Baby & Winnie Are Roommates!

I had a baby shower to attend to welcome the upcoming birth of a dear friend's great granddaughter! The baby room is decorated with a Winnie the Pooh theme, so I wanted to use that as my card theme.  I've always loved the Winnie the Pooh quote "Sometimes the littlest things take up the most room in your heart!" I really wanted to use it in some way with my card.  I search online for some free images and downloads, and I came up with this doodled image of this quote and decided to use it as the card front focal point.

I printed the image and quote, colored it with Copic markers and sponge-colored the background with Pool Party ink. I found a Spellbinders die to frame the quote & image, some pretty variegated sheer ribbon and rich golden dot paper.  Putting it all together, I came up with a cute and quick card!

Last, I composed an inside verse, printed it, distressed the edges, punched decorative corners and added some sparkly gems to this corner punch area that I color-shaded using Copic markers.  Check it out below both inside and out:

Ingredients: SU Cardstock: Whisper White, Garden Green. Recollections Cardstock: Light Yellow, Patterned Paper: MFT--Dots & Stripes Sorbet 6x6 Paper Pack. Spellbinders Dies: Fleur de Lis Rectangles. SU punch: Curvy Corner Trio. Image/Verse: Free Winnie the Pooh Doodling. Ribbon Scrap: Offray 1/2" Two-Tone Sheer. SU Gems: Glitter Enamel Dots (Copic colored). Chatterbox Verse. Size: 4-3/4" x 6." 

A Just Right Day!

My daughter-in-law's birthday falls in mid-August two days after my Mom's birthday. I went to a card class back in March or April and several of those cards remained unfinished because I wanted to change them a bit rather than follow the original design exactly. As Ginger loves flowers, and I think she would love to have a greenhouse added to her backyard, I decided one particular unfinished card lent itself well to Ginger, as well as several challenges I wanted to enter.

First, I add a few more flowers and extra foliage inside my greenhouse, plus one more blossom outside as I like the look of an odd number of blooms rather than just two, which is an even number. I finished the greenhouse and attached it to the planned white stitched rectangle panel.

The original cardbase design used the same Just Jade cardstock color under the Just Jade embossed brick layer. I wanted to add larger underlying layers and more color. I decided on a Pale Papaya cardbase to match the sentiment die-cut and to use this new cardbase in a picture frame look with an added white mat, and then the Just Jade Brick & Mortar 3D embossed layer. 

I trimmed brick embossed layer about an 1/8" smaller all the way around. I decided to add Clear heat embossing over the 3D bricks to give them a bit of sheen and bring out the texture. I added a little sponged Pale Papaya ink to a recycled scalloped doily for the edging that peeks out just below the greenhouse white stitched panel.  I shaped the doily into a double fan look.  

Next, I offset this same white mat panel quite a bit more to the right than in the original card design to accommodate for the sentiment overlap, which was placed in this location with a specific challenge requirement in mind. I really like my changes and additions to the larger card size, the new Pale Papaya cardbase, the white mat layer, the Clear heat embossing over the 3D brick dry embossing, the extra blooms, and the fan-like doily as I think they all added and enhanced the original card design, which was presented by Luci Kirschbaum!  Take a peak below at my newly-made finished card inside and out:

Ingredients: Stampin' Up: Cardstock--Pale Papaya, Whisper White, Just Jade, Soft Succulent, Vellum. Stamps/Dies--Garden Greenhouse/ Greenhouse Dies. Dies--Stitched Rectangles, Message Dies. Ink: Just Jade, Pale Papaya, Versamark. EF--Brick & Mortar 3D. Elegant Faceted Gems. Other: WOW Clear Matt Embossing Powder. Rectangle doily from stash. Chatterbox verse. Size-4-3/4" x 6".

Valentine's Day is Imminent!

Valentine's Day has been creeping ever closer, and here it is now in the imminent category!  I few weeks ago, I decided I should try to use up some of my old Valentine paper and embellishment stashes.  Then again, I also wanted to use some of the new products in the 2016 Stampin' Up Occasions mini catalog, so now I knew I was going to be pulled in both direction.  I decided to start with my stash so I wouldn't feel so guilty if I ended up using more new than old.

The first stash idea that popped into my mind was My Mind's Eye's original Lost & Found Union Square papers that I have had for six LONG years now!  It was first published in 2010 and I bought my first pieces then.  Over the next several years, I stocked up on a more and more each year if I saw them on sale, as they were a little pricey because most pieces had glitter on them.  Now, I even have the 6"x 6" paper pad that came out a few years after the original 12" x 12" collection was published.

The piece of paper from this collection that came to mind was what I called the red glitter LOVE paper.  Now, this 12" x 12" paper, of course, is made with scrapbooking in mind, so it has rather large patterns to deal with.  I measured the lower right-hand corner of this paper where the glittery red LOVE word was imprinted, and decided a horizontal card with the big LOVE word in the center would work really well.  My mind evidentally chewed around on this idea subconsciously for several days, and one day in the middle of the night, I woke with an image of the LOVE word fussy-cut out and popped up in the center with some layers involved, of course.

After several days of completing my errand lists, doctor appointments, and celebrating my husband's birthday were finally over and done with, I was able to get to my craft table around noon today.  By this time, I had actually pulled out the paper I was thinking of and had decided to use SU's Early Espresso as my cardstock base.  Today, I actually began working on this LOVE word card that had been fermenting for going on two weeks.  In the meantime, I had received my most current Stampin' Up order, and there were some of the things I had ordered that had also been popping in and out of my mind to use as well!  

My first step was to fussy-cut the LOVE word and its surrounding design.  I decided to underlayer it with Early Espresso cardstock, so I traced its shape onto the cardstock and fussy-cut it about 1/8" out from my trace line.  I wanted use my new corner punch from Stampin' Up; thus, I ended up using both the eyelet corner and the 2-scallop corner as well.  I was really please with this effect.  I adhered a layer of the pattern paper to my espresso cardbase, and I popped up the set of red glimmer and the top patterned paper from this base set of papers.  I then adhered my espresso, fussy-cut underlayer to my LOVE word and popped this set up as well.  I added some small and mini red gumdrop glitter gems to the front, and I was done! Below is the final version of my LOVE word card, which I think I am well satisfied with!

As is my tradition in cardmaking, my finishing job is to create an inside that coordinates and compliments the outside design that I have created, so I turned my focus to accomplishing just that.  I had the idea to use my new SU stamp set, Bloomin' Love as I liked the flourishing My Valentine stamp in this set.  I built a verse around using this very stamp, and voilá here is my completed inside:

Recipe:  Papers:  SU cardstock: Early Espresso, Red Glimmer, Very Vanilla (inside); MME patterned: Lost & Found--Union Square: Home Sweet Home-LOVE; Darice Kraft cs (inside).  Stamps: SU-Bloomin' Love (inside).  Ink: SU-Cherry Cobbler.  Punch:  SU-Curvy Corner Trio; EK-Scroll & Hearts Edger.  MultiCraft: Gumdrop Glitter Gems.  Computer-made verse (w/stamped My Valentine). Size: 4-1/2" x 6".