Hello Chica

I wanted to make another card for the Moxie Fab Lovely As A Tree Challenge so I racked my brain for an idea and came up with a felt tree! Of course I also had to make a felt birdie to go in the tree! (If you click to enlarge, you can see the stitching I did on the tree.)


For the tree, I used the Cricut and the My Community cartridge to cut out a pattern from plain printer paper, and for the bird I used an image from Kim Hughes' Mocha Chica set. The sentiment is from Kim Hughes' The Landing Pad set.

I wanted the card to be whimsical, so I used some blue polka dot paper from Fancy Pants (The Daily Grind collection) for the sky. When I turned the sheet over, it had this cool decorated notebook paper design on the back that I thought would be fun for grass. I fringed a strip of it and zigazag stitched it onto the card.

Since I used the same blue felt for the bird's body and its wing, it was a little hard to see the wing, so I chalked it with a darker blue color to help it stand out. Here's a close shot of the birdie:


Keeping my fingers crossed that Cath likes it! Hope you like it too and TFL!

Dazzles Stitched Stickers

A stamping friend sent me some Hot Off The Press "Dazzles" "Stitched Stickers" and they looked really cool so I had to play with them right away!

Basically they are gold outline stickers on a clear background. You stick them on whatever paper you choose, then poke holes where indicated and stitch with gold thread to make a design. I got some party stickers and was thrilled to see a cupcake in there:


I thought about sticking the cupcake on a colored cardstock, but then decided to go with white - I think the gold on white is really elegant! You can see the stitching on the candle bottom and flame. There were supposed to be french knots inside of each of those little swirls, but I went with bitty pink rhinestones instead.

Here's a close-up of the sticker:


I'm so glad I got to try these - they are pretty neat and fun to play with! I have another one all stitched up that I need to put on a card. I'll post it soon. If you're interested, you can order these from Paper Wishes.

The sentiment is from Cornish Heritage Farms - the Tag! You're It! set from the Kim Hughes Collection. TFL!

Cupcake Challenges - Part 4

Here is my final set of cards to play along with Taylor's anniversary celebration!! Woohoo! I can't believe I got all 9 done, especially since I've been in such a slump lately!

Both of today's cards used the DCWV Nana's Nursery paper pads. Specifically the Baby Girl and Baby Boy pads respectively.

This first one used the sketch from Jami Sibley and features a brand new image from Stamping Bella called Cuppycake with a Huggabug on Top. How cute is she?! The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink.

Now that I'm looking at the sketch again, I can see that my card's a bit off. I guess when I copied the sketch to work off of, I drew it wrong! Oh well, I think it's pretty close!

And here's my final card for the cupcake challenges, which used the sketch from Ana Wohlfahrt. I finally got around to using this Kim Hughes' set, Birthday Bash, that I've had sitting around for a while.

I paper pieced the cupcake and liner, and then cut out an extra candle to pop up for dimension. The little shadow was done with an oval stamp from A Muse.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing my cupcake creations! A big thanks to Taylor and all of her designers for the challenges - I had a ton of fun playing with cupcakes!

Merry Christmas!

Wow, it's been a looooong time since I blogged last! The boys have been keeping me really busy and also stole all my mojo away!!

Here's a card I made a while ago:
I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas today!

Materials used: Heart Warmers set - Cornish Heritage Farms; patterned paper and alpha stickers - Basic Grey; ribbon - May Arts; rhinestone - the Rhinestone Guy.

Early Christmas Cards

I got to play a little for World Cardmaking Day this past Saturday and was especially excited to do the challenges posted at Cornish Heritage Farms. I don't have any specifically Christmas sets from CHF, so I had to improvise just a little.

The first challenge was to make a holiday card with snow. I immediately got an idea to do a snow covered branch so I pulled out The Landing Pad and also U R A Hoot! to have something to sit on the branch. [I copied a card I made a while ago. You can see it here.] I added a hat trimmed with felt and also the snow on the branch - liquid pearl paint covered with ultra fine glitter. The sentiment is also from the U R A Hoot! set (have I mentioned before how much I ADORE Kim Hughes' handwriting?!).

You might not be able to tell, but the ric-rac is actually velvet. It's so pretty and adds such a nice texture and just a little goes a long way!

The next challenge I took on was to make a holiday card that sparkles. I recently got this Lace Tree embossing folder so I tried it out for this challenge. Unfortunately, it took me about 10 tries to get a really nice impression with no creasing around the edges of the tree. I finally figured out that I had to feed the folder through my Big Shot sideways!

Anyway, after I got the perfect impression, I ran over all the raised portions with some Stickles and let it dry thoroughly. Then I added the little cardinal (from The Landing Pad set), and the sentiment (from the U R A Hoot! set).

Thanks to CHF for these fun challenges, and an extra big thank you for the set I won from the festivities! Woohoo!!

Little Gal Cupcake

I was so excited to have won a set from Kim Hughes' blog and even more excited when she posted that it would be a NEW October stamp set!! I received the set yesterday and loved it so much I had to make a card right away with it!

I used the Taylored Expressions Cupcake Challenge #35 sketch, the new set called Little Gal, which is being released on Thursday, October 2nd, and another of Kim's sets, Tag! You're It! for the sentiment.

The cupcake is actually the top of an ice cream cone, which Kim showed on her blog here. As soon as I saw the image, I thought cupcake because I'm a little obsessed with them right now!

Not only are the stamps Kim's designs, but I was also influenced by her style - you can see that I used her technique of inking just a very thin line on the edges of my base paper, and the cherry stem is actually a piece of Waxy Flax that I colored brown with a Copic (I bought a bunch of Waxy Flax after seeing Kim use it on her blog).

Final design note: The little dots in the corners of the squares are french knots made with embroidery floss.

Thanks to Taylor for a really fun sketch and BIG huge hugs to Kim for the set - it's awesome!!

Other materials used: patterned paper - Kelly Panacci; Dark Chocolate cardstock, ink, and satin ribbon - Papertrey Ink; cream cardstock and paper piercing template - Stampin' Up!; Graphite Black Brilliance ink - Tsukineko; snaps - Making Memories; Nestabilities.

U R A Hoot Sheetload Mini

I really liked the Sheetload Mini sketch this month (especially since it's a regular sized card) so I decided to give it a try. I gave it a little twist - instead of including 1 small image on each patterned paper panel, I used the branch across all 3 panels, and then centered the owl.

The branch and saying are both from The Landing Pad set and the owl is from the U R A Hoot set, both of which are from Cornish Heritage Farms.

I stamped the owl twice on brown Bazzill cardstock, and once on Georgia Pacific white cardstock. I colored the beak and toes with Copics on the white version and cut out the eyes with the beak, and also the toes. Then I cut out 1 full brown owl, and just the eyelids of the other brown owl. I did just a bit of shading on the full brown owl and then glued the eyelids onto the eyes. The full eyes and toes were then stuck on with foam dots.

Last notes: the branch was stamped on patterned paper, cut out, and popped up, and I did a bunch of zig zag stitching all around the PP pieces.

I really like how this card came out and may be using the sketch again in the future!

Other materials used: ink - Graphite Black Brilliance and Papertrey Ink Dark Chocolate; patterned paper - Dream Street Papers LLC (Near & Dear line); all cardstock - Bazzill; ribbon - Stampin' Up!; brads - unknown.

Nature Silhouettes

I'm a little ashamed to admit that I've had this set for a few months and never even cut it up until tonight! I'm still doing challenges for the Dare to Get Dirty series on Splitcoast so that's why this card looks to be a little out of the ordinary for me.

Materials used: Nature Silhouettes stamp set - Cornish Heritage Farms (Kim Hughes Collection): patterned paper - 7 Gypsies; Green Galore ink and cardstock, Very Vanilla and Basic Black cardstock - Stampin' Up!; black and white Brilliance ink - Tsukineko; ribbon - Pink Hedgehog Papercrafts.

Shady Daisy Thanks

Today I want to share a really quick and easy, but elegant card. The Shady Daisy Backgrounder from Cornish Heritage Farms can be used entirely on its own to make the simplest card, or you can add sentiments and embellishments to make it even more gorgeous. I just distressed the edges of the main panel a bit and added some Stampin' Up! ribbon stamped with Thanks from Kim Hughes' Tag You're It set (also from CHF). I didn't have brads quite the right shade of purple, so I airbrushed them with a Copic marker.

You should check out the CHF gallery to see all the other wonderful cards made with this backgrounder!

Faux Cross-Stitched Flower

Today's card is another one that I made for Cornish Heritage Farms' Backgrounder Blitz. The theme for the day's challenge was using the Kissing Technique. It's where you take 2 stamps, one detailed and one more solid, and then ink either or both up and smoosh them together. The solid stamp takes on the detail of the other stamp and you get a really cool effect. Here's my example:

I took a flower image from Silhouette Blooms II and inked it up with 2 different colors. I then smooshed it onto the Weave Backgrounder to get that lined detail. I placed my white cardstock onto the Backgrounder and pressed evenly with an acrylic block to transfer the image.

I thought the resulting flower looked just like it was cross-stitched, so I paired it up with this pretty paper from Cosmo Cricket's Honey Pie collection.

The sentiment stamp is also from Silhouette Blooms II, white cardstock from Georgia Pacific; metal accents from Stampin' Up!; all other materials from Papertrey Ink.

Branch Birthday Wishes

I made today’s card for the Backgrounder Blitz at Cornish Heritage Farms (today is the sketch challenge):
I learned a great technique from this post on Gina K.’s blog. Instead of just using pens to color these types of images, she actually inked the whole image with an inkpad first, and then colored with her markers. It sure saves some time!!

I took one of the images from Kim Hughes’ Silhouette Blooms II (from CHF of course!) and inked up the whole thing with Pretty in Pink ink, stamped on a piece of scrap white cardstock and set aside to dry. Then I inked up the stamp again with the PiP ink, and this time I colored the branches with my Close to Cocoa pen. After stamping, I set this one aside to dry as well.

I then cut out the entire 2-color branch image, and then only 2 of the flowers from the scrap image. Because I thought foam tape would be way too thick to pop up such tiny flowers, I punched 4 1/8” holes and used 2 each to pop up the flowers. It gives them just the right amount of dimension.

Even though all that cutting was a little crazy, I really love how this card turned out and may make more!

Other materials used: Grid Paper Backgrounder, sentiment from Silhouette Blooms II from Cornish Heritage Farms; Pretty in Pink cardstock and all inks and pen from Stampin' Up!; ribbon from May Arts; Stickles glitter glue; long scalloped rectangle Nestabilities.

Playing with Memories Mists

I was at my local stamp store last week and they did a demo for me using Memories Mists. They aren’t a new product on the market, but they were new to me and I loved the effects so I bought a bunch of different colors. I finally got around to playing today with the Green Tea. I thought the technique would go perfectly with Kim Hughes’ Silhouette Blooms II set so I tried a few of the images out and I liked this one best for today’s card (you can also see the bottle in the picture):The technique is super easy – just spray a fine mist of water on your stamp and stamp on your cardstock of choice. I stamped 3 times onto Stampin’ Up!’s vanilla cardstock. Then you just spray the Mist over it and the water acts as a sort of resist. I quickly blotted away a little of the Mist so the lighter color of the cardstock would show through, and then I hit it with my heat gun to hurry the drying time. The sentiment is from the same set (I just LOVE the simple type combined with the pretty script), stamped with Walnut Stain Distress Ink. The Grid Paper background is also from Cornish Heritage Farms and was stamped with the same Distress Ink, which is coincidentally on sale right now!!

I distressed the heck out of the layers in a few different ways: (1) after stamping the grid paper, I misted with water and dragged a sponge around to spread the color; (2) sponged the edges with the same Distress Ink; (3) sanded the entire grid layer to lighten/blur the lines a little; and (4) used my Heidi Swapp distressing tool around all the edges.

This card is a real departure from my normal cute stuff, but I really love it! I’m going to keep playing with the Mists (they showed me a couple different techniques) so hopefully I’ll have more cards to share using them.

Other materials used: brown cardstock from Bazzill; ribbon from May Arts; rectangle Nestabilities from Spellbinders.

New Stamps & Love Note

I was so excited after receiving my first order from Cornish Heritage Farms that I had to blog about it! I've been wanting to order from them for a while because I've been eyeing all the Kim Hughes' stamps and some of their awesome backgrounders, but I couldn't make up my mind which to get. Well, I finally bit the bullet and picked some, figuring that I could always order again later, right?!

So here are the sets I got:


















From the Kim Hughes Collection - Hugs & Kisses and Silhouette Blooms II.

Two backgrounders - Grid Paper and Lined Paper. I also *had* to get the new Classic Essential Expressions. It has a TON of great sayings and the simple font goes with everything!

And of course I just had to make a card with my new stamps, so here you go:
Super simple, but I love it anyway! It's kind of a weird color scheme for a love card, but I took the colors from the patterned paper - a light orange and turquoise. Sounds ugly, but I really like the combo!

Supplied used: All stamps - Cornish Heritage Farms; White cardstock, inks, and small circle punch to take corners off of sentiment piece - Stampin' Up!; patterned paper - Heidi Grace; Nestabilites - Spellbinders; brads - unknown.