A Woodland Scene

 Here's a new BetterPress plate/die set that I couldn't wait to get home to play with!  I've always been enamored with woodland scenes, and now I have another way to make them!

supplies: white, red, kraft, and cream cardstock, Birch Trees & Friends press plate, black, grey and cement inks, sentiment from All Seasons Spring press plate/die set

This set is one of those that comes with a registration template that helps you to place the various birch trees and use different colors of inks on them.  This was my first time using a registration template, and it was an easy process!  After finishing pressing the trees, I tore a scrap of white cardstock for the snowy ground, and then added my sweet fawn, birds, and my sentiment.

You'll be seeing lots more of this in the coming months!

Hope your day is going well - thanks so much for stopping by!

Woodblock Wednesday!

 I have so enjoyed playing along with Amy's Woodblock Wednesday each month; it's a good thing to use these beautiful stamps once again!  Here's my card for this month.

supplies: white, corals, yellow, and green cardstock, a leafy design paper, (retired) Hero Arts S5324 Simple Frame from 2016, sentiment from their (retired) Made with Love clear set, Spellbinders flower and leaf dies 

This framing stamp is pretty, isn't it?  I stamped it twice, once on my background white base, and again on the printed paper, then cut out the rectangle of the print and attached it to the card base.  That sentiment is a favorite too, just because of the mixed font and unusual layout.

You can see the other entries for this month HERE at Amy's blog.

In Memory of Sidnie

 The Simon Says Stamp family got some bad news earlier this month when our Wednesday Teammate Sidnie Des Jardins passed away.  

The Wednesday Challenge is dedicating this week's challenge to her.  Lols kindly asked a few "retired" members of the Wednesday team to participate, too.  Here is my card.

supplies: white and Cotton Candy cardstock, Simon Vintage Garden sentiment, (retired) You Have My Heart floral spray, Sunny Studio Quilted Hearts embossing folder

Sidnie will be missed.  You can see more cards for her at the Simon Wednesday Blog this week.

Thanks for visiting today.

Friend

 Here's another large die from the new Storytelling release at Spellbinders.  I mixed it with an embossing folder, and a smaller banner sentiment.

supplies: white cardstock, vellum, Nature's Botanical Wreath 3D embossing folder, Peony ink, Friends dies, Curved Everyday Sentiments glimmer plate/die set, pink glimmer foil

This large sentiment actually is made to read "Friends", plural, but the "s" is separate, and it's easy to trim the shadow die, too, so that it can be used either way.  

I used the blackout technique to color the details and background of the wreath design with a bright pink ink.  Then I cut the sentiment from white cardstock, and the shadow from vellum, and added a previously foiled banner sentiment.

Hope your day is going well - thanks so much for visiting today!

Home Sweet Home

Here's a card that uses a couple new sets from Spellbinders' Storytelling Collection: Home Sweet Home dies, and Christmas Sentiments press plate.

supplies: colored cardstock, snowflake paper and trees from Handmade Holidays Card Kit, Home  Sweet Home dies, Christmas Sentiments betterpress plate, red glimmer foil, Essential Arch die

There's something about houses that always draws me in, and this is a nice medium size that works to make a little scene.  I didn't have any tree dies in scale, (hint, hint, Spellbinders!) so I used ephemera ones, along with a snowflake paper for my background, from this year's Card Kit.  The trees have gold-foiled decorations, which work nicely with my red foiled sentiment.  Don't you love that teensy fence?  

Thank you for visiting today - have a good one!

Spellbinders Storytelling Release!

 Here comes another new release from Spellbinders!  This large collection launched earlier this month, and I'll have a few cards to share with you in the next few days.

supplies: various patterned Christmas paper strips, Christmas & December dies, Christmas Sentiments betterpress plate/die set, red glimmer foil

I believe these new word dies, much like the previous Four Seasons sets, are made to be used in scrapbooking, but they will work on A2 cards, too, if you make them landscape cards.  So after choosing my sentiment, I pulled out an ANCIENT 6" pad of papers and cut them into various sizes of strips, then just glued those onto my card base.  I added the new goodies, and I was finished!  This is a card that can easily be reproduced, just mixing up your patterns and colors, and it's a wonderful way to use up every bit of your patterned papers!  It's really fun to find patterns that work together, and to me it feels a bit like making a quilt.

Thank you so much for stopping by today.

Perfect Touch Rectangles!

 Here's a new set of nesting rectangles called Perfect Touch that's part of the newly released Cheers collection at Spellbinders. 

I paired it with some of the Snowcapped Holidays dies from last month for my card today.

supplies: colored cardstock, NEW Perfect Touch Rectangle dies, Snowcapped Holidays birds and greenery, Sending Joy Sentiments press plate/die set, red glimmer foil

I used the largest die plus 2 of the remaining 5 dies in this new set.  It also includes a tag!  In my opinion, you can't have enough of these nesting dies, and the sweet detail on this one is just right - enough to notice, but not enough to distract from the other elements.

I hope you'll come back again soon - thanks for visiting!

Dancin' Christmas Friends - Klondike the Moose!

 I have a card today from a new collection this month, Dancin' Christmas Friends.  

supplies: white, krafts, and teals cardstock, Dancin' Moose Klondike, All Seasons Winter press plate/die set, Teal glimmer hot foil, Frozen Flurries die

I think Klondike is so fun, and I plan to make him into ornaments to give to our grands - wouldn't it be fun to make a bunch of these with sweaters of different colors, and various lengths of his legs?  At his largest he can be about 6" tall.

This time I made a slim-line card, added the snowflakes from the Frozen Flurries cover plate die, and a little foiled sentiment.

This Dancin' Christmas Friends collection has a fun variety of creatures in it - do check it out!  They all have swinging legs so that they can dance!

Four Seasons: Autumn

 Here's another card using some dies and press plates from the new All Seasons Collection from Spellbinders, this time with an autumn theme.

supplies: kraft, Surf Blue, and fall colors of cardstock, a blue plank design paper, Four Seasons dies, All Seasons Autumn press plate/die, Autumn Leaves dies

This time I used the press plate as it was intended, with black ink.  

If you want to see the summer press plate, I used it HERE (2nd card) with Yana's Poppies dies.  Each of the plates has 6 sentiments specific to the season it represents.  I like that you can "print" them all out at one time, then use the matching die to cut them out and use for separate projects.

Thanks for visiting today - I hope you'll come back soon to see my card using the Spring set.

Four Seasons Winter

 Spellbinders has released an exclusive collection called All Seasons.  It consists of a set of dies and shadow dies of the names of the four seasons, plus 4 press plates sets with smaller sentiments for each season.  Today I'm using the Winter ones.

supplies: white, aqua, and silver glitter cardstock, various strips of aqua/snowflake patterned papers, Four Seasons dies, All Seasons Winter betterpress plate and die set, teal glimmer hot foil, various small snowflake dies

I cut my paper scraps into strips, and then used them to cover an A2 panel, leaving a tiny border between the strips.  Then I simply foiled the press plate sentiment, cut out the large word dies and some snowflakes, and put everything together. 

I'll share some of the other seasons with you soon!  Thanks for stopping by!

Yana's Poppies, part 2

 Here's a die that's part of the new Yana's Poppies Collection.  

For my first card, I cut it twice from ivory cardstock, added tape to the reverse to hold everything together, then colored in the details with some peach and green Zig markers.

supplies: white and Pink Sand cardstock, Yana's Poppies die, Zig markers to color, Floral Expressions 3D folder, medium scalloped die,  Curved Everyday Sentiment, foiled in Blush glimmer foil, adhesive foam squares

I wanted some texture behind my flowers, and this month's lovely Floral Expressions 3D embossing folder did the trick!

On my 2nd card, I used colored cardstock, and paper-pieced the design.

supplies: white, black, bright yellow, orange and green cardstock, Yana's Poppies die, Poppy Background press plate, sentiment from All Seasons Summer press plate/die set, gold glimmer foil

I embossed the Poppy Background press plate, and foiled a sentiment from another new press plate of sentiments called All Seasons Summer.

Thanks for visiting me today!

Yana's Poppies Collection

 I'm excited to share with you a gorgeous BetterPress plate and matching stencils that Yana Smakula has designed for Spellbinders!  

This plate is made so that the background and flower details are foiled or inked.  I've found that the press plates ALWAYS foil beautifully, so I had an afternoon of trying all different kinds of foil, and I'm sharing 4 cards that resulted.

supplies: white, Doll Pink, and Surf Blue cardstock, Poppy Background press plate and stencil bundle, Mint Satin Pastel glimmer foil, Cherry Blossom pinks and Lagoon inks, blending brushes, Colorful Expressions Sentiments dies

This was my first time using these Satin Pastel glimmer foils, and it won't be the last!  I love that they give a lovely pearly background!  The stencils are 6 pieces, and are easy to layer.

Here's card #2, using Teal glimmer foil.

supplies: white, orange, and peacock cardstock, Poppy Background Press Plate and Stencil bundle, Teal glimmer foil, Warm and Cozy and Mowed Lawn inks, blender brushes, sentiment dies from Anemone Bloom Glimmer set

Next, I foiled with Black foil.

supplies: white cardstock, Poppy Background Press Plate/Stencil Bundle, Black glimmer foil, Tea Party, Warm & Cozy, Golden Sunset, and Spring Bouquet green inks, blending brushes, sentiment banner from Curved Everyday Sentiments glimmer plate and die, Gold glimmer foil

The Black glimmer foil, like the Satin Pastels, is not as reflective as the regular foils we're used to, which makes taking pictures so much easier.  This time I made my flowers all different colors, including white, which enabled me to use a sentiment on white.

And finally, still enamored with the Satin Pastels foils, I foiled the plate and a set of sentiments with Satin Pink.  The soft pearly finish is so lovely that I decided to just frame it up in white and call it finished.

supplies: white cardstock, Poppy Background Press Plate, Pink Satin Pink glimmer foil, Curved Everyday Sentiments plate and die

Thanks so much for visiting today; I'll be back soon to show you another new item that Yana designed.

Spellbinders August Club Kits!

 The Spellbinders Club Kits are available now for new subscribers!  This collection is called Colorful Expressions.

I look forward every month to the embossing folders, and they do not disappoint!  Here is the 3D folder: Floral Expressions.  This time I inked it on the flat side before running it through my machine.  My sentiment is made up of some of the dies of the month: Colorful Expressions Sentiments, a group of 18 words and matching shadow dies.

supplies: white and aqua cardstock, Floral Expressions 3D embossing folder, inked in Tide Pool ink, Colorful Expressions Sentiments dies, adhesive foam squares, Capri Blue gems

Next up is the Stencil Club: Colorful Expressions Garden.  It contains 5 stencils, and when I saw them I thought they looked like nasturtiums, so that's the way I colored them.  And for my sentiment I used some from the Clear Stamp and Die set: Colorful Expressions Blossoms.

supplies: white and orange sherbet cardstock, Colorful Expressions Garden stencils, Golden Sunset, Fired Brick, and Green Valley ink cubes, blending brushes, sentiment from Colorful Expressions Blossoms stamp and die set

This month the Clear Stamp and Die set looks like apple blossoms to me, so I made a pink and white card.  I love the dimension that you get when you use the matching die and lift the florals above your card base!

supplies: white and pink cardstock, Colorful Expressions Blossoms stamps and dies, adhesive foam strips, Essential Arches die

This next card features the Large Dies: Colorful Expressions Blooms and the Embossing Folder: Hand Drawn Lines, with a return of some more of the small dies for my sentiment.  The large die set includes several large flowers and leaves, but I chose only a few of them for my card today.  And I turned the embossed background backwards, to give a kind of uneven brickwork, instead of off-center plaid that shows the other way around.  

supplies: various blue, green, and yellow cardstock, Colorful Expressions Blooms, Colorful Expressions Sentiments, Hard Drawn Lines embossing folder

Next, I mixed a bit of both embossing folders, inking the Lines folder with purple ink inside the folder before embossing, and inking the Floral folder after embossing with the same ink.  Now you can see the Lines folder as it was intended, a kind of wonky plaid.

supplies: white and purple cardstock, Hand Drawn Lines and Floral Expressions embossing folders, Colorful Expressions Sentiment, purple ink, adhesive foam squares.

My final 2 cards are rainbow ones.  First is the Stitching kit: Stitched Colorful Palette.  I made it into a mini slim-line card measuring about 6 1/4" by 3 1/4".  And I used a sentiment from the Glimmer of the Month kit.

supplies: white and colored cardstock, 3 strands of embroidery flosses to match, Stitched Colorful Palette, sentiment from Colorful Splash, Mini Rainbow Stripe glimmer foil

The Glimmer Kit: Colorful Splash contains this large glimmer plate, plus 3 skinny sentiments.  You saw 1 of them above, and I used a 2nd one on my final card.  We get a roll of Mini Rainbow Stripe glimmer this time!

supplies: white cardstock, Doodlebug striped patterned paper, Colorful Splash glimmer plate and sentiment, Mini Rainbow Stripe glimmer foil

It's always hard to get a good photo of glimmer cards, but I think you can see the rainbow wash of color on this one pretty well.  The design takes up almost a whole A2 card, so I used just a bit of striped paper to add a little more interest.

You can look HERE for information on Spellbinders Clubs.  Each is available for new subscribers only from the 6th until the 27th of each month.  If you click on my links under each card, you can see the specifics of each product.  You can subscribe to each of our 10 kits separately, (and you can "unjoin" a subscription at any time without any penalty), or you can get them all, plus a free bonus item each month, and save 60% by choosing the Deluxe Caboodle!

Pretty Papers Challenge

 Here's my card for this month's Love Those Pretty Papers challenge.  I have long been a fan of Doodlebug's 6" paper pads because the patterns are diminished in scale from their original 12" papers, and therefore perfect for our card making.  Their pads are always beautifully coordinated so that almost everything works together.  Lately there is usually a page or 2 with stripes, and another with sentiments or focal images.  I feel like making a card with them is like putting together a little paper quilt!  

At this time of year, I am enjoying running out into our garden and cutting some flowers, which I pop into a canning jar to have on our kitchen table.  So of course I was drawn to this darling little dimensional Doodle-Pop.

supplies: Doodlebug Hello Again 6" paper pad and Butterfly Bouquet Doodle-Pop, Spellbinders Perfect Touch Rectangle dies

Doodle-pops are 3-dimensional stickers that are released with each collection.  Here I attached the jar of posies to a white rectangle, then just built out the design from there.  Everything came from the Hello Again pad.

Thanks for stopping by today - have a good one!

Floral Wreath

 It's been awhile since I've made a wreath card, so today's the day!

supplies: white colored cardstock, Spellbinders Little Blooms, Birch Press Design Sugar Script Sentiments Hot Foil Plate and Die, teal glimmer hot foil, Doodlebug mini heart sprinkles

I trimmed my inner white rectangle to 4 X 5 1/4", then lightly traced a circle on it. After cutting out all the flowers and leaves, I formed them into a wreath, following my pencil lines, then just added a sentiment from my scrap box and some tiny enamel hearts in the cardstock colors.

It's August!  Enjoy what's left of summer.