Sunshine Shaker

 

I had a little fun with color blending and stenciling to make this card. I took white card stock, placed this honeycomb stencils on it, then blended blue, pink and yellow Distress inks to get the colors of the rainbow. Die-cut an oval in the center, and stamped a happy sun and clouds on the card beneath, then added some clear sequins and a clear plastic cover to make a shaker card. 

This card is entered in these challenges:

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday -- interactive

Crazy is our fame, stencils are our game (May challenge)  -- stenciling 

Word Art Wednesday #595 -- anything goes

Pammie's Inky Pinkies #2320 -- anything goes

Pattie's Creations #206 --  anything goes

Fresh Cherries

I'm trying to organize my stamping space, and I've come to a realization that I impulse buy supplies when they are on deep deep discount. Case in point is this stencil (seen under the card), which includes pears and apples as well as cherries. It's really an old wall stencil I bought cheap and I can't remember using before now.  I'm glad I finally got around to it, I think it came out cute.

The cherries were stenciled, then cut with an oval die and framed on a scallop oval. The black base card left from a fancy fold I tried recently -- this half of the paper got in the way of a diagonal cut, so I had to trim part of it off. I decided to use it as a fold that reveals part of the inside of the card. The gingham print was a natural choice with the cherries, as was the "sweet" sentiment, which is part of an old SU set. The sentiment is white embossed. A few acrylic drops finish off the card.

This card is for these challenges:

Double D: Fresh picked.

Stencils are our game -- use a stencil

Word Art Wednesday #593 -- anything goes

Pammie's Inky Pinkies #2318 -- anything goes

Butterfly -- positive and negative

 I got the idea for this card from a video by Laurel Beard, although I made several changes to make it my own. You can see the snippets I started with on the right. I just knew I wanted to do a patchwork, so I chose a solid and several prints, eventually narrowing it down to just one print. The larger white snippet I used as the backing behind the patchwork pieces to give me something sturdier to die-cut. Before die-cutting, I embossed the square, which added some much-needed texture to the blue.

I wasn't planning on using the die-cut butterfly at all, just the negative, but it sort of flew to that corner of the card and seemed to fit there.  The sentiment is from Purple Onion Designs.

This card is for these challenges:

Butterfly Challenge #181 -- colors straw and sky blue, plus butterfly

Snippets Playground #453 -- use snippets

Can You Handle the Pressure? -- use an embossing folder 

Pammie's Inky Pinkies #2317 -- anything goes

Word Art Wednesday #592 -- anything goes

Crafts Galore Encore #111 -- anything goes

Fun fold

 

I saw a cute fun fold that I wanted to try, and this is the result. (the instructions are here.) The adorable penguin image is from Conie Fong. 

For the card, I cut a regular sized sheet of card stock in half lengthwise. The white panels (there is another one under the image panel so you have a place to write inside the card) and patterned papers were snippets.  I used a couple half gems to fill in some empty space.

This card is entered in these challenges:

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday -- anything goes

Pixie's Snippet Playground #452  -- use snippets 

Pattie's Creations #205 -- anything goes

Word Art Wedneday #593 -- anything goes

Crafts Galore Encore #110 -- anything goes

A new spring in my step

 I've been kind of quiet in the craft department for the past few months. I broke my foot about two months ago and spent a long time in a support boot. Even without the boot, I can't move as well as I should. Since getting to my craft space requires going down stairs (still difficult), I'm still not crafting much. However, I do miss it, so I've pushed myself to battle the stairs a few times to play with my crafty supplies. Here's my most recent project.

The central die-cut is a lovely branch of spring flowers, which I watercolored in shades of mint and a heathery lavender.  For a sentiment, I die-cut the world "happy" (Stamplorations die) and combined it with white-embossed "birthday" on a small brown panel.  Everythng is mounted on a white panel embossed with a dot pattern, which in turn is on a brown card. The butterfly in the corner is painted with the same colors as the flowers.

This card is entered in these challenges:

Die-Cut Divas -- watercolor

Butterfly Challenge #180 (colors heather and highland)

Can You Handle the Pressure -- pressure embossing

Pattie's Creations #205 -- anything goes

Crafts Galore Encore #110 -- anything goes

Creative Inspiration -- anything goes

Pammie's Inky Pinkies #2314 -- anything goes

Word Art Wednesday #591 -- anything goes

Merci

 I have an Eiffel Tower stamp that is just a tad too big to fit on an A2 card, so I used it for this mini-slimline card.  The tower is black-embossed onto a patterned paper with a very discrete gray design on it. Along the right edge, the word "Merci" was repeatedly printed. Down the left is a fascinating bit of trim that sort of looks like the open ironwork on the tower; the trim is silver and blue and adds a little simmer to the card.  The gray paper is mounted on a shimmery blue mat, which is on a white card with a very narrow reveal around the edges of the blue.  Another piece of shimmery blue was die-cut as a round tag. There's something that sort of looks like a Fleur de Lis black-embossed on the tag. (I keep thinking I have a fleur de lis stamp, but I cannot find it and decided this would have to do). 

This card is entered in these challenges:

Simon Says Stamp Monday - emboss it

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday -- slimline

Word Art Wednesday #585 -- anything goes

Pammie's Inky Pinkies #2309 -- anything goes

Pattie's Creations #204 -- must use an image

Crafts Galore Encore #109 -- anything goes

 

Flowery van

 

I have had this digi image of a VW van (It's by Bird) for a long time and I've always wanted to try paper-piecing on it. I found this wonderful retro-looking flower pattern to do the piecing with. The parts that aren't pieced are colored with pencils with some silver gel pen on the details that would be chrome or metal.

The sentiment is computer generated.

This card is entered in these challenges:

Simon Says Stamp Monday -- Things With Wheels

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday -- anything goes

Pammie's Inky Pinkies #2307 -- anything goes

Word Art Wednesday #583 -- anything goes

Crafts Galore Encore #108 -- anything goes

Creative Inspirations -- anything goes

Pattie's Creations #203 -- anything goes