My Favorite 2024 Cards

  Every year I do a little round-up of my favorite cards from the past year - it's a good way to look back and remember the year. 

If you'd like details on any of these, just click on it, and you'll be taken back to its original post.

I enjoyed using embossing folders and layering stencils this year, adding betterpress plates to the mix.  Our industry continues to expand with new innovations and ideas, and I look forward to what the future holds in the coming year!

Thanks so much for stopping by today - sending you creative wishes for 2025!

A Birthday Card

 I saw this idea on Pinterest (unfortunately there wasn't a viable link), and loved it for a friend's birthday.

supplies: white, green, and 2 pink cardstock, Spellbinders Flower Frenzy 3D embossing folder, Sealed Blooms floral dies, 2 retired hearts (Spellbinders and Simon Says Stamp Large Heart Doily), Clearly Besotted Sweet Little Sentiments, heart sprinkles, adhesive foam squares

This makes me think of flowers in the snow, with the white background.  

Popping this into the current Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Use Dies.

Thanks for coming by!

Woodblock Wednesday

 Merry Christmas!

Woodblock Wednesday has become a nice post to look forward to each month; this year I've done one every month, so I don't want to break my record now!  Here's a stamp dated 2001 from Stampendous, and named Tiny Babe.  I think it's perfect for this month, since the challenge falls on Christmas day!

I kept it simple, with minimal coloring.  I popped up the "Tiny Babe" part, added a glittery gem to the star, and cut the whole thing out with an arch die, matting it with gold.

supplies: cream and matte gold metallic cardstock, Stampendous Tiny Babe woodblock, Spellbinders Essential Arches dies, glittery gem, adhesive foam squares

You can see all the other entries at Amy's blog HERE.

My friend Linda had a blog post to share her lovely Christmas decorations, so I thought I'd tag on a few pictures of our tree this year.

We wanted a smaller tree this year, so my engineering husband figured out how to smallify our larger 9 foot tree of the past.  This one stands at about 5 feet now, much more manageable for us.

I took a ceramics class maaaaany years ago to make this nativity scene.  

And here are some closer shots of some of the ornaments we've collected and made over these 50+ years.  The hand-made ones are my favorites!

Thanks for indulging me!

Floral Noel

I took advantage of some Black Friday sales this year; one of the sets I got was the Honey Bee Stamps Floral Noel suite: layering stencils, matching dies, and stamps.  Here are 2 cards I made recently with my new goodies.

supplies: white cardstock, old Susan Branch holly design paper, Honey Bee Stamps Floral Noel stencils, twisted citron, mowed lawn, abandoned coral, and festive berries distress inks, Floral Noel dies, sentiment from Floral Noel stamp set, small adhesive foam squares, tiny rhinestone gems

The stencils also include larger versions of the flower sprigs, and the dies also include a smaller version of both Noel and Joy.  Here's what I did with some of those.

supplies: white and matte metallic gold cardstock, Floral Noel stencils, Floral Noel dies, Spellbinders Floral embossing folder, Pink Fresh Stitched Scallop Rectangle die, tiny gold gems 

Everything was easy to work with, and I'm so glad I was able to add them to my collection!  Once again, I'll add these to the current Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge, to use dies.

Thank you for coming by today - hope I've inspired you in some small way!

Joy!

I originally saw these Birch Press Design Herbarium Plate dies on my friend Linda's blog, and followed her link after Thanksgiving and got them for myself at an amazing price.  Here's my first play with them.

supplies: white, lipstick red, 3 teal greens cardstock, Birch Press Design Herbarium Plates suite,  Hero Arts Joy stamp and cut die, red metallic dots

This bundle is a set of 3 A2 size plates that you cut from different colors of cardstock and then stack for this lovely design.  I have nothing else like them, and am so glad I was able to add them to my supplies.  I added some hoarded Hero Arts metallic dots for my berries, and a large Hero Arts sentiment.  Everything is retired, I'm sorry to say, from their home websites.

I'm entering this into this year's final challenge at the Simon Wednesday Blog, which is using dies.

It's almost Christmas - are you ready?

Some Tim Holtz Christmas Cards

 I thought Tim's new Be of Good Cheer dies would work nicely with others that I already have.  My first card today features the Santa from that set.

supplies: white, green, 2 reds, peach, pink and black cardstock, a red striped design paper, Tonic Tropical Tide glitter cardstock (for snowflakes), Tim Holtz Big Tidings, Be of Good Cheer, and Funky Festive dies, Ideaology Christmas Sticker, (retired) Taylored Expressions Winter Flurry embossing folder

The embossed panel was in my scrapbasket, as were the glittery stars and the striped paper.  Santa was easy to construct, and I love the shadowing that he has; perfect to bring him to life!  You'll be seeing the snowman in this new set sometime in the New Year....

I also picked up Tim's Vault Seasonal Sketch dies - for the Christmas dies, of course, but the bonus for me was getting a small-scale alphabet with them.

supplies: white, 2 greens, and silver metallic cardstock, Simon Pastel Colorblend cardstock panel, Tim Holtz Vault Seasonal Sketch, Penny Black Stitched Stackers die, tiny rhinestones

Those small letters will come in so handy for personalizing a card!

Noel Layering Stencils

 I thought I'd share some of the goodies I got during the Black Friday sales this year.  Today I have a card that was made with layering stencils, one of my favorite ways to create!

supplies: white and 2 pink cardstocks, Taylored Expressions Noel Layering Stencils/stamp set, distress inks in kitsch flamingo, picked raspberry, twisted citron, mowed lawn, evergreen bough, and pine needles, Spellbinders Perfect Touch Rectangle die, Heartfelt Thanks and Scallops die, Berry Color Essentials gems

The stencil set is 4 parts, and there's a tiny clear stamp set included for the veins in the leaves and several sizes of circles.  After putting my card together I decided some sparkle would be nice, so I used the tiniest gems from a Spellbinders set to do just that.  

Thanks for stopping by today - I hope your Christmas preparations are going well!

Some Simple Christmas Cards

Today I thought I'd pick some Christmas supplies from earlier this year and make some very simple Christmas cards that could be done quickly and repeatedly, just changing up colors and backgrounds.  These cards center on the Copperplate Betterpress plates, which have the most elegant font, perfect for the holidays!  I have 2 of them, so I foiled each of them in both Matte Gold and Red as my starting point.

supplies: cream and matte gold metallic cardstock, Spellbinders 3D Poinsettia Bells and Border embossing folder, Merry Christmas Copperplate betterpress plate, Matte Gold glimmer foil, (retired) Floral Oval Doily die

Next I foiled in red, switched embossing folders, and brought in an old border die to get a red and green look.

supplies: cream and dark teal green cardstock, Spellbinders Floral Expressions 3D embossing folder, Merry Christmas Copperplate, Red Glimmer Foil, Winter Borders die

Now for the Joy to the World plate.  I paired it with the beautiful Winter Rose Background plate, both foiled and pressed.

supplies: cream cardstock, Winter Rose Background betterpress plate, Joy to the World Copperplate, Matte Gold foil, an old Spellbinders labels die

supplies: Bisque BetterPress cotton card, cream and red glitter cardstock,  Winter Rose Background press plate, VersaFine Satin Red ink, Joy to the World Copperplate, Red glimmer foil, Fresh Picked Labels dies

I hope I've given you some ideas for simple elegant designs for Christmas cards.  Look through your supplies and you'll be surprised how many things you can mix and match to make each one just a bit different.

Thanks for stopping by! 

All Wrapped Up

 The idea for today's card came from a Christmas catalog I recently received, showing a striped sweater, with the top stripe all sequins with a bow.  It made an easy design!

supplies: white, green, and red glitter cardstock, Spellbinders Christmas Wreath Add-Ons bow, and sentiment from Christmas Sentiments press plate/dies, red glimmer foil, adhesive foam squares

The green stripes are 1/4" wide, and the red glitter one is 1/2".  

As always, I thank you for visiting my blog today!

Spellbinders December Club Kits: Crazy Love

 The December Club Kits are now available for new subscribers!  This month's theme is Crazy Love.

I could not wait to play with the Small Dies this month.  They're named Blooming Hello.  What a gorgeous design!  I placed it on a background embossed with one of the new stencils from this month.

supplies: white, pinks, greens, yellows and blue cardstock, Two Way Heart stencil, Blooming Hello dies, tiny pink gems, adhesive foam 

Since this is a release centering around Valentine's Day, I used pinks primarily on this card, with some blue for forget-me-nots.  The effect is pretty subtle, but I used a random heart stencil to emboss my background.  And I used tiny adhesive foam pieces to lift the "H" above the card.

Here are 2 more cards using the Stencils called Two-Way Heart.  There are 2 designs, the one which you saw above, using only 1 stencil, and a second which uses the remaining 4 stencils.  First is the lone stencil that I used above.  This time I inked it with a group of pink inks, then added one of the sentiments from the Clear Stamps for this month.

supplies: white and orchid pink cardstock, Two Way Heart single stencil, 4 shades of Rose Petal inks, sentiment from Forever Yours, Essential Heart and Scalloped Heart dies, adhesive foam squares

And here is a card using the remaining 4 stencils.  As above, I used another sentiment from the Clear Stamps, called Forever Yours.

supplies: white, Lipstick Red, and Audrey Blue cardstock, Two-Way Hearts stencils, Forever Yours sentiment, red, aqua, and black inks 

The Glimmer Kit is called Friendship is Everything, and the glimmer foil this month is Matte Gold.

supplies: white and cream cardstock, Friendship is Everything floral plate and sentiment, cream and green markers to color, matte gold glimmer foil

I made it easy on myself and made the flowers cream.  I think that color combination with the gold foiling makes an elegant design.

My next 2 cards feature the embossing folders for December.  The 3D folder is called Tiny Hearts Scallop, and I mixed it with a few dies from the Large Dies: Monster Love Pop.

supplies: white, red, and pinks cardstock, Tiny Hearts Scallop 3D embossing folder, red ink, Monster Love Pop dies

The 2D folder is called Heart Swag.  I added a big die from last year and another of the sentiments from this month's clear stamp set.

supplies: Cotton Candy and Lipstick Red cardstock, vellum, Heart Swag embossing folder, red ink, stamped sentiment from Forever Yours, Big Love dies (includes heart)

On both cards, after embossing, I gently rubbed a red ink across the surface.

And finally, the Stitching Dies are called Stitched Notch Corner Card Front.  I love the notched corner die that serves as a frame for the whole thing, with it's tiny hearts all around the edges, and also the pretty florals.  I used pink and mint for my card.

supplies: white, Cotton Candy, and Mint cardstock, Stitched Notched Corner dies, 3 strands of pink embroidery floss, tiny adhesive foam squares

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!