random reflections

January Woodblock Wednesday

It's the last Wednesday in the month, so it's Woodblock Wednesday hosted every month by Amy Tsuruta. I was delighted to be asked by Amy to be a guest this month. I chose one of my favorites: three little cupcakes by Lockhart Stamp Co. I still have a small collection of Lockhart Stamps; they are a favorite of mine. 

The first thing I tackled was to make the checkered border. It's so tiny it can be difficult to get a clean look. The best thing I've found for that is to use a Staedtler triplus fineliner. I bought a pack of them over 15 years ago, and they've come in handy so often when I need to color a tiny space. The rest of the image was colored with Copic markers. I die cut the image using one of Simon Says Stitched Rectangles, and cut a second one to layer behind it. 

I added some glitter to the cupcake papers (difficult to see) and some Nuvo Crystal Glaze to the cherries on top of the cupcakes. The sentiment is from A Muse Artstamps--another favorite woodblock manufacturer. Finally, I added three Pinkfresh Studio Iridescent Drops to the back panel. 

Thanks, Amy, for inviting me to be your guest today!

Thinking of You (Part 2)

Recently I posted two Thinking of You cards made with my new Pinkfresh Studio Betterpress plate. Today I have three more all using the Altenew Dainty Flower Garden press plate. 

The first two use the Spellbinders Pebble cardstock made specifically for the Betterpress technique. I've tried some watercolor paper that also worked, but I don't think regular cardstock would be any good. It needs to be a softer and thicker paper.  As you can see this design from the Altenew set works in either corner. It's an elegant design, and one I've used for sympathy cards as well.

I chose only one embellishment, a large black jewel, from Pinkfresh Studio.

This Betterpress paper is Porcelain and it watercolors nicely as long as you don't get it too wet. 

The sentiment is also from Altenew, the One Go Birthday Greetings. Clearly, this sentiment, white embossed on black, is not intended for a birthday, but works for several occasions.

I'll be back soon with the last of the Thinking of You cards. 

Betterpress Floral Squares

It's been a long time since I managed to get a blog post up. I've been busy crafting for challenge blogs (one will post on 1/31 and two will post on 2/1) and for Valentine's Day. Those will post on the 14th. We've also been busy organizing and packing for the "trip of a lifetime"--an African wildlife safari in Tanzania. We're going with the two friends we traveled to Scotland with two years ago. The blog will likely be quieter for the next couple of weeks, too, although I hope to get a couple posts written this weekend while we're staying with my brother. 

The other crafting project was creating some Thinking of You cards. I put four in the mail today, and have another two on hand. Sadly, I know far too many people struggling with grief or serious health concerns. A new Pinkfresh Studio release went live today, and I've saved a lovely gift certificate from my son and his family to use when I return. Hopefully, the items I want won't be sold out by then, but it's possible. The Betterpress plate and die, Floral Square Frame, I used for the two cards I'm sharing today are from December's release. They were my only purchase and are so versatile.

I colored this one with Polychromos pencils and after die cutting added it to a square card base created with Paper Source's Royal cardstock, one of my favorite blues. 

The sentiment was also a Betterpress Plate from Spellbinder's A Little Message and die cut. The sentiment was added with a piece of dimensional tape.

The second card is the same design, but uses different colors and a different message from the same Spellbinder's Betterpress plate.

This time I used Copic markers to color the flowers, and added two yellow jewels from Pinkfresh Studio. 

This time I decided to use dimensional tape on both pieces. 

The Addicted to Stamps and More Challenge is back looking for Stencils and/or Die Cuts. I'll also be linking up to Darnell's January NBUS as this is the first run for both Betterpress plates. 

Color Hues #79

The new Color Hues Challenge is up, and I'm the hostess this time. I chose Copper and Green with a metallic planter and green plants in mind. 

I didn't post the first card I made on the Color Hues site, but I'm including it at the end of this post. I wasn't 100% happy with it, and after seeing a card by my friend Kelly, created with The Greetery's  Modern Planters I decided to do a remake. I had reward points at The Greetery which paid for a portion of the new purchases. I'm happy I own the planters as well as Plant It: Spider Plant as I think there will be lots of opportunities to use them.

The planters come in two sizes with a stand and a saucer. I took advantage of all of them. With some copper metallic cardstock, I die cut the two pots, and ran the small pot through a Sizzix embossing folder for some texture and dimension.  The spider plant ink blended with some Distress Oxide inks after it was die cut from a yellow/green cardstock. I needed some plants for the smaller pot and found them in the Spellbinder Bold Blooms die set. 

I decided on Papertrey Ink's Soft Stone cardstock for the background and die cut the smaller panel with Ellen Hutson's Lattice Background die. I mounted it on the card base with dimensional tape.

You can see the shine better here as well as the sentiment embossed with Copper Pearl Embossing Powder which has been in my stash for awhile. 

Here's the first card I made. There's nothing wrong with it, exactly, it just didn't seem interesting enough. I'm sure I'll find a good home for it one day.

The background here is an embossing folder from Taylored Expressions, and the greenery came from a number of dies. The Pretty Pot is from The Greetery as is the tag and sentiment.

The copper embellishments were die cut with a berry die since I didn't have any copper gems or pearls.

Hop over to the Color Hues blog and be inspired by our Guest Designer, Greta, and the Design Team. I'll be looking for your cards in our gallery!

I'm sending the first card to Darnell's NBUS Challenge - my third entry which means I'm doing a better job of using new and unused stamps!

Black and Gold

Inkspirational's current challenge is looking for black and gold cards. It's a favorite combo for me, and I needed two guy birthday cards. A perfect match. I created the cards a couple of nights ago, but never got around to photographing the cards until late this afternoon. So now I am slipping these into the gallery at the very last minute.

Both cards used patterned papers from my stash. Lots of these papers have been separated from the original 6X6 paper pad so I'm not sure who the manufacturers were.

I actually had only a partial piece of this paper. I've had it for a long time, and made several cards from it. I added to the side of a black card base, and cut a narrow strip of gold mirror cardstock as a border. 

The sentiment was one I had previously foiled with Pinkfresh Studio's Perfect Sentiments. I added it with a bit of dimensional tape and a few gold pearls to finish it off.

Although I can't remember who made this paper, I do remember that the pad was filled with beautiful papers that I loved--and used quite often. This card came together very quickly. I stamped the sentiment from Ellen Hutson's That Thing You Did set on one of the stripes and adhered the paper to the card base. I added a few gold pearls to this card as well.

I'm off to get these into the gallery at Inkspirational. We actually had a few hours of sunshine this afternoon. It was a welcome sight even though it didn't last too long.

 

 

Surprise Party Guest!

I'm honored and surprised every time I win a challenge, but I was super-excited to win at Seize the Birthday! Although I don't participate as often as I could, it's always been one of my favorite card challenges and is run by one of my favorite card makers. So this win was a special one, and now I'm thrilled to be the Surprise Party Guest for the current challenge!

The challenge this round is a great one--right up my alley:

It didn't take me long to come up with a plan. One of my favorite embossing folders (dry embossing) is Altenew's 3-D Magnolia Ballerina. I chose to emboss an arch die cut from Ellen Hutson's Essential Arches. I die cut the arch and then placed it in the embossing folder exactly where I wanted the design to be. I used Fluid Cold Press watercolor paper which I dampened slightly using a baby wipe before embossing. I love the way it came out.

I then recut the arch from black cardstock and added just the frame when I adhered the floral to a card base created with the same watercolor paper. I embossed the greeting from Pinkfresh Studio's Nothing But the Best with rose gold embossing powder (wet embossing) on black paper and die cut it, adding it to the card with a bit of dimensional tape.

I love the depth of 3-D embossing folders ,and this one is especially gorgeous. I used a Jane Davenport Golden Age Ultimate Colour pen to add some gold to the centers of each flower. Although the floral takes up most of the card, I think this turned out to be a very Clean and Simple design--one I'm sure to use again. I'm also a fan of the watercolor paper--thanks to Cécile Ribon who kindly answered my question about what kind of paper she uses. It has a beautiful, though subtle, texture. 

Be sure to hop over to Seize the Birthday and add a card to the gallery! If you're like me, birthday cards are one of the most frequent cards you make.

I'm sending this one on to two other challenges where they are looking for birthday cards: Double D and The Paper Players.

Thanks Sew Much

When I first received The Greetery's Notionables and Oval Hoopla die and insert, I cut lots of pieces out and assembled them. I put them in one of three wooden bowls I keep in my craft room and they have stayed right there until after Christmas when I needed two thank you notes for my college friends.

I absolutely love these dies! I grew up in Ohio in farm country. Most of my friends lived on farms, and everyone belonged to 4-H. Luckily for those of us who lived in the village, there was also a 4-H group for sewers. Amazingly enough, when we moved to New Paltz, NY when I was a junior in high school, I found another 4-H group of sewers and belonged to 4-H until I graduated from high school. I continued to sew for years, making clothes for myself, the guys in our family, and then for my kids. Hannah has worn a couple of the dresses I made for Sarah when she was a little girl. I gave up the habit when it cost more to buy the materials to make a dress than it did to buy a nice dress in the store. These Notionables are so realistic. I didn't include any of the scissors in my cards since they are too big for my 4-bar notecards, but I included one in the photo above. If you assemble it with a tiny brad, they open and close. The thimble is adorable, and one of my most prized possessions is my mother's sterling silver engraved thimble.

The Hoopla dies are also realistic. The frames die cut with a woodgrain pattern and the wooden fittings with the pin are also realistic. The insert die creates that tiny pattern around the edges that completes the look, and you can see that the thread die goes right through the eye of the needle.

These were a lot of fun to make and I still have plenty of assembled pieces to make more cards, including a pin cushion made from red felt--so cute! I'll drop these in Darnell's NBUS Challenge to honor the occasion of putting this set to good use.

In With the New!

It's nice to be home and crafting again for challenges. One on my intentions this year is to work my way through the new-to-me products, of which there are far too many. I'm off to a decent start here. These snowflakes arrived as a freebie with a Scrapbook.com purchase, and seemed to be perfect for the Simon Says Instagram Challenge White On White.

The design idea for this card came from Cécile Ribon who often uses beautiful wide ribbons on her cards. This ribbon is Soft White fr0m Paper Source. The sentiment was silver embossed with Reverse Confetti's Snowflakes. I thought it was generic enough to use for a winter birthday or anniversary. I added some pearls to the centers of the snowflakes.

So this is off to the Simon Says Instagram Challenge, and this is the first time I've ever played along there. It's also off to Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: Something New and the Time Out Challenge with is also "New." Greta, a blogging and Instagram friend had just joined the Time Out Design Team so I wanted to be sure to play along. The challenge is up for ten more days, so I'm likely play there again. I'm also add this to NBUS where I hope to add many cards this year!

Magnolia Wreath

This is the last of the holiday card posts and these were the last two cards I made which are two of my favorites. It's hard to go wrong with The Greetery's Magnolia Wreath. 

I die cut the wreath twice with silver metallic paper and layered them on a red card base. The I added a red bow from The Greetery's "Fit to be Tied" and a stamped and die cut sentiment from The Greetery's Four Square Holidy Tags stamp set.

All that was left was to add a bit of dimensional tape behind a few of the leaves and a Silver Glitter Drop from Pinkfresh Studio.

Next up is a more traditional take using most of the same products.

For the background here, I die cut a panel from The Greetery's Herringbone Parquet, the Magnolia Wreath from green cardstock and a gold metallic bow from Fit to be Tied. 

All the leaves were die cut from the same card stock (Gina K's Asparagus) but in every photo I took they appear to be cut from different colors. I splattered the leaves of the wreath with some white ink and added a Gold Glitter Drop to the center of the bow. The sentiment from Reverse Confetti's  Christmas Card Greetings was embossed in white on black cardstock and cut with a banner die.

We're headed home this afternoon. As usual, we're anticipating two half days of travel. There's snow forecast for tomorrow between Maumee (where we spend the night) and Erie, PA (bad weather is pretty typical around Erie.) Hopefully, it's "scattered" or "light."

 

Festive Greenery

In November I “spent” my rewards points (and a little extra) on some new goodies from #altenewstamps. When the Festive Greenery 3-D embossing folder and stencil arrived, I sat down and created a lot of panels, thinking I would make a set of identical cards. Instead I set a challenge for myself to make as many different cards as possible, and ended up with nine cards. I posted a few of them (here and here) as I made them for various challenges, but I thought I share the rest of them today. All of them started with the 3-D Stencil and coloring stencils. Since there are multiple cards, I'll just add the additional products I used under each.

Ellen Hutson Essential Ovals, Pinkfresh Studio Perfect Sentiments: Holiday, Pinkfresh Studio Gold Pearls

Ellen Hutson Essential Rectangles, Star sticker The Paper Studio, Reverse Confetti Christmas Card Greetings

Simon Says Stitched Dress-up Tags, The Greetery Speed Tags: Christmas  Sentiments

Simon Says Stitched Rectangles and Stitched Circles, Pinkfresh Studio  Foiled Sentiments for Holiday

This one was embossed on Concord & 9th's Evergreen cardstock, no stencil; Pinkfresh Studio Perfect Sentiments: Holiday, Paper Studio Gold Pearls

And, finally, a tag which ultimately I put on a card base when I needed one last Christmas card.

Ellen Hustson: Essential Ovals, The Greetery Speed Tags: Christmas Sentiments

There are still a few challenges looking for holiday cards so some of these are off to 52 Christmas Card Throwdown looking for Clean and Simple cards, The Four Seasons Challenge (looking for Winter cards), and The Card Concept: Christmas Cheer.

The Card Concept wants you to define your style. I'm sending over the first of the tag cards, so it's a Clean and Simple style,