So Very Thankful

Hello Peeps,

It is a gorgeous day here on the SoCal coast. I went for a walk around 7 am and it was very foggy, our natural air conditioning, but now it's a super blue sky with a nice ocean breeze coming in the window of my craft room.

My card today is made using inspiration from the current Just Us Girls challenge. It's Mood Board Week and it's a very pretty picture. I mostly used the sunflowers as my inspiration, but I did pull in the teal color from the butterfly wings. 

I started by using the GKD Sunflower Garden Layering stencils. After finishing the stenciling, I splattered some Guppy Lunar paste and gold water color over it. This is layered under a piece of wood grained patterned paper that I cut a circle from so the stenciled panel shows through. The stamped and die cut sunflowers layered around the circle are from the GKD Breath of Sunshine stamp and die set as are the front and inside greetings. Embellishments are some teal enamel dots and a twine bow.

Here's the inside.

I'm looking forward to watching the women's and men's Cincy Open Tennis finals later today. Enjoy your Sunday afternoon!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Breath of Sunshine set by Gina K Designs

Paper: Concord & 9th card stock and stash patterned paper

Ink: Gina K Designs, Spellbinders gold water color pot

Other: Gina K Designs Sunflower Garden Layering stencil, Master Layouts 12 dies, Single Stitched circle dies. Simon Hurley Guppy Lunar Paste, Concord & 9th enamel dots, SU twine,  

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

Your the Pumpkin Spice In My Latte

Hello Peeps,

Here's a fun fall card inspired by Claire's The Paper Players challenge, called Looking Forward to Fall. To make my card, I pulled out some older stamp sets. The latte and the sentiment images are from Lawn Fawn and the leaves are from Gina K Designs.

Here is the inside.

Have a great Friday and weekend everyone! Thanks for looking in.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Pumpkin Spice set by Lawn Fawn and Layered Leaves set by Gina K Designs

Paper: Concord & 9th card stock and plaid paper

Ink: Concord & 9th and Copics

Other: Circles Windows Plate, Master Layouts 2, and Sentiment Strip dies by Gina K Designs

Just A Note

 Hello Peeps!

Stef has a pretty color challenge for this week's Paper Players challenge and I thought it might be fun to make a little birdie card with them. I'm also using the sketch from the current Sunday Stamps challenge.

This stamp, stencil and die set is the July 2026 Let's Stamp Together bundle designed by Pretty Pink Posh. I used the stencils for the background and the bird and branch dies to make my card today. I've also used a GKD cloud stencil for the background on the bird panel.

There are two sentiments in the included stamp set and I've used one on the front of the card and the other on the inside here.

Hope your Wednesday is a good one. Thanks for checking in.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps, Background stencils, Notched Corner panel die, and bird dies from the July 2026 Let's Stamp Together kit

Paper: Gina K Designs

Ink: Gina K Designs

Other: Gina K Designs Cloud stencil, Master Layouts 2 and 10, blending brushes

Forever and Always

 Hello Peeps,

I hope your week is going well. I've got a floral wedding card for you today using LeAnne's sketch for the Paper Players challenge. 

All of the supplies used to make this card are from Gina K Designs except the yellow sequins. The floral stamp set comes with coloring stencils and I did use those with blending brushes to color the stamped images. The large white die cut lattice is from one of the Master Layouts die sets as is the circle dies. I use two embossing folders, one for the yellow panel behind the white lattice and the other to add some dimension on the right side of the card front.

Here's the inside, just a simple stamped sentiment.

We do have a wedding to attend but not until September. I haven't decided if this card will be for that or just go to the stash.

Enjoy your day.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: All from Gina K Designs, Hand Picked Flowers set, Sweet Sentiments set, and Wishful Florals set

Paper: Gina K Designs white layering, Lemon Yellow and PeachBellini card stock

Ink: Gina K Designs

Other: Gina K Designs Hand Picked coloring stencils, blending brushes, Master Layouts 3, 12 and 20 die sets, Lattice and Radiant Roses embossing folders, Spellbinders yellow sequins

LIfe's Changes

Happy Thursday Peeps!

Two of my friends have had or will have had a significant life change this month.

My friend Patti was remarried last week after becoming a widow about four years ago, and our neighbor, Wendy is retiring from teaching at the end of this month. I made a card for each last night using some beautiful floral 3D embossing folders and coloring stencils from Gina K.

Happily, I see that the new Just Us Girls challenge is for Flowers, so these cards will work perfectly.

Here's the Wedding card for my friend Patti. 

This 3D embossing folder is called Gorgeous Bloom. It comes with coloring stencils and a die that cuts out only the flower. The background is made using the GKD Swiss Dots embossing folder. Since there is no die for the leaves, I fussy cut them for this card.

The front and inside sentiments are from the GKD set called Toss the Bouquet and they are heat embossed with gold embossing powder.

Next is the Retirement card for our neighbor Wendy. She is currently a 5th grade teacher and is retiring at the end of this school year. She loves the color pink so of course I had to make a card with lots of pink. 

This 3D Embossing Folder is also from Gina K. and is called Daisy Delights. It also has coloring stencils and dies to cut out the daisies, although I didn't use the dies. I made this a 5 x 7" card because I didn't want to cut any of the image.

The front is a Dusty Rose 5 x 7" panel that I cut using the SSS Nested Arches dies. After cutting it I ran it through a Spellbinders 3D Embossing Folder called Floral Fence of Togetherness. This is popped up over the daisy and rose floral panel with foam tape. The sentiment is from the GKD Peaceful Peonies stamp set. For embellishments I added a few small pink sequins also from GKD.

On the inside of this card I used a GKD rose stencil to add some color, along with the sentiments, since it's such a large space.

Hope you enjoy your day!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: All from Gina K Designs, Toss the Bouquet, Peaceful Peonies, Enjoy

Paper: Concord & 9th (Wedding card) and Gina K Designs

Ink: Concord & 9th (Wedding card) and Gina K Designs

Other: Gina K Designs Gorgeous Bloom and Daisy Delights 3D Embossing Folders, Swiss Dots embossing folder, Shimmering Roses Layering Stencil, Master Layouts 2 and 7 die sets, gold dot and pink sequins embellishments, blending brushes. Simon Says Stamp Nested Arch dies, Spellbinders Floral Fence of Togetherness 3D Embossing Folder, Brutus Monroe gold embossing powder

Graduation Cards

Hello and Happy Monday!

I think I'm finally finished purging and organizing in my craft room. Luckily, our neighbor is a 5th grade teacher and she takes a lot of the supplies that I  purge for her class and for the other teachers at her school. 

I changed my desk layout too. I used it yesterday for the first time while making a couple of cards, and it seemed to work well. I reduced the area by half, so I wasn't sure if I'd like it. There may be more tweaks, but for now I'm calling it good.

Both of the cards that I made are Graduation cards. One is for our neighbor, a young man graduating from high school this month. The second is for the DIL of our friends we visit in New England. Erin graduated from UCON four years ago with a nursing degree. She worked in hospitals and then decided to go into the Nurse Anesthetist Program. She graduates from that program this Friday.

Here's the High School Graduation card.

The background stamp is from Gina K Designs. There is a die that will cut out all of the words, but I decided I liked it as a background, and it works great for a Graduation card. The trophy die cut and sentiments are from Concord & 9th. The school colors are navy blue and white and then I added some gold accents.

For Erin's card, I used the same GKD background stamp. I also used Claire's colors for this week's Paper Players Challenge. The tulip dies and the large die cut sentiment are from Concord & 9th.  As the Just Us Girls challenge is die week/sentiment, this card works for that as well.

Here is the inside of this card. (I forgot to take a photo of the inside of the first card).

We are off to have lunch with some friends who are here from Palm Springs for the day. We're meeting at a restaurant in Carlsbad Village. Menu looks yummy!

Hope your week is a good one!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: So Many Words set by Gina K Designs and Dream Big by Taylored Expressions

Paper: Stampin' Up and Gina K Designs card stock, Altenew glitter gold card stock, SSS mat gold card stock, striped Vellum

Ink: Stampin' Up and Gina K Designs

Other: Concord & 9th World's Greatest dies, Celebrate You dies, and Tulip Festival dies, SSS A2 Scalloped Rectangle dies, Spellbinders Large Oval die, Taylored Expressions Graduation Cap die, Gina K Designs Blending Brushes and purple heart embellishments

This Card Traveled All This Way

Happy Cinco de Mayo! (and Taco Tuesday)!

I had fun making a scene card yesterday for this week's CASE the Designer challenge for Just Us Girls. I'm CASEing Lisa's really cute bunny card. 

My bunny image comes from the Spellbinders Clear Stamp of the Month for Feb 2025.

 

I love the arch die that Lisa used and while I have some nesting arch dies, I decided that I'd make an oval shaped card to build my scene on. I used the Spellbinders Essential Stylish Oval die set using the largest to cut the card base and the second to largest to make the background scene. The sky is stenciled with a GKD cloud stencil, the purple hill is made with a SSS background stamp and a Lawn Fawn hill die. The grassy meadow is also cut with a Lawn Fawn die and ink blended with three GKD green inks. The flower and bunny images are from the same Spellbinders stamp set, but the sentiment is from another Spellbinders set.

For the inside of the card, I used more images from the bunny set. These two cute chicks are standing on a meadow made using the die as a stencil.

All of the images on the front and inside are colored with Copics.

Enjoy your Cinco de Mayo and I hope there's some yummy Mexican food in your future. And, maybe a Margarita too.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Spring Smiles and Send & Seal sets from Spellbinders and Sweet Garden Background from Simon Says Stamp

Paper: Gina K Designs card stock

Ink: Gina K Designs and Copic Markers

Other:  Spellbinders Oval dies, Lawn Fawn Hil land Grass dies, Gina K Designs Cloud stencil and blending brushes

Birthday and Friendship Cards

 Hello,

In my last post, I mentioned that while doing some spring cleaning in my craft room that I found boxes of background panels that i'd made but never used. There were five that I pulled out which were made after watching a Jennifer McGuire Gel Press inking technique. My last post featured a card using one of these. Today's post is three more cards using three more of the five panels.

This first one worked well for the current Color Hues challenge. The colors this time are Coral and Green. 

All of the supplies used on both the front and the inside below are from Gina K Designs.

The other two cards are Gatefold cards. The original panels were 5.5 x 8.5 " so there was enough inked paper to use for the side panels once I cut out the center line art images. Instead of leaving the inked sides plain, I decided to use a couple of large background stamps and stamped them with the same ink colors used in the original technique.

Again, most of the stamps are from Gina K. except on the red card, the background stamp is from Kristina Werner/Concord & 9th.

I used the same design for the inside both cards.

Here's the inside of the blue card.

Here's the inside of the red card.

Enjoy your day!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Gina K Designs and Concord & 9th

Paper: Gina K Designs

Ink:  Gina K Designs

Other: Gina K Designs Master Layouts 1, 12, and 13 dies, Graphic Happy Birthday dies, Embossing Folder, Pastel Pearls, Metallic Pearl and White Heart (colored with Copics) embellishments and white embossing powder, MFT Large Stitched Square die, Simon Says Stamp Nested Domed Arch dies

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

Hey! Miss You and Cozy Up!

 TGIF Peeps,

I have two cards today that use the same layout and same stamps and dies, inspired by two different challenges. For the Paper Players it's Clean and Simple week and Christy's theme is Baby Animals. While I have many, many stamps with animals, not so many are of babies. I do have this cute suite from Waffle Flower with kitties that I thought would work. For the theme of my card, I decided to go with Postage and pulled out an older Gina K Designs Postcard set to go with.

It's Stencil week at Just Us Girls and Vicki's challenge is Anything Goes. I decided to use the same basic layout on this card, but stenciled the background with a Kristina Werner/Concord & 9th stencil pack and inks. I wasn't sure if the Postage elements would show up when stamped , but I think it worked well.

For this card I layered the kitten images onto some Waffle Flower postage dies and popped up the sentiments. 

The inside of the two cards is identical.

Enjoy your Friday and weekend!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Postcard set by Gina K Designs and Simple Joy set by Waffle Flower

Paper: Concord & 9th Nectar and Wildberry Gingham card stocks, Gina K Designs Layering Weight card stock

Ink: Concord & 9th and Gina K Designs, Images colored with Copics

Other: Waffle Flower Simple Joy dies and Postage dies, Gina K Designs Master Layouts 2 dies, Kristina Werner/Concord & 9th Bitsy Blooms Stencil Pack

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

Cheers To You On Your Birthday

Hello Peeps,

Well, it's been a month since my last post. Life gets in the way sometimes. All is good, no worries, just stuff going on, LOL.

Since yesterday was Sunday, the new Paper Players challenge went up. This week Jan has the monthly color challenge and her chosen colors are yellow, gray and black, specifically the SU colors of Daffodil Delight, Smoky Slate and Basic Black. Most of my SU inks and card stock are at my mom's house in Northern California, so I couldn't used these specifically, so I substituted from my Gina K and Concord & 9th inks and card stock.

The cocktail image comes from Trinity Stamps. The set is called Island Cocktails. I paired it with some older SU DSP to put together this fun birthday card. 

For the front greeting and the inside images and greeting, I reached for another cocktail set in my stash. This one is from Gina K Designs and is simply called Cheers.

I actually made two cards using Jan's colors. The second one is very different from this. I'll post it later in the week. Until then, have a great one!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Island Cocktail set by Trinity Stamps and Cheers set by Gina K Designs

Paper: Gina K Designs card stock in Soft Stone, Black Onyx and Layering Weight white. Stampin' Up DSP (retired)

Ink: Gina K Designs and Concord & 9th, Copic Markers

Other: Lawn Fawn small and medium scalloped border dies, Brutus Monroe black embossing powder, Gina K Designs blending brushes and black pearl embellishments