Thank You

Hello peeps,

We arrived home Monday evening from our three weeks on the east coast. We had a super fun time, but as always, it's also great to be back home. It will be a short time for me however, as I'm headed to my mom's house on Wednesday. 

After catching up on chores on Tuesday, I finally had some time in my craft room yesterday afternoon. I made a Thank You card to send to our hosts using two of my routine weekly card challenges. This week's Paper Players Challenge is a color challenge and I combined it with the new Freshly Made Sketches challenge.

The stamps, dies and embossing folder are all from Spellbinders. The mushrooms and leaf dies are from the Enchanted Stitched Mushroom die set, which is the 09/2023 Stitching Die of the Month. The embossing folder is the Spellbinders 3D EF of the month for 09/2023. The card stock and inks are from Stampin' Up.

I cut several thin strips of Melon Mambo card stock and glued them on the diagonal on a piece of white card stock for the lower panel. The upper panel I ink blended with the Tahitian Tide, light at the top and darker towards the bottom of the panel. The black card base is embossed with the EF and then I used some craft white ink to rub over the raised areas. The sentiment is heat embossed with white powder and cut out using an older SU oval punch.

No picture of the inside since it's just a white panel to write a personal message.

Thanks for checking in and have a great Friday and weekend.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Fill My Heart Sentiments set from Spellbinders

Paper: SU Basic Black, Basic White, Real Red, Melon Mambo, Tahitian Tide card stock

Ink: SU Craft White, Tahitian Tide, Real Red

Other: Spellbinders Stitching Die set Enchanted Stitched Mushrooms, Spellbinders 3D embossing folder  Mushroom Harvest, Gina K Designs white embossing powder, heat tool, Misti, Big Shot, black embroidery thread, SU small oval punch, red pearls, blending brushes, Connect liquid glue, SU Dimensionals

For You

 Happy Hump Evening to all,

It's been a nice autumn day here in SoCal with a little rain and wind, but still fairly warm at 63 degrees. Yesterday it got up to 75! We've been preping for our trip to NY on Friday, getting laundry done, scheduling our ride to the airport, etc. Tomorrow will be packing day.

It's color week at The Paper Players and Joanne has a holiday color palette this month of red, gold, green and another color of our choice. I choose blue, well I guess really it's aqua, as my fourth color to make these all die cut cards. All of the dies are from Spellbinders, as are the card stocks and glimmer paper. 

I started this card by embossing the top of the card base. Then I very  lightly rubbed the top with gold craft ink so it just highlighted the raised portions from the embossing folder. The large bow is a die set called All Occasion Bow, and is super fun to put together. I've made several in many different colors, but when I saw that gold was one of Joanne's colors, I thought it would look pretty with this glimmer paper from Spellbinders. The flowers, leaves and sentiment dies are from another Spellbinders holiday die set which is called Petite Blooms.

For the inside, I used sentiments that I hot foiled using a Spellbinders Glimmer holiday sentiment set.

On the second card, I went with a green background starting with the same steps as with the first. Dry embossing the card base and using gold craft ink to highlight the raised portions. The Christmas tree has a base but I just used the inside florals here. The leaves are cut from gold card stock and the flowers are cut from white and colored using blending brushes. Unfortunately, in my photos they look pink-ish, but I did use red inks, Gina K Red Velvet and Lipstick. I took the pictures both inside and outside, but no difference in the colors on the flowers. The dark red pearls match the darker ink blending almost perfectly IRL.

Here's the inside of this card. I heat embossed this with gold EP. This sentiment is from Gina K Designs.

This may be my last post for several weeks. We leave on Friday early am, so I'm not sure I'll be doing much crafting tomorrow. We are back home on Dec. 12. Happy Thanksgiving next week to all those celebrating in the U.S. I hope you get to spend it with family and friends.

Colleen

Supplies

Spellbinders die sets: All Occasion Bow, Petite Blooms and Layered Poinsettia Tree 

Paper: Spellbinders card stocks

Ink: Color Box gold craft, Gina K Designs Embossing craft ink, Gina K Designs Red Velvet, Lipstick, Turquoise Sea, Sea Glass

Other: Spellbinders embossing folders Holly & Foliage and Stylized Trellis, GKD gold embossing powder, heat tool, Big Shot, Connect glue, foam squares, Red Pearls

Merry Christmas

 Happy Monday Morning Peeps,

Hoping everyone had a wonderful weekend full of crafting. I'm sure there are lots of Holiday cards being made. That's what I've been doing because I need to get all of mine finished and addressed prior to this Friday. We are headed to the East coast on Friday and we will be gone until Dec. 11. We'll be home for three days before friends from Chicago come for a five day visit and two days after that, I will drive to my mom's house in NorCal for the Christmas Holiday. Needless to say, a very busy time for me and after this week, I don't see much crafting going on.

Last night I played around with Jen's sketch for the current Freshly Made Sketches challenge. As the card was coming together, I wasn't sure I was liking it, but once completed, it actually turned out pretty cute. 

All of the supplies are from Gina K Designs and I used ALL THE TOOLS, stamping, embossing folders, stencils, die cutting and coloring. 

The background and the horizontal element are embossed using the GKD Snowflake embossing folder. The background is teal card stock with white craft ink rubbed over the raised snowflakes. The horizontal piece is opposite, white card stock with teal ink rubbed over the raised snowflakes. For the second panel, I laid out several sentiments from several holiday sets in two directions and stamped them to make a background. I used three different shades of teal inks from very light to medium. I also threw in some small snowflake images to fill in some spaces. The top angled panel is the GKD Falling Snow stencil over white using Sea Glass ink. I used a curved hill die to cut it towards the bottom to make a hill for the snow folks. They are colored with Copics and on the light string I glued clear and red pearls for some shine.

On the inside, I used two sentiment images and matted the panel with dark teal card stock.

I'm really looking forward to our trip on Friday. We are first heading to an area of NY that I've not been to. Our friends have a house in Greenport at the northern tip of Long Island. We'll be there until Nov. 29 then we are taking the ferry over to New London, CT and our friends that live in Mass. will pick us up and we will be spending the rest of our vacation with them. We have tickets for a couple tours of the Newport, RI mansions, which we've done before, but they will be decorated for the holidays and should be spectacular. 

Have a great week all, and thanks for checking in,

Colleen

Supplies- all Gina K Designs

Stamps: Snowmen from Feeling Frosty set, background greetings from multiple GKD sets

Paper: Tranquil Teal and Layering Weight White card stock

Ink: Black Onyx, Tranquil Teal, Craft White, Sea Glass, Turquoise Sea, Blue Lagoon, Ocean Mist, Red Velvet and Copics

Other: Snowflake embossing folder, Falling Snow stencil, Master Layouts 6, Frozen rhinestones and colored pearl mix, blending brushes, Misti, Big Shot, foam squares, Connect glue

So Very Thankful

 

TGIF Peeps,

Here's a very quick post with my card for this week's Paper Players Challenge. I made this a few days ago but didn't get around to taking the pictures. Anne Marie has a timely theme challenge for us and I created a a Happy Thanksgiving card, which is the simple inside sentiment on this horizontal "Z-Fold" style card.

I pulled the colors from the current Sunday Stamps Challenge.

All of the supplies to make this are from Gina K Designs. The stamp and die set are one of the newer fall bundles. The side panels are made with stencils from her latest release.

Here is the card standing up. The side panels and the circle background are cut using two of Gina's Master Layouts die sets. I didn't take a picture of the inside greeting, which is just a simply stamped Happy Thanksgiving.

Have a great day. My friend is coming over to work on her quilt that I'm helping her with. Today we should finish all of the block construction.

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Breath Of Sunshine set with dies

Paper: Gina K Designs Kraft, Layering Weight White, Black Onyx

Ink: Gina K Designs Kraft, Prickly Pear, Sea Glass, Tranquil Teal, Coral Reef, Sweet Mango, Black Onyx

Other: GKD Master Layouts 9 and 13, Fancy Florals Layering Stencils, Blue Pearls, Misti, Big Shot, Foam Squares, Connect glue

When Life Gets Nutty

Hello,

I'm combining two challenges for my card today. The sketch comes from the current  Freshly Made Sketches challenge and the parameters are from Claire's Tic-Tac-Toe challenge on the Paper Players blog. I pulled out a super cute set from Lawn Fawn that I've not used in forever called Let's Go Nuts!

I used the diagonal plaid, die-cut and embossing options on the Tic-Tac-Toe and kept very close to Jen's sketch. 

For the embossing elements, the card base front and the plaid background are both dry embossed using the Concord & 9th Stitched Fall Leaves card front die and I heat embossed the three sentiments using clear EP over Charcoal Brown ink. The sentiment strips and the squirrels are all die cut.

On the inside, I matched the embossed plaid from the outside and added one more squirrel. No sentiment, just a place to write a personal message.

Enjoy your Thursday evening, and thanks for checking in,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Lets go Nuts by Lawn Fawn with co-ordinating dies

Paper: Gina K Designs Sandy Beach and Charcoal Brown card stock, SU Very Vanilla card stock, Lawn Fawn brown plaid patterned paper

Ink: Gina K Designs Charcoal Brown & embossing ink, and Copic markers

Other: Gina K Designs Master Layouts 1 dies, Concord & 9th Stitched Fall Leaves card front die, Simon Says Stamp Sentiment Strip dies, SU clear embossing powder, heat tool, Big Shot, SU Mini-Dimensionals, Misti, Connect glue

Happy Halloween

 TGIF Peeps,

It's funny, but even being retired I still look forward to the weekends. Probably because that's when we get together with friends more than during the weekdays. Our plans for tonight are for a little wine and a little pizza with friends.

Last night I pulled out some old wood mounted stamps to make a card for this month's Wood Block Wednesday Challenge. Since I still could use a couple more Halloween cards, that's what I made.This is Rosiland and Russel from Stampassions. All of the images, inside and out, are from wood mounted stamps.

I stamped the duo in Memento black ink on vanilla card stock and colored the images with Copics. After, I cut them out using oval dies from Spellbinders, using the next size to cut a black mat. The orange chevron patterned paper is very old from SU. The greeting is inked first with coral ink and then with black for a two-toned effect, cut out with a sentiment die and also matted. While it's hard to see in the pic, I added some Nuvo glitter to the pumpkin's eyes, nose and mouth, as well as to the tiny stars around the outside, and added two small black enamel dots on the sides for embellishment.

The inside:

Thanks to Amy for hosting this challenge to use these older wood mounted stamps. They usually sit  neglected in their drawers.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps:

Witch stamp: Stampassions

Happy Halloween stamp: Stampendous

Inside sentiment stamp: Simply Stamped

Tiny cat stamp: Hero Arts

Paper: SU Vanilla and Black card stock, SU DSP

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Gina K Designs Coral Reef, Copic markers

Other: Spellbinders Essential Stylish Oval dies, Simon Says Stamp Sentimental Label dies, Big Shot Switch, Nuvo clear glitter brush, black enamel dots, foam squares, Connect glue

Happy Birthday Sweet Friend

 Hello Peeps,

I have a pretty birthday card to share this evening and it is going to a young lady that turns 28 on Oct. 31. 

I've used Jaydee's sketch from The Paper Players Challenge. All of the butterflies and flower images are rub-ons! (Apparently, they are making a come-back.) These are from Scrapbook.com, as is the background patterned paper and the butterfly stencil used on the background paper. 

To make this card I first used the butterfly stencil with Cloud Whip, which is like stencil paste, but it gets slightly puffy with heat. To add the rub-ons to the front panel, I simply cut them out from the plastic sheet, arranged them and used my bone folder to rub them in place. Each little image is separate. The sentiment is from a new Gina K Designs stamp set. It's stamped it with white craft ink and heat embossed it with white powder.

Here's the inside with another GKD stamped image and another butterfly rub-on.

Happy Friday, and have a great weekend!

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Gina K Designs Fancy Phrases and Birthday Cheer mini sets

Paper: SU Basic White Thick card stock, Scrapbook.com Joyful patterned paper pack

Ink: Gina K Designs Black Onyx and white craft inks

Other: Scrapbook.com Joyful Flowers rub-ons, Scrapbook.com butterfly stencil and Cloud Whip, Gina K Designs white embossing powder, Sentiment Strip dies, Master Layouts 2 dies, Misti, Big Shot Switch, heat tool, foam tape