Hello

Happy Independence Day to my American blog readers! Have a safe and happy holiday.

This silver-embossed "HELLO" has been matted and in my card parts for years. It's matted with silver and mounted on foam squares. I think it might be from Papertrey Ink. I embossed a piece of light brown cardstock with a Paper Studio folder and then used white pigment ink to rub over the embossed surface. I used a kraft cardbase.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Stenciled Hello

I played a little bit with a stencil, die ink and a baby wipe a week or so ago. I had used Gina K ink on a piece of white cardstock. Then I put a stencil and a baby wipe over it and another piece of cardstock and ran it through my die-cutting machine. Not a terribly smart thing to do, as the baby wipe was quite wet and made a mess with all the liquid that squished out! Oh well. This is the result of that experiment. I trimmed it down and matted it with black. The sentiment has been in my card parts for a long time. I die-cut the "hello" from silver mirror cardstock and placed black cardstock behind it.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Masculine Birthday

I have had these stamped wheat images for several years, and I finally made use of them. I had pulled out several of my card parts a couple weeks ago, and have used them for the cards you'll be seeing over the next few days. All four cards are the same, with just different colored patterned paper on the card base. Each of the images is matted with brown and popped up on foam squares. The sentiment is from Bo Bunny. The patterned papers are all from a Gina K pack from many years ago. It may be still available, though.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

July Calendar Page

Wow - it's almost July 4th! Totally amazing how the summer is flying by! Here is my calendar page for the month. I used my Cameo Silhouette for the heart and the patterned paper is from an old matstack from Recollections. Happy July!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Large Flower "best wishes"

This large flower is stamped with a wood-mounted stamp that I recently received from a friend (in the two huge totes that I got and sorted through.) I thought I would use it before I put it away. I stamped it three times on water color cardstock. I colored each one with Zig Clean Color Markers, basically the same on each one, but with different colors of green for the leaves and stem. I matted each with purple cardstock and added some sequins from Gina K. The patterned paper on each is from Gina K, also. I added a thin strip of the same purple cardstock along the edge of each patterned paper.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Simple Thinking of You

Just a very simple "thinking of you" card for today. I made two of these. I had a piece of this patterned paper in 12 x 12. I cut it down to place around a can for storage in my stamping room, and had a leftover (approximately 2 1/2 x 12) piece. Hence these cards. I added a strip of the green cardstock, which I embossed with a Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder, and also the sentiment. I 

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Glitter Flowers

When I recently cut out a sentiment from glitter cardstock, I used some flower dies to cut these out of the left-over. I used them on this card, rather than put them into my card parts. I glued them onto some black cardstock and then embossed the entire panel with a Darice embossing folder - my favorite one. I added it to some purple cardstock and then another layer of black. I added the sentiment and added it to an ivory card base.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Birthday Wishes

Another simple card for today - my favorite kind. This image is from Gina K's incentive kit from last month. The sentiment is from the set, too, as is the patterned paper on the edges. I simply stamped the image and colored with Copic markers. I also added thin metallic sticker strips on each side of the white panel. I made three of these cards - one to keep to two to give away.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

"Up-cycled" Thank You

For some reason, I like to "up-cycle" thank you notes that we receive. The floral piece on this card was one of those cards. I matted it, added the sentiment, and then popped up a piece of ephemera from a Gina K card kit on it. The striped paper background is from a very ancient matstack - circa 2003!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

More Flowers and Stamping Foam

I made three cards just like this one. The die-cut pieces and the sentiment are from Gina K. For the background, I used my Simon Hurley stamping foam and a placemat. To use the foam, you heat it up with your heat gun and then press something into it - in this case, a placemat. Then you add ink and stamp! It's something fun to play with.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

More Thinking of You

Three more Thinking of You/Sympathy cards for today, identical except the color of the flower. I used some more of my stamped and die-cut flowers, and also my leafy background pieces. I matted each of the leaf panels after using my corner rounder on them. The flowers are popped up on foam squares. All of the stamps are from Gina K.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Thinking of You

These cards were made with materials from the Gina K May card kit. The patterned paper, the stamps and the ephemera are all from the same kit. I thought I would post them all - identical except for the flower. The stamped leaves are the ones that I had stamped and planned to cut out, but I hadn't gotten the stem lined up well enough with the leaves to be able to use the die. Oops! At least they made nice backgrounds!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

"Since You Asked ..." Card Parts Book

Patti, since you asked ... Here are some pages from my "card parts" book. :-) I have a couple 20-pocket sheets,

... and one nine-pocket page ...

... and these two four-pocket pages filled with smaller pieces ...

... and then nine pages of four-pockets sheets filled with items such as these two. Most of these last nine pages have full background pieces, either embossed or stamped or stenciled or foiled, etc. These pockets have items facing in both directions (front and back, two different designs per pocket) and many have multiples. I'm so happy to have whittled my parts down to these pieces, and I hope to not add many in the future - just use them as I make them.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Hand-Made Ephemera

I decided to make up a bunch of these flowers and leaves. The stamps were in the Gina K kit from last month. I figured as long as I had the stamps positioned in my MISTI, I could just as well keep on stamping! I made four of each color but eight of the pink ones. You can't see how many leaves are in that stack, but I think there were 48 of them. Plus ... see the square sheets with leaves on them? I had them almost lined up to my satisfaction, and then did one more little "tweak" before stamping them. But, I didn't check them out again, and I actually moved the stem the wrong way!!! So, the die wouldn't cut them out correctly. I decided to leave them as is and you will be seeing them in future cards. I will be using several of these pieces in the very near future and the rest will be filed in my card parts book. Hopefully not for TOO long, though!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Metallic Pencils Colored Birthday

A few years ago, way back pre-Covid, I stamped these images at our Group Gathering. They were stamped and embossed on black cardstock. The first one was embossed in gold, the second one in silver and the third one in white. I colored each of them with metallic colored pencils and added a sentiment from Gina K. The striped paper was actually from my very, very first matstack I ever purchased. On the first two, I used metallic stickers along the top and bottom of the image panel. The third one has white cardstock strips.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Birthday Butterflies

I received two huge totes of wood-mounted stamps from a friend. I had actually told her I wasn't interested, but I got them anyway! So, I went through them and picked out a few things that I thought I might use. I'm in the process of finding homes for all of the rest of them. (And doing quite well with that, so far.) There were a few things other than wood-mounted stamps, and I used one of them on this card. There was a very thin "tube" that was actually an ink dauber with shades of purple on each end. I simply dabbed a piece of white cardstock with each end to make this background. It's really hard to tell that there are two shades of purple.  I matted with purple, and also pulled out three butterflies from my "card parts book." I added tiny gems to the butterflies's bodies and drew antennae on them, also. The sentiment was a rub-on that was already matted on the white cardstock. I matted that with purple, too, and popped it up on foam squares.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Simon Hurley Stamping Foam

In my last Gina K order, I bought some Simon Hurley stamping foam. I had to get up to the minimum order to receive my incentive stamp set, of course! To use this foam, you heat it up with your heat gun and then press something into it. I decided to use a die cut for my first attempt. After pressing the die cut into the foam, I inked up the foam and stamped it onto white cardstock. I matted with black and added it to some patterned paper.

This is actually my first stamping. I decided that it looked quite nice to have the die cut placed into the white image on the card, so that's what I did for this one. The sentiment is cut from gold glitter cardstock.

And this third card is just like the first one, but with different patterned paper.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Birthday Flowers

The flowers and leaves on this card are from my card parts. I'm guessing they are either Altenew or Gina K. I made two of these cards, since I had four flowers and leaves. The flowers are popped up on foam squares. I stenciled the background using a newer Gina K stencil, and the sentiment is also from Gina K.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Stenciled Sympathy

Well, I finally have a few cards to share with you. Seems like forever since I've had time to play in my stamping room. Oh well!  Today I have a sympathy card to post. I made three of them. Here are two. They are identical, with slightly different colors. I used a stencil set from Gina K on them, and the sentiment stamp is from Gina K, too.

I decided that when I do make a card, I should make three of them - one for myself, one for our church, and one for the thrift store. I'll do that when I remember, as long as I have all the materials for them.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

June Calendar Page

Here is my June calendar page. The stamps (both image and sentiment) are from Repeat Impressions. I used Versamark ink and white embossing powder on them. I cut thin strips of Recollections patterned paper to place above and below the image panel. Happy June!!!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!