It took awhile before my WaffleFlower Postage stencils and dies arrived, and then even longer for me to get them out of the NBUS box. I created all three a week ago, but waited to post until now since one of them needed to arrive at its destination before they showed up on the blog. Two are almost identical because I needed two birthday cards.

These are die cut with the main postal die and stenciled with the Wild Flower Collage stencil. The stamps are from the Postage Collage stamp. Both greetings are from Pink & Main’s Special Day stamps.

I hesitated before purchasing the Beach Days Postage Collage stencils, but I couldn’t resist. The images are so much fun, and I don’t own anything like them. 

I used both the Beach Days and the Postage Collage stamps sets after stenciling the backgrounds.

The sentiment came from Simon Says Stronger Together stamp set.

There are still a couple of challenges looking for summertime cards so this one is off to the Time Out Challenge: On Vacation and the Shopping Our Stash Challenge: Summer. We’ll be off to a lake vacation in August, and I’m looking forward to a week of sunshine (we hope) and water fun. 

Edited to add: Also posted at Darnell’s NBUS! (I was sweetly reminded by Darnell that I needed to get these in the gallery!

Strawberry season is one of my favorites. (Peach season comes close behind.) The strawberries didn’t last as long in Western New York this year due to a week of exceptionally high temperatures. Nonetheless, I pulled out The Greetery’s Botani-Cuts: Strawberries to make several birthday cards (all identical). 

It’s a very CAS design. I started with the strawberry die cuts in white, coloring them with a variety of Pinkfresh Studio inks and finger daubers. Betsy Veldman of The Greetery often uses finger daubers, and I’m becoming a fan. Much quicker in this case than using a blending brush. Once that was completed, I die cut a Pinkfresh Studio Rounded Braided Rectangle from white and arranged the strawberries on it.

I added very small pieces of dimensional tape to the pretty blossoms, and stamped the sentiment from The Greetery’s Print Shop: Spring Mix before adding it to a white cardbase.

The Inspired By Challenge is Strawberries, so this is headed their way as well as to the Simply Clean and Simple Challenge.

Just a quick post to share a card I made for a friend who has left her current job. I volunteered for the organization for many years, chairing a committee for seven year where she was the staff support. Over those years, we’ve become good friends, and I created this card for her with a note inside to celebrate her many accomplishments.

The card design is a CASE of several cards I found on Pinterest. I started by die cutting strips of colorful papers with The Stamp Market 1/4 inch Quick Strips, and adhering them diagonally in the center of the card. 

I die cut the glasses from Concord & 9th’s Spectacular Shades from glossy black cardstock. I added some acetate behing the lenses (hard to see in the photo, but it adds a bit of realism to the glasses.) I added the panel to a cardbase made from Concord & 9th’s Marmelade. 

This is off to the current TicTacToe Challenge where I used the right hand column: Layers, Stripes, Bright Colors. 

As soon as I saw the new challenge at Seize the Birthday: Add a Star, I knew I wanted to finally pull out The Greetery’s Rustic Star dies. I used just the large set this time, but have some good ideas for the smaller one as well. I went with a pink and blue color combo because two of my granddaughters have birthdays coming up, and frankly I could give this to either of them.

Unlike the last card I made for a challenge I didn’t have any preconceived ideas about this one. I die cut the start from bright pink and silver glitter paper and then hunted for a sentiment set that would work. Papertrey Ink’s Sparkle and Shine had just what I wanted. The next decision was finding an embossing folder for the background. Lifestyle Craft’s tiny star folder was perfect. 

Once I had embossed the sentiment for the front of the card, I pulled out another NBUS product, Spellbinder’s Sentiment Labels. Instead of using the die cut to slip through the label, I pulled out some silver cord. I used some dimensional foam behind the embossed panel, and added two narrow strips to the label so it would lay flat after the cord was inserted. Once I had the star adhered, I found a tiny rhinestone star in my stash for the center. 

Sparkle and Shine also includes two large sentiment die cuts. I chose Sparkle for the inside sentiment, embossing the sub-sentiment in silver on blue paper. I couldn’t decide whether to add some rhinestone stars to the inside, so I’ll wait to make that decision until it’s time to give the card away.

In addition to Seize the Birthday, there are some other open challenges that are perfect for this card: Double D: Reach for the Stars, Can You Handle the Pressure (must use an embossing folder), and NBUS–two more NBUS products put to use!

It’s been a wild two weeks, but finally we’re home for a few days, and I’ve had time to create a card for the Just Us Girls Challenge which has a fabulous moodboard as inspiration.

As soon as I saw the upper left corner of this moodboard, I thought of the Ellen Hutson Abstract Mountain die. It had been a long time since I pulled it out, but I had a lot of fun trying to replicate the colors as best I could. I used three colors of cardstock, and quite a bit of ink blending to get the look I wanted.

I added a bit of foam tape behind the moon, but that’s the only dimension. The gold foiled sentiment is from Spellbinder’s Always and Forever sentiment strips and dies. No embellishment needed.

In addition to Just Us Girls, I’m sending this off to Inkspirational whose moodboard feautres the same colors, and to Addicted to Stamps and More: Die Cuts & Stencils. 

The Paper Players has a CAS Challenge for Sympathy or Thinking of You cards. The older I get the more important it is to have a few of these cards in my stash. I’m always a fan of CAS cards, but especially for Sympathy cards where I really believe “less is more.” 

This one layer card is about a minimalist as it gets, but I think it is elegant in its simplicity. The stamps are both from Simon Says. The leaves from. Stronger Together and the sentiment from Sketched Flowers. 

I’m sending this to AAA Cards where it’s always CAS and this time with a masculine option. This is certainly appropriate for men as well as women.