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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

MFT Card Design Superstar

I'm playing along with the MFT Card Design Superstar contest. I haven't done a lot of stamping, though I own a number of stamps. This contest was the perfect motivator to pull out my stamps sets and experiment. 

For my entry into the Clean & Simple Genius I'm using MFT's Beautiful Blooms stamps and dies. I may not get the opportunity to stamp often but this is definitely a go to set. I always get beautiful affects and it's the perfect set for a flat card design. 

For the background I masked off sections of cardstock and used distress ink to apply color and detail. I did the same for the flower vase using washi tape. Just be certain to apply some anti static powder on your cardstock. I didn't my first go round and discovered washi tape is much stickier than I remembered and had to redo the vase shading.

Little dots on the vase were added using the flower center dots in the set. Added a little extra sparkle on the stripes with my favorite Gelly Roll Clear Star pen.

I ended up doing 2 cards; same design and stamp set just different color combinations. This is the blue version. Now I just need to decide which of the 2 I'll enter into the contest.

Drowning in Scraps

Mom and I have been hitting the scrapping pretty hard. And this means we're generating scraps galore. I'm good about saving and sorting scraps but not always that good about putting them to use but I couldn't let these go to waste. The papers are from one of my all time favorite old KI lines. I love the bright colors and they're perfect for some cheerful, fun birthday cards. I paired them up with a box of K&Company party hats, very old KI tags and went to town creating a few cards to replenish our stash.

Birthday Cards

Just a quick post to show off some birthday cards. I'm not really that much of a card maker. I go in spurts mostly when I need to replenish my stash of birthday cards; the only cards I give out on a regular basis. A lot of them get sent off through the mail so I usually try to keep anything I whip up fairly flat for easy mailing. These were created immediately after finishing up some layouts. I'm not always that smart or motivated. More often my layout scraps make it into the scrap bin along with my good intentions of using those bits and pieces for card making. The emphasis here is on good intentions.

We like bright, happy cards in my family. And because we have so many guys in the mix frills, glitz and glitter needs to be kept to a minimum.

just chillin'...

We had a little burst of summer this past weekend; sunshine and temps in the mid 70’s? Since then the temps have been dropping steadily and it feels like Fall with Winter close on its heels. That's okay. Perfect weather for getting my mind set back into holiday crafting. Good thing too. Despite my goal to wrap up my bazaar projects this month I can already tell it will run into next month.

I was browsing my photo library and came across these projects I created last year. Why I didn't take photos of the contents I have no idea but at least I have a couple completed shots to share. The first is a Cocoa box set. The box I found at Michaels. After I made these I found several blogs with various treatments. Most have a wrap around but I like covering the entire box. I start by staining the box with walnut ink and then cover the outside with decorative paper. Inside I tucked 2 packets of cocoa wrapped in the same paper, a small bag of marshmallows, a little treat bag of Hershey kisses and a couple candy canes.

A tag and bow for the handle and because I needed a bit of sparkle...I added a wooden snowflake enhanced with glitter. They were a big hit. I have a few of these boxes left so maybe I make some for this year too.

Another bazaar project; this one for all those special teachers. I used Papertrey's Teacher's Apple. This is one of my favorite sets. It's so versatile; I find myself pulling it out a lot and not just for teacher related projects.

The box housed 10 note cards and envelopes. The candle was purchased at Wal-Mart for just a dollar. I used Juicy Apple but Warm Apple Pie also smells heavenly. To save time I stamped the apples onto a solid adhesive backed label sheet, trimmed the strips and wrapped the jar. Love simple. In fact they were so easy and quick I made several extras to tuck into holiday baskets I gave to family and friends.