Bold Colors...

 Hello!  Popping in to share a couple of cards that I made using new products from Birch Press Design and some very bold colors!   Let's have a look at what I made.

This card will be heading to Freshly Made Sketches and Color Hues.  The Color Hues combo this time is a pretty bold one of purple and marigold.  Not colors that I normally use, but it is a challenge and so I gave it a go, lol!  I inked up some smooth bristol cardstock with Altenew Deep Iris and Snapdragon inks and then used the new Block Print Lovely Flowers die to cut the main flowers and round centers.  I used vellum to cut the stamens.  I then layered everything as you see.  I used an older Birch Press die set called Foliage Bunch to set out little stems from vellum.  I arranged everything on my card front and then finished with a sentiment from the Simon Says Stamp Inspiration Quotes stamp set.  Pretty bold, but it is growing on me, lol.

My second card is for the current Just Us Girls challenge which features a fun mood board of painted rocks.  I obviously didn't go with a rock theme, lol, but went with some of the bold colors found on the rocks, as well as the darker gray.   To create the peacock I die cut the feather portion from a white cardstock panel and then removed all the fall out pieces.  I die cut another set of feathers and used that as a stencil to ink up the feathers with different colors of ink (Altenew's Deep Iris, Shadow Creek, Blue Horizon and Galactic Stream).  Once the stenciling was done I trimmed out the portion I needed, added glue to the piece and then aligned it with the feather openings.  The body of the peacock was die cut from white cardstock, inked with the colors used for the feathers.  To darken up the body a bit I blended on some black ink.  I assembled the body using glue, added the highlights and then adhered it to the panel.  I finished with a sentiment from the Birch Press Elegant Sentiments stamp set and adhered the panel to a dark gray cardstock base.

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

Simon Says Stamp In My Heart Release Day 1 Blog Hop!

 Hello, hello!  Simon Says Stamp's brand new release called In My Heart is now available on their website and today is day 1 of their two day blog hop!  I'm so excited to be participating in the blog hop this month.  Thank you to Simon Says Stamp for the opportunity.  You can click here to see the entire release.   As you can see from the banner SSS is offering an exclusive free set when you make any purchase from the new release.  And since this is a blog hop SSS is offering a $25 gift certificate at each stop on the hop!   You can find the full list of hoppers on the Simon Says Stamp blog.   You should have arrived here from Dana Joy's blog.

Simon Says Stamp generously sent me several products to work with.  My first card uses the fun new Scalloped Arches Frames dies, the Bows for Days suite of products (stamps, stencil and dies) and the Thanks, Mom stamp set.  I also used a SSS tag die and beautiful papers from the Paper Rose Studio collection called Arabella's Garden.  Let's look at what I made.

When I started making my cards using the In My Heart products I wanted to use some of the patterned paper that I have (which is a lot, lol!) and came across the Arabella's Garden papers.  I think I got them in a SSS card kit a few years ago.  I found one piece that had this pretty bouquet of flowers on it and decided to die cut out the bouquet.  After die cutting the paper with the Scalloped Arches Frames die I die cut additional sets using thin cardstock.  I cut more for the frame so that the piece with the floral image would be slightly recessed.  I glued everything together and set them aside to dry.  I used the SSS A2 Frames die set to diecut the background from a piece of the patterned paper with a light pink pattern on it.  I used the same paper to stamp the sentiment in gray ink and then die cut with the tag die.  I used the Bows for Days stencil to create a pink bow, stamped the image over the stenciling and then die cut it with the matching die.  I then adhered everything to a white cardstock base.   This card will be going to my mom for Mother's Day!

When I started this card I thought it would be an Easter card because of the cute little bunny but went with Mother's Day instead.  This little guy is called Flower Bunny.  I die cut him from light gray cardstock and white cardstock.  I used residual ink on my blending brushes to add light pink for the nose and ears and light brown for the eyes.  The flower was die cut from pink glitter cardstock, the stem from green and then assembled it.  I used more patterned paper from the Arabella's garden papers for the background that I then embossed with a SSS embossing folder called Bloom Field.  I adhered that to a white cardstock base and then added the arched piece that I created using more patterned paper and two of the smaller Scallopped Arched Frames dies.  I added the bunny and flower to the background.  I had done a test run of stenciling all the bows in the Bows for Days suite of products using blue ink for the stenciling.  I thought the bow you see on the bunny would be the perfect size and I was right!   I added the bunny and then the sentiments that are from the Reverse Mom preprinted strips pack.  I just love that sweet little bunny!

Well, that is it for me!   Your next stop on the hop is Carol Hintermeier.  Don't forget to leave a comment for a chance to win a $25 gift certificate.  Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the hop!

Birch Press Design March Post #1

 Hello, hello!  Hope your March is going well.  Ours has been a little up and down.  Sunny and warm one day, cold and rainy the next!   I'm just glad that we seem to have dodged snow where I live!  I'm popping in to let you know that I have a post up on the Birch Press Design blog today.  Here is a little peek of what I created.

I hope you will head over to the blog to check out this spring inspired design!  Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day.

More St. Patty's Day

 Hello!  I back with a card for three challenges:  Freshly Made Sketches, Just Us Girls and Color Hues.  It is die week at JUGs and this time the challenge is green/luck so I decided to use the fun Printmaking Clovers stamp set for the card.  I didn't die cut anything from green cardstock, but there is green on the die cut tag so I hope that works for the challenge.  Anyway, let's see what I made.

The Color Hues combo is green and gold.  So pretty together, right?  Sometimes I struggle with this combo, but I think this time around I came up with a good balance for the colors.  I used Altenew Fresh Dye inks in Green Fields and Shadow Creek for two-thirds of the clovers and then VersaMark watermark ink for the final one-third so that I could emboss it with gold embossing powder.  I really like how it turned out.  I die cut the clovers with a Simon Says Stamp rounded top tag.  I die cut a white panel of cardstock, a portion of gold mirror cardstock and then trimmed down a strip of green glitter cardstock.  I adhered everything and then finished with the sentiment that features the word lucky (luck) in the sentiment and a bow made up of metallic gold twine and dark green twine.   I don't often make cards for St. Patrick's Day, but now I have two and so they will be going to a couple of friends. 

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

St. Patty's Day and Easter

 Hello!  Popping in to share the other two projects I made with products from the Simon Says Stamp Beautiful Moments release.  Let's look at what I made. 

This first card was made with the fun Printmaking Clovers stamp set.  I will be honest and tell you that I had a bit of a hard time figuring out exactly how the three different clover stamps in the set went together.  Once I got it figured out I was able to create this panel.  Still need a little bit of work on lining things up, but I like how it turned out.  I used three different Altenew Fresh Dye inks in Firefly, Grass Field and Shadow Creek.  I think this is my new favorite set of green inks!  Once done with the stamp I die cut the panel and then added glossy accents to a lobe of each clover and then poured on Rock Candy glitter.   I used my SSS A2 Frames to die cut green glitter cardstock to make a frame.  A larger rectangle was die cut from white cardstock, adhered to the green cardstock base and then I added the glitter frame.  The image panel was placed in the center and the I finished with the sentiment that I diecut with a banner die from my stash.

I just love how this Easter card turned out!  The Bouncy Bunny embossing folder and matching die are so much fun.  I embossed a piece of white cardstock with the embossing folder.  I then die cut the bunny from the four cardstocks you see (I was thinking pastel Peeps) and then embossed them in the embossing folder.  I die cut the white embossing panel down to a smaller size and covered it with all the little embossed bunnies.  I finished with the sentiment from a Simon Says Stamp Easter set from last year.  Simple, but so cute I think.  Going to add this one to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge of make it cute.  

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

Simon Says Stamp Beautiful Moments Release!

 Hello, hello!  Simon Says Stamp has a new release on their website and it is full of some beautiful products!  You can see the entire release here.  Simon was so generous and sent me several products to create with.  Today I'm going to share two of those projects with you.  Let's see what I made.

First up is a little decor piece that I created using the new Retro Daisies stencil, Ribbon Loop Frames dies and Inspiration Quotes stamp set.  Blue is my favorite color (along with green) and so that was my jumping off point.    I used Altenew Fresh Dye ink in Blueberry and Blue Horizon to stencil the daisies.  The Ribbon Loop frame was die cut from a bright green cardstock, as well as two additional layers from white.  The frames were then adhered together.  I tried several options of embossing on vellum and finally settled on white.  It is a little hard to read in the photo, but it looks really pretty in real life.  The frame is a Tim Holtz distress frame that I painted light blue.  Before the paint was dry I wiped some of it off for a little bit of a shabby look.   The stenciled piece was trimmed to fit behind the frame and then adhered to the backing piece using collage medium.   The frame was adhered using collage medium as well.  Once the main piece was dry I adhered the green ribbon frame using liquid adhesive, trimmed down the sentiment and adhered it using rolled up glue dots.  I finished things off with dots of Limoncello Nuvo jewel drops.  I will be sending this little gem off to the new Just Us Girls challenge as it is stencil week.  Thank you so much to JUGs team member Lisa for picking my card as the winner of last week's challenge! Will also be adding this to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge of anything goes.

Now for my second project.  This one uses a fun new background stamp called Pinwheel Party and will be heading over to the current Color Hues challenge of peach and teal.  Let's have a look.

I'm going to be real honest and tell you that peach is not my favorite color to work with, but I always like a good challenge and so I was determined to make something with those two colors.  When I saw the Pinwheel Party I thought it would be perfect to use for those two colors.  I decided to go with using more peach than teal just because teal is a much stronger color.   After stamping both colors I diecut the teal one with a SSS tag die, layered it on a shadow layer tag and added the tab and twine.  The peach background was die cut with a rectangle die and then added to a white cardstock base.  I adhered the tag and then finished with a sentiment from the Inspirational Quotes and some Nuvo drops in Morning Dew.

Well, that's it for me!  Thanks for stopping by and don't forget to check out the new Beautiful Moments release!