STAMPIN' UP! - Thoughtful Branches

I borrowed this SU stamp set from one of our Yahoo Group when we were in Des Moines last week.  I love stamps with trees and this is such a cute set.  The "grass" is actually from another set.  I added a die cut cloud from pieces I had in my "parts" box.

Thank you for coming by!  I can't believe it but the next card I post will be in July!!!!!

USING VELLUM

This is another item we made using pre-cut items from one of the Yahoo members when we gathered in Des Moines last week.  I love the soft look the vellum gives to the image.

There is a small card which is added to the inside of the vellum card but the butterfly is added to the outside.

Thank you for coming by today!

TWO MASCULINE CARDS

For eleven years our Yahoo Group has met to enjoy sharing our stamps and dies, learn new techniques, eat and laugh together.  The owner of the store where we have been meeting for 10 years closed in February but was purchased and opened once again with a new name.....Inspire.  The picture above shows the new owner on the far left and one of the ladies (far right) who is continuing to work there under the new management.  We always have a picture of those present taken outside of the store.  One of our previous members surprised the group by coming one day and decided she wanted to rejoin the group. (Maybe the name of the store "Inspire" helped.)

One of our members brought the pre-cut items to make this card.  The main die is from Die-Namics.  It cuts the two openings and adds the stitching around the rectangles.  I chose to add a deer image to each of the cards I put together since I have some hunters in the family. 

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ALTENEW - Iris

Altenew stamps are new for me.  Some of the ladies in our Yahoo Group have been making some beautiful cards with them.  The temptation was just too much.  

This particular design is done by stamping the stem and bloom in one step and then adding the individual leaves.  They also have some wonderful 2 or 3 step stamps where you layer colors to give a look of reality.  Altenew has sets of inks that have up to 4 shades of the same color so that makes it easy.

For this card though I simply stamped the pieces with Memento Tuxedo Black ink and then colored with my Copic markers.   In days to come I will be trying to put some cards together using the other stamps that I have.

Last Tuesday our group of ladies got together for our 11th annual gathering.  Ten of those years have been in Des Moines. We gathered at a stamp store in West Des Moines on Tuesday and started playing.  The store is so gracious to let us use the facilities on Wednesday and again until early Thursday afternoon. I will also be sharing some cards I made from parts that I cut and stamped there.  It is so much fun being able to share our supplies with each other.  

Thanks for coming by today!

STAMPIN' UP! - Hey Chick!

I rarely make a "fun" card.  I'm not sure why, but I don't have a lot of "fun" stamps.  When I placed my last order for Stampin' Up! items, I was able to get this stamp set FREE.  That certainly was incentive.  

I'd seen some cards where the designs were stamped, stacking the chickens so I gave it a try and then colored them with Copic markers.  One of the cards used a flat tooth pick for the banner.  I didn't know if I would be mailing the card so I just cut a very narrow piece of brown card stock.  I matted the image with Crumb Cake and Crushed Curry.....the two colors that seemed to match the Copic colors I had used.

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GROUP BRIGHT COLORS CARD SWAP

The last few days I have been in Des Moines for our annual Group Gathering.  We always have such fun sharing ideas, laughing and eating.  This is the card I made to give my "swap partner" using bright colors.  It is from the Stampin' Up! Awash with Flowers stamp set.  I love this set and it is fun to work with.  I like that the idea is not to necessarily line up the two layers perfectly.

There is room at the bottom of the card for my friend to personalize the card with a sentiment of her choice.

Thank for coming by today!

USING MEMORY BOX DIES

Pinterest was definitely the inspiration for this card.  I used the same die for the design across the white portion which allows the designer paper below peek through.  The butterflies are different and I made it my own by adding a second butterfly to the design.

I left the wings of the white die cut free from glue to let them "fly".  The small picture allows you to see this.

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IMPROVING A PREVIOUS POST

A while back I posted this card.  I love the flower with the polka dot petals although I think the stem is pretty skinny for the size of the blossom.  When I ran across a package of dimensional lady bugs in one of my baskets, I thought of this card and added one to it.  I like the card better now because I think the cute little lady but takes some of the attention away from the skinny stem.  What do you think?

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STAMPIN' UP! - Awash with Flowers #2

Unlike yesterday's card, I did CASE the card I saw on Pinterest.  This used the same stamp set as yesterday but used the outline portion of the set.

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STAMPIN' UP! - Awash with Flowers

Recently when I was browsing cards on Pinterest, I saw a beautiful card using this flower.  They had stamped the blossom portion with VersaMark and then heat embossed it with navy powder.  

I pulled out my embossing powders and decided to make a card using that method.  This time my card is definitely NOT like the one I saw but the flower was heat embossed.  The flower looks like it has a navy cast to it but it is actually a shade of purple....it just didn't photograph well.  I'm not sure if it was something I did but the embossing didn't turn out nice and smooth.

There was a piece of designer paper on my craft table that went well with the flower but didn't cover the entire front of the card base.  I matted the flower with two colors of card stock and then mounted it off to the right.  

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TWO-STEP STAMPS

I stamped this card a few days ago and put the stamp set away.  I'm sorry I can't remember what stamp set I used.  I think that's a sign that I have too many stamps.  The little butterfly is from Inkadinkadoo and the cute little sun is a 2006 Penny Black and is actually still available.  The sentiment is from Darcie's and goes perfectly with those little flowers.

Our Yahoo Group's June Color Swap challenge is to make a card using bright colors.  I originally planned to use this one but made a second card that will be given to my partner.

We have had a lot really HOT DAYS here and I don't do well with them.  I'm not an outdoors person and I'm extremely thankful for air conditioning!  Hope you are all staying cool and not experiencing any serious summer storms.

Thanks for coming by today!  Come back again next week and I'll have more new items for you.

MEMORY BOX DIES

When I'm organized, I sometimes have cards scheduled for two weeks ahead.  That's a clue.....I'm not feeling very organized right now.  I just realized that I had posted nothing yet for today.

A few days ago I had my two friends, Joanne and Carol, come and I showed them a couple of things they were wondering about.  Something was mentioned about the die that makes this floral die cut so I brought it out and cut it.  It has been so much fun after all these years of making cards to have two ladies right here that are coming here to have some fun!

After they left, I put the die cut piece on my craft table.  Normally when I cut out these pieces I use Stick-It (a double sided adhesive) on the back side of the card stock before cutting.  I hadn't done that with this one since I was quickly demonstrating something.

I managed to get it adhered to the front of a card base and then added the additional die cut which I did do with Stick-It.  It's a very plain card, but I just couldn't bring myself to throw the flowers away.

Right now I'll schedule something to appear on my blog tomorrow.  Thanks for checking out this simple card.

TUTTI DIE - Praying Hands

Previously I posted a card with a "Cross in the Vine" die from Tutti.  I ordered this one at the same time.  It is going to be a perfect die to use for get well or various religious events.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

STAMPIN' UP! - The Art of LIfe (again)

I made these cards at the same time as I did some of the previous ones I posted here, but I was saving one of these for a card swap and didn't want to reveal them ahead of time.  One of the cards went to my card swap partner.

In addition to the stamp set, the inks, designer paper and embossing folder used were all from Stampin' Up!

To obtain the lighter color, of the stamped image, I inked the stamp, stamped it once and then stamped it again without re-inking it.

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USING A NEVER BEFORE USED DIE

Step 1:  Cut a piece of white card stock 4 1/4" x 5 1/2".

Step 2:  I used a Stampin' Up! Framelits die to cut the window in that piece and embossed it with the dotted swiss folder.

Step 3:  I used the Bigz Lattice die to cut a piece of white card stock and added a layer of Stampin' Up! designer paper behind it.

Step 4:  The piece from Step 3 was added behind the window and taped down.

Step 5:  This entire piece was then added to the white card base. 

Step 6:  The sentiment was added on a tag.

Step 7:  I stamped and punched flowers to be added and then finally tiny pearls added to the centers of the flowers.

This is a different post for me.  I hope this was helpful!  I just thought if there were some new crafters wondering how this was done, giving the steps might be a better explanation of how to do it.

Thanks for stopping by today!

FIRST TRY WITH DISTRESS OXIDE INKS

When I heard about these new Distress Oxide inks, I watched a YouTube video about them.  Since I could get them wholesale, I purchased some.

This was my first experiment with them. The Distress Oxide inks are more intense than the regular Distress inks and they blend more easily.  I masked off a strip on the card base and then using my the round sponge tool from Tim Holtz, I swirled the colors in rainbow order.  They do blend together where they overlap.  My only problem was that I got lines from the sponge.  After I added this beautiful Tutti die cut, it covered those lines pretty well.

I'm not sure if I will add any type of sentiment on the front or not although the card is a little plain.  I wish I would have moved the masked area further to the left and then done some embossing on the solid white area before adding the die cut.  There's always a next time.

Thanks for coming by today!

CASING LYNETTE

A few days ago my friend, Lynette, posted a card on her blog using a round Penny Black sticker.  I love the PB stickers but round ones are a little harder to mat.  She used a tri-fold card and cut a circle in the middle section for the sticker to show through.  I had not ever thought of doing that so I immediately dug out one of my sticker sheets and made this card.

I didn't have any ready made white tri-fold cards but I do have 12 x 12 sheets of white card stock.  I cut a piece from it that was 12" x 5 1/2" and scored the folds at 4" and 8".

A Spellbinders circle die was used to cut the opening.  To make it easier to handle the sticker I did use the circle that had been cut out and adhered it to the back of the sticker making it easier to adjust it in the opening. 

Thank you for stopping by today!  Be sure to let me know if you have any questions.

KITCHEN SINK STAMPS MEET ALTENEW INK

I've had several Kitchen Sink stamps for a long time but haven't made good use of them.  They are  3 to 4 step stamps and I just wasn't having luck finding inks that went well together.  One of the ladies on our Yahoo Group has made some beautiful cards using the Altenew inks so I decided to invest in a set of green and a set of pinks.  

The two darkest colors did not look good with the lighter two when I stamped those layers, but after a few minutes they seemed to lighten a bit.  To aid in the process I stamped the first layer again over the top of all of them and it softened the look even more.

I doubt that you can tell from the picture, but I used some clear Wink of Stella over the darkest ink and a little on the leaves to add some shimmer.

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STAMPIN' UP! - The Art of Life

I have made several sympathy cards using two other stamps from this set but for this one, I chose the pretty blossoms.  The matted design fit nicely inside the embossed border.

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STAMPIN' UP! - Avant #3

I had stamped another piece with the flowers from the Avant stamp set so I made this quick card placing the Coastal Cabana mat at an angle..  The card base also has an extra 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" layer added to it which had been embossed with a random dots design.

Thank you for coming by today!  Have a great weekend!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, JAMIE & JASON!

STAMPIN' UP! -  Avant #2

Our youngest daughter and her husband are celebrating their anniversary today.  I won't say how many because I can't believe we have a child who has been married that long!  This is the card I made for my mother to send to them.

Since I  still had the stamp with the lace design on my craft table, I decided to use it again on this card.  I used Stampin' Up! Coastal Cabana and Old Olive colors.  The piece with the flowers was mounted with foam dots.

Thank you for coming by today!