Going Postal - March Woodblock Wednesday Post

 Hi and happy Hump Day Peeps,

What's the saying? Everything old is new again. 

If you've been paying attention around blog-land lately, postal images seem to be all the rage. I've even ordered some of the new stamps and dies in the last month to play with. This morning when I realized it was time for Amy's Woodblock Wednesday Challenge, and I was thinking of what's in my wood mounted stamp drawers, I remembered that I might have some older postal images. I did some digging and found what I had. Enough to make a couple of cards.

I used several stamps to make both of these cards, as well as some newer dies to cut out the panels including GKD Master Layouts 14, which is a postage themed die set. To color the images, I used both Copics and some direct to stamp ink blending prior to stamping, and I also did some ink blending around the edges of the cream card stock on both front panels.

Here's a close up of the pink card front, the inside, and the stamps used. Notice the old fashioned stamp positioning tool. I used it to stamp the sentiments on the front so they were along the lines of the journaling stamp.

The lavender card front and the stamps used to make it.

It was fun putting all of these old stamps together to make these cards!

Happy stamping,

Colleen

Supplies

Wood mounted stamp manufacturer's: All Night Media, Sparkles, Rubber Stampede, Stampin' Up, Rubber Moon, Judith, Tin Can Mail, Hero Arts, A Lost Art, Magenta

Paper: Gina K Designs Innocent Pin, Lovely Lavender, Charcoal Brown, Black Onyx, Vanilla

Ink: Gian K Designs Black Onyx, Charcoal Brown, Prickly Pear, Wild Lilac, and Craft White. Copic markers

Other: Gina K Designs Master Layouts 1, 2, 14, Blending brushes, Big Shot, WOW white EP, heat tool, foam tape, Connect glue

Thanks

 Hi and happy Tuesday peeps,

I've had a busy morning getting some chores completed (taxes), and my daily walk. Now it's time to do fun things. Not that I don't enjoy the daily walk, because I do. Today it's sunny, low 60s, and beautiful out by the beach. But, even with all of that, I'd rather be in my craft room, LOL.

Today's card is a thank you card for my stash made using LeAnne's sketch for The Paper Players Challenge. I had a bunch of ideas on how to use these four elements and I decided to go with a spotlight technique. This is a very large flower stamp by SSS. I stamped it first on some light blue card stock using gray ink, then again on white card stock using black ink. I colored the images on the white card stock using Prisma colored pencils and Gamsol, then used a small scalloped rectangle to cut the areas I wanted.

I rather like the way this turned out. 

I used another SSS set for the inside sentiment.

I hope you have a great Tuesday afternoon.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Flower Garden background and XL Greetings sets both by Simon Says Stamp

Paper: Concord & 9th Powder Blue, Gina K Designs Layering Weight White and Black Onyx card stocks

Ink: Gina K Designs Black Onyx, Soft Stone, and Embossing ink

Other: Prismacolor colored pencils, Gamsol, Spellbinders Scalloped rectangle dies, WOW white embossing powder, heat tool, Misti, Big Shot, SU Dimensionals

Wishing You A Happy Birthday

 Happy Sunday evening,

I hope your weekend has been a good one. We've had some strange weather here, sunny then windy then rainy, then sunny again. At my mom's in northern California, they had severe thunder storms yesterday afternoon with hail the size of marbles, before that pouring rain that made her street a river. Luckily, the house is up a bit from the street, so no water in the garage or house. My sister sent a video of the hail with sound so I could hear the thunder.

I've been watching tennis from Miami this afternoon while making cards. I wanted to get a card made for the current Freshly Made Sketches challenge since it ends tomorrow afternoon. I made a super quick and clean birthday card this week.

The large flower image is from an older Gina K Designs set, as is the inside sentiment.

As I'm finishing this post, it's pouring again. Have a good Monday all.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Delightful Daisies and Birthday Cheer Mini sets by Gina K Designs

Paper: Gina K Designs Layering Weight white and Black Onyx card stock, Stampin' Up Flower Garden DSP

Ink: Gina K Designs Black Onyx

Other: Polychromos colored pencils, Pink Fresh Studio Floral Backdrop die, MFT Stitched Square die, Gina K Designs pre-printed sentiment strips and sentiment strip dies, Misti, Big Shot, foam tape

Just A Note

 Happy Saturday evening Peeps,

The current Just Us Girls challenge thene is birds, and they are collaborating with the Time Out Challenge this time around. Since I just received my Spellbinders Club products last week, I decided to use the Small Die of the month set, a sweet owl with a book, for my focal image. Who doesn't love owls? The background is made using the Betterpress Plate from the March Clubs, and I've used it as a hot foil plate instead of using the actual Betterpress system. When choosing my colors, I used Sarah Renae Clark's Color Cube, box 1. I liked the deep red and pink paired together with the browns on this card. I've had her Color Cubes for a while now, but I've just recently started using them more often for color choices.

The Spellbinders March club release theme is books and for the inside of my card I've used the sentiment from the same Betterpress die set of the Month that I used for the front background.

I had a super fun Saturday. Most of my day was spent participating in the Concord & 9th Spring In the Classroom Spring 2024 virtual classes. SO MUCH FUN! The C & 9th new sets are awesome. Just sayin'.

Have a great Sunday,

Colleen

Supplies

From Spellbinders March Clubs: Friendship Bookplate Betterpress plate with sentiment and Wise Owl Small Die of the Month set

Other Spellbinders die: Just A Note from 2023 Advent Calendar set

Paper: Spellbinders pink and dark red card stock, Gina K Designs Layering Weight White card stock

Ink: Spellbinders black

Other: Spellbinders rose hot foil, Spellbinders hot foiling machine, Big Shot, SU Dimensionals,  Connect Glue

You're My Lucky Charm

Hello Peeps,

I've been working on a quilt this past week that will be a wedding gift. The wedding is in early August, but it never hurts to get started. I've gotten all of the blocks completed. Next is sewing the rows, but I first need to figure out how I want to put the colors together. Anyhoo, I put the sewing away for a bit to work on a few of this week's card challenges.

Since it's Thursday already, I decided I'd better get my card done for this week's Paper Players Challenge. Joanne has the monthly Clean and Simple challenge this week. She's chosen Lucky for a theme to go with the CAS challenge.

I pulled out an older MFT set call Lucky. It has some great sentiments along with some cute charm images, some large and some small. I decided I liked the Lucky Charm sentiment and thought of how to use it with the small images. I ended up hand drawing a charm bracelet and then I stamped the small images around it.

For the bracelet, I used an embossing ink pen to draw it and then added the gold EP but I didn't like how "flat" it was. I wanted it more like a chunky chain so I redrew the image on another piece of white card stock and used a fine tip glue bottle with Connect glue squeezing a fine line over the pencil drawing. After adding the gold EP and heating it, I liked the look much better. Next I stamped the small charms with embossing powder around the bracelet and embossed them with the gold EP. I cut the panel out using GKD Master Layouts 2 and matched the layering mat to the stamped sentiment color. The charms are colored with Copics.

Even though this is a CAS challenge, I still thought something else was needed so I found a flower stencil that I could add some background with. I used a very light hand with the blending brush as well as a very pale yellow shade.

Here's the inside with another sentiment and image from the Lucky stamp set.

That's all for now. 

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Lucky stamp set by My Favorite Things

Paper: Gina K Designs Layering Weight white, Denim Blue and Lemon Yellow

Ink: Gina K Designs embossing ink, Blue Denim, Cherry Red and Lemon Yellow, Copics

Other: Gina K Designs Master Layouts 2 dies, gold embossing powder, heat tool, Misti, Big Shot, Connect glue

Spring Blessings

 Hello,

Here's a pretty bouquet of spring flowers. A perfect use of Jaydee's colors for this week's Paper Players Challenge. The colors for the monthly color challenge are green, pink, yellow, black and white. 

My card has a black and white stenciled background. All but two of the tulips are cut from white card stock and colored using blending brushes. The two darker pink tulips were cut from Pretty In Pink card stock and then ink blended.

I hardly ever use ribbon on my cards these days, but this one called for it. I used a piece of light pink ribbon that was on my desk from a recent shipment of Lawn Fawn goodies. 

Here's the inside:

The stencils, stamps and dies are all from Spellbinders March clubs.

Thanks all,

Colleen

Supplies

Spellbinders March Club supplies:

Stamp set: Lily Arch (sentiments)

Stencil set: Spring Stencil Backgrounds

Large Die set: Floral Bunny Basket

Card Stock: Gina K Designs Layering white, SU Pretty In Pink and Pineapple Punch

Ink: Simon Says Stamp Pawsitivity Artichoke, Field, Fairway, Sunbeam, Lemonade, Bubblegum, and Sweets, Gina K Designs Black Onyx

Other: Misti, Big Shot, blending brushes, Concord & 9th pink enamel dots, SU Dimensionals, Connect glue, pink ribbon

You're the Bee's Knees

 Hello,

Here's my card for this week's Freshly Made Sketch.  I had a hard time with this layout, for whatever reason LOL. I actually made two cards while playing around with the sketch and I ended up choosing this first one because to me it fits with the clean lines for the FMS challenge better than the other card I made.

For this card I did a bit of ink smooching with honey and yellow inks. The bee skep is a die from the SU Honey Bee set cut from the DSP that was part of that suite. The stamped images are from the Bee Yourself set from Simon.

And the inside:

This is the other card I made using SU papers, stamps and dies from the Dino Days bundle.

Front:

Inside:

This card might go to my young friend Liam. He's a pretty awesome young man.

Thanks for looking in and have a good week to come.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Bee Yourself Stamp set by Simon Says Stamp

Paper: SU Bumblebee and Basic Black and White card stocks, SU Golden Honey DSP

Ink: Gina K Designs Honey Mustard, Wild Dandelion and Black Onyx, Copic Markers

Other: SU Bee Skep die, Misti, Big Shot, SU Dimensionals, Connect glue

Stamps: SU Dino Days set and dies

Paper: SU Lovely Lipstick, Flirty Flamingo and Basic White card stock, Dinoroar DSP

Ink: SU Pool Party, Old Olive and Early Espresso , Gina K Designs Tranquil Teal and Black Onyx

Other: Pink Fresh Studio Ornate Medallions Cover Plate die, My Favorite Things Speech Bubble die, SU Dinoroar enamel shapes, SU Dimensionals, Connect glue, Misti, Big Shot

the Best of Luck

Hello and happy Sunday,

Green is my favorite color so of course I had to play along with this week's Just Us Girls Color Challenge. I wasn't quite sure about putting these two shades together, lime and green, but I love the bright result.  

The theme for my card comes from the current Inspired By Challenge.

The background is created using a Turnabout stamp from Concord and 9th. Instead of using different colors I used lime for all four rotations. The stamp set has small stamps to add images to some of the shapes and I again used lime for tone on tone.  For the focal image, I had to get crafty and made a four-leaf clover using a heart die because the dies in my stash are too small. 

Here's the inside of the card. The greeting is from Spellbinders and the clover stamped image from Gina K Designs.

I've been watching Indian Wells Tennis this week and I'll probably do more of the same today. I can craft or color while watching. I picked up a couple of coloring books by Johanna Bashford. She has beautifully drawn images, especially her flowers and they were very inexpensive at Amazon. I've been practicing with colored pencils. It's such a relaxing activity for me.

Enjoy your Sunday afternoon. 

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Pop Heart Turnabout set by Concord and 9th, Luck and Love set with dies by Gina K Designs and Lily Arch set and dies by Spellbinders

Paper: Layering weight white, Lucky Clover and Black Onyx by Gina K Designs

Ink: Key Lime, Black Onyx, Craft White and Embossing ink pad by Gina K Designs

Other: Concord & 9th heart die, Gina K Designs fine detail white and gold embossing powder, heat tool, Misti, Big Shot, Stampin' Up dot embossing folder, SU Dimensionals, Connect glue

Sending Fairy Kisses

 Happy Saturday Peeps,

I saw the Stay Crafty with a Blog Named Hero March Chaallenge on a few blogs while surfing some of my favorite crafty blogs yesterday and decided I would play along. This month it's about the "magic" of melting embossing powder. Who doesn't think it's magic? I thought I'd pair embossing magic with fairy magic with the Hero Fairy Kisses stamp set.

In addition to the Fairy Kisses set, I also used the July 2021 My Monthly Hero set, the Meadow Heroscape set and the Mushroom Forest die to complete my card. The stamped images are embossed using gold EP and the sentiment is embossed with white EP.

The night sky background is ink blended using Gina K Designs inks. After the card was assembled, I added some Nuvo white drops (because I can't find my white paint) and tiny clear sequins for some sparkle.

For the inside of of the card, I used the other large image and sentiments from the Fairy Kisses set, both heat embossed.

Enjoy your weekend, and thanks for checking in.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: All Hero Arts Fairy Kisses, July 2021 My Monthly Hero set, Meadow HeroScapes set

Paper: Gina K Designs Layering Weight White, Black Onyx and Lovely Lavender card stock

Ink: Gina K Designs Craft White, Embossing and Watermark ink, Powder Blue, Blue Denim, In the Navy and Wild Wisteria inks

Other: Hero Mushroom Forrest die, Gina K Designs fine detail gold and white embossing powder, Nuvo white pearl drops, Gina K Designs mini disco ball sequins, Connect glue, Misti, Big Shot, heat tool, Gina K Designs Master Layouts 1, SU Dimensionals and mini dimensionals

No Bad Days!

 Happy Tuesday,

I have a fun card today with lots and lots of color. Rainbow color! Claire is hostess for this week's theme challenge for the Paper Players and the theme is Rainy Days. I took my inspiration from the rainbow image in the photo to make my card.

This is an easel card, which is why the top isn't laying flat in the photo. 

This is a very large stamp and die set by Erin Lee with many fun images and dies. After stamping the large image I cut it out with one of the SU Deckled Circle dies. I used two of the circle dies and made a thin ring then used blending brushes to color it in as a rainbow. I matched the ring with the stamped image and glued them to the 5.25 x 5.25 inch square card base. The pattern papers are from SU called Rain or Shine.

Here is the card folded back as an easel.

The front image is colored with Copics and then the greeting was stamped over the clouds. I found some enamel rain drops in my embellishments and added three. The No Bad Days sentiment on the inside is a die with a shadow that comes with the coordinating die set.

Happy Hump Day tomorrow!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Hug, Sunshine, Smiles and Rainbows set by Erin Lee

Paper: Gina K Designs Black Onyx and Layering Weight White card stock, SU DSP Rain or Shine DSP

Ink: Gina K Designs Black Onyx, Navy and Copic Markers

Other: Stamp set coordinating dies, SU Deckled Circle dies, Misti, Big Shot, enamel embellishments, SU Dimensionals

Hello

Happy Monday,

I hope you all had a nice weekend. It was a quiet one here and I spent a few hours both days in my craft room.

This is a card that I made yesterday afternoon. I'm submitting it to two challenges. Just Us Girls has the "CASE the Designer" challenge this week. I don't play with these often as I get lost in the details for some reason. The second challenge is for the Color Hues turquoise and green colors.

I decided to CASE Lisa's card. I liked the single die cut image, and I knew I had several die options I could use. Here's Lisa's very pretty card I used as inspiration.

 

This is how I CASED it. Instead of stamping images in the background, I used a SSS cover plate with a similar design as the large SSS flower die that I used as the focal image. I used a die cut sentiment instead of a stamped one. The green and turquoise shades of card stock are from Gina K Designs as is the hello sentiment die, and the turquoise and green pearl embellishments. The black card stock is from Erin Lee and it has a glossy black finish.

There is a coordinating background stamp and I used it to stamp images in opposite corners on the inside of the card. The sentiment is from the SSS set called XL Greetings.

Enjoy the rest of your day, and thanks for looking in.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Chunky Flower background stamp and XL Greetings set both by Simon Says Stamp

Paper: Gina K Designs Jelly Bean Green, Turquoise Sea, Sea Glass, Layering Weight white card stock, Erin Lee Glossy Black card stock

Ink: Gina K Designs Black Onyx and Sea Glass

Other: Simon Says Stamp Chunky Flower die, Gina K Designs Scripty Hello die, Simon Says Stamp Detail Mandala Plate die, Gina K Designs pearl embellishments, Misti, Big Shot, Connect glue, SU Dimensioals

Warm Hello & Knit Happens

Hi all,

Another rainy day here in SoCal. I hear that the Tahoe area has already received 42 inches or more of snow this weekend, so a little rain is no worry.

I spent some time yesterday evening and this morning playing with the Freshly Made Sketch for this week and made two cards.

This first one uses all Stampin' Up supplies. I bought this suite when it first came out, but I haven't really done much with it. While looking through my DSP stash, I landed on this paper, and so that's where this card's inspiration started. Instead of using just the coordinating stamp set for everything, I pulled out the Circle Sayings set for the focal circle images.

For the inside of this card, I added a border die and left the center blank to write a note.

Card two uses Concord & 9th supplies for the focal images and greeting. Again, I think this is the first time I've used this stamp and die set. It's pretty cute. For the background, I used a Gina K Designs background stamp that matches the knitting theme perfectly. To make the knitting needles more "real" I added Glossy Accents over them and glued some silver balls to the tops.

The greeting on the inside is also from the same stamp/die set.

Enjoy your Sunday,

Colleen

Supplies Card 1

Stamps: Circle Sayings and Seaside Bay sets by Stampin' Up

Paper: Stampin' Up Basic White Thick and Night of Navy card stock, By the Bay DSP

Ink: VersaMark, Early Espresso

Other: Stampin' Up Seaside Bay, Deckled Circle and Radiating Stitches dies, gold embossing powder, Misti, Big Shot, SU Dimensionals

Supplies Card 2

Stamps: Knitting Together set by Concord & 9th and Close Knit Background stamp by Gina K Designs

Paper: Concord & 9th Fig, Grape Soda and white card stock

Ink: Concord & 9th Fig and Grape Soda

Other: Concord & 9th Knitting Together and Knit With Care dies, Gina K Designs Double Stitched circle die, Misti, Big Shot, Glossy Accents, Gina K Designs silver dots, SU Dimensionals