush to look like snow flurries. On the kraft layer, I used the Concord & 9th Swirls Dies to make snow swirls. Then I stamped snowflakes in white over that. Finally, I used sponge and white ink to go around the top edges. 

I stamped and die cut the pieces out and colored them all with markers. Then I heat embossed the sentiment with white embossing powder onto black paper. I like that look on a sentiment. It makes it pop! In this photo you can see all the layers. 

For accents I added some die cut snowflakes and pearls. I also added a bit of glitter shimmer to the brim and pom pom on the hat. It's frosty out there, you know! One of my signature pieces during winter is to wear a snowflake brooch. I have two that I love and I wear them all the time. So I die cut a tiny snowflake and made her (me!) a brooch. 

 

 

 

Supplies for this card are at the bottom of my post! You're going to want these fun stamps and dies I know it! Endless combinations of fun cards for gal pals!! Can't wait to make some more! IN the photo below you can where I got my ideas! LOL. Mark took this photo at the Barn Market on Friday. My new haircut is kinda short but I'm happy and that's what matters. XOXO

 

 

Here are a few photos I took at the H3 Barn Market on Friday. It's in Rescue California, which isn't too far from my house. Mark and I had a delightful time there! So peaceful and beautiful. The vendors were great and so so talented. The weather was perfect. It reminded us of an old fashioned Christmas - lovely! Big shout out to Laura, the proprietor, for creating something so special. I can't wait to go back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope you have the best, blessed, happy, fun and creative week ahead! XOXO

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Christmas Joy Card with Tim Holtz Stamps and Dies!

Hey there crafty friends! How's your week going? It feels like Winter and now it's only a month until Christmas! My studio is FULL of Christmas crafty projects and new stamps and I'm having a hard time keeping up with it all. I want to use everything, but I'm running out of time! Eeeeeek! I want to stamp, and make treats, and crochet, and decorate! Trying to cram it all in to my favorite time of year! How's your holiday planning coming along?? Yesterday Lucky and I did a Christmas card photo shoot and I got some adorable pictures of him. Christmas cards were ordered late last night. Check! Enjoy your day my friends!

Today's card is a Vintage/Retro/Old Fashioned Christmas card! I LOOOOOVE everything Tim Holtz for Christmas, don't you?? No one does it like Tim! Everything is so pretty and fun to play with. This card started with me coloring those pretty Blueprints stamps one day... Then another day I made the stenciled background.... And they went together perfectly! The finished card is A2 size made from woodgrain paper splattered with white paint to look like snow. 

I stamped the Holly and Poinsettia onto watercolor paper with Versafine Ink. I watercolored the images with my Distress Markers and a water brush. EASY PEASY! After I colored the images I inked the edged with brown ink. I also added snow splatters and a tiny bit of blue ink (marker) around the edges of the images. Here's a close up....

I used the Tim Holtz Sizzix Festive Greens Dies to make some leaves to tuck in between the images. I colored those with Distress Ink pads and a sponge dauber. I like to have just that bit of a spray there! Makes the card have more texture. 

Now for this stencil! It's called Peppermint - of course! I used a small sponge dauber and red ink to ink the stencil onto watercolor paper. Next I used a water brush to blur the lines of the edges. Then I sprayed it with clean water for some water droplets effect. Next I splattered it with Copic Opaque White ink. FINALLY I inked the edges with Vintage Corduroy DIstress Ink! OOHHHH LA LA! At first I wondered if I ruined a perfectly good stenciled paper... But this look really grew on me! 

 

 

 

 

I used the Holiday Words Script Dies from Sizzix and die cut the word joy out. I inked it with Black Distress Ink and glued it onto the card. I like this die set because the scale is small - and I needed a little word right in that spot!

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by! What's on your holiday agenda for this weekend? Tell me what you're up to! XO

 

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Right at Home Stamps - Coffee with a Friend!

Helloooo! So happy to see you today! Happy Monday....and don't look now, but it's almost December! Cheers to a good week ahead. I'm getting my hair cut and going to stamp night and then crochet meet up...lots of fun things planned. Our college rivalry football game was rescheduled because of the fires so we'll head down to Berkeley on Saturday for the game. So excited for Winter activities and being out in the now fresh air. 

Today I have a super fun card to share with you, made with stamps from one of my favorite stamp companies - Right at Home! Gosh, I love Nicole and her creative and innovative stamp designs. I'm a huge fan of this girl and love to stamp with her products. I'm happy to see her following grow and see her company thrive. I love it when good things happen to good people. I'm happy she invites me along sometimes on her creative journey. 

My card today features the Cuppa Friendship Stamp set with matching dies...and the awesome large Woodgrain Background stamp. This stamp set is not necessarily a Christmas set, but I made a Christmas Friendship card by choosing red, green and gold as my colors and adding snowflakes to the background. I love their big chunky scarves - so fun to color. The finished card is an A2 card base from kraft cardstock. 

 

To start, I stamped and die cut out the girls and the word bubble (HOW CUTE IS that???) and colored them in with my Copic Markers. I added white highlights over my coloring by using a white gel pen. I resisted the urge to glitter.... 

 

The sentiment was heat embossed with gold embossing powder onto an olive green piece of cardstock. I chose that color to match the green Copics in the coloring so it all works together. I layered the green piece over some heart patterned paper from Sunny Studio Stamps. 

 

The woodgrain background layer was made by using the large background stamp and stamping it with Versamark ink for a subtle watermark effect! I love how that came out! TIP: You will need a mega mount rocker (see supplies) or some other jumbo stamping block to use this stamp! I used white ink and added snowflakes to the background.

 

 

 

I'm going to be using that "hey girl" stamp a lot! SO many uses for that one! EEP. The girls and the word bubble were attached to the card using foam tape. 

Thank you for coming by today! Be sure to visit the RIGHT AT HOME BLOG for more fun inspiration from this great company. I know you're going to love it! Have a wonderful week. XOXO

 

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Merry, Merry, Pretty Layered Trees!

Hey everyone! How was your Thanksgiving!? And, did you go shopping yesterday?? Our Thanksgiving was really nice. We stayed home all day, and it rained ALL DAY! It was fabulous and cozy and perfect. Since it's just two of us here, I made us an Italian dinner for Thanksgiving. Baked rigatoni, salad and garlic bread...and of course pie! Sometimes I cook us an entire turkey dinner but this year I wasn't in the mood. We watched movies and I crafted... No running around all crazy like we do some years. Usually on Black Friday we are the crazy ones up at 4am and out shopping, but this year we didn't go! Again, it was pouring rain all day and we both felt like staying in and relaxing. Mark ran out to Lowe's and got us a new Shop Vac but other than that we didn't buy anything! Go us! I have been spending so much time decluttering and it felt good to not bring more stuff into our home. I'll venture out shopping next week sometime. Anyhoo - happy weekend! I've been doing lots of crafting, so I have projects to share!

I'm pretty quick to know what I like when I see new crafting supplies. Something usually grabs my attention right away or it doesn't. Well...when I first saw a project on Instagram made with the new Pretty Pink Posh Layered Tree Dies....I was like POW! Yes! I need that asap! Hahahaha. It's a set of dies that make a beautiful Christmas tree that you can layer. Genius and so so pretty. I chose to ink up some trees using Distress Inks... Then later I made some backgrounds for them - also with Distress Inks. Here are my two finished cards. Both cards are on white A2 card bases. 

 

To make the trees, I used shades of green Distress Inks on the pieces. I used the small sponge daubers to do the blending. Each piece is not very big by itself so the small daubers are perfect. After the ink was dry, I splattered white ink over them to look like snow! I also used a clear Wink of Stella pen to splash shimmer onto the tree pieces. I attached the pieces together using foam tape. The star, trunk and some ornaments are all included in the die set. 

 

For the backgrounds I used the brand new Swirls Dies from Concord & 9th. Another awesome genius product. I used them on another card too - to share later. I die cut the swirls into the paper layer and then inked shades of blue ink, keeping the color lighter in the center. I also splashed Wink of Stella pen onto this background layer. SOOOOO pretty! I added the Wink of Stella to the star too. 

 

The Merry word was die cut from silver cardstock from my stash. The die is very large and actually says Merry and Bright! I used a pair of detail scissors to cut the word Merry out of the bigger die cut. It's the exact right size for this space! I glued it on using clear glue. 

 

Here is my tree in my work space. You can see the dies in the background. LOVE. 

 

 

 

The next card has a super bright red background! I made the card the same exact way as the first one. But with a red background and a gold word die. I also decided to add a snippet of black paper with the word Christmas embossed in white. I felt like that was A LOT of red so I wanted to break it up with some black. 

 

 

 

Those swirls....sigh... They are so pretty! 

Okay, that's it for me! I'll be back on Monday with a really cute coffee themed card made with supplies from Right at Home! Looking forward to sharing so much with you in the coming weeks. Take care and have a wonderful day! XOXO

 

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Happy Thanksgiving 2018 - Counting My Blessings!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

BEST WISHES FOR A BEAUTIFUL HOLIDAY

FROM MY HOME TO YOURS! 

Hey everyone! Happy Thanksgiving 2018! I hope that you enjoy a great day with family and friends and that you feel loved and blessed. Whether you are partying with 50 relatives or enjoying a peaceful small gathering at home I hope that you have a good time. It's the one day of the year when we pause and reflect on our blessings outwardly. It's so important right now. The world is crazy and it's important to find some peace. I'm sending you a virtual hug right now! Normally I do not post a card on Thanksgiving, but I made this card last week and it seemed perfect to save it for today. Enjoy!

I used four different stamp sets from one of my new favorite companies - Hello Bluebird - to make this card. Their stamps and so sweet and adorable, and oh so fun to color! I used Copic Markers to color all the images and I made a pretty Distress Ink background for the card base. I am REALLY into blended ink backgrounds right now! The finished card is an odd size. I needed room at the top for the sentiment. So the finished card is 4" x 6".  

 

This sentiment set is gorgeous! Big words in a scripty font and then lots of smaller words to mix and match with them. That is one of my favorite ways to do sentiments. I stamped the sentiments in rich black ink at the top of my card after the distress ink was dry.  I stamped it first and then rearranged all the other images below it, starting with that tree branch. 

 

This little deer and his squirrel friend are enjoying a day out in the Autumn forest together. They are all ready for a pumpkin feast! Maybe they will make a pie! LOL. I really had so much fun coloring all the pieces. I kept the color palette warm and Fall-ish so that it would all go well together. 

 

 

 

Here is my blended background before I put all the images on. I am totally in love with Peacock Feathers ink right now. And that color looks so pretty with orange and yellow. I left a bit of white space in between the yellows and the blues so they wouldn't make green there in the middle. I splattered some white ink too. In order to get this pretty blend, be sure to use the Tim Holtz Ink Blending tool. I've tried everything and that's the only way I can get this to work. Oh, and use LOTS of ink. 

 

 

 

 

 

Everything is attached to the card using foam tape. I love the dimension!

 

 

That's it for today! It's time to start cooking! I count all of you in my list of blessings. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving! XOXO

 

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Hello card with Sizzix Tim Holtz Funky Foliage Dies!

Hi friends! How are you doing? It's almost Thanksgiving! Wow. Are you in holiday prep mode? Are you traveling? I hope you have a great week, whatever it is you're doing! This was a strange week here in Sacramento. There is a horrible, huge wildfire burning about 75 miles Northeast of us and we have been inundated with awful smoke for going on a second week now. I've never seen anything like it. On Thursday last week, Sacramento had the worst air quality IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. Whoa. School is cancelled, everything is cancelled and it is so terribly sad. They are telling everyone to stay indoors. And, I repeat, this is 75 miles away. Gosh. I've been depressed the entire time. Thinking about those poor families. The thick smoke is a constant reminder of what is happening. I pray for my fellow Californians and pray for rain. My heart is heavy and I am again reminded to be so grateful for the blessings I have. Hug your loved ones a bit tighter this Thanksgiving and let the small things go. 

Today I'm sharing a card I made with the super cool new Funky Foliage Dies from Sizzix and Tim Holtz. They've been sitting on my desk for at least a month and I just needed some time to ink them up. The other day I finally just sat down and did it! These dies have all kinds of foliage in a cool retro style: mushrooms, ferns, flowers, leaves, branches... Perfect to create a forest scene. I love the little mushrooms the best. All the coloring of the die cuts was done with distress ink pads. The finished card is an A2 size. 

 

I die cut all the pieces out of watercolor paper so they are nice and thick. I used pretty shades of distress ink pads, water, and a paint brush, to color the images in. I dried them with my heat tool. (when it's cold outside I used my heat tool a lot more to dry watercolors and even my Copic coloring!). After the pieces were dry, I went back and splattered Vintage Photo ink onto all of them. 

 

The 2nd layer and the top layer are Cream cardstock. I used the pretty leaves from the Nature's Wonder stamp set to stamp my own background paper with Antique Linen ink. I stamped the sentiment in brown ink. Both cream layers were inked around the edges using distress ink and a big sponge dauber. 

 

I used a bit of Rock Candy Distress Glitter on the mushrooms and leaves for just a hint of sparkle and vintage feeling. Here's a close up of the layers and the background stamping. 

 

 

 

I arranged two different clusters on the card front. Usually when I'm making a card like this I will stamp/die cut and color a bunch of pieces and then mix and match them until I get the look I want. This arrangement took a while! I wanted to use ALLLLL the pieces!

That's it for today. Much love and good wishes for a safe and happy Thanksgiving week. If you're traveling - have a great journey! I'll be back on Thursday with a Thanksgiving card. Until then, take care friends. XOXO 

 

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Fun Christmas Cards with Flora and Fauna Stamps!

Hi crafty friends! What's up this week? I'm not up to too much around here. Later today I'm meeting up with my friend Wendy for some girl talk and lunch but other than that, the week is pretty mellow. I am getting over a cold and trying to lay low and take care of myself. I'm feeling my age in aches and pains lately. Getting old ain't for sissies - whoever said that was right on the money. Learning to show myself grace and slow down when I need to. That's hard for me - the girl who's been going 100 miles an hour her entire life and was born with a day planner in her tiny hand. But, God has a way of showing us the next steps.... The fuzzy blankets are on the bed and we are all ready for snuggle season. Lucky loves to burrow into a blanket and hide out - he's a world class snuggler for sure. 

Today I'm sharing a couple of sweet and simple Christmas cards made with the wonderful stamps from Flora and Fauna Clear. I love their style and love to sit and mix and match my stamp sets to create scenes. Today it's a llama and a reindeer-icorn! LOL. Some pretty patterned paper and watercolors make for quick one layer cards that are sure to make someone smile! Both ards are A2 and are the kraft prefolded cards from Scrapbook.com (supplies at the bottom of my post). I like these notecards because the kraft is a bit darker and earthier. 

 

This adorable mini reindeer set comes with a unicorn horn! EEP. It's a little Christmas unicorn reindeer thingee. Ha! I used some branches to frame it and stamped some snow too. I used a brush and clean water to smudge the aqua ink a bit to look water colored. The images on both cards were colored with Daniel Smith Watercolor Dots. 

 

 

 

A few Nuvo Crystal Drops in red for holly berries! 

 

 

 

Fleece Navidad! OMG I loooooove this! That little llama with his festive scarf! I made him out Christmas tree shopping! I stamped a couple of trees and then stamped the banner in between then. Doesn't he look like he's out on the lot? These stamps seriously just make me smile. They are so whimsical and cheerful. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheerful wishes to you! As always, be sure to pop over to the Flora and Fauna Blog to show them some love! Thanks for coming by today to see me. Have a blessed and creative day! XOXO

 

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Watercolor Butterflies - You Make Me Smile!

Good morning and happy Monday! Today I'm sharing a project I made as part of Tonic Studios' Nuvember celebration. This month, they are celebrating all things Nuvo, and we love Nuvo! I chose to feature the Watercolor Pencils as my product choice. I used some more new stamps from Elizabeth Crafts and created a soft and pretty card with butterflies and other garden creatures. Thank you to Tonic Studios for sponsoring this fun event! I hope you have a wonderful week! 

When I first started stamping, my favorite medium was watercolor pencils. They are a super easy and inexpensive way to get a lot of different looks. You can achieve a soft wash or color, or go more intense with it. I still get out my watercolor pencils often - do you? My card is an A2 made from a pretty kraft folded card from Scrapbook.com (supplies listed below). 

 

 

I stamped and die cut the butterflies, bee and snail using watercolor paper. I watercolored them using the pretty Nuvo Watercolour Pencils. Then it was a matter of arranging them onto the card panel. The top layer is also watercolor paper. I splattered it with water mixed with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. The sentiment is from a pretty stamp set from Hello Bluebird.

 

All of the critters were attached to the card using foam tape. I added a few sprinkles of green glitter enamel dots for a bit more color.

 

 

 

 

On Instagram, Tonic Studios are celebrating all things Nuvo throughout ‘Nuvember’. Check out Tonic Studios USA on Instagram and get all the details - or click the graphic below! Have a wonderful day! See you soon. XOXO

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Queen And Company Happy Harvest Shaker Card Kit - Fall Greetings!

Happy Weekend Crafty People! Happy Saturday! I have Thanksgiving on my mind, and making the last few projects for Fall. It's been busy in the studio and there's a mix of Christmas stamps and Fall stamps pretty much scattered everywhere! Just a couple of weeks now until Turkey Day and I can't wait. I am debating putting up some Christmas decorations but, nah... Not quite yet. I love the warm tones so I'm not ready! What are you up to this weekend? 

Today's project is a card I made with the brand new, beautiful, latest shaker card kit from Queen and Company. This one is called Happy Harvest and it's right up my alley! It has a pretty fall color paper pad, a wonderful stamp set (maybe my favorite one yet from Queen and Co), dies, and everything you need to make cool shaker cards. I looooove these kits - I know you're used to me saying it. SUCH a good value for the money. CHECK IT OUT here. The kit is on sale right now too! Woot!

My card started with an A2 card base in cream cardstock. I layered a bit of woodgrain cardstock from my stash. Then all the other papers are from the kit. Pretty stripes and polka dots... I used a bunch of the papers. 

 

I made the cute little acorn shaker using the included paper pad and the included gems and pearls in warm tones. I wrapped a bit of twine around the card and paper layers. I used one of the shaker elements dies (the oak leaf) and die cut leaves to put behind the acorn. It's so cute! I stamped the sentiment using brown ink, and again on cream cardstock.

 

 

 

I'm so glad I got this kit - because I know I will use these sentiments on lots of things. The font combinations are wonderful! 

 

 

That's it for today! Happy Harvest! CLICK HERE to check out the kit - or click on the photo below. I hope you have an outstanding weekend! I will see you soon my friends! XOXO

QUEEN & COMPANY HAPPY HARVEST KIT!

 

Reverse Confetti New Release Blog Hop! November 2018!

Hi my crafty friends! How's your week going? I hope it's been an awesome one! I'm so happy it's November and Fall activities are happening. The nights are cool now and life is good! Today we're blog hopping to launch the brand new November product release from Reverse Confetti! Woot! Pretty, fun, and fabulous new stamps, dies and paper launch TODAY! Yes! There's a lot of winter crafting stuff and COFFEEEE! Yes, brand new coffee stamps and dies. I always love a coffee themed craft project. I know you're going to love this release. CLICK HERE TO SHOP WHAT'S NEW at Reverse Confetti! The full blog hop list and the shopping links are at the bottom of my post. Hope you enjoy this fun and inspirational hop! You should have arrived here from the wonderful blog of Amy Rohl! 

I made two cards to share today - used my Copic Markers and some fun ink blending techniques too. I'm really into ink blending backgrounds lately! So much fun to customize your own background paper colors for cards. Let's get started! 

First up is a BRIGHT coffee card! (Get out your sunglasses!) I used the brand new "Drink More Coffee" stamps and dies for this one. I looooove the sentiments in this stamp set. I chose to use the Sun's Up Mug's Up sentiment and that is what inspired my bright yellow background. This is an A2 sized card with a white card base. 

 

I started by making this fun background. The background die is one of my favorite products from Reverse Confetti. I used it quite often. It's the Stitched Rays cover. I used two shades of yellow Distress Inks and went over it with looooots of color. I dried all that ink with my heat gun and then splattered clean water on it and Copic Opaque White splatters. I set that aside to make the rest of the card. 

 

I stamped and die cut the cup, saucer and spoon and colored them all with Copic Markers. I also die cut the coffee die and splattered it with white paint. I die cut a white circle and stamped the sun rays in yellow behind where I wanted to put the coffee cup. Then I layered the coffee cup and saucer onto the white circle. 

 

The sentiment was white heat embossed onto a strip of vellum - I did this to let the yellow show through, but also to tone it down just a little bit. I love sentiments on vellum! 

 

 

 

Next up is an adorable little bunny and his birdie friend sledding by to say hello! I used the brand new "Snow Buddies" stamps and dies for this card. I started with an A2 card base in white and then layered dark aqua and kraft. The snow mound was made by die cutting a circle die from white paper and trimming it to fit over the kraft layer. Easy peasy! I stamped the snow flakes in white ink onto the kraft. 

 

 

Sweetest sentiment! I stamped and die cut out the snow bunny and his sled and colored them with Copic Markers. I added bits of Diamond Stickles too! 

 

Everything is layered onto the card using foam tape. I used another new set called "Snowflake Magic" to create the small let it snow sentiment. 

 

 

Thank you SO very much for joining me today on my stop on this fun and fabulous blog hop! Hip Hooray for the brand new Reverse Confetti November Release! The entire release is available for shopping now! What is on your wish list? Hope you find something to tickle your creative fancy. Enjoy the hop! Next up is the awesome Heather Hoffman! Full blog hop list below! XOXO

 

BLOG HOP LIST FOR TODAY!

Reverse Confetti Blog
Amy Kolling
Melissa Phillips
Amy Sheffer
Lydia Fiedler
Tricia Barber
Kelly Lunceford
Lisa Henke
Leanne West 
Amy Rohl
Wanda Guess
Heather Hoffman
Therese Calvird
Amy Tsuruta
Kathy Schweinfurth
Michelle Short
Audrey Tokach
Melissa Bickford 
Jeanne Jachna
Olga Moss
Ali Farmer
Deanne Kuntz

 

SUPPLIES FOR TODAY!

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Jingle All the Way! Honey Bee Stamps Deerly Loved Release!

Greetings and happy Monday! Let's kick this week off right with a happy, cheerful snowman! Did you have a good weekend? It was my birthday this weekend and I had a very nice weekend indeed. Friday we went shopping and walking all day, outside at this pretty mall and I got some new presents... And spent way too much money at Sephora! Yikes. I love that place! Then we had a day of rest and watched movies... Sunday I worked all day at the Voting Center and that was great too. Lots happening. Oh, and did I mention it was 85 degrees??? So, I am totally in the mood for a snowman! I need fog and rain, and I need to wear a sweater. Dang!! This is very unusual weather indeed. I'm trying to get my Christmas spirit going! 

Honey Bee Stamps launched a new release last week called Deerly Loved, and it has the cutest and best new stamps, dies and stencils for Winter Holidays! CHECK IT OUT here! I fell in love with the Jingle all the way sentiment set and knew that's what I wanted to use first. Paired with an adorable snowman and you have today's card! This card makes me smile. 

I started with a white A2 card base from Neenah Solar White cardstock. The top layer is Bristol Cardstock - because it really holds up well to all that Distress Ink! The background was made with two shades of blue DIstress Inks and heat embossing. YUM. 

 

After I made my background, I stamped the snowman, his hat, scarf and birdie, and colored them in with my Copics. I added accents with a white gel pen, and then some Diamond Stickles for a bit of sparkle. The plaid on his scarf was made with the white gel pen. I colored it red first with Copic Markers and then just made diagonal lines across the red. SO easy! 

 

To make the background, I die cut the scallop rectangle from Bristol paper. I used Broken China and Chipped Sapphire DIstress inks and an ink blending tool to add the color in a circular motion, with the lighter color in the center. Oops! First things first! I heat embossed the sentiment and the snowflakes in white embossing powder first! The distress inks were applied over the top of the embossed parts. I love this effect! I used the Distress Sprayer to sprinkle water droplets onto the ink for some blotches. Then I used a small paint brush and Copic Opaque White to add snow splatters! 

 

This is the background before adding the water drops and white ink splatters. I like it this way too...

 

I attached the snowman onto the card base using foam tape. How cute is that little bird sitting on top of his hat? So fun! This stamp set comes with so many cute accessories - you can make your snowman a million different ways! 

That's it for today! Have a wonderful, happy week! I will see you back here on Thursday to launch the brand new release from Reverse Confetti! XOXO

 

SUPPLIES FOR TODAY!

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Pinkfresh Studio Holiday Cards Blog Hop!

Hi everyone! Happy November! Time to get in the spirit of the holidays! The rest of the year is coming fast and we're here today to help you plan out your holiday cards! I'm so excited to be part of this awesome Pinkfresh Holiday Cards Blog Hop today! This is a huge TWO DAY blog hop with fun, inspiration, prizes and a free gift with your order too! Please CLICK HERE to see the entire beautiful line of holiday stamps and dies from Pinkfresh Studio - one of my favorite companies! CLICK HERE to go to the Pinkfresh Blog to see all the details each day, or if you get sidetracked along the hop! The full list of all the designers is at the bottom of my post! Grab some cocoa and relax with us and get inspired for the Winter Holidays! Thank you for coming by today. If you're new to my blog - welcome welcome! Glad to see you! 

I made two cards to share today - one is icy blue and the other is warm and extra sparkly. Both are made with gorgeous stamps and dies from Pinkfresh in their truly unique whimsical and pretty style. The images are happy and they make me happy too. 

First up is a Magical Chrisma-corn! I just made that up! A Christmas Unicorn! Love her! She is flying through the air to spread glitter and sparkle over everyone. This stamp set is called Magical Christmas. Love. The card base is A2 in white. Then I layered red, some pretty patterned paper, and then vellum. I love the look of vellum over patterned papers... 

 

I stamped and die cut out the Christmas Unicorn and then colored her mane and tail with Copic Markers in red and green. Her horn is silver embossed and the scarf is red ink. The head, body, scarf, and horn are all different stamps - so you can make them different colors. Genius I'd say! Made it so easy to stamp a red scarf and emboss the horn. I used a bit of white twine and pretty small silver bells to put around her neck. She is a Chrisma-corn after all!

 

The sentiment and the snowflakes were stamped onto the vellum with white pigment ink. I also used Copic Opaque White to make snowy splatters onto the vellum. Be sure to set that aside and let it get good and dry before attaching it to your card. 

 

Isn't she beautiful? 

 

Next up are these adorable bunnies skating by to say hello and Merry Wishes! This card was made with the Pinkfresh Skating Bunnies stamps and dies. I used an icy blue and grey color palette for this card. I love how it came out! This is also an A2 white card base. I layered grey and then pretty plaid patterned paper on a diagonal.. 

 

I stamped and die cut the bunnies and colored them with Copic Markers. I die cut a circle for them to skate on and used Distress Ink and a blending tool to make a pretty matching blue sky. I stamped snowflakes in blue onto the sky portion. I also splattered some of the same Copic Opaque White as on the first card. (Supplies are all listed below). 

 

They are just so so sweet skating around. The one on the left reminds me of John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever! He's going for it out on the ice! This card is perfect for any winter holiday occasion. 

 

I glued on a few sparkly blue gems at the end to finish off the card. 

 

 

Now for the good stuff! Prizes and Free GIfts! Pinkfresh Studio will be picking SIX random comments from the designer blog posts, from each day to win a $25 gift card to the Pinkfresh Studio store. That's twelve total prizes! How awesome is that? AND - there will be TWO GRAND PRIZES picked from the Pinkfresh Blog posts: each day a different bundle of their holiday stamps & dies. (The prizes will be pictured each day on the Pinkfresh blog).

Pinkfresh Studio will pull the winners & post them on Sunday, November 11th by 2pm CST on their GIVEAWAY PAGE. Note: You must check that page & claim your prize within 2 weeks.

BUT WAIT!  Pinkfresh is also offering a FREE Holiday Vibes die with $25 purchase in the Pinkfresh Studio shop.  A photo of the free die is below! Yay!

 

SUPPLIES FOR TODAY!

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FULL LIST OF TODAY'S DESIGNERS! ENJOY THE HOP!

An InLinkz Link-up

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Happy Halloween from A Witch Called Wanda!

Hi crafty friends! Happy Halloween!! Man, how did that happen? Tomorrow is NOVEMBER??? I say that every year, but doesn't the time go so fast lately? It's still warm here and I guess that hasn't really put me in the Halloween mood. Supposed to be 80 degrees here today! Yikes. I'm ready for sweater time! I've been working a lot in the studio making fun projects for next month. Lots to share!! I took all of my Election Worker training classes last week so now I'm on call to work at a voting center. And I'll be working every day at the center the days right before the election. I have to say that the behind the scenes of setting up an election are fascinating! I've really enjoyed being part of things and learning more about the laws surrounding voting. I am glad I signed up to do it! In bigger news my birthday is on Saturday! Woot! Not sure what we'll be doing. I'm happy with a low key birthday to be sure.... The hubs and I will find something fun to do. I am not that psyched about another year under my belt so to speak. 

Today I'm sharing a fun Halloween card made with a stamp named after me! I looooove wood mounted RUBBER stamps and buy them as often as I can! My friend Lindsay Ostrom is a local artist and she illustrates stamps for Impression Obsession! (VERY cool stamps I might add). I almost always buy her wood stamps. Well, imagine my surprise to find out that she made one called Witch Wanda! And she has a kitty! Awesome. I inked up Witch Wanda with my Polychromos Pencils on Kraft paper.... Kept a clean layout.... Used my favorite Ellen Hutson Background die... There you have it. Happy Halloween!  

 

There are three layers of Kraft cardstock on this card: The card base (A2), the background die/embossed layer, and the top layer with the image. I added just a touch of a hint of purple cardstock under that top layer. I like to layer the same color cardstock - it gives added dimension without having a ton of colors going on. I do this a lot with white cardstock also. Coloring with pencils on Kraft is a great technique to shake it up and get a different look. (The Halloween die is from SSS and unfortunately is not available anymore). I added some bitty bats from an old style punch. 

 

When you color with pencils, make sure to utilize that white pencil to add highlights! It makes your project pop! 

 

 

 

And there she is! Witch Wanda! LOL!

 

 

I hope you have a FUN HALLOWEEN with no tricks and lots of treats! Are you dressing up? We'll stay home and hang out and wait for trick or treaters. We don't get a ton of kids on our street but I love to see their costumes and pass out candy! I'll be back tomorrow with a fun blog hop for Pink Fresh Studio! Yay! See you then. XOXO

 

SUPPLIES FOR TODAY:

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Halloween Cuties from Elizabeth Crafts!

Hey there! How's your week going? I'm spending the day in training today for working the election in a couple weeks! Should be interesting! ALLLLL day training. Gosh, it's been a while for that! Looking forward to seeing what's up and what I'll be doing during election week. I hope your week is going great so far. Today I'm sharing a card I made with some SUPER cute stamps I bought at the Stamp and Scrapbook Expo last weekend. I literally could not wait to ink these up! They are from Elizabeth Crafts. Although Elizabeth Crafts is definitely not new to me, this new line of stamps (a new artist) was new to me and I BOUGHT EIGHT SETS! I couldn't help myself. They are so sweet and whimsical and adorable!! CLICK HERE to see all of them! EEKS! Love. 

I used the Halloween stamps and dies to make this card. I used my Distress Ink Mini Ink Pads and a small paint brush to do the coloring. I wanted it to look like illustrations! I used a clean and simple card layout with some cute gingham and just a bit of glitter and twine. This is an A2 card size with the fold on the left side. 

 

A little twine bow on the side fold always looks cute and cheerful! I stamped the sentiment directly onto my top layer. Simple layers here of gingham, black and white cardstock. All the little images were stamped and die cut out and attached with foam tape. 

 

To color everything, I used Distress Ink Minis and a small paint brush. SO fast to water color this way! Quick and easy. HOW cute is that candy corn witch??? OMG. 

 

 

 

 

I used the Elizabeth Crafts super fine glitter and a glue pen to add glitter bits to most of the images. A little touch of sparkle is always good!

 

 

 

 

 

I can totally picture this adorable crew showing up at my doorstep on Halloween night! 

That's it for today! Have a blessed and creative day! See you soon! XOXO

SUPPLIES FOR TODAY!

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BOO! Fun shaker card with Queen & Company Fright Fest Kit!

BOO! Hey everyone! Happy Sunday! I'm getting a slow start today... Relaxing with the hubs and Lucky and enjoying a second cup of coffee with nowhere to be today. Ahhhhh. I had the best time the past three days! The Stamp and Scrapbook Expo was in town and I did it right! LOL. I had friends here from San Diego, Canada, and the bay area. In addition to all my Sacramento Crafty friends. Whew. Hugs galore, laughter, coffee, snacks, shopping....It was all wonderful. My back hurts and my wallet is empty. But my heart is happy. I really just had a great time. Two of my friends rented a house here and we stayed up long after the show talking and being silly. There is definitely not enough of that in my life! I hope you've had a great weekend too!

Next week is going to be super busy for me. I signed up to be an election worker and I have to go to ten hours worth of training next week. I also have a fun stamping class one night. All good stuff happens in the Fall. 

Today I'm sharing a super fun Halloween card made with a fabooolous kit from Queen & Company. The kit is called Fright Fest! It has everything you need included in the kit - to make tons of Halloween cards. The Queen & Company kits are the best value and the highest quality. Can't recommend them enough really. You get a full stamp set, tons of dies, a paper pad, the shaker shapes, the acetate pieces and all the shaker bits! I hope you will check them out! CLICK HERE to see all the fun kits. 

For my card I decided - if one shaker bit is good, then TWO is better! I used the BOO and the Pumpkin shapes to make this card. It's an A2 sized card. I started with a white card base, then layered black, and then the pretty stripes. I stamped the sentiment in black ink and added a few spooky splatters for effect. 

 

The dies set comes with all the little pieces to make the pumpkin into a jack-o-lantern treat bucket. LOVE. So easy to put this together!! 

 

I like this sentiment with the combination of different fonts. 

 

I wrapped a bit of twine around the card and added some gems. These gems are also from Queen & Co and they're called halos. They come in a bunch of colors! 

 

These are just a few of the items that come in the Fright Fest Kit!

 

 

 

I love that happy Jack-o-lantern!!

 

 

That's it for today! Thanks for popping by! Hope I didn't scare ya! LOLZ. I hope you have a fantastic week ahead. Not sure what I'll be posting next, but I hope to use some of the new cute stamps I got at the Stamp and Scrapbook Expo this weekend. I have loads of ideas. Take care! XOXO

Remember to check out my last post about Stampin' Up and how to get a free gift with your order! 

 

SUPPLIES FOR TODAY! 

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Fun with the Stampin' Up 2018 Holiday Catalog!

Hi friends! I have something fun to share today. And I also have some stories too! Today I'm featuring three cards I made using supplies, stamps, dies, and papers from the new Holiday 2018 Stampin' Up Catalog. Boy, Stampin' Up hit it out of the park with this catalog. I'm going to say it's the best one ever. I wanted everything! Yikes. My love affair with Stampin' Up goes back to 1994! Yes, almost 25 years ago! I still very vividly remember my first SU party! It was at my boss's house! LOL. His wife was really into it and she got us hooked. Back then, the SU catalog had stamps from tons of different stamping companies: Hero Arts, All Night Media, PSX, etc. etc. So you placed your order... Then Stampin' Up got all those items together from all those different companies and sent the big order to your hostess. The she had to bag everything for everyone. Whew. Oh yeah, and this all took about SIX WEEKS!!! Boy how times have changed! Now you place your order online and it's at your house practically the next day. Dang! I have so many wonderful memories, and so many stamp sets. A couple of years ago when I was doing the major purge of my studio I (sadly) threw out 20 years' worth of Stampin' Up catalogs. They were like old friends. Anyhoo I'm getting pretty far down memory lane - time to come back! LOL. 

My good friend Wendy is an AWESOME Stampin' Up Demonstrator! Always in the top 100 of all demonstrators! She is a total boss. I love her and I'm so happy she lives close enough that we can hang out. You guys have seen me post photos from her amazing retreats. This post is done in support from one girl boss to another. I really wanted to feature some products from Stampin' Up and maybe get you all connected with her. Please go by her wonderful, and newly revamped website to say hi and leave some love. I helped her do the photographs for her site. Yay! She is cool and talented and generous. I would be super happy if you would shop with her. At the bottom of my post is some info on a giveaway she's doing for you with an order. Thank you for supporting me - and my friends. 

Okay, first project is a winter wonderland, vintage, cabin, plaid, creation! OH MAN. This stamp and die combo was the first thing that caught my eye in the new catty. It's called Alpine Adventure. LOVE. I combined the stamps and dies with the gorgeous plaid paper and then went to town layering. The finished card is a 5.25 x 5.25 inch square. (Sometimes you need more room, amiright?) 

 

This card started with a kraft card base in a big square. Then I used the beautiful Tin Tile Embossing Folder and embossed it with cream cardstock. I used Antique Linen Distress Ink and a sponge to go over the embossing to add more visual interest and shadows. I love this look. Next I die cut the sled and the snowshoes and the snowflakes out of red, cream and kraft cardstock. Then I stamped and die cut that cute little wreath and bow! I used Copic Opaque White ink to add snow splatters to the pieces, and I inked the edges of everything with more distress ink. 

 

I wrapped a strip of that beautiful plaid paper around the embossed panel and attached it to the card base. I stamped the sentiment in brown ink onto cream cardstock. I hand cut it out in a banner using some small scissors. I added pearls to the centers of the snowflakes. 

 

 

 

Here is a close up of the embossing folder. I swear that thing weighs like ten pounds! It's super think and fancy. Look at that impression!! I first thought I was going to use Kraft for this part but then changed my mind and used the cream paper. 

 

 

 

 

 

I wanted the red sled to stand out more from the background so I die cut a second sled from cream cardstock and offset it just slightly. Gives it a pop! 

 

Next up is a happy snowman full of Winter Cheer! He's skating by to say helloooooo! I used the Spirited Snowmen stamp set for this next card. I colored him with Copic Markers and added some gem accents for a bit of snowy sparkle. I really like the sketch illustration style of this set. The stamps are all really sweet. I started with a white A2 card base and layered light blue paper and a bit of striped paper from my stash.  I stamped the snowman onto white paper and then die cut a circle around it. I added some snowflakes in a light blue ink around him and on the sentiment oval. 

 

I used the pretty new burlap trim for this card to add visual interest down the center and break up all those stripes. I stamped and hand cut out the holly leaves to add around the circle.

 

 

 

This is a good card layout for almost any stamp set. Clean and simple - and a good way to use that patterned paper!!

 

And lastly I made an elegant Fall card using the new Falling For Leaves stamps and dies bundle. This is going to be a Thanksgiving card. I went with a very simple color palette to show off those pretty leaves dies. I love the black, gold and vellum together. This is an A2 card base in cream instead of bright white. 

 

 

These intricate leaves cut like a dream and all the pieces fell right out. I did use my metal shim in my Big Shot and it was perfect. The background is another embossing folder from Stampin' Up that I've had for a while. I stamped the sentiment in rich black ink.

 

This is the perfect sentiment for lots of Autumn occasions...

 

Here's a side view so you can see that pretty embossing. I added a few sequins from my giant sequin stash - in a matte gold finish.

 

 

Thank you for coming by today! I hope you enjoyed my take on these great supplies from Stampin' Up! Please go over to Wendy's Blog and look around at her great content and hopefully shop too! CLICK HERE to go to Luvin Stampin! Wendy is very kind and generous to me - so let's be generous to her!

Wendy has allowed me to offer a freebie to my blog readers! Woot! Here are the details: If you make an order of $30 or more, Wendy will send you a package of the fun and pretty Santa's Workshop Enamel Shapes from the Holiday Catalog! ($7 value) I love enamel dots! PLEASE make sure that WENDY CRANFORD is selected as your demonstrator on your order! 

This offer is one per customer and US orders only. And your order needs to go through Wendy. This will expire on November 1st! In order to receive your freebie, please just send me a quick email to stampcatwg@aol.com and tell me you ordered! I'll let Wendy know and she will send out all the freebies after the November 1st date. THANK YOU! 

 

SUPPLY LINKS FOR TODAY!

(These are not affiliate links - they're helpful shopping links today!) 

Falling For Leaves Photopolymer Bundle - 149938

Price: $44.00

Alpine Adventure Photopolymer Bundle - 149919

Price: $41.25

Spirited Snowmen Clear-Mount Stamp Set - 148072

Price: $19.00

Festive Farmhouse 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 Cm) Designer Series Paper - 147820

Price: $11.00

Tin Tile Dynamic Textured Impressions Embossing Folder - 147906

Price: $10.00

Quilt Top Textured Impressions Embossing Folder - 144687

Price: $8.50

5/8" (1.6 Cm) Striped Burlap Trim - 147889

Price: $8.00

Pearl Basic Jewels - 144219

Price: $5.00

Rhinestone Basic Jewels - 144220

Price: $5.00

Vellum 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock - 101856

Price: $9.0

 

I'm batty about Halloween! Fun project with Tim Holtz supplies!

Hello crafty friends! Happy Monday! Boo! Did I scare you? I'm sharing a Halloween card finally! Did you have a nice weekend? It was 85 degrees here yesterday! And, lots of my friends are posting photos on Facebook of SNOW! Sheesh. I wish it would cool down here and warm up there. October is a crazy month. I had a really nice weekend. I stamped all day on Saturday (for my post on Thursday). Then on Sunday we went for coffee and a nice drive and out to dinner. A perfect weekend. My husband is working really hard on a work project so I tried to get him out of the house for a bit and get his mind off things. This week has some fun things coming... It's the Stamp/Scrap Expo here in Sacramento and I have a friend coming from Canada and one from San Diego and some from the Bay! A full weekend of girls and crafting awaits me! But first things first...today's card!

This card was inspired by two things: I HAD to make a Halloween card and I just got this awesome new Diamond Shifter Stencil in the mail and wanted to ink it up! So I started by inking the diamond background....then I rummaged up some cool bat stamps....and it all kind of came together. I'm sure you'll recognize the supplies are all from Tim Holtz. He really knows how to do Halloween right. Vintage and cool. 

 

The project started with stenciling the diamond background using the new Diamond Shifter Stencil. It's SO EASY to stencil this!! I used olive and gray for a kind of spooky color palette. You simply stencil the first color (for me olive) and then shift the stencil over and stencil the second color (for me the gray). Seriously so simple and such a great result! To complete the background I added some text stamps and some black and grey ink splatters. I set that aside to make everything else. The finished card is a green A2 card base. 

 

I stamped the bats (small and large) in black ink and then cut them out by hand. I colored them with grey, black and purple Distress Inks and a paint brush with just a bit of water. Kind of let it all flow together. I think it's more spooky with the purple in there. 

 

I stamped the Happy Halloween stamp onto some cardstock and then really inked the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. Then I splattered clean water over it and let that dry. To make the words blurry I used a paint brush and clean water and gently went over the letters. I think it makes it look old or something. And that font is AWESOME. I also inked the edges of my diamond panel with the same Vintage Photo Ink. I added a jump ring and a Tim Holtz 31 Halloween Token charm. Cool. 

 

I dyed my own crinkle ribbon using distress inks and water. I haven't done this technique in a while and I always love the results from this! Never comes out the same way twice. 

 

When I attached the bats to the card I used a bit of foam tape just in the middle. Then I used my fingers to gently curve the wings upwards to look like they're flying right at ya! 

 

 

 

Mr. Lucky was VERY interested in this project...until he fell asleep! LOL! He just turned seven months old the other day. Can you believe it? He is growing so fast and has been such a wonderful studio companion. He keeps me company and is the sweetest thing ever. 

Okay, so I need to try to make something else for Halloween but we're running out of time! YEEKS! Are you done with Halloween cards? Have you started? LOL. I got behind this year because we were on vacation. Oh well, it was worth it! I have some fun things to share on Thursday so I hope to see you then. Have a fabulous week and thanks for stopping by today! XOXO

 

SUPPLIES FOR TODAY!

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Guest Designing for Ellen Hutson today - with some new Leading Ladies!

Hello friends! How is your week going? Mine is going FAST! Dang! So much to get done around here and so little time. I feel like since Fall is my favorite season, that it goes by way too quickly. I wish I could slow down time for the next few months! And it's getting close to my birthday too. Fall slow down! I'm back on schedule after getting back from vacation. I need to start making Halloween goodies asap!

Today I have a super fun blog post for you! I am very excited to be the guest designer today over on the Ellen Hutson Blog! Wooooot! I am joining to fun in launching the newest product release which includes two fabulous new Leading Ladies! I am sharing two cards today - one Fall card and one Christmas card. Yippeee! Please be sure to click over and visit the Ellen Hutson Blog and leave some love. I'm so grateful for the kind invitation to join them!

My first card is a Fall explosion! I had so much fun making this card. She is ME! Lol. I stamped, die cut, colored, and inked to my heart's content with this one. I combined the brand new Bookworm Lady with a bunch of the smaller stamps from the Cozy Lady stamp set. I think they're perfect together. I created a cozy Fall scene. Can't you imagine sitting outside under the trees with a stack of books and a cup of coffee? I can!  

 

First I stamped and die cut all of the pieces. I colored everything with Copic Markers and added small highlight touches with a white gel pen. I used the same color palette for all the items and her clothes so that the card would look nice when finished. Warm tones of olive, brown, orange and slate blue...YUM. The arm on the lady is partially die cut so you can put a book in her hands. I love that. 

 

The background for the scene was made by inking Distress Inks onto white cardstock panels. I used olive green for the bottom and two shades of yellow/gold for the top. I also inked the small circle with the sentiment.

 

The sentiment was stamped in black onto a circle and attached with foam tape. All the elements were also attached with foam tape. I used clear Nuvo Drops to add accents around the card. A glaze pen was the perfect tool for her glasses.

 

 

 

This next card is a fun Christmas card made with the new Holiday Shopper Lady! She is also me! I have been known to wear an ugly Christmas sweater and a Santa hat....and I always make lists! She is ready to rock and roll and shop til she drops! I used the beautiful new Snowfall Backdrop die and turned the card into a shaker card. FUN.

 

I stamped and die cut the Shopper Lady, her hat and her sweater and colored it all with Copic Markers. I die cut the Snowfall Backdrop for my top layer and put a pretty blue behind it before adding the sequins for the shaker. 

 

LOVE this sentiment! I stamped some snowflakes randomly on the panel....

 

 

 

 

I used Diamond Stickles to add glittery accents to the snowman, pen and hat!

 

 

That's it for today! SO MUCH FUN to guest design for Ellen Hutson and share these projects with you! The Leading Ladies stamps are so creative and fun to work with. I am gathering quite a collection now! Who is your favorite lady? I think Cozy Lady is mine...or maybe Photo Lady... I can't choose! I hope you have a great day and I'll see you soon. Happy crafting! XOXO

VISIT THE ELLEN HUTSON BLOG FOR MORE INSPIRATION!

 

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An Autumn Hello with Pretty Pink Posh!

Hi everybody! It's good to be back home and blogging again! We got home from our road trip late Friday night...and you know what happens next... Laundry! And kitten snuggles. LOL. We had an amazing and fun time together on our vacation through California, Oregon and Washington. We saw so many beautiful sights, and ate good food, and took loads of pictures! I know a lot of you followed along with us on Instagram Stories! It might take me a while to sort through all the pictures and get a post ready to share about our trip. In the meantime, you can see some of my favorite pictures on my Instagram account. CLICK HERE! (You do not need an account to view the photos on your computer!) I am totally renewed by time away from the computer and the TV and all of life's responsibilities. I loved having my husband all to myself every day. We got to talk and laugh together and drink coffee and walk. It was wonderful!! My feet are tired and my heart is full. It is already Fall in the Pacific Northwest and we saw tons of Fall leaves! The weather was perfect too. Late September/Early October is our favorite time to take a break and travel. It was also our wedding anniversary last week! Yay! We thank God for a safe and fun journey! 

Yesterday was my first day back in the studio, and it also happened to be World Cardmaking Day! I had to hustle to make something for the day! LOL. I didn't plan ahead on that one! I hadn't created anything in more than two weeks and it was a bit of a rough start to craft! I decided to use some of my new supplies I got at Impress Rubber Stamps in Seattle! I got the beautiful Foliage Dies from Pretty Pink Posh! And my inspiration was all the gorgeous Fall color! So I got out my Distress Inks and made an Autumn wreath! I didn't have the energy to blog yesterday - so I'm sharing it with you now. I think after this I'd better get busy and make some Halloween projects! Be sure to read my last post, and comment for a chance to win a spot in a cool class I"m part of. Nice to be back!

I started this project by die cutting a bunch of the leaves and pumpkins out of Bristol Cardstock. I like the way Bristol interacts with Distress Inks and it's thick enough to stand up to lots of ink. This card is a five inch square and the layers are simple: Woodgrain cardstock and cream cardstock.  

 

I used LOTS of colors of Distress Inks and the small size sponge daubers to ink the color onto the leaves and pumpkin. Each leaf/pumpkin has at least five colors on it! Yikes. Yes, I was ready to play! The final touch of all of the images is that I sponged them with Walnut Stain ink. Really gives a rustic deep touch to the project. I don't normally use that dark of a brown, but I like it in this instance. The splatters were done with Vintage Photo Ink. 

 

There really is no right or wrong way to do these leaves! Play. Have fun. Get dirty! Try new colors together! This part of the process was so relaxing and enjoyable. I love mixing colors. The leaves were arranged onto the card in a circle/wreath shape.  A simple twine bow at the top to finish it off. I wasn't sure what to use for a greeting, so I used a pretty hello die cut. I think this would make a nice Thanksgiving card or any other type of Fall greeting. 

 

To attach the hello die, I used liquid glue on the h and the o and glued it to the leaves. The middle part is sort of floating there... 

 

 

 

The list of all the Distress Ink Colors I used is in the supplies section. 

 

 

 

This is a photo of a gorgeously perfect leaf I found on the ground in Seattle. The leaf colors are a perfect Fall rainbow! It was so pretty I had to snap a picture of it! This photo was the color inspiration for my card today. I took a lot of leaf pictures in the past two weeks! The perfect artist drawing a Fall palette for us to enjoy. Sigh. 

It's very good to be back! I missed you! This week I'm guest blogging over at Ellen Hutson (Yay) and I'll have two fun cards to share for that project. Can't wait to show you. Hope all is well with you in your corner of the world. XOXO

 

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World Cardmaking Day 2018 Online Card Class Giveaway!

10-11-18 UPDATE!!! MY WINNER IS HELEN G! She has been notified via email! Congratulations Helen!

Hi everyone! I have something really fun to announce! I'm one of the instructors for an awesome online card class created by Scrapbook and Cards Today Magazine for World Cardmaking Day 2018! World Cardmaking Day is tomorrow! Are you doing something fun to honor the day? Maybe crafting with some friends or taking a class? I hope you do something crafty tomorrow! I'm still on vacation so I'll be taking pictures! Cardmaking will commence the moment I get home! 

Would you like to win a free spot in the Scrapbook & Cards Today second annual WCD Online Card Class? Here’s your chance! SCT has amped up the creativity for this year’s 4-week self-paced class, bringing you special video techniques, step-by-step instructions, PageMaps card sketches, and loads of tips, tricks and trending styles. You will love the artwork created by many of your favorite cardmakers, including me! This four-week class begins Monday, October 15^th.

SCT Magazine has generously given me one class to give away to one of my readers! YAHOOO! In order to be eligible to win the free class, please leave a comment on this post and let me know what was the last thing you created! I'd love to know what you're making! I will pull a random winner on 10-11 and email that person to receive their class. Good Luck! 

 

Here is the description from the class website: 

"Join SCT to celebrate the love of cardmaking with our second annual WCD Online Card Class! We’ve amped up the creativity for this year’s 4-week self-paced class, bringing you special video techniques, step-by-step instructions, PageMaps card sketches, and loads of tips, tricks and trending styles. You will love the artwork created by Gina K Designs, Kathy Racoosin, Kelly Latevola, Wanda Guess, Latisha Yoast, Yana Smakula and many more of your favourite cardmakers!" 

CLICK the photo above or THIS LINK to learn more about this class and to see more sneak peeks. I guarantee you're going to love it - and it's an amazing value for the price. I am so happy to be part of it all. See you soon! XOXO

See you in a couple of weeks! We're on vacation!

Hey hey hey! I'm here with a quick announcement! I won't be blogging for the next couple of weeks and didn't want you to wonder what was up around here! The hubs and I are going on a road trip and I'm so super excited! I get to have him to myself! Yay - no work, no stress, no responsibilities. CANNOT wait. Our road trip is one of the celebrations of our Silver Jubilee this year. We haven't been on vacation in quite a long time. We'll be taking a road trip up through California, Oregon and Washington. Cool temps, crisp Fall air, waterfalls, coffee, whales...everything we love to see. 

Usually when I've been away for a time for work or play I have continued scheduled blog posts for my design teams. For ten years I haven't missed a week of posting! Dang. This time around I decided to schedule myself free time too. A creative break and a blogging break. I will definitely be sharing on Instagram and Instagram Stories along the way!  I'll be so inspired to create when I get home I'm sure. 

See you soon, friends! XOXO

 

 

You're the caramel apple of my eye! Lawn Fawn cards!

Helllloooooooo! There's a lot going on around the old bloggy blog lately! So many fun and cool opportunities...and I've been on a creative roll! Just getting around to posting some cards I made a little bit ago. Sometimes, when I get new stamps, I can't wait to color them! So I sit down and stamp and die cut the images, color them, and enjoy that part of the process. Then I'll come back around and make the cards. That's what happened with this adorable new Caramel Apple stamp set from Lawn Fawn! EEEK. It's from their brand new release. It makes me smile! Those little caramel apples with their smiles and cheeks. What a fun thing to color. I've been working on my Copic coloring lately - trying out some darker colors and getting a bit more bold with things. I really like how these guys (and gals) came out!  I ended up with a clean and simple card design to feature them apples! LOL.  

 

The background die is one of my all time favorite Lawn Fawn products. I use it a lot. It's clean and classic and just the perfect touch when you don't want plain white paper as your background. This card started with a Juicy Pear (my favorite green paper) A2 card base. Then I layered colors to match the apples. 

 

For their chubby pink cheeks I used Doodlebug Glitter Sprinkles! I love that tiny bit of dimension instead of flat coloring. I used my white gel pen to add accents over my coloring and to the red heart in the scene. How fun is that sentiment? I love it when Lawn Fawn separates out the sentiments so you can easily use different colors of ink. 

 

 

 

You're the caramel APPLE of my eye indeed! Can't wait to give these cards out! Maybe I'll have to make some caramel apples to go with them! I haven't made caramel apples in a long time. Man, does that sound gooooood right now!

Thanks for popping in today to see my card! Do you love these little apples as much as I do?? Too fun! Have a fabulous day, my fabulous crafty friends! XOXO

 

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Mama Elephant 6 Year Anniversary Release Stampede! Holiday Treats!

Hello and welcome to Mama Elephant's #celebrating6years Anniversary Release Stampede with some wonderful crafty friends and designers! What is a stampede? A blog hop! Yay! The wait is finally over! The new Mama Elephant release is now live and available for purchase in the shop!  CLICK HERE to shop mamaelephant.com! I'm super excited to be part of the fun here with the gang from Mama Elephant and some of my favorite designers. I'm introducing, and using the new Yappy Woofmas stamps and dies! SO adorable! I think this might be my first holiday project??? Is it?? I'm just dipping my toe into Christmas for now. I knew I wanted to make Favor Bags because that is one of my favorite products ever from Mama Elephant!  

 

To start at the beginning of the hop and see all the inspiration and details CLICK HERE to go to the Mama Elephant Blog!  Please read this post all the way to the end for special sale information, prizes and the rest of the hop list! XOXO 

 

    

 

 

 

For my project to share today, I made sweet treat favor bags and decorated them with all kinds of cute Mama Elephant Christmas goodies. The center images on both favor bags are from the brand new Yappy Woofmas stamp set. SO FUN. I made the favor bags from Kraft cardstock and then put on a layer of patterned paper before my top layer of stamping and die cutting images.  

 

 

 

How cute is the doggie wreath and kitty snowman! LOVE. 

 

 

 

 

I cut a white layer with the ME Basic Set dies and used the Landscape Trio dies to make a hill for my snowcat! I edged the hill in blue ink. Next I stamped and die cut the images and the banner and colored with my Copic Markers. I added glitter too!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The super tiny and adorable bow dies make me happy. :-)

 

 

 

 

I used blue ink to stamp snowflakes onto the main panel to make it more festive! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

To celebrate with you, MAMA ELEPHANT has an amazing sale and promotion and giveaway! Keep reading to the end! 

 

 

 

 

From 9/15 - 9/17

10% off entire store! No code required!

 

From 9/15 - 9/30

Spend $100* - receive 1 free 'Color Me Letters' 4x6 stamp set.
Spend $150* - receive 1 free 'Color Me Letters' 4x6 stamp set and 'Hilly THANKS' dies.

Spend $200* - receive 1 free 'Color Me Letters' 4x6 stamp set, 'Hilly THANKS' dies, and 'Hilly HELLO' dies.

 

Please read all the fine print carefully! :)

*Subtotal amount must be met before any shipping fees/tax/customs.
Free item(s) valid only a single order/transaction.
Limit one of each free offer per order.
Orders cannot be combined. New orders only.
Limit one free offer per customer/order.
We reserve the right to cancel/modify orders.
Free offer valid 9/15-9/30 or while supplies last!

 

 

To celebrate this mega anniversary release, we are giving away of ten $25 ME gift certificates throughout the 3 day stampede! Winners will be chosen at random from the collective blogs in the Stampede. Winners will be announced on the last day of Stamp Highlights. You have up to 4 chances to qualify to win!

 

» 1. Leave a comment on this blog post «

 

» 2. Like/share us on Facebook: facebook.com/mamaelephant ;«

 

» 3. Follow/tweet us on Twitter: twitter.com/heymamaelephant «

» 4. Follow/comment on Instagram: instagram.com/mamaelephant «

 

Each action qualifies for one entry, max 4 entries per stampeder please!

 

Joining Mama Elephant on this wild ride of a stampede are some favorite crafty designer friends!

Please visit each blog to see what we all did with the new goodies!

 

Laura Bassen
Anna Kossakovskaya
Vera Rhuhay
Lisa Spangler
Wanda Guess
Rina Galit
Francesca Vignoli
Joan Ma
Kathy Racoosin

 

 

  

 

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Guest Designing for Sunny Studio Stamps with some happy, cheery Autumn projects!

Hey everyone! Happpppyyyyy Weekend! I'm excited to share some projects with you today! I am guest designing for AWESOME Sunny Studio Stamps today! YAHOOOO! You know I love Sunny Studio and I always love it when the kind and generous Mendi invites me to stamp with her gorgeous stamps and dies. I had a blast making today's card and treat bag to show you. Of course... as you've suspected... More Fall projects! The latest release from Sunny Studio is so great. I am especially smitten with the adorable Nutty For You acorn die set! EEP! A smiling acorn?? Yes please! Sign. Me. Up! CLICK HERE to go to the Sunny Studio Blog to check out all the other inspiration and projects! I used several new stamp sets - all the supplies are listed at the bottom of my post. Enjoy!

 

First up a pretty Autumn greeting! I featured the Happy Harvest Stamp set and then the sentiment from the Beautiful Autumn Stamp Set! I started with an A2 card base and layered beautiful Sunny Studio Gingham paper in pretty teal, and then vellum... Yeah, lots of layers on this one! The background was made with Distress Inks in Peacock and Honey - such a pretty combination! 

 

All of the images were colored with Copic Markers. I LOVE to color! Looks at those cute crows on the pumpkins! And that tree with a heart carved into it??? 

I die cut the top panel using Stitched Rectangles dies. Then I used an ink blending tool and two shades of distress inks to ink the background. I also splattered some Copic Opaque White ink over the blended ink. I stamped the sentiment in black ink directly onto the panel. 

 

 

 

After all the images were colored and die cut out with the matching dies, I layered them onto the card with foam tape. I used clear Nuvo drops to add a few sprinkles of dew around the card. Such a fun accent!

 

And next up I have a cute and sweet treat bag! I really like to make glassine treat bags for presents or place settings for a party or dinner. A glassine bag is a great blank canvas to decorate for any occasion. I put some gold almond Hershey's Kisses inside the bag before decorating it. 

 

 

I used all kinds of mix and match patterned papers in Autumn hues for this project. Since the scale is small and the patterns are simple, it all just kind of works! I used yellow, brown, orange and marroon from the new paper packs from Sunny Studio. I'm quite sure I've mentioned about a million times how much I use these awesome papers!! You need them in your life. Trust me. I used the veins part of the stamps from the Autumn Splendor stamp set to stamp directly onto the leaf die cut shapes. I really like how this looks. The Nutty For You acorn dies set has all the pieces to make this cutie pie! 

 

I wrapped maroon paper around the glassine bag first. Then I put the acorn together and glued him on with foam tape. I added twine to his little top hat! I die cut a circle and stamped the sentiment and some leaves onto it. That part is also attached with foam tape. I used Doodlebug black sprinkles for the eyes. Like, don't you want to give him a hug? LOL.

 

 

 

 

Okay! That's it for today! Thank you to Mendi for her kind invitation to guest design! I'm such a fan and always enjoy teaming up with Sunny Studio Stamps! Already looking forward to next time. I hope you have a wonderful weekend! XOXO I'll be back TOMORROW with something else super fun and fabulous! See you then!

 

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Spending the day at Beautiful Palladio Shopping Center in Folsom!

Greetings Friends! It's getting close to the weekend now! I hope you have some fun things planned for your Fall weekend. I'm here today with a different kind of post - a photo essay of the beautiful Palladio Shopping Center in Folsom, California. This shopping center is close to my house and it's one of my favorite places to hang out with Mark and with my gal friends. I was invited recently to participate in their guest blogger program and I gladly accepted. Last Friday Mark and I spent the entire day at Palladio - shopping, dining, going to the movies, and generally enjoying the beautiful surroundings. I hope you saw my Instagram stories from our trip! Palladio is conveniently located right off Highway 50 at the Bidwell Street Exit. 

Palladio is a gorgeous outdoor destination. It's like walking through a European village. There are lots of benches and cozy places to sit down and chat while you're exploring. In the Summer they have free concerts and we have enjoyed several of them in the past couple of years. The center offers free yoga on the plaza and now coming into Fall, family game nights. There is always something going on here! CLICK HERE to go to the center website! 

I was happy that our shopping trip coincided with the change of the seasons. All the stores right now are stocked with wonderful Fall decorations and pretty things to buy for your home. The restaurants are all switching to their Fall menus too. The weather is perfect so now is the time to go! I love looking at all the home stores here - my favorites are Kirklands and Rod Works, but there are so many more! So today I'm doing a photo essay to share with you the shoppping center. I'll share stories as we go along....

This is the beautiful main plaza area - complete with gorgeous metal sculptures and waterfalls and benches. The perfect place to meet up! 

 

It was a beautiful day for our trip! Palm trees everywhere create a great vibe - so pretty. 

 

 

The shopping center has TWO movie complexes! the Palladio 16 Cinemas and the Palladio Luxe Cinemas. I've been to both and they are fabulous and new and clean! Great place to catch a flick! 

 

One of the views down the shopping area. VERY pretty and inviting!

 

This is the beautiful fountain in front of the Barnes and Noble store. This Barnes and Noble has a full coffee bar, but also a full service restaurant inside. It's beautiful! It's a great spot to meet a friend. I've even been to some of my photographer meet up groups here. It's a busy hub with books and even vinyl records! Love that. I'm going to take a minute and share a story about one of the main reasons I love to come to Palladio. I consider this a great date destination - either for a day time date or an evening date. You can park your car one time and go to lunch or dinner, to a movie, grab a drink after, do some shopping. I love that!! Parking is free and plentiful and I always feel very safe here. Great place to meet with girl friends for the same reasons. 

 

There are beautiful flowers everywhere you turn!

 

 

 

 

 

We started our day off at Barnes and Noble Cafe with tasty treats and lattes, and magazines! It's a delicious way to begin your morning. The almond croissant was DEElicious! They have a big magazine section - and I love to read magazines!

 

Right around the corner from Barnes and Noble is the awesome Kirkland's Store. ALLLL decked out for Fall! Pumpkins and leaves everywhere! I bought a cute pillow for our family room and some photo props for my upcoming assignments. They have beautiful farmhouse decor and even Rae Dunn items! Kirkland's is one of my favorite stores in the entire center. Be sure to sign up for their emails - they have great sales! 

 

I bought this beautiful wreath for our front door too! It's never too early to start giving thanks. 

 

This pillow is now on our couch! 

 

A fan favorite is always See's Candies! It's right next door to Kirkland's. We popped in and bought some candy treats decorated for Autumn. See's is the best! It's my favorite candy in the world. I love the Almond Buds especially. Mark is a fan of the Peanut Crunch. 

 

Such pretty Fall packaging. Perfect to bring over to a friend's house for Thanksgiving! And, they have awesome Halloween treats too - for all your ghosts and goblins!

 

The Painted Studio is soooooo cool! Pop in to create a painting and have a cocktail with your friends! What is better than that?? And, you can reserve the studio for your private events. Wouldn't it be fun to have a birthday party here? They are so nice and friendly. You can choose which painting you want to make. Right now they have cool Fall crafting projects too. Totally a place to hang out and have a blast! The space is bright and fun and cheerful. 

 

Another place I frequent at Palladio is the Whole Foods Market. Time for another story! Since the center is close to our house, it's my go-to place for gift shopping. It's so easy to pop in to Whole Foods and buy a gorgeous bouquet of flowers and a bottle of wine - if you're going over to someone's house. They have cards too - in case you're going to a party. Makes it so easy to accomplish your errands. See's is next to Whole Foods too. Palladio is my gift destination! I can always find a special present here at one of the stores.  

 

 

 

On our day trip, we definitely had to stop for a yummy lunch! We chose Panera as our lunch spot. They also just switched over to their Fall menu items. This Panera is huge! It has a fireplace and a pretty outdoor patio. Plenty of seating and fast service. Park in the adjoining parking lot and you're right there! I meet my friends and work clients here often. 

 

I had the Vegetarian Squash soup and the awesome Ancient Grain Salad. YUM. Mark had a delicious turkey sandwich. They also now have Mac and Cheese with Bacon! I'm going to get that next time. YUMMMY! 

 

We continued our shopping spree at the beautiful Rod Works Store. This place is another of my favorites... Pretty, on trend, cheerful home decor sure to make you smile. This photo below...sigh... I want everything in this entire display!!! They have cool Halloween decorations out right now too. I bought a cute pumpkin spice coffee mug and a wooden tray for our living room. I could have bought the entire store! I can't wait to come back at Christmas time. 

 

 

 

 

 

We finished shopping by taking a peek into Chico's. They always have the most unique and special accessories. (Another place I like to buy gifts)... This Chico's is very large and so nicely merchandised. It's a treat to stop in here. 

By this time it was around 4pm and we decided it was time to catch a movie in the cool theaters. So we walked over to the Luxe Cinemas and finished out our date day. This post was sponsored by Palladio Shopping Center and I was compensated. All of my opinions and views are my own and my honest take on a place that I love!  I hope that you will plan a day or evening trip over to Palladio and explore for yourself. I know you're going to love it here too! Maybe we can meet up? Many thanks to Palladio for this fun opportunity to be the guest blogger for September!

LINKS:

PALLADIO SHOPPING CENTER

PALLADIO SPECIAL EVENTS

PALLADIO DINING

KIRKLAND'S

SEE'S

WHOLE FOODS

ROD WORKS

BARNES AND NOBLE

PANERA

PAINTED STUDIOS

CHICO'S

PALLADIO LUXE CINEMAS

 

Wishing you pumpkin spice and everything nice! Fun Coffee cards for Fall!

Hi crafty people! How are you?? What's new? Are you enjoying the beauty of the changing seasons? We are! I am totally loving the change over to Fall. And you know I've been Fall crafting up a storm! Pumpkins, apples, leaves, and coffee! It's the best time of year! Mark and I are going on vacation in a couple of weeks and hoping to see lots of Fall color up north in Oregon and Washington. Can't wait. 

A couple weeks ago I got this awesome new stamp set from Pink and Main called Pumpkin Spice! OH MY! It's all kinds of pumpkin coffees and treats. You know that's right up my alley! I had so much fun coloring these images! And now, I finally made them into a couple of cheerful cards to show you! I loooooove teal/aqua/blue with the warm oranges of Fall. It just pops! So I used kraft, orange and dark aqua for my color palette. Lots of glitter too! 

 

 

This card started with a kraft A2 card base. Then I layered the aqua paper. My top white layer was die cut with the circles trio from Sunny Studio (link below). This die makes three circles at once and it's cool for featuring small images like these. I attached the white layer onto the top of the card using foam tape. 

 

I stamped and cut out the images and colored them with Copic Markers. I added Diamond Stickles accents to make them shimmery and sweet! I placed the coffees and the cupcake onto the circle openings using foam tape also. The circle trio die comes with stitched hearts and I die cut those out of orange paper. CUTE!

 

I stamped the sentiment in black ink over on the right side of the card. And, added orange and white enamel dots as accents and shine!

 

Happy Pumpkin Spice Season! 

 

Here's a close up of my coloring with the Copics.

 

 

 

The next card is very clean and simple with a graphic design. I started with a white A2 card base and layered orange and another sheet of white.... I wrapped pretty orange striped paper and twine around the top third of the layers. I die cut a circle from woodgrain paper...

 

 

The three images were attached to the circle with foam tape. I stamped the sentiment in black at the bottom and splattered some black ink!

 

 

 

 

If you're a pumpkin spice lover like me - you need this stamp set! It also has a donut!!! LOVE! I hope you have a great day, and a wonderful week! See you soon friends! XOXO

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Reverse Confetti New Release Blog Hop! September 2018!

Hi my crafty friends! Happy Saturday! I'm back today with another fun blog hop! Today we're hopping to launch the brand new September product release from Reverse Confetti! Gorgeous new stamps and dies release today! The September release has a little bit of Fall, a little bit of Halloween and a little bit of Christmas! Truly something for everyone! CLICK HERE to SHOP the entire new release! Full blog hop list and shopping links are at the bottom of my post. Enjoy the hop! You should have arrived here from Laurie Schmidlin's fantastic blog!

I made two cards to share and both were done with my favorite new Polychromos Colored Pencils. I am really loving the different effects I can get with these lovely supplies. One card is soft and subtle, colored on kraft, and the other is bright and bold! I used the brand new Fall Foliage Stamps and Dies and the brand new Cotton & Thistle Stamps and Dies! Yeah! 

 

You know how much I love Fall, and leaves! When I saw this new stamp set I was thrilled! The leaves are so beautiful, and the dies make a perfect, crisp cut. Perfect for any and all Fall craft projects. I had a lot of fun coloring all these leaves! I started with an A2 horizontal card base with paper from my stash. I layered watercolor paper die cut into a rectangle... and then LEAVES! Bright, bold, pretty leaves. I stamped and die cut a bunch of leaves and then colored them with my pencils. I love to put on some relaxing music and color...ahhhhh. 

 

The sentiment was heat embossed with white embossing powder onto a midnight black cardstock strip. I put the sentiment across the paper first and then arranged the leaves by tucking them into the black strip. Everything is attached with foam tape. The leaves were splattered with Copic Opaque White and then I added some Diamond Stickles. More is MORE! LOL. 

 

 

 

The Polychromos pencils are very soft and waxy and blend easily. I did not use gamsol or anything to blend the colors - just kept going over it with more and more color. 

 

 

 

This next card was made with the sweet and pretty Cotton & Thistle Stamps and Dies. Such a pretty set. I am in LOVE with the sentiments and that pretty font. So feminine and beautiful. This is a very clean and simple design. I started with a kraft A2 card base and then layered more kraft and then white paper. I inked the white paper background with Broken China Distress Ink to ground the image.  

 

I stamped the image onto kraft cardstock and cut it out with the matching die. I used a soft wash of colored pencils to color the cotton and thistles. I used twine to wrap around the stems like a fresh bouquet and then attached the little tag from the Floral Wrap die set. 

 

I stamped the pretty sentiment in black ink directly onto the top layer. 

 

 

 

 

Thank you SO much for joining me today on my stop on this awesome blog hop! YEAH for the new Reverse Confetti September Release! LOVE IT! The entire new release is available for shopping now! Woot! What are you most excited about? Enjoy the hop! Next up is the talented and fabulous Heather Hoffman! Full Hop list below!

 

BLOG HOP LIST FOR TODAY! ENJOY!

Reverse Confetti Blog
Amy Kolling
Laurie Willison
Crystal Thompson
Melissa Phillips
Amy Sheffer
Lydia Fiedler
Tricia Barber
Kelly Lunceford
Lisa Henke
Yana Smakula
Amy Rohl
Lea Lawson
Laurie Schmidlin
Wanda Guess
Heather Hoffman
Amy Tsuruta
Kathy Schweinfurth
Michelle Short
Audrey Tokach
Jeanne Jachna
Therese Calvird
Olga Moss
Maria Sabina

 

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Taylored Expressions 10th Birthday Bash Mega Party! Happy Unicorns!

Hey everyone! I'm very excited today to share this card and share about one of my favorite companies - Taylored Expressions! TE is celebrating TEN YEARS of crafting awesomeness. And, they are celebrating in style today with a giant (mega) birthday bash blog hop! Over forty designers are participating in this awesome hop - we are all former or current design team members who have a special place in our hearts for Taylor. I was on the TE Design Team for four great years and it was a wonderful experience to work with Taylor and Jon and all the other designers. Truly a sweet and kind group of creative people. So - here's wishing TE a HAPPY BIRTHDAY! And here's to many many more years of business! Congratulations! XOXO

Please CLICK HERE to go to the Taylored Expressions Blog to see all the details and the list of blog hoppers! Also, there are some brand spanking new birthday products that are being released today just for the celebration! CLICK HERE to see the new stamp sets! 

For my card to share today I'm featuring some already released birthday theme products from TE. For my card I used the Dreamer stamp set (with matching dies), the Rolling Clouds Dies, and the Sprinkles Embossing Folder. I combined these items with bright and cheerful colors of lime, aqua and purple! SO fun! I am wishing you a very magical day! Enjoy the Blog Hop today!  

 

 

My card started with an A2 card base in bright white cardstock. The Rolling Clouds dies are three different cloud borders. I used the dies to cut out a bunch of clouds from lime, aqua and purple paper and also vellum. Then I just played around with them until I got the combination of clouds that I liked. I trimmed them all the size - one step down from the A2 size card. I used foam tape to attach them together to give dimension in between the layers. The vellum layer was wrapped around the bottom. 

 

I stamped the sentiment with Stazon ink - works the best on vellum! I added a few rhinestones at the end of the process because it just seemed like this card needed sparkles! 

 

I stamped and die cut out those adorable unicorns and colored them with Copic Markers to match the papers I used. I added bits of glitter glue to the wings, tails and horn! EEEP. The layer underneath the clouds was embossed with the beautiful Sprinkles embossing folder. Such a nice touch of texture instead of flat white paper.

 

 

 

 

 

I want to take a minute to talk about something that is really important to the TE family - The SHARE JOY CAMPAIGN! At the heart of Taylored Expressions is a mission to share joy through the gift of handmade cards. As part of their 10th birthday TE is continuing that mission with the launch of a special Share Joy campaign focused on providing birthday cards to those in nursing homes and assisted-living facilities across the U.S. To make as deep an impact as possible TE is inviting card makers everywhere to join the campaign. Will you join us? Find out how to participate by viewing their Share Joy page here: https://www.tayloredexpressions.com/share-joy-birthday-2018

THANK YOU for coming by today and for hopping with us in celebration of Taylored Expressions 10th Birthday Bash! CLICK HERE to see the entire hop list and all the fun details over on the TE Blog! Enjoy your day! See you soon! XOXO