Happy Halloween!

Here are two final Halloween cards, both featuring super cute pugs.  This weekend is Pug Rescue of Florida's annual fundraiser, Pugsgiving.  This is the largest gathering of pugs in Florida, and each year raises a lot of money for this amazing non-profit organization.  I work all year to make cards to sell at this fundraiser, and donate 100% of the monies raised to them.  I also sell all year long on Etsy to help raise money for them - you can click on the "I sell on Etsy button" at the top right to see some of my other cards.

Hope your Halloween is lots of treats and few tricks.

One Cat, Two Ways

I have two versions of the same Halloween card to share today. 

I stamped, colored with Zigs and fussy cut this cute cat and pumpkin image from SimonSaysStamp (Hey Pumpkin stamp set) and paired them with either a diecut fence or a spooky tree.

I can't decide which I like better.  What do you think?

Thanks for visiting.

More Halloween Cards

I have three more Halloween cards to share today all using Laurel Burch stamps from Stampendous.  I I really do love her style, so unique.

These images are really so much fun to color.  You could really change up the style of your card depending on how you colored and what you paired them with.  In each of these cards I used  patterned paper that I think really added to the Halloween theme.

Thanks for visiting today!

I Love Halloween

I love making Halloween and I love Halloween cards.  They are just so much fun to make.  Since I make quite a few I'll share some of them over the next week.  Maybe not write posts about how I made them, but just share a few pics.  Here's the first two.

I'll be back soon with more.

Imperfect Puffins

Today I have a card to share that I really do like, even though it is not perfect.  I made a "little" mistake at the very end of my card making.

I stamped the puffins onto watercolor paper and onto a piece of masking paper.  I also cut a curved mask to create the rock the puffins are sitting on.  I sponged on Distress Oxide Inks in Iced Spruce (for the rock) and Broken China and Faded Jeans (for the sky) using an ink blending tool.  After removing the masks I used Zigs to color the puffin beaks and feet.  Then I decided to spray my piece with Tsukineko Shimmer Mist to get some sparkle.  Jennifer McGuire does this ALL the time - and we all know how amazing her cards are.  It does sparkle a lot - you can see it a little below.

And this is when my mistake happened.  I REALLY don't like glittery messes.  I thought I'd just take my card outside and spray it so I wouldn't have a shimmery mess all over my craft room.  A word of advice - don't do this when it's windy out!  You will chase your cards around your neighborhood - and your nice little droplets that you wanted to look like stars will now be smeared little things.  I had already spent so much time making these cards (I made two, for both my kids who had recently seen puffins on trips to Iceland) so I just decided to call them shooting stars.  Other than my "mistake" I really did like the way this turned out.  And really, who will ever know that I didn't intend it to look this way.

Supplies used include Avery Elle Love Puffins Stamp Set.

Four Cards from One, Jennifer McGuire Style

A few weeks ago Jennifer McGuire did a video (here is a link) where she showed making 4 cards from one.  She makes EVERYTHING look SO EASY in her videos that you just want to try her techniques.  I don't have many layering floral stamps but I thought I'd try it with what I have.  So, here's my four cards.

 

I think they came out ok.  I do think I should have planned a little better where I was stamping which flowers - I have more concentrated at the bottom of the hearts than at the top.  And I think it would be better to have a more symmetrical stamp at the bottom of the hearts too.  This would be fun to try with different shapes (like maybe an oval) instead of a heart.  I did use my Misti to stamp the sentiment in exactly the same spot on each card - and to make sure I didn't mess them up after all that stamping.  I think I like the top one the best.  And those sequins on the second one - they cover up a couple of small green ink smears, but no one will ever know that.

Thanks for visiting.

A Folk Floral Heart Wedding Card

Today I have a wedding card made using a borrowed stamp, I believe it was from Do-Crafts.  I know I've made a wedding card before using this same stamp, but it's just such so beautiful.  And it's perfect for clean and simple cards.  You can get different looks by embossing in white or gold or silver and onto vellum or onto white cardstock.

Today the heart was stamped and white embossed onto vellum and colored on the back with Zigs. I layered this on a piece of white cardstock.  To adhere the vellum without the adhesive showing I wrapped another piece of vellum around adding adhesive to the backside.  I matted this in navy and added a navy congrats diecut sentiment. I tried incorporate the wedding party colors of dark green and navy and the colors of fall flowers.  This is one of those little details that I'm sure the bride and groom didn't notice but were important to me.

Thanks so much for visiting today.

Happy Purrthday!

Today I have a card that was made for my daughter's boyfriend who has two cats, Moe and Maggie.  Hopefully these little kitties "resemble" them.

The images were all stamped, colored with Zigs, and cut out.  They were grounded with a piece of black ribbon and layered off-center onto dark grey checkered paper from Papertrey Ink.  I do think that little can of cat food with a candle is so cute.

Supplies used include Lawn Fawn Meow You Doin'? stamp set.

Thanks for visiting today.

Mr. & Mrs. Manatee

Today's card was made especially for my son and his wife, for their first anniversary.  It will hopefully have special meaning to them.

I simply stamped and colored the manatees and layered over some wavy patterned paper.  And here's a close up of the manatee couple.  You can see the shimmer just a little even though I used lots of Wink of Stella.

Supplies used include Hero Arts Stamp and Cut Manatee.

Thanks for visiting.

Impression Obsession, Deb's Field

Today I have a fairly simple card I made for a couple of friends who are celebrating their first anniversary.

I heat embossed the sentiment and image in gold and did some very simple and quick coloring with my Zig Real Color Brush Markers.  I diecut with a double stitched rectangle and layered onto some patterned paper that looked like greyed barnwood.  Lately I seem to be using a lot of papers that look like wood or waves.  My stash is getting a little low (only those papers, otherwise my paper stash is still HUGE).  I'm not sure why, but I love buying patterned papers.  The colors are always so pretty.  I do use them a lot. But even when I don't actually use the papers I may use them for color inspiration.  To finish my card I added a few gold threads, matted in green and that is about it.

Thanks for visiting.

A Mer-mazing Birthday Card

I needed a special card for a young girl and wanted to incorporate a mermaid.  With mermaids being so popular I didn't know how it was possible that I didn't have even one mermaid related stamp or die.  But it's true.  And since I probably wouldn't need to use them again I thought I'd try to find a piece of patterned paper with a mermaid.  This is a much cheaper option - $1 for a sheet of paper versus about $15 for a stamp set.  Here's the card I came up with.

My picture looks washed out, but in reality the card was very bright colors.  I don't know why sometimes my pictures come out great and sometimes not so great.

I personalized the card using stitched letters on a stitched fish tail banner.  I added some tiny pink diecut fish, clear jewels for their eyes and some tiny drops of  Nuvo Jewel Sea Breeze drops.

I know Zara really liked the card because I received a picture of her with a big smile while holding it.  This is one of the biggest reasons I love card making - I can make very personalized cards.

Thanks for visiting today.

Distress Ink Lifting

Today I have two cards that were started a very long time ago but just recently finished off.  They use a technique that Jennifer McGuire featured in a video back in February 2016 that she called "Distress Ink Lifting".

I made the flower panels right after watching the video but just never got around to creating cards with them.  Basically you stamp and emboss an outline image, then cover the entire piece with lots and lots of distress ink, and drop in water which lightens up the ink.  I think the trick is to really saturate the paper with the ink.  I then added wink of stella to the flowers for shimmer.  Both cards use the same stamp, the same technique, and a thanks sentiment but they each have a different look.  I do think I like the yellow flowers a little better.

The thanks dies are from Simon Says Stamp Script Thanks and Impression Obsession Line Thanks So Much.

Thanks so much for visiting.

Happy Birthday, To Me!

Today I don't have any new cards of mine to share.  But, I do have two really cute cards that I received for my birthday.  These were made by a couple of very good friends, who also happen to be excellent card makers.

This first card, a window card, is from Jan.  She did an great job of no line watercoloring and used some beautiful washi tape.

This second card, from my friend Dee includes party vellum (she knows I always love vellum) and a super cute hanging pinata with falling candy.

Thank you both for the cards - and the flowers and balloon and s'more cupcakes too!!