How are you my crafty friends? It's time for another Fall card from me today! I am in full-on-Fall-mode now. I love it all – my favorite crafty time of the year. My card is made with the Autumn Wreath stamp set from Taylored Expressions. Have you seen all the wreath stamps? There is an entire series of them and they are all so fun to work with. A full supply list is at the bottom of my post. But, of course, I chose the Fall one for today!

 

 

 

 

I used the pretty houndstooth embossing plate to make my cream background piece. I cut the mega oak leaf out of the Doodlebut paper and stamped my sentiment right on the leaf! 

 

 

 

Here is a close up of my coloring and the dimensional parts of the card…

 

 

 

My Copic color palette for this card….

Today is also an AWESOME BLOG HOP DAY for the new Stamp of the Month Kit from Taylored Expressions! Be sure to check out all the gorgeous cards. Start your hop HERE!

 

 

Hello! One last project for September Taylored Expressions Release Week!  The birthday bash week sure has been fun don't you think? Did you get some new goodies? Play in the contests? I sure hope you've enjoyed everything as much as I have this week! Today's party game is Guess the Number – and there are more prizes – just click on over to Taylor's Blog! 

My card for today features the new stamp set called Halloween Doodles!  Lots of great Halloween graphics to mix and match and color…..

 

 

 

Also featured here is the great new Party Banner Border Die – which I already love! I added some glitter glue and some gems to jazz up my pennants. I know I'll use this a lot! 

 

 

Happy Release Day for Taylored Expressions! Everything is NOW AVAILABLE in the store!  Lots of cool products, and don't forget the free gift with purchase stamp set! This is Taylored Expressions FIVE YEAR birthday today! BIG congratulations for Taylor for making such a wonderful company and such great products! Today's party game is What's Different, and you can play along over on Taylor's Blog! My spooooooky card for today features some new Gothic Window Dies and new Window Scene Stamps! AWESOME. I created a fun window scene complete with flying bats! I used the great Halloween Project Pantry paper set which is also available for purchase today. 

 

The new Gothic Windows Accessories Dies are so fun – I especially love these teeny bats! Taylor is so good about making things the right scale and size for cards. These are perfect. 

 

 

 

 

Woooooooh! It's been such a fun week! I loved being a part of the Penny Black blog this week as their guestie! So fabulous to meet new friends and share what I love to do. BIG thanks to the amazingly talented and lovely Jill Foster for inviting me to join Penny Black for a great week of stamping! 

Today's post is a wrap up of the week with photos of the rest of my cards (the first one was posted on Monday). I have four cards to share today, as we head into Labor Day Weekend and FOOOOOTBALLLLLLL! Thanks for coming by! 

FIrst up is a vintage inspired card using the beautiful Dahlia stamps. I had a great time layering these flowers and coloring with my Copics. The tags and butterflies are brand new dies from Penny Black.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next up is a sweet little birthday owl! Whooooose birthday is it? I layered him on foam tape for dimension in this CAS design. The red really pops!  

 

 

 

 

Okay, how totally adorable is this stamp!?  A kitty with a camera? Shut the front door!!! I colored him with my Copics to look just like my sweet Buddy! Oh snaps!

 

 

Last, but not least, is a shabby chic card made using the new larger butterfly dies from Penny Black! I love how they are uneven and kind of funky! Really cute. This color combo is a winner. Perfect for summer or fall. 

 

 

 

 

Thanks again for a great week!

Hope you have fun weekend plans! XO

 

 

Hello my bloggy friends and happy Monday! Happy Monday?? Well, this Monday it is! Because this week I am the guest designer on the super fab Penny Black Blog! Yeah, so excited about this! You guys know how much I adore Penny Black images! Each day there will be a different card on their blog…and then on Friday I'll do a recap post here on my blog with all the cards. Fun, yes? Yes! Looking forward to sharing with you and the rest of the Penny Black fan club. If you're coming to my blog for the first time – Welcome! 

Today's card is made with the new Penny Black Balloon dies, which are the perfect size for cards. I am going to get lots of use from these, I can already tell. I kept the card clean and simple with a bright color palette. 

 

 

I die cut three big round balloons out of some fresh colored papers! I added a bit of white pen and then a touch of glitter to them as you can see in the photo. I made my embossed background for a bit of visual interest. The twine was pushed through a hole in the paper right under the balloons and then secured with some tape on the back! 

 

Here you can see my layers! I like this card because it's just happy – and it's perfect for any birthday occasion, for any age person! The heart accent on the card is actually a heart shaped balloon, and then I cut the bottom off. 

 

Here are some sneaky peeks at my cards for the rest of the week! Yipppeeeee! Please hop on over to the Penny Black blog too and check out everything over there! 

Have a great week! 

Good morning and happy Sunday! I'm sippin' coffee in the craft room and making up this blog post to share! Usually I have too much other stuff going on, to enter the awesome Papertrey Ink blog hops, but this time I am able to play! Yahooo! Click Here for the 4-1-1 and more details so you can enter, and see everyone else's projects too. For this hop, you have one day to make a project inspired by a color combination AND a sketch. Love it! 

There were so many beautiful color palettes this time around, and I surprised myself by using the one that had all neutrals! I also gave myself a third challenge – to use only things that came in my new PTI order that arrived on Friday….

 

 

 

Here is the inspiration image – with the colors and the sketch. I placed my diagonal stripe on the opposite side of my card because I didn't want Mr. Squirrel looking right off the card. I thought he looked better on the other side! 

I used Rustic Cream Cardstock to emboss the new Burlap embossing plate….YUM! So rich. I colored my adorable squirrel with my Copic Markers….and gave him a gingham tummy. 

 

This little leaf comes with the Nuts for You stamp set, and I had to use it! 

Thanks for popping by! I hope you liked my project…Now I'm off to check out everyone else's cards on the PTI BLOG HOP! Have a blessed day. XO 

Um…Happy Harvest?! Yup! It's time to move on to Fall stamping I think! It's been a good Summer, but Football starts next weekend and Fall is everywhere you look already. Guess I'd better get with the program! LOL. I am ready – I'm always ready for Autumn. Today's card is a fun and happy little scene I created using a bunch of elements from different stamp sets! I love that little squirrel the best – up there in the tree! So cute. 

 

 

Here's my Autumn Americana scene. I love when I see these things…fall leaves, pumpkins, white picket fences, and American Flags. The best. I always wish our house had a cute little fence around the front yard. We do always have a flag flying though! 

 

Here's Mr. Squirrel protecting his acorn harvest….up in the tree tops! LOVE that birch die, don't you? 

 

 

Here is a side view of all my layers. Whenever I make a card like this, I stamp and cut out everything first. Then I kind of lay it out on my paper and then color everything. The best part is putting it all together at the end! In this particular case, I decided to add some touches of ultra fine glitter after the card was all put together. 

Happy (almost) Autumn everyone! Have a super day! 

 

 

Yay! It's time for our Taylored Expressions Monthly Studio Challenge! I love doing this every month with my fellow Baker's Dozen Team Mates! It's so much fun to see everyone's interpretation of the challenge. Each month Taylor and Jami come up with a fun question for us to answer as a way for us to share tips and tricks and ideas.

The question for August is: "The Sky's the limit! There are so many ways to create sky backgrounds for our cards and projects. Often, our blog readers are left staring at a beautiful sky and asking 'how did she do that?' So please show us your sky techniques Baker's Dozen!" 

Here is a close up of my sky background! I almost always use the TE Cloud Border die and a sponge dauber to make my sky backgrounds. They always come out fluffy and perfect! I love this sentiment – perfect for this card. Supply links are at the end of my post…. 

 

What goes better with a beautiful blue sky? Sunshine! (What did you think I was going to say? A margarita? That too!)

 

 

 

Here are the easy peasy steps to making a soft blue sky background for your cards…. First cut out a cloud border die with some colored paper (makes it easier that using white paper). Get your favorite blue ink and a small sponge dauber. 

 

 

 

Line up your cloud border die on your paper, and start sponging. VERY important tip – sponge up and down, not in circles or in lines…. This will make a big difference in your inking…

 

Move your template down a little way and sponge another section, and keep repeating this. You'll be amazed when you see your clouds come to life! 

Pretty soon this is what you have! 

 

 

 

And, my final background paper! Yipppeeee! Don't you want to try this right now!? What is your favorite technique? I'd love to hear! 

 

 

 

Here's another card I made using the exact same technique. Here, I placed a circle down first, to make a moon in my evening sky. I also used two colors of darker blue ink. Love it! 

 

 

 

 

Here's your linky list for the Baker's Dozen Blogs – to see what everyone else does! I'm excited to see too! Have a lovely day! 

Carole Burrage

Charmaine Ikach

Jen Shults

Joan Ervin

Kerri Michaud

Sankari Wegman

Shannon White

Shelly Mercado

Stephanie Kraft

Tammie Edgerton

Taylor VanBruggen

Wanda Guess 

 

Hey friends! Today's post has some sadness to it, as this is my last post as a member of the super awesome A Blog Named Hero Design Team. How fast did those last seven months go by?? It has been such a fun experience to stamp with these fabulous ladies. The whole design team is so funny (hilarious actually), generous, creative, talented, crazy, and just plain old awesome! Thank you to Linda and Mary Dawn for allowing me to be a part of your journey. I'm so happy to have joined you! I will always be a fan (and a blog stalker now) of A Blog Named Hero! I will miss you! XOXO 

Today's cards are made with a fun technique of making your own background text paper. I love combining sentiments and I love text papers. They are the perfect neutral background. Today I took a bunch of different stamp sets from Hero Arts, that have the same font, and stamped away. I made a couple of retro 'friend' cards perfect to send our gal pals. Love the cute typewriter and phone!

 

 

Aqua and olive green always mean retro to me. I really like the "typewriter" font for an old fashioned flair too. 

 

This first card is stamped with black ink…

 

And this card is stamped in brown ink… I couldn't decide which one I liked better! 

 

This technique is cool and creative. You can be as wild or as mild as you want. For today's cards I chose all the same font. This is also really fun when you combine colors and different font types. I got out my background paper… my stamps…

 

I just started stamping away! 

 

And more stamping….

And more stamping….

 

 

Then when I got it the way I wanted it – I cut it! LOL. All that hard work just to make it into an oval! Isn't that the crafty way? I used one of the sentiments to stamp hi! on my typewriter paper too. 

 

 

 

 

Hope that you enjoyed this little project and idea – and hope you'll give it a try! Thank you so much to everyone at A BLOG NAMED HERO for making this such a fun Design Team Opportunity! Love you guys!