Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone! This is the card that I gave to my husband. The embossing folder is from Darice. The die-cut is backed with white and mounted on foam squares.

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Grandkids' Valentines

Here are the valentines I made for our grandkids. I already posted the one we're giving to our granddaughter - these are for the boys.

I used the same die for each of them - cut out of different colors. The embossing folder I used for them is from Darice. The "Be My Valentine" stamp is from Inkadinkado. The "To my Special Valentine" stamp is from Darcie's.

Edited to add: The white border was done with a Martha Stewart punch. Thanks, M-J!

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Elegant Embroidery #1

Okay, here is the first card with my Stampin' Up! set called "Elegant Embroidery."  Even though I like the stamps, I'm not sure if I'll be making more cards using it or not. I colored the stamp with Zig markers and then stamped. I added a flat shiny sticker for the flower center. I cut the image out with a stitched rectangle die and matted with green. This was originally one piece, but I messed up stamping the sentiment, so I cut it apart. I scored three lines under the image and mounted on foam squares. The sentiment is from Impression Obsession and embossed with clear embossing powder.

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Cattail Birthday

A friend borrowed this Memory Box die of mine, so, while it was out, I decided I should use it. I think I'd only used it on one card so far. I'm glad that others have gotten some use out of it, too! I cut it out of kraft cardstock and placed a piece of ivory underneath the cut-out image. Then I added it to a kraft base. The sentiment (from Impression Obsession) was stamped with Versamark and embossed with clear embossing powder.

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February Calendar Page

The year is already flying by! Here is my February calendar page.

The heart was cut with a Stampin' Up! die that I borrowed from a friend. I cut it out of both pink and red. The sentiment is from Fiskars. The patterned paper is from a Recollections matstack.

You can find the Excel file for my calendars through the links under my blog title. If you use them, I would love to hear from you!

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Lovely as a Tree - #5

I maybe should have put this card in yesterday's blog post, but I opted to do it as a separate post, and here it is:)

I used the same stamp as yesterday, and also stamped it with bleach on my favorite brown cardstock. I put a small piece of ivory cardstock under it and mounted on foam squares. The background was a piece that I had stamped at our Group Gathering last June - or the year before. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink.

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Lovely as a Tree - #4

My next card using the Stampin' Up! set called "Lovely as a Tree." 

Again, I used bleach to stamp the image. A friend came over to stamp last week, and she showed me a couple cards she had made with this layout, so I made one. :) You can see in the other pictures how it opens. The cardbase and other pieces are ivory. I really do need to use alternative card formats and techniques.

Edited to add: I was asked about measurments for this card. These are the measurments that I used for my card - not any "official" measurements. I started with a card base of 11 x 4 1/4 inches, scored at 5 1/2 inches. My base is ivory. Then I trimmed one inch off the right side of the front. The other pieces for my card are as follows: ivory - 5 3/8 x 4 1/8, 3 x 2 3/8, 5 x 1; patterned - 4 1/2 x 4 1/4, 5 x 7/8; kraft - 2 7/8x 2 1/4; brown (image) - 2 3/4 x 2 1/8. The larger patterned piece is cut to entirely cover the card front. Maybe a border would be nice. Place the long patterned piece on the long ivory piece. Glue that to the inside of the back of the card and add the largest ivory piece on top of that. Mat the image piece, then add that to the long patterned piece, then add the last layer of matting on the opposite side of the strip. (The only part of the strip that shows on either side is the short part that connects the image to the card back. I hope that makes sense! I don't know what this card is called, but I'm sure there must be instructions somewhere!

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Lovely as a Tree - #3

My next card using the Stampin' Up! set called "Lovely as a Tree." The trees are all one stamp. For this card, I used a dark green cardstock panel. I stamped the image with bleach. It matched kraft cardstock perfectly, so I matted with kraft and used a kraft cardbase. I mounted on foam squares. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink. I stamped it with Versamark and embossed with clear embossing powder.

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Lovely as a Tree - #2 (Times Two)

My second (and third) card using the Stampin' Up! set called "Lovely as a Tree." I inked up the tall evergreen with Old Olive ink. Then I added the brown for the trunk. I "thumped" on three other colors of green and then stamped the image on the panel. I matted with Old Olive cardstock. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink. (I cut the sentiment stamp in half before stamping.)

For this card, I misted the stamp with water after stamping the first image. I again matted with Old Olive. I mounted on foam squares and used the same stamp for the sentiment. I also added Wink of Stella over the entire tree.

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"Lovely as a Tree" - #1

I had a good friend over last week, and she asked me how far I was in my quest to use all of my Stampin' Up! stamps. I'd kind of put it on hold, and have thought about quitting. But, here is my next set! I kind of mixed up my sets a while back, and I guess I missed a few, but I'll try to get back on track.

The set I'll be blogging with for the next several days is called "Lovely as a Tree." It has been in the catalog forever! It is one of my very few - if not the only one - SU! sets that is not retired. It's hard to tell in this photo, but I used three colors of ink for this background stamping - brown for the large oak leaf, mustard for the small leaf, and a pine green for the pine sprig. I matted with matching brown cardstock. The sentiment is from Papertery Ink and is stamped with Versamark on kraft and embossed with clear embossing powder. The card base and panel are both ivory.

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Recycled Photo - Part Two

First of all, here is the second card I made from a scrap photo. I used a die to cut the design, then matted it with light blue. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink.

Tomorrow I will post the first of several cards I made with my next Stampin' Up! set - "Lovely as a Tree."

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With Sympathy

One of my cousins passed away last week, and this is the card I made for his family. Nothing special, but I thought I would share it anyway ... since I share ALL of my cards with you! :)

The sentiment stamp and the flowers are from the same Hero Arts set. I sponged three colors of Distress Ink onto white cardstock. I had the idea I was going to "stamp" with water on a stamp, but that didn't work so well. (You can just barely see a little bit under the leaves where the color was removed by the water.) So, I just stamped the flowers with black. I matted with black and added to a white card base.

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Butterfly Birthday - Recycled Photo

A while back, I tried printing a photo from a program I rarely use for printing. It printed it gi-normous! I thought rather than throw it away, though, I would use it for die-cutting:) I cut this piece with a Memory Box die. I have another piece cut, also, but haven't gotten it on a card yet. I simply put it on a white card base and added the sentiment, which is from Impression Obsession. (The "B" is not supposed to have dots in the centers, but I guess I pressed a little bit too hard. I didn't mind them, though, so I left it!)

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For the Perfect Pear

One more card using the Technique Tuesday stamp set. (It's called Fruit Stand, I believe.) I stamped the pears, the leaves and the stems and cut them out. I added foam squares to one pear and leaves. I used a die-cut panel to put them and matted with a scrap of matching cardstock. The patterned paper on the bottom layer is from a very old matstack from Michael's. The sentiment is also from the same stamp set and consists of three stamps.

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Thanks a Melon

Another card using my older Technique Tuesday stamp set. The watermelon slice consists of two stamps - the rind and the inside. I colored the seeds with a marker. I added it with foam squares to a die-cut panel. The sentiment is two separate stamps. I used a matching piece of cardstock, which I embossed with my formerly-favorite Cuttlebug embossing folder - Swiss Dots.

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Thanks So Berry Much

On Wednesday, I dug out a stamp set from Technique Tuesday that I had seldom used. It consists of fruits and "punny" sayings. I made three cards using the set, and here is the first one. I stamped the top of the strawberry, then masked it off and stamped the rest. The sentiment is four separate words. I cut a frame from white and popped it up on foam squares.

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Bloom Where You're Planted

I have had this stamp set from Verve for a very long time. I think I may have used some of the flower stamps, but never the sentiment. I'm not actually a big fan of the sentiment, even though I've seen it often. At any rate, I really wanted to use more of the stamps from the set, so here it is. All four stamps are from the set, as well as a few more flowers. I matted with matching cardstock, and also added a strip of the same color with three small "nail heads."

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Sympathy

Officially, I suppose this card could have been posted with yesterday's cards, as the cadbase was repurposed. But, since all I did was use the kraft base and cover up the stamping on it, I didn't count it as recycled:) I added a panel of patterned paper from The Paper Company on the right. The sentiment is a cheap die that I bought a while back and I backed it with a piece of kraft and mounted it on foam squares.

Edited to add: I have ordered dies from Amazon, and also from AliExpress.com.

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"Card Parts" Cards

I've had bits and pieces of time to spend in my stamping room the last couple of weeks. (Yesterday I had nearly the whole day, though, spending it with a friend!) I've mostly spent that time trying to make use of the pieces I salvaged from older cards. Here are the cards that I've made with those card parts. I only have a couple small parts left to use.

For this first card, the whole main panel was done. The treats are one stamp from Repeat Impressions. I had paper-pieced the sweets using kraft, brown, ivory and pink textured papers. I mounted the panel on foam squares. I used a kraft card base. The dotted pink paper is from Bo Bunny.

This card uses two of the parts - the entire card base with matted embossed panel and the flower/heart piece. The image is from Inkadinkado (I think), is colored with Copics, and has an enamel dot for the flower center. The sentiment is from Darcie's and is mounted on foam squares. I also added Wink of Stella to the image.

The re-used part on this card is the bottom panel. It was stamped with a wheel from Stampin' Up! and matted with matching cardstock. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink, stamped with the same ink and matted with the same cardstock as the patterned panel. It is mounted on foam squares.

The recycled piece here is the cardbase and embossed, matted panel. It had been embossed with an embossing plate. The image and sentiment are from a set from Recollections, colored with Copics.

The card part here is, again, the cardbase - this time with the matted patterned paper. It is matted with silver and black. I added an image panel to it - stamped with a Technique Tuesday stamp, colored slightly with Copics, and matted with silver and black to match the card base panel.

Once again, I reused the card base. I had made the patterned cardstock using a Stampin' Up! stamp. Then I used a piece of patterned paper from a Paper Studio matstack and added a die-cut sentiment.

One last card for today. I had made this "patterned cardstock" and put it on a cardbase and I reused it for this card by simply adding the sentiment from Papertrey Ink. I believe the way I had made the pattern is by covering an entire piece with Distress Ink and then stamping with a background stamp misted with water, which removed some of the ink. (So, the lighter areas are where I stamped.)

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Christmas Reindeer

One more Christmas card. And one last cheap die. Such a cute reindeer with scarf. He is cut with kraft cardstock and mounted on foam squares. The scarf was cut from kraft also, but colored with a Copic marker. The card base is ivory. The panel the reindeer is on is a textured paper with a pre-torn bottom edge. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink.

Edited to add: Mary - if you contact me through email (you can find my address in the "About Me" section in my profile) I would be happy to direct you to where I got this die. It came from China and I'm thinking they are using other company's designs. I still break down once in a while and buy a couple, even though I really don't think I should. :(

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