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With Sympathy


A sketch challenge isn’t where I usually start with a card, but when I saw the current sketch at Freshly Made Sketches I knew immediately that I could use it to create a sympathy card I needed. 


When I looked through my dies for something to use for the background in the sketch I discovered the Botanical Branch by Pinkfresh Studio that I hadn’t used in the longest time. I thought it would work well for both elements of the sketch.


I first dry embossed the die on watercolor paper. Then I die cut it twice and separated the branch from the narrow frame. I glued those together for some dimension and carefully laid them on the dry embossed image. 


I first dry embossed the die on watercolor paper. Then I die cut it twice and separated the branch from the narrow frame. I glued those together for some dimension and carefully laid them on the dry embossed image. 

I cut down that panel (hope that works for the sketch) and added it to the card base. The sentiment from Altenew’s Sentiment Strips, was embossed in gold, and die cut with one of Honey Bee’s Sentiment Banners.

In addition to Freshly Made Sketches, I’m sending this off to the Neglected Stuff Challenge. I’m so intent on trying to use NBUS products, I don’t often have an opportunity to share a card with very old products.

Happy Birthday, Matt!


Today is Matt’s birthday. We’ll be celebrating with him and his family at dinner tonight.


My friend, Michelle, sweetly lent me a Stamp Market kit she got quite some time ago. I die cut a variety of images and this is the first time I’ve used the Stylish Happy Birthday die. Knowing I’d probably use this for Matt, I die cut the shadow from Papertrey Silver Shimmer cardstock and the HB from Spellbinders Brushed Black cardstock. 

The black has a subtle shine to it that’s difficult to capture in a photograph. The sentiment from My Favorite Things, Birthday Wishes, was embossed in silver on a scrap of the Brushed Black cardstock. It was die cut with one of the Skinny Mini Banners by Papertrey Ink. 

I’m sending this off to Seize the Birthday. I always seem to forget there’s an Anything Goes category for that challenge, but I want to be more intentional about getting my birthday cards posted there. 

Woodblock Wednesday-February 2026 Edition

I’ve missed the last two Woodblock Wednesdays so as soon as we got home from our winter break in Georgia, I sat down to create a card for today’s Woodblock Wednesday post. 

On our way home, we spent two nights with Tracy’s brother and sister-in-law who rent a house in Wilmington, NC for two-three months. The weather there was the warmest we saw on the whole trip! I wanted to send them a thank you note so that was on my mind when I chose the stamps for this card.


I had to stamp the main image (Steamy Cups by Stampington & Co.) a couple of times before I found the right coloring medium. First I tried colored pencils, but I wasn’t thrilled with how it came out. Then I remembered buying new set of retractable markers at Dick Blick’s the last time I was there. I don’t have a wide range of colors in the set by Zebra, but was able to make them work. 

After coloring the image, I die cut it with Waffle Flowers Lacy Layers. First the main image, and then another layer with a pretty scalloped and stitched edge. Seemed perfect for the stack of tea cups. The sentiment, Thanks Script, is from A Muse Artstamps. I know I bought it at Impress Stamps in Seattle many years ago, and it remains a favorite. I must admit I often forget about my wooden stamps when I’m looking for sentiments.

Thanks, as always, Amy, for hosting this monthly post!

I’m sending this of to Addicted to Stamps and More where the challenge is Make Your Mark. 

Valentine’s Day

We were away on Valentine’s Day, and I didn’t get around to posting my last valentines in advance. Fortunately, I hand delivered some of them, and the rest were in the mail in plenty of time to have arrived before yesterday.

All the valentines used some of The Greetery’s recent Amour Market release. I made three of the shaped valentine below for my granddaughters. Lovely Lady cardstock was cut with the Shortbread Shapes: Scalloped Hearts die and then placed in the gorgeous embossing folder.

I gently ran a white ink pad ove the embossed designs to make them stand out a bit more. The small heart in the middle was die cut with the Whole Hearted Die in Raspberry Fizz cardstock and embossed in the Coquette Hearts Embossing Folder. I added a small pearl from Altenew in the center.

The next two cards are variations on the same design. I started by die cutting the large heart in the small manner I die cut the smaller heart in the first valentine. I used Raspberry Fizz for the first card and added a gold metallic frame using the Filagree Hearts Die. I stamped and gold embossed the sentiment with the Simple Valentine Mini Sentiments set. The Regency Bow #1 (from an earlier release) was die cut with Lovely Lady cardstock and I added some ink blending for some added interest. All of it was added to a card base of watercolor paper.

The second valentine is exactly the same, except I used Gina K Cherry Kisses cardstock, and changed the orientation of the card from horizontal to vertical.

The last valentine is a more Clean and Simple design, using some of the same products. The large red heart was cut from the Whole Hearted Die, but not embossed. I layered a white embossed heart on top and added another of the Altenew white pearls to the center. For this card I created a square card base from the Cherry Kiss cardstock, and then a pretty white stitched and scalloped square that I found in my stash, (I’m unsure of the manufacturer since I die cut a group of these shapes at a friend’s house several years ago,) The sentiment is from a much older Greetery stamp set: Sentiment Suites: Love, embossed in white and die cut with Papertrey Ink’s Skinny Mini Banners.

Although I’m a day late in posting these, I’m not too late to play along with several challenges. The first valentine is off to Shoppping Our Stash which is looking for Shaped Cards and to Time Out: Choose Two; I’m picking pink and hearts.

One or more of the three other valentines are going to Tic Tac Toe where I used the top row across: Hearts, Die Cutting, Pink/Red and Just Us Girls: Word Week-Valentine,

Make A Wish

I have a new card up on the Memory Box blog this morning, and wanted to share it here,

I love Sebastian Mouse on a swing. Not long ago, I saw a tutorial for a Faux Tunnel card and thought it would be great for Sebastian Mouse.

I die cut the mouse from white and gray cardstock and his cute outfit from papers in the Sunrise Cardstock Pack. Although the die includes texture for the wooden swing, I cut it from a scrap of woodgrain cardstock. I added a bit of ink blending to the individual pieces before assembling the mouse and the swing.

To create the Faux Tunnel, I chose three pieces of cardstock from the Lagoon Cardstock Pack and cut a circle from each using the Basic Circle Dies, making sure I layered the pieces so they created an even tunnel effect. I used the 4th largest circle, and then the 8th and 6th largest. For the last layer, I created a white card base, hand cut two “cloud” stencils and used a blue ink to create a sky.

I popped each layer up with dimensional tape. Before adding the top layer I attached Sebastian Mouse to the backside, adding two layers of foam tape to the back of the mouse. For the sentiment, I added a tiny brad to the White Greeting Tag and attached it with a bit of dimensional foam. 

The card came together easily, and if you’re a card maker, it makes for a more unique card design. Despite the two layers of dimensional tape, it went into an envelope pretty easily.

There’s a lot of die cutting here, so I thought I send this over to A Cut Above where it’s always Anything Goes. I haven’t played along with them in quite awhile.

It’s still snowing here. Everyone has had enough. We haven’t seen the pavement on our driveway since I got back from my trip south two weeks ago. At least the sub-zero temperatures have eased up a bit.

Stay warm!

Lots of Hearts


Last year, I used Concord & 9th’s Mix and Match Heart die and stamp to make valentines for my three Rochester granddaughters. I die cut lots of hearts and several backgrounds so I had plenty to create a card for Hannah this year. I chose a background of Party Pink (The Stamp Market) and hearts cut from four pastel colored cardstocks.


All I needed to do was inlay the hearts, gold emboss one with a sentiment from the stamp set  and add it to the card with some dimensional tape. The banner sentiment was gold embossed as well with a stamp from Simon Says Love You Greetings, and die cut with My Favorite Things Itty Bitty Strips.

This valentine is headed to Just Us Girls where the challenge is Die Cuts or Stencils plus Hearts, and to Addicted to Stamps and More where the challenge is Die Cuts or Stencils.

XOXO

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As soon as I saw the challenge at Inkspirational: XOXO, I knew I had the perfect die. Once I got it out, I realized that it would make a great valentine for my grandson. Not girly, not cutesy—but heartfelt.

I die cut the  Simon Says die, XO Border, in three colors and lined them up on an A2 white card base. I had a little gold heart left over from a previous project and added it to the middle XOXO pattern with some dimensional tape. 

The sentiment is from Simon Says Love You Greetings, gold embossed on black and die cut with My Favorite Things Itty Bitty Strips.

In addition to Inkspirational, I’m also sending this to The Paper Players where the theme challenge is Love Is In the Air. 


I’ll be back shortly with more valentines. Have a great day!

Classic Car

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The month of January flew by. Tracy and I both had an upper respiratory infection that lasted 10 days. Shortly after I recovered, I left with a wonderful group from my church for the Southern Lights Conference on St. Simons Island in Georgia. As it was last year, the conference was fabulous—uplifting and inspiring messages about faith during these very difficult times in our country.

The three day trip ended up taking six days—the first cancellation for Sunday afternoon’s flight arrived on Friday night in anticipation of the huge winter storm that created havoc in much of the south, midwest and eastern seaboard. The subsequent cancellations were also a result of that storm, but frequently were because American Airlines didn’t have the crews to fly the planes and/or the planes weren’t where they needed to be. On Tuesday we finally drove from St. Simons to Charlotte, NC (no flights our way were leaving Jacksonville, FL), got there in time for our flight to Rochester, only to have it cancelled. In the end, half of us flew to Buffalo and the rest of us to Syracuse on Wednesday. 

All that to say, this is a card for the man who drove us wherever we needed to go during our six day adventure. When he volunteered to be a driver, he had no idea he’d be hustling up the highway to Charlotte most of the day on Tuesday.


The retro car die is one I’ve had in my stash for years and years, Classic Car, by Savvy Stamps. I die cut it from watercolor paper, masked off portions of it so I could have a red car with a black roof. I saw a car much like this when we were in Paris last spring, and have been seeing them regularly here. If it’s still an option when I next need a car—this will be it!


I added the car to a Stitched Rectangle die by Simon Says, and added a sentiment from the Greenery’s Sentiment Suite: Thank You.

This week’s challenge at Addicted to Stamps and More is Die Cuts or Stencils, so this retro car is headed to their gallery.

Hope it’s warmer where you are than it is here! 

Color Hues 126

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When Julie picked Red and Pink for our new Color Hues Challenge, I couldn’t resist making a valentine.

I was given a gift certificate for The Stamp Market for my birthday in May, and I finally put it to use in November. One of the products I ordered was the Checkered Cover die. It doesn’t have a cut line around the edge, so I ended up doing a dry embossed panel in white so it would be easier lay out the red and pink squares in a pleasing pattern. It worked surprisingly well. 

After I adhered all the squares to the embossed panel, I added white hearts cut from Simon Says Tic Tac Toe Hearts die to five of the squares. I wanted a bit of sparkle and added the smallest of the Iridescent Dew Drops from Pinkfresh Studio to the center of the hearts. 

The sentiment is also from Simon Says: Love. When I pulled out the die I was delighted to find both the white word and the black shadow already die cut. Finally, I added the whole panel to a top-folding white card base.

It goes without saying that you’ll find plenty of inspiration on the Color Hues Challenge blog from my talented Design Team members as well as our Guest Designer, JoAnn. The challenge is open until January 14th.

I’m sending this valentine off to the Festive Friday Challenge, choosing pink, hearts, a love sentiment, and hearts from the list. And also to Claire’s “Love is in the Air” Challenge at The Paper Players,

More Yellow Poppies

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I have another set of yellow poppies to share that went up on the Memory Box Blog today. These poppies were created with the Playful Poppies Embossing Folder. It creates a very deep impression, causing me to make some adjustments to the “sandwich” I used on my die cutting machine. I also discovered that using Letterpress paper, lightly sprayed, gave the best result.

I had hoped to create red poppies, but I couldn’t find the right combination of inks, so went back to yellow and orange, using the accompanying stencil to color them. I used five shades of yellow and orange inks from Pinkfresh Studio for the flowers, and two green inks for the leaves.


I added the stamens with a Micron 02 pen and the anthers with a black Glaze Pen. A Thinking of You Gold embossed Black Greeting Tab was added for the sentiment.

A blogger friend from England mentioned seeing signs of spring already. There’s nothing but white outside my window, and the wind chill is bitterly cold.

It’s been awhile since I played along with Simon Says Wednesday Challenge, but they’re looking for stencils this week.

Color Hues #125

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Carol has a fresh and clean color combination for the next Color Hues Challenge — perfect for winter crafting.

Both of my cards came about rather serendipitously. I had an embossed image from my brand new Greetery Shortbread Shapes: Snowflake and several die cut snowflakes from Simon Says laying on my desk along with some Enchanted Evening cardstock, and this color combination came to mind. 

I decided on a square format for the beautiful embossed snowflake panel. I couldn’t bring myself to add a sentiment which would have covered up some of that wonderful detail. I added some blue jewels from Pinkfresh studio, and it was done. It’s likely to be a birthday card for a friend’s January birthday.

It had been a long time since I made a mini-slimline card. I embossed just the front panel with Spellbinders Nordic Noel embossing folder. The snowflake, one of my favorites, was part of a kit from Simon Says a few years ago, the Eliza Snowflake. 

The sentiment is from a Papertrey Ink set I purchased last year, and have never used before: Just Sentiments: Warmth. 

We have the talented Bobby as our Guest Designer. Please check out her wonderful card as well as those of the Color Hues Design Team. The challenge will be open until 9:00 am on January 29th.

It’s been awhile since I played along with the Colorful Options Challenge, but January’s is blues and white so off goes these cards.

Encouragement

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I’m right under the wire for the Just Us Girls current challenge: Encouragement. The card was finished a few days ago, but getting it photographed in a gray, dreary climate turned out to be a challenge. 

This card is going to a friend of ours who was detained by ICE late last month. He’s now in a detention center. Like many who have been detained, he has no criminal record, and testimonies abound to his outstanding character and the many ways he is a blessing to his neighborhood, our city, and his family and friends. We’ve been protesting (literally) and through letters the actions of ICE long before they got to Minneapolis, but when it’s personalized it’s even more devastating.

Most likely, our friend is working in the kitchen at the detention center, helping to keep it clean, and helping to keep other detainees spirits up. I hope this card gives him encouragement, although he knows we are praying for his release and doing all we can to gather evidence for his lawyer to present to the judge.

On to the card:


I had already foiled this Pinkfresh Studio Quadrant Background, so all I had to do was color it with the accompanying stencils. The sentiment from Pinkfresh Studio’s Perfect Sentiments  was also prefoiled so the card came together quickly. I die cut some gold hearts with Simon Says Holiday Shapes die, and it was ready to go in the mail.

Thanks for stopping by!

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.