Tag: die cutting

Simon Says Stamp Holiday Release 2016 – Believe in the Season!

Hi everybody! How are you my crafty friends!? I've been a busy bee in my crafty hive this week! I'm here today to announce the brand new release for Holiday 2016 from Simon Says Stamp! Dies, Stamps, Inks, and Watercolor cards! Everything you need to start making your Christmas and Holiday cards and projects. I love the name of this new release. It's called Believe in the Season! I have two cards to share today, two more tomorrow for a blog hop, and then a couple more to post maybe on Sunday! Whew! I told you I've been busy. I have a great head start on my Christmas cards now. Too much fun and so much good stuff. Be sure to check back in here with me in the next few days! I hope you had a great week so far!

The two cards I have for today were both made using the Poinsettia stamp set. I colored the flowers two totally different ways to show you alternative looks and ideas to try. The first card I used white heat embossing, and then watercolored with Distress Inks onto watercolor paper. In the second card I heat embossed with gold, and then used Copic Markers to color on vellum – a technique I always love. Let's take a look!

I started by stamping, embossing and die cutting the elements for this card. I die cut several leaves out and two poinsettia flowers. You can see that I've layered two flowers together, and cut out some sections of the top flower for a dimensional look. I used several shades of Distress Inks (colors listed below) and water to watercolor in the flowers and leaves. Then I created a soft golden watercolor wash for the background – also using Distress Inks. I stamped the sentiment using my MISTI to get a good solid impression on the watercolor paper. Works like a charm every time!

I really love the font in this new sentiment! Beautiful!

After my flowers and leaves were dry, I used some Perfect Pearls powder and water to make shimmery splatters onto them! I love this look. It's kind of hard to photograph the subtle and pretty pearl shimmer.

Here is a close up of the finished flower. I used a yellow Copic Marker to color the flower center. Did you know that Copics will color on any surface? Even heat embossed areas!!

This next card is very classic and timeless Christmas. Plaid and bright red…. How can you go wrong?! I started by stamping, heat embossing and die cutting my flowers and leaves with SSS Vellum paper. Then, I turned the pieces over, and colored on the back with shades of red and green Copic Markers. This technique kind of ends up looking like stained glass! I added white snow splatters to the flowers using Copic Opaque White. For the sentiment, I die cut it out of nice thick cardstock and heat embossed it three times using SSS Gold Embossing Powder. To re-emboss for a thicker look simply add more ink and more powder and keep heating until you get the look you want! I think it's so rich….

I used Lawn Fawn plaid paper for a nice crisp border of color at the bottom of my card. I think it looks so nice with the red!

And, as I like to do, a few gold enamel dots and some pretty twine finished off the card!

Thank you so very much for stopping by today! I hope I've inspired you to start getting ready for Christmas crafting! There's lots more to come in the next few days. Hope to see you soon. XOXO

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE ENTIRE NEW RELEASE!

SHOPPING LINKS FOR TODAY'S CARDS ARE BELOW!

Thank you for clicking and supporting my business!

InLinkz.com

October 19, 2016

Simon Says Stamp New Release Day – Among The Stars!

I'm soooooooo happy and excited to finally be sharing this new SSS release with you! Today we launch the newest collection of exclusive Simon Says Stamp products – and the collection is called Among The Stars! YAY! Stamps, dies, watercolor cards… and flamingos! For this release, we received our stamps pretty far ahead of time, so I've been keeping this secret for far too long! There are so many wonderful things. I have probably made 10 cards so far, and I'll be sharing them all in the next week or so. Today is release day, and then tomorrow is a big giant fun blog hop with all your favorite designers. I literally can't wait to see what everyone else did with this collection! CLICK HERE TO SHOP ALL THE NEW ITEMS!

I had a really hard time picking which projects to share first, but decided to go with two projects I made with the new Build a Rainbow Die set. It's AWESOME! I used my Distress Inks on both cards and had such a grand time using bright, happy colors. One card is a traditional rainbow… and the other one is a watermelon!! What?? Yep, I turned the rainbow dies into a watermelon! TOO fun, and perfect for summer.

Here's the first card to share today! A beautiful rainbow with some perfect, poofy clouds…. Sigh.

And here's my second card! It's a rainbow turned upside down!

I used the cloudy sky dies from the last SSS collection and the new rainbow die. I cut everything out of watercolor paper. I used Distress Ink Pads and water to loosely paint the rainbow and clouds in pretty colors. I stamped the sentiment in rich black ink once the clouds were dry. The rainbow die set is huge! I didn't even use all of the sections and I got a rainbow big enough to fill an A2 card. My card base is Fog cardstock.

The trick to this watercolor look is to leave some white space unpainted. This is hard for me! You can see in the background I speckled blue ink onto my bottom layer. I added one enamel dot heart to the cloud. Everything is attached with foam squares.

Don't laugh at me, but this watermelon idea came to me while I was sleeping! LOL. That happens to me a lot actually. My brain keeps right on working while I'm resting and I wake up in the morning with crazy card ideas! I used Picked Raspberry and Worn Lipstick Distress inks to make the perfect shade of watermelon pink! For the seeds I used a Black Copic marker after everything was really nice and dry.

LOVING these new stitched banners dies! And I used the cute sentiment from the new Summertime Animals stamp set.

Thank you so much for coming by today! I promise there is a lot more coming! Be sure to visit my blog tomorrow as part of the Simon Says Stamp New Release Blog Hop! See you then! Hope you're having a great week! XOXO

SUPPLIES!*

*All the supplies for today are listed first. Everything after the ink pads is the new release!

InLinkz.com

June 15, 2016

Umbrella Shaker Card with Diamonds!

Hi friends and crafty peeps! I'm back already! I got something in the mail finally that I have been waiting for! They are finally in stock again and now in my hot little hands… What am I talking about? Diamonds! EEEK! The prettiest little jars of gems to use in shaker cards! The idea for this card has been in my head for a while and I was waiting for the gems to arrive. Well, last night I couldn't open the package fast enough and make this card. I don't make shaker cards a lot, but I really love them! They are so cool and fun…and the recipients are always really intrigued by them. What's not to love? I got out my Simon Says Stamp Umbrella Die and some stamps….

My card base is the beautiful SSS Fog Cardstock which is a nice light cool grey. I layered some Robin's Egg blue paper next. The top layer is nice, crisp white to showcase the rainbow colored diamonds. I die cut the umbrella out of my top layer and then stamped my raindrops and sentiment before doing the rest of the card. I love how it's so graphic!!

I went back and forth on a few different colors for my umbrella outline, but ultimately decided on black. In this photo you can see that I've layered a few die cuts together. Two black and one white – I like that it gives a bit more interest from the side and also some height to the umbrella part. The handle is two layers of black paper.

I used one clear rhinestone as the topper for my umbrella. These colors are soooooo pretty! I think it could be fun to turn this into a baby shower card very easily by using pink and white, or blue and green…. I have so many ideas now!

Here is the infrastructure! LOL! Man, that was some OCD crafting!! I really wanted separate chambers for the different colored gems. I highly recommend non-stick scissors for this part. Otherwise you will ruin your good scissors cutting all this foam tape. I put a link to some small ones in the link list below.

Glamour shot!!! Can you see why I'm in love with these!? Eight colors come in the package. One package will last me the rest of my life – there are TONS in each bottle! I hardly used any for the shaker card today.

Nice to see you today! Thanks for popping in to see this fun card! Do you like to make shaker cards? What are you working on today? Have an awesome day and I'll see you soon! XOXO

June 7, 2016
Simon Says Stamp – Spring 2016 New Release – Reason to Smile!

Hey everyone! It's an exciting day! The newest, latest, greatest release is here from Simon Says Stamp! It's the Spring 2016 release and it's called "Reason to Smile!" It's chock full of fun, happy, cheerful images, stamps and dies for your Spring crafting. I'm sharing a card today that I made for Easter! Please be sure to come back on Friday when we will be doing a big blog hop with loads of inspiration and prizes! I love release week! I can't wait to see what everyone made.

My card today was created using the pretty new Churches dies. They are beautiful and simple and classy. There are two dies in this set. I combined one of them with the new clouds dies, and also with the Easter word die released last year. I chose a pretty pastel color story for my Easter creation. Supply links are at the bottom of my post. CLICK HERE to see the entire new collection.

I love pink for Easter. I chose a medium value rose shade for my bottom card layer. I think it looks nice with the crisp white of the clouds and the church. I layered some leaves made with vellum and the Simon Says Stamp Clustered Leaves die. I cut some hills out of green patterned paper and then layered that onto the Stitched Ovals die to make my focal point of my card. Tip – cut your hills first, attach them to the kraft paper then cut the oval, so it all fits together. I used the sentiment from the new Melody's Easter stamp set and put it on a tiny banner.

Thank you so very much for stopping in today!

Lots more to come this week! Have a wonderful day. XOXO

February 17, 2016
Christmas Correspondence with Brenda Walton Dies and Stamps!

UPDATED ON 11-9-15 ** BLOG PRIZE WINNER IS NANCY FAITH! YAY! Nancy – email me your address if we haven't yet connected! Thanks for the nice comments everyone!

Hello crafty pals! I'm here with another vintage inspired project that I made for Brenda Walton Studio! I used the fun and versatile Sizzix Mini Correspondence dies along with the Brenda Walton Carte Postale Stamp Set to make a trio of pretty mini notes sure to brighten anyone's holiday! These little cards and envelopes have so many uses – you can put them on a present as a tag, tuck a note inside a food gift, or even hang them on the tree as ornaments. The shapes are classic and simple — you make them your own by choosing papers and pretty embellishments!

I used the awesome paper collection called Holiday Style from October Afternoon, along with some vintage-y items in my Christmas stash! The die set comes with a library pocket, a mini envelope and a coin pocket envelope, along with three different shaped notes that fit inside.

It brings the entire project together when you use papers from the same paper pack, as I did here. I used only papers from my pad, and then used two neutrals – kraft and cream. For my stamping I used brown ink and linen ink instead of black. This also adds a vintage feel.

I punched a heart out of red cardstock and tucked it inside this library pocket note!

For the mini envelope, I cut it out of the red words paper. Then I cut a second one out of the holly paper and used it as a liner for the envelope! Looks so pretty – combining all these patterns together!

PRIZE ALERT!!!!

Leave me a comment below with your fun and fab idea for this die set….and I'll randomly draw a winner for their own Mini Correspondence Die! YIPPPEEEEE! Thank you to Brenda Walton and Sizzix for the great prizes!

Thank you for stopping by today! I hope I've inspired you to get a start on some holiday crafting. It's never to early to panic, I mean start! LOL. Have a wonderful day! XO

November 5, 2015
Papertrey Ink Customer Blog Hop – Fall Chalkboard!

Happy Friday! Fri-yay! How was your week? Hope it was excellent! I've had a wonderful week with lots going on. Tuesday I was able to finally get to San Francisco to meet my sweet friend's new baby boy! (I got a cold the last time I was supposed to go, and didn't want to make him sick). We had a marvelous visit and he is cute as a button! It's been about a million years since I held a tiny baby. I loved it. I've been doing lots of stamping, reading and pondering also. There are three excellent books I've been studying and reading (CLICK HERE) and they are opening my mind to an entirely new way of thinking about being an artist and creative person. God is sending me exactly what I need, and it is magical. I'm feeling super positive and blessed right now. Lucky me. Grateful me.

Today I'm sharing the card I made for the Papertrey Ink Customer Blog Hop for this month! YAHOO. The inspiration image is GORGE. I was all on board right away. The hard part with this one is that I had TOO many ideas! One of my favorite stamp sets from PTI is called Graceful Greetings and I used that set with the chalkboard stamping technique. Then I accented my card with the (new to me) Branching Out die. Hope you likey.

Instead of using pure black paper, I went with the Smokey Shadow paper (also from PTI). I think it's just a shade lighter than black and that makes it look more like a chalkboard. And, it's just a bit softer. For my leaves, I die cut the image with watercolor paper and then used several shades of Tim Holtz Distress Inks and a water brush. (Squeezed Lemonade, Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade and Ripe Persimmon) (now I'm hungry, LOL). Then, I layered my card with a small edge of bright yellow.

Here is the Inspiration Image for this month!

CLICK HERE to see Betsy's tutorial on Chalkboard technique.

After I stamped my main sentiment, I added a heart and some swirls from different stamp sets. I also used some dots too. The main images were all heat embossed with Versamark Ink and white embossing powder. I used my finger and added some very light smudges of white ink around the words to really look like chalk. I wanted to mimic the berries in the photo so I used a few right red enamel dots.

The Branching out die is very large, so after I inked it up, I ended up cutting two of them into pieces to layer around my focal point.

Check out the Papertrey Ink Blog to see all the other entries – and to enter your own creation! It's open to anyone and everyone and it's so fun to play along! Have a great weekend. XOXO

September 25, 2015
4th of July Treat Bags! Happy Summer!

Happy 4th of July Weekend! I get tomorrow (Friday) off work, so it's almost the start of a lovely Summer long weekend for me! How about you? What are your plans? I hope you have a wonderful time – whatever it is that you end up doing. I would love to barbeque and hang out and just enjoy the sunshine. We don't have any real firm plans, and I kind of like it that way. Life has been kinda hectic, so whenever I can grab some quiet time – I do!

I have a really fun project today – I made some treat bags using the amazing Sweet Treat Bag die from my friend Brenda Walton (by Sizzix)! This die has matching movers and shapers to cut out a window in the front. LOVE. I used some vintage Americana type papers and went to town! I filled them with cheery Hershey's Kisses of course!

I cut out some ovals with a punch and stamped in nice deep red for my titles… The I lightly inked the edges of the ovals with Antique Linen Distress Ink.

This totes adorbs pinwheel die is from The Cats Pajamas Rubber Stamps. It's soooo cute! I love to make little pinwheels using double sided papers. The are too fabulous. To add to the vintage vibe I used glittery brads for the centers of my pinwheels. I added a little banner made with silver glitter paper underneath the pinwheel.

I used acetate sheets to cover my windows before assembling the bags. The bags come in two pieces and they are super easy to put together. This is such a great project for any occasion. I really had fun mixing and matching patterns….

And THIS happened!!! I was one of the winners for the Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2015 contest for my June coffee tag! Yeah!

July 2, 2015
Mittens and Reindeers! Oh My!

Hi There my friends! I'm getting caught up here on the blog after an awesome Thanksgiving weekend! Are you having a great time? I hope so!! Back to work tomorrow though…Ugh. It was a nice four days off. I'm here today to share the cards I made for the Taylored Expressions Blog this month. CLICK HERE to go to the TE blog and check out everything!! This month my projects were all about winter! I made two very cheery and happy Christmas cards and didn't want to miss the chance to share them here too.

First up is a warm and cozy mitten card made with my absolute favorite new item from the last TE release. It's called the Sweater Weather cutting plate….Isn't it beautiful? I die cut it from cream paper and layered it onto a kraft card base.

Then it's alllll about that yummy felt! Taylored Expressions makes the best felt in the business in my opinion. SO many gorgeous colors and it cuts like an absolute dream. You really should try some! Here I cut a few different colors to make my little mittens… Then I tied them together with a twine bow.

A sweet sentiment on a clean and simple oval completes the card – so cheerful, right?

Next up I'm gonna POW you with some color! LOTS of color! LOL. This card was inspired by the beautiful paper pad called Frosty Friends – from Doodlebug! Teal and purple for winter – um, yes please!! I couldn't resist using my Woodland Winter creatures with this paper…

First I made them a snowglobe and embossed it with the Snowfall Embossing folder! I gently inked the edges in light blue ink. Then I had fun coloring with my markers!! I love matching my Copics to the patterned paper – I really think this makes the whole project… I will hold the paper up to my Copic chart and then I can pick just the right shade.

These Doodlebug enamel dots get me every time! I'm pretty sure I've mentioned my obsession before… These winter ones are SPARKLY!!!! Are you kidding me!!!

Okay, friends, that's what I have for you today! Tell me something good as we get started in December tomorrow… What are you up to?? XOXO

InLinkz.com

November 30, 2014
Boo! Happy Halloween 2014!

Hi! Happy Friday and Happy Halloween! I hope there are many bite-size candy bars in your future! LOL! This is a very fun and happy Friday indeed for me! After work today, I am on vacation for a week to celebrate my (ack) 50th birthday and I literally cannot stand it! We have a fun trip to the Oregon coast planned and I need to finish packing before we leave at o dark thirty tomorrow morning! Before we start moving on in the crafting calendar towards Christmas, thought I'd share one more Halloween card with you.

I was totally inspired by THIS CARD on Splitcoaststampers and put my own twist on it. Shout out to Jingle for the idea – you should check out her gallery – yep, good stuff there.

BOO!

I cut the trees out of the super fabulous Birch Trees Cutting Plate from Taylored Expressions then mounted the white die cut piece onto a piece of dark grey paper. I also cut a bright yellow circle and placed that in between the two layers…. The letter dies are from Memory Box!

These bat dies come in a set of three – also from Memory Box… I mounted some on foam squares and some flat to the page. After they were glued down, I gently pulled their wings up off the paper to add dimension and flight!

I couldn't resist adding some BLING!

Until we meet again…happy haunting and

Happy Halloween!

Wanda

October 31, 2014
Taylored Expressions Apple Note Cards!

As you read this, I am in Iowa at the awesome Taylored Expressions Stamp Joy event!! I can't wait to share everything with you when I get back! I have been excited about this for months! Hope you're having a super weekend! If you want to see pix from the event, like my facebook page because I'll be posting from Iowa! (Link on my left sidebar).

Autumn crafting continues here on my bloggy blog! I wanted to share a project that was featured on the Taylored Expressions Blog this last week. I loooooove how these mini notes turned out so I wanted to share them here in case you missed them! I am crazy about these new apple dies and they paired perfectly with another of my favorite TE products – the mini scalloped note card die. I think these are great as little notes OR as placecards for your Autumn table! You could even easily write names on the leaves to personalize them at the table. Hope you enjoy this project – and have a beautiful day! XO

I LOVE red and kraft together! So pretty for Fall – especially if you add some gold and olive. Delicious! The dies come with the leaves and seeds in a separate pack and they match each size of the apple stacklets. Two thumbs up!

I used different sentiments on each note and then added a little twine bow to my mini tags. Even though these notes are only 3×3 inches, they pack a lot of stuff! LOL.

Here is that awesome mini scalloped note card die… You can get three note cards from one sheet of 81/2 x 11 paper.

Close up!

Best wishes for an awesome week ahead!

Yay – it's Autumn!

October 11, 2014
Papertrey Ink July Blog Hop! Photo Inspiration & Shabby Chic!

You know what day it is? Well, yes, it is FRIDAY! And, it's also Papertrey Ink Blog Hop day for July! Yippeeeee. Two of my favorite things! I had SO. MUCH. FUN. making this card I'm sharing today. I think my card will win the award for the most products ever used on one card. LOL. Seriously, the photo inspiration for today's challenge was so yummy. I just couldn't help myself. I probably could have made 10 cards if I had the time. The color scheme is beautiful….it has birds, and gingham…and a doily, and flowers, and a banner…and hearts! Squee! You have all day to make a card too – c'mon and join in the fun. This is one of my fav hops because everyone makes such wonderful cards and it's fun to check 'em out. CLICK HERE to see the post.

Without further ado, here is my card:

I adore this word die! I layered it with red on the bottom and white on top – so crisp!

I used all the Button Stacks dies to make my flowers. That was so much fun – mixing and matching everything until I got it just the way I wanted it.

A pretty row of pennants….

Here is the inspiration photo….LOVE!

You see from the inspiration photo…I was INSPIRED! LOL. I used the color scheme without the green, the buttons, the heart shape, the banner….. I couldn't stop!

This shot shows my layers and textures…

Close up of those button flowers….I threaded some twine through some of them for a more shabby chic feeling. To others I added some enamel dots in that pretty turquoise…

Hello!

I LOOOOOVE PTI BLOG HOP DAY! So much to see….this time especially. I can't wait to check out everyone else's blogs to see how they were inspired by the photo. Have a super wonderful day my crafty friends, and a great weekend. XOXO

July 25, 2014