Sunshine and Happiness Part 2

Continuing with my theme of sunshine and gardening, these using the image from MFT Green Pastures. All these scene cards were part of the first batch produced and sent. 

I'm generally not much of a scene builder. Though, if you ever snuck a look at my pinboard, you'd think it was all I was interested in producing.  I absolutely love the look and admire anyone with the talent and patience to pull it off. Me, I lack patience. A little cloud and grass producing is my limit. I was actually surprised to find a cloud stencil in my supplies. It harkens back to the day right before scrapbooking became a real thing. Even if you don't have a cloud or grass stencil in your stash they are 2 of the easiest things to pull off using a bit of scrap paper as masks. Of course, having the right tools on hand always makes things faster and easier and these came together very quickly.  So quickly I ended up making a total of 6 cards. 

I adore this image. Definitely more me in the garden. Though to be an accurate representation I'd need to give this gal some dirty knees and a healthy dose of dirt smudged across the face. I garden like I craft...with enthusiasm. 

Sunshine and Happiness

This seems like a silly title with all we've been tackling, some more than others. The past two months have been a whirlwind of emotions, bouts of intense activity, and periods when it's been a struggle to pull myself off the couch.  My family members are all in isolation, most working and schooling from home, and a few deemed essential workers. We're located in an area that is shut down through May and likely longer. Mom and I have spent many, many hours making and distributing masks. And even more, writing letters to friends and family. We're sending anywhere from 10 to 30 cards out a week. Lots of batch cardmaking on my end. You would have thought I'd have been a bit more energetic about posting. I'm going to consider it a win that I'm finally posting now ... and having at least gathered the energy earlier to photographed. 

I was super fortunate to receive an MFT order before the shelter in place order came down in our area. I adore these images. It makes me think of my Mom who is heavy into gardening. 

I combined several MFT sets. The sentiment is from Sunflower Sweetheart, the girl from Bring Out the Sunshine, and, my favorite, the little dancing ducks from the Rain or Sunshine. At a time when everyone could use a little lift of happiness, those dancing ducks radiate some joy. They are definitely my favorite part of the card. 

Girlfriends

Quick birthday card to share today. As usual, I'm combining different sets and manufacturers. This card is using Mama Elephants Girlfriends and Up & Away sets along with sentiment and stencil from MFT. I'm behind this year on building up my birthday card stash, but that's about to change. I just acquired some new items and set some goals: one related to using older products and another focussing on incorporating dies. With some determination, there will be lots to share soon.

Altenew Peony Dream 3D Valentine

It's Monday. Lots of errands and getting set up for the week ahead. Just now getting to my computer to check emails and post. On the bright side, and I do mean it literally, we had another day of sunshine. Finally getting some vitamin D fixes.

I completed several Valentine cards this weekend, including this card. Had so much fun with the Altenew Peony dies, I ended up creating 4 of the same card. I've neglected this die set for a while, so it was high time I put it to good use. The leaf die is from Stamp Market. The background stamps are from MFT Distressed Patterns. If you're like me, impatient and/or not always comfortable creating a distressed background with watercolors or smooshing, this is a set for you. It's one of my all-time favorite sets, instant distressed background without the wait or mess. It created the perfect backdrop to show off the beautiful peony flowers.

I shimmer spritzed the background for lots of sparkle and added some reflective confetti. The photo doesn't do the card justice, so you're just going to have to trust me, in person, there is a lot of razzle-dazzle to make the recipients feel extra special. So very happy how these cards turned out.

Friendly Valentine

With Valentine's Day fast approaching, I've been busy putting together some greeting cards. Typically cards for this holiday go out to friends and family, so I'm less focussed on romantic sentiments and more on friendly reminders on how much their friendship is valued. Of course, being told you're appreciated never goes out of season. Am I right?!

This first card I'm sharing is using non-typical valentine colors, perfect for your guy friends or co-workers. The images are from the Silhouette library. I print and cut several images, some with borders and some without so I could layer.

A window was cut using one of the MFT Peek-a-boo die-namics. The square and the rectangle Peek-a-boos are definitely one of my favorite dies.

A little stenciling to create the window backdrop and washi tape trim, which surprisingly matched up with the colors in the hearts pretty well. In my world, this seems to rarely happen despite my large stash of washi. Card one and done.

WF Enveloper Stamps

Quick post this morning to share a recent birthday card created with Waffle Flower Enveloper stamps. Big fan of enveloper stamp sets; sophisticated, contemporary designs that are fun without being too cutesy. Lots of masking, ink blending and a bit of fussy cutting went into this card.

Blended Backgrounds

No surprise I'm more than ready for Spring, though I could have happily done without Sunday's spring forward. My body still is struggling to adjust to one less hour of sleep.

Few more blended cards. I'm not a huge fan of embossing. Despite following tips and tricks supplied by the best crafting has to offer, I still find granules of embossing powder everywhere. I think it's just the nature of embossing. On the upside, there is nothing quite like a beautiful stamp (background or other), white embossing and colorful blended inks. A relatively quick and straightforward process which always delivers stunning results. Another plus, if you're inclined to look on the bright side, all my equipment gets a good cleaning after embossing. Damn those granules.

These cards use the MFT Etched Flower background stamp. It's a large rubber stamp, big enough to cover a front panel of an A2 card, but since most of my cards are 5x7, I needed to stamp top and bottom. A great property of rubber is I always get a great first impression, so I rarely need to re-stamp an area to ensure coverage.

It's not noticeable on the photos, but I did add a little sparkle to parts of the card using a shimmer pen. Just enough to fancy it up a bit.

Color Blending Birth Yay!

The last couple of weeks have been a bit crazy, and to top it off, this is the week my computer monitor decided to take a permanent snooze. Ugh! There are some things I'm willing to go without for any period: cleaning, laundry, maybe if you really twist my arm...chocolate, but, access to a computer is not one of them. We're pretty teched-up in this household, but tablets and smartphones can only get you so far, especially with these old eyes. So now I'm positioned in front of a new monitor, a little poorer but much happier.

The cards I'm sharing today is Birth yay from My Favorite Things. This is one of the few sets I saw and immediately ordered. I didn't even wait for it to qualify for sale pricing; it's that adorably cute. I pulled out the Copics and inks for some destress time. Plus, my birthday card stash is woefully depleted, like I had to actually "purchase a card" depleted.

   
























Love how these turned out. Bright colors always make me happy. I made 4 cards total and have 9 birthdays this month. For the moment I'm done coloring rhinos, even cute ones. Time to hit the stamps.

No Line Coloring

I decided to try my hand at no line coloring with the Pretty Lovely stamp set from Mama Elephant. I used a light grey ink with very rough masking knowing that my coloring would cover any overlapping lines. The plan was to use Copic markers on the image but quickly evolved. I was testing a new paper I'd purchased, Strathmore Marker paper. I liked the bright whiteness and smoothness of the paper but wasn't happy with how it performed with copic.

The color was very muted, almost greyish when first applied, though the color did intensify as the area dried. Since I like to work quickly with marker and with nothing to lose, I decided to see how the paper performed with colored pencil. I quickly blocked in the remaining images with copic and then began working the image with colored pencil to add intensity and detail.

I was much happier with the results. This paper would probably not hold up to a lot of layering or scrubbing (not a good artist rendering paper for colored pencil) but for a card with light coloring it performed pretty well. More importantly, since I have 23 sheets remaining, I definitely will be using it again.

Hog Heaven Valentine

Mailed the last of my Valentine greetings yesterday. Cut it a bit close especially since I didn't have many to send, but the essential factor is they got shipped.

This one featuring MFT's Hog Heaven is one of my favorites. I know it will bring a happy smile to the recipient's face. How could it not? The pigs in this set are all adorable.

Valentines

Valentine's Day is right around the corner.  Typically I don't send many valentine cards. Most of my crafting around this holiday tends to center around treat bags or punny valentines for the kids. This year I agreed to assist our youth group with creating cards and gifts for our shut-ins. Still working to come up with some ideas. I'm finding it a bit more challenging as I'll be working with teenagers...punny valentines seem too young and most of the items I've pinned in the past, much too complicated for the time allotment.  I'm sure I'll get there.

In the meantime, here are a few cards I created to send. No stamping, just paper, dies (Concord & 9th, MFT, Mama Elephant) and shimmer pen. Not that you can see the shimmer very well in the images but trust me, it's there. I would not create a valentine without sparkle!

Simon Says Spring Flowers

Happy Monday!

If you're located in the Midwest, we're recovering from last week's arctic freeze with a big thaw. Thankfully everyone in my immediate family survived without any significant issues which can accompany such low temperatures. We hit -24 degrees, coupled with wind chill close to -45 degrees. But no broken pipes, dead car batteries or furnaces giving up. Extremely thankful. And just as grateful the kids are back to a regular schedule and routine. They spent 3 days home last week because of snow and temperatures. By their eagerness to go out to the bus stop this morning I think even they were happy to be going to school again. Or maybe it was just the warm-up. We're supposed to hit close to 50 degrees today...and then drop back down to the 20's. Mother nature in the Chicagoland area is cruel and heartless in February (and March, and April)!

With Spring in mind...I'm sharing a birthday card I created using SS Spring Flowers stamps. Sadly, it will be the only Spring I see for a while.

Flowers are fussy cut, and I used a medallion stamp with VersaMark for the background image. This one will probably be hand given as the wood tag adds some bulk.

Altenew Medallion Cover Dies

Happy Monday. We got snow this weekend which was a good enough excuse for me to spend some time in the craft room. I pulled out Altenew's Medallion cover dies and played for a while.

I spent a few hours positioning colors to create the elements. Embossed sentiments on vellum and then wrapped the design before mounting it onto the card base. Happy with the results and thinking if I can find the time during the next couple of weeks I may try a Valentine version.

Copic Coloring / Get Well Kitties

Hooray...It's hump day! Which has nothing to do with this post other than Gieco has been running old commercials, I love the camel commercial, it's Wednesday and I'm grateful to be a little bit closer to the weekend. I don't own a camel stamp so kitties will have to do for this hump day.

Carrying over from my self imposed color challenge with the thank you cards, I bring to you get well kitties.

In addition to birthday and thank-you cards, I always need get well greetings, especially this time of year. Lots of cat lovers and owners in my circle of friends so MFT I Knead You set gets lots of use. I paired it with some stamps from MFT Merry Chistmoose.

On this card, I paired it with some washi tape..actually a double band. The teal design was too stark and red tone wasn't quite right so I layered the two using a bit of glue to secure the two layers together. Depending on the brand I find washi tape doesn't always want to stick over time. A little bit of glue prevents having to fuss with the card when I'm ready to send it.

Thank You

Happy Monday. 

Kicking off a new week and finally kickstarting the new year. It's a rough start. My niece is home sick so all my big goals for the day need to be modified to account for spending most of my day with her. Usually, I'm better organized and prepped. Full of energy and eagerness to set goals, clean out and very productive. Last week, not so much. Procrastion was my first, middle and last name. We did manage to get all the Christmas decorations put away. And I did get to spend some time in the craft room building a stash of Thank-You cards for the coming year. I'll require many more but it's a good beginning and I'm counting it as a win in an otherwise pretty lazy, laid-back start to the year. 

This was really more of a color challenge for me. I've had the turquoise cardstock from Paper Source for a number of years. I believe it is called Pool. Decided it was time to put it to better use than sitting on a shelf. Why I don't use this color combination more often is a mystery to me...I really like to cool greens and blues complimented by the warm brown. And it's not like this combo hasn't been everywhere during the past couple of years. Figures I'm picking it up just as it's going out. 

Stamps and dies are from Altenew, Concord & 9th, Mama Elephant, MFT and I might even have one from Simon Says in there. 

This first one uses the C&9 double cut alphabet dies. This is still one of my all-time favorite alphabet dies. And, yes, I'm still hoping they'll release some phrases because lining up the individual dies, even with a temple, is still a major pain. The fact that I do it is just an indication of how much I love the results. I've paired it with Altenew's Leaf Canopy stamp set. Another new favorite. 

This card uses a free little stamp set Altenew sent to their customers. It was such a wonderful year-end surprise in the mail. Though I'm pretty sure this meant I spent way too much money with them last year.  No matter, my loyaty is easily bought with kindness and great customer service. 

The sentiment is from Mama Elephant. The set contains the word thanks in several languages. Love that!

The final card is using the remaining die cuts and MFT Distressed Patterns stamp. Of all the stamps I purchased last year this one is definitely in the top 10 favorites. I predict it will get a healthy workout in the coming year. 

Happy 2019

Happy New Year! We're not quite ready to give up on the holiday season, meaning the Christmas decor is still up and it's not coming down until the weekend. But the urge to clean and purge did arrive promptly with the new year. My desk is clean and everything that had contributed to the craft room looking as if a cyclone has hit, back in the proper place. Just in time because I'm out of birthday, get well and thank-you cards. I can work in messy but not in a disaster zone. Feels good to be in the land of organized again.

The card I'm sharing today is using the Simon Says Thanks border die and MFT You Gnome Me stamp set. I'd been eyeing this stamp set for a long while and finally purchased it this Fall. The images are adorable. We have a running joke in the family about garden gnomes...so I have no idea why it took so long to become part of my stamp collection.

Just a real simple thank you card. Now I need to make about 40 more to get me through the first half of the year.

Deck the Halls

Happy Monday! I'm coming off a very busy weekend with family and prepping for the holidays. No decking of halls buts lots of gift wrapping. With a large family, there is definitely more of that in my future.

Today sharing a card made with Concord & 9th's Deck the Halls turnabout stamp set and PTI Holiday Double Cut dies. Lots of gold embossing and sparkle on this more traditional color schemed card.

CN9 Cozy Christmas

Been holiday crafting and baking since mid-November. Every year I make a promise to myself to start earlier, plan it all out and then something or another disrupts my best intentions. I try not to stress about it too much after all this is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year...and honestly if some of the items don't get completed the only person usually disappointed is me.

The good news is my church's holiday cookie walk and bake sale is done! We had a great turnout and some wonderful cookies, candies and desserts. I feel like I gained inches just walking by the displays of goodies. I'll post some images at some point, mainly of the decorated cookies I create for the sale. I like to do a comparison on my decorating progress and capacity. Five years ago when I began learning to use royal icing it took me an entire week to decorate a couple dozen cookies, this year I managed to complete 247 cookies in the same amount of time. Progress!

Along with baking, I have been busy creating some holiday cards. I always read about the super organized starting their holiday card production in mid-summer. Yeah, so NOT me. Envious? Yes! But I can never seem to break out the Christmas stamps earlier than November.

Today I'm sharing a card I created with Concord & 9th's Cozy Christmas stamp set. I'm a sucker for knit patterned stamps. The minute I saw the release this baby made its way into the cart. Washi tape from Michaels and those cute little mittens are from Simple Stories.

I'll be posting more this week as I finally got around to photographing all my cards and crafty things for the holidays.

CN9 Wreath Turnabout Fall

Another Fall card this time using the Concord & 9th Wreath Turnabout stamp set. I've pulled this stamp set out a number of times this year. I'm guessing I'll pull it out one more time to try a holiday-themed color palette.

The sentiment is from a PTI set. I copper embossed the sentiment onto a strip of vellum.  I used a strip of light purple vellum behind the sentiment strip to give it a bit more pop and prevent it from blending into the background. And just for full transparency, that purple vellum is older than my nephew who's turning 24 this year. Well past time it got put to use!

CN9 Thank You Cards

Few more thank you cards this week. These are made using Concord & 9th products.

The background image is using the Lace Leaf stamp set. I see many people doing beautiful swashes of watercolor and inks as backgrounds. I've tried a few times but I'm just not very good. What I envision and the results are far different. More practice is needed but with so many nice messy background stamps available I really have little motivation to improve my hand at watercolor. I much rather expand my background stamp collection! This one is a winner. Like the results and it's a good size. 

What I'm really swooning over at the moment though is their Double Cut Alphabet dies. Nice modern, bold feel lending itself well to masculine cards and clean design. I'm hoping they come out with the same font as already formulated words. I made 8 cards and by #6 I was a bit tired of lining up  YOU to create the shadow effect. Maybe they can help a gal out?!