Thanksgiving cards to share

Just wanted to share a couple of Thanksgiving cards. I made them kind of last minute, so I'm hoping they make it to my family members in time. (I'm such a terrible procrastinator and didn't get them finished until today, just threes days before Thanksgiving! I do hate that about myself. But alas, it's the thought that counts right?)

I just picked up a fabulous fall/Thanksgiving 6x6 paper pad that I fell in love with at Fond Memories in Walnut Grove, MN. LOVE that designer paper in both 12x12 sheets and a 6x6 pad size! It's called Fall Blessings by Carta Bella. I paired it with some cute Fawn Lawn Stitched Leaves die cuts. Aren't those stitched leaves so cute? Lately they have become a favorite die set for me. I switched things up a bit and made half the cards with a kraft card stock base, and half with cream linen cardstock.

I hope you and your family have a safe, blessed, and wonderful Thanksgiving. 

Supplies used:  Cream Linen card stock / Kraft card stock from Paper Trey Ink / Designer Paper: Fall Blessings by Carta Bella / Lost Lagoon ink and card stock, more mustard card stock, pumpkin pie card stock from Stampin Up! / Gratitude sentiment from "Day of Gratitude" stamp set (retired) from Stampin Up! / brown and red ink drops from Studio Calico (Mr. Huey's Mists) / Vintage Photo Distress Ink and distress ink tool from Tim Holtz/Ranger / Stitched Leaves (dies) from Fawn Lawn.

A happy birthday card for a special golden birthday girl!

Today is my granddaughter's golden 12th birthday, so I made her this pretty, girly, birthday card. Since she likes butterflies, I had to add a couple butterflies using a spellbinder die and a stamping up punch for the smaller one.

Happy golden 12th birthday Alexis! We love you so much! 

Suplies used: 

Riding Hood Red cardstock and small butterfly punch: Stampin Up! / Kraft, Creme cardstock and happy birthday sentiment from "bigger blooms" stamp set: Paper Trey Ink / tan twine: MFT stamps / black crystals / designer paper: plaid design from Cosmo Cricket 6"x6" mini deck "Cubierta Miniature", and butterflies cut out of Authentique "Uncommon" 6"x6" paper pad / Flower stencil is a Studio 490 Wendy Vechi "Little Bits" stencil / Inks used: Black Archival ink from Ranger and Vintage Distress Ink from Tim Holtz/Ranger / crochet strip is from Joanne's fabric store.

A few sympathy cards to share

Last week I made a few sympathy cards for my sister. Thought I'd share them with you. 

This last one I found on Pnterest, and just had to try and re-create.. I just love the large Hero Arts flourishes stamp. You can make any kind of card with it,  so elegant. Thanks for stopping by.

A Tim Holtz tag to share...

Hello! Today I have a few tags I created for my nieces. I just loved Tim Holtz's April 2015 tag post. I mean I fell in love with that tag and a few others he created for his blog this year! So I bought some of the stamps and dies he designed to created some of my own tags.

You can find all the instructions on how to create a tag like this HERE on Tim's blog. He is so talented! And I love the wonderful stamps, dies and line of distress inks he has created with Ranger, Sizzix and Stamper's Anonymous. My two nieces are big fans of his as well! I truly enjoyed making these tags. There is watercoloring and spiriting, distressing and die cutting, then the sewing. Totally therapeutic. I love creating things, it just makes me happy!
I mailed out these tags to my niece's Stacy and Melissa today. I hope they enjoy them as much as I had creating them! Thanks for stopping by.

Supplies used:
Kraft cardstock to make tag: Paper Trey Ink / 1/4" hole punch and Black cardstock: Stamin Up!  / Tim Holtz and Ranger Distress watercolor cardstock / Sizzix and Tim Holtz Alterations "Adventure" #660224 AND #660212 Thinlits dies- (**note there are 2 different sets used on my tag) / Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Collection "Flower Garden" CMS215 stamp set / Distress markers used for watercoloring and spritzing: black soot, pumice stone, vintage photo, evergreen bough, iced spruce, wild honey, squeezed lemonade, crushed olive / Vintagae Photo Distress ink and distress tool / Stampin Up! marker spritzer (Tim Holtz also now sells one) / Tim Holtz Idea-ology mirrored stars / blue Tim Holtz and Ranger alcohol ink / glue / black thread and sewing machine / cream seam binding / mixed ribbon/threads from my stash.

Happy Birthday Card

Happy 45th Birthday to me sweet niece Stacy! I made her this poppy watercolor card using a Tim Holtz flower stamp set. I totally fell in love with his tag that he made on his blog for his April 2015 tag post. I knew I had to have that stamp set and buy some assorted distress markers to try out the technique he used. For this card, I first stamped my image on watercolor card stock and let it dry, then sprayed some plain water with a fine mist sprayer onto the stamped card stock. Then I immediately sprayed on some broken china blue distress ink stain spray, then sprayed some more plain water onto that while it was still wet. Then I took some paper towels and picked up the excess water. Let the card stock dry completely before coloring the poppy and stems with distress markers. Then after I put a few lines of color in the flower image, I used a water color brush to move the distress marker ink around and give the image a watercolor effect.
You can see Tim's tutorial on watercoloring here. I love his technique and the tag he created! My niece Stacy who I made this birthday card for,  absolutely loves everything Tim Holtz and is a fellow artist, so I had to make her a card using Tim's products. My card is 5-1/2" x5-1/2".

Here are the distress items I used to make the birthday card. 

Here are a list of all the products I used to make this card:
Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz collection Flower Garden CMS215 stamp set / Black Archival Ink Pad / Taylored Expressions 4.5 x 5.75" Dotted Lattice embossing folder / Neenah Solar White cardstock / watercolor cardstock / Stampin Up! Real Red cardstock / black and white chevron designer paper / Broken China Spray Stain /  Distress markers: Abandoned Coral, Worn Lipstick, Crushed Olive, Black Soot / Vintage Photo distress ink pad and distress ink sponge / fine mist spray bottle filled with water / My Favorite Things Dynamic Sentiment Strip Dies / Hero Arts Happy Birthday stamp / Black crystal jewels.

Hope you enjoyed this creation. Thanks for stopping by.

Art Impressions Design Team Reunion Blog Hop!

Hello Ai friends, and welcome to the Ai Design Team Reunion Blog Hop and New Holiday 2015 Spinners release! You should of arrived from here Soili-Maria Seppala.

If at any time you run into a broken link, just go back to the Art Impressions blog here.

I am so honored to be a part of the past Art Impressions design team. I am beyond excited about all the NEW Holiday 2015 Ai Spinners and dies!

They are so much fun! I absolutely LOVE that they have coordinating dies! No fussy cutting these images out! And it's an absolute dream the way the front and back images MATCH UP PERFECTLY! Now that is a cardmakers dream come true I tell you! 

I was amazed at how easy it was to make a spinner card with the spinners Ai stamps and dies!

The size of my card is 5-1/2" x 5-1/2". I am showcasing the delightful Ai Robe Spinner stamp set and Ai Robe Spinner dies. This image makes me just smile! She is so cute with her robe, slippers and hair in curlers. 

I didn't have a scallop die, so I used my silhouette cameo machine to cut a scallop circle out that fit inside my spellbinder die on the front of my card. I picked out some pretty designer paper from an older Basic Grey paper 6"x6" pad (the Kioshi collection). I used copic markers to color my stamped image.

Here is what the back of the Robe Spinner looks like.

And a close up. I love the "Hello Friday" sentiment that comes with this set.

The copic colors I used to color the image in: 

E57, Y38, YR23, RV34, R85, RV13, B63, BV13, E00, E02.

Products used to make my card: 

Art Impressions 4677 Robe Spinner stamp set, 

Art Impressions 4677 Robe Spinner die set, Stampin Up! Black and Purple card stock, Neenah Solar White card stock, Basic Grey Kioshi 6"x6" designer paper pad, Memento Tuxedo Black ink, Vintage Photo distress ink and distress ink sponge tool, My Favorite Things Dynamic Sentiment Strip dies, Silhouette Cameo machine/scallop nesting circle cut, Spellbinders large circle die, white twine, copic markers (colors listed above).

Want to win a free Ai Spinners from Art Impressions?

Here is the Rafflecopter link for the chance to win 7 prizes from Ai

The next person on the blog hop is Tracy Gray. If you get lost just return to the Ai blog. 

Thanks for stopping by and joining  us for this fun blog hop! 

Here are the blog links & hop order:

Art Impressions Blog

Cheri Burry

Crystal Lopez

Dana Warren

Deloris Thiede

Diane Zechman

Isha Gupta

Jessica Griffin

Karen Day

Kerry Kung

Kirsi Kamppikoski

Maria McGuire

Marie-Pierre Capistran

Mary Witter

Piali Biswas

Reneé Matarese

Sharon Caudle

Soili-Maria Seppala

Tammie Koehnen

Tracy Gray

Tracy MacDonald

Trena Brannon

Zora Bergstrom

Sending Big Hugs...

Hello! It is beginning to feel a lot like spring here in Minnesota! So I made a couple of spring floral cards to share. I used a new Paper Trey Ink stamp set called Brushed Blooms. LOVE this new two step stamp set and dies. It is so pretty. I think it's going to be one of my favorites. I paired "Brushed Blooms" with Paper Trey's "Wet Paint III". I stamped "Sending" onto kraft card stock with Versamark Ink, and embossed it with American Crafts black embossing powder. 

I think It makes it stand out nice.

This is the same card, only using different designer paper. I made this card for my sweet niece Melissa, who lives in Nebraska that is healing from surgery. 

Here is a a butterfly "Thank You" card that I made by making a watercolor background on watercolor paper.  I saw a similar card on Pinterst and I had to try making a card similar to it. It was such a pretty card, and I like the way these two cards turned out. 

The large butterfly die and thank you die is from Paper Trey Ink. The thanks dies is from Simon Says Stamp. The small butterfly die cut shapes are from a retired Stampin Up! die. Hope you have enjoyed my creations. Thanks for stopping by.

Paper Trey Ink Shaker card

It had been ages ago since I made a shaker card! I mean let's face it, they used to be difficult to make when I first started making cards in the 1990's. But thanks to Paper Trey Ink they are now much easier and fun to make! I love the Make It Market kit "Shaker cards" kit. It has everything in it to make fabulous shaker cards. It has double sided foam sheets, sequins (of various shapes, colors and sizes), acetate sheets, dies, designer paper, and a coordinating stamp set. It's the perfect base kit, and then you can buy coordinating dies to make tons of shaker cards of all shapes and sizes and for ALL occasions. The matching sentiments in the kit and the add on sentiments and dies are so unique too.

The silver glitter "sparkle" word was die cut with Stampin Up's glitter paper. I LOVE that stuff. It comes in red, silver, champagne and gold colors. I think I've seen a rainbow of colors of different glitter paper cardstock at my local scrapbook store too. The problem I had though, was that the silver glitter paper got lost behind the creme card stock, and it didn't stand out very well. So I die cut the word again in dark grey card stock, and popped the silver words in front of the grey, and that worked perfectly.

Betty Veldman, an extremely talented and leading lady in the card and paper crafts industry, designed this wonderful kit for Paper Trey Ink. She has been a designer for Paper Trey Ink for quite some time. I am so fond of Paper trey Ink, and the stamps and dies they make. I have quite a collection (and still growing I might add). I love it that I"ll never have to buy another greeting card, I simply can just make my own.

Materials used: Stamps, dies, cream card stock and sequins: Paper Trey Ink. Black ink: Memento Ink. Vintage photo Distress ink: Tim Holtz/Ranger. All other inks: Stampin Up!.

This second card was made by by friend Crystal. She came over to my home to make her sister this pretty shaker card for her birthday. Love to share my love of card making with my friends. Card making with friends just can't be beat.

Finally... a card to share!

So sorry for my long hiatus away from my blog. I can't believe how long it's been since I've posted anything. Been busy with life! And being a bad procrastinator certainly did not help. I'll try to be better.

It's spring here in Southern Minnesota, and in just three weeks, the weather has gone from 10 or 20 above, to a dreamy 61 today! Spring fever for sure! Makes me want to go for walks with the dogs and start gardening.

I wanted to share a few cards I made for valentine's day for my nieces and my dear husband.

These were so fun to make. I combined die cutting with paper punching. Lots of layers.

The text was embossed with black embossing powder. 

The size is a standard A2 size card (4-1/4" x 5-1/2").

This second card I made for my husband. The size is 5" x 5". I just love this sentiment from Verve Stamps! I love the text style combo. I also used black embossing powder for the sentiment and heat set it using my heat gun. Really makes the sentiment stand out. I used circle dies, a leaf scroll die, a scallop with stitching die, and hand punched the heart. Lots of layers, I also like distressing the edges with vintage photo distress ink. My husband really enjoyed getting it for valentine's day.