Doodlebugs – Birthday Fun

We had another birthday in our family and I’m excited to be able to share the card I made to celebrate the occasion today on the Doodlebugs blog. I’m fairly obsessed with the detail this embossing folder gives and I think it’s such a fabulous backdrop for birthdays and big celebrations, I am reaching for it over and over again!

Today I embossed a panel and then ink blended over the embossing so the ink really grabbed the highs and skipped the lows of the images. I chose Lawn Fawn peach fuzz and butter inks for my background, then splattered it with blue metallic watercolor.

I chose the Mama Elephant Little Line Agenda stamps for my images. I colored those with copic markers and used the coordinating die to cut it out. Then I used the Mama Elephant Easy Sentiments stamps and coordinating die for my sentiment strip.

Now that I have all my elements, I trimmed the embossed panel down to 4×5.25 inches and popped it up on a white card base. Then I popped the line image and sentiment strip up as well. I finished everything off with glossy accents on the critter noses and the bubble balls in front of all the gifts.

This is a really simple design that would be fun and great to recreate for the masses as a gift or to have cards on hand.

Products used:
Mama Elephant Little Line Agenda stamps and dies
Mama Elephant Easy Sentiments stamps and dies
Spellbinders Floating Balloons embossing folder
Foam tape
Glossy accents
Blending brushes
Lawn Fawn ink – butter and peach fuzz
LH Colors watercolor

I appreciate you sharing your time with me. Have a fabulous day!

Spellbinders – Hello Blooms Stenciling Card

Hi there! I’ve been making a point to go through my stash when I’ve got free crafty time and use things in my stash that have been neglected or forgotten. I have so many awesome things that get love when they are new and then I don’t get to revisit them much. I have a few goals this year and sharing inspiration for those things is one of them.

Today I have a card featuring the stencil and die set from Spellbinders called Hello Blooms. They have a number of these layered stencils sets and the designs are fabulous. They’re really fun to create with and also great if you need something quick too.

Each time I have created with this stencil I have chosen a different color palette and each time I think I like this one more than the last. This time I went outside my comfort zone and did all purple. Definitely not my go-to color but it turned out so pretty and I love the gold accents with it.

After stenciling, I used the coordinating die to cut the florals out. I cut a piece of dotted cardstock from my stash to 3.75×5 and popped my floral up on it with foam squares. I trimmed the excess off and lightly splattered the panel with gold watercolor. Letting that dry, I cut the shadow for hello included in this set from dark purple cardstock and the word itself from Spellbinders die cutting glitter foam. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it louder for those in the back…this stuff is AMAZING!!!!!!!! I highly recommend at least the basic colors in your stash if you like to die cut words and shapes from foam.

I used liquid glue to adhere the sentiment and then also to add it to the florals. Then I popped the panel up on a white card base with foam tape. I finished things off with some jute twine tied around the top of the card front.

Products used:
Hello Blooms stencils and dies
Pop Up Die Cutting Glitter Foam – silver and gold pack
Foam squares and tape
Liquid glue
LH Colors watercolor – gold
Blending brushes
Lawn Fawn dye inks

I appreciate you sharing your time with me. Have a fabulous day!

Miss Ink Stamps – Punny Farm Goats

Happy Thursday everyone! I’m here today with some sweet Miss Ink Stamps inspiration featuring the cutest goats ever – Punny Farm Goats! The sentiments in the set are as cute as the goats and make it a blast to create lots of different cards with this set. Today I’m still making valentines to share so that’s the route we went.

I stamped my goat and a few hearts from the set and cut them out with the scan-n-cut. Then I stamped my sentiment and heat embossed it before cutting it out with a banner die.

I inked up my background panel with the Flower Shower stencil set and glued it to a card base. Tying in the green leaves, I cut a scalloped frame from the Punny Farm Frame dies and popped it up with foam strips on the card front.

Finally, I popped up my sentiment banner and images with foam squares in the center. I finished the card off with stardust Stickles on the hearts in the air and on the sentiment strip. Then took black glaze pen and went over the goat’s eyes, letting that dry before adding the white highlight back in the center. Last, but not least, I added glossy accents to the goat’s horns, hooves and nose.

Isn’t this so stinking cute?!? I love how it turned out!

Products used:
Punny Farm Goats stamps
Punny Farm Frame dies
Flower Shower stencils
Lawn Fawn Extra Sentiment Banners dies
Foam strips and squares
Blending brushes
Lawn Fawn juice box and jalapeno inks
Glossy accents
Magic Anti-static brush
Embossing & Watermark ink
Embossing powder – frosting
Stickles – star dust

I appreciate you sharing your time with me. Have a fabulous day!

Pretty Pink Posh – Lucky to Know You Distress Oxide Play

Hey friends! I’ve been playing with the January release from Pretty Pink Posh a ton over this long weekend. We ended up with snow/ice and so much cold that it wasn’t even anything to play in outside so I took it as permission to stay home and craft! It was fabulous!!!

For this card I got extra inky and messy with distress oxide inks and watercolors to and visual texture and shimmer to the design. I inked up a panel with spun sugar distress oxide ink, spritzed it with water and flicked pink watercolor on it. While that was drying I inked up a panel with a bunch of green distress oxide inks using just the ink left on the sponge. I die cut that with all the different Stitched Shamrocks dies.

When the watercolor was dry I used liquid glue to adhere all the shamrocks, filling the panel as much as possible by trimming excess and gluing the rest to a different edge. Then I die cut the whole panel with the largest Stitched Torn Rectangle. I popped this up on a white card base with foam tape.

I cut Lucky from green glitter paper and pink cardstock, glued them together and popped them up on the card front with foam squares. I finished the sentiment by using the Lucky stamp set. I die cut it with a Sentiment Strip die and popped it up with a foam strip under the glittery lucky.

There is something about this pink and green combo that has me full of heart eyes. I love it!!!

Products used:
Stitched Torn Rectangles dies
Lucky stamps
Lucky Shadow dies
Stitched Shamrocks dies
Liquid glue
Foam strips
Magic anti-static brush
Embossing and watermark ink
Embossing powder – frosting
Distress Oxide Ink – spun sugar, pine needles, mowed lawn, shabby shutters, twisted citron, lucky clover
LH Colors watercolor

I appreciate you sharing your time with me. Have a fabulous day!

Doodlebugs – From Me To You

Welcome everyone. I’m so glad you’re here. It’s Mix It Up Monday on the Doodlebugs blog and we’re playing with Spellbinders and Pretty Pink Posh today. I decided to NOT stitch on some glorious stitching dies to show you that you don’t always have to, even if it feels like it.

I tend to be an all or nothing girl and when a die set comes with options, I feel like I need to use them all or I’m not doing something right. However, the stitching portion of this Spellbinders die set is optional…as in, it’s a separate die, and today I didn’t use it. What do you think?

The Spellbinders die set in question is called Kaleidoscope Arch and it happens to have a coordinating stamp set too. Today, instead of cutting the stitching holes, I added some detail with tone-on-tone stamping using the floral image in the stamp set. I cut all the layers from yellow cardstocks in my stash and glued them together with liquid glue, including the sentiment banner. Then I popped the whole thing in my MISTI and stamped the floral image with yellow ink.

Next, I chose orange cardstocks and a good green to die cut all of my floral pieces. These are also included in the Kaleidoscope Arch dies. I used gold metallic paper for the flower centers and adhered everything together with liquid glue. You all know I love my critters, so I went digging and found this sweet koala from Pretty Pink Posh Crafty Critters to color and die cut. When I was playing with placement for the florals and koala I thought it would be cut if he help a flower so I cut another one and glued everything in place…again, liquid glue. I really value that wiggle room time you get with that versus a tape runner that adheres immediately.

For my background, I took a piece of white cardstock cut to 4×5.25 inches and layered the Pretty Pink Posh Deco Leaves stencil at an angle. I blended No. 2 Pencil ink with a blending brush, removed the stencil and added more of the same color focusing on the center and fading out. Then I splattered the panel with gold watercolor and let it dry.

Okay, now that everything is dry we can layer everything together. I added foam tape to the stenciled panel and popped it up on a white card base. Then I added foam squares behind the koala and the flower he is holding but that’s all. Everything else has layers behind so this little bit of foam keeps everything the same height. I removed foam release paper and added liquid glue to everything else and popped my focal image in the center of the card front.

For finishing touches I added Sakura black glaze pen to the koala’s eyes and glossy accents to his nose. Isn’t it the cutest!?!

Products used:
Spellbinders Kaleidoscope Arch stamps and dies
Pretty Pink Posh Crafty Critters stamps and dies
Pretty Pink Posh Deco Leaves stencil
Lawn Fawn No. 2 Pencil ink
Blending brush
Gold watercolor
Foam squares
Glossy accents
Liquid glue
Sakura black glaze pen

I appreciate you sharing your time with me. Have a fabulous day!

Newton’s Nook – Gate Fold Valentine

Hi friends! I’m on the Newton’s Nook blog today sharing a fun gate fold valentine using one of my favorite stamp sets – Love Quarry! It’s so much fun and makes it really simple to make valentines for the guys in your life.

I started my card by working on the excavator, heart layers and sentiment speech bubble. I colored my image with copic markers and used the coordinating die to cut it out. Then I chose a speech bubble to cut out and stamped my sentiment on that. I cut a gray scalloped heart and the next size down in white. I used the Heartfelt Love stamp on the white heart with gray ink so it was subtle but definitely following my love theme.

I created a card base, scoring at 2 1/8 from each side and folding to the center. I inked up a separate panel that measured 4×5.25 inches with a few blue inks randomly and splattered it with water. Then I splattered the panel with unicorn watercolor paint. While that was drying I took the darkest ink I used on that panel and inked the edges of my card front flaps. Then, I cut the splattered panel in half and glued it to my card front.

I used liquid glue to adhere my heart to the left half of the card front only. That way it opens up nicely to reveal a surprise and my handwritten message too. Before we get to the inside, I added glossy accents and stardust Stickles to the excavator and a clay heart to my speech bubble.

This inside sentiment comes from the Heartfelt Love stamp set I used on the front and the accent images are from Love Quarry. Aren’t they so cute?!?

Products used:
Love Quarry stamps and dies
Heartfelt Love stamps
Heart Frames dies
Speech Bubbles dies
Blending brushes
Lawn Fawn inks – fish tank, forget me not, deep sea, carrot and sunflower
Glossy accents
Foam squares
Liquid glue
Twiddler’s Nook Sweethearts clay embellishments

I appreciate you sharing your time with me. Have a fabulous day!

Miss Ink Stamps – Kindred Spirits

Happy Friday Eve everyone! I’m looking forward to the weekend but I’m also excited that it’s Thursday and my time to share my inspiration from Miss Ink Stamps. I had a blast pulling my Halloween stamps out and using them for a super cute valentine card!

I stamped the ghosties from Kindred Spirits and colored them with copic markers. Then I cut the image out and set it aside so I could play with background ideas.

I took a white piece of cardstock and the Heart Clouds stencils and inked them up with teal ink. Then I splattered the panel with water and flicked teal watercolor on it too. While I had the watercolor out I decided to add metallic shading on my ghosts instead of just the copic coloring. This was SO FUN! Once the watercolor was dry on the background panel I spread pink glitz gel from Thermoweb through the Starry Night stencil.

While waiting for messy things to dry, I stamped and heat embossed a sentiment on black cardstock and die cut it with a banner. I glued that to the bottom of the ghosts and popped everything up on the background panel with foam squares. Then I glued that to a card base with liquid glue.

For finishing touches I added glossy accents to the ghosts eyes and the girl’s mouth too. I love the mix of shiny and glittery all over this card. It’s so fun!

Products used:
Kindred Spirits stamps
Starry Night stencil
Heart Clouds stencils
Foam squares
Blending brushes
Lawn Fawn mermaid ink
LH Colors watercolor
Embossing & Watermark ink
Magic Anti-static brush
Embossing powder – frosting
Thermoweb Glitz Gel – pink
Banner die

I appreciate you sharing your time with me. Have a fabulous day!

Newton’s Nook – You’re a PURR-fect Friend!

Hello again. I have some sweet valentine inspiration to share with you today featuring Newton’s Nook stamps, dies and stencils.

Some of these holiday stamps don’t get enough love so I get excited when I’m digging and find something I love that I haven’t created with much. That’s how today’s card came about.

I stamped and colored the main image and some flowers from Newton’s Valentine and used the coordinating dies to cut them out. Then I used the Fancy Edges Tag, Land Borders and Sky Borders dies to create a mini scene tag to put it on.

Everything wasn’t fitting how I thought it would on the tag so I used Clouds and Hills & Grass stencils to create a coordinating scene on a card front to match my tag.

I stamped my sentiment in the sky and added some solid hearts for fun. Then I took the outline heart and stamped those on the tag so it all coordinates but the tag is bolder. I glued the flowers to the grass and popped the tag up with foam tape.

For finishing touches I added glossy accents to the flower centers, bird’s beak and Newton’s nose and toe beans. Then I added black glaze pen to Newton’s eyes so they stand out more.

Do you send out Valentine’s Day cards? I only send a handful but they are so fun to create, I definitely couldn’t skip this holiday!

Products used:
Newton’s Valentine stamps and dies
Fancy Edges Tag dies
Land Borders dies
Clouds dies
Grass & Hills stencil
Clouds stencil
Blending brushes
Lawn Fawn inks – mermaid, jalapeno
Liquid glue
Foam tape
Glossy accents
Sakura black glaze pen

I appreciate you sharing your time with me. Have a fabulous day!

Doodlebugs – Mini Valentines Note Cards Make Great Tags

Welcome to Mix it up Monday for the Doodlebugs blog. Once again, we are mixing our favorite companies together on the same projects. Today we’ve got awesome Pretty Pink Posh stencils and dies with a splash of Mama Elephant stamps and dies. I made a trio of mini note cards and turned them into tags. These are fabulous for tying to a goodie bag of treats or to the handle of a gift bag too!

I started this project by stamping and coloring all of the images from Mama Elephant Beary Good Day with my copic markers. I used the coordinating dies to cut the images out and set them aside to cut my note card pieces.

I chose the Pretty Pink Posh Mini Scallop Card for today’s project. I cut the inside square panel from white cardstock three times. Then I took the Pretty Pink Posh Layered Hearts stencil and inked one layer with Lawn Fawn ballet slippers ink and the second layer I spread texture paste through and let it sit to dry. I cut the actual scalloped card from a few different cardstocks in my stash while those were drying.

I used liquid glue to adhere the stenciled panel to the front of each card and then popped the images up on each one with foam squares. Instead of fitting a sentiment on each card somewhere, I chose my favorite one and stamped it on a heart from Mama Elephant’s Heart Pocket dies.

I punched a whole in each card and heart and threaded them together with some baker’s twine. Then I used a Wink of Stella glitter brush pen to add some shimmer to something on each card – flower centers, certain tiny hearts, the sun, a balloon – you get the idea. Then I also added glossy accents to the bear’s noses on each card.

I’m super excited to be gearing up for Valentine’s Day already. I absolutely love giving valentines to everyone I know! It’s so fun.

Products used:
Mama Elephant Heart Pocket dies
Mama Elephant Beary Good Day stamps and dies
Pretty Pink Posh Mini Scallop Card dies
Pretty Pink Posh Layered Hearts stencils
Blending brush
Lawn Fawn ballet slippers ink
Liquid glue
Glossy accents
Texture paste
Wink of Stella glitter brush pen
Stencil pal

I appreciate you sharing your time with me. Have a fabulous day!

Miss Ink Stamps – All Smiles

Happy Thursday friends! I’m sharing so many smiles with you today featuring fun from the Miss Ink Stamps Alice Collection. This stamp and die set and stencil are part of the new add on release. I was over the moon to see more Cheshire Cats to play with this time around. I love him in the movies and stories!

I started by stamping and coloring all of the kitties in the All Smiles stamp set. Then I used the coordinating dies to cut them all out. I decided that I wanted something for them to be on so I die cut the smallest tag from the Tags die set in black cardstock for each one. I also stamped and die cut my sentiment with a banner.

Next, I took a piece of purple cardstock and die cut it with the largest frame in the Oh Happy Day die set. I pounced seedless preserves distress oxide ink of the Cheshire Smiles stencil. Oxide ink is thick and if I try to blend through stencils I always end up with mucky blotches so pouncing is the way to go for me.

After removing the stencil, I lightly blended the same ink around the edges of the panel. I splattered it with water and flicked purple watercolor on the panel and mini tags too.

I added the cats to the tags with foam squares. Then I added the sentiment to the center of the panel with foam strips and arranged my cat tags around that with liquid glue. Finally, I popped the panel up on a white card base with foam tape.

For finishing touches I just added glossy accents to the kitty noses for a little shine on each one.

Products used:
All Smiles stamps and dies
Cheshire Smiles stencil
Oh Happy Day dies
Tags dies
Foam tape, strips and squares
LH Colors watercolor – purple
Touch of Gloss
Liquid glue
Lawn Fawn Extra Sentiment Banners dies

I appreciate you sharing your time with me. Have a fabulous day!