Holiday Greetings

 Hello all,

I thought I'd do one more card for the 600th celebration at Freshly Made Sketches. I really like the layout of this sketch. This time, I used a new die set from Spellbinders to make a Holiday card.

This is one of the stitching dies and they are fun to do. I have several now in my collection and a little bag of embroidery floss to choose from to stitch them up. The background cover plate is from SSS and the glimmer paper and gold gems are from SU. The greeting is from GKD. 

It's a beautiful, sunny, but not too hot day here on the SD coast. I hope all is well where you are.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Wishing You Mini stamp set by Gina K Designs

Paper: SU thick basic white and glimmer papers

Ink: Gina K Designs Christmas Pine

Other: Spellbinders Stitched Poinsettia and Holly and Scalloped Circle dies, Simon Says Stamp Detail Petal Cover Plate,  Embroidery thread & needle, Connect liquid glue, Misti, Big Shot

Hello

 Hi Peeps,

Happy Friday to all. I hope you have an enjoyable weekend. We have zero plans, which is fine with me. More crafty time!

I had some time this evening to do some stamping. I decided I wanted to do some coloring, and this very large daisy stamp from Gina K Designs is perfect for that. It's from her July release and this is the first time I've inked it up. My colors come from this week's Color Throwdown Challenge. Lori's colors are Gray, Aqua and Green.

The flower and leaves are stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black ink and colored with Copic markers. I placed it on an embossed Slate gray card base. After embossing I rubbed a silver craft ink pad over the raised areas then brushed silver Pearl Ex powder over the ink. The large hello die is also by Gina K Designs. It's cut 3 times from dark teal card stock and one time from black and stacked together. The black on the bottom is offset for a shadow effect. I added some silver dots in the center to go along with the silver on the card base.

Here is a pic of the inside of the card using another GKD stamp set.

 

Enjoy your weekend and thanks for looking,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Devine Daisy set and Pretty Posy Mini set both by Gina K Designs

Paper: Gina K Designs card stock in Slate, Tranquil Teal, Black Onyx and Layering Weight White

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Craft Silver and Copic markers

Other: Gina K Designs Lattice embossing folder and Hello die, Silver Pearl Ex powder, GKD silver pearls, Connect Glue, Misti, Big Shot, Foam Tape

Let's Celebrate!

Hi all and Happy Wednesday evening,

Freshly Made Sketches is celebrating their 600th sketch this week. As it's one of my favorite challenges to play along with each week, I'm excited to join in the celebration.  The design team and the Guest DT has provided some beautiful cards for our inspiration and I've enjoyed seeing each card.

For my card I wanted to keep it in the "clean" spirit of the FMS challenge. I used some ink blending for the horizontal element, a fun circle die from GKD and a pretty stamped and stenciled butterfly. I kept the color scheme simple too, using various shades of green, blue and purple.

After ink blending across the top of the panel, I cut the dots circle die and the center circle die from the GKD Lots of Dots die set popping up that center circle providing a landing space for the butterfly.

I'm also posting my card to this week's Clean and Simple Paper Players Challenge.

For the inside, I used a couple of GKD mini stamp sets and made this card a birthday card.

Congratulations to the ladies who bring us such a fun challenge each week. Think of all of the beautiful inspiration they've provided over the years!

Thanks for checking in,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: All Gina K Designs You Give Me Butterflies, Flowers & Wings Mini and Birthday Cheer Mini

Paper: Gina K Designs Heavy Weight and Layering Weight White

Ink: Gina K Designs Black Onyx, Apple Mint, Sea Glass, Lovely Lavender, Lucky Clover, Turquoise Sea and Wild Lilac

Other: You Give Me Butterflies Layering Stencils and dies, Flowers & Wings dies, Lots of Dots dies, blending brushes, Pre-printed sentiments and Sentiment Strip dies, black enamel dots, Misti, Big Shot, Connect Glue, SU Dimensionals

Happy Birthday

 Hi and Happy Monday evening peeps!

Our little beach town made it through Tropical Storm Hillary yesterday without much damage. Thankfully. We mostly had a steady rain for about 12 hours. Once the "eye" went through, we had some wind, sometimes pretty gusty, but not too bad. The sun came out for a little while mid morning today, and I headed out for a walk through the neighborhood to the ocean. I saw tons of leaves and branches in the roads, but nothing else. Unfortunately, in our east county and in the Palm Springs area, there was flooding and mud slides. 

Since there wasn't much going on yesterday, I got a few cards made. Today's post has my CAS card for this week's Paper Players challenge. I've used the sketch from CAS Colours & Sketches Challenge. I did rotate the sketch to the landscape orientation for my card.

To go along with this month's CAS challenge, Ann incorporated the theme of "Don't Bug Me." I used one of Gina K Designs' silhouette images for my CAS design that includes some butterflies for my bugs. To make the rectangle I used some Masking Magic and ink blended Soft Stone, Innocent Pink and Peach Bellini inks to form the rectangle. Since Gina's ink is water reactive, I spritzed the blended inks with a little water to give it a muddled background look before stamping the image with black Onyx ink. I used a pre-printed sentiment strip for the sentiment.

For the inside, I stamped an inside sentiment from another GKD stamp set and added a couple of single butterflies from the same set I used on the front of the card.

I'll share more cards from yesterday's stamping session later in the week on my blog. In the meantime, have a good week, and thanks for looking in.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Soaring Mountains and So Many Sentiments sets from Gina K Designs

Paper: Gina K Designs Layering Weight White card stock

Ink: Gina K Designs Soft Stone, Innocent Pink, Peach Bellini, Black Onyx, Copics

Other: Gina K  Designs Masking Magic Strips, Blending Brushes, Misti

Let's Celebrate Your Day

 Happy Friday Peeps,

I hope everyone had a good week and you are ready to enjoy your weekend. It may be an interesting one here in SoCal with our very first hurricane/tropical storm watch and warnings due to Hurricane Hillary. Predictions are for the worst to hit Sunday into Monday. Different models are predicting differing strengths. Some saying it will hit us as a Tropical Storm and others predicting it will hit us as a Cat 2 Hurricane. I'm voting for Tropical Storm!

I have a card for this week's Freshly Made Sketches challenge where Jen M. has a fun sketch. I like the open space in the middle. Last week I received my July release order from Concord & 9th and this die and stamp set called Celebration Squad worked perfectly for Jen's sketch. This is a really fun stamp and die set with tons of options. 

I kept things fairly simple by ink blending a cloudy background using a GKD cloud stencil and blending brush. For the girls top I first stamped the tiny flowers in bright pink on a white scrap of card stock then die cut it. I outlined the sleeve edges with a bright pink Copic to help with dimension. For the rest of the die cuts, I used scraps from my bag of colored card stock pieces. The only embellishments are the pink heart added to the hair bow and I used a white gel pen to make the line and dot on the balloon.

For the inside I used a couple of sentiments from a Honey Bee birthday sentiment stamp set, which has coordinating dies too.

Thanks for looking in,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Celebration Squad stamp and die set by Concord & 9th, Inside Birthday Sentiment stamp and die set by Honey Bee

Paper: Gina K Designs Turquoise Sea, Black Onyx and Layering weight white, SU and GKD card stock scraps

Ink: Gina K Designs Black Onyx, Sea Glass, Passionate Pink

Other: Gina K Designs cloud stencil and Master Layouts 1 die set, blending brush, white gel pen, paper heart embellishment, Misti, Big Shot, Connect liquid glue

I Love You to the Core

 Hello crafty peeps,

I hadn't used the latest Let's Stamp Together set yet and when I saw the Red and Yellow colors for the new Color Hues Challenge, I thought this Honey Bee apple suite would work perfectly.

I first cut three of the large apples from white card stock and then used the coordinating stencils and blending brushes to color them. 

For the background, I die cut a stitched panel and the mat using the Gina K Designs Master Layouts 7 die set, the one for mimi-slimline cards, from SU small gingham yellow and very large red DSP. The die cut sentiment is from the LST suite which also includes the sentiment dies.

Here is the inside of the card. All of the images are from the LST suite. The red mat here is the reverse side of paper of the red mat on the front of the card. After stamping this and looking at it, I decided this would also make a nice layout for a Clean and Simple card front. Maybe a set of cards using red, green and yellow apples. 

Enjoy your Thursday, and thanks for checking in.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps, stencils and image dies from the July 2023 Let's Stamp Together kit

Paper: SU Thick Basic White card stock and SU gingham DSP 

Ink: Distress Oxides, Gina K Designs Black Onyx

Other: Gina K Designs Master Layouts 7 dies, GKD blending brushes, Misti, SU red enamel dots, SU foam tape

Hello & Birthday Wishes Cards

 Hi and Happy Wednesday evening,

I made these two cards yesterday and the day before for this week's Paper Players color challenge. Anne Marie put together some bright colors for this month's color challenge. They were definitely fun to play with. Both cards use lots of dies. The second card has a little more stamping on it.

This first card uses the Spellbinders Small Die of The Month and the 3D Embossing Folder of the month for August 2023. 

These dies are pretty easy to assemble. And fun! I found some DSP in the Calypso Coral to use for the dress instead of just card stock. For the skin I used Blush Blossom card stock and Kraft for the leaves.

I used a Concord and 9th Turnabout stamp for the flower background on the second card. The flower die is also C&9th, as is the cloud background. The sentiment is cut out with a very small MFT tag die.

I don't think I've used Blackberry Bliss much at all so I was happy to have a reason to use it.

Thanks for checking in,

Colleen

Supplies Card 1

Spellbinders Die and 3D Embossing Folder of the Month 8/23, Breezy Swing die set and Stylized Floral embossing folder

SU Blackberry Bliss, Daffodil Delight, Calypso Coral, Sweet Sorbet, Blush Blossom, Basic white card stock, SU DSP, Gina K Designs Kraft card stock

Ink: Copic markers for hair

Other: Pink Fresh Studio Thoughtfully Designed Sayings Hot foil set, Big Shot, Glimmer Hot foil System, Spellbinders foil, Gina K Designs sequins, Connect Glue

Supplies Card 2

Stamps: Pick Me Up Turnabout set by Concord & 9th

Paper: SU Basic White Thick and Blackberry Bliss card stock, Gina K Designs Kraft card stock

Ink: SU Blackberry Bliss, Daffodil Delight, Calypso Coral, Sweet Sorbet

Other: Concord & 9th Fresh Cut Flowers Edition 2 and Cloudy Double Card Front dies, SU Countryside Corners dies, MFT tag dies, Big Shot, SU Dimensionals, Connect glue

Thanks

 Hi and Happy Sunday afternoon,

In today's post I have a card made using a couple of challenges. The layout is from this week's Freshly Made Sketches and the colors are from the current Color Hues challenge, where the colors are orange and teal. I'm liking these colors together as it turns out.

The inks, card stocks, background stamp and embossing folder are all from Gina K Designs. The sentiment leaf die is from Concord & 9th. I stamped the Holiday Tapestry stamp using Tranquil Teal ink on opposite corners then used the Holiday Tapestry EF to create the texture. The color of the lighter orange card stock is Sweet Mango.

The C&9th die is cut from Tomato Soup card stock and stitched using teal thread. The card base is Tranquil Teal card stock but in the photo both it and the thread look more blue than teal.

I used another C&9th stamp set for the inside greeting.

Enjoy your Sunday afternoon and evening.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Gina K Designs Holiday Tapestry set and Concord & 9th Hey Bestie stamp set

Paper: Gina K Designs Sweet Mango, Tomato Soup, Tranquil Teal and Layering Weight White card stock

Ink: Gina K Designs Tranquil Teal

Other: Concord & 9th Sew Sational die set, Gina K Designs Holiday Tapestry embossing folder, Gina K Designs Mermaid Tail sequins, Misti, Big Shot, Connect glue, SU Dimensionals, embroidery floss, needle

You're Every Shade of Awesome

 Hi and happy Hump day!

I've been playing with some new stamps and dies from the Concord & 9th July release that arrived while I was visiting my mom. There are some really fun summer stamps and dies in the release and I had a hard time deciding on which I wanted to use for Claire's Summer theme challenge for this week's Paper Players.

I couldn't resist these sunglasses and their fun lenses. I paired them with the older C&9th Sunshine Turnabout stamp.

After putting everything together, I added some sparkle and shine to the glasses by brushing the light pink frames with Nuvo Aqua Shimmer glitter and covering with Crystal Effects, then finishing with two shinny pink pearls on the corners.

I left the inside fairly simple, adding greetings from the coordinating stamp set to the sunglasses die set.

Enjoy your day, and Stay Cool!

Colleen

Supplies

Concord & 9th Spectacular Shades stamp set and dies, Sunshine Turnabout stamp

Gina K Designs Layering weight white, Coral Reef, Bubblegum pink, Passionate Pink card stock

Gina K Designs Black Onyx and Passionate Pink ink, SSS Pawsitively Saturated ink in Lemonade, Sunbeam, Citrine and Mandarin

Other: Misti, Big Shot, Nuvo Aqua Shimmer glitter pen, Crystal Effects, GKD pink pearls, Connect glue, GKD Master Layouts 2, SU Dimensionals

Have A Zesty Birthday

 Hello and happy Monday,

I'm finally home after visiting my mom in Northern California. I was gone a little over six weeks and I'm happy to be back in my craft room. While I did take some supplies with me, I didn't really have much time to craft. We were cleaning out in prep for my sister to move in with her later in the fall. 

I arrived back home late Thursday evening after a ten hour drive, then spent most of Friday and Saturday putting things away and going through mail. Yesterday afternoon and evening, I finally had some free time to stamp.

Using the current Freshly Made Sketches sketch and an older SU set, I made this card.

After embossing the back panel with the coordinating embossing folder I used some ink cubes in lemon and bright yellow on the raised areas. I also flicked some black and dark green ink using a paint brush over the panel. I trimmed it and matted it with black card stock and mounted it to a Granny Apple Green card base.

The set images are stamped and cut out with the set dies and arranged in the corner made using the sketch parameters.

I left the inside simple with just another greeting from the set.

I hope you have an enjoyable Monday, and thanks for looking in.

Colleen

Supplies

Sweet Citrus stamps, dies and embossing folder by Stampin' Up

SU Thick white, Basic black and Granny Apple green card stock and Dandy Designs DSP

Gina K Designs Black Onyx, Lemon Yellow, Wild Dandelion, Grass Green and Lucky Clover inks

Other: Misti, Altenew Sentiment Strips, Big Shot, SU Dimensionals, GKD Connect Glue