Sending Hugs

This week the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge is "Sending Hugs" and the My Favorite Things Wednesday Sketch Challenge #538 is a sketch that made it is easy to combine both into one card. For good measure, I'm entering it in NBUS #25 since I used new Love Speech Bubble Dies and the coupon stamps. And here she is!

I used my All Inside Bear and its die from Ellen Hutson, the My Favorite Things Love Speech Bubbles dies, a Simon Says Stamp Wonky Hearts die, the Simon Says Stamp Stacking Animals birdie and a Studio G little coupon stamp. Pretty straight forward sketch and assembly of it using these fun products! I made a strip of coupons (like you buy for a raffle) by repeating the stamp three times on a strip of pale pink cardstock. I wanted it to look like there was more than one hug being sent. I stamped, colored and fussy cut the little bird and  then attempted a little shadow beneath the bear using my Copic marker. Inside it says: *Redeemable at a moment's notice.

Check out both of these challenges this week! The design team creations are really inspiring!

See you soon,

-Carol

Lemon Lime Greetings

This card style is an old favorite of mine. I like interactive cards a lot, and I recently bought quite a few new patterned paper sheets with fruits and eating utensils because they were just so cute! I decided not to hoard them any longer and use them for this card. (I was thinking of making some sort of cookbook with these papers.) I noticed that The Color Throwdown ctd#638 challenge is ending today and I ended up making this card for it with my favorite lemon and lime papers and stamps, using the colors of this challenge. I am also entering it in the NBUS #25 challenge for April. (Never Before Used Schtuff)

I originally found the tutorial for this card here on Splitcoaststampers. It's called a Criss Cross card. In the past I have made the insert of this card with a tab punch, but I thought this lime patterned paper would be cute to fussy cut a lime for the tab. (It's actually two limes glued back to back for sturdiness) The other limes on the white insert are stamped using a Concord and 9th set called Orange You Sweet, which I may not have used before today either. They are "imperfectly-shaped" limes (or lemons or oranges, which I think adds to the cuteness of this set). I used a Stampin' Up! old fashioned stamp for the sentiments inside. It is one of those stamps where you can make your own words by winding each letter into position to spell words. (Does that make sense?) I think this type of card would be cute for putting a recipe on the insert, for a Christmas cookie exchange or just when you share a recipe with a friend. Do you see other uses for this type of card? Share your ideas in the comments! I always love new ideas!

See you soon,

-Carol

Hooray for Today

A friend of mine told me about the Less is More Challenge #441: One layer card using diamonds, that is going on until April 30. This was quite the task for me to come up with an idea. Then I remembered a die that was a freebie in an order from Ellen Hutson called Diamond, by Julie Ebersole, so I ran it through my Big Shot machine to make a stencil out of it. 

I used some blender brushes and Ranger Distress Oxide ink to make a background, then stenciled the diamonds with various distress oxide and Stampin' Up! Classic ink pads to make my design in the corner of the card. I pulled out an older SU! stamp set called Geometrical because this sentiment looked like a good match for the diamond shapes on my card.

That's it! Clean and simple. One layer. Boom. Hop over to the Less is More site to check out what everyone is coming up with for this challenge!

See you soon,

-Carol

Water You Up To?

I had some new purchases on my desk to try out and saw that I could combine two challenges into one card today: NBUS #25 (Never Before Used Stuff) and Just Us Girls #579! I bought this seahorse and sand dollar die set from Spellbinders recently but hadn't opened them up yet. And JUGS is challenging us this week to use more than one stencil, so I got out my hardly used palm tree, pineapple and dots stencils and started playing.

I cut a random sized tag and started stenciling palm trees and pineapples with Tim Holtz Distress Paints and a foam ink blender from Scrapbook.com. I dried them quickly with my heat gun and started filling in the background with my blender brushes and distress inks. I decided to make a little beach with the Gulf of Mexico water washing up in the bottom corner of the tag, so I left some white space for the shore. I added lots of tiny white dots along the shore with a gel pen and my Wink of Stella clear sparkle pen. I flicked water from my fingers onto the distress inks and tapped the tag dry after about a minute. I added more dots on the tag by randomly stenciling with my Brilliance Moonlight White ink pad. Next I die cut the seahorse and sand dollar from watercolor paper. I ink blended with distress inks again on the seahorse. I die cut a vine from a Sizzix set called Geo Floral Frame and ink blended some green on it. I adhered the die cuts on the tag, popped some up with foam tape and used Glossy accents to attach some sequins to the tag. Last, I decided to give the seahorse some bubbles above him. I cut some aqua vellum to make a horizontal strip but stamped some Stampin' Up! schools of fish on the card front first. I grabbed some tropical ribbon and baker's twine for the top of the tag and then adhered the tag to the card with foam tape. My sentiment and waves behind it are from a retired Simon Says Stamp card kit called Summer Hello. 

It really feels like summer lately (without the humidity!) here in Florida, but this card fits the climate pretty much all year. Is it getting warmer where you are?

"Sea" you soon,

-Carol

Cupcakes are for Birthdays

I've noticed over the years that if you have a party with a whole cake, people are afraid to cut into it. But if you have cupcakes, they are easy to grab and put on a plate or devour into thin air, and going back for seconds doesn't look so bad! At least that is my take on it! Here is my entry into the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Happy Birthday for this week. 

For this card I cut and scored a side-fold cream colored card base and cut random strips of patterned paper to adhere to it, leaving a little of the card base showing. Then I used my new My Favorite Things Frosted Cupcake dies to cut out the frosting and cupcake liner. I added some chunky glitter on the frosting to look like real sprinkles. I used my Simon Says Stamp Happy Birthday die for the sentiment and added it atop a strip of vellum to make it show up better on the busy background. It put teeny tiny drops of Tacky Glue behind the sentiment and a lot behind the cupcake to hold the vellum piece down on the card. That's it!

I have another entry into this challenge in my head and need to get it started!

-Carol

Birthday Confetti

Even though confetti is a pain to clean up, you have to admit that it does add a festive touch to decorations for a birthday! I am entering my card in the My Favorite Things Wednesday Sketch Challenge #535. I really like this sketch!

I just received my latest MFT order and this Frosted Cupcake die has been on my wish list for a while. The frosting is so realistic and "swooshy" looking that I want to make some cupcakes every time I see it! The candle paper behind the cupcake, as well as the confetti paper on the card front are Stampin' Up! The Happy Birthday die is from Simon Says Stamp. The frosting is white glitter paper and it has such pretty iridescent sparkle! I wanted the cupcake to be real the focal point, and use the candles paper too, so I placed a vellum rectangle between the two to soften the look of the candles.

Be sure to check out the MFT Wednesday Challenge with the link above. Cute cards being posted!!!

-Carol

Sweet Fabulous You

I made another card, this time for a birthday, using the same technique as my last post: KarrenJ-Stamping Stuff's Block Work that I am having fun with these days. I am entering my card in the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Anything Goes as well as the Seize the Birthday #211 Squares Challenge.

My card is a 5 X 7 size for a change and I used a white panel for my design and attached it to a white cardstock card base. I grabbed some square punches and dies to make my own stencil for this technique. I used Ranger Distress Oxide inks and an Archival Brilliance ink pad in Moonlight White with blender brushes to make the front panel. I used two My Favorite Things die sets: Sweet as Pie for the "Sweet" die cut (the die says "Sweetie" and I cut off the ie), as well as the vellum martini die cut from MFT's "Let's Toast" die set. The "Fabulous" die is from WPlus9 and "You" is from Stampin' Up! I used washi tape to mask off the martini glass so I could blend a little ink to look like a Cosmopolitan. I added various sequins and rhinestones to bling up the card a little for the recipient. (I haven't given it to her yet) On the inside is yet another die cut that I think was a freebie with an order once, but I don't remember the company!

Check out Karren's tutorial and give this technique a try. It is really bokeh technique but with squares! 

See you soon,

-Carol