Hello and happy national coffee day! I'm not a coffee drinker, although I do enjoy a Peppermint Mocha a few times a year. My preferred drink is a London Fog tea latte with soy. And... sorry... I'm not a fan of Pumpkin Spice lattes, but that didn't stop me from creating a Pumpkin Spice themed card. The Coffee Lovers blog hop is going on so make sure you hop around for a chance to win fabulous prizes! I started by stamping the mug and pumpkin from the Hug in a Mug stamp set on white cardstock with Memento Tuxedo Black ink. By the way make sure you head over to the AJVD blog for a chance to win the Hug in a Mug stamp set. It is a 6x8 stamp set full of great images and sentiments! I then colored the mug with Copic markers in a green somewhat similar to the green from that well known purveyor of all things coffee! The stripe on the mug and the pumpkin were colored with Copic markers in a bright pumpkin yellow/orange color. The leaves were colored with a mix of the yellow/orange colors and red and brown. Once I was done coloring I die cut the images with the matching dies. I then colored the edges of the images with a black ink pen to get rid of the white outline. I adhered the pumpkin to the center of the mug. I die cut some bright orange paper with a subtle circle pattern on it with the largest Stitched Dot rectangle die and then some off white cardstock with the new Mini Hearts cover plate die and adhered the two together using Just Glue It adhesive. I die cut the strip from kraft cardstock using the largest die from the Sentiment Strip 2.0 die set and stamped it with the sentiment I adhered the strip and the mug, then finished off the card with the steam piece I die cut from kraft cardstock.
Hello! Hope you are having a wonderful day! The stormy weather that we have had the last few days seems to have cleared up and the upcoming week is supposed to be really nice! That is fall in the Pacific Northwest! I have two cards to share that I made using Spellbinders products. First up is a card that I made using the newly released Jane Davenport for Spellbinders stamp set called Beautiful Dreamer. I was immediately drawn to this stamp set because I took ballet for many years when I was younger and the image of the dancer reminds me of that time in my life! I started by determining exactly where my dancer would go and then stamping her tutu. I created a mask for the tutu, placed it on top of the stamped image and then stamped my dancer. Originally I was just going to do the stamping as indicated, but decided to stamp the tutu a second time on vellum using watermark ink and gold embossing powder. This was then trimmed out to be placed on the stamped image. Colored the image very simply with Faber-Castell polychromos pencils and then adhered the vellum tutu. I real life you see a hint of the pink tutu through the vellum overlay. I stamped the sentiment and colored it with one of the pinks I used to color the dancer. I was going to stop there, but she was looking a little plain so I stamped one of the crown images that came in the set on vellum with the same gold embossing powder, trimmed it out and popped it up. The set also includes a pair of toe shoes. Next time I ink up this little dancer I'm going to give her some pink toe shoes!
The second card was made using the September Spellbinders small die kit. The die set is so very pretty, but also very delicate. I used the color combo from Fab Friday so I will be posting my card over there. I die cut the frame from light blue cardstock and then all the little flowers from navy blue and yellow cardstocks. They were all layered on and then I adhered the frame to a white cardstock base. I will admit that my diamond is not completely squared up! Next time I use this die set I will make sure to line things up better!
Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day! Some affiliate links used in this blog post. Please know that I really appreciate it if you use my affiliate links to shop!
Hello! The weekend is here. Hopefully some of you have something fun planned. Our weather isn't that great right now so maybe we will just stay home! Anyway, I have a card to share for a couple of challenges: Color Throwdown and CAS(E) this Sketch. Have you ever thought you had a craft supply and it turns out you don't? That happens to me alot, lol! But with today's card that didn't happen. I thought I had distress oxide in Rusty Hinge and I actually did! I ink blended the Rusty Hinge onto a piece of smooth bristol cardstock fading it out at the bottom. I cut the piece in two and then embossed the pieces making sure that the raised part of the embossing was on the backside of my inked piece. I adhered the pieces to an off white cardstock based. I used the smaller leaf cluster from the Simon Says Stamp Eucalyptus Leaves die set to cut light blue and aqua cardstock twice. I then adhered an aqua cluster to a blue cluster and adhered to the lower inked panel. I adhered the remaining clusters and then adhered it but with the colors reversed. I finished the cluster with a little wooden heart. The sentiment is from the Simon Says Stamp Thanks & Encouragement Word Mix 1 stamp set. I stamped all the sentiments on off white cardstock and die cut with the matching die. I then adhered the sentiment I chose to the card front. Also going to add this to the Simon Says Stamp flickr challenge of anything goes.
Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!
Hello and happy Wednesday everyone! A Jillian Vance has a new release in the store and I'm sharing not one, but two cards made with new products over on the AJVD blog today. Here is a little peek of those cards:
I also wanted to draw your attention to some bundles that A Jillian Vance Design now has available for purchase and links to each bundle:
Fall Flower Card Bundle (link)
There are two additional bundles that I do not have photos for, but here are the links: Poinsettia Party Die Bundle and the Rudy & Friends Gift Card Die Bundle. These are great deals so check them out!
I hope you will head over to the AJVD blog to check out my projects! Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!
Hello friends! I'm popping in today to share a project I made with a newly released stamp set from Jane Davenport for Spellbinders called Walk With Courage. This set has images of two women created in a stylized manner, as well as the sentiment and a few other smaller images. This card definitely made me think of those strong women I know who are walking with courage right now. I decided to do some simple watercoloring with the image and it turned into a bit of disaster so I started over and heat embossed the image using gold embossing powder. I pulled out some ephemera pieces from the Spellbinders July 2020 card kit called Vintage Mementos. The butterfly I used in the layout is a soft yellow so I went with that color for her dress, shoe and hair. I used distress ink in scattered straw for the coloring. Once the image was dry I trimmed it down and adhered it to a card base. I heat embossed the sentiment walk with courage in the same gold embossing powder on vellum and trimmed out the circle. I then spent some time arranging the sentiment strip and the butterfly to find an arrangement that I liked. It turns out that my arrangement is somewhat similar to the sketch at CAS(E) this Sketch so I will be posting her over there. I really like how this turned out. Now to determine who I will send this to in the future! I will be back later in the week with another card using a new Jane Davenport stamp set so stay tuned!
Hey there! I'm popping in with a couple of cards that I made for some MFT challenges. Their annual card design superstar contest is going on. I decided to challenge myself and enter the coloring virtuoso contest, as well as the clean and simple challenge. First up is the card for the coloring challenge. I have a lot of MFT's beautiful floral stamp sets and I used the Rose Garden set to make my card. I stamped the image on smooth bristol cardstock with VersaFine CLAIR Nocturne and then colored with ZIG markers. Because this is a coloring challenge I challenged myself to color the images using two very different colors. I started by coloring the flowers using a pink ZIG and once that layer was dry I added in light yellow. I pretty pleased with my coloring on this image. I die cut a piece of white cardstock with a label die from MFT (I think it is no longer available) and then trimmed down the two pieces even further to widen the center. I had inked up a piece of bristol with Speckled Egg distress oxide ink, die cut it with a mini scalloped rectangle die from MFT adhered it to the center of my card base and then trimmed down the sides. I adhered the other pieces with foam tape and then added the rose image to the center. The sentiment is from another MFT set and was embossed with white on vellum and die cut with an MFT fishtail banner die. A larger fishtail banner was die cut, layered with the first one and adhered to the card front.
The second card is for the clean and simple challenge for the Card Design Superstar. For this card I used the super cute Stacey Yacula Sending Sweet Celebration Wishes. This card is going to my sister-in-law who has a couple of turtles. I stamped the little guy and a cupcake on smooth bristol and colored with ZIGs just like I did with the first card. After coloring everything I die cut the images with the matching dies. I used another small rectangle die from MFT to cut the little piece behind the turtle and the cupcake. I cut a strip of black and white striped patterned paper and adhered that on one side of my cardstock base. I trimmed down a panel of white cardstock and adhered that to the front with foam tape. I then created a messy loop of black thread, adhered the rectangle on top and then added the turtle and cupcake. The sentiment from the same set was stamped on a fishtail banner with Nocturne ink, trimmed down to fit the design and adhered.
And I didn't use my Glimmer foil system! I think about 2 years ago I purchased a Simon Says Stamp monthly card kit that included some Gina K. Designs Foil Mates sheets. They were fall inspired and exclusive to the Simon Says Stamp card kit so there is not information about them. At the time I did not have anyway of foiling the images (that I didn't know about) so I set them and the foil sheets I received aside for a later date. Finally about a year ago I decided that I needed to figure out how to foil the sheets and make something with them. So I got on the internet and started searching and found a couple of blog posts (don't remember the blogs... sorry!) and learned that it is possible to use an iron to do the foiling. I gave it a try and it worked! It wasn't easy to foil using the iron, but the end result was actually pretty darn good. Once I was done I die cut each of them with a rectangle die and then promptly set them aside! Recently I was going through my little box of scrap pieces and found them, again. This time I was determined to turn them into cards and I did with two of the pieces. Before turning them into cards I decided to color the images as I had seen someone else coloring foiled images. I think that person (I'm not sure who it was) used Copic markers, but I decided to use color pencils to be on the safe side. The first card is this pretty daisy like image and sentiment that I foiled using a deep red foil that was in the card kit. I used two shades of red Polychromos pencils to color the flowers and then added a little bit of shadow with a dark brown. The leaves were colored with just one shade of red. I adhered the panel to a dark red cardstock base. I'm going to add this one to the September Gina K. monthly mix challenge. Here is a close up of the foiling.
With the second card I was able to use three different colors of foil to foil the falling leaves and then an foil with a fun pattern to foil the sentiment. I colored the leaves using the some of the colors from the current Color Throwdown. To bring in the brown from the combo I mounted the panel on a dark brown card base. The top and bottom leaves were colored with several different Polychromos colored pencils to create the color blends. I did this so that one leaf was more yellow in color and the other was more orange in color, but still a blend of the two colors. I think they turned out pretty well. The middle leaf was obviously colored red (same colors of pencils that I used on the daisy image. I'm also including a close up of the foiling. While it was fun learning that you can foil with an iron I'm glad that I now have a laminator that I can use to foil should I get additional Gina K. foil mates sheets. May enter this one in the monthly mix challenge, too.
Hello! Hope you are having a good weekend. It is Labor Day weekend here in the US so that means a three day weekend for many people. We don't have any plans other than to maybe hit a couple of local antique stores. My youngest loves to go antiquing! I have three cards to share so I will get right to them. First up is a card for CAS(E) this Sketch. When I saw the sketch it made me think of one of the Spellbinders card kits that I have (one from January 2020) and some of the die cut pieces in that kit. I used some gold glitter leaves, a die cut word and a butterfly from those pieces to create my card. The die cut pieces usually some in a set of two so I adhered the two together to give the piece a little more heft. I also adhered the two butterflies together, but that is so I could lift up the top set of wings. I die cut some white cardstock with a rectangle die and then layered on the gold leaves and the die cut word. I positioned the butterfly below the word and then adhered the panel to a light gray cardstock base.
The next card is for two challenges: Freshly Made Sketches and Reverse Confetti Stock Your Stash - fall/halloween ( I went with fall). I recently got a set of watercolors from Altenew, the 12 piece set and decided to try them out with stamps and dies from the RC Stained Glass Butterflies and Fall Foliage stamp and die sets. I also used some of the metallic Altenew watercolors on the leaves. I stamped everything with VersaFine CLAIR Acorn ink and then colored them. I went more muted on the leaves and tried to go brighter on the butterfly. I linked up three of the maple leaves together and then adhered them to my off white cardstock panel. The butterfly was adhered with foam dimensionals. Hopefully you can see the sketch in my arrangement. I stamped the sentiment from Fall Foliage on vellum with VersaMark watermark ink, applied gold embossing powder from WOW! and heat set it. I trimmed the strip down and then wrapped the strip around the panel and secured it in the back. 
Final card is for Color Throwdown. I used a single flower from the MFT Rose Garden stamp set and did some ink blending with distress oxide inks in Salty Ocean and Peeled Paint using the MFT Rectangle Extraordinaire stencil. I die cut the flower, put tape on the back of the negative space, inserted the flower back in and then stamped it with Memento Tuxedo Black ink. I colored the image using Copic markers in the same colors as the last time I colored an MFT floral image... purple! The ink blended panel was die cut with a rectangle die and then I adhered the flower using foam tape. I stamped the sentiment from a different MFT stamp set on vellum with VersaMark, applied black embossing powder (from WOW) and heat set it. I trimmed out a strip and then wrapped it around the panel and secured it in the back with adhesive. The panel was adhered to a kraft cardstock base. Going to add this one to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge of Stamp It.
Hello and happy STAMPtember everyone! Can you believe that we have rolled around to another one?! I'm participating in a blog celebration (or party) put on by Simon Says Stamp to celebrate this yearly event. This isn't a blog hop per se, but a large gathering of lots of crafters sharing tons of inspiration. You can start at the beginning by heading to the Simon Says Stamp blog. And since this a party you have to have prizes and surprises, right?! Well check out the banner for your opportunity to get a free stamp set for a $100 order using the code! The are other codes and offers to be found so make sure you check out the whole blog party! I have two cards and a set of tags to share with you today that I made using the beautiful Prismatic Snowflakes. You can find the new release here. I also used the Holiday Snowflake Tag die set, as well as sentiments from the Frozen Fractals stamp set and Stained Glass Greetings stamp and die set. 
First up is a set of tags that I made with the two largest snowflakes from the Prismatic Snowflakes set along with the Holiday Snowflake Tag die set. I stamped the snowflakes on white cardstock with VersaMark watermark ink and then heat embossed them using pewter embossing powder. The smaller snowflakes were then inked with Speckled Egg and Tumbled Glass distress oxide inks and the larger snowflakes with Tumbled Glass and Salty Ocean distress oxide inks. I trimmed out the snowflakes and layered them on tags that I die cut from white cardstock and Simon Says Stamp Sea Glass cardstock. I also die cut the snowflake from the tag set from Memory Box glitter cardstock that has a light blue tint to it. Those were layered on the tags and the snowflakes layered on tope. I finished off each tag with different embellishments. Large jewels from Pretty Pink Posh for one set of tags and small snowflake sequins and Pretty Pink Posh jewels for the other. Love how they turned out!
The next project is a card that was inspired by some of the beautiful cards that the super talented Yana Smakula creates! She is so good at creating dramatic backgrounds using stamps and then filling in the spaces with jewels or sequins. I'm not so great at creating background with stamps, but was able to pull this one off because there are so many snowflakes in the set making it easy to arrange the background. I simply placed the largest snowflake in the center then around additional snowflakes around the top and partway down the sides. I stamped the images with VersaMark watermark ink, then flipped my cardstock panel around, removed the large center snowflake, left the others in place and stamped. I applied gold embossing powder (from WOW Embossing) and heat set. Once that was done I used Chipped Sapphire and Black Soot distress inks to darken the edges of my dark blue panel leaving the center uninked. The panel was then trimmed down slightly with a rectangle die. I stamped the word peace from the Stained Glass Greeting set on vellum with watermark ink, applied gold embossing powder and heat set. This was then wrapped around the panel and secured in the back. I stamped the sentiment (also from Stained Glass Greetings) on the same dark blue cardstock with watermark ink and heat set with gold embossing powder. This was trimmed down and popped up on the vellum strip. Then I filled in most of the gaps using some pretty gold pearls that I had left over from making Christmas cards with my Glimmer and a Spellbinders card kit. I absolutely love how this card turned out!
The last card was something that I just decided to do well... at the last minute. Originally I was only going to do the card and tags, but was enjoying making things with the stamp set and just couldn't stop! I used a sentiment from the Frozen Fractals stamp set and one of the dies from the Christmas Foliage die set. I stamped the large snowflake on vellum with watermark ink and then heat embossed with a sparkly white embossing powder from WOW Embossing. The snowflake was then trimmed out and a large Pretty Pink Posh Jewel added to the center. I then die cut the leafy sprig from some of the same Memory Box glitter cardstock I used on the tags. I die cut a panel of Sea Glass cardstock and arranged my snowflake and the leafy sprigs on the front. I didn't adhere everything down at that point as I still needed to stamp the sentiment. I placed the sentiment where I wanted it, removed everything and then stamped it using VersaFine CLAIR Nocturne ink. Everything was then glued in place and the panel adhered to a white cardstock base. I finished off the design with additional jewels.
