Patterned Boy Birthday

My mom has mentioned a few times that she'd really like me to make her more cards.  Sometimes she sees my card samples and reminds me that she needs some birthday cards, so today I decided to get with it and stamp some for her.  I wanted to try out the color combo from Just Add Ink and I figured a birthday card would be a great way to use the colors.  I have a tendency to stamp with more feminine colors, so combo (Tangerine Tango, Marina Mist, Sahara Sand, and Early Espresso) was a great way to get me to make some boy birthday cards that my mom can use.  I started with the Tangerine card base and textured it with the Chevron Textured Impressions folder.  I stamped my panel with the Patterned Party set and then speckled it with an Early Espresso Stampin' Write Marker and my color spritzer.  I like the speckled look and it helps fill in some of the white space.  I layered that panel onto Marina Mist and Early Espresso and then tied it all together with some Early Espresso stitched grosgrain.  I stamped the "happy birthday" from the Happiest Birthday Wishes set and then cut it into a banner shape by using a square punch at an angle.  Now I've got a stack of boy cards, next up for my mom will be some girl cards.

Hand Stamped Silhouettes

As you can probably tell, I love doing challenges.  I think my favorite challenges are color challenges because they allow for the most creativity and freedom with the choice of stamps and the layout of the card.  This is the card that I made for the current color challenge from Hand Stamped Sentiments -- Early Espresso, More Mustard, Old Olive, and Elegant Eggplant.  I think I needed to stamp with flowers to help me get over the fact that Winter (or at least Winter-like weather) is upon us.  I'm afraid our beautiful 60 and 70 degree days are behind us and the harsh reality of snow is going to occur all too often for my liking.  In fact, it is snowing now and is supposed to most of the weekend.

So, to get my mind off that cold, wet stuff, I chose the Summer Silhouettes stamp set to go along with these rich Fall-like colors.  My greeting comes from the Made for You stamp set and is stamped with Early Espresso.  I tied some Early Espresso stitched grosgrain around my top two layers and then mounted them onto Old Olive.  My card base is Elegant Eggplant and I textured it with the Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder (although it is a little hard to see in the photo).  I added a 2" strip of patterns dsp to the bottom of my card to mimic the textured dots before mounting all of my layers on top of it.  I really enjoy building my own little garden with this stamp set, now if I could just get my real garden to look like that!

Ornament Keepsakes In Color

As I've been working on Christmas cards, I've been trying to come up with color combos beyond the traditional red and green.  For this card, I used the new Ornament Keepsakes stamp set along with some of the 2011-2013 In Colors.  I chose Wisteria Wonder, Pool Party, and Island Indigo to echo the cooler days of Winter.  After stamping my ornaments and layering them, I tied some Wisteria Wonder Ruffled Ribbon around it and then layered it onto my Wisteria Wonder card base that I textured with the Lacy Brocade embossing folder.  If you haven't seen the embossing folder or ornament set yet, you can check out the Holiday Catalog and order through my website.

Three Paneled Flowers

Here's a challenge for you.  Take one of your cards, keep everything the same except for the actual stamps.  That means, keep the same colors, layout, accessories, etc.--just change the stamps.  It's actually a great way to use up leftovers.  I made this snowflake card and shared it at a demonstrator swap a couple weeks ago where the others each made the card.  I had one set of supplies leftover, so I grabbed the Mixed Bunch set instead of the Snowflake Soiree set and made this card.  I love how versatile stamping is!

Other supplies used: Polka Dot Parade DSP, Midnight Muse stitched satin ribbon, Marina Mist, and Midnight Muse ink and card stock, Baja Breeze card stock, decorative label punch, Sweet Essentials stamp set.

Red Snowflake Trio

When Stampin' Up!'s Holiday Catalog debuted, I didn't think I "needed" another snowflake stamp set.  I have so many, most of which are retired so I can't demonstrate them anymore (but that doesn't keep me from collecting and occasionally using them for personal use).  After passing by the Snowflake Soiree stamp set several times, I was placing my second order from that catalog and decided that I should indeed add it to my snowflake collection.  I'm so glad I did! 

I loved the colors from the Pals Paper Arts color challenge this week--Riding Hood Red, Crumb Cake, and Very Vanilla.  I built this card from the ground up (meaning that I started with my card base and then my layers and then added the stamps very last.  I used the striped paper from the Regals Patterns DSP stack and mounted that on Riding Hood Red card base.  I textured my Crumb Cake card stock with the Chevron Textured Impressions folder and tied some Very Vanilla seam binding ribbon around it before mounting it on some Very Vanilla card stock. My snowflakes are stamped with Riding Hood Red ink onto Very Vanilla card stock and then punched with the 1-1/4" square punch, then those squares are mounted on red squares punched with the 1-3/8" square punch.  In the past I've had a tendency to stamp snowflakes in more traditional snowflake colors like white or blue, but this year I've gone away from the norm and have had a lot of fun stamping them in all sorts of colors.  I really like them with this color palette.

Merry Snowflake

I'm trying to get in the Christmas mode with my stamping, but it seems that I keep reverting back to Fall (which only makes sense because it IS Fall).  I am needing to make a bunch of different Christmas cards so that I can plan my next stamping class, which I'm hoping will take place next week.  Here is a card that I might offer at the class, what do you think?

I used the Snowflake Soiree stamp set for both the words and the snowflake.  I stamped the Merry multiple times in Riding Hood Red and then just once in Garden Green to highlight it.  I then mounted my stamped layer on some Riding Hood Red card stock.  I stamped the large snowflake in Garden Green and then punched it out with the blossom punch--isn't that a cool use for it?!  I wanted the snowflake to stand out against the busy background, so I added a garden green punched blossom behind it.  I textured my card base with the petals-a-plenty textured impressions folder and then layered everything onto it.  Do you recognize this layout?  Check out this post.

Four for Fall

Today was another gorgeous fall day, so we spent a lot of time outside.  Just about all of the leaves in our front yard have fallen and are now cleaned up (thanks to my hubby) but there are still a bunch in the back that need to fall.  We are still enjoying some of the fall color, although most of the colors are different shades of brown at this point.  I let the leaves inspire my card for this week's Freshly Made Sketch and SUO Challenges.

I stamped leaves in Riding Hood Red, More Mustard, Cajun Craze, and Soft Suede and then punched them with my 1-1/4" square punch.  I layered those squares onto Soft Suede squares that I punched with the 1-3/8" square punch and adhered those to my bottom layers with some Stampin' Dimensionals.  I ran the mustard strip of card stock through my Big Shot with the Woodgrain Textured Impressions Folder and layered that onto more Soft Suede card stock.  My card base is Cajun Craze card stock with some Cajun Craze Patterns DSP.  I looked through my ribbon stash and decided on the Early Espresso stitched grosgrain ribbon (in person it blends a bit better with the colors, for some reason it seems like quite a contrast).  I love this layout with the four squres and I think I want to try it out with some Christmas stamps next.

Topsy-Turvy Birthday Invitation

Thanks to those of you who went and voted for our little costume contest that I mentioned in the previous post.  So far we are in the lead and voting continues until the 7th, so hopefully we can keep that lead.

I wasn't able to sneak away and stamp today, but I did realize that I haven't posted this idea yet.  We celebrated a birthday in our home last month and I hand-stamped the invitations.  I wanted to keep it pretty simple since I was in a hurry to get the invitations out, but I had to make it cute since I'm a stamper, so this is what I came up with. 

I used the Topsy-Turvy Celebration set for all of the stamping--I love that the "Celebrate" comes with that set too.  I stamped my cake layers in Pretty in Pink, Wisteria Wonder, and Certainly Celery and used the coordinating papers.  The polka-dot paper is from the In Color Patterns DSP stack (I know surprise, surprise).  Have I convinced you that you NEED some of the Patterns DSP stacks?  What did I ever do without them?!  I stamped the celebrate on white card stock and then punched it with the modern label punch and then glued everything onto my card base that I textured with the perfect polka dot embossing folder.  In this case my card base is just a postcard with the party info pasted onto the back.  I figured a bunch of little girls wouldn't care if I just did a card front and not a full card.  Luckily, I just handed the invitations to the parents as we delivered them, so they weren't in envelopes.  When we were about finished passing them out, I realized that the last two didn't have the party info on the back.  I'm glad I noticed, and am especially glad that I didn't just shove them in envelopes.  If someone wasn't home, it would be awful to leave a cute invitation without any info because they wouldn't know what or who it was for.  I'm glad I caught it and I know we won't make that mistake again.  It was definitely something to laugh about!  Do you stamp your invitations?

A Quick Favor

I'm hoping to soon get down to my stamp area and come up with a card to post today.  In the meantime, I have a quick favor to ask of you.  If you use Facebook, would you go check out this photo and click "like" for me?  My family participated in a costume contest at a local toy store.  If we win, we'll get a $50 gift card (which will help out my Christmas budget).  You don't have to give any of your info or even become a fan of the business on Facebook, just click "like" for our photo.  Thank you so much!

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=444141418957196&set=a.444141045623900.89545.162115190493155&type=1&theater


Hope you had a Happy Halloween!

Fall For You

Halloween is over and we have too many treats in the house.  My daughter was sad when she changed out of her costume last night until I told her that she could dress up in it again--I guess we don't do dress-ups enough at our house and we need to make them a more common occurrence.  My toddler grabbed his trick-or-treat sack (that was empty) first thing this morning and put it on over his shoulder, walked to the door, and said "more treats" hoping to go outside and repeat last night's adventure.  I think he liked it.  I'm wondering if we go visit grandma at work again if he will walk around to all of her co-workers hoping for treats like he got there yesterday.  Halloween and especially the trick-or-treating really made an impression on him.  Now it's time to enjoy the remainder of Autumn before the snows set in.  Hopefully we'll continue having beautiful days like the past week and if it snows I hope it is short lived.  Last year it was cool, but dry at the beginning of January.  We did make a snowman, only it was with sidewalk chalk, which is fine with me.  Normally we're stuck with cold and inversion, so I'm hoping that Winter doesn't come too soon.

So, since I'm hoping to enjoy a lot more of the Fall season, I decided to share this card with you.  I used the Day of Gratitude stamp set along with the set called A Word for You to create this.  My colors are Tangerine Tango, Lucky Limeade, and Elegant Eggplant.  I stamped the greeting and then punched it with the oval punch and scalloped oval punch.  I also used the paper piercing tool along with the paper piercing pack to poke a border above and below my stamped panel on the eggplant card stock (sorry, it's hard to see in the photo).  Happy Fall!  I hope you get to enjoy some beautiful weather around where you live too!

Solo Wisteria Butterfly

I love color challenges!  Why?  Because it is so nice to be able to grab a few ink pads, a few packs of card stock, a stamp set, and sit down and create.  I have limited amount of time to stamp because of my busy kiddos, so I like to take advantage of that time.  I can create a lot faster when I have a specific color palette to work with.  I'm also using a lot of colors that may not be my "go to" colors, and I'm finding that I'm liking some of the colors that I had neglected.  This palette is one of those that I wouldn't have naturally put together, but I LOVE the results! 

Over at Just Add Ink, the challenge is to use Wisteria Wonder, Crumb Cake, and Very Vanilla.  In the past, I generally used Crumb Cake only with darker colors, but I'm finding that it is great paired with some of the lighter colors as well--and this is one of them.  I stamped my floral butterfly from Stampin' Up!'s Papillon Potpourri set, punched it with the Elegant Butterfly punch, layered that on a wisteria circle textured with the Petals-a-Plenty embossing folder punched with the 1-3/4" circle punch, layered that on crumb cake 2-3/8" scallop circle, and layered that on a 2-1/2" vanilla circle.  Sigh, that was a long description :)  I used some polka dot paper in Crumb Cake from the Neutrals Patterns DSP pack and layered that on Vanilla and Wisteria and tied it all up with some Wisteria Ruffled Ribbon.  I stamped the greeting from Embellished Events and cut it with the larger banner in the Bitty Banners framelits.  My card base is Very Vanilla card stock with some Wisteria Wonder Patterns DSP on it.  There are a lot of layers on the card, but I love how they all really come together with the colors.  Have you tried a color challenge recently?

Saffron & Mustard Circles

I could have days like today almost everyday!  We had some snow last week and it was sad to think about how our pleasant fall days may soon draw to an end.  However, yesterday and today the sun was out, the jackets came off, and the kids and I played outside.  The weather seems to go perfectly with the color combo over at Dynamic Duos right now--More Mustard and So Saffron.  The shades of yellow are warm but not too bright, just like the warmer (but not too hot) fall days.  I used the Circle Circus stamp set and stamped three of the circles in the challenge colors (plus Basic Black).  I layered that panel on More Mustard and Basic Black card stock.  The polka dot strip is from the Regals Patterns DSP and is layered on Basic Black card stock that I cut with the large scallop edgelits die.  The greeting comes from Sweet Essentials and is stamped on a hand-cut banner and layered on More Mustard card stock.  Everything is mounted on a So Saffron card base that I textured with the perfect polka dot embossing folder. 

Sassy Textured Thank You

Whew, what a weekend!  We've been celebrating birthdays and Halloween which is why I haven't been blogging as much.  I'll try to pick up the pace and get back to really posting every day, but family comes first.  Just on Saturday we cleaned up, entertained 10 kids for a couple hours, ate lunch, went to a spudnut party, did trick-or-treating at two grocery stores, went to a trunk-or-treat, went out to dinner, and had some friends over for cake and ice cream.  We were beat (at least the adults were, the kids could have done it all again)! 

After such a weekend, I didn't have time to come up with anything new, but I do have this card to show you.  I made a set of them a couple weeks ago for a friend.  If you've been following my blog for a while, you should recognize the layout of the card.  See here and here.  She saw those cards but wanted me to make some with the colors shown here (Perfect Plum, So Saffron, and Certainly Celery).  I love how changing up the colors changes the card so much.  I didn't have enough of any fancy brads, so I stamped a small flower circle from the Mixed Bunch set and then punched it with the 1/2" circle punch for the center of my flower.  The flower is punched with the blossom punch and is textured with the petals-a-plenty embossing folder.  I made the leaves with the 5-petal flower punch.  The "thank you" is from the Sassy Salutation stamp set--I love how fun that font is, it can really hold its own on a card.  This reminds me, I need to get a couple thank you notes sent out.  I make a lot for samples and card ideas, but I need to be better about sending them.  How about you?

Pink & Espresso Birthday Butterflies

I love how you can switch up stamp sets or colors and have a whole new card to look at.  I originally made a card with this layout using gray and green and a friend of mine saw it.  She loved the card, but wanted me to make her some cards like it but in different colors.  I know that she likes pinks and browns, so this is what I came up with.

I chose to use Pretty in Pink and Early Espresso with my Papillion Potpourri stamp set.  I stamped butterflies all over the white card stock and then added a strip of Pretty in Pink Patterns DSP to the bottom of it.  Both of those got mounted to some Early Espresso card stock and then tied with some Espresso stitched grosgrain.  I wanted my card base to have some texture, so I ran it through my Big Shot with the Petals-a-Plenty folder to mimic the flowers onto some of the butterflies.  My greeting is from Sassy Salutations and is stamped with Early Espresso ink.  To finish things off, I stamped an Early Espresso butterfly, punched it with the Elegant Butterfly Punch, and then mounted it onto the bottom of the card with some Stampin' Dimensionals.  Have you noticed that Stampin' Up! has a lot of stamps with butterflies, birds, and other animals?  This week's challenge at SUO Challenges is to use one of Stampin' Up!'s animal stamps on a card.  What do you think of mine?  I'm glad that butterflies count, because I sure love this stamp set.  Funny thing about this set is that when I first got my new catalog, I didn't really notice this set.  Then I saw a few ideas with it and decided to get it just for fun, and now it is one of my favorite sets!

Jack's Chevrons

Halloween is just over a week away, so I figured I'd better share another Halloween card.  I made this one with Stampin' Up!'s Jack of All Trades stamp set.  I stamped my pumkin, face, and stem and then punched it out with the 2-1/2" circle punch--love that punch!  I then started my layering....Gumball Green card stock textured with the Chevron embossing folder, white card stock, Pumpkin Pie polka dot paper from the Polka Dot Parade dsp pack, more white card stock that is punched with the scallop edge punch, and finally my Pumpkin Pie card base.  This goes along with the theme over at Just Add Ink right now, which is to just add Chevrons.

Are you ready for Halloween yet?  We've got the costumes figured out, but still need to decide on some treats (or tricks).  If you see us, you'll see some of your friends from Peter Pan.  Yep, we're doing the themed thing--Peter, Wendy, Tink, and Captain Hook. 

Banner Birthday Cake

We have a birthday coming up in our family.  In fact, I need to get busy and make some birthday party invitations!  When I saw that sketch challenge on the Stampin' Royalty blog, I knew I wanted to make my card a birthday card.  I chose my colors (Melon Mambo, Daffodil Delight, and Lucky Limeade) and the Topsy-Turvy Celebration stamp set and went to work.  I love the Patterns Designer Series Paper Stacks, so I had to incorporate some of those papers (in Melon Mambo and Lucky Limeade) and I also used some of the Daffodil Delight paper from the Polka Dot Party dsp pack.  I tied some Daffodil Delight seam binding ribbon around my card and then added in some hand-cut pennants to make my birthday banner.  I stamped the greeting from the Made for You set and punched it with the oval and scalloped oval punch and adhered it with some Stampin' Dimensionals.  I think a special someone in my family will like her birthday card, I know I do!

Textured Raspberry Petals

My very favorite products for the Big Shot are the Textured Impressions Embossing Folders.  I love adding a bit of texture to an otherwise plain background, it really adds a lot to a card.  This week over at Hand Stamped Sentiments there was a technique challenge--to ink up an embossing folder.  This was a fun challenge as I haven't inked up a folder before. 

I started this card by taking my Petals-a-Plenty embossing folder and rubbing my Raspberry Ripple ink pad all over it.  I wasn't sure which side I'd want to use for my card, so I actually inked up both sides before putting my white card stock in it and running it through my Big Shot.  I chose the side that had inked the flowers, leaving the background white.  I mouned that on some Raspberry Ripple card stock and used my scallop edge punch along the bottom.  Then I tied some Raspberry Stitched Satin Ribbon around the layer before mounting in on black, white, and finally my Raspberry card base.  I wanted to keep the petals as my focal image, so I just added a greeting from the Made for You set to finish off the card.  That is punched with the oval punch and the scalloped oval punch and adhered with Stampin' Dimensionals.  Have you tried inking up an embossing folder yet?

Snowflake Panels and Polka Dots

I stumbled upon a new sketch challenge site today and had to try out the current sketch from Unscripted Sketches. I liked the panel look of the stamped layer, it makes it so visually interesting to look at.  I decided to make a winter card with the Snowflake Soiree set.  My greeting comes from the Sweet Essentials set.  I used the "Make a Wish" stamp and just inked the "wish"part of the stamp (although I'm not wishing for snow anytime soon).  I punched it out with the designer label punch--punched the tall way.  I picked three blues for my snowflakes--Baja Breeze, Marina Mist, and Midnight Muse.  The Marina Mist polka dot paper is from the Polka Dot Parade DSP pack.  I tied some Midnight Muse stitched satin ribbon around the card and tucked it under my punched greeting to finish it off. 

Regal Butterflies

How to describe this week's color challenge over at The Paper Players?  Rich, fall, regal.  At first I knew this would be a great combo for some fall leaves, but then I challenged myself to come up with something else.  I stamped these regal butterflies in Cajun Craze, Bravo Burgundy, and Night of Navy.  These color challenges are so good for me.  They help me put together colors that I may not otherwise combine on a card, and they get me using some of my colors that I've ignored for a while.  I haven't stamped in Bravo Burgundy since last Christmas!  Over the past couple of months, I've fallen in love with Cajun Craze.  I knew it would be a good color for fall, but it works with a lot of different combos!

I used several butterflies from the Papillon Potpourri stamp set to stamp my Very Vanilla card stock.  The greeting comes from Sassy Salutations.  After stamping the card stock, I cut it into 3 sections (two are 1-1/4" and the bottom is 1-1/2" tall).  I then mounted those strips on Bravo Burgundy and then on some Cajun Craze Patterns DSP.  I tied some Navy stitched grosgrain around those layers and then mounted them with Stampin' Dimensionals on my Night of Navy card base that I textured with the petals-a-plenty embossing folder.  I sure love those embossing folders, they add so much rich texture to otherwise plain pieces of card stock.

Subtle Snowflakes

Here's my card for the current challenge over at Dynamic Duos--Pool Party and Soft Suede.  It sure is nice to just grab a couple ink pads and a couple packs of card stock and start creating!  I wanted my card to be something a little different than I usually do so I picked this clean and simple layout.  When I've been prepping for classes lately, I'm realized that I'm having to cut a bunch of layers for one card and that I need to simplify a bit.  Simple is beautiful.  I wanted to use a crisp and elegant set to go along with my simplicity, so I chose Stampin' Up!'s Snowflake Soiree stamp set.  I stamped a small snowflake in Pool Party all over the background of half of my card.  I then used the color spritzer to add speckles in the white space on that same half (after all, snow falls in various sizes so I couldn't just use the small snowflake stamp).  I then inked up a larger snowflake in Soft Suede and stamped that over the top of the background I just created.  On the other half of my card, I stamped the Believe stamp (also from the Snowflake Soiree set) and one more Pool Party Snowflake.  To separate the two sides, I tied some Pool Party seam binding ribbon around it and layered everything to my card base.