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Heat Wave: Day 2

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Day 2 of the Online Card Class focused on heat embossing techniques. Who knew you could emboss with a Quickie Glue pen? Not I, but I decided to give it a try.

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I stamped the image from Penny Black's "Blooming Garden," and colored it with Copic markers. Then I added the gold dots by applying tiny dots with the Quickie Glue pen and sprinkling them with gold embossing powder. Worked like a charm. I didn't intend to cut the stamped panel, but made a mess of the sentiment, and decided that the design technique I used for Day 1 would work here as well. It's actually a better design all the way around. Sometimes a mistake turns out for the best! I added a strip of 1/8" Scor-tape to the edge and embossed it as well. It's a technique I'd totally forgotten about and added just the right touch.

 

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The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink's "Friendship Jar Flowers." I love the script font in this one. I have at least one more technique I want to try, so likely I'll be back with another card over the weekend.

A Happy Hello!

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The Online Card Classes are among my favorites, and I'm currently enrolled in "Heat Wave," a class on embossing. The first day was lots of quick tips for embossing with different inks, embossing powders, and different kinds of cardstock. I picked up a few tips, even though I've been embossing for nearly 20 years now. At the same time, Papertrey Ink is in the midst of their July release. They host a challenge, "Create Along with Us," where you choose a card one of the designers posts to use as inspiration. I always love Maile Belle's designs and had already pinned one of her cards. So here's an embossed design, inspired by Maile Belles, and using one of her earlier stamp sets, "Splits:  Just a Note."

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I used just half of the stamp design and turned it on its side, trimmed the white cardstock to the stamped design and fussy cut around it. I colored the petals with Copic markers, and added a sentiment from Papertrey's "Delightful Dahlia Additions." Then I adhered it to a Tropical Teal card. I'm pretty sure I'll use this design concept again.

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SNAP 27: A Birthday Party

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Yesterday was my mother-in-law's 87th birthday, and we celebrated with a family picnic at our house. I thought I'd share four photos from the party for this week's SNAP—a photography meme of 3-4 related photos hosted every week by Helena.

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The cake was "Chocolate Decadence" made by Leo's bakery, and it was moist, rich, and totally delicious! Skylar and Ella had left by the time we had cake, so Caleb was the only great-grandchild available to help blow out candles. Before the little girls left, however, the three great-grandchildren provided some "musical" entertainment. Caleb and Gigi had a great time together opening all the cards and notes.

Here's the card I made for Mom.

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Once again my starting point was the fabulous Papertrey Ink Make-it Market Kit: "Don't Forget to Write." The kit was a big splurge, but worth every penny. The two stitched panels are from the A2 Note Card dies by Papertrey, and I die cut the letters from Neat and Tangled's "Journaling Alpha." The stamped sentiment is from "Retro Style Birthday" (PTI).

And while I'm here, #7 for the Summertime Photography Hunt:  a family gathering, surely not the last opportunity I'll have this summer for this item on the list.

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Everyone looks a bit overdosed from the chocolate cake and ice cream, but we had a great time!

CAS(E) This Sketch

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It's been awhile since I used a sketch to inspire a card, but the current challenge at CAS(E) This Sketch intrigued me.

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I didn't start out with a plan to use a die cut for the wreath, but that's where it ended up, but I'm quite happy with it. The heart die cut from Concord and 9th is so pretty, and the Ombre Stripe patterned paper (PTI) worked perfectly behind it.

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The little bunny and the sentiment are both from the Mini-Market Kit "Wee Folk" by Papertrey Ink. The card itself is a die cut from their new A2 set cut from Lovely Lady (IRL not quite as bright as the photo shows.) I finished it off with a few sequins from Pretty Pink Posh.

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I hadn't planned on posting this card until Thursday, but the challenge ends early Thursday morning, and I won't have a chance to write that post until later in the day. Come back to see!

 

2016 Summertime Photography Scavenger Hunt & A Challenge

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Today is the first day for links to Rinda's 2016 Summertime Photography Scavenger Hunt. It's a favorite summer activity for me, and usually by this time, I have quite a few of the items checked off. Not so much this year, but I do have three.

The first one is #8:  A drawing, art project, artistic photograph, greeting card . . . created by you. I've actually made quite a few cards since the beginning of June, but here's my most recent one, and an entry to the Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes.

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I used a new-to-me Simon Says stamp set called "Spring Flowers," embossed in white and watercolored with my Zig Clean Color markers. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink's "Painted Petals," white embossed on a scrap of black cardstock.

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I added a few rainstones from Papertrey Ink, and mounted the watercolor piece onto some Raspberry Fizz cardstock and then onto a white card base. 

Next for the scavenger hunt is #10: a bicycle. We took our first bike ride of the season last week, riding 12.5 miles on the Erie Canal path from the Brighton town park to the Pittsford Dairy where we indulged in homemade ice cream cones. I had black walnut, and it was delicious!

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Check out my very cool basket which was a gift from Sarah last year. It's made byt the Nantucket Basket Company, and I love the shape of it. I also have a new seat this year, also a gift from Sarah. Much more comfortable than my old one.

Last for June, is #20:  Someone laughing.

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Our friends, Pete and Arlene, were here for dinner Monday night. I wish you could hear Arlene's laugh. It's positively infectious! I'm not sure what the story was, but there was lots of laughing, and I quickly got in a few shots.

You can check out the other scavenger hunt posts right here.

CASology: Congratulations

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This week's challenge at CASology is perfectly timed for high school graduations. Today is the graduation ceremony for Brighton High School (our local school), and I needed to make a card for one of the graduates. Brighton's colors are navy and gold so that determined the color combination. I originally bought Papertrey Ink's "Retro Style Graduation" because I wanted some of the stamps for the addition set, "Retro Style Birthday," but I was grateful to have the set for this card which came together pretty quickly.

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Everything except the numbers came from the stamps and dies for "Retro Style Graduation." Stamping the die cuts is so much easier now that I have figured out the best way to use my MISTI. Papertrey Ink's die are usually solid dies so they can be a bit more challenging (to me, anyway) to place correctly on the stamped image. The MISTI solves it perfectly. The numbers were all die cut twice from the Headline Alphabet in navy (WPlus9) and twice in Summer Sunrise and then layered to create a shadow effect. 

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Brighton's graduation ceremony used to be held at the Eastman Theater, quite an elegant setting. Now it's at the Rochester Institute of Technology's field house, which I don't think I'd like as much.

I'm linking to CASology's challenge for Congratulations.

Week 203 - Congratulations

Happy Father’s Day

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It's Father's Day, and I made cards for three of the "very best" dads I know:  my husband, my son, and my son-in-law. All three of them spend as much time with their kids as they can, have great relationships with their children, and are loving, caring parents. The best there is, truly.

Father's Day

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I started with Avery Elle's sentiment set, "Handwritten Notes," and then add "DAD" die cut and stamped with Papertrey's "Headline" alphabet. I die cut the sentiment with a Simon Says "Stitched Circle" die and mounted it on a piece of black cardstock that I scored three times on the top and the bottom.

We had a nice Face Time chat with Adam, Sarah, and Caleb, and we spent some time with Matt and his family this morning after church. Betsy's niece is an accomplished Irish dancer and her troupe was performing at the Brighton Farmer's Market. Ella was entranced.

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I love this photo of Nadia with her gorgeous hair flying behind her as she danced. The fast foot work is amazing!

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It was almost 90° at noon when they were dancing so they stayed as close to the shade as they could.

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This ought to be my Memorandum Monday post (my first Irish dancing performance, but surely not my last!), but by then Father's Day will be over. We're actually celebrating Father's Day again tomorrow with a combined Father's Day and Graduation party at Betsy's father's house. Hope you've had a great weekend!

Sending Sunshine

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CASology's challenge this past week was "Sunshine." As soon as I saw it I knew I had some stamp sets that hadn't seen much use that would be perfect for the challenge. This afternoon was the first opportunity I've had to sit down to play with them.

Week 201 - Sunshine

I pulled out two stamp sets, one from Papertrey Ink and one from Simon Says (last year's August card kit which included a stamp set and a die.) 

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I used both stamp sets to stamp the background circle ("Hello, Sunshine" Papertrey Ink), and the HELLO ("Flip Flop Season" Simon Says), and added some Copic marker to the sentiment. The die cut is also from Simon Says. It's all mounted on a pre-embossed square card by Lasting Impressions that's been in my stash for years.

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The inside sentiment is also from "Hello Sunshine," and I added a punched shape (that's been in my stash as long as the card!)

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I'm always in need of encouragement cards, so I'm happy to add this to my card box. And I'm happy to say we're enjoying days of ample sunshine here!

 

Addicted to CAS: Petals

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A last minute post and entry for the Addicted to CAS challenge, Petals.

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I have several new floral stamps and was determined to get another card made for this challenge. I won't even begin to tell you how many mistakes I made before I finally got a grip on the process and finished the card. It was just one of those days. But I'm pretty happy with the final result, and it's good to have a birthday card on hand.

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The new-to-me stamp set is Papertrey Ink's 2016 Anniversary set. You can only purchase it with points, so it took awhile to accumulate the ones I needed. One of the draws of this set for me, was the unique sentiment which allows you to insert the smaller sentiment into the larger one. I also like the multi-step stamping, and the stamps in this set are clearly marked in the order in which you stamp them. Ought to be easy-peasy, but I didn't separate the die cuts correctly the first time, and got totally confused. There are a pile of die cuts in the garbage, and in the end I only used one of them anyway. The cardstock is Amethyst Allure, a new favorite. 

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The card needed a "little something," so I made three score lines in the middle to add just a touch of dimension. Although this certainly isn't as CAS as some of my cards, I think it qualifies for the challenge. 

Hope you have a great weekend!

 

Happy Anniversary!

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Sarah and Adam celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary on Saturday. I forgot to take their card to them, so it got to them a bit late, and I didn't want to post it until I knew they'd received it. 

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I started out thinking I'd use a watercolored background, but I wasn't happy with it so I used a Simon Says "Stitched Rectangle" and cut a piece from it. The "Stacked Hearts" (SS) was a Christmas gift, and it's the first time I've used it. I layered two of them together to get some dimension. The card is really old, from Current Company and had the perfect pink border.

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Today is a another kind of anniversary. I started blogging eleven years ago today. My then future son-in-law thought I should have a blog, and set it up for me on Typepad. I had NO idea what I'd do with a blog, and would have never guessed that I'd still be blogging eleven years later. I'd have been even more surprised to know that I would find a supportive and friendly blogging community, many of whom I've now "known" for many years. Even more amazing is that I've met several of them in person. It turned out to be a very satisfying and rewarding experience and I'm grateful for the impetus to get started and for the many friends who stop, and especially those, who comment regularly and frequently engage me in email exhanges as well. This post represents the 1, 673 post I've written. Who knew?

This week I made an anniversary card for friends who celebrated their anniversary yesterday. While we were away, I got a package from Papertrey Ink with this $5 stamp, "Splits: Thank You." The nice part about the stamp (aside from the price) is that you can use multiple sentiments instead of the thank you. This time I used one from an old, often used, set called "Fillable Frames #4."

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I got the ideas for embossing and watercoloring the images from Dawn McVey who used that technique during the release. 

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This card works for the current challenge at Addicted to CAS: Petals:

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One Card, Two Ways

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I recently started following the My Favorite Things release posts after seeing some really cute cards on Kay Miller's blog. For the May release one of the designers created a card with primary colored stripes on a black background. I immediately thought of my Papertrey Ink cover plate, "Horizontal Stripes." I needed two cards for totally different reasons. The first for my niece's birthday.

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I die cut the cover plate seven times with different colored cardstocks, then layered them into a cover plate cut from True Black. The die cut sentiment is from "Wet Paint," and the stamped sentiment from "Big Birthday Wishes."

The other card is for one of our dearest friends who has very suddenly been diagnosed with aggressive cancer. It's taken all of our breath away, but I wanted to send a card that might brighten his day a little.

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Both the die cut and the stamped sentiment are from "Wet Paint" by Papertrey Ink. Please keep Bob and his family in your prayers. There are rough days ahead. 

Memorandum Monday: More Crafting

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Because we were on the road so much in March and April, I didn't have much crafting time. I'm finally getting around to using some new products which qualifies this post for something new you did over the weekend. I have two friends from church who are both in rehab, one at home now and the other in a rehab facility. I wanted to get cards and notes off to both of them, so pulled out the new "Friendship Jar Flowers" from Papertrey Ink. The older Friendship Jar sets are among my favorites, and I pulled the little Mason jar from the "Summer Fillers" set issued several years ago. The label die is also from PTI, and the sentiment on the first card is from the new stamp set.

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I think this is one of the first times I've ever stamped directly onto patterned paper. I'm pretty sure this one is from an old Basic Grey pack, but it had been separated from its pad in my storage box. Except for the label, die cut from vellum and embossed and the three enamel dots, it would be a one-layer card. I tried stamping the centers of the flowers, but they just didn't pop out as much as I wanted. Another new trick is attaching the vellum piece with a small piece of "Stick It." Interestingly enough, the trick did not come from the latest Online Card Class on vellum and acetate, but from another card blog. I can't seem to find the link. If someone knows who it was, please let me know. It's the best technique ever.

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The inspiration for the second card came from Danielle Flanders, one of my favorite members of the Papertrey Ink Design Team, even though she specializes in heavily layered and more intricate cards than I usually create. She took the Friendship Jar Flowers, and stamped them on the side of the card as you see here.

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I love the new color Papertrey Ink introduced a month ago, called Amethyst Allure. The patterned paper came from an old Doodlbug pad, "Kraft in Color," although this piece doesn't feature kraft.

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I die cut two of Simon Says "hello," dies from last October's Stamp kit and adhered them over a vellum die cut of the leaves from Friendship Jar Flowers. I thought it needed a few sequins as well.

Waving to Sian, and her friends, at Memorandum Monday! 

A Bookish Birthday

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Yesterday was one of my college friend's birthday. Since mine was last week, we typically celebrate together which we did with another college friend a week ago. When I was in New Orleans I picked up two bookmarks for them at the Faulkner Book Store just off Jackson Square.It's an utterly charming shop, and Susan and I bought a book to share called Read This! Handpicked Favorites from America's Indie Bookstores. You can see Tracy (in the hat) and my sister-in-law, Susan, looking at a book. She took our joint book home with her, and I got it on Mother's Day to keep until July when the family gets together on Honeoye Lake.

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Since I already had a bookmark for my friend, I decided a gift certificate to Barnes & Noble was in order. I recently got a new set of dies from My Favorite Things that creates a card front that lifts up. I knew when I saw it released that I could put it to good use.

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I masked off the outer frame and used Simon Say's "Tiny Alphabet" background stamp on the flap. The other stamps are from Papertrey Ink's "All Booked Up," a set I've used over and over again for card making, gift wrapping, and scrapbooking. The banner and the circles that hold the twine are also part of the MFT die set.

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And this is what you see when you lift the flap. The card is held down with the sticky "stuff" they use to attach it to the B&N gift card enclosure. Worked like a charm. 

Don’t Forget to Write

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I'm a fan of Papertrey Ink's Mini-Market kits and have ordered three or four of them. They're very affordable, and filled with great coordinating products. I rarely splurge for one of the large Make It Market Kits, but last month I did, and I'm really glad. I hemmed and hawed about it for several days, but finally broke down, and it arrived just in time to make a whole batch of needed thank you notes. The "Don't Forget to Write" kit comes with stamps, dies, stencils, stickers, envelopes, and beautiful patterned papers in three different sizes as well as a few other goodies. I used lots of the patterned papers, a few stamps, and a couple of dies and came up with quite a nice selection of cards. I have lots more ideas for cards, so you'll be seeing more of this in the near future. 

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One of the dies makes this pretty scalloped square card, just perfect for a short note of thanks. I sponged some ink onto the die cut sentiment to give it an ombre look, and added a few pearls. You'll see more of the same technique in different color combinations.

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The square note uses one of the stickers included in the kit.

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This might be my favorite. The frame is actually two dies. A smaller circle can be put inside the frame creating a spot for the stamped striped border. I love how easy it is to stamp the flourishes on the frame as well. The flower grouping is preprinted and the die not only cuts it but gives it a slight embossed look. I used a Simon Says Stitched Square die to frame the patterned paper.

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I have to say these were lots of fun to put together. I'll be ordering more of the patterned papers which really make these cards go much more quickly. I am, however, looking forward to trying the stamps as well.

 

Memorandum Monday

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It's a crafty Memorandum Monday! Having been away so much, I needed to make a lot of cards for a busy month of May. In addition, I had a couple new stamp sets I hadn't played with yet, so I spent most of yesterday making cards. So far I have eight made, and still need 5 more before the beginning of June. That doesn't include any unexpected events, or the thank you notes I know I'll need in the middle of the month.

I also have a new storage container for my embossing powders. I've seen it several times on different card-making videos, but hesitated to invest in it. I finally broke down last week, and it was definitely worth the investment. It holds all my most used embossing powders, and is so much easier to apply to the cards.

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It's the shaker top that makes it so efficient. This is meant for spice storage, but works great for embossing powders.

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I have two cards to share today. Both of them will be hand-delivered tomorrow when I get together with the recipients. The first is for a friend who recently had a stroke. She's in rehab now, and doing really well. I used Alt&New's "Magnolias for Her" stamp, inspired by this video I watched Saturday night. I've had this set for awhile, but haven't had much success with it until yesterday. Later, you'll see two more cards made with the same set. I'm linking this card up to a challenge at The Card Concept, choosing Clean and Layered for the style.

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The flower and leaves were embossed in gold and then watercolored with Daniel Smith watercolors, and hand cut. The tag was cut with the "Stitched Dress-up Tags" by Simon Says. It's a new die that's never been used, even though it was a Christmas gift!

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The second card is for a mutual friend of my friend in rehab. We'll be going to visit Peg tomorrow, and it's Jean's birthday on Wednesday. I have a cake to take along to celebrate. I purchased "Tulip Time" from Papertrey Ink two months ago, but this was my first opportunity to pull it out. I was pretty sure I'd like it, and I do!

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The stamped piece is layered onto Raspberry Fizz cardstock cut with Simon Says "Stitched Rectangles." It makes a perfect frame.

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I'm linking up with Sian and waving to all the other Memorandum Monday folks who found something new to do this weekend! I'm also linking up with The Card Concept challenge of "Spring Flowers."

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I have finally figured out how to upload images with a full-size pop-up window, so if you'd like a closer look, it's now possible.