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!

Random Acts of Stamping

Oh, boy, is my desk a mess. It’s time to clean up and make a fresh start. For a cardmaker, cleaning means using up all those bits and pieces left over from other paper projects. What a great way to clean! Here are some Random Acts of Stamping:

Buried among other bits and pieces was this cool background piece made by rubbing Gelatos (see this post and this post for more info on Gelatos) on water color paper. The big fish is from Rubber Stamp Plantation.

Here’s another card made using random pieces found on my desk.

The birdcage (a stamp and die set) is from Prickley Pear; the quote is from Hero Arts; the die cut border is a Spellbinders die; the gold paper is, I think, Die Cuts With a View.

There is so much more to clean! Stay tuned….

Oh, Happy Day!

This card was a happy accident. While writing about the trendiness of all things camera, I came across this cool Polaroid paper from Die Cuts With A View.

The background paper is also DCWV and the squiggly pink border is an old one from Queen & Co.

I masked the Poloroid before stamping with VersaMark and embossing in white:

The large flower is Hero Art’s PomPom flower K5571; the small flower and the butterfly are from Close To My Heart’s Cardword Puzzle set C1494. Happy Day sentiment is from Technique Tuesday.

Hope you are having a Happy Day!

Hanukkah, the Fesitval of Lights

Hanukkah is so early this year (the first candle is lit Friday night, Dec. 8), it almost took me by surprise!

I made some fun cards to send (more on those later in the week), but I was sidetracked by the Keen-on-Neon challenge on the Moxie Fab blog. The challenge is to make neon holiday cards. What could be brighter for Hanukkah?!

Here’s a quick card I made using neon ink pads from Hero Arts:

(Hmmm…. looks a tad dark in this photo. But trust me, it’s bright!) The deidel is from American Art Stamp. I stamped it repeatedly on the white cardstock using those yummy neons. The sentiment (an OLD stamp from Stampendous!) was heat embossed using grapefruit pink Zing powder from American Crafts. The corners of the green scrap were cut using my Tonic tag-and-ticket punch (LOVE this punch!) The eye-popping green paper is from the Smooth and Silky collection from Die Cuts With a View.

I had to trim the deidel panel and had a perfectly good scrap left over. So I made a tag from a piece of yellow paper from the same DCWV pack:

I edged the piece in black to make it pop a bit more. The sentiment is an old one from Hero Arts.

Come back during the week for more Hanukkah cards — and stop by the Moxie Fab blog for great neon ideas! Thanks for stopping by.

More Cards for Soldiers

A quick post … with more cards I made to send to Operation Write Home.

As I did with earlier cards, I was looking for a generic card with multiple uses. This congratulations stamp from Close To My Heart fit the bill nicely.

(Dotted folder from Cuttlebug; washi tape from Elmer’s. Love how the texture even works with the washi tape, a technique I saw on Lisa Spangler’s blog… she has the cutest ideas, you must check her out and look at her pretty cards here! )

Now here’s a bright card, below!

The beautiful, bright cardstock is from Die Cuts With A View, Silky Smooth Brights. The pink piece was embossed using a Lifestyle Crafts folder, then sanded lightly to bring out the white core; the blue piece was cut using a Spellbinders Nestabilities. The flowers are from Hero Arts, the sentiment from Technique Tuesday.

And last…. Love this cute camera paper from Die Cuts With a View — can you see the subtle sparkle on the cameras? The top was embossed using a Lifestyle Crafts folder; the sentiment is by Hero Arts. I stamped and embossed it on DCWV bright yellow Silky Smooth paper, but it was too bright. So I swiped on some Ranger Picket Fences Distress stain, then wiped it off the black-embossed sentiment. The easy border is Bazzill Basics’ Just the Edge selection. Just cut and glue!

Thanks for stopping by!

Cards for Soldiers

Last Friday I posted some info on Operation Write Home — an organization that sends handmade cards to troops so they can send cards home. I am also having a We R Memory Keepers paper give-away on my blog (deadline for entries is Father’s Day. See my Friday blog for more details.)

Anyhoo…. I have made a bunch of cards to send to WRMK and Operation Write Home. Here are a few:

Many soldiers have children back home, so I wanted to make some child-centric cards. I thought it would be fun to make some “interactive” cards — cards that children can color! (It didn’t hurt that I just got some gorgeous bright papers from Die Cuts With a View!) So I ran few sheets through various embossing folders (the pink embossed design is from Lifestyle Crafts), stamped some owls (Hero Arts) and a two-word instruction (hee hee … stamped with a tiny Hero Arts alphabet set). Fast, easy, and I hope fun!

Here’s the boy version:

Almost all the same stuff, but the embossing folder is by Sizzix (maybe a Tim Holtz design?).

One more color-me-in design:

This was a fun background. I started with a diagonal embossing folder (Lifestyle) and then turned the folder so that I created a cross-hatch pattern on the top half. Here’s a close-up:

Isn’t that fun? The elephant is an old one from Magenta …. the sentiment also an old one from Hero Arts.

Thanks for coming by!