September Special, From The Heart - ends 9/30/17

The cone flowers again . . . but this time I used a lovely new sentiment from CTMH that is in the September special campaign - From The Heart.  If you want it, you'd better drop everything and order it today!

Here is what the special looks like - it's two stamp sets in one; flowers with layering, and lovely sentiments with more flowers.

The cone flowers were stamped with Momento Tuxedo Black ink, then water colored with the CTMH set.  The sentiment is stamped in one of the new colors, Nutmeg.  This one is already on it's way to the recipient.

Another pinterest card

This card was inspired by Pinterest, and it looked like it would be SO-oooo easy!  Hahahahaha!  Maybe I complicated it by first creating my own colors of paper by putting Tim Holtz Distress Oxide inks direct-to-paper.  Then, because I thought the circles looked too perfect, I hand cut some of them so they would be more random.  I spritzed them to try to create different shades of color, and then came the assembly!  Aiaiaiai!  My card turned out to be a rather un-conventional size.  

But it's cute!  I just wouldn't do it again.  Nailed it!

Inspired by Pinterest

I've saved a card idea on Pinterest that has been re-pinned from my folder at least a hundred times!  No kidding!  I didn't think of this, and the original (see below) uses Altenew stamps and w/o the additional design papers.  Anyway, I'm pretty pleased with the end result.  The flowers are from the "Here For You" set and the sentiment is from another retired CTMH stamp set. It does have a little wink-of-stella on the flowers but you know how that doesn't show up.  *wink* 

Colors were Momento Tuxedo Black, and watercolored with the water brush directly from the Pomegranate ink pad.  

The inspiration. 

September Stamp of the Month and Falling For You papers

This card uses a simple design, and adds the wonderful sentiment from the current Stamp of the Month, Feel so Blessed.  I colored two words with my Prismacolor pencils and added a small "bling".  

If you think you might want this set - you'd better hurry!!  October 1st it will be gone!

Falling for You and Stamp of the Month

I "borrowed" this card design from Vicki Wizniuk, you can see her version here.   Vicki is very talented - I follow her closely and learn wonderful ideas from her blog!  

I used the design paper from Falling for You as well as a little piece from the Cats & Bats paper pack.  I just love the Goldrush design paper here.  I used a different embellishment in between the branches, but otherwise, my card looks a lot like hers!  Nutmeg, Fern, Goldrush inks. The circle element was punched with the CTMH 1 1/4" circle punch.  Easy-peasy!

It's beginning to look and feel like Autumn here.  The trees are changing, the birds are leaving (most of them), and the air is brisk.  It's sunny today and with the light breeze I think it probably doesn't get better than this!  I am so BLESSED!

Falling for You - new CTMH Paper and Stamp of the Month

I was inspired to make this card by one I saw on a CTMH Consultant Facebook page.  I changed only the design paper and ribbon.  Credit for this design goes to Miss Carrie's Creations.  The card base is not white (although it looks white in the photo). I used one of the new Basic colors - Mink.  Other colors of ink were Espresso, Fern, and Goldrush.  The hand-dyed seam binding was from my stash.  The stamps are all from the Close-to-My-Heart September Stamp of the Month.  You can still get it - but you'd better hurry, it's gone at the end of this month! 

Here is what the whole stamp set looks like (S1709) Feel So Blessed:

Anniversary Card!

If there is a prize for a card that used the most scraps from arms length reach of the desk, this one might win!  No kidding!  I love how it turned out, however, and with the sentiment inside, it will be a nice Happy Anniversary card!  

The stamp set was a Stamp of the Month last spring (retired) and the papers were in that time frame as well.  I might have used papers from 4 different paper packs, too, since I was mostly going for the colors, not matching themes or patterns.  I had to add a piece of white to the inside for the note - since the card base is Slate cardstock.  I think this is the first time I've used sequins that weren't "shiny" if you know what I mean?  Not reflective.  I think they look cool!  Hope you like it!

Birthday Cards with the new Rose Embossing Template

I needed some Birthday cards - and I was excited to try out the new CTMH embossing folder of roses.  I also just got a handful of Distress Oxide inks and wanted to figure out what makes them so special.

The first card I actually inked the folder and with Worn Lipstick and ran it through the Cuttlebug.  I cut the Celebrate with a steel die three times out of Hollyhock cardstock scraps. (well, 6 times actually - you'll see soon).  Once the Distress Ink was dry, I spritzed it with water.  I didn't see much of a change but maybe that is because I had a very fine spritzer.  I tried it on some scraps and found that the water-mark effects were more pronounced with bigger drops of water rather than a fine mist.  

The hand-dyed seam binding is something I recently got on Etsy. Just getting the package with all the creative ways the ribbons were packaged made me want to buy more, more, more!!    

The difference in this one was that I just embossed the new color-of-the-year cardstock Bashful in a dry template.  Then I rubbed a bit of the ink (Worn Lipstick and Peeled Paint) onto an acrylic block.  From there, I picked up a bit with my watercolor pen and added color to the embossed paper.  These D.Oxide inks are different from the regular Distress Inks in that they behave more like pigment ink.  They are more opaque.  So the Peeled Paint looks great painted over the pink paper.  If you look closely you can see larger water spots, but I've still got to practice to get the hang of that part.  I stacked another set of 3 sentiments, and tied a piece of lettuce green hand-dyed seam binding with one of the little flowers that Michele included with my ribbon.  

Inside both cards is a piece of Bashful with one of the Birthday Sparkle sentiments.

Thinking of You

I don't think I'll ever get tired of this Tim Holtz - Paper Garden image of a cone flower!  Could it be that the cone flower is really my favorite perennial flower?!  I think it is - although white daisies come very close. 

Anyway, most of the papers, inks, and even the sentiment are CTMH.  The top piece was a Strathmore 400 smooth mixed media paper. The flowers were colored with Derwent watercolor pencils. The dots were through a stencil and sponged with the brand new Pebble ink.  It was so light at first, I had to go over and over it to get it to be visible!  That brown twine is from a huge piece I rescued from the garden about 5 years ago - and I'm down to my last foot!  No kidding!  Luckily, I know where to find it (Ace Hardware!).  LOL

Making cards with the foster grand-daughters

The "girls" age 6 and 4 are my Beloved's foster son's two daughters.  They found some wood mounted stamps at a garage sale and bought them for me!  There was a big bag of stamps!  I set up a table one afternoon for us to make some simple cards together.  Well, I thought they were simple!  The top is design paper from the new CTMH fundamental pack.  The cardstocks are all CTMH as well as the inks.  The little girl was stamped with black and colored with color pencils.  The big crayons were stamped by the girls - with only one stamp pad that had a darker color stamped into a lighter color. :-(  I can fix it, but will need to take it back to AZ where I can clean it again and then re-ink it.  

So, I pre-cut the pieces and helped them learn how to use the scallop edge punch.  I used "scor-tape" but won't do that again; next time just plain old glue sticks.  The tape was too difficult for them to understand and the two of them used almost an entire roll of tape to make two cards, even with me trying to help them.  

So - the card you see is my card.  Not sure what I'll do with that one!!!  LOL  But, I can say that we passed a couple of hours in this activity. A WIN!