Author Archives: kth

New Stampin’Up!

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Last month while I was visiting my mom (an SU Demo), I got to play with her new stamp sets. Now that the catalog is out I thought I would post my cards.

The first set I played with is Pennant Parade. This banner creating set has a coordinating punch. I used the punch to make this simple banner card. I used the new Lucky Limeade color and Daffodil Delight. I also found some white Baker’s Twine in her supplies and fell in love. Because it is twisted, it doesn’t come apart quite as easily as embroidery thread.

After seeing the samples in the new catalog, I realized the Pennant Parade set can be used to make Christmas trees too – that is cool! This card uses 3 different greens, but since they are all pretty close in color, it works. I am actually a little disappointed in the Limeade color – it isn’t quite yellow enough….it just looks a tiny shade lighter than Olive. *sigh, I miss Kiwi*

I used the eyelet scallop border punch to create the ruffle around the circle. After punching a long border piece, I ran my nail down the cardstock to help break down the fibers inside. Then I peeled it apart to make 2 pieces. Then I adhered it to the back of the circle making folds to help it follow the curve.

The next couple of cards use the set My Friend. The font in this set is wonderful.

For the first card I used my new favorite color – Pool Party. I added a border punch to the background to give some texture (and weight to that side of the card). A few butterflies and a large sprinkling of rhinestones finishes it off.

 

The next card is a little retro. I love the dangling baubles image in set and used it to create the top border. I filled in the baubles with the Smooch – Top Coal (love this stuff – had to order it for myself!). The sentiment was inked up with markers. I added the flower/pearl to help balance it all out.

This picture doesn’t show the smooch very well, so I took a detail shot. Click the picture to see it full size.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The final set I played with was Best of Everything.

On this card I used Wisteria – another new favorite color. I even got to use a bit of the new ribbon – love those little ruffles. To create the main panel I used the hyacinth image (well, that’s why I’m calling it anyway) and inked it with Wisteria and stamped a bunch, then went back and did the same image using Pool Party.

The butterflies are actually the single flower – I cut them out and tied ribbon and now they look like butterflies 🙂 The background is 2 lattice dies glued down to the card base.

 
The final card I want to share today was pretty fun to make. Unfortunately I used the now retired Spiral punch (why did they get rid of that??).

I won’t be doing my normal supply list, but everything is StampinUp and should be in the current catalog (except the Spiral punch on the last card). BUT if you have any questions, just leave (or send) a note and I’ll answer.

Thanks for stopping by!

Rainy Day

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I really have missed stamping! This is the second card I made today 🙂

This one was specifically created for the Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge (wmsc54). I flipped the sketch around. I added a bit of Stickles (Patina) to the larger rain drops.

Thanks for taking a peek!

Thinking of You
Stamps: Asian Gardens & Asian Gardens Additions (WMS);
Colors: River Rock (SU); Ocean Tides, Aqua Mist (PTI);
Other: dimensionals; Stickles (Ranger);

Proud of You

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My nephew, a rising senior in high school, is currently at boot camp. He is joining the National Guard to become an MP. Obviously I have mixed emotions about this, but I am undoubtedly proud of him. He’s allowed to receive post, so I wanted to send him a card to remind him that we’re thinking about him.

I don’t have many “service” type stamps (guess I’ll need to remedy that 🙂 ), but this ribbon from CTMH certainly does work (I originally bought it to make cancer ribbons, so I don’t always remember it when thinking military). To do the two toned ribbon, I stamped the image twice – once in blue, once in red – and cut out the “front” piece from the red image and glued it onto the blue one.

I kept the card very simple – apparently any cards that are over the top (mushy or frou-frou) earn the receiver a few extra push-ups! I just used lots of dimensionals to give it depth. And the blue mat is textured paper.

I am entering this in the “Krafts-men” challenge at CAS-ual Fridays (cfc9). CAS-ual Fridays is a new challenge blog dedicated to clean and simple stamping. CAS is definitely the style I prefer. I heard about their challenge before they even started – because I was already following a few of their design team members – but this is the first challenge I’ve managed to complete. I still have a text flower I created for their first challenge!! Maybe I’ll get it on a card one of these days, lol.

Thanks for stopping by!

Proud of You
Stamps: Remember (CTMH); Fresh & Simple alphabets (PTI); Sanded background (SU);
Colors: Poppy, White, Kraft (PTI); Crumb Cake ink, Not Quite Navy (SU);
Other: dimensionals;

Blogging Again

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Wow, it has been over a month. It always seems the end of school and beginning of summer is such a busy time. Add into that a 3-week vacation and a computer crash, and that is why I haven’t been blogging. I actually have quite a few pictures saved to post.

Thanks to anyone who has hung in there. Hopefully I’ll be able to get my photos ready for posting in the next few days and get back into “routine” posting.

Hope everyone has a fun and safe holiday.

Birthday Bash

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Last weekend my kiddo was invited to a birthday party. This is the card I made for the friend who loves dogs and the color blue.

I kept the card fairly simple. I started with picking some fun paper and choosing my Copics based on the colors from the paper. I started out to use Fall-to-Layout #141, but things moved around to fit my image.

Thanks for taking a peek!

Birthday
Stamps: Ruff Day (SU); Around About Sentiments (PTI);
Colors: Bashful Blue, White, Celery (SU);
Other: Cutie Pie DSP, Bashful ribbon (SU); Star, Circle, and Scallop Border punches (EK);

Papertrey Blog Hop

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This month’s blog hop is all about flowers. I recently found a pinterest post for ric-rac flowers (original post). I had to make them immediately. I never do that – make something as soon as it inspires me.

These flowers were actually pretty simple to make – all 3 took 15 minutes and they are the first three I’ve ever made! I used PTI’s small Ric-Rac die and Melon felt.

I also broke out my Sending You set and die for the first time.

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Hello
All supplies Papertrey Ink unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: Sending You; Off Beat Backgrounds (WMS);
Colors: Melon Berry (SU Groovy Guava ink), Simply Chartreuse (SU Kiwi Kiss ink), White;
Other: Melon Bitty Dot DSP, Melon felt, Chartreuse ribbon, Ric-Rac die, Sending You die; scallop border punch (EK);

MIM Sympathy

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This week’s Make it Monday challenge at Papertrey is to make a Sympathy card (mim16).

I always have a hard time making sympathy cards, but I found out that trying to make one with out a person in mind is even harder (for me).

This card happened backwards. I stamped last – makes it hard when it is already stitched and ribbon attached, lol. Still, it ended up pretty.

Thanks for taking a peek!

With Sympathy
All supplies Papertrey Ink unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: With Sympathy, Birds of a Feather, Polka Dots;
Colors: Linen, Ripe Avocado, Royal Velvet, Chocolate;
Other: Linen ribbon, Jar Label die; machine stitching

Thanks to the PE Teacher

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This card is for the physical education teacher at our school.

I don’t have any sports stamps, so when it came time to make a card for the PE teacher, I thought I would have to do quite a bit of improvising. After lots of failed attempts, I went back to looking through my stamp collection for inspiration. I decided to use the Simple Circle die and use punches to create the different sports balls.

I went looking for layout inspiration to use the die and found, of course, an awesome card on Maile’s blog (last card).

I ended up finding a font to make the soccer ball – doing your own is much harder than it looks! I did make the basketball, baseball, tennis ball (yellow paper and white gel pen), hockey puck (in case you didn’t know what the small black circle was for), and a red kick ball (embossed with the canvas impression plate!!).

I didn’t have high hopes when starting this card, but I’m really happy how it finished!

Thanks for stopping by!

Thanks
Stamps: Background Basics: Text, Fillable Frames Additions 1 (PTI); sentiment (old All Night Media);
Paper: Black, Kraft, White, Harvest Gold (PTI); Pumpkin, Riding Hood (SU);
Ink: Crumb Cake (SU); Black (PTI);
Other: 0.5 Pen (CTMH); Fillable Frame 1 die, Simple Circles die (PTI);

VSN Swabbie

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So this weekend was VSN at Splitcoast. The theme was pirates – hence my post title (swabbie because I only managed 5 challenges, so definitely not “captain” material and I figured “VSN wench” wouldn’t go over well with my family 😉 )

I wasn’t actually going to participate – I have stamping chores to do (and they don’t really work well with challenges). But I got a couple chore cards done earlier today and then I saw a post by Carly (here) and was completely inspired by her cards and figured I had to give it a shot.

First up was a color challenge – aqua, light green, and kraft. I snuck in the craft as the color for the sentiment. The card stock is Aqua Mist and Spring Moss from PTI.

Since the stamps I chose to work with were small, I made a small square card. I really like this card and I can use it to fill one of my stamping chores – bonus!
 
 
 
 

Next up, a challenge to use colorful birds. Of course, there was another part to the challenge which I neglected – making a square card. So this card is already walking the plank!

At least I can use it as one of my stamping chore cards!
 
 
 
 
 

Moving on, another challenge was to use bling. That should be an easy task, you can add a rhinestone just about anywhere! I got the idea to use this dragonfly image because the wings have little open spots on them – perfect for placing rhinestones. The dragonfly has smooch spritz on it too, though the photo doesn’t show that bit very well.

I used die cuts to create the flowers/leaves. I added a bit of sponging to the flower centers before adding the bling. Before I glued it all down, I wasn’t sure whether to leave it on a white card base or not. I tried a few light colors but none of it looked quite right. I need something to anchor the images, so I pulled out a large label stamp. I am quite happy with how that turned out!

I had to do the next challenge because it was hosted by my friend Patty! It was an awesome challenge – and I actually tackled it first because I got an idea immediately.

I’ll be giving my hubby this card on father’s day (if I remember to take it with us on vacation, lol).

Oh, I have to tell you how I did the label – I’m feeling a bit genius about it (not an ounce of humility in me, lol). I don’t own PTI angled labels (yet), but I do have Fillable Frames #9 – which is a cool tag shape. Well, if you cut the tag, then turn the die cut around and put it back in the die, you can trim both ends with the tag shape!! As you can see lining up the stamp image is a bit trickier, but a stamp-a-ma-jig would make it much easier.

This is the last card I did tonight. You can tell my mojo was wanning. One day I *will* find a black ink that stamps perfectly. Until then, I’ll just deal with my meager results.

This challenge was to use sponging. I was going to do a “ray” type sponging, but was just too lazy to cut the masks I would need. I am definitely in awe of Theresa Momber who can work a sponge so amazingly!

Thanks for taking a peek!

Thanks to the Music Teacher

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I created this card for the music teacher at our school. We have a male teacher, so I stayed away from the frou-frou.

I was very inspired by Maile’s card during the recent PTI countdown (last card). She oriented her cardstock and impression plate so that a piece of the card base at the top and bottom went un-embossed. I did the same thing. The rest of the layout I sorta cased as well, but I used a real die cut instead of an impression for the label.

The instruments were stamped from the wheel, watercolored, and then cut out.

Thanks for stopping by!

Thanks
Stamps: Symphony wheel (SU); Fillable Frames 4 (PTI); Trendy Greetings (TAC);
Colors: Not Quite Navy, Crumb Cake, More Mustard, Close to Cocoa (SU); Black, Cream (PTI);
Other: Fillable Frame 4 die, Music impression plate (PTI);
Technique: watercoloring