Have A Spec-Taco-Lar Day!

 Hello all,

Surprise, I'm not waiting until the last minute to post my card for this week's Paper Players challenge. Ann is hostess with a fun FOOD theme. So many options to choose from!

But first, before I get to my card, I want to add my congrats to Christy for joining the PP team. I always enjoy your cards that I see around blog-land so I know you will give us some great inspiration each week.

As I mentioned, so many food choices to make a card. I ended up using a very fun Lawn Fawn Taco stamp and die set, because, who doesn't like tacos?!  I ink blended a park setting with a walkway trough  the lawn then added all the little stamped and die cut images to create the scene.

These little animals are having a fun lunch at the taco cart, and I particularly liked how the chalkboard sandwich boards turned out.

This large taco on the inside is from another Lawn Fawn stamp set, but the sentiments are from the same sets as the front of the card.

On a personal note, I'm have some foot surgery tomorrow, so I may not be feeling up to sitting at my desk to stamp for a week or so. I'm imagining I'll be sitting with my foot propped up reading and maybe doing a little crocheting for a bit.

Thanks for stopping by,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Treat Cart set, Treat Cart Taco Add-On sets, Year Nine mini set (inside image) all from Lawn Fawn

Paper: Gina K Designs

Ink: Gina K Designs and Copic markers

Other: Lawn Fawn Grass and Road dies, Gina K Designs Cloud stencils, blending brushes, Master Layouts 1 dies, Connect liquid glue, SU Dimensionals, 

Birthday Wishes

 TGIF Peeps,

Well, once again I'm posting a card just before the challenge closes. Seems like the norm for me lately. My late card today is for the Paper Players. Joanne is hostess with the always fun Tic-Tac-Toe challenge.

For my card, I've used the center vertical of Flowers, Free, Word Die, and I've used an embossing folder for the free element.

The background was created using the negative side (indented images) after sending the white card stock through the EF. I then used small blending brushes to add color to the leaf and flower indentions. After finished, I rubbed a green ink pad over the entire panel several times to get a nice heavy application.

The embossing folder and inks are all from Gina K Designs. The die cut sentiment is from Scrapbook.com.

For the inside, I added a simple sentiment and butterfly, both from a Gina K Designs stamp set.

I made two other panels with the same EF in totally different colors. Having too much fun to stop, LOL.

Hope you enjoy your day. I just finished my morning walk, so now I can play some more (while doing some laundry 😒).

Thanks for checking in,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Gentle Silhouettes set by Gina K Designs (inside images)

Paper: Gina K Designs

Ink: Gina K Designs

Other: Gina K Designs Contemporary Floral 3D embossing folder, Master Layouts 1 dies, Detail blending brushes, Scrapbook. com Birthday Wishes Dies, SU Shimmery Crystal Effects, gold twine, mini glue dot for twine

Happy Owl-O-ween

 TGIF Peeps,

I'm just squeaking in my card for this week's Paper Players challenge. Jaydee has a fun sketch this week and I've used it to make a fun Halloween card. (It will be time to send them out before we know it.)

The stamps are from Taylored Expressions and are fairly old.

As you can see, I rotated the sketch to fit the stamps. I originally thought I'd make a gate fold card, but decided to just make a regular landscape design. The papers are from my stash of fall paper scraps. I used a Gina K Designs cloud stencil to make the cloudy background.

For the inside I used another Taylored Expressions Halloween stamp.

Thanks for checking in. Wishing everyone in the U.S. a fun and relaxing Labor Day long weekend. I'll be hanging in watching US Open Tennis and a little baseball.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Owl-o-ween and Trick Or Treat sets by Taylored Expressions

Paper: Gina K Designs Kraft and Tangerine Twist card stock, misc patterned papers

Ink: Gina K Designs and Copics

Other: Gina K Designs cloud stencil, Master Layouts 13 dies, Simon Says Stamp Nested Domed Arch dies, Glossy Effects

Trick or Treat

Hello all,

Elizabeth has a super fun Clean and Simple challenge for this week's Paper Players called Critters. Now, I have no shortage of critter images, so the hard part was deciding which to use. I finally settled on this cute Trick or Treater die from Spellbinders, and popped him onto a stenciled background.

I'd give him lots of treats, wouldn't you? This is a sweet, small die set and very easy to put together.

For the inside of the card, I used a Spellbinders clear stamps set from las year.

Enjoy your evening. I'm waiting for the finals of the Mixed Doubles special at this year's US Open. I watched the matches yesterday and they were indeed fun. Looked as if the players enjoyed this new addition to the tournament as well.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps:  Autumn Wishes set by Spellbinders

Paper: Gina K Designs 

Ink: Gina K Designs

Other: Spellbinders Colorful Pumpkins stencil set, Woof-or-Treat die set, Hoppy Halloween (front sentiment) die set.

Sending Happy Thoughts

Hello all,

Ann has a pretty pallet for this week's color challenge for the Paper Players. I made three cards, all with flowers, as that was what these colors seemed to inspire. I picked my favorite to post for the challenge.

I cut a FreshFreesia panel with a stitched rectangle die, then cut the window from the Pretty Peacock. The flowers are cut from white and I ink blended them with the three colors using light and dark inking. The sentiment is heat embossed with white ep. While it's a little hard to tell in the photo, I ran some vellum through a SSS 3D floral embossing folder, glued the window to it and trimmed off the excess before gluing the window to the panel. IRL, the velum is much more visible.

The inside is simply stamped with some sentiments from both SSS and Honey Bee.

I hope your week has been going well. We went to dinner last evening to celebrate my birthday, a BIG one, LOL. It was low key, just us and our good friends plus my nephew who is in San Diego for a conference. 

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: XL Greetings and Beautiful Butterflies sets by Simon Says Stamp. Inside Birthday Sentiments set by Honey Bee

Paper: SU card stocks in Lemon Lolly, Fresh Freesia, Pretty Peacock, Basic White, and vellum

Ink: SU Lemon Lolly, Fresh Freesia, & Pretty Peacock, Gina K Designs craft white

Other: Gina K Designs Master Layouts die sets 1, 12, and 20. Simon Says Stamp Rustic Layering Flower dies, Simon Says Stamp Crimped Floral 3D embossing folder, Nuvo glitter pen, Brutus Monroe white embossing powder, SU Dimensionals, Connect glue

Circles and More Circles

Hello and Happy Thursday Peeps,

Stef is the hostess for the current Paper Players challenge, the monthly theme challenge. Stef has decided on circles. I may have gone a little over board making circle cards, but I sure had some fun.

I ended up making three cards. The third was unplanned. More about it later.

The first two planned cards are holiday cards. The July Monthly Mix challenge on the Gina K Facebook page is "Christmas In July," and I wanted a card to enter over there. When looking through my GKD Holiday sets, I came up with two ideas, hence, the two cards. 

Card 1: This is a 5x7" card using all GKD supplies.

Front:

Inside:

 Card 2, also using all GKD Supplies. (I was going for that retro feel, bright colors and metallics.)

Front:

 Inside:

Card three's story. You see the vellum circle on the front of card two? I originally cut a larger one to use, but decided it was too big and cut the smaller one. I have a box with misc. geometric shapes (which I'm sure all of us do) and when I opened it to pitch the larger circle in, I saw these circle leaf die cuts. Hmmm, circles. Wonder what I can do with those?

Here's card 3: My bestie that lives in Sacramento had back surgery yesterday, so this will be in the mail for her later today.

Front:

Inside:

So yes, a little over board with the circles. Two more holiday cards for the stash is good though. Now to choose which one to post to Stef's challenge.

My nephew that lives in Minneapolis is coming to San Diego for a conference that starts Monday. He is flying in tomorrow evening to spend the weekend with his Auntie. We will be going to the Padre game on Sunday afternoon. Not sure what else, but it will be great to spend time with him none-the-less.

Colleen

Supplies - cards 1 and 2

Stamps: Penguin Pals, Christmas Cheer, Blizzard, and Graphic Tree Mini sets all by Gina K Designs

Paper: Gina K Designs 

Ink: Gina K Designs & Copic Markers

Other: Gina K Designs Snowflakes embossing folder, Crop Circles stencil Polyglaze snowflakes background panels, Silver embossing powder, Master Layouts 2 and 3, Stitched circle dies

Supplies - card 3

Stamps: Gina K Designs Graceful Greetings and So Many Sentiments sets

Paper: Gina K Designs Card stock and Erin Lee mat black card stock

Ink: Gina K Designs

Other: Simon Says Stamp circle stencil, Pink Fresh Studio Floral Circle dies, Gina K Designs Master Layoouts 3 dies

4th of July

 Hello,

I hope your week has been going well. I'm recovering from some minor skin surgery to remove a melanoma from the side of my nose. The surgery was on Tuesday. Luckily, I noticed the discoloration and made an appointment before it had any chance to go deeper. Because of the area on my face, there is a rather large incision, but as it's a Mohs procedure, I don't expect much scaring. I have much swelling and bruising, but that will go away in a few days. I feel rather lucky as it could have been much more involved.

I've had no pain and today I felt like doing some crafting. I decided to make one more card to enter at the Paper Players for this week's Tic-Tac-Toe challenge. This time I used the bottom horizontal choice of Postal-Layers-Masculine and made a fun 4th of July card.

These stamps, stencils and dies are from the Waffle Flower postage line and are very fun.

Wishing you all a very Happy 4th of July!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps, Layering Stencils, Dies: Waffle Flower

Paper: Gina K Designs card stock

Ink: Gina K Designs

Other: Brutus Monroe white embossing powder

Thinking Of You

 Hello and Happy Sunday,

Today's activities: card making, watching baseball and cutting binding for a quilt that just came back from my quilter. In other words, my kind of day!

With regards to card making, Jaydee is our hostess this week for the Paper Players, and as it's the fifth Sunday in June, she has the ever fun Tic-Tac-Toe board for us to play with. I used the horizontal middle row of Flowers-Die Cut-Embossing/Foiling for this simple looking card. I say simple looking as there are quite a few steps to put it together, LOL. (super fun to make!)

To begin, I stamped the Gina K Designs Linen background stamp in Bubblegum pink and Christmas Pine on white panels. Next I die cut the Rose Mini Slimline cover plate from each stamped panel. Using one of the negative images for placement, I glued the die cut pieces in place. The card base front is dry embossed with the GKD Lattice embossing folder and the Thinking Of You sentiment is foiled with gold deco foil. Other dies are the GKD Master Layouts 7 Mini Slimline layering dies.

There are so many fun combos on Jaydee's board, I just might show up again in the gallery later in the week.

Enjoy your Sunday. I know I will.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Linen Background Stamp by Gina K Designs

Paper: Gina K Designs card stock

Ink: Gina K Designs

Other: Gina K Designs Rose Mini Slimline cover plate, Lattice Embossing Folder, Polyglaze sentiments, gold deco foil, Fuze foiling machine, Master Layouts 7 dies, Connect liquid glue

I'm So Grilled

Hello,

It's Thursday already. This week seems to be flying by. Maybe because I was away from home startingThursday last week through Monday this week to attend a memorial service for my cousin that was held in Northern California.

After flying to Sacramento, my bestie lent me her car for the weekend to drive from Sacramento to my mom's so that I didn't have to spend $$$$ for a rental car. I wanted to make a fun thank you card for her, and upon my return home, I had received a recent order from Lawn Fawn. I decided to use the freebie set that was included in my order, because who can resist these foodie puns.

I'm using Elizabeth's One Layer Card sketch challenge from this week's Paper Players to make it.

To make the front of this card, I masked off the center and used a diagonal line stencil from SSS to make the plaid background. This took a while but it turned out pretty well. I wanted a red plaid to go with the summer food images.

I removed the mask and stamped the three images, the speech bubbles and the puns then colored the images with Copics. After stamping the sentiment under the white area I added the enamel ant and heart, both from a Doodlebug set of embellishments.

On the inside I used  a thank you stamp from GKD.

Thanks for checking in!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: BBQ Friends and All the Speech Bubbles sets by Lawn Fawn and Grateful Greetings set by Gina K Designs

Paper: Gina K Designs Heavy Weight White card stock

Ink: Gina K Designs and Copic Markers

Other: Masking Magic, blending brushes, Simon Says Stamp Diagonal Lines stencil,  Doodlebugs embellishments

 

Chill

Hello Peeps,

Claire is hostess for this week's Paper Players with the monthly CAS challenge. Her theme this time is Fruit.

I have lots of options in my collection and actually made four cards, although one isn't even close to CAS. The other three are, and I ended up choosing this cute watermelon man from Spellbinders for the challenge card. Using some old SU DSP called Tutti Frutti to make a swimming pool, he is indeed "chilling."

The swimming pool is a Lawn Fawn die and I thought the watermelon blue paper would make a good pool and the green scalloped paper looked like watermelon rind, so perfect for the vibe of the card. The little floaty is from Spellbinders.

The inside is simple with just a birthday greeting and more SU papers.

Our neighbor has a birthday in a couple of weeks, and she's getting this one. She likes silly cards.

I'm off to Northern Cal tomorrow, just for a long weekend. Unfortunately, I'm attending the memorial for my cousin who passed a few months ago at the young age 60 from breast cancer. 

Here are the other Fruity cards that I made. All of the stamps and dies for these are from Concord & 9th. The strawberry and flowers on the left card are cut from felt.

Thanks for looking in,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Paradise Resort stamp set by Spellbinders

Paper: Gina K Designs card stock and SU Tutti Frutti DSP

Ink: Gina K Designs

Other: Summertime Slice and Summertime Wade Pool Dies by Spellbinders, Stitched Pond and Frame Dies by Lawn Fawn, Connect liquid glue, SU Dimensionals

Happy Birthday

Hi and Happy Thursday,

I have a few girl friends with birthdays in June. I've been making their cards this past week. They need to get mailed, as one lives in New England and the other in the Pacific Northwest. 

The card in today's post is one I made using Stef's color theme for this week's Paper Players challenge. 

The stamp set is from SSS called Butterfly Blossoms. There are four flower bouquets on stems in the set, but I used them a little differently than intended on the front of my card. I masked off the center of a white panel with a circle of Masking Magic then inked the top blooms and stamped around the outside of the circle to get the background. There are coordinating coloring stencils that I used to shade the flowers with GKD Peach Bellini ink. The butterflies are stamped on SU Soft Sky card stock and shaded using the stencils with Soft Sky ink. I used a BG Copic for the shading on the wings as well as some Nuvo glitter. The center circle is SU Sea Foam card stock and I also stamped the greeting on the Sea Foam and cut it out with the corresponding set die.

I did use one of the four flower bouquets on the inside. The sentiment here is from Gina K.

Thanks for checking in,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Butterfly Blossoms set by Simon Says Stamp and Sweet Sentiments set by Gina K Designs

Paper: Gina K Peach Bellini, Black Onyx and Layering Weight White card stock, SU Soft Sky and Sea Foam card stock

Ink: Gina K Designs Black Onyx, Powder Blue, Light Spruce, and Peach Bellini.  SU Soft Sky, BG Copic Marker

Other: Butterfly Blossoms coloring stencils and dies, Gina K Designs Master Layouts 2 dies, Nuvo glitter pen, foam tape, Gina K Designs Pastel Pearl mix, Masking Magic, blending brushes.

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

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

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

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