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

 

A Veggie Happy Birthday

 Happy Weekend and Happy March to all!

It's a low key day around here. I did some organizing in my craft room this morning, and then a little reading {napping in my chair :)} while listening to pre-season Baseball. I decided I needed to do something to keep my brain busy and that something is to post the card I made last night using Linda's sketch for the Freshly Made Sketches challenge. 

Linda has a very interesting sketch this time and I pondered how I wanted to use it. Mostly, I kept thinking of using multiple sentiments, but while looking through my boxes of stamps, I came across these Lawn Fawn cuties and thought I could make them work for the sketch. 

The Inspired By Challenge theme is Gingham this week, so I'll post there too.

Lawn Fawn has some of the funniest, or punniest, sentiments to go with their images, and I love these on the inside of my card. Who knew  veggies would make such a great birthday card?

Enjoy the rest of the weekend, and thanks for checking in.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: All from Lawn Fawn, Simply Celebrate Veggies, Veggie Happy, and Simply Celebrate Critters sets

Paper: Neenah Solar White 100 lb, Concord & 9th Parsley card stocks and Lawn Fawn Gingham patterned paper

Ink: Gina K Designs Black Onyx and Copic Markers

Other: Connect liquid glue and SU Mini Dimensionals

February Woodblock Wednesday Post

 Hi all,

It's Woodblock Wednesday for February! I so enjoy playing along with Amy's challenge each month.

After I got started with my stamping yesterday, playing with my chosen wood mounted stamps, I ended up making four cards. I thought I should do some practice stamping with the technique I planed to use, and I ended up using all but one of the images that I stamped. Even the practice ones. I used the marker to stamp technique, spritzing the colored stamp with water before stamping onto water color paper.

I thought I'd try combining the wood mounted images with some newer postage themed dies and stamps for my cards, and it worked pretty well.

Here are the four finished card fronts. I did finish the insides as well, but I'll spare you the pictures, LOL. 

I used SU water color markers to color on the stamps. For cards 1 and 2, the backgrounds are ink smooshed and then stamped with small hero wood mounted butterfly, dragonfly and ladybug images. On cards 3 and 4, the background is made using a Spellbinders 3D embossing folder. For all four cards, the backgrounds are die cut using Hero Infinity Postage Stamp A2 dies, which for cards 3 and 4, I did some partial die cutting to get the slimline size.

The small postage dies and postage stamped images are from Gina K Designs.

Here's the wood mounted stamps. Some are used for the inside of the cards. The stamps are mostly from Hero Arts and Stampassions. (I just noticed that one one the sentiment stamps is upside down!)

TGIF, and enjoy the weekend ahead!

Colleen

Supplies

Wood mounted stamps: Hero Arts and Stamppassions Art Stamps

Postage themed stamps: Gina K Designs

Paper: Tim Holtz water color paper, Gina K Designs Black Onyx and Layering Weight White card stock, SU Blushing Bride pink card stock

Ink: SU water based markers, Gina K Designs and Simon Says Stamp inks

Other: Gina K Designs postage dies, Hero Arts infinity Postage A2 dies, Spellbinders Stylized Lattice embossing folder, Gina K Designs small tag die, Spellbinders water mister bottle, foam tape, SU Dimensionals, twine

Your Big Day

TGIF Peeps!

I almost forgot to post my card for the current Paper Players Challenge! I logged onto my blog this morning and discovered my lapse, and it turns out, I never even took the pictures! Therefore, I'm just squeaking in my post before the Linky expires today.

This is a  birthday card for my stash. I pulled out some cute Lawn Fawn patterned papers to help with the design, and the stamps are from Gina K Designs. 

For the inside, I added more of one of the papers and used a different cupcake topper from the stamp set, as well as the greeting. To get the dots in the frosting, I used the old "kissing" technique with a background stamp.

I hope you have something fun planned for the weekend. Whatever you do, enjoy!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Life Is Sweet set and Beautiful Patterns Bkg stamp by Gina K Designs

Paper: Gina K Designs white and black card stock, Lawn Fawn patterned paper

Ink: Gina K Designs and Copic Markers

Other: Gina K Designs Stitched Circle and Master Layouts 2 dies, black enamel dots, SU Dimensionals, Connect liquid glue

Hey Friend

Hello,

I received a new order from Concord & 9th last week and the Color Hues challenge seemed the perfect challenge to use these lovely stencils from Kristina Werner. I tried to only use just the two colors of yellow and coral, with white of course, but I did end upusing some black ink on the inside of my card.

I used the GKD Master Layouts 2 dies to cut the stenciled panel and the shadow layer and I used the Concord & 9th Basket Weave Card Front die as a background on the card base.

Here's the inside.

Thanks for checking in and enjoy your Tuesday evening.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps & Stencils: Sweet Stems Bundle and Simple Flowers Bundle by Concord & 9th

Paper: Gina K Designs Layering White, Sunkissed Coral, Wild Dandelion card stock

Ink: Gina K Designs Lemon Drop, Wild Dandelion, Sun Kissed Coral, Black Onyx

Other: Concord & 9th Basket Weave Card Front die, Gina K Designs Master Layouts 2 die set, Gina K Designs heart embellishments, Connect glue