Scrappy Sweet Creations

Happy Saturday!
As you may know from the last month or so of my posts, I'm a bit in love with sunflowers. They are just too gorgeous and I adore adding them to my cards. So this card is no different. But since I've used them so much lately, I wanted to try something different with them.

So I took a shot at the no-lines technique. I'm not sure I mastered it this first time, but it did turn out pretty good.

I stamped these sunflowers from the Lawn Fawn Our Friendship Grows stamp set in some really light distress inks before pulling out my watercolors. Not having those lines to define each petal and add the detail in the middle was a bit frustrating because I couldn't get the right depth I wanted with the colors I chose. But it was still super fun to finally give this technique a try, and I know that I will try it more often.

This card was made following the inspiration image over on the Winnie & Walter blog. I loved the woodgrain in the image but I don't have any paper patterned like that. So I attempted to make my own. I used some watercolor paper and smeared 3 shades of brown inks across it to try and imitate a wood grain pattern. I think it worked out pretty well! It was fun to watch this come together as it dried.

To pull in the pinks and oranges from the inspiration photo, I used another piece of watercolor paper and added touches of pink and yellow and sprayed it with water to get it all moving. This helped create an orange tint as well and I softened it all by lightly adding some white over the colors. Totally love how soft but colorful it all is! The perfect background for my sunflower woodgrain piece :)

I used just a simple sentiment, which is not normal for me, but it seemed to fit perfectly. Then finished it all off with a few matte black sequins. I always struggle to find good placement for sequins on my cards. They never flow correctly it seems...but I keep trying :)

Oh yeah, and all the sunflowers have been generously sprayed with some gold glitter mist! The sparkle is incredible on them!!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
AAA Cards #23-Watercolor
    Addicted to Stamps & More #116-Anything Goes
    Inky Impressions #180-Flowers and Leaves
    Simon Says Stamp-Use Watercolors
    Winnie & Walter-Pinspiration with Vanessa

Thanks so much for stopping by! I will be back a little later today to share another card for a Winnie & Walter challenge..it's just in the middle of drying right now :) <3

Hey Everyone!
I've had an incredibly productive day today and figured I'd share what I've made. So there are 2 cards in this post again :)

Lately I've been in a little bit of a crafty rut and I've been trying to figure out why. One of the things that keeps popping into my mind is the fact that I've used all the stamps that I have so many times that the creative ideas for them seem to be all gone...so I have been trying to challenge myself to see if I can come up with new ways to use them until I can get some money together to buy new stuff :)

This is a super cute card that worked out so perfectly for this "stretching" of my stamps:

How cute is that! I combined 2 stamp sets to make this little sweetie: In My Heart from Mama Elephant and Critters in Costume from Lawn Fawn.

I first stamped the pumpkin from the Lawn Fawn set, masking off the little rabbit inside. Then masked the pumpkin and stamped this cute little girl so she's popping up out of the pumpkin! I love it!! The little witches hat is from the cat in the Lawn Fawn set.

The circle around her is all one layer, but I cut out part of the circle up to where the banner is and put some dimension tape on the back so it stamps up. Then I did some inking with my distress inks. I silver embossed a few stars in the sky from the Hero Arts Shoot for the Moon set and added the fun Boo sentiment on vellum from the Lawn Fawn set. I love how this turned out and really got me excited to use my stamps in more creative ways.

I'd like to enter this pumpkin cutie into the following challenges:
    2 Cute Ink #116-Halloween
    A Blog Named Hero #53-Stretch Your Stamps
    Delightful Challenge-Delightfully Frightful
    Mama Elephant & Me-Anything Goes
    The Challenge #16

This next card was a little frustrating but so worth all the fuss:

For this card, I used a Simon Says Stamp set called Flower Friend. It's a great set full of adorable little flower stamps, but I've used those flower stamps so many times...I needed a change. So I took the cute little scallop border in the set and bent it around into a circle...several times because it kept popping back off my block.. The stamp was actually a little too short for the size flower I wanted, so I just stamped a few of the scallops by themselves to finish the circle.

So awesome! I used some outline and solid circles from the Lots of Dots set to fill in the centers.
Then stamped and white heat embossed my sentiment onto vellum. The sentiment is from the Winnie & Walter set The Big The Bold & The Happy. I love this set because even though it doesn't always have the words I want to use, I can always find ways to piece them together to work. Like the word "you're"...that isn't in the set, but I was able to mask off around an "r" and an "e" to get the word. I love that!

I'd like to enter this flower card into the following challenges:
Fusion Card Challenge

MilkCoffee-Lots of Layers
Winnie & Walter-Unexpected Stamping

While I was taking these pics, I turned to my desk and snapped a pic for the Winnie & Walter Craftie challenge. This is how I left it...there are about 4 projects in the works on that desk and it's quite messy...

This is just my work desk. To the left I have my ribbon shelf and a huge cabinet that holds a lot of my supplies, and to the right is my computer, paper, and Silhouette.

So thanks for sticking around to read this whole post! A bit long but I really wanted to share these :) <3

Happy Thursday!
I hope everyone's week has been absolutely fabulous and you are ready to join in a fun new challenge over at Meljen's Designs!!

Our challenge this week is Diamonds Are A Girls Best Friend, so we want to see some bling!!

I thought this sweet little Firefly Fairy image would be perfect for a blingy card! I've paired it with some super sparkly papers that I just love...because they are covered in glitter :) The image is colored in with my pencils and I've covered her wings with some Star Dust Stickles. I used some chalks to shade in the background which allowed me to leave a little halo type thing around the little firefly in the bauble.

For the bling, I added a bunch of little tiny gems around the image. It was easy to figure out their placement because the image already comes with little bubble spots, so I just covered them with the gems :)

Finished it off with a sweet sentiment and the card was done! Super quick and easy :)

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    Crafting with Dragonflies #36-Anything Goes
    Sentimental Sundays #227-Bling it Up
    Sketch Saturday #330

Be sure to swing by Meljen's Designs to see the rest of the DT's creations and then join in the fun! Remember, you are no longer required to use a Meljen's Designs image to enter the challenge, but if you do, you get a double entry!! Now go craft!

Thanks for visiting! <3

Happy Wednesday!
Wanted to stop in and share a few simple cards I've worked on this week.

I won this Newton's Nook stamp set called Newton's Daydream from one of their recent releases, and I've only gotten to play with it a few times...and none of the attempts turned out all that great (hence why you haven't seen any cards with this stamp yet :) ).

The challenge at Newton's Nook is to use fall colors, and I wanted to find a way to use this sweet little sleeping kitty to enter. So I pulled out some of my other stamps, and found some small leaves that I thought might work well together. I wanted Newton to be sleeping on this giant pile of leaves, but decided to just keep it to a small bed so that things didn't get too cluttered around the image. To achieve the look of a leaf bed, I just stamped Newton first and then masked him off while I stamped the leaves :)

The image turned out so stinking cute! I colored him in like my sweet Ezio...he doesn't seem to make an appearance on my cards as much as Storm and Cloud, mostly because he's a tabby and a little bit more of a challenge for me to color correctly. But he deserved a place on this card!

I kept the rest really simple so the image took center stage...and because while I have tons of ideas swirling in my head and the drive to craft...nothing interesting has been making it out onto paper...but I keep trying!

I'd like to enter this kitty card into the following challenges:
Inky Impressions #180-Flowers and Leaves
Newton's Nook Inky Paws #14-Fall Colors
Ruby's Rainbow #89-Autumn Leaves

My second card also features a prize stamp set, but this time from The Cat's Pajamas called Bearing Flowers.

Another simple card but still cute in my opinion. I used a stencil for that small background piece at the top and some distress ink in faded jeans and rusty hinge, along with some grey ink from Stampin Up. The sunflower has been covered in glitter pen because I really wanted some sparkle on this card, but not anything too overwhelming.

I didn't have any blue twine that matched well enough, so I took one of my ShinHan markers and ran it over some grey and white striped twine to change the color. Worked perfect and now it matches exactly to my paper :)

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Ooh La La #166-Use a Bow
Penny's Paper Crafty #198-Polka Dots
Sweet Sunday Sketch #239
The Cat's Pajamas #276-Light Grey, Rust, Dark Blue

Hopefully my creativity will come back to me soon so I can get some of these ideas out of my brain. I hate it when the drive is there and nothing works...my mojo has been gone for too long, I need it back!

So, thanks for stopping by!! <3

Happy Tuesday!
Hope everyone has been well, and welcome to my new followers!!

We have a fun new challenge starting today at Tuesday Throwdown. We want to see you use buttons! I love adding buttons to my cards. They add great dimension and detail to any project and they are just fun. While the physical button is the usual item to reach for, I saw a blog post the other day from Sanketi at The Storyteller where she watercolor painted on her own buttons! How awesome is that! Totally inspiring, I might give that a shot some day if I can ever find the courage...I know it would never look as good as hers...but wow!

So back to my card for this week. I stuck with regular buttons :)

I used an adorable image from our sponsor this week-Robyn's Fetish called Sunflower 2 and did my best to color in lots of dimension and layers to it. I think it turned out pretty good!

For the background piece, I used a mixture of some distress inks blended and smoothed together. Then I tried a fun technique from Shari Carroll where you lay a stencil over your background, mist it a little and then blot up the color around the stencil so that pattern remains darker. It's not all that easy to see, look on the right side of the sunflower. That's about the best spot. It was fun, and I'll try it again sometime, hopefully with better results.

I kept the card overall simple but I just love how it turned out! I used a stripes stencil I made with my Silhouette and added some embossing paste across the white background. Then finished off the card with a few little flags, my twine wrapped button and some Hero Arts gems.

Oh, and I totally forgot to add my sentiment before putting everything together, which resulted in me not having a place to put it. So I white heat embossed it to the center of the sunflower :)

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Crafty Catz #249-All Sentimental
Fusion Card Challenge-Sunflowers

Retro Sketches #135-Choose your own sketch (I got lucky on this one! I worked with sketch #134 from last week :) )

Thanks for stopping by today! Be sure to visit Tuesday Throwdown to join in the fun!! <3

Happy Friday!
I know this space has been quite quiet lately...took a small break from making cards as I just wasn't having much fun with it. Decided to do some scrapbooking in the meantime, which I haven't done in forever...so that felt nice to catch up a little. It still might be a little quiet here as I try to get the card mojo back, but I'll be around again soon :)

But now - it's one of my favorite times of the month: Sami Stamps release time!!!
Sami always nails it with her releases, and this weeks is no different. With the leaves changing and covering the ground, the temps coming down to the perfect level, and all the wonderful fall smells in the air, it has no doubt put me in the fall/Halloween mood.

I chose to use the Two Pumpkins image from this new release, but I also paired it with an image from last years release: Scaredy Cat. Before I started, I lit my pumpkin spice candle, cracked open the windows to get some cool air flowing, and debated on a cup of hot chocolate...only to decide against it for now :)

I have been completely in love with making scenes for my cards lately. It's a strange change for me since I've always been a clean layers type of crafter. But it's been so fun to stretch my imagination and come up with fun cards that don't include patterned paper!

To start this card, before masking off my moon, I laid down a light layer of some scattered straw distress ink, just so the moon wouldn't be completely stark white. Then masked it off and set to work on the rest of the sky. I used a whole mess of distress inks, but they blended so well together that it made the whole sky perfect! The blues were faded jeans, stormy sky, and tumbled glass. I used some seedless preserves for the purple around the moon, and then some spiced marmalade for the moons glow. Black soot darkened up the edges perfectly and made this whole sky just super awesome and a little spooky :) I misted it a few times which is what created the fun speckled look.

For the green hills, I used some peeled paint and forest moss, along with some black soot on the back hill for some depth and dimension. The bats where printed right onto my card and colored in with a black marker. I cut out the fence with my Silhouette, and rearranged it so that it followed the curve of the hill.

My first idea for the pumpkins was to just use my ink blending tools to get the shading on them, but that totally smeared the printer ink on my paper and I had to start over. So I printed them onto watercolor paper and used the spiced marmalade and scattered straw colors to watercolor them in. Worked much better :)

I totally love this card! It turned out exactly as I wanted it to and everything just works so perfectly together!!

So yeah, be sure to swing by Sami Stamps to see this super fun release, and to check out the rest of the DT's creations!! Oh! And then be sure to join in our challenge starting today - Use Orange!!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
2 Cute Ink #116-Halloween
    Craft Your Passion #233-Purple, Orange, Green, Blue
    Divas by Design-Spooky
    Fab n Funky #231-Halloween
    The Corrosive Challenge #209-Halloween Colors

Thanks for visiting! <3

Happy Thursday!
Thanks to everyone that stopped by during my scheduled posts over the last week! It was nice to have a little get-away with the hubby and see some family and friends. Oh and get my butt kicked in my first Tough Mudder race! That's right, I did that! I'll share pics at the end of this post.

But for now, we have a fun new challenge starting today at Meljen's Designs! We want to see patchwork on your creations! I had a lot of fun with this one. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my card, but like always, waited until the last minute to get it done...oh well :)

I still love it :)

I used a bunch of sweet little heart papers from Lawn Fawn, cut them into 1x1 inch squares and pieced them all together on my white mat. Then I did a zig-zag stitch around all of them with my sewing machine. That took a lot of time, but fortunately my machine didn't fuss with me too much so it went pretty smooth!

After finishing the background, I really didn't want to cover the whole thing up, so I kept everything else pretty simple. I used the sweet Little Pocket Puppy image from Meljen's Designs and colored it all in with my ShinHan markers. I added a little StarDust stickles to the pocket and some gold thread for some fun added detail. The heart doily fit perfectly behind him, so I had to add that. And then I used my favorite new Spellbinders die banner for the sentiment! It seems to be the banner I reach for with almost every card lately. Perfect size! I stamped a fun sentiment from the Hero Arts Everyday Sayings set.

So be sure to stop by Meljen's Designs to see the rest of the DT's creations, then join in the fun! Remember, you don't have to use a Meljen's image anymore, but you get a double entry if you do!!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
A Blog Named Hero #52-Patterned Papers
    Card Mania Challenge #56-Doily
    Delightful Challenge-Cute & Cuddly
    Simon Says Stamp-Anything Goes

Ok, back to that Tough Mudder race...well...not race. We've been calling it an "adventure run" :) Matthew and I have been training all year for this race...I knew it would be tough since I watched Matthew do it last year. So we ran, and ran, and ran some more. Race day came and I still struggled with the running...but I had my wonderful husband and some awesome friends to keep pushing me forward!

Enjoy some pics :)

All clean and smiling before hand.

Just yeah...so much mud.

"Arctic Enema"...giant hole of freezing ice water that we had to jump in...so cold!

It's all about team work...and I had the best team ever!

So thankful it was over! But pumped for next year!! <3

Happy Tuesday!
We have a new challenge starting for you today at Tuesday Throwdown. We want to see your New Home creations!!

Our fabulous sponsor is MyGrafico, and they have provided an adorable set of images for us to use!

I decided to feature a windowsill for my card. I started by using a combination of Dusty Concord and Seedless Preserves distress inks to make a dark purple border for my card. Then layered a fun embossed background over the purple to give a nice detailed backdrop for my window. I decided to use some patterned paper behind my window instead of doing some sort of scene so that the focus would remain on the adorable little flowers in the windowsill.

The flowers (from the Kitchen Garden set from MyGrafico) are colored in with my ShinHan markers, and then coated with some glitter brush so they sparkled. Because no card is complete without sparkle :)

The sentiment is computer generated and then cut out with a Spellbinders banner die before being mounted below the window with a couple layers of foam tape.

Overall pretty simple. But I just love the bright purple with the sweet heart paper in the windows.

Be sure to swing by Tuesday Throwdown and check out the rest of the DT's creation!!

Thanks for visiting! <3

Happy Saturday!
I hope the start to your weekend has been fabulous! Right now I am probably in the middle of running my first ever Tough Mudder race!! Eek! So as you can guess, this post has been scheduled :)

I am so excited to be a guest designer over at Send A Smile 4 Kids this week! Thank you so much for having me SAS4K!!

The challenge there this week is to use fall colors and make a creation for kids! The sponsors are Jelly Park (offering 4 images), QKR Stampede (offering 5 images), and Sassy Studio (offering 4 images). Such awesome sponsors and prizes, so be sure to join in!!

For my card, I've used the adorable Jumping in Leaves image from Jelly Park. This was such a fun image to color, with all those sweet leaves. Just made me smile!

I paired the card with some really fun fall papers from my stash, and used a doily in the background. To soften the doily and not have it be so stark white, I used some Antique Linen distress ink around the edges.

When I saw this fun sentiment from Create with TLC, I knew it would fit perfectly with this joyful image!

Be sure to swing by the Send A Smile 4 Kids challenge and join in the fun!!

Thanks for visiting today! <3

Hi everyone!
I wanted to swing in real quick to share a super fun card with you! Right now I'm on the road to Michigan, preparing to run my first ever Tough Mudder race with my husband! A bit nervous, but it will be so fun!

This card popped into my mind as I was digging around for different ways to use this super adorable stamp set.

See!! So cute! I used the adorable little pup image from the Simon Says Stamp You Are Pawesome set. But instead of just leaving him alone, I sketched out a fun cape and eye mask to make a super pup :)

I figured he needed a starry sky to fly through, so I used some fun patterned paper and a couple sparkly stars over a vellum circle.

Finished it all off with a little sentiment tag and some clear buttons.

I just love this card! And I hope you do too! I hope it inspires you to take a look at your stamps and see what else you can do with them :)

Thanks for visiting!! <3

Here is my second card for this Sami Stamps release. You can see my first card HERE!

For this card, I've used the oh-so-sweet Ribbon Kitty image (which you can get for free with another purchase at Sami's shop right now!)

As you know, I adore kitties.   Having 3 of my own, they are the joy that fills my heart. And I just want to get more :) So of course, I had to use this image when I saw it in Sami's release for this week. I really wanted him to be nestled on top of a heart with a soft background, but none of the papers I had were working.

So I pulled out another stencil that I had made, grabbed a few more distress inks, and altered colors down the chevron pattern to make the background! Aren't stencils awesome?! I love that with a few inks, you can have your own custom background that is perfect for your card :)

I covered the background with a piece of vellum to mute down the colors a little bit, and then sewed around the edges for some fun detail. The heart was cut out with my Silhouette. I uses some Lawn Fawn papers for that, which matched perfectly to my background!

Then colored in my kitty with my ShinHan markers. I love his fun fluffy tail! Again, covered the whole ribbon in glitter pen so it sparkled. I pieced together a touching sentiment onto a die cut banner from Spellbinders and attached it below the image.

The finishing touch was a few clear sequins sprinkled around the card, with some red gems in the centers.

Be sure to swing by Sami Stamps to see the rest of the release!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    2 Cute Ink #114-Anything Goes
    Pattie's Creations #99-Cat or Dog
    Penny's Paper-Crafty #194-Stitching
    Simon Says Stamp-Make Your Own Background
    Sketch Saturday #326
    Word Art Wednesday #149-Anything Goes

Thanks for visiting again!! <3

Happy Friday!!
Everyone ready for this wonderful fall weekend!? I am! Especially since it's our last weekend before a little vacation! Matthew and I have signed up to do the Tough Mudder race next weekend in Michigan, and while I am totally freaking out about the race, I can't wait for the little get away that surrounds it. And we get to celebrate Matthew's birthday while we are home, so that makes the trip even more awesome!!

Back to today's post though :) We have a sweet new release today at Sami Stamps - Beautiful Ribbons! In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, and the celebrate both her mother and grandmother's victory over breast cancer, Sami has drawn up some adorably heartfelt images for this release.

I will be sharing my cards in 2 separate posts. So be sure to check out my other card HERE!

For this first card, I used the Flowers for a Cause image:

I just loved this image. The flower is so sweet and while the focus is on breast cancer for this release, this image is really great for any awareness!

To start the card, I laid down a stencil I made with my Silhouette, and used some distress inks to make an ombre colored background. Once that was dry, I added another homemade heart stencil and used some white embossing paste to fill it in. Before it all dried, I sprinkled some glitter over top because I really wanted those hearts to sparkle, but the glitter didn't really stick all that well and proceeded to rub off the more I worked with the card...guess I'll stick with using sparkly embossing powder on the paste so I can heat set it.

For the image, I colored it all in with my ShinHan markers and added a bunch of glitter brush so it really shimmered! I used some fun lacy ribbon around the edge to give it a frame but still keep it soft overall.

The sentiment was the last part to be added...mostly because I didn't plan that out from the beginning and struggled to find one that I wanted to use. I decided to use this sentiment because it was encouraging and really said how I feel about anyone that is battling cancer. The strength they have to keep fighting blows me away and I really feel they are amazing!

I did add a few drops of glue that I sprinkled with glitter around the sentiment and image. Just wanted the whole card to sparkle!

You can see the rest of the release at Sami Stamps, along with the DT's amazing creations!

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Artistic Inspirations #108-Anything Goes/Round and Round
    Craft Your Passion #230-Going Round in Circles
    Crafting With Dragonflies #34-Girly and Lacy
    Crafty Catz 246-Clean and Simple
    Creative Fingers #48-Anything Goes/Flowers
    Delightful Challenge-Simple Times
    Simon Says Stamp-Create Your Own Background

Thanks for visiting! <3

Happy Thursday!!
Time to start another awesome challenge at Meljen's Designs! Did you know that you can now use any image you want on your creations for that challenge!? You'll get a double entry if you use a Meljen's Designs image, and we always love seeing what you can do with those!

For this weeks challenge, we want to see you use a funny sentiment! Make us laugh :)
This challenge can always be fun...who doesn't love to receive a funny card in the mail? I really wanted to do something Halloween related with mummy's and stuff...but just couldn't wrap my head around something funny to say on the card. So I sifted through my sentiments and knew as soon as I saw this one that I had to use it...even if it has nothing to do with Halloween (I'll try that theme again later :) ).

Bahahahaha! That sentiment just cracks me up! Fortunately there is no cake or ice cream around to come out my nose...but I'm still getting a good chuckle from it :)

I chose to use the Triple Treat Cupcakes image from Meljen's Designs for this card. It's colored in really softly with my Spectrum Noir pencils and blended slightly with some baby oil. I then covered each of the tops of the cupcakes with Wink of Stella Clear Glitter Pen, the swirls with some Star Dust Stickles, and the hearts with some Glossy Accents.

I wrapped the twine around my card and mounted the sentiment where all the threads met together. I was thinking of trying to make up a striped straw or something to use instead of the twine, but the twine was just right there on my desk...begging to be used. So I stuck with that :)

Finished it all off with some clear gems in the corners! Love this fun birthday card!!

So be sure to swing by Meljen's Designs to check out the rest of the design teams creations, they will crack you up!!!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    DigiStamps4Joy #100-Celebrations
    Divas by Design-Anything Goes
    Mojo Monday Sketch #362
    Totally Gorjuss #252-Bling

Thanks for visiting! <3

Happy Wednesday everyone!!
I worked on this card last week, and then it got lost in the piles of other stuff on my desk and I forgot about it. Do you ever lose cards on your desk? I've been trying so hard to keep everything organized and clean up after myself each day, but some days the mess just stays...

But since I've been on a sunflower kick lately...figured what's the harm in one more? :) I'm sure it won't be my last!

Sorry for the poor photo quality...been struggling really hard lately to get nice photos and it's frustrating me!..

But for this card I used the Our Friendship Grows set again from Lawn Fawn. The sunflower has been white heat embossed and I did some masking to get the leaves positioned correctly. Then I set to coloring with my ShinHan markers. I found a gorgeous sunflower color combo that I just love and can't get enough of! And the white outline just looks so elegant with this flower!

To keep everything one layer, I die cut out the Stitched Journaling card die from Lawn Fawn right from my patterned paper and did the same with my image so they pieced together.

To get the sentiment lined up, I first stamped it directly below the sunflower. Then used my Spellbinders banner die to cut out the sentiment banner, fit in the Kraft piece and stamped the sentiment again, using the top of the L to line everything up. Worked perfectly!

I kept the embellishing simple with just a few dots of liquid pearls and some Wink of Stella clear glitter pen to the whole sunflower. Super sparkly!! I love this card. Just so soft and gorgeous!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    Lawnscaping Challenge-One Layer
    Ooh La La #164-Clean and Simple
    The Paper Shelter #173-Embossing

Thanks for stopping by today!! <3