What I love Wednesday; He is Risen from W Plus 9

Hello friends, I hope your week has been going well. We are finally getting WARM temps here and I can't wait to get outside for some sunshine! 

Just a brief note of explanation about my blog. It seems on a recent post that I had gotten a bit bogged down. In thinking about it I've realized that I need to focus on the JOY that stamping brings me, and reflect that more often here on my blog. I got this great idea from Leslie Miller, to plan out my stamping itinerary to help keep my focus and to help keep it fun. ( In case you haven't yet discovered Leslie's blog I will invite you to check it out HERE where you will be inspired to learn, laugh, and love her amazing work and happy outlook.) 

Back to the blog planning. I've come up with posting three times weekly with the following themes. 
  
Paperytrey Tuesday - where I share work done for Papertrey challenges

What I LOVE Wednesday - where I share a favorite set or technique, new or old, in my favorite elegant style, using flowers, butterflies or other things I love as elements.

Playday is Thursday or Friday. You can expect simpler cards and my intent is to keep it light, easy, and fun! Fun for me = fun for you. 

For today's card, I fell in love with the He is Risen stamp set from W Plus9 after seeing this 

card by Dawn and decided I must make my Easter cards using it. 

What I absolutely love about this set are the large floral background that covers the whole card front and can be stamped tone on tone, and the fabulous sentiments that speak of my Lord and the real meaning of Easter. Of course there are beautiful lilies to love too!
Here's my card. 

I used PTI card stock in Harvest Gold, stamping the background floral in W Plus 9 Queen Bee ink. Dawn's photo shows this beautiful color much more accurately. The individual flowers were inked onto white card stock and embossed in white. I sponged Distress inks to fill them in with color. 

The pretty banner is called Bold Banner from W Plus 9, and there's a sweet coordinating set of sentiments. I used the MISTI to stamp my sentiment, and curved it a bit to fit the banner. 

How often do I mention that I love SEQUINS? I just felt this card needed some sparkle. I couldn't stop at 3. 

I'd love to hear from you and will take this opportunity to wish you a Happy Easter. Will be back tomorrow or Friday for Play Day. 

For now, I'm off to play outside while the sun is still shining. 

Be yourself

     Delight in your craft 

        Make something beautiful!

Papertrey Tuesday Brushed Birds

Hello all, here I am popping in at the end of the day with a card to share with you. I'm calling this post Papertrey Tuesday. 
I'm really happy to pull out the Brushed Birds set from Papertrey Ink and use it for the Make It Monday Challenge. 

Lizzie instructed us to use a stencil to pull the eye towards the focal point on our card. It was easy to do and it does make a difference. I'm always happy to do some ink blending. I also used a sponge to dab inks onto the the bird images. Each bird has 3 stamps to layer and sponging the inks allowed me to blend in additional colors for a soft look. The MISTI was helpful for the multiple stamping. 

Also new is the Shape Shifters Oval 1 Die, and I used all three layers. Under the pretty oval with the tiny cut outs, I cut an oval of white card stock inked with Nuvo Mousse. What a sheen it adds, as you can see in the close up. 

The birds are snuggled among die cut leaves and a banner with the sentiment. I love that this can be used for any kind of occasion I may need later on. 

That's it for me today, I hope you'll be back again soon. Have a great evening. 

Be yourself

     Delight in your craft 

        Make something beautiful!

Supplies used:

Stamps: PTI - Brushed Birds

Paper: Neenah Solar White,

INK: PTI - Aqua Mist, Hawaiian Shores, Raspberry Fizz, Harvest Gold, W Plus 9 Warm Wool

Accessories: Stencil, sequins, Nuvo Mousse

Papertrey Ink March Blog Hop Challenge

Good day to you all! 
I'm glad to be able to share my card made for the March Blog Hop 2018 at Papertrey Ink which takes place today. I've wanted to play all week long and I'm grateful to have found a bit of time to stamp over the weekend. 
The hop always begins with a photo to inspire us. I loved the one for this month. 

I was drawn to the cascades of pink blooms, an assortment of textures in the plate, old desk and the basket, and the warm homey feeling of all that blue. 
It seemed cozy as a favorite quilt to me and inspired me to make my card with a country feel. 

I began by stamping the roses from the new set Stitching Garden in layered inks on white card stock. I love the possibilities just waiting for me with these stamps! 

These are beautiful in bold colors but I wanted to have a soft pink to contrast with the medium blue. I found that sometimes stamping a layer twice in the same color, or changing the order in which I stamped the layers gave different looks to the roses. My desk is sprinkled with an array of them! 

I knew I only wanted to focus on those flowers for now, with added layering. I brought out blue card stocks, stamping them with Blueberry Sky ink, one with the woodgrain stamp, and the other with one of my favorite floral clusters. 

I used die cuts to layer and embellish with the florals and a tag with a sentiment.  The tag was kind of an afterthought, but I liked adding brownish floss to put in another bit of texture similar to the basket.

This post is getting long, so I will be sure to list the supplies at the end. 

Thank you so much for coming today and for your kind comments. 

Be yourself

     Delight in your craft 

        Make something beautiful!

Supplies used are PTI unless noted 

Stamps: Stitching Garden, Stampin' Up! - Woodgrain, Elements of Style

Paper: Neenah Solar White,  Blueberry Sky, Spring Rain, Vellum

INK: Blueberry Sky, Sweet Blush, Pale Peony, Hibiscus Burst, Simply Chartreuse, Versamark

Accessories: Stitch in Time Dies, Stitching Garden Dies, Shape Shifters - Oval, Dew Drops, White Embossing Powder

Happy Wishes

I'm having. Mojo struggles. Trouble focusing to stamp. Not much time. Yucky weather!!

Sometimes I get lost in having too many choices and decide to zero in on only a few supplies until something happens.  This week I pulled out a set from Wplus9 Design (Happy Wishes) and some new ink colors to keep on my desk and just fiddle around with. 

I made two cards, and decided I did like the second one.  I will share them both although I think you'll agree with me. 

Above, I used the images to stamp a background on the first, and used lots of foliage because the friend I'm giving it to loves green. It was hard to photograph because it's so busy, but IRL the white stands out a good bit more. I added vellum behind the die cut sentiment, but it's still TOO BUSY!

The second card achieves the crisp lines and simple pops of color that I was going for. 

I considered not posting because I don't think I've done this pretty flower set justice yet. But alas, it has already been a week since I've posted and ...

~you know what?  I am learning that every card I post doesn't have to be a masterpiece.

Those are my words for the day. Be kind to yourself! 

Be yourself

     Delight in your craft 

        Make something beautiful!

   

Create Along with Us: Lilies of the Field

Hello! Welcome back to my blog! 

I love the invitation at PTI to Create Along With Us each month. 

After the designers have showcased the new products we're invited to CASE their projects and create one of our own, spinning off from one of their designs. This month it was very hard to select just one favorite project from all the beautiful samples.

I chose this gorgeous card from Laurie to CASE. I always want to case what she makes! 

I was inspired by the clean colors, crisp style, delicate embossing and layout of her lovely card. I CASE(D) the layout. My own card uses the Lilies of the Field stamp set, and changed the color palette. 

Of course I wanted to use my Bitty Background papers and so far my choices are limited to two colors. LOVE those polka dots!

I combined the sentiment from the new Penned Elegance stamp set with a small sentiment line from the Scripted Sayings set. I see so many possibilities for using these elegant sentiments in a bold font. 

I used a die to dry emboss the corners of the white panel. It came with the Gemini Jr. from Crafter's Companion that arrived at the post office for me today. Love my new toy! Wheee! 

Thanks for visiting!

Be yourself

     Delight in your craft 

        Make something beautiful!

More Spring Flowers and Happy Wishes

Hello, and happy Sunday!

We love to go to the beach in the off season, so a couple weeks ago when we had a few warmer days, my dearest and I had a lovely mini vacay at the ocean. I took along images to color. As my husband says, I wouldn't want to have symptoms of hobby withdrawal while we were gone, ha ha!

These bright and sunny flowers have been on my desk ever since, reminding me that warmth and sunshine will be returning. Soon, I hope!  They are from the Simon Says Stamp More Spring Flowers set.

In the meantime, I made them into a card. Which is, after all the point of this post. 

I began by blending inks onto a panel of Strathmore Bristol Smooth paper using Distress Oxides in Worn Lipstick and Vintage Linen. I added a touch of Scattered Straw also splattering droplets of plain water and pink ink onto the background. The images were embossed with white onto watercolor paper, and were colored in using various inks from WPlus 9 who also provided the sentiment and Happy Wishes Die. 

I really like this sentiment because I can later customize it for a specific occasion when I need to mail it. 

Thanks for coming by to visit today! 

Be yourself

     Delight in your craft 

         Make something beautiful!

I'm linking to the challenge at Simon Says Stamp: Girl Power. 

Playing with the Color Wheel

Good morning! Hope your day is getting off to a good start. 

 I finished up my card last night for the Make It Monday Challenge, hosted by Lexi this time. She showed how she often chooses colors and wanted us to create a card using the colors of the color wheel. 

I loved her card and it was fun to figure out my own take on the theme. I didn't have the images in my PTI supplies that I thought were the right size, so, I used a die cut and transformed it with scissors and markers.

 I added a good coating of Wink of Stella to each blossom, used Nuvo drops in the center of each flower, and added a few drops in green. 
Why I absolutely LOVE doing challenges is this: I never would have come up with this card on my own. I've not really jumped on the bandwagon with rainbow colors in my cards, but this was such fun and I learned so much from making it. 
I hope you've enjoyed your visit, thanks for coming by today!

Be yourself

     Delight in your craft 

        Make something beautiful!

ETA: It's rainy today, wish the bright colors showed up better!

Supplies used:

Stamps: PTI - Penned Elegance

Paper: Neenah Solar White, SU - Basic Black

INK:Simon Says Stamp - Intense Black, Zig Clean Color Markers, Wink of Stella

Accessories: PTI - Tag Sale Quilted, and Cutaway Tags: Summer dies