Stay Cool

TGIF! 

I've had a very relaxing day watching tennis, the Cincy Open, and doing some stamping while watching.

The current Color Hues challenge colors are yellow and orange and I wanted to see what I could come up with for them. I figured using bright color shades would make a great summer card while using more muted shades would work great for a fall card. As I'm not ready to give up on summer quite yet, I made a fun "beachy" summer birthday card. I've used the current Freshly Made Sketches challenge for my layout.

The sunglasses dies are from Concord & 9th. The palm trees are from one Gina K.'s silhouette stamp sets and the sun is made with a Gina K. stencil. The sunglasses are cut from yellow, orange and black glossy card stock as are the tiny orange and yellow hearts, which are part of the C&9th die set.

For the inside, I used sentiments from both the C&9th set and the Gina K. set.

Enjoy your Friday evening and weekend!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Spectacular Shades stamp and die set by Concord & 9th, Ocean Silhouettes stamp set by Gina K Designs

Paper: Gina K Designs card stock and Scrapbook.com Glossy card stock

Ink: Altenew and Simon Says Stamp

Other: Sun Spots Stencil by Gina K Designs, Essential Diamond Dies by Spellbinders, Waffle Flower blending brushes, Connect liquid glue

Happy Brunch-day!

Hello Peeps,

It's been a "minute" since I've posted on my blog. Actually, this is the first card that I've made since May! Life and other things got in my way, but I'm happy to finally be back to paper crafting.

I thought I'd start with a couple of challenges. This card fits with this week's Anything Goes Die challenge at Just Us Girls, and I've used the current sketch from Freshly Made Sketches.

The background embossing folder and the die set are both from Spellbinders. I used a piece of pastel orange glossy card stock in the embossing folder then brayered some darker ink over the raised areas. The background uses the negative side of the embossing folder and the banner die is the positive side of the folder. All of the die cuts are cut from white card stock and then colored using blending brushes and various SSS Pawsitively Saturated inks.

On the inside I used a sentiment from a Spellbinders stamp set and another image from the Spellbinders die set. (All of these images are too cute!)

Hope your weekend was a good one and not too hot. Thanks for looking in!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Go To Girl set by Spellbinders (Clear Stamp of the Month 11/25)

Paper: Scrapbook.com pastel glossy card stock, Gina K Designs white layering and heavy weights and black onyx card stocks

Ink: Simon Says Stamp Pawsitively Saturated Inks

Other: Spellbinders Petite Tuft 3D embossing folder, Spellbinders Let's Do Brunch die set (Small Die set of the Month 11/25) MFT Banner die, Spellbinders gold dots, Tim Holtz Brayer

Let's Shell-ebrate

 Hello all,

Happy Monday. It will be a lazy day for me, at least for the rest of the morning watching the French Open Tennis matches. It's early rounds, but still fun to watch. 

Yesterday while watching matches I put together a card using the sketch from this week's Freshly Made Sketches challenge.

The center panel is one I pulled out of my box of backgrounds. It's an inking technique using an embossing folder. I don't recall any of the details of making it, however. It looks like simple inking over the negative side with ink pads, and it looks like the ink might be Distress Oxide. Any-hoo, I cut it down and used an Avery Elle Stitched Scalloped Frame die to frame it for the front of the card. 

The card base is stenciled with a set of Waffle Flower Layering stencils with the same color of ink as the card base, The sentiment is also from Waffle Flower. It's a really simple card, but it turned out pretty.

On the inside, I again used the same Waffle Flower stencils to very lightly stencil the background and these sentiments are from Spellbinders.

Enjoy your day!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Coastal Greetings set by Waffle Flower, Anchors Away and Confetti Wishes sets by Spellbinders

Paper: Gina K Designs Turquoise Sea and Layering White card stock

Ink: Gina K Designs Turquoise Sea and Black Onyx, Distress Oxide

Other: Spellbinders Scattered Shells embossing folder, Waffle Flower Sea Shell Layering stencils, Avery Elle Stitched Scalloped Frame dies, blending brushes

Birthday Blessings

 Hello and Happy Sunday,

Recently I've been doing some random cleaning in my craft room. I managed to consolidated two book cases of stuff and moved the bookcases out. Yay! I found four boxes of "backgrounds" that I'd made over the years, mostly playing with techniques that I watched on YouTube, and let's be honest, most probably Jennifer McGuire videos.

In one of the boxes, I found a set of inking technique backgrounds that caught my eye. I searched through Jennifer's video library on her blog and found the video from 2021, a gel press/heat embossing/ink layering technique. I decided to see if I could come up with some cards to use them. There are five backgrounds in all. I made two cards, the second will be featured in a future blog post.

I love the jewel colors in this card. The inks are Gina K Designs Plum Punch, Blue Denim and In the Navy. The embossed image is very large and I didn't want to cover it up too much. I decided to use this week's Freshly Made Sketches layout by Jen T. to make a card. Also, the April Monthly Mix challenge on Gina's FB group is to make a bird card, which was also part of my inspiration.

Using the Master Layouts 13 dies, I cut part of the stamped image then layered it back using foam tape. The hummingbird image is from another GKD set and it's stamped using Royal Flush Solar Paste by Simon Hurley. I watched one of Simon's new Paste Palooza videos and this technique was included. It's really striking on dark colored card stock. The sentiment is a GKD pre-printed strip and the plum dots are from the GKD Iridescent Dots embellishments.

For the inside I stamped the second bird image from the Hummingbird set using the same Solar Paste. The birthday sentiment is from the GKD Cheers To Another Year stamp set.

I saved most all of the backgrounds in the four boxes. Will I get around to using them? Some maybe, LOL. 

Hope you're having a wonderful weekend.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Delightful Blooms, Birds Of A Feather, and Cheers to Another Year sets by Gina K Designs

Paper: Gina K Designs card stock

Ink: Gina K Designs

Other: Royal Flush Solar Paste by Simon Hurley, Gina K Designs Master Layouts 13 dies, Pre-printed sentiments, white embossing powder, Iridescent Dots embellishments. Ranger foam applicator to pounce the solar past onto the stamps, Gel Press, Tim Holtz brayer, heat tool for embossing

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Monday Peeps,

I hope everyone had a fab weekend. I continued with my organization project but found a few hours yesterday while watching baseball to make a card for the current Freshly Made Sketches challenge.

I saw a fabric quilted heart on IG last week and I thought I'd recreate it with paper, so that is where the inspiration for my focal image comes from, besides Michelle's sketch of course.

The card base and the patterned papers are long retired ones from SU. The large die cut heart is the one inspired from the quilted heart I saw on IG. For the two smaller hearts, I cut them from specific areas on the patterned papers with the bird images, and I really like how they look with this layout.

The die cut sentiments and the stamped sentiments, on the front and the inside below, are from Gina K.

Enjoy your week, and thanks for stopping by.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Seeds of Joy stamp set by Gina K Designs

Paper: Stampin' Up card stock and DSP

Ink: Gina K Designs

Other: Stampin' Up Heart Dies and Bakers Twine, Gina K Designs Love You Trio die set

Hi Peeps and Happy Saturday!

Also, Happy Valentine's Day!

I'm playing along with a few challenges with today's card. I'm using Verena's sketch for Freshly Made Sketches along with Carol's "Word Week" theme for Just Us Girls. In addition, the February Monthly Mix challenge on the Gina K Designs FB Group is to use hearts, and as all of the supplies for my card are from GKD, I'll post it over there too.

I went with an unexpected and punny themed card for this Valentine, shopping my GKD stamp sets and stencils for the idea that I had in my mind.

I started by stenciling the hearts on the bottom half of the front panel and then ink blending some gold in on the top half along with some splatter. I stamped,  colored and die cut all of the images and used the charcuterie board and the sushi for the middle element in the sketch. 

For the inside of the card I used more images and another sentiment from the sushi set along with more ink blending and more splatter.

Wishing everyone a happy Valentine's Day and a great weekend!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: I Like the Way You Roll, Count It All Joy, and Friendship Hearts sets by Gina K Designs

Paper: Gina K Designs card stocks

Ink: Gina K Designs and Copic markers

Other: Gina K Designs Heartfelt stencil, blending brushes, Master Layouts 3 dies, red paper hearts

Happy New Year

 TGIF Peeps,

Yesterday I received a text from a good friend asking if I could make two Lunar New Year's cards for her two teen boys. Of course, I said yes, but then I had to figure out how as I really have nothing stamp wise that would work for the year of the Fire Horse. After looking up images for Fire Horse, I decided my best option was to try finding cut images in the Cricut store. I found two images that I liked, cut them out and then figured out how to use them. In the end, both cards turned out pretty well.

I used this week's Freshly Made Sketches challenge for one of the cards. The lantern with the horse is the cut file. After gluing it in place, I used a gold metallic pen and colored in the top and bottom areas in the shade. The small stamped sentiment is from Gina K and the year die cuts are from Taylored Expressions.

The second card uses Spellbinders Betterpress Numbers, hot foiled with dark red foil, a gold foiled sentiment, and a Spellbinders embossing folder for the background. The Cricut horse was cut three times, once from white card stock and twice from red. I ink blended the white image and then layered it over the red images with just a little showing as a shadow. After embossing the black background piece, I rubbed gold craft ink over the raised areas.

I used the same images for the inside of both cards. The fireworks images are from Gina K and the sentiment is Spellbinders.

I think these will work for my friend to give to her boys.

Enjoy the weekend. Lot's of sports on TV with the Olympics starting today and then the Super Bowl on Sunday.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Party Time mini set by Gina K Designs and Nature's Dance by Spellbinders

Paper: Gina K Designs and Concord & 9th card stock, misc asian patterned papers

Ink: Gina K Designs, Concord & 9th, Lisa Horton Cloud 9 gold

Other: Cricut Machine cut files, Spellbinders Mono Line embossing folder, Taylored expressions number dies, Spellbinders Betterpress numbers with dies, Spellbinders hot foils, blending brushes, gold metallic pen

Hey There Cutie

Happy Sunday,

Looks like it's Valentine's season around blog-land and I've got a card inspired  by a couple of challenges for you today. I'm using the sketch from this week's Freshly Made Sketches and the colors from the current Sunday Stamps.

This is a Valentine's Day card for my little 2 y/o great niece. I think she'll like the fringe, plus the sentiment fits her perfectly.

I've paired SU card stock and old DSP with a Concord & 9th stamp and die set from a few years ago. 

The fringe was simple to make as I have the C&9th die just for that. I was originally going to use alternating plain card stock, but then thought of using the DSP instead and I like the way it turned out. 

Here's the inside of the card.

Now I need to come up with a card for her 3 y/o brother. I'm thinking of one of the Spellbinders monster dies from last year. We'll see.

Hope the rest of your weekend is relaxing.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Happy Heart Box set and dies from Concord & 9th

Paper: Stampin' Up Lovely Lipstick, Crumb Cake and Basic White card stock and All My Love DSP

Ink: Gina K Designs Black Onyx and Copics

Other: Concord & 9th Happy Heart Box dies, Fringe die, SU enamel hearts and flowers, twine

Stay Cozy

 Happy Monday,

Hi Peeps. I have a card for you this morning that is inspired by two challenges. First, I'm squeaking in under the wire this morning with my card entry for the Freshly Made Sketches Challenge. Second, the theme for my card comes from this week's Mood Board Challenge at Just Us Girls. It's a nice wintry mood board with many choices for inspiration. I took the easy route and used all of the pretty trees and greens, but I added a touch of red too.

The stamp set is titled Stay Cozy, which I used for my front sentiment, and it's from Gina K. I decided to use some patterned paper for the background and horizontal element. I really need to use some of my mass accumulation more often!

Here's the inside with a deer image and another sentiment from the Stay Cozy stamp set.

I've enjoyed watching the first two days of the Australian Open matches this week.  More of the same for me later this evening and I think I'll see if I can crochet now that I'm not wearing the brace for my wrist, and I did get the okay from the Physical Therapist, which is probably the important piece, LOL.

Have a great Monday,

Colleen

Cherish, Dream, Live

Hello and TGIF!

It's Word Week at Just Us Girls and Elizabeth's challenge word is "Encouragement." I have no shortage of sets with really good encouragement sentiments that I could have used, and I decided to go with this Gina K Designs mini set called Wonderfully Made. I paired it with this week's Freshly Made Sketch by Amy and some retired SU DSP.

I made two cards, one in green and blue shades, and one in purple and lavender shades.

 

The inside of both cards are finished using the same sentiment and images, again from other GKD Mini sets.

Do you have any weekend plans? I'm not sure if we do. Maybe dinner or the Wine Bar with friends tonight. 

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps:Wonderfully Made, Beautiful Sketches and Little Garden Silhouettes Mini stamp sets by Gina K Designs

Paper: Gina K Designs card stock and SU DSP

Ink: Gina K Designs and Copic Markers

Other: Gina K Designs Master Layouts 3 circle dies

You're the Cat's Pajamas

 Happy New Year all,

It's been many weeks since I've posted a card. Partly due to being on the east coast for a month and partly because of a broken left wrist. Yes, while on the east coast, I fell and fractured my left wrist. After 4 weeks in a cast, the cast was removed this past Monday and I'm in a brace now while it continues to heal. As long as I don't put much weight on it, I can manage to do some things, and luckily, I am right handed.

As yesterday was the last Wednesday of 2025, I wanted to participate in Amy's Woodblock Wednesday Challenge. Using the layout from the current Freshly Made Sketches, I made my first Valentine's Day card for 2026.

The background is made using the SSS Holiday Grid Stencil Pack. I only used the grid stencil to make the pink and peach squares. Then using some small Stampassions Valentine's stamps, I randomly stamped hearts and sayings in the squares.

After stamping and coloring the cat image, I fussy cut it and added it as the focal image per Narelle's sketch.

There was a column of the grid left over after trimming it for the front of the card so I used it for the inside of the card along with a very old SU greeting.

Here are the wood mounted stamps used for this card. FYI, this Cat's pPajamas stamp is one of my all time favorites, and I use it almost every year.

I hope everyone had a good holiday season and I'm wishing you all a Happy and Crafty 2026!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Woodmounted Cat from Uptown Rubber Stamps and Heart and Greetings from Stampassions Art Stamps

Paper: Gina K Designs

Ink: Simon Says Stamp Positively Saturated inks and Gina K Designs

Other: Simon Says Stamp Holiday Grid stencil, blending brushes, Gina K Designs paper heart embellishments, Gina K Designs circle dies, 

Merry Christmas

 Hello all,

One more Holiday card for today's post. This one uses the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches and  the theme challenge from the Paper Players where Stef has the monthly CAS challenge. She also added a theme of Favorite Holiday Image. I cheated a little and used my current favorite technique, which is stenciling.

These stencils are from Concord & 9th as are the inks and card stock. 

For the inside, I stamped a simple greeting, also from Concord & 9th.

Well, that's it from me for about a month. We leave on Wednesday for the east coast, Long Island, Greenport, NY, for a couple of weeks and then to Connecticut for a couple of weeks. We fly back home on 12/13, so a nice long holiday.

For those celebrating in the U. S., have a fun and festive Thanksgiving.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Joyful Holiday set by Kristina Werner for Concord & 9th

Paper: Concord & 9th card stock

Ink: Concord & 9th and Gina K Designs white craft

Other: Simple Christmas and Merry Mix Stencil Packs by Kristina Werner for Concord & 9th, Spellbinders Nordic Noel Embossing Folder, white embossing powder, blending brushes

Have A Sunny Birthday

TGIF!

I'm not so sure it means the same after retirement, LOL. 

I must be on a bit of a sunflower kick. This is the second card in a row with sunflowers as the focal image. Today's card uses Kim's sketch for Freshly Made Sketches. The off-center circles are a little different, but fun. 

I had been playing around with the Gina K Designs Wreath Builder template and made a few panels with the flower from the fall themed Breath of Sunshine stamp set yesterday. I didn't make a card with either of the panels then. Today, I thought I'd try making this one work for Kim's sketch. The SU Deckled Circle die set has a die that's large enough to cut out the wreath and I used it for the largest circle in Kim's sketch. For the smaller circle, I used a plain piece of Dark Sage card stock, run through the Lattice embossing folder. I added a basket of the same flowers, stamped in lighter shades on top, as well as the sentiment banner, also run through the Lattice EF. 

The card base is one of the newest colors by GKD called Marigold. It's really a pretty yellow and the color is true to the name.

Here's the simple inside of the card. I used a sentiment from an older GKD mini stamps set.

We're off to meet some friends for a glass of wine and do some catching up.

Enjoy your evening,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Breath of Sunshine and Sweet Sentiments sets by Gina K Designs

Paper: Gina K Designs card stock

Ink: Gina K Designs

Other: Gina K Designs Wreath Builder, Lattice embossing folder, pearl embellishments, Stampin' Up Deckle Circle dies, My Favorite Things banner die