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Seize the Birthday Challenge: Die Cuts

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The Seize the Birthday Challenge is one after my own heart: Die Cuts. There’s an option for a stamped sentiment if you want, and I’ll be back tomorrow with a last-minute entry in that category as well. 

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But for today, I have a birthday card that uses ONLY die cuts. 

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This Stamp Market die came as a freebie several releases ago. I wasn’t quite sure how to use it. The Happy is actually one die and I knew I wanted each letter to be a different color so I lined us narrow pieces of cardstock and managed to die cut them separately in a couple of runs through the die cutting machine. I loved the bright colors against the black card, and once that was done, once again I was puzzled about what to do next.

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I finally settled on Gold Mirror cardstock, and I’m happy with the way it stands out layered on top of the HAPPY! I don’t know if this would qualify as CAS–but it makes for a relatively quick and easy card to reproduce. The only time consuming part of it was the decision making!

This card has already gone in then mail, but I decided it was time to get it on the blog as well. 

 

Color Hues #2

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The new colors for the Color Hues Challenge are Navy and Turquoise.

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Navy is one of my favorite colors, and I had several different ink pads to choose from. It was rather amazing to me to see how dark a couple of them were—almost black, so I chose to go with a more medium tone, using Pinkfresh Sapphire ink with the new Concord and 9th’s Oceanside. 

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I thought it would be fun to play with Altenew’s “Sohcahtoa” stamp set since I’m always needing a graphic card that can be used for a guy as well as a woman. Lining up the images down the center of the card was made possible by using the MISTI stamping tool. I rarely make a card without using it, and in this case it was essential. 

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The open triangle was the perfect spot for the sentiment which is also from Altenew–“Sentiment Strips 2.”

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The final touch was to add three clear droplets from The Stamp Market. 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!

Two Cards for Two Challenges

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I have cards for two challenges to share today. Both were created before we left for vacation, and both have already gone in the mail. The first card is for The Paper Players Challenge—a new challenge for me. The current challenge is for masculine cards.

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Masculine cards can be a challenge, but I thought these colorful feathers worked for one of our longtime friends who just celebrated his birthday. I first colored this image for the #100DayChallenge. The image itself is a coloring page made for cards by Papertrey Ink, “What the Doodle: Feather,” and has been in my stash for years. I first tried one of these with Copic markers but that hit the circular file. Using my Polychromos pencils made for much cleaner coloring.

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I tried a new design technique that I’ve seen elsewhere, slicing a narrow strip from the black panel and backing it with a piece of red cardstock. I love the way it came out. 

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The sentiment strip from Althenew’s “Sentiment Strips 2” was embossed in white on black cardstock.

The second card is my second entry to the Just Us Girls: Leaves challenge. This card was sent to a long time friend thanking her for lunch on her porch a few weeks ago. 

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What I like about Altenew’s “Leaf Canopy” stamp set is there are both open and solid leaves.

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I applied several colors of Wendy Vecchi’s ink pads to the solid leaves and spritzed them with a tiny bit of water before stamping them. Then I overstamped with the open leaves in black waterproof ink and used the same inks to add water color to those leaves.

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The sentiment (just perfect for this thank you note) is also from the “Leaf Canopy” set. I trimmed the panel down just enough to have a thin black border on the Memory Box Licorice card. I love these cards because they have a white interior perfect for writing a note.

We’re down to our last two days at the cottage. Despite the dismal forecast, the actual weather hasn’t been too bad—only one day of rain. It is cooler than we wish, but it hasn’t kept us indoors. It’s foggy over the lake now, but it’s supposed to clear and our last two days are forecast to be warmer and much sunnier. Here’s hoping!

Stencil Fun

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I recently completed one of Altenew Academy’s classes called “Stunningly Styled Stencils,” and finally found time right before we left on vacation to create a couple of cards inspired by the lessons. The first one uses a Gina K stencil, “Ornamental Fans.” I dry embossed it on Neenah 110# paper. I wish I had thought to photograph it, as it was lovely just embossed. But I went to the next step and repositioned the stencil over the embossing and ink blended it with Speckled Egg and Evergreen Bough Distress Oxide Inks.

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Concord and 9th’s Oceanside cardstock made a great frame for the piece which I adhered to a white card base. 

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One of my Pinkfresh Studio purchases with my birthday gift cards was the Phrase Builder: Hello die set. I love that the words can be die cut alone or with a shadow. Adding the shadow with the Oceanside cardstock provided a good focal point against the somewhat busy background. Here’s an even closer look at the pattern. It’s a bit easier to see the raised embossing which I love.

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The sentiment was finished off with a white embossed greeting from Sugar Peas Everyday Sentiments. 

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The final touch was to add three clear droplets from The Stamp Market.

The second card uses a different technique altogether, and one I need to practice. I first ink blended some Gina K Key Lime ink onto Altenew’s Flowing Drops stencil. The next step was to flick color with some Copic markers onto the drops with the stencil in place. The first problem arose when I realized (a bit late) that my first Copic marker was too dry. (I recently read an article about the importance of keeping your markers filled. I’ve had some of my Copics for years and have never refilled them. Copic recently came out with small, easier to use refills, so I’m making a list of a few I’ll need to order.) But I moved on to the next color, and ultimately added some detail with a Polychromos pencil.

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I decided to use a series of Essentials: Squares by Ellen Hutson to die cut the stenciled pattern and two mats from New Leaf and Green Parakeet cardstock. I adhered all three to a square notecard.

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The sentiment die cut and white embossed are from Simon Says “Sending Happy Thoughts,” although this card is headed for a close friend who has just had some major surgery and a very concerning diagnosis. I hope the cheerful colors will brighten her day a bit.

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There are still several more techniques from the class to try as well as giving this one another shot!

Just Us Girls: Word Week

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The challenge at Just Us Girls is quickly becoming a favorite. This week is Word Week and the word is: LEAVES. 

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I’ve been playing with stencils recently. Another post is coming later this week with two new techniques using stencils, but this one was created with a more traditional technique: ink blending. It’s a quick and easy way to create a card.

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Appropriately for this challenge, the name of the stencil is “Tumbling Leaves” by Simon Says. The full stencil would fill a larger square card, but I used just a portion of it for this A2 card. I first applied some Squeezed Lemonade (Distress Oxide ink) onto the leaves, and then added Fern Green (Wendi Vecchi Make Art dye ink.) 

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The stencil was layered onto a piece of Gina K Asparagus cardstock and then added to a  cardbase of Simon Says Fog cardstock—both are faves. The sentiment comes from one more favorite: The Greetery’s “Sentiment Suite” series–in this case, “Thinking of You.”

 

Five in Five: September

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Today’s photos were taken yesterday—on the 5th—always my intention, for Sandie’s Five in Five monthly meme. We are on vacation in the north woods of Wisconsin with Sarah and her family and the internet connection has been shaky at best. It’s taken awhile to get the photos to download. We spent most of the fifth on the road, arriving late afternoon for a week on Catfish Lake, near Eagle River. We’re closer to Lake Superior than to Lake Michigan which is only a mile or so from Sarah’s house in Racine. The weather forecast is not been great for the week, but instead of cold and rain today, we’ve had sunny skies and warm temperatures. Here’s hoping the good luck lasts. We were up this morning in time to see the sunrise right out our bedroom window. There will be photos of that later. 

The five photos in five minutes were taken yesterday when we arrived, a glorious warm day. Adam, Hannah, and Caleb all were in the lake before dinner last night, and again today. I don’t think there’s much chance my swimsuit will leave the suitcase this week. The lake water is way too cold for me!

The property here is beautiful. The owners have 950 ft. of lake frontage. Here’s a look:

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The view from the patio in front of the house.

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The house is quite spacious, four bedrooms, a large living room, a “lounge” as  Caleb has dubbed it the round room on the left side of the photos with windows on three sides,) and a large, eat-in kitchen. There’s also a bunk house out back. If we had teenagers with us, they’d love it.

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The boat house and dock, three kayaks, and a rowboat. There’s also a shuffle board and all kinds of water equipment. If the weather holds, we’re planning to rent a boat the end of the week. Catfish Lake flows into Cranberry Lake and there’s lots of shoreline to explore. 

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The fire pit. Looking forward to a fire and making S’Mores.

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The lake front. We’ve all spent a good amount of time outside today reading, fishing, and just enjoying the views. 

Linking up with Sandie. I have a few posts ready to go if the internet allows, so I may be back again soon.

 

 

 

Happy Day

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I have a bright and bold floral to share today at two challenges. First at Seize the Birthday: Add Gold, and also at Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: Stamp It in STAMPtember! The annual STAMPtember celebration is underway and the inspiration both on their blog and on Instagram is quite amazing!

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The flower and colored leaves from Altenew’s “Wallpaper Art” were gold embossed and colored with a loose watercoloring technique and then die cut with the accompanying dies. The flowers were one of my experimental exercises during the #100DayProject.

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I then stamped and gold embossed some solid leaves from the same set. Before arranging them, I die cut a large circle with the Essentials: Circles by Ellen Huston from a piece of Soft Stone cardstock and added the panel to a white card base. I also die cut the circle again from gold paper as the Essentials dies cut a circle and a thin frame at the same time. After adding the frame, it was time to arrange the floral elements.

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The sentiment from Pink & Main’s “Special Day” was gold embossed on a vellum die cut banner (Neat & Tangled “Skinny Strips.”) Finally I scattered a few gold sequins around the floral cluster.

 

 

Fall Leaves

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The current challenge at Time Out is Season, and multiple interpretations of that word can be used. 

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The first thing that came to my mind was Autumn. Although there are aspects of the upcoming season I love—fall colors, sweater weather—I’m always somewhat ambivalent about its approach. In Western New York, autumn typically precedes a long, cold, and frequently dark winter. This year I’m dreading it more than usual since the pandemic will require us to move back inside where we’ll be more isolated than ever again. We’ve had fabulous summer weather and have spend a lot of time outdoors—walking, biking, and social distancing with friends on our patio or their decks. I’m not ready to give it up! 

However, this soft, muted card says Autumn to me:

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Except for the Stitched Rectangle die by Simon Says, most of the ingredients for the card are from The Greetery. The background was stamped with the “Window Pane Plaid” in Fine Linen ink (PTI). The arrangement of leaves and berries are from “Sealed with a Kiss,” stamped and enhanced with Polychromos pencils.

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Once the leaves were arranged, I tied some twine around the panel and attached a birthday greeting from “Sentiment Suite: Birthday” on an accompanying “Sentiment Suite” tag. 

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Finally, it was all adhered to a card base of Fine Linen cardstock by Papertrey Ink.

I’m also entering this in the CASe This Sketch challenge. The sketch was designed by a good friend, and although I took some liberty with it, I think it shares the basic elements.

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Another Butterfly

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I’m back with another butterfly card for the Just Us Girls Challenge.

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This is a pretty atypical card for me, and sadly, one that doesn’t photograph particularly well. It’s much prettier IRL than in the photographs. I don’t often use patterned paper, and rarely use patterned paper as a starting point for a design as I did here. Having recently reorganized and purged my 6X6 paper pads, they are now much more visible. I spotted this geometric paper with gold accents from an older Simon Says Card Kit, and decided to use it with a NBUS cover plate by Reverse Confetti, the Center Circle die.

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After die cutting the cover plate, I tried a variety of colored cardstock, and interestingly, this Smoky Shadow by PTI looked the best. The gorgeous butterfly die is an oldie from PTI from the Life is Beautiful set. I die cut the solid image in a brilliant gold paper and overlaid the smoky shadow butterfly after applying a good coat of clear glitter with SpectrumNoir pen.

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The sentiment, from Altenew’s Sentiment Strips 2, was gold embossed on a strip of matching cardstock. The gold embossing and the gold paper for the butterfly match the gold triangles in the patterned paper perfectly. Just good luck! 

And my first entry for the September NBUS Challenge.

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Color Hues #1

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The very first Color Hues Challenge has been posted! Every two weeks there will be a new challenge focusing on two colors. Any gradient or hue of those colors along with a neutral can be used in creating your project. The first colors are yellow and green:

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Since I chose two simple flowers for the focal point of the card, I decided to start with a stenciled background, using Pinkfresh Studio Sunshine ink with a Hero Arts stencil, “Tweed.” 

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I stamped the two doodle-style flowers and leaves from My Favorite Things, “Buildable Bouquet” over the top of the stencil, and watercolored them using Altenew’s 36 pan watercolors. 

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I played around for awhile trying to decide whether to add some embellishmentsm, sequins, clear drops . . . but decided in the end they were too distracting and left the card very clean and simple. I die cut a very narrow frame with Gina K’s “Master Layouts 1” from The Stamp Market’s Leafy green cardstock which was a perfect match for the watercolored leaves.

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The sentiment strip and die are from Taylored Expressions “Simple Strips.”  I hope you’ll 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!

 

 

Just Us Girls: Wild Card

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I’m relatively new to the Just Us Girls Challenge which I found through my new connection with the Color Hues Design Team. (Watch for our first challenge to go live on Tuesday, September 1st!) So far there have been four different types of challenges: Trend (the die cut window card,) Color (I didn’t get a card made for that one,) Photo (the espresso card,) and the new challenge Wild Card which is Butterflies. Like the die cut window challenge, butterflies are a favorite subject, so if I have time, you’re likely to see more than one entry for this challenge.

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This week I got myself into a huge reorganization (and purging) of my craft room again. It’s the biggest overhaul I’ve done in a couple of years, but it’s already been transformative. I happened upon a video from Jessica Frost-Ballas of her amazing studio. I have but a fraction of those supplies, but the way she had organized her colored cardstock was the impetus for the overhaul. She also had two links to friends who had inspired her, and I’ve designed my cardstock storage based on a combination of the techniques they used. I ended up consolidating other several categories of products, and purchasing some new containers which opened up some space on my book shelves. I’ve always know that organizing was another one of my hobbies, so it’s been very satisfying. All that to say, we’ll see how many cards I can get made this weekend.

This card was started as part of the #100DayColoringProject. 

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After watercoloring the butterfly (Simon Says “Beautiful Butterflies) I did some ink blending on an MFT “Stitched Ovals” die. The sentiment was stamped at the bottom and comes from the same “Beautiful Butterflies” set. I centered the butterfly on the oval with some dimensional tape.

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Concord and 9th’s new Ballet Slipper cardstock seemed perfect for the card base, but the design still needed something. Three scored lines to the rescue; a technique I learned from Laurie Willison quite some time ago. 

In addition to working on the reorganization project, I have a project to complete for the League of Women Voters, a stack of cards to get in the mail, and reading to do for my Tuesday study group. Sometimes having your social life decimated by the pandemic is not a totally bad thing. 

Have a great weekend!

A New Challenge

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A new card challenge is coming on September 1st, and it represents a new challenge for me as well. An email invitation to join the Design Team for Color Hues came seemingly out of the blue. The creator of the challenge, Nancy Leppeck, also runs the Seize the Birthday challenge, which is a favorite of mine. She liked my entries there, asked if I was interested in being on the DT, and so happily, I agreed to join a wonderful group of cards designers. You may recognize some of their names as they have more experience than I with design teams.

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You’ll find links to all the designers on the new blog. Hop on over to take a look, and be sure to come back on September 1st to play along! It should be a lot of fun.

Espresso Some Thanks!

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It’s not often that I figure out a way to create a card specifically for two challenges. When I have more than one challenge to enter, it’s usually just good luck. Today, however, I sat down to make a card for Just Us Girls and Inspired By . . . and it worked out perfectly.

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I knew I had a couple sets of coffee themed stamps, and “Be A Barista” by Reverse Confetti also included the cute sentiment which fit the Inspired By . . . challenge. 

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It’s been awhile since I used a tag on a card, but this “Stitched Dress Up Tag” by Simon Says was jus the right size. The patterned paper used for the top of the tag was a loose piece in my stash so I have no idea where it came from. I stamped and colored the two lattes and fussy cut them. I like how the stamp came with two different designs for the latte. I’m strictly a black coffee drinker–no sugar, no cream–so I’m not sure what you call those lovely designs the baristas are able to create. 

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I’ve always loved this “Square Grid” embossing folder by Alexandra Renke and it provided just the right contrast for the tag.

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A little twine on the tag, and it was done! I’ll be back on Tuesday with a fun announcement, so check back then to see what’s up!

 

Color Blocked Rainbow

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When I came up to my craft room this afternoon, I had a short list of challenges I thought I might create a card for. Instead I saw a color blocked card (totally different from the one you’ll see here) and decided instead to enter one last card into the Seize the Birthday: Rainbow Colors challenge. 

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I need some masculine birthday cards, and I think a color blocked card would probably work. If not, I know I’ll find the perfect recipient eventually. 

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All but the purple stripe were cut from scraps of cardstock. Knowing I had plenty of bright cardstock scraps was one of the reasons I decided to make the card. I also knew I had a perfect die cut from My Favorite Things for the sentiment.

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If you click on this image, I think you’ll be able to see the shimmer on the black cardstock I used for the die cut. All the card needed then was a narrow black frame and a few rainstones from Papertrey Ink. These bright colors certainly make me happy!

More Rainbow Colors

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I have two more cards with a rainbow theme, one of which I’ll link up to the Seize the Birthday Challenge Rainbow Colors.

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And these cards also use new products that arrived in the last few weeks. 

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I have several dies that create rainbows, but no stamps. I fell in love with this set from Ellen Hutson, “Better Days Ahead.” I also used the new Concord & 9th ink cubes and cardstocks.

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The blue card is not very traditional, but I love these beautiful colors together: Aqua Sky, Sea Glass, Oceanside, and Midnight. One of the things I particularly liked about this stamp set is the arch of sparkly dots which I embossed in silver. The sentiment was part of the 2018 Hero Arts monthly kit.

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The Concord & 9th colors are so gorgeous. Red is one of my favorite colors, and this red is so bright and vibrant! I die cut the rainbow with the “Essential Ellen Ovals” die and bumped it up with some dimensional tape. These colors are much more traditional, and the sparkly arch was embossed in gold this time. 

And another entry into the NBUS Challenge–new stamps, inks, and cardstock!

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