a rainbow and flowers...

 Hello!  Hope all is well in your world.  It has been pretty cold here in the PNW (Pacific Northwest), but thankfully little to no snow!  Hoping it stays that way.  I'm popping in with two cards today.  I'm very proud of myself for making two cards because lately I have not felt like making even one card.    Sometimes I think I suffer from "too much stuff syndrome" (I made that up!).   Because I have too much stuff I get a little paralyzed and can't decide what to do.  Do you suffer from this same syndrome?  Let me know!  Here is my first card for Sunday Stamps:

Birch Press Designs has a new release out and it is full of beautiful floral die sets including the Sprouting Crocus Contour Layers die set.  I love seeing Crocus flowers sprouting up during the early spring, don't you?   I die cut the flowers and the stems from white cardstock and then inked them up with distress oxide ink in Mowed Lawn and Prize Ribbon.  I then assembled the flowers per the little assembly sheet that comes with the dies.  I set them aside to dry and worked on my sentiment.  I inked up some white cardstock with Bundled Sage distress oxide and then positioned the Big Thanks Sugar Script die so that the inking was darkest at the bottom and die cut the word.  I die cut two additional words and adhered them to the inked one for more stability.  There is a shadow die for the work, but I decided not to use it for my card.   For the background I placed one of the flowers along with the word on a panel of white cardstock to determine where I was going to blend on some Speckled Egg distress oxide.  Once I had that figured out I inked up the background and then adhered all the elements.  I decided to add a sub-sentiment to the card.  The sentiment is from Reverse Confetti and was stamped in VersaFine Clair Nocturne ink.  I finished with a scattering of Memory Box Fairy Drops.  I think I captured several of the colors in the palette fairly well.  

The next card is for Color Throwdown:

The colors for this week's Color Throwdown had me thinking "rainbow" and so I pulled out the fun Stampin Up! Rainbow of Happiness bundle and did a little stamping.  I used Pinkfresh Studio and Simon Says Stamp inks for the rainbow.  The pink and blue inks are from Pinkfresh Studio and the yellow and aqua inks are from Simon Says Stamp.  I die cut the little clouds from Simon Says Stamp velvet luxury cardstock in snow white.  I layered those on with liquid adhesive and foam squares after I stamped the sentiment in VersaFine Clair Nocturne ink.  I added the little blue hearts and some crystal clear sequins.   I will add this one to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge of anything goes.

happy friday...

 Happy' Friday everyone!  I'm popping in to let you know that I have a post up on the Birch Press blog today.  Here is a peek at the card I created. 

I hope you will check out the card.  Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

you are amazing...

 Hello!  Hope all is well in your world.  I have a clean and simple card to share for a few challenges.  Clean and simple seems to be my mode these days, but that is okay.  I love clean and simple cards!  This one is for Freshly Made Sketches, Color Throwdown and Pinkfresh Studio February challenge.   Take a look.

The February challenge at Pinkfresh Studio is to use stripes on your project.  The FMS sketch was the perfect vehicle for that challenge.   And who doesn't love a pretty pastel color combo?  Things are very gray here in my corner of the world (we even got snow the other day!) so I was keen to create with a palette that makes me think of spring.  Bonus that the colors in the PFS challenge and the CTD challenge are very similar!  I cut stripes of pink and yellow cardstock and adhered them to a panel of scrap cardstock.   I used the Pinkfresh Studio Leafy Branch die to the green cardstock.  I then trimmed it down to fit the card front and added it to the striped panel along with the foiled sentiment.   I used two of the trimmed off pieces and added them to the card front to fill things out a bit.  

Simon Says Stamp Be Creative Release!

 Happy Thursday everyone!  The Simon Says Stamp Be Creative release is now available at the SSS website.  You can see the entire release right here.   Simon Says Stamp was so kind and sent me the lovely You Did stamp set from CZ Design.   This set is perfect for any wedding themed card that you might need, but some of the images would work for birthday cards, as well.  I created two wedding themed cards.  Take a look. (Affiliate linked list of products is at the end of this post.  Using my links allows me to earn a small commission at no cost to you.  Thank you for using my links.)

For the first card I went with a coral and gold color palette with a little bit of vellum thrown in.  The background was embossed using the Simon Says Stamp Blossom Field embossing folder.  I had originally embossed this panel for another card idea that didn't work out, so I was glad to put it to use on this card.  I die cut circles from white and gold cardstock and then layered them.  The cake and rings were heat embossed on vellum using WOW gold embossing powder and then trimmed out.  I arranged the two images per the sketch from Sunday Stamps but didn't like all the empty space on the white circle.  There is a sweet little image of hearts in the You Did stamp set so I used some coral ink to stamp the hearts all around the circle.  That did the trick!  I added the images and adhered everything to the embossed panel.  I originally stamped the sentiments with the same coral ink, but they just kind of disappeared into the background.  So, I stamped and embossed the sentiments in the WOW gold, die cut them and layered them on top of the original sentiments.  So much better!   This card also works for the SSS Wednesday challenge so I will add it to the gallery.

For my second card I decided to create something a little more masculine even though I stamped the floral bouquet image in the background using Simon Says Stamps Fog ink.   I then over stamped the sentiment using VersaFine Clair Nocturne ink.  I have done overstamping in a very long time, but it is a technique that I really like and should use more often.  I added little dots of a light blue Nuvo drop (no long available) and then adhered the die cut panel to a light blue panel that I embossed with the Simon Says Stamp Geometric Lattice embossing folder.  To bring everything together I adhered the panel to a Fog gray cardstock base.  

Affiliate linked products used:

Simon Says Stamp Be Creative release

Simon Says Stamp/CZ Design You Did stamp set

Simon Says Stamp/CZ Design You Did die set

Simon Says Stamp/CZ Design You Did bundle

Simon Says Stamp Blossom Field embossing folder

Simon Says Stamp Geometric Lattice embossing folder

Simon Says Stamp Fog ink

Simon Says Stamp Fog cardstock

Wow Pale Gold embossing powder

VersaFine Clair Nocturne ink

VersaMark watermark ink

Spellbinders Platinum 6

Bearly Art Glue 

Simon Says Stamp foam squares

Make sure you check out the new release!  Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Happy Friday!

 Happy Friday everyone!  I'm popping in to let you know that I have a post up on the Birch Press blog today.  Here is a little peek (or not so little peek, lol) of the three cards that I'm sharing on the blog. 

I also have a post on the blog from the end of January.  You can check out that post here if you would like.  Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

a birthday card...

 Hello!  Popping in with a card that I made for my great niece who turned one this past Sunday (February 5th.)  I used the colors from Color Hues for the card so I will be posting it there.   Take a look at what I made.   The door is almost closed on the current Seize the Birthday, but I will post it there, too.   I did want to say thank you to the Color Hues team for picking the card I entered in the last challenge for a shout out.

I used the Spellbinders alphabet stitching dies and a Spellbinders embossing folder for the background. I used more coral than sage green, but sometimes that is the way things work out right?  Honestly, I couldn't find any sage green cardstock so I just had to go with the sage green floss that I used for the stitching and then added little sage green sequins to the center of the flowers.   The sentiment is from A Jillian Vance design and was embossed in white on vellum.  

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

hello friend

 Hello!  Popping in with a clean and simple card for Color Throwdown and Freshly Made Sketches.   I used the Concord & 9th Eclectic Garden stamps and dies for this one.  Take a look. 

I like challenging myself to use colors in ways that are a little different, but still pleasing to look at.  T To that end I spent sometime thinking about how I wanted to use the colors with the hummingbird dies from the Eclectic Garden die set.  I finally settled on using pink, red and brown for the birds and brought the green in using one of the circle images from the stamp set.  I die cut the birds from a light brown cardstock and then alternated the pink and red cardstocks on each bird.   I trimmed a strip of white cardstock, temporarily adhered it to the white cardstock rectangle and then stamped the circular image.  I then popped up the strip with foam squares.  To bring in more of the brown I stamped the sentiment on the brown cardstock with watermark ink and heat embossed it in white.  That was trimmed down and adhered to the card front using foam squares.  I adhered the hummingbirds and then added some Memory Box Fairy Jewels in pink, red, green and brown to the card.  

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!