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Rainbow of Happiness

Rainbow of Happiness published on 2 Comments on Rainbow of Happiness

I mentioned on Wednesday that I had the pleasure of attending a crafty retreat called Stamping Away. It is an event coordinated by two of the kindest women, Laurie Willison and Amy Kolling. It is held at the Whatever Craft House in Newton, KS and it is a magical gathering of friends. The house itself it bright and happy and rainbow themed. So you just need to be ready for me to be rainbowing all the things for a while! I have a double inspiration for today’s card.

One of the funniest parts of the weekend event is a White Elephant gift exchange. Standard rules where you can steal from another and wow, are those women vicious, lol! No, not really. But the stealing is hilarious and the laugh until your sides hurt joy is the kind of happy we all need in our lives. I asked another amazingly talented crafted to help me with my gift for the exchange and she delivered more than I could have hoped! Her name is Melissa Bickford of Honey and Pine Signs. I told her that I wanted a rainbow sign for the exchange and she created a custom one for me!

This is what she created (this is also her store photo). WOW!! I fell in love with it immediately. Because she came up with multiple designs, I also fell in love with another one for my own stamp room.

Isn’t it wonderful?! Well, needless to day I had rainbow inspiration going into my weekend so I was super happy to find a wonderful die set from The Stamp Market called Rainbow Stripes Die. I cut it out from watercolor paper and then inked it with Distress Inks in rainbow colors. So pretty! So fun! I added some Tumbled Glass Oxide Ink behind the rainbow to help it pop. Then I found this sentiment from SugarPea Designs called Whatever the Weather and it was PERFECT! I stamped it in Catherine Pooler Twilight Ink.

This card makes me SOOOO happy! I love it. I love where I made it. I love all the things! I hope you do too!

Well, that is it for today. I’ll be sharing lots more cards over the next few weeks. Thanks for stopping by today. And if you go shop with Melissa, tell her I sent you! I’m just so grateful for her awesomeness! See you soon.

Freshly Made Sketches #421

Freshly Made Sketches #421 published on 5 Comments on Freshly Made Sketches #421

A quick post today (sorry I’m up a little late). I just got back from the most marvelous weekend of stamping and laughing and hanging with crafty friends. It is called Stamping Away and I’ll be sharing more cards I made there over the next few weeks. But now, I’m in “re-entry” phase and catching up.

This week the wonderful Jen Mitchell is the sketch designer for Freshly Made Sketches. I love this design and think you will too.

I used a set from The Greetery to create this and just love this sweet little flower from Summer Sketches. I have loved this company for awhile and had the chance to use their sets last weekend. You’ll be seeing more! The die is from Reverse Confetti and seemed perfect for the sketch.

I hope you like this card and the sketch. I hope your week is going well! Back later this week to share some more of what I made over the weekend. Until then, have a great day!

Freshly Made Sketches #420

Freshly Made Sketches #420 published on 8 Comments on Freshly Made Sketches #420

Happy Wednesday! Today I’m the sketch designer over at Freshly Made Sketches and I hope you will like my choice. I love square cards so I went with a square design (you can make it a rectangle, of course). I planted a big old circle in the middle which pretty much means you can put about anything there.

I opted for a big flower…the Big Blooms Daisy from Taylored Expressions to be specific. I started coloring this flower quite a while ago and it sat unfinished on my desk all through the holidays. Well, this was the week to finish it! I wanted to play with the idea of creating a white flower that had some depth and shading. I chose the Y and YR families to add the shadows and I’m pretty happy with the result. I added an orange center to give it a bolder look and then found it popped perfectly off a colored base. I chose Coastal Cabana (left from last week’s card) and added a bit of Distress Oxide ink with the Taylored Expressions Blender Brushes to give it more depth. The sentiment is from Picket Fence Studios and I added some sequins from my stash.

I’m off on a crafty adventure as of today and hopefully I’ll come back with some cards and new to me product to share. I hope you’ll join us with this sketch too. Make sure you go see all the amazing work from the DT. Until next time, have a great week!

Freshly Made Sketches #419

Freshly Made Sketches #419 published on 8 Comments on Freshly Made Sketches #419

Glad to see you for my latest card using this week’s Freshly Made Sketches challenge. Our sketch designer is Lee Ann and she really gave us one to stretch with this week. I love the off angle panel!! (and I hope that she will forgive that I forgot one of the elements)

I pulled out an underused favorite called Folk Hummingbird by Pinkfresh Studios (yes, there is a fabulous bird in the set!). I did a bit of quick coloring with Copic and then cut the flowers with the coordinating die set.

I felt like it was missing a bit of something so I added a bit of sunny yellow ink using my Taylored Expressions Blender Brush and then put the panel on a pretty aqua panel (Coastal Cabana by SU). The sentiment is from the soon to be retired Monogram J by Concord and 9th.

I hope you like this happy little burst of spring. It got super cold here in VA this week and it seemed like a little sunshine was in order. Thanks so much for stopping in today. I hope you will join us over at the challenge this week! See you soon.

Crafty Friends Blog Hop – Picket Fence Studios

Crafty Friends Blog Hop – Picket Fence Studios published on 5 Comments on Crafty Friends Blog Hop – Picket Fence Studios

Hi everyone! It is Crafty Friends day and I’m thrilled to be sharing that our hop focuses on one of my favorite companies, Picket Fence Studios! If you are new to the hop, welcome. We are a group of friends who have a similar craft background and wanted to work together to share inspiration each month.

I had a hard time narrowing down what to use for this hop but thought that a focus on the “BFF Girls” was a great place to start. I love this whole line and “Kate” is one of my favorites. I created the background with the Watercolor Brush Strokes stencil and some Hero Hues ink.

I colored “Kate” in a coordinating green Copic color and worked on some distressed jeans for her. After coloring her pants, I dabbed some Blending Solution with a piece of terry cloth to create texture. I love this when I remember to do it and it is such fun! The sentiment is from the set called Your Eyeliner Straight and is a new favorite of mine (also part of a current gift special from Picket Fence Studios!). It seems perfect for this fashionista too.

As you have come to expect, we have a 20% discount code that is good for Jan 20th – 21st. Just use the code CRAFTYFRIENDS20 when you shop. Click the graphic above to go straight to the shop.

Now on to the rest of the hop. I’m thrilled to send you to Jenny Hall who is next in the rotation. And here is the list in case you get lost along the way.

I hope you enjoy all the inspiration from the hop this month. Make sure you go over and see all the new products that have been announced at Creativation by Picket Fence Studios. You are going to fall in love with them!

Freshly Made Sketches #418

Freshly Made Sketches #418 published on 7 Comments on Freshly Made Sketches #418

Holy smokes, another week has flown by and it is time for another Freshly Made Sketches day. I’m super excited about this one from the amazing Jacquie Southas and you are sure to love it too!

I thought it would be fun to use a big image and a great choice was the Hello Lovely floral spray by Concord and 9th. This image is just so pretty and fun to color too! I decided I’d take some time just to play with shading and color combinations and really found some great results.

The foundation of my coloring was the BV20 family (BV20, BV23 and BV29). I used it on almost every part of the image as an underlayer. It muted my BGs and added depth and shadows to the leaves and flowers alike. I also played with combining my BGs and my G20s for variation on the leaves. I’m definitely going to play around more with these combinations!!

These are all the colors I used. I did link a few of them below in my Link Deli list but it is much easier just to show you the whole group in this format. For the scalloped edge in this card I used a retired die set from Lil’ Inkers.

I hope you enjoy this card and that it inspires you to try playing with color families that may not be obvious go together sets. You may love the results! Make sure to go see the inspiration from the whole team and I hope you will have time to join us this week. Thanks for stopping in. See you soon!

Freshly Made Sketches #417

Freshly Made Sketches #417 published on 7 Comments on Freshly Made Sketches #417

Happy New Year! I hope you enjoyed your holiday season and had a bit of time to yourself to rest. We did a bit of family visiting and travel and a lot of being at home. While I didn’t do a lot of stamping, I did do quite a bit of organizing in my stamp room. I have a post coming about that soon and some de-stash info too. Stay tuned!

But now we are back to it at Freshly Made Sketches and Judy is starting us off right! She has a beautiful and classic feeling sketch that was great to use as I got back to work.

I thought this pretty image from Concord and 9th was perfect for the sketch (and guess what, they are on clearance sale too…link below). I used Catherine Pooler inks in All That Jazz, Coral Cabana, Grape Crush and Lime Rickey. So pretty! I thought this pretty gingham from Lawn Fawn was a nice match and made for a spring-like card.

I hope you love the sketch today and all the inspiration from the team. I’d love to see you over in the gallery! Thanks so much for stopping in today. See you soon!

Freshly Made Sketches #416

Freshly Made Sketches #416 published on 6 Comments on Freshly Made Sketches #416

I’m so happy to share the last Freshly Made Sketches challenge of 2019 with you today. Our sketch designer is the kind and wonderful Amy O’Neill and her sketch is one that is classic but with a bit of fun. A bit of administration first, because of how the dates fall we will not be back until January 8th. As we do each year, the challenge will remain open through the holidays so please join us if you have down time to create.

I’m guessing it isn’t a total surprise at this point that the same two sets from Neat and Tangled remained on my desk from the last two weeks and I kept on using them. The image that grabbed me initially in the Classic Christmas set was this magnificent poinsettia and I finally took some time to color it….twice. I stamped it in Momento Black Ink and colored them using Copic Markers. They are colored almost identically. After coloring, I pondered going over the image with gold embossing powder so I did it with one of them and left the other alone.

For the one I left plain, I just cut it out with the coordinating die and then went to work using the sketch. I stamped the Holiday Wishes stamp onto black card stock using Versamark ink and embossed it in white. Then I dug into my stash of “stuff” and pulled out this old corrugated kraft paper and used a red card stock behind to match the flower. When I stamped the sentiment, I put it onto a larger piece and then cut it down using the Waffle Flower A2 Rectangles. Now, I know, they are rectangles and they can just be cut… but for something like this, I didn’t even have to worry about stamping straight. Just did the work and then lined up the die exactly how I wanted it and cut. With that, I had a bit left over on the edges so I used a small banner die to pull out one of the scrap sentiments.

I did exactly the stamp with the gold embossed flower except I did all the embossing in gold instead. I also changed up the red to a poppy since that is the colors that seemed to highlight more.

I hope you enjoy these and the sketch too. The team has created some amazing cards and I know you are going to love them! Thanks for stopping in today. See you soon!

Freshly Made Sketches #415

Freshly Made Sketches #415 published on 7 Comments on Freshly Made Sketches #415

I’m thrilled to be back today with the latest from Freshly Made Sketches. Our sketch hostess this week is our resident Artisan, Narelle Farrugia. Yep, not even one bit of a surprise to any of us who know her, she has again made the Artisan Design Team for Stampin’ Up and I could not be happier for her or SU. Her sketch this week made me breathe a sigh of relief because I was already set up to go for it from last week. Yeah, I told you I was leaving this background stamp on my Misti!

I do love how this card has a totally different vibe that the one last week with virtually the same elements. I stamped the Holiday Wishes background stamp (Neat and Tangled) onto black card stock using Versamark ink and then heat embossed with WOW Clear Gloss Superfine Embossing Powder. I used the same little greenery elements as last week from the Classic Christmas stamp set.

I first stamped in Momento Tuxedo Black in my Misti, did the quick Copic coloring and then put it back in the Misti, over-stamped with Versamark and heat embossed with WOW Gold Rich Super Fine powder. I stamped the sentiment (from Classic Christmas but meant to coordinate with Holiday Wishes) in Versamark and embossed it with Gold Rich too.

I hope you enjoy this sketch as much as I did! These little vertical panels lend themselves to images, patterned paper and I’m sure other things you’ll think of. Hope you’ll join us for the challenge! Thanks so much for stopping in today. See you soon!

Freshly Made Sketches #414

Freshly Made Sketches #414 published on 8 Comments on Freshly Made Sketches #414

Can I confess that I’m starting to think I won’t get all the Christmas cards done this year. In fairness, I lost about 5 weeks of crafting during prime holiday card season but still…. So I’m working to have a few ideas that I can lean on for a bit of mass production (which I generally do not prefer). And I’m going to tell you, I just left this new background stamp from Neat and Tangled in my Misti because I’m going to use it over and over.

Karren is our sketch designer this week at Freshly Made Sketches and she has given us one that is perfect for just this kind of background. I stamped the sentiments in Momento Tuxedo Black and then cut the panel to size. I then stamped these little holiday leaf elements from Classic Christmas and colored them quickly with Copic Markers, then cut them out using the coordinating dies.

I added a thin layer of red card stock to help the background feel finished and then put the whole thing on some green card stock (SU). I just got these awesome stamps from Neat and Tangled and they included a little bonus of the Crystal Clear Mix Sequins in my package. I LOVE THAT!! Reason #5003 to shop small. They love their customers!

I think this little vertical element is going to lend itself to some clever ideas this week and I can’t wait to see what the gallery does with it. Hope you’ll join us. Thanks for stopping in today! See you soon!

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