About Me

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I love crafting, especially rubber stamping. Most weekends I can be found surrounded by paper, rubber stamps and ink.

Monday, May 19, 2025

Scribbled A Note

Hello,

Last week I played around with some of the new Spellbinders monthly club sets and made several cards with them. While I don't have any kiddos in school I still managed to make several fun birthday cards.

For my post today, I have one of them. This one uses Kim's sketch for Freshly Made Sketches. In addition, since I used a rainbow theme, I think it works to post to  this week's Mood Board Challenge at Just Us Girls.







I used the Stencil , the Betterpress plate, the Glimmer plate and sentiments, and the Embossing Folder of the Month for May to make my card. I started with the stencil using pastel shades in rainbow colors. (I think these little fat pencils are so cute). I used black ink for the Betterpress alphabet plate then ink blended darker rainbow shades over it. For the window, I used an older SU star die, then added one of the Glimmer plate pencils. The sentiment at the bottom is also from the Glimmer plate set. The Sending Cheer sentiment is from a previous Spellbinders monthly club stamp set.

Here's the inside of the card. The sentiments are from Spellbinders. The pencils are left overs from another card I made using the Glimmer plate.



This card is on its way to our little friend in Brooklyn, NY who turns five years old later this week. He is very much into do arty things, so I think he will like this colorful card.

Thanks for checking in,
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: Spellbinders Confetti Wishes and Send & Seal stamp sets
Paper: Gina K Designs card stock
Ink: Gina K Designs
Other: Spellbinders May clubs, Layering Stencil, Glimmer, Embossing Folder, Betterpress plate, Glimmer and Betterpress Systems, Glimmer silver hot foil, Stampin' Up Star die, Gina K Designs Master Layouts 2 dies and blending brushes, Connect glue, foam squares




Monday, May 12, 2025

On Your Big Day

 Happy Monday Peeps,

I'm playing with Ann's color challenge for this week's The Paper Players. Her choice of colors are so pretty.  I thought they would work well with stencils, and I have a new-ish GKD large floral layering stencil that wanted to use. After finishing the stenciling, I decided I wanted to make something other than a basic card. As the image is large enough, a gate fold card came to mind.

For additional interest, I used a spotlight technique for the center front. I simply stenciled two panels, making them as close as possible, then used a circle die to cut the center out of one of the panels and the mat from Berry Burst, then popped up the circle over the center matching the flower lines. 

The greetings are heat embossed with black EP on vellum and cut with the matching dies and backed with Berry Burst CS. The edging lace die is from the GKD Master Layouts 18 die set and the pink pearls are also from GKD.

I took a couple of pictures of the front, one standing (please forgive the shadows) and one lying flat.








For the inside I stamped images from another new-ish GKD stamp set called Gentle Silhouettes. I like the greeting for inside a birthday card.




I have a couple of good friends who have birthdays this summer, so I'll save this for one of them.

Enjoy your week,
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: Graceful Greetings and Gentle Silhouettes sets by Gina K Designs
Paper: SU Bubble Bath, Berry Burst card stock, Gina K Designs Layering Weight White card stock, SSS vellum
Ink: SU Berry Burst, Bubble Bath and Lost Lagoon, Gina K Designs embossing ink
Other: Gina K Designs Labyrinth Dahlia Layering Stencils, Master Layouts 18, Stitched Circles, and Master Layouts 1 dies, Brutus Monroe black embossing powder, heat tool, Gina K Designs pink pearl embellishments, Connect glue, SU Dimensionals

Sunday, May 11, 2025

Fruity

Happy Mom's Day to all the Moms out there. I hope someone is spoiling you a little (a lot) today!  Being far away from my mom, it's really just another day. I sent her card earlier in the week, and I spoke with her yesterday.

I have a couple of fun and fruity cards for you today. I'm playing along with Vicki's Word Week challenge at Just Us Girls, and I've used Linda's sketch for this week's Freshly Made Sketches challenge for one of my cards.

I keep thinking I need to start using more patterned papers when I make cards. I have so much of it but rarely seem to use it. I made a point to use some on these cards, although it really didn't make a dent in what I have in this SU line called Tutti Frutti.

The stamp set used for both cards is from Concord & 9th called Fruit For Thought.





This stamp set includes several fruits and small sentiments as well as a very large focal type sentiment, which is what I used on the second card.



Using several of the patterns in the pack I layered them on the front of the card base. The large sentiment is heat embossed on yet another pattern. I did two layers of embossing powder, the first layer is black EP and the second layer is the old SU Dazzling Diamonds EP.  I cut the sentiment out with the coordinating die and popped it up over a Real Red panel.

The inside of the first card is stamped with "Thanks a mellow," and the inside of the second card says "You're sweet." 

Enjoy your day!
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: Fruit For Thought set by Concord & 9th
Paper: SU card stock and SU Tutti Frutti DSP
Ink: Concord & 9th and Gina K Designs Embossing pad
Other: MFT Stitched Rectangle die, Brutus Monroe black embossing powder, SU Dazzling Diamonds embossing powder, heat tool, Connect glue, SU Dimensionals



Saturday, May 10, 2025

Dive Into Happiness

 Hello,

Well, I'm finally feeling better, just a little lingering cough left. The best part is my energy has returned so I spent more time creating today instead of sitting around a reading.

I wanted to get a card made for the current Color Hues challenge, where Marcia has a summery color duo of blue and yellow. I pulled out some Spellbinders stencils and sentiments and combined them with some Lawn Fawn dies to make this "looking forward to summer" card.




After putting the pool over the stenciled background, I thought the card needed a little something, so I added the silhouette palm trees, which led to the heat embossed sentiment on black. 

For the inside of the card, I used the same beach ball stencil and another summer sentiment.




I hope you are enjoying your weekend!
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: Typewriter Adventure Sentiments set by Spellbinders
Paper: Gina K Designs card stock
Ink: Simon Says Stamp Pawsitively Saturated inks, Gina K Designs embossing ink
Other: Summertime Graphics and Summertime Spray stencils by Spellbinders, Stitched Pond and Palm Trees dies by Lawn Fawn, Brutus Munroe Alabaster embossing powder, heat tool, blending brushes, Concord & 9th yellow enamel dots

Tuesday, May 6, 2025

Graduation Congratulations

Hello,

It's graduation season and I have three kiddo friends who are graduating this year. Two from high school and one from the eighth grade. 

Today's card is for one of the high schoolers. She lives just down the street from us. They moved by us when she was around one years old. Both of her parents are veterinarians and that is her goal as well. She will be heading to college and my alma mater, Sacramento State University here in Ca.

Using Joanne's theme of old and new for this week's Paper Players challenge, here's her card. I'm also posting to the current Just Us Girls challenge as it's Die Week. I used many dies for my card.






My new is the background made with a previously unused Betterpress plate from Spellbinders. It's the March 2025 Betterpress Plate of the month aud has coordinating layering stencils to color it with. I used the plate in the Glimmer hot foiling system foiling with gold before using the stencils to add the blue shades.

My old is the graduation cap die and the sentiment. Both are from Taylored Expressions and I'd say they are at least 10 years old, if not older. I choose Navy and white for the caps because the school colors are those. Seemed appropriate.

The 2025 numbers and dies are also from Spellbinders. They are Betterpress plates which I again foiled in gold onto navy blue card stock and used the coordinating dies to cut them out.

The sentiment is heat embossed with white EP on navy card stock. 

The inside is simple with another sentiment from the same Taylored Expressions Graduation stamp set as the front sentiment.



I'm feeling somewhat better, but the drippy nose remains. Hopefully, only for a few more days. I need to feel well enough to get a Mother's Day card made.

Enjoy your week,
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: Dream Big stamp set by Taylored Expressioins
Paper: Gina K Designs
Ink: Gina K Designs
Other: Spellbinders Betterpress Plates Quilted Memories and Large Numbers set, stencils and dies, Taylored Expressions Graduation Cap die, Brutus Munroe Alabaster embossing powder, hear tool, Glimmer Hot Foiling System, Spellbinders gold foils, blending brushes, Gina K Designs Master Layouts 2 die set, foam tape, Connect liquid glue

Monday, May 5, 2025

Lets Celebrate You

 Good Monday Morning Peeps,

I have my card for this week's Freshly Made Sketches Challenge this morning. This blog post will be a quickie, because, #1:  I'm cutting the time very close and #2: I feel like crap! Somewhere on my drive home from my mom's house last week I picked up a nasty cold bug and it just doesn't want to leave. Some times I feel pretty good, then wham, not so much. Any-hoo, I made this quick card yesterday afternoon using Jen's sketch.




I've used all Gina K Designs supplies on this one. The background flowers and dots, and the brick border are stencils. The background stencils and the sentiment are from the Spring Fling bundle. The pretty lacy border die is from her Master Layouts 18 die set.

My plan for today is reading and heading to CVS for some cough drops and more tissues. Hope you all are feeling fine.

Thanks for stopping by,
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: Spring Fling stamp set
Paper: Gina K Designs White Layering Weight and Black Onyx card stock
Ink: Gina K Designs
Other: Spring Fling layering stencil, Brick Wall stencil, Master Layouts 18 die set, Stitched circle die, gold dot embellishments, all from Gina K Designs

Thursday, May 1, 2025

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hello Peeps,

It's been almost two months since I've done any stamping and posting to challenges. My craft room is also our guest room and my mom came to spend about six weeks with us beginning the second week of March. Before going to pick her up, I dismantled my craft room to make it into a bedroom for her. 

We had a great visit and I took her home about a week and a half ago, staying and visiting with her and my sister at their house in northern California, finally returning home on Tuesday. I was able to get my crafty things put back into their spots and today I made a card. A very simple card.

Since yesterday was the final Wednesday for April, it's was Woodblock Wednesday. An opportunity to pull out those rarely used wood mounted stamps, and I used the current Paper Players Sketch for my card's layout.








These wood mounted stamps are some I've had since the late 1990's. I stamped the cookie repeatedly using embossing ink and heat embossed using chocolate embossing powder. It's even chocolate scented. I think I bought it when I bought these stamps at Stamp La Jolla. Although it's a little clumpy, surprisingly it still embossed well. After embossing, I colored the cookies with blending brushes using Honey Mustard and Warm Cocoa inks.

I used dies from various Gina K Designs Master Layouts sets for the cutouts.

For the inside, I stamped a simple sentiment.




It's great to have my room back to normal and to be stamping again. 

Thanks for looking in,
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: Wood mounted Chocolate Chip Cookie stamp from Limited Edition Stamps. Wood mounted sentiment stamp from Judith
Inside sentiment stamp from Gina K Desings
Paper: Gina K Designs
Ink: Gina K Designs
Dies: Gina K Designs
Other: Chocolate embossing powder, heat tool, foam tape