CAS Petite Floral Hello

Today's card is my design team project for this week's Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge. 

I will also be entering it @ Stamps & Fun = Creativity for "Clean and Simple", @ Get Creative for "No Pattern Paper", @ Simon Says Stamp for" Trio of Something" and @ Just Us Girls for " Wild Card Week: Clean and Simple".

I love the look of colored pencil on Kraft cardstock, so that is what I did here.

The sentiments, butterfly and flower are from various SU! Paper Pumpkin subscription stamp sets and the banner is from a weekend banner/planner stamp set.

The scallop die cut is from Fun Stamper's Journey and the stitched square is from Itsy Bitsy.

This card is a cute and petite 4" x 4" square and I did use a corner rounder too.

Until next time~

Measured Love

Today's Clean and Simple (CAS) design team project for the Mix It Up Challenge Blog was so fun and easy to make! I will also be entering it @ SIP Challenge for "All You Need is Love", @ Dream Valley Challenge for "Love", @ The Crazy Challenge for "Love" and @ Scrapbook Stamp Society Challenge for "AG opt Valentine".

The adorable measuring cup is a digi stamp from Craftin' Desert Divas, the stencil is from The Crafter's Workshop, the "smile" die I got at Hobby Lobby and the soft pink ink is Worn Lipstick Distress Oxide ink.

The sentiment is part of the CDD digi stamp set and the stencil impression was done by spraying the stencil with water after I blended the ink on the card front and then making a print from it on the inside of the A2 sized card.

I colored him up with my Chameleon colored pencils, cut him out with my beloved Scan N Cut machine and popped him onto the card front using foam pop-dots. He just makes you want to smile, doesn't he?!? 

Until next time~

Exciting January News

Today, I am very happy to be able to share that I am a new member of the Happy Little Stampers Christmas Challenge Design Team. So I will be bringing you 1 Christmas card every month...by the time the holidays roll around next year I'll have a dozen cards all ready to go and so will you- if you play along!

This month's optional twist is Clean and Simple (CAS) and I used the Craftin Dessert Diva's Sweet Time Penguin digital stamp and colored him with colored pencils. I added Ranger black Enamel Accents to his eyes and Glossy Accents to the candy cane for added dimension.

The embossed snowflakes add the perfect background. The sentiment is from Close to My Heart and the label diecut is from Spellbinder's.

The inside sentiment is retired from TAC, stamped in red and I added a tiny silver star sequin in the bottom right corner just for fun. 

That's it for me today...until next time~

Welcome 2018 - Happy New Year!!!

Today's card was made using digital stamps for the January masking challenge at the MIUCB.

The masking technique I used simply involved covering over the area the sentiment was printed in with 2 mini Post-It notes to protect the area while I splattered on the FSJ Silk in 4 glittering and metallic colors to mimic confetti.

The outside digi sentiment is FREE from Create With TLC . The little girl I bought from The Greeting Farm and colored with Chameleon pencils. 

The inside sentiment is a retired stamp from The Angel Company.

Blessings to you in 2018 and may you have a healthy and safe new year~

Meet Me Under the Mistletoe!

Let me just start by saying that today's card is a lot more gorgeous in person, lol! I had a terrible time trying to get good photos with all the white and the shine of the silver embossing, sigh. Oh well, guess you will just have to take my word for it -heehee and hopefully you will be able to see it's potential anyway.

I am trying to get better at doing truly CAS cards and I think I finally got it right this time! I was inspired by the sketch @ CAS(e) this Sketch and the theme @ AAA Cards, so I will be submitting there plus @ Double D Challenges for their Red and White challenge, and @ Repeat Impressions for "Glitter".

This card was made on a white A2 card base with the addition of some red patterned paper, silver glitter paper diecut using a die from Spellbinders, skinny washi tape in 2 patterns and stamps from several sets and companies.

The inside was treated just as specially as the front 'cuz this card will be for my hubby for Christmas and he deserves only the best! I used water based markers directly on the mistletoe stamp and then blended it a bit with the clear Wink of Stella pen, so it glitters when you see it in person!

The silver heat embossed sentiment on the front helps to ground the design and complete the sketch.

Hope you are enjoying all the prep that comes along with the December holidays -as for me, it's time to finally decorate my Christmas tree! Until next time~

A Clean & Simple Anniversary Card for Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge

Today's design team project was a quick and easy one using the sketch from Atlantic Hearts and it will also be entered @ Less is More for "Let It Shine", and @ Addicted to Stamps for "Monochrome".

This project used a lot of things I've had in my stash for a good long time! The Diecut flowers were from a Close to My Heart scrapping kit, the patterned paper from the Current catalog, the flower trio punch from Stampin' Up and the silver glitter paper was left over from the snowflake project I shared in this post previously.

The card base was made from an A2 sized white, horizontal, top folding piece of heavy weight cardstock. I cut the tan patterned papers according to the sketch and adhered them flat to the card front. Using 2 nesting oval dies from Spellbinders, I cut the silver layering oval and the white oval for the sentiment.

I punched the same style flowers from the silver glitter paper and layered them to the cream and tan CTMH die cut flower elements. I then stamped and heat embossed the Best Wishes (retired from TAC) on the white oval using Versamark ink and Platinum embossing powder.

After assembling and layering the flower dies with the punched flowers, I accented them with left over gold leaf stickers from a past Paper Pumpkin kit. I also added a tiny clear rhinestone sticker to the center of each flower for some additional glitz.

I think the clean lines and simplicity of this card give it a subtle elegance just perfect for celebrating my sister-in-law and her husband's marriage that has successfully lasted many years!

Inside I stamped the sentiment from a My Sentiments Exactly Anniversary stamp set in gray ink and accented it by gluing on 2 more of the punched silver glitter flowers.

That's it for me today, until next time~

Something Borrowed & Something Blue

Today's card is the final wedding card I'll need for our family for 2017. I was inspired by sketch #367 @ the Paper Players and it will be entered @ Happy Little Stampers for "October Anything Goes with Dies", @ Shopping Our Stash for "That's Sketchy" and @ Ike's World for "Anything Goes -Celebrations". 

The tiny wooden stamp I used is from a retired tag set from Stampin' Up and the larger sentiments set is also retired but from Close To My Heart. Both of the dies are from Spellbinder's. The A2 card base and white cardstock layer are a beautiful white shimmer paper, the silver is a shiny mirror paper and the blue wrap with the lace actually came from the wedding invitation itself -so I did a little bit of recycling to make it more personal for my nephew and his new bride.

This is a rather simple card, with just the layers and sentiment stamping, but I did need to utilize the stamp omitting technique to fit the sentiment on the front of the card the way that I wanted to. What that means is that I used the small square sticky note to cover up and ink the separate portions of the stamp so that only the Best Wishes was stamped on the diecut label and the rest on the actual card front. 

This took several steps to get just right in the spacing, but that's where the beauty of a stamp positioning tool comes into play. I played with some scrap paper and gray ink under the diecut frames until I got everything just right and then I committed to the actual card pieces with embossing ink and silver powder. I made sure to also use the Perfect Crafting Pouch to reduce the static on my card stock and keep the embossing powder where it belonged.

The finished card is clean, simple and personalized...hopefully they like it as much as I do, lol! I used foam dot adhesive to pop up the layers of the diecuts. I also heat embossed the inside sentiment. Now all I have to do is wrap the gift before Sunday!

Until next time~