Pink, Black & Banners

Decided to use a favorite color combination of mine, Pink Pirouette and Black.  This was going to be quick and simple as I was going to cut out the banners in different colors/patterns and sizes, adhere them to a card front and be done.  That is pretty much what I did on the single layer pink card.  But after cutting everything and laying the things out on the card, I wanted a little lace doily.  Then I needed the little black pearls (colored using an alcohol marker) and the flower.  It is a pretty card.  But I thought that maybe I should have used a black layer.  So, I created a  second version of the card, again using the Banner framelits and a doily.  Rather than pearls and a flower, I embellished with butterflies.  When you already have the supplies out, you might as well make two cards!  Have a great day!

Cricut Projects

School supply ads are plentiful these days and although I have no need for school supplies, when I see Post-It Notes on sale, that catches my eye.  When I was online last week on one of my Facebook Groups, Paulette Trent added a Post It Note holder to Cricut Design Space.  It was so cute I just had to make one.  It is so easy with the Cricut Explore and Paulette's design, I can see making one of these for every holiday or season.  The bright colors I used for this one definitely say "summer".  Another Facebook friend, Melody Lane, posted an adorable gift card holder.  I will be
needing gift card holder ideas, so I added her gift card holder to my Design Space projects and got busy creating one.  My gift card holder has a couple less layers, but isn't this just so cute?  I am not quite ready to create Christmas projects, but I can imagine just how pretty this will be in some of the new Designer Series Paper that is in the Stampin' Up Holiday Mini.   I assure you that these will both be made during future card classes.  The recipes will include the dimensions so you can make them even if you do not have Cricut Explore.  I must say, the people on the Cricut Facebook groups that I am part of are very kind and generous with their time and their willingness to help and share.  So if you have Cricut Explore, do yourself a favor and ask to be part of a group or two or even 23!!  The two I belong to are the Cricut Lovers Guide to Design Space and Melody Lane's Patreon Club.  We are having another beautiful weather day here, so get out, enjoy and have a great day!

I really don't need...

...By the Seashore, but I can make such pretty cards using it.  For today's card I combined it with By the Tide and the retired Whimsical Words stamp set.  I stamped off the background images before stamping on the card front and then stamped directly when stamping the saying about shells.   After stamping the sentiment in Blackberry Bliss, I used a framelit from the Labels collection to cut it out, sponging the edges with Crumb Cake ink.  I did color a couple pearls using an alcohol marker to bring in a little more purple.  I will probably have the "should I or shouldn't" debate in my head until it retires and then I will know I should have purchased it~~hahaha!!!  Have a great day!
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Navy Vivid Vases

By now the majority of those familiar with Stampin' Up are aware of their new alcohol markers, Blendabilities.  I have a few of the color sets and they are pretty, but the Night of Navy alcohol markers blended beautifully!  When coloring the image, I saw my light source as coming from the right, hoping that I would be able show that on the vases.  I started out with the darkest marker, then added medium and followed up with the lightest.  After laying down the first of all three markers, I then blended a little more medium with the dark and then added more light to the medium. Once I was happy with the vases, I used the Daffodil Delight Blendabilities for the flowers and promptly went right out of the lines~~even a butterfly would not have helped!!  So I stamped again and repeated the same process.  Now there is a little itty bitty place or two where you can see a little blue outside the vase line on the posted card but not enough to prevent even me from posting it.  Between the colors, layout, Candy Dots and sentiment (A Dozen Thoughts), I think this card is awesome!  Hope you have an awesome day!

Gift Box Punch Board

I have looked thru the new Holiday Mini and one of the items in it
is the Gift Box Punch Board.  When I saw that I laughed because after the envelope punch board was released, I liked it so much I hurried up and purchased three of the next punch board releases.  One of those was the gift box punch board.  Well a few of the girls were here when I was trying it for the first time.  After a few tries, I was done!  If I need a gift box, I will use my Cricut.  But since SU will be selling the gift box board, I decided to pull it out and give it another chance!  Out came retired DSP and I made three boxes, each one a little better than the one before it.  I still need to perfect the adhering of the flaps, but in time. I left the Island Indigo box open in the first picture so you can see the scoring that gets done using the board.  After the photo I adhered the flaps to the outside of the box and look~~a little take out box!   The Holiday Mini will go live on August 28th.  If you are a current customer, I have already ordered minis to be sent to your homes when it is released.  Have a great weekend and find yourself a little stampin' time!

Top Note & My Explore

I finished up the 40 baby shower invites and they are darling!  Coordinating thank you notes will be my next project.After making space on my island, I put together today's card.  I chose a piece of the All Abloom 4-1/2" x 6-1/2" DSP stack and die cut a Top Note shape.  OK, now what?  I fiddled around for a while and decided I needed a smaller Top Note shape on which to stamp.  So I turned on my Explore, uploaded the Top Note shape from MDS, resized it to fit inside the original die cut and cut a few.  After stamping on the Whisper White die cut, I colored in the flowers (I Like You) using my Marvelous Markers, added a butterfly (Kinda Eclectic) and the card was finished!  Well, it needed a little something more and once again, our Candy Dots were the perfect something!  Have I told you how much I like my Cricut Explore?  For as long as it might take me sometimes to do one thing on the Explore, most of the time I just do what I want with no problem.  The Top Note shape is now in my Cricut Design Space and I can resize and  cut as many or as few as I need.  It is another beautiful day here, so I hope you have a chance to enjoy it.  Have a great day!

Flower Patch & Flair

Today's cards came about after I stamped the flowers (Flower Patch) and cut them out using the coordinating Framelits (Flower Flair).  At first I was going to use all four flowers on one card, but that was way too much.  So after sponging the centers of the white cardstock and stamping with the leaves from Flower Patch (plus a little Gorgeous Grunge) I adhered the flowers.  In my opinion, the Thinking of You card is a little too busy, but it is cheerful.  The Crisp Cantaloupe butterflies together with "just because" on the single flower card make it my favorite of the two.  And Blackberry Bliss is still my favorite new In Color~~so rich and deep.  Have a great day!

By The Seashore

Today's most important message is "Happy Birthday, Sydney"!  We truly are blessed with a beautiful granddaughter.  The stamp set I used for today's cards, By The Seashore, is one I have not purchased as I have other seashell stamps. But it keeps calling my name each time I flip thru the catalog.  So, I borrowed Jen's set and created these two cards~~one colorful, one monochromatic.  I used watercolor paper on the colorful version as I wanted to aqua paint a little "sand" as a background for the shells.  I also stamped the shells on watercolor paper before cutting them out.  The sentiment is from Blooming With Kindness. On the monochromatic version, I again stamped the shells on watercolor paper, all in Crumb Cake.  The sentiment on this one is from Wetlands, one of my favorite sets. The little pearls add a touch of elegance.  As you can see, I added a touch of Gorgeous Grunge to each card, too.  Not sure which I prefer and still on the fence as to purchasing or not.  Have a great day and find yourself a little stampin' time.

Open Sea Circle Thinlet

I keep looking at the Typeset Designer Series Paper and wanting to use it.  But then, I am not quite sure how to use it.  Well, Saturday I pulled out the Circle Thinlet card die and thought the map pattern of the DSP and the ship in the Open Sea set would work well together.  And as you can see, they did!  I used one of the sentiments from Really Good Greetings on the inside~~spacing it so it is under the "circle".  Since the card base is black, I added another Vanilla panel on the back side so a message can be written.  After playing with this paper for a little while today,  I am thinking that this Typeset Designer Paper will make some nice vintage-looking cards.  I will work on that idea.  Have a great day!

So Sweet of You

Happy Friday!  Today's card is in one of my favorite color combinations~~red, black and white.  Of course this card would be just as cute in Melon Mambo and black or Daffodil Delight and black.  The stamped images are from the hostess set Hello There.  The font is cute and the little flowers and stems are so sweet!  As a matter of fact, the sentiment is going to be used on a set of thank you cards I will be creating to match the Baby Shower invites I posted earlier this week.  On another note, SU's annual convention is going on right now.  We are getting sneak peeks of the new Holiday Mini.  There are some cute things in it, but one thing I am excited about is that the Endless Wishes set that sold out so quickly last Christmas is actually in the Holiday Mini.  In addition to new Halloween Thanksgiving and Christmas stamps, there is pretty new ribbon, new framelits and so much more.  I will be able to order on August 1st, so shortly thereafter you will be getting sneak peeks right here!!  Have a great weekend and find yourself a little stampin' time!

Pretty Grunge

Last night I went down to my scrap room with the express purpose of making pretty cards using the Gorgeous Grunge stamp set.  I think they are very pretty~~and easy, too! I first decided where I wanted the "grunge"; i.e., which corner of the card or the center.  On the white cardstock I first stamped the  thin lines and stamped over that with other images from Gorgeous Grunge. I even added a little strip of Washi Tape on the Coastal Cabana card.  The stamped image on this card is from the hostess set Hello There, punched and layered on various size circles and adhered with dimensionals.  The Strawberry Slush card does not have any Washi Tape on it, but rather the leaves punched from the Build A Bird punch.  The flower is from Flower Shop, adhered using dimensionals and the sentiment is from A Dozen Thoughts. I added the little sequins on the Coastal Cabana card and you could do the same with the Strawberry Slush.  (Have I mentioned how much I like the In Color Sequins?) As a matter of fact,I might just do that!  Hope you have a great day! 

Blooming w/Kindness & Butterflies

The pretty butterflies on today's cards are from the Kinda Eclectic set and the flower from Blooming With Kindness.  The colors are not showing up this morning, but one card is Crumb Cake and the other is Blackberry Bliss.  I temporarily adhered a 1-3/4" strip of white cardstock on the white layer and then stamped the flower image.  I then layered the flower strip on a strip of coordinating cardstock that is 2" x 4". Before adhering to the card front using dimensionals, I stamped a sentiment.  The "warmest wishes" sentiment is from the Blooming With Kindness set and the "everything will be ok" is from the Really Good Greetings set.   Blooming with Kindness is a very elegant stamp set and the butterflies are the perfect complement.  Have a great day!

Baby Shower Invite

The other day I was asked if I would be interested in making baby shower invites for a friend and I could not refuse.  The only information I had was that the parents are expecting a little girl.  So I went to their baby registry to see if there was a color scheme or an item I could use as my inspiration.  Sure enough there is a cute  Happi Tree wall décor set (pictured on the left).  With the help of my Explore and Design Space and SU's My Digital Software, I created this cute little invite rough draft. The colors (which are not showing up as they look) are Melon Mambo, Soft Sky and Daffodil Delight.  I got the go ahead, so yesterday I cut and put together 40 little birds. This will be a fun project to work on.  Everything about it is happy!    It is a little chilly here this morning, so stay warm!!  (Is it mid July?)  Have a great day.

Hello My friend

While visiting m friend, Cherie, the other day, she mentioned that she liked cards that had little tags on them.  She showed me examples of some things she acquired, and yes, the little tags added a whole lot.  So when I was creating today's card, I was determined it would include a "tag".  After deciding on a color combination of Night of Navy and Sahara Sand, I added texture by using the new Tiny Triangles embossing folder.  I then used a combination of stamps that would add texture~~the retired Canvas background stamp and two images from Gorgeous Grunge.  The butterflies are from Papillion Potpourri; Hello is from the Four You set and finally the tag!  The sentiment is one of four in the Four You set and fits perfectly on the Artisan Label punch.  The card is definitely much nicer than it is showing up in photos, but you get the idea~~little tags add a lot of punch!!  Have a great day!

Hello There

Yesterday I decided to use my Melon Mambo Blendabilities for the first time.  At the same time, I used the hostess set, I Like You.  It is a great set if you like to color~~and I do!  I stamped a few images using Black Memento Ink in the lower right hand corner.  After coloring a couple flowers, I decided that the Melon Mambo markers were really bright, so I added the Rich Razzleberry Blendabilities to tone things down. Everything was looking good until I went out of the line--hahahah!!!!  Thank goodness for that Beautiful Wings Embosslit!  The sentiment is from another hostess set, Hello There.  It is a very pretty set and you will be seeing more of my cards using images from that set.  As you can see, Perfect Plum made a great layer! Speaking of great have a great weekend and find yourself a little stampin' time!

Oh, Happy Day!

The other day I created a background layer using Tempting Turquoise and Daffodil Delight and the sunburst image from the Kinda Eclectic set.  Once it was stamped and layered on a card base, I wasn't sure what to do with it.  Well, thank goodness my SU order arrived yesterday with my Sunburst Sayings set and coordinating framelits.  Just look how perfectly those little stamped and die cut images fit in  the center of the sunbursts! Add a  few punched stars, a little bling in the center of the one, a sentiment from And Many More and you have a very cute birthday card.  Then on to the next card, Oh Happy Day.  Another fun card, all it took were combined stamped and die cut images with die cut DSP scraps, an embossed background and a few stars.  I am quickly restocking my birthday card inventory~~and that is a good thing!  Hope your day is a happy one!

Sweet Taffy DSP

If you like bright and cheery, then you will like today's cards.  The print paper is from the Sweet Taffy DSP Collection.  All colors in this paper collection are from the Brights Collection, always one of my favorite color groups.  Of course, I wish it still included Green Galore!  The Pumpkin Pie card was stamped using images from  And Many More & Pictogram Punches.    The Daffodil Delight card was stamped using images from the Endless Happy Birthday Wishes set.  My Banner Framelits  created cute little embellishments on each one.  And notice the little orange rhinestone in the middle of the yellow flower?  Don't forget that if you have alcohol markers, SU's rhinestones can be colored to coordinate with your creations.   Have a  great day!

Kinda Eclectic Butterflies

In a previous post I mentioned the Kinda Eclectic stamp.  On that day I had only used one image from the set.  Today's cards both make use of the two butterflies, the "sunburst" image and the sentiment included in the set.  On the Calypso & Daffodil card I also used the "dot" image.  It was quick and easy to put together.  The Coastal Cabana card took a little more.  For instance, I sprayed the lace doily using Crisp Cantaloupe and rubbing alcohol and then cut it in half.  By covering the lower portion of the white cardstock, I was able to stamp only one half of the "sunburst.  The seam where the "sunburst" meets the lace doily was covered with a thin strip of cardstock.  As an after thought, I needed to fill in a little white space so I pulled out the splatter image from Gorgeous Grunge, inked it up with Coastal Cabana ink, stamped off and then stamped on the card.  I did this twice and was just what the card needed.  (I have gotten so much use out of the Gorgeous Grunge set, a set I thought I would never use!)  Next time, I will stamp the splatter before adding the lace doily.   A few sequins were randomly added to the card.  Have a great day and find yourself a little stampin' time!

Another Flamingo!

Happy Monday!  Hope everyone had a good holiday weekend.  While shopping at my local Joann's last week, I picked up a couple of sheets of clearance-priced scrapbook paper .  I really do not need more scrapbook paper, but 25 cents for 12x12 sheets of corrugated-like paper couldn't be passed up.  Plus, the color was very close to SU's Soft Sky, the card base.  The largest banner is that paper, die cut using one of the Banner Framelits.  I was wondering if the paper was going to flatten when I ran it through the Big Shot, but it did not. I added other banners using  Designer Series Paper scraps, layering them on the Melon Mambo cardstock.  The card was a little too plain for me, so I used my Score Tool to add texture across the bottom before adding the scalloped oval/sentiment.  Next to the cute flamingo are two Melon Mambo candy dots.   Even though I put the Flamingo Lingo stamp set away, that flamingo keeps calling my name!  I hope my continually posting this little flamingo will encourage others to purchase the set.  That way, the Ronald McDonald House Program benefits and there will be many happy little flamingos floating around out there!   Have a happy day!

Celebrate!

Happy Independence Day!  Enjoy this day and weekend as we celebrate our freedom!

Typeset DSP

Yesterday I went down to my scrap room with the intention of using the new Typeset Specialty Designer Series paper.  My mind went blank.  What would I do with the Very Vanilla and Black specialty paper?  It is beautiful~~the variety of prints, the weight.  And as I looked at it, I thought "sympathy card".  I was gifted with the Kinda Eclectic stamp set which was sitting on my counter and just waiting to get inked up.   I used an oval framelit to diecut a section of one of the prints, stamped directly and then stamped off using the leaf image from the Kinda Eclectic stamp set around the edge of the oval.  It looked pretty, but the oval was too big.  After playing around for a while, I finally decided what I was going to do and ended up with two cards from the one oval piece I started out with.  I used my Beautiful Wings Embosslit and the retired Scalloped Corner punch, two of my most favorite ever Stampin' Up products.  Too bad the punch was retired!  Anyway, I already have ideas for other prints in the collection and look forward to creating more using the Typeset DSP.  Have a great day!

Red, White & Black

 When the new catalog was released, I purchased a few packs of the new DSP collections~~all of which I like.   During the month of July, Stampin' Up is running a "buy 3, get 1 free" deal on their paper collections (excluding the DSP Stacks), but for now I need to use that which I already purchased, starting with today's cards.  Sometimes I just run out of ideas for cards, so I looked on line for sketches.  I found one I liked and used it for today's cards.  The hexagon DSP paper is from the Back to Black collection.   The sentiments on both cards are from the Perfect Pennants stamp set, punched using the new 2" circle punch and then layered on a 2-3/8" scallop circle.  I really can't decide which card I prefer.  But look how easily you can use a card sketch to create two similar cards, at the same time both being different.  Have a great day!

Blog Guest

Last week my family and I celebrated my birthday.  Sydney made such a cute card that I promised she would be my guest poster one day this week.  Today is that day.  Sydney  designed the card and with the help of her Mommy, even found font that matched the font used in the Peace Love & Cupcakes stamp set.  I just love it, Sydney Elizabeth~~thank you!   I am very blessed to have family and friends that I can share my life with and be part of their lives, too.  Have a great day!