Warmed With Love

Hello again,

One more card this evening for the Spring/Summer Coffee Lovers Blog Hop. This one is tea themed. While I'm not a coffee drinker, I am a tea drinker, mostly iced, but I also like hot teas. The sketch comes from the new CAS(E) this Sketch! challenge.

I've let this really pretty patterned paper do most of the work in this layout. It's from one of the SSS monthly card kits from 2019. I love the flowers and plaid together, and the colors really say Spring. The tea cup is from a SU set and the dies are SU as well.

The cup is stamped with Memento black ink on SU Very Vanilla card stock and colored with Copics.

I use more images from the same SU set for the inside of the card. The sentiment on the front and the inside are the same stamp. I just inked up half for the front and then the other half for the inside. I thought that the SU Mint Macaron shade was perfect to match the plaid patterned papers.

Thanks,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Time For Tea set by Stampin' Up

Paper: SU Very Vanilla and Mint Macaron card stock, Simple Stories Spring Farmhouse patterned papers

Ink: Memento tuxedo black, SU Mint Macaron, Copics

Other: Time For Tea dies, SU Tasteful Label die, SU Ornate Garden die, Misti, Gemini Jr, Dimensionals

MOCHACHOCALOVEYOUALATTE

Hi'ya peeps,

It's time for the 2020 Spring/Summer Coffee Lovers Blog Hop and I had to make a card for the first day. In between taking calls and fielding emails (my mgr is on PTO and I'm the "boss" today and next week), I managed to put together a card. Besides the blog hop, I'm posting to a few more challenges too. The sketch is based on  the current Mojo Monday sketch, and the colors come from the new As You See It challenge where Joanne has picked Daffodil Delight, Call Me Clover, Lovely Lipstick and Soft Suede.

I've used mostly Paper Smooches goodies to make my card today.

To make my card front, I started with the Paper Smooches Essential Stencil houndstooth pattern and Daffodil Delight and Call Me Clover inks using blending brushes to make the design on the left side of the card. I stamped the two greetings from the PS Caffeinated set onto white card stock and cut them out with a Die-namics Circle die and a Spellbinders Scalloped Circle die. The to-go coffee cup is stamped with Memento black, colored with SU Soft Suede Blends markers and a light beige Copic and cut out with the corresponding die. The design on the cup is made using the same essential stencil, only the scalloped design. The coffee circle label is an image in the stamp set and is stamped with Lovely Lipstick and cut out with it's die. After glueing everything in place, I decided it needed a bit of embellishing. I remembered the PS Cozy Coffee dies had the little coffee beans. I cut 5 out of Soft Suede card stock and then added two layers of clear embossing powder over them for a nice and shinny look.

For the inside of my card, I again used the houndstooth stencil this time with Daffodil Delight and Lovely Lipstick. The greeting comes from the PS Caffeinated Two set.

As I've said before, I don't drink coffee (I don't even like the smell) but I love to make these coffee themed cards. Go figure!

Happy Memorial Day holiday to all. Thanks for looking in,
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: Paper Smooches Caffeinated and Caffeinated Two sets
Paper: SU Call Me Clover, Lovely Lipstick, Soft Suede and Concord & 9th white card stocks
Ink: Memento tuxedo black, VersaMark, SU Call Me Clover, Daffodil Delight, Lovely Lipstick, Soft Suede, SU Soft Suede Blends markers and Copic E43 marker
Other: Paper Smooches Stencil, Die-namics and Spellbinders Circle dies, Paper Smooches Caffeinated set dies and Cozy Coffee dies, clear EP, heat tool, Misti, Gemini Jr, Diemensionals, liquid glue

Hello

Happy Hump Day Peeps,

Last night after dinner I was playing around with the Gina K Designs Wreath Builder system. I usually don't like what I make as I really need more practice, but last night my my attempts were good enough to share. I made two cards, one using one of the sets designed to use with the Wreath Builder system and the other, just a regular stamp set by Gina K.

No challenges, just stamping  for fun. Here we go:

This card made with the spring Wreath Builder stamp set.

This card made with the new Petals and Wings stamp set.

Thanks for looking,
Colleen


Supplies
Stamps: Spring Wreath Builder set and Petals and Wings set by Gina K Designs
Paper: SU Whisper White, Real Red, Basic Black, Regal Rose and Brocade Blue card stock
Ink: Gina K Design ink cubes Jelly Bean Green, Dusty Rose, Plum Punch, Powder Blue, Moonlit Fog, Amalgam Black, SU Real Red, VersaMark
Other: Misti, Gina K Wreath Builder system, white EP, heat tool, Die-namics Stitched circle die, Spellbinders Circle dies, blue Baker's twine, enamel dots, foam tape

Happy Trails

Hello peeps,

I hope your weekend was relaxing. I did some cleaning in our back yard yesterday morning, and then some reading in the afternoon. Today, I did some stamping in the afternoon. Besides the card in this post, I got Mr. Personal Chef's birthday card done too. He has a birthday two weeks from yesterday. I'll post his card later in the week. No danger of him seeing it as he does not read my blog.

Since it's Sunday, a new Paper Players Challenge is up for us. It's CAS week and I used the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches to help me along.

To make my masculine themed card, I pulled out an older set by Taylored Expressions called S'more Fun. It's one of the TE Stamp of the Month sets from August 2013. This is a side fold, one layer card other than the card stock used to make the sketch elements and I did fussy cut out the trailer and pop it up using Dimensionals. 

Both the inside and outside of my card use images from the stamp set. Most of the inks and papers are also from TE.

Unfortunately, I don't think there will be many hitting the trails with their trailers this Memorial Day holiday weekend.

Thanks for looking in and happy new work week,
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: S'more Fun set by Taylored Expressions
Paper: TE Buttercream, navy, kraft and red card stocks
Ink: TE ink cubes Blue Corn, Key Lime, Fruit Punch, VersaMark
Other: Silver Detail EP, heat tool, Misti, Dimensionals, Gina K Connect glue

Happy Birthday To You

Happy Monday morning peeps,

While I'm waiting for a work conference call to begin in about 30 minutes, I have time to post my card for this week's Paper Players Challenge. Claire is our hostess with a very pretty color challenge this week. Pool Party, Granny Apple Green and Melon Mambo.

I don't think that I've inked up this birthday set by SU but only once, and since I have several friends having birthday's later this month, it seemed like a good idea for making my card.

The cake image is stamped with Gina K Amalgam ink on water color paper. I used the old way to water color, an aqua painter and squishing the ink pads to get color in the lids. Pretty simple. After the watercoloring was finished, I cut the image out using the set die.

For the background, I used blending brushes with the three challenge inks on Whisper White card stock. Once the ink was dry, I put the panel into my large Misti and inked the SSS Modern Rose Blooms background stamp with the same ink pads so that the image is stamped with the same color as the ink blending.

This is matted with Basic Black card stock and glued to a Pool Party card base. A few pool, green and pink gems are used for embellishments.

On the inside of the card I used the other sentiment stamp and more of the set dies.

Have a nice Monday all, and thanks for stopping in,
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: SU Happy Birthday To You set and SSS Modern Rose Blooms background stamp
Paper: SU Pool Party, Basic Black, Whisper White card stock and water color paper
Ink: Gina K amalgam black, SU Pool Party, Granny Apple Green and Melon Mambo ink pads
Other: Misty, Gemini Jr, TE blending brushes, aqua painter, SU corresponding set dies, rhinestone gems

Spring Card Camp 2 - Day 2 Cards

Hello peeps,

Jennifer McGuire was the instructor for Day 2, and she showed how to make stripes using ink blending and masking. These make colorful backgrounds for large stamped images. The technique is pretty simple, just use some "purple" tape to mask off the stripes, and then use your favorite ink blending tool to add color to the unmasked area.

I made two cards both, with horizontal stripes. (Jennifer made a fun card with diagonal stripes.) These were fun and relaxing to do, although a bit messy. The hardest part for me was deciding on the ink colors.

Thanks for stopping in,
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: Just Keep Swimming set by Hero Arts and Mondo Daisy set by Ellen Hutson
Concord & 9th Playful Patterns set, Honey Bee Ocean Boarders set
Paper: SU Basic Black, Coastal Cabana, Orchid Opulence, Neenah Solar White card stocks
Ink: Gina K Amalgam black, various SU inks for the stripes, VersaMark, Terra-cotta Tile (fish layering)
Other: Misti, purple tape, TE blending brushes, white EP, heat tool, Gemini Jr, Mondo Daisy dies (lady bug)

Card for Day 1 Spring Card Camp 2

Hi and Happy Friday all,

I signed up for for the Spring Card Camp 2, since the Spring Card Camp 1 was so fun. The first session was on Wednesday. Kristina started us off with a reverse masking technique using monograms. I've done reverse masking before, but not specifically with this idea.

Kristina did some ink blending inside a large monogram and then stamped some images. I did mine a little differently. A friend's baby is due later this month. They have already picked his name, Oliver, and I needed a card to mail his presents. I decided to use this technique for his card. Instead of doing the ink blending inside the letter, I stamped images of baby animals from several Lawn Fawn sets and colored them with Copics. After the stamping and coloring was completed, I took the outside mask off and put the letter mask over what I had colored and ink blended the background, then stamped over the blended area with a graphic stamp from LF. The card came out a little busy, but I think it's still okay.

The sentiment is from Concord and 9th. I also used some C&9th letter dies on the inside of the card to personalize the card even more.

This was a fun and different twist on reverse masking. Thanks Kristina for the inspiration.

Have a nice Friday afternoon all,
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: Lawn Fawn sets Year Four, Sharp Backdrops, Elphie Selphie, Wild For You, Critters In the Jungle, Concord & 9th set I Like You, SU set Something to Celebrate
Paper: Neenah Solar White, SU Basic Black, TE textured red card stocks
Ink: Memento tuxedo black, Copics, Gina K Red Hot, VersaMark
Other: Misti, Gemini Jr, Die-Namics Oval dies, Concord & 9th Tall Type Alpha set, white EP, heat tool, foam tape, Gina K Masking Paper

Sending Smiles

Hello peeps,

Sunday I decided to do some craft supply organizing. What I ended up working on was my collection of Taylored Expressions stamp sets. I had them stored in the small TE Binder boxes, around 4 per box with labels on the outside of the box. These were stored in a bookcase in my craft room. What I didn't like about the storage, it was still hard to know what images are in each set by the names on the binder boxes, so I had to open the boxes and look through each to see them. I found that I wasn't using these sets much any longer.

I decided to see if the sets would fit into the fridge bin boxes that I'm storing all of my photopolymer stamps sets. A few hours of rearranging later, I have them in a much better and more usable space.

Amazingly, I ended up with about 30 of those binder boxes now empty. Our next door neighbor is a second grade school teacher so I took one over to ask if she could use them for storage in the classroom (once she goes back to class). She said yes, she would take some. A few doors down the street live two young girls, around 11 and 8 years old, so I took a few to them as well as they both love stickers, etc. Problem solved, the empty boxes are all gone. Yay!

That long story leads to today's card. Taylor had a stamp of the month club for a few years and my card is made with one of those sets that I "rediscovered" while doing the rearranging. This little set is from September 2013 and is call Sending Smiles. The sketch is this week's Sunday Stamps Sketch Challenge. I'm also posting to the current Retro Rubber Spring Flowers challenge. The challenge is to use flowers on our cards.

The background is stamped using the solid images in the set. I used my mini Misti, stamped a few of the flowers then reversed the panel and stamped again without having to move the stamps. For the layering images, I used the same technique. The center image is stamped using Memento tuxedo black ink and colored with Copics. The polka-dot paper is from Lawn Fawn and the bright green card stock is way old SU Green Galore. The circles are cut with a Die-namics Wonky Stitched circle die and the layering circle with a Spellbinders circle die. Finally, I used several green tinted glass beads scattered around the panel.

Here is the inside of the card. The row of dots is a single stamp in the set. The sentiment is from C&9th.

I really like how the card came out and I think I am going to make a few more with birthday and thank you greetings. I have several colors of the LF polka-dot paper.

Have a nice Wednesday all and thanks for looking in,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Sending Smiles set by Taylored Expressions and Lots to Say set by Concord & 9th
Paper: Neenah Solar white and SU Green Galore card stock, Lawn Fawn polka-dot patterned paper
Ink: SU Green Galore, Memento tuxedo black, Altenew Pink Pearl, Rouge, and Lime ink cubes
Other: Misti, Gemini Jr, Die-namics Wonky Stitched Circle die, Spellbinders Circle die, dimensionals, glass beads, liquid glue

Thinking of You Sweet Friend

Hi Peeps,

The sketch this week at CAS(E) this Sketch is certainly interesting. I mulled over several ideas to make a card and finally settled on this one. I haven't used this SU bee set much, and I thought the images would work in the open space in the sketch. I also think this may be the first time I've used the corresponding DSP for this set too.

Because the background panel is black, it's really hard to see in the photo that it's dry embossed with the SU honeycomb EF. IRL, it stands out. I played around with some of the different papers in the DSP and liked the stripes with the honeycomb background, plus, I liked using the same paper for both angled sections.

The sentiment is heat embossed with gold EP and then cut out with the SU Stitched Label die. I also heat embossed one of the flower images, cut it out with the corresponding die and added it at the top of the sentiment. The bees are stamped and colored with Copics and cut out with their corresponding dies.

Here is the inside of the card with more images from the Honey Bee stamp and corresponding die set.

I'm also posting this card to Joanne's "Make You Smile" theme challenge at the Paper Players Challenge. It fits there nicely too.

 Thanks for looking in,
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: Honey Bee set by Stampin' Up
Paper: SU Basic Black and Whisper White card stock, Golden Honey DSP
Ink: Memento tuxedo black, VersaMark, Hello Honey, Copics
Other: Honey Bee dies, SU Stitched Nested Label dies, SU Honeycomb Embossing Folder, Misti, gold EP, heat tool, Gemini Jr, Dimensionals

Your Kindness Brings Color

Hi and happy Sunday peeps,

Joanne is our hostess for this week's Paper Players Challenge and she has a fun and timely theme challenge. I pulled out some older, and some newer, Concord and 9th sets to make my card.

The background is made using a the new C&9th Rainbow Turnabout stamp and the sentiments and dies are from the older C&9th Crafty Turnabout set. I added three enamel hearts under three of the rainbows around the focal images and swiped some glitter gel onto the paint brush tip and the word color.

The inside image is from another newer C&9th set called Brighter Days and the sentiments are from the SSS set called Leafy Frames. I thought it an appropriate sentiment for out times.

Have a nice Sunday evening and thanks for popping in,
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: Rainbow and Crafty Turnabout sets and Brighter Days set by Concord & 9th, Leafy Frames set by Simon Says Stamp
Paper: SU White, Black, Melon Mambo, Mango Melody and C&9th Silver card stocks
Ink: SU Melon Mambo, Mango Melody, Bermuda Bay, Lovely Lilac, VersaMark and Memento tuxedo black
Other: Misti, Gemini Jr, C&9th Crafty set dies, white EP, heat tool, enamel hearts, Wink of Stella, Dimensionals, liquid glue

On Line Spring Card Camp Day 16 Cards

Happy Friday Peeps,

I'm slowly getting more cards made for the Spring Card Camp. I'm a little slow fitting them in with work, but boy have I been enjoying all of the techniques. Seems funny that after stamping as long as I've been, that there are techniques that I don't know, or at least better ways to do something I do know.

Today I have card examples for Day 16, taught by one of my coloring heros, Kathy Racoosin. The technique that she taught simply blew me away with the finished product, even mine, LOL. The class is to color a large image or images using Copic, or other alcohol markers, and get two cards in one by layering two panels together then coloring only the top one. The secret is the type of paper used on the top. Also, for the panel that is actually colored, you turn it over and use the "wrong" side to make the card.

I loved this process so much that I made 3 sets of cards. Two sets are stamped with Altenew stamp sets and the third is stamped with a Simon Says Stamp set. I followed Kathy's instructions and couldn't be happier. In fact, I think this is my favorite of the classes from the Camp.

Below is the first set that I made. The stamp set is the Altenew Wallpaper Art set. The images have a fair amount of black solid parts and for this technique, I colored over these areas with a black 110 marker. The other Copic colors are R56, R59 and R35 for the flowers and G29 for the leaves. For the background I used BV29 and then used a nubby towel with colorless blender to blot away some of the color and help promote the bleeding through to the second panel.

I'm posting this pair to this week's Color Throwdown Challenge.

Here is the set of cards made using the Altenew Spring Daisy stamp set.

And this set of cards is made using the Simon Says Stamp Sketched Flowers set.

I kind of had a hard time figuring how I wanted to add the sentiments and what to do for embellishments because I didn't want to cover anything up. I tried to keep it all simple.

I have 4 or 5 more classes that I haven't made cards for yet. I've watched all of the videos, and I'm thinking of what stamp sets I want to use.

Thanks to Kathy for teaching such a fun, and a very interesting process.
Thanks to you for looking in. Have a wonderful weekend!
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: Altenew sets Wallpaper Art and Spring Daisy, Simon Says Stamp set Sketched Flowers
for the main images. Other Altenew, Gina K, Concord & 9th, and Avery Elle sets for the greetings
Paper: Office Depot envelopes, Neenah Solar White,  Simon Says Stamp heavy card stock in various colors
Ink: Memento tuxedo black, Copics, Gina K orange, VersaMark
Other: Misti, Gemini Jr, C&9th dies, Altenew die, misc glass beads and sequins