CAS Mix Up September

Hello!

Today I finished an entry into the CAS Mix Up September Challenge. Guess I am not ready for Fall after all, as my card looks summery. Anyway, here is my card!

This challenge asked us to use markers to ink up a stamp, plus stamping and a choice. I decided to show some love for this flower. I used the direct to paper stamping technique, which I rarely do. By Penny Black, the stamp is called Ebullient. Just had to look up the definition of that word. It means "over-flowing with enthusiasm" according to my Random House Dictionary. I think the flower arrangement does flow. I keep a dictionary near my desk. Do you?

My sentiment is from the JustRite Large Elegant Sentiments set and was stamped in VersafFine Onyx Black. For my choice, I framed the flower, literally, with a frame die cut from my newest purchase!  Bought from Papertrey Ink, it is called Pierced Feature Frame Die. Love it! A piece of Bazzill green cardstock just happened to match my markers. The two markers are labeled Tombow ABT and numbered 703 (pink) and 173 (green). The top folding card base is PTI Basic White. Quite a simple card to make.

That is it for now. Just a short post. Thanks for visiting today. I really appreciate any comments people leave!  :-)

It's Time for Leaves

Hello!

Yes, it's time to think about Fall or Autumn, so here is my card for Darnell and Her Gang's 9th Twofer Challenge. Only a few trees are starting to turn colors here in the Minneapolis area, but I sure love the colors when they show. Down by the Mississippi and the Minnesota rivers the leaves are especially gorgeous. The only not fun part of Fall is having to rake leaves several times! LOL

My Twofer:

I made the Beautiful Fall card first after looking at my Woodgrain embossing folder from Stampin' Up! sitting on my desk from another project. Wanting even more textural interest, I turned to an oldie but goodie and saved hoarded Handmade Textured Paper from ProvoCraft & Ellison that I have had for years. It was made in India and is dated 2002. Luckily I had two shades of orange and some red left. Notice the different types of texture in this lovely paper. For the greeting I combined two clear stamps by an unknown maker. They go back to my earliest days of card making, if I remember right. The ink is SU Early Expresso, although it looks black in the picture. The card base is made from their Thick Very Vanilla. The leaves were cut out with my Maple Leaf  ek punch.

My Christmas card uses the same leaf punch. I only had one sheet of dark green cardstock that I think it is SU's Handsome Hunter, long retired. Punching out 6 leaves, I assembled them into a green tree and just for fun left on the stems. The plaid black and white designer paper is also from Stampin' Up. The sentiment is from The Last Word stamped in Memories Direct Red  ink. Inside I stamped the whole O Christmas Tree poem from the same set. I could not find the stamp set or the inks when I looked on line.  I am a saver of all the things I like!  :-) I hand cut the trunk from a scrap of brown paper. The side folding A2 card base is Lipstick Red  from Simon Says Stamp.

Here's a closer look at the cards individually:

This Twofer challenge is a lot of fun, as I am sure you agree. I hope you will also enter a card.

Thank you for visiting today. Happy crafting!

Challenges & A Few Cards

Hello and Happy Almost Autumn!

First up

Here I am posting my entry to the CAS Christmas Card Challenge for September. The challenge this time is to make a creation with a wreath. This card was fun to make but difficult to photograph. As I am sure you all know, shiny cardstock doesn't photograph well. I like my card and hope you do too.

I started this card with stamping and heat embossing this wreath from Memory Box set called Watching the World Bloom. Wanting to use my newest goodie from HSN, Spectrum Noir Metallic Markers, I chose the Christmas-y colors,  Red Garnet and Green Citrine. I was pleased that one end was a nice narrow point so I could color the small leaves and flowers. The wreath had been stamped on a scrap of Stampin' Up! Basic Black that I feel highlights the colors nicely. The sentiment Merry & Bright is an old stamp from SU dated 2002. It was the only holiday stamp that fit into center of the wreath.  LOL  After cutting the image with a Spellbinders circle die I backed it with some black fun foam for dimension. Next, I started looking at all my green paper for a matching background. Yay, I was pleased to find one 6 x 6 piece left of the green Foiled cardstock from DCWV that I've been hoarding for years. Shiny & bright, right? The card base is also from SU. My thinking is that this is a CAS card so hope it passes muster.

Card #2

My next card is a birthday card I made for a dear friend who has a birthday that we are celebrating this week. Can you believe she and her 2 years younger sister have the same birthday, September 11th? We will honor Rosemary and the memories of the tragedy of 9/11/2001 too.

Rosemary's card is a CASE of Jaydee's recent card for The Paper Players challenge 409. I used the same colors, but changed up the flower stamp and background and added some ribbon. My supplies are all SU. The cardstock is Mint Macron and Blackberry Bliss. My flower is from the Beautiful Day set that was heat embossed with Ranger Gold embossing powder. I fussy cut the flower out twice for some dimension. The fun background is done with the Layered Leaves Dynamic Textured Impressions Embossing Folder. Whew, what a long name! To finish the I card I grounded the flower with some ribbed ribbon and added three shiny brads. Remember brads anyone? I hope Rosemary likes the card, I am pleased with it.

Card #3

Also a birthday card, the final card is the one I made for my daughter Stephanie's birthday. She has seen the card, loved it and told me to save it for her. Her b-day is the 29th. She is celebrating with dinner at the local Spaghetti Factory (as usual). :-)

This card started with a piece of glossy cardstock that I had inked up with Tim Holtz Alcohol Inks. Colors used are Stonewashed, Aqua and touches of Peach Bellini. I made the background quite a while ago. The CutPlorations  fun and big birthday die is from Stamplorations, a NBUS purchase that I just had to add to my collection of b-day paraphernalia. I cut it from a snippet of SU Early Espresso cardstock and inlaid it into the blue background. I'll use the blue birthday cut out another time. To add the "happy" I inked up small Verve stamp in the same dark brown color and cut it out with an small oval whale punch from SU. Love my punches as well as my dies. Inside I placed another die cut saying Hugs from Lawn Fawn. The card base is A2 size and side folding also in the Early Espresso cardstpck. I am honored that my daughter likes my cards and even brags about them sometimes. Because I used snippets for the white oval and the birthday die cut, I am entering this card into Pixie's Crafty Playground Challenge #334. 

So that is some of what I have been up to lately. Thanks so much for stopping by. I'll come visit you too! 

       

August CCC Card

My card for the August 2018 Card Chain Challenge has winged its way to Karen in California, so I'm publishing now as it has been received. I followed the challenge sketch option and with some bling, matched the color options closely too. Isn't that a great sketch? I sure will use it again. Am not really happy with the picture, as I took it at night and the flash went off even when I did not want it too. Sigh.

Anyway, this was the best of about 10 shots. As I was nearing the time limit to get my card into the mail to get it to CA by the deadline, I went with this photo. Here's some details.

Using VersaMark and WOW Opaque Bright White embossing powder, I first stamped the circle lines to crisscross like in the sketch onto Stampin' Up! Basic Black cardstock. This took many tries to get them to play nice with each other. But, isn't it fun to watch the magic when using a heat gun and embossing powder? The small circles design lines are from same Uniko Studio set used in my last post. Just used the more solid circles. The sentiment is from Jillibean Soup Handwritten Sentiments set and was also heat embossed. I mounted the panel with my NBUS SU Foam Adhesives Strips for some dimension. It is hard to see in the photo that it say "hello there!" The dots are in the challenge colors of "Bubblegum, Sapphire and Pistachio" also from SU. and called Glitter Enamel Dots. They have some nice sparkle in real life. The top folding base card is my go-to Paper Basics White from Papertrey Ink. A pretty quick card, all-in-all.

Many thanks for stopping by. Hope to see you again!

August Twofer

Good Evening Friends!

It is getting down to the wire to complete my entry to Darnell and her gang's Twofer Card Challenge #8 .  This time the challenge calls for something geometric. Can you see it? On both cards? Circles!! A conventional entry, I think. Quite a busy week for me; just finished my cards last night.

Here we go!

I made the balloon card first wanting to use a set from Unity Studio that has been in my stash for years! Yup, it's labeled 2012-2013. Called Background Builders:Round In Circles, so this is my take for a geometric image. My card is a CASE of the card shown on the back of the stamp set box. The roundness is in several part of the design elements decorating the side of the card. For color and sparkle, I cut the balloons from Stampin' Up! Glimmer Paper Assortment Pack using their Balloon punch. Added some floss for the strings and used dimensional tape to adhere the sentiment and balloons. This sentiment was in my birthday stamps drawer, but I am not sure who made it. Of course this is a birthday card.

My truck is a Hero Arts wood stamp also from 2012. It was colored with my NBUS goodie from Spectrum Noir Metallic Markers in Jade Green and stamped first. I put on several layers of ink, but do not feel much shine is there. User error? I stamped the design image to match the other card here using it as a road. Ranger Archival Ink in black was used to stamp both cards. See the tires? They are round too. Err, sort of. I need practice on coloring. LOL I put clear Wink of Stella all over the hello sign. As I was afraid to add more on the front in case I messed up, I just mounted the card front onto a mat and layered it on a SU Basic Black card base. Called it a day. Yay!  Done! I am thinking it is a masculine card for any occasion, and I do need a thank you card for my daughter's father-in-law who fixed my car.

Here is a close-up look at the two cards individually. Enjoy.

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you like these cards as I liked making them, especially the balloon one! Bye for now. 

Two More Cards

Hello!

Am joining a few challenges with two of my latest cards. Hope you like.

First up is my entry for the Less Is More Challenge #377- Pets. As you know I love dogs especially, but love cats too, so it was easy to find a pet stamp in my stash.

My pet image is from a NBUS set called Puppy Pets from My Favorite Things. I got the dies too. Yay!  I remembered seeing a how-to-do video recently regarding using matching dies, so looked it up and found it was a video from Catherine Pooler. Watching the video helped a lot for cutting out from snippets of paper the pup, bowl, and also for the sentiment. Also by MFT, it is one of the first time successfully using the Label Maker Sentiments set. This saved me some fussy cutting, not my favorite thing to do. The pup is thankful for his food, or he can be sent to a friend who has been helpful to me lately. I think he is really cute, don't you?

I used my water color pencils from Farber Castell called Art Grip Aquarelle to color the dog and food bowl. Then went over them with a water brush. The pencils are not labeled as to color name but have these numbers: 183 (light brown), 106 (dark brown), 143 (blue), 128 (red) and 199 (black). The scallop border was cut from PTI white cardstock as is the card base. The die is a Card Front Element Builder die recently bought from Sugarpea Designs. Lots of nice boarders in this set. I am also adding this card to Pixie's Crafty Workshop #332 since mostly snippets of paper were used for this CAS card and Di had a pet on this challenge too. Hers made me smile!

My second card was created to join the current CAS Watercolour - August challenge.

My first try was deep-six'd as I had used yellow Wink of Stella on top of the water coloring, and that proved not acceptable. Thus I stamped the image once more with my oldie but goodie wood stamp from Penny Black. Funny enough, it is called Sunshine, but it is definitely a sunflower. Right? I used Ranger Archival Ink to stamp the flower on regular cardstock. Again I colored the sunflower with the Farber Castell pencils and just went over it with my water brush. Then I fussy cut out the flower. OK, I know I said that I don't like to do that, but it was necessary! LOL Colors used were 105 & 104 (yellow) and 186 & 168 (green).

I decided against using dimensionals to adhere the flower to my water colored sky background instead glued down making it easier to mail. I notice the card bends a little. Oh, well. This background was made with Distress Oxide Salty Ocean and Distress Ink Peacock Feathers. I rubbed the inks onto my craft mat, spritzed with water then painted on watercolor paper with a brush. I think the flower is just waving in the breeze. My simple sentiment saying hello is from the Today, Tomorrow & Always TIME set from Uniko Studio.

So that is it for now. Thanks so much for visiting. I sure love visitors and the comments YOU leave!

      

Hello With Some CAS Watercolouring

Hello Again!

Today I am posting a card to the CAS Watercolour Card Challenge for July. I have been creating quite a bit lately and am gaining confidence in my work. Doing challenges helps. I watched Loll's video several time sand loved her colors and the card she made. This is definitely a CASE of her work. Thank you, Loll. Just used the supplies I had on hand!

The pretty green card base is Stampin' Up! Gumball Green, a retired In-color. I really like it and I think it goes well with the Ranger Distress Inks used here for the splashing technique. They are Ranger Shabby Shutters and Peeled  Paint. The watercolor paper is Tim Holtz Distress Watercolor Cardstock; I used the smooth side. I followed the video directions to snap the paper into the watered-down ink. A bunch of paper went into the circular file before being satisfied, but it was really fun!

I had a piece of SU watercolor paper that is really textured on my desk. So I die cut it with Impression Obsession's Ginko Leaf. It is just the right size for the splashy panel. I popped up a layering piece of green cardstock with foam and placed some dimensionals under the ginko leaf. Stamped my greeting from Stampendous Happy Messages set to finish. Yay - I am making the deadline to enter this challenge.

I hope my card is CAS enough even though it's a lot of green instead of white! I do love all shades of green after enduring bleak and colorless winters. Smiling now at all the summer green here in MN.

Thank you for stopping by my blog. Happy Green Summer to all.

Pink Tulips

Hello!

I have had this tulip die cut colored with my green Zig #040 and a pink marker in my "to do" box for ages, just waiting for the right time to use it. So made this card  to join the CAS Mix Up July 2018 card challenge that asks us to color a die and use a stamp. My choice is to use an embossing folder. Finished up the card today and snapped a few pictures trying to get a good one.

Here you go:  

The card base is Papertrey Basic White, however looks a bit pink in my photo. Notice the clouds behind the pretty tulips? To be honest, I surgically altered the retired Stampin' Up! folder called Cloudy Day as I wanted the orientation horizontal and so it would fit through my Big Shot correctly. First time I've cut down an embossing folder...got the idea on SCS. Anyone else ever done that? I understand Sizzix is making their folders to fit the larger card bases used in Europe. That's OK, I just prefer the A2 card size.

The tulip die is from Penny Black and I have used it many times for sympathy cards. Not sure if this is one too, but it also could be a get well or birthday card depending on what is put inside. The sentiment is a Mini Clear Stamp from Kaiser Kraft called Thinking of You done is my new go-to black ink, Ranger Archival Ink. I used water color paper for the cut out as I usually like the bit of texture is gives. I seem to remember using a SU Pretty in Pink marker for the tulips. They are popped up with dimensionals. I believe the blue mat snippet is Bashful Blue card stock. A few small Pretty Pink Posh Clear Droplets were added just for fun. I like this card - it is nicer in real life, I feel.

Thanks for coming by. Take care of YOU!  💕

Celebrate!!

Hello!

Congratulations to Addicted to Stamps and More - Happy Birthday challenge that is celebrating their 6th birthday AND their 300th challenge. Wow! A couple of great milestones.

This is the first time I've entered a card to them and am proud to do so. I've seen so many wonderful cards entered by bloggers I admire. I am a bit intimidated by them, but here is my card.

I always need birthday cards, so this is one for my stash. Using some NBUS (again), and some snippets too. The new Celebrate You dies are by Neat & Tangled making the focal point. I cut the words from a snippet of alcohol inked paper made a while back. The celebration words were also cut from white Papertrey Ink card stock and I painstakingly put in the white pieces. Used my Quickie Glue pen for that. Took a while and as I misplaced 2 small pieces, had to re-cut them from more scrap. Fun! The wonderful star embossing folder is a newbie from Stampin' Up! called Oh My Stars Textured Impressions. Love it. I can see it being used for Christmas cards! The card base is SU Night of Navy, which I am glad is still around. A snippet help make the Happy Birthday banner which is stamped in Encore! Gold by Tsukineko with the help of my Misti. The Happy Birthday poly stamp is my birthday freebie from Lawn Fawn! A few gold sequins finishes up the card. Done! I am hopefully making the deadline for this challenge. Whew!

Happy to have visitors...I will come and see you too. Promise! Thanks for stopping by.
Editing to add my card to Pixie's Crafty Workshop #330 since I used many snippets/scraps in this card!!


  

The Color Throwdown Challenge Celebrates!

Hi!  Here I am twice in just a few days...a record for me. Welcome, and thanks for visiting today!

This is my first entry for a Color Throwdown challenge. However, I have seen many of my blogging friends showcasing their cards recently, so I had to have a look-see and participate. The colors chosen this time are just wonderful! Happiest congratulations to the team for getting to 500 challenges. Quite a awesome achievement.

I knew exactly what paper I wanted to use seeing the colors Color Throwdown #500 requested. Have been saving this specialty DSP from Stampin' Up! called Irresistibly Yours from the Sale-a-bration in 2015 for just the right occasion. Silly, it is so much fun to use. I sponged Ranger Distress Ink in Spun Sugar onto the paper and then wiped off the flowers to let them show. The top folding base card is SU Night of Navy that I embossed with a fairly new embossing folder called Petal Burst. The cursive sentiment, congrats, is from PaperTrey cut twice and stacked together for dimension. I used pieces of gold paper from a NBUS goodie, DCWV Patterned Foils Mat Stack. A gold twine bow and a few sequins finished up my card. For me, this card came together quite quickly and I am very pleased with it. Going into my stash as a wedding card, I think. Maybe could be an anniversary card. I could have added some numerals like 50 up in the upper left area. However, I do like the CASiness (is that a new word?) of it. lol


Bye for now. See you next time.

Smile With Snippets

Hello and Happy July!

Tonight I am entering a card for Pixie's Snippets Playground Challenge #329. I finished this card while crafting with some friends at a local craft store. If you come to Minnesota, you will really need to visit Crafters Haven, one of the few craft stores still around. Love it!

I made my card following the video and directions from Dawn Olchefsky, recently showcased on the Splitcoaststampers website. Dawn is one of 2 SU demos I get my goodies from. Do any of you use more than one demo? Both I consider friends. Anyway, here is my card:

The card front is cut diagonally into triangles from Stampin' Up! Soft Sky both for the base and the polka dotted paper covered triangle. It is a pretty soft aqua in reality, retired now, I believe. The true color does not show well in this photo, sorry. This card was so much fun and easy to make! It opens in two directions - from the top fold and from the side. Snippets of the dotted paper were cut for the triangle opening and for the star/sun. The polka dot paper is from the 2013 Color Collection DSP paper stack. Cut with an Ek Success punch called Starburst, it makes a handy way to open the card. My smile is from Cas-ual Friday Stamps, funnily called Fri-Dies. I cut and layered it three times for stability. Somehow it looks pale pink in my pix, but truly I used snippets of white card stock. I did not get a picture of the inside. I simply stamped happy birthday with a birthday stamp Lawn Fawn sent to me for my birthday last May, with a cute puppy from a recently purchased set. I will post cards using some of them soon. Promise.  🐕

Got to close now, am exhausted. Joined the "Y" today and exercised. Turing over a new leaf, I think.  Thanks for visiting! I hope you will come back soon.

MCV 102 With Snippets

Good Morning!

I made this card a few days ago and just was able to get a decent enough picture to enter the Muse: ChristmasVisions 102 challenge. I loved the shadow buildings, moon and Santa that Cornelia showed, and knew that I had never used my new-to-me Santa and all the eight reindeer stamp. I bought it at a garage sale recently. It is from Stampin' Up! 1997 as part of a hostess set called Four Seasons Borders. I only found this one stamp, not the others. It is truly one of my oldest SU stamps and as you know, I still love and use my wooden stamps.

My card making preference is leaning to making CAS cards and this one fits that bill. I think the most difficult part on this one was figuring where to place the moon! The moon was cut with snippets of white cardstock with an EK Success 1-3/4 circle punch. My houses and apartment buildings die is the other snippet, so am also entering in the Di's Pixie's Crafty Workshop fun. I accidentally lobbed off one of the houses from this Taylored Expressions die called Neighborhood Border. I did use it inside with my Merry Christmas greeting. Hopefully, not having the sentiment on the card front is OK.


So that is it for this post. Short, sweet and simple! I enjoyed thinking of Christmas and cold weather as it has been extremely hot here in Minnesota lately. Actually, I prefer winter weather where I can bundle up to hot weather and air conditioning. Whine, whine. Sorry. 😉

Thanks for stopping by. I love visitors!!

                      

It's Twofer Time!!

Hello!

The month is getting away from me. Sigh. However, during the last few days I've finally set to work to come up with an idea, (not an easy task) make the cards, and take some photos. For Darnell's Twofer Card Challenge #6,  the challenge prompt is trees. Here's what I came up with:

The Christmas card was the easier one to make as I struggled for ages trying to get my tree/star to line up nicely and stay there while I glued them down. Oh well, perfection isn't our goal as crafters. Right? Actually the star is less crocked in real life. ha ha

The tree die is from the Stampin' Up! Perfect Pines Framelits die set and is cut from a snippet of  Cucumber Crush cardstock. The sweater die is from Elizabeth Craft 
Designs, called Winter Sweater.
It is the first time used, but I've had the set for ages. For some texture, I embossed it with a Darice folder called Basketweave. Isn't it wonderful? Next, I stamped in my go-to Versafine black ink, the sentiment, which is a stamp from the SU Holly Berry Happiness set. As I send quite a few cards to friends in other states, this card for my stash will come in handy. The card base is Lipstick Red from Simon Says Stamp. A really nice bright red, I think. 

On to my second card. I die-cut the trees from water color paper for its texture. Am not sure who made it, sorry. The star idea is a CASE from Lady Joyful. She made a card with a Christmas tree star, so to make mine different, I chose to make a congratulations card.  Was thinking of my dear grandson who recently passed his driver's license road test and deserves a card. The card base is in Island Indigo from SU. Two different companies were used to make the words.  Neat & Tangled made the 3 little words "You are a" and found in the Journaling Companions set and the Congrats is from My Favorite Things from the Label Maker Sentiments set. I cannot seem to line up the matching dies to cut out these words, but the Misti helps make it easy to get a good stamped impression with the black ink. Am not sure what I ever did without my Misti!

Below are the two cards individually so you can see them better, I hope. I feel like something was accomplished finishing up the cards before the challenge deadline! 😌

 Have you noticed that I use stamps and dies from many different companies? I haven't a favorite, so I support them all. LOL

Thanks for coming by and visiting my blog.

  

A Puffer Fish

Hello!

Wanting to join the June CAS Mix Up Card Challenge, I started playing with my hoard/stash of embossing powders. I have many brands with two whole drawers of them! I don't know the brands I used here, but I have a whole bunch of colors that came in sets. Initially my thought was to make a Christmas ornament, so I cut out several small ones with a Stampin' Up! punch. Since I was just experimenting, I glued a couple together for strength. Had trouble layering several layers of powder and more layers of VersaMark to make anything decent. So after many attempts, I turned to glue, well actually Ranger Glossy Accents. Yup, added embossing powder in several shades of blue, some copper EP and for fun mixed in some generic iridescent glitter. All was put onto the ornament and covered with the RA. The Copper Dreams embossing powder is from Sprinkle N Sparkle. I then heated it with my heat gun and it all puffed up and spread. No longer looking like an ornament, I saw what looked like a puffer fish! So here he is! Can you see his little eye? A keeper!

The ocean is made on glossy cardstock using the smooched background technique. I used Ranger Distress Inks in Broken China, Peacock Feathers, Tumbled Glass and a bit of Distress Oxide in Iced Spruce. Three layers of PTI white cardstock were cut with Lil' Inker Designs Stitched Mats: Rectangles and glued together for my frame. The A2 size card base is SU Marina Mist. The simple greeting of Hello is a stamp from Gina K.s Vertical Greetings set. My hope is that my card is CAS enough! What do you think?

 It occurs to me that I blog a lot about the goodies I use when card making. Is that OK? Needed? I personally like it when others tell me the supplies they use, but maybe I over-do it. Would you rather know more about me and/or my life instead?
 
I do like my card. In real life the blue colors are more muted, not so close to turquoise. Here is a close-up so you can see the little guy with all the dimension and sparkle. The background ocean is also somewhat shiny as I set the colors with Micro Distress Glaze as suggested by a Tim Holtz video.

Whew! Done and posted. Thank you for dropping by to visit.

Happy June!

Hello! Happy Almost Summer!

Today I am joining Di's Pixie's Crafty Workshop Challenge #237 with a fun card I just made with some new goodies. Snippets were used for the background, the panda bears, the tidbits they're holding and the greeting. I am guessing this will be a birthday card when I finish the inside, but it does not have to be. Sometimes it is just fun to send a card saying hello. 

Isn't this a happy card? Many more colors than I usually use, but I so wanted to use my new frame die and the background. This frame set is going to get a lot of use. It is from Lawn Fawn, called Peekaboo Backdrop. I cut it from an snippet of The Paper Company cardstock labeled Seagrass Metallic. I've had it forever judging from the sticker on the back. The cutie panda bears were an incentive with order during my birthday month of May. Of course I had to get it. :-) Party Panda is the name of the Lawn Cuts dies. All the tiny things the lads are holding came with the set except the flower and bling. The "Hi" die is from Spellbinders Phrase Set One, a very useful set, IMO.

Back to the background story. I took a look at Di's latest snippet card and loved her pink and white background. I knew that I had a piece of Stampin' Up! Specialty Yours DSP left over. Yay! I sponged Distress Oxide  Picked Raspberry onto the paper. Right afterwards, I went over it with a soft cloth and the flowers magically just appeared. This paper comes with the flowers already there, of course. Great fun to play with. The paper was a Sale-a-Bration gift with purchase, so is probably not available unless maybe in the new catalogue. I haven't read that yet!

A busy week coming up for me, so I may not get any crafting done. Will you? I hope you have a wonderful week!

Thanks for stopping by to visit.

May CCC and More

Hello and Happy Memorial Day!

Tonight I am posting the card I made for the May Card Chain Challenge. For those who don't know, this challenge promotes good will by its members sending cards all around the world. It is so fun getting a card from over seas and across America. There are so many talented people and everyone is so friendly. I chose the flower option this month. My card has already been received by Linda, by my recipient who lives in Michigan.

The Spring lilacs here in Minnesota were so lovely this year, but alas, are gone now. We've had a heat wave lately and storms, so those that were left were blown away. The Lilac stamp set I used is by Flourish, a company that I believe is out of business now. The biggest bloom stamp was heat embossed in white then Pale Plum and Wisteria Wonder were sponged on. The lilac word stamp is also in WW. I tweaked the individual tiny flowers using matching markers. The leaves are in Cucumber Crush, a bright spring-like green. I fussy cut out the lilac sprig and popped it up on dimensionals. I do love all shades, hues & colors of purple, so chose Blackberry Bliss for the card base. All the inks and cardstock are from Stampin' Up!  Why don't you contact the challenge and join us?



Next up is another card made for a friend who loves books as much as I do.

This wonderful whole card front stamp is by Hero Arts, called Bookcase. As soon as I saw it, I had to have it!! LOL The card base is PTI basic white and I was lucky to be able to stamp right onto it with no problem using Versafine Onx Black ink. Look, Ma, no layers! Unusual for me. Too many markers to mention were used for the coloring, mostly SU. A slow, but fun process. Can you see the rainbow order? I am quite pleased with this card and I hope Beth, my BFF in San Diego likes it.

That is all for this time. I hope you had a pleasant holiday weekend and those in the path of storms will be safe. 

Bye for now. I appreciate you visiting.

My May Twofer

Hi Again!

Finally finished my two cards for Darnell's Twofer Card Challenge #5. It closes so soon! Whew, I made it. The challenge this time was to use butterflies. I have so many butterfly stamps and dies that it was really hard to choose, but ultimately chose to use my trusty old Martha Stewart butterfly punch.

Once I decided what to do, the cards where quite easy to make...at least the blue one was. Bashful Blue (my favorite, but retired) is from Stampin' Up! for my A2 top folding card base. Regular, not Thick Whisper White was used for the clouds and butterflies. My punch doesn't like to work on heavy cardstock,  as I found out the hard way. The sentiment stamp is from the Simon Says Stamp Safe Travels set. I do wish all butterflies to have safe journeys on their way north each Spring. Safe travel wishes for my friends too! The wings are not attached so I could pull them up a bit to show movement. The clouds are a retired die by MFT Die-Namics called Cloud Trio.

I did not want just a get well card, so the second butterfly card is for encouragement. Yellow is such a happy color. The three butterflies are die cut from SU Daffodil Delight. I typed the sentiment in MS Word and printed it directly on HP photo paper as my printer would not accept regular cardstock. What took ages to figure out was where to put that sentiment so it would appear correctly below the fold. Spatial relationships are not my forte. LOL! Just for fun and to brighten up the card more, I placed some pretty purple Hero Arts bling on the butterfly bodies. Below are the cards individually. Hope you like; I am quite pleased with them - CAS cards, I think.