The Card Concept: Red, White & Blue

 

Red, White and 2 shades of Blue, are the colors featured on the new Card Concept Challenge.

I love the vibes of our cozy inspiration photo, but once again went with the

colors for my card.

I used an old PTI set called Bloom & Grow, a Make It Market all inclusive stamp, stencil,

and die set from Betsy Veldman. I changed up the colors to fit our theme, and added some 

pencil depth. I would say my design style is Clean and Layered but truthfully, my cards

are never really clean... more like Layers & more layers!

I love the pull up bouquet with the surprise birthday message.

Also added some Nuvo drops to the flower centers, and Glossy Accent to the heart. 

Would love to see what inspires you. Remember, pick a style or make one up of 

your own, and don't forget to add out inspiration photo to your post. Have a 

wonderful crafty week!

The Card Concept #176 {Red, White and Blue}

The Card Concept: Loads of Lavender

 

Hi and welcome to my post today. The Card Concept has a new challenge, called,

Loads of Lavender. Check our the the challenge photo.

Colors, subject, and the lavender stems inspired my card. The problem I had

was, I have no lavender plant stamps! 

I paired some of Betsy Veldmans' Greetery stamps (Simple Things) with another of her

sets from PTI, Herb Garden.

I call my card Clean and Layered, (maybe not so clean?), definitely layered. 

Our challenges are for 2 weeks. Hope you'll read the rules, one of which is to

post the challenge photo on your blog. Can't wait to see how you're  inspired.

Thanks for the visit! See you in the lineup!

The Greetery :

Simple Things, Opposites Attract, Shiplap die

PTI:

Make It Market: Herb Garden

All Inks: Altenew

The Card Concept #153 {Loads of Lavender}

Keeping Christmas: September

 

Hello and welcome to Keeping Christmas September, a blog hop of 

holiday cards and projects to inspire you to get going on your

greeting cards!

I have a trio of cards today, so let's take a look.

There's a list of designer friends at the end of this post, so you

can hop along.

It's been a while since I've used Betsy's Make It Market: 

Fairy Tale Christmas.

The year it was released, I must have made a dozen cards. She included 

designer papers with the kit, along with stamps, dies, cutouts, stencils, 

even elements to create fairy tale books and projects that light up! For my cards today, I used the enclosed 

stencils, stamps and die cut outs.

The corner dies are the sweetest! I set up an assembly line and turned up

 the Christmas music (Pandora) on the computer. 

3 cards with the same layout moves along quickly, and is a wonderfully

relaxing way to spend a day in the craft room!

Slight differences like color variation on the holly, and where the 

side sprigs were placed were really the only differences.

And... matching envelopes, something I'm trying to do with all the cards I 

make. Makes it so easy when they're ready to send.

I usually send out Christmas cards on or around the 10th of December. 

How are you doing with your holiday card making? No pressure, but, 

only 2 more months of keeping Christmas inspiration.

Speaking of inspiration, check out what the other designers have for you!

Kelly Lunceford (Creator)

 Claire Broadwater

 Lori Tecler

 Nance Salkeld

 Nina Forsyth

 Nancy Guse

 Marybeth Lopez

 Nancy Penir

 Carol Hintermeier 

The Card Concept: Summer Swirls

Summer's here (if you haven't noticed!), and The Card Concept is challenging

us to choose a style and do a card for our latest inspiration photo:

The first thing that hit me (should say, SLAMMED me), were those

bright primary colors! 

And from there I did what I love to do most... Quilt!

A SAHM, I had a cottage company sewing baby quilts for cribs. The 

combining of patterns and colors was something I loved. And you know what

they say... 'do something you love, and you'll never work a day in your life.'

At least I think that's how it goes...

Haven't visited PTI's Quilted: Summer in ages, and just knew that's where I wanted

to start. From there, and with 3 ink colors, CP: Rockin' Red, Altenew: Ultramarine,

and CP: Tiara, I assembled my quilt.

PTI's Tag Sale: Quilted, popped up on a Country Fair double cut die cut.

(Betsy Veldman's Make It Market: Country Fair).

You know how some cards just bring you so much joy to construct? 

This is one that was darn fun! Was it the colors? The summery feel?

The pinwheel pattern play? 

~Don't think I'll put this set away just yet~

Hope your summer's off to a great start.

Don't forget to get your fingers inky, and

while you're at it, play along with us at The Card Concept!

The Card Concept #117 {Summer Swirls}

Dreaming of a White Christmas

Make It Monday this week is revisiting one of my favorites, Laurie Schmidlin's

'Love of Layers'. 

Laurie shares several ways to add to a cards rich layering.

I played with Betsy's new 'Fairy Tale Christmas', and the stencils that match

the set.

Betsy thought of so many details. From the stencils to popping up the die cuts, layering

is easy. The layer of snowy stencil was done with Nuvo Glimmer Paste. 

Just may mass produce this one, it's so much fun to play with all the layers!

Hope you're doing well with your Christmas card stash. Enjoy your week!

Christmas Tags

During PTI's last month's release, I purchased Betsy's Poinsettia & Pine tag making kit

and decided to make a bunch for a dear friend celebrating a birthday. 

What started out as half a dozen, seemed to grow as I played with colored cardstock 

and stash of Christmas sets.

I hadn't seen for awhile.

When done, I piled them inside the sweet little sleigh, complete with mini

wreath on it's front, boxed, wrapped and my gift was ready to give.

Hope my post gives you lots of inspiration. The sweet mini kit

 comes with decorator paper and dies for easy creating. I just enjoy

stamping, so these are all stamped with PTI holiday stamps.

Here's a look at the tags

I can't wait to do more. What a lovely way to spend an afternoon... crafting!

Make It Market Mini Kit: Poinsettia & Pine

Pink Mailbox

Happy New Year!

And just so happy to be back in my craft room.

Had a houseful over the holidays, and enjoyed a trip to Tahoe, 

only to come home to my mom very very ill. 

So the craft cave was eerily quiet for a while.

Just means I LOVE being back, well, doing what I love!

PTI has been going through some changes lately, but one thing that is the same

is their yearly 'A La Carte', where we can choose from the many wonderful MIM tutorials

and play again with a favorite.

I choose a few to combine, Melissa's Background Stamping, and Laurie's Love of Layers.

Now, truthfully, I'm all about layering, and combining my sets, which just seem to all

play well together.

Hope you enjoy a little crafting too. It just starts the year off great!

Make It Market: Post & Parcel,

Make It Market Mini Kit: Bloom & Grow

To Have and to Hold

Love You to Pieces: Additions

PTI inks & cardstocks. 

Off to visit the craft room.

Valentines will be here before we know!

           Make it Monday #308 – 2017 A La Carte           

Playing with Holiday Tag Along

Hi there!

Had some time this weekend and played around with Betsy's new Holiday Tag Along set.

All but one are preprinted, with die cuts from other PTI sets.

I loved Melissa's release post featuring what could be done with this sweet set,

and followed her example of decorating the pre printed tags with some images

from the umpteen other PTI Christmas sets I have.

Want to see more?

Honestly? So simple! Most of these were die cuts I saved from other  projects. I usually 

cut several at a time, just in case I flub, I don't have to stop what I'm doing to cut another image.

Spruce & Sprigs, Tinsel & Tags.

Ah, red and white, how I love you!

Quilted Winter & Fancy Snowflakes

Christmas Critters, and that holly bling in the corner, and that's it!

More fun with Christmas Crtitters, and a few greens from Spruce & Sprigs 

Christmas Faith doves and berries

Fancy Flakes and Fab Flakes.

And I think there's a few snowflakes from Quilted Winter too.

The beautiful snowflake sprig is from Quilted Winter, and I just cut an end off and 

added it to the top corner. 

The last tag is cut with the set's included dies, and a few Tinsel & Tags gold embossed die cuts.

If you look closely you can see the gold edging I added with my Deco Color gold pen.

All of these came together so easily, I can't wait to do more!

If I forgot anything please ask, I'll be happy to tell you where or how!

Thanks for visiting, and happy crafting!

Mother

Made a card for my mom, following the tutorial at Papertrey's MIM,

with Laurie Schmidlin, and her very first video.

Laurie did a fabulous job showing us

 2 ways to do a watercolor background for our cards.

Confession time, I've done watercolors for years, even

taught watercolors to elementary students, so this is not

new to me, but always learn something playing along with MIM.

Loved doing this card, as it's for a very special mom!

Starting with Ranger Watercolor Cardstock, I taped down my card,

then applied a wash of clear water. Using the Kuretake Pan colors, I

mixed blues, yellows and greens to get the color wash I wanted.

The trick to watercolors, as Laurie said, is to apply lights first,

then layer after or during drying.

I cut the die cover plate from Make It Market: Garden Gild,

and held it over the watercolor card to determine where color should be.

The word, 'Mother' is from an old PTI set, Mother, and sorry to say

it's now in the vault.

Flowers and leaves from Delightful Dahlia Additions.

PTI Inks:

Aqua Mist, Hawaiian Shores, Tropical Teal, Green Parakeet.

I colored the rhinestones with copic YG23.

I haven't used rhinestones in so long, lately using sequins, which mail better,

but this card will be hand delivered.

Play along on Nichole's blog, here:

Make It Monday #283: Watercolor Wash Backgrounds