AHSC617 Birthday Card for Someone Special

Happy Monday, everyone! Hope you had a good weekend! It's time for a new Atlantic Hearts sketch: 

Yesterday was Dana's birthday, so I used the sketch to make her card:

All the papers are from Perennial Lavender; the sentiment is from Waffleflower. 

 I created some white buttons with a no-name button die and threaded through some Linen Thread to tie them together:

And on the inside, I stamped some birthday wishes from Hooray for Surprises:

I hope you'll be able to play along with our sketch this week too! I loved this one, and the three elements could be interpreted as many things!  Share it with us over the AHSC blog!

We had the family and Wayne's parents over for lunch yesterday for Dana's b-day:

My cake decorating skills have never been stellar, but it tasted good!

Thanks for visiting today!  Enjoy it and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Hooray for Surprises, Sentiment Additions (Waffleflower)
Card stock & Papers	Basic White, Highland Heather, Perennial Lavender DSP
Ink	Gorgeous Grape
Accessories	Linen Thread
Tools	Cut & Emboss Machine, Button Die (No-name), Basic Borders Dies (ret), Sentiment Additions Dies (Waffleflower)

Cute Little Postage Stamps

Happy Wednesday, peeps! I was lying in bed unable to sleep one night last week and remembered I had these cute tiny little stamps in my stash that would be good for a postage-style card.  The stamps are pretty poor quality, but they are cute, and with a little TLC, I can usually get them to stamp a fairly good image.  I already had a piece of Pool Party embossed with a snowflake embossing folder, so I used that as my starting point:

The card itself is notecard-sized.  I used dies from Waffle Flower's Postage Collage set, then stamped the images and added some shading and coloring.  A couple of stamped images from the Postage Collage stamp set added to the "postage" feel.  Snowflake Sky is the embossing folder I used, and I sponged Craft White ink all over the embossing for that snowy look!  A sentiment from Papertrey went on the inside. 

And since the Double D Challenge has a beautiful winter theme, I am going to pop it in there, as well as the Can You Handle The Pressure challenge!  (Thanks for the suggestion, Darlene!)

Thanks for stopping in today! Enjoy it and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Holiday Stamps (Peachy Cheap), Postage Collage (Waffle Flower)
Card stock & Papers	Basic White, Pool Party, Acetate Sheet
Ink	Craft White, Versafine Black, Real. Red, Shaded Spruce, Pool Party, Garden Green, Smoky Slate
Accessories	Rhinestone, Dimensionals
Tools	Cut & Emboss Machine, Snowflake Sky Embossing Folder, Postage Collage Dies (Waffle Flower), Sponge Daubers, Real Red Marker, Blender Pen, Blushing Bride Marker (ret)

Jingle Belles Pink Christmas

Happy Tuesday, peeps!  The Jingle Belles have a pink Christmas card challenge in honor of Breast Cancer Month! What a nice gesture--they're donating money for each card submitted! I am throwing my hat in the ring with this one:

 

 

I used Waffle Flower's Postage Stamp dies and Christmas stencils in shades of Sweet Sugar Plum, Pink Pirouette, Pretty in Pink, Bubble Bath and Crumb Cake to create my card:

I used the Postage Collage stamp and a little Christmas stamp from Sweet & Sassy to add my little "stamp" icons in Versafine Black and Crumb Cake.  The inside of the Sweet Sugar Plum card was stamped with a goodie-but-oldie stamp from Amy R's Handy Christmas Greetings:

 I still need some practice with my stenciling, but I'll keep trying!

John took my nephew and his sons Jameson and Sawyer fishing on Saturday on John's new (to him) boat:

 

They only caught one catfish, which they threw back, and two eels...yuck!  That was quite the experience, John said!  But they had fun and it was a beautiful day on the river!

Thanks for visiting today!  Enjoy it and be blessed!

And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.  Genesis 1:20-21

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Postage Collage (Waffle Flower), Handy Christmas Greetings (Amy R), Holiday Greetings (Sweet & Sassy)
Card stock & Papers	Basic White, Sweet Sugar Plum (ret)
Ink	Bubble Bath, Pretty in Pink, Crumb Cake, Pink Pirouette (ret), Sweet Sugar Plum (ret), Versafine Black
Accessories
Tools	Cut & Emboss Machine, Postage Stamp Die (Waffle Flower), Postage Collage Christmas Stencil (Waffle Flower), Blending Brushes

Wishing You Peace

Happy Monday, peeps! My card today isn't for any challenge, but I liked it so much, I wanted to share!

 Most times, when I am stamping and diecutting an image, I diecut the cardstock FIRST.  Then I use the negative piece of the cardstock (the outside edges) as a template for use in my stamp positioner.  I stamp my image on some scrap paper while in the stamp positioner, then I place the negative piece over top of the stamped image on the scrap, line it up, add my magnets so it won't shift, then I place my diecut inside the opening and stamp again.  I find this is a really good way to ensure my stamping and diecutting "jive"! It is a couple of extra steps but I feel it's worth the extra minute or so!

 But sometimes, especially when I am doing a stamp camp, I make an additional template from Kraft or Crumb Cake cardstock, because it is a little sturdier and it makes it easier to line up because of the difference in color between my template and the actual white diecut. I am telling you all of this because now I have all these diecut shapes from Kraft cardstock floating around on my desk, unused, but perfectly good!  SO....I took one of the diecuts, this one happens to be a tag from the Bonanza dies, and created a Christmas card with it:

Since I still had my Waffle Flower Postage Stamp stencils and dies sitting on my desk from yesterday's card, I also made a single little image using the Christmas ones:

I stenciled the house & tree in Garden Green and Versafine Black and then mounted it on the tag.  I heat embossed a sentiment in white (Christmas Blessings, Simon Says Stamp) and added some ribbon and twine.  The background paper is from Unity, and it all went on a Soft Succulent card base.  Here's the inside, also from SSS:

I love these colors together! And now there's one less lost little diecut floating around on my desk!  Thanks for popping in today!

Here are the last of my birthday cards; this beauty is from Peggy:

And this cutie is from Sally; I love the bright, cheerful colors:

And this gorgeous one was from Debbie (and there was a nice little surprise inside too---it involves ICE CREAM!):

And Michele knows how much I love BLUE:

I am so blessed!  Thank you, ladies!  Enjoy your day and you be blessed as well!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Christmas Blessings (Simon Says Stamp), Postage Collage (Waffle Flower)
Card stock & Papers	Basic White, Soft Succulent (ret), Kraft (Close to My Heart), Watercolor Winter (Unity)
Ink	Craft White, Garden Green, Crumb Cake, Versafine Black
Accessories	Crumb Cake Stitched Ribbon (ret), White Perle Cotton, Dimensionals, White Embossing Powder
Tools	Cut & Emboss Machine, Stitched Rectangle Dies (ret), Bonanza Dies (ret), Postage Dies (Waffle Flower), Postage Collage Christmas Stencil (Waffle Flower), Heat Tool

Tiny Valentine Friends

Happy Thursday, peeps! No challenge today, just a cute little Valentine card whose idea had been incubating in my head for a while, LOL!  Here we go:

I have seen amazing cards in blogland using these Waffleflower stencils and dies, and my friend Michele inspired me to get a set to try for myself! So far, I've only used Christmas images, but when I was looking through my Valentine stamps, I came across this little Papertrey set and thought the images would work well with with them.  I used some pastel colors to sponge in the stamps, then stamped the images in Versafine black ink and colored them with markers and ink, then added the postage images on top.  I am still getting the hang of sponging, but all in all, I thought it turned out pretty cute!

I put the whole shebang on a piece of Pink Pirouette, then on a Basic White card and added a Valentine sentiment on the inside!  This will be going out in the mail real soon!

I haven't had any photos of Cassidy lately; she's been a busy lady, playing on two basketball teams, one for school and one for rec.  She is honing her skills and learning how to be a team player, but I will admit, she doesn't like to lose and you can tell it by her face, LOL!  But she is only in 8th grade, so I look forward to how she'll improve over the next few years!  She chose her high school classes this week, so that's a big scary step, but I'm praying that her first year in high school will go well!

Thanks for popping in today--enjoy it and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Postage Collage (Waffleflower), Tiny Treats Valentine (Papertrey)
Card stock & Papers	Basic White, Pink Pirouette (ret)
Ink	Versafine Black, Coastal Cabana, Balmy Blue, Daffodil Delight, Lemon Lime Twist, Blushing Bride (ret), Flirty Flamingo, Smoky Slate, Sahara Sand (ret0
Accessories	Blending Brushes
Tools	Cut & Emboss Machine, Postage Collage Die (Waffleflower), Postage Coloring Stencil

PP675 Love You

Happy Sunday, everyone!  It's Paper Players time, with Joanne as our lovely hostess and she has a lovely challlenge for us, very timely, too:

I chose to make a note-card sized card; I had this Berry Burst glimmer paper diecut heart floating around on my desk, getting in my way, for a couple of weeks, so I finally decided to put it to use for my card today!  Here we go:

Since playing around with the Adoring Hearts bundle, I've got LOTS of these Basic White embossed hearts floating around too, LOL!  I used an old SU Triple Heart punch to punch a third heart from Bubble Bath glimmer paper, then mounted them all on a piece of Berry Burst gingham paper.  The bottom portion of the notecard was also embossed with the Dotty Hearts embossing folder.  The sentiment is new-to-me, it's from Waffleflower, called Sentiment Additions...love it!

My final addition was some Sweet Sorbet glittery ribbon!  A nice change from red, although I love red hearts too!

I hope you'll find some inspiration from our challenge this week...I love that little puppy image on the mood board....SO cute, I hope someone will do something inspired by that sweet face!  Check out what the other designers did at the Paper Players and share yours too!

On Friday, I gave a little class at a local retirement community and we made two projects for Valentine's Day.  A new customer of mine is a resident and she is an experienced stamper (blessedly!!!) and she got all the details lined up for me and helped as my very able assistant as well!  I don't even have a photo of the projects we made because I gave them to her for helping me, although the card was very similar to the one featured here!   You can see them stamping the project below:

I learned a LOT about stamping with these older sweeties...they were very keen to make the projects but I need to remember that their fingers may not be as agile as mine!  But they were very patient, even when we made a few blunders, and are already wanting to do something next month!  I will say, my hands were covered with Berry Burst ink by the class was over, LOL!  But it was fun! And their facility is beautiful! Looking forward to stamping with them again soon!

Thanks so much for popping in today--enjoy it and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Sentiment Additions (Waffleflower)
Card stock & Papers	Basic White, Berry Burst Gingham, Berry Burst Glimmer, Bubble Bath Glimmer
Ink	Berry Burst
Accessories	Sweet Sorbet Ribbon, Dimensionals
Tools	Cut & Emboss Machine, Adoring Hearts Hybrid Die & Folder, Dotty Hearts Embossing Folder (ret), Stitched Be Mine Dies (ret), Sentiment Additions Dies (Waffleflower), Triple Heart Punch (ret)

Woodland Friends Hello

Happy Friday, peeps! It's the start of a crazy weekend for the Pugliese family, so this will be short and sweet! My friend Michele, who is one of the most creative people in the whole wide card-making world, "enabled" me to get the Waffle Flower Postage Stamp bundle of stamps and stencils, and I finally sat down and made a card with it....my first attempt, so I'm a little rusty, but I admit that it was a lot of fun!  So here we go:

I know I need more practice on the blending of the open areas, so I'm going to work on that!  My critter images are from a sweet little CTMH set called Woodland Greetings, and the postage-related stamps are from Waffle Flower.  Each little animal was stamped in Memento Black, then colored with Blends and a white gel pen:

I mounted it all on an Old Olive card base; for my first one, it's pretty basic, no bells or whistles!  This is going to a friend of John's who just had knee surgery, so it's off, winging its way to its recipient!  Thanks for popping in today!  Enjoy it and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Woodland Greetings (Close to My Heart), Postage Collage (Waffle Flower)
Card stock & Papers	Basic White, Old Olive
Ink	Memento Black, Pecan Pie, Grapefruit Grove (ret), Lemon Lolly, Old Olive, Crumb Cake, Pumpkin Pie, Smoky Slate
Accessories
Tools	Cut & Emboss Machine, Postage Collage Stencil & Die Bundle (Waffle Flower), Blending Brushes, Blends