Wish you were here

Good morning!  Today I've got a clean-and-simple card to share with you that was inspired by two different challenges running right now (see the bottom of the post for links to the challenges so you can play along too!)  First, I saw the CAS-ual Friday's challenge that had to do with maps, and I immediately thought of the geotag stamp that I had just bought from Ormolu.  I thought it would be a cute twist on the "checking in" phenomenon to kind of say that you wished someone else could be checking in with you, so I got out my handy Paper Smooches alphabet.

I was also inspired by the Black and White challenge at the blog for Shop Pumpkin Spice, and I thought it went really nicely with the CAS feel I would need for my mapquest challenge, so I combined them!  I stamped out my sentiment and geotag in black ink and then added some black gems at the top corner for balance.  I matted that on some shiny black paper I had in my stash, and then put it all onto a white card base. 

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

CAS-UAL Fridays- MapQuest

Pumpkin Spice Blog- Black and White

Birthday clipboard card

You all know that I can't resist a good "Inspired by Pinterest" challenge, right?  Well this week, that's exactly the challenge they're having at Krafty Girls.

For a long time, I've loved the look of cards or gifts that are made to look like clipboards, like this one over at Redheaded Crafter or this one from Stamp n Design, both of which I found on Pinterest. 

My card is just on an A2 card base with some background paper from a MME stack.  I cut the "clipboard" from kraft paper and rounded the edges.  The "paper" is stamped from List2Write by the Stamps of Life, and so are the check boxes and the check mark.  The words are all from Joy's Life stamp sets.  The metal part of the clipboard is stamped from Paper Smooches and cut with the matching die.  It's hard to tell from the picture, but that part is adhered with foam squares to give it some dimension.

Congrats

Today's card is a nice CAS card (we know how I love those!) with a Congratulations sentiment.  The paper is from Recollections, and I stamped the letters with Paper Smooches stamps.  I cut the ladybug from the button feature of the Paisley cartridge at .5 inches and at .75 inches because I wasn't sure which one would look better in place of the o.  Once I had the sentiment done, I decided to put the bigger ladybug up at the top corner.  Then I just tied some red twine below the sentiment and tied a little bow on it. 

This card is being entered into the following challenges: 
Bitten by the Bug 2- She’s a lady (ladybug challenge)               

CAS-ual Fridays- Congratulations

Congrats!

I just got the Paper Smooches Clipboard stamps and dies and I was so excited to use them!  I think they're a really good addition to my stamp collection.

This is an A2 kraft card.  I cut a piece of purple and blue flower patterned paper that I had in my stash and put it on the base.  Then I cut a butterfly from my Create a Critter cartridge.  I cut both layers 2 and 3 in the same yellow, then used Yellow Stickles on layer 3.  I used two black rhinestones for its eyes.

Next, I stamped and then diecut the binder clip from my Paper Smooches sets and popped it up on foam squares.  I also cut a banner on light blue cardstock and then stamped the sentiment using Paper Smooches' Alphadots.

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Paper Smooches SPARKS- Trend Watch: Butterflies

Pumpkin Spice- Spring Animals or Insects
All That Stickles- Yellow

Thinking of you

When I saw the inspiration photo for this week's Paper Smooches SPARKS Picture Perfect Challenge, I immediately thought of their freebie flowers.  I printed the freebies in five different sizes, colored them with colored pencils to match the soft colors from the photo, and then cut them out and arranged them on the card.   The photo felt really clean and simple to me, with just a white background, so that's how I made my card too. 

I added the sentiment with my Paper Smooches Alphadots stamps.

 

Easter Wishes

Today I've got a totally non-traditional colors Easter card (as opposed to yesterday's card which was oozing pastels).  I used the color palate from this week's Paper Smooches SPARKS challenge, which was called "fiesta."  I may have continued yesterday's Stickles craze to today.

The card is tan, although it's a little hard to see in the picture.  There's a layer of orange cardstock with a piece of patterned paper from Echo Park (I think the Country Drive 6x6- it's the backside of the paper I used on yesterday's card.)  I also used a piece of yellow ribbon and a yellow button that reminded me of wicker that were both from my stash.

The main image on this card is one of Paper Smooches' freebies.  I colored the basket with an orange sharpie and the eggs are also colored with sharpies.  Then I used Stickles to match the colors of each egg- Firefly, Orange Peel, and Yellow.  I took about 9,000 pictures trying to show that there is also Easter grass in the basket, but you couldn't ever see it in the pictures.  Here you can just barely see a shimmer right next to the green egg, if you know to look for it.

The sentiment is stamped from Paper Smooches' "Alphadots" stamp set.  I started with the R and worked my way backwards.

This card is being entered into the following challenges:
Paper Smooches SPARKS- Cool Shades Fiesta
Simon Says Stamp Challenge Blog- Easter/Spring

Smiling Bees

You probably think I've been a busy bee this week- so many days of posting in a row!  Get it, busy bee?  Hahaha!  Anyway, the Trend Watch challenge this week at Paper Smooches Sparks was "Smiles."  I thought of the smiling bee free digi that they have, and that's where the idea for this card came from.

First I used grey cardstock (actually, that was my last step, but I like to start out with the nitty gritty details) and a piece of green cardstock embossed with the Honeycomb cuttlebug folder.  Then I cut the beehive from Create a Critter, and cut the heart off of the top because I didn't want it for this card.

I printed the freebies at two different sizes- the bigger bee was printed at wallet size, and the smaller ones were printed at contact sheet size.  I colored them all in with sharpies, and cut off the antennas that they already had.  Next, I colored some white twine with black sharpies, cut it to the right size, and then taped it to the backs of their heads.  I adhered them with foam squares to the green paper using the thinnest foam squares I had for the small bees and the thickest ones I had for the big bee.  To finish them off, I used some recollections black rhinestones as the bumps at the end of their antennas.  You can't really tell from the picture, but the rhinestones are only sticking to the twine- not to the card- so the antennas kind of move around.  That's why their antennas look kind of like they're going in all sorts of crazy directions in the picture. :)

White on White

If yesterday's card was meant to highlight the embossing as a contrast to the dark colors, today's is meant to highlight the embossing in a whole other way!  When I saw that the Simon Says Stamp Challenge blog was having a White-on-White challenge, I definitely wanted to give it a go.  I love the simplicity of White-on-White.

I used a regular A2 sized white card base, with rounded edges.  Then I ran a piece of white cardstock through my Cuttlebug with the Swiss Dots folder, and cut it to just slightly smaller than the base (again with rounded edges).  I put a piece of white crinkle ribbon around it toward the top, and then centered on a piece of cardstock that had been embossed with one of the Winter Jellies folders.  (side note:  when using the Winter Jellies folders, I believe it is mandatory to dance around your craft room and sing "I don't think you're ready for this jelly...")

Then I cut a strip of paper for the bottom and stamped the sentiment using Alphadots from Paper Smooches and Memento grey ink.  

Double hearts

Ok, I'm having a lot of fun with the Valentine's day cards.  :)  I love that love cards don't have to be exclusively for Valentine's day.  It's much more versatile than holidays like Halloween.

This is an A2 card.  The hearts are a digital stamp from Paper Smooches.   I printed them on some polka dot digital papers that I had gotten online, unfortunately before I knew to keep track of where I'd gotten things. I paper pieced them together onto white paper, and then rounded the corners.  Then I put that onto a piece of pink woodgrain paper from DCWV.  I liked the hearts on the woodgrain because it reminded me of people who used to carve hearts into trees on movies (I don't recommend it in real life.  Please don't hurt trees).

I layered a piece of green paper from the same DCWV stack and punched it with a Fiskars border punch at the bottom.  I wrapped a piece of green ribbon around it twice and then adhered the whole thing onto white paper. 

This card will be entered into the following challenges:

Paper Smooches SPARKS- Trend watch, Polka Dots

Paper Playtime- Border Punches             

Celebrate the Occasion- Valentine’s Day with a Ribbon

Whimisical Designs- Textiles
Crafty Ribbon Challenges- Anything Goes with Ribbon

Christmas tag

Am I the only one loving the nostalgia of the current polaroid trend?  I went to Michaels the other day and bought frames that are meant to make your regular picture look like a polaroid.  Craziness!  This tag is following that trend.  Sorry for the bad picture- I wanted to get the whole tag in the picture, so it ended up kind of small.

I made this simple polaroid shape on Microsoft Paint.  How 90s of me, right?  But it worked.  Then I pasted in some Paper Smooches digital stamps- the sentiment is one stamp, and the gifts are another.  Well, actually the gifts stamp is a grouping of three.  I flipped it once and then isolated just one of the packages to put in the center. I tried to color them in with sharpie, but I need some finer tipped ones for a project this small (it's about 4x4) so I went with colored pencil instead.  Good thing I had thought ahead and printed more than one.  Coloring is so cathartic on stressful days.

Next I cut it out, adhered it to a piece of patterned paper- can you tell the paper had red stripes from this teeny picture?- and cut it out again.  Then I punched the hole in the top corner and strung ribbon through it.  I kind of wish I had a smaller hole punch so I could have used twine, but it worked out in the end.

I'm entering this tag into the following challenges:       

Paper Smooches Sparks  Polaroids/Camera
DL.Art- Anything Red and/or Green

SPARKS challenge

Paper Smooches SPARKS is having another Picture Perfect challenge going on right now, which was totally inspiring to me amidst my sea of Christmas season crafting.  Inspiring enough, in fact, that I actually slid aside my December Daily album and happily made room on my craft table to create- which is a big feat right now.  

This card is on a cream base, with Echo Park patterned paper.  I used some yellow ribbon- I had a heck of a time smoothing out the wrinkles from when it was in the packaging- to accent it.  The bird is a freebie from Paper Smooches which I printed on white paper and colored in with Sharpies.  I hadn't realized how well Sharpies colored until recently- basically no stoke lines!  Then I stamped the sentiment with my Paper Smooches letter stamps.  I've had requests for more "thinking of you" types of cards and less specific ones, so I think from now on I'm going to challenge myself to use challenge themes either for these types of cards or birthday cards, to help keep down the stack of really specific cards I'm accumulating in my craft room.

Veteran's Day

Veteran's Day is right around the corner!  I always have a hard time with patriotic types of holidays- I think when the Fourth of July rolls around next year I'll have used up all of my red, white, and blue ideas.  This card is an A2 white base.  The blue polka dot paper is some digital paper that I downloaded for free, but I can't remember from where.  I dumbly saved the file names as the color of the paper but didn't include the source.  If you know where I got it from, let me know so I can give credit where it's due.  

The four pennants are cut at 1.5 inches from Birthday Bash.  I used blue and red ink to stamp "USA" all over them with my Paper Smooches "Alphadots" stamps. 

I used some dark blue We R Memory Keepers brads with home made red/white/blue baker's twine to hang the banners and some red ric-rak from Hobby Lobby.

This card is being entered in the following challenges:
Exploring Cricut- Veteran's Day
Paper Smooches Sparks- Trend Watch: Typography

Three stars

I am having a lot of fun playing along with coloring challenges!  I still love my Cricut, but I feel like stamping and coloring is giving me a whole other side of cardmaking.  There's a challenge at Paper Smooches Sparks right now that is a photo inspiration.  Here's my take on it:

I used the free digi stamps for the stars.  They're actually supposed to be 4th of July related, but I colored them to match the colors from the inspiration picture instead.  I put them on a piece of Recollections patterned paper and then matted that onto some grey cardstock.

The yellow cardstock on the bottom was stamped with my new Paper Smooches "Alphadot" stamp set.  Loving it!  I thought I had lost the number 0 down the drain the other day after washing some ink off, and I thought I was going to die.  Luckily, it had stuck to the sink and survived.

Get Well Wishes

Today I have a "Get Well" card to share.  It's just a regular A2 card, with patterned paper from Recollections.  I put a green ribbon around the top to compliment the green in the pattern.  The bandage was cut at 2.5 inches from B is for Boy.  I popped it up on foam adhesive, and then added the felt star (which I can't remember where I got it from) on another foam square.  

The sentiment on the bottom is from my new "Alphadot" set from Paper Smooches.  It was so fun to stamp with!

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:
Little Scrap Pieces- Use Blue
DL.Art- Sympathy or Get Well Card

My first attempt at coloring

Well, it's not my first attempt at coloring EVER.  I have filled up many Disney princess coloring books and I still have my old 96 Crayola crayon set from my childhood.  Organized by color, of course, because that's just how 5 year old me rolled.

Anyway, Paper Smooches is having a Sparks challenge inspired by woodland creatures.  I haven't been able to get any of their clear stamps yet (I'm on a buying freeze until we're settled into our next place- but they're on my wishlist, believe me) so I decided to go with their digi stamps again.  I don't have any experience with grown-up type coloring, so I had to use my colored pencils to color in- I don't own any copics or anything.  I used the owl, branch, and squirrel digi stamps.  I cut the squirrel off of the word he was hanging on and made him hang on the branch instead.

I used a piece of patterned paper from the KI Memories "Classics" stack.  I covered it with some yellow cardstock down the middle.  Then I put the "Thanks" digi stamp across the bottom and covered it with some brown washi tape from We R Memory Keepers.    I really enjoyed coloring the digi stamps.  I know that I will need more practice, but it was so fun that I think I'll keep practicing.  I'm excited to have some actual stamps, because I'm not technological enough to print the words on anything but printer paper, or maybe vellum if I'm feeling crazy.

Card Making Day continues!

I'm continuing my weekend of new techniques with digi stamps to celebrate World Card Making Day.  This time, I tried my hand at paper piecing.  It was fun, but I think I need some practice with my scissors skills...or else maybe I need a better pair of scissors.  :)

I used a sketch provided by Paper Smooches for this card.  Both of the pieces of patterned paper are from the All Seasons 2 stack by Paper Studio.  Then I used a Paper Studio embossing folder with holly on it for the next layer.  I rounded the corners and inked around the edges in green ink.  

See the heart made of candy canes?  That was my paper piecing project!  I printed the picture on white and red paper.  I cut out the heart on the white paper, then cut out every other piece of the red one and adhered it to the white.  It came out pretty good, I think.

This is going to be it for me today, because I have real-life plans that are going to last the afternoon.  Come back tomorrow to see my third foray into the world of digi stamps!

World Card Making Day

Did you know that today is World Card Making Day?  As such, Paper Smooches stamps are having a day of challenges, along with prizes that I would be ecstatic to win.  

This card actually meets the requirements for two of their challenges: it has pink on it in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and it's a one layer card (ok, it's one layer plus a little washi tape, but washi tape is really thin so I think that counts).  

I've been experimenting with different ways to use digi stamps.  For this card, I went with printing it directly onto where I want it on the card.  The word "love" is a digi stamp from Paper Smooches.  I printed it onto the white cardstock so it would end up in this corner.  I just used Microsoft Word- so easy!

I used my Cuttlebug and a Hobby Lobby embossing folder for the hearts that are at the top.  They also go over a little ways onto the back, which I think is kind of cool.  Then I used some pink washi tape from We R Memory Keepers on the spot where the embossing stopped, and a quick and simple card is done!