random reflections

Time Out Challenge' s 7th Birthday!

I am thrilled to be a Guest Designer for Time Out's 7th birthday party!

In honor of this occasion, I designed a card with seven candles much like the one for my brother when he turned 70. This time, however, I die cut the candles from scraps of brightly colored cardstock and mounted them on black cardstock. I love the contrast.

To make it more festive, I added flames and a sentiment die-cut from My Favorite Things "Gold Sparkle" cardstock. The candles are die cut with MFT's "Birthday Candles" die and the sentiment from Papertrey Ink's "Good Times" set. 

I decided on a square card, and trimmed the focal piece before adding it to the card base with black foam for some dimension. 

I hope you'll hop over to the Time Out Challenge and see what the Design Team has created---and join in. It's always good to have a few birthday cards in your stash!

Less is More: One Layer with Flowers

Considering that I love CAS designs, and consider myself a (mostly) CAS card maker, I rarely join in the Less Is More challenge, and I rarely make a one-layer card.

But for some reason, this challenge appealed to me, and I set off to find some stamps. I ended up with a new-to-me (and never used) stamp from a Simon Says and Altenew collaboration  and two much older stamp sets from Papertrey Ink.

The beautiful corner frame is from "Framed Friendship," the Simon Says and Altenew collaboration. The stylized flower is from Papertrey Ink's "Doodlie-Do" set, and the sentiment is from "Vintage Picnic Sentiments," one of my oldest sentiment sets.

A dear friend just moved from her home of nearly 60 years to a senior living community where she and I both know she'll be very happy! As soon as I saw this sentiment I knew exactly who would be getting this card. The floral arrangement was colored with Copic markers which do bleed through cardstock, making it a problem for a one layer card, but I simply layered another piece of cardstock on the inside front of the card which solves the problem. I used X-Press It Blending cardstock so it's a bit smoother and less bulky than the usual. As always, I'm happy to have used long neglected stamps as well as a never used one.

Seize the Birthday

Seize the Birthday is one of my favorite challenges, and it's been awhile since I've joined in. I seem to forget that you always have an option to just create any birthday card, and don't have to apply the "topping." As soon as I saw the new topping, however, I thought of two neglected stamps that have been in my collection for so long I don't even remember where or when I purchased them. They've survived at least three major purges of my stamp collection, and I'm glad they did.  Here's the topping:

I created two cards, each with a different scene. The stamps are from Stampendous. I no longer have the original packaging so don't know the name of the set, and they're no longer available.

This scene reminds me of our trips to Niagara-on-the-Lake with our friends to spend time at the wonderful wineries in the area. I colored the scene with Copic markers, and die cut it with Hero Arts "Rounded Rectangles" before layering it with purple and green and then onto a white card base.

The sentiment is from My Favorite Things "Bitty Birthday Wishes."

Although I'm quite sure both illustrations were meant to be in Italy, this one reminds me of our tour of Morocco and the fields of olive trees we visited. It was, again, colored with Copic markers and framed in the same way as the first card.

This greeting was white embossed on black and is from Pink and Main's "Special Day" sentiment set. 

There are eight birthdays on my March calendar so I'm happy to have a couple more birthday cards in the stash!

 

 

CASology: Fox

The current challenge at CASology is Fox.

I'm thinking the little fox slider card I made for Hannah fits the bill. I've become a huge fan of interactive cards now that I'm creating for five grandchildren, and this slider card is one of the easier ones to put together.

I stenciled some light clouds on the slider portion, added the fox and then a piece of die cut grass. Here's how it looks opened:

And because you can't send a card to Hannah without sending one to Caleb, here's his:

And to finish the sentiment:

Stamps: Neat & Tangled "So Foxy" and "Later Alligator"
Cloud Stencil: My Favorite Things
Die: Lawn Fawn "Meadow Borders," My Favorite Things "Slider Surprise"

 

The Twofer Challenge: Balloons

I've been following The Twofer Challenge for a long time, but have never played along. Earlier this month when I saw February's challenge: Balloons, I had an idea!

I've had a "never-before-used" die by My Favorite Things lying on my table for weeks. Originally, I planned to use if for an upcoming project, but ended up doing something very different and just didn't get it put away. My only problem with this challenge was forgetting to check the rules before creating:

They are very clear--one die, two different designs, two different occasions. My first two cards were both birthday cards, so actually I have a Three-fer. But I'm not unhappy to have a third card in the stash. Here's a look at the two cards for the challenge:

As you can see the die cuts the balloons and the greeting from a piece of cardstock. I then die cut that with a "Stitched Rectangle" and put metallic papers behind the balloons and the greeting and bumped it up on a white top-folded card. Have to say it looks great in real life, but is terrible to try and photograph.

Here you can see the shine, and the reflection from the windows!

To create the second card, I ran the die through the Gemini, Jr. two times and used five of the balloons. After coloring them with Copic markers, I added balloon strings from a Papertrey Ink stamp set and layered them into a bouquet of balloons. 

The sentiment (just perfect!) from Sugar Peas was embossed on black cardstock die cut from Papertrey Ink's "Skinny Mini Banners," and bumped up with some dimensional tape. The balloons are covered with a heavy coat from a Spectrum Noir glitter pen---also difficult to photograph. Here's a close-up taken with my iPhone.

Finally the third card, just because I have it--and I do like it, too. I used the same technique and the same glittery finish for the balloons here.

I love the "Birthday Strings" mini-stamp from Papertrey Ink and it works perfectly here. I add a few raindrops to this card, as well as the die cut card as a final embellishment. I'm pretty sure I'll be back to play along with The Twofer Challenge again, but I'm also sure I'll remember the rules next time!

And because, I used a NBUS die, I'll put this up at the February post there as well.

 

 

Color Hues #12

The new Color Hues Challenge offers a chance to craft for Spring. By mid-February, I'm always thinking about Spring even though I know it's probably a good two months away here in western New York. 

Not surprisingly, I headed for a floral stamp, and chose a new one from Simon Says: "Best Friend Ever." It has four lovely floral arrangements so I'm sure you'll see another image from this set in the near future. 

I kept this card very clean and simple. I embossed the florals in white on Tim Holtz watercolor paper, and used my Daniel Smith watercolors to mix a pretty peach hue. After watercoloring, I added the sentiment from Papertrey Ink's "Signature Greetings"--an old favorite.

I added some detail to the flowers and the leaves with my Polychromos pencils. Although it's hard to see in the photos, it does add some depth.

Then I die cut the piece with Hero Arts "Rounded Rectangles," adding it to a piece of Concord & 9th's Grapefruit cardstock (also cut with the next largest rounded rectangle), and added it to a white card base. Five Champagne Sequins from Pretty Pink Posh finished it off.

I hope you'll hop over to the Color Hues Challenge and join in the fun, checking out the cards made by my awesome Design Team members, and our Guest Designer, Chick:

 

   Nancy

Hannelie

Cindy

Julie

Sheri

Kristie

Lindsey

And then, come join us in the fun!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day always been a favorite holiday of mine, and I was especially glad to have something to celebrate something in the midst of the deep-freeze we've been having around here. (Not that it's the coldest place in the country, by far, but too cold to comfortably be outside for very long.) 

One of our many blessings is being in a bubble with Matt, Betsy, and the three girls. Skylar, Ella, and Maddy spent the afternoon with us yesterday baking and decorating Valentine cookies, making valentines, and doing Valentine coloring sheets, word, and number puzzles. Matt and Betsy came back for dinner. The girls helped set the table with a red tablecloth, Valentine napkins, and heart-shaped candle holders. It was quite festive. Getting decent photos while being so engaged is always a challenge, but here are a few. All three of the girls are adept at rolling out the dough and cutting out the cookies.

I saved the cards I made for the grandchildren to share today. Like the valentines I shared yesterday, they are mini-slimlines. I'll be sharing one of these with Just Us Girls. Their new challenge is a trend challenge: Slimline Cards.

Once again, the cards are the same, but different. I started out by coloring five cute little bears with Copic markers and fussy cutting them. The bear was one of the images from Simon Says "Love You Bearly Much" from the February card kit. I was inspired by this watercolored card by Debbie Hughes.

First off, the card for Caleb. I used a piece of red cardstock embossed with Honey Bee's "Fluttering Hearts" die, and added some striped paper from My Favorite Things. Then I added the cute "Love Speech Bubbles" die.

For Hannah, I used  a piece of white card stenciled with Nuvo Glitter Paste using Echo Park's "Falling for You" stencil, added some patterned paper from The Stamp Market and three Doodle Bug enamel dots.

Next up, Maddy's valentine---very similar to Hannah's but I used the XOXO border stamp from the Simon Says set and no patterned paper.

Ella's valentine also uses a stencil, but this time I used the stencil that came in the kit, "Tumbling Hearts" and added a ribbon and three pearl hearts.

The last of the bears was for Skylar with the same stencil as Ella's but with patterned paper from MFT and some glittery heart stickers I found in my stash.

I'm also sharing one of these cards at the Inspirational Challenge: Hearts.

The girls all received their valentines when they were here yesterday to make Valentine cookies. Caleb's and Hannah's arrived in Wisconsin earlier this week, and I imagine we'll get to see them open them when we do FaceTime later today. 

For Tracy's valentine, I chose a stamp by Anita Jeram who illustrates wonderful children's books. It might seem odd, but I chose it for the sweet sentiments that are included for the front and the inside of cards. And I have another one in mind for our anniversary! I ordered the well-known Guess How Much I Love You book to accompany it. I'm quite sure both sets of grandchildren already own the book, but we do not. Colorado Craft Company has put out a variety of stamps illustrated by Anita Jeram, and they are all charming. You'll see another one next month for sure.

After watercoloring the image, I die cut it with the Gina K Layers die.  I had to add a little pink for Valentine's Day but chose a soft gray for the card.

Tracy and I'll be celebrating on our own tonight. We're planning to knock the snow off the grill and move it just outside the kitchen door to grill a steak. Years ago when the kids were very young, Tracy grilled a steak during a snowstorm for New Year's Eve so the weather doesn't usually deter him. 

Hope you've had a good day! We've had lots of sunshine which does make up for the frigid temperatures.

 

 

The New Mini Slimlines

There's a new fad in the card making world: mini slim lines, and I have to admit I'm a fan. I made nine mini slimline valentines, four I'm sharing today, and five tomorrow. Two of the four cards today are going to my daughter and son-in-law and my son and daughter-in-law. The other two went to good friends. They're the "same, but different." I have my favorites, and I wonder which ones you like the best.

All four of the cards were created with a new die from My Favorite Things, " Heart Rays." I die cut the heart in two shades of gray, red, black, and pink, and then pieced them together in different patterns.

To keep the design simple, I chose different patterned papers for the background and different colored card bases but that made the assembly easy.

As usual, figuring out exactly where I wanted the three enamel dots as embellishment took me the longest time. 

The sentiments, all white embossed on black, came from a variety of sentiment stamps in my collection. There was a time when I didn't have many appropriate valentine sentiments. Once I started creating valentines for five grandchildren as well as friends and extended family I purchased a few more. Now I have plenty to choose from. 

I'm entering some of these in the following challenges: Happy Little Stampers Dies: Anything Goes and Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: Slimline Cards.

 

Time Out Challenge

Time Out posted a new photo challenge yesterday, and as soon as I saw it I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Here's the fabulous photo:

My granddaughters are coming tomorrow to bake valentine cookies, and I wish ours would be this beautiful! But it wasn't the cookies that attracted me as much as it was the colors and the patterns. I knew that Papertrey Ink's Bitty Big papers would be great to replicate a couple of these hearts, and I have new floral dies from The Greetery to play with as well. I also wanted to make a valentine for a dear friend, so after dinner last night I sat down, and this is what I came up with:

I die cut three different sized hearts from the Bitty Big papers in Black and Pale Peony as well as some Pure Poppy with My Favorite Things "Stitched Hearts" dies. Then I die cut some of The Greetery's BotaniCuts: Forget-Me-Not flowers from watercolor paper and sponged them with Pure Poppy and Pale Peony inks along with a couple of leaves sponged with New Leaf. Here's a closer look at the pretty flowers.

I die cut both a white panel and a red panel with Ellen Hutson's Essential Rectangles which cut the rectangle as well as the narrow frame. After mounting those on a white card base, I arranged the hearts and flowers and added the sentiment from Reverse Confetti's "Crushin'" embossed in white on a strip of black cardstock.

It's not often I get a card for a challenge created so quickly, but I need to deliver this to my friend tomorrow morning. I'll be back again tomorrow with some more valentines for friends and on the big day with the valentines I made for family. 

 

It's Valentine Week

It's Valentine Week here on the blog. I have another one to share today, and hopefully, a few more before Valentine's Day on Sunday. I'm sending (or delivering) more valentines than usual this year due to the pandemic and the fact that I can't see my friends, several of whom live alone. 

Although I ended up liking this card a lot, it is a far cry from my initial design idea. Some of it happened because I wasn't happy with the first dies I used, and then I made an error die- cutting the hearts which gave me a whole new basket of ideas. The card uses only two die sets, both new to me from the latest offering at The Greetery, "Shapely Hearts" and "Let's Have a Word: Love."

Without thinking, I first cut the "Shapely Heart" dies without cutting them apart, which gave me three hearts--one small whole heart, and two hearts with holes in them. That prompted the beginning of the card. After separating the hearts, I die cut the largest one from a piece of patterned paper in The Stamp Market's "Miss Modern" collection. Then I added Distress Glitter to the medium-sized heart which had the small heart cut from within it.  That allowed the patterned paper to show through again. To add some dimension, I added foam tape to the glittery heart.

Then I die cut the love sentiment three times in black cardstock, adhered them together, and layered it over the hearts. The last design element was three scored lines on the top and bottom of the card. 

Sending this one off to three challenges. I'm entering this into Just Us Girls Challenge: Valentine. It's a favorite challenge of mine, and this is my second entry. I've never played along with the  Happy Little Stampers Die Challenge: Anything Goes, but this card is nothing but dies! And, of course, the NBUS Challenge, whenever I break out new products!