I Appreciate You...

 Hello!  Well, October has flown by, hasn't it?  Fall here in my area of the Pacific Northwest has finally arrived.  That means rain, lol, but not too much.   I'm popping in to share a fall inspired card for two challenges:  Freshly Made Sketches and the Altenew October challenge.  Let's see what I made.

I'm a sucker for leaf dies and when I saw a card made using the Altenew Fall Pickings layering dies I had to get it.  I purchased it from Scrapbook.com and got a pack of pretty papers (say that three times fast, lol!) from Paper Rose for free.  I love that!  I checked out what the graphic was for the Altenew October challenge and decided to look through my collection of mixed media scraps.  I found two that would work (the leaves and stem) and then found a scrap of cream heavy stock to use for the purple berries.   I have a pretty good collection of distress mica sprays and those were used to create the panels that I die cut the leaves, stem and berries from.  I only know for sure that I used Fortune Teller distress mica spray for the berries.  Think I'm a little too purple for the color combo, but oh well, lol!  I finished with a sentiment from an older Altenew sentiment set (from 2023 called Sincere Sentiments) that I diecut with a die from the Fragrant Flowers die set.  Hopefully you can see the FMS sketch in my card.  I did a very loose interpretation for sure, but I did get the sentiment in the right spot!

Well, that is it for me!  Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day.

On the Birch Press Design Blog Today!

 Hello!  I'm up on the BPD blog today sharing a Christmas card made with several knew products.  Here is a little peek:

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

Peace I Leave with You...

 Hello!  Popping in with a card that I made for the current Just Us Girls challenge which is anything goes with stencils.  I recently purchased two different stencil sets from PaperTrey Ink and really wanted to get something made with both and I actually did!  I'm thinking I will share the other card for the November JUGs stencil challenge.  Anyway, let's look at what I made.

Another recent PTI purchase was the Reflections:  John 14 stamp set.  I thought it went perfectly with the background that I stenciled using the PTI Leafy Garden stencil set.  I used Altenew inks in Frayed Leaf and Sugar Kelp.  Sugar Kelp is a dark green with a brown undertone that I thought would look good with Frayed Leaf and I was right.  I love it.   After all that stenciling I didn't want to totally cover it up so I used vellum for the verse and heat embossed it in gold as I thought that would look nice with the green inks I chose to use.  The stenciled panel and the embossed panel were die cut with PTI Rounded Rectangle Stitched dies.  For additional interest I wrapped a piece of twine around the larger panel and secured it in place with washi tape.  I then tied a bow with the same twine and glued it in place.  The vellum panel was place on top using foam squares which I discovered don't show through when placed behind the lettering!  Love this verse and love how the card turned out.  Simple, but effective!

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

Halloween and Christmas

 Hello!  As my post title indicates I have cards for Halloween and a card for Christmas.    The Halloween card is one that I actually made back in September using products from the Simon Says Stamp Stamptember release but never shared here on my blog.  The modified version is going to the SSS Wednesday challenge.  The other card is for the PaperTrey Ink monthly challenge, as well as the Sunday Stamps challenge (a sketch).  Let's look at what I made.

Can you believe that Halloween is just a week away?  Time is flying.  I'm not huge on Halloween, but I do like to make cards for my great nieces and great nephew.  I originally made the above card for the Stamptember release, but the card did not have the little pumpkin or the ghost on it.  I thought I had shared it on my blog, but I only shared it on Instagram.  You can see the original card here.  I used the super cute SSS Halloween Collage embossing folder and the Opulent Happy die.  The papers I used are from the 49 and Market Stardust Dreams paper pack.   As I was trying to figure out what to make for the kids I remembered this card and decided to create three more and then added the little ghost and pumpkin.  These are from an older Simon Says Stamp Halloween stamp set.  

For the Happy Halloween cards, I used a different background paper and then used the Halloween sentiment instead of Hauntings.  I think the cards are very cute (my kind of Halloween!) and they were super easy to put together.  This card will be heading to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge (Halloween).

For the PTI challenge card I used the Rustic Barn Star die set that I have had for about two years now.  I have always wanted to use it but never had the right project.   The PTI challenge colors are dark red, cream and kraft.  Perfect for this die set.  I did add in some gold foiling, gray and a little bit of dark green.  I just love the bow that comes in the die set.  Need to find another way to use it on a card and soon, lol!

Well, that's it for me.  Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

Birch Press Design October Blog Post #1

 Hello!  I'm over on the Birch Press Design blog today and here is a little peek of what I made.

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

sunflowers...

 Hello!  I'm back with a card for two challenges:  Freshly Made Sketches and Sunday Stamps.  Sunday Stamp has a beautiful fall color palette for the current challenge and I just couldn't pass it by!  Let's see what I created for the challenges.

A few Simon Says Stamp releases ago one of the products I received from them to create with was the super pretty Sunflower Meadow stamp set.  At the time I didn't have the matching dies, but knew I wanted to get them.  I finally did about a month ago.    Stamping the images without the dies made me realize that this would be one of those sets that you should probably die cut first and then stamp.  I was correct in my assessment!   I have to let you know that I messed up the stamping multiple times.  Mainly because my stamps were too sticky and kept pulling my die cuts off the sticky mat I had placed them on.  Finally after three attempts I was successful!  I used inks from Pinkfresh Studio for all my stamping and I hope I got most of the colors close to the Sunday Stamps palette.    I placed all the images on a Simon Says Stamp tag using glue and finished off the tag with some black twine.  I was gong to leave the background panel plain white, but then decided to find an embossing folder that I thought would work with the images.  I found a Simon Says Stamp embossing folder and ran it through my machine without any shims to provide more pressure.   Doing this allowed me to end up with a panel that had only some of the embossing.  I really like the partial embossed look.   Everything was adhered to a white cardstock base and I was done.

That's it for me.  Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!