Author Archives: kth

Conversations in Chocolate

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I love the new Stampin’Up! Chocolate Bunny stamp! My mommy gave it to me for Christmas (she’s the bestest). The funny thing is I’m not really into chocolate bunnies (unless they are Reese’s and filled with peanut butter 😀 ), but I always think of them when I think Easter – and the stamp is adorable.

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Mom wanted to see what i would do with it and this was the first thing that came to mind. It isn’t original – I remember seeing this “conversation” either on a t-shirt or a card at the store years ago.

I really wish someone could invent a way to do mirror images that doesn’t degrade the mirrored image. Although it might be user error as I know I have seen other folks do the mirror thing with near perfect results. If you have any hints, I’d love to hear them! (I did huff on it before stamping.)

My Butt Hurts!
All supplies Stampin’Up! unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: Chocolate Bunny (Occasions 2010 mini); Crazy Cool;
Ink: Chocolate Chip;
Paper: Bermuda Bay, Chocolate Chip, Creamy Caramel, White;
Other: ribbon (from nonSU stash); Chocolate pen; handwriting;

Gift Packaging

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kth_tropical_longbox

I needed a box to put in a little hair chopstick (I have no idea what you call those things). I started with a Nugget box template I found on SCS and modified it to the dimensions I needed. I learned a good lesson – always make a prototype before using your precious paper! There isn’t much to this box, but it serves its purpose well. I used an old SU scrapping kit for paper and die-cuts. I did decide that I must buy some wide white grosgrain!

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This box was created to hold an ornament. I found it by searching on SCS, but here is a link to the PDF Template from Scor-Pal. I am *in love* with this box. I’m not sure what I would do if I needed a larger box as this uses the whole sheet of 12×12, but it is 3in sq, so it fits most things.

Thankfully my mom just shared some of the flocked paper with me – it was a perfect paper to use for this box. Decorating the top was a bit nerve-wracking though!

kth_ornamentbox_top

I’ve never made Ribbon Flowers before, and it was a PAIN, but they are so cute! The ribbon and buttons are PTI. Thankfully the Poppy color works with the SU Red when it comes to embellishments. The leaves are an SU die-cut that I love! I debated about decorating the wide sides, but I decided not to.

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Thanks for visiting!

Christmas Cards

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kth_elegantdasher

Not much “new or unusual” in this post. I didn’t get around to making enough Christmas cards (which is completely normal for me, sadly). But I did make a few.

The first card I will share uses Dasher – a single stamp sold by StampinUp that is wildly popular, and completely wonderful. A simple color scheme and layout. I am not a big traditional red/green person, so when SU came out with Razzleberry, I was very happy at how elegantly it looks with Hunter. Now, if I could just stamp straight 😉

kth_bermudasnowflakes

Next up is a wintery card. Again, not a traditional color scheme – but a fabulous one. Which is why I’m pretty sure I didn’t come up with it! I know when I was looking to make this card I did lots of scouting, so the color scheme was probably found as was the stacked torn edge border. Sorry, I didn’t save links for credit (well, I may have, but my computer crashed and who knows where anything is now!).

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I don’t have many “current” Stampin’Up! sets, so when I do work for mom I tend to pull my hair out 😉 This is a siple layout – I’ve seen it a hundred times, but for this set it works well. Also the color is a trendy pairing of Bermuda and Red that I’ve seen before, but I like it.

kth_bluetrimmings_cased

Finally, a card I cased from the Crafty Girl blog. I loved her card, but this card was for my mom and brown was not gonna cut it! I knew I wanted to change the colors to blue. I kept everything else pretty much the same except instead of paper I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder. I wanted to keep it completely SU so mom could show it off, but no such luck (though I doubt that will keep her from showing it off, lol).

I hope to get a New Years card made that I can send to my other relatives and friends. Fingers crossed that I get in the mood some day soon!

Thanks for visiting!

Halloween Cards

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I know, I know – it is December, why in the world would I post my Halloween cards?! Well, I kinda like these cards, and seeing as I lost some of my photos when my computer crashed, my blog has become my repository…so if I don’t post, I may lose them!

witchycat

My first card is my favorite. I love the images – and I got to color! I really don’t want to invest in markers, but I must admit I would love to see this card done with Copics to get the bright vibrant look I would prefer.

The layout is a Jen del Muro SFYTT from back in September. I knew as soon as I saw the sketch what I wanted to do – it just took a month or so to get it done!

trickortreatspots

My second card is also based on a sketch, but I can’t remember whose! I love using this grid technique for those small stamps.

skeletalgreetings

Next up is a fun one. I *love* the new Scary Skeleton – though I don’t think he’s all that scary! While cutting him out is a pain, it always seems worth it! I plopped him down on the layer to make it look like he was sitting and waving. The rhinestone eyes were my finishing touch.

The Razzleberry layer has a border punched on the bottom. I don’t own any of those fancy Martha Stewart punches (yet), so I had to make mine by using the SU Curly Label punch. I didn’t get it quite straight and even, but I think it works okay.

monstermash

I really really really want a “Monster Mash” sentiment. I love this song – it is so fun! I thought about finding the perfect font, but as I still needed to make quite a few more card, I opted for hand writing something.

This one was a little harder to color because so much of it should be non-colors. But figuring out the masking was fun – to keep out the mummy’s sign and the ghost’s pumpkin.

sweethalloween

I love Halloween – but to me Halloween is about the scary not so much the sweet. However, many of my recipients are the opposite, so I needed a few sweet cards too. I dislike making more than 1 of any design, but for this card, I made 3. Thankfully it is a very simple design – and I got to use up some of my ancient paper stash!

Halloween Cards
All supplies Stampin’Up! unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: Haunting Halloween, Bitty Boos, Scary Skeleton, Booglie Eyes; Sentiment on final card from TAC sets;
Ink: all SU colors
Paper: all SU colors, all DSP is from SU Halloween Night
Other: PTI Plum dotted ribbon, SU Orange ribbon, SU Curly Label punch, PTI black satin ribbon, SU Celery ribbon, CB Ribbon Slider die cut

There’s always something!

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Yep, just when I thought I was getting back into the creative mode, my computer dies! My hard drive bit the dust and not very nicely. Of course my backup is over 3 months old, so I’ve lost a bunch of stuff. Thankfully nothing life-altering important, but lots of effort involved in what was lost. So now I’m just using my hubby’s computer to check email until my hard drive replacement arrives (and ugh, it was delayed until Halloween – not much of a good omen, eh?). I am creating cards (I’m *determined* to get Halloween cards out) and I’m taking pictures, but I don’t have my image software loaded, so posting will have to wait.

Much thanks goes out to my blog followers for your patience! 🙂

Dia de los Muertos

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kth_halloween_diadelosmuertos

I started this card a few weeks ago – in response to Nicole’s blog challenge on World Card Making day (wcmd2). The challenge was to be inspired by Mexico. In thinking of Mexico, I think bright colors, mosaic tiles, and the Day of the Dead. I have no idea why I think about that holiday…but I do.

Anywho. I started the card, but there was no way I was going to finish on time for the challenge so I set it aside. Making the mosaic took FOREVER – though, in all fairness, it was probably because I chose the wrong movies to watch while I worked – I ended up spending more time watching than cutting/gluing!

And then, once I had the focal part done I decided to make a mosaic border too, ugh! {more time passes}

I finally got it all finished today. I really love how it turned out!

Oh, and here is a frugal tip 🙂 The “thread” I used is really the elastic string that ties kids shoes together in the store. I’ve been saving it to use as, well, elastic, but the texture of it worked so much better than embroidery thread, so I used it here too.

Halloween
All supplies Stampin’Up! unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: Scary Skeleton;
Ink: black;
Paper: Basic Black, Basic Grey, White, Bold Brights scraps;
Other: elastic thread;

Guided Garden

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Not much to say about this one – I did it without using a challenge and it sorta just happened, lol. I do love Scarlet Jewel – I didn’t realize it had a purple under-tone. And, while the grid on the Guidelines 2 doesn’t work the way I want, I do prefer the round images to the square ones – especially the little frames.

Congratulations
All supplies Papertrey Ink unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: Guidelines 2, Simple Little Things, Borders & Corners Square (little flower);
Ink: Scarlet Jewel, Ripe Avocado, Sweet Blush (PTI); Saraha Sand (SU);
Paper: Scarlet Jewel, Ripe Avocado, Vanilla;
Other: Scarlet ribbon, rhinestones (Taylor’s Twinks);

Late Bloomin’

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kth_bday_latebloominbuttons

Another old PTI challenge (cmwc56). This time a color challenge.

I recently purchased Button Bits and hadn’t used it yet – though I have collected all the buttons *sigh*. This set is fun – and easy! I added a couple Lemon buttons because I didn’t think the Summer buttons really matched well, but it looks ok.

The layout is a Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge (sssc38). This is a great “go-to” layout!.

I do wish PTI would come out with some more generic DSP where each sheet has more than one color in it. So far the packs they’ve done that with are “holiday” specific. I know their limited color palette makes it a bit of a challenge, but still, there are many great color combos to be had!

so sorry i’m late
All supplies Papertrey Ink unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: Button Bits;
Ink: Ripe Avocado, Enchanted Evening;
Paper: Enchanged Evening, Summer Sunrise Bitty Dots, Ripe Avocado Bitty Boxes, White;
Other: Summer & Lemon buttons; white grosgrain (SU);

Autumn Gratitude

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I host challenges over on PTI once a week – ok, not really once a week. Participation is slim so I really don’t get excited about posting, so sometimes I forget. And other times I post and never get around to making a card for my own challenge *ugh*. So I am trying to catch up!

This past week was an inspiration challenge (cmwc57) – a bedspread at the Pottery Barn. The colors were autumnal and the leaves reminded me of a recently release PTI set.

The layout is for Beate’s weekend sketch (wsc100), so my card is a little square card.

The leaves were done by inking the leaves with 3 colors of ink and spritzing with water then stamping. The ink is PTI, and I’ve learned that Palette ink doesn’t work the best with this technique. The good news is the orange did beautifully and it is their new pigment ink, inwhich all new colors (and retro-ly the old colors) will be available – yeah!

Gratitude
All supplies Papertrey Ink unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: Fall Elegance;
Ink: Scarlet Jewel, Ripe Avocado, Summer Sunrise, Orange Zest;
Paper: Scarlet Jewel, Ripe Avocado, Vanilla;
Other: Scarlet ribbon, Slice Basics 2 (MM), label dies (SU), Modern Label punch (SU);

Dandy Wishes

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kth_happiness_dandywishes

CPS is a blog that hosts sketch challenges every week. I usually need a kick to get started when creating cards, and sketches are a great kick. This week’s sketch at CPS (CPS136) is a cool multi-layer card. I was a little daunted at first glance, but their sponsor this week is Gina K and I just purchased a dandelion set from her store that I thought would be perfect.

I white embossed the dandelion on a blue panel then found some DSP that had blue and green in it. I don’t have my sewing machine (I feel like I want that tool every card I make!), so I faked it with piercing and pen. Not perfect, but I like the fun touch it added. I rounded every corner, not something I normally do, but I like it on this card.

Wishing you Happiness
Stamps: Many Wishes (Gina K);
Ink: Certainly Celery (SU);
Paper: White (PTI); Bashful Blue, Certainly Celery, Cutie Pie DSP (SU);
Other: Old Olive marker, Corner Rounder, dimensionals, white EP (SU); paper piercer;