Monthly Archives: March 2021

New Kitchen – Teapot Tuesday #662

Posted on March 30, 2021 | 4 comments

It’s Teapot Tuesday! And this week we are sending our cards to each other.  Denise has informed us that today is “Grass is Always Browner on the Other Side of the Fence Day.” She says today is for taking stock in things you do have, and acknowledging that, hey, the grass is pretty green on your side of the fence.  I’m very fortunate that, figuratively (and actually literally) the grass is very green on my side of the fence.  I based my card on the freshest, greenest thing in my life right now–my freshly remodeled kitchen.  I finally moved back in on Saturday.  And I love it so much.  We started in January and lived like this for a little while:

So for my card, I decided to build my kitchen.  I have a set of digital stamps that I purchased from Craftin Desert Divas before the shop closed down.  It has all the pieces I needed to build my kitchen.

I built my card scene from this angle.  Refrigerator, cabinet, sink/window, oven/microwave.  I printed it on Neenah Exact Index and used a ruler to draw in the tile backsplash and floor tiles too.  Then I colored with Spectrum Noir and Copic Markers.

I added some Stickles to the counters on my card because my new counters have a bit of sparkle to them.  But I felt like my card needed something else besides just the kitchen scene, so I looked through my digital stamps for something else fun and found this file that I got as a freebie from Designbundles.net.  You can still download it for free if you click through the link.

So, what do you think of my new kitchen?  I feel like I’m living in a completely different house!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

 

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Waffle Flower Beach Birthday Party

Posted on March 28, 2021 | 3 comments

I’m thinking a beach party is in order for Waffle Flower’s 7th Birthday.

 

Probably because I just love these mice at the beach.  You can find this set here.  I also needed to make a beach card for my last Virtual Stamp Night challenge.  Me and Desmond had stamped and colored these mice about a month ago, so they were ready to go.  And since we stamped them so long ago–I forgot I had the coordinating dies!  I cut them out with my trusty ScanNCut.

I usually cut then color, but, like I said I colored these a month ago with Desmond.  I had also wanted to play along with this week’s MIX Challenge and today’s Featured Stamper Challenge.  The Featured Stamper today is Francine Vuillèmeaka also known as #Francine.  I chose this card to CASE and started with that sky for the MIX Challenge.

I chose my three favorite Distress Oxide colors – Broken China, Worn Lipstick, and Spiced Marmalade.  And since I was so thrilled with how that sky came out, I decided to blend some ink for the water and sand.

For the water, I blend Broken China and Mermaid Lagoon and sprayed/splattered with water that was mixed with Perfect Pearls for a nice, shimmery ocean.  For the sand, I blended Tea Dye and Antique Linen.  Then I splattered with plain water and splattered with a wet paintbrush dipped in Gathered Twigs.

Today is also the day that the Challenge Your Stash Group posts their monthly cards.  This month Kelly is our hostess and has challenged us to make a card based on a book.  I had Richard Scarry on my mind because I had gotten some comments on Thursday’s card that it was reminiscent of Richard Scarry.  When I was a kid Richard Scarry’s  “Best Word Book Ever” was pretty much my favorite.  I just loved all the cute critters and busy scenes.

 

So I had fun assembling my busy scene and of course had to finish it off with some sparkle:

Right now there are two Birthday themed Link Parties up on the Waffle Flower Blog.

The 7th Birthday Link Party and the March Week 4 Weekly Challenge

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

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Recycling

Posted on March 26, 2021 | 2 comments

I wanted to share my adventures in recycling cards.  I’ve been really enjoying it this year.  I hate to see things just get thrown away, so I will rarely say no to giving it a good home in my craft room.  That is how I ended up with a 18 gallon tote full (and by full I mean overflowing) with old store bought cards.

I can’t let these pretty cards just get thrown away, so I chop them up and give them new life–another chance to make someone smile.  Most of these cards were given to me by my aunt and they were given to her by other members of our family.  It brings me joy to open up a card and see the message that was written in it and my Gram’s signature.  It even warms my heart to read a sweet message written about my Gram in a sympathy card after she passed.  My goal for this year has been to recycle one of these cards per day and to give my family sets of these cards as birthday gifts.  I know Gram would approve.

Here is one of those sympathy cards.  Plain, one layer card.  Pretty, but not particularly exciting.  I liked that border design at the bottom and wanted to keep that in my new card.  So the layout of the new card was inspired by the size of that border.  I decided to make a Side Fold Card  but let it stand vertically.  I cut the border to now go on the top of the card and I used a Die-namics Stitched Scallop Basic Edges die at the bottom of the panel.  The sentiment is already pretty and embossed, but we needed more sparkle.  Stickles to rescue!  Look at the sparkle:

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

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Coffee Lovers Hop – Sketch Challenge #846

Posted on March 24, 2021 | 4 comments

It’s Wednesday and that means it’s Sketch Challenge day.  It’s a slimline sketch today, which was a fun change.

I noticed it was time for the 2021 Spring/Summer Coffee Lovers Blog Hop and wanted to play along.

But I have a confession to make.  I don’t like coffee.  I’m a tea drinker all day long.  I’m grateful for this Coffee Lovers Hop to remind me that everyone else loves coffee, so I still need to make coffee cards.  I’m also glad for an excuse to use this fun Stampers Delights digital stamp.  Stampers Delights has a Progressive Challenge in their Facebook Fan Group where if you play along each month, they will send you the next month’s image free.  This was the challenge image for February.  She’s fun to color:

Skin: E15, E11, E00 | Hair: YR31, E43, E44 | Eyes: Spectrum Noir EB3, EB4

The sentiment is a favorite of mine from Riley and Company.  I went digging through my drawer of backgrounds and miscellaneous stuff and pulled out some pages that I rescued from a very damaged kids book.  The map strip that I used here is from a map of dragon migration.  HA!  There were other pages that had coffee circles on them and they inspired this Distress Oxide sponged/stenciled background:

I always love this Tim Holtz “Grunge” stencil.  First I sponged Antique Linen around the edges, then I sponged Ground Espresso through the stencil, and splattered with water.

Put it all together with a scrap of gold metallic paper and a strip of coffee mug washi tape.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

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Moonlight Skating – Teapot Tuesday #661

Posted on March 23, 2021 | Leave a comment

It’s Teapot Tuesday!  Today’s Tea Party is for mother and daughter, Dee and Carol in Wisconsin. Dee recently turned 99 and Carol is having serious health issues. We are sending them paper hugs at a time when they are not able to be together.  Dee is a self taught artist and has had a tradition of painting her front picture window with a winter/Christmas theme every year since 1963. You HAVE to watch this video slideshow of all of her paintings throughout the years.  It’s so fun to watch how her art evolves over the years and even more amazing when you think that she was well into her 90s by the time she was painting those last ones:

Our Teapot Tuesday challenge is to make black and white cards with a pop of color inspired by these fabulous holiday window displays.  Watching the slideshow made me think of how my watercoloring has evolved over the last year with the Watercolor Wednesday challenge. So I was inspired to watercolor a black and white scene. You’ll recall from yesterday’s post that I have several Virtual Stamp Night cards left to make.  Shelly’s challenge is to include a moon on our cards.  So I went to Youtube looking for a tutorial of how to watercolor a moonlit scene.  I used some masking fluid to mask the moon and stars and quickly watercolored the scene using Black Soot Distress Oxide ink and the Black Spectrum Aqua Marker.

Not a bad scene.  Now for the pop of color.  I stamped, cut, and colored some skating critters from Paperie Ink.

This arrangement looks good to me.  So I die cut the background with my MFT Stitched Rectangle die, glued on the animals and trees with tape runner and foam squares.  As usual, I finished my card with some Stickles for sparkle:

Since I always make two cards, I am all set for sending one to Dee and one to Carol. I hope they enjoy their cards and can see how Dee inspired them.

Do you know someone that could use some well wishes, encouragement or all around warm fuzzies? Consider nominating them as a guest of honor (a.k.a. destination station) for an upcoming tea party. Send your request to jacqueline via PM or e-mail [email protected]. Include SCS Teaparty Request in the subject line.
Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

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Virtual Stamp Night!

Posted on March 22, 2021 | Leave a comment

This past weekend was Virtual Stamp Night! One of my favorite weekends of the year.  The theme was Parks & Recreation which resulted in a lot of fun cards.  I spent two hours each night on Zoom meetings with my dear SCS friends.  Chatting with them always puts me in a good mood!

There was Lisa’s Zoo Animals challenge:

My dad has a T-shirt that says “Every zoo is a petting zoo if you’re brave enough.” I chuckle every time I see him wearing it.  I also chuckle every time I put it on a card.

Then there was Sonja’s Marble Technique challenge:

I got out my Wow! embossing powders and tried the Embossed Marble Background tutorial.

Kelly challenged us to “Trail off the Page”:

And Rebekah’s Swing Challenge:

The swings were always my favorite thing at the playground.

Rita wanted to see flower silhouettes on our cards:

Misti’s challenge was to use some form of transportation on our cards:

I’ve never gone out on a canoe at the park, but we do take our boat out from the boat ramp at the park regularly in the summer.  The trick is–you have to time the tide or you’ll get stranded.  I just love this Avery Elle Camp Wanna-Stamp stamp set!

Melody’s challenge had to do with slides:

Why did they cross the playground? To get to the other slide!  My kids cross the playground often to get to the other slide.

Lee gave us a fun sketch:

This card focused more on the “recreation” part of Parks & Recreation.

And I hosted a “Sports at the Park” challenge:

That’s what my kids said is the most fun thing to do at the park.  Play sports.  Just this month, they have played both baseball and basketball with friends at the park.  This little bear is playing baseball at the park.  But I think he has a black eye.  “I wondered why the ball was getting bigger…then it hit me.”

And I still have six more VSN Challenges to finish.  Stay tuned!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

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All the Glitter! – Ways to Use It Challenge #836

Posted on March 18, 2021 | 3 comments

What’s the challenge today?  Glitter!

Yes, please!  I recently bought some Glitter Ritz Microfine glitter.  It makes this fabulous smooth velvety glitter finish.  But I had to watch some Youtube videos first.  I don’t have the adhesive sheet that she used in the video.  I have Stick-It adhesive, which is the same idea, but different enough that I had a problem.  That problem is that the Stick-It has lines cut through the backing to make it easier to peel off.  However, as you can see in this photo, it leaves behind a break in the adhesive.

So I had to completely change my plan for this card.  I had originally planned to glitter up this design of this Picket Fence Studios die and kind of frame it and let it be the star of my card.  I pretty much always make two cards at a time, so I had one with the “Blush” color in the background and one with the “Sahara” color in the background.  But since I couldn’t solve the problem of that break in the adhesive, I only made one card today.  I die cut the best parts with my Waffle Flower nesting hearts dies.

So I stamped and fussy cut this adorable Art Impressions frog that I won in their December Challenge.  Now what?  More glitter! I wanted to frame the hearts and frog, and I had this leftover gold frame die cut close by.  I stamped the script in the background of the frame and embossed with iridescent embossing powder.  Needs more glitter.  So I die cut a Hello (from PTI) in glitter fun foam.  Needs….more glitter!  Stickles on the frog and flower.  And how about some Wink of Stella on the stem and leaf for good measure?  Look at that sparkle!

That itty bitty frog and that itty bitty microfine glitter needs to be entered into the Art Impressions Itty Bitty Challenge don’t you think?

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

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My First Blog Post – Sketch Challenge #845

Posted on March 17, 2021 | 2 comments

Hello, and welcome to my blog!  I’m so glad you stopped by to get a glimpse of how I spend my mornings.  I mentioned in the “About Me” section of this blog that I think cardmaking is like my high school art class.  But instead of walking into the art room and finding out “what’s the assignment today?” I head over to Splitcoaststampers to find out “what’s the challenge today?”

Well, today is Wednesday so that means it’s Sketch Challenge day.  Here’s the sketch:

I love this sketch for the adorable Colorado Craft Company image that I wanted to use today.  It’s “All Weather Friends” illustrated by Anita Jeram.  I can’t get enough of her adorable critters.

I started by coloring up the bunny with my Copic Markers (W1, W3, W5) and my favorite Spectrum Noir Marker CR2 for rosy cheeks and pink noses.  But I didn’t know what color I should color the umbrella until I went digging for some designer paper.  I landed on this pretty navy paper with little white vertical dots that reminded me of rain.  That’s how I decided that the umbrella needed to be bright orange and yellow (YR07, Y38, Y17, Y08).

The other thing I love about this sketch is the buckle element.  That means I can go digging through my box of treasures to find just the right thing to add to my card.  Don’t tell me you don’t have a box of treasures waiting to add to your cards.

See that little bag of buckles?  They are left over from my sister’s shoe clips business and they are perfect for this card! Once I had my buckle, the card was very simple to assemble with my trusty MFT Die-namics stitched squares die for the image and some nice golden yellow ribbon threaded through that sparkly buckle.  But wait, one last finishing touch.  A bit more sparkle and shine.  I added Wink of Stella to the umbrella and Nuvo Crystal Glaze to the raindrops and puddles.  Look at that shine:

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a great day!

 

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