Surprise! Surprise!

Surprise, surprise!! Two posts in one week!  I'm on a roll this week! LOL!

I needed a couple of birthday cards for next week, and of course I only have three weeks to get 10-15 cards made for our widow's group...so I'm keeping busy!

Off we go...

One of my granddaughters will be 17 next week, so this first card is for her.  I have quite a few of the Julie Nutting dolls, but rarely use them...not sure why, because this cowgirl turned out adorable!  I sponged the sky and ground, then paper pieced all of her clothes and hair. Sentiment is from PTI.

This second card is for my sister in law who has a birthday next week also.  I'm really loving the floral stamps from Altenew!  Since I don't have dies for these stamps, I scanned the stamped image into my Silhouette program and made a cut file to go with the stamps...cut out 6 or 8 flowers and leaves, then stamped the image on the cut out...easy-peasy!  I did discover that you MUST make the cut border slightly larger than the stamped image or you'll never get it lined up to stamp....ask me how I know! LOL!  These floral images are multi layer stamps so I used several shades of HA ink to stamp, then added a little highlights with some Prismacolor pencils.  The cut out leaves were colored with Copics.  I stamped a couple of the blooms on the card panel, then popped up three cut out blooms over that.  LOVE how this turned out!

This card is something I wanted to try after watching a Simon Says video from Kelly Letevola.  It's like bleaching, only you use distress inks on watercolor paper...much easier than I thought it would be.  The image is from WPlus9 (Beautiful Bouquets: Dahlias).  I think I'll used this stamp and this technique often!  I also inked up the sentiment strip and stamped the sentiment (SSS) in versamark and heat embossed in white.  I was digging around in some of my old stuff and found the netting paper and thought it would be a great background for the watercolor panel.

These two cards are not my favorites, but I thought I'd share them anyway.  I got these dies from Tim Holtz because I thought they'd work well on cards and on scrapbook pages.  There are 7 dies in the set and most of them are fairly large.  Super simple cards, but at least I'll have a few in my stash.

I really appreciate all the visits and I always smile when you leave me a comment...it makes my day! I hope you'll come back to visit soon!

Until next time....

Busy, busy, busy......

I've been crafting a lot this week trying to get enough cards ready for our monthly widow's group meeting.  Each month we write cards to people that might need encouragement or just to make someone smile.

So here's what I've done this week....(WARNING:  PHOTO HEAVY)

These first three cards are smaller cards...measuring 3.5 x 5 inches.  I had some envelopes left over from something, so I just made cards that would fit those envelopes.

Stamp - Clearly Besotted
Sentiment - MFT

Flowers - Altenew  Peony Bouquet
Sentiment - MFT

Background inked w/distress inks
Sentiment - TPC Studio (embossed)

These next cards are a few that I made after watching one of Jennifer McGuire's videos...she makes it look really easy...unfortunately, I had to piddle with it for a while before I got something I wanted to share with you! LOL!

This first card has a small white card inside of a vellum card.  I stamped the image on the small card and colored it with copics, then stamped it again on the vellum over where it is on the small card.  Here's a link to Jennifer's video...she explains it much better than I did!

This card is just something I was trying out...not sure it worked so well.  I purchased "corner dies" a while back and I was trying to get a border using just one of the dies.  In order to do that, you have to die cut from both sides, then try not to overlap the die too much over the first cut.....whew!  It'll do....
Sentiment is from TPC Studios.

This is also a technique I picked up from one of Jennifer's videos...Here's a link to the video. I love how this one turned out....I probably should have paid a little more attention to the video, because I didn't do it quite like she did and I struggle with it a little...lesson learned!Here's a close up of the card so that you can see the stripes inside of the card.

This next card looks all white in the photo, however, the top portion of the card is all vellum.  Turned out kinda cool! The butterfly is a punch from MS.  The sentiment is from SSS.  Below this card, I've attached a close-up of the top of the card so that you can see the stripes inside.

This last card i probably my least favorite card....it warped a bit when I heat embossed the sentiment from MFT.  I stamped the SSS flowers on vellum and heat embossed them in white, then turned them over and colored with with Zig Clean Color brushes.  I die cut leaves (SSS), colored the back of each leaf with green copics, and then folded them down the center to get a nice crease.  I added white dashed lines around the edges of the vellum and rounded the bottom corners.  I put glue does under the flower to hold the vellum card to the dark pink card base.

That's it for me today!  If you managed to hang in there for all this...Thanks A Million!

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by for a visit!  Hope you'll come back soon!  Your comments are greatly appreciated! Until next time...

Muse Challenge 161 and lots more....

I made a card this week that is perfect for the Muse Challenge.  Here's the card from Anita Bowden who is this week's Muse:

The inspiration I took away from this card is the inlaid die cut and the pierced edges with lots of white background.

I used a branch die and a bird die from Memory Box and the "Be" die from Simon Says Stamps.  Each of these dies were inlaid into a white background cut with a stitched border die from SSS.  The "happy" is a stamp from SSS. It took me a while to figure out which order to cut the inlaid dies, but I finally got it! :)

Here's a few more of the cards I've made this week.  (I'll be using them with our widows group)

Stamps from Altenew's Beautiful Day

Stamps from Altenew and Hero Arts

Stamps from Altenew and Simon Says

Stamps from Stampin Up

If you have any questions about any of the cards, you can drop me an email at the link on the right side bar.  All coloring was done with Copic markers.  Some of the flowers were simple stamped with three coordinating colors.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by for a visit!  Hope you'll come back soon!  Your comments are greatly appreciated! Until next time...