Happy Birthday

 Happy Hump Day Peeps,

I was looking through my boxes of SU patterned papers for some beehive images yesterday and while doing so, I ran across this very old Botanical Gazette DSP. There's a hive on one of the pages that I could use for the other card, and then I saw these moth and flower images that looked like they would be great for vintage style cards. Now, I'm pretty crappy at doing vintage, but I decided to give it a try. After finishing the card this morning, I realized it would fit with the current Mood Board challenge for Just Us Girls.

I tore a couple of edges of the DSP and blended some Dark Sage ink over them. I then stamped some images from the SSS Butterfly Blossoms set around using Charcoal Brown ink. Another piece of the DSP has moths scattered around and I used some postage dies from Waffle Flower to cut them out. They are arranged around the front of the card, an I added some gold dots to finish.

For the inside I used my current favorite "inside" birthday sentiment with a left over moth cutout.

This afternoon I'll be packing for a trip to NY tomorrow. My nephew, my sister and I are going to the Base Hall Of Fame Inductions in Cooperstown this weekend. My nephew's all time favorite player is being inducted. He really wanted to go and since I'm a huge BB fan too, I was all in, then my sister (his mom) decided to join us.

Have a great afternoon,

Colleen

Supplies

 Stamps: Butterfly Blossoms set by Simon Says Stamp and Gentle Silhouettes set by Gina K Designs

Paper: Gina K Designs Ivory and Dark Sage card stock, SU Botanical Gazette DSP

Ink: Gina K Designs Dark Sage and Charcoal Brown

Other: Waffle Flower Postage dies, Spellbinders Sealed Twine die, Gina K Designs metallic pearl embellishments and blending brushes

Two From One Botanical Cards

 Hello,

I'm playing with the Mood Board Inspiration from this week's Just Us Girls challenge. When I saw the inspiration photo, it reminded me of those Botanical posters you see in museums and other gift shops. After thinking about the direction to take my card, I decided to re-create the inspiration photo using stamps from my stash. The stamps are all from various Gina K. sets, both regular size and her mini sets. The flora wasn't hard, and turns out the garden critters weren't either. Here's the pretty mood board.

I started with a half sheet of white card stock and stamped three rows of the larger images using GKD inks then filled in areas with the tiny stamps. Since this was a 5.5 x 8.5 inch panel, I cut it in half to then decide on the card layouts, ending up with the same layout for both. Just different colors, sentiments and embossing folders.

I have several wax seal stamps from Spellbinders from participating in the clubs, but I don't use them often (not at all!), and so I tried them here. The embossing folders are also from Spellbinders and the arch die is from the SSS Nested Arch Die set.

Here's the inside of the card above. The front sentiment is from the Spellbinders Field Notes bundle, as is the "on your birthday" on the inside. The rest of the inside sentiment is from GKD.

A fun project for sure, and I had stamp sets piled all over my desk when I finished, LOL.

Enjoy your Tuesday!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Many Gina K Designs floral sets and Gentle Silhouettes set for sentiments. Field Notes bundle from Spellbinders

Paper: Gina K Designs card stock

Ink: Gina K Designs

Other: Simon Says Stamp Nested Arch dies, Spellbinders Field Notes and Floral Fence 3D embossing folders, Spellbinders wax and wax seal stamps, Spellbinders Sealed Twine die,  Gina K Designs blending brushes, SU twine, Simon Says Stamp pink sequins, Gina K Designs Pastel disk embellishments, Connect glue, foam tape 

Merry Christmas

Hello Peeps!

Happy Monday. I have a bright and blingy holiday card today that I made for the soon to end Freshly Made Sketches challenge, so I need to make this blog post a short one.

I was playing with some of Gina K.'s polyglaze background panels the other day and made the two used on this card. Over the weekend I decided to use them with Jen's sketch to add to this years holiday card stash.

I've pared these sparkly panels with some sparkly retro trees from the SSS Bottlebrush Tree dies. I've cut them from some Tim Holtz Metallic papers and added some Gina K. Disco Ball sequins. The Merry Christmas die is also from GKD.

Here's the inside where I've used the panel that the oval was cut from for the front mat and a sentiment and die from Stamps Of Life.

Hope your weekend was Grand!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps:  Flip-It Merry Christmas Add-on set by Stamps of Life (inside)

Paper: Gina K Designs and Tim Holtz Metallic card stocks

Ink: Gina K Designs

Other: Gina K Designs Polyglaze card front panels, Deco foil, Merry Christmas die, Master Layouts 12 dies, Disco Ball sequins, Simon Says Stamp Bottlebrush Tree dies, Nested Oval dies

Happy Birthday To You!

 TGIF Peeps,

I've been lazy this morning, scrolling through IG posts of my favorite crafts. It's dangerous because it makes me spend $$$, LOL, but SO MANY great ideas.

Yesterday afternoon, I played around with shapes for this card inspired by Bonnie's Yellow and Green challenge for Color Hues. This card is CASE'D from Spellbinders Modern Botanicals Collection and Bonnie Carollee. I don't have any of the Spellbinders supplies, but I managed to combine from mine to make this card. I kind of love it!

I used three sizes of circle masks and various stencils from Gina K., MFT, Paper Smooches and Honey Bee. The ink colors I used are Gina K. Wild Dandelion and Lucky Clover. 

To make the branch, I first foiled a piece of Gina K. Polyglaze with Lucky Clover foil, let it cool well (that's the secret) and pulled off the top clear layer. I then cut out the branch, which is the SSS Tattered Leaves die. I cut two more from scrap card stock and glued the three layers together for dimension. 

The greeting is pre-printed Polyglaze from Gina K. I foiled it with Wild Dandelion foil and cut it out with its corresponding die. Finally, I added the three harlequin diamonds from the MFT stencil next to the top and bottom circles, then some green and yellow sequins for added sparkle.

Here's the inside of this card, which uses images from the Gina K. set called Gentle Silhouettes. I really like the sentiment and I've used it many times.

I hope you enjoy the weekend.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Gina K Designs Gentle Silhouettes set

Paper: Gina K Designs White Layering and Wild Dandelion card stock and black Polyglaze sheets

Ink: Gina K Designs Wild Dandelion and Lucky Clover

Other: Gina K Designs Deco foils in Wild Dandelion and Lucky Clover, Master Layouts 12 dies, Graceful Greetings Polyglaze sentiments and corresponding die, Fuze Foiling Machine. Circle masks, Stencils from My Favorite Things, Honey Bee, Gina K Designs, and Paper Smooches, Simon Says Stamp Tattered Leaves die, SSS sequins

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

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.

Love You

 Hello all,

I have another very pink and bright Valentine's Day card for you today. I was watching this Jennifer McGuire video and decided to give the technique a try. This video is  part 2 of 2. Part 1 is the same technique using embossing folders, which I also tried and made several cards with the backgrounds I produced.

I'm playing with the current Color Hues Pink and Red challenge, and Ann's Theme challenge, Love is In The Air for the Paper Players.

All of the supplies for this card are from Gina K Designs. They include the heart sentcil, Script background stamp, focal dies, paper and ink.

As with most inking techniques, it's hard to stop, but even with the door open to the outside and the over head fan on, the alcohol fumes got to be a little much. But, I got some nice results from both the stencils and the embossing folders. Like Jennifer, I found that the Simon Says Stamp Pawsitivitly Saturated inks gave a little better result, but the Gina K dye inks still worked well. I'm assuming most dye inks would work. I used a Tim Holtz sponge ink applicator instead of blending brushes to apply the ink and blend the colors. I thought that a heavier ink application would probably work best.

Here's the inside of this card. Also using GKD stamps.

The following cards are made using backgrounds from the same technique, but with embossing folders. The embossing folders are from SSS, SU, and Spellbinders. The die sets used to finish the cards are all from Spellbinders. Inks are all SSS Pawsitively Saturated inks.

If you're looking for a fun inking technique, watch Jennifer's two videos and give this a try. I love picking the blending colors.

Enjoy your week,

Colleen

Supplies for Challenge Card

Stamps: Elegant Script Background Stamp and You Are So Loved set by Gina K Designs

Paper: Gina K Designs card stock Cherry Red, Passionate Pink, Innocent Pink, and Heavy Weight White

Ink: Gin K Designs Passionate Pink, Bubble Gum Pink, and Cherry Red

Other: Gina K Designs Layering Hearts Stencil (I used only the open heart stencil), Gina K Designs Master Layouts 1 dies, small heart from the Stitched Circle die set, and Ornate Love You dies, Tim Holtz sponge applicator, rubbing alcohol in mister bottle, red enamel heart, foam tape

Happy Holidays

Hi again,

I decided to do one more post today since I had this card finished. It's made using the current Color Throwdown challenge colors of Red, Green, and Cream.

I started with a cream card base and used the C&9th Plaid Turnabout stamp with two shades of red and two shades of green.  The center oval is from Spellbinders and it's cut from the same vanilla card stock and ink blended with the brighter red shade and the two greens. It's a landing space for the tree dies from Gina K Designs, cut from glitter paper and backed with green card stock. The sentiment is from an older Gina K Designs mini stamp set.

For the inside, I've used a sentiment and small tree image from the 2024 GKD-SSS Stamptember promotion.

Thanks for looking in today, and enjoy your Friday evening!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Plaid Turnabout stamp by Concord & 9th, Seasonal Greetings Mini set and Stay Cozy set by Gina K Designs  (2024 Simon Says Stamp Stamptember set)

Paper: Gina K Designs Vanilla card stock, Concord & 9th glitter paper, SU green card stock

Ink: Simon Says Stamp Pawsitively inks

Other: Ornamental Tree dies by Gina K Designs, Oval die by Spellbinders, blending  brushes, SU Dimensionals

Just for You

 TGIF everybody! 

I hope you have some fun plans for the weekend. I am going to a holiday party tomorrow afternoon hosted by my former manager for her current team and I've been invited. I can't wait to see everyone as it's been 3.5 years since I retired. 

My card for this post is for LeAnne's theme challenge at the Paper Players. LeAnne wants us to use a deer on our projects. I realized that I have way more deer images than I can ever use, although it might be fun to make it a theme one year for my holiday cards and use each set for one card. (Hmmm, that could be a fun idea.)

Anyway, I chose this cute Simon Says Stamp Holiday Ornament set for my card today.

All of the images used are from the SSS stamp and die set. The background patterned papers are from my misc. bag of papers, so I have no idea of the company. I liked the collage for the background to the ornaments. The ornaments are colored with alcohol markers, both Copic and OLO.

There are five ornaments in the set, and I used another for the inside.

Enjoy the rest of your Friday! I need to do some chores, one being getting my car washed.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Holiday Ornaments by Simon Says Stamp

Paper: Gina K Designs Cherry Red card stock, X-Press It blending card stock, misc patterned paper

Ink: Memento tuxedo black, Copic and OLO markers

Other: Gina K Designs Master Layouts 12 stitched rectangle die, Gold, Silver, Green and Stardust Stickles, Gold enamel dot, white gel pen, SU Dimensionals

Sending Holiday Cheer

 Happy Monday Peeps,

I have another holiday card today. This one uses the sketch from the current Freshly Made Sketches challenge. Also, I realized that the Fall/Winter Coffee Lovers Blog Hop is in full swing, so I pulled out some fun SSS cup dies for the focal images of the card to play along..

First, I made my own patterned paper using a couple of C&9th Turnabout stamps and seasonal colors. After those were completed, I used the dies to cut out the cups. There are three sizes of cups in the die set and I've used the largest and mid-sizes on my card. I also pulled out some old wood mounted rubber stamps to gold emboss the small images that I've used on the cups.

The gold panel and the white oval are embossed with Spellbinders embossing folders and the greenery under the cups is from a Honey Bee Holiday die set. The images here were all cut from white card stock and ink blended for the color. Finally, the sentiment is from SSS.

As I usually do, I decorated the inside of the card to match the front. The sentiment on the inside is from Gina K Designs.

Thanks for looking in today,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Plaid and Retro Petals Turnabout sets and Candy Stripe Background stamp by Concord & 9th, Christmas Blessings Sentiment set by Simon Says Stamp and Joyful Seasons set by Gina K Designs, small wood mounted holiday images by PSX and Hero Arts

Paper: Gina K Designs card stocks

Ink: Gina K Designs and Concord & 9th

Other: Essential Stylish Oval and Scalloped Circle dies by Spellbinders, Coffee Mugs by Simon Says Stamp, Lovely Layers Winter Greenery dies by Honey Bee, Autumn Chevron and Joyful Candy Canes embossing folders from Spellbinders, GKD blending brushes and Gold Embossing Powder, Wagoner heat gun, Connect glue, SU Dimensionals

A Birthday Wish For You

Happy Hump Day Peeps,

I've been finishing up Halloween/Fall cards so could get them in the mail. I also had some birthday cards to make for friends (twins) who have their birthday on 10/31. Once I finished those, I decided to see what I could do with the current Color Hues challenge colors. 

I decided I was in the mood for some stitching and pulled out the Lawn Fawn embroidery hoop dies that I have.. Here's the finished card. It's a traditional gatefold style card.

The background 3D embossing folder is from Simon Says Stamp and it sure has great detail. Before running the card stock through, I spritzed it on both sides with a small amount of water. After, I used the same shade of Mustard ink as the card stock to highlight some of the raised areas, then trimmed the panels to fit the front of the gatefold.

Here is another picture of the card front and then the inside.

All of the birthday sentiments are from Gina K Designs.

Thanks for stopping in,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Gina K Designs

Paper: SU More Mustard and Old Olive, Gina K Designs Silver

Ink: Gina K Designs Black Onyx and SU More Mustard

Other: SSS 3D embossing folder, Lawn Fawn Flower Embroidery Hoop die, SU button, Gold floss, SU enamel dots, Gina K Designs Master Layouts 1 dies, SU Dimensionals, Connect glue

Warm Wishes

Happy Sunday evening peeps,

Here's three Holiday cards in non-traditional colors for you. When I saw the new colors for the Color Hues challenge, I thought of these SSS Bottle Brush Tree dies. I bought this die set at the end of the holiday season last year, but never used it. 

I've paired the trees with two SSS stencil sets, Layering Peppermint Stripes and Falling snow, and I've used Jen's sketch for this week's Freshly Made Sketches challenge.

The trees sit on a Lawn Fawn Hills with Trees die, cut from white paper and ink blended with light blue.

While looking through my SSS stencils, I came across the newer Large Snowflake Stripes stencil set and decided to use the Color Hues challenge colors to make a couple of cards. After stenciling, I cut the panel down to make two cards, one a mini-slimline. I really like this color block look.

Have a great week!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Christmas Blessings Sentiments set by Simon Says Stamp

Stencils:  Layering Peppermint Stripes, Snowflakes Stripes and Falling Snow by Simon Says Stamp

Paper: Gina K Designs card stock

Ink: Gina K Designs

Other: Large Bottle Brush Trees dies by Simon Says Stamp, Lawn Fawn Hill with Trees die, Gina K Designs Master Layouts 2, 7 and 12 die sets, WOW white embossing powder, Nuvo White Crystal Drops, Gina K Designs blending brushes and Micro Disco Ball sequins, silver Stickles, Connect glue, SU Dimensionals