Happiness Always with Penny Black

 Hello crafters and friends, I hope you are as pleasantly surprised as I am to see my third post of the week. And it's only Wednesday! 

Today's card features stamps from Penny Black, and my watercoloring with Distress Ink re-inkers. Both are things I love to create with and the time spent is like therapy for me! 

I began by stamping on watercolor card stock, and coloring the images in. Then I fussy cut each of them out. I added sponged ink and the sentiment to the card base, and layered the frame on top. I love the soft pastels; the feminine touch of pearls is the only embellishment. 

I'm so glad you came by!

Be yourself

          Have delight in your craft 

               Make something beautiful!  

Penny Black Supplies: Delightful Day, Brew-tea-ful, Overflowing; Frame It Die

I'm entering the following challenges today: 
The Paper Players Theme challenge Spring Flowers
NBUS - Never Been Used SCHTUFF -The tea cup stamps are "new" 
The Card Concept - I was inspired by the soft colors and flowers, and made my Clean and Layered Card. 

Try It On Tuesday - For a Lady   Anything Goes
Penny Black Saturday Challenge     Anything Goes

Floral Delight

 If the jonquils and birds I see out my window are telling it, spring is here in my backyard! A perfect time to bring out the pretty Floral Delight papers from Stampin' Up! I love yellow and these papers are so bright and happy. My card is simple today, featuring the pretty gingham and blooms. 

I fussy cut the blossom from the paper, added foam tape for dimension and tied it with a twine bow.  I've been inspired by these challenges today and it feels good to play!

Little Red Wagon - something tiny. (See those adorable tiny gold bees? They are part of the Floral Delight collection.) 
Seize the Birthday - No stamping (optional)
Love Those Pretty Papers
Inspired By - use gingham

Hope your day is sunny and bright. Sending you off with smiles...

Be yourself

          Have delight in your craft 

               Make something beautiful!  

God's Masterpiece

 Happy to be starting a new week and a new month with a card to share with you. Hi friends, welcome to my blog. 

Spring flowers are starting to pop up here and there outside, and many are flocking to blog land as challenges seek projects decorated with blooms! 

Here's one that I made. 

Using the great layout from Jill that I shared HERE, I've used this rose from the Enchantingly (Clear Stamps) for today's card. The greeting is from Penny Black as well; Inspirational Sentiments. Re-inkers are the medium for watercoloring.

Thanks for your visit!

Be yourself

          Have delight in your craft 

               Make something beautiful!  

The challenges I'm joining are: 

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - use Penny Black
Try it Tuesday - embossing
Allsorts Challenge -  Clean and Simple
Penny Black Saturday Challenge  ATG

With Love Going Postal

 Hello! It's nice to be back again so soon with one more card to post. I did have some time to stamp over the weekend, and I made this card for the  DD challenge asking us to use RED. I didn't have trouble playing along as I love any shade of red. Here you go! 

Waffle Flower's collection of Postal Collage stamps, dies and stencils made this so easy to create. It's fun putting in the small images from stamps you own already as I did HERE, but nothing beats their pretty rose stencil. I used Distress Oxide inks. There are some gorgeous samples at the challenge blog  HERE and a wonderful Mood Board too.

Thanks for stopping by today! I hope to see you soon. 

Be yourself

          Have delight in your craft 

               Make something beautiful!  

A Classic

 Hello, I'm glad you're here to visit again! If you visit often, you already know that I love card challenges. One I find easy to join is NBUS - Never Been Used Schtuff, but there's a new kid on the block; The Neglected Stuff Challenge. I have lots of both kinds of stuff.  

I was inspired to pull out two of my very first wood block stamp sets purchased from Stampin' Up! for today's card. 

I find that I'm still pleased to see these lovely, timeless images from my first year (2011) as a demo. Stamping the text background was much easier to line up using my Misty. How things have changed in the stamping world!

Simply using just stamps paper and ink felt good! Oh, and two stitched rectangle dies. I think the stamp set was called Natural Beauty. It's a keeper! It is one of the handful of wood block stamps that remain in my stash.

Check out the challenge HERE and give it a try! The goal either way is to use the stuff that we have, right? 

Hope you have a wonderful day!

Be yourself

          Have delight in your craft 

               Make something beautiful!  

Wildflower Birthday Card #2

 I hope you're doing well today. How's your crafting going? 

With our recent move, I'm totally having to re-think my crafting process as my supplies are limited and in one small closet. It goes something like this - I bring out the cutter and cut card stock. Put that away after use, and haul the Empress machine to the dining room table. Then come the dies or embossing folders. After those are put away,  some color medium and general supplies for assembling take over the table.

Can you imagine I'm getting a few steps in as I go back and forth from room to room? When the card is complete, it all goes back in the closet until next time. Of course, there are similar steps needed for the photography too!

I know, I know, it's not so bad. Not everybody has a craft room/space! One way I can streamline is to make several cards with the same supplies. So, here is card #2 using the Wildflower Birthday collection from Stampin' Up! 

Oh, how I love these pretty papers! This birthday greeting is for the dear grand who loves pink! All images are from the papers and ephemera. I stamped and embossed the sentiment from the set with gold powder. The clear gems adhered to the cake don't sparkle for the camera, but IRL they shine.

Wherever your steps take you today, I hope you can go with a smile. Sending hugs your way!  

PS. My dear man and I actually love our smaller home and simpler lifestyle. Less time is spent cleaning, lol!

Be yourself

          Have delight in your craft 

               Make something beautiful! 

Wildflower Birthday

Hello friends, it's a new week, welcome to my blog today! One of my favorite things about this hobby of card making that we love, is that you can create what you feel in the mood for and change out colors or techniques according to your whim. 

Lately I've been doing simple cards with clean watercolored images, but you know what? I've been missing playing with paper. So I got my fill of flowers and pretty papers with this card. 

Recently I  was smitten with a couple floral suites from Stampin' Up! This card was created with papers from the Wildflower Birthday Collection. Such pretty pastel peach and blues. I began by embossing white card stock with the Baroque folder from Anna Griffin, and used a die to scallop the bottom edge. The striped tag is part of the DSP, I cut it out and trimmed out the polka dotted blue strip to add vertically.

 The flowers and leaves on the tag are part of the images on the papers that can be punched out. The other panel was cut with a stitched die cut from the set. The lovely loose weave trim is so fun to work with and dressed things up. A sentiment from The Greetery and a few metallic gold pearls were  included for the final touch. That's it for me today, thanks for keeping on til the end of this post. Hope you have a great day!

I'll be linking up with NBUS - Never Been Used Stuff as the papers and die are new; and the lovely ladies at A Cut Above.

I did a little bit of stamping.....

 Hi Friends! While waiting for the big game on Sunday and staying inside for a couple days of rain, I did a little bit of stamping. Nothing big to share, but here I am again. 

I made three cards that are a CASE of Jill's cards using Sketch #1 Just Frame It. I've been so loving her sketches, especially those shared in January and I wanted to try her system of doing three cards using her batch method. Die cut all three cards first, then stamp and color, lastly add sentiments then assemble. A few more Valentine's are on their way! 

Have a look. 

I learned something. 1. This sweet sketch involves an image in a frame. In this instance, using the frame I had on hand wasn't the best option as it covered up much of the embossed detail. 2. While making three cards at once worked well, I didn't love them  I think using the Penny Black frame (HERE) is much better proportioned and the best choice for this sketch.  3. Ordering is easy! New PB frame dies are on the way to me. I hope you won't mind seeing me use this sketch again, lol!

Thanks for stopping by today!

I'm adding this to A Cut Above (using dies),  Double D challenge, asking for hearts and Penny Black Saturday Challenge.

Bring a Letter

 The team at The Paper Players inspired us again with some wonderful samples this week! The theme is CAS cards having to do with mail. One thing that is especially nice at our new home is having our own mailbox on the curb. No more driving to a community mail building in our former rural neighborhood to get the mail.

This theme inspired another Valentine using "Cuteness" stamps from Penny Black. I colored the image with markers and fussy cut it out. Echo Park papers came in handy for making the die cut envelopes. The sentiment came from a brand new PB set called Love Big, thus I'm adding this to NBUS (which features our never-been-used YET -  stuff.   Simple and sweet. Have a great day! 

A Christmas Pair

 Popping in with a quick post on this chilly Sunday. Hi, how are you doing? I'm sharing a Christmas card today that I feel happy to have as the first in the pile up.

I used new stamps from Penny Black (Christmas with Mimi) and colored the cute couple with re-inkers used as watercolors. The snowflakes and designer paper were oldies from my stash. I'm keeping things simple with my stamping and getting used to multiple trips to the "closet" to rummage for supplies which I carry out to the dining room table. And back again. 

Those who visit my blog regularly know that we moved to be closer to our family, in spite of being 'very young' for this kind of change. (big grin here). Our move to a smaller home has been a good thing. It's an individual home in a huge 55plus community. You know - with lots of options for exercise and sociability, pretty neighborhoods with sidewalks, walking trails, a lake and an indoor pool. That last one is my favorite. So, I have big goals to move my body more. It's a .2 mile walk to that pool!

As it turns out, I do also have time and energy for stamping. It's no longer two hours per card, but just enough to have fun, share and keep up with you lovely stamping friends. Thank you for keeping on visiting me!

Challenges entered: 

Penny Black Saturday Challenge
Jingle Belles - using new/old  oops! I'm too late for this one.
A Cut Above - Anything Goes, optional New
Time Out - Inspired by something you love to do. For me, I love to walk in the snow, and gift giving is good to do too!

A Penny Black Valentine

Hello!  I didn't expect to stamp much after our move, but I also forgot that we are usually sick in January. So we are 'under the weather' and staying home inside due to the winter storm. Which for us, meant a bit of ice that is now melting. Either way, I'm happy to be house bound and enjoying sunshine today as I look out the windows.

Inspired by the sketch at Freshly Made, I water colored this sweet image using re-inkers. One of the best things about my new community is that there is a group that meets to make cards and collects them to be distributed at many venues and for every occasion. It makes me happy to be able to easily donate my creations and know they will make someone smile. 

I'm also sharing this at NBUS as the stamp is new, and Penny Black Saturday Challenge where they also focus on something new this month.

I hope you are doing well today. Thanks for your visit to my blog. 

Sending BIG hugs

 Well, hello and Happy New Year! It's been a minute since I posted. Our move was almost two months ago, it all went smoothly but it's always a big change. Then there were family overnights and the holidays!

I'm here to share what I created in my crafty afternoon. Giving the stamping and blogging a try again on this chilly day!

Pulling out my re-inkers I colored this guy from the Penny Black AHOY set for my first Valentine. 

I love how the sentiments work out so well. Inside it says, "Sending a big hug so it's there when you need it."

I'm inspired to join the challenges at Color Hues (hello friends!)  NBUS, Penny Black Saturday Challenge  and Freshly Made. Hope you have a great day!