Share Handmade Kindness

Jennifer McGuire Ink has a great campaign over on her blog, it's all about making something handmade to brighten someones else's day. If you haven't checked it out, you should. It's a great way to think about others and to remember that we are all only human. It was also a great excuse to get the new Hero Arts Acts of Kindness stamp set, and a couple other stamp sets too.

I work 7 on/7off, so on my off weeks I try to get in as much paper crafting as I can. I went a little overboard this week. But it was a lot of fun. I played with my new WRMK Fuse tool, SSS inks, and Altenew stamps and inks. I will update with links later.

Saturate Canary No-Line Color

Hello,

I recently signed up to take the Kit and Clowder skin and hair class. It's been a lot of fun learning the techniques that Alyce teaches. Below is an image I did last night, using a Saturated Canary image. The nice thing about Saturated Canary, is that you get two images, usually, with each digital image. Once with the regular lines and the other with really faint gray lines, perfect for no line coloring.

Ice Cream Cone Shaker Birthday Card

I have another birthday card to share.

For this card, I used the SSS Ice Cream Parade Die, and Distress Inks.

I started by cutting the front panel using the SSS Stitched Shapes frame and the Ice Cream Cone parade on white Recollections 110lb cardstock.

I also cut the parade die a 4 more times, so I could build up the dies and create the shaker pockets for the seed beads to go. I used the inside portions of one of the dies and colored the ice cream parts using Distress inks and sponge daubers. I used, Picked Raspberry, Spiced Marmalade, Mustard Seed, Cracked Pistachio and Salty Ocean.

For the cones I used a scrap of brown polka-dot paper. I started by gluing one of the ice cream borders to the card base and then glued the inside pieces in. I layered the rest of the 4 outlines portions on top after that. I added some clear seed beads I picked up from Michael's, and put about 5 in each area. I then glued a piece of acetate to the front panel, added some foam tape and adhered that to the rest of the card.

I then stamped the sentiment using the SSS Handwritten Sentiments and the new Lawn Fawn Fish Tank ink.

If I were to make this card again, I would have forgone cutting the die 5 times and just put the outline on the top of the acetate, so there would be one larger pocket and not 10 small ones.


Supply Links
SSS Handwritten Sentiments
SSS Ice Cream Cone Parade
Lawn Fawn Fish Tank Ink

View card on Instagram: Ice Cream Cone Parade

Happy Birthday ROCK ON

I have another cool birthday card today. I used the My Favorite things Journal It Playlist and the matching Cassette die. The stamp set is a little bit older, so it is hard to find.

I made a  custom background paper using the "Rock On" Sentiment from the kit. To achieve the diagonal lines, I used a ruler and pencil and drew the lines; I then stamped the sentiments on the lines. The cassette is cut from Recollections black card stock and white card stock for the label.



Supplies Used:

Journal It Playlist Not in Stock
SSS Stitched Shapes
Versafine Onyx Black 

Wishing You Happy Birthday Card

The other day I went through my stash of cards that I've made and found out, I only had 1 birthday card. I just don't make a whole lot of birthday cards it seems, so I'm going to start making more so I can send out birthday cards to people.

I made this card for the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge. The challenge is to make a card using the color swatch and any SSS products.

The paper comes from American Crafts Shimelle 6x6 paper pad. I was really excited when I found this in my stash, because it has almost all the colors that the challenge was for. Plus, I also love it when a patterned paper can do a lot of the work for you.
I die cut the Wishing sentiment using the wishing die from SSS, I cut it out 5 times and glued one on top of the other for dimension. I also added some clear Wink of Stella shimmer on the sentiment, you can kind of see it in the picture. The rest of the sentiment is also from SSS, it comes in the Wishing stamp set, I stamped it in Versa mark and then white heat embossed it so it could stand out. I then added some sequins for some sparkle.

Supplies:
American Crafts Shimelle 6x6
Wishing

One Layered Thank You

I decided  to make a simple one layered card, just to show that you don't always need a lot of dimension an sparkle. 

This card is really simple it's a standard A2 card base, that I rounded the corners on. I used the Lawn Fawn Belinda's Borders swirly stamp for the lines, I stamped in a rainbow pattern, because it's always pleasing to the eye. I sentiment comes from a Fiskars stamp set, bu I don't remember the name.

The nice thing about a card like this, is it's really easy to mass produce, so you could make a bunch of these and give them to someone as a gift. You could even stamp the lines on each card in a different color family.

Supplies:
Lawn Fawn Belinda's Border

Thanks so much

Hope everyone is doing great out there.

The inspiration for this card comes from a women I saw at the grocery store the other day. She was wearing a striped shirt with these colors. I like the colors of the shirt and thought a card using those colors, but blending into each other would be interesting. 

I used Tim Holtz Distress inks in Cracked Pistachio, Peacock Feathers, Chipped Sapphire and Black Soot. I used the SSS Winter Wishes stamp set for the sentiment and Recollections white embossing powder. The sequins are also from SSS, it's the assorted Moonshine. 

I like that this card is a little masculine with the darker blue and black. 

Supplies:
Winter Wishes
Stitched Shapes
Assorted Moonshine

Simon Says Stamp May 2015 Card Kit

When I saw that the May card kit was very wedding centered, I was really kind of bummed. I don't have a huge need for wedding cards. But the patterned paper was just so pretty, and I figured I could use it for Some elegant thank you cards. 

Then I found out my friend was getting married. And I thought Yay! I can use the kit to make a wedding card! 

So this is the card I made for my friend. I used almost all the elements from the kit. The gold metallic paper at the bottom is from DCWV metallic stack and the sequins are SSS too, but those items are not included in the kit.

I'm really excited to send this to my friend, she's an amazing women and I'm so happy for her and her fiance.

Update: The wedding was great, very small but definitely Amy.

Mother's Day Card Post 4

Alright, I have only three more cards of my Mother's Day cards. I did make more, but I didn't photograph them for some stupid reason. Silly me.

I just love the way this card turned out, I used the Tim Holz Stampers Anonymous Garden Flower set and Rangers Liquid Platinum embossing powder. It's not exactly balanced, but I love the way the embossing powder looks on this ivory card stock. This idea could make some lovely wedding invitation cards, etc.

This is a shaker card, which was inspired by Nichol Mcgouirk. I was looking for some ideas, and she just happened to upload a video on YouTube, that had a blue background and vase with flowers. I did use black embossing powder on the lamp, to add a little something. I like that this is a simple card layout, but it doesn't look like it's missing something.

This is my last Mother's day card I made for this year. I have a lot of friends who do not have children yet, but they do have pets, and lets face it, pets are part of the family. I used the Simon Says Stamp Pawprints on Our Hearts set for the back ground, I did use some Simon Says Stamp detail clear embossing powder, as I wanted the background to stand out a little more. I also used the Lawn Fawn birthday tags and stamp set for the tags. The puppy is a stamp from Some Odd Girl, the set is called Spot, I just fell in love with the cute puppy image.

On a side note, the friend that I sent this card to yelled at me after she received it. She and her husband have fertility issues, so I knew that Mother's day would be a hard day for her. So I did write a quick note, just letting her know how much I admired and loved her. She then yelled at me and started crying, which made me cry. She really tries to seem tough and ok about a lot of things, but deep down she's a total softy.

I think it's important to not forget about those in our lives who don't have children on Mother's and Father's day. Those days can be hard for the ones who are unable to have kids, but really want them. And a lot of them compensate by having kids with four legs and fur, and to acknowledge that can mean the world to them.

All right getting off my soap box now.

Mother's Day Cards Post 3

Post 3 of the mother's day cards I made. These two were inspired by Jennifer McGuire Ink, she did a tutorial not long ago on using embossing paste and embossing powder. On both these cards I used the same stencil (I will link it later, as I can't remember the name right now) and Golden Light Modeling Paste and then added embossing paste to the wet modeling paste. The green is a verdigris color, which means it has green, gold, black powders in it, similar to what copper would look like once it's oxidized. The white is a sparkling white powder, you can't see in the photo, but it looks gorgeous in real life. 

Happy Birthday Card

As I was looking through the cards I've made over the past couple years; I realized that I only have 2 birthday cards. I am not setting a goal to make more birthday cards!

This is my first birthday card I made in a while. The paper line is My Minds Eye Ashbury Heights. I just love the gold accents on this paper.

Mother's Day Cards Post 2

2nd post for Mother's day cards.

On this card I again used the SSS Flowers on My Mind stamp set. I've really fallen in love with this set. I love that the feel of the card can change by the different colors of ink you use.

Sentiment came from a Hero's Art set, it didn't have a name, but I will try to link to it below.

Second card for this post, I wanted to try the foiling techniques that have become really popular lately. I had this butterfly and pink foil paper in my stash for a very long time. The butterfly is a sticker that is sticky on both sides.  Like I said I've had them in my stash for a long time, so if you don't have this kind of sticker, you can always use the new techniques to add foil that are on the market.

I wanted to add a little bit more interest to the card, because it looked a bit bland with just he butterfly. So I added some stripes using a brush stoke set form Paper Smooches and some Recollections pearl embossing powder. Then I added a couple of Recollections pearl gems.

Mother's Day Cards Post 1

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted anything. I'm trying to actually send out cards that I make, so I have a lot of Mother's day cards to share. I've been trying new techniques and color combos, to see what I like and what I don't like. I am only going to post 2 cards per blog post, just to keep it simple and not create a 20 page post.

The first card I have to share is the one below. I used two Simon Says Stamp card kits, I use the February and March 2015 kits. The card stock and pattern paper comes from the February card kit.

I loved the subtle triangle background on it. The flowers are from the Flowers on my Mind stamp set that came with the March card kit. I stamped them on vellum using Versa mark Ink and then used Recollections detail white embossing powder. I like the really simple feminine look of the flowers this way. For the sentiment I used the SSS Happy Birthday die, but on the happy. I die cut it out of plain white card stock 3 times and a soft pink card stock once. I then layered them together to add dimension. The written sentiment is from my computer, I chose a font I liked, and printed if off and then made a fish-tale banner.

Supplies:
Flowers on My Mind
Happy Birthday Die

My next Mother's day card, I again used the same SSS Flowers on My Mind stamp set. I really liked the black and yellow color scheme of the March Kit, and decided to run with it.

I also used the SSS Envelope Sentiment stamp set for the bow, and then drew in the small horizontal string with a black marker. Again I used a sentiment that I printed out, and the Happy stamp from SSS Holiday Sentiments. I then used fun foam to pop up the two side panels.

Simon Says Stamp January Card Kit

Here are the two cards that I've made using the January Simon Says Stamp card kit.

The first card is a winter card for one of my friends that does not celebrate Christmas, so instead of sending here a Christmas card. I made her a Winter themed card. 

I used the supplies from the card kit and a couple other SSS exclusive products. I will post links to the products later. 

The second card I made is a simple Thank You card for another friend. 

For this card, I only used supplies from the kit, with the exception of the white embossing powder, which was from Judikins white embossing powder.