You Really Are the Best

Hello stamping peeps,

I hope you had a nice weekend. As always, they are just to darn short! I worked most of the morning on Saturday, but in the afternoon, I pulled out some stamps and papers and had some fun. I like the simplicity of Judy's sketch this week on the Freshly Made Sketches blog and wanted to be sure to make a card.

While looking though some embellishments that I have in a box, I ran across some SU wooden elements and thought they would work for her sketch. I colored this wooden wreath with a dark green Copic and paired it with some retired DSP called Comfort Cafe.

I used both sides of the sheet of paper on my card. The card base is Cajun Craze, as are the tiny punched flowers that are made with an SU punch. The centers are SU enamel dots in one of the current In-color shades. The stamped sentiments on the outside and inside are from the SU set called In Bloom. The die cut flower on the inside is made with the In Bloom dies. I've used another piece of the Comfort Cafe paper for the background on the inside.

Wishing everyone a good week! Thanks for stopping in,

Colleen

Supplies

Stampin' Up In Bloom stamp set and dies, tiny flower punch, In-color enamel dots, wooden element, Mossy Meadow and Cajun Craze ink pads and Stampin' Write Markers, Cajun Craze and Very Vanilla card stock, Comfort Cafe DSP, Misti, Gemini Jr

You Make Me Smile

 Hey and Happy Monday evening,

Late Sunday afternoon stamping resulted in a card for LeAnne's challenge at the Paper Players. It is Clean and Simple week with a theme of cats. I have this older wooden stamp of a Kliban cat swinging that I've always liked. I remember that I took a class at a stamp store down in the El Cajon area of San Diego, probably at least 20 years ago, and one of the cards that we made used this stamp. I believe that the class was on making cards using only black and white paper and black ink. I also remember that it was taught by a gentleman named Mike, who was a hoot.

An interesting side story, Bernard Kliban was an artist who did cartoons for Playboy magazine, and he also drew these cats. In 1975 a friend convinced him to publish a book of his cat cartoons/drawings. Sadly, he passed away at the early age of 55 from a PE after surgery.

Back to my card, here is a swinging Kliban cat. He/she is stamped in GKD black ink on some GKD layering weight white card stock. I colored the flowers and swing with Copics and added some clouds with a blending brush and SSS stencil. After finishing the coloring, I cut the panel out with the GKD Master Layout 2 stitched die and layered it to the white card base.

The sentiments for both the outside and inside are from the Pure Magic stamp set by Julie Ebersole for Ellen Hutson.

The inside is super simple with just the sentiment and little rainbow in the corner, another stamp from Julie Ebersole.

Have a super week, and thanks for looking in,

Colleen

Supplies

BKliban wooden stamp by American Art Stamps, Pure Magic and Unicorns & Rainbows stamp sets by Julie Ebersole for Ellen Hutson, Gina K Designs Black onyx and Denim blue inks and Layering Weight white card stock, Master Layout 2 die, Copic Markers, Simon Says Stamp cloud stencil, blending brush

Faraway Hugs

 Happy Sunday morning Stamping peeps,

It's been awhile since I've posted on my blog because it's been awhile since I've had time to sit down to stamp. That whole work thing again! Can't wait until I'm retired and can "work" full time in my craft room.

I actually worked for about 4 hours yesterday to get some reports completed for one of my labs. But, I did make time in the afternoon to stamp. I love this week's Freshly Made Sketch by Amy. I think it has so many possibilities. Since I recently received some new stamps from PinkFresh Studio, I decided to use one of the flower stamps. It was a little too long for the card in a portrait format, so I rotated the sketch to landscape.

The plaid is made with a PinkFresh Studio stencil. The card base is stenciled using Spun Sugar Distress ink and the top layer is stenciled with the newest Distress color called Kitch Flamingo. The inks are applied with blending brushes. For the top stenciled layer, I taped the card stock down onto my glass mat at an angle, then put the stencil down and blended the ink. I cut this layer and the mat using Gina K Designs Master Layout 2 dies. I used black as the mat because my idea was to stamp the flower image with black ink and to not color it. It's cut out using the corresponding die. I've used SU vellum for the cross element so that the plaid shows through. The sentiments, outside and inside, are from SSS.

On the inside, I made another stenciled plaid panel with Spun Sugar. I stamped the flower image using GKD Soft Stone ink so that it would be in the corner of the panel, then stamped the greeting in black. I used the same GKD dies to cut out the panel and the mat.

We are joining our friends for brunch later this morning. We rarely go out still, but this restaurant has a very large outdoor area with tables spaced nicely apart. Looking forward to it. It's a beautiful day here in Northern San Diego, so we'll take advantage.

Have a great Sunday, and thanks for looking in,

Colleen

Supplies

Infinite Blooms stamp and die and Simple Plaid stencil from PinkFresh Studio, Gina K designs white and black card stock, Master Layout 2 & 4 dies, Black Onyx and Soft Stone inks, Tim Holts Distress inks in Spun Sugar and Kitch Flamingo, SU Vellum, VersaMark ink, SSS white EP, blending brushes, Misti, heat tool, Gemini Jr, Pretty Pink Posh pink gems, GKD connect glue

XOXO

 Happy Friday Peeps,

Yes, I'm all about TGIF this week. Besides my usual work duties, I was covering for my manager while she was on PTO this past week. Not that it was too bad, but still some issues to take care of.

I had not done any stamping in quite awhile. Instead, I finished my project of un-mounting all of my wooden SU stamps and putting them into plastic sleeves. I cut white card stock to fit the sleeves and stamped the images in each set so they can easily be seen. I also ordered some thicker mylar sheets, cut them so that I could stick the unmounted stamps to it in the sleeve. It's all wonderful. My next project is to take the sets from the DVD boxes and do the same. That will take up even less room. Not sure when I'll start that part of the project though.

I wanted to make a card for Laurie's Tic-Tac-Toe challenge at The Paper Players, but I didn't get to it until last night after dinner, hence the very late posting.

I choose to use the vertical options of die-cut, red and stencil to make my card. The background heart panel is made with a SSS stencil and a blending brush. The ink color is GKD Red Hot. The large die cut heart is from SSS and is cut from SU Poppy Parade card stock, and the flower die is from Pink Fresh Studio. The XOXO die is from either SSS or maybe Reverse Confetti, I can really remember. I cut it 3 times, glued the layers together then glued them to the card. I brushed some Nuvo glitter on and then covered it all with Glossy Accents, a technique inspired from watching Jennifer McGuire videos.

Here's the inside, stamps all from SSS.

The card base is GKD Blue Denim and on both the front and inside I used the GKD Master Layout 2 dies to cut the white stitched panel and the shadow of Poppy Parade.

Have a great Friday and weekend, and thanks for looking.

Colleen

Supplies

Love You Beary Much stamp set from the Simon Says Stamp January kit, SSS heart stencil, SSS large heart die, Pink Fresh Studio flower die, XOXO die, Gina K Designs Master Layout 2 set, Blue Denim ink and card stock, Red Hot ink, SU Whisper White and Poppy Parade card stock, Misti, Gemini Jr, Nuvo glitter pen, Glossy Accents, Connect liquid glue

Thank You Card

Hello Peeps,

I hope you all had a relaxing and nice weekend. Here on the Southern California coast, we had rain, finally! It rained most all day on Saturday, off and on Sunday, and today it's wet and very windy.  It was a perfect weekend to stay in my craft room, which is exactly what I did. 

I only made one card, however. I started an organization project that is going to go on for many days, mostly because it's kind of involved and also because I will work on it as time allows. My project is to un-mount all of my old SU wood-mounted stamps (and I have many, many sets going back to the mid-90s) and store them in Avery Elle clear sleeves, which is how I store all of my non-wood mounted sets. 

Currently, all of my older wood mounted SU sets are in book cases in our garage. They are un-organized and I have a hard time finding particular sets when I decide to use one. So, I did some research on the web to see how other folks have accomplished this. Basically, heat the blocks for about 10 secs in a microwave, then peal off the stamp. This is working very well, and I've gotten through several sets so far.  Here are a couple of pictures of the wooden blocks with the stamps removed, from 152 SU stamp sets. I'm also trying to remove the plastic pictures from the blocks as well. The middle bag below I still need to do the labels. I will check with our local recycling company to see if they will take these blocks. Hopefully! I hate to have to put them in the garbage that will go to the landfills.

The one card that I made uses the sketch from the current Freshly Made Sketches Challenge and the colors from the current Color Hues Challenge. The colors are Navy and Cream. 

I've used the SU stamp set and DSP suite called Boho Indigo, perfect for the Color Hues challenge colors, and I followed the sketch pretty literally. I used a blending brush to blend navy ink onto a piece of SU Very Vanilla card stock before cutting out the leaves with the corresponding set dies.

Here's the inside of the card. This sentiment is from the SU set called Happy Thoughts.

I have a few reports to write for work this morning, then I will continue on with my project.

I hope you all have a great week! Thanks for looking in,

Colleen

Supplies

Stampin' Up sets Boho Indigo and Happy Thoughts, SU Night of Navy and Very Vanilla card stock, SU Boho Indigo DSP, SU Boho Indigo dies, SU Night of Navy ink, blending brush, Gemini Jr, Misti, SU Dimensionals, enamel shapes

You're Cool

Happy Wednesday Peeps,

Claire is the hostess for the Paper Players Challenge this week with a Snow theme. It's also the monthly CAS challenge. I had made another card for the challenge on Sunday afternoon, but decided it really didn't fit the CAS part of the challenge. I'll add it's picture at the end of this post as I do really like how it turned out.

Last night I sat down to make something more CAS and while looking through my stamps, I decided on a different kind of "snow" than the one we usually think of. Here is my snow themed card featuring snow cones.

I did add a large snowflake for the background with a stencil and blending brush, but the focal images are the frosty snow cones. The dies are from Concord & 9th and go with the Cool Treats Turnabout stamp set. The paper cones are cut from white card stock and stamped with pastel inks using a stamp from the Cool Treats set. The snowballs are also cut from white card stock and colored with Copics. I brushed several layers of Nuvo glitter over them for a frosty look. 

The card base is white card stock and I used a Gina K Designs large snowflake stencil and a blending brush to make the background to add that traditional snow element.

On the inside, I've used stamps from the Concord & 9th Snowflakes Turnabout stamp set.

 Here's the first card that I made. This is a one layer card, other than the sentiment strips, but that's probably the only CAS part of it. The masking, ink blending and embossing took quite awhile to do. The colors are really pretty IRL. It kind of glows. I've been on an ink blending kick for awhile. This technique is called Joseph's Coat. I've mades several cards using this technique, although I've not posted any of them as of yet, but I will over the next few weeks.

On a more personal note, I had a rather eventful day. First, I enjoyed watching the Inauguration this morning (9:00 am my time) then had both a colonoscopy and endoscopy late this afternoon. I'm happy to report nothing found, and I'm good for another 10 years. Now, I'm looking forward to dinner, since it's been about 36 hours since I've eaten.

Have a great Thursday, Friday and weekend! Thanks for looking,

Colleen

Supplies for Snow Cone card

Concord & 9th Cool Treats and Snowflakes Turnabout stamp sets, Cool Treats dies, Gina K Designs Snowflake stencil, Gina K Designs Heavy white card stock, Gina K Designs Turquoise Sea and Black Onyx ink, Copic Markers, Gemini Jr, Misti, blending brushes, SU Dimensionals, Connect glue, enamel shapes

You Tickle My Fancy!

 Happy TGIF Peeps,

I knocked off work a little early today, around 3:00 pm local time. I finished my PowerPoint slides for a presentation my manager asked me to put together and decided I was done for the week. I had some happy mail today in the form of my latest Concord & 9th order, so after finishing this post, I'll be putting the sets with their dies into plastic storage envelopes and probably using some of them to make a card.

In this post, I have my card for this week's Freshly Made Sketches challenge. Linda has a great sketch this week. I received this Wishing You Happiness set by Colorado Craft Company before the holidays, but I had not inked it up yet. I thought it, with these sweet little pooches, would make a fun Valentine's Day card. Or, just a general thinking of you card too.

The card base is GKD Blue Denim card stock and the layers are GKD Sandy Beach card stock. The images are stamped with Memento black ink onto X-Press It Blending card stock and colored with Copic Markers. I used the Socr Buddy to add vertical lines to the larger Sandy Beach panel. I thought it would coordinate with the corrugated piece that is corrugated using a SU EF. The top panel is embossed with a Taylored Expressions heart embossing plate and cut out with a Hero Infinity die. The greetings are stamped with GKD Blue Denim and I've added some enamel hearts for embellishment.

The inside of the card uses more images from the same stamp set and a left over piece of the corrugated card stock.

 

I have a few of these Colorado Craft Co sets illustrated by Anita Jeram. Every one is just so sweet.

Have a nice Friday evening and weekend. Thanks for stopping by,

Colleen

Supplies

Wishing You Happiness set and dies by Colorado Craft Company, Gina K Designs Blue Denim and Sandy Beach card stock, X-Press It Blending card stock, Gina K Designs Blue Denim ink, Memento tuxedo black ink, Copic Markers, Scor-buddy, Misti, Gemini Jr, SU embossing folder, Taylored Expressions embossing plate, Hero Arts Infinity dies, SU Dimensionals, enamel dies