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Tulip Bouquet

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It’s been a long week already. Both Tracy and I have been fighting some kind of upper respiratory infection since late last week. We both tested negative for Covid, so that’s good, but whatever it is it’s lingering far too long. This card was made for the Memory Box blog, but I’m sharing it here because it was inspired by the Festive Friday Challenge which closes early tomorrow morning.

The challenge is to pick three items from the list to incorporate in your card. I chose red, yellow, tulips, and a fourth, Happy Birthday.

The new Memory Box release, Spring Blooms, has a fun die set called Flower Basket Bouquet. What’s great about it is you can use just one or more elements from it. I chose just the tulips, die cutting them from white cardsstock and coloring them with finger daubers and a variety of Pinkfresh inks.


I trimmed a piece of ivory cardstock to 5 1/4” X 4” and then die cut one of the Eyelet Circle Frame from the center of the panel. and then cut a plain circle from the Eyeleet frame. Once that was done I layed the resulting frame back into the panel and attached it with narrow tape on the back.


I arranged the tulips and leaves inside the circle, adding dimensional tape to some of the tulips and leaves. Then the decorated panel was attached to a card base of ivory cardstock, and a Happy Birthday Black Tab Greeting was added to the card. 

Playful Poppies

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These Playful Poppies from the new Spring Blooms release by Memory Box are so beautiful. Since poppies come in a wide variety of colors, I’m sure I’ll be pulling these out for lots of occasions. For its first run, I decided to get out my Zig Clean Color Brushes and do some watercoloring. I stamped the image on watercolor paper and embossed it with clear embossing powder. I used the Yellow and Bright Yellow (really an orange yellow) pens for the poppies and Smoky Yellow and Deep Green pens for the leaves. 

Once the poppies were dry, I die cut them with the accompanying dies. I love these intricate dies that cut between the leaves and the flowers. This is a large image, so I die cut the largest of the new Oval Eyelet Rectangle Frames and created a 4 1/2 X 6 inch card base from bright yellow/green cardstock. After arranging the poppies on the panel, I stamped and die cut the sentiment, also from the Playful Poppies  stamp set. I added it to the card with some dimensional tape and decided the card needed no additional embellishment.

I’m sending this off to Simon Says Challenge: Something New and NBUS for my first entry in January.

Color Hues #124

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Bonnie chose one of my favorite color combos for this first Color Hues Challenge of 2026:

The challenge gave me the perfect opportunity to use some newly acquired Greetery products, some of which I had passed up when they were released. When The Greetery had their annual sale, I snapped them up. No regrets, and I have lots of ideas for these and others in my newly acquired stash.

When I passed on the Capsule Basics suite of products, I knew I’d eventually purchase them, but when the coordinating Rosemal product suite was released, I thought those products was too elaborate so passed on them as well. But after I admired project after project created with them, I changed my mind. I finally settled on a select few dies (skipping the stamps) and this stunning embossing folder. 

Limiting myself to hues of red and gray with some silver metallic turned out to be a bit more challenging than I expected. The first few die cuts of the leaves and vines went into the trash. I’m happy with the end result, and although this is a bit more elaborate than my usual CAS style, I’m looking forward to playing with these dies and embossing folders again.

This card uses the Rosemal Reflection Jumbo die, the Capsule Basics die, the Capsule Filagree Borders and that stunning embossing folder. It turned out to be quite easy to cut the red and dark gray ovals and then fit them into the embossing folder. Betsy Veldman is a “designer extraordinaire.”

I didn’t purchase the banner die and sentiment set released with this suite, so had to find a sentiment that fit with the design. Pinkfresh Studio came to the rescue with a sentiment and die from their Best Wishes suite of products. 

As always, there’s lots of inspiration on the Color Hues blog from the DT and our talented guests, Lisa Elton and Barb F.

Happy Birthday!

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Yesterday was Caleb’s and Hannah’s birthdays. They were born on the same day, five years apart. I waited until today to write this birthday post because I got a good photo of Caleb and his annual poster yesterday, but not of Hannah with her poster. Every year their dad creates a poster for their birthday. The first one was drawn when Caleb was two. Many of them were hand drawn. Now Adam creates them on the computer but still colors them by hand. They used to display all the posters each year on their birthday, but there is clearly no longer enough wall space for that! 

Age 14

Age 9

In November, their cousin, Ella, also had a birthday, and I’m posting all three of their birthday cards today. When I first saw the Concord and 9th Accordion Birthday Dies, I couldn’t resist buying them. All three got a variation of the same card. I didn’t want to post Ella’s earlier, even though I was pretty sure neither Caleb nor Hannah would see it. 

When I made Ella’s card, I die cut many, many balloons, assembled a lot of presents, and die cut several birthday cakes. That made assembling the other two a bit quicker. All three were quit happy with their card, and I really had fun making them.

Happy New Year! It’s hard to believe we’re turning the page on another year. I’ll be back tomorrow with the first Color Hues Challenge for 2026.

A Birthday Happy Dance

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One of my favorite images from the Joyful Season release is the Happy Dance Bird. I’ve seen a variety of wonderful cards on the internet using it for holiday cards, but I thought she could do a happy dance for a birthday as well. 

I die cut the bird from white cardstock and colored it using finger dauber with a variety of inks. I wanted a focal point for her, so die cut two circles from the Circle Basics dies, one from bright yellow cardstock from the Sunrise paper pack, and one from bright pink from my stash to coordinate with the bird’s scarf.

I thought it would be fun to create an easel card for the Happy Dance. I chose a pretty pink cardstock, created a top folding card and scored the front at the halfway point. I ink blended an ombre pattern on some scrap cardstock and die cut the sentiment from Warm Wishes Stylish Script to use as a stopper for the easel card, adding it to the yellow shadow die. I stacked several more shadows to create a thicker stop so the easel will stand up. easily. Next I arranged the Happy Dance Bird, some gifts from Plentiful Presents, and a birthday greeting from the Happy Birthday Greeting Tabs to the circle, The final step was to carefully add the circle to the bottom half of the card front.

I think the Happy Dance Bird is sure to bring a smile to any birthday celebration!

Merry Christmas!

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The sentiment on this card, created with products from The Greetery, Honey Bee Stamps, and Ellen Hutson is my wish for all of us. Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, may peace, joy and love be yours today and in the new Year!

Santa’s Sleigh

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I’m back with my last holiday card from the Memory Box “Joyful Season” release.

I started with a red card base and die cut the largest Fan Stitch Scalloped Frames from cream cardstock, adding it to the card base. I assembled the sleigh using the Festive Sleigh dies with papers from the Memory Box Blush paper pad, the Delicate Pastel Glitter pad, and gold metallic paper from my stash. Next, using scraps, I die cut and assembled a variety of presents and bows from the Plentiful Presents dies. I die cut many more presents than I needed, and you’ll be seeing them pop up in the future.

I arranged the gifts in and behind the sleigh on my desk. Once I had an arrangement I liked, I used I used a piece of Press ‘N Seal to pick up the arrangement. I turned it over and used some tape to hold all the pieces together before gluing and adding the gifts to the card panel. The sentiment was die cut from gold metallic cardstock with the Merry Christmas Marker Script dies. I cut the shadow from red cardstock and carefully added the letters. I wanted some gold pearl accents, so I used two paper punches and created tiny gold circles. I added Nuvo Crystal Glaze to the tops creating 3D “gems.”

This is a second entry to the Christmas Kickstart Challenge, I still have some Christmas cards I haven’t shared since I wanted to be sure they were received before I posted them, so maybe I’ll get them up before the New Year.

Brilliant Poinsettias

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The holidays are upon us, and the new Memory Box blog hasn’t gone up yet, so I’m posting here and on Instagram. The Spring Release is already here, so I have one more holiday card, and then I’ll move to the new products.

These Memory Box dies couldn’t be more perfectly named. I diecut them from red cardstock in the Memory Box Blush paper pack, adding leaves from the Greenery pack and gold metallic centers. I added some ink blending to the centers of the flowers and to the base of the leaves for some dimension.

On a black background I adhered two circles die cut from Basic Circles – one from cream cardstock and the next largest from metallic gold, and then added them to a cream card base. Once the poinsettias were assembled, I added them to the edge of the circles, along with one of my fave Memory Box Black Tab Greetings from the Holiday Wishes set.

I’m sending this off to The Flower Challenge where they’re looking for Christmas flowers. Sadly, this is the last of their challenges, and I’m hoping to be back with another card before they close their doors. The challenge will definitely be missed!

It’s also headed to the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown where the challenge is to pick a previous thems challenge (September’s was Poinsettias) and to Christmas Kickstart: Any Christmas Card.

It’s getting down to the wire. Most of the essentials are taken care of, but I still hope to get some gift card holders made, but I’ll be back soon with another holiday card for Memory Box.

Gifting

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The current Paper Players Challenge is “Gifting.” I took a very literal interpretation because I had three gifts I intended to decorate with some of my new Greetery products. 

The gifts are small Kraft boxes filled with note paper. I think I bought them in 2019 at Impress in Seattle. They’ve sat in my box of paper goodies for all those years until I rediscovered them hunting for something else.

I was correct that the Capsule Basic products would work perfectly for these. I die cut the background from paper in the Honey Bee Merry Moments paper pad. Then I die cut the matching oval from the Capsule Filagree Borders from gold metallic paper.

The poinsettia from Bigger Holiday Botanicals is so easy to put together, I used a bright red for the flower and a pretty green for the leaves. The leaves ended up being very close to the green in the background, so I added a gold metallic bow. That was die cut from the Christmas gift from The Greetery. The bow has long tails, but I trimmed them off.  Here’s a look inside the boxes. 

I’m still waiting for some wish lists to appear from some of my grandchildren, and the baking will begin on Saturday when the three girls come to make and decorate sugar cookies. It’s a tradition that they still are unanimously eager to participate in. I’m grateful the high school freshman hasn’t wanted to opt out. 

Color Hues #123

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Tracey has chosen a very versatile color duo for this month’s Color Hues Challenge:

I have two wildly different cards to share that showcase these colors versatility. Both cards were created with the new Pinkfresh Studio products released in October. Not many companies offer a prize of the whole release, but PFS does every month. I was the lucky recipient of October’s amazing prize. 

The first card is the more traditional one and the one I posted on the challenge site. The new products I used are two that I had put on my wish list before I knew I’d won a prize. I love the elegant and beautiful Freesia Flourish. The product suite included a stamp, a die, a stencil, and press plate. I used the press plate to foil the image and the sentiment in gold and colored  the freesia with PFS inks using the stencil. 

Next I die cut the Diamond Lattice Coverplate in white and created the oval with an older PFS Nested Elongated Ovals die. I used the Nested Elongated Ovals Blanket Stitch to create a frame. I mounted it on a pale gray card base and added the floral and the sentiment with dimensional tape. Three pale pink Essential Jewels from PFS finished the card.

Here’s another close-up that shows the pretty foiling.

The next card is super bright and fun. I die cut the new Octagon Grid Coverplate three times: once each in black, green and pink. Then I added the green layer to a black card base and paper pieced the pink and the narrow black frame back into the die. I also added the four diamond shapes in black.

The sentiment is from an earlier PFS release, You Are My Rainbow. I die cut a stitched rectangle with Simon Says Stitched Rectangles and trimmed the sentiment piece to fit. I added four black jewels to this card.

You’ll find lots more inspiration on the Color Hues blog. There’s just one challenge for the month of December so you have lots of time to play along!

I’m planning to add the second card to the December Pinkfresh Studio Challenge which is always Anything Goes. That’s good because they’re looking for Christmas cards this month!

Guesting for November’s Woodblock Wednesday

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I’m so delighted to have been asked to guest for the November Woodblock Wednesday. I’m actually all set for Christmas cards, but one more is always good to have. I found this Memory Box Snow Globe in my holiday drawer and knew right away what I wanted to do with it. 

It took two tries to get a good impression of the stamp with the Dark Indigo ink from Papertrey Ink.  Ellen Hutson’s Essential Circles had just the right size to die cut the stamped image. Then I used the next largest circle to die cut a mat from Dark Indigo cardstock. 

Before I added the focal piece to the card base, I decided on the placement and embossed the stamped greeting from Savvy Stamps in white. Once I added the snow globe, I was pleased with the very CAS design, and opted not to add any embellishments. 

I’m looking forward to seeing what cards pop up in the gallery for Woodblock Wednesday. Thanks, Amy, for the invitation and the monthly challenge. 

I’m entering this in the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown Stash Challenge which is Stamps.

Cozy Wishes

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It’s not very often I start with a sketch, but when I saw the sketch at The Paper Players this week as well as the options for Festive Friday: Christmas Jumper Day, I knew I could put my newly purchased (on sale!) embossing folder to good use. I loved the texture and the design of Spellbinders Sweater Weather embossing folder.

Here’s the Sketch:

And the Challenge Board from Festive Friday:

You must use three of the items. Mine are: embossing folder, texture, knitting. Since the folder is a close-up of the knitted pattern, I didn’t think sweater would apply.

Sketches like these are very deceiving. It looks like a simple”cut and arrange.” Cut is easy, but arranging takes a bit or precision to be sure it all lines up nicely. I cut a piece of snowflake patterned paper from a very old paper pad by American Crafts as a background for my three sweater pieces. Once that was attached to a white card base I stamped and white embossed the sentiment from My Favorite Things, Itty Bitty Holiday, and die cut it with the MFT Itty Bitty Strips.  Even though MFT has sadly gone out of business, this stamp set was in my Christmas NBUS box, and of course the embossing folder is also NBUS. I could have used the “warm wishes” sentiment, but I had “cozy” in mind, and forgot that “warm wishes” was one of the elements for Festive Friday. 

Much to my surprise I do not own any very small snowflake dies, but I did have these pretty Glitter Snowflakes by Jolee’s Boutique in my stash. I added three Clear Drops Ice by Pinkfresh Studio as well.

This is off to The Paper Players, Festive Friday, and the November NBUS gallery.

Sending Hugs

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We were away for a week, and I came home to three packed days of commitments and lunches out with friends. Most of my limited crafting time has been spent working on birthday cards for three grandchildren who have birthdays before the New Year. I did, however, need an encouragement card in a hurry. Today’s card is thanks to a fabulous win at Pinkfresh Studio (the WHOLE October release!) It came just before we left for Wisconsin, and I had the time to foil and stencil several images before I left.

This is one of two images from the Moonlit Blooms Press Plate which I foiled in gold. The stencil makes ink blending so easy. That was done ahead of time. I added one of the new coverplates, Floral Lattice, die cut in white, and added an older frame from Pinkfresh, Notched Corner Frame.

Once the elements were assembled, I added a previously gold foiled sentiment from the Pinkfresh Perfect Sentiments set. Three clear drops from Pinkfresh finished it up.  Sadly, the gold foiled sentiment and the gold foiling on the image didn’t show in the photographs. I didn’t realize it until after the card was sent so I couldn’t retake the photos. Also, I wished I had used some dimensional tape behind the floral, but I’m sure another card will be in the works soon.

I’m entering this in the monthly Pinkfresh Studio Challenge which is always Anything Goes, but this card also matches one of the themes, Petals, as well. It’s also off to NBUS. With enough crafting time, I now have an enough  brand new Pinkfresh products to fill up a good portion of the NBUS Gallery for awhile.

Color Hues #122

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Mid-November and it’s time for a new Color Hues Challenge. Nancy has given us a beautiful combo that can definitely be used for holiday cards as well as many other occasions.

I’m always in need of a few more holiday cards, and couldn’t wait to put my recent Greetery purchases to use. I restrained myself and only ordered the Shortbread Shapes product suite along with the accompanying sentiment stamps. I created a shaped card inspired by Betsy Veldman’s beautiful samples shared during the new release.

Using Tropical Teal cardstock from Papertrey Ink, I die cut a panel and embossed it in the gorgeous 3-D embossing folder. You can see the wonderful impression it makes. Then I die cut the Shortbread Shapes Rectangle Label from silver paper I purchased at Broadway Paper in Milwaukee. The label die has beautiful stitching and embossing on it that coordinate with the embossing folder. The small teal rectangle is also part of that set, but the cream embossed detail was die cut from one of the rectangles included in the Shortbread Shapes Rectangle die, and then carefully placed in the embossing folder. 

I wanted a bit of sparkle so I die cut a banner from The Greetery’s Sentiment Suites Basics die (an oldie, but goodie) from silver glitter paper (also from Broadway Paper) and stamped the sentiment from the Simple Holiday Mini Sentiments in teal. The last touch were two silver pearls for the sentiment banner. 

We have two wonderful Guest Designers this round, Loll and Joanne and as always, you can find great inspiration from them as well as my very talented Design Team members. We hope to see you in the gallery.

Lighting the Way

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One of my favorite dies from the Memory Box Joyful Season release is the Antique Lantern die. This is the last of the cards I created for the Memory Box blog but am posting on Instagram while we wait for the Memory Box Blog to go live.

I found some bronze metallic cardstock in my “scraps box” and used it to create the lantern as well as the frame I die cut with the Heritage Rectangle Frames. I ink blended on white cardstock the interior of the lantern as well as the candle, and added the frame and the lantern to a light gray card base with dimensional tape.

With the dimensional tape, I was able to arrange some evergreen boughs from the Pine Needles and Cones die and a poinsettia from Blooming Poinsettias around the lantern. The sentiment was die cut from Warm Wishes Stylish Script. I added some red ink blending to the bottoms of the letters for an ombre look which you see IRL, but sadly doesn’t show in real life. 

I hope your weekend is going well. Thanks for stopping by.