My Snowman Card

 Joyous Greetings!

Here is my card for the CAS Christmas Card June Challenge. 

My snowman looks joyful to be celebrating Christmas. Me, I am not so pleased with this card, but am pleased to have another holiday card completed. I have several friends who do not celebrate Christmas, so this card will be sent to one of them. 

The snowman die is from Penny Black, called Showman Joy circa 2016. I glued two cuts together for some dimension. Likewise, I cut two of my simple sentiment from snippets in white.  The Joy Dies Stampin' Cut & Emboss set is by Stampin' Up! The snowman is available on line, but not the word die set, unfortunately. The White and Night of Navy cardstock are both SU as is the dsp panel. I took a snippet of leftover snowflake paper from the Snowflake Splendor dsp pack from 2020. Using snippets makes the card eligible for Di's Pixie's Playground Challenge #405. 

Quite a simple CAS card, I think. Inside is just a piece of white c.s. ready for a note. I like to write notes in my holiday cards. Do you do that too?

We sure could use some cool Christmas weather here in Minnesota. It is too hot...9 days of temps in the 90's or more along with tropical humidity. Luckily the humidity dropped the last three day, but it is going back up this weekend. Grumble, grumble. 😉

Take good care, my friends. I hope you are having a nice summer. I am loving all the flowers blooming now.

Squashed Stars

 Hi Again! 

It's me, again. *Coming in just under the wire considering the time difference, I finished up my card for the Let's Squish It! Challenge #8. I really do like these challenges as I have oodles of embossing folders some dating back to 2004 when I started and purchased the Cuttlebug and Swiss Dots folder. Everything in this post are oldies but goodies from my stash that I have not given some love in ages. Most are online many places even to this day. 

No, I didn't use Swiss Dots, but embossed with the Sizzix/Stampin' Up! folder called Lucky Star. Before the embossing, I made the aperture with the middle sized star die from the old SU Stars Framelits Die set.

Continuing with the old and used things, I added sticky blue stars for bling atop the embossed ones. Aging SU things, again. They were the wrong color blue, so I dabbed them with the SU Blends pen in Night of Navy. Oops, that pen isn't old nor is the A2 Basic White cardstock. 

Anyway, lastly I added my sentiment to make it a 4th of July card stamping with the aged (1999) SU wooden set called Happy Fourth! The Happy 4th stamp was too big, so chose instead I ❤️ America!  A fast card to make once I could find where everything was around my craft space. LOL

As always, I appreciate you visiting with me. Take good care. The weather here in Minnesota is hot and humid. Yuck! 

* Silly me, I thought this challenge ended on the 24th, but it goes until the end of the month. Senior moment(s)!!

Christmas Wishes

 Hello!

I am just getting around to making a card for the CAS Christmas Card Challenge for May. A really busy month for me, with my granddaughter's upcoming graduation, her party, and several family and friend's birthdays, and my own too!

Finally, here is my card for this challenge:  

I had to re-do this one a couple of times as I could not for the life of me get this bordered stamp lined up properly on the white and embossed cardstock. Still isn't, but it is hand made, right?

I started by choosing this image from several leaves and berry stamps in my stash. This retired one is by Papertrey Ink called Botanical Blocks IV. I stamped it using my MISTI in Stampin' Up! Handsome Hunter, a retired and saved -er, hoarded ink, refill and paper collection! I've left it as is only coloring the berries with Christmas Red Stickles. Online I found out one could reconstitute old Stickles with water and that worked well. 

The embossing folder is the popular 3D one by SU called Subtle, which is retired, unfortunately, done on a piece of their thick c.s.  I mounted the white panel with dimensionals onto a tent folding card in the above lovely dark green. The holiday sentiment is done in the same ink. 

All in all, I am pleased with this card. Another one done for Christmas 2021!

 Thank you for stopping by. Much needed rain today in my home state of Minnesota. Bye now!

For My Granddaughter

 Hello Again!

My youngest granddaughter is graduating from high school at the end of May. Her party is outdoors in early June, so I have made two special cards for her - one for each occasion. I am pleased with these cards!

This one is made with some aqua (not green) fine glitter paper that I don't know where I got it. I cut the rectangle to fit inside the largest frame from an Impression Obsession die set called Rectangle 6-in-1 Frames. Using a die set by Simon Says Stamp! called Proud of You that is complete with a shadow. I cut that in black paper. I cut the words three times in white and glued them together for dimension. The I.O. set is available places online and the SSS set is on that site. All the white cardstock is Stampin' Up! new Thick Basic White. The sun shining on the card shows the sparkle nicely, I think. I put a handwritten message inside along with a check for Maddie's college fund and will mail the card this week.

This fun cap and gown card was a bit tricky to make, but worth it! I followed Glenda Calkins directions and video to make it using the high school colors of red and black. Thanks Glenda. Maddie will graduate with honors and AP classes hence the silver and red cords. I made them with silver  and red ribbon. The hat has an old SU sparkly brad holding the tassel. Inside on white cardstock, is my greeting saying Congratulations Graduate! using a treasured PSX stamp, and a small diploma stamp from Stampendous, both really old. I will bring this card to her party in June. 

So much excitement! I can hardly stand it. My other daughter is coming in from California for the festivities and I have not seen her since June 2019. YAY!

Maddie and her mom don't read my blog, so I can post these cards without fear. Another thing done on my list. Thanks for visiting and the kind comments you leave. Be sure I can find you to visit and comment. Happy hugs from a warm evening in Minnesota. 🙋

Flowers & Pink

 Happy May!

It is getting up to the end of  Pixie's Snippet Playground  Challenge #402, so I am submitting a flip card I made a few days ago. The card is a CASE from a video I watched by Glenda at The Stamp Camp. 

This is a 3-fold panel card. The pink frame, done in retired Pink Pirouette, opens up left and the whole white area opens to the right revealing the inside. As you can see, I can't get the frame to stay down flat but the video suggests using Velcro. I don't have any. 

The snippets are the three flower grouping and the border both glued onto the white layer. I snipped them from a 6 x 6 paper Stampin' Up! sample paper pack I bought from a demo. The posies are fussy cut out, you know, my favorite thing to do. Not. LOL

I used a SU's Rectangle Stitched Framelits Die (retired but a new set available) to cut the aperture into the pink paper. The base is an A2 size piece of SU's current Just Jade and my greeting can be seen when the whole card is opened up. This was a fun card to make and I am pleased with it. I do love pink and flowers!

Many thanks for visiting today. Please visit again, I treasure my blog readers. Bye now from Spring in Minnesota.

A Rainbow Christmas Tree

 Hello Again!

Finally, I came up with an idea for the CAS Christmas Card Challenge for April. I will admit it was quite a struggle! The challenge this time was to use a rainbow. I've taken the liberty to use rainbow colors, not a rainbow image. Okay? What do you think?

I found in my "to use" box a retired but NBUS to me die from Memory Box called Bubble Burst. Eureka! I saw the two joined images as Christmas trees. So I die cut a rectangle piece of white cardstock with the die to showcase only the largest part. Next the piece was mounted onto a snippet of SU Old Olive paper and cut down to the size I wanted. We have to have a lot of white space, you know. The little, and I mean some really tiny, pieces popped out. Figured, I could color them and glue them back in. I used Stampin' Up! Stampin' Blends markers to color each dot. Tricky, but fun. The colors are the darker colors of each blending alcohol set. Real Red, Coral, Daffodil Delight, Granny Apple Green, Night of Navy and Highland Heather worked well, I think. 

I needed something to cover up the joining part of the MB die. So a shiny star was cut from left over silver cardstock with just enough to also make the Merry Christmas greeting. Here I used another trick wanting the right size sentiment. With the Taylored Expressions Picture Perfect - Horizontal die, I cut off the unneeded frame part. I found this die and the MB one a couple of places online. All that was left to do was mount the design onto SU's new Thick Basic White cardstock. 

I am pleased to have joined this challenge each month so far in 2021. I will keep at it. Are you making Christmas cards too? 

Bye for now. See you again, I hope. Thank you for stopping by. We're back to warm days again after all the rain. Good old Minnesota weather!

Easter Cards I Sent

 Happy April!!

Before this month gets away from me, I thought I would post the three Easter cards I made for my grandchildren. Silly me, I had forgotten to take pictures of the cards. Just tonight Maddie sent her card photo to me in a message and I finally figured out how to save and resize it for my blog. Whew. So here we go.

Card No. 1: 

My granddaughter in CA is a nanny, so I made her card with an adult duck leading three ducklings. The stamp is from Fable Friends cling stamp set by Stampin' Up! It's retired. Sorry for the pale/blurry picture. I had forgotten to take a photo of it before mailing, so asked for an email copy. This is the best I have.

A completely SU card! The card base is  Daffodil Delight as is the matching Gingham Gala background dsp. The ducks were simply stamped in Basic Gray ink. The sentiment is also from the same set. In retrospect this would have been a good image to color or paper piece the ducks, but I think I was in a hurry when I made the card. Meg liked it anyway. 

Card No. 2:

This card was for my only grandson. We have a running joke that he is my favorite grandson, so the greeting inside is a new one from Concord & 9th that says he is the world's greatest grandson. The bunny gnome saying Hoppy Easter is from Simon Says Stamp! the Spring Gnomes set. How do you like the backwards greeting in the photo? That is my grandson's fingers holding the card. He got a kick out of the silly rabbit gnome.

I chose the Grapefruit Guava gingham paper this time, as orange is a favorite color and then used markers to color right over the dsp. A thin black border completed the card on a Whisper White note card. 

Card No. 3:

My youngest granddaughter, who is heading out to college in the fall, once told me she loves purple, so her card uses the Highland Heather gingham dsp. I believe the paper is retired, or retiring soon.

The bunny is from a Clearly Besotted set gifted to me from Di of Pixie's Workshop fame. Thanks again Di. It is called Hoppy Easter, which is retired. I stamped the cute bunny and the eggs in Memento Onyx Black, cut them out with matching dies, and placed them onto a circle cut in Highland Heather c.s. Then I got to work with SU markers. Maybe not quite Easter colors, but I like them with the purple. The sentiment is also from the same set. A matching bling dot highlights the greeting. 

I know it's quite a ways after Easter, but I liked all three cards and sure enjoy sending them to the grands. They seem to appreciate the cards. 

Bye for now. I hope you are enjoying Spring or Autumn days and staying safe.

A Special Birthday

 Hello!

Today I am posting one of the two cards I made for my granddaughter who will soon be celebrating becoming 20. Oh my, where has all the time gone? I was there at her birth, although standing in the back of the room. Another reason for this card is to join in the celebration at Pixie's Snippets Playground #400. Two milestones and one card.😄 Megan doesn't read my blog, so it is safe to show her card here.

I used several snippets of cardstock in making this card, in fact all of the front color pieces. The letters are all from Altenew's Floral Alphabet Die set. I deliberately left off the coordinating floral stamps to showcase just the letters. The "e" and "a" are snippets left over from the card I made for the Card Chain Challenge this month. I will post that soon. Snippets of Cherry Cobbler cardstock from Stampin' Up! were used for all the other elements. To make the cupcake I pulled out an image from The Stamps of Life Birthday 4 Cookie set and fussy cut out it out. The 20 is from the My Favorite Things Fabulous at Any Age set. Both sets are available online. The base card is done in Very Vanilla c.s. and embossed with SU's Old World Paper 3D embossing folder. Of course I stamped happy birthday inside and will add a gift card before mailing. The alphabet is new, so adding my card to the NBUS Challenge #25.

As I look at all the cards I've made that are just sitting here, my new resolution is to mail out more of them. Silly to keep them to myself, right?

Take good care, my cyber friends. Thanks for visiting and I hope you are all well. Cyber hugs from Minnesota today where we woke up with a light coating of snow.

Floating Elements

 Hi There!

I watched the Floating Element Card Technique video by Lisa at Lisa's Stamp Studio. several times before trying the technique for myself. My card is a CASE of hers and it did take a lot of fiddling, but I am okay with the result. Because the die cut pieces are all from snippets of paper from my scraps drawer, I am posting the card to Pixie's Snippets Playground  Challenge #399. 

I love pink and gray and black together, so that choice of leftover pieces was easy. The stripes were then adhered to a snippet of clear plastic. Then I die cut that piece with the largest and smallest circles from Stampin' Up!'s retired Stitched Shapes Framelits Dies. Next I mounted the circles with SU Foam Adhesive Strips onto black c.s. that I had embossed with the Subtle embossing folder. Can you kind of see them floating? Easier in real life, I promise.

The lovely spring Tulip die is from Penny Black cut from white card stock. I trimmed off some of the flower spray to use only one tulip. PB still has this die available. 

For my sentiment, I chose the Friend die from the SU Well Written Framelits Dies set which has lots of different and useful words and is retiring soon. I cut it in both white and pink and glued them together. The whole topper is on an A2 size card made of my trusty PTI Linen card stock. I put a pink single tulip inside with the rest of the space ready for a note.

That is it for now. Thanks for visiting and please come by again! Bye from a sunny day in Minnesota. Spring is really coming!!

Color Hues #14

 Hello Fellow Crafters!

I am adding this card to the challenge at  Color Hues #14: Black and White. The floral stamp I chose is from My Favorite Things, a cling rubber stamp called Etched Flower. Retired now, but available places on-line. Coral Flair, a newer stamp and a look alike is at MFT now. 

Using my original MISTI, I placed an A2 card base of white cardstock, not sure which brand, and got to work. I used Memory Box Tuxedo Black and Verafine Onyx Black both because I was not getting the clear image that I wanted. My heat gun helped the inks dry nicely. After the stamping, I decided to use this card top folded horizontally. I wanted to keep the sentiment simple due to the background being so busy. From a snippet of black c.s. I used an oldie but goodie stamp from Papertrey Ink called Think Big Favorites #7 set. I heat embossed it with Ranger White Embossing Powder. A narrow border of white anchors the phrase, I think.

For now the card is blank inside. I feel it could be used as a sympathy card, get well or for just a note to a friend.

Bye, bye now. Take good care, my cyber friends. Was really lovely here in Minnesota the last couple of days...temps in the 40s and 50s, but windy. I am so  pleased you stopped by. :-)

My Kinda Box X Two

 Howdy!

I am posting this time two cards with boxes. I took liberty with the Let's Squash It!! Challenge #6 as I don't have a template to actually make a box, but have this box die and the embossing folder required is floral. 

My card is also for the March Card Chain Challenge and it has been mailed to Cat. I followed the friendship theme for her as I know she loves cats. 

The embossing folder is from Stampin' Up! called Tin Tile. I see flowers in the tile, don't you? It is still for sale on line. My favorite cat on a stamp was stamped and fussy cut from a snippet of cream paper and slid into the opening in the little box. The Kitty wooden stamp is by Inkadinkado, found on ebay and Amazon. I've had mine for many years!! 

The box die is by Mama Elephant called All Prettied Up. I cut it using the only real piece of kraft paper I could find in my stash. Ran the box through my old crimper. I did cut the box 3 times for some height and the kitty is popped up with dimensionals. The sentiment is from the retired Cas-ual Fridays Only You set. 

Next up is my entry into the March CAS Christmas card challenge. Happy 3rd Birthday and thanks to all the designers for the inspiration. 

The card base and little box this time is cut from a snippet of SU Soft Suede which is a kraft-like color. The background is Real Red cardstock cut out with another part of the above Mama Elephant set. I fussy cut out the Christmas present that is stamped on a snippet of white and embossed with Ranger Gold embossing powder. I love this gift stamp and it is still available on line from The Stamps of Life. The set is named Birthday 4 Cookie and it has a darling puppy named Cookie there too. The really old greeting from Su is done in white embossing powder.

I am also submitting the Merry Christmas card to Pixie's Crafty Workshop Challenge #398 as both the present and box are cut with snippets. 

All done. Bye for now. Many hugs from a snowy Minnesota. They say it will melt quickly the next few days. Yay!

 

    

Shades of Purple

 Hi There!

Well, I have done up a card for The Flower Challenge # 54 . They are asking for us to use shades of purple color. Looking at all of my purple coloring mediums, I found most of my purple markers are dried out, so I opted to use Prismacolor Premier colored pencils. Before coloring, I heat set the stamped image with both VersaMark and Encore Gold ink. The little berries are colored with a no-name gold pen. I used Wink of Stella over top of the flowers to brighten them up.

The card base is Papertrey Ink Linen, which I am not sure was the best choice, although the texture shows through the colors, so maybe that is interesting. This card is a 5-1/2" square card, which size and shape I rarely do. But I wanted to showcase the huge  and lovely floral wreath from Memory Box Inc. It's easily found for purchase online. The wreath is from the Open Studio set called Peony Garden Wreath, the same set I showed last time. The sentiment is also from there. The bling is from Stampin' Up! where I have lots of colors in my stash; mostly old colors. Inside I put just a single flower in the bottom left corner leaving plenty of room for a note.

 Here is a close-up showing the WoW glitzed flowers and the striations of the cardstock. I really debated using Ranger Glossing Accents. What do you think?

I will need to make an envelope for the card, but that is OK as I have the old style Envelope Punch Board from We R Memory Keepers. 

Another card for my stash. I am not sure who I will send it to, yet. Many thanks for stopping by. I hope you are well, stay well and will visit again. Hugs from me in Minnesota. Today is another drying out and warm day after a few rainy and windy days. Bye, bye. 

Playing With Alcohol Ink

Hi There!

I have been playing with some new colors (to me) of Ranger Alcohol Inks and trying out a new technique (again to me) with the Tim Holtz Alcohol Lift-Ink pad. I watched several videos several times and got to work. I am sharing here the one attempt that I was pleased enough with to show. 

Using a large piece of Yupo paper, the colors I chose for this play time are Meadow, Stonewashed, and a touch of Black. The green and black are new colors to me. I added Alcohol Blending Solution then blew the inks around using a straw. Once I was satisfied, I let it dry and began the lifting technique. 

Another NBUS for me is the Memory Box Peony Garden Wreath stamp set where I found and used the single peony stamp for doing the ink lifting. I will be showing a card I made with the large wreath soon.

I do so love peonies! Separately, I did the lifting three times overlapping the flowers using my MISTI. What fun to see the flowers magically appear. I managed only once to remember to stamp with the lifted ink onto another piece of paper, but now I cannot find it. LOL

To finish, after cutting down my piece to a manageable size, I began looking through my fairly large stash of colored cardstock. I chose Stampin' Up! Old Olive to make one of the frames as it matched the green alcohol ink so well. The white card base and frame are from an envelope and white cardstock set that I purchased recently at Michaels. 

Thinking of a dear friend whose birthday is coming up, this card will be for her with a big happy birthday inside. The birthday greeting is from an old SU Paper Pumpkin set that I stamped in Old Olive ink. I used a retired SU punch called Modern Label. I have a three-drawer collection of punches that still get used even as my dies collection has grown exponentially. 😁 

I like this card and for sure will play more with alcohol inks and markers. All the goodies I gathered to make this card are still available with the above noted exception.  Am adding the card to Darnell's March NBUS Challenge #24. 

So glad you visited me and I hope you will come back soon. I love the comments you post and will visit you too. Bye for now from a sunny and warm almost Spring Minnesota day.

A Daffodil For You

Hello!

The nice warmish weather we have had is making me long for Spring. However, as we Minnesotans know, March can mean a lot of snow but usually not severe cold temperatures. 

I have been meaning to make a card for a couple of challenges including The Flower Challenge #53 and TIME OUT Challenges 7th Birthday Challenge after looking at the lovely cards posted. So, here's my card, just finished today.

Daffodils are just the best Spring flowers. So sunny!! I remember buying a bunch of them from vendors selling them in the skyways when I worked in downtown Minneapolis. 

My Sketched: Daffodil stamp is a NBUS to me from STAMPlorations. It is sold out right now. Onto a white base card, I stamped the image in soft yellow before coloring. My MISTI helped me place the sentiment nearby. The flower was colored with Stampin' Up! Blends in two shades of Daffodil Delight. For the stems, I colored with a Zig Writer marker in Pure Green and SU's Old Olive and Granny Green blends. I am finding lately that I enjoy coloring but it's a learning curve as I don't do it much.

The sentiment I chose to use is from SU's Fable Friends set, retired now. I colored the stamp with the Zig marker. Just for fun, I glued on the blue frame from Penny Black Creative Dies called Stitched Nested Frames that had been languishing in my parts file. It looked stark to me, so put in another one in white. It's still for sale! 

That is it for now. Thank you so much for visiting. Please come by again. Hugs from a nice day and early evening in Minnesota. 

Edited to add: Oops! The Flower Challenge is closed. Sigh. Next time, I hope to be on the ball! 

         

       

Squash It!

 Greetings Crafters!

Today I am sharing the card I finished for the Let's Squash It! Challenge #5. Now I have a Valentine card ready for next year, 😍

Here is a look-see. 

I started the card looking through all my embossing folders for one with hearts. Have two, but those have already shown up in the gallery. For some reason, I suddenly thought of my really old Cuttlebug folders and dug out this mini one. A love stamp. Remember it? I got it when I purchased my Cuttlebug years ago. It came with three other little folders. I gave my machine to my daughter who was making cards at the time and then she SOLD it before moving to CA. What? I'd still use it if I had it. 😉

So there are two embossing folders used here. The A2 card base front in Papertrey Ink white Linen was embossed with the newish Stampin' Up! embossing folder called Old World Paper 3D. You can find it for sale easily. I used a snippet of SU retired Pretty in Pink (I'm hoarding it) cardstock to emboss with my little love stamp, then fussy cut around it. The pink and Real Red hearts were die cut with SU's Sweet & Sassy Framelits Dies. They're retired too. 

I have left the card pretty clean and simple for now, without a sentiment. I could not find a good place or decide on what color to use. I would welcome any suggestions!

So that is all from me for now. Thanks for stopping by and please visit again. Today in Minnesota it is in the 20's, a warm-up that feels really good after the deep freeze we were in. So sorry you in the East and South got those temps. 

Stay well, my friends!

Singing Pups!

 Hello Again,

For the first time in years, I have made an easel card. I think it is CAS on the front piece, but when you open it up, now it is my February CAS Christmas Card Challenge entry. 

                   

See what I mean? This was so much fun to make. Thanks go to Jennifer McGuire's recent video for the how-to do this reminder. 

First up I embossed a piece of Stampin' Up! Garden Green cardstock with a Darice folder called Paw Print Design. It's for sale lots of places. Added that to Cherry Cobbler c.s. folded to make the front and easel card base. For the stopper bar I used a snippet of white c.s. that holds the sentiment. Are the pups singing to Santa? 😉  From a snippet of white, I stamped and fussy cut them out. This all dressed up dogs stamp is by Clearly Besotted and called Howl, It's Christmas. Another NBUS stamp set to me. A snippet of black gives the dogs a place to sit. I colored only parts of the doggie image using SU markers and dimensionals behind to make them stand out. The stamp set which has several other fun sentiments is readily available.

I am also adding this card to the Pixie's Crafty Playground Challenge # 396 - Ruby's Memory. Ruby was a beloved dog belonging to Di's friend, so I hope my cheery card fits the challenge. Another card for my Christmas stash completed! I am glad to have this CAS challenge to keep me on track. 

Am also really pleased you came to visit today. I'd be honored if you followed me. Many hugs from a cold (Zero for the high today) but sunny Minnesota. Bye now.

    

My Three Valentines

 Happy Early Valentine's Day!

My three grands do not read my blog, so even before I mail them, I am showing off their cards!

Showing on my messy desk, the three  cards are grouped together. I finished the easy one first, the multi-colored one. Since I had the Stampin' Up! Night of Navy card stock out, the next 2 were started and completed last night using the same paper. I used a new die, an old die and stamp, and a really old card front to make these.

More information below on how I created these. The dies are both still available.

This card has the NBUS die from Cottage Cutz called Heartbeat that I originally bought for a get well card. It's going to my only grandson. He is happy and well at college. I used SU Cherry Cobbler cardstock as the background and carefully glued down the die. The largest heart is separate. Forgetting to use my double sided adhesive paper was a big mistake. Connect Glue to the rescue. Inside is the happy valentine's day greeting. 

This colorful one has a story behind it. Years ago, my daughter's friend who knew I made cards, offered me some of her late mother's supplies. This card front was among my choices. The hearts and words are all sprinkled with tiny gold glitter specks. I have no idea who made the stamps. Only thing I added is the rounded corners. Two extra hearts that I fussy cut out are glued inside next to the happy valentine's day greeting. My youngest granddaughter gets this one. She is the most sentimental of the kids. Nope, not kids, but all teenagers!

My first-born granddaughter in California will receive this card. She is almost 20...where has the years gone? I love this die called Hearts Entwined by My Favorite Things Die-Namics. I die cut the hearts design twice and  inlaid the Cherry Cobbler ones. Used Connect Glue again and only lost one piece!! "Made" another one with a scrap of the paper. The greeting is the SU oldie but goodie stamp from the Teeny Tiny Wishes set that I will never part with. Even older is the punch used to hold it.

Kind of tricky finding where all the pieces were to go, but this card is my favorite. 

Many thanks for stopping by my blog and such wonderful comments often. I hope you will visit again. Hugs from me in Minnesota where it is cold but with clear blue and sunny skies.

A Couple of Cards

 Hello!

You know, it takes me longer to choose which picture to use and to write this blog then it does to make a card? Just kidding...it takes me hours to create a card. So the first card this time was a breeze to make by CASEing one by Jaydee and using a die cut gifted to me from Robyn in Australia. Thanks so much you two! 

Card #1:

The Brick Wall embossing folder is by Stampin' Up!/Sizzix and is found on-line in many places. I colored the flower and stem with Zig brushes with plenty of Wink of Stella on the flower. My yellow brush doesn't look yellow to me, more of a golden orange color. But that's okay. 

This card will be going out-of-state, so I've kept it flat and CAS with a note inside. The sentiment is a NBUS to me. From The Gray Muse, the set is called Social Distance. There are lots of wonderful sentiments in this new and available set. I stamped it in black on a rectangle and added a couple of lines with my stylus. I imagine we all want to give and receive hugs these COVID and masked up days. Right? 

Now for card #2:

Sweetbriar Rose is a retired wood mount stamp from Stampin' Up! that I bought from Kelly, my demo. I still like the feel of holding a stamp in wood. So stable and solid. Did you know SU has one stamp in wood in the current Mini Catalog? 

Anyway, I stamped the flower image onto a rectangular piece of generic gray cardstock with VersaMark, and heat embossed it with white embossing powder. I probably used SU Stampin' Blends markers to color, although I cannot tell which colors and didn't write it down. I rounded the corners just for fun but can't remember the last time I used my Crop-A-Dile. Senior moments, alas.

The card base is the new SU Basic White Thick cardstock. I glued the gray piece onto white fun foam for some dimension. I've left a sentiment off to showcase the floral stamp but will add one inside before mailing.

That is it for now, fellow crafters. Thank you for stopping by. Hugs from a very windy and super cold 3 days to come here in Minnesota.

  

Books Are Magical

Greetings!

I created my card to enter into the TIME OUT Challenge #180 and to finally use a stamp set that I bought in 2019 and never used. Also, I wish to let you know that I am an avid reader and always have several books on hand to read. I re-read books that I love. Do you? What is your favorite book? My all-time favorite is Gone With The Wind.

I think that books are magical as they take us away to another place. Hence, my card.

Choosing which stamp to use from the clever and fun Clearly Besotted stamp set called Bookworm, is where I started this card. I used my MISTI to arrange the cutie worm and book stand, then embossed them with an unknown embossing powder in light golden brown. Next came the coloring where I used six watercolor pencils from Staedtler and went over the colors with a water brush and Wink of Stella.

Since the base card was going to be white I felt a need for a background around the focal image. So I made a mask with a piece of  Inkadinkado Mask Paper. With my Picket Fence Studio brushes, I used Altenew Vanilla Cream ink from the Delectable Delights cube set to fill in all the space. 

Next I die cut 3 of the nicely sized Magical word from CutPlorations, a part of STAMPlorations. The top layer is from a snippet of black glitter paper that I am hoarding from Stampin' Up! I cannot find that around, but the magical word die is available. It is a new to me so am joining NBUS Challenge #23.

To finish, I mounted the whole card front on a piece of generic black cardstock for a border. Whew! A lot of work for this card, but I kind of like it. 😉

Thanks for stopping by. Hugs from a sunny and fairly warm (29F) Minnesota.