Inspired CAS

My card for this weekend's Inspiration Challenge is very different for me.

I chose this snowman painted on a wood shutter for my inspiration. I decided to change the colours a bit to get another traditional coloured Christmas card into the stash. I also chose to go clean and simple (CAS) for this card so is was snail-mail friendly.

Colouring on kraft paper is one of my favourite mediums. I used copic markers for the hat and scarf, and I wanted a grainier texture for the snowman to mimic the texture of the wood shutter so I used prismacolor pencils for the white portions. I am quite delighted with the outcome.

Have a lovely day, friends!

stamps: christmas characters (inkadinkadoo)
ink: onyx black versafine (tsukineko)
paper: have a merry christmas (carta bella); kraft, white, kraft dotted swiss, raven (bazzill)
accessories: handwritten holidays dies (sizzix); copic markers; prismacolor markers

Spellbinders - A Friend Like You

Despite the number of times I create over the top layered cards, sometimes clean and simple (CAS) is the way to go! However, please note that while this card looks CAS, there are actually 8 layers at its thickest. Just sayin'...

The instructions to create this card are on the Spellbinders blog, HERE! Enjoy!!

Wonderful Christmas

Today, I have a 30 minute Christmas Card for you from Heartfelt Creations. All I did was cut paper and stick it all together. Really. It's the pre-printed panels I keep mentioning. Super quick and easy. And the panels come sized to fit whatever project you dream up. Did I mention it was easy?

The sentiment was already there. The corner border was already there, coloured even. Done! I could have added rhinestones or stickles to bling it up a little, but if all you have is 30 minutes, this version fits the bill and looks like it was much harder. Sometimes, I just love it when this much gorgeous comes together so quickly.

As always, there's more inspiration on the Heartfelt Creations blog.

paper; Festive Christmas Collection Paper (heartfelt creations), coconut swirl, blackberry (bazzill)
accessories; black satin ribbon (offray)

For Unto You is Born

This week my project for Heartfelt Creations is all stamped. I have a real soft spot for long, vertical sentiments, so I was drawn to this stamp right away, from the O Little Town of Bethlehem set. Even better, I discovered that it coordinates with the Cut-Mat-Create dies, which makes it quick and easy to get a perfectly matted sentiment.

This poinsettia border stamp is one of my favourite images in the Festive Christmas Collection. I was excited to colour it from the moment I set eyes on it! I forgot to keep track of the copics I used - really sorry about that because it was quick and easy to colour and I would like to colour it again and make the border more dimensional by cutting out some of the flowers and building it up. Really, I just love this image...

I invite you to check out the Heartfelt Creations Blog  for more inspiration from the Heartfelt Creations Design Team. Have a lovely week!!

stamps; O little Town, Festive Candlelight (heartfelt creations)
ink; black soot distress ink (ranger)
paper; Festive Christmas Paper Collection (heartfelt creations), coconut swirl (bazzill)
accessories; white satin ribbon (offray), copic markers

Cute Little Arrows

For a splurge of under $20, this card made me feel like a million bucks! I saw this pad of paper called 'The Story of Us' in a local craft store and thought I'd died and gone to heaven!! 

The backstory; My youngest turned 13 this year. All she wanted for her birthday was a real bow and arrows. She had done some archery at school in Phys Ed, and when we went to Mexico on holidays last year, there was an archery range at the resort. She is really very good at it. And so my awareness of all things bow and arrow related has been heightened.

And I saw this paper. *squeal*. And then I saw the tiny arrow dies from Spellbinders. I nearly fainted from pure, unadulterated joy! This card came together then and there. The trip home took absolutely forever.

This was an incredibly simple card to put together. I used an old verve stamp set, From the Heart. The knot I've used on this card is the Alpine Butterfly Knot because I know someone is going to ask and if I don't write it down now, I will never remember what it is.

I layered the Thankful Hearts die from Verve and stuck the arrow through the middle. I don't even know if Verve makes this die any more, it is that old. But it is absolutely divine here, and I'm so glad I thought of it!

Thank you for popping in on my random creativity. I have news to share next week, so stay tuned. It's a biggun. Really, really big! Have a great weekend.

stamps; from the heart (verve)
ink; onyx black versafine (tsukineko)
paper; the story of us (simple stories), kraft, raven, white, amsterdam (bazzill)
accessories; thankful hearts (verve), shoot!, petite labels one (spellbinders), linen cord (canvas home basics), gingham ribbon (may arts)

Heartfelt Creations - Friend

Happy Wednesday, peeps!! Today, I've used a beautiful sentiment from Heartfelt Creations Vines and Blooms set. I love the font used for this sentiment and the lovely vintage feel of this stamp. I wanted to make a quick kind of down and dirty card for you today, rather than a complicated card that needs a fair bit of time. This one took about 30 minutes from start to finish.

Like you, I don't always have time for a divinely complicated card, and it's always terrific to have a quick and easy card in the arsenal!! I love the layers of monochromatic texture that make this card special.

The instructions to make this card and lots of inspiration from the design team is on the Heartfelt Creations blog, and I hope you treat yourself to a little eye candy this week. Thank you for dropping by today!

stamps; Summer song (hearfelt creations)
ink; slate adirondack ink (ranger)
paper; Cut-Mat-Create Paper Collection (heartfelt creations), coconut swirl (bazzill)
accessories; sm classic ovals, A2 Filagree Delight, framed petite labels embossing folder (spellbinders)

Splitcoast Challenge Randomness

Occasionally, I have a deep need to sit down and create. Last Wednesday night was just such a time. Never mind I was online for one my courses at the same time. Never mind that it was a tough session due to technical difficulties (my prof had to evacuate her building because the fire alarm went off, among other things). Never mind that I sometimes feel like I'm 40-something going on 10 and I would do well having a fidget toy to keep my hands busy. I knit on the scarce occasions I watch tv - grown up fidget toy. If I could knit and read at the same time, I feel like I could conquer the world. Or cut out sewing projects while I read. I have a lot of reading I have to do and I think I forget that reading is my priority right now and I need to shelve the fantasies of combining my activities. I can't ask anyone in my house to read to me because I lose my train of thought when they stumble over the jargon that is my life.

And so last Wednesday while I was supposed to be focused on my computer screen, while the fire drill was in full swing, I hopped over to Splitcoast to see what the sketch challenge for the week was. I love it! I rarely check these things because I am needing less inspiration than more these days.

While I had to stay beside my computer, ready to go as soon as my prof was able to get back online, I put my time to good use!! I knew I didn't have an abundance of time, so it just wouldn't do to start a colouring project because that would take too long. Maybe if I used a sentiment as the focal point?... I scanned through several small paper pads sitting on my desk to choose some patterned paper. Then, I was struck by a fabulous idea.

I used the long classic rectangle to fussy cut (quilting term) this paper!!! Brilliant, yes? Instant image! And cute to boot.

Since I used plain white paper for the background, I ran it through my Big Shot with my Roman Romance embossing folder. I cut it into 3 to replicate the SCS sketch diagram (SC496), and voila!! Cute card in no time flat! Next time, I would use string and tie a fancy knot to make the card more unisex, but I was on a time crunch and allowed habit to guide me. Bad rut!! Must keep creating outside the box!!

Have a great weekend!

paper; ash, white canvas (bazzill), meadow (my mind's eye)
accessories; roman romance m-bossabilities folder (spellbinders), gunmetal brads (unknown), white ribbon (offray)

Dare to Get Dirty - 1 Layer Card

This card is inspired by the Splitcoaststampers Dare to Get Dirty Challenge 1 Layer card with flowers. I used paper from Fabrications for my one layer and flowers.

I used a sentiment from Ordinary Days, stamped in Tuxedo Black Memento ink. I placed a black rhinestone over the stamped period.

I used the same black rhinestones to 'anchor' the ribbon trio. Divine!!

stamps; ordinary days (technique tuesday from ihp)
paper; fabrications (teresa collins from ihp)
ink; tuxedo black memento ink (tsukineko from ihp)
accessories; black rhinestones (kaiser craft from ihp), black satin ribbon (offray)  

IHP Simple Thank-you

I'm trying to get a whack load of simple cards made for a fund raising venture I am involved in. My oldest daughter and I are going to Mexico in July to offer aid to an impoverished community there with our church youth group. I have permission to sell my cards after our worship services and the funds go to our trip. I need more simple cards because I need many more cards. I sold out of baby cards last Sunday and so you'll see many more welcome baby cards in the next few weeks. Oh! And masculine cards. I need more masculine cards and some get wells. Many more cards needed!!

I made this card in no time flat. I used Bazzill Basics Canvas White card stock so the white field of this card had interesting texture. I embossed a square nestabilities die on the smaller white panel and stamped the green frame from Unity stamps Encompassed Grace that I have from i {heart} papers. I stamped the Thank You sentiment from this same set and cut it out using a circle die and mounted it popping it up with a pop dot. The bow was tied using the Bow Easy tool that I used so often I forget to list it as an accessory, much like I forget to list my stamp cleaner! A few rhinestones added to bling up the gorgeous frame, and it's done!

stamps; encompassed grace (unity)
paper; canvas white, parakeet (bazzill)
ink; peeled paint, black soot distress ink (ranger)
accessories; sm classic square, sm classic circles nestabilities (spellbinders), green bling it (basic grey), old olive satin ribbon (SU!), bow easy

CAS Bows

Once or twice a year my mailman calls me up and asks me to make cards for his small business that he has when he's not a postal worker.  In his spare time, he runs a high end lemonade stand and does very well for himself and his family.  This year, he asked me to make a Christmas card for his business with a lemon tree, some 'prezzies' underneath and a little star on top.  I bought Life, Love and Lemons from Flourishes just for the cards he has asked me to make for him.  Here is his card for this year which took me 1 1/2 days to make 24 of them;

I know masking is old school, but I think it's a really useful skill to know and I'm going to give you a step by step how to for this technique.  First, I stamped the lemon topiary on carstock;

Next, I stamped the base of the topiary on the top of a post it so that the back of the image was covered in temporary adhesive.  Then, I cut out the image, just inside the line of the image.  I cut off part of the outside line so I wouldn't have a ghost image around the topiary - a thin white line where the ink can't go because of the depth of the paper and the space to the stamp as a result.

Next, I cut out a general mask for the middle present to cover it up while I ink the remainder of the stamp since this is the spot the topiary will go.

Once the stamp is inked, remove the general mask and stamp over the topiary.

The final image;

Colour image as desired.

 I know this is a small image, but I still used 17 copic markers.  *sigh*  I love my copics.

stamps; All wrapped up!, life, love, lemons (flourishes)
paper; coconut swirl, red hot (bazzill)
ink; pitch black distress ink (ranger)
accessories; rhinestone star (discontinued - Queen & Co), copic markers (E30, 34, 39, Y04, 15, G20, 21, 24, 28, 03, 05, 07, 29, R32, 35, 37, 39)

Back to our normal programming...

I had a cutie patootie idea for a card.  This card seem to be so NOT me, but then I get an idea straight out of left field sometimes and I just have to get it down in paper before normal things can happen.

I used my older Basic Grey stamps, Critters n Treats from the Lemonade line.  I stamped the image using chalk ink, cut it out and popped it up on the inside of the card.  I cut a circular window in the front of the card so the popscicles would be featured - Wonderful effect!!!!  I took my Elzybells sentiment (so sad they are out of business!!) and curved it around the circle window, then stamped it.  The rest of the window was surrounded with pretty pink rhinestones.

Super simple and super easy.

stamps; critters n treats - Lemonade (basic grey), sentiment (elzybells)
paper; coconut swirl (bazzill)
ink; chalk ink (colorbox)
accessories; circle nesties (spellbinders), pink rhinestones (heidi swapp), crystal glitter (art institute), glue pen (sakura)

CAS Just cause

It's been a bit of a funny time in my house. It might be that it is spring and we are shifting over to our summer schedule. We are dealing with the expected road rashes and later bed times. I love when my kids come in from playing smelling like the outdoors and sunshine. Our spring is early this year and we are taking full advantage of it.

I made this card for a class, and it's super simple and so quick to do up. I found this lovely wrought iron background on my Storybook cricut cartridge and cut it large enough to closely frame the butterfly. I used Big Scalloped Petite Borderabilities on silver paper and the Bigz Beautiful Butterflies die for this vellum butterfly.

Super duper easy and quick to do up. I have another use for this paper flourish which I'll show tomorrow! I hope you can come for a little eye candy then!

Sugar Creek Hollow Preview

Today is Fabulous Friday at Sugar Creek Hollow. There is a digital Freebie being offered - a folk art butterfly. People, free is always good!!!

I have another digital sneak a peek to show you. This wonderful star quilt block was shrunk to 1 1/2" and I clustered the image to give it an authentic quilt feel. I'm going to do this 'block' digital stamp very large as well and post it soon. It will look FABO!!


I coloured the image with prismacolours trying to achieve a bit of a worn denim look. Very cool! As a larger image, this stamp will look spectacular done paper pieced. 'Paper Pieced' means very different things to a quilter and to a stamper. As a quilter, it also means Foundation Pieced which is sewing fabric to a foundation, often paper. The pattern is printed on the paper, and it is sort of like quilting by number. It's one of my favourite quilting techniques and my kids love pulling the paper off at the end. As a stamper, 'Paper Pieced' means stamping on patterned paper and cutting out the individual shapes of an image and adhering them on a base image to achieve patter - my favourite example of this is stamping an image of a woman wearing a dress on both a white and a patterned piece of paper then cutting the dress out of the pattered paper and adhering it to the white based image. Voila! Instant wardrobe.



Another peek is of this 'cross-stitched' sentiment that is added to the inside of the card. I wanted a clean and simple look for the entire card, so I chose to not pierce or embellish, although I must say, I'm itching to pierce this gem!

Have a wonderful weekend!!

CSA Tulipe Blingified!

I've had the idea for this card in my head since I saw this die in the catty. I didn't have any red glitter in my possession though until last week. I love the way this turned out. It's so simple and flat for mailing - I think this took me all of 15 minutes to make.


**edit added Oct 16** The white cardstock was run through my Big Shot using the Bigz Tulipe die. I used JAC paper by Dreamweaver on the back of the white cardstock. JAC paper is a sheet of double sided tacky paper. I removed one side of the protective backing and stuck it to the white cardstock. I sprinkled glitter over the exposed JAC paper and gently tapped it into the adhesive, pouring off the excess. Then, I peeled off the backing of the JAC paper and stuck the white cardstock to the red cardstock base. I love JAC paper! I do not endorse the website I have linked to. It was just the first website that came up with google to show what JAC paper is if you haven't used it before. For my customers, I do sell this adhesive paper.

99 Christmas cards to go *LOL*

stamps; Christmas Expressions (Cornish Heritage Farms)
paper; coconut swirl , currant smoothie (bazzill), JAC paper (dreamweaver)
ink; black soot distress ink (ranger)
accessories; christmas red glitter (art institute glitter), cardinal rhinestones (bazzill), tulipe bigz die (SU!)

Gobble, Gobble

Happy Thanksgiving Weekend!!!!

I have my turkey. I want to make a pumpkin pie this weekend because my dad likes it. My family really isn't big on holiday feasting and such, but I've been feeling convicted lately that special feasts for occasions like Thanksgiving are important and I need to start sitting up to take notice. We'll be doing Thanksgiving with a twist.

This card is monsters with a twist;


I keep using this monster set for boy cards, and wanted to give a girl card a try. I took my cues from today's limited supplies challenge on SCS today - use only stamps, ink and paper. I forgot that the other part of today's challenge was to make a fall card. D'Oh!!!

Instead, I'm calling this a clean and simple card, and carrying on with my day!

Have a marvelous weekend!

stamps; silly monsters (chicken girl designs by i {heart} papers)
ink; black soot distress ink (ranger)
paper; coconut swirl (bazzill) dsp (SU!)
accessories; renaissance hearts pendants, in spades pendants, circles and scallop circle nesties (spellbinders), prismacolours

Clean and Simple Challenge by Impression Obsession

I know I have to make a schwack load of cards that have to be mailable for Christmas. My normal card making habits are NOT conducive to mailable cards. I'm more of a hand deliver card maker most days of the week. This is a habit I'm trying to change. I'll never stop making the cards that weigh close to 2 lbs, but I want to respect those hard working post people who will faithfully deliver my Christmas tidings to far off places and not break their backs with weighty cards this year.

I decided to give this week's CAS colour challenge (use pink, blue and green) a whirl;


I've seen the clean and simple (CAS) card challenges on SCS, but haven't paid them much mind because I didn't think that was really for me. If you go back through my SCS gallery, I have periodically been known to do CAS cards. I love seeing well done CAS, and my gf Silke is a master of that craft! So here I am, trying again to stretch myself into another crafting place that is not the most comfortable for me, figuring why not 'cause I have nothing to lose and everything to gain!

For this card I used Snowflakes by Impression Obsession for the tree image. This tree begs to be blinged, and really, who am I to say no to a little bling?!!! Okay, truth be told, there's a lot of bling here, but it's for Christmas and it'll being some sparkle and shine to someone on my card list. *happy place* I used a grand total of 10 art institute glitters. No, I can't tell you which ones, because I have no idea since I picked and pulled from the peewee glitter kits I have to chose a light, medium and dark of each of the three colours in the challenge.


Really, the picture doesn't do it justice, but then if it did, we'd all be sitting here blinded by the *uber* dazzle, so I guess it's actually a good thing that the picture doesn't sparkle and shine like IRL... If you believe this hog wash, I've got a bridge to sell 'ya! *snort* The picture doesn't do the tree justice, but it really didn't matter what I did, all the glitter shine kept freaking out the focus on my camera so this is just as good as it gets. *sigh*

I want to play around some more with the snowflakes from this set and my glitter, so I'll have some more to show over the next few months. I've got all sorts of ideas sparkling and shining in my head right now and I'm so glad it's Christmas card making season!

stamps; snowflakes (impression obsession), warm words (SU!)
paper; coconut swirl (bazzill)
ink; black soot distress ink (ranger)
accessories; bling it on flourishes (basic grey), rhinestones (heidi swapp & kaiser), art institute glitter

LSC239 - SOS ODBD!!!!

I saw the limited supply challenge today and immediately thought of this card. Here are today's limitations;

Your items might be an ink color, a shape, an embellishment, a certain kind of stamp (S cannot stand for "stamp" but it could stand for the name of a stamp set, or company) -- whatever you can think of to fit S.O.S.! For example, I could have chosen Swiss Dots Embossing Folder or "Stylin' Stars" (stamp set name) for "s" as well.

And here's my SOS;

S - Sentiment
O - One Layer
S - Shine

I really wanted to make the sentiment stand out on this card so it's all BLACK, baby! A one layer card is rare from me, but does happen on occasion. The shine is provided by the Pearl-Ex that I 'painted' the gorgeous dragonfly flourish image and a sprinkle of rhinestones.

Enjoy your weekend all!!!!

stamps; friendship (ODBD)
paper; whisper white (SU!)
ink; versamark (tsukineko), black soot distress ink (ranger)
accessories; pearl-ex (jacquard), adhesive rhinestones (unknown)