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Signs of Spring

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There are finally enough signs of spring here to take hope, although today is once again breezy and rainy. I made this bright floral easel card a week ago, thinking I had plenty of time for the two challenges in mind. But actually, the Tic Tac Toe challenge closes today at noon, so I'm just sneaking it in at the last minute.

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I chose the middle row across: Floral Bouquet, Spring, and Word Die for my inspiration. The Seize the Birthday inspiration is clear!

SpringMixEasel

I don't have a lot of success with layering stamps, but layering stencils work just fine, so this wonderful bouquet of flowers called "Spring Mix" was a sure purchase for me during the last Greetery release. I used an assortment of Pinkfresh Studio inks to blend the colors. Then there is a set of stamps to use to create the centers of each flower. The possibilities are endless and there will be another of these cards to share very soon. The sentiment was die cut with a Pinkfresh Studio die. When Betsy did the intro video for this set, she created an easel card. I hadn't made one in years, and it was so easy that I'm sure that will show up again as well.

SpringMixFlat

This card went in the mail yesterday to a good friend who's celebrating her 70th birthday. She's one of two friends who planned a trip to New York City for my 70th birthday. We're not going to NYC for their birthdays but we've scheduled a lunch in early May to plan some kind of get-away.

 

 

Happy Easter!

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It's a cold one this year, but there's much to celebrate. After visiting the girls this morning, we attended in-person Easter services at church for the first time in two years. The beautiful music with timpani and brass is always so special, and just didn't have the same impact the past two years when viewing it on YouTube! This afternoon we're off to my nephew's to celebrate Easter with Tracy's family. His cousin and her daughter are joining us this year so there'll be eleven of us for a late lunch.

Here are the Easter cards I made for the five grandchildren. I'm only showing three of the five, two were duplicates. They went in the mail last week to Caleb and Hannah in Wisconsin.

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These Easter chicks were featured on Simon Says last year. I'm not sure if they were part of a kit originally, but I purchased the chickie die cut and large yellow pom-poms separately. 

EasterChickGreen

The hearts were cut from Sunny Studio patterned paper and adhered to mini-slimline envelopes which I stenciled with one of three stencils from The Trinity Stamps "Lots of Dots."

EasterChickPurple

The HAPPY die cut and shadow are from Reverse Confetti as well as the Easter stamp.

EasterChickYellow

All five grandchildren are very likely to have plenty of candy in their Easter baskets, and they certainly do not need any little toys, so I put some money in the slimline envelope. I know that at least some of them are saving money for something special, and none of them will be disappointed with some cash.

Lastly, I made a special Easter card for my mother-in-law. I spent an afternoon with two crafty friends this week, and one of them kindly loaned me several stamp and die sets to play with. The Greetery Botani-cuts are always wonderful, and I was delighted to have time to play with the Lily and the Palm dies. I die cut multiples of them, so I'll be able to create some other cards as well.

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Stargazer Lilies are my very favorite so that's what I started with. I used a new shader tool by Waffle Flower to add some Flamingo Kitsch Distress Ink to each petal and then used colored pencils for some detail. I opted to cut the palms and leaves from two shades of green cardstock.

EasterLiliesTools

Although you can't tell from the photographs, the sentiment from Papertrey Ink was embossed in gold. The design of the card is a copy of one Keeway created for the release of these dies, and uses two Crimped Frames from The Greetery. 

If you celebrate, I hope you have a blessed Easter!

Color Hues #39

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Tracey has chose great spring colors for this round of the Color Hues Challenge. 

CH #39 Anim.

The day my Spellbinders "Bouquet of Flowers" arrived, I knew exactly what I wanted to do for this challenge.

PurpleGreen

I started with pre-made Memory Box card in a lovely shade of purple, and pulled out Memory Box's pad "Vibrant Violet Collection." I chose three hues of purple from the pad as well as scraps of New Leaf and Green Parakeet from Papertrey Ink and set about die cutting groups of florals and leaves. The colors in this closer look appear darker than they do in real life.

PurpleGreenClose

I used a heavy piece of vellum for the floral wrap and some metallic gold for the bow. I already had the die cut oval in my stash and arranged the florals in the wrap, added the bow and adhered it to the oval. When I laid the oval on the purple card base, it definitely needed something else, so I pulled out one of Simon Says "A2 Thin Frames" and die cut it with the same gold paper as the bow.

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Before gluing all the components on the card base, I gold embossed the greeting from The Greeetery's "Sentiment Suite: Birthdays." 

I'm sure you'll find lots of inspiration from the Design Team on the Color Hues blog, so hop on over and please join the card making party!

I'm entering this in the Happy Little Stampers: Dies where the challenge is Anything Goes.

HLS Dies

 

 

On Trend: Alcohol Ink and Foiling

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We've been home from a fabulous trip to Hawaii and San Francisco for about four days now, and I'm still adjusting to the differences in time as well as the environment. All but one of our days were warm and sunny. Everything was green and flowers were gorgeous both in Hawaii and San Fran. Here, not so much. There have been snow flurries two days, and the daffodils are just starting to bloom. It's supposed to warm up again, but only for a few days. I am spoiled!

It will take awhile to edit all the photos we took, but eventually I'll have a few posts about the trip. I did post a few photos every day on Instagram, so you can hop over there for a preview if you'd like.

I finally got to the crafting desk this afternoon will a challenge from Just Us Girls on my mind. It's Trend Week there and they are looking for foiling on alcohol inked backgrounds. I knew I had a small stash of alcohol ink backgrounds, but wasn't at all sure whether the Glimmer Foiling machine would like alcohol inks. It took two tries, but the second one worked beautifully.

FoiledBD

I die cut the alcohol ink piece with an Ellen Hutson Essential Squares die and then a slightly larger one with gold mirror cardstock. The foiling plate for the sentiment was one that arrived with my Glimmer machine and is a NBUS! You can see the glimmer a bit better here:

FoiledBDClose

I decided it didn't need a lot of embellishment, but I like the three shiny gold pearls on the righthand corner.

FoiledBDFlat

This is going, of course, to the Just Us Girls Challenge, but also to Addicted To Stamps and More (Make Your Mark) and the Simon Says Wednesday Challenge (Happy Birthday.) And off to the April NBUS Challenge as well.

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Birthday Bear

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Today is the birthday of a very sweet little girl who is turning five. Before we left on vacation, I gave the card to her "Nana" who will give it and a gift to her during the birthday celebration. 

BDBear

Having granddaughters this age, I was pretty sure a shaker card would be a hit! I did learn (the hard way) that to give a shaker card to a three year old is a big mistake. They are more interested in gettin at the sequins that just shaking them. 

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I die cut the sentiment circle from Simon Says three times, twice in white, and once in pink and layered them so there would be some definition around the shaker.

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The bear, his cupcake, and the present are all from Ellen Hutson and colored with Copic markers. I'm throwing this in the ring at Addicted to Stamps and More where the theme is "Make Your Mark," and at AAABirthday where the challenge is "Critters.
Today's the last day of our epic trip. We'll be in airports and airplanes for the better part of the day tomorrow, but home in time for bed. I've got lots of crafty ideas once I get back to the crafting desk.

 

Color Hues #38

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Sheri's choice of Pink and Green for the Color Hues Challenge gave me the perfect opportunity to try out one of my stamp and stencil combinations that I won from Pinkfresh Studio.

CH #38 Anim.

The "Darling Dahlias" background stamp is gorgeous, and the five piece stencil makes coloring it so much easier (and faster) than coloring with Copic markers or colored pencils.

PinkGreen

I own quite a few of the mini ink pad sets from Pinkfresh, but almost no full sized pads. For stenciling, the small pads work nicely, and I chose two pinks for the flowers: "Sparkling Rose" and "Bubble Gum." The leaves were stenciled with "Key Lime" and "Grassy Knoll." There's also a stencil for coloring in the background. Initially, I thought I might leave it white, but ended up with a very light gray.

PinkGreenClose

Once the panel was stenciled, I die cut it with one of Hero Arts "Rounded Rectangles," framing it with the next size in green. I used both the stamps and the dies from Papertery Ink's "Sending Hugs" for the sentiment. The green die cut letters seemed a bit lost on the colorful background, but a shadow layer in black really helped and tied in the banner sentiment which had been stamped in black and fussy cut. I put some dimensional tape behind the banner.

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April 1st rarely brings spring to western New York, so creating your own flowers is a great substitute until it finally warms up enough for things to flower in the yard. Wherever you live, I hope you'll find time to create some Pink and Green goodness and send it on to our Color Hues gallery. And don't forget to check in on the blog to see what the DT and our two Guest Designers, Trina and Carol have created. 

Nancy

Hannelie

Cindy

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Julie

Sheri

Kristie

Lindsey

Tracey

 Once again, I'm sending this card over to Darnell's NBUS Challenge. It's taken me several months to get to this stamp and stencil set, and I still have products I haven't used from my big win.

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