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

Love You

 Happy Monday,

My last Valentine's Day card for 2026, inspired by the current Color Hues challenge of Red and Pink.

I'm using various shades of Concord & 9th reds and pinks card stock with the Concord & 9th Wavy Card Front die. This took several passes of this die to get all of the in-laid pieces and the white frame. After getting all of the pieces  in place I then removed them to run through a Spellbinders heart embossing folder for a little added dimension.

The large die cut sentiment is also from Concord & 9th.

Here's the inside of this card.

Enjoy your week!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: You Are the Best Sentiments set by Concord & 9th

Paper: Concord & 9th card stock

Ink: Concord & 9th

Other: Concord & 9th Wavy Card Front die, All the Love set dies, Spellbinders Tiny Heart Scalloped 3D embossing folder

XOXO

 Hello Peeps,

I'm playing with this week's Just Us Girls challenge. This is Die Week with an added theme of hearts. I pulled out various shades of red card stock and an appropriate Valentine's Day cover plate to created this very bright card.

I inlaid some of the mosaic pieces in the center heart but left other cutouts with the under layer showing through. The sentiment dies are cut from red glimmer paper with the shadow layers cut from white glimmer paper.

For the inside, I cut a second heart and used a stamped Valentine's Day sentiment over it.

It's Super Bowl Sunday. Any plans to watch the game? I'm not much of a FB fan, but we're going to friends to watch. It will be a small group and I think most of us are more excited for the pre-game and halftime shows than the game. And, of course, the snacks and wine, LOL.

Enjoy your day,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: You Are the Best set by Kristina Werner/Concord & 9th

Paper: Concord & 9th card stock and SU glimmer papers

Ink: Concord & 9th

Other: Enchanted Heart dies set and Short and Sweet Sentiment dies from Concord & 9th

Hello Friend

 Hello and Happy Monday Peeps,

Another Valentine's Day card to share today and I'm playing along with two challenges. This week's challenge at Just Us Girls is CASE the DT and I decided to case Elizabeth's very colorful rows of rainbows card. As it's "love month," I used hearts instead of rainbows, which makes this card work well for Claire's "Love Is In the Air" theme challenge for Paper Players.

The hearts come from an older SU Cut & Embossing folder called Adorable Hearts. I don't think I've used it before. The greeting, the papers, and the inks are from Concord & 9th. The background embossing folder is from Spellbinders.

I kept the inside very simple with just a greeting.

Wishing you all a creative and relaxing week.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: You Are the Best set by Kristina Werner/Concord & 9th

Paper: Concord & 9th card stock and patterned papers in Watermelon, Creamsickle, Wild Berry and white

Ink: Gina K Designs white craft, Connord & 9th Watermelon and Wild Berry

Other: Stampin' Up Adorning Hearts Cut & Embossing Folder, Spellbinders Petite Tuft 3D embossing folder, Brutus Monroe white embossing powder

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

Home Is Where The Heart Is

Happy Weekend Peeps,

Hope your's is off to a good start. I've gotten a couple of cards made this morning, just playing around with some new and some very old supplies, especially with this card. The embossing folder is new, the Spellbinders 3D EF for the December clubs and the first time I'm using it. The dies are very old, from Taylored Expressions. 

I decided to make a Valentine's Day card using non-traditional colors, and I quite like how the card turned out. The colors come from the new Color Hues Challenge, blue and white this time.

The greetings on both the front and the inside are from the Gina K Designs Mini set called Captured Heart. After cutting the heart doily, I decided to try stamping the sentiment along the top curve. It took a bit of finagling, but I managed to get it pretty well centered. It's heat embossed with white EP.

I've used a couple more very old Taylored Expressions doily dies on the inside with a letter image and greeting from the Captured Heart set.

I'm excited to watch the Australian Open opening day matches that start around 4:00 pm here on the Pacific Coast. Most of my evenings for the next two weeks will be spent watching tennis.

Enjoy your weekend,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Captured Hearts Mini set by Gina K Designs

Paper: Spellbinders card stock

Ink: Gina K Designs In the Navy and White craft

Other:Spellbinders Unlock My Heart 3D embossing folder, Taylored expressions doily dies and house die, Gina K Designs paper heart embellishment, Brutus Monroe white embossing powder

Love You

Happy Weekend Peeps,

Today I have another Valentine's Day card to share. This one uses inspiration from two challenges. 

It's Die Week at Just Us Girls where Elizabeth's challenge is to use a cover plate die. For my card, I've used a Spellbinders Glimmer plate, but I've used it to dry emboss the background instead of hot foiling. In addition to using the Glimmer plate, I've also used another Spellbinders die set for all of the images on the card front.. 

The second challenge is the new Color Hues challenge where Bonnie's colors are gray and red. Perfect for our VD cards.

To make the background, I first ink blended Soft Stone and Red Velvet inks onto a white panel and then ran it through my die cutting machine with the Glimmer plate, using a silicone mat for embossing. After I used a Stormy Sky ink pad to highlight the raised areas.

The die cut images are all from the Spellbinders set called A Perfect Blend, a stitching die set. The large sentiment is included in the set and after gluing in place, I went over it with some Iridescent Glossy Details to give it some sparkle.

The inside of the card is very simple with just a couple of stamped Spellbinders sentiments.

 

Thanks for checking in and have a relaxing weekend!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Simply Said and Sentimental Greetings sets from Spellbinders

Paper: Gina K Designs

Ink: Gina K Designs

Other: Spellbinders Soft Hearted Glimmer plate and A Perfect Blend die set, blending brushes, white embroidery floss, Concord & 9th Glossy Details, Connect glue and foam squares

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, 

Happy "Love" Day!

 TGIF Peeps,

It's a very drippy, but not really rainy, day here in San Diego today. Too drippy for my daily walk. I've been doing a little cleaning and a lot of crafting. 

This week is die week at Just Us Girls and Lisa is looking for heart dies. I'm sure we all have many to choose from in our die stashes. I decided on a few older Concord & 9th sets and made two cards.

This first one is a die set called Enchanted Hearts. So many ways to use it. I simply cut everything from white card stock and then cut some strips of colored card stock and glued those to a background panel so they show through the cutouts. The sentiment dies are from two other C&9th sets. I cut them from black card stock twice and layered them, then brushed a thick layer of Nuvo clear glitter gloss over them followed by some Glossy Accents. After they dried, I glued them to the front. Also, it's a little difficult to tell from the photo that I popped the large scalloped heart up with foam tape matching the stripes as best I could.

Here's the inside of this card with a sentiment from the C&9th Paper Bouquet stamp set.

 

The second card also uses the same Enchanted Hearts die, with a different layout and some different stamps. Again, all are from C&9th. I made a shaker card with this one. The card stocks and ink colors are the same on both cards.

And the inside of card two.

Wishing everyone a happy and relaxing weekend,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps and Main Dies: All Concord & 9th: Enchanted Hearts Die set, Happy Heart set with dies, Sweet Talk set with dies, Paper Bouquet set with dies, Pop Up Heart Turnabout set, Scattered Hearts Turnabout set

Paper: Concord & 9th card stock  in Pink Lemonade, Honeysuckle, Sea Glass, Juniper, Clementine and white

Ink: Gina K Designs Black Onyx, Concord & 9th Pink Lemonade, Honeysuckle, Sea Glass and Juniper

Other: Gina K Designs Master Layouts 2 and 12 die sets, Nuvo Clear Glitter, Glossy Accents, Misc shapes and sequin for shaker, Acetate, foam tape, Connect glue

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

The Cat's Pajamas

 Hello all,

Yesterday was the final Wednesday for January which means it's time for the January edition of Wood Block Wednesday. Probably the only time many of us actually pull out our wood mounted rubber stamps. I try to play along each month  when I'm not away from home.

For this month I have a Valentine's Day card and I've used the new Freshly Made Sketch to help with my layout.

I hope you're a pink fan, LOL.

This little cat in her pjs is one of my favorite stamps. It's an oldie from Uptown Rubber Stamps. I was wondering when/why this saying came about. Luckily, we have Google these days so looking it up was easy. Google says its first recording was 1920 as part of the typical vocabulary of the Jazz Age flappers. The term "cat" is slang for cool person and pajamas were just becoming fashionable for women in 1920. The saying was popularized by the cartoonist Tad Dorgan, who is also credited with the phrase, "the cat's meow." 

The large Valentine sentiment and the small hearts are also wood mounted stamps, as is the large heart on the inside. The sentiment on the inside is from an older SU set.

I love looking through the gallery because I recognize many of the stamps used each month, as I have them in my drawers too.

Enjoy the end of the week, and thanks for looking in. I'm off to buy some fabric for  backing and some batting for two quilts I've recently pieced. Retirement is the BEST!

Colleen

Supplies

Wood mounted stamps: Cat: Uptown Rubber Stamps, Valentine Sentiment: Great Impressions, Small Hearts: Rubber Stampede, and Large heart doily: Penny Black.

SU set: XOXO

Paper: Concord & 9th card stock

Ink: Concord & 9th and Copic Markers

Other: Spellbinders Scalloped Circle and Basic Circle dies, white heart embellishments, SU Dimensionals

You're Always In My Heart

Hey all,

I ordered a set of Lisa Horton Cloud 9 inks during Black Friday sales and finally got around to playing with them. They are so interesting in how they react on different colors of paper. After playing. I ended up with two cards with the exact same design and using the same Lisa Horton ink pads. The only difference is the card stock colors.

Elizabeth has the first color challenge for2025 at the Paper Players this week, orange, pink and green and one of my cards works perfectly. 

Notice the bottom of the heart die is orange, then notice that the background panel is green. Both of those are using the same ink pad, Cloud 9 Ripe Mango Shimmer "direct to paper" technique. The ink is orange on white card stock and green on dark card stock. The upper part of the heart is another Cloud 9 color called Tropical Paradise.

The heart die and the sentiment are from Concord & 9th. The sentiment is heat embossed using black EP.

I think that the second card works for this week's Just Us Girls  Word Week "Masculine" challenge. I used the same Ripe Mango ink on this card with three different dark card stock shades from GKD. They are black, dark sage and Christmas green. The die cut heart is the Christmas green after using the ink pad direct to paper. The background black panel is stenciled using the ink and a blending brush, and the mat for the black panel is a piece of dark sage with the ink direct to paper. On this shade, it looks gold, which is why I used the gold accents in the enamel dots and gold embossed sentiment.

Here are the insides for both cards. 

If you're looking for some fun inks, these fit the bill. I didn't mention how sparkly they are, but I think you can see that in the photos. I don't usually do swatches for my supplies, but I did with these inks, stamping each color with a silhouette style stamp on both white and black card stock. I think that will come in handy for future use.

Hope your day is going well. I have a dental appt this afternoon and I'm watching the Australian Open tennis matches.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Hugs of Happiness set by Concord & 9th and Friendship Hearts set by Gina K Designs

Paper: Gina K Designs and Concord & 9th

Ink: Lisa Horton Cloud 9 Shimmer inks, Gina K Designs Embossing pad and Black Onyx ink

Other: Concord & 9th Stay Cozy stencils and Knit With Care dies, Gina K Designs Master Layouts 2 dies and Gold embossing powder, Brutus Munroe black embossing powder, gold and orange enamel dots, blending brushes, Connect glue, SU Dimensionals