I Love Tea

 Happy Saturday Peeps,

Hope your day has been a relaxing one. I started by taking my daily walk in the morning followed by picking up a quilt from being quilted by a long-arm quilter I met last year. We usually meet at a fabric/quilting shop in the La Mesa area of San Diego for handoff and pickup. This is the fourth quilt that she has quilted for me and they always look amazing. Plus, she is very reasonable in her charges. In the mid-afternoon we drove to the airport to pick up a neighbor who was flying in from Oregon where she and her wife have a second home. So, a rather productive day, but also time to do a little reading and blogging.

My card today is made using inspiration from two challenges. The layout is from this week's Freshly Made Sketches challenge and since Wednesday was the last Wednesday in June, it's time for Amy's Woodblock Wednesday challenge.

The tea cup and the sentiment on the front and the tea pot on the inside are all small wood mounted stamps. They are from three different companies and the dates are from the mid and late 1980s.

I used a GKD embossing folder for the black background, then rubbed a gold ink pad over the raised areas to make them stand out more. The white and gold panel is a GKD Polyglaze panel that I foiled with gold deco foil. To continue with the shinny gold theme, I heat embossed the three tea cups and the sentiment with gold ep.

The inside is simple. I wasn't really sure what sentiment I wanted to use on the inside to go along with the "I Love Tea" on the front.

I hope your evening is grand!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Tea Cup by Great Impressions, Sentiment by Stephanie Olin Stamps and Tea Pot by Stamp Francisco

Paper: Gina K Designs card stock

Ink: Gina K Designs and Honey Bee, Copic Markers

Other: Gina K Designs Petite Flourish embossing folder and Vintage Flourish Polyglaze panel, Deco Gold Foil, Brutus Monroe gold embossing powder

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

February Woodblock Wednesday Post

 Hi all,

It's Woodblock Wednesday for February! I so enjoy playing along with Amy's challenge each month.

After I got started with my stamping yesterday, playing with my chosen wood mounted stamps, I ended up making four cards. I thought I should do some practice stamping with the technique I planed to use, and I ended up using all but one of the images that I stamped. Even the practice ones. I used the marker to stamp technique, spritzing the colored stamp with water before stamping onto water color paper.

I thought I'd try combining the wood mounted images with some newer postage themed dies and stamps for my cards, and it worked pretty well.

Here are the four finished card fronts. I did finish the insides as well, but I'll spare you the pictures, LOL. 

I used SU water color markers to color on the stamps. For cards 1 and 2, the backgrounds are ink smooshed and then stamped with small hero wood mounted butterfly, dragonfly and ladybug images. On cards 3 and 4, the background is made using a Spellbinders 3D embossing folder. For all four cards, the backgrounds are die cut using Hero Infinity Postage Stamp A2 dies, which for cards 3 and 4, I did some partial die cutting to get the slimline size.

The small postage dies and postage stamped images are from Gina K Designs.

Here's the wood mounted stamps. Some are used for the inside of the cards. The stamps are mostly from Hero Arts and Stampassions. (I just noticed that one one the sentiment stamps is upside down!)

TGIF, and enjoy the weekend ahead!

Colleen

Supplies

Wood mounted stamps: Hero Arts and Stamppassions Art Stamps

Postage themed stamps: Gina K Designs

Paper: Tim Holtz water color paper, Gina K Designs Black Onyx and Layering Weight White card stock, SU Blushing Bride pink card stock

Ink: SU water based markers, Gina K Designs and Simon Says Stamp inks

Other: Gina K Designs postage dies, Hero Arts infinity Postage A2 dies, Spellbinders Stylized Lattice embossing folder, Gina K Designs small tag die, Spellbinders water mister bottle, foam tape, SU Dimensionals, twine

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

Season's Greetings

 Happy Saturday,

I hope everyone is doing well this weekend. I'm finally back home after spending the past, almost month, at my mom's in Northern California. I wasn't planning on staying as long as I did, but it ended up that way. I drove the 12.5 hour drive on Thanksgiving day. The good news, no traffic, even through Los Angeles and no waiting for car charging in LA. 

After wading through mail and packages on Friday I was able to spend today in my craft room. Since this past Wednesday was the last Wednesday of the month, it is time for Woodblock Wednesday over on Amy's blog. I really like digging through my drawers of wood mounted stamps to play along each month. This month, I made two cards. (I'll write a second blog post for the second card.)

Today's card has a fun snowman, who seems to be very excited for the holidays. I've used Linda's sketch for this week's  Freshly Made Sketches challenge for the layout.

The background snow flake embossing folder is from Gina K Designs and the pattern papers are scraps from my stash bag. No clue of the company.

I kept the inside really simple with just the greeting.

The snowman stamp is from Stampendous circa 2000. The front greeting is from Hero and the inside greeting is from Annette Allen Watkins, 1992.

I love looking through the gallery to see how the wood mounted stamps are used. 

Have a great Sunday, the end of a four day weekend for most of us in the U.S. 

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Wood mounted stamps from Stampendous, Hero Arts and Annette Allen Watkins

Paper: Gina K Designs card stock and misc patterned papers

Ink: Gina K Designs, Copics

Other: Gina K Designs Snowflake embossing folder, Taylored Expressions Scalloped die, Stampin' Up white snowflakes with silver sequins, SU Dimensionals, Connect liquid glue

Just A Friendly Little Boo

TGIF Peeps,

I have another Halloween card for you today. I made this with all wood mounted stamps to participate in Amy's Wood Block Wednesday Challenge, and I'm also using this week's Freshly Made Sketches sketch by Jen T. 

After stamping Rosiland the witch, and her kitty Roscoe, I colored them with Copics. The image is cut out with a Spellbinders Oval die and then matted with a slightly larger oval cut from orange card stock. These are popped up with SU Dimensionals onto a panel of SSS holographic card stock.

The sentiment is cut using a GKD circle die which I layered with a slightly larger circle die from the same die set.

There are plenty of embellishments on this card including small holographic stars, sequin spooky shapes and I used black Stickles on her outfit and yellow Stickles on the pumpkin's smile, nose and eyes.

The inside is very simple, stamped in two-toned orange and black with another wood block Halloween sentiment stamp.

The witch stamp is called Rosland & Roscoe and it's from Stampassions. The outside sentiment stamp is from Simply Stamped by Dee Ann McLen, and the inside sentiment stamp is from Hero Arts.

Enjoy the rest of your Friday and the coming weekend!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Wood mounted stamps from Stampassions, Hero Arts and Simply Stamped

Paper: Gina K Designs, X-press It Blending white, Hero Arts, and SSS holographic card stocks

Ink: Gina K Designs Black Onyx and Tangerine Twist  & Copics

Other: Spellbinders Oval dies, Gina K Designs circle dies, black and yellow Stickles, holographic stars, large sequin halloween shapes, SU dimensionals, Connect glue

Hello

Happy Sunday,

I realized that I didn't blog and post my cards for this month's Woodblock Wednesday Challenge.  I made the cards a few days ago while enjoying a baseball game on TV.

While looking through my wood mounted stamps, I found some sweet watermelons. Since it's summer, they seemed like a good idea. These are super simple, square note cards.

Both cards are stamped with GKD Black Onyx ink and colored with Copics and Olo markers. I found some picnic themed pattern papers in my stash and used them on one of the cards.

Here are the individual cards, both front and the inside.

Enjoy your day. We are headed to the San Diego county fair late this afternoon. Our young friend Liam has an art project entered and we need to go see it. I like looking at all of the school projects and the photography.

Thanks for looking in,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Watermelon and watermelon border stamps from ©imaginations, sentiment stamps from Hero Arts

Paper: Gina K Designs Layering Weight White, SU Poppy Parade, Call Me Clover and Granny Apple Green card stock, stash patterned papers

Ink: Gina K Designs Black Onyx and Red Velvet, Copic and Olo markers

Other: Gina K Designs Master Layouts 3, SU corner rounder punch

Celebrate

 Happy Hump Day Peeps,

I'm continuing the Red, White and Blue color theme with today's Fourth of July card. This card came about because I was shopping my stash of wood mounted stamps to play along with Amy's May edition of Woodblock Wednesday. The flag and fireworks stamps were sitting next to each other and I thought why not? I'm using the new sketch from Narelle for Freshly Made Sketches.

The fireworks stamp is from 2000 by Double D Rubber Stamps and the Sm Heart Flag stamp is from 1998 by Stampington Co. 

The background is stenciled, the flag is colored with red and blue Copic markers,  and the fireworks image is heat embossed using WOW Galaxy Glow embossing powder, which is made of white EP with silver glitter. I added some tiny Hero sequin stars around the embossed image.

Here is the inside of this card.

Thanks for looking in and have a good rest of your week,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Wood Mounted: Fireworks Image from Double D and Flag Image from Stampington Co. Greeting stamps on the front and inside are from SU

Paper: SU Basic White Thick, Real Red and Blueberry Bushel card stock

Ink: GKD Black Onyx, Embossing Pad, Red Hot and Powder Blue. Copics

Other: GKD Master Layouts 3 dies, Seeing Stars stencil, blending brushes, Spellbinders Circle, Scalloped Circle and Rectangle dies, WOW embossing powder, heat tool, Hero small sequin stars, SU Dimensionals and Connect glue

Going Postal - March Woodblock Wednesday Post

 Hi and happy Hump Day Peeps,

What's the saying? Everything old is new again. 

If you've been paying attention around blog-land lately, postal images seem to be all the rage. I've even ordered some of the new stamps and dies in the last month to play with. This morning when I realized it was time for Amy's Woodblock Wednesday Challenge, and I was thinking of what's in my wood mounted stamp drawers, I remembered that I might have some older postal images. I did some digging and found what I had. Enough to make a couple of cards.

I used several stamps to make both of these cards, as well as some newer dies to cut out the panels including GKD Master Layouts 14, which is a postage themed die set. To color the images, I used both Copics and some direct to stamp ink blending prior to stamping, and I also did some ink blending around the edges of the cream card stock on both front panels.

Here's a close up of the pink card front, the inside, and the stamps used. Notice the old fashioned stamp positioning tool. I used it to stamp the sentiments on the front so they were along the lines of the journaling stamp.

The lavender card front and the stamps used to make it.

It was fun putting all of these old stamps together to make these cards!

Happy stamping,

Colleen

Supplies

Wood mounted stamp manufacturer's: All Night Media, Sparkles, Rubber Stampede, Stampin' Up, Rubber Moon, Judith, Tin Can Mail, Hero Arts, A Lost Art, Magenta

Paper: Gina K Designs Innocent Pin, Lovely Lavender, Charcoal Brown, Black Onyx, Vanilla

Ink: Gian K Designs Black Onyx, Charcoal Brown, Prickly Pear, Wild Lilac, and Craft White. Copic markers

Other: Gina K Designs Master Layouts 1, 2, 14, Blending brushes, Big Shot, WOW white EP, heat tool, foam tape, Connect glue