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Floral Focus

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A colleague of mine complained once she retired that she was bored, and told a mutual friend not to be in any hurry to leave her job. It's so far from my reality that I'm amazed by it every time I think of it. Even with all the time at home because of the pandemic, I am rarely, if ever, bored. Right now, I'm running out of time to do all the things I want to do, and to learn all the things I want to learn. I spent a couple of hours today working on the introductory lessons to the Sketching Now Foundations course. I enrolled in it years ago, and was in over my head. I wish I could say I've made lots of progress since then, but some of the concepts are still a struggle. And then, of course, I'm also trying to work through using all my unused stamps. That is a LOT more fun! 

The card today is a beautiful floral, called Floral Focus by My Favorite Things. I don't own the dies, but I've seen cards made with this stamp where they've separated the floral and used only a portion of it. It is one stamp, however, so that's how I used it. I pulled out my  Daniel Smith watercolors to color it, and chose Shades of Purple again for The Flower Challenge.

FloralFocus

I did the watercoloring on Saturday night, and on Sunday added shading with four different Polychromos pencils. 

FloralFocusFlat

The sentiment is from "Everyday Greetings" by Pretty Pink Posh. I gave thought to adding a few sequins, but decided it really didn't need any, so just added the panel to a green card base. The challenge at Happy Little Stampers Watercolor is Anything Goes so I'm adding this to that challenge as well.

TFChallenge#54 HLS

Spring Flowers

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We had a brief, two day, taste of Spring this week, and it was wonderful. Today is sunny, but cold and windy again. Pretty typical for March. There are several challenges out there calling for Spring cards, so I pulled out of my NBUS box a stamp and die set, "Blooms and Buds" by Reverse Confetti that I've had for way too long. It almost got put into the "Donated" bag last week, but I'm glad I pulled out. Sometime guilt works well . . . 

I started with a sketch from CAS Colours and Sketches:

C&S410

After stamping and die cutting, I arranged my flowers in the lower left-hand corner of a piece of white cardstock, but it felt too plain so decided to run it through my die cut machine with a Taylored Expression embossing folder. That's the Trend Challenge for Just Us Girls this week:

JUGS

SpringFlowers

I rounded the corners of the floral piece as well as an orange Memory Box card before putting them together. The last touch was to add a sentiment strip from Pink and Main and some tiny pearls to the center of the flowers. 

SpringFlowersFlat

The Reverse Confetti Stock Your Stash challenge is Spring as is the challenge at CAS on Friday. Sending this card their way as well.

Three of a Kind and Shades of Purple

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When I saw the challenge at Happy Little Stampers CAS for Three of a Kind, I immediately thought of a MFT's stencil in my collection. Then The Flower Challenge showed up with a Shades of Purple challenge and that was that! Happy Little Stampers Stencil: Anything Goes also works!

Purple

I started by taping off the bottom portion of the stencil as I wanted smaller rectangles. Then I chose three Altenew purple inks–Lavender, Deep Iris, and Midnight Violet and ink blended them through the stencil. I found just the perfectly sized flower in Pinkfresh Studio's Fleur 2 stamp set and stamped it with Altenew's Obsidian ink.

PurpleFlat2

I smooshed a bit of each ink on my glass mat, and used a small paint brush to color in the petals of each flower. The sentiment is from Special Day by Pink & Main. It's becoming one of my favorite sentiment sets. I rounded the corners of my stamped piece as well as the corners of an Amethyst Allure card base and added the focal piece to the card. It's definitely a CAS card, and a design that would work well with different colors and different small stamps.

March 2021 CAS TFChallenge#54HLS Stencil Challenge (1)

An Inspired Rainbow Critter Card

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Not long ago, I watched Therese create a couple of cute cards using a rainbow stamp from Ellen Hutson and a collaborative stamp with Ellen Hutson and Avery Elle. I had both stamp sets so I pinned it to my Pinterest board for kids. My CASE is similar, but I chose to use a die from The Stamp Market for my rainbow in an effort to use another product that had been sitting in my stash. I had already colored one of the critters from The Peek-a-Boo Pals Camp Wanna Stamp set so I set about creating the card. 

HBBear

After attaching the rainbow to white cardstock, I added it to a red cardbase. The die cut cloud is from Papertrey Ink, and both the cloud and the cute bear are adhered with dimensional tape. I created a red frame using two of Ellen Hutson's Essential Rectangle dies and then added that to the panel.

HBBearFlat

The sentiment is a preprinted one from Simon Says. After attaching it, I added the bear's paws so he appears to be holding the greeting.

I'm entering the card in two challenges:  Just Us Girls: Animals and Addicted to CAS where the challenge is also Animals. It's my second entry to both challenges—so unusual!

JUGS Addicted

This card's all set for a very cute little girl who will be turning four next month. 

Wish Big

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It's not often that I can create a card for four challenges, but it's the luck of the Irish in this case. St. Patrick's Day is coming and all four challenges feature some aspect of the traditions surrounding St. Patrick's Day. Luckily for me I have two birthdays to celebrate–one on the day itself and another on the 18th.

Here are the challenges:

TCC150 030321

The Card Concept Challenge is a photo inspiration: I'm picking up on the hat (St. Patrick's Day) and the green for my card.
As usual, it fits their category "Clean and Simple."

Week 385 - Luck

CASology's challenge is Luck, and my card features four-leaf clovers, definitely a sign of luck!

JUGS

At JUGS, the challenge is Animals, and I've yet another Anita Jeram cutie holding the four-leaf clover.

2021-03-04-3ShadesOfGreen

It's been awhile since I've played with Seize the Birthday, and yes, there are three shades of green created with three green Karin watercolor markers.

So finally, the card itself. As I said it features another of the Anita Jeram illustrations from the Colorado Craft Company. Knowing I had St. Patrick's Day cards to create, it was a must-have. 

WishBig

I stamped the design on Altenew watercolor paper and colored it with Karin brush markers. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink's Ways to Say: Birthday.

WishBigFlat

I wanted a narrow frame of traditional St. Patrick's green (New Leaf from PTI) and then added it to a card base created with Green Parakeet (PTI).

I hope the luck of the Irish is with you today!

 

Celebrate!

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The current challenge at The Paper Players is a sketch challenge, and one that appealed to me. At Addicted to CAS the challenge is "Animals," and I thought I could combine an image from another of my unused/new stamp sets and get a birthday card into the stash.

Pp530 Addicted

Earlier I shared one of the stamps from Colorado Crafts illustrated by Anita Jeram. This is another of her darling images.

BDBunny

Her illustrations cry out for watercolors so I got out my Daniel Smith watercolors and created a bit of a background as well as coloring the bunny and his/her balloon. 

BDBunnyFlat

I kept the rest simple; a narrow black frame and a white embossed sentiment from Pink and Main. Typically, a CAS card calls for white space, but I'm a believer that it can also be colored space as well! 

The sun is shining here, and I hope it's the same for you!

Another One Layer Card

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I really enjoyed coming up with a one-layer card last week, and decided to try another one, both for Less Is More (my second entry) and AAA Cards where the challenge is a sketch. 

437 OLC Flowers

AAA#184 #184 sketch

I opted to use Copic markers rather than watercolor since I wanted to use Neenah #110 cardstock to dry emboss the My Favorite Things "Peek-a-Boo" die. 

HBRoseUp

Once I embossed the rectangle, I stamped the smallest flower from Pink Fresh Studio's new "Friendship Blooms" stamp set. I won a $25 gift certificate during their release blog hop, and decided to purchase this stamp set. It has gorgeous florals and wonderful sentiments. You'll be seeing more of it soon.

HBRose

After coloring the floral with Copic markers and adding some detail with Polychromos colored pencils, I stamped a simple greeting from Sentiment Suite: Birthday by The Greetery. Although I also use the Peek-a-Boo window die to cut an open window, I think I prefer it embossed. 

One of my intentions for March is to use as many unused or new stamps or dies as I can. I gathered them altogether and put them in a basket. Some of them are relatively new, but to my chagrin, some of them have been in my collection for well over a year! No more purchases until I've worked my way through the pile.

 

Color Hues #13

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It's March first, and time for a new challenge at Color Hues. I have to admit March is one of my least favorite months. When travel is safe again, I expect to spend the month of March in a location much warmer and sunnier than Rochester! Here are the new colors:

Color Hues #13

These bright and cheery colors gave me permission to create a card that celebrates sunshine.

BlueYell2

This is actually the second card I made. Both cards started with The Stamp Market's " Color Block" die. For this card I chose two hues of yellow and two of blue. Each piece is popped up with dimensional tape on a white card base. Then I searched through my stamps looking for a sunshine die, and ended up with Reverse Confetti's set "Over the Rainbow." I added a bit of ink blending to the edges of the sun to set it apart from the yellow panels.

BlueYell2Flat

I added a white puffy die cut cloud (from Papertrey Ink), and a sentiment from a new stamp set from My Favorite Things, "Bitty Hugs and Kisses." 

Here's a look at the first card I created. For this card I used four hues of yellow and blue.

BlueYell1

I do like this card as well, but doesn't meet the I. need. spring. requirement. I inlaid the panels from the "Color Block" die this time, and added a die cut sentiment from Simon Says, "Bold Hello," that was included in one of the monthly card kits. 

Hop over to the Color Hues blog to see what the rest of the Design Team has come up with . . . and join in the fun!

 Nancy

Hannelie

Cindy

Julie

Sheri

Kristie

Lindsey

 

Time Out Challenge’ s 7th Birthday!

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I am thrilled to be a Guest Designer for Time Out's 7th birthday party!

#182

In honor of this occasion, I designed a card with seven candles much like the one for my brother when he turned 70. This time, however, I die cut the candles from scraps of brightly colored cardstock and mounted them on black cardstock. I love the contrast.

CelebrateGD

To make it more festive, I added flames and a sentiment die-cut from My Favorite Things "Gold Sparkle" cardstock. The candles are die cut with MFT's "Birthday Candles" die and the sentiment from Papertrey Ink's "Good Times" set. 

CelebrateGDClose

I decided on a square card, and trimmed the focal piece before adding it to the card base with black foam for some dimension. 

CelebrateGDFlat

I hope you'll hop over to the Time Out Challenge and see what the Design Team has created—and join in. It's always good to have a few birthday cards in your stash!

Less is More: One Layer with Flowers

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Considering that I love CAS designs, and consider myself a (mostly) CAS card maker, I rarely join in the Less Is More challenge, and I rarely make a one-layer card.

437 OLC Flowers

But for some reason, this challenge appealed to me, and I set off to find some stamps. I ended up with a new-to-me (and never used) stamp from a Simon Says and Altenew collaboration  and two much older stamp sets from Papertrey Ink.

Welcome

The beautiful corner frame is from "Framed Friendship," the Simon Says and Altenew collaboration. The stylized flower is from Papertrey Ink's "Doodlie-Do" set, and the sentiment is from "Vintage Picnic Sentiments," one of my oldest sentiment sets.

WelcomeFlat

A dear friend just moved from her home of nearly 60 years to a senior living community where she and I both know she'll be very happy! As soon as I saw this sentiment I knew exactly who would be getting this card. The floral arrangement was colored with Copic markers which do bleed through cardstock, making it a problem for a one layer card, but I simply layered another piece of cardstock on the inside front of the card which solves the problem. I used X-Press It Blending cardstock so it's a bit smoother and less bulky than the usual. As always, I'm happy to have used long neglected stamps as well as a never used one.

Seize the Birthday

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Seize the Birthday is one of my favorite challenges, and it's been awhile since I've joined in. I seem to forget that you always have an option to just create any birthday card, and don't have to apply the "topping." As soon as I saw the new topping, however, I thought of two neglected stamps that have been in my collection for so long I don't even remember where or when I purchased them. They've survived at least three major purges of my stamp collection, and I'm glad they did.  Here's the topping:

2021-02-18-CreateAScene

I created two cards, each with a different scene. The stamps are from Stampendous. I no longer have the original packaging so don't know the name of the set, and they're no longer available.

Grapes

This scene reminds me of our trips to Niagara-on-the-Lake with our friends to spend time at the wonderful wineries in the area. I colored the scene with Copic markers, and die cut it with Hero Arts "Rounded Rectangles" before layering it with purple and green and then onto a white card base.

GrapesFlat

The sentiment is from My Favorite Things "Bitty Birthday Wishes."

Olives

Although I'm quite sure both illustrations were meant to be in Italy, this one reminds me of our tour of Morocco and the fields of olive trees we visited. It was, again, colored with Copic markers and framed in the same way as the first card.

OlivesFlat

This greeting was white embossed on black and is from Pink and Main's "Special Day" sentiment set. 

There are eight birthdays on my March calendar so I'm happy to have a couple more birthday cards in the stash!

 

 

CASology: Fox

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The current challenge at CASology is Fox.

Week 384 - Fox

I'm thinking the little fox slider card I made for Hannah fits the bill. I've become a huge fan of interactive cards now that I'm creating for five grandchildren, and this slider card is one of the easier ones to put together.

FoxyFlat

I stenciled some light clouds on the slider portion, added the fox and then a piece of die cut grass. Here's how it looks opened:

FoxyUpClose

And because you can't send a card to Hannah without sending one to Caleb, here's his:

AlligatorFlat

AlligatorUp

And to finish the sentiment:

AlligatorInside

Stamps: Neat & Tangled "So Foxy" and "Later Alligator"
Cloud Stencil: My Favorite Things
Die: Lawn Fawn "Meadow Borders," My Favorite Things "Slider Surprise"

 

The Twofer Challenge: Balloons

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I've been following The Twofer Challenge for a long time, but have never played along. Earlier this month when I saw February's challenge: Balloons, I had an idea!

TwoferFebruary 2021

I've had a "never-before-used" die by My Favorite Things lying on my table for weeks. Originally, I planned to use if for an upcoming project, but ended up doing something very different and just didn't get it put away. My only problem with this challenge was forgetting to check the rules before creating:

TwoferRules

They are very clear–one die, two different designs, two different occasions. My first two cards were both birthday cards, so actually I have a Three-fer. But I'm not unhappy to have a third card in the stash. Here's a look at the two cards for the challenge:

TwoferR

As you can see the die cuts the balloons and the greeting from a piece of cardstock. I then die cut that with a "Stitched Rectangle" and put metallic papers behind the balloons and the greeting and bumped it up on a white top-folded card. Have to say it looks great in real life, but is terrible to try and photograph.

BalloonsMetallic

Here you can see the shine, and the reflection from the windows!

MetallicBalloons

To create the second card, I ran the die through the Gemini, Jr. two times and used five of the balloons. After coloring them with Copic markers, I added balloon strings from a Papertrey Ink stamp set and layered them into a bouquet of balloons. 

BalloonBunch

The sentiment (just perfect!) from Sugar Peas was embossed on black cardstock die cut from Papertrey Ink's "Skinny Mini Banners," and bumped up with some dimensional tape. The balloons are covered with a heavy coat from a Spectrum Noir glitter pen—also difficult to photograph. Here's a close-up taken with my iPhone.

GlitteryBalloons

Finally the third card, just because I have it–and I do like it, too. I used the same technique and the same glittery finish for the balloons here.

BalloonsBD

I love the "Birthday Strings" mini-stamp from Papertrey Ink and it works perfectly here. I add a few raindrops to this card, as well as the die cut card as a final embellishment. I'm pretty sure I'll be back to play along with The Twofer Challenge again, but I'm also sure I'll remember the rules next time!

And because, I used a NBUS die, I'll put this up at the February post there as well.

NBUS

 

 

Color Hues #12

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The new Color Hues Challenge offers a chance to craft for Spring. By mid-February, I'm always thinking about Spring even though I know it's probably a good two months away here in western New York. 

Color Hues Badge #12

Not surprisingly, I headed for a floral stamp, and chose a new one from Simon Says: "Best Friend Ever." It has four lovely floral arrangements so I'm sure you'll see another image from this set in the near future. 

Peach2

I kept this card very clean and simple. I embossed the florals in white on Tim Holtz watercolor paper, and used my Daniel Smith watercolors to mix a pretty peach hue. After watercoloring, I added the sentiment from Papertrey Ink's "Signature Greetings"–an old favorite.

Peach2Close

I added some detail to the flowers and the leaves with my Polychromos pencils. Although it's hard to see in the photos, it does add some depth.

Peach2Flat

Then I die cut the piece with Hero Arts "Rounded Rectangles," adding it to a piece of Concord & 9th's Grapefruit cardstock (also cut with the next largest rounded rectangle), and added it to a white card base. Five Champagne Sequins from Pretty Pink Posh finished it off.

I hope you'll hop over to the Color Hues Challenge and join in the fun, checking out the cards made by my awesome Design Team members, and our Guest Designer, Chick:

 

   Nancy

Hannelie

Cindy

Julie

Sheri

Kristie

Lindsey

And then, come join us in the fun!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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Valentine's Day always been a favorite holiday of mine, and I was especially glad to have something to celebrate something in the midst of the deep-freeze we've been having around here. (Not that it's the coldest place in the country, by far, but too cold to comfortably be outside for very long.) 

One of our many blessings is being in a bubble with Matt, Betsy, and the three girls. Skylar, Ella, and Maddy spent the afternoon with us yesterday baking and decorating Valentine cookies, making valentines, and doing Valentine coloring sheets, word, and number puzzles. Matt and Betsy came back for dinner. The girls helped set the table with a red tablecloth, Valentine napkins, and heart-shaped candle holders. It was quite festive. Getting decent photos while being so engaged is always a challenge, but here are a few. All three of the girls are adept at rolling out the dough and cutting out the cookies.

Valentine Collage

I saved the cards I made for the grandchildren to share today. Like the valentines I shared yesterday, they are mini-slimlines. I'll be sharing one of these with Just Us Girls. Their new challenge is a trend challenge: Slimline Cards.

JUGS

Once again, the cards are the same, but different. I started out by coloring five cute little bears with Copic markers and fussy cutting them. The bear was one of the images from Simon Says "Love You Bearly Much" from the February card kit. I was inspired by this watercolored card by Debbie Hughes.

Caleb

First off, the card for Caleb. I used a piece of red cardstock embossed with Honey Bee's "Fluttering Hearts" die, and added some striped paper from My Favorite Things. Then I added the cute "Love Speech Bubbles" die.

Hannah

For Hannah, I used  a piece of white card stenciled with Nuvo Glitter Paste using Echo Park's "Falling for You" stencil, added some patterned paper from The Stamp Market and three Doodle Bug enamel dots.

BearXOXO

Next up, Maddy's valentine—very similar to Hannah's but I used the XOXO border stamp from the Simon Says set and no patterned paper.

BearBow

Ella's valentine also uses a stencil, but this time I used the stencil that came in the kit, "Tumbling Hearts" and added a ribbon and three pearl hearts.

BearPolkaDots

The last of the bears was for Skylar with the same stencil as Ella's but with patterned paper from MFT and some glittery heart stickers I found in my stash.

I'm also sharing one of these cards at the Inspirational Challenge: Hearts.

Challenge232

The girls all received their valentines when they were here yesterday to make Valentine cookies. Caleb's and Hannah's arrived in Wisconsin earlier this week, and I imagine we'll get to see them open them when we do FaceTime later today. 

For Tracy's valentine, I chose a stamp by Anita Jeram who illustrates wonderful children's books. It might seem odd, but I chose it for the sweet sentiments that are included for the front and the inside of cards. And I have another one in mind for our anniversary! I ordered the well-known Guess How Much I Love You book to accompany it. I'm quite sure both sets of grandchildren already own the book, but we do not. Colorado Craft Company has put out a variety of stamps illustrated by Anita Jeram, and they are all charming. You'll see another one next month for sure.

TOW

After watercoloring the image, I die cut it with the Gina K Layers die.  I had to add a little pink for Valentine's Day but chose a soft gray for the card.

TOWFlat

Tracy and I'll be celebrating on our own tonight. We're planning to knock the snow off the grill and move it just outside the kitchen door to grill a steak. Years ago when the kids were very young, Tracy grilled a steak during a snowstorm for New Year's Eve so the weather doesn't usually deter him. 

Hope you've had a good day! We've had lots of sunshine which does make up for the frigid temperatures.