a valentine...

 Hey there!  Popping in to share a card that I made for the current Freshly Made Sketches challenge.  I have something that I'm working on, but took a little time out to make a quick card using bits and pieces from the Simple Stories Simple Vintage Love Stories suite of products.  Take a look.

The current card kit from Simon Says Stamp features patterned paper and ephemera from this line from Simple Stories and I just fell in love (ha ha!) with it.  So I ordered the 6x8 patterned paper pad and both packs of ephemera.   I used ephemera pieces from both packs along with the patterned paper.  Who doesn't love polka dots!   Putting the card together was quick and easy.  I added some Hero Arts Lacquer in clear sparkle to the hearts.  It is rather thick and so ended up causing one heart to curl up a bit and the lacquer on the other two hearts to crack.  I'm okay with it though as it add a little texture and character, I think.

 

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

Birch Press Design Blog Post

 Hello!  Popping in to let you know that I have a post up on the Birch Press Design blog today.  Here is a little look.

Thanks for stopping by today!

two cards to share...

 Hello!  I'm popping to share two cards that I made for a few challenges.  First up is a card that I made for Freshly Made Sketches and Color Hues.  Couldn't pass up that pretty combo of green and copper and my in real life friend, Greta, is guest designer this go round.  Just had to participate!

Before Christmas I was able to purchase a couple of die sets from Simon Says Stamp with a winter/Christmas sort of theme to them.  I wanted to use them and thought the Color Hues combo was the perfect opportunity.  I started by inking up some cardstock with Rustic Wilderness distress oxide ink.  I thought I had just the regular distress ink in Rustic Wilderness, but I don't.  Have to remedy that situation, lol!  I die cut the holly branch from that.  I then used Rustic Wilderness distress spray stain and Tree Lot distress mica spray to color some white distress heavy stock.  As that panel was drying I dipped the holly leaves in the little puddles of ink in my spray box to give a mica shine to the leaves.   The pine branches were die cut from the panel I created with the sprays once it was dry.  I used some copper glitter cardstock to die cut the berries and the strip.   I die cut the squares and the main panel from white woodgrain cardstock and layered them on a kraft cardstock base.  I had some fine copper thread that I used to create the messy loop of thread securing it with glue.  Then I layered on the holly branch and pine.  The sentiment was stamped in black ink, die cut with a label die and adhered with foam squares.  

My next card is super simple.  Take a look.

After I made the first card I thought I would make something for Color Throwdown, but struggled to come up with an idea.  I had been trying to think of something to make with recently purchased dies, but it just wasn't happening.  I almost threw in the towel on this one, but then decided to just do some simple stamping.  I used a tried and true favorite (and very old) Stampin Up! set called Kinda Eclectic.  I stamped all the images using the inks from the CTD combo and then finished with the sentiment in gray and three clear sequins.  Clean and simple!

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

little bird...

 Hello!  Hope you are warm where you live.   It is just a little too cold here in Western Washington (although not as cold as Iowa!) for me.  We have temperatures in the mid-teens right now.  Thankfully it is supposed to start warming back up in the next day or so.  I guess we are being punished for our crazy warm December, lol!  Anyway, to keep warm I made a card for the Freshly Made Sketches challenge and it works for the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge of cute critters.  I think my little bird is super cute!

I did some direct to paper inking to create the colors I wanted for the little twigs my bird is perched on.  The twigs die set is the Budding Twigs Contour Layers from Birch Press Design and the bird is called Perched Reed Bird from Memory Box (I don't think it is still available from MB, though).  It is one of my favorite dies!  I used a grey/brown ink from Hero Arts for the branch portion of each twig and then Spun Sugar and Picked Raspberry distress inks for the other layers.  I used my Waffle Flower Shader 0+ blending brushes to add the red and brown inks to my little bird.  I used Pinkfresh Studio inks for the bird.   I layed out where I wanted the twigs per the FMS layout and then added a little bit of blue/gray ink to the background.  This time I used a very old MFT ink that I have.    I adhered one twig to my panel then laid the rest of the twigs on the panel to get sentiment placement.  I stamped the happy sentiment directly on the panel.  The rest of the twigs and bird were added.  I finished with the stamped and die cut sentiment.  The sentiment comes from a Simon Says Stamp set called Garden Fresh.

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

Simon Says Stamp Sweetheart Release!

 (See my Birch Press Design post here)

Hello everyone!  I'm popping in today to share three cards that I made with the Hello Animals stamp set from the new Simon Says Stamp Sweetheart release that is available right now on the Simon Says Stamp website.   

This stamp set is perfect for the little kiddos in your life or for anyone who likes cute animal images!  When I created this first card I had my great niece in mind.  She will turn two in February and she has several four legged "siblings".  I stamped the puppy dog image on watercolor paper with VersaFine CLAIR Nocturne ink and then watercolored with my Jane Davenport watercolors.  I stamped the large happy birthday sentiment underneath with a fun red ink.  The little party hat was also watercolored and then trimmed out when it was dry.  I die cut the stamped panel, adhered it to a cardbase and then added the little party hat with foam squares.   I'm going to add this to the Paper Players challenge of celebrations. 

This card was inspired by a friend who loves orange and white kitties.  She recently lost her sweet kitty, Bonita, and even though I already sent her a card I think I will be sending her this one.  I stamped the kitty four times with Memento Tuxedo Black ink and then colored very simply with Copic markers.  I die cut the panel and adhered it to a card base.  I stamped the sentiment on vellum with a cream colored embossing powder and then die cut it with a smaller rectangle die.  The vellum panel was attached using rolled up glue dot placed behind the letters. 

This last card is just like the first card except that I colored the bunny image using Copic markers.  I stamped the glasses and the bow and colored them with Copics.  I cut out the center of the glasses so you can see her eyes.  I added some Crystal Lacquer to the glasses and bow.  I really love how this card turned out!  The glasses just crack me up!  I'm adding this one to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge of cute critters.

Make sure you head over to the Simon Says Stamp store to check out the entire release.  Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

Birch Press Design Post

 Hello everyone!  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:

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

sweet winter wishes

 Hello!  I'm back with another card.  What???!!  Two cards in two days!  Haven't done that in a long time, lol!  Anyway, I have a card today for several challenges:  Freshly Made Sketches (layout), Time Out (theme of new), Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge (something new) and Color Hues.   My in real life friend, Greta, is now a member of the Time Out design team so I just had to play along with their challenge.  Here is what I made.

The Color Hues challenge is to use light blue and dark blue.  Couldn't pass that one up and I really like the sketch at FMS so I decided to put them together.   My new item is the cute little tag that I placed my Birch Press Design Felicity Snowflakes on.  It came in a Simon Says Stamp card kit that I purchased in the fall and had never used.  After die cutting the tags and the snowflakes I adhered everything together and then added the white twine to each tag.  I decided to have the center tag sport a bow instead of the way I did the other two.  Thought it looked cute.  Then I had to find a sentiment that would work with the small tags.   I hunted through my supplies and finally found this cute little sentiment set from My Favorite Things called Snowglobe Sentiments.  The size of the sentiment was perfect for the size of the tag.  I stamped it using a dark blue ink on the same light blue cardstock I used for the tags.  I adhered everything to a white cardstock panel and then added light blue gems to the center of the snowflakes and to the sentiment strip.

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

Happy New Year!

 Happy new year, everyone!  Can't believe it is 2024!  Where did 2023 go, lol?!  I spent the end of 2023 doing a lot of cross stitching and not a lot of cardmaking.  Kinda lost my mojo for card making, but I'm trying to get it back now as I have several projects that I need to complete in the coming days.  To help me out I decided to use the Simon Say Stamp Instagram challenge of white on white and a couple of new to me products from Poppystamps and Memory Box.  Take a look at what I made.

Poppystamps had an after Christmas sale and so I decided to take advantage of it.  One of the items I purchased the beautiful Scandinavian Snowflake Plate.  I die cut that from Memory Box glitter cardstock in a lovely off white and adhered it to my card base.   In my package from Poppystamp I received three free gifts and one of them was this fun Oval Snowman Collage die.  I die cut him from white cardstock and his hat and scarf from the off white glitter cardstock.   The sentiment is from a lovely Simon Says Stamp set called Snow Love that I got as a free gift.  Don't you just love free?  I do, lol!  I stamped the sentiment in black down in the corner.  I finished with a few white gems from Spellbinders.  I'm going to add this card to the January Poppystamps challenge of sparkle and to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge of something new as the dies and stamp set are new to me!

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!