Happy Hour

 Hello,

We're back from our long weekend in Palm Springs for Modernism Week, and we had a lovely time. We toured some very cool Mid Century Modern homes, inside and out, and took a 2.5 hour bus tour through some of the neighborhoods where most of the homes are of that architecture, many of which were once owned by celebrities.

This afternoon after getting things put away and laundry done, I made this colorful card for Jan's Masculine / CAS theme for The Paper Players. I've also used Jen M.'s sketch for this weeks Freshly Made Sketches.

I cut the card base with a die from the Concord & 9th Select A Size die set and glued it to a panel that I stenciled using the Concord & 9th Joyful Tiles Turnabout stencil set. The martini glass and the sentiment are from the SU Sip Sip Hooray stamp set.

Here's the inside where I've used a couple of other SU stamp sets.

It's always good to have another masculine birthday card in my stash. 

Have a nice Friday, and weekend ahead.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: All Stampin' Up sets, Sip Sip Hooray, Bonanza Buddies, Happy Hour

Paper: SU Vanilla

Ink: SU Merry Merlot, Tranquil Teal, Dapper Denim, Delightful Dijon, Gina K Designs Soft Stone, Storm Sky, Copic Markers

Other: Concord & 9th Joyful bTiles Turnabout stencil and Select A Size dies, blending brushes, Connect glue

Love You Friend

 Hi,

Since we are leaving tomorrow until Wednesday, I thought I'd do a 2nd post today with my Just Us Girls card. It's Word Week and the word is Friend.  The DT cards are all so pretty, and I love Stephanie's Snoopy card. 

I made a birthday card for a friend using some layering stencils. There are three layers of stencils and for the third stencil I used Deco gel instead of ink. After it was sufficiently dry, I used my GKD Fuse System and foiled some pretty pink foil to give it shine. The large Love sentiment is also foiled. To make it, I foiled a piece of Polyglaze with the iridescent foil then cut the die.

This stencil is called Heartfelt Snowflake, by Gina K, and I thought that it would make a pretty spring-ish looking card with the pinks. 

Here's the front again but tilted to show the shine.

For the inside, I used the Gina K set Delicate Dahlias for the sentiments and the Gina K set You are So Loved for the cupcake.

This card is very pretty IRL.

Enjoy your weekend!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Gina K Designs sets Delicate Dahlias and You Are So Loved

Paper: Gina K Designs Layering Weight White, Black Onyx and Passionate Pink

Ink: Gina K Designs Innocent Pink, Passionate Pink and Black Onyx. Copic Markers

Other: Gina K Designs Heartfelt Snowflake Layering stencils, Love die from A Little Love bundle, Deco gel duo, Deco pink and iridescent white foil, Fuse System, Mini Disco Ball sequins, Connect glue, Foam tape

Happy Easter

 Happy Weekend Peeps,

It's a beautiful day here in my neck of the woods. I have a few errands to do later today, but for now I'm being lazy and looking at cards while going through my stamping blog list, as well as writing today's post.

My card today is an Easter card, first one for this year, and it uses this week's Freshly Made Sketches sketch as inspiration. All of the supplies are from Gina K Designs, featuring her new ink and card stock colors, two on the front and the other two on the inside..

The circle is made with the Twirl-It Gingham stencil using two of the new colors, Blue Sky and Emerald Coast. The sprig of leaves is foiled with Deco Foil and the Fuse machine using silver foil and I used the coordinating stencils to color it with Emerald Coast and Lemon Yellow. The bunny die is one from the Some Bunny die set, cut from white card stock. I shaded the ears with pink and then embossed it with the Swiss Dot EF. The card base is also embossed using the Lattice EF, and both sentiments are heat embossed with white detail embossing powder.

For the inside, I used the Friendly Wishes mini stamp set for the sentiment and the flowers. Instead of white card stock, the images are stamped on a piece of Barley There card stock. The other new colors are the yellow (Butterscotch) and coral (Sunkissed Coral) flowers.

Enjoy your weekend. We are driving to Palm Springs with friends tomorrow for four days to check out Modernism Week. We have some home tours booked that should be quite interesting. We've been wanting to check it out for a few years, but we never have gotten our act together in time to book before things were sold out. This year, we planned early enough to be able to book tours.

Thanks for looking in,

Colleen

Supplies

All from Gina K Designs

Stamps: Easter Blessings and Friendly Wishes sets

Paper: Blue Sky, Emerald Coast, Barley There, Black Onyx and Layering White card stock

Ink: Blue Sky, Emerald Coast, Bubblegum Pink, Lemon Yellow, Sunkissed Coral, Butterscotch, and Craft White

Other: Some Bunny dies, Stitched Circle Dies, Sentiment Strip dies, Delicate Florals Polyglaze sheets, dies and stencils, Swiss Dots and Lattice Embossing Folders, White Detail Embossing Powder, Pastel Enamel dots, Silver Deco Foil, Fuze Machine, Blending Brushes, Corner Rounder Punch, Foam Squares, Connect Liquid glue

You Are Simply Amazing

Happy Hump Day Peeps!

A quick post with my card for this week's Paper Players Challenge. LeAnne is our hostess with the monthly color challenge, and they are nice Spring group. I don't have the SU Summer Splash ink or card stock, so I've used another ink that looks to be close to that shade.

The die cut flowers and leaves are cut from white card stock and I used blending brushes and ink pads to color them. The Flirty Flamingo card base is stamped with the Swiss Dots background stamp using Flirty Flamingo ink, as is the center oval shape.  I'm a little sorry that I used the background stamp on the oval. I think I would have liked it better leaving it white with the stamped sentiment. 

Here's the inside with another sentiment from the same stamp set.

Enjoy the rest of your week, and happy stamping!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps and dies: Blended Blooms bundle from Concord & 9th, Dainty Swiss Dots Background stamp from Altenew

Paper: SU Flirty Flamingo and Thick Basic White card stock

Ink: SU Flirty Flamingo and Daffodil Delight, Gina K Designs Black Onyx and Emerald Coast

Other: Blending brushes, liquid glue, SU dimensionals

You're the cat's MEOW!

 Hello and Happy Sunday,

Today I have a couple of cards inspired by Jacquie's sketch for Freshly Made Sketches. I might even say loosely inspired by.

Card one here is probably my favorite. I made it for my nephew that lives in Minneapolis and works for the University in the GIS department. He recently received a nice promotion, and he is a kitty fan.

I thought I could use the three cats on a fence as the three images in Jacquie's design. I created the fence by scoring a white panel every 1/4" then dragging some brown ink pads over the panel. I also added some green for contrast. The top is partial die cut with an older fence die I have in my stash and I used the left over strips to add the horizontal boards, complete with some nails (brads.)

The night sky is ink blended and ink splattered. The small moon is from the GKD Master Layouts 6 die set. I cut it from masking paper then ink blended some yellow lightly over it once the mask was removed.

Here is the inside of this card.

All of the stamped images inside and on the front are from the same Gina K Designs stamp and die set called Cordial Cats.

The second card is also made using Gina K Designs supplies. I moved the three images from the top to the side.

The background is from a new stamp from GKD as is the ink color it's stamped with. The birds are from the Ornate Birds stamp and die set. The right side panel is ink blended and separated  with a strip of card stock and it's popped up with foam tape over the background. The black enamel dots are glued over dots that are part of the background stamp.

Here's the inside of this card.

I will not be watching the "big game" today.  FB is not a sport that I enjoy, so I'll be crafting away during the afternoon, but, if you're a fan, I hope it's a good game.

Colleen

Supplies - Card 1

Stamps: Cordial Cats set by Gina K Designs

Paper: Gina K Designs card stocks

Ink: Gina K Designs

Other: Gina K Designs Master Layouts 6 dies set, Fence and sentiment dies from My Favorite Things, SU Brads, Spellbinders small gold dotsFoam Tape, SU Dimensionals, 

Supplies - Card 2

Stamps: Ornate Birds set by Gina K Designs and Double Background/Grip Mat by Gina K Designs

Paper: Gina K Designs card stock

Ink: Gina K Designs

Other: Gina K Designs black enamel dots, Foam Tape, SU Dimensionals

Happy "Love" Day!

 TGIF Peeps,

It's a very drippy, but not really rainy, day here in San Diego today. Too drippy for my daily walk. I've been doing a little cleaning and a lot of crafting. 

This week is die week at Just Us Girls and Lisa is looking for heart dies. I'm sure we all have many to choose from in our die stashes. I decided on a few older Concord & 9th sets and made two cards.

This first one is a die set called Enchanted Hearts. So many ways to use it. I simply cut everything from white card stock and then cut some strips of colored card stock and glued those to a background panel so they show through the cutouts. The sentiment dies are from two other C&9th sets. I cut them from black card stock twice and layered them, then brushed a thick layer of Nuvo clear glitter gloss over them followed by some Glossy Accents. After they dried, I glued them to the front. Also, it's a little difficult to tell from the photo that I popped the large scalloped heart up with foam tape matching the stripes as best I could.

Here's the inside of this card with a sentiment from the C&9th Paper Bouquet stamp set.

 

The second card also uses the same Enchanted Hearts die, with a different layout and some different stamps. Again, all are from C&9th. I made a shaker card with this one. The card stocks and ink colors are the same on both cards.

And the inside of card two.

Wishing everyone a happy and relaxing weekend,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps and Main Dies: All Concord & 9th: Enchanted Hearts Die set, Happy Heart set with dies, Sweet Talk set with dies, Paper Bouquet set with dies, Pop Up Heart Turnabout set, Scattered Hearts Turnabout set

Paper: Concord & 9th card stock  in Pink Lemonade, Honeysuckle, Sea Glass, Juniper, Clementine and white

Ink: Gina K Designs Black Onyx, Concord & 9th Pink Lemonade, Honeysuckle, Sea Glass and Juniper

Other: Gina K Designs Master Layouts 2 and 12 die sets, Nuvo Clear Glitter, Glossy Accents, Misc shapes and sequin for shaker, Acetate, foam tape, Connect glue

Love You

 Hello all,

I have another very pink and bright Valentine's Day card for you today. I was watching this Jennifer McGuire video and decided to give the technique a try. This video is  part 2 of 2. Part 1 is the same technique using embossing folders, which I also tried and made several cards with the backgrounds I produced.

I'm playing with the current Color Hues Pink and Red challenge, and Ann's Theme challenge, Love is In The Air for the Paper Players.

All of the supplies for this card are from Gina K Designs. They include the heart sentcil, Script background stamp, focal dies, paper and ink.

As with most inking techniques, it's hard to stop, but even with the door open to the outside and the over head fan on, the alcohol fumes got to be a little much. But, I got some nice results from both the stencils and the embossing folders. Like Jennifer, I found that the Simon Says Stamp Pawsitivitly Saturated inks gave a little better result, but the Gina K dye inks still worked well. I'm assuming most dye inks would work. I used a Tim Holtz sponge ink applicator instead of blending brushes to apply the ink and blend the colors. I thought that a heavier ink application would probably work best.

Here's the inside of this card. Also using GKD stamps.

The following cards are made using backgrounds from the same technique, but with embossing folders. The embossing folders are from SSS, SU, and Spellbinders. The die sets used to finish the cards are all from Spellbinders. Inks are all SSS Pawsitively Saturated inks.

If you're looking for a fun inking technique, watch Jennifer's two videos and give this a try. I love picking the blending colors.

Enjoy your week,

Colleen

Supplies for Challenge Card

Stamps: Elegant Script Background Stamp and You Are So Loved set by Gina K Designs

Paper: Gina K Designs card stock Cherry Red, Passionate Pink, Innocent Pink, and Heavy Weight White

Ink: Gin K Designs Passionate Pink, Bubble Gum Pink, and Cherry Red

Other: Gina K Designs Layering Hearts Stencil (I used only the open heart stencil), Gina K Designs Master Layouts 1 dies, small heart from the Stitched Circle die set, and Ornate Love You dies, Tim Holtz sponge applicator, rubbing alcohol in mister bottle, red enamel heart, foam tape

The Cat's Pajamas

 Hello all,

Yesterday was the final Wednesday for January which means it's time for the January edition of Wood Block Wednesday. Probably the only time many of us actually pull out our wood mounted rubber stamps. I try to play along each month  when I'm not away from home.

For this month I have a Valentine's Day card and I've used the new Freshly Made Sketch to help with my layout.

I hope you're a pink fan, LOL.

This little cat in her pjs is one of my favorite stamps. It's an oldie from Uptown Rubber Stamps. I was wondering when/why this saying came about. Luckily, we have Google these days so looking it up was easy. Google says its first recording was 1920 as part of the typical vocabulary of the Jazz Age flappers. The term "cat" is slang for cool person and pajamas were just becoming fashionable for women in 1920. The saying was popularized by the cartoonist Tad Dorgan, who is also credited with the phrase, "the cat's meow." 

The large Valentine sentiment and the small hearts are also wood mounted stamps, as is the large heart on the inside. The sentiment on the inside is from an older SU set.

I love looking through the gallery because I recognize many of the stamps used each month, as I have them in my drawers too.

Enjoy the end of the week, and thanks for looking in. I'm off to buy some fabric for  backing and some batting for two quilts I've recently pieced. Retirement is the BEST!

Colleen

Supplies

Wood mounted stamps: Cat: Uptown Rubber Stamps, Valentine Sentiment: Great Impressions, Small Hearts: Rubber Stampede, and Large heart doily: Penny Black.

SU set: XOXO

Paper: Concord & 9th card stock

Ink: Concord & 9th and Copic Markers

Other: Spellbinders Scalloped Circle and Basic Circle dies, white heart embellishments, SU Dimensionals

Wishing You A Happy (Lunar) New Year - Year of the Snake

 Happy Lunar New Year Peeps!

That's the theme for today's card. While it's not something that we've traditionally celebrate, we are heading to a little Lunar New Year party tomorrow night and I wanted to make a card for the hosts. Using a few stamp sets in my craft room, I was able to come up with something appropriate.

I've used Joanne's sketch for this week's Paper Players Challenge and I'm posting my card to the Lunar New Year Challenge Blog as well.

To make this card I started by stamping the lantern images around the card panel with black ink, then colored them with Copic Markers. After the coloring was completed, I used a blending brush to add a yellow glow to the background.  Per Joanne's sketch, I added the sentiment panel with the happy snake image and another lantern, but in gold.

I duplicated the snake image on the inside with a simple Let's Celebrate sentiment.

Enjoy your Wednesday!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Stampin' Up sets Color Me Happy (lanterns) and Light the Sky (sentiments). Lawn Fawn set Jungle Critters (snake)

Paper: Gina K Designs card stock

Ink: Gina K Designs Black Onyx and Copic Markers

Other: Gina K Designs Master Layouts 1 die set, MFT Stitched Rectangle and Banner dies, Spellbinders gold dots, SU Dimensionals, Foam tape

A Royal Flush of Wishes

Happy Monday Peeps,

I hope you had a fab weekend. 

I'm squeaking in my card for this week's Freshly Made Sketches challenge. I recently received an order from Spellbinders that included the Jack of All Trades bundle. It is a combination of stamps, Betterpress plates and dies. I spent some time inking up the betterpress plates with different paper and ink color combos and now have about 10 card front panels to make into actual cards. I did make one complete card that I'm sharing today, a birthday card for our friend whose birthday is Feb 2.

For this card, I combined a die cut from the Spellbinders Love On the Rock die set, which is the old fashion glass. 

The background is the largest Betterpress plate in the bundle. I used Lisa Horton Cloud 9 Charcoal Gold Shimmer to ink the plate and some Bisque Betterpress paper to get a letterpress effect. The letterpress effect is so pretty, but doesn't photograph well here. For the glass, I did direct to paper with the same ink pad over black card stock then die cut the glass. For the Manhattan drink, I used some Merlot card stock and ink blended a medium brown ink over it. 

The vellum looked a little "plain," so I used a card front die to adde some texture.

The rest of the royal flush cards are here on the inside of the card.

The club and diamond images are from another Betterpress set from the bundle, as are the all of the sentiments, front and inside. The die cut spades and card denominations are from a die set in the bundle.

It's a really  fun kit to play with and has so many options for card making.

Enjoy your week, and thanks for checking in!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps, Betterpress plates and dies: Spellbinders Jack of All Trades Bundle

Paper: Spellbinders Betterpress Bisque card stock and Gina K Designs Vanilla and Black card stock, Gina K Designs Vellum, SU Merry Merlot card stock

Ink: Lisa Horton Charcoal Gold Cloud 9 shimmer ink pad, Gina K Designs Warm Cocoa ink pad

Other: Spellbinders Love On the Rocks die set, Simon Says Stamp Detail Swirls embossing plate die, Corner Rounder punch, Hero Arts Martini Glass dies (cherries, orange garnish, swizzle stick dies), Spellbinders Betterpress System, Spellbinders gold enamel dot embellishments, GKD Blending brush, SU Dimensionals, Connect liquid glue

Sending A Fluttering Hello

 Hi and Happy Weekend!

It's Anything Goes Stencil Week at Just Us Girls, one of my favorite challenges. Since I had not used the new Spellbinders Stencil of the Month for January, I took the opportunity to use it for my challenge card. To help with color selection for these pretty flowers, I've used the colors for the current Color Throwdown, pink, blue and yellow.

These pretty hummers are Spellbinders Betterpress plates that I've hot foiled with my Glimmer System. 

The sentiment is from the same Betterpress set and it's hot foiled as well with black foil. I tried to get a picture with the shine and this is the best I could do with my phone.

The black scalloped oval is a die from the January Stitching Die of the Month set. It is the perfect size for the large space in the center of the stenciling and I liked the tiny scallops. The enamel flower embellishments are from my stash. I think I picked them up in a scrapbooking store in Sacramento years ago.

For the inside of the card, I used the stencils again, but just in the corner. No sentiment, I'll just leave it as a note card.

Enjoy your weekend and thanks for checking in,

Colleen

Supplies

Stencils: Natures Frame, Spellbinders 1/25 Stencil of the Month

Betterpress: Flutter Into Spring and Fluttering Hummingbird sets, Spellbinders Betterpress of the Month 2/24

Paper: Gina K Designs

Ink: Gina K Designs

Other: Oval Die from Spellbinders Stitched Ladybug set 1/25, GKD blending brushes, enamel flower embellishments, Connect liquid glue, SU Dimensionals

Betterpress Butterflies

 TGIF Peeps!

Playing around with the Betterpress set of the month for January last night and I made a couple of cards using the current Color Hues challenge colors of Lime and Navy.

The background is made with another Betterpress plate of the month from March of last year called Friendship Book Plate. I liked the foliage motif as the backdrop for the butterflies. The butterfly set comes with both dies to cut out the images and coloring stencils, which I did use. I love the modern feel of the images.

The cards differ in the landing shape, circle vs rectangle, the sentiment, and the enamel dot arrangement.

 

Card 1, front and inside.

Card 2 front and inside.

I hope everyone has a fab weekend! Thanks for looking in.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps and Betterpress Plates: Spellbinders Natures Dance CSOM 1/25, Friendship Book Plate BPOM 3/24, and Take Flight BPOM 1/25

Paper: Gina K Designs Navy, Lime and Layering Weight White Card stock

Ink: Gina K Designs Navy, Simon Says Stamp Limelicious,  and Laurel Betterpress ink pad

Other: Gina K Designs Master Layouts 12 stitched die, blending brushes, Concord & 9th Navy enamel dots, Spellbinders Betterpress System