Hi everyone! 

I hope your weekend was a good one. Today is still a holiday but it is also a Monday. Monday's for me are a pretty low key catch up day. Things were very slow moving by the time I got to the stamp room. You don't want to know how long this card took me to make, HA! Starting out, I made it much too complicated. Even though I knew I wanted clean and simple, I tried out new products and techniques, then scratched them and went with the basics. 

How basic, you say? Colored with Tombo markers, die cut and arranged on a card front with an embossed sentiment. Voila! 

The banner and the flower cluster above it were popped up to add dimension. I added brown sequins to give just a bit of contrast and shine. 

I made this for the wonderful challenge at CAS(E) This Sketch.

and the Anything Goes at 

Thanks for stopping by! Til next time ~

Be yourself

     Delight in your craft 

        Make something beautiful!

Supplies used:

Stamps: Wplus9 - Autumn Blessings stamps and dies

Paper: Bitty Big Harvest Gold Paper Collection - PTI

Fall Foliage Birthday

Hello everyone, how has your week been?

I've had lots of time to stamp. I finally gave up holding on to summer and made an autumn card. How could I resist the Fir & Foliage 1 stamps from The Greetery? 

Making this card was a delight with the easily layering tree images Betsy designed. Creating a masculine birthday card, I used Distress Oxide inks in fall colors. This tree can be created in many colors to reflect the seasons.

I'm squeaking this in to the challenge at The Paper Players on its last day, they had a great sketch. 

Thanks so much for taking your valuable time to visit my blog today!

Be yourself

     Delight in your craft 

        Make something beautiful!

Stamps: The Greetery - Fir & Foliage 1, Sentiments Suite: Birthday stamps and dies

Paper: Neenah Solar White, Kraft

INK: Distress Oxide 

Accessories: embellishment is from SU

Watercolored Thanks

I pulled out the Look for the Rainbows Stamp set from the September Card Kit again today. 

This time I wanted to watercolor those gorgeous flowers. One thing that attracted me to this set was the large flowers with petals big enough to color generously. And that is what I did! 

I love to watercolor but I'm still in the learning stages. I used my Peerless watercolors but the colors were a bit more intense than I wanted. Once I realized that I was stuck with that, I added details over the blossoms with Copics, and flicked on spatters in black and metallic gold. I added a pale yellow background and black card stock with the sentiment embossed with Liquid Platinum. And I liked the results!

 Using a black mat, I mounted the card front onto Very Vanilla card stock for the base and added a few jewels.

Thanks so much for coming by today! Thank you for your kind words and comments. 

Be yourself

     Delight in your craft 

        Make something beautiful!

Retro Rubber Guest Designer

Hello, welcome to my blog! I'm excited to be the guest designer in the Retro Rubber Challenge today and I can't wait to be part of their talented and fun group. 

If this challenge is new to you, the most important thing to remember is to use stamps that are at least more than one year old. Thus, we spread the love around instead of always using our newer items only. 

My card features the lovely images from WPlus9 Designs' Tropic Fever Set (May 2018).

The hibiscus flowers and leaves were stamped onto Bristol Smooth card stock, embossed with white, and then colored with blended Distress Oxide inks. I used a small sponge dauber to add layers of color.

The set also includes this striking background which was stamped in black. The sketch provided served as a good jumping off point for this card. 

We hope that you will play along! Look HERE if you want to check out the challenge. 

I can't wait to see what you will make! Thanks for stopping by ~

Be yourself

     Delight in your craft 

        Make something beautiful!

Look for the Rainbows

Hi! 
I made a card the other day - just because I wanted to. 
I bought a card kit this month - just because it had rainbows. Well, no, actually there were NO rainbow images. Just birds and flowers.

 That's even better! And wonderful rainbow sentiments. 

I made the rainbow with strips of paper. Because it was fun!
Colored the birds with Copics and Wink of Stella, and cut them out. Talking of shimmer, check out the Tonic Crystal gems. I wanted to sprinkle them everywhere. I fashioned a cloud with my scissors and tucked it in for the sentiment.

Hope you enjoy my card today using items from the fabulous September Card Kit from Simon Says Stamp. Since we've been having rain it's much brighter than in the photo. You will see me using these stamps again soon! 
Have a great day and a wonderful new week!

Be yourself

     Delight in your craft 

        Make something beautiful!

Beautiful Butterfly, Beautiful Day

Hello, stamping friends. 
I am hanging on to summer for as long as I can! Even though I'm wrapped up in a warm sweater today, I still look forward to the last few days of summer. You'll have to wait a bit longer to see me pull out the fall and (GASP!) Christmas stamps. Especially since I still needed to ink up this beautiful butterfly to play with today. 

I love the mosaic look of this beauty from the Beautiful Day stamp set. My fav Zig markers were used for coloring in the images. I added Nuvo drops to the butterfly, plus patterned paper and textured card stock to complete the design. Thanks for coming by today!

Be yourself

     Delight in your craft 

        Make something beautiful!

Supplies used:

Stamps: (SSS) Beautiful Day, Sentiment from WPlus9 - Wishing You Sentiments

Paper: (SU) Daffodil Delight,  Basic Black, Bristol Smooth

INK:Simon Says Stamp - Intense Black

Accessories: Tim Holtz Kaleidoscope 3 D Embossing die, Beautiful Day Wafer Dies

 I'm playing along with: 
the special celebration at Freshly Made Sketches and 

Simon Says Stamp Weekly Challenge - Clean and Simple. 

TWOFER

TWOFER for this post refers to two cards and two challenges. 

I'm so excited to be able to get this under the line on the last day of the Twofer Challenge! In case it's new to you, we are to make two cards using the same stamps or images for two different occasions. This month was a nautical theme.

 It's a favorite of mine, so here are the two cards I came up with.

One card is a missing you occasion and the other is a birthday card. Both use the stamps and sentiments from the Sunny Studio Oceans of Joy set which has been in my prominent "to use" file all summer.  I think these little guys are adorable! 

Here's a closer look at my favorite of these cards. I created it for the Color Throwdown challenge. 

Thinking these shades were perfect for an ocean I ink blended a background using Distress Oxides in Tumbled Glass and Wilted Violet, adding spatters. I also stenciled the rays using Peacock Feathers. 
The images were colored onto Bristol Smooth Card Stock using Zig markers. The glittered enamel star and heart came in my newest card kit. I just had to add some sparkle and also some WOS was added to the whale, octopus, and the balloon. 

Phew! Guess this was a long post! Thanks for hanging with me. 

Supplies used:

Stamps: Oceans of Joy

Paper: DSP (ret.) from SU!