*Birthday Flower Trio*

Happy Wednesday everyone!  I did manage to find an overlap of time in my craft space and creativity on my days off... but sadly, not much.  I don't know what it is...  I have ideas I want to play with, I go sit in my craft space and I procrastinate until it's time for me to head out of the house or make dinner or whatever.

Part of it could just be that I want doggo snuggles.

Watson is settling in quite nicely in the house.  He is still a very sweet and kind boy.  Willis is doing OK adapting to having another dog in *his* house for the most part.  It's not been perfect but it's been better than I feared it could be.  The most interesting part of the day is when Watson heads under the blankets when we head to bed and Willis barks and paws at the lump in the bed.  every. single.night.

I played around with a couple of different stamp sets to create this bright and cheery birthday card.  You could easily change it to a card for a different occasion by simply changing the sentiment on the card.

Items Used:
*Cardstock:  Neenah Solar Crest Bright White
*Ink:  Catherine Pooler Grape Crush, Pixie Dust, Lime Rickey; Versafine Claire Nocturne
*Stamps:  Winnie & Walter Shirley's Blooms; Gina K Designs Where Flowers Bloom; MFT Essential Elements
*Dies:  MFT Stitched Rectangles; Gina K Designs Where Flowers Bloom
*Tools:  Big Shot; Gina K Connect Glue

*Distress Ink Silhouette*

Thanks for being patient with my short blog hiatus... I can't promise it won't happen again... sometimes the creativity doesn't flow on my days off (not to mention DOG SNUGGLES!)

I am on the Scrap'n Stamp blog today, sharing a card I created this past week using a great stamp set from My Favorite Things as well as a couple of colours of Tim Holtz Distress Inks. As always, I have tried to keep with my Clean and Simple style although I think this one pushes the boundaries in some sense of the idea of clean and simple.

I started out this card by cutting out a piece of white cardstock using one of the dies from the MFT Stitched Rectangles die set. I then used Post It tape to mask off the edges as I wanted the stitching to be a break between my blended background and white. I then used my Tim Holtz Blending Tool and Wilted Violet and Shaded Lilac inks to create my background. I started with the lighter colour on one end, the darker colour on the other end and then slowly got them joined up in the centre. I layered up extra colour along the bottom to create a deep dark colour, trying to do a gradient of colour towards the top.

I took this coloured piece and placed it in my stamp positioner using the strips of Post It tape that I left in place to keep the piece in place. I then used VersaFine Clair ink in Nocturne to stamp up some of the images of the MFT In Bloom Stamp set. I used my stamp positioner so that I could double or triple stamp as needed to ensure I got a good deep black stamped image each time.

Before I removed the Post It Tape, I used a paint brush and water to make spatters on the piece. The Distress Ink reacts with the water to leave a distressed look. I then did the same thing with my Nuvo Glimmer Pen to add just a hint of sparkle.

To finish off the card, I cut another rectangle using the MFT Stitched Rectangles and layered my decorated piece on top of it, then centred it on the front of a white card.

I encourage you to get out your Tim Holtz Distress Inks and some solid image stamps to create your own Silhouette scene.

Items Used:
*Cardstock: SU Black; Neenah Solar White
*Ink: Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Wilted Violet, Shaded Lilic; VersaFine Clair Nocturne
*Stamps: MFT In Bloom
*Dies: MFT Stitched Rectangles
*Tools: Misti; Tim Holtz Blending Tool; Big Shot
*Etc: Post It Tape; Nuvo Shimmer Pen

*A Little Quiet*

Hi Everyone... just wanted to pop on and apologize that there won't be a card for a few days.... we adopted a new dog earlier this week and honestly I just haven't managed to get in to my craft space.  I promise to find some time after my work week is done on Saturday to create and share again....

But for now, please meet Watson!  He is a 2.5 year old Chiweenie (chihuahua dachshund cross) that we rescued from the Fur-Ever Homes organization here in Calgary.  He joins our existing fur-family of Miikka (a 12 year old cat) and Willis (a 4 year old Havanese Yorkie cross dog).  Watson is calm, sweet and loving... a wonderful addition to our family.

We've never had two dogs at the same time before so it can be a little overwhelming at times.  Willis is doing OK with his new brother... he isn't completely thrilled but he's doing his best to cope.  Of course he has his moments so we are sure to be supervising them as much as we can.  The first night Willis was stress licking his paws a *lot*... the second night he didn't do it at all.  They both seem rather possessive of me so that could prove to be interesting.

For now, instead of a card, I will leave you with some Watson photos!

*CASology #350*

It's time for a new challenge on the CASology blog... the cue for this challenge is WATER.  You have two weeks to play along with the challenge and link up your creation HERE.  Remember to keep your creation Clean and Simple!  Our sponsor for this week is STAMPlorations.

Sadly, this card was very difficult to photograph.  I couldn't get a good photo of the entire card, no matter how hard I tried.  So the card above shows you the overall look of the card while the card below shows you the detail.

I had a blast playing with my new Foil Quill on my Silhouette Portrait.  I saw this sentiment and knew in an instant I wanted to use it for this challenge.  But then, the problem I faced, is that I don't own any wine stamps.  So I played some more with the Silhouette and cut out a wine glass from silver glitter paper.

After I had it all put together, I did notice a small mistake on the card.... can you see it??

Items Used:

*Cardstock:  Neenah Classic Crest Solar White; Stampin' Up! Basic Black; silver glitter

*Tools:  Perfect Layers Tool; Silhouette Portrait; We R Memory Keepers Foil Quill

*Etc:  Rose Gold foil

Please go have a look at what the rest of the design team has created using the WATER theme.

Deidre Payne

Jacquie Southas

Janet Ribet 

Jen Wills

Joyce Mehrberg

Karen Haman

Melissa Chipperfield

Milka Gubo

Nancy Elrick  -- you are here

Sue Symens

*AAA #147*

It's time for another Challenge on the AAA Cards blog!  If you are playing along, be sure to include a lot of white space on your card.  By white space, I don't mean just white space.... I mean clean space.... I mean areas of your card that are not stamped or decorated or patterned or embellished.  We'd love to see what you create using the idea of "Along the Edge" with the optional twist of being inspired by a song.

Link up a card you’ve created on the AAA Cards Blog for your chance to win a $25 shopping spree at CASual Friday!

I cheated big time on this card.... my "inspired by a song" is the Happy Birthday song LOL!

I was inspired by a recent blog post by Amy R at Prairie Paper and Ink....  you can see it HERE.  She created the inside of a card using a rainbow patterned paper and I just love the look for it.  I played with some Catherine Pooler inks and a stamp in my Stamparatus to create something similar on a one layer card.

Items Used;
*Cardstock:  white
*Images:  Catherine Pooler Amazing Floral; Avery Elle So Kind
*Ink:  Catherine Pooler in Party Dress, Samba, Orange Twist, Limoncello, Lime Rickey, Grass Skirt, All That Jazz, Suede Shoes, Grape Crush; VersaFine Clair Nocturne
*Tools:  Stamparatus
*Embellishments:  Frosted Lace Stickles

Head over to the BLOG to see what all of the design team has been up to and leave some love for Angie, our guest designer this challenge!

*Left Over Pieces*

When I created my rainbow owl card the other day, I had some left over pieces... in fact, I still have left over pieces.  I had these circles sitting on my desk and I was playing with them while watching TV and thought that they looked kind of cool together like this... so I glued them together and started to think about what I wanted to do.

I guess I was still feeling inspired by that unicorn rainbow card I had seen so I grabbed my Gerda Steiner stamps and inked up one of those cute unicorns.  I coloured him up with my Copics (no shading) and cut him out using the matching dies.  I put glue on the back of his head and pop dots on his body since the circles made a pretty deep layer.  I added the cheeky sentiment and called it done.

Items Used:
*Cardstock:  assorted from my stash; Neenah Solar White
*Stamps:  Gerda Steiner Moody Unicorns
*Ink:  Copics; GinaK Amalgam; VersaFine Clair Nocturne
*Dies:  MFT stitched circles
*Tools:  Big Shot
*Etc:  GinaK Connect Glue; Stampin' Up! Dimensionals

*MFT Happy Birthday*

I'm back with another post for the Scrap'n Stamp Blog... and following my true style, it's a clean and simple card.

I placed an order for much of the newer My Favorite Things stuffa few weeks ago and have been having a great time playing with it all.  I absolutely LOVE their new alphabet dies... they are a great font and a great size.

There's not much to say about this card.  I think it's pretty straight forward how I put it all together.  The only piece you can't quite see in the photo is that I used black fun foam as a layer behind the word "birthday" to create some extra dimension.  I have been known to glue 3 or 4 layers of cardstock together to create a similar look, but the foam was quicker and easier since it was only one more cut of the die.

Another fun thing I could have done with this card was inlaid the "HAPPY" letters in to the top panel of the card.

Items Used:
*Cardstock:  assorted from my stash
*Tools:  Big Shot; Perfect Layers Tool
*Dies:  MFT Impact Alphabet; Create A Smile Birthday

*I Hope It's A Hoot*

Once again, I was inspired by a card I saw on Pinterest.  You can go see it HERE.  I loved the idea of the rainbow, but I don't have any rainbow dies... so I got creative and used my stitched circles dies to create the rainbow pieces.  I was going to use my Gerda Steiner unicorns as in the inspiration card, be decided it was way too close of a copy that way so I pulled out one of the extra owls I had stamped, coloured and cut out a few weeks ago. 

Items Used:
*Cardstock:  assorted cardstock from my stash
*Stamps:  MFT I'm Owl Yours
*Dies:  MFT Stitched Circles
*Ink:  GinaK Amalgam; VersaFine Clair Nocturne; Copics
*Tools:  Big Shot; Scan 'n Cut
*Etc:  foam squares

*As Wonderful As You Are*

I was playing around with colours for a rainbow the other day and as I was putting away the ink pads I'd been using, I put these three colours away one after the other and thought to myself "I'd like to play with those colours together".... so that's where this card came from.

Items Used:
*Cardstock:  White, Stampin' Up! Melon Mambo
*Ink:  Catherine Pooler Lime Rickey, Party Dress and Orange Twist; VersaFine Clair Nocturne
*Stamps:  Gina K Crazy Daisy and Where Flowers Bloom
*Tools:  Perfect Layers Tool

*You Were Born*

Happy Thursday everyone!  Thanks for popping by to visit my blog.  I am still floored that I am creating as much as I am this year... it feels SO good to be creating so much!  And part of that is thanks to you...  without this blog and those of you who leave comments, I don't think I'd be driven to create nearly as much as I have been.  For example, on Tuesday I knew I had to spend my day in my creative space as I had no more cards to share with you... and thankfully the creative gods smiled on me and allowed my creativity to flow. 

I used a card I found on Pinterest (see it here) as inspiration... and tried to make it my own.  I am so excited that I finally was able to purchase this MFT "celebrate" die!  I have another one by another company but it's just not as nice...

Items Used:
*Cardstock:  whatever white I have on hand
*Paper:  MFT
*Die:  MFT celebrate
*Stamps:  MFT Sassy Pants Birthday Greetings 2
*Ink:  Catherine Pooler in Party Dress, Tiki Torch, Limoncello, Lime Rickey and Something Borrowed; VersaFine Clair Nocturne
*Tooks:  Picket Fence Studios Life Changing Blending Brushes
*Embellishments:  Nuvo Aqua Shimmer Pen

*CASology #349*

Welcome to CASology Challenge #349....

For this challenge, our cue is Grill.  I am so thankful that my good friend Bonnie had a set I could use.... but that was only half the battle for me.... I then had to think of what to do with that set.

This card was a real struggle for me...  I honestly didn't know how to approach this stamp set.  So I played around for a bit and came up with this card.  I stamped the image on the front of a white panel and gave it a quick colour (aka no shading) with some Copics.  I then used my Misti to stamp the flame in three different colours of ink.  I stamped the sentiment right below the BBQ, created on offset border on two sides with that great black and white striped paper and put it all on to a top folding white card.

I'm not in love with this card, but I'm glad I challenged myself to try to work with something outside of my comfort zone.

Items Used:
*Cardstock:  Neenah Classic Crest Solar White (110lb)
*Paper:  My Favorite Things
*Images:  Picket Fence Studios You Are The Icons and You Are The Analogies
*Ink:  Copics; Memento Tuxedo Black; Catherine Pooler Tiki Torch, Samba, Rockin; Red
*Tools:  Misti; Perfect Layers Tool

Please check out the rest of the design team and what they've been up to....

Deidre Payne

Jacquie Southas

Janet Ribet 

Jen Wills

Joyce Mehrberg

Karen Haman

Melissa Chipperfield

Milka Gubo

Nancy Elrick  -- you are here

Sue Symens

*AAA Challenge #146*

Welcome to the AAA Challenge #146... this time around, our sponsor is Stamplorations!  You can see from the image below that our theme is Made in Minutes with the optional twist of summer.  Made in Minutes cards may be something that you took some time to design, but you should be able to recreate the card in just a few minutes... one of those designs you can go to and throw it together when you're in a jam!  Remember that here at AAA Cards, we are looking for lots of white space in your cards.... and by white space we mean space (of any colour honestly) that is free of pattern in any way, shape or form (free of pattern, embellishments, embossing).  Play along with us and post your card to the AAA Challenge blog for your chance to be chosen!  Also, be sure to check out our guest designer for this month.... Bobbi has a great card for this challenge!

I love love love Clean and Simple cards... in fact I think I struggle with cards with more on them than a few points of interest.

The most difficult part of this card was creating the sentiment strip... otherwise it went together pretty fast.  I cut out a circle frame using two MFT Stitched circles and adhered it to the front of the card.  I stamped the owl from an MFT set with Tuxedo Black Memento ink and did a quick (ie, not shaded) colouring of it with my Copics.  I used my Scan n Cut to cut out the owl (in fact, I cut out multiple as I wanted to play with colour combinations).  I stamped the MFT sentiment on to black cardstock and embossed it with white ink and trimmed it down with my Cut-Align tool and my Xacto knife, then used scissors to create a flag on each end.  I adhered the sentiment banner along the bottom of the circle frame and then used Pop Dots to adhere the owl to the side of the card.

Items Used:
*Cardstock:  white from the print shop, Neenah Classic Crest Solar White (110), black Stampin' Up!
*Stamps:  MFT I'm Owl Yours
*Dies:  MFT stitched circles
*Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, VersaMagic, Copics
*Tools:  white embossing powder, heat tool, big Shot, Cut-Align

*Pop'n Hop*

Welcome to the August Blog Hop for https://www.scrapnstamp.ca/blog/!  This month, our hop theme is Pop Up Cards!!

Follow along with all of the links below and leave a comment on each stop on the hop to be entered to win a $50 gift certificate from Scrap'n Stamp!!!

And there's more!  All August orders at Scrap'n Stamp will receive a free Pop Up box to play with!!  Of course, this is while supplies last so I recommend shopping soon!

I will admit that I was intimidated when we were told about this blog hop.  As someone who leans towards clean and simple cards, I wasn't sure how I was going to pull this off.  I decided to run as soon as my kit arrived and started pulling out things I thought I might want to use... but my head kept turning to my stash of Christmas dies and stamps... so I put aside the flowers and grabbed the snowmen and snowflakes and decided to play!

Let's start with a few process photos for you...  as I will admit I had no idea how to put this box together.  What I was reading was that it was difficult to get the support pieces adhered to the inside of the box once it was all together, so I enlisted the help of my PhD in Physics hubby who is much better visually than I am and we figured this out together.

The kit from Scrap'n Stamp comes all cut out and all scored so all you have to do is put it together and decorate it.  There are dies you can purchase as well (Lawn Fawn) that will cut the boxes and pieces for you.  So I laid out the box and and adhered the first strip along the fold line of the inside of the box.  I lined the edge up to the scored line and used double sided adhesive to stick it in place.  I left the right side of the piece without adhesive.

I then lined up the second piece, same as the first, but lined up the edge of the piece with the folded edge of the piece I had just put down.

and then I did the same thing again, adhering the third row piece on to the box, lining up with the edge of the piece before it.  I then added adhesive to the right side of all three pieces.

I pressed those three pieces out flat on the inside of the box before folding over the far right hand piece of the box...

... and I pressed hard to make sure those three pieces were adhered to that panel.

I then went about putting together the rest of the box.  Truly, the hardest part are those three inserts, but once you figure out a way that works for you, I don't think it's all that difficult

I then started playing with different stamps and dies until I figured out what I wanted to do.... and I came up with this...

I used some scraps of patterned paper I had in my stash that I've had for more years than I wish to admit to.  I stamped up the snowmen and the trees from the Lawn Fawn Simply Celebrate Winter set and coloured them with my Tombows.  I stamped two sets of the trees and coloured one set darker than the other and layered both of them together on the back panel for a little more dimension. I cut out some Impression Obsession snowflakes and attached them to strips of acetate (from Staples) to make them look like they are floating in the air.  I added a sentiment to the front, put the pieces on to the strips and voila!

Items Used:
*Patterned Paper:  No idea
*Box:  The Paper Cut Square Pop-Up Box Card
*Ink:  VersaFine Clair Nocturne, Tombow markers
*Stamps:  Lawn Fawn Simply Celebrate Winter; Lawn Fawn Merry Messages
*Tools:  3mm Be Creative Tape, Big Shot, Lawn Fawn Simply Celebrate Winter dies, Perfect Layers Tool, Glue Dots
*Other:  acetate

I encourage you to pick up one of these sets from Scrap'n Stamp and try making some of these yourself.  They are fun to create and I am SURE there will be a huge smile on the face of the person I choose to send this one to.  I think these would make excellent cards to make to give to kids!

So please, check out the links to the blogs below and see how the rest of the design team decided to use their pop up boxes.

Tara

Susan

Chala

Nancy E -- you are here!

Laurie

Nancy F

Sandi

Kia

Deborah