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One Layer Framed

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I needed a thank you note, so I thought I’d join in at Less is More with this week’s challenge for a one layer card with a framed image. The Friendship Jar series at Papertrey Ink has several wonderful flower images that are easy to adapt to a frame. The last time I used this technique I used the tulips, this time I picked the daisies. Mine in our garden are budded, but not quite in bloom yet. They’re one of my favorities because they bloom for a long time, and last a long time in a vase.

ManyThanks

This is my second post today. You can find my shots for Project 64 here.

Cardstock: X-Press It Blending (Copic)
Stamps: Friendship Jar Additions, Framed, Take Three: Summer (Papertrey Ink)
Copics: Y15, Y17, YG 93, YG 95, YR 24, E 09
Ink: Memento, Chamomil Tea Dye (Papertrey Ink)

 

Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger

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Classically Modern

I just loved this Tuesday Trigger at Moxie Fab this week. I think I’m too late to post it over there, but by the time I realized I’d missed the deadline, I was well into making this card. (Edited to add: It seems I wasn’t too late, the linky was still active, and I’ve already had a comment!)

ScatterSeeds

The blue is a bit different but as close as I could get with the inks I have, but I think this Hero Arts background stamp mimics the beautiful floral design in this bedroom.

Supplies:
Stamps: Classic Fabric Design (Hero Arts), Year of Flowers Collection (PTI)
Cardstock:  Neenah Solar White, Blueberry Sky (PTI)
Die:  Labels Four (Spellbinders)
Pearls:  Amuse Creative Candy
Ribbon from stash

 

Lucky Me & Card Patterns 117

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I was the lucky winner of a gorgeous stamp set from Skipping Stones on Danielle Flander’s blog recently  It’s called Heartsong, and I love the images in it. The darling bird seemed perfect for the sketch challenge on Card Patterns this week. Here’s the sketch:

Sketch117

And here’s my take on it:

  Heartsing

I love this sentiment from the same set, “You make my heart sing.” The set also comes with a music stamp, but it wasn’t quite wide enough for my card so I used Papertrey Ink’s Background Basics: Sheet Music. The cardstock and twill are Hawaiian Shores (PTI), and the patterned paper is from 7Gypsies paper pad, Conservatory. The brown strip came from the scrap folder, and it’s a better match IRL than in the photo. I stamped the bird on watercolor paper and colored him with my watercolor pencils. It’s been awhile since they’ve seen any action. The circle is a Nestabilities which I distressed with Tim Holtz’s Broken China Ink while the paper was still in the die.

Ivory and Lace

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This week’s challenge at Mark’s Finest Papers is ivory and lace. I needed a wedding card to take to a reception yesterday afternoon and this was the perfect inspiration. The flowers in Lorraine’s birthday package were just perfect for it. I’m sure I’ll use this card design again. It was quick to make, and is quite elegant, I think.

WeddingCard

Cardstock: Vintage Cream (PTI) and a green scrap; die: Branch with Leaves (Sizzix); flower (Prima); lace from stash; stamp: Delightful Dahlias (PTI)

Two Challenges

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I’m back with a second post today as promised. First off, a card for the Simon Says Stamps challenge. I placed my first order with them last week and was amazed at the fast service. I’ve never looked at their blog before this week, and there’s lots of inspiration there. This week’s challenge is for Stars and Stripes. I had several new products I was anxious to use and was able to use some favorites as well. As I created the card, it occured to me that it would be a perfect birthday card for my MIL. She doesn’t read my blog, so it’s safe to post it here. Her birthday isn’t until July 5th, but it’s nice to be ahead!

Stars&stripes

One of the products on my list when we were traveling was the Tim Holtz mini-rosette die. I never found it so it was one of the goodies in the Simon Says package. I love how easy it is to create these fun rosettes and they are much flatter than the ones I’ve tried on my own. I stamped the stars for the centers with a Teresa Collins stamp, Free Style. The sentiment frame is also from that set, and the sentiment is from the new Papertrey set Tag-its #4. The Tag-it stamps are just $5 and I get a lot of used from the sentiments as well as the tag frames. The striped pieces are from a new stamp set, “Daily Junque,” by Pink Paislee. I saw Danielle use it on three fabulous cards last week, and when I saw that Simon Says carried it, that pushed me to click on the purchase button!

Here’s a closer look at the rosettes which I cut from some cute October Afternoon papers from the Campfire line.

CelebrateDetails

There are some great stamps in the Daily Junque set, so I decided to stamp an envelope as well. All the stamps except “July” are from that set.

Envelope

And now to Amy’s photographic challenge. She asked us to photograph five things we think will be gone from our homes in five years. It turned out to be pretty easy.

First off, my cook top from the 1950’s. It is probably the only live pilot cooktop in our town. But it will definitely be gone as we purchased a new stove on Friday. These green counters will also be gone.

StoveTopw

My relatively recent refrigerator will also be gone from the kitchen, but probably moved to the basement. We’re waiting for the final estimates, but expect to have a new kitchen by the end of the year. I’ve never had room for a full-size refrigerator, and I am absolutely thrilled with the one we bought this weekend (on close-out at a great price, to boot)!

Fridgew

So, in fact, my whole kitchen will be gone. These cupboards will be replaced as well. It’s not a terrible kitchen, but the cupboards are over 50 years old and hard to keep clean. I stripped and refinished them 20 years ago, but it’s time for a new look. The best part is we’ll have a new arrangement, and it should be much more efficient, and I hope to have lots more counter space, even though we’re not expanding the size of the kitchen.

Kitchenw

Matt’s room, now the guest room, will also have a new look. Hopefully, that won’t take five years. I’m on the lookout for new bed linens and when Tracy has worked his way upstairs with his painting project this room will no longer have dark green woodwork, which I notice now doesn’t appear in the photograph.

Matt'sRoomw

And, finally, my laptop. It’s already several years old and is used enough that some of the letters are wearing off the keys. I’m not anticipating replacing it in the next year or so, but I doubt it will last five more years.

Laptopw

This was fun, Amy! Thanks for throwing down the challenge.

Memorial Day

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It’s Memorial Day in the U.S. today—a time to honor those who have died in the far too many wars we’ve engaged in. It’s also known as Poppy Day in the U.K. and we, too, honor the veterans by buying paper poppies to support Veteran Assistance Programs. I learned more about Poppy Day this week when I volunteered in a classroom and the students were reading about how the paper poppies originated. You can find some information here and here about the traditions associated with the poppies as a symbol of remembrance. Today was my post for Scrap-Mart. When I put my donation in the jar on Saturday, the veteran handed me several poppies, and I thought they’d look great on a card, and be an appropriate post for the holiday.

PoppyCard

I used a piece of patterned paper from the Sassafrass Lass “Ellie’s Tale,” stitched and adhered to a piece of textured cardstock. I cut and embossed a Classic Rectangle Nestability and added the new Nestablings that fit perfectly within the embossed edge.

Close-upPoppy
I love the smaller gem in each corner. The sentiment is from WPlus9.

I hope you’re having a good holiday weekend. We had a fun trip to Ithaca on Saturday and then dinner and a wonderful performance of The Music Man with good friends. Yesterday I finished two big projects and we got about 2/3 of our vegetable garden planted. We’ve had so much rain, it’s been hard to get into the garden. It wasn’t bad yesterday, but we came home with muddy sneakers. We hope to get the planting finished at the community garden and get going on ours here today. I’m also hoping to be back later with five photos for Amy’s challenge.

 

Embellish with Text & Make It Monday

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It’s not often that I combine challenges, but this week’s Make-It Monday at Papertrey Ink was to create a sympathy card, and the color/text challenge at Embellish seemed like a good color combination. I wouldn’t have interpreted the one color as Ocean Tides, but one of the designers listed it as one of the colors and it’s clearly used on the designer cards at Embellish.

Text_ColorTrends

It’s been awhile since I inked up Take Three: Summer. I love these simple, but elegant, floral designs and they seemed appropriate for a sympathy card.

PTI:Embellish

Except for the sentiment (Savvy Stamps) and the scrap of gray card stock, everything is by Papertrey Ink. I stamped one strip of Background Basics: Text Style in black and the three floral designs in Ocean Tides. The gray die cut panel is attached with dimensional tape. Then I adhered it to a mat of Ocean Tides before adhering it to the card base.

Papertrey May Blog Hop

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Bloghoplogo

For the second month in a row, I came close to missing the Papertrey Blog Hop–one of my favorite events each month. Fortunately, last night I realized and had enough time to complete a card set for this month’s challenge to create with flower images. On Monday, my May PTI order arrived, so I was happy to break open the Year of the Flower Collection set. I love these smaller versions and know I’ll be using this set often.

BlogHopSet
MorningGlories

SweetPeas

LilyoftheValley

All three cards are just the same except for the focal image and the color of the doily mat. It was interesting to me to see how different the focal images looked as I changed the color of the mat. The Morning Glories looked best with Ripe Avocado, the Sweet Peas with a Bazzill scrap from my file, and the Lily of the Valley with a Simply Chartreuse mat. The cards are pre-made, I think from Paper Source and the narrow green ribbon is also from Paper Source. The focal images were stamped on Vintage Cream and colored with Prismacolor pencils. The dies are both Papertrey:  Limitless Layers and Doily Details. I’m in need of several note cards for thank you notes so I’ll probably use these myself.

If you’re looking for card-making inspiration, this blog hop is always a good place to look!

CASE Study Challenge

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I’m in need of quite a few cards for June birthdays. One of the recipients is a singer, so when I saw the featured card on the CASE Study blog, I knew I wanted to play along. Here is the card by Sarah Martina Parker:

CASE

Sarah excels at these shabby vintage cards, but it’s not a natural for me. I am, however, pretty pleased with the card I came up with, and I think my friend will like it, too.

WishBigCASE

I’ve been admiring the double bows Melissa Philips and Debbie Olsen make, so I thought I’d try my hand at one, and I knew I wanted to use this pretty Prima flower I picked up in Phoenix, thanks to Deb’s recommendation of a scrapbook store. All the rest of the products are Papertrey Ink:  Hibiscus Burst cardstock and ribbon; Background Basics: Sheet Music, and Tiny Tags stamps and die; Vintage Cream and True Black cardstock.

I’m still doing catch-up after our long trip. I’ll soon be around to all your blogs which I read (even though I didn’t comment) while I was on the road, but haven’t managed to get to this week. The next few days look a little less hectic. It’s all been good, but it’s been busy!!

 

CR84FN Color Challenge

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A very quick post since this challenge ends in just a few hours. I love red and yellow, but I could certainly tell I’ve been away from my crafting table for a few weeks. This is at least the fourth version of this card! Here’s the color inspiration from CR84FN:

CR84FN28+Graphic

And my card:

AllStar

Cardstock: Pure Poppy (PTI); Patterned Paper: Circa 1934 (Cosmo Cricket); Star & Banner dies: PTI; Stamps: Just the Ticket (PTI); Twine: Jeweler’s Natural (Michaels); Chamomile Tea Ink for distressing (PTI)

There’s lots to share from our three week trip, so I’ll be back again soon with photos of the cool places we got to visit!

Make-It Monday

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Make-itMonday

One last challenge before I leave for vacation. I’ve always loved the hand-drawn frames Nicole Heady does on so many of her cards, but I’ve never been very successful at it. After watching her video, I found it’s easier than I thought.

SoSweet

This tulip image from the Friendship Jar Spring Fillers set was the image that pushed me over the edge and put the stamp set in my cart. But this is the first time I’ve used it. I love the way it looks on its own without the jar. I don’t make one layer cards that often, but I think that might change. The tulips were colored with Copic markers, and the sentiment is from Signature Greetings. You can find the other entries for this challenge here.

Color Challenge

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I’ve been lurking on the CR84FN Color Challenge site for a few weeks, but finally got around to creating a card. I love this combination of red, aqua, and white.

CR84FN25+Graphic

The first thing I did was take a look at the most recent Studio Calico kit, and found two perfect papers, one by Studio Calico and one from Emma’s Shoppe by Crate Paper. The strawberry paper then dictated which stamps I used. I was surprised to discover that the only strawberry stamp I own is part of Papertrey Ink’s Vintage Picnic set. It’s one of my favorites, and it’s been awhile since it’s seen some love. I also cased Heather’s design which you can see on the CR84FN site as well.

CR84FN4.26

I colored the strawberries with a combination of Copic markers and Faber-Castell Artist pens. The strawberries are so tiny, the artist pens were much easier to use on the leaves than the Copics. I also used the artist pens to enhance the picnic basket and added two brads to the handles. I cut out five sets of strawberries and layered them into the basket after adhering it to the Lacey Circle I cut from the B side of the Studio Calico paper. The ribbon and button are from Papertrey as is the Tiny Tag. I just love the Tiny Tag set. It’s the perfect size for tying to a bow.

 

Anniversary Wishes

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I’ve been trying to complete all the cards I need for the many birthdays and anniversaries of friends and family that occur in May. The last two I needed to do were for anniversaries, and both cards meet the challenge at Mark’s Finest Paper where the challenge is to create an anniversary card. The first is based on the Waltzing Mouse Sketch Challenge so I’m posting it there as well.

WMS44-Sketch_thumb1

AnniversaryWMS

The cardstock is Simply Chartruese (Papertrey Ink) and a pale yellow (looks cream here) by Memory Box. The bottom half is embossed with a Sizzix embossing folder (I think it’s called Snow Flowers). The stamps are Very Vintage Labels 4 by Waltzing Mouse Stamps and the greeting is from Fillable Frames #4 (Papertrey Ink). The ribbon is Simply Chartreuse. the pearls are Reflections (Michaels), and the heart pin came in a Scrapbook Circle kit.

Anniversary1

This card was based on a simply beautiful card I found here by Heather Jensen. I love the Sending You stamps and dies (Papertrey) and used the same cardstock and ribbon that was lying on my desk from the previous card. The patterned papers are DeLovely by Cosmo Cricket, and the sentiment is the same as above as well. The leaves are a Sizzix die “Branch with Leaves” which I cut into two pieces. I have all the May cards addressed and in my bag to mail at the appropriate times when we’re on our trip.

 

Happy Easter

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After a beautiful service at our church (always totally uplifting) we’ll be headed to my brother- and sister-in-law’s for Easter dinner and a celebration of Bill’s 90th birthday. I think there are 14-15 people scheduled to attend. This will Matt’s last dinner with us before he heads to Colorado on Monday. I expect to have more than a few mixed-emotions today and tomorrow!

Here’s an Easter project I did for the Scrap-Mart blog. I love these Quickutz fry boxes and they make a perfect home for a little bag of jelly beans.

Boxes&Card

The patterned papers are all Jillibean Soup and just perfect for Easter. I cut the bunny and the grass with my Silhouette. A Lacey Circle and Small Circles (Spellbinder’s Nestabilities) made a perfect home for the Papertrey Ink sentiment on the card. I used some Fun Flock on the bunnies’ ears and on their tails. The tag is a Papertrey Ink die.

If you celebrate Easter, I hope it’s with family and friends and that the day is a joyous one!

Spellbinders’ Week at Scrap-Mart

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This week was Spellbinders’ Week on the Scrap-Mart Blog and I thought I would repost my contribution here. No week goes by without my using one (or many) of my Spellbinders dies. It’s a rare card that leaves my studio without a mat or message cut and embossed with a Spellbinders’ die. I’m lucky enough to have a Grand Calibur and a few of the Grand Nestability dies. They’re great for scrapbooking, but my favorite use is to create a shaped card base with them. This time I used the largest die from the Grand Nestability Labels Four and created a tri-fold card.

SpellbindersDaffodils

After folding the two sides in, I cut and embossed a lighter shade of green and trimmed it to fit the inside center of the card. Using a third shade of green I cut a Lacey Circle and then a Large Nestability Circle from cream cardstock for the sentiment and focal point. The daffodils are from the Heartfelt Creations “Daffodils” set which I colored with Copic Sketch markers. The sentiment is also from Heartfelt Creations, the “Classic Message” set. The sentiment is stamped with Quick Quotes chalk inks. I used half of a velcro circle to close the card.