A Joyful Christmas

 Happy Monday Peeps,

It's still full on June Gloom here and very drippy outside. No rain, just a very heavy marine layer/foggy day. Again, a great day to have fun at the craft desk, or catch up on blogging cards.

Speaking of blogging cards, I made this one for the current Freshly Made Sketches challenge a few days ago and didn't get around to taking pictures and blogging it. Better late than never, and I'm making this a short post as the Linky closes in less than an hour.

I decided to do a holiday card, my first for this year. I've used sets from GKD, and an embossing folder, also from GKD.

Here's the inside of the card.

Thanks for checking in, and enjoy your Monday.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Joyful Season and Holiday Floral sets by Gina K Designs

Paper: Gina K Designs Christmas Red, Christmas Pine, Layering Weight White card

 stock

Ink: Gina K Designs Black Onyx, Christmas Pine, Red Velvet, Light and Medium Spruce, Copic Markers

Other: Gina K Designs Holiday Flora Embossing Folder, Double and Single Stitched Square dies, Nuvo Glitter pen, gold twine, foam squares, Connect glue

Oh Baby!

 TGIF Peeps,

It's a drizzly morning here in SoCal. June Gloom is definitely upon us. No worries, as it makes for a good crafting day. I'm also watching the men's semi-final matches of the French Open.

The June Monthly Mix Challenge on Gina K Designs FB group is "postage." I decided to use some baby images and a new background stamp from GKD to make my card. There's  a new baby on the way for good friends, their first. Bady is due around Thanksgiving.

It's die week at Just Us Girls, with Layers as the theme and this card has many of both.

There are many steps to put this card together, and it was very fun to make. All supplies are from Gina K Designs.

Enjoy your afternoon and evening,

Colleen

Supplies- all Gina K Designs except Copic Markers

Stamps: Double Background 2 Grip Mat, April Showers stamp set, Post Card set

Paper: Layering Weight White and Black Onyx card stock

Ink: Lemon Drop, Applemint, Sea Glass, Innocent Pink, Black Onyx, Copic Markers

Other: Swiss Dots embossing folder, Master Layouts 11 and 15 sets, Masking Magic strips, Foam Squares, 

A Papper Hug & You're the Best

 Hello all,

I have a couple of bright and fun note cards that I made using the current Color Hues challenge colors of coral and green. I made two because this Concord & 9th layering stencil set is large and does a half sheet. I simply cut it in half and made two cards. I changed up the orientation and the sentiments, but otherwise they are the same.

This Concord & 9th bundle, designed by Kristina Werner, has the layering stencils, a coordinating stamp set, and a die set. I've used all three to make the cards. I decided to make a "landing pad" for the die cut flowers, so I cut some vellum rectangles with a GKD stitched die. The sentiments are heat embossed with white EP.

TGIF tomorrow. Enjoy!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Simple Flowers set by Kristina Werner & Concord & 9th

Paper: Gina K Designs Card Stock Layering Weight White, Black Onyx, Key Lime, Coral Reef and Sunkissed Coral, Vellum

Ink: Gina K Designs White embossing ink, Key Lime, Sunkissed Coral and Coral Reef

Other: Concord &9th Simple Flowers Layering Stencils and dies, Gina K Designs Stitched Rectangle die, Gina K Designs black pearl embellishments, Brutus Monroe white embossing powder, heat tool, blending brushes, corner rounding punch, Connect glue, foam squares

Snail Mail Hugs

Hi and Happy Monday Peeps,

For this week's Freshly Made Sketches challenge, I decided to use this cute Spellbinders Snail Mail die set from April, and the coordinating stamp set, as the image seemed perfect for Jen's sketch. I found some older Waffleflower patterned papers that are mail themed to go with. (They're probably from a past SSS kit.)

The front and inside greetings, and the background envelopes on the inside, are from the April clear stamp set of the month called Send & Seal.

Enjoy your Monday afternoon,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Spellbinders Send & Seal stamp set

Paper: Concord & 9th, Spellbinders and GKD card stocks. Waffleflower Special Delivery patterned paper pack

Ink: Concord & 9th and GKD Black Onyx

Other: Spellbinders Snail Mail Post die set, Spellbinders Abstract Study embossing folder,  Connect glue, SU Dimensionals

Make Margaritas

 Hello Peeps,

Not much paper crafting here lately. I've been spending most of my time piecing a quilt for an "off to college" gift and also crocheting a baby blanket. However, I also had four May birthdays I needed to make cards for, so I put the sewing aside for a couple of days.

This card is one just for my stash, but it's pretty cute and I used LeAnne's sketch for this week's Paper Players Challenge.

I took LeAnne's advice and used a piece of patterned paper for the background. I believe it's from Doodlebug, but it's so old I'm not sure. The stamp set is from Gina K Designs called Cheers.

I stamped the margarita glass three times, colored them with Copics and cut them out with the set die. After gluing the glasses in place on the front of the card, I added glue around the rims and sprinkled white glitter for the salt. (I like margaritas with salt.) The lemon wedge and umbrella are part of the stamp set, as is the greeting. Most all of the new stamp sets from GKD have dies for the sentiments, which is great for popping the up.

The inside is blank except for a single sentiment that says "Bottoms Up." I neglected to take a photo of it. Oh well.

In the column of that's life, I had my car in for its 40,000 mile service last week and she needs four new shoes. (The not so fun things we have to spend money on 😒.)

Enjoy your day,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Cheers set by Gina K Designs

Paper: Gina K Designs card stock and Doodlebug Lemonade paper

Ink: Gina K Designs and Copics

Other: Gina K Designs Master Layouts 1 dies, white glitter, Nuvo glitter gloss pen, SU Dimensionals, Connect liquid glue

Scribbled A Note

Hello,

Last week I played around with some of the new Spellbinders monthly club sets and made several cards with them. While I don't have any kiddos in school I still managed to make several fun birthday cards.

For my post today, I have one of them. This one uses Kim's sketch for Freshly Made Sketches. In addition, since I used a rainbow theme, I think it works to post to  this week's Mood Board Challenge at Just Us Girls.

I used the Stencil , the Betterpress plate, the Glimmer plate and sentiments, and the Embossing Folder of the Month for May to make my card. I started with the stencil using pastel shades in rainbow colors. (I think these little fat pencils are so cute). I used black ink for the Betterpress alphabet plate then ink blended darker rainbow shades over it. For the window, I used an older SU star die, then added one of the Glimmer plate pencils. The sentiment at the bottom is also from the Glimmer plate set. The Sending Cheer sentiment is from a previous Spellbinders monthly club stamp set.

Here's the inside of the card. The sentiments are from Spellbinders. The pencils are left overs from another card I made using the Glimmer plate.

This card is on its way to our little friend in Brooklyn, NY who turns five years old later this week. He is very much into do arty things, so I think he will like this colorful card.

Thanks for checking in,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Spellbinders Confetti Wishes and Send & Seal stamp sets

Paper: Gina K Designs card stock

Ink: Gina K Designs

Other: Spellbinders May clubs, Layering Stencil, Glimmer, Embossing Folder, Betterpress plate, Glimmer and Betterpress Systems, Glimmer silver hot foil, Stampin' Up Star die, Gina K Designs Master Layouts 2 dies and blending brushes, Connect glue, foam squares

On Your Big Day

 Happy Monday Peeps,

I'm playing with Ann's color challenge for this week's The Paper Players. Her choice of colors are so pretty.  I thought they would work well with stencils, and I have a new-ish GKD large floral layering stencil that wanted to use. After finishing the stenciling, I decided I wanted to make something other than a basic card. As the image is large enough, a gate fold card came to mind.

For additional interest, I used a spotlight technique for the center front. I simply stenciled two panels, making them as close as possible, then used a circle die to cut the center out of one of the panels and the mat from Berry Burst, then popped up the circle over the center matching the flower lines. 

The greetings are heat embossed with black EP on vellum and cut with the matching dies and backed with Berry Burst CS. The edging lace die is from the GKD Master Layouts 18 die set and the pink pearls are also from GKD.

I took a couple of pictures of the front, one standing (please forgive the shadows) and one lying flat.

For the inside I stamped images from another new-ish GKD stamp set called Gentle Silhouettes. I like the greeting for inside a birthday card.

I have a couple of good friends who have birthdays this summer, so I'll save this for one of them.

Enjoy your week,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Graceful Greetings and Gentle Silhouettes sets by Gina K Designs

Paper: SU Bubble Bath, Berry Burst card stock, Gina K Designs Layering Weight White card stock, SSS vellum

Ink: SU Berry Burst, Bubble Bath and Lost Lagoon, Gina K Designs embossing ink

Other: Gina K Designs Labyrinth Dahlia Layering Stencils, Master Layouts 18, Stitched Circles, and Master Layouts 1 dies, Brutus Monroe black embossing powder, heat tool, Gina K Designs pink pearl embellishments, Connect glue, SU Dimensionals

Fruity

Happy Mom's Day to all the Moms out there. I hope someone is spoiling you a little (a lot) today!  Being far away from my mom, it's really just another day. I sent her card earlier in the week, and I spoke with her yesterday.

I have a couple of fun and fruity cards for you today. I'm playing along with Vicki's Word Week challenge at Just Us Girls, and I've used Linda's sketch for this week's Freshly Made Sketches challenge for one of my cards.

I keep thinking I need to start using more patterned papers when I make cards. I have so much of it but rarely seem to use it. I made a point to use some on these cards, although it really didn't make a dent in what I have in this SU line called Tutti Frutti.

The stamp set used for both cards is from Concord & 9th called Fruit For Thought.

This stamp set includes several fruits and small sentiments as well as a very large focal type sentiment, which is what I used on the second card.

Using several of the patterns in the pack I layered them on the front of the card base. The large sentiment is heat embossed on yet another pattern. I did two layers of embossing powder, the first layer is black EP and the second layer is the old SU Dazzling Diamonds EP.  I cut the sentiment out with the coordinating die and popped it up over a Real Red panel.

The inside of the first card is stamped with "Thanks a mellow," and the inside of the second card says "You're sweet." 

Enjoy your day!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Fruit For Thought set by Concord & 9th

Paper: SU card stock and SU Tutti Frutti DSP

Ink: Concord & 9th and Gina K Designs Embossing pad

Other: MFT Stitched Rectangle die, Brutus Monroe black embossing powder, SU Dazzling Diamonds embossing powder, heat tool, Connect glue, SU Dimensionals

Dive Into Happiness

 Hello,

Well, I'm finally feeling better, just a little lingering cough left. The best part is my energy has returned so I spent more time creating today instead of sitting around a reading.

I wanted to get a card made for the current Color Hues challenge, where Marcia has a summery color duo of blue and yellow. I pulled out some Spellbinders stencils and sentiments and combined them with some Lawn Fawn dies to make this "looking forward to summer" card.

After putting the pool over the stenciled background, I thought the card needed a little something, so I added the silhouette palm trees, which led to the heat embossed sentiment on black. 

For the inside of the card, I used the same beach ball stencil and another summer sentiment.

I hope you are enjoying your weekend!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Typewriter Adventure Sentiments set by Spellbinders

Paper: Gina K Designs card stock

Ink: Simon Says Stamp Pawsitively Saturated inks, Gina K Designs embossing ink

Other: Summertime Graphics and Summertime Spray stencils by Spellbinders, Stitched Pond and Palm Trees dies by Lawn Fawn, Brutus Munroe Alabaster embossing powder, heat tool, blending brushes, Concord & 9th yellow enamel dots

Graduation Congratulations

Hello,

It's graduation season and I have three kiddo friends who are graduating this year. Two from high school and one from the eighth grade. 

Today's card is for one of the high schoolers. She lives just down the street from us. They moved by us when she was around one years old. Both of her parents are veterinarians and that is her goal as well. She will be heading to college and my alma mater, Sacramento State University here in Ca.

Using Joanne's theme of old and new for this week's Paper Players challenge, here's her card. I'm also posting to the current Just Us Girls challenge as it's Die Week. I used many dies for my card.

My new is the background made with a previously unused Betterpress plate from Spellbinders. It's the March 2025 Betterpress Plate of the month aud has coordinating layering stencils to color it with. I used the plate in the Glimmer hot foiling system foiling with gold before using the stencils to add the blue shades.

My old is the graduation cap die and the sentiment. Both are from Taylored Expressions and I'd say they are at least 10 years old, if not older. I choose Navy and white for the caps because the school colors are those. Seemed appropriate.

The 2025 numbers and dies are also from Spellbinders. They are Betterpress plates which I again foiled in gold onto navy blue card stock and used the coordinating dies to cut them out.

The sentiment is heat embossed with white EP on navy card stock. 

The inside is simple with another sentiment from the same Taylored Expressions Graduation stamp set as the front sentiment.

I'm feeling somewhat better, but the drippy nose remains. Hopefully, only for a few more days. I need to feel well enough to get a Mother's Day card made.

Enjoy your week,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Dream Big stamp set by Taylored Expressioins

Paper: Gina K Designs

Ink: Gina K Designs

Other: Spellbinders Betterpress Plates Quilted Memories and Large Numbers set, stencils and dies, Taylored Expressions Graduation Cap die, Brutus Munroe Alabaster embossing powder, hear tool, Glimmer Hot Foiling System, Spellbinders gold foils, blending brushes, Gina K Designs Master Layouts 2 die set, foam tape, Connect liquid glue

Lets Celebrate You

 Good Monday Morning Peeps,

I have my card for this week's Freshly Made Sketches Challenge this morning. This blog post will be a quickie, because, #1:  I'm cutting the time very close and #2: I feel like crap! Somewhere on my drive home from my mom's house last week I picked up a nasty cold bug and it just doesn't want to leave. Some times I feel pretty good, then wham, not so much. Any-hoo, I made this quick card yesterday afternoon using Jen's sketch.

I've used all Gina K Designs supplies on this one. The background flowers and dots, and the brick border are stencils. The background stencils and the sentiment are from the Spring Fling bundle. The pretty lacy border die is from her Master Layouts 18 die set.

My plan for today is reading and heading to CVS for some cough drops and more tissues. Hope you all are feeling fine.

Thanks for stopping by,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Spring Fling stamp set

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

Ink: Gina K Designs

Other: Spring Fling layering stencil, Brick Wall stencil, Master Layouts 18 die set, Stitched circle die, gold dot embellishments, all from Gina K Designs

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hello Peeps,

It's been almost two months since I've done any stamping and posting to challenges. My craft room is also our guest room and my mom came to spend about six weeks with us beginning the second week of March. Before going to pick her up, I dismantled my craft room to make it into a bedroom for her. 

We had a great visit and I took her home about a week and a half ago, staying and visiting with her and my sister at their house in northern California, finally returning home on Tuesday. I was able to get my crafty things put back into their spots and today I made a card. A very simple card.

Since yesterday was the final Wednesday for April, it's was Woodblock Wednesday. An opportunity to pull out those rarely used wood mounted stamps, and I used the current Paper Players Sketch for my card's layout.

These wood mounted stamps are some I've had since the late 1990's. I stamped the cookie repeatedly using embossing ink and heat embossed using chocolate embossing powder. It's even chocolate scented. I think I bought it when I bought these stamps at Stamp La Jolla. Although it's a little clumpy, surprisingly it still embossed well. After embossing, I colored the cookies with blending brushes using Honey Mustard and Warm Cocoa inks.

I used dies from various Gina K Designs Master Layouts sets for the cutouts.

For the inside, I stamped a simple sentiment.

It's great to have my room back to normal and to be stamping again. 

Thanks for looking in,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Wood mounted Chocolate Chip Cookie stamp from Limited Edition Stamps. Wood mounted sentiment stamp from Judith

Inside sentiment stamp from Gina K Desings

Paper: Gina K Designs

Ink: Gina K Designs

Dies: Gina K Designs

Other: Chocolate embossing powder, heat tool, foam tape

Lovely Day

 Hello Peeps,

I forgot, again, to take pictures and post my card for this week's Just Us Girls challenge. I made these cards on Sunday! It's stencil week, one of my fave challenges too. I made a very bright and bold card using Concord & 9th stencils and stamps.

I decided that I wanted to use really bright colors on this wavy checkered stencil pattern and originally, I was going to color the flower with Copics. But, I re-thought and decided to go with a black and white image. I did color the center with yellow Copics, but after putting the flower on the bright background, I decided to pull out a bottle of yellow Stickles and jazz up the center of the flower. It looks much happier.

The inside uses some word dies that come in the stamp and die set, and I found some small flowers from another C&9th set to add.

And while I had the stenciling supplies out, I made a couple of other birthday cards. These are made with Gina K layering stencils. I haven't done this layering technique in a long, long time, and these images seemed to work great with it.

Enjoy your day, at least what's left of it, and thanks for checking in.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Lovely Day bundle and H2Hello bundle both from Concord & 9th, and Spring Fling stamp set from Gina K Designs

Stencils: Checkered Stencil Pack from Concord & 9th and Spring Daisies Layering Stencils from Gina K Designs

Paper: Gina K Designs card stock Layering Weight White, Black Onyx, Red Hot, Wild Dandelion, Wild Wisteria

Ink: Gina K Designs Black Onyx, Tangerine Twist, Red Hot, Craft White, Soft Stone, Light and Medium Lilac, Light and Medium Spruce, Wild Dandelion, Butterscotch, Copic Markers

Other: GKD white & clear embossing powder, yellow Stickles, Gina K Designs Master Layouts 2 dies, Gina K Designs black and gold gems, foam tape, Connect glue

Spring Flowers for Easter

Hi-ya Peeps,

I hope everyone had a nice weekend. 

I have a couple of cards to share today. They have the same basic design, but have different sentiments and one has an extra image. The focal images are inspired by Claire's theme for this week's Paper Players Challenge, which is Spring Flowers. I know there are many flowers that bloom in early spring and then are done for the year, and the two that I think about most are daffodils and tulips. I went with Daffodils for my cards.

The main image of Daffodils is a Spellbinders Glimmer plate and I've hot foiled it with mat gold foil and colored the images with Copics. This is a very large image and I didn't want to cut it so these are both 5 x 7 inch cards.

On the card above, I've added a stitched butterfly. The stitching plate/embroidery hoop is a die from Lawn Fawn. There are several in the line, but there is also a "blank" that just cuts the circle with holes. Lawn Fawn has several patterns on their website on how to stitch many different images and I used a newer one, this butterfly. To make it easy to know where to stitch the different colors, I used colored pencils to color each square in the appropriate color, then did the stitching. So easy this way!

The sentiment on this card comes with the hot foil plate and it's foiled with the same mat gold foil.

For the second card, I used a sentiment from a Gina K Designs set, stamped it in black ink on vellum and then used clear embossing powder to emboss it. I cut it out with a die from the Gina K Designs Master Layouts 18 die set and glued it to a strip of Lemon Yellow card stock to match the card base.

The insides of both cards are the same images, but one says Happy Spring and one says Happy Easter. The daffodil image is from Gina K and the bunny and sentiments are from Concord & 9th.

I really like how both of these cards turned out. I loved coloring these up, and I love how bright and cheery they are. 

Have a great Monday evening,

Colleen

Supplies

Hot Foil set: Daffodil Spray Feb 2024 Glimmer of the month by Spellbinders

Stamps: Easter Blessings set by Gina K Designs and Some Bunny set by Concord & 9th

Paper: Gina K Designs Heavy White, Black Onyx, Ocean Mist,  and Lemon Yellow, Vellum

Ink: Gina K Designs Black Onyx, Lemon Yellow, Soft Stone. Copic Markers

Other: Spellbinders Glimmer hot foil, Glimmer System, Lawn Fawn Embroidery Hoop dies, Embroidery thread, Gina K Designs Master Layouts 8 and 18 dies, foam tape, Connect liquid glue

Retro Bowls: No One Stacks Up To You

Hello,

It's a lazy Sunday morning here. I've been watching crocheting videos looking for a new project, and I sometimes get lost in the videos, going from one to the next, and then it's two hours wasted. 

Yesterday evening I noticed that the new Color Hues challenge was up. Carol is hostess and her color choices are green and white. Great for March, great for shamrocks, but I decided greens would be perfect for these retro bowls, a new-ish set from Concord & 9th. Also, green is my favorite color, so there's that.

I'm using all Concord & 9th card stocks, three green shades and white.

When I pulled out my pack of Lemongrass card stock, I already had this card front die cut. I glued it to a white card base and then cut the bowls and flower dies from white, Avocado and Artichoke. I stacked the flowers x2 for a little extra dimension and also used the alternate green for the centers. The sentiment is from the same set, cut with a banner die from a different C&9th set.

My aunt is turning 92 later this week and so I made this into a birthday card to mail to her. These birthday images are from C&9th too, yet another set.

I hope you have a relaxing Sunday!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamp and Die sets: Kitchen Classics, Celebrate You and On My Mind all from Concord & 9th

Paper: Concord & 9th card stock: White, Lemongrass, Avocado and Artichoke

Ink: Concord & 9th Lemongrass and Artichoke

Other: Concord & 9th Lattice Corner Die Cut, Gina K Designs white paper hearts, Connect Liquid glue, SU Dimensionals