I am finally starting to work on the cards I make each year for my family friend. Here is the first one:

There is so much I love about this card! First – the Spruce & Sprig images – I knew as soon as I saw this set that it would receive much love…and its first outing did not disappoint me! Second the colors – this is a wintery color combo without being cold. And I have fallen in love with Stampin’Up’s Tip Top Taupe – it is an awesome neutral!

The final thing I love about this card can’t even be seen in this post! As I have said in the past, I hate mass producing (and anything more than one iteration counts as mass producing to me ;). I bought a MISTI months ago – but mostly because I loved the idea of being able to re-stamp a sentiment/image if it didn’t come out correctly the first time. I have used it a few times for that purpose. Today I broke it out to make 5 of the same card and oh boy did this make me happy! I don’t know that it was any faster (though it probably was), but so many of my problems were solved – consistency in the end product, fewer inky fingers, and less thought (I didn’t have to spend minutes ensuring I was stamping in the correct place). One thing though – the MISTI can’t ensure you ink up with the correct color (thankfully I caught that before I put stamp to paper!).

Thanks for taking a peek!

It is time I started stamping Christmas cards. I browsed my digital inspiration file for a sketch and found an old Fall to Layout (131):

And that layout reminded me of a card I saw on Karolyn Lancon’s blog weeks ago. I loved the way she used the negative space from the die cutting.

Thanks for taking a peek!

Today is the PTI October Blog Hop. The inspiration:

I pulled quite a bit from the inspiration: the shiny ornaments, tags, greenery, and the wood table.

I didn’t have any shiny red paper, so I went with glitter paper. One of the tags has joy written on it, so that is how I selected my sentiment.

I had originally selected a small holly die to accent the card, but the scale was wrong – they got lost, so I went with the medium size.

The string for the tag is glued down because I wanted it to lay a specific way. I put a small dab of glue at the top of the string and then another about an inch from the end.

Thanks for taking a peek!

Over the weekend my kid was invited to a friend’s house for a party his parents were having to celebrate their 25th anniversary. The kid wanted a card, so I made one.

In search of inspiration, I saw the Freshly Made Sketch #208 and immediately came up with the card.

Thanks for taking a peek!

My final boss’s day card – and probably my favorite.

This floral set is a PTI anniversary set (2014). I debated about getting it for months – actually the whole year it was available. I bought it at the last minute because it kept talking to me…and I love it!

Thanks for taking a peek!

So last week as I was making a fruit salad, I was inspired by the colors:

Last night I sat down to make a card from it. I decided to do the wet paper watercolor technique (again – I love that technique!). I ended up using distress inks, but I tried to stay close to the colors I chose originally.

When I was done with that, I had no idea what to do. But then I found the Fab Friday Challenge #74 – which was a perfect sketch!

I’m usually a straight layers kinda gal, so I know I would never have made this card without the sketch challenge. So happy with this card – thanks Fab Friday Challenge!

Thanks for taking a peek!

I played along with the recent Retro Sketch #185. This is an awesome sketch!

I also added in the PTI October color play. I never would have thought to stamp acorns with Terracotta if it wasn’t for this color combo!

My leaves are two-toned which I accomplished by sponging the green ink onto the orange-inked stamp.

So I originally stamped the background – but that so did NOT work! I decided instead of trashing the card base, I’d cover it up with paper. And this gave me the perfect opportunity to break out my MISTI. I bought this tool months ago but I’ve only used it one other time (and that was just because I was stamping onto watercolor paper and I wanted the assurance that I could re-stamp the images to ensure good coverage). This time, I pulled out my MISTI because I knew my sentiment would flow from the paper to the card base and I wanted it lined up perfectly. Eeeek – I am in love! This was so blasted easy and perfect!

Thanks for taking a peek!