Tag: tim holtz

The Greetery – Award Winning Love Card!

Hi everyone! How are you my creative and crafty friends?! It's my turn up on The Greetery Blog today to share a project with you! And of course I'm sharing my project with you here too! Yay! I am always so excited and happy to share with you. Hope you're doing great! I am still so in love with the new Greetery release and I decided to make another project featuring some of the new items. I was inspired by the awesome Award Winning dies and really wanted to make a more vintage/masculine project using them. It's always fun to see how using a different color palette or style can change the look of our favorite stamps and dies… Happy Friday and Happy Weekend! Let's get started!

My finished card is an A2 cream card base. I covered it in diamond harlequin paper and then layered the Postage Die in cream. The star of the card is the Award Winning Dies! I used the XOXO from the Just My Type Dies to make the center of the award stand out. This patterned paper is from a (very) old paper pad in my stash. Feel free to see this as a message to use all your hoarded stash! LOL! This card has a really vintagey masculine vibe – totally different than my other card using these dies. Love it!

I started this card by die cutting all the pieces of the award using patterned papers and cardstocks. I generously inked up all the pieces with Antique Linen Distress Ink to make it all look aged and vintage. In between the bottom two layers of the award, I created a rosette layer by folding strips of paper in an accordion fashion. Then I glued all the layers together to make my award. In this photo you can see all the layers and pieces!

I die cut the XOXO using silver and black cardstocks and attached it to the award using foam dots. I added a mirrored heart Tim Holtz charm also. Finally I added a couple silver streamers die cut from the Honeycomb Balloons die set. I like the little pops of metallic in with all those rich colors….

I used my fingers to gently turn up the bottoms of the ribbons….More dimension!

It is always nice to have some masculine cards on hand for the guys in our lives! My husband loves the vintage look, so he will most likely be the recipient of this card for our anniversary this year. That's it for my project for today! I hope you have a fantastic and creative day! I look forward to sharing with you again soon. In the meantime, happy crafting! XOXO

CLICK HERE TO SHOP THE GREETERY STORE!

May 24, 2024
A vintage card for my vintage husband!

Hi friends! Last week was SO busy. Gosh. Christmas is coming at me at lightning speed. Can we hit the pause button so I can catch up for a minute?! Are you feeling that way too? There are just so many fun things to do this time of year and I want to do everything!! Happy Monday!! I have something different and fun to share with you today! It's a birthday card I made for my husband! He just celebrated his 60th birthday!! Gosh, we are both kinda freaking out about it…. I met him when he was 30! How does that much time go by so quickly?? Jeez!! He is a pretty low key sort of guy so he didn't want a lot of fanfare… We enjoyed some fun activities together over the weekend to celebrate him! I made him a vintage inspired card (since now he's vintage) using lots of cool Tim Holtz supplies!! I almost always grab my TH supplies when making masculine cards. Especially the Blueprints stamps….

The finished card is a 5×7 card base made from kraft, then layered with black and cream. I kept the color palette muted and masculine using kraft, grey, black and gold.

I started by stamping the background panel using the mini blueprints of some of his favorite things: cameras, party hats, stars and skulls…. I used grey ink to make the background more muted. Then I stamped some of the same icons in black and cut them out by hand. I used gold metallic watercolor paint to paint on the icons.

I used Tim Holtz Label Stickers for the sentiments… I think they look cool and graphic. I used black and gold splatters for this card.

Here are some of my supplies as I was laying out my card idea. The number dies have been in my stash forever – they are Papertrey Ink By The Numbers. Unfortunately they are discontinued now. I used gold paper layered with black paper for the numbers.

I attached a strip of vintage text paper across the card. Then I layered the icons around the numbers….

I used a large jump ring to hang a little camera charm from the bottom of the zero…

The last step was to add a few mirrored stars, since he is my super star!!

Hope you're doing great today!! I'll be back soon with some more Christmas projects!! Thank you SO MUCH for shopping my affiliate links! I am SO GRATEFUL and it makes a huge difference to me!! I think I will have enough stash to do another giveaway in January!! I hope that sounds good to you too. Take care!! XOXO

CLICK HERE or on the graphic below to see the supplies used for today's card! (Affiliate Links Used)

December 12, 2022
Happy New Year and Cheers to 2022!

Hi friends! One more day until it's another new year! Can you even believe it? I can't! I'm gonna say – good job on making it through this past year. We did it! We made it! It's been a hard, crazy, mixed up time – that's for sure! But here we are on the brink of new opportunities and a fresh start. I am sending everyone a giant hug for the new year. I wish you nothing but peace, happiness, health and love in 2022. I do really hope that we get a break and we can get back to hanging out with our friends and having fun. Thank you so much for encouraging me this past year and for always showing me kindness and love. I am so grateful for all of you!!! This crazy crafting community is such a bright spot in all the darkness. Bless you and thank you! Happy New Year!

Before I forget!!! THE GREETERY is having a HUGE sale right now – for one more day! If there's something you've had your eye on, pop on over to check out the sale items! Yay!

I have one final card for 2021 to share with you! Of course, it's a New Year card! I went with a super muted and 'quiet' color palette and also a different sized card. I felt like making something just a bit different!! I used lots of kraft cardstock and lots of mixed embellishments to give the aura/feeling of champagne bubbles! Let me know what you think! The finished card is 6.5" x 3.5" and it's three layers of kraft. I distressed the edges and each layer is attached with foam tape so the card has lots of dimension and depth.

The main element is that AWESOME swirling stars die cut! Oh man, I love it!! All those stars are one die cut. I used it twice, once on each side of the card. The other main element is that beautiful script happy new year die. I used rich black cardstock to make it pop.

At first I had the script words directly onto the top card layer. But it felt like it needed something so I added a vellum circle to highlight it. I used my favorite gold paint to splash gold all over the card. Can you see it?

I went through my embellishment bins and found items in a 'champagne' color palette: gold, cream, bronze, clear… This is the first time I've tried mixing lots of different embellishments together and I have to say I really like it!! Seems super festive.

I die cut some gold stars to add onto the card and the vellum part.

Happy Happy Happy HAPPY NEW YEAR to all of you! From my craft room to yours – happy 2022!!!

CLICK HERE or on the graphic below to see the supply list for today's card (Affiliate Links Used)

December 31, 2021
Peace on Earth Christmas Tag! Happy Christmas Eve 2020!

Happy Christmas Eve! I woke up this morning feeling inspired to use some of my new Christmas supplies that haven't been inked up yet this season! My husband bought me several Tim Holtz stamp sets for my birthday and I was so sad that I never had time to use them. As I was having coffee, and contemplating putting all the crafting things away for the season, I decided to sit down and make one last tag. Peace on Earth to all of us this beautiful Christmas Eve. Blessings to you and yours. XOXO

I have one last request for the year, if I may. This year was very hard on my small business, as with so many others. I strive so hard all year to provide fresh, relevant, inspirational creative content for free to all of you. It is my joy to do so! My income for blogging comes solely from product links and it's down by about half this year. Maybe even not covering my blogging expenses… If you have the ability and desire to do so, would you consider offering me an end of the year tip via Paypal? Anyone who leaves a tip will receive a handmade card from me in thanks! My Paypal is under: stampcatwg@aol.com.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVE!

December 24, 2020
Pretty Vintage Christmas Tag!

Hi lovelies! Today I'm popping in with a handmade, and vintage feeling, Christmas tag! A few simple supplies and a classic color palette and voila! Tags! This is a quick and easy project to replicate. Make a bunch to use for your gifts…or box 'em up for a small gift! I used a big, gorgeous stamp from a stamp set sold by my artist friend Lexi! I've linked it in the supplies. She is amazing! The other supplies are from Tim Holtz and Sizzix…can't go wrong with that. Let's look!

Here's my big, beautiful tag! It's a STAG TAG! Lol!!! Isn't he majestic??

This is one of the big mama mixed media tags from Ranger and Tim. I stamped the image in black ink using my MISTI (He barely fit on the MISTI!) I let that dry and got out the Distress Inks…

I used Distress ink and a sponge dauber to generously ink around the edges of the tag. I also splattered some brown ink onto the tag. After the brown splatters were dry, I splattered white ink over the tag also.

I die cut the 'merry' word out of silver cardstock and glued it onto the bottom of the card. I also deckle edge trimmed the bottom of the tag. The raised 'snow' you can see on his antlers is rock candy distress glitter – lots of it!! Gives a really nice effect. If you don't have this in your crafting arsenal…you need some!

That big stamp is really so gorgeous and detailed!

Here is my desk view – getting organized… That ribbon I bought years ago at a vintage market!! I have never used it. Today was the day! It looks perfect at the top of the tag along with a little red bell for a pop of color.

I almost stopped here – because this is perfection. Seriously.

So, I am very lucky that my husband is super patient and ready for a crazy idea from his crazy wife. I had a vision for my photographs of this tag… Which involved my husband going to the local park to pick me some redwood branches!!! He just gets in his truck and goes. Doesn't ask a lot of questions! LOLZ. One time he went to Starbucks to get me some roasted coffee beans!!! He's the best.

Recipe called for 1/3 cup of fake snow also! Hahahaha. When people ask me about how I take my pictures, I just laugh. If you could see the behind the scenes you would laugh at me too.

That's it for today's project! Every project doesn't have to be long and involved. Today's was quick and easy. I'll be back soon! I'm guest designing for Concord & 9th this month – can't wait to share that all with you! Take care! XOXO

CLICK HERE or on the graphic below to see the supplies used in today's project! (Affiliate links used).

December 3, 2020
Vintage-y Halloween Medallions! Happy Halloween Week 2020!

Hello friends! Happy Monday! Happy Halloween Week! Can you believe it? Just like every year, I ran out of time to make all the Halloween projects I wanted and intended to make…. So this might be my last Halloween post for this year! If I find time, I'll try to post one more thing but there's no guarantee! LOL. The weather finally changed here in Sacramento over the weekend and it was in the 70's all weekend. Perfect!! It's been so hot and I've been so ready to wear a sweater. Fall is here I hope! I got a super cool new Halloween sweater that I need to wear this week!! I spent a big part of the weekend organizing my new makeup desk! It's been something I've wanted for years, and we finally made it happen for me! (My early birthday present)… We removed this huge chaise lounge chair in our master bedroom and we bought me a beautiful farmhouse desk to fit in that space. It's perfect!! One fact about me: I love makeup and beauty supplies almost as much as I love art supplies… It's the same thing, kind of. Makeup eye shadow palettes are just like water color palettes and applying makeup is like painting a picture!! Right? Any other makeup junkies out there? I bought a beautiful and super cool makeup mirror using my credit card points so now it's all set up. It makes me super happy.

Okay…on to the project for today! I made some cool, vintage-y, spooky paper medallions/rosettes! I absolutely love this kind of project where I can mix and match papers and elements and textures. I will use these to tie on a package or I will hot glue some ribbon on the back and hang them on door knobs, etc. I used mostly papers, stamps, stickers and other elements from my extensive Tim Holtz collection! I also used some of my favorite Papertrey Ink supplies. A lot of the things are out of stock now (they're older supplies) but really you can use whatever you have in your stash to recreate these! Just play and have fun!!

Here are my final three rosettes… Everything was made with Tim Holtz Halloween Paper pads, black cardstock, cream cardstock and orange cardstock. I embellished using stickers, ideaology charms, paper banners, glitter and stamps!!

I have this little bottle of old silver glitter and it's the perfect touch for these kinds of projects! In this one, I edged the text circle with the glitter. The pumpkin is from the Snarky Cats Halloween stamp set and I used Distress Inks to watercolor it. The tiny banner was free hand cut with detail scissors. The bat is a Tim Holtz charm.

For this one I splattered glue and glitter all over it!! I used a big silver owl charm (Tim Holtz) as the center piece of this one. Lots of die cut stitched circles….and again lots of paper. I also splattered white paint and Hickory Smoke Distress Ink liberally over lots of the pieces. I used an old out of production SIzzix Die for the two small rosettes. The large one I made by trimming paper and scoring with my Scor-Pal.

I used one of my favorite ever dies (Parisian Lace from PTI) to make a black doily for this one. Then I used spiderweb stickers and number stickers and a spider charm to decorate it! I used a long banner die (PTI) to make the banner going across it.

Here's a close up of that yummy glitter!!!

Here are my 'naked' rosettes! These are SO easy to make! If you have a medallion/rosette die, it cuts the strips for you and score them… But if you don't, you can still make these! Cut paper strips and then on your Scor-Pal score every 1/4 inch across. Fold all the score marks and then glue the ends together. To hold it together I like to die cut a circle to glue it onto. This also serves as your base/foundation for all the other goodies.

Use any papers for this! SO much fun to experiment. I love how the diamond harlequin one turned out!!

The next photos are all close ups of the various elements on each rosette.

Thanks for coming by to check out my spooky post for today! I hope I've inspired you to create! And I hope you have a happy and fun week ahead! Happy Halloween!! This year has been a weird one, but here we are at the end of October. We made it this far. XOXO

CLICK HERE or on the graphic below to see the supplies for today's projects. (Affiliate Links Used). I did my best to find as many products as I could. Again, these projects used a lot of old supplies from my stash. Get creative!

October 26, 2020
Spooky Florals for Halloween!

Heeeeeelllllooooooooo! It's October! Happy October! It's my favorite month of the year… Actually I like any month that ends in ber… October is Halloween, and our wedding anniversary, and (usually) football, and leaves and pumpkin spice! I love it all. So, Happy October everyone! My card today is kinda fun and funky and I had fun making it. It came out just like I envisioned too. I love it when that happens!!

My husband and I have been watching Munsters reruns and that's what originally sparked the idea for my card! LOL. Remember how Lily Munster only liked dead flowers and weeds?? So funny! Then, as I started gathering supplies in the craft room, the idea morphed into a touch of Phantom of the Opera too! Black flowers??!! Spider webs, old music, cool charms…and it all came together. I used one of my very favorite dies from Pretty Pink Posh – the Stitched Poinsettias. But instead of red, I made black ones!! Are you feeling my vibe on this yet??

The finished card is 6" x 5" and will fit into an A7 envelope. This size gave me just a bit more room for those big fluffy flowers. I started with a dark orange card base and layered black (of course) and then cream cardstock… The music is from an old antique music book I keep for crafting…

I started by embossing the Webs Embossing folder onto cream cardstock. I used a sponge dauber and Black Soot Distress Ink to lightly go over the webs to make them pop off the page. I also inked around the edges of that cream panel. I splattered some black metallic watercolor paint onto that part too. I set it aside to dry.

I die cut out the poinsettia pieces from black cardstock. See that pretty stitching detail? Love it! I used my metallic watercolor palette and splashed purple metallic paint generously over the black petals. I LOOOOVE my new watercolor palette because see how good it shows up? Even on black paper??? EEKS!! I glued the poinsettia pieces together and then attached a Crypt Cameo in the center!!! I die cut the leaves from green cardstock and splashed green metallic paint over them. I also inked the edges of the leaves.

I stamped the sentiment with black ink onto cream cardstock. I used my scissors to free form cut out a spooky banner and then inked it with black ink.

The smaller flower has a spooky spider in the center! Beware!!

I stamped a pumpkin and a BOO on the inside of the card…

I hand dyed my own seam binding ribbon for this project. I looooove dying my own ribbon! I used the brand new Crackling Campfire Distress ink along with some green and brown inks…

I wrapped the ribbon around the center of the card and then tied it into a bow, which I attached to the left side. I like the texture so much.

In stark contrast… Here's the gorgeous red version of this same exact die!! This is a Christmas card I made last year. I really love these dies – they are so beautiful. I like to think of new ways to use my supplies, and black flowers is right up there on that list!! CLICK HERE to see my Christmas project with these dies!

Here's a close up of my layers and colors… Loving that web!

In this photo you can really see the purple metallic watercolor paint. It's so cool on the black paper!!

The other day I made some pumpkin muffins for us to snack on. I used this recipe and they came out great! I made a simple glaze with powdered sugar, vanilla and milk. YUM! I am all stocked up on mini pumpkins at my house – they are everywhere!!

Here is that gorgeous new Distress Ink Color: Crackling Campfire! I love it – perfect for all my Fall projects. I used it today to dye the ribbon and it's the prettiest deep orange. A great addition to my crafty stash for sure.

Thanks for stopping by today on this first day of October! I'm hoping the temps cool off and I can bust out some sweaters and scarves and enjoy a beautiful fall. Have a blessed and happy day, my friends! XOXO

CLICK HERE or on the graphic below to see the supply list for today's card. (Affiliate Links Used)… As always thank you so very much for shopping with my affiliate links – you help me keep the lights on around here and I'm grateful.

October 1, 2020
Vintage Butterfly Card with Tim Holtz Supplies and new Speckled Egg Ink!

Hi my lovely friends! The week is flying by – like a butterfly! It's been another historic week in our country. I'm not sure how much more we can all bear. I'm praying and crafting and working… Trying to make sense of what's happening. I pray for our country and all her people. I pray for peace and a restoration to some kind of normal. I pray that everyone can heal, and get back to work and love. I hope you are doing well in your part of the world. Art is my therapy and I've been trying to create each day to maintain sanity. It's been in the 100's again so more time inside for sure! I got my hair cut yesterday for the first time since January and it felt so good. So good to see my stylist and have human interaction and so good to get my mop chopped off!

Today's card started out by me wanting to use the new Tim Holtz Distress Color -Speckled Egg! I sat down with my new ink pad and embossing glaze and my card sort of grew from there! I made the ribbon first, then I thought it would be super pretty combined with Vintage Photo Ink and Wild Honey Ink. I have an IKEA Raskog Cart that has all my Tim Holtz products. I wheeled that baby over to my desk, and then basically dumped it all out on the floor! Ha! I thought I would make an ocean theme project, but what called out to me was butterflies! Here's my final card – it's a 5.25" x 5.25" square. Lots of pictures coming….

Speckled Egg is the most beautiful shade of blue! It's perfectly placed between Tumbled Glass and Broken China! It's vintagey and soft and gorgeous. I'm smitten already and know I'll be adding it to the lineup a lot! Blue and Orange are complimentary colors on the color wheel – so it looks good next to the Wild Honey Distress Ink. Warm/Cool contrast. I used the Detailed Butterflies Dies, a cool embossing folder, and some tags… I'll walk you through it!

I die cut the butterflies from Bristol Cardstock because it can hold up to lots of water and ink. The card is layered with some aqua cardstock from my stash and then the awesome DCWV vintagey text paper. Everything was inked and splatterd and glittered….

Here's a close up of the butterfly. See how it's shiny??? OOH LA LA! It's the new Speckled Egg Embossing Glaze. It's my first time using Embossing Glaze! What is it?? It's like embossing powder (so you heat and melt it) but it comes out shiny and translucent!!! EEP. So you can see the ink and stuff underneath the soft subtle color. WOWZA. Gonna buy some more colors of this – stat. I put on three layers of the glaze. I used Versamark ink with my fingers and then the glaze.

I used a #8 Manila Tag and ran it through my machine with this clock embossing folder. Then I used Speckled Egg, Vintage Photo and Wild Honey to ink it up. This is several layers of ink. Ink it, dry it, ink it, dry it, splatter it, dry it… At one point my tag was actually smoking!! HAHAHA. It's hard to see in the photo but I also used my fingers in some Nuvo Mousse to add gold to it. And then glitter. The second butterfly (the brown one) also has embossing glaze on it. I sprinkled the glaze onto it and then removed a lot of it with my fingers (messily) and then heated it. It gave a different, but still cool effect.

Here's how I made the tag and butterfly!! On my craft sheet I smushed the three ink colors and then sprayed water onto the color. I sort of mixed it together with a brush and then laid the tag down into the mix of colors. Here's the trick: Do the first pass of this and dry your tag with your heat tool. Then add some more and dry that. Keep going until it looks the way you want it to! My fingers were blue for a few days! HA.

This is my tag with ink only – before all the other stuff.

And here's that pretty butterfly!!

And the pretty ribbon – with some hydrangeas from my front yard. I think this photo gives you a good representation of the color…

The smaller tag was inked around the edges. Then I used my paint brush to drip ink from the top to the bottom of it. Then I used the stamps to make the sentiment in brown ink. After the tags and butterflies were done, it was time to add all the details! A pretty metal floral piece, a pen nib, some linen ribbon, a bow….

Because I always mess up glitter and Stickles…I wait until the card is completely assembled before I apply them! SO once my card was done I used my fingers and a paintbrush to add the new Stickles Moon Dust Glitter Gel!! I added it to the butterflies, the leaves, and even to the ribbon. Just wherever I wanted a highlight of sparkle. This is a new product to me too. I like that it dries fast and it's very pretty!

Thank you for stopping by today!! It was my pleasure to share this card with you!! I hope I've encouraged you to play – get messy – try something new! All of these techniques are fun. Pick your favorite colors and GO!! The world needs more love and art right now. Please take care until I see you again soon! XOXO

PLEASE CLICK HERE or on the graphic below to see the supply list for today's project! (Affiliate links used)

June 3, 2020
Tiny Houses for Spring!

Hello crafty friends! Happy Monday – here's to a great week! I just realized it's been over a week since I blogged! OH NO! I've been a busy bee! We got our taxes done (ugh) and I had to get my car fixed (ugh). I've had some good photography jobs to keep me busy (yay), and I've been stitching and crocheting a lot too. I just haven't really been paper crafting. Sometimes that happens. I have a lot of creative pursuits, and not enough hours in the day, that's for sure. Today I have a super fun project to share with you. I spent almost the entire day in the studio yesterday. Had the music on, and there was sunshine streaming in the windows. It was a lovely, slow, creative day. It's been a while since I had one of those. I feel like my best projects come from those kinds of days. And I reallllly like today's project!

I used lots of supplies from Tim Holtz for this project. I also used the AMAAAAZINGGGGG new paper collection from My Mind's Eye – called Gingham Gardens. This paper collection was hands down my FAVORITE thing from Creativation this year. I literally stood in their booth with my mouth agape, drooling over this paper. I even tried to have my friend Becky distract them so I could rip it all off the wall and run! LOLZ. But, soon enough, I now have it in my hot little hands. And I bought everything!! Really excited to create with it. This idea for today's houses came to me when I popped open my eyeballs Sunday morning (before coffee even!)…. Let's look!! They are tiny houses for Spring! I made three houses and had so much fun decorating them!! No stamping either!

The Sizzix Die has two sizes of house on the same BIGZ die. You cut two of each house (front and back) and glue them together, and then glue the roof on. I used chipboard to make mine because I wanted them to be sturdy. I covered them with gorgeous papers in all different patterns and florals. Then I went through my stash and made them fancy.

All the pieces were splattered with both Vintage Photo Distress Ink and White Paint. All the pieces were edged with a sponge dauber and Vintage Photo Distress Ink too. I really love the contrast between the soft colors and that juicy brown ink. Just makes it feel so shabby chic to me.

I used some other Tim Holtz Sizzix dies for the butterfly and the leaves on this house. I put on some chunky Rock Candy Glitter on the leaves as well. I used the Big Chat stickers to spell out words and phrases on each of the houses. Those stickers are a go-to product for me. Each pack comes with black and white stickers.

You cannot go wrong mixing and matching all these beautiful papers!! Don't be intimidated by all the pattern play!! Stripes, gingham, florals, houndstooth…it all works!! And it's soooooo yummy. If I lived alone, my entire house would be decorated exactly like this!! LOL. (Somehow I don't think my husband truly appreciates English Country decor!!)

The front/back, the sides, and the roof, are all different patterns on each house. I die cut the chipboard and then die cut the paper and glued it to the chipboard. The small house is paper with no chipboard. I think I prefer the chipboard better. It's more sturdy, but both are good.

Right now these are on display in my studio on a shelf with a candle and my old camera…. Just makes me happy.

This is what the tops look like.

Here are some in process photos….I like to lay out my projects first before I glue everything together…

Inking and glittering….makes me happy.

Some more close up shots of details…Ideaology embellishments, ribbons, enamel dots, word stickers…ephemera…. These are a few of my favorite things!

Well, that was fun! Thanks so much for popping by my blog today! I hope you are doing well, and I wish you a happy and productive week! XOXO

As I'm typing this post and doing my supply links – I see that the entire paper collection is on SALE at Scrapbook.com! YEAH. (Maybe I should buy some more to hoard???) Also, I didn't realize that this Tim Holtz Tiny Houses Die was discontinued until after I made my project (boo). I did find some on Amazon and I linked them for you in my supply links below. (Thank you for shopping my links – I REALLY appreciate it!!)

CLICK HERE or on the graphic below to see the supply list/links for today's project. (Affiliate Links Used).

February 24, 2020
All My Love Vintage Typewriter Card!

Helllooooooo! Happy Monday and happy February! January seemed like it took forever! Geez. But here we are in the month of love! It's been really warm here and on Saturday we picked daffodils in our front yard already. Things are blooming for sure. Feels like the beginning of Spring. Hope you had a great weekend! I have a really fun project I'm excited to share with you. The idea for this card has been in my head for a while. I am really into old vintage typewriters with flowers. I love everything about that look and image. When Tim Holtz came out with his new Retro Type Die I knew I wanted to somehow create a typewriter card with pretty florals….

My finished card is a 5.5 x 5.5 inch square card with a kraft card base. I layered pretty patterned papers and mixed and matched flowers and type – another of my favorite looks….

This card has lots of layers and elements. It was an 'all day' card! I love those. When I take my time and create, and layer and all that good stuff. At first I made a pink typewriter, but then I changed it up and made an aqua typewriter so I could use pink flowers. All the dies are from Tim Holtz – and are outlined in the supply list at the bottom of my post. Those tiny type dies are awesome!!!! The sentiment is spelled out on a piece of vellum – that I distressed with ink and paint.

I die cut the typewriter pieces and the heart and a ton of flowers our of kraft core cardstock. I then sanded the edges and inked everything with Distress inks. I crumpled the vellum with my fingers…love how that came out. A pretty metal accent tied with twine. I enjoy mixing hard and soft surfaces in this way.

Here are some process photos of my die cuts…

OH that pretty type!!!

Here's the Typewriter and letter dies for reference.

I attached the typewriter to the card using foam tape. Then I used liquid glue to affix the flowers to the typewriter and to attach the letters to the vellum. Tip – use tweezers!! I added enamel dots to the centers of the flowers for a bit of shine.

For the flowers, I die cut them from kraft core cardstock. Then I layered them and inked them… Then splattered them with Vintage Photo Distress Ink and then Copic Opaque White paint. (yes, this took a while!)… I let each layer of ink/paint dry before doing the next step.

I love how this card came out and I'm so happy to share it with you!! It's spring and valentines all rolled into one vintagey fun card. Hope you find it inspiring! This typewriter die is going to get used a lot. So many looks, and ideas. Yeah. Love it. Have a wonderful week – see you soon! XOXO

CLICK HERE or on the graphic below to see the supplies used for today's project. (Affiliate Links Used)

February 3, 2020
Mini Music Clipboard Project with Tim Holtz Supplies!

Hi friends!!! Happy Monday!!! I invented my own term for this day… Happy "Back to Normal Life" Day! Hahaha. Holidays are officially over. The tree and the decorations are taken down. (Our house feels naked now)… All the shopping and eating is over… I really don't mind actually. I'm sort of glad to get back into my normal routine and slow down the pace a bit. I like to organize and nest in January and I've already spent a lot of time in the studio in 2020. I have lots of fun things to share in the next two weeks or so. Then I'm off to Phoenix for five days for Creativation. Yippee!! It's all good. I hope your new year is off to a happy start.

Today's project sort of happened by accident… But sometimes those are the best, right? On Saturday I was gathering supplies from my studio to use to make my projects for the new The Greetery Release and I found a Tim Holtz Mini Clipboard I had bought a while ago… Well, the wheels started turning and then five hours later I made a clipboard, but no cards! Hahaha. Don't worry, I stayed up until midnight making cards – and I can't wait to show them to you.

My clipboard ended up being a fun mixed media, vintagey, warm, creation. I used vintage sheet music that I bought from my friend's antique store. That book of sheet music gets a lot of use! I wanted my project to be neutral tones so I can add things to it later that have more color. I used loads of Tim Holtz supplies some yummy gold mousse, and my favorite gold paints. Let's take a look!!

Here's a close up of just the top. I used a metal adornment and smudged it with gold mousse with my fingers. It ended up sort of looking bronze. I love it! I glued the charm adornment on with E6000 glue. The sheet music was affixed to the front of the clipboard with Collage Medium (Matte). It is inked, painted, moussed, stenciled, splattered….yum.

Here's a close up of the stenciled portion. I only used two ink shades: Vintage Photo and Antique Linen.

I used a corner rounder before affixing the sheet music to the clipboard. I used the Collage Medium to affix it to the board and then a layer of Collage Medium on top. Kind of like Mod Podge. Lots of inking around the edges!! The gold you see is mousse that I rubbed on with my fingers. It has such a pretty effect. So much nicer in person. Hard to capture the shimmer in a photo.

I used Tim Holtz wallpaper sheets for the back of the clipboard. I looooove that the screws come off to take off the clip so you can decorate your board and put it back on. So easy and looks so polished. This print is so pretty.

Supplies are listed out at the bottom of this post!!

I love mini stencils!!!

I only stenciled the lower right corner of the sheet music.

I splattered beautiful rich gold paint over the entire sheet music. MMMMMMM.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! Something a little different! Hope you liked it, and hope I've inspired you to try something different too! Happy Crafty New Year! I'll be back soon with lots of fun things. Have a great week everyone! XOXO

CLICK HERE or on the graphic below to see the supplies used for this project. (Affiliate Links Used)

January 6, 2020
Watercolor Wildflower Garden!

Hellooooo creative friends! What's new?? I have a really neat project to share today. I've been anxious to post it, but had to get some other things out of the way first, and had to take and edit lots of pictures too! So today's finally the day to show you something I really love! This was what I call an 'all day' project in the studio. I love those! I put on some music, get out tons of supplies, and just slowly create, figuring it out as I go along! Sometimes I envision the card first in my mind and make it. Other times, I just start making something and see what happens. That was the case with today's card. I sat down to watercolor these beautiful wildflower dies… One project was born, and then ultimately turned into a card, with lots of other layers and things! Happy August!

I have one entire Raskog cart in my studio that is all Tim Holtz supplies. All my dies, and embossing folders, and papers and stamps. So when I want to make something vintage-y, I just roll my cart over to the table. Love that. So, here is my watercolor wildflower garden card!

The finished card is kraft, A2 sized. Of course, those flowers are bursting over the top, so I'll need an A7 envelope for this one. No worries there! I layered another layer of kraft, which is embossed, on top of the card base. I needed a neutral base for all the color! I made the pocket using the We R Memory Keepers Pocket Punch Board. There are stencils and twine and a butterfly too. I'll walk through my process with the next photos.

In this picture you can see that after I embossed the kraft layer, I splattered it with white paint. I also wrapped it with twine before I attached it to the card base. The pocket was stenciled before it was folded. I added a bit of Tim Holtz Design Tape and then a pretty metal butterly. The sentiment was stamped with a Tim Holtz Stamp Set also. (Supplies are all listed at the bottom of my post).

These are all the flowers before I made them into a card! They were all water colored using Distress Inks! SOOOOO pretty! My husband thought they were real! Ha.

These are the dies that I used for the flowers. I die cut all the pieces from watercolor paper to stand up to water and ink!

I die cut out lots and lots of pieces so I could have options and try out different color combos.

Here they are drying on my table! I use distress inks smashed onto a palette and then use a water brush to pick up the color. Tip: Let one color dry before using a second color so they don't completely blend together. A quick blast from your heat tool will do the trick.

I cut the right size paper and constructed the pretty pocket using my new We R Memory Keepers Pocket Punch Board! It was SO easy to make!!! I'll be using this tool a lot!! I used cream cardstock to make the pocket. Literally it took three minutes. Done!

I stenciled the front of the pocket using distress ink and a dauber.

After I stenciled the pocket, I edged it all around with brown distress ink. I affixed one of the flower/leaf branches onto the front also. Then layered the butterfly on top. I used a tiny bit of white paint on my finger and went over the butterfly.

I arranged the flowers together separately and then stapled them together. Then I tucked the entire bunch into the pocket and glued it in with clear glue. I cut a few stems shorter to make a bouquet! I totally love how this came together!

When I first made the flowers, I put them into an old vintage mason jar I had in my stash and took some pictures out in the front yard. This is where my husband said 'where did you get those flowers?' and I said 'I made them!' to which he replied 'of course, I should have known!' LOL. He's been around a while. Ha. (Actually he was with me when I bought my very first rubber stamp in 1994!!!)

Okay! That was a lot of pictures! I hope you enjoyed learning about this project and how I made it. Also, I hope you have a wonderful day!! Get out and create!! CLICK HERE for the supply list for today, or CLICK the graphic below. (Affiliate links used). I will be back soon with another project to share. Thanks for coming by today. XOXO

August 1, 2019
Christmas in July with Scrapbook.com! Vintage Holiday Card!

Updated 7/15/19 PRIZE WINNER SELECTED! PATT H! THANK YOU EVERYONE! Ho Ho Ho! Happy Holidays!! Yikes, yes, it's time for Christmas in July already! Today I'm sharing my first Christmas card for 2019! I'm showing you brand new stamp sets from Scrapbook.com just perfect for Winter Holidays!! I combined the stamps with a brand new paper collection from Authentique to create a vintage feeling holiday card. I hope you're ready for Christmas! LOL. CLICK HERE to see the brand new stamp release from Scrapbook.com. Something for everyone!!

I love everything vintage for Christmas, and this new paper collection had beautiful postcard like images. I chose this image of the little girl to be the focal point for my card. The finished card is an A2 kraft card base. Kraft, red, and light blue are a favorite winter color palette for me!

My card uses the beautiful Heartfelt Christmas stamp set. It has pretty sentiments in classic fonts, and also this little graphic of the snowflake that says "handmade" around it. I loved it as an accent over the image. You can see that I splattered brown ink and white paint over all the elements to look like snow. This photo shows all my paper layers. Everything is edged in Distress Ink with a sponge dauber.

I heat embossed the sentiment with white embossing powder onto rich black cardstock. I love that look! There is a pine bough and a metal snowflake to complete the look.

Here's a photo of the stamp set I used today!!

This pretty pine bough is from the Holiday Greens die set from Tim Holtz. I die cut it from watercolor paper and then used daubers and green Distress Inks to paint it. Then I splattered 'snow' on it!

I really like this snowy look… It's giving me some more ideas! Ha!

I used my finger and white paint to add some white snow onto the metal embellishment from Tim Holtz.

GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY!

PRIZE ALERT! FUNNNNNN! Scrapbook.com has very generously donated a FULL SET of the new stamps to one of my fabulous blog followers! Yippeeeee! There are SIX beautiful stamp sets!! One lucky winner gets them all! To be entered to win this cool prize, please leave a comment below and tell me what you do for Christmas cards! Do you hand make them? How Many? Have you started for this year yet? I want to know all the details! Please leave your comment here by Sunday the 14th at Midnight PST! I will email the winner!

Thank you for stopping by today! Merry Christmas! CLICK HERE to see the supply list for today, or CLICK on the graphic below. (Affiliate Links Used). I will see you on Monday with a truly Summer themed project that is not a card! Take care friends. XOXO

July 12, 2019
Happy 4th of July 2019!

Hey everyone!! Happy 4th of July, Independence Day! Happy Birthday America! What are you doing today to celebrate? As of right now, writing this post, I'm not sure what we're doing! It's going to be perfect weather and there are lots of things going on around town… We just haven't decided! I hope you and your family have a perfect day!

I have a very patriotic and festive card to share today. I always love vintage Americana style…So that's just what I did here for today's project. The finished card is A2 size made from woodgrain paper from my stash. LOTS of distress inks, gold splatters, and rhinestones complete the look!

I started with my card base, and then layered dark red cardstock as the next piece. The top layer, the circle, the USA die, and the flag, were all stamped onto cream cardstock instead of bright white. I used Barn Door and Faded Jeans Distress inks to color the flag stamp. I used the mini inks so it was easy to put straight onto the stamp.

I used an old Adirondack Ink Pad in Butterscotch to stamp the fireworks on that top layer. I splattered everything with brown ink and edged everything with brown ink too. Looks old and cool I think. It's hard to see in the photos, but I also splattered gold ink over the pieces. It's really pretty in person!!

Close up of all the stamping, inking and splattering!! LOL. The words were stamped in brown ink instead of black ink, again, for a vintage look.

Can you see the gold paint there in the corner??

All the pieces are attached to the card using foam tape. The rhinestones work nicely for the centers of the fireworks – just a bit of shine to it all…

SUPPLIES….That's hard for today! All of these stamps are stamps I've had for many years in my collection. All of them are discontinued and I looked online for resources…but couldn't find any… The USA Die and the brown words are from Taylored Expressions. The flag is from Art Impressions. The fireworks stamp is from Rubber Soul… And the postage one didn't have any label at all! Sheesh. Have a great day!! See you soon… XOXO

July 4, 2019
A love letter with watercolor roses…

Hi friends! It's one week until Valentine's Day and my craft room has been a flurry of hearts and flowers lately! I really got into Valentine's Day this year for some reason. Made lots of cards and had fun doing it too! I am also inspired by the 30 Day Coloring Challenge which is really making me think, and getting me to create something each day. It's leading to all kinds of fun. I'm rediscovering some of my older stamps and dies and trying new/old techniques. This card I'm sharing today took on a life of it's own last weekend. I thought – I'll just mess around with these cool roses dies. Well, before you know it, I was doing all kinds of Instagram stories and water coloring and inking and distressing and embossing…Oh my! And a card was born. I love it when that happens… When creativity takes it's own organic pathway. Something cool usually emerges. So today's card is a "more is more' creation full of techniques and stuff. It was a labor of love – literally! Ha! This post has lots of pictures, and I also saved the Instagram stories of my step by step process if you want to see that too. Let's go!

Here is my finished vintage Valentine inspired card!

The finished card is an A2 size white card base. I covered the top of the card with red cardstock. This way, the inside of the card will be white. Then I layered an embossed layer, then the heart, then the roses and love die! This card is heavy! Gonna need some extra postage for this one! LOL. I used loads of distress inks to 'vintage' it up. It was fun!! The roses are in pieces (you'll see later in the post) and I watercolored them, and the leaves. Like I said – SO FUN!

Here's a close up side view of the roses and leaves. Here you can see all the different layers. I glued them together using quick dry clear glue.

In this side view you can see all the card layers. The love die was glued on at each end and left 'free' in the center to float over everything else.

I looooooove these Tim Holtz Ideaology charms! This bird was perfect for a love letter!!

Each rose has four die cut pieces. I watercolored them in shades of dusty pink/rose. One rose is dark in the center and gets lighter and the other one is the opposite. I was experimenting to see which one I liked the best. I die cut all the pieces out of watercolor paper so they would stand up to my coloring. When they're dry, you glue them together! It's magic.

Here are my roses and leaves before all the splattering and distressing! The leaves are in two die cut pieces before you glue them together.

I splattered the roses and leaves with Vintage Photo Distress Ink mixed with water. Then I used a sponge and inked around the edges. YUUUMMMMM.

Now on to the card… I die cut a heart out of watercolor paper. I used the Tim Holtz Random Quotes stamp set because one of the stamps is a love letter in pretty script! It was perfect! I tried two different ones because I didn't like the first one – it was toooo blurry. On the blurry one, I sprayed the heart paper with water first and then stamped into it. For the second one, the one that I ended up using, I inked the stamp, then sprayed the stamp with water, then stamped onto dry paper. Just the right amount of 'messiness' for this project.

The next step was to ink up the heart and splatter it! (Of course)

I had this cool embossing folder from We R Memory Keepers in my stash. It looks like old wallpaper to me! I embossed it onto watercolor paper. Then I used Distress Inks and water to water color each of the roses! LOVE!!! Then I distressed the edges and inked everything up. Doesn't it look like I just peeled it off the wall of an old house!!??

Now it was finally time to assemble! I glued on all the pieces with glue and foam tape! Then I added a few pearls! I'm now thinking that instead of a Valentine, this might make a great wedding card?!

And some random photos of stuff! The light was so pretty the day I was photographing this project!!

If you're still reading along – yay! It was a long post! I was so excited to share this with you! Hope you have a lovely day! It's almost the weekend! XOXO

February 7, 2019
Christmas Joy Card with Tim Holtz Stamps and Dies!

Hey there crafty friends! How's your week going? It feels like Winter and now it's only a month until Christmas! My studio is FULL of Christmas crafty projects and new stamps and I'm having a hard time keeping up with it all. I want to use everything, but I'm running out of time! Eeeeeek! I want to stamp, and make treats, and crochet, and decorate! Trying to cram it all in to my favorite time of year! How's your holiday planning coming along?? Yesterday Lucky and I did a Christmas card photo shoot and I got some adorable pictures of him. Christmas cards were ordered late last night. Check! Enjoy your day my friends!

Today's card is a Vintage/Retro/Old Fashioned Christmas card! I LOOOOOVE everything Tim Holtz for Christmas, don't you?? No one does it like Tim! Everything is so pretty and fun to play with. This card started with me coloring those pretty Blueprints stamps one day… Then another day I made the stenciled background…. And they went together perfectly! The finished card is A2 size made from woodgrain paper splattered with white paint to look like snow.

I stamped the Holly and Poinsettia onto watercolor paper with Versafine Ink. I watercolored the images with my Distress Markers and a water brush. EASY PEASY! After I colored the images I inked the edged with brown ink. I also added snow splatters and a tiny bit of blue ink (marker) around the edges of the images. Here's a close up….

I used the Tim Holtz Sizzix Festive Greens Dies to make some leaves to tuck in between the images. I colored those with Distress Ink pads and a sponge dauber. I like to have just that bit of a spray there! Makes the card have more texture.

Now for this stencil! It's called Peppermint – of course! I used a small sponge dauber and red ink to ink the stencil onto watercolor paper. Next I used a water brush to blur the lines of the edges. Then I sprayed it with clean water for some water droplets effect. Next I splattered it with Copic Opaque White ink. FINALLY I inked the edges with Vintage Corduroy DIstress Ink! OOHHHH LA LA! At first I wondered if I ruined a perfectly good stenciled paper… But this look really grew on me!

I used the Holiday Words Script Dies from Sizzix and die cut the word joy out. I inked it with Black Distress Ink and glued it onto the card. I like this die set because the scale is small – and I needed a little word right in that spot!

Thanks for stopping by! What's on your holiday agenda for this weekend? Tell me what you're up to! XO

November 29, 2018
Hello card with Sizzix Tim Holtz Funky Foliage Dies!

Hi friends! How are you doing? It's almost Thanksgiving! Wow. Are you in holiday prep mode? Are you traveling? I hope you have a great week, whatever it is you're doing! This was a strange week here in Sacramento. There is a horrible, huge wildfire burning about 75 miles Northeast of us and we have been inundated with awful smoke for going on a second week now. I've never seen anything like it. On Thursday last week, Sacramento had the worst air quality IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. Whoa. School is cancelled, everything is cancelled and it is so terribly sad. They are telling everyone to stay indoors. And, I repeat, this is 75 miles away. Gosh. I've been depressed the entire time. Thinking about those poor families. The thick smoke is a constant reminder of what is happening. I pray for my fellow Californians and pray for rain. My heart is heavy and I am again reminded to be so grateful for the blessings I have. Hug your loved ones a bit tighter this Thanksgiving and let the small things go.

Today I'm sharing a card I made with the super cool new Funky Foliage Dies from Sizzix and Tim Holtz. They've been sitting on my desk for at least a month and I just needed some time to ink them up. The other day I finally just sat down and did it! These dies have all kinds of foliage in a cool retro style: mushrooms, ferns, flowers, leaves, branches… Perfect to create a forest scene. I love the little mushrooms the best. All the coloring of the die cuts was done with distress ink pads. The finished card is an A2 size.

I die cut all the pieces out of watercolor paper so they are nice and thick. I used pretty shades of distress ink pads, water, and a paint brush, to color the images in. I dried them with my heat tool. (when it's cold outside I used my heat tool a lot more to dry watercolors and even my Copic coloring!). After the pieces were dry, I went back and splattered Vintage Photo ink onto all of them.

The 2nd layer and the top layer are Cream cardstock. I used the pretty leaves from the Nature's Wonder stamp set to stamp my own background paper with Antique Linen ink. I stamped the sentiment in brown ink. Both cream layers were inked around the edges using distress ink and a big sponge dauber.

I used a bit of Rock Candy Distress Glitter on the mushrooms and leaves for just a hint of sparkle and vintage feeling. Here's a close up of the layers and the background stamping.

I arranged two different clusters on the card front. Usually when I'm making a card like this I will stamp/die cut and color a bunch of pieces and then mix and match them until I get the look I want. This arrangement took a while! I wanted to use ALLLLL the pieces!

That's it for today. Much love and good wishes for a safe and happy Thanksgiving week. If you're traveling – have a great journey! I'll be back on Thursday with a Thanksgiving card. Until then, take care friends. XOXO

November 18, 2018
I’m batty about Halloween! Fun project with Tim Holtz supplies!

Hello crafty friends! Happy Monday! Boo! Did I scare you? I'm sharing a Halloween card finally! Did you have a nice weekend? It was 85 degrees here yesterday! And, lots of my friends are posting photos on Facebook of SNOW! Sheesh. I wish it would cool down here and warm up there. October is a crazy month. I had a really nice weekend. I stamped all day on Saturday (for my post on Thursday). Then on Sunday we went for coffee and a nice drive and out to dinner. A perfect weekend. My husband is working really hard on a work project so I tried to get him out of the house for a bit and get his mind off things. This week has some fun things coming… It's the Stamp/Scrap Expo here in Sacramento and I have a friend coming from Canada and one from San Diego and some from the Bay! A full weekend of girls and crafting awaits me! But first things first…today's card!

This card was inspired by two things: I HAD to make a Halloween card and I just got this awesome new Diamond Shifter Stencil in the mail and wanted to ink it up! So I started by inking the diamond background….then I rummaged up some cool bat stamps….and it all kind of came together. I'm sure you'll recognize the supplies are all from Tim Holtz. He really knows how to do Halloween right. Vintage and cool.

The project started with stenciling the diamond background using the new Diamond Shifter Stencil. It's SO EASY to stencil this!! I used olive and gray for a kind of spooky color palette. You simply stencil the first color (for me olive) and then shift the stencil over and stencil the second color (for me the gray). Seriously so simple and such a great result! To complete the background I added some text stamps and some black and grey ink splatters. I set that aside to make everything else. The finished card is a green A2 card base.

I stamped the bats (small and large) in black ink and then cut them out by hand. I colored them with grey, black and purple Distress Inks and a paint brush with just a bit of water. Kind of let it all flow together. I think it's more spooky with the purple in there.

I stamped the Happy Halloween stamp onto some cardstock and then really inked the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. Then I splattered clean water over it and let that dry. To make the words blurry I used a paint brush and clean water and gently went over the letters. I think it makes it look old or something. And that font is AWESOME. I also inked the edges of my diamond panel with the same Vintage Photo Ink. I added a jump ring and a Tim Holtz 31 Halloween Token charm. Cool.

I dyed my own crinkle ribbon using distress inks and water. I haven't done this technique in a while and I always love the results from this! Never comes out the same way twice.

When I attached the bats to the card I used a bit of foam tape just in the middle. Then I used my fingers to gently curve the wings upwards to look like they're flying right at ya!

Mr. Lucky was VERY interested in this project…until he fell asleep! LOL! He just turned seven months old the other day. Can you believe it? He is growing so fast and has been such a wonderful studio companion. He keeps me company and is the sweetest thing ever.

Okay, so I need to try to make something else for Halloween but we're running out of time! YEEKS! Are you done with Halloween cards? Have you started? LOL. I got behind this year because we were on vacation. Oh well, it was worth it! I have some fun things to share on Thursday so I hope to see you then. Have a fabulous week and thanks for stopping by today! XOXO

October 15, 2018
Kicking Off World Card Making Day (week) 2017 with a Scrapbook.com Giveaway and a fun Fall project!

UPDATED 10-9-17: Winners are Sally K, LC, and Vicki M! Check your emails ladies for your gift certificate codes! XO

Hi everyone! Sorry to have been absent for a little bit. I really wasn't feeling that great last week and had way too much on my plate. I've been busy behind the scenes though, getting all kinds of fun things ready for the next couple of weeks. This is my first creative post of October! Happy October! And, this coming Saturday is World Card Making Day! So, the kind folks at Scrapbook.com invited me and some other card makers to share projects with you today to kick off the fun week before WCMD 2017…. They also gave us some blog prizes to give out! YAHOOO! I have three $25.00 Scrapbook.com gift certificates to award to three lucky winners! I'll put all the prize details at the bottom of this post. Are you going to be doing something special with your crafty friends to celebrate the day? I'm not sure what I'm doing yet! There is always so much going on online for this fun day!! Scrapbook.com will be having a sale and free gifts with purchase on WCMD too!!

Since it is my first post of October, I thought it would be fun to post a not-so-spooky Halloween card made with some of my favorite Tim Holtz supplies – stamps, inks, embossing folders, papers, etc. I love vintage Halloween, and that's the look I was after with this card. It was fun to create and I am loving the vintage vibe created with the distressing and embossing. These Pumpkinhead stamps are going to stay in my Halloween crafting bin forever! LOVE.

See what I mean about these pumpkins? Aren't the perfect?! The center panel is cream cardstock. I started by stamping the center pumpkin directly onto the cardstock. They I masked it off and stamped the other two next to it using my stamp-a-majig tool. That gave me the placement and the bottom 'ground' part of the images. Next I stamped all three pumpkins a second time onto cream cardstock and colored them and cut them out with scissors. My card base is an A2 size made from Kraft cardstock. My layers are orange cardstock (embossed with the Tim Holtz Rosettes Folder and inked) and then Tim Holtz Halloween Paper Stash paper.

When I attached the pumpkins to the card I used foam tape. For the center one, to make it look rounded, I added a second layer of foam tape under just the center part of it. This makes it 'bump' out! The sentiment was stamped in the same black archival ink as the pumpkins.

I used Squeezed Lemonade, Vintage Photo, and Carved Pumpkin Distress Inks to color the pumpkins. I used small sponge daubers to add the color. First up I used the Vintage Photo to do the stems. For the pumpkins I inked Squeezed Lemonade over most of the image. Then I used Carved Pumpkin to go around the edges. Keep blending until you get the result that you like! The yellow in the center makes it look like they're glowing!

After I embossed the orange cardstock, I used the large size sponge dauber and Vintage Photo Ink to gently brush ink over the raised portions. This shows the design better. I also used the larger sponge dauber to ink around the edges of the cream card layer. I used a water brush to splatter Vintage Photo ink onto that layer also. I LOOOOOVE Rock Candy Distress Glitter so I used that to give the pumpkins a bit of retro sparkle!

This little spider came in on his twine web! I felt like the card need a little something there at the top – and this Halloween Ideaology Adornment was perfect! EEEEK!

Thank you for joining me today as we kick off World Card Making Day (week) 2017! So happy to share a project with you and I'm delighted to be able to offer you some cool prizes today!

PRIZE ALERT PRIZE ALERT PRIZE ALERT

Here's the details for the prizes! To enter, please leave a comment here on this post telling me your favorite Fall Crafting tradition OR what you have planned for WCMD 2017!! You have until Next Sunday, October 8th at 6pm EST to leave your comment. I will randomly select THREE LUCKY WINNERS to receive a $25.00 Gift Certificate to the Scrapbook.com store. I'll email the winners with the code for your certificate! I can't wait to read your comments on this one.

October 2, 2017
Creativation Wrap Up – Phoenix 2017! What a show!

Hey everyone! I'm back from Creativation 2017 in Phoenix Arizona! It was a great week! Now I'm sorting through all my photos and my catalogs and trying to get my head back to reality! How have you been? I hope life is good in your creative space and in your life. I left last Thursday for Phoenix to attend the CHA – Creativation Trade Show. The largest craft and hobby trade show around. This was a new venue this year, usually the show is in Anaheim. So we were all newbies this time around, trying to figure out the lay of the land and where everything is. Oddly enough, it rained almost the entire time… Except the last day when everyone was flying home! I did have the most gorgeous flight I've had in a long time, with all those clouds. Just like heaven! I had never been to Phoenix before, and I'm sad to say that I didn't see too much of it – only the downtown area near the Convention Center. I really want to go back and explore one of these days. I attended the show this year as part of the Simon Says Stamp crew and I had a great time taking photographs for their social media and writing blog posts each day on the SSS blog. I hope you were able to follow along with me during the week!

Overall it was a fantastic show! I would say that I did not see tons of new companies this time. What I did see was loads of great new products from the companies I already love. So nothing new, but then again, some new things…. If that makes sense! I always go to the Tim Holtz booths first – Sizzix, Idea-ology, Ranger, etc to see what he has in store for us. Of course it was all amazing. He demo'd the new Oxide Distress Inks and now I have to have all of them! And his new stamping tool is the best! I loved everything new from Waffle Flower Stamps – so pretty and unique. The new Hero Arts catalog launched just before the show and I had lots of samples in their booth – that is really fun to see your work on display!

Planners and planner supplies are still all the rage. Lots of companies making cool planners, stamps, tapes, and stickers to use to organize our lives. I was particularly smitten with the new floral planners and accessories from Webster's Pages. Then again, I've been a fan of that company for years!

Altenew has beautiful new stamps and more markers coming. Lawn Fawn has made more plaid paper (my favorite papers) and this time it's rainbow plaid! Yay! I was really struck by the abundance of items with a faith based theme. Lots of planner items, stamps, stickers and paper for Bible journaling and for making cards. I want everything from the Bella Blvd new paper lines…. I saw a funny collection from Simple Stories called Emoji Love! SO cute.

I had fun seeing my creative friends and colleagues, eating and drinking too much, and walking until my toes hurt. It's all such a good experience. This is the one time of the year when we are all together in the same place and the energy is wonderful. Hugs for days! I'm so moved by the kindness of our industry and how people lift others up and are so willing to be positive. I always come home in a happy mood. There are some real angels out there that I am lucky enough to call my friends.

I made a video out of some of my favorite things from the show. I thought that might be easier than trying to post 40 pictures here! I'll put some links below the video to some of my favorite products. I would say that if something is available on pre-order and you want it, I would get it now. Then you won't have to wait months for re-stocking. I've learned this the hard way over the years. Especially the Tim Holtz items. Let me know in the comments what you are excited about!

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To check out my favorite new things from the show,

here are some links!

NEW TIM HOLTZ – ALL PRODUCTS

NEW OXIDE DISTRESS INKS

NEW SIZZIX

NEW LAWN FAWN

NEW HERO ARTS

NEW WAFFLE FLOWER STAMPS

NEW TONIC STAMP PLATFORM FROM TIM HOLTZ

NEW ALTENEW

NEW DOODLEBUG

CONCORD & 9TH

NEW WEBSTER'S PAGES

NEW ILLUSTRATED FAITH

If I think of anything else, I'll pop back in and tell you. I'm sure I've forgotten something (many things)! Saturday, I'll be sharing a fun felt Valentine project on my Weekender with Wanda post on the Simon Says Stamp Blog. I'll also have a post here! I'm back in the studio! Yeah! Have a great day. XOXO

January 26, 2017