Friends ‘Til the End Card

Hi, all! Just here with a card I put together the other night. I haven’t had a particularly great deal of time lately to really craft. It’s been just a few minutes here and there, but finally… some creating time.

This was a really messy, fun card to make. I created the little colorful background paper with alcohol inks (from Ranger) and some synthetic EVO paper that was sent to me from Et Cetera Papers to try out. Fun stuff. It really takes nicely to alcohol inks.

I also die-cut the flowers from a piece of the paper and with a die from Simon Says Stamp! I tried it first without a shim. Found I really needed the metal shim to make it cut through the paper with that die. Might have been the intricacy of the die, in full disclosure, as I have not attempted it with other dies yet. But did want to disclose that. Rather than going freestyle with alcohol inks, I just colored the flowers with Copic markers. I first colored them in yellow and then changed my mind, adding some color with a golden orange over the top.

Everything else on the card is just basic stuff. Word cut from cardstock and with an old Papertrey Ink die. Same for the stamped words. They came from a really old Papertrey Ink stamp set. (I’ve been working lately to really pare down my craft stash …. as well as stuff in general in my house…. and get rid of stuff I’m not really using. This is stuff I’ve had and just have not used. It was nice to use it.) The square was cut with an old My Favorite Things die. Fun to use those things.

Alright! That’s it for me. I’ll be back later, gators. See you again soon.

Valentine Challenge Bonus

Hi guys!

The Valentine challenge with Ashley is over but I’m sneaking in with one bonus card for it. It seemed like a pity to not share so here I am… again.

Keeping with my theme of trying to use stamps that haven’t been inked much, I whipped out a little stamp set from Papertrey Ink. Always liked the Heart-2-Heart #4 set. You just can’t go wrong with cute little telephone stamps… in my professional stamp loving opinion and all.

I die-cut the telephone 3 times  and stamped on top. Then I sponged a little ink onto my card base. I added the phones, a stamped sentiment and a few stamped hearts. I also added a few drops of black Nubo crystal drops. 

I like how those drops always add just the right amount of something!

So that’s all I have for today. Be sure to swing by Ashley’s blog to see her all takes this week on the challenge. Such fun stuff.

And one more thing, if you haven’t done a challenge lately, I’m going to encourage you to do one. Find one online or draft a friend to do it with you. It’s such a great way to get those creative juices flowing… and to relax a little from life. Doing stuff for you is fun sometimes, ya know? See you again soon, friends.

CASE Study 3rd Anniversary Blog Hop (8-1)

Hi all!

Thrilled to be joining the lovely bunch over at the CASE Study challenge for their 3rd anniversary blog hop.

You should have arrived from the blog of sweet Barbara Anders! If you are just joining the hop, welcome!

I dig the CASE Study folks because (1) they super nice and are all about just having fun and crafting and (2) they encourage being inspired by others! Every week, they draw inspiration from another crafter. It’s always fun to see what inspired them and how they turn that inspiration into a new project!

For the hop, we were invited to pick something or someone who inspires us.  And I was really inspired by the first sentiment on this Work Hard piece of graphic design work by Mary Parkis. I really loved the treatment she gave the letters so I wanted to mimic that look somewhat.

So meet my “inspired” card! 🙂

Here’s how I got the multi-colored look.

First, I die-cut the grateful phrase from good old white cardstock. (By the way, the die is from Papertrey Ink.)

I set it on scratch paper and then I started rubbing my super juicy, Hero Arts neon inks all over them.

First one color. Then the next.

I kept going until I got something like this.

Ta-da!

That’s what I have for you!

Next stop on the hop is the blog of (super awesome) Laura Bassen!

Happy hopping!