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Card Concept: Bright Flowers

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The Card Concept photo inspiration is bright and colorful. 

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I had stamped all the flowers and the vase from Pinkfresh Studios Fleur 2 and decided to pull them out, color them with Copic markers, and arrange them in the vase for a friend’s birthday card.

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I arranged everything on a Nordic Frame from The Greetery and then to an Aqua Mist (PTI) card. The sentiment is from Taylored Expressions Simple Strips.

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The Card Concept identifies a series of card styles from which to choose. I think this one falls under Clean and Layered. There’s still lots of white space, but there are a lot of flowers layered as well as the beautiful Nordic Frame layered on the card base. 

 

Going Around in Circles

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The Monday Simon Says Challenge is Going Around in Circles. One of my projects for the Online Card Class Spring Card Camp 2 was to create some watercolor washes. This one was done with Tombow markers which I never would have used for this technique. (That’s why I love these classes. All kinds of little tidbits and new ideas are introduced.) Once it was done, it was very vibrant, and I wanted something to tone it down a bit. I found this circle coverplate by Papertrey Ink, and I love how it turned out.

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I know just who it’s going to. A friend of mine is scheduled for a bone marrow transplant next month, and I’m thinking this might brighten up one of the many days he has to spend in the hospital.

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The sentiment from Simon Says “Hello Darling” set was stamped on Gina K Melon cardstock and cut out with a circle die, then backed with a slightly larger black circle. Off to link up with the challenge:

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Color Throwdown 2

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After rarely playing along with the Color Throwdown Challenge, I have a card for the second week in a row. When I saw the color combination, I knew I’d try to do something. Like last week, the combo spoke to me.

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So today when I sat down to do some coloring for the #100DayProject, I picked out three turquoise Copic markers and stamped a butterfly from “Beautiful Butterflies,” the stamp set in the June Simon Say Card Kit. It’s a wonderful set, and this is the second card I’ve created with it this week. I’m posting nearly every day on Instagram as part of the #100DayProject, but eventually, most of the cards will show up here as well.

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I found the turquoise paper behind the heart in one of my folders of precut papers. I have no idea where that circle die came from—I certainly can’t find it today. I have done a couple big purges since the beginning of the year, but I don’t think I’ve given away any dies. The heart was cut with a nested set of heart dies by My Favorite Things. 

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Both the white panel and the butterfly are adhered with dimensional foam/tape. The sentiment is another from Taylored Expressions “Simple Strips.” I love that you can stamp, emboss, and then die cut a whole group of sentiments at one time. I keep them in a little bag and can pull them out when needed. 

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Hope your weekend is a good one! As usual, during this stay-at-home time, ours will be pretty quiet. Tracy is doing a lot of yard work. He’s taken down four straggly trees along our property line in preparation for extending the fence he started last year. A nearly dead hedge along the edge of the patio also went to the curb today. Things are looking brighter–literally. I have a few more flowers to plant, but most of my to-do list is inside. 

Color Throw Down

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I follow The Color Throw Down challenge and often intend to create a card for it, but it rarely happens. By the time the challenge shows up in my Feedly account, the end date is just five days away. You would think that during this stay-at-home time, five days would be plenty of time to get a card made. It just doesn’t happen, but today after I finished my earlier post, I worked on my #100DayProject. I deliberately chose the colors yellow, gray, and white for this week’s Color Throw Down challenge. Three colors, I might add, that I really love together. So I was not totally surprised when I check the date for this week’s challenge to discover it ends tomorrow, so here is a second post in one day—a rarity to be sure.

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Day 18 of the Spring Card Camp 2 was about ink swiping backgrounds. Being a CAS fan, most of the backgrounds were a bit busy for my tastes. But Seeka created a series for part 2 of the lesson that I loved, and this is one of the designs I particularly liked. I swiped down the side of Bristol cardstock with two ink cubes in gray and two ink cubes in yellow from Pinkfresh Studios.  It’s easier to see the ombre effect in this photo:

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Then I used a Y35 Copic marker to add just a touch of dimension to the leaves. After die cutting the panel with a stitched rectangle die, I mounted it on Simon Says Smoke cardstock. 

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The beautiful vine is from Simon Says’ “Stronger Together” set and the sentiment from Simon Says “Sketched Flowers.” Both sets were part of the Simon Says Card Kit series, and have wonderful images and great sentiments. 

Off to link this up before the challenge closes!

An Almost Double Birthday

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This weekend my niece’s two children both celebrated their birthdays–one day apart. On Friday, Finn turned five, and on Saturday, Rowen turned three. I love making birthday cards for kids. Finn’s card was inspired by Sandie’s photo prompt, “Digits” for the 30 Day Photo Challenge. It’s an almost perfect entry for AAA Cards Birthday Challenge. Finn turned five and the AAA Card Challenge just turned six.

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I’ve used this number border by Papertrey Ink many times, but I think this is my favorite card so far. The green and orange seem to work wonderfully together.

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All the numbers except the five are “empty.” I stacked three orange 5’s before inlaying them in the border so it stands out both in color and dimension.

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The sentiment is from My Favorite Things, “Bitty Birthday Wishes” and the arrow on the banner points to the inside where it says, “For the Birthday Boy.”

Rowan’s card is another entry to the AAA Birthday Challenge: Wings. The previous entries were cards with butterflies as the focal image. This is a more imaginative entry–a unicorn with wings.

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The stamped and die cut images are from My Favorite Things “Fairy Tale” set and the sentiment is from the same set I used for Finn’s card. 

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The glittery stars were stenciled with Nuvo Silver Gem Glimmer Paste and the Altenew “Milky Way” stencil. Lots of sparkly dimension.

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Too coordinate with the sparkly stars, I embossed the greeting in silver on black cardstock. 

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Wonderful Birthday

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This card was sent to a good friend for her birthday. It’s now safe to post it and I’m linking it to the current CASology challenge: Plant. 

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I love this cluster of flowers from Simon Says “Stronger Together” set. I embossed it in white on watercolor paper and used Altenew’s 36 pan watercolors to color it. 

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Simon Says Cream cardstock is a great match for watercolor paper which is rarely a true white. After die cutting the watercolored piece with a Stitched Rectangle die, I added a thin border of Simon Says Green Leaf cardstock and then attached it to the card with dimensional tape.

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The sentiment is from a favorite Papertrey Ink set, Wishes Come True. A simple design with satisfying white space.

Clean and Simple Flower

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A quick post to enter a card into Addicted to CAS’s current challenge, “Flower,” which ends later today. Purchasing and planting flowers has definitely put a dent in my crafting time, but the warm weather is finally here to stay, and since we’ll be spending lots of time outdoors in our yard this summer, the flowers and herbs I’ve planted will surely improve the stay-at-home situation.

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The “white space” this time is a lovely dark gray which matched the border of the stamp. I colored both the border and the rose with Copic markers and then did some simple layering with a pink paper. Since I have many more cards than usual because of my daily coloring for the #100DayProject, I’ve started leaving sentiments off the cards if they can be used for more than one occasion. I’m thinking this card has multiple possibilities.

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The stamp is an older Papertrey Ink stamp, “Botanical Blocks.” Another benefit of the #100DayProject is I’m pulling out older stamp sets and using some sets that have seen little or, sometimes no, love.

It will be a strange Memorial Day weekend. We’re usually with family for a big picnic, but not this year. There’s some rain forecast, but it appears to be off and on, so I’m hoping for a good mix of crafting time, and time on the patio.

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Fun with Letter Substitutions

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I think I’ve enjoyed Spring Card Camp 2 even more than the first Spring Card Camp. I have several lessons from both camps still to try. This afternoon I created three cards I’ll share later from Day 6, but today I want to share two cards I created from Channin Pellitier’s lesson on letter substitution for Day 10. It didn’t take me long to find just the right image to replace a letter in a sentiment. This cute bear holding a heart seemed perfect to replace the “U” in HUGS.

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In talking to Sarah this week, I found out that Hannah no longer wishes to share a card with Caleb. She came out of her room after rest time the other day clutching the rainbow card, and announced, “MY rainbow card.” So this time they’ll each get a card of their own. I’ve had this darling bear stamp from Ellen Hutson for over a year, and have never put it to use. In addition to the heart, I have a whole collection of cute items the bear can hold, so I know this isn’t the last time you’ll see him.

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He was just the right height to pair with The Stamp Market’s “Skinny Upper Alpha” dies which I cut from black fun foam—a technique I saw Laurie Willison use awhile ago. It give the letters a bit of dimension as well as some texture IRL.

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The accompanying sentiments are from Papertrey Ink’s “Big Hugs.” Both patterned papers came from The Stamp Market’s 6X6 “Color Crush” paper pad.

I’m linking up these card to the Simon Says Wednesday Challenge, Animals, and recently revived NBUS (Never Before Used Stuff) Challenge. I should have linked an earlier post this month to that challenge as well. Between the #100DayChallenge and the card camps, I’m getting around to using some products I’ve had for awhile.

 

Colorful Butterflies

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My #100DayChallenge is proving to be very productive, so I have lots of images now to use for cards. This week I spent some time putting together some, so the blog will be more active than usual in the next week or so. I hoped to get this post up several days ago, but trying to keep up with both the #100DayChallenge and two Online Card Classes my days go by even faster than usual. Given the stay-at-home orders, I guess that’s a good thing.

This coloring piece was lots of fun. It’s a preprinted (on watercolor paper) design by Suzy Plantamura and sold by Simon Says Stamps. I’ve received several of these in the monthly card kits. For this one I used my Zig Clean Color markers.

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I really love the gorgeous colors, and wish I had another one of these to paint. Sadly, they come in packs of ten different designs, some of which I really like, and others I’d be unlikely to use. 

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I’m linking this up to AAA Birthday where the challenge is “Wings” and to Seize the Birthday without the optional twist.

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Multiple Cards with Die Cuts

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I have another entry into the Simon Says Wednesday Challenge to use a die cut. I made eight cards with The Stamp Market’s “Rainbow Stripes” die and a sentiment from Sugar Pea’s “Everyday Sentiments” which I seem to reach for over and over again.

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Once you die cut enough rainbows to create one, you’ve got a total of four cards just mixing the colors up. I did that twice, and sent them out to friends local and miles away. I wanted to be sure they reached everyone before I posted them. 

Here’s a closer look at one of them.

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I think bright and cheery is the theme for cards during this unsettled time. Hope you’re doing well!

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Happy Mother’s Day

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In normal times, which this is not, we’d be celebrating Mother’s Day with Tracy’s family at brunch. Last year I think there were 11 of us. This year we’ll be delivering gifts and cards to his mom and Betsy. Sarah’s went in the mail early last week, as did cards to my two sister-in-laws. I thought I’d share them here and enter some of them in some challenges.

First off, cards for Sarah and Betsy. As soon as I saw this die and stamp set by Concord and 9th, I ordered it. I knew I’d find lots of ways to use it, although Mother’s Day didn’t occur to me until later. Fortunately, after I ordered it, Kristina Werner posted a video using the die which saved me a lot of time since her directions for assembling it are so clear and explicit. The moms may wonder at first why there’s a camera on their Mother’s Day card—neither of them are photographers—but once they pull down the tab, I think they’ll understand.

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I posted my mother-in-law’s card quite some time ago, and put it aside. The cards for my two sisters-in law were watercolored early last week for the coloring projects, and turned into cards quickly. I drove them out to the main post office Wednesday so I’m pretty sure they arrived on time.

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Both cards are very similar and use a floral image from my newest stamp set, “Bouquet Builder 1” by Waffle Flower. I watercolored a background, let it dry and then stamped the floral image and watercolored it. The first one was embossed in white, and the second with Altenew’s Obsidian Black Ink which stamps sharply in one go even on watercolor paper.

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I actually cut apart a sentiment stamp from Clearly Besotted to use on these cards. The attached sentiment was meant to be given to your mother, and my mother passed away over 50 years ago, so I knew I’d never have a reason to use it. It was a tedious process using a craft knife, but was worth it in the end. I tried it on vellum, but didn’t care for it, so used an old banner die from Papertrey Ink.

If you’re celebrating Mother’s Day today, I hope you have a lovely day. Despite our social separation, I’m looking forward to FaceTime and Zoom calls later today.

I’m entering the pink floral card in CAS on Friday Challenge: favorite floral. This new set is definitely a favorite. I have lots of ideas for coloring the images for the 100 Day Project. I’m also entering it in The Card Concept Challenge–Mother’s Day! The pink flowers in the photograph and the theme make it a very appropriate choice. It fits their category: Clean and Simple. 

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And finally, I’m tossing one of the camera cards in the ring at  Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: Use a Die Cut or a Punch.

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Coloring Projects and Challenges

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Today is the last day of Kathy Racoosen’s 30 Day Coloring Challenge, and Day 31 of the 100 Day Project. I’ve been faithful to both and have a whole envelope of images ready to be turned into cards. I have one to share today that fits three different challenges.

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The current challenge at The Flower Challenge is monochrome as is the new challenge at Seize the Birthday! The image is from Altenew’s “Pen Sketched Flowers,” and I liked the subtle yellow of these. Just a strip of black and white paper from a pad by My Favorite Things and a simple embossed sentiment. Although it’s a birthday card, the design would be appropriate for any number of occasions. At AAA Cards the challenge is for a single image so I’ll enter it there as well.

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Spring Card Camp Continued

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I have a few more cards to share based on the lessons in Spring Card Camp. Two of them were also part of my #100DayProject and the #30DayColoring Challenge. I want to get them posted before the galleries at the card camp close on Thursday. However, I probably won’t get to all the cards I’d still like to try before then. First off is an open butterfly card, one I wanted to try after making this set of cards earlier based on Julie Ebersole’s lesson on Day 4.

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The butterfly stamp is Butterfly Folk by Papertrey Ink and the sentiment is from Taylored Expressions.

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I had, of course, a second butterfly that was die cut from the front of the card. I decided to use it with a design by Kristina Werner from the class on Day 6.

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It’s not often that I do ink blending, but I gave that a try here as well and then cut the pattern from Vintage Jadeite and Hawaiian Shores (PTI).

Here you can see them together:

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Finally, a card from the last class led by Ashlea Cornell who offered a whole range of cards using a multitude of stamps and techniques. She created an overall pattern card using a Pinkfresh Studio stamp set I owned, and I did a more CAS design, placing the florals on just the left side of the card.

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The stamp set is “Fancy Blooms” and the sentiment is from a Simon Says set “30 Days of Thankful.” They were colored with Copics, and in the spirit of two cards for each lesson I did complete two pretty identical cards.

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I’m entering the Open Butterfly card in the AAA Birthday Challenge: Things with Wings. 

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More Spring Card Camp Fun

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Creating multiple cards was the focus of Spring Card Camp. On Day 11 Dawn Woleslagle created a group of cards all focused around die cutting rainbows made from Simon Says Stitched Circles. I didn’t have any of the other supplies she used, but I had plenty of products to substitute. In the end, I created eight cards starting with two sets of die cut circles in rainbow colors. It’s taken me awhile to get them all assembled as I continue to work on my #100DayProject and the #30DayColoring Challenge. This weekend I worked on Mother’s Day cards for Sarah and Betsy, but today I finally finished the last of the rainbow cards.

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These are all variations on the theme. One of the two circles was cut into quarters. The clouds on the bottom I cut freehand. For three cards I used stencils for backgrounds, and one uses die cut clouds.

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The other circle was cut in half to create two cards. The design for these was actually one I saw in an email from Reverse Confetti. Once again, I didn’t have any of the products used on that card, but I did have good substitutes.

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Although Dawn did not use the die cut circles left from the rainbows, I decided I could put them to good use as well, and created two more cards–one pictured here.

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I now have a nice stash of cheerful cards to stick in the mail to friends I haven’t seen in over seven weeks. Three of them already have stamps on them and are headed out the door tomorrow. I still have three or four more techniques to try from this card camp, and Spring Card Camp 2 begins on Wednesday. I’m not having any difficulty staying busy!

Addicted to CAS: Silhouette

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Recently Altenew had a day or two when shipping was free, and I took the opportunity to order two stamps and their Obsidian Black ink pad. I’ve already put both stamp sets to use, and as well as the stamp pad which I love for watercoloring. When Addicted to CAS came up with “Silhouette” as their current challenge I knew I had the perfect stamp for it. My one concern was the patterned paper I chose since I wasn’t sure it would be considered CAS enough. However, several of the design team showcased cards with ink blended backgrounds, so I’m going to throw this card in the ring. I found the paper (from Pinkfresh Studio’s Indigo Hills pad) while I was looking for something else entirely, and set it aside knowing I’d like it with this new set from Altenew, Line Art.

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I trimmed the patterned paper down just enough to add a thin strip of black cardstock to a card base of Raspberry Fizz paper (PTI).

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The sentiment is also from Line Art, one of many I like and will use with other stamp sets as well.

Hope your week is off to a good start!