Love is In the Air

Welcome to the Stylin’ Stampin’ INKspiration blog hop! This month we are creating cards with the theme of "Love is in the Air." As you hop along, please be sure to comment and show some love on every blog! We are always excited to hear from our followers! You should have just left stop number 2 on the Stylin’ Stampin’ INKspiration Blog Hop – Cathy @ Maine Mountain Stamper. If so, you are in the right spot. If a link doesn’t work or you get off track, you will find the full blog hop lineup below.

I decided to feature a simple love card featuring the beautifully simple Sending Love DSP. I'm not huge on Valentine's Day cards and all the red and pink, so I tend to go pretty simple wth my cards. For today's card, I focused on the heart shape and our Sending Love DSP. No extras embellishments or layers. I love how simple the cards is. One of my favorites.

Another fun heart card. Once I got started, I couldn't stop myself from making another card...

Stamps: Happy Happenings; Love and Affection
Inks: Real Red
Cardstock: Sending Love; Real Red; Basic Black; Whisper White
Accessories:
Tools: Sweetheart Punch; Wink of Stella

Blog Hop Participant List:

Nichole L. at Scrappy Stamps & Ink
Cathy A. at Maine Mountain Stamper
Tobe B. at The Craft Sea
Diana E. at Stampin' Fun with Diana
Pamela W. at Stinky Tofu
Darcy J. at Dj's Stampin' Place
Melissa S. at The Stamp Doc
Cheryl H. at Create with Cheryl
Donna S. at Geek Squad Crafting
Jennifer G. at Jenny G Paper Crafts
Jen G. at Faith.Grace.Stamp
Jen P. at By the Shore Stamping
Bree W. at Craft-somnia Momma
Tonya B. at Stampin' with Tonya
Kim R. at Stamping with Kim
Darla R. at Stampin' with Darla

Fun 'n Crafty Blog Hop February 2015

Welcome to the Fun n’ Crafty Blog Hop for February. The blog hop has been on hiatus for the holidays, but we're back this month to share some great cards. February we will be showcasing project ideas with a Love theme.

I took the Love theme very literally and decide to make my own background paper using "Love" from Snuggles and Smooches. I wanted a good Valentine's themed stamp set, but wasn't sold on You Plus Me from the Occasions catalog. But I love Snuggles and Smooches. It is so adorable. I also used the random squiggle to add more dimension to my homemade background paper. Some nice DSP from the Stacked with Love DSP stack, washi tape, and punched out hearts add those little extra touches.

Full product list:

Stamps: Snuggles and Smooches
Inks: Calypso Coral; Real Red; Crisp Cantaloupe; Basic Black
Cardstock: Real Red; Stack with Love DSP; Whisper White
Accessories: Stacked with Love wash tape
Tools: 2 in circle punch; mini heart punch

Complete Blog Hop List:

Pam W. of Stinky Tofu
Jennifer B. of Northwest Stamper
Stacey L. of A Work of Carte
Tobe B. of The Craft Sea
Susan S. of Stampin' By The San Francisco Bay

August PL Swaps (Part 1)

I joined a Project Life Swap group on Facebook a few months back and have really been inspired. Basically every month, the admins post swap themes (8-10 usually). You sign up for how many you want and commit to making usually 10 cards utilizing the theme. Before the due date, you send your cards to the swap host. She collects everyone’s cards, sorts them, and sends you back a packet of cards.

This month, I joined eleven swaps. I'll be showing four of the swaps today:

Love -- For the love theme, I immediately knew that I wanted to use this heart tree stamp (Michael's). I found a pretty pink polka paper to be a background and start cutting and stamping. Then came the hard part: coloring all the hearts. I took a bunch of my Stampin' Up markers and went to town. The effect is fun and colorful and I love it! To help round out the card, I added the love stamp from SU Ciao, Baby (retired) and punched it and some pink paper out with SU Petite Curly Label Punch (retired). Very clean card, but lots of fun.

Butterflies -- I pulled two random stamps (medallion and "Live") from my non-SU bucket and decided they would work well together. With added punched butterflies, the stamps actually create a cohesive card. I stamped the medallion in Summer Starfruit, Gumball Green, or Primrose Petals. The "Live" sentiment was stamped in Gumball Green, Midnight Muse, and Raspberry Ripple. I then pulled coordinating patterned papers from the SU Print Poetry DSP Stack (stacked) and punched out big (Elegant Butterfly) and small (Bitty Butterfly) butterflies. For the finishing touches, I added some coordinating ribbon (mostly scrap pieces) and a jeweled rhinestone. Love this set!

Fall -- Initially I wasn't super excited about making a fall card, but I thought I would challenge myself. Turns out, I absolutely love this card! I stamped a leaf design (Michael's) in Baked Brown Sugar as a background. I then used my alphabet stamps to stamp "fall" in Mossy Meadow on top. The pumpkin stamp actually had "Happy Halloween" written underneath it. I masked out the words to stamp just the pumpkin in Early Espresso. I then colored in the image with Always Artichoke, Early Espresso, Crushed Curry, and Pumpkin Pie. The pumpkin was then punched out with the Artisan Label Punch. I layered the pumpkin onto a circle of random paper scrap, added a strip of washi tape (SU retired), and finally added a brad on the pumpkin. Overall this card looks amazing and very fall without being cutesy.

Washi tape -- For this theme, I decided to go simple but with some extra fun. I adhered a few strips of washi tape to the base. I then stamped a few quote bubbles and a camera from the SU Project Life Point & Click Stamp set in Staz-on black ink. Finally I added a small brad in either yellow, blue, or green to help add a bit of embellishment.

Archives: Crafts of the Weeks

Originally Published on April 19, 2014 This past week I've been working on two crafting projects. Here's a look at them.

Valentine's Day/Love and Mother's Day OSW sets:

I grabbed this sketch from InkyPinkies and went to town cutting two 12x12 DSP sheets. Once I got them cut, I started pairing pieces to card bases. Unfortunately, I realized that the pieces cut would not make 12 complete cards. I would have to add other DSP pieces or something else. Obviously if you look at her examples, she used other paper pieces to complete the cards. Oh well. I just combined the paper to make 8 cards for each set. Then, I cut some more DSP from full sheets to add layers and embellishments to make 12 cards for each set. After making one complete set, I talked to my mom who requested I send a batch of Mother's Day cards for the shop. So I actually made two Love sets and two Mother's Day sets. Crazy crazy... but they do look great.

Valentine's Day/Love Set:

Stamps: Retired SU stamp (sentiment), Perfect Pennants (heart)
Inks: Primrose Petals, Riding Hood Red
Cardstock: Pink Pirouette, Smoky Slate, Twitterpated DSP
Accessories: Heart washi tape
Tools: Swiss Dot Embossing Folder, 1 1/4" circle punch, Petite Petals punch

Mother's Day Set:

Stamps: Random Mother's Day stamp
Inks: Riding Hood Red, Island Indigo, Basic Gray
Cardstock: Baja Breeze, Smoky Slate, Twitterpated DSP
Tools: Embossing Folder

Archives: Cards #33

Originally published on March 16th, 2014Crafting:

PL Swaps (easter eggs, scraps, rainbow) -- I love the use of washi tape on the rainbow cards. For the scraps swap, I decided to make pocket cards with washi tape. And the easter egg cards made use of my SU Birds of Feather DSP.

Book of lists notebook -- Tons are people are participating in the 30 Days of Lists this March, but I just don't have the time or energy to commit to that. Instead, I thought I would create a notebook, decorate it, and then have various lists. The idea is to do a list a week (or so). I love putting my own spin on the project. I ran across this perfect little binder on clearance at Target the other day. I set about cutting cardstock and patterned paper down to the sizes I would need. When it comes time to make a list, I'll select a topic, pick a stamp set to decorate (and any embellishments), and cut a piece of white cardstock for the actual list. I love that it's ready to be used. I don't have to start from scratch every time!

PL W9-10 -- I finished these weeks yesterday. Check out my blog post here.
Punch Guide -- I also made a handy guide to all my punches using some random blank playing cards (from old teaching supplies). I got the idea from Pinterest and immediately put it on my to make board. This will definitely come in handy when I need to figure out the best punch to use or the relative sizes. No more digging through the drawer!
Stamp Guide -- Making my punch guide led me to want to create on for all my stamps. I have so many now (both loose and SU boxes) that I often forget what I have. I spend way too much time digging through all of them to get ideas. So, I decided to stamp all my stamps onto white cardstock to act as a handy guide. There are separate pages for Christmas, Holidays, Sentiments, Occasions, and Misc. I'm only partially done, but this is going to be great when I'm finished.

Shopping Scores:

Steals.com box -- During steals.com's big archive sale, I ordered a mystery box. This is what came. I'd say that 70% of the box will be used by me. The paper stack is great. I love the alphabet stickers and small tags. The chipboards will get a lot of use. The jewels will probably get use, but I need to find the best adhesive for them. The ribbon isn't my style at all and I'm still trying to figure out the best way to use the watercolor products. Overall, a really good buy.

Target randomness -- I grabbed the 3x4 and 4x6 Dreamy sets by WRMK. I also found two containers that are the perfect size for holding greeting cards. The zebra print wasn't my first choice, but they work. And I found some great little stickers and embellishment pieces in the One Stop bins.

Peachy Cheap -- Another daily deal site I found a few weeks ago. This time I grabbed an entire set of enamel dots from Basic Grey. I couldn't wait to use them, hence the missing dots.

Birthday gifts -- This week I received the last of my birthday gifts from J's parents. I love the paper stacks and am super excited to use the PL theme packs. The Americana pack is even cuter in person.

PL Swap and Sale FB Group -- I've been a part this group for a few weeks now, but most of the items don't appeal to me. I had been marginally searching for the PL Kiwi set. Ever time it came up for sale, someone snatched it up right away. I finally caught a listing at the right time. I received my 1/3 of the kit yesterday. Love love love the cards I received! I also received my scrap swap back. I'd say that over half of these cards will be used. There's only a few that don't fit my style (looking at you cowboy card).

Stampin' Up order -- I ordered my March order early as I will not be in town for the monthly stamp club. We are doing a huge DSP share so I bought three packs to share. Plus one other member and I are buying two of the larger color collection DSPs to share so I bought the Regals. Lastly, I grabbed the 2012-2014 In color DSP as it was one sale. For my Saleabration item I grabbed the Petal Parade stamp set. I've seen some great examples to copy.

Michaels -- Last week I grabbed the Baby Boy Mini Kit on clearance, some purple washi tape (how did I not have any purple?), and a cute little stamp set on sale. Today they were starting a huge paper crafting sale and bonus extra sale this afternoon. I had to take advantage of both sales. I was also looking to pick up some items for the mom's group Easter party next month. I managed to get most of the party items and some basics for me (white and black cardstock, trimmer blades).

Project: Somehow I agreed to help organize an Easter Party for our mom's group. The group is starting a babysitting co-op and we plan on having a quarterly social. The Easter Party will be our first big event. The original idea was just to get together and have an egg hunt, but babies aren't so great at the hunting. Instead, we are putting together baskets filled with baby-appropriate toys, shaker eggs to play with, and a few arts and crafts. Parents pay us back a set amount. We are also using the leftover money to make baskets for charity.I picked up a ton of the arts and crafts supplies today at Michaels. We are waiting a week to gauge our RSVP amount before we commit to buying the toys (we have to buy in dozen units). I hope everyone decides to come as we have some great plans! Overachiever that I am, I've already started on some of the items.

Archives: Another Card Making Session

Originally published on February 8th, 2014

Reorganizing my Pinterest boards to include one for "This Week's Project" ideas has really motivated my crafting. Now I pull some random ideas over on Sunday night (recipes, cards, sketches, crafts, books, projects) and use that board for inspiration when I want to craft. I spend less time thinking of what I want to do and more time just doing. Love it! If you want to check it out, click here. It turns out I was crafting fool this week. Let's see what I made:

Card #1

My first card combines a color challenge and a sketch to create my homework for February Stamp Club. Again this week, I tried to use as many scraps as I could and not cut up whole sheets. It was a success. The only full sheets I cut were those used to make the card bases. I love the play of patterns with this card. I also added my own sentiment design. I didn't want to stamp over the floral patterned paper so I used some layering framelits to highlight the sentiment. The dimensions of the paper scraps are 4" x 3", 1.75" x 1.75", 0.25" x 1.75", 0.5" x 4"

Stamps: Stampin’ Up Best of Greetings
Inks: SU Primrose Petals
Cardstock: SU Primrose Petals, SU Gumball Green; various scraps
Tools: Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels Eight; Dimensionals; SNAIL; Big Shot

Card #2

My second card used the same sketch as the first but I used different scrap papers. I also changed up the sentiment design in favor of an oval scrap I had laying around. While it's not a traditional sympathy card, I think the cool blues and greens are soothing and the patterns are completely distracting.

Stamps: Stampin’ Up Best of Greetings
Inks: SU Midnight Muse
Cardstock: SU DSP (don't know the name), various scraps
Tools: SNAIL

Card #3

My third card is straight from a card on my Pinterest boards. I love the simplicity of the squares but with the fun coordinating patterns. Robin used the SU Festival of Prints paper stack (which I have), but I decided to use more of small scraps. If you look closely, many of the papers used in this card were also used in card #2. Way to make double use of scraps!

Stamps: Stampin’ Up Best of Greetings
Inks: SU Marina Mist
Cardstock: SU DSP (can't remember name); various scraps
Tools: 1″ Square Punch; SNAIL

Card #4

My fourth card used a sketch (that has since disappeared from Pinterest, odd...) and my new SU Smoky Slate cardstock. I am in love with this shade of gray. It's light and not overpowering but such a fun departure from white bases. I also tried to again use a ton of scraps for this card and succeeded!

Stamps: Stampin’ Up Stacks of Wishes
Inks: SU Basic Gray
Cardstock: SU Smoky Slate; various scraps
Tools: Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels Eight; SNAIL; Big Shot

Card #5

My fifth card came from the need to use these specific papers. So I scoured my techniques and sketches board and pulled this sketch out. The picture is horrid, but somehow I couldn't take a non-yellowed photo. Something about these papers just threw off the picture. Anyway, I am loving how geometric and layered this card is and yet it's still very nice and simple.

Stamps: Random Stampin' Up retired stamp
Inks: SU Pumpkin Pie
Cardstock: SU Pumpkin Pie; various scraps
Tools: 1 1/4" Circle Punch; SNAIL

Card #6

I adore the simplicity of the original butterfly card. I had to try and make my own. Looking at the finished project, I love the design and my pattern choices. But, the butterflies are all crooked... Next time, I need to use a ruler.

Stamps: Random Stampin' Up retired stamp
Inks: SU Primrose Petals
Cardstock: SU Print Poetry DSP
Tools: 7/8" Scallop Circle Punch; SU Bitty Butterfly Punch; SNAIL

Card #7

I wanted to try out a different interpretation of the butterfly card. For this one, I decided to make everything bigger and see what happened. I love the asymmetrical design of this card. I was going to just do a straight line of butterflies down the middle, but at the last minute I change up the placement. I like this look much better. Also, I repeated the use of the Print Poetry DSP but chose only papers featuring Midnight Muse, Raspberry Ripple, and Crumb Cake. I love the color play!

Stamps: Random Stampin' Up retired stamp
Inks: SU Raspberry Ripple
Cardstock: SU Primrose Petals
Tools: SU Elegant Butterfly Punch; 1 3/4" Scallop Circle Punch; SNAIL

Card #8

My last inspiration card was this gorgeous play of circles and patterns. To help me narrow down the choices, I used only paper from SU's retired Festival of Prints DSP stack. For the first card, I ended up using the Early Espresso, Crumb Cake, Gumball Green, and Cherry Cobbler pages. I had to make it an actual Christmas card after seeing the results. My only issue is the placement of the circles. It was much harder than I thought it was going to be. Now I know how to place the first (bottom) row to get a better placement overall. Also, next time I will probably use a smaller size circle punch.

Stamps: Random Stampin' Up retired stamp
Inks: SU Cherry Cobbler
Cardstock: SU Festival of Prints DSP; various scraps
Accessories: 3D flower sticker
Tools: 1 1/4" Circle Punch; SNAIL

Card #9

My last card of the week is another version of the circles card. This time, I used the Island Indigo, Cherry Cobbler, Early Espresso, and Crumb Cake papers from the stack. After putting it all together, it didn't look like a Christmas card so I made it a Congratulations card. Also, I did a bit better with the circle placements. I'm sure that I will revisit this design in the future.

Stamps: Random Stampin' Up retired stamp
Inks: SU Early Espresso
Cardstock: SU Festival of Prints DSP; various scraps
Accessories: Fabric flowers; brad
Tools: 1 1/4" Circe Punch; SNAIL

I'm loving my cards from this week. Next week, I want to play around with one sheet wonders...

Archives: Weekly Crafting

Originally published on June 3rd, 2013

I figured I should finally dedicate posts to my card crafting and scrapbooking. Over the past two weeks, I've done a lot of crafting. My first task was to finish the boys' scrapbooks for last summer. I am determined to be completely caught up before the baby comes in October. I've ordered our pictures from last September to now; should get those in a few days. Then I can get started on that section of pages to catch up. I'm planning on switched to Project Life for the family album in October. I want to start with a clean slate. The baby will also start with a Project Life album. The boys will stay the same, but I still want them all caught up.

Now on to the card making...

Last month I snapped up the Round Array Bundle (Stampin' Up) with the stamp set and punch. I couldn't wait to try it out. I used a pretty dark pink paper as a card base with a light pink paper to stamp onto. For the white paper, I used my swiss dot embossing folder and the Big Shot to give some dimensions. I like the randomness to this card.

A card class card. The original design was different. I messed up my designer paper piece, so I changed the design to work with what I had. I like the simpleness of this card. All supplies are from Stampin' Up.

A new technique I was trying. We made an awesome card at class using Versa mark and a brayer. I bought some glossy paper and tried it out. Unfortunately the color did not adhere evenly. I want to try it again and see if I get different results. I do kind of like the tie dye effect I attained by mistake. (Looks better in person)

Another class card. I like the simplicity of this card. The colors work well together to create a masculine multipurpose card.

Class card. We were focusing on retiring stamps. I love the play of pattern with the designer paper and the embossed piece.

I love the designer paper on this card. The colors are bright and very cheery! Class card.

This card came from me grabbing some random supplies and working with what I got. I'm not in love with this card, but something about the mix of patterns intrigues me. After finishing the card, I went back to add the metallic jewels. Without them, the card just looks plain.

Another random supply card. I would have loved to see a thicker font for better contrast. But I do love the flower I constructed. I layered different sizes and shades to create a better embellishment.

Class card. I never bought them, but the button stamps really grew on me in the last month or so. Plus, I love the designer paper.

Class card. Love the mix of patterns on this one.

Class card. I love the rock n roll technique to create two color stamps. But overall I'm not a fan of the colors and stamps on this card.

Class card. Love, love, love this card. I love the combo of purple, pink, and orange. I love the simple sentiment.

The following two cards were part of my homework assignment for stamp club. We had a general sketch. I decided to play with the alignment of the card to make two different cards. Both cards used Stampin' Up paper, stamps, and punches. I just love the Print Poetry designer paper pack from the spring catalog. I'm rationing the paper to make it last.