Hooray for Valentine’s Day!

Valentine’s Day is one of my favorite card making holidays. And this time I started early (well, early for me!!!).

Here are a few samples:

Dancing Hearts

I figured I’d start out simple — just stamping, embossing, and cutting out hearts. These hearts are from Hero Arts and Fiskars. The background is a Spellbinders embossing folder. And the sentiment is an old one from Hero Arts. Easy peasy! I made a bunch of these cards in various color combos.

Another easy one, but all that color and glitter pack a punch. The washi tape is from Love + Lemon (the Main Squeeze set), the heart die cut (Cheery Lynn designs) from Cosmo Cricket paper. I added some Fun Foam to the back of heart before adhering it, to give some depth. Sentiment, I believe, is also from an old Hero Arts set.

And this pretty pink card uses Lawn Fawn’s quilted background die and various hearts from my collection.

Stay tuned for more Valentine cards — and thanks for stopping by!

Valentine Throwback!

Just found a photo of this card, made last year:

Playing with Silver Hessian and Chocolate Bronze Metallic Gilding Polish from Creative Expressions to create swaths of color. The Scribble Hearts are dies from Simon Says Stamp. A little splatter, a few sequins and bam! Call it a day!

And check out this throw-back card from 2013 or maybe earlier!

Back in the day, Hero Arts was among the first to use so-called “shadow stamps,” solid stamps that made great backgrounds for images stamped on top. This was one big stamp! I’m pretty sure all the smaller stamps used are from Hero Arts.

Thanks for stopping by!

Heartfelt Wishes

Hokey smokes, Rocky … it’s been a while since I’ve posted here!

Here’s a quick project made with a nifty die set — Love Letter — from Spellbinders Paper Arts: 

Isn’t that the cutest die set? (It includes the envelope, “note”, and three heart dies. (See the tiniest heart? Well, I managed to use it just once … and then I lost it! It fell onto my carpet and I thought, heck, I’ll never see that bad boy again. I looked, and looked, but no luck, even though I used my handy-dandy Spellbinders magic magnetic diamond.…)

Then over the weekend, while I was searching near my desk for ANOTHER die that I dropped (oh, brother, I need to get better at handling these dies) … I used that diamond again and, viola!!! It picked up the teeny heart!!! (And I found the other die, too. )

Anyway … here is another version of the card:

(Scalloped card is A2 Scalloped Card base from Papertrey Ink; the sentiment is from Hero Arts. But, sigh, no tiny heart.)

Ta da! Here is the lost heart. See how adorably tiny it is?

Thanks for stopping by!

More Valentines, 2018 version

I love these unique dies from Altenew and couldn’t stop making flowers:

The layering die (this one is Fantasy Floral, but you bet the others are on my wish list!) comes in three pieces, plus the leaves. I just went wild cutting pieces out of various card scraps, then I matched up colors:

 

I even played around with embossing and tone-on-tone:

These two were cut from some painted background pieces. The one on the left has Nuvo Aqua sparkle; the one on the right has about three layers of clear embossing powder.

Here’s a close-up:

And a white-on-white (one with sparkles, of course):

Have a lovely Valentine’s Day!

I (heart) Valentines!

It’s so close to Valentine’s Day! One of my favorite card making holidays.

Here are a few that will be going out this year:

I’ve always loved these three hearts from Hero Arts. I embossed them on black card stock with Wow! Fluorescent Tickled Pink powder. The grey layer is embossed with athe Swirly Bird Cuttlebug folder. Sentiment from Hero Arts.

Below is a fast and easy card, also a Hero Arts image. (May be an old image?)

As you can see, the heart was stamped and heat embossed (two with white, one with black).

And one more, little wilder:

Also pretty fast and easy. I pulled an ink-splattered background from my stash, stamped this terrific Laurel Burch designed cat (from Stampendous!), added the box of candy (Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous Crazy Birds Accessories) and put it all together.

Next post will feature a beautiful die cut floral from Altenew.

Thanks for stopping by!

I (heart) Valentine’s Day

Christmas is long gone …. the new year is a week old … which means it’s almost Valentine’s Day! I love making Valentines to send to my besties, so let’s get this party started!

This one-layered card is relatively easy, and the reveal (when you pull of the mask) is so much fun! I created a heart mask, which I placed in the middle of my cardstock. Then I used some small flower and leaf images to stamp around the mask. Easy peasy. When I removed the mask, ta dah — a heart-shaped spot to stamp a sentiment! The sentiment above is from Stampin’ Up’s Bloomin’ Love set, as are some of the flowers.

Here’s another in the same mode:

I could do this all day! The XOXO is a Teresa Collins/Fiskars punch.

Easy-Peasy Gift Card Holders

‘Tis the season to give gifts … and gift cards.

I couldn’t stop making these fast and easy gift card holders from Lawn Fawn. So easy to make using this great Small Stitched Envelope die.

Take a look:

The set also comes with the label (which makes a very cute tiny note card or gift tag), three word dies and some hearts!)

Here’s the inside:

You just die cut, fold, glue and decorate. Easy-peasy!

I have another adorable mini-tote die-based project, also from Lawn Fawn, so stay tuned.

(*This die was provided to me by Lawn Fawn for a magazine project.)

Fabulous Finds Friday: Easy Pop-up Card

Would you believe I have never made a pop-up card? My goodness! It seemed so complicated to me … until I got the Stitched Hillside Pop-Up die from Lawn Fawn:

Of course, I had to play with it ASAP … so I started this card completely backwards with no idea of what I wanted to do. I just wanted to see how the pop-up was created. I cut the die from white card stock and attached it to a white card base, just to see how it fit together and how easy it was to construct. It was so cute I decided to go ahead and create a winter scene.

Here’s the inside:

I stamped and fussy cut trees using some old Hero Arts stamps and stuck them on. Of course, it was still too plain so I added some silver snowflakes (also from Hero Arts). And then the greeting. Totally unplanned; I just kept building the card.

I felt kinda dumb, because now I had a plain white front that would be difficult to stamp on. But then … ta da! … I watched this great Lawn Fawn tutorial and I loved the way Kelly Marie created a belly band for the front of her card! So simple!

And now I’m hooked! It’s not the greatest card, but it was fun and surprisingly easy — a good learning experiment!

Thanks for tuning in.

 

Fab Finds Friday — Coastal Christmas

It’s always such fun to discover a new stamp company! So when I checked out Flourishes, I immediately fell in love with this *Coastal Christmas set.

First, I played with the boat, which was perfect for coloring:

I used a variety of colored pencils and my Kuretake Gansai Tambi to watercolor this scene, which was first stamped in VersaMark black on watercolor paper. (The card is a 4Bar (7″x7 7/8″, folded to 3 1/2 x 4 7/8). And added a touch of Wink of Stella clear to some of the packages. It felt unbalanced, so I added a strip of a scrap paper to the left side.

The next card features the pretty beachy wreath:

Images were stamped and embossed in white on blue cardstock, colored in with various gel pens, edged with Aegean Silver glitter powder (Judikins). The pieces were mounted on a silver shimmer cardstock from Paper Source.)

That same wreath and sentiment also made quick cards with simple white embossing:

*Disclaimer: This stamp set was provided to me by Flourishes. Thank you, Flourishes!

Quick All-Purpose Card

Here’s a quick card I made while I was playing with some feather die cuts (from Spellbinders):

 

I haven’t added a greeting because I may use it for a fall birthday (this is a good masculine card) … or it may be for a Thanksgiving hello. The card base is 4 7/8 x about 7″, then folded in half. The bottom embossed design is from a Darice embossing folder. The leaves were cut from random scraps, then the tips were embossed in copper powder. This was so fast and easy!

Thanks for stopping by.