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Guest Designer at Tic Tac Toe

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In November, my entry into the Tic Tac Toe Challenge was the Designer's Pick, and today is my turn at guesting with them. As soon as I saw the new Tic Tac Toe board, I knew I had a perfect opportunity to create a birthday card for my husband.

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Tracy was born on St. Patrick's Day, so the middle row (Die Cut, Green, and Layers) worked perfectly. I had already settled on the die and stamp set I wanted to use before I saw this board, but it worked out perfectly.

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I've owned this You're My Type from Sugar Pea Designs for several years. A friend borrowed it once and made a card, but I'd never used it before. I die cut the typewriter in three colors: green, gray, and matte silver. 

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After assembling the typewriter and message, I remembered an old Impression Plate, Book Plate, by Papertrey Ink. You can see the typewriter style words embossed on the light gray layer. I opted for a narrow green border before adding the main panel to a darker gray card base. The hearts were added to coordinate with the inside greeting:

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The stamp set didn't come with quite the message I wanted so I used the computer to generate the sentiment which I die cut with Hero Arts Infinity Heart dies.

There are lots of ways to play Tic Tac Toe this time, and I hope you'll join it. 

Just Us Girls Challenge 668

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Time usually goes by quickly for me, but it seems amazing that today is my last post as the February Guest Designer for Just Us Girls. It's been a real pleasure, and I received such a warm welcome from their Design Team. The last challenge of the month is a Clean and Simple Challenge asking for coloring.

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And that's right up my alley! The only decision was what to choose. Another of the stamps I discovered as I was working on an inventory of my stamps was Flowers in Bloom from My Favorite Things. I love these poppies, and it's been a long time since I colored them. They lend themselves beautifully to a CAS design.

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I love poppies and especially the red/orange ones that grow in the George Eastman gardens during the summer. We don't get enough sunshine for poppies in our yard, but I've photographed the ones at the Eastman Garden multiple times. 

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I pulled out my Copics for this one, and I'm very happy with the results. I added some black gel pen to the stamens which give just the slightest bit of dimension. The beautiful sentiment is from The Greetery's Spring Mix. All that was needed was adhering it to a card base created with Gina K's Asparagus cardstock—another favorite of mine.

I'm quite sure there will be a lot of great inspiration from the Just Us Girls Design team. This is really a very open challenge–so many ways to interpret it. I hope you'll find just the right thing and join in the fun. Thanks again to the JUGS team for inviting me to play along this month! I've had a great time.

I'm also entering this in the CAS on Friday Challenge: Flowers.

 

Three for One

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I spent a morning hot foiling some backgrounds last week, and ended up cutting one of them into pieces and creating three masculine cards. I wish I'd thought of this before!

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I hot foiled the Pinkfresh Studio Geo Blocks on Concord & 9th's Dove gray cardstock. The cardstock is so smooth, the hot foiling is perfect every time. I only used one of the three coordinating stencils to add a darker gray to the panel. I liked the overall look, but thought it might be divided as well, and I do like all three versions.

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The sentiment for this card is from Papertrey Ink's Banner Sentiments. I used a shiny silver border for the hot foiled piece and some silver nailheads as an accent.

The second card is a top-folded card and very Clean & Simple:

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The sentiment was also hot foiled with Pinkfresh Studio's Wonderful Words hot foil plate–one of my purchases with a Christmas gift card.

Just by chance, I happened to find Simon Says Hexagon Greeting and die. Who would have guessed the hexagon was an exact fit to the hot foiled design?

HexagonHB

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More metallic nailheads here as well. I think they're a perfect embellishment for masculine cards. I need all three of these for birthdays in March so it was a very productive crafting session. I'm sending one of these off to Time Out: Anything Birthday and the CAS one to Tic Tac Toe Challenge (top row across: CAS, Metallic, and Word Die,) hoping that the die cut stamped sentiment counts for the last element.

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New Floral

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I used the last of my generous gift certificate from Christmas to purchase the Magnolia Pattern cling stamp and stencil from Pinkfresh Studio. It's such an interesting stamp and stencil combination because only parts of the pattern are to be colored in, although you could color all the images with Copics or colored pencils. I loved the projects I saw during the release, and am looking forward to playing with the stencil using a variety of colors. This time I stuck with the colors of the February Pinkfresh Challenge. It also calls for stripes or plaid, and I opted for stripes.

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The whole stamp creates a 6X6 inch panel which you would have to cut down for an A2 sized card. Because I wanted to incorporate some subtle stripes, I fussy cut the image and then trimmed off the excess after I placed it on the card. The stenciling was done with Altenew's Classy Stripes stencil with Ballet Slippers ink which was also used on the flowers.

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I chose a gold foiled sentiment from the Wonderful Words collection from Pinkfresh. The hot foil plate was also a purchase thanks to my son and his family. When I photographed the closer look, I managed to get the foiled sentiment to show appropriately, but not the Gold Metallic Pearls from Pinkfresh which do match the foiled sentiment.

Every month I aim to enter the Pinkfresh Studio Challenge, but it's more "missed" than "hit," so I'm happy to have this completed well before the challenge ends. I'm also entering it The Flower Challenge: Use Your Latest Stamps or Dies. And, of course to Darnell's NBUS!

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Happy Valentine’s Day

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I saved a couple of valentines to share on Valentine's Day. First off, my valentine for Caleb. I wanted to try a technique that I've seen online, and it worked well. I don't know if it has a special name. The front of the valentine is very plain.

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I love the lightbulb with the heart from a very old Simon Says set Watts Up.  The punny sentiment which I thought Caleb would enjoy is also from an older Simon Says set, Light Me Up.

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There's a little heart "pull me" tag, and when you do, the colored light bulb is revealed.

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The frame is from the My Favorite Things A2 Rectangle Frames set. I've never separated the dies in that set, so when you die cut them all, you get the wider frame and a narrower one between. For this card I put one of the narrow pieces as well as the regular frame together as neither was quite wide enough to let the slider go in and out easily.

Another purchase from my win at Simon Says was the XOXO Border die. I die cut it twice, once in red and once in pink, added them to a black border and another quick and easy valentine was created.

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The tiny red heart was die cut with Hero Arts Infinity Hearts and the sentiment is from Papertrey Ink's Keep It Simple: Valentine.

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This card is off to two different challenges: The Four Seasons Challenge where the moodboard includes a valentine, and Simon Says Wednesday Challenge where the challenge is "Fun With Dies."

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Valentines Part II

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When I first saw the cute gnomes in My Favorite Things Love You Gnome Matter What I knew I wanted to use it for some of my grandchildren's valentines. Before I even thought about the design, I stamped three different images (three times), colored them with Copic markers, and die cut them. I thought I'd use all three images on the front of the valentine, and I spent well over an hour trying to do just that. As you can see, I ended up with just one gnome—a CAS valentine—no surprise!

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There were two images of gnomes standing with hearts. I used the Honey Bee Fluttering Hearts Pierced Coverplate once again as a background, and added a simple white stitched heart from My Favorite Things. The little gnomes were added with dimensional tape.

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The sentiment, embossed in white, is from My Favorite Things Bitty Hugs and Kisses.

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I added Nuvo Crystal Glaze to each of the hearts for additional dimension and a little shine. 

Not wanting to let the other gnomes go unused, I added a gnome to the inside of the card as well.

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I love this little gnome running along throwing hearts in the air. I've had these tiny plastic hearts from Buttons Galore in my stash for several years and they worked perfectly!

The next valentine also uses supplies from my stash. Quite some time ago, I purchased Concord and 9th's Plaid Turnabout stamp. I had stamped a panel with pink, red, and black a few weeks ago, and didn't have a plan for it at the time. To the rescue came The Greetery's Heart Arrow once again. It was the only item I ordered from their last release, and I've certainly put it to good use this month. 

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The sentiment is from Simon Says Love You Greetings. I won a $25 gift certificate during a recent blog hop, and this sentiment set was one of the purchases. 

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As a final touch I added three black pearls to the heart. 

Colorful Options is looking for PINK this month, and I'm putting a second card in the Double D Hearts Challenge as well. I'm also linking up to Shopping Our Stash: Love is in the Air.

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Just Us Girls Challenge #666

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It's Week 2 for February and Word Week at Just Us Girls, and it's a fun one.

Word Week #666

I have quite a list of birthdays on my February calendar, and one is a friend who does, indeed, "leave a little sparkle wherever [she] goes!"

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This wonderful Snowflake Corner Frame from Poppy Stamps is a new purchase. I die cut it in multiple sparkly and glittery papers, but loved this one which was a bit more subtle, but so beautiful and matched the silver embossing powder perfectly.

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That "perfect for this prompt" sentiment from Papertrey Ink was embossed in silver on the teal card base. All that was left to do was add some gorgeous Pinkfresh Studio Champagne Glitter Drops to the centers of the snowflakes.

There are so many occasions that call for a bit of sparkle, I'm sure you'll be inspired to join us at Just Us Girls this week.

Valentines, Part I

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There's still one valentine I want to make, but I have all I need with a few left over. Not surprisingly there are a variety of challenges looking for heart-inspired cards. First up for me is a shaker card I made for Hannah.

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This valentine is off to Festive Friday where I chose "pink, hearts, and something shiny!" I love the Honey Bee Fluttering Hearts Pierced Coverplate and used it on several valentines this year. This one was run through the die cutter with white shimmer cardstock from Papertrey Ink—much prettier than I can capture in a photograph!

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I glued five Stitched Heart Frames from Papertrey Ink to create the shaker and filled it with some die cut hearts left over from the Honey Bee Fluttering Hearts Coverplate (some of which I coated with a glitter pen,) some shiny confetti hearts, and some clear sequins. The sentiment is from My Favorite Things Bitty Hugs and Kisses.

The next card was inspired by the negative die cut created for this card.  When I die cut the arrow (The Greetery's Heart Arrow) from the white shimmer cardstock, the negative created a perfect square card. I die cut the arrow from bright pink cardstock, inlaid it, added a narrow pink border, and layered them on a white card base.

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The sentiment, embossed in silver on black cardstock is from The Stamp Market's Tons of Type. 

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Die cutting the bright pink arrow left me with another negative, and I went rather dramatic with a black background.

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This one definitely needed some sparkle, so I added some black jewels from Pinkfresh Studio and used the same sentiment as the last valentine.

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I'm off to link up these to Inkspirational with a great Moodboard, Festive Friday where I picked pink, heart, and shiny, and the Double D Challenge: Hearts.

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A Song in the Air

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The Paper Players challenge this week is "A Song in the Air."

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There are many interpretations for this challenge, but as I was working on creating an inventory of my stamps last week I came upon an older Papertrey Ink set called Songbirds. As soon as I saw this challenge, I knew I'd pull out this set which has always been a favorite. 

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There are several options for the "song" stamped on the banner. Always in need of birthday cards, I chose "Happy Birthday to You." The rest of the card is created with the dies from the set.

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Many of the dies have stitched details, and I inlaid the flower and leaves on the red bird. I love the bright colors against the black card. The card came together quickly once I decided on the color palette. 

Seize the Birthday: Candles

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I'm on a blogging roll here. It's either feast of famine. Hopefully, I'll get a regular schedule going here soon. But I'm back today with another card for Seize the Birthday. This time with the topping: Candles, as well as Just Add Ink Challenge: Choose Two–candles, cake, celebration. I used candles for a birthday celebration card.

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Like the earlier card for Seize the Birthday, this one came together quickly thanks to another My Favorite Things die: Happy Birthday Candles. I have used this one before and I had a little bag filled with colorful candes I'd already die cut as well as the flames that had had Glossy Accents applied to them. It was just a matter of deciding which five candles to use. I used a template I had saved from the die to place the candles in a straight row and equally spaced.

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The sentiment is a hot foiled one from Spellbinders  Everyday Sentiment. I die cut it with a banner die from The Greetery that has stitched ends. 

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It's good to have a few birthday cards tucked away as there are six birthdays on my birthday calendar for February and eight in March!

Just Us Girls Challenge #665

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It is such a pleasure to be asked to Guest Design with the Just Us Girls Challenge for the month of February. I love their rotating weekly challenges, and it’s long been a favorite of mine.

The first week is a color challenge-pink, white, and kraft.

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This was a perfect opportunity to make a valentine, and I had just received The Greetery’s new Heart and Arrow die which I love. It’s a large die, and luckily had this large tag from Pinkfresh Studio’s Essential Tags. After die cutting the tag, I ran it though again with Honey Bee’s Fluttering Hearts Pierced Coverplate, which is much easier to see in the second photo.

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I die cut the heart from a piece of Bristol cardstock that I ink blended with the Simon Says Pawsitvely Saturated Ink trio in pink. The arrow was die cut from some white shimmer cardstock from Papertrey Ink. Then it was all layered onto a panel of Party Pink cardstock from The Stamp Market and then onto a white card base. A pretty pink ribbon and the stamped sentiment from The Greenery’s Sentiment Suite: Love finished it off.

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I hope you’ll hop over to the JUGS blog and join in the fun! I’ll see you again next Saturday for the new challenge.

Joining in at Inkspirational where their Moodboard is all things valentine!

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CAS Birthday

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Just Us Girls is looking for Clean and Simple Birthday cards this week. I'm always in need of birthday cards, so found some time yesterday to make this card:

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Edited to add, I found time to make the card, but neglected to get it posted on JUGS before the noon closing time! It's not the first time, I've written the post a day early, and then neglect to get it linked. So annoying! At least it made it to the other challenges.

I'm in the process of creating spreadsheets to inventory all my craft supplies. It's not as tedious as I expected and easy to do if I'm watching a television show at the same time. This week I went through three drawers of card stock and patterned paper, and reacquainted myself with Papertrey Ink's Bitty Big line of patterned papers. This die from My Favorite Things, Happy Birthday Balloons, creates a CAS card in one run through the die cutting machine. It's another one of those dies that I've had for a long time, and never used. The three balloons were backed with Raspberry Fizz, Green Parakeet, and Orange Zest Bitty Big papers, and one large stripe of the Green Parakeet papers backed the sentiment.

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In addition to Just Us Girls, I'm adding this to Seize the Birthday (no topping), and to Darnell's NBUS Challenge.

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Guest Designer for Time Out

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Thanks to the honor of winning one of the December challenges at Time Out, I've been invited to be a Guest Designer for the current challenge. It's being sponsored by Gina K, and the challenge is to CASE the Designer. Here's the card we're to CASE.

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I've seen a couple of definitions for CASE: 1) Copy And Share Everything or 2) Copy and Selectively Edit. I think for the majority of card makers, it's the second definition that's usually followed. I thought there were several elements that needed to be included: the rainbow ink blending, a floral on top, and a black border. I decided to change up the ink blending and used a circle stencil from Taylored Expressions to do my rainbow ink blending. I will say it took me three or four tries before I had one I liked. 

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I also changed up the color of the floral, choosing a silhouette from Gina K's Friendly Silhouette set—one that I had yet to use! I also used the Gina K Master Layout 1 to die cut the focal panel and the narrow black border. The sentiment is also from the same stamp set, die cut with a banner die from The Greetery.

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I'm really anxious to see what the Design Team at Time Out has created, and I'll be watching the gallery as well. I hope you'll take a look, too, and join in the fun!

I'm also sending this to Darnell's NBUS Challenge since the stamp is one that's never been used, and also to Colorful Options where rainbow cards are always welcomed.

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Color Hues #57

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One of our new Design Team members, Jules, chose this round's colors. It's not one I would have thought of, but it makes a lovely floral.

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Initially, I wanted to create a card with a more geometric or patterned feel, but you can see I ended up with a floral from Simon Says Best Friend Ever stamp set. I pulled out some coral and sage cardstock and matched the Copic markers to that before coloring, using two markers on the leaves and two on the petals. 

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For the background, I chose Pinkfresh Studio's  Deco Tiles coverplate which I love–especially when it's tone on tone. And it helped satisfy my desire for some geometric design in the card. In the photo below you can see the pretty gold foiling from the Spellbinder's hot foil plate Everyday Sentiments.

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Making the card wasn't a struggle, but photographing was a whole other story. Trying to get the light right for the foiled sentiment did change the light on the rest of the card as well. I finally had to just settle for what you see. 

I hope you'll join our two Guest Designers and the Design Team at Color Hues during the next two weeks. 

 

 

Welcome Little One

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I've been busy creating, but most of what's been completed can't be shared for awhile. This card, however, went in the mail about a week ago to the proud parents of a new little girl.

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When I borrowed this wonderful Waffle Flower's Little One Baby set, from a friend, I stamped a number of the images so it was easy to pull a few of them out and color them with Copic markers. This is one of my all-time favorite baby sets. With just a change of colors and baby images you can produce a darling card with almost no effort. The scalloped oval was also in my stash. Several years ago I picked up a package of these at Dick Blick, and this might be the first time I've ever used one.

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Nearly every card I make has a sentiment on the front, but this time I couldn't find anything that didn't take away from the main image. The subject is pretty clear, and I stamped a longer welcome message on the inside which I didn't think to photograph. 

I'm sending this over to the Inkspirational Challenge where the Word Prompt is: New And/Or Welcome.

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