Oct 31, 2023

Cards With Friends! Playing With Michele Ferguson

 


Welcome! I was so excited when Michele reached out to me to play along with her. My "assignment" was to make a Halloween card. As I write this, I haven't see Michele's card yet, but you can find it here. I can't wait to see it, and I'm going out on a limb and predicting that she uses gray and that it will be a wow. 

I used the following to make my card:  Build-A-Wreath and Halloween Wreath Add-Ons dies by Spellbinders. I love this collection!

If you are interested, I did a blog post for Spellbinders using the Beautiful Wreaths (without making a wreath) collection here

MOOD WHEN DONE: Good! We've had a lot of house guests recently, which I love, and I've done a bit of traveling myself. So no complaints.

Thanks, Michele. This was fun!


Oct 18, 2023

Concord & 9th October Release

Guest designed for Concord & 9th for its October release and it was a doozy. Here are (some) of the cards and other items I made. 


Picture Perfect


Sweet as Pie


Build-a-Bloom Dies

Basketweave Cover Plate



Build-a-Bloom Calendar Bundle


Build-a-Bloom dies

Tweet Life





MOOD WHEN DONE: Excellent! Had a great time working with these awesome products.

Aug 24, 2023

Hero Arts 2023 Oh Joy Winter Catalog Blog Hop

 

It's the Hero Arts 2023 Oh Joy Winter Catalog hop and I'm stoked to be part of it. It's full of amazing products, with styles to suit everyone. There's info on hop participants, a giveaway, and the Hero Arts Stamp-a-Long at the end of this post. Oh, and if you are looking for my on Instagram, you can find me here.

Speaking of different styles, I'm sharing a modern graphic card and a traditional one. 



Holiday Collage Hero Transfers




Haven't used transfers (or rub-ons as we used to call them) in years so I wanted to try these out. They come in a pack of 5 and I used 1 of the 5 designs. Verdict: so fun!

  • Swiped a piece of white cardstock with 5 colors of Distress Oxide inks (Worn Lipstick, Picked Raspberry, Candied Apple, Wild Honey, and Twisted Citron). Let it dry for a few minutes.
  • Peeled the backing off the Holiday Collage Transfer sheet and lay it on top of the inked panel.
  • Took the stick that comes with the transfers and rubbed until I thought it was adhered. Slowly lifted the transfer and if there were any spots not adhered, rubbed that spot.
  • Voila! It took just a minute or two but transferred the entire sheet.
  • Die cut with one of the rectangle dies from Nesting Infinity Rectangle Dies and popped up on a card.
  • Then I was stumped. Leave as is? Add some flowers in the corners? I had no clue. So I took a break and came back to it the next day. 
  • Die cut some circles with Nesting Circle Infinity Dies as shown and added a few black dots and decided I was happy. It's colorful, bold, and fun. 

Christmas Foliage Stamp, Die & Stencils



Love all things holly and this Christmas Foliage set is no exception. Kept it traditional. Loved having the stencils to color for me. They are the best addition to any set of products. Die cut and added a few of the foliage pieces and some sparkles. Quintessential Christmas!

HERO HOLIDAY 2023 STAMP-A-LONG

You can find info on this event here. And, you can find the optional Holiday Stamp-a-Long bundle to purchase here.

GIVEAWAY


Hero Arts is giving away two $50 gift cards, drawn from the comments left along the hop. Comment on all the blogs for more chances to win. You have until Thursday, August 31 at 11:59 pm to enter. The winners will be announced on the Hero Arts Blog.


Hero Arts Creative Team: 


Hero Arts Global Team:


Special Guests:


MOOD WHEN DONE: Proud to be part of this hop. Hero Arts is such a fantastic company.

Aug 22, 2023

Cards, Cards, and More Cards

ESSENTIALS BY ELLEN (ELLEN HUTSON)


SPELLBINDERS


SPELLBINDERS



MY FAVORITE THINGS


MY FAVORITE THINGS


MY FAVORITE THINGS


PINKFRESH STUDIO & MY FAVORITE THINGS


PINKFRESH STUDIO & ESSENTIALS BY ELLEN 


Questions? Let me know. Thanks!

MOOD WHEN DONE: Hot. It's hot. And there's not much else to say about that.

Jul 15, 2023

Spellbinders Blue Holly

 


Love seeing new Christmas products in July. I need to make Christmas cards over a long period of time and starting now just works for me. Remember how companies would release them in November and we wouldn't get them until Thanksgiving? That didn't work!! 

I hot foiled the new and beautiful Spellbinders Glimmer Holly Background Hot Foil Plate in silver foil and colored using the coordinating stencils and blue and purple inks from Pinkfresh Studio. Added a sentiment from A Merry Little Christmas sentiments, also by Spellbinders and a few blue gems. It was easy and I love how it came out. Yana Smakula designed all the products in this collection and I'm in love with all of them. Her talent is magical.

Speaking of new products, I love to get them (I got this collection from Spellbinders and will have a post on their blog sometime this month using the Be Joyful Glimmer plates. They are fabulous!) But I also love to use my older Christmas products. I don't have the space, time, or $$ to get everything I love and it's just a waste to use a product once or twice. You with me here?

MOOD WHEN DONE: Delighted. Just love the blue. Life is quiet and calm, which is good. I'm keeping to myself, trying to avoid all the anger out there and the heat! I hope you are doing well!


May 22, 2023

Pinkfresh Studio May 2023 Stamp, Die, Stencil, and Hot Foil Release



Hello crafters! Today I'm joining Pinkfresh Studio for its May release blog hop. It's another delicious collection with something for everyone. I'm featuring two products: Delicate Foliage and Pretty Blossoms.

Delicate Foliage

The Delicate Foliage suite of products consists of a Hot Foil plate, Stamp set, Dies, and Stencils. You choose!

Hot foiled the Delicate Foliage Hot Foil plate with gold foil on Hammermill Cardstock, Premium Color Copy 100lb. It's inexpensive and I almost always get perfect results. Using the coordinating stencil, added a spring collection of Pinkfresh Studio ink colors to the leaves. If you look closely, you'll see that the stencil adds leaves outside of the foiled leaves. Love that. Cut the leaves using the Delicate Leaves coordinating die and set aside to work on my background.

Using the same Pinkfresh Studio inks, swiped the ink cubes directly onto another piece of Hammermill cardstock. Adhered the leaves and the inked panel to a white A2 card and added a few Pinkfresh Studio Essentials Jewels in coordinating colors.

Pinkfresh Ink colors: Sunshine, Sweet Mustard, Apricot, Passion Fruit, Candy Violet, and Blue Jay. 


Did a happy dance!

Pretty Blossoms



The Pretty Blossoms suite consists of a red rubber background stamp, hot foil plate, stencils, and a die. Again, choose what makes you happy.

Foiled the Pretty Blossoms plate onto melon cardstock using tangerine hot foil and stenciled using Pinkfresh inks. Die cut and popped up with foam tape onto an A2 card. Added a few white accents with a gel pen. 

Stamped a sentiment from Simplest Gestures and matted it onto a piece of cardstock that I hot foiled with the tangerine foil and the Pinkfresh Studio Solid Hot Foil Plate

Solid Pretty Blossoms


Speaking of the Solid Hot Foil Plate, I had to try it with the foil leftover from using the Pretty Blossoms Hot Foil plate and it was fun. If you are not familiar with this plate and how to use it check out this video. Basically, the solid plate lets you use the leftover foil from another project to create the opposite image. Genius

For this card, I used the leftover foil from the card above and hot foiled it onto a piece of Hammermill cardstock. To keep this shiny card simple, I die cut the image and added a foiled sentiment from Phrase Builder: Hello hot foil and its coordinating die

GIVEAWAYS

Pinkfresh Studio will give away the full release on the Pinkfresh Blog & YouTube channel.(I won the full release last February and it's an amazing prize.)

They will also be giving away a total of Ten $25 gift cards along the blog hp. Winners will be picked from the comments and will be posted May 31, 2023 on the Pinkfresh Studio Giveaway Page. Please check that page and claim your prize within 2 weeks.





You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter
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May 16, 2023

Playing with Playful Pieces

 


It's not very often that I see a product and set my alarm for the moment it is released. Concord & 9th came out with the Playful Pieces die and sentiment bundle and I knew they would be mine! 

I'll be sharing more with these products as I had a lot of fun making this card. Isn't that what it is all about?


MOOD WHEN DONE: Happy!! 

Apr 1, 2023

Catching Up


 Vellum + gingham + plus little flowers.



More gingham!

Love double die cutting. Squares + hearts + ink smooshing.


Fun card with products from A Pocketfull of Happiness.


Concord & 9th stencil and dies. They are coming out with 25 more colors. I won't get them all but quite a few are on my want list!!

Spellbinders Anemone Blooms. Love that set. 

That's what I've been up to the past few weeks. These are all on Instagram, but I thought I'd share here as well. 

MOOD WHEN DONE: Things are going well. Husband finished his radiation and is recovering. I'm traveling to California to stay with my SIL for a few days. Then we are traveling to the east so April will be busy.

I hope you are doing well. I don't spend a lot of time in blog land, but I do try and get out there once in a while! 

Feb 20, 2023

Maximalism in Cardmaking


I watched this video by Yana Smakula in which she discusses "maximalism" - a design trend that is sort of the opposite of clean and simple. I was blown away by her cards and had to do a little research. 

Most of what I found focuses on interior design, but the principles are the same regardless of use - usually bold patterns, layering, and vibrant colors. Recently, when we were house hunting last year, we saw this in the use of bold wallpaper. It also reminds me of Tole Painting. My mom had a tray with a tole design painted on it and now I wish I had kept it.

For cardmaking, the potential for disaster is real! However, done right, it can be a lot of fun. So, this card is my first experiment. It uses dies from Spellbinders - In Bloom and Stained Glass Window. There are a few other small floral dies and a hot foil sentiment also from Spellbinders.

So this was a fun experiment. I definitely want to try it again.

MOOD WHEN DONE: Excellent 

Disclosure: Spellbinders gave me In Bloom and Stained Glass Window.



Feb 15, 2023

On Spellbinders' Blog

 


I'm sharing 3 cards, featuring the new Stitched Fan Cardfront, on the Spellbinders' blog today (Wednesday February 15th). I hope you check them out!

Thanks

MOOD WHEN DONE: Awesome

Feb 14, 2023

Happy Valentine's Day

 


Here's a super simple idea that works for any holiday or birthday - number dies and a little heart. Used shiny gold foil paper from Tonic - it doesn't smudge! The other supplies are unlabeled in my stash. 

MOOD WHEN DONE: Looking forward to lunch with the husband today. Checking out a new to us restaurant in the neighborhood.


Feb 4, 2023

A Few cards and more life...

 


Really enjoyed making this card. Products from Spellbinders All Occasion Mailbox Greetings Hot Foil plate and assorted floral die sets. Using Opaque White Hot Foil is so much easier and neater than white embossing. Now that I have my Glimmer machine on my desk, I use it all the time and it's a snap.


Pinkfresh Studio Songbirds on Branches hot foil plate, die and stencil. I won this set last year and it's turned out to be my favorite product from 2022. Adhered to a heart die and added a hot foiled sentiment from Spellbinders.

MOOD WHEN DONE: happy

Update: Following up on my earlier post about my husband's skin cancer journey, tests indicate that the cancer has not spread beyond the site, so that is 100% good news. Radiation plans got delayed due to an ice storm here in Texas. We'll be happy when plans are finalized and we can move on. Thanks for your comments and to Marty and Caly - thanks for the lovely cards!! 





Jan 21, 2023

Spellbinders Butterfly Kisses and a Life Update


I was on the Spellbinders blog last week featuring a new collection (one stamp set and coordinating dies) by Simon Hurley called Butterfly Kisses. You can find my post here. I'm determined to use colors that I don't normally use, so it was a purple fest! 

BTW, if you are wondering why I don't just share the cards here, Spellbinders has asked that we only share a peek of our cards and send folks over to their blog.

MOOD WHEN DONE: Anxious

Life Update:

A few days before our Covid Christmas we learned my husband's squamous cell skin cancer had "spread". This form of cancer is almost always curable with Moh's surgery. He's had this type of skin cancer, Moh's surgery, and reconstructive plastic surgery on his head many times. His scalp is the poster child for listening to your wife and wearing sun screen (particularly if you like to run at high noon and are a red head).

In any event, the Moh's surgeon (very nice) said that the very small spot of cancer on top of his head was much larger underneath and had gone down to the bone. It had wrapped around the nerves and that's how squamous caused by sun damage* spreads to the rest of the body. She said he would need radiation on his head and lymph node, and maybe more treatment pending scans. We reacted beautifully - 2 highly educated numbskulls sitting there saying absolutely nothing. 

The bone? What did that mean?

Two days later, Mike had reconstructive surgery, but the plastic surgeon said he wasn't sure the skin graft would take since it was large and Mike already had a skin graft on this area. If it didn't take, he'd have to have more surgery and that would delay the radiation. Once again, we performed like medical rockstars  - complete silence - although Mike managed to ask when he could go back to running (we have nothing in common.)

And then the wait to see the oncologist. I was sure it had been 3 months since Mike's Moh's surgery, but it was only a couple of weeks. If you have had cancer or know anyone who has, you are familiar with the waits, the scans, the unrelenting anxiety. In this case, I woke up from my stupor and accomplished something. I figured out which of the oncology offices Mike could go to had the best record for getting appointments scheduled, etc. and made sure Mike went there. I also made a chocolate cake from scratch AND a chicken pot pie with a tater tot topping (both excellent). My love language is apparently food. 

Earlier this week Mike and I met with the oncologist, who was MUCH more optimistic. He feels pretty strongly that the cancer has not gone beyond the skull and that Mike will only need a month of radiation. Not the best way to spend a month, but much better than we feared. He won't know for sure until some tests are done, but I am feeling pretty good about this whole thing. 

I also really liked the fact that he will meet with Mike and me weekly during the month of radiation to see how he is doing (he said is was important to get feedback from the spouse on how the patient is really doing...). This time I managed to take some incomprehensible notes and mentioned the rather grim words from the Moh's surgeon. Bottom line, he disagrees but the scans will tell.

In the meantime, before we met with the oncologist, I was frozen in anxiety and we were both recovering from Covid (not bad but not great). I had some assignments due for Spellbinders but my heart and mind were not engaged in crafting, as I was too busy planning for armageddon. I made the cards, but honestly not my favorite work. But, it was good to have something to do to get me off the chair while I was watching TV (I started watching The Affair - it's like Peyton Place on crack. I recommend if you don't mind what we used to call X-rated and a soap opera). 

Then I got a call from my doctor - my mammogram was abnormal and I'd have to do a follow up ultrasound. Mike was very anxious but honestly, my brain was "sorry, I don't have time for you." Luckily, my brain was right and the ultrasound found no cancer. 

So that's the life update. I'm back to life and getting things done. I'll update when there is something to say. Thanks for listening. Writing is good for me. 

* There are 2 ways to get squamous cell cancer - one from being out in the sun and one from the HPV virus. Apparently, people (particularly men) get squamous cell cancer in the mouth from having oral with someone who has the HPV virus. That's why they developed the vaccine. Who knew? (Not me.)




Jan 17, 2023

Anemone Blooms Collection

 




I made these cards for the Spellbinders catalog and their blog. They use a gorgeous set of products, designed by Yana Smakula, called Anemone Blooms. The collection consists of a die set, a hot foil and die set, and sentiments. It's a must see! 

You can see better pictures of the cards and read how I made them by checking out this blog post. Thanks!


MOOD WHEN DONE: Happy!


Jan 16, 2023

Showered with Love Collection



Hello!

I've got 3 cards and lots of chit chat on the Spellbinders blog using products from the beautiful Showered with Love Collection. You can check it out here

MOOD WHEN DONE: This was fun! 

Jan 15, 2023

A few cards

First up is a card that was so fun to make. I took a cover plate die from A Pocket Full of Happiness and hot foiled it with opaque white hot foil on black cardstock. Have to admit that once I really started using my Glimmer machine, I stopped embossing. I'm hooked. And white hot foil is a game changer. 



And, a couple more Christmas cards. 



MOOD WHEN DONE: I'm good! 

Jan 12, 2023

Anemone Blooms

Sharing a couple of cards using the new Anemone Blooms collections, designed by super talented Yana Smakula for Spellbinders.

Using the Anemone Glimmer Blooms and the Hello, Friend Sentiment hot foil plates:


Hot foiled the anemones with silver hot foil onto Glacier cardstock. It's a pale icy blue that works well with silver and black. Then I ink blended over the hot foil. I haven't done any coloring in months but I like the way this came out.

Next up is the Anemones die set with Inside Card Glimmer Hot Foil Sentiments using bright Saffron and Island Blue cardstocks.

Hot foiled the sentiment using Opaque White hot foil - which is my new favorite way to add a sentiment.  So much cleaner than using embossing powders! 

NOTE: I get great results hot foiling on Spellbinders colored cardstock. It's very smooth and just works. You can probably get good results foiling on other companies' colored cardstock, but I get the best results using Spellbinders.

Disclosure: Spellbinders provided the gorgeous Anemone Blooms collection to me. I paid for all other products! While I am technically an "affiliate" I've chosen at present not to collect a commission if you buy after clicking on one of my links. 

MOOD WHEN DONE: Love how stamping STILL is my go to happy place.