Cocktails Kind of Day

 Happy Hump Day Peeps,

Today my blog post comes from the opposite corner of the country from where it usually does. We flew from San Diego to Boston last night for a five week stay with our friends who live outside the city. 

While our friends and Denis will be hard at work everyday (Denis can work remote as long as there is a good WIFI connection, which is why we can be here for five weeks), this newly retired girl will be hanging at the pool, reading, and a doing few crafty activities to keep me occupied. Unfortunately, no stamping as I didn't feel like figuring out supplies to ship, but I did bring some stamped images and my colored pencils. I also may get some yarn and start a baby blanket for my niece. Her first child will arrive in late November.

Today's post is my card for this weeks Paper Players Challenge. Joanne is our hostess with a fun summer theme of fruit. I have many stamps with many different actual fruits on them, but I took a more "creative" approach to Joann's theme and made this card with those previously mentioned working folks in mind. The fruit is in the form of a fruity cocktail, perfect for happy hour once work is completed for the day. After all, it is summer and and we can celebrate that friends who live thousands of miles apart are together again after The Pandemic.

I started with a panel of SU Whisper White and ink blended a rainbow of colors around the edges. I cut the center element using the SU dies from Hippo and friends. The stamped greeting and lime daiquiri images are from the newer SU set called Love You More Than and the small half lime slices are from an older SU set called Happy Hour. While there is some layering on the card, I think it's "uncluttered" enough to be considered CAS for the challenge. 

I just received this Love You More Than stamp set and I think it may turn out to be one of my favorite SU sets. It's a photopolymer set, and has both outline and solid images to use to "color" the outlined images. Plus, the sentiments are awesome, and important to me, it has the corresponding die set. 

Speaking of awesome sentiments, I used one for the inside greeting.

As I mentioned earlier in the post, I didn't bring any stamps etc., so this will be my last blog post until August! But, I will be checking in around blog-land often to see what's happening.

While here, we are planning to spend July 4th weekend in Boston to watch fireworks and do some shopping and eating. The workers will be taking some PTO to make long weekends and we will travel around other areas of New England, Newport, RI and Mystic, CT are two we are thinking of.  We've visited each before, but it's been several years ago. The last week we are here, everyone will take the a week of vacation time and we will be heading to Portland, ME and Woodstock, VT. In VT, we are taking a baking class at King Arthur Flour Company. The four of us did a class at KAF four years ago and it was a blast! KAF opened classes again recently and we were fortunate enough to grab a spot.

Have a great July, and thanks for checking in! Happy Stamping,

Colleen

Supplies

Stampin' Up stamp sets: Love You More Than and Happy Hour, Dies: SU Love You More than and Hippo and Friends. Paper: SU Whisper White Ink: Gina K Designs Red Hot, Coral Reef, Wild Dandelion, Lucky Clover, Key Lime, Blue Raspberry, Wild Lilac, Turquoise Sea, Black Onyx, Big Shot, GKD Blending Brushes, SU Dimensionals

Happy Birthday

Hi peeps,

Happy Tuesday afternoon to all. I have a couple cards that I made after watching this technique on Jennifer McGuire's blog. She calls this the Sparkled Glass Technique. Super fun to do and I probably would have done some more practicing, but I discovered I had just one half sheet of acetate window plastic left. Needless to say, I ordered more!

This first card is made using Claire's colors for this week's Paper Players Challenge. I used the closest shades of Copics in BG, RV and YG to match the SU colors. The stamp set is by Gina K Designs, the sentiment strip is a pre-printed SSS sentiment, and the background glimmer paper is SU from a few years ago.

I followed Jennifer's instructions very closely and the cards came together pretty easily, although not quickly. IRL, they are very pretty, but my amateur photography doesn't really show the true effects. 

On this second card, I used Erin Lee Holographic card stock in the background. It is actually very cool looking. All stamps on this one are from Honey Bee, and the sentiment cracks me up!

Since I have several different types of shimmery papers in my stash, I really think I'll try a few more of these when I get the acetate.

Thanks for checking in, and have a great Tuesday evening.

Colleen

Supplies

Delightful Blooms stamp set by Gina K Designs, Birds of Paradise and Tropical Tweets stamps sets by Honey Bee, Gina K Designs Heavy Weight white card stock, SU Bermuda Bay and Calypso Coral card stock, SU white glimmer paper, Erin Lee Holographic card stock, VersaMark ink, Copics, Gina K Designs white EP, heat tool, Misti, MFT Stitched Rectangle and Stitched Scalloped Rectangle frame dies, JudiKins acetate window plastic, Big Shot, Connect glue

USA - Happy 4th of July

 Hello peeps,

I'm so late trying to get my post done this morning. Many technical difficulties in setting up some things on my new computer, especially things related to my blogging. In addition, my light box's light strip broke, so my pictures are dark! I will try to fix, but I think I'm going to have to try another light source for it.

Here is my 4th of July, summer themed card for this week's Paper Players Challenge. I'm using Linda's sketch from this week's Freshly Made Sketches.

These are images from the Tylored Expressions 4th of July Wreath. The bottom of the card is embossed with a SU Stars EF, and the fireworks dies are also TE. I added some die cut stars cut from holographic card stock using a SSS die.

Here is the inside of the card using the sentiment from the TE stamp set.

Happy Friday and thanks for looking in,

Colleen

Supplies

Gina K Designs Red Velvet and Layering Weight white card stock, GKD Black Onyx and Red Velvet Ink, Copics, SU Brilliant Blue card stock and Stars Embossing Folder, Erin Holographic card stock, Taylored Expressions 4th of July Wreath stamp set and Fireworks dies, Simon Says Stamp Many Starts die, Misti, Gemini Jr, Connect glue

Sending Happy Thoughts

 Happy Monday Peeps,

I hope you had a relaxing weekend. I hear some areas of the U.S. were scorching over the weekend. Here on the San Diego coast, it was our usual June-Gloom, very cloudy and misty in the morning, but by the mid afternoon, we had some sun and breezes. We spent a good portion of Saturday watching our little friend play in a Little League playoff game. It was actually a really good game, and his team won 1-0, so tonight we'll be watching him in the championship game. 

I made a card for this week's Freshly Made Sketches Challenge after the LL game on Saturday, but I didn't get around to taking a picture until this morning, hence, I'm squeaking in just under the wire.

Since there are rainbows all over blog-land this month, I jumped on the bandwagon and made a few cards with ink blended rainbows. This is one of them. 

The inks are all GKD as is the card stock. The wreath die is from PinkFresh Studio. I cut it 3 times from heavy weight white card stock and glued the layers together, then glued it to the rainbow. The small flowers are from my stash. I think I got them at a scrapbooking store in Sacramento a few years ago. The sentiment strip is pre-printed from SSS. I cut it out with a sentiment die, also from SSS.

Have a great week! Thanks for looking in,

Colleen

Supplies

Gina K Designs heavy and layering weight white card stock, Red Hot, Sweet Mango, Wild Dandelion, Lucky Clover, Ocean Mist, Wild Lilac inks, blending brushes, Connect glue

MFT Rounded Corner Stitched rectangle die

Pink Fresh Studio Wreath Die

Simon Says Stamp Sentiment die and pre-printed sentiment strip 

Gemini Jr

Hello

 Hi peeps,

Happy Thursday! 

While cruising around blogs this week, I watched this video by Jennifer McGuire and fell in love with these house cards. Of course Jennifer used some awesome new dies to create them, and also of course, I don't have the dies, but I do have many other dies that I thought I could use to try and make some similar cards. The basic shape was pretty easy, and using some border dies, an older SU scalloped circle punch, a circle die, and some flower and star dies, I came up with a couple of cards.

This first card is a shaped card that fits into a regular A2 envelope. I used red, white and blue colors to participate, again, in this week's Paper Players Tic-Tac-ToeChallenge.

The card base is made from SU Very Vanilla card stock. Using some Gina K Red velvet ink and the SSS Sweet Garden background stamp I stamped the front of the card. The house trim is cut from SU Brilliant Blue card stock, which is decorated using stars in various sizes that were cut using a SSS die from Very Vanilla card stock. The Hello die is Gina K and is cut three times from Red Velvet card stock and glued together with liquid glue. After gluing it to the top of the card, I painted on some clear Nuvo Aqua Shimmer, then covered it with Crystal Effects.

The birds are from the SSS Spring Birds set, colored with Copics and cut out with the set dies. Their perch is made with another older SU punch.

I used more images and a greeting from the Spring Birds stamp set on the inside of the card.

In the video, Jennifer made a popup card in slimline format. I also gave that a try and it turned out pretty well, but next time I need to use a heavy weight card stock for the base. It's a little top heavy with the large greeting die glued on top.

The flower dies are made using the SU In Bloom dies. The Thank You die is from SSS. The Scalloped borders are a Taylored Expressions border die, the birds and greetings are from the SSS Spring Birds set, and the background is made with the SSS Friendship Text background stamp and white craft ink.

Here is a view of the side of this one.

Such fun cards to make. I'm seriously thinking of ordering the actual dies, but they are a little pricy. (Like that's ever stopped me before, LOL.)

Have a great day. I will be trying to setup a new computer, so I see some periods of frustration ahead.

Thanks for looking in,

Colleen

Supplies

Simon Says Stamp: Spring Birds Stamp set and dies, Sweet Garden and Friendship Text background stamps, Many Stars Party die, Scripty Thank You die

Stampin' Up: Very Vanilla and multiple colored card stocks, In Bloom set dies, Scalloped Circle and Word Window punches, Dimensionals

Gina K Designs: Hello die, Red Velvet and Kraft card stock, Red Velvet and Black Onyx ink, Connect glue

Taylored Expressions: Small Scalloped Border die

Spellbinders: Circle die

Hero Arts: Unicorn white craft ink

Misti, Gemini Jr, Nuvo Aqua Shimmer pen, Glossy Accents, red enamel dots

Thankful

 Hello peeps,

Over the last few days I've been working on "Thank You" cards to send to friends that sent me Retirement gifts. I finally got most of them finished and now I just need to get them in the mail. This card is one of them.

Using the Tic-Tac-Toe gird from this week's Paper Players Challenge and using the middle horizontal options of red, twine and die cuts, this is what I came up with. The background is made using Tim Holts alcohol inks on black Yuppo card stock. The new GKD Monthly Mix June 2021 Challenge is backgrounds, and this card will be entered there too.

The stamp set is from Gina K Designs, as are the inks, card stock, (other than the alcohol inks and Yuppo) and dies. If you look closely, there is a red heart eyelet that I attached to the board and threaded the loop of twine through.

Here is the inside of the card using more images from the GKD stamp set.

Happy Hump Day to all and thanks for looking in,

Colleen

Supplies

Count It All Joy stamp set and dies, Red Velvet, Black, Layering Weight White card stock, Red Velvet, Black Onyx ink, Master Layouts 2 and 4 die sets,  and foam squares, all Gina K Designs. Tim Holts alcohol inks, Yuppo  black card stock, large heart eyelet, black and white Baker's twine, Misti, Gemini Jr,