Hi everyone!
Wow, twice in one weekend!  I never post on weekends, so this is a change for me.  I can't guarantee it will continue, but I had so much fun making these cards this week that I wanted to take the time to share them all with you.

I shared one of these cards on my Instagram feed earlier this week.  You can find me HERE if you wish to follow along!  I'd love to have you join me!  I'm really trying to stay consistent with posting there...social media is a little tough for me because I always feel a bit stupid sharing things in my life that I'm sure no one is really interested in (how many cat photos can one person handle in a day?)...but I'm working on it :)

So for Christmas, Matthew bought me the super cute Polynesian Paradise stamp set from My Favorite Things.  Ever since our vacation to Hawaii this past August, I have been drooling over this set and dreaming of the day when I could get my little fingers on it.  I was so excited to open that gift!  And couldn't wait to get around to playing with it!  I did use a few of the flowers in our Christmas card this year but that was all I had done, until I saw the sketch this week at My Favorite Things and knew I had to play along!

Don't you just love this card!!  I am over the moon excited about how it turned out!  I started by cutting out the frame with my Silhouette and then taking each of the rectangle inserts and coloring them up with some soft beachy colors.  I splattered them with a little water so they had some fun flecks to them and then set to work coloring up the flowers. 

I used my Inktense pencils for them...totally addicted to those right now!!  I added a little bit of shimmer to each flower as well.  The tucan in the set actually comes facing to the left..but the way I wanted to position him on my card needed to have him facing the right.  So I did a little mirror stamping by inking up the stamp, pressing it down onto the backside of a larger stamp and then pressing that onto the paper.  The lines don't come out super bold, and it took me a few tries to get the whole image to fully stamp.  But it worked well enough so I could go back over the whole image with the outliner pencil in the Inktense set and darken the lines up.  Then I colored him in as well :)

I finished this card off with one of the awesome sentiments and a scattering of Sparking Clear Sequins from Pretty Pink Posh..of course!!

My next card is the one I gave a sneak peak of on my Instagram.  I couldn't resist sharing a little bit of it because it's just so cute!!

When I created the first card, I actually cut out two of those frames so I had one ready for a second card.  So I decided to use just the rectangle inserts on this card.  I lined them up the way they should fit into the frame, and then stamped them with a woodgrain background and heat embossed that in white, so it's a fun white on white design.

The background colors are Hickory Smoke, Blueprint Sketch, and Twisted Citron distress inks.  These colors come together in the mini set and I thought they would work so well together on this card...which they did :)

I got those all blended together and then once again splattered it with water and some shimmer mist to give some fun texture and sparkle.  While that dried, I colored in a few more flowers and the sweet Chameleon.  You can see that just the tips of his little toes are turning pink from where he's standing on the flower, but the rest of him matches the background.  So much fun!!!

I wanted to make this a birthday card, so I stamped a few tags from Lily of the Valley and used a little coordinating twine to tie them all together.  And then finished it all off with the Clear Droplets from Pretty Pink Posh.

I'm in love...this stamp set is my favorite and I am so excited to keep playing with it!!!

I'd like to enter these cards into the following challenges:
    Crafting When We Can #110-Something New
    My Favorite Things Sketch #262
    Simon Says Stamp-Something New
    Word Art Wednesday #217-Anything Goes

Thank you so much for stopping by!

read more →

Hi Everyone!  Happy Monday!
I hope you all had a fabulous Halloween this weekend!  We were able to attend a little party with our close friends...it was awesome!  We even did a little dressing up :)  I'll share that pic at the end...but first, to my card!

Awhile ago I was working on making up some stationary for a letter that I'm trying to build up the courage to write...figured it might be easier/nicer to have some gorgeous paper to write it on.  But after getting the stationary finished, I had these little scraps left over that just screamed to be used...I knew I couldn't throw them away.  So I mulled it over for a little bit, and the best idea ever struck me!

I turned them into Christmas Lights!!  Ok so the die cut that I was using for my stationary pieces was the Notebook Edge Die-namic from My Favorite Things.  It's a super fun die to have and I love the nice finished edge it gives...but it also leaves behind these cute little strips with circles from where the holes are in the notebook edge!

With the holidays bearing down on us, I thought those cute little circle string stripes were perfect for Christmas lights, so I colored them up with my markers and generously coated them with some wink of stella clear glitter.  I even added foam tape to the back of each of those little circles so they had some dimension behind them!  Once they were all adhered, I coated them in glossy accents so they would really shine!

I think they look so perfect with the blue night sky behind them :)  And I've been addicted to my new Liquid Platinum embossing powder, so of course I had to use it for the sentiment on this card!  The final touch was a few white and silver dots in the sky for the stars.  I adore this card!  It was so fun to come up with a unique way to use scraps from a previous project!

I encourage you to try and think outside the box with your scraps...you never know what you might come up with!  If you do have a unique project using your scraps, share it with me here!  I'd love to check them out!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    Addicted to Stamps #168-Holiday
    Fab n Funky #279-Christmas
    Incy Wincy Designs-Anything Goes
    Simon Says Stamp-Anything Goes

Oh and here is our Halloween pic :)

Thanks so much for visiting!!! <3

read more →

Happy Friday!
We have an adorable new Sami Stamps release to share with you today!  This release, titled Little Angels, is absolutely the sweetest!  You won't want to miss it!

I got the chance to play with Little Love Angel for my card:

With such a sweet image, I wanted to try and keep my card colors soft as well.  It kind of worked, but some of the papers turned out brighter than I expected...which still works!

I started by using some Stampin Up Sage Shadow and inking up a full background with that color.  When I was done, I splattered it with water to get the little faded water drops.  I die cut out a fun cloud type border from Mama Elephant's Landscape Trio die set and bordered that along the edge of my image panel.

I kept my coloring simple on my sweet little angel, again going for soft colors..though that green sort of steals the show :)
Of course, I added touches of glitter to all the hearts and the cloud.  The sentiment is printed off and framed with Notebook Edge border die from My Favorite Things.

I finished my image off by adding a little pierced frame around the edge for some extra detail, and a few little enamel dots in the corner.

I hope you enjoy this sweet release!  Be sure to stop by Sami Stamps to see the rest of the DT's amazing creations.  We also are starting a fun new challenge this week--Frame It!  So join in the fun!!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    Crafty Catz #291-Anything Goes
    Creative Fingers #91-Anything Goes
    Penny's Paper Crafty #243-Use A Sentiment
    Simon Says Stamp-Make It Colorful

Thanks for visiting! <3

read more →