12 Kits of Christmas: August with Kim

It's month #8 of our 12 Kits of Christmas project, and this month's hostess is Kim Heggins! If you'd like to read about how this group started and works, please read this post. :)  Kim sent us a most amazing kit filled with non-traditional colors...my favorite for the holidays!

On my card above, I debossed the card base with the chevron impression plate from Wplus9, and colored the image with markers before adding the red bling. Below, I used an SU! die and coordinating paper piercer to diecut the sentiment and mount it onto some really beautiful patterned paper:

Next, I wanted to try something with more bells and whistles, so I adhered some of the fun pink ribbon to the top of the card, and layered the diecut word over a piece of a SU! diescut that was stitched along the bottom edge:

My last card is iffy to me because I am not a colorer, but I really felt like trying out my pencils again...so here it goes...I almost didn't post it, but I like the layout!

Here is a list of everyone else in our group. Have fun hopping around and seeing our creations:

Cathy: Empty Nest Crafter

Joyce: Cards-by-the-Sea

Kim: Cupcakes Cards and Kim

Amy: Stamp-n-Paradise

Kara: K and R Designs

Sharron: On Papillion Wings

Marybeth: Marybeth's Time for Paper

Jeanne: A Kept Life

Jessica: The Paper Parade

Christina: Sea Glass & Sentiments

Renee: It's A Patchwork Life

Thank you so very much, Kim!!!

One more piece of news is that Neat and Tangled Stamps is offering free shipping this weekend on all orders! Yipee!



Have a fun day and see you again soon!

Hugs,

CSS App Sneak Peek

I have a card to share on the CSS App today! Click the logo above to get the app, or click here. Thanks!

WMSC #112

I was looking to feed my patterned paper addiction tonight so I made this card for this week's Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge... :)

I stamped the flowers and leaves from Sewing Box Hugs onto some canvas, matching my inks to this fabulous Basic Grey paper. I used some edger dies from SU! to trim some patterns from green and yellow papers, using my paper piercer to poke holes along the edges of the yellow diecuts. I then added some stitching along the inner edges.

How great is that bling from Prima? I also really love the chevron sticker strip behind the canvas. I hope you've enjoyed your weekend. Back to work tomorrow! Thanks a bunch for stopping by. Sweet dreams!

CAS-ual Fridays 67: Banners and Flags

Happy Saturday, everyone! Sorry for the silence here on the blog this week. I wasn't feeling particularly crafty over the last few days, so I spent a lot of time catching up on work stuff. I actually took an online seminar on molecular pathology, and loved it. Yes, I am a nerd like that! I made up for lost crafty time last night crafting at Linda's (my SU! demo) house and making this Christmas tag for this week's CAS-ual Fridays Challenge, which it to incorporate banners or flags into your project.

I started off with the plain chipboard gingerbread man, which was traced onto October Afternoon paper. I then cut and covered the little guy in the paper, which was later sanded and inked up. I layered him onto the background shape, adding the OA flags and pearls to his body. The finishing touch was the ribbon loop on the back of the tag. Did I go buck wild with the distressing? I didn't think it would look that dark! LOL!

I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with this week. The gallery is always filled with the most amazing and creative ideas. Hop on over to the CFC blog for more details!



Neat and Tangled: Holiday Cards

Hi everyone! Just a quick note to let you know that I've posted on the Neat and Tangled blog today. I have some quick and easy holiday cards to share, so I hope you'll take a peek. Have a terrific day. :)

RCC67: Bump It Up

Hope you're having a great week so far! I am here today with a card for this week's Ribbon Carousel Challenge, which is to make a card using any kind of embossing that you like (and some ribbon too).

I used my Wplus9 stamps with some clear heat embossing and some 3/4 inch bittersweet grosgrain ribbon from the store on this card. I also added some metallic Hero Arts bling to the leaves, and I am thinking this would be perfect to redo in red and green for Christmas. :)

I hope you'll play along! Thanks for stopping by,

CAS-ual Fridays 66: Splish Splash

Today's card is for this week's CAS-ual Fridays Challenge, which is to make a card with things that you might find in the ocean. Our sponsor this week is Stop & Scrap, who has offered a $20 gift card to this week's winner. :)

I automatically thought to use Fish More from WPlus9, which is my favorite set right now, and papers from Echo Park. I diecut the striped frame using my Sending You dies from PTI, but I made it longer by cutting a strip to layer under the banner, making it look like one piece. The letters were diecut using alphabet dies from Memory Box, and the button is from American Crafts.

A perfect card to welcome the weekend, since we're about to head out camping. What are you up to this weekend? I hope you have fun!

CSS App Sneak Peek

I've got a card to share on the CSS App today! Click the logo above to go there, or click here. Thanks!

Introducing the 10 Minute Craft Dash

This is my second post for today.

For the Ribbon Carousel/Unity Stamps blog hop, please scroll down. Thanks!

Last week, I received an email from the very sweet Paulina Nakamura from Pretty Pink Posh letting me know about a new challenge that she and Ginny Larsen are starting: The 10 Minute Craft Dash. I was so flattered that they asked me to help kick off the challenge, and my card above is what I was able to come up with.

Here are the official rules! You should play along because you can't believe how fun this can be: you have ten minutes (after you gather your supplies) to create a crafty item. It can be a tag, card, project, etc...it just has to be under 10 minutes.

My strategy was simple: use a layout from a recent card and use products lying around on the floor of my craft room. Easy right? Heh. Not-so-much but I am still liking my card anyway! The stamps and dies are from Lil' Inker Designs - the sun set arrived in the mail yesterday, and the other stamps and dies were purchased a while ago...they were lost until I found them inside the electric frying pan. I think my hubby thought he was being funny. I embossed the front panel with a folder from Lifestyle Crafts, and the suns were diecut from a scrap of dotted paper that I used on the card in my previous post. Inks are from  A Muse Studio.

I think in total it took me 10.25 minutes, which probably means I am disqualified BUT I was distracted by fun crafty texts from Renee and Laurie, and because I wasted valuable time cleaning my stamps and trying to be tidy- this last part was a bad strategy! I was hoping to slap a bow on this somewhere, but I think that would have been impossible.

Here are some other tips: if you are "OCD" clean, you may want to toss some random supplies onto the floor so they are within close reach. You could also become out of breath and require Olympic-style training in preparation of this (not really, but I really did get a little out of breath doing this.) LOL!

Fun! So head on over to Paulina's blog to join in! You have ten days to play along, and she has a prize too!

Ribbon Carousel & Unity Stamps Blog Hop

Happy Wednesday!

Today's there is a fun blog hop going on between The Ribbon Carousel and Unity Stamps, and I've got a card to share using Fuschia Silk Ribbon and the hearts and sentiment from Brenda and Emma: Good Morning. I also used brown Baker's Twine, which can also be found in the store.

Clear and Simple Stamps Group Post: White Out

Hi everyone! This is it. My final post as a guest designer for the Clear and Simple Stamps Collection 4 release. :( I think it has gone by too super-fast. My heart is full of happiness from all your support over the last two months; I am so grateful to Nicki at CSS for inviting me to do this, and to the whole DT for their encouragement along the way. This opportunity has been amazing.

With Labor Day approaching fast, our challenge this month was to make a white on white card. White paper, ribbon, diecuts, etc. And cream or beige would not make the cut! Tough, right? I have never made a card like this before, but I am actually excited about how it turned out:

I heat embossed the border stamp from Background Basics 2 in Versamark using glitter embossing powder, and embellished each flower center with a clear rhinestone. Then I stamped a sentiment from Party Elements: Celebration (an awesome set) just above that strip before cutting and layering the panel onto some addition white cardstock.

Here is a list of fabulous ladies who are playing along with today's Clear and Simple Stamps White Out Challenge:

Lori Tecler

Jaclyn Miller

Kim Duran

Tracy Schultz

Dana Grothaus

Laurie Willison

Jennifer Rzasa

Laura Bassen

Elena Roussakis

Happy hoppin' and see you again soon,

CAS-ual Fridays 65: Square Cards

This is my 2nd post for today...for my CSS Party Blog Hop post, please scroll down. Thanks!

Saturday is becoming my most favorite day of the week, and not because Renee has been saying it for quite some time now. ;) It's my day of the week to post my CAS-ual Fridays Challenge card (which is featured over on their Facebook page)!

This week's challenge is to make a SQUARE card, and our sponsor this week is Stampotique Originals, who was super kind and let us choose some images to work with today. Thanks, Stampotique!

For my card today, the image and sentiment were stamped onto white cardstock with black ink, and then I colored the hearts with a Tombow marker. After that, I added bubblegum glitter from A Muse Studio to each heart, layered the panel onto some MFT Razzleberry cardstock, added the ribbon tab, and mounted it all onto a black square cardbase. Very easy!

Our Team recently had a discussion about where we find inspiration for our cards, and we thought it would be fun to share our thoughts on our blogs at some point. I love mixing colors, any colors, and find inspiration for that in my patterned papers. I also get a ton of inspiration from card magazines and the blogs I visit. I love viewing layouts; I will sit and try to figure out exactly what it is that I love about a particular card...then I wonder how I can tweak it to make it more "me." I have a long commute to work, and when a card is due I use my time in the car to think about what I want to make when I get home (in addition to singing out loud at the top of my lungs). I don't love every card that I make, but each one is a chance for me to try something new, have fun, and relax. I'd love to hear what you do!

So...be there, or be square for our challenge, and have a fun weekend!

Clear and Simple Stamps Party Blog Hop

Hi everyone! My time as a Guest Designer for Clear and Simple Stamps is winding down, and it has been a great experience creating so many projects to share with you over the last two months. Today is one of their most special days of the month because it's the day that each designer "throws a party" using Clear and Simple Stamps' products!

I wanted to throw a Lemonade Stand inspired party, but the weekend that our project photos were due, there was some horrid rain...so we moved the party indoors and improvised a bit! Above you can see the simple party invite that I made using one of CSS's party sets, along with a single strip of pattern from the newly released Background Basics 2. The overlay was part of one of My Little Yellow Bicycle's collections.

Here's a shot of the whole shebang. Everything was truly super simple to assemble.

I used the Toppers die to make miniature tags to hang on some of CSS's clear bags, which were filled with watermelon candy and tied with pink ribbon.

Here you can see some goodie bags that I made using brown lunch bags, which were "sealed" using paper cupcake wrappers in two different sizes and some flowered clothespins that I found in the dollar bin at Michael's. The labels were stamped with a sentiment from By the Glass Sentiments and punched out of yellow cardstock using a paper punch.

Here we have lemonade served from a large old fashioned milk bottle, and poured into small clear plastic cups, which were decorated with straws embellished with miniature flags.

Each flag was stamped with "Love at First Sip." Cute!

I hope this hop leaves you super inspired to throw some fun parties this summer, or perhaps into the new school year. Here's a list of everyone playing along today...Happy Hoppin'!

Elena Roussakis

Laurie Willison

Kim Duran

Tracy Schultz

Lori Tecler

Dana Grothaus

Jennifer Rzasa
Stephanie Zerbe

Amber Kemp-Gerstel

Jaclyn Miller

Laura Bassen
Denise January

Clear and Simple Stamps Blog

Thanks so much for stopping by!