Best Wishes To You

 Hi everyone,

It's time for my last post as Just Us Girls April Guest Designer. It's sure been fun to participate with this talented group of ladies this month.

This week is Stencil week. I love using stencils and do so quite often when card making.

For this week's card, I've used mostly all Gina K Designs products again and they include a large background stamp, a background stencil, a floral stamp set with dies and a couple of her Master Layout die sets. This card uses several techniques including emboss resist, ink blending, and the Joseph's Coat technique. I hope you enjoy what I've created.

The process to make this card started with cutting a panel from white card stock and using 1/4" Masking Magic strips to mask off a boarder around the panel. Next I heat embossed the Petite Flourish background stamp with white embossing powder over the entire panel ink blending the panel with yellow, green and blue inks from top to bottom. After letting the ink soak into the paper for a bit, I wiped the ink off of the white embossing using a dry paper towel. Using the Flower Garden stencil, I blended black ink over the entire panel for the Joseph's Coat technique. When the stencil is removed, the colored ink is revealed as the stencil flowers.

Using the You Give Me Butterflies stamp set, I stamped a couple of the flowers and leaves using the coordinating stencils to color the images. They are cut out using the set dies. The black oval is from the Master Layouts 1 die set and cut from black card stock.The sentiment is heat embossed with white. I added some of Gina's colored pearls in the center of the flowers and on the oval for embellishments.

Here is the inside of this card with stenciled, stamped and die cut images. Both the front and inside sentiments are from the Sweet Sentiments Mini stamp set.

I can't wait to see what you do with stencils. They are one of my favorite tools so I'm looking forward to the gallery this week.

Many, Many Thanks to the Just Us Girls DT for inviting me to play along as the Guest Designer this month! 

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Petite Flourish Background stamp, You Give Me Butterflies set and Sweet Sentiments Mini set all Gina K Designs

Stencils: Flower Garden and Coordinating You Give Me Butterflies 

Paper: Gina K Designs Layering Weight White and Black Onyx Card stock

Ink: Gina K Designs Craft White, Black Onyx, Wild Dandelion, Jelly Bean Green and Blue Raspberry

Other: Gina K Designs Master Layouts 1 and 2, Masking Magic, White Embossing powder, blending brushes, Pearl Mix, Connect Glue, Misti, Big Shot, Heat Tool, SU Dimensionals

Enjoy the Good Life

 Hi all,

It's the third Thursday of the month and time for my third post as April's Guest Designer for Just Us Girls.

This week we have a fun Mood Board to use as our inspiration.

I used the small shot of the sunset with the silhouette of palm trees for inspiration and using a couple of Gina K Designs stamp sets, here's what I came up with.

I really like how this worked out. I've used this ocean/sunset stencil many times and it never gets old. The Palm tree silhouette image and the greetings are from another stamp set by Gina as is the image I've use on the inside of this card here.

I can't wait to see where this mood board takes you. 

Enjoy your Thursday!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Tropical Sunshine and Ocean Silhouettes sets by Gina K Designs

Stencil: Tropical Sunshine set

Paper: Gina K Designs Layering Weight White, Blue Raspberry and Black Onyx

Ink: Gina K Designs Sea Glass, Ocean Mist, Turquoise Sea, Blue Lagoon, Tranquil Teal, Blue Raspberry, Powder Blue, Wild Dandelion, Sweet Mango, Black Onyx, Craft White

Other: Fine Detail White EP, Heat Tool, Misti, Big Shot, Banner die from Master Layouts 3, Foam Tape

It's Time To Celebrate You

Hello and Happy Monday evening peeps,

My card today is inspired by Claire's Color Challenge for this week's Paper Players. 

To make it, I cut a piece of masking paper the same size as the white card panel and die cut a heart shape from it. After placing the masking paper over the white panel, I stamped the various flowers in the negative space using Claire's challenge colors, masking the flowers as needed. After removing all of the masks, I ran the panel through an embossing folder, using heavy weight card stock cut with the same heart die, as a mask because I didn't want the embossing to show in the stamped area. Unfortunately, my mask wasn't thick enough. In order to make the embossing show more outside of the stamped area, I rubbed the Granny Apple Green ink pad over the white areas to color the scallops. In my mind, I wanted to leave the scallops white, but they needed to be more obvious since my embossing folder mask didn't work.

The sentiment is stamped using white craft ink and heat embossed using white EP. I cut each line out with sentiment strip dies and popped them up in the center with foam tape. 

Here is the inside.

Honestly, I came close to pitching the front panel a few times and starting over, but I kept thinking I should try to make it work, and in the end, it did.

Happy stamping,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Heavenly Hollyhocks and Messages for Mom sets by Stampin' Up

Paper: SU Basic white, black and Granny Apple Green card stock

Ink: SU Melon Mambo, Bermuda Bay, Crushed Curry, Granny Apple Green. Gina K Designs Black Onyx and Craft White

Other: SU Scallops embossing folder, SU Deckle Edge Rectangle dies, Gina K Designs Master Layouts 4 (heart die), Sentiment Strip dies and Masking Magic, SU enamel dots, fine detail white embossing powder, heat too, Big Shot, Misti, foam tape

Sunny Days Ahead

 Hi and Happy Thursday,

I have my second April Guest Designer card for Just Us Girls. This week is WORD week and our word is Rain.

I'm using all Concord & 9th supplies today with this cute umbrella turnabout stamp and coordinating Rain or Shine stamp and die set. 

I started with the turnabout stamp using four ink colors from C&9th. Matching the card stock to the ink colors I cut the umbrella die from Watermelon card stock and heat embossed the sentiment using white embossing powder. For the Sea Glass circle, I first stamped the rain drops to completely cover a 5.5 x 4.25 panel again embossing with white embossing powder. After cutting the circle, I ink blended Sea Glass ink over the edges for a darker shade of color. The flower embellishments on the umbrella are from the stamp/die set and the enamel dots in the flowers and on the bottom of the umbrella are from C&9th.

I decided to use the negative piece of the raindrop panel on the inside. Sentiment and heart stamps are also from the Rain or Shine set.

I hope you play along with us this week. I look forward to seeing how "Rain" inspires you.

Thanks for looking in,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Rain or Shine stamp and die set and Umbrella Turnabout set from Concord & 9th

Paper: Concord & 9th Sea Glass, Watermelon, Pebble and white

Ink: Concord & 9th Sea Glass, Watermelon, Pebble, Buttercup and Oceanside, and Gina K Designs White Craft ink

Other: Gina K Designs Double and Single Stitched Circle dies, White embossing powder, heat tool, Gina K Designs Master Layouts 1 dies, Concord & 9th enamel dots, Big Shot, Misti, blending brush, foam tape, SU glue dots

Just Us Girls April Guest Designer - You Are All Kinds Of Awesome!

Hi all,

I'm SO, SO EXCITED! Today is my first post as April's Guest Designer for Just Us Girls. 

Week one is color week and the colors are purple, orange and mustard.

I decided to make a "groovy" denim jacket using this fun Concord and 9th die and stamp set from their March release. This die set is so detailed. It has the dies for elbow patches, a yoke die, additional cuff and collar dies, in addition to many different embellishment dies. Because of the bright colors in the challenge, I thought these daisy flowers would be fun.

I kept the theme going for the inside. All of the stamped sentiments on the front and the inside are from the coordinating stamp set.

I hope you play along with us this week. It's a fun color palette with lots of possibilities.

Thanks,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Concord and 9th Carpe Denim stamp set and dies

Paper: Concord and 9th card stock

Ink: Concord and 9th

Blending brushes, Misti, Big Shot, foam squares, Connect glue

Love You Friend

 Hi and Happy Monday Peeps,

After a very wet weekend, we are back to our beautiful blue skies and sunny days. I had a very pretty beach walk this morning before some chores and now I'm planning my craft room fun. Not sure if I'll be stamping or working on a quilt that I'm making, but either will make for a fun afternoon for me.

My card today is inspired by the current challenge at  Just Us Girls. It's Anything Goes Stencil week. I've used a stamp, stencil and die set from Gina K Designs along with the Master Layouts 14 postage die and postage stencil set for my card.

I bought this set when it was first release but have not played with it until now. It's quite fun! I started with the postage die and coordinating postage stencil and inked around the borders with Sea Glass ink. After removing the postage stencil, I blocked off the postage lines with Masking Magic and stenciled and stamped the small and large flowers. The panel is layered with black and glued to a white card base. The sentiments are from the same stamp set, and they have coordinating dies to cut them out.

Here's the inside of this card. The sentiment is from one of Gina's Mini stamp sets.

That's all for now. Have a great Monday afternoon and evening.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps/Stencils: Modern Floral set and On My Mind and In My Heart Mini set by Gina K Designs

Paper: Gina K Deisgns Layering Weight White and Black Onyx card stock

Ink: Gina K Designs Meduim and Dark Orchid, Carnation and Lilac, Sweet Mango,  Tangerine Twist, Red Hot, Red Velvet, Jelly Bean Green, Black Onyx and Craft White

Other: Gina K Designs Master Layouts 2 and 14 die sets, blending brushes, white embossing powder, Masking Magic, and silver pearls. Misti, Big Shot, foam squares, Connect glue, 

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