GOOD THINGS

During the most recent Sale-A-Bration, a customer could get a 6X6 pack of cool Designer Series Paper for free. Called Simply Marbleous, one side of the paper featured a marbled look in a color with white, while the flip side was an oily look, suposedly resembling silk. It came in a variety of colors.

While I wasn't a complete fan of the DSP, I did find a good use for it in this card:

I cut the green marbled side into strips, then mounted them to a black base. I was happy with the result, and finished it off with a few die cuts and the sentiment.

Follow along for a tutorial on how to make a card like this. This process could be done with any Designer Series Paper that doesn't have just too much drama and/or busyness. Give it a try!

SUPPLIES:

White cardstock

Black cardstock

Designer Series Paper of your choice

Black ink

Season's Blessings (unfortunately retired)

A die cutting/embossing machine

Ornate Frames Dies (RETIRED -- boo hoo!)

Project Life Dies (also retired)

Matte Black Dots (page 143, Annual Catalog)

Stampin' Dimensionals

INSTRUCTIONS:

Fold a 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" piece of white cardstock in half, creasing it well with a bone folder.

To this, add a 4" x 5 1/4" piece of black cardstock.

Working on the black cardstock, adhere four 3/4" x 5" strips of Designer Series Paper, spacing them as evenly as possible.

On a scrap of white cardstock, in black ink, stamp a sentiment. Die cut the sentiment with a die that fits your words. I used a die from <the now retired> Ornate Dies.

Add a Black Matte Dot to each side of the sentiment.

Adhere the sentiment piece to a larger die cut label in black.

With Stampin' Dimensionals, add the sentiment piece to the card front.

Stripped

Smiles.

FLOWERY EDGE

 This was a really complicated card to photograph. If you look through all the photos, you will see why.

Being a fussy cutting maven, I felt moved to give this card a try. It was a fair amount of work, especially the figuring out of sizes and placement. But I think the final result is worth all the stress.

I knew I wanted a fussy cut flower edge, but wasn't sure how to proceed. 

I cut  a piece of white cardstock to 3 3/4" x 5". I stamped the outlined flowers (from the Color & Contour set, page 97) in black ink towards the bottom of the long side of the piece. I then stamped the color -- Balmy Blue -- and used the Dark Daffodil Delight Stampin' Blend to give the centers a pretty yellow.

Next step was to fussy cut the lower portions of the flowers. These flowers are really simple to cut.

Since I'd used Daffodil Delight for the flower centers, I thought a card base in Daffodil Delight cardstock would be just the ticket. However, I wanted the flowers to hang sort of loose, not attached to the yellow. so I trimmed off 1" from the front of the card base. 

Since I didn't have any ribbon in Balmy Blue, I used my Light Balmy Blue Stampin' Blend to color some white ribbon. After the ribbon had dried I added it above the flowers, taping the ends on the back. 

I knew I wanted to use the beautiful "thanks" from the Amazing Thanks dies (page 169) and cut the large portion from Balmy Blue cardstock and the more detailed piece from Daffodil Delight. I adhered these pieces togehter and mounted the word above the strip of ribbon. 

Once I knew how much space the "thanks" was taking up, I was able to add the second piece of colored ribbon above it, taping the ends to the back of the white cardstock. 

I cut a piece of Balmy Blue cardstock to 3" x 4" and adhered the completed white piece to it.

The final step was to attach the blue piece to the card base, leaving an even margin at the top and the sides and keeping the lower edge even with the cut-off Daffodil Delight .

Voila! All my fanagling resulted in a successful Flowery Edged card. 

Flowery

Smiles.

SMILING HEART

Have you heard of CAS cards? Clean and Simple? They are cards that have the merest basics, lots of white space, but classy in their own right.

I usually don't see myself as especially talented in this area, preferring lots of layers, embellishments and techniques.

Well, seen below is one of my takes on the CAS card.

When I saw the precious stems with added flowers from the Wildflower Path stamp set, I was moved to use these stamps in a clean and simple way. I then finished it off with the beautiful sentiment from the set.

Basically a one layer card, sans extras, it is the type of card that is a dream to mail. Although the sentiment probably dictates that it is a thank you card, I can think of other occasions for which it would be suitable. 

Following is a tutorial on how to make this quick, but effective, card.

SUPPLIES:

White cardstock

Wildflower Path stamp set (page 106, Annual Catalog)

Soft Succulent ink

Flirty Flamingo ink

Die Cutting/Embossing Machine

Subtle Embossing Folder (unfortunately retired. Hope you have yours!)

Wink of Stella

DIRECTIONS:

Fold a 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" piece of white cardstock in half, creasing it well with a bone folder.

Cut another piece of white cardstock measuring 4" x 5 1/4". On this piece, in Soft Succulent ink, stamp one of the branches from Wildflower Path across the bottom and one across the top, flipping the image. In Flirty Flamingo ink, add flowers to the stems.

Add a little Wink of Stella to the flowers.

In Soft Succulent ink, add the sentiment right above the branch on the bottom, but to the right.

Run this piece through an embossing machine inside the Subtle Embossing Folder. It is important to do the stamping BEFORE you emboss the cardstock. Did you ever try to stamp on embossed paper?

Adhere the embossed sheet to the card base.

Send it to someone who makes your heart smile!

Heartful

Smiles.

PEONY LOVE

My mom is so precious to me, so for Mother's Day, I wanted to create for her a very special card.

Using my Stampin' Blends to add color to the beautiful retired peony made it easy to create a quite realistic and lovely flower.

The flower cut with an oval die, then set atop a scalloped rectangular piece of Flirty Flamingo cardstock, gave this blossom ample importance. The little touch of love at the bottom makes sure she knows how I feel about her.

Wishing a very Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there, whether your children have two or four legs, give or take. Love to you all!

Love-ly

Smiles.

#dailycreating DECEMBER 2021

All I can say is that December 2021 must have been a horrible month for me as far as drawing went. And I didn't realize that until I was leafing through my December sketchbook. Yuk.

As a result of my slacking, I only have a measly seven drawings to show you as part of Terry Runyan's #dailycreating group. The members of Terry's Facebook group are encouraged to create something every single day. 

At this point in time yet, I have been pretty faithful about following her prompts.

Only sharing such a small handful of creations for the month, it shouldn't take you just too much time to browse through them.

As I always do, I will note above each drawing what the prompt of the day was and any other interesting information I may have on my subject matter.

#thing on thing

malachite kingfisher/africa

#let's hug day

meerkats

#meerkat-urday

meerkat

#scarf

#thing on thing

#otter-urday

otter

#cardinal

I feel I must say something about a few of the prompts that included "urday". On Saturdays, if we choose not to do #caturday or #dogurday, we can do any #animal-urday. I love that!

Just today, I have started to have prints made of some of my drawings. I am not doing them as Giclee prints, because they are so costly. I have opted for a much more reasonable print. If you would like prints of any of my drawings, please let me know. 

Please keep in mind that these are my original drawings, and are not to be copied or used in any fashion without my express agreement. Thank you for respecting that!

Keep your fingers crossed that the month of January saw me doing better drawings. 

Thanks for looking!

Daily

Smiles.