pinwheels and flowers...

 Hey there!  Popping in to post a couple of cards that I made today.   I seem to be in a clean and simple state of mind right now so both cards are pretty simple.  First up is a card for the current Color Throwdown challenge.  I love pink, blue and gray together so couldn't pass up this week's challenge.  I finally made something with my Pinwheel Party stencils, dies and coordinating stamp set from the Greetery.  I used Spun Sugar and Faded Jeans distress oxide inks for the pinwheels.   The sentiment was stamped using VersaFine CLAIR Morning Mist ink and the panel die cut with a rectangle die.  I adhered the panel to a white cardstock base and then added the pinwheels.  I finished things off with sequins in white and blue to the centers of the pinwheels and a few pink sequins on the panel.  Super clean and simple!  I will also add this one to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge of anything goes.

The second card is for the MFT sketch challenge.  I have played along with an MFT sketch challenge in ages.  I almost combined it with the MFT color challenge, but decided to just do the sketch.  I stamped one of the images from the Magnolia Blossoms stamp set on white cardstock with Memento Tuxedo Black ink and then colored very simply with Copic markers.   Once the image was colored I die cut it with the largest stitched mini scalloped oval die (no longer available).   The sentiment is from the MFT Flowers in Bloom stamp set.  I adhered the oval to a panel of light gray cardstock and then to a white cardstock panel.   Again, very clean and simple. 

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

Spellbinders Expressions of Spring Release!

 Hello everyone!  Just popping in with a couple of cards that I made with new products from the Spellbinders Expressions of Spring release!  This release is full of wonderful products to create beautiful spring themed cards.  There is something for everyone!  Today I'm sharing cards that I made with new products from the Glimmer line.  Before I go any further I wanted to let you know that Spellbinders has new clearance markdowns plus an additional 15% off going right now.  The sales ends on Sunday, January 30th.  The extra 15% will be automatically taken at checkout.  Click on the banner below or the link in my sidebar to head over to Spellbinders. (Compensated affiliate links used where possible.  By using my links I earn a small commission at no cost to you.)

Now for my cards!  First up it a card that I created using the new Scattered Flowers and the Glimmer Daisy Glimmer hot foil plates.  I glimmered the daisies using gold and pink foil and then die cut them with the matching dies.  The flowers come in three sizes and I layered them alternating between the pink and the gold.  Unfortunately the pink is so light it is hard to tell that there is any difference between the foils.  The Scattered Flowers background was foiled using gold foil.  Once the background was foiled I die cut it with the largest die from the Spellbinders Essentials rectangle die.   I die cut a panel of white cardstock with the second largest die from the Essentials die set.   To give the panel dimension I cut some pieces of white cardstock and adhered them behind the panel then adhered the panel to the center of the background panel.  The flowers were then arranged as you see on the panel.   The sentiment was foiled in gold using another Spellbinders Glimmer plate, die cut with the matching die and popped up on the panel.  I finished off the card with Spellbinders fashion gold pearl embellishments.   The layout fits the current Freshly Made Sketches layout so I will be posting it there.

The second card just uses the new Glimmer Daisy Glimmer plate.   This time I hot foiled the daisies using teal and purple foils.  I also hot foiled the leaves that come in the set using green.  Once I had every thing foiled I die cut all the pieces.  I layered the flowers alternating between the teal and the purple.  The sentiment was foiled using black foil and the large sentiment from the December Spellbinders Glimmer Hot Foil kit.  I just love the black foil.  It looks so much like stamping!   The panel is a die from a Spellbinders small die kit from several years ago.  I die cut it several times from white cardstock and layered them all together for some dimensional.   I used one of the smaller Essentials rectangle dies to cut the light gray panel and adhered that to the center of the main panel.  I then arranged the flowers and the leaves.   The panel was adhered to a light gray cardstock base and then I finished off the flowers with fashion silver pearls from Spellbinders.   I going to send this card off to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge. 

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

Happy Wednesday!

 Hello everyone!  Hope your week is going well.   It is Wednesday and that means I have a post up on the A Jillian Vance Design blog today.  Here is a little peek of my project:

I hope you will head over to the AJVD blog to check out my project and to let me know what you think.  Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

hearts and leaves...

 Hello!  Hope everyone had a nice weekend.  I'm popping in with two more cards to share.  First up is a card for the current Inspired By challenge.    The inspiration photo is all about hearts and so I went with hearts, as well.  I fiddled around with a background for the hearts I die cut from a gingham type patterned paper, a woodgrain patterned paper and some silver metallic cardstock.    I finally decided to try doing to dry brushing with acrylic paint.  It took me a couple of tries to get the look I was going for.  I used some off white textured cardstock so that the background has a sort of woodgrain look to it.  Once I had that piece finished I die cut it with a small rectangle die from Spellbinders.   The hearts were die cut with Stitched Dot hearts from A Jillian Vance Design.  I die cut additional woodgrain patterned paper with the largest Spellbinders rectangle die and layered that on a cardstock base made from the same cardstock that I used for my dry brushed background piece.  The hearts were arranged on the smaller rectangle along with a sentiment from A Jillian Vance Design that I heat embossed in white on vellum die cut with an AJVD banner die.   

The second card is for the last challenge at CAS(E) this Sketch.  I took some license with the sketch, but hopefully you can see the over all idea of the sketch in my card.   I have the Simon Says Stamp Stronger Together stamp set and there is a long image in the set that I have never been able to use because I didn't have a stamp positioning tool big enough to use it.  Now I do... yay!  I stamped the image using Memento Bamboo Leaves ink and then colored the leaves with four shades of green Copic Markers.  The sentiments were also stamped with Bamboo Leaves, trimmed out and adhered to the panel once it was die cut with a Spellbinders rectangle die.   As a finishing touch I stamped the little heart, added some Nuvo Crystal Drops in Morning Dew to the heart and a few sequins in green and gold.   

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

pink sunflowers and purple leaves...

 Yep... you read that one right pink sunflowers and purple leaves!  First up is the card featuring purple flowers.  This one is for this month's inspiration challenge at Altenew.   I purchased the Altenew Paint a Flower Sunflowers stamp set back at the beginning of December.  It finally showed up along with the Fancy Hello die at the end of December!   When I saw the Altenew inspiration challenge I wanted to use the colors with the Sunflowers stamp set.  Finally got the opportunity to sit down and make the card.   Honestly I'm not really sure how I feel about this card.  It is definitely different and really outside my box, but sometimes you have to push yourself, right?   Stamped the image on watercolor paper with VersaFine CLAIR Nocturne ink and then did the simple watercoloring using the Altenew 12 pan watercolor set.  Once I was done I added some splatters of black and white paints.  The Fancy Hello was die cut three times from heavy weight vellum and adhered together.  Once the panel was dry I die cut it with a Spellbinders Essentials rectangle die.  The Fancy Hello was adhered to the panel and I stamped the small sentiment from the set in Nocturne as well.  I added the panel to a black cardstock base.  

The second card is for Color Throwdown and Freshly Made Sketches.  The CTD combo is pretty bold and so I wanted to make sure that I used a simple design when creating my card.  The FMS sketch was the perfect vehicle.   I started by creating a swatch of color on watercolor paper using a purple from the Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolor set.  Once the piece was dry I die cut the leaves using  the solid leaf dies from the Concord & 9th Leafy Layers die set.   The skeleton leaves were then die cut from black cardstock and adhered to their solid counterpart.  I die cut a couple of small berry stems from black cardstock as well.  All the pieces were adhered together to form a cluster.  I then die cut some off white cardstock with a Spellbinders rectangle die and strips of the same off-white cardstock with an AJVD sentiment strip die.  The strips were adhered to the panel and then I attached the leaf cluster with foam tape.   The sentiment (from a small C9 Turnabout stamp set) was stamped using Nocturne ink and the panel adhered to the off-white cardstock base.  I added a little bow tied with black twine to finish things off.   Just like the first card this one is a little outside my comfort zone, but sometimes you just have to push yourself, right?

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

Happy Wednesday!

 Hello everyone!  Popping in to let you know that I have a post up on the AJVD blog today and here is a little peek:

I hope you will head over to the AJVD blog to check out my project and to let me know what you think.  Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

snow much thanks...

 Hello!  Popping in with a card that I made for the current Paper Players challenge to create a clean and simple card with a snow theme.  I recently got the dies that match the Prismatic Snowflakes stamp set that I have from Simon Says Stamp and I couldn't wait to use them.   I stamped two snowflakes with watermark ink and heat embossed in platinum embossing powder.  I die cut some white cardstock with a Spellbinders essentials rectangle die and then did a little ink blending on the top portion of the panel with Tumbled Glass distress oxide ink.  After I die cut the snowflakes I added a little of the Tumbled Glass to them, as well.   I arranged the largest snowflake so I could line up my sentiment from the Frozen Fractals stamp set and then stamped it in VersaFine CLAIR Nocturne ink.  The panel was adhered to a light gray cardstock base and then I layered the snowflakes using foam dimensionals.   I finished off the card with a light blue jewel from Pretty Pink Posh.  Going to add this to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge, as well. 

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

Spellbinders Fall in Love sale!

 Hey there!  Popping in to let you know that Spellbinders has lots of love themed products on sale right now for up to 50% off.   If you are a Spellbinders club member (any one of the clubs), you may also get a further discount.  Just click on the banner below to head to the sale.  

The above link is an affiliate link.  Should you decide to use my link I will earn a small commision at no cost to you.   Please know that I really appreciate it when you use my link to shop.  Thank you so much!

SSS Love You Too release!

 Hello!  I'm popping in with a couple of cards that I made using a fun background stamp called XOXO Background!  You can check out the entire new release here.  (This link is not an affiliate link.)  The first card was inspired by a card that Debby Hughes shared on the Simon Says Stamp blog a few days ago.  I always forget about the tone on tone stamping that watermark ink provides and how you can intensify the color by heat embossing the image in clear ink and then using the resist technique.   Debby's amazing card reminded me of that and so I decided to do my version.  I stamped the background on red cardstock with VersaMark watermark ink and heat embossed with clear embossing powder from Tsukinko.  I then used my favorite red ink, Cherry Cobbler from Stampin Up!, to do some ink blending over the red cardstock.  Cherry Cobbler is a very rich, deep ink color and I love the way it deepened the lighter red cardstock.  Once that was done I die cut the panel with the largest Spellbinders Essentials Rectangle die.  I then used the SSS/CZ Designs Chunky Love You die to cut white cardstock several times.  I kept all the pieces together except those few interior pieces and adhered the layers together on the shadow image that I cut from a medium gray cardstock.  The die cut was then adhered to the center of the card on an angle.  To finish I added little hearts that I die cut with a SSS die set that is no longer available to the centers of the O in each word.   The hearts were then covered in Nuvo Crystal Drops in Morning Dew.  Love how this card turned out!  Going to add this to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge of layer it up.

I think the second card is rather fun and playful.  I decided to cut strips of cardstock in blue and green and adhered them to some thin white cardstock at an angle.  I then trimmed off the overhang and stamped the panel with VersaMark watermark ink and heat embossed with clear embossing powder from Tsukineko.  This panel was also die cut with the Spellbinders Essentials Rectangle die.   I then die cut a heart using the solid heart from the SSS Deco Heart die set from pink cardstock.   The heart was then adhered to the panel.  I die cut the SSS I Adore You die set from white cardstock three times, adhered all the layers and then adhered the sentiment to the heart.  I used the colors from Color Throwdown so I will be posting this there, as well as at CAS(E) this Sketch.  So sad that CTS is shutting down, but I totally understand why Chrissy felt it was the right thing for her to do!  

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

Wednesday with AJVD

 Hello and happy Wednesday!  Hope your week is going well!  Our week started out with lots of "liquid sunshine" (as we sometimes like to call rain!).  I'm seriously alot!   But I would rather have rain than lots of snow!  Since it is Wednesday that means I have a post up on the AJVD blog and here is a little peek:

I hope you will head over to the AJVD blog to check out the full project and to let me know what you think.  Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day.

Spellbinders Expressions of Love Collection

Hello!  I'm popping in to share a couple of cards that I made with some products from the recently released Expressions of Love Collection from Spellbinders.  First up is a card that I made with the Scattered Hearts Background Glimmer hot foil plate.    This is my first time using one of the Glimmer plates that you can use to foil a background and it was so easy!  I cut my gold foil to the correct size using my Spellbinders quick trimmer (such a handy tool!).   The foiling plate is not widen enough to foil an entire A2 sized card so you must do it twice, but, again, it is so easy to do using my Glimmer Hot Foil system!  Once my foiling was done I die cut the panel with the largest die in the Spellbinders Essentials Rectangle die.  I then went through my Spellbinders dies to find some to work with my panel.  I settled on this beautiful layered flower die that came in the Spellbinders Stay Wild card kit.  The ornate little panel that the flower sits on is a die from the Vintage Mementos card kit.  The flower was die cut from white and gold metallic cardstock and then layered together.  The leaves were die cut from the same gold metallic cardstock.  The panel was cute from a light aqua and stamped with a sentiment from the stamp set that comes in the Love the Moment card kit.   I adhered the main panel to a light aqua cardstock base and then layered up all the different elements.  Love how this card turned out! (Compensated affiliate links used within the body of this blog post.)

The second card was created using the Scattered Hearts Background Glimmer plate and red foil, as well as elements from the Sunday Sunset Drive die set.  I'm going to be honest and tell you that I had a hard time coming up with an idea for this car.  That is due to the fact that I do not own any of the dies that this set was created to work with.   But I took it as a challenge and I think I came up with something that works.  Let me know what you think!   There are several dies that work with another die to create little plates to put on the back of the little car from the Sunday Drive die set (the one I don't own).  I used the die that says I heart you and cut it along with the matching die from white cardstock twice and adhered them together.  I foiled the Scattered Hearts background in red foil and then die cut it down with the second largest Essentials Rectangle die.  I used the smallest die in the Essentials Rectangle set to cut some red cardstock for my little die cut sentiment to sit on.  I cut additional rectangles from white cardstock and adhered those behind the red one for more stability.  The sentiment was then adhered to the rectangle.  Aqua cardstock was die cut with the second smallest rectangle and the sentiment panel was adhered to that and then that panel was adhered to the foiled hearts panel.  More red cardstock was die cut with the largest Essentials Rectangle die, the other panels layered on top and it was adhered to a light aqua cardstock base.  I finished up by using some foliage and flower dies from the set to cut light aqua and red cardstock to make my little floral arrangement underneath the sentiment.  Despite the difficulty I had I'm very happy with how this card turned out.  Going to add this to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge. 

 I have used affiliate links with in the body of my blog post.  Please know that I appreciate it when you decide to use my links to make a purchase!  Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

just a note...

 Hello!  Popping in with a card for this month's Pinkfresh Studio challenge.  It is their "year in review" challenge and I decided to make a card based on the sketch from the April 2020 challenge.  I also used the colors from the challenge, as well.  I used the floral image from the PF Believe in yourself stamp set along with the matching die.  I stamped the flowers using the colors from the April 2020 color palette and then die cut it.  I used a tag die from another company and cut that from white cardstock.  The main panel was die cut with a Spellbinders essential rectangle die and then I added the pierced detail with another die from the same Spellbinders set.   Some pink baker's twine was tied in a bow on the tag and I adhered the tag to the panel.  I then adhered the floral image over the tag.  I hope you can see the general idea of the sketch layout on my card.  The sentiment is from another PF stamp set.   I stamped it on a strip of white cardstock, trimmed it out and then popped it up on the floral piece.  I finished off the card with some sequins in colors from the color palette.  

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

Happy Wednesday (and new year!)

 Hello and happy new year!  It is Wednesday and that means I have a post up on the AJVD blog (my first for the year!) and here is a little peek of my card:

I hope you will head over to the AJVD blog to check out the full card and let me know what you think.  Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

Hello....

 Well hello!  Hope your year is off to a great start.  We have been experiencing rain of biblical proportions of late so that means lots of time inside doing inside things like crafting, lol!   Didn't do much crafting over the holidays as there were other things to do and my husband decided to paint the ceiling in the room where I do my crafting.  Once he was done I got rid of a lot of things, did a little organzing and now I'm ready to craft!  I got a couple of cards made to share on the AJVD blog this week and next and then I made the card I'm sharing today.  This card is for the Paper Players, Sunday Stamps and Simon Says Stamp challenge (sparkle and shine).   Just a few days ago I received my Spellbinders Glimmer kit for December.  That is my new item for the Paper Players challenge.   The glimmer plates in this kit are so beautiful!  After foiling everything and die cutting the panel with my Spellbinders essentials rectangle die I colored the flowers and leaves very simply with Copic markers.  I was trying to capture the colors from the Sunday Stamps palette.  I think my blue could have been a bit darker so hopefully it pasts muster.  Once done I adhered the panel to a light gray cardstock base and then added lots of little silver pearls to the card for some additional shine. 

Was trying to capture the colors a little better in the second photo.  With it being so dark and rainy it has been hard to get good photos. 

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!