Nuts About You

The penultimate (how's that for a word in this simple little blog! LOL!) card in the "critter" brigade. The images are all die-cut and the cute little squirrel is popped up on foam squares. The patterned paper is from Die Cuts With a View. I also added a thin sticker strip between the patterns.

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

Sending You a Hedgehug

The next one in the "critter" series - this one a hedgehog. I think the sentiment is so cute. The hedgehog is mounted on foam squares. The patterned paper is from Die Cuts With a View and I also added a thin strip of green cardstock.

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

Party Like an Animal!

Another "critter" card. I should just post them all together, but I have nothing else to share, so you're still getting them one at a time. Sorry! This one is quite self-explanatory. The raccoon is popped up on foam squares, as is the sentiment, which is embossed with white on black and matted with white. The patterned paper is from a very old matstack from The Paper Studio.

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

Thanks for Owl You Do

And the third of seven of these cards - all super simple. The branch and the owl images are from the same set from Gina K. I colored them with Prismacolor pencils and Gamsol and mounted the owl on foam squares. I cut the image panel with a stitched rectangle die. The patterned paper is from the same matstack as the rest, from Die Cuts With a View. More to come!

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

Foxy Friend

OK - here is the second of seven cards using the cute critters from Gina K. Another very simple one! The fox is mounted on foam squares. The patterned paper is again from a Die Cuts With a View matstack, and is matted. The image is colored with Prismacolor pencils and Gamsol.

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

Bear Hug

I have finally gotten a chance to work with my June (?) stamps from Gina K Designs. Yippee! I have made seven cards with the cute critters from one of the sets. I may or may not double up on them per blog posts, depending on if I start accumulating cards to post or not. But, for now, here is the first one. I did the coloring on the bear and branch with Prismacolor pencils and Gamsol, and the leaves with Copics. I mounted all of the images on foam squares. The patterned paper is from an old matstack from Die Cuts With a View. I also added a thin strip of brown cardstock above the patterned paper. 

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

Very Quick (Five-Minute?) Card

Gina K has started doing very short videos for very quick cards. Here is a CASE of one of them. I masked off the bottom portion of my image panel and used two different stencils to add the color, and then added a little more color - all with blending brushes. Then I stamped the sentiment in the bottom portion of the panel. I added a thin black strip at the bottom of the image, and then a thinner one under the sentiment. I matted the entire panel with black. That's it! A very simple (and quick!) card, but quite striking, I think. The stamps are both Gina K.

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

Fall-ish Butterfly Cards

And here are the last two cards using this butterfly from my Card Parts book. These two were already put together using orange and black cardstock. The background papers on each of them are from a single sheet of patterned paper from a Recollections matstack. For each of them, I glued the butterfly's body directly to the patterned paper, but added foam squares under the wings near the body. The sentiment on this first one is from Stampin' Up!

This one is a mini-slimline - finished size 6 1/4 by 3 1/2". The sentiment is from My Favorite Things. I stamped it on a scrap of left-over paper. I added thin gold sticker strips to each side of the sentiment piece. 

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

Alcohol-Inked Background

Another card with this butterfly. I had three white ones in my card parts, so I simply glued them all together for dimension - and to use them up! LOL! The top piece was (I believe) done at one of our Group Gatherings using alcohol ink and some gold foil. I added three gold sequins to the butterfly's body. I added a strip of gold glitter cardstock underneath the inked panel. The sentiment is embossed in gold and is from My Favorite Things. I also added a thin sticker strip near the bottom to finish it off.

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

Lovely Birthday

The next three day's cards will all feature this butterfly. I had a few of them in my "Card Parts" book from a years-ago stamping get-together. The background was also in my book - I'm pretty sure it's from Taylored Expressions, but not certain. I had glued the butterfly (cut with textured cardstock) to a white background, but I was able to separate the pieces and blend  a couple colors of ink to the backing. I added foam squares under the wings near the body for some dimension. The sentiment is from My Favorite Things.

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

Happy Eighth Birthday, Wyatt!

Our youngest grandchild, Wyatt, turned eight yesterday. Can you believe it? He is doing so, so awesome. Here is the card that I made for him. It's a five by seven inch card, and very thick. Good thing it was hand-delivered. The letters were die-cut from red glitter cardstock. The monsters were fussy-cut from a piece of 12 x 12 cardstock from Recollections and mounted on foam squares. All the cardstock I used on this card was from the same matstack, except for the glitter cardstock. I added a strip of a different pattern across the center. I also die-cut some balloons from glitter cardstock, and drew in the strings.

Here is a view of the inside of the card. I got the instructions from the YouTube channel of Sam Calcott. Here is a link to this card, but she has many more amazing cards and projects.

A couple more views.

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

Fall Birthday

I've had these leaves for many years. I took them out of my "Card Parts" book and turned them into cards. That finishes them off. (Thanks, Vicki!) I used blending brushes to add some extra color to them. For the background on this first one, I simply took an ink pad and dragged it down the page from the top. The sentiment is from My Favorite Things.

This one is nearly identical, but I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder for the background, and added a smidge of color around the edges. The card bases on both of these are ivory. The sentiment on this second one is matted and mounted on foam squares. It's stamped on ivory textured paper that came with a torn-looking edge.

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

Quilled Flowers

I've had my quilling tool and quilling strips out for a while now, but just couldn't get motivated to use them. I finally did. When I'm not doing quilling, I sometimes think it would be fun to do some quilling. Then, when I'm doing quilling, I realize that, nah, it's not so fun! LOL! But, I did finish these two cards. The patterned paper on this first card is from Gina K. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink.

This second card is the first of a few "card parts" cards that I will be sharing over the next few days. It features another quilled flower. The green piece had been die-cut and was in my card parts book. I stamped the sentiment (from My Favorite Things) with Versamark and embossed with clear embossing powder. I added a few rhinestones from Gina K. The card base is ivory. The matting behind the green panel is a textured ivory paper. This design is from a quilling calendar that I received MANY years ago. 

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

Simple Anniversary

And one more anniversary. I guess we know several people with September and October anniversaries! This die-cut piece was in my card parts, as was the background piece. I'm pretty sure I used a gel plate to make the background. I simple combined the two pieces and added the sentiment, stamped in gray, from Papertrey Ink.

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

More Anniversary Cards

Here are two more anniversary cards that I whipped up. The stenciled backgrounds were already in my card parts. I cut each of the pieces apart and added them to the top and bottoms of the card fronts. Then I added a strip of cardstock across the middle. I used a Sizzix folder to emboss the strip on the second card. The sentiment strips had been printed on my laser printer and I foiled them to match the cards. The flowers are from Altenew. They were also in my card parts. I had used stamps, stencils and dies to make them.

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

Fall Anniversary

I found myself in need of several anniversary cards in a hurry, so I went to my card parts. I hadn't checked them out for quite a while. This stamped image was in there. I colored it with Copic markers and added some Wink of Stella to the flowers. The sentiment was also in my card parts. I had printed it out on my laser printer. All I had to do was use some gold foil and my laminator on it. I added strips of the striped paper to the edges. I also added some very thin, decorative strips on each side of the image panel.

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

Die-Cut Sympathy

I think I've made a card almost identical to this in the past, but I'm sharing this one anyway. I used a die and black cardstock to make the main image panel. I backed it with "tie-dyed" glitter cardstock. I heat-embossed the sentiment with white powder on black cardstock. The sentiment is from Kaisercraft. This card measures 6 1/4 by 3 1/4 inches.

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

Black and White and Gray Birthday

This card started as another card from the online card class that I took. For that lesson, it was basically quilling. You were to take thin strips of cardstock (I had cut mine to 1/8 inch strips) and roll them up and place them in the holes of stencils. I was excited to do that, since I already had my quilling book out and have been planning on doing some quilling for a long time and hadn't gotten around to it. However, the paper that I chose to use was five shades of purple, but it had a white core. That doesn't work for quilling - all you see from the top is the white! I was easily discouraged. I am a lazy card-maker and I didn't want to try to find different cardstocks in different colors and cut the strips again! So, those strips went into my "strips" jar and I just used the stencil with three shades of gray ink and made this background. I matted with black and added the die-cut sentiment. Hopefully I'll do some quilling soon, but I'm behind on all the things that I want to do. I got Gina K's card kit from July and I still haven't used anything from that. A couple days ago, I got the butterfly stencil bundle from Gina K and I'm excited to use that. Just not enough time in the day or days in the week!!

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

One More Card Class Card

One more card from the on-line card class. There may be more, or this may be my last. It was a fun class. For this one, I just took a piece of cardstock, spritzed it with water and crinkled it up and smooshed it. When it was distressed enough, I spritzed it with water mixed with gold and pearl Perfect Pearls. I let it dry completely before finishing the card. I cut the oval and leaves out of white with a die. That part is completely separate. Then I embossed the background with a Darice embossing folder. Then I glued both pieces to the green distressed background and mounted that panel on foam tape and added it to a card base. It's rare for me to make a card without a sentiment, but I'll either leave it as it or add a sentiment at a later date.

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

Many-Layered Birthday

Yet another card from the Online Card Class. I'm making progress! LOL! I cut circles into several colors of cardstock and layered them together. I embossed the top layer with a Darice folder. Sorry the picture isn't better - I didn't realize how washed out the cupcake is, but I'm not going to bother to get a better one! The cupcake frosting is actually a creamy vanilla color and has texture, along with lines embossed by the die. The cupcake has embossed lines in it, too. The dies are from My Favorite Things.

Edited to add: I just saw the challenge from Let's Craft and Create is to use "Lots of Layers." I guess this card qualifies. :-)

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

Another Woven Card

And another card from the Online Card Class. There will be more to come! This is another one using strips. The sentiment is die-cut from bronze glitter cardstock.

Very glittery in real life!

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

More Online Card Class Cards

I really want to try to make cards like most of the cards in the Online Card class that I took. So, here are two more. These are made by sort of "pleating" cardstock - doing an accordion-fold. On this first one, the folded cardstock is behind the open area of a die-cut peice. I also matted with the same color cardstock. The sentiment is from Gina K and is stamped in a dark gray.  I brushed just a hint of color around the edge of the sentiment panel.

This second one uses the same method, but is trimmed into a heart. To the bottom of the heart, I added a white bow that has been sitting around my craft table for a few years! The background is embossed with a Darice folder and has ink brushed around the edges. This sentiment is also from Gina K and is also stamped in dark gray.

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

Christmas Stocking

I happened across this Christmas stocking die the other day, and remembered how cute it is. I cut it using Gina K patterned paper and mounted it on foam squares. I had cut the circle a few days ago, too, so I used it on this card. I embossed it with a Darice folder. I embossed the background with a long-retired Sizzix folder. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink. It's matted with red and mounted on foam squares.

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

September Calendar Page

Oh my goodness - September has reached us already!! Here is my calendar page for this month. I used blending brushes and ink to ink the colors directly onto the page. Then I used a Gina K stamp for the trees. Happy Fall - almost!

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