White Cap Peonies

 Peonies are always stunning. Imagine making them in ANY color.

This square card in Autumn colors was made using the White Cap Peonies Stencil from Altenew. There's no need to embellish. The flowers are striking by themselves. The sentiment is a strip of vellum that is embossed in black. Speaking of black...the black background was created with a technique that I learned from Lydia Evans. She has a FREE online workshop called Surprising Stenciling that explains it in detail.

Have a great day!

Michelle

Occasionally you will see a link to a product I've used that is part of an affiliate program. If you purchase a product using the link provided I may receive a small commission. This doesn't cost anything extra for you, but your purchase really helps support my mission to provide you with more useful resources to create really great crafting projects of your own. Thank you for supporting me and my small business. Let me know if I can do anything to support you!

Can it!

 I've designed a couple new box cards in time for Fathers Day!

Lori Whitlock Creative Team Blog Hop for January 2018

Thank you for joining me today for the January 2018 Blog Hop with the Lori Whitlock Creative Team at Lori Whitlock. Today I have a project to share as well as discounts and a freebie! And since he weather has been blustery all over the country, that means it's crafting season and "I'd Rather Be Crafting!"

Sizzix Creative Cards

This month, Eileen Hull's Inspiration Team has been creating cards with her line of Sizzix dies and Embossing Folders. Paper Flowers are lovely in vases, and they are awesome card embellishments too!

You Party Animal

There's a sketch challenge going on over at the Avery Elle blog.  The challenge is to use a sketch from the talented Nina Yang, and the winner of the challenge earns themselves an upcoming guest designer spot. As most of you know, I don't do clean and simple designs.  In fact, I do quite the opposite.  But I do like to challenge myself by using the unexpected while keeping true to MY vintage/retro style.  And that's what I did here.

Ever since I received the Avery Elle tag dies, I have been making tags out of EVERYTHING.  Here I made a tag from a vintage photo and I used the Simply Tags: Everyday and the Party Animal stamp sets in my design.  I tried to stay pretty close to Nina's sketch.  Since the background paper had a lot of dots, I cut vellum circles to mimic the circles in the sketch.

The rebel in me wanted to use contemporary images in a retro/vintage project.  So that's what I did!



Pink Feathered Thoughts

I had so much fun playing along with Unscripted Sketches last week, that I decided to play this week too!  I am really enjoying those sketches! Don't adjust your screen settings, there really is THAT MUCH pink going on here.  I'm not really a "pink person", but....

There is a challenge going on at the Shopping Our Stash blog for a Mother's Day theme, or pink.  I chose pink!  And it all started with that feather.   The feather originated as a vintage pink silk floral leaf.  I've had it for ages, since there's not often an occasion for a pink leaf.  I trimmed the leaf down and added some cuts and voila!  The leaf turned into a feather!

Happy-Little-Bird

I adore the birdcage from the Artistic Outpost Birds of a Feather plate.  I've used it many, many times and it's one of my favorite go-to stamps.  So when I saw the Mission Impossible challenge at 365 cards, I just grabbed my stamp and I had it done in less than 10 minutes.  Easy? oh yeah.

 

The background paper with the bird is one of those "freebies" that comes as a magazine insert.  It's been hiding out in my scrap box for a long, long time. 

I am linking this to the monthly Artistic Outpost referral program. (I won one of these once and received the most AMAZING prize from them! They are very, very kind and generous!)  And I am also linking to the Simon Says Stamp "Happy Mail" challenge.



De-Stashing

One of my favorite Crate Paper lines is the "On Trend" collection. I still had a little bit left, so I decided to try to use some of it up. My intention was to use the scraps to make cards to donate.

This one was created for the Cards with Envy Things with Wings challenge.  It really is a challenge to create a card using only flat embellishments, but I gave it a shot.

It was also a challenge to leave my rubber stamps on the shelves.  But I did it! I am also linking it to the Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes challenge. 



I Miss You most at Night

At the Simon Says Stamp Challenge Blog, the challenge is Travel and/or Cityscapes.  I was inspired by the cityscape theme and created this:

 

I heat embossed a Paper Smooches stamp in gold and used an older October Afternoon paper for the background.  My husband is a quality engineer for an aerospace company.  So I hoard collect just about anything with stars on it. :) 

 

Day 108 at the 365 Cards challenge blog is Glitter Blitz.  And you know I love glitter! So I am linking to that challenge as well.

 

Happy Stamping! :)

 

1, 2, 3...Fly

I love the challenges at 365 Cards. Today's challenge is to create a card using 1 technique,

2 stickers and 3 embellishments.  I may have stretched things a bit because I used the two postage stamps as my stickers.  (For the record, they did still have sticky on the back!) I used the decorative brads and twine as my embellishments. The bird stamp is an oldie but a goodie from Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers.  The paper is from Crate Paper.

 

 

I was also inspired by the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge: Fly.  I am a bit obsessed by the whole postal theme, which is a big influence for me right now.  And as usual, I love vintage! :)

 



 

Amusing...

This week I wanted to participate in the challenge at Muse.  They always have such inspiring cards!  They inspired me to use the green and brown color theme as well as the polka dots, silver embellishments and scallop.  I used the butterfly from The Rubber Cafe as well as some miscellaneous from my stash.  Don't you love that brad?  I've been hoarding it for so long that I don't remember where I got it.  I've got to quit doing that.

 

I am also linking this to Simon Says Stamp and Show Blog challenge.  They have a very strict challenge there this week. :)

color my life

I did it!  I completed a week's worth of challenges this week!  Today's challenge at 365 Cards was to create a card with splatters.  Getting inky is always fun, so I used the Paper Smooches I Heart Art stamp set with some re-inkers and ink spray on Maggie Holmes Paper.  This was a huge stretch for me.  So "THANK YOU!" for the inspiration.

 

I am also linking this to the current Simon Says Stamp Challenge. Now you'll have to excuse me while I clean up a week's worth of mess. ;)

 



Country Outpost

For day four in my week's worth of challenges, I took the challenge "Word Wednesday" at 365 Cards.  The word was "Country". 

 

This card was created using The Outpost stamp set from Artistic Outpost and Ranger Distress Inks.  I am also linking this to the Artistic Outpost March Referral Program.

A weeks worth of fun...

There's a blog that posts challenges every day.  I've always wanted to try this.  But maybe that's too much right now.  So, I will try a week's worth.  :)

Sunday's challenge at 365 Cards was a sketch challenge.  And there was a photo challenge at Paper Smooches Sparks challenge involving buttons.  I do love buttons!  I combined the two and this what I designed.   I used Paper Smooches Needle Little Love Stamps and Basic Grey's Lucille paper.

 

I really like that needle stamp. :)

 

 

I wonder what other challenges 365 Cards will offer this week. ??  Wish me luck!

 



Retro Robin

I find it really hard to do a "Clean And Simple" type card.  So for me, this was a stretch. I created this card by using the #54 sketch from Retro Sketches. I used the DIY paper from Crate Paper and the bow is from the Maggie Holmes Crate Paper line.  The sweet little robin is from Artistic Outpost's Birds of a Feather plate. Artistic Outpost has a monthly referral program I am linking this card to.

color challenge

This week Paper Smooches is holding a Cool Shades challenge, where inspiration is drawn from colors. I used a couple of their new sets for this card.  I used Leafy Greens and Tri-balation. 

 

 

The color story is inspired by "Carnival".  The colors are Chocolate, Cream, Aqua, Cherry Red. And of course I had to put my own spin on it, so it's a loose interpretation. :) 

 

In case you were wondering, I cut out pieces of the stamped leaf image with my trusty old exacto knife.  I also added some details with a black pen.  The background was made from a Tim Holtz embossing folder and the lacey cut-out was cut with my cricut. 

Yeah...I had fun! :)

 

 

 

  

 

Sew Much

Just recently, I purchased this Needle Little Love stamp set from Paper Smooches.  I had a lot of fun with this and I am sure that it is going to be one of my favorite stamp sets.

Winterfest is still going on at Two Peas in a Bucket.  There are stamping challenges and games going on everyday this week in the stamping forum.  This card was inspired by The Hearts Galore Challenge posted there.   

  

I miss you

This week there is a challenge at City Crafter Challenge to use a map.  I knew that I HAD to participate in this one.  I live in Arkansas.  My oldest son lives in Dallas (that's a Texas map that I used in the background), my daughter attends the University of Kentucky.  And my mother lives in Indiana.  With so many loved ones living so far away, we use a lot of maps!  (And the GPS, of course!)

As usual, there's a lot of different paper lines here.  The card base is an older Basic Grey paper,  There's also some of the On Trend papers as well as the new Fourteen Valentine papers. And the stamps are original vintage.

Orange Hello!

Today's card was inspired from the Paper Smooches Sparks Picture Perfect Challenge photo you see below.  Photo challenges are so much fun, and I am humbled by the talented contributors who entered this weeks challenge. So many amazing entries!  It really is worth looking at. This isn't one of my "best" cards, but it was one that I had a ton of fun with.  Sometimes I forget how fun embossing is!

I embossed orange ink on vellum using the Potpourri stamp set, which was perfect for the photo.  And I used the same stamp set with Versamark ink on the tan "hello" banner.  The patterned paper is an old Halloween line from Websters Pages.  I love that print!

 

Oh!  And remember this?

Yes, that's what I used to punch the "hello" letters from the woodgrain paper.  Old-school, isn't it?  LOL! I told you that I had fun!  :)

 



 

 



I took a class called Journey Into Card Making Mini Workshop with Julie Campbell at Two Peas in a Bucket and I loved it!  One of the design principles was symmetry.  I explored symmetry just recently in this post here and really enjoyed it.  Julie inspired me to try it again.  And with Valentines Day fast approaching, I incorporated the City Crafter Challenge Blog's challenge (Week 143 ~ Forever Mine) to incorporate hearts into the design.

 

 

I love the little meter and wanted to make that the focus even though it's tiny.  I actually purchased Echo Park's entire package of brads just for that little meter! :)  The rest of the items are a mish-mash of product.  I painted and glittered a small chipboard frame.  There's a vintage scrap of foreign text from a book and some Jolees heart embellishment hearts, as well as a Basic Grey sticker.