Some Valentines, inspired by Tim

It's February, the month for Valentines! 

I was inspired by Tim Holtz's Valentine video last month to pull out my Valentine supplies and make some cards.  

supplies: watercolor cardstock, various pink and yellow cardstock, Tim Holtz Sizzix Alterations (retired) Doily die, Spun Sugar distress ink, Altenew Mini Flower Cluster Layering die set, stamped leaves from my scrap basket, Tim Holtz Sentiments Label sticker

Isn't this embossing folder a treasure?  The dimension is wonderful!  I took Tim's example and inked the flat side of it with spun sugar distress ink before embossing it in my machine.  I wanted to simulate a kind of tussy-mussy, a little bouquet of posies wrapped in a lacy doily, and I think this mini flower cluster does the trick.  Then I just added a sentiment label.  

Next, I left my heart do the choosing, picking things from my stash that have meaning to me: script, gingham, blues, lace, lilies of the valley and forget-me-nots.  

supplies: white card base, unknown script patterned paper, Tim Holtz Idea-ology Lace Baseboard Frame, ephemera from Botanical Layer , SmallTalk Occasions sentiment strip, blue gingham ribbon, blue pearls

After I'd glued the largest ephemera piece to the lace baseboard, I glued the smaller one to the script backing, then added adhesive foam pieces to the frame to make it stand up even more from the card base.  I wanted to accent the blues, so I added a small blue gingham bow and some blue pearls.

These Lace baseboard frames are really lovely, and I'm so glad that they're still available!

Thanks for stopping by!  Will you be making some Valentines this month?

Woodblock Wednesday

I've been enjoying finding a woodblock stamp to play with each month for Amy's Woodblock Wednesday challenge!  This month I have a Penny Black stamp called Scented Message, dated 2012, with a bonus sentiment from Paper Inspirations (no date shown). 

supplies: parchment cardstock, faded jeans distress cardstock and another in a slightly lighter blue, Penny Black Scented Message, Paper Inspirations Forget Me Not, Pink Fresh Studio Folk Edge Rectangle die, blue, green, and yellow markers

Everything I used to make this card is old - I used 12" cardstock for the blues, and a mottled creamy cardstock that I term "parchment" that I get at a local paper store, plus the 2 woodblock stamps.

Here's a picture of the stamps.

I hope you'll dig out your woodblocks, old or new, and play along too - you can find all the info here.  

Christmas Flea Market Finds

 Spellbinders sent me a pad of paper and some ephemera packs from the new Cathe Holden Christmas Flea Market Finds release!  Here are my cards - these were so fun to make!

supplies: cream cardstock, red patterned paper from Home for the Holidays paper pad, ephemera from Jingle Bells and Christmas Pines packs, adhesive foam squares, my own wood button

I started with a cream card base and an old Spellbinders label die, and just layered ephemera on top, then put the whole thing onto one of the new papers.  The bird was popped up a bit from everything else.

My next 2 cards are much simpler in design.

supplies: white and metallic gold cardstock, teal patterned paper from Home for the Holidays paper pad, stocking and jingle bell ephemera from Jingle Bells and Christmas Pines packs, Mix & Match Holiday Greetings dies, Essential Glimmer Rectangle plate, gold glimmer foil, natural twine

I added some metallic gold accents with my dotted glimmer rectangle, mat and sentiment, and popped up one of the jingle bell ephemera, along with a twine bow.

My final card uses 2 more papers from the pad - I fussy-cut this lovely bunch of red flowers, added it to a plaid background, and then finished with another Mix & Match Greetings sentiment  and some gold sequins in the center of 3 of the flowers.

supplies: cream cardstock, plaid and red floral papers from Home for the Holidays pad, Mix & Match Greetings dies, gold sequins

Many thanks  to Spellbinders for sharing these lovely products with me.  If these interest you, be sure to check out the rest of Cathe's release HERE.  The rich colors in her designs make it a real standout!

Simon Says.......Emboss It!

Welcome to the new challenge at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge blog!

 The theme this week is "Emboss It!", and the team is featuring Tim Holtz products.  I took this as my cue to grab his 3D Impresslits Floral Frame.

supplies: Simon Cream and Slate cardstock, Tim Holtz Floral Frame 3D Impresslits die/embossing folder combo and a Small Talk sticker, silver metallic watercolor, (retired) Hero Arts Old Letter Writing background, clear embossing powder, purple ink and a blending brush, Picket Fence Studios Lavendar Frame sprigs, Zig markers and water to color them, adhesive foam

I began by cutting/embossing the frame from Slate cardstock - this tiny folder does both at the same time.  Then I wet my finger and applied some silver pearlescent paint to it to help bring out the details.  These lavender sprigs were the perfect size to put into the frame.  I made a background with an embossed script and found a combination of purple inks to compliment the lavender, scruffed up the edge of the panel with my finger nail, and then popped up the frame and added one of Sir Tim's stickers.  

Now it's your turn!  We have a $25.00 gift certificate 

to the amazing Simon Says Stamp store for 1 lucky random winner of this week's challenge!  I can't wait to see what you all make this week!

Simon's February Card Kit

Here's my first play with the Simon Says Stamp February Card Kit.  The stamp set and papers have a decidedly vintage feel, and will make some really unique designs.

supplies: ivory cardstock, Authentique Romance pink plank dp, Love Always stamp set, Zig markers to color, Stitched Circle die

I love the included patterned papers in this kit and grabbed this pretty pink plank as my base, then stamped, colored and cut out the bird and the large flower from the stamp set.  I simply stamped a sentiment onto a stitched circle, then popped it above the base.  I photographed it against the Metallic Cotton Candy envelope included in this kit.

Here's another card:

supplies: black and white card, Love Always flowers and sentiments, Rose Lattice Background, embossed in white, and the darkest of the floss in the trio included in the set

I stamped the roses across a white panel, masking one of the ends, then the sentiment, and then trimmed the panel and framed it in black.  That was paired with a panel of the pretty Rose Lattice background, embossed in white on black card, and finished with a simple floss bow.

The Card Kit is a real value and still available!

HERE is the gallery for this month's kit.

Sending Sunshine - Simon's new release!

Simon is debuting a new release today, called Sending Sunshine!  There are almost 40 new stamps, dies, stencils, watercolor cards, and sequins - something for everyone to use this summer and beyond!

I was lucky enough to receive a large cling stamp called Bohemian Lace, and here's my first play with it.

supplies: white, cream and black card stock, Simon's new Bohemian Lace cling stamp, Best Mom Ever roses and leaves, and sentiment from Kind Flowers, VersaMark ink and white embossing powder, old paper distress ink, markers to color 

I started with a panel of cream card and white embossed the lace, offsetting it a bit, then sponged it with old paper distress ink to bring out the details.  My mind went to a vintage lace, which led me to pressed flowers, so I searched my Simon stamps, and added these sweet rosebuds, along with a small sentiment on black.  The cream panel was attached to a white card base to help bring out the embossed white details, which are quite delicate.

Be sure to visit THIS page to see all the new goodies!  My favorites are the Four Seasons stamps and dies set, the Flower Cluster die, the You Are My Sunshine die, and the Leafy Frame stencil.  What are yours?

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope you'll visit again later this morning for my regular Simon Says Stamp Wednesday blog post.   

Just a Note

Another play today with my new Altenew Rose Flurries dies......had to make my favorite yellow roses!

supplies: kraft card stock, papers from (retired) Doodlebug Rainbow Assortment card stock, unknown script dp, Altenew Rose Flurries dies, (retired) Avery Elle Simply Said Hello sentiment, gold pearls, vintage photo distress ink to edge script panel

I like the vintage feel that the script background adds to my bouquet.  Sorry that so many of my supplies have been discontinued, but really, these gorgeous flowers will shine on almost anything!

Hope your week is off to a great start!  

Tammy's Posies

Still playing with Tammy's goodies - this time an embossing folder, a background cling stamp, and some more of her posies dies.

My first card uses a background cling, Dear Ruby, which is made up of bits and pieces from an old autograph book from the early 1940's, and prominently, a note from Ruby's husband.  That melted my heart and I put this together with thoughts of a stack of old letters tied together with ribbon and an old dried flower:

supplies: cream, beige, and green cardstock, Dear Ruby background cling, Pinwheel Posies and leaves from Pom Pom Posies dies, My Mind's Eye brad, Hero Arts Cup o' Joe and gathered twigs distress inks, sage green seam binding

I used 2 layers of 2 of the flowers in this set, and edged them all with ink before rolling the petals a bit and attaching them all together with a brad.

The next one looks a bit more modern.  The background here is an embossing folder.  It could be cracked paint, or bark.

supplies: white, green apple, and 4 shades of pool cardstock, Blistered embossing folder, rubbed with old paper distress ink, Shabby Posies and leaves from Pom Pom Posies dies, fabric-covered brad, Wplus9 Hand Lettered Hello die

I used all 4 flowers in this set, gradually stepping down the color as the size decreased.  For the background, after embossing, I simply swiped with old paper distress ink.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Vintage and Modern

I'm playing today with a set of thinlet dies in the Sizzix/Tim Holtz set called Mixed Media 2.  All 3 of them, I think, originated first as stencils in his line.  This one is an extremely feminine set, so I pounced when I saw it!   Here's my first play:

supplies: cream,  pastel and dark blue cardstock, an unknown script text design paper, Mixed Media 2 flourish thinlet, Simon's Christmas Blessings die, 3 blue paper flowers from our local craft store

Since this flourish is so ornate, I wanted to do something with a vintage feel, and so I chose this scripty text paper as my background, and then my favorite color to complete the design.

This next card features the doily die, and I think it has a much more modern feel:

supplies: black and white cardstock, dps from My Favorite Things Dots & Stripes Sorbet paper pad, Mixed Media 2 doily die, mixed sentiment from Simon's Handwritten Sentiments and Winnie & Walter Big, Bold and Happy, black pearls, adhesive foam squares

I simply die-cut the doily and trimmed it into a rectangular panel, then lined and framed it before popping it above my card base.

There's a wildflower die included in this set, but I decided to make it into a leafy branch for a fall card:

supplies: white cardstock, Mixed Media die and Holiday Words Script sentiment die, ripe persimmon, carved pumpkin, fossilized amber, and candied apple distress inks, Perfect Pearls mixed with water, Winnie & Walter Audrey's cutaways scalloped die, adhesive foam squares

I covered a panel with autumnal distress inks, then spritzed it with a mixture of Perfect Pearls and water to give it a little shimmer.  Then I die-cut a scalloped panel, and from that, the Tim Holtz die.  I used the same distress inks, watered down, to splatter that panel. The sentiment is made up of a long-discontinued autumn stamp set from JoAnn, along with another Tim Holtz sentiment die, this one from a Holiday set. 

Hope your week is off to a great start!

You are the Best!

Playing once again with my W&W The Big, the Bold, and You stamps for the Moxie Fab World Hip on Handwriting challenge.  This time I used some paper from My Mind's Eye's Pretty Things paper pad. I love the mint green background, and the vintage feel to it.  I added my own strip of wide lace, and used more of the papers to fussy-cut the roses and pop them up above the card (the pale rose is double-popped).  Added a few pearls, and finished!  I haven't done a card like this in awhile, and I'm pleased with the way it turned out!  

Thanks for visiting me today - have a great weekend!

If I could turn back time........

If you're here to see my post for the current Simon Says Stamp challenge, please click HERE.

"If I could turn back time".....that's the current challenge theme at A Blog Named Hero.  And today's my day to have a post there as one of the February Guest Designers!  I adore shabby chic and vintage cards, and I had so much fun making this card today, using some of my favorite Hero Arts stamps.

I started with a piece of paper from Pink Paislee's London Market paper pad, distressing the edges with my fingernail and then with antique linen distress ink.  I overstamped some ferns using shabby shutters distress ink.  The Etched Flowers were stamped  and clear embossed on cream cardstock in Latte chalk ink., sponged with spun sugar distress ink and I used a spun sugar distress marker to darken some of the details slightly.  The leaves and centers of the flowers were also colored in with markers, then I carefully cut them out and popped them onto my panel.  The sentiment is from Friend You're the Best, and my seam binding was dyed with spun sugar distress ink.  I also added some pale pink pearls from Hero's Blush Mixed Accents.

Many thanks to Linda and Mary Dawn for having me as a Guest Designer this month - I love my Hero Arts stamps and love playing with them!  Thanks for visiting!

Vintage Cafe Challenge

At the Vintage Cafe Challenge, we are to make something with the theme of "childhood".  Again, I found this image on Pinterest and pinned it to my board.  The little poem below the image reads:

"This teacher is not old

but rather strict and stern

The scholars, good as gold,

say ABC in turn."

As before, I pulled colors from the print and added buttons and natural twine, along with some blue ric-rac trim that Savannah gave me.

supplies: dark blue cardstock, dps from October Afternoon Campfire and MME Lost & Found 2 "Sunshine" pads and an unknown blue stripe, dark blue ric-rac, natural jute twine, red, blue and cream buttons

Childhood

I found a new challenge through Lenet's beautiful blog.  It's called the Vintage Cafe Challenge, and this one is entitled "childhood".  Go and see the gorgeous cards that were made by the DT there.  I have recently started pinning vintage images of children to my Pinterest Boards and so I already had this sweet image saved.  So all I had to do was find some coordinating papers and embellishments.  I am rusty at shabby cards, but I sure did enjoy making this one!

supplies: white cardstock, image from Pinterest, dps from October Afternoon's Sidewalks, Echo Park Hello Summer, and Basic Grey Serendipity,  Martha Stewart and Hobby Lobby Spare Parts roses, buttons, heart lace, and SRM stickers Everday Girl (thanks, Virginia!)

And since these colors work for the current CR84FN challenge, I'll enter it there also.

Christmas children

Closing down shop here until after Christmas, but I wanted to leave you with my best wishes for a beautiful Christmas and for all your wishes to come true!  Aren't we all children at this time of year?

supplies: red, lime, and ivory parchment cardstock, design papers from The Paper Studio (Christmas sheet Music), Graphic45 (Christmas Post Collection from 2010), vintage image, Hero Arts CL343 Holiday Sayings, Adirondack Cranberry and old paper distress inks, red baker's twine, red heart button,  snowflake punch, red metallic dot


How many of you remember wearing these snow suits as a child?!  

It just so happens that the Play Date Cafe Challenge presented me with the perfect colors to highlight this sweet vintage image I found, probably at The Graphics Fairy.

Sweets and Smiles

I recently ordered these Halloween digital postcards from Janet's Etsy Shop, and this is my first time playing with them. The challenge at Really Reasonable Ribbon is called Fun 4 Fall - my project includes some leaf ribbon and twine, along with lots of little scraps of papers that I thought picked up the colors in the postcard:

supplies: Vintage PostCard, scraps of orange and green dps, Hero Arts CL353 Happy Halloween, VersaFine onyx black ink, green leaf ribbon, 2 buttons, twine

One more botanical

I was thinking about the challenge at Moxie Fab World: Fanatical about Botanical and couldn't believe that I didn't use one of my favorite flower stamps for a card to enter.  I don't think I will ever tire of this Hero Arts Hydrangea stamp - it is one of my all-time favorites.  I usually color it blue because I've always wanted one of the blue ones in our garden.....supposedly they don't do well here in NE Ohio, so this is as close as I can get.

supplies: kraft card base, background paper: K&Company "Brenda Walton Flora & Fauna" ledger paper, Hero Arts K5376 Hydrangea, K5354 French Post, LL040 Woodland Ferns, CL490 Sending Smiles Messages, Versafine Vintage Sepia and Onyx Black inks, shabby shutters and vintage photo distress inks, Prismacolor pencils, crochet lace from Carole, blue button from my button jar, natural twine, sewing machine and thread

Vintage print

Here is Silke Ledlow's card for this week's challenge at CASE Study:

The word "vintage" was mentioned in the description, and that's where my mind went.  I searched my saved images for something vintage, and found this print by Jessie Wilcox Smith, one of my very favorite children's book illustrators.  So that was the basis for my card.  I pulled all of the colors from this image, and used Silke's sketch to put everything together..  

supplies: cream card base, design papers from My Mind's Eye Stella & Rose Mabel paper pad and October Afternoon Fly a Kite pad, computer image by Jessie Wilcox Smith, PTI Embellishments for sentiment (love the font), versafine onyx black ink, periwinkle ribbon, lace from Carole, old button, flower brads, pale aqua pearls

Here is a closeup of the sweet little girl, showing her beautiful face and more of the details.  I pulled the ribbon color from the flowers in her basket.

Bits and pieces

Hello everyone!  Hope your week is going well and that you have some fun things planned for your weekend.........Valentine's Day is right around the corner!  I'm here today to play in the Play Date Cafe Challenge # 68; didn't Julie choose some fun shabby-chic images to get our juices flowing?

I picked out a few things from the inspiration pictures - the seed packet and those pale pink roses, and then dug into my collection of papers and started arranging:

I remembered a post from Jacqueline where she used this vintage cologne bottle label and referenced it here at the Graphics Fairy - thank you, Jacqueline!  The only stamped image here is a scrap from a white-embossed lace background; everything else is a scrap of printed paper.  The little bit of music is something that Jacqueline sent me awhile ago.  I hand-dyed the seam binding using spun sugar distress ink, and also used it to color in the center of the digital label.  I also used antique linen to darken the lace that Carole sent me and edge some of the elements.  The tiny pink roses are Martha Stewart. 

Eleven Elements for 2011

The challenge this week at the Shabby Tea Room is to make something using 11 elements.  At first I didn't think I was up to the task, but after I'd seen some of the other submissions I decided to give it a try, and I'm so glad I did, because this was so much fun putting together.  Here's my card:

I knew I wanted to use this beautiful mauvy hand-dyed wrinkled ribbon from my friend Donna, so I went looking for a vintage image to pair it with.  I thought this gorgeous basket of lilacs was perfect.  Then I just matched up some designer papers, found some lace (a gift from Tiffany) and the rest flowed from there.

So here is my list of items:
1. cardstock for the base of the card
2. designer papers, Websters Pages and another unknown
3. vintage image
4. hand-dyed wrinkled ribbon
5. vintage button
6. lace
7. stamping (sentiment)
8. heart charm
9. tiny heart stick pins
10. fabric flowers
11. pearls
12. punched ferns

Also submitting this to the Flourishes challenge: The Colors of Love, using shades of pink, white, and red, and to the Really Reasonable Ribbon challenge: Something New, being this lovely hand-dyed ribbon.

Supplies: ivory parchment cardstock, Websters Pages dp, PTI Vintage Picnic Sentiments, Hero Arts woven lace ribbon

Vintage scene

Today on her blog, Kathy Martin shared a really lovely vintage holiday image.  I immediately downloaded it and made 3 very easy cards, using scraps of printed papers, some ribbon and raffia, and minimal stamping.  The children were all dressed in white, except for the girl's hat and shoes and their gloves, but I lightly colored in various areas in each card:

Thank you, Kathy, I know this sweet image will be used often.