As Lovely As Can Be

 Hello and Happy Memorial Day 2023,

I hope you enjoyed the long weekend. It's still gloomy here on the southern CA coast, in fact it was raining a bit early this morning and very misty out most of the rest of the day. Not the best for being out and about. I'm sure the vacationers who wanted to spend the weekend at the beach were a little disappointed.

I wanted to get my card made for LeAnn's sketch challenge for the Paper Players today, and since it is Memorial Day, I thought I'd use this pretty Poppy die from Concord & 9th.

I started with the background using the Concord & 9th Mod Turnabout stamp. Instead of stamping all four turns, I just stamped three turns using black, Poppy and Parsley inks from Concord & 9th. Next I cut the small panel on the right and embossed it with the Concord & 9th Quilted Card Front cover plate. The poppy dies are cut from Concord & 9th card stock in the same colors as the inks and glued down to the embossed panel. The sentiment is from the same Pretty Poppy stamp and die set and it's embossed with white fine detail powder.

For the inside, I stamped a sentiment from the Concord & 9th Lots To Say stamp set and added one of the images from the Pretty Poppy set.

Thanks for checking in, and have a great week a head.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Pretty Poppy set, Mod Turnabout set, Lots To Say set all Concord & 9th

Paper: Concord & 9th Poppy, Parsley, Black, White 

Ink: Black, Poppy, Parsley from Concord & 9th and white craft ink from Gina K Designs

Other: Pretty Poppy dies, Quilted Card Front cover plate die, & Poppy enamel dots all Concord & 9th, Misti, Big Shot, Connect Glue, Gina K Designs white embossing powder, heat tool, SU small oval die

Hello and I Love Tea

 Hi All,

I pulled out some wood mounted stamps this afternoon to participate in Amy's Woodblock Wednesday challenge. I have many, many wood mounted stamps and I always enjoy digging through the storage drawers looking for inspiration.

Today, I made two cards, both using this week's Freshly Made Sketches layout. Jen T. has a fun circle based sketch this week.

Card 1 uses some older tea pot and cup stamps. The store labels on these have the date of 1997. In addition to the three wood block stamps shown, the background is the older SU Lace Background stamp. It started out as a wood mounted stamp, but I've de-wooded all of my older SU stamps and stamp sets. This one then was stamped using my Misti.

Card 2 is a floral card. The three stamps are also from the mid-1990s.

Another fun Woodblock Wednesday challenge!

TGIF tomorrow!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps card 1: Teapot & Cup from Annette Alan Watkins (purchased at Stamp LaJolla), I Love Tea stamp from Stephanie Olin (purchased at Stamp LaJolla, Lace Background stamp from Stampin' Up

Paper: Gina K Designs Layering Weight white, Slate, and SU Basic white thick card stock, misc patterned paper

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Latte SSS Pawsitivily Saturated Ink, Copics

Other: SU Deckled Edge dies, Hero Infinity curved rectangle dies, SU Stylish Shapes dies, Big Shot, SU Dimensionals, red pearls

Card 2

Large Sunflower stamp by Hampton Art Stamps, Hello from Hero, Sunflower Border stamp from Jody Bergman

Paper: Gina K Designs Layering Weight white and Fresh Asparagus card stock, SU Basic white thick card stock, misc patterned papers

Ink: Gina K Designs Fresh Asparagus and Craft White, Memento Tuxedo Black, Copics

Other: Gina K Designs Master Layouts 2 dies, SU Stylish Shapes dies, Altenew Sentiment dies, GKD detail white embossing powder, heat tool, Big Shot, green sequins, Connect glue

You Are My Rainbow

Hello to all,

Joanne has a fun challenge this week at the Paper Players. It's Clean and Simple week and the challenge is to use one image.

I had many ideas for stamps and dies that I could use, but then in the mail today, I received my recent Lawn Fawn order that included the Embroidery Hoop and add-ons die set, and I  decided to use one of the new dies. Love new goodies! I picked the rainbow die, pulled out the appropriate embroidery floss and stitched it up.

I made an ink blended rainbow background for the hoop to rest on, and cut the panel out using the Hero Arts Curved Rectangle Infinity dies. The sentiments, outside and inside, are from the SSS set called Follow the Rainbow.

Here is the inside. The swoosh is from a Gina K Designs set.

Thanks for checking in and have a good rest of the week.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Follow the Rainbow set by Simon Says Stamp and Just Add Color mini set by Gina K Designs

Focal Dies: Embroidery Hoop with add-ons by Lawn Fawn

Paper: Gina K Designs and SU

Ink: Gina K Designs

Other: Misti, Big Shot, Hero Infinity dies, embroidery floss and needle, connect glue, foam tape

Concord & 9th Cards for Three Challenges

 TGIF Peeps,

I've been having some die cutting fun lately, and I've got a few more cards that I made yesterday using new and older Concord & 9th stamps and dies. 

This first card is a full slimline card using the current sketch from The Global Design Project Challenge. I know that mostly SU supplies are posted in the group, but since I liked the sketch, I decided to use it with the new C&9th A Bit Of Paradise Turnabout stamp and die set. The colors I chose are from this week's Color Throwdown Challenge, colors are pink and lime. The ink and card stock are from C&9th.

The second group of cards use the current Color Hues orange and slate shades. 

These quilt top based die sets are super fun to use and I've made several cards with them since I first bought them. For the top card I added the dies and stamped greeting from and older C&9th set called Sew Pretty. After stitching I fussy cut the hello and the flower. On the bottom card, I used the leaf dies again from the A Bit of Paradise Turnabout set and and older die cut sentiment.

I hope you all enjoy your Friday and of course, your weekend. Thanks for checking in.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps and Dies from Concord & 9th

Paper: Concord & 9th card stock and retired SU card stock

Ink: Memento Tuxedo black, Concord & 9th Lemongrass, Sprout, Pink Lemonade, and Sweetpea

Other: Big Shot Switch, Misti, Gina K Designs Master Layouts 10 dies, Connect glue, SU Dimensionals, Concord & 9th enamel dots

Hello & Happy Birthday Cards

 Hi all,

I've been playing with some super cute die sets from Concord & 9th and Spellbinders and I've got a couple of cute cards to show you. 

This first card uses the new Concord & 9th set called Weekend Market. This has a small coordinating stamp set too. The background is stamped using the new C&9th Brick background stamp. I made a 8 of these cards, all with different colors of card stock and ink for the the background. The die set has several flower and leaf options, a wine bottle, a loaf of bread with a bag, the market bag, the shirt, the pants, shoes, feet and hand for the person. The coordinating stamp set has a few greetings and images for stamping on the dies. (i didn't use any of those on this card, but I did on several of the other 7)

For this card I used the colors for the current Paper Players Challenge. Jaydee's picked pink, green, silver/gray, black and white for this month's color challenge and they worked really well for my card.

Another super cute die set is the Spellbinders May Small Die of the Month set. The die set comes with all of the plane pieces, three banners with different sentiments and two cloud dies. I made this card for my nephew's birthday.

All of the card stock used in these cards are from a box of retired SU card stock that I've had for years. I used Jennifer McGuire's recommendation of cutting several pieces from different colors of card stock and putting them in different bins to make arranging and gluing easier. It really did make it easy to put together the 8 cards quickly.

Enjoy your Thursday and thanks for looking in,

Colleen

Supplies

Card 1:

Concord & 9th Weekend Market Die and Stamp set and Brick Background stamp 

Card 2: 

Spellbinders Fly By Greetings, May  2023 SDOM set

Paper: Retired SU card stocks

Ink Card 1: SSS Pawsitively Saturated Field Green and Memento tuxedo black

Ink Card 2: Gina K Designs Craft White

Other: Big Shot Switch Machine, Misti, Connect glue, Trinity star embellishments

My Heart Smiles

 

TGIF Peeps,

Well, May Gray is back in SoCal today.😒 If nothing else, a good excuse to stay in and craft. 

I've been busy between making some challenge cards and doing some crocheting this week. I'm making a crib blanket for my great niece, Daisy. I found a granny square pattern with daisies in the centers of the squares. It's easy and cute.

On to today's challenge card, this is made using the colors from the current Color Throwdown, which are Orange, Lilac, Aqua and Black. I've used various shades of all of the colors in my card. I recently received this fun stencil and die set from Pink Fresh Studio and decided it would work nicely with these colors.

I cut a white panel using an older MFT die and then blended orange, aqua and lilac inks down the front. Using the layering stencil, I blended light and dark shades of each of the colors accenting with the black then cut them out with the corresponding dies. After figuring out an arrangement, I found a nice sentiment, also from PFS, and put everything together. I used some bright paper dots in the same shades in the centers of the rosettes.

I left the inside blank on this one.

Enjoy the rest of your Friday and your weekend. Thanks for looking in,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Heart Smiles Sentiment stamps from Pink Fresh Studio

Stencils: Rosettes Layering Stencils from Pink Fresh Studio with dies

Paper: Gina K Designs Layering Weight white and Black Onyx card stock

Ink: Gina K Designs Wild Lilac, Turquoise Sea, Tangerine Twist, Peach Bellini, Sea Glass, Light and Medium Lilac, Black Onyx

Other: blending brushes, Misti, Big Shot, SU Dimensionals, Taylored Expressions Rainbow disks, Connect glue

...because you're awesome

 Hello,

I had fun doing lots of stamping on this card today!

I'm playing along with the color challenge at Global Design Project this week. The colors are very pretty together and perfect for a fun floral background. The layout of my card comes from the current sketch at Sunday Stamps.

All of the supplies used for this card are from Stampin' Up. 

For the inside of the card, I used an older SU sentiment stamp set and an image from the floral set used on the outside of the card.

Enjoy your evening!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Bottled Happiness, Happy Thoughts and Botanicals For You sets by Stampin' Up

Paper: SU Basic white Thick, Basic Black, Flirty Flamingo card stock, Follow Your Art DSP and Dandy Designs DSP

Ink: SU Flirty Flamingo, Coastal Cabana, Smoky Slate, VersaMark, Memento Black

Other: White embossing powder, heat tool, Misti, SU dies, SU hexagon embellishments

Oh, Hello - Sunny Days Ahead

Happy Monday,

I have a very quick card and post for the current Freshly Made Sketches and Paper Players Challenges. 

I've used some fun patterned papers from Stampin' Up and a stamp and die set from Concord & 9th for this clean and simple card. 

 

And for the inside of the card, I fussy cut this little critter from the SU paper and stamped another sentiment from the C&9th set.

I hope your week goes well. Thanks,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Rain or Shine set with dies by Concord & 9th 

Paper: Mango Melody, Flirty Flamingo and Basic White card stock and Rain or Shine DSP all SU and SSS Holographic card stock

Ink: Flirty Flamingo and Memento Tuxedo Black

Other:SU and Gina K Designs Stitched Rectangle dies, Big Shot, Misti, SU Dimensionals, Connect glue