Craft weekend

Last weekend I spent a few days at my friend Lisa’s house for our (sort of) annual craft weekend. We ate good food, watched Hallmark Christmas movies, and made lots of cards. I thought I’d share a few pictures of the fun we had. 

The weather — and the trees — were gorgeous. We took a few breaks to walk in the sunshine.

Works in progress!

At first Lucy was willing to share the chair. But then she said, “No, thank you.”

Dessert! Pumpkin cheesecake and key lime cheesecake.

My finished projects. I worked on birthday cards — I need to replenish my stash — and finished twenty of them. Hopefully I’ll get around to sharing better photos and some details in separate blog posts one day relatively soon.

Thanks for stopping by!

Halloween greetings

I think it's fun to make Halloween cards, so I try to make at least a few every year. This year, though, I went a little crazy. I had a pack of 6" x 6" patterned paper I wanted to use up, so I just kept making cards until it was gone -- I ended up with 26 cards.

Below are pictures of each of the different card designs. Since there are quite a few photos, I'm going to skip writing out details; if you have a question, feel free to leave a comment and I'll respond as soon as I can. Here are the main supplies I used for these cards:

• Build-a-Scene Halloween paper (Taylored Expressions)
• Stayin' Alive stamp set (Taylored Expressions)
• Pumpkin to Talk About stamp set (Ellen Hutson)
• Happy Haunting stamps and dies (Ellen Hutson)
• Haunts and Harvest stamps and dies (Gina K Designs)
• Dressed to Scare stamp (Penny Black)
• Brown-Bag Monster stamp (Penny Black)
• Various sentiment stamps, dies, and punches

And there you have it! I tried to pick a favorite, but I couldn't. The next task is to get all these cards in the mail before Halloween!

Thanks for stopping by!

Quick and easy card set

The last few weeks have been busy, and I haven't really had any time for stamping or blog posting. So today I have a short post with a quick and easy card set I made a while back and never shared.

A design like this is great for sets of cards: it's quick to make multiple cards, you get to show off pretty patterned paper, and you can use any sentiment. I started by choosing a pack of patterned paper with a variety of large and small patterns as well as multicolor and tone-on-tone patterns. I decided which papers I wanted to pair together and then chose coordinating card stock for the card bases. I cut the pieces of patterned paper (4" x 4" for the large pieces and about 1-1/4" x 4" for the small pieces), adhered them to the bases, and added a 1/4" strip of black card stock to cover where the papers meet.

I stamped the sentiments on white card stock and die cut them with a stitched circle die. Using foam tape I adhered a circle to each card base overlapping the black strip. I finished each card with two gold sequins.

I'll try to post some more cards soon. Thanks for stopping by!

September Christmas cards: Nature's Christmas

Whew! I'm just squeezing in a few Christmas cards for September. I struggled finding a layout I really liked for this month's cards, so I made five cards with the same vintage look and feel but slightly different designs.

I used the Nature's Christmas stamp set (Stampin' Up!) for these cards. It's an older set, but new to me -- I recently got a secondhand set from a friend of a friend, so I wanted to try it out. I used the wreath and bird house images and "Merry Christmas" for the focal panels and colored them using Prisma Color pencils. I cut out the images with stitched dies and matted the panels with Cherry Cobbler card stock.

I used Crumb Cake card bases to keep with the vintage look, and I embossed each one with a different embossing folder. I don't use my embossing folders very often, but I love the texture. I used narrow green ribbon, gold rickrack, and gold sequins to embellish the cards.

Inside the cards I added a panel of vanilla card stock stamped with a sentiment in dark brown. I also stamped a poinsettia image in the lower left and upper right corners using Crumb Cake, and I think it adds a nice finishing touch.

September just flew by, and I know October will be the same. I'm not planning to make any Christmas cards in October, but who knows. I do want to make some autumn and Halloween cards, so hopefully I'll have some of those to share in the coming weeks.

Thanks for stopping by!

Floral pairs

In my last couple of posts, I shared some two-at-a-time cards -- cards that I made at the same time with the same stamp set and layout/design, and sometimes a few slight changes, such as colors or sentiments. (Often when I make cards this way I'm giving away one card and keeping one for my stash.) Today I'm sharing more pairs of cards made with the same stamp set. However, these floral cards show two different ways to use the images in each set.

For the first pair of cards I used the Forget-Me-Nots stamp set (Gina K Designs). To create the first card (left) I stamped the image on white card stock and colored it using Prisma Color pencils and Gamsol. I stamped a sentiment and cut the panel with a stitched rectangle die. I matted the panel with black card stock and then placed it on a light blue card base. For embellishment I added a simple hemp twine bow and a few blue sequins.

For the second card (right) I stamped the large image randomly across a piece of white cad stock to create a background. I also splattered the background with blue metallic watercolor. Again, I matted the panel with black card stock and adhered it to a light blue card base. This time I used a die-cut sentiment (cut twice and stacked together for a little dimension) with a vellum circle behind it to help it stand out a little more against the background. I finished the card with light blue sequins.

For the second pair of cards I used the From the Vault Flowers stamp set (Hero Arts). This set includes several floral images and sentiments in different styles. For the first card (on the left) I used a silhouette-style floral branch. I stamped the image multiple times on a rust-colored card base using coordinating ink and then sponged the edges with the same ink. To make the focal image, I stamped From the Vault Aged Shadow (Hero Arts) in pale yellow on white card stock and then stamped the floral image in the middle of the shadow. I added a sentiment (from a different stamp set) and tore off the card stock around the stamped images. I adhered the layer to the card base and added a few enamel dots and a twine bow.

To make the second card (right) I stamped the line-art daffodil image in the lower left corner of a piece of Crumb Cake card stock and “thank you” next to it. I colored the image with Prisma Color pencils — I’ve discovered I really like using colored pencils on kraft card stock — and then splattered the panel with Sparkle Silk. I matted the panel with dark brown card stock and the adhered it to a Crub Cake card base. I finished the card with a few sparkling clear sequins.

Thanks for stopping by!