About Me

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

Friday, August 22, 2025

Birds and Butterflies in Red and Blue

TGIF Peeps,

The current Color Hues challenge is red and blue. Initially, I had pulled out some of the recent nautical dies from my Spellbinders collection to use, but then totally switched gears. I was looking through my stencils and embossing folders for a background and ran across an older Taylored Expessions stencil that makes four card fronts at once, with images of birds, flowers and butterflies. I decided to see how they looked in red and blue. The colors may be a little unexpected for these images, but I kind of like how they turned out.













The TE stencil set came with some pre-printed strip sentiments. I hot foiled them with some red foil to use on the cards then added some embellishments to each card. 

Enjoy your weekend,
Colleen

Supplies
Fit and Flutter Bundle by Taylored Expressions includes layering stencils, dies, strip sentiments
Paper: Gina K Designs
Ink: Gina K Designs
Other: Taylored Expressions Burlap embossing folder, Gina K Designs Master Layouts 2 dies, Fuse Foiling System, Red Velvet hot foil, misc embellishments

Wednesday, August 20, 2025

Trick or Treat

Hello all,

Elizabeth has a super fun Clean and Simple challenge for this week's Paper Players called Critters. Now, I have no shortage of critter images, so the hard part was deciding which to use. I finally settled on this cute Trick or Treater die from Spellbinders, and popped him onto a stenciled background.




I'd give him lots of treats, wouldn't you? This is a sweet, small die set and very easy to put together.

For the inside of the card, I used a Spellbinders clear stamps set from las year.




Enjoy your evening. I'm waiting for the finals of the Mixed Doubles special at this year's US Open. I watched the matches yesterday and they were indeed fun. Looked as if the players enjoyed this new addition to the tournament as well.

Colleen

Supplies
Stamps:  Autumn Wishes set by Spellbinders
Paper: Gina K Designs 
Ink: Gina K Designs
Other: Spellbinders Colorful Pumpkins stencil set, Woof-or-Treat die set, Hoppy Halloween (front sentiment) die set.



Monday, August 18, 2025

Make A Splash

Hi and Happy Monday Peeps,

It's been a minute since my last post. Not much stamping/paper crafting going on here lately. Instead, I've been doing some crocheting (baby blanket) and quilting. Both of those projects were completed on Friday. Over the weekend, I pulled up the Freshly Made Sketches challenge to get back to stamping.

I thought that some of the Spellbinders August sets would work well for the circle theme of the sketch. I ended up with a cute birthday card and since the current Just Us Girls  Word Week challenge is Birthday, this card works for that as well.






The background of fishes is the Betterpress plate the month. They are inked with yellow, orange, teal, bright blue and dark blue. The circle element is from the Gina K Designs Master Layouts #16 die set, cut from silver card stock and I added some blue gems around the edge. I also cut the center from vellum card stock so that the fish can be seen through, then popped the scuba diver on the vellum. The scuba diver is from the Small Die of the month, and the sentiment is from the clear stamp set of the month, all Spellbinders.

Here's a peak of the inside of the card using more dies from the Small Die set and a birthday greeting from a older Spellbinders stamp set.




Wishing everyone a great week.
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: Paper Splash by Spellbinders
Paper: Gina K Designs card stock and vellum, & Tim Holtz metallic card stock
Ink: Gina K Designs
Other: Spellbinders Fish Parade Betterpress plate, The Deep Blue Two die set. Gina K Designs Master Layouts 12 and 16., SU blue gems, Spellbinders Betterpress system





Wednesday, July 23, 2025

You're Pretty COOL

Hey Peeps,

It's time for another fun Freshly Made Sketches challenge. Jen M. is hostess and her sketch inspired this fun popsicle card. There's been so many "Christmas In July" cards around IG and the blogs that I needed some more summer. When I saw Jen's sketch, I immediately knew that I'd use this older Concord & 9th Turnabout set with the large popsicle die.

 



I've used some bright, fruity C&9th ink colors and card stock to add to the summery feel. 

For the inside, I used a piece of the front panel that was trimmed off and another sentiment image from the same turnabout set.




Enjoy your weekend! I'll be in Cooperstown, NY for the baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremonies with my sister and nephew.

Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: Cool Treats Turnabout stamp set by Concord  & 9th
Paper:  Concord & 9th
Ink: Concord & 9th and Gina K Designs craft white
Other: Brutus Monroe white embossing powder, Spellbinders Citrus embossing folder

You + Me

 Hello, 

My CAS card for LeAnne's "things with wheels" challenge at the Paper Players. I pulled out my favorite friends, Gus and Gertie, heading out for a road trip. 

First, I stenciled a rainbow for the background with red, orange and yellow. I stamped the car and friends image on another piece of card stock and colored it with green and blue, cut it out and layered it over the rainbow. The rainbow colors were completed with purple hearts on the large arch. I colored in the pebbled road and called it done.




The inside uses one of the other images from the Ride On set. I just love this line by Taylored Expressions.!




I'm off to upstate NY tomorrow bright and early. I'm meeting my sister and nephew at the Albany airport, then we are headed to Cooperstown for the HOF induction weekend. Should be amazing for us BB fans!

Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: Ride On stamp set by Taylored Expressions
Paper: Neenah Solar white card stock and retired SU DSP (inside mat)
Ink: Memento tuxedo black, Gina K Designs and Copics
Other: Rainbow stencil by Paper Smooches, blending brushes


Happy Birthday

 Happy Hump Day Peeps,

I was looking through my boxes of SU patterned papers for some beehive images yesterday and while doing so, I ran across this very old Botanical Gazette DSP. There's a hive on one of the pages that I could use for the other card, and then I saw these moth and flower images that looked like they would be great for vintage style cards. Now, I'm pretty crappy at doing vintage, but I decided to give it a try. After finishing the card this morning, I realized it would fit with the current Mood Board challenge for Just Us Girls.




I tore a couple of edges of the DSP and blended some Dark Sage ink over them. I then stamped some images from the SSS Butterfly Blossoms set around using Charcoal Brown ink. Another piece of the DSP has moths scattered around and I used some postage dies from Waffle Flower to cut them out. They are arranged around the front of the card, an I added some gold dots to finish.

For the inside I used my current favorite "inside" birthday sentiment with a left over moth cutout.



This afternoon I'll be packing for a trip to NY tomorrow. My nephew, my sister and I are going to the Base Hall Of Fame Inductions in Cooperstown this weekend. My nephew's all time favorite player is being inducted. He really wanted to go and since I'm a huge BB fan too, I was all in, then my sister (his mom) decided to join us.

Have a great afternoon,
Colleen

Supplies
 Stamps: Butterfly Blossoms set by Simon Says Stamp and Gentle Silhouettes set by Gina K Designs
Paper: Gina K Designs Ivory and Dark Sage card stock, SU Botanical Gazette DSP
Ink: Gina K Designs Dark Sage and Charcoal Brown
Other: Waffle Flower Postage dies, Spellbinders Sealed Twine die, Gina K Designs metallic pearl embellishments and blending brushes

Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Two From One Botanical Cards

 Hello,

I'm playing with the Mood Board Inspiration from this week's Just Us Girls challenge. When I saw the inspiration photo, it reminded me of those Botanical posters you see in museums and other gift shops. After thinking about the direction to take my card, I decided to re-create the inspiration photo using stamps from my stash. The stamps are all from various Gina K. sets, both regular size and her mini sets. The flora wasn't hard, and turns out the garden critters weren't either. Here's the pretty mood board.




I started with a half sheet of white card stock and stamped three rows of the larger images using GKD inks then filled in areas with the tiny stamps. Since this was a 5.5 x 8.5 inch panel, I cut it in half to then decide on the card layouts, ending up with the same layout for both. Just different colors, sentiments and embossing folders.

I have several wax seal stamps from Spellbinders from participating in the clubs, but I don't use them often (not at all!), and so I tried them here. The embossing folders are also from Spellbinders and the arch die is from the SSS Nested Arch Die set.








Here's the inside of the card above. The front sentiment is from the Spellbinders Field Notes bundle, as is the "on your birthday" on the inside. The rest of the inside sentiment is from GKD.





A fun project for sure, and I had stamp sets piled all over my desk when I finished, LOL.

Enjoy your Tuesday!
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: Many Gina K Designs floral sets and Gentle Silhouettes set for sentiments. Field Notes bundle from Spellbinders
Paper: Gina K Designs card stock
Ink: Gina K Designs
Other: Simon Says Stamp Nested Arch dies, Spellbinders Field Notes and Floral Fence 3D embossing folders, Spellbinders wax and wax seal stamps, Spellbinders Sealed Twine die,  Gina K Designs blending brushes, SU twine, Simon Says Stamp pink sequins, Gina K Designs Pastel disk embellishments, Connect glue, foam tape