thinking of you...

 Hey there!  Can't believe it is the last day of April!  Where is the time going?!  Popping in with a card for Color Throwdown and the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge of anything goes.  I recently had the opportunity to buy some new products from Concord & 9th.   One of the things I was able to buy was the Thinking of You bundle.  I pulled that out and did some simple watercoloring with my ZIG markers.  I die cut the frame from Bristol smooth cardstock and then stamped the floral image on the frame using VersaFine CLAIR Nocturne ink.  I let it dry for a little bit before coloring the images using the colors from CTD.  I die cut the frame several more times from scrap cardstock and stacked everything.  I then adhered the frame directly to my white cardstock base.   I used light gray cardstock to die cut the thinking of you sentiment so that it wouldn't detract from the color images.  I made addition cuts of that die and stacked everything, as well.  I finished off the card with little gems from Trinity Stamps.  They really sparkle in the light!

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

where did april go?

 Hey friends!  Wow... April is almost over!  How did that happen?  Anyway it is Wednesday and that means I have a post up on the AJVD blog.  Here is a little peek:

So... I hope you will head over to the AJVD blog to check out my card.  Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

More Spellbinders Fun!

 Hello!   Hope all is well in your part of the world.  It is in mine!  My boys and I took a little trip to one of our favorite destinations.  While there we got lunch at a favorite burger joint that makes the best strawberry lemonade ever!   I was in heaven once I took my first sip!   Anywhoo... I'm not here to talk about strawberry lemonade, but about another new slimline die from the Spellbinders April release.   This time I am using the gorgeous Moroccan Kaleidoscope Slimline die set.   I love me some kaleidoscope dies and so when I saw this new die set I had to get my hands on it!  This card is very similar to the card I created using the Blossoming Slimline die. (Affiliate links used... unfortunately both these die set are currently sold out.)   What can I say... if something works go with it, right?    This time I used dark blue, silver, light blue and white.  I was just going to go with dark blue, silver and white, but at the last minute decided to make the card base and the sentiment strip out of the gorgeous Glacier cardstock from Spellbinders.   I have several packs of their new cardstock and I am in love with it!   Just did an order for several more colors.   And just like with the first card I foiled the sentiment with my Glimmer, but with silver foil and then die cut it with the banner die.   

I die cut the interior of the die from silver cardstock so I could use some of the little pieces to inlay back into the dark blue piece once I cut it using both the interior and exterior dies.  I die cut white cardstock using the exterior die and then layered the dark blue piece on top and inlayed the silver pieces.  I know it doesn't really look like I placed the entire piece on a light blue cardstock base and used the same light blue for the sentiment, but I did!  I finished the card with silver fashion embellishments. 

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

Umbrellas and a Sunflower...

 Hello!  Hope you are having a good week!  So far so good in my corner of the world.  Today I popping in to share two cards that I created with new stamps from the Spellbinders Cardmaker Stamp Collection.  First up is a card I made using a really cute stamp set called Cute Boots.    The main image in the set features a little girl out for a walk in the rain.  I was going to use that stamp for my card but decided to go a little bit outside my comfort zone and create a card using one of the other images... a closed up umbrella.  After trying out different ways to use the umbrella I finally hit on the design of my card.  Then I decided to color the umbrella in rainbow order:   red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.  In order to make the layout look right I had two extra umbrellas that got colored in red and orange.  I stamped the umbrellas in Memento Tuxedo Black ink and then colored them with Copic markers using one color for each umbrella.   I added in rain in the background using an image from the set and a very light gray ink.  The sentiment was then stamped in VersaFine Clair Nocturne.  I die cut the panel with a Spellbinders Essential Rectangle die, adhered it to my light gray cardstock base (Silver Fox from Spellbinders) and then added clear sequins.  I'm going to add this card to the Day of the Month Card Club challenge of find a rainbow day.

So there you have it... umbrellas falling from the sky like confetti, lol!

The second card features the Hello Sunflower stamp set from the same collection.  I also went outside my comfort zone with this card and created a bold and graphic design using the colors from Color Throwdown.  I used a patterned paper that had a yellow ombre look to it and die cut my panel using a die from the Essentials Rectangle die set.  I stamped the large sunflower on the panel using Catherine Pooler Orange Twist ink.  I then stamped the sentiment using VersaFine Clair Acorn ink.   I die cut red cardstock with the largest die from the Essential Rectangle set and then adhered the smaller one to that.  I added a few brown sequins to the center of the flower to finish things off.   

Before you go I wanted to let you know that Spellbinders is having a huge spring warehouse sale.  Just click on the banner below or the link in my sidebar to head to the sale.  Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

Happy Wednesday!

 Hey everyone!  Hope your week is going well!  It is Wednesday and that means I have a  post up on the AJVD blog today.  Here is a little peek of my card:

I hope you will head over to the AJVD blog to check out my card.  Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

Hello, Lovely Lady

 Hey there!  Have you jumped on the slimline bandwagon yet?  If you haven't, but are interested in slimline dies and want elegant and unique designs, then you need to check out the new slimline dies from Spellbinders.  Today I'm sharing a slimline card that I created with the Blossoming Slimline etched dies.  The set contains four dies.  The base die, the large insert and two smaller pieces that can be used for a sentiment or a decorative element.  For my card I used the two large dies and some butterflies that I glimmered with rose gold foil.  It is hard to tell in the photo, but the base piece was die cut from rose gold foil paper and then the beautifully detailed insert piece was die cut from pink cardstock and then layered over the top.  I adhered the butterflies and then added the sentiment from a glimmer plate set designed by Becca Feeken.   I just love how this turned out.   I will be back in a few days with another card I created using a different slimline die set.  

Thanks for stopping by and make sure that you check out these new slimline dies, as well as all the different deals that Spellbinders has on their website.  Have a lovely day!

wishing you

 Hey there!  Hope you had a great week.  We are having  AWESOME weather here in the Pacific Northwest!  Sunny and warm temps!  Absolutely love it!   Of course, the lovely weather is scheduled to be gone in the next week... replaced by rain!  But I will take this beautiful weather while I can.  Even though the weather is lovely I really can't go anywhere because... child has school at home.   So I spent part of my day making a card for Color Throwdown, Freshly Made Sketches, Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge and the April  Reverse Confetti Stock Your Stash challenge.   That challenge is mom, dads and grads.  I have a niece who is graduating in June and going to Texas A&M Corpus Christi on a full golf scholarship in the fall (so very proud of her!), but I don't have any RC stamps that fit the grad or dad theme so I went with mom.  I used the pretty Tulips stamp set from RC and colored it with Copic markers in the CTD colors.  The layout based on the FMS sketch, of course.   The SSS Wednesday challenge is clean and simple and while this isn't super simple it is still pretty clean and simple with all the white on white.  All the dies except for the circle die are from Reverse Confetti.   Sketches like the FMS one are a bit tough for me, but I think I pulled this one off! 

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

hello...

 Hey there!  It is Wednesday and that means I have a post up on the AJVD blog today.  Here is a little peek of my card:

I hope you will head over to the AJVD blog to see the project!  Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

alcohol ink cards...

 Hey there... hope you are having a great day!  I have been playing around with alcohol inks the last few days and here two cards that I created using the resulting backgrounds.  First up is a card for the Altenew monthly challenge.  Haven't played along with their monthly challenge in awhile, but I really liked the colors so I decided to create a card.    Earlier in the week I received the Paint A Flower Coral Sunset and so I used that set for my card.  I created the background using purple, blue and green alcohol inks.  Once I had the mix and look I was going for I added little bits of silver foiling to the areas where the alcohol inks were a little thick and sticky.  You can sort of see the silver in the card, but it looks really pretty in real life.  I then stamped the image over my background with VersaFine Clair Nocturne ink, applied clear embossing powder and heat set.  I die cut the piece down and adhered it to a cardstock base.  The sentiment is from Altenew's Label Love stamp set... and oldie, but goodie!  I brought in a little bit more silver with some silver sequins.  Going to add this to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge to make a birthday card.  My colors are a bit more intense, but I love how the background turned out!

The second card is for the Pinkfresh Studio monthly challenge.  For this background I used a pink alcohol ink and Gilded Alloy.   This month the challenge is to have gold on your project.  There are other colors provided to use, but to keep things simple I decided to go solely with pink and the Gilded Alloy.  I created the background and then spent time deciding what I was going to do with it!  At first I was going to stamp on it, but then decided that I didn't want to do that because I didn't know what ink to use!  So I decided to cut the piece with my PF Fancy Oval Frame die.   The Yupo paper I used is heavy weight and did not cut well so I ended up not using the frame, but simply the interior oval.  I learned that I do not like using the heavy weight Yupo as it is hard to die cut so I won't be buying that in the future.  I die cut the frame again from textured gold cardstock, twice more from thin white cardstock and adhered them together with spray adhesive.   The frame was adhered to an off white cardstock panel and then I popped up the alcohol ink oval with foam dimensionals.  The floral image is from the Choose Hope stamp set and I embossed that in gold on vellum then die cut it with the matching die.  I adhered that to the frame hiding the glue by applying it behind the embossing.  I die cut additional leaves using one of the dies from the Curvy Leaves die set and adhered those at the top of the card.  The sentiment is from the stamp set and boy did that give me problems!  I stamped and embossed the Hoping fine and then trimmed it out.  I adhered it with glue, but wasn't really thrilled with how it looked.   I stamped the "your birthday is wonderful" sentiment on cardstock and was going to heat emboss it, as well.  When I applied the embossing powder it was a mess!  At first I thought the stamp was flawed, then I realized that there was some residual photopolymer attached to it.  I pulled that off and started over.  Didn't like the sentiment on cardstock so I went with vellum and liked that much better.  Finished off the card with some light pink sequins from Pretty Pink Posh.   Going to add this to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge, too, but will do so through Instagram.

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

birthday tulips...

 Hello!  Hope you have a good week so far.  I'm popping in with a card for a few challenges:  The Paper Players, Color Throwdown and Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge.  I have been trying to make a card using this tulip image from Simon Says Stamp for about two weeks!  I started out trying to make it for the Inspired By challenge, but only got as far as coloring two tulip images using Copic markers.  The two colored images sat on my desk until earlier this week when I finally sat down and colored a third image and made the card using the Color Throwdown colors.   I had already colored one tulip image in pink and the other in yellow.  I decided to color the third in yellow, as well.  The background piece was cut from kraft cardstock using a Spellbinders essential rectangle die and then embossed using one of my favorite embossing folders called swiss dot.  I reversed the embossing so that the actual raised embossing is on the backside of the rectangle.  I arranged my tulips in a bouquet of sorts and adhere it to the panel.  I then trimmed down some striped vellum that I have, centered the sentiment on the strip and heat embossed it using cream colored embossing powder from Simon Says Stamp.  The strip was wrapped around the panel and secured in the back.  I then adhered the panel to an off white cardstsock base.  I thought the card needed a little more pink so I added sequins in two shades of pink.  

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

Happy Wednesday!

 Hello and happy Wednesday everyone!  I have a post up on the AJVD blog and I am sharing some new products that recently dropped in the AJVD store!  Here is a peek of my card:

I'm sure you can't figure out what it is, lol!  Hope over to the AJVD blog to see the full card.  Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

happy for you...

 Hello!  Hope you have a lovely week.  We have been having some nice weather leading up to Easter Sunday.  Hoping that Easter is nice, too.  I have a card today that I plan to send to my niece.  I learned the other day that she is having a baby in September!  I'm so excited for her and her husband.  They have a little boy and this time it is going to be a girl!  So... the colors for this week's Color Throwdown were absolutely perfect for a girl-inspired card!   A little over a month ago I purchased a stamp and die set from Stampin Up!  It has been sitting on my crafting space waiting for me to find the right card to use it on.  I stamped the flowers using Altenew's Blush ink and then cut them with the matching dies.  I actually stamped the flowers multiple times, but boy they still are really light!  There are layering dies and I used those as well.  They were cut from off white cardstock and layered on the stamped flowers.  I die cut a small rectangle from off white cardstock and stamped the sentiments from the set in a darker pink and black.  The leaves were die cut from light gray cardstock.  I added the strip down the side using one of my favorite Stampin Up! sets called Kind of Eclectic.   I layered everything up on the white cardstock panel and then finished with pearls to the centers of each flower.  The layout is based on this week's Freshly Made Sketches layout, but not exactly, lol!  Hope it passes muster over at FMS!  Will also be adding this to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge of anything goes.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!