About Me

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I love crafting, especially rubber stamping. Most weekends I can be found surrounded by paper, rubber stamps and ink.

Wednesday, March 5, 2025

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

Monday, March 3, 2025

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


Sunday, March 2, 2025

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

 

Saturday, March 1, 2025

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





Friday, February 28, 2025

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

Tuesday, February 25, 2025

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

Monday, February 24, 2025

Get Whale Soon

Happy Monday Peeps,

I hope everyone had a fab weekend.

Last night after dinner, I was looking through some of my stamps sets and realized that I had not used this sea animal set from GKD called Serene Sea Life. It's got some really cute images of seals, whales and turtles. I thought that the whales would work for Jen's Feshly Made Sketches challenge. 

I pulled out a GKD water stencil and a Spellbinders water embossing folder along with some blending brushes and blue inks to make the background. The whales are stamped in Slate ink and colored with W Copic Markers.





For the inside of the card I chose one of the turtle images that fit with a "get well" theme. I ink blended the background of the panel using the same blue shades as on the front since the images all have dies to cut them out. 



 

I wanted to make a thank you card for our friends that we went to  Palm Springs with last week. Using Modernism as inspiration as well as the palm trees that are everywhere, I came up with this card. 



I found some funky flower images in a really old SU set and stamped them in the center of a white panel then cut a frame so that they just showed around the opening. Then I ink blended a sky that reminded me of the evening sky in Palm Springs, light blue and pink, as a back drop for the silhouette palm trees.  I cut some card stock in Mid Century Modern colors to make a color block card base.

Hope you all have a great week!
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: Serene Sea Life by Gina K Designs
Paper: Gina K Designs Layering Weight White and Sea Glass card stock, SU Basic White Thick card stock
Ink: Gina K Designs Denim Blue, Blue Raspberry, Turquoise Sea, Sea Glass, Christmas Green, & Slate inks and Copic Markers
Other:  Gina K Designs Water Droplets Stencil, Spellbinders Splish Splash Embossing Folder, Blending Brushes, Blue enamel dots, SU Dimensionals, Connect Glue


Thursday, February 20, 2025

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


Saturday, February 15, 2025

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


Wednesday, February 12, 2025

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

Sunday, February 9, 2025

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