Patriotic Quilt Card

The red, white and blue challenges have finally started to surface! I had this card in my head and thought it could be a cute Memorial Day/4th of July quilt look. I went to bed and mulled over what to use and how to make it. Here is my patriotic paper "quilt " for The Paper Players PP543 (here) and The Festive Friday FF0085 (here) challenges this week.

I have wanted to make a gingham quilt for years now. This is an example of a gingham quilt from Pinterest, posted by SimpleSimonandCompany.com and I love all the color combos you can choose for your quilt. One day I will make one.

For my card I used a little wavy squares punch that I have had forever to make my "quilt" squares. I chose three shades of blue and mounted them in a gingham pattern on a red background. I punched little red hearts for the light blue squares, then mounted that panel on a panel made from the darkest of my blues.

I grabbed a striped embossing folder for the white background and wanted it to look like the quilt was hanging on a wall of wainscoting. Then I mounted the quilt and "wainscoting" on a side fold A2 white card base. Last, I made my own sentiment on the computer and used another red punched heart to complete it. I cut it out with an MFT stitched rectangle die and matted it with red and dark blue rectangles. For a little bling, I added red rhinestones beside my sentiment.

For the Festive Friday Challenge I used stripes, bright colors, rectangles, punches AND embossing. And for the Paper Players I of course used red, white and blue.

Hope you are enjoying this Memorial Day weekend and thinking of those who fought for our freedom. 

See you later,

-Carol

Birthday Spinner Wheel

So it's Wheel of Fortune "birthday style" over here today. I am playing along with Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Here where "Anything Goes" as well as Seize the Birthday "Wheels" Here and The Paper Players Sketch Challenge PP542 Here. 

I grabbed an old Stampin' Up! set of spinner stamps called Take A Spin and inked up the birthday one with SU! Pacific Point ink. I cut it out, then grabbed a spinner arrow and a red rhinestone brad (SU!) to create the spinner mechanism. JoAnn's recently had this cute red, white and blue patterned paper and I went by there a second time to end up with two sheets because I know I will use it a lot. Next, I cut a coordinating red cardstock circle with my My Favorite Things Inside and Out Stitched Circle Dies and added all of these elements to my white A2 card. I popped up the spinner on foam tape, even though it spins without that extra space behind it. I love an interactive card! 

Check out these challenges. Even if you don't enter, there is a lot of inspiration happening in them!

See you soon,

-Carol

Baby Girls

A former student of mine was recently pregnant with twins and I made this card for her girls.  I am playing along with the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Dies and Punches  and the Splitcoaststampers WT845 challenge: Dressing Up.

My former high school student from about 6 years ago is married now and recently had twin girls. I made this card but never posted it, so when I saw this challenge, I knew I had to look for a picture of the card. I sent pink clothes and headbands with this pastel pink, yellow and orange girl clothes card to celebrate her girls' birth.

The dies are My Favorite Things Bundle of Baby Clothes dies. I used Tacky Glue to adhere them to a white panel. That's about it! So soft and cute.

I am sure I will see you soon. I saw a new-to-me technique that I will soon try out.

-Carol

Get Your Party On!

I bit the bullet and attempted to color my Anita Jeram Proud of You stamp set from Colorado Craft Company. I've watched several videos on how people approach coloring these adorable animals. My take was to make a lot of fun around them to distract from my feeble coloring skills. I am entering it in the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge: Four Legged Friends. You will not believe the inspiration at this challenge this week! OMG! Go check it out!

 

I stamped my animals with Simon Says Stamp Intense Black ink and colored them with random markers and watercolor paints. I decided to stamp, color and cut out the mice again and pop them up to imitate movement. I used Distress inks to paint the sky but I didn't like how it turned out. I tried to make a Bokeh background with white ink using a larger sponge dauber but my ink was a little dry, so I punched a small circle on cardstock and used my Broken China Distress Oxide ink to stencil in some blue circles to dress up the sky. I used a few green Copics to make the dotted grass (because I saw Yana Smakula do it with Anita Jeram stamps).  

My cute animals needed some party spirit so I used a tiny balloon punch on white glitter cardstock, some silver elastic thread, and attached the party balloons with foam tape. I found a cute party hat stamp in my Flora and Fauna Woodland Birthday set and stamped it in black on pink patterned paper. Then I topped off the hats with rhinestones.

I thought I would grab one of my CAS-ual Fridays original stamp sets called WOOT WOOT for this card's sentiment. I have gotten SO much use out of this set over the years!

Last, I decided that I wanted to frame the party so I got out my My Favorite Things Stitched Rectangle Scalloped Edge Frames Die-namics and cut out a white frame for this party scene.

If you are still reading you should win a prize! Be sure to go check out the amazing cards at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge. Click on their name at the top of this post to go there.

See you back here soon,

-Carol

Squeeze You

The Inspired By Challenge IB174 (Here) this week is Orange You Lemonade! I love citrus fruits and got out my Concord and 9th Orange You Sweet Stamp set to make a card. (I just realized the similar names of the challenge and my stamp set!) I like the two-step stamps in this set. It sort of adds a watercolor look to the fruit.

I masked off the middle of the card and stamped the solid background fruits with Distress Oxide inks, then the detail stamps in black. I did use two orange ink pads on some of the oranges to add shading. After removing the masks, all that was left was to put a sentiment in the middle, add some little dots, and draw a nice line with a black Pigma Micron pen. I added clear sequins and glossy accents to some of the seeds to add shine!

There are lots of cool ideas over there. Go see what people are sharing!

See you soon,

-Carol
 

Happy Mother's Day

Mother's Day is here this weekend and Simon Says Stamp's SSS Monday Challenge is "Feminine." Here is a Mother's Day card I made for a friend.

I was scrolling Instagram a morning or two ago and saw a card and its tutorial... and had to try this new-to-me fold. The Pocket Front Card is so easy and you can make it for any occasion with whatever you want to put in the pocket or on the front of the card! The tutorial (click on its name in the last sentence) is from Splitcoaststampers. I used a My Favorite Things die set called Freshly Picked for the flowers and ink blended them with distress oxide inks. The sentiment inside is an ancient Stampin' Up! one, and the patterned paper is also SU!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

-Carol

 

Floating on the Sea

It's Word Week: Float, over at the Just Us Girls Challenge #582 and I have quite a few pool float stamps in my collection that came to mind first. But yesterday I was looking at stamps and patterned paper at the store and found this cool leaf stamp with the girl floating on it. Bingo!!! Here is my mini slimline card.

The leaf girl stamp, for lack of a better description, is just a single stamp I picked up at Jo-Ann's. The other leaves are from Sugar Pea Designs' "Tropic Like It's Hot" set and Flora and Fauna "Flamingo Pool Party" Set. The sentiment is Flora and Fauna from their "Mermaid Kisses" set.

I stamped the leaves around the edge, then ink blended green ink around them before adding blue and turquoise inks to make the water. I used Copic markers to color the leaf "float" and girl, then fussy cut it. I popped up the leaf/girl on foam dots for depth. Last, I added some iridescent sprinkles here and there.

Go check out the fun cards over at JUGS this week. I love seeing all the different ideas on a word week.

-Carol

Summertime

The Color Hues #17 Challenge (here) this week is red and orange. I decided to make a mask and use the negative one to be able to ink blend my flowers. I also love inlaid die cuts and decided to do that on my card as well.

I stamped my flowers in black ink on a  4" x 5 1/4" white cardstock panel, then stamped them again on Post-it notes and cut out the flowers. I used the background, not the flowers, to mask the background on the card. I ink blended the flowers lightly at first, then added more ink here and there using Distress Oxide inks in orange and coral and one classic red ink pad. I stamped some black dots next, to fill in empty space between the flowers. 

The "summertime" die actually cuts out the square and the letters at the same time. I ran my stamped and ink blended panel through my die cut machine once with the "summertime" die. Then I ran it through my machine with a piece of cardstock that I had ink blended in an ombre pattern. I cut a scrap piece of cardstock a little bit bigger than the ombre die cut background. I glued that scrap to the back of the die cut ombre square then inlaid the ombre square into the stamped panel and glued in the white letters. I adhered some sequins to the card for sparkle. I made a white cardstock, A2-sized card base and popped up my stamped panel onto it with foam tape.

Products used:

Stamps: Pretty Pink Posh Crocus Flowers, Stampin' Up! Timeless Textures (dots)

Ink: Simon Says Stamp Intense Black ink, Distress Oxide inks in Dried Marigold and Abandoned Coral, Stampin' Up! Classic Real Red stamp pad.

Dies: Simon Says Stamp Summertime Die

Sequins: Pretty Pink Posh

Paper: Stampin' Up! extra thick white cardstock

Hope this made sense. Go check out The Color Hues challenge this week to see all the pretty cards there!

-Carol

 

Dude

Over at The Paper Players PP539 the theme is boys, and with Father's Day coming, the "boy" in our house will be celebrated! Here is a card I whipped up this morning for him. 

It all started with the All Night Media cool penguin dude stamp (circa 1984). I have hoarded this pretty fish patterned paper for a while but decided it fit a more masculine card like this, and penguins like fish, right? I used Stampin' Up! markers to color the penguin and ink blended with their ink pads too. I thought the wonky squares and font of the letters on the front went well together. I used foam tape to pop up the center dies inside and out for fun! I like all the clean white of the card with the pops of blue and orange. Hope you do too!

Products used:

Stamp: All Night Media

Inks: Stampin' Up!

Dies: My Favorite Things Peekaboo Wonky Window and Sizzix Hunky Dory Alphabet

Sentiment: My computer

Check out the Paper Players challenge this week to get ideas for a boy card done for a boy or dad in your life!

-Carol