more clean and simple cards...

Hello!  Hope your weekend is going well.  Did you watch the launch of the SpaceX/Nasa mission?  We did and it was awesome!   Didn't get to see the Falcon rocket land because the camera cut out, but oh well!  Anyway... I have a couple of clean and simple cards to share today.  First up is a card for the Color Throwdown challenge.  I used the Spellbinders May small die kit and my Glimmer hot foil system with this one.  (Right now Spellbinders is having a sale on lots of Fun Stampers Journey items.  Just click on the banner below to be taken to the sale.)  I used one of the border dies to die cut my white cardstock panel and then adhered the panel to a white cardstock base.  There is a set of dies that cut words thank you and then a frame and panel that can be placed behind the words.  I die cut the words from turquoise cardstock and the back piece and frame from black cardstock.  I then adhered those pieces to the panel.  I foiled a butterfly using a turquoise foil, die cut it with the matching die and then adhered it to my panel.  Super, super simple.  Think I will add this to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge of anything goes.

This next card is for the current Pinkfresh Studio challenge as well as Freshly Made Sketches.   I pulled out an older Pinkfresh Studio stamp set that I have called Abstract Builder and used a brush stroke image and a leaf image from the set.  I stamped the brush stroke in the colors from the Pinkfresh challenge and then embossed the leaf image over the top in white.  I was inspired by a card made by Pinkfresh design team member Natalia that is featured on the Pinkfresh blog.  Her stripes are bolder than mine, but that was my inspiration and her white flower.  I oriented my stripes to work with the FMS layout.   I finished off the card with a sentiment from the set stamped in black ink and lots of Pretty Pink Posh sparkling clear sequins. 

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

Simon Says Stamp Crafty Hugs Release!

Hey everyone!Says Stamp new release called Crafty Hugs is live in the SSS store.  There are tons of fun new items and I already have my eye on a couple of them, lol!   Just click here to be taken directly to this new release (This is not an affiliate link.)   As with past Simon Says Stamp releas tes I have been fortunate to receive a new product to create with.  Simon Says Stamp generously provided me with the stamp set called Work of the Heart.  This set is jam packed full of medicalhemed images and also has a matching die set.  I made three cards and decided to focus more on the small images that come with the set.  The first card was created with the little clipboard image and the sentiments 'your kindness is off the charts' and 'thank you'.  I started by determining how many clipboards I wanted in each row and found that three worked perfectly.  I then stamped three rows of clipboards with Memento Tuxed  Simon o black ink and colored them very simply with Copic markers.  I then die cut the panel with a rectangle die.  The sentiment was stamped on vellum using VersaMark watermark ink and heat embossed with white embossing powder.  I spent a lot of time trying to get the larger sentiment centered and thought I had the smaller sentiment centered, as well, but after I did the embossing I realized that it wasn't quite centered.   Just one of those things that happens, right?  

The second card is my favorite.  There is a cute little sentiment that says 'thanks for patching me up' and it goes perfectly with the little teddy bear that has it's arm in a sling and a bandage on it's head.  I stamped the teddy in VersaFine Clair Acorn ink on smooth Bristol cardstock and then colored him with ZIG markers.  Again, the coloring was very simple.  I trimmed him out once he was dry.  I used the Thanks die that came in a previous Simon Says Stamp monthly kit that I had purchased.  I don't remember what month.  I had made something using the die and other supplies from the kit.  I thought I had put the die back in the box with all the other supplies, but when I went to get it out it was gone!  For several months I looked for it in vain and then one day last week I picked up a couple of SSS stamp set and there it was!  It came in a little plastic bag and I think that it got struck to the stamp sets!  Anyway... I die cut it from the Bristol cardstock and then colored it in an ombre fashion with the same brown markers I used to color the bear.  I die cut a few additional thanks from scrap paper and stacked them all together.  I centered the thanks on a white cardstock panel and then stamped the secondary sentiment underneath.  The bear was adhered on top of the thanks using foam dimensionals.  I'm going to add this one to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge of anything goes.

The final card was created base off of the sentiment 'caring is a work of the heart' and the stethoscope image from the set that has a heart in it.  Using some scrap paper I determined how I was going to stamp the stethoscope and what little add in images I would use.  I decided on one of the little hearts and the little cross image with a heart in the center.  I placed my cardstock panel in my stamping tool, positioned the stethoscope, stamped it with VersaFine Clair Nocturne ink and then turned it so that the opposite corner could be stamped in the same way.  I then repositioned the stethoscope and stamped the remaining corners in the same way.  I used a small acrylic block to stamp the hearts and crosses  I colored everything with color pencils.  The stethoscopes were colored with a dark pink Polychromos pencil because I discovered that you can get a stethoscope in just about any color you want... including dark pink!   After everything was colored I added Glossy Accents to the hearts and crosses.  I let everything dry and then figured out how I was going to stamp the sentiment.  I finally settled on using the heart from the Deco Heart die set.  I stamped the sentiment in black ink on red cardstock, die cut it and adhered it to the panel with foam dimensionals.

I had a lot of fun working with this stamp set.  I hope you enjoy my cards and thanks for stopping by!

It's Wednesday!

Hello and happy Wednesday!  Are you playing along with the Spring/Summer Coffee Lover's blog hop?  A Jillian Vance Design is a super sponsor and I have a card to share over on the AJVD blog featuring some fun new coffee inspired products from AJVD.  Here is a little peek:

Thanks for stopping by today.  I hope you will head over to the AJVD blog to check out my card!

flowers and a wreath...

Hello!  I'm popping in with a couple of cards today for challenges hosted by different stamp companies.  First up is a card for the May Pinkfresh Studio inspiration challenge.  There is a lovely color palette and we are being asked to create something inspired by a design team member.  I chose Kelly Lunceford.  She is so talented and has such an amazing ability to layer stamped images with die cuts.  I really loved a set of tags that she created with the Believe in Yourself stamps and dies.   I was able to purchase the Believe in Yourself stamps and dies during the Pinkfresh Studio release so I used them for my card.  I don't have a lot of Pinkfresh Studio products so I used other dies for my tag and the background panel.  The tag was die cut from white cardstock and then I inked the edges with Spun Sugar distress oxide ink.  I die cut the panel from light gray cardstock using a rectangle die from A Jillian Vance Design.  That was adhered to a white cardstock base.  I stamped the floral image using VersaFine CLAIR Morning Mist ink and then all the flowers and leaves using inks from Altenew.  I did discover that that large floral image has two flaws in it, but I figured out how to lessen the flaws for future stamping.  After all the flowers and leaves were stamp I die cut the image with the matching die.  I stamped the sentiment also using Morning Mist ink and then die cut it with the layering die that comes in the set.  I love that the die can be used to cut out the stamp sentiment and also used to layer the die cut!   I mounted the die cut piece to the tag using foam dimensionals and then mounted the tag to the gray panel with foam dimensionals, as well.   I also stamped a little separate sentiment on a die cut strip, but couldn't figure out a really good spot for it once I had adhered the word believe.  I ended up putting in down in the right corner.  I finished off the card with a white twine bow and Pretty Pink Posh sequins in sparkling clear.

The second card is for the MFT sketch and color challenges.  I used the outline Grande Greenery die set, as well as a very old MFT hello die.   There is absolutely no stamping on this card!  I die cut the mini scalloped rectangle from light gray cardstock.  I used two AJVD circle dies layered together to crate a little circle frame to act as the base for my wreath.  I then die cut the smaller two outline leaves from light yellow and a medium blue cardstock.  I layered the larger leaves on the bottom and then filled in with the smaller outline leaves.  The hello was die cut three times from dark gray cardstock and adhered together.  I then adhered the word directly to the wreath with glue.   Once everything was dry I used glue to adhered my wreath the light gray panel and then popped the panel up on a white cardstock base.  I finished by adding some tiny light yellow sequins from Pretty Pink Posh and slightly larger blue sequins from Simon Says Stamp.  At one point when I was placing the sequins on the wreath I had gotten up to check on something.  When I came back I didn't pay attention to where I had left my little jar of light yellow sequins and I spilled the majority of the jar on the floor.  I picked up what I could, but most of the sequins ended up in the vacuum cleaner!  I wasn't happy with myself about that, but that is life!

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

Hello Wednesday!

Hello there!  Hope your day is going well!  I'm popping in to let you know that I have a card up on the A Jillian Vance Design blog today and here is a little peek:

I hope you will head over to the AJVD blog to check out the full project.  Have a lovely day!

clean and simple cards...

Hello!  As my blog title indicates I have clean and simple cards to share today.  First up is a card for the May Altenew inspiration challenge as well as CAS(E) this Sketch.  I love super clean and simple designs, but lately haven't been doing a lot of them.  The CTS layout was the perfect way to get me back to my first love, lol!  The colors for the May Altenew inspiration are bold and bright and I wanted to use them in a way that is somewhat out of my comfort zone.  I think I accomplished that!  To start I played around with the layout a bit on some scrap paper, as well as with the stamps that I would use.  I used the Altenew Always There stamp set and inks from Altenew to stamp everything.  Because I wanted a look where there wasn't a lot of stamp inside the outline image I determined that I needed to use the final layering image for the flower I was stamping.  This image mainly stamps in the center of the flower, but also has a tiny outlying edge that stamps, too.  I did not want that so I made sure to mask off those little areas before inking.  The outline images (flower and two leaves) were stamped in Altenew Pure Graphite.  I then stamped the flower using Tide Blue.  I created simple masks for the flower and leaf and then masked off the flower and stamped the first leaf.  I masked that leaf and stamped the second leaf.  The center of the flower was stamped with Chamomile ink and the leaves with Snapdragon.  I love the sort of pop art feel the stamping has.  I finished things off with a sentiment from a different Altenew stamp set that I heat embossed with black WOW! embossing powder on a banner die cut from vellum.  The Altenew color combo is not one I would normally use, but I really like it so I may make another card before the challenge is over!

For my second card I used the colors from Color Throwdown and the clean and graphic layout from Freshly Made Sketches.  This card was really simple to put together because I used two different dies from the A Jillian Vance Design Sentiment Strips die set.  I die cut the largest (in width) strip from yellow cardstock and the blue and pink cardstock using the smallest (in width) die.  I then adhered all the pieces to a white cardstock panel that I die cut with the largest AJVD Stitched Dot rectangle die.  I decided that I wanted a super simple sentiment so I die cut my letters (using the AJVD Headline Type Alpha die set) from white cardstock and then I found a tiny friend sentiment in a stamp set (Altenew Folksy Florals) and stamped that on the blue strip using black ink.  I finished off the card with three little butterflies (from the AJVD Spring Birdy die set) cut from the pink, yellow and blue cardstock.   Another super clean and simple design that I really, really like!

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

Altenew May Release!

Hey friends!  You probably know, but Altenew released fun new stamps, dies and stencils yesterday.  Click on the banner below to go check out all the new products.   Altenew is also offering a free gift with each purchase!  (I am affiliated with Altenew and receive a small commission at no cost to you should you click on the link below and make a purchase.  Thank you!)

Thanks for stopping by!

Hello... Wednesday!

Hello everyone!  Wednesday has rolled around once again and that means I have a post on the A Jillian Vance Design blog.  Here is a little peek of my super simple design:

I hope you will head over to the AJVD blog to check out what I made.  Have a lovely day!

reverse confetti cards...

Hello!  Hope you are doing well and getting lots of crafty time in!  I'm popping in today with a couple of cards that I made using mostly products from Reverse Confetti.  First up is a card for the RC Stock Your Stash challenge, the Paper Players challenge and Fab Friday challenge.  When I finished the card the other day I wasn't too sure about it, but it is kind of growing on me.  Let me know what you think!  The RC Stock Your Stash challenge is to make a birthday card.  I have had this RC candles die for way too long and I have NEVER used it! Until now, lol!  I combined the die with the Rounded Stitched Window die and cut both from white cardstock.  I then cut thin strips of  white, pink and green glitter paper to fit behind the candles.  I die cut an additional frame with the Rounded Stitched Window die from woodgrain cardstock and then adhered that over the top.   The Snow Stars cover panel was die cut from Pool Party cardstock and adhered to a white cardstock base with foam dimensionals.  I adhered the candles piece and then added the sentiment from the RC Tulips stamp set that I stamped in black ink on a strip of cardstock.

The second card is for the Inspired by Challenge.  The inspiration photo was so intriguing and fun that I just had to play along with the challenge.   I used RC stamps and dies along with a rectangle die from A Jillian Advance Design.  The stamp set I used is called Tall Blooms and I used two images from the set that work well together.  I stamped an image that has flowers on it three times with Memento Tuxedo Black ink and then colored with Copic markers using pinks, purples and greens.  The leafy images were also stamped in Tuxedo Black and then colored with green Copic markers.  Die cut all the images and then arranged them on a panel of white cardstock die cut with the AJVD die.  I used another RC die to cut the little piece that my flowers are hanging from and cut it from some patterned paper with a woodgrain pattern on it.   Because of the die I used I was able to use the other end to adhere to the back of the first one to get it a little more strength.  That piece was adhere over the top of my flowers with foam tape and then I added a little twine bow.

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

cards to share...

Hello!  Hope you are having a good week.  I have a couple of card to share.  One card is for a challenge that I have played along with called Global Design Project.  When I find a new to me challenge I often bookmark them, but sometimes I don't ever go back to check out what their challenges might be.  The other day I was looking through my list of challenges and when I saw the current challenge at Global Design Project I immediately thought of a card that I had made using lots of Spellbinders products and shared on Instagram.  It was perfect for the challenge because it is a wedding card and that is the challenge at GDP!  I did some foiling with my Glimmer hot foil system, as well as lots and lots of die cutting.  I used the Spellbinders April small die kit to create the flowers.  There aren't any flower dies in the kit, but there are two dies that are used to create a bow.  I realized that if you layered them in a certain way you could create a flower!  The patterned paper used is from the Spellbinders March card kit called Feeling Hoppy.  I also used some pre-printed and die cut pieces from the ephemera pack from the Feeling Hoppy kit.  The April small die kit has some fun dies it is like a die to create a set of wedding rings.  I created them using gold foil cardstock and then some glitter cardstock for the diamond.  The card was finished off with the sentiment forever, also a die from the kit.   I have to be honest I'm not super happy with how this card turned out, sometimes that happens, right?

The second card is for the Color Throwdown challenge.  The colors this week are aqua, teal, gray and gold.  I decided to do some simple Copic color and used the pretty floral image from the Simon Says Stamp Stronger Together stamp set.  I stamped the image in Tuxedo Black and then colored it in the aqua (I went more blue) and teal colors.  I left the cardstock in my stamping tool and the stamp, as well so that once I was done I could ink up the stamp with watermark ink, stamp over the image and heat emboss with gold embossing powder from WOW! Embossing.  This is a little trick I learned from Yana Smakula.   I die cut it with a small rectangle die and then adhered it to the center of medium gray cardstock.  I then stamped one of the sentiments from the Stronger Together set on white cardstock with watermark ink and heat embossed with the same gold embossing powder.  I trimmed out the sentiment and adhered it to my card front.  Super simple, but I really like the gold embossing with the aqua and teal colors.  

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

Happy Wednesday!

Hello everyone!  Wednesday has rolled around once, again, and that means that I have a post up on the A Jillian Vance Design blog.  Here is a little peek of my card:

Hope you will head over to the AJVD blog to see the full project and to let me know what you think!  Have a lovely day!

just stamping...

Hey there!  Hope you are having a good weekend.  We are experiencing a wet weekend.  The perfect time to stay inside and stamp.   So that's what I did... I stamped!  I haven't just stamped in a long time.  Lately I have been doing a lot of stamping and then coloring because I want to improve my coloring skills, but the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches had me thinking about what I really enjoy the most... simple stamping... a piece of cardstock, inks and stamps.   There is something freeing about just stamping some well loved images in different colors of ink to create a design.  For this card I also used the colors from Color Throwdown.    I went through my stash of Stampin Up! sets and found one of my favorites called Bliss.  This set is very old and I was one you could only get through the Sale-a-bration promotion that SU! does each year.   It has several different images including a lovely damask one.  I used that image, the image of a small flower and a butterfly for my collage of images.  I stamped the damask image using Memento Rose Bud ink, the flower in Catherine Pooler Flirty Fushia and the butterfly in Catherine Pooler Bellini.   The sentiment is from a Simon Says Stamp set called Hello Darling.  I stamped the sentiment on a thin strip of cardstock that was created when I die cut the A Jillian Vance Design Diagonal Stripes cover plate for another project.  The main panel was die cut with a rectangle die from AJVD, adhered to a card base with foam tape and then I popped up the sentiment strip with additional foam tape.  I finished things off with some sequins from Simon Says Stamp.

Thanks for stopping by today... have a lovely one!