fresh & fun

Yesterday was the birthday of an acquaintance of mine. She is the Mom of Lucas and Rebecca’s friends and I see her almost every day. I drive the kids to school, she picks them up. So when her daughter told me in the morning that it was her Mom’s birthday and that she likes Twix, I knew I had to create something. I bought a candle holder and filled it up with Snack size Twix.

I tied red May Arts Silk ribbon around the candle holder and cut cardstock with Nestabilities Label 1 to create a tag. The image is from this month KOM stamp set from Unity. It was stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black ink on Gina K.’s Pure Luxury Cardstock, cut out with Label 1 Nestabilities and was colored with Copic Markers (YR21, YR23, YR24, R14, R24, R29).  I tried to get close to the Twix colors with my copic marker choices.

After I adhered it to the tag base, I added Stardust Stickles over the Dragonflies and Crystal Effect over the rest of the colored part. Tiny Twinkles were adhered all around the image with Quickie Glue.

For the inside of the tag I stamped the image again on a Label 1 cutout, this time with Adirondack Butterscotch Dye ink. The sentiment is from Verve’s Circular Sayings and was stamped in Tuxedo Black ink.

I hope you have a happy and safe Halloween! Hugs and smiles!

I thought I could use yesterday’s Way to Use it Challenge to create a card for today’s sketch. Boy…that was a tough one! Julia challenged us to use purple on our card! Purple? Really? I don’t like purple…I wasn’t even sure I had any purple Designer paper. I checked my stash and found a few sheets with purple in my Basic Grey Euphoria pack.

I recently received my first order of Bella stamps, but hadn’t played with them yet. I picked the darling butterfly to try out first. It’s just so adorable. I stamped it with Tuxedo Black Ink on Neenah cardstock, cut it out with Circle Nestabilities and colored it with Copic Markers (YG000, YGoo, YG21, YG23, YG25,RV02, RV04, Rv10, RV17, V15, V17). The image was then first layered on black cardstock, then on Purple Core’dinations cardstock. Stardust stickles was added to the pink dots and Tiny Twinkles on the bows on her antena.

I really like how my butterfly looks, but I am not so sure about the rest of the card. Oh well….I can’t love all of my cards, right?

The Core’dinations card base measures 4″ x 12″ and was folded it half. A 3 1/2″ x 5 1/2″ piece of Euphoria Paper was adhered to a 3 11/16″ x 5 11/16″ piece of Black cardstock and sewn together. The two wider strips measure 3/4″ x 4 3/4″, the smaller one 1/2″ x 4 3/4″. The thinner strip has a layer of punched black cardstock underneath (EK Success border punch).  I had these layer originally like the sketch, but the black border looked better on the right, so I switched it around.

To finish off the card I added three Kaiser Rhinestones on the top left  and a bow out of May Arts Polka dotted organdy ribbon underneath the butterfly.

I will have to try again to come up with a better card for the sketch. Have a wonderful day! Hugs and smiles

Here is the sketch for this weekend:

To participate in the challenge, make a card with this layout and upload it either to your blog, or to an online gallery.
If you upload your card on SCS, put WSC103 (NO SPACE INBETWEEN WSC AND 103) in the keyword section. That way we can look at all of them at once! Add a link to your card to either Mr. Linky, or as a comment to this thread so I can go and check it out.

 To see samples made with this sketch now, check out the blogs of

Cambria Turnbow  

Charmaine Ikach

Jenn Balcer

Laurie Schmidlin 

 Lori Craig

MaryJo Albright 

 Sharon Harnist

Have fun creating! I can’t wait to see what you come up with. SCS submissions 

I am so sorry. I completely forgot to pick a winner for the last weekend sketch challenge.

Random.org picked entry #2. That is Elizabeth Johnson with this cute card:

Thank you all for participating. Check back in later today for today’s new sketch.

Hugs and smiles

For yesterday’s Product Focus, I thought it would be perfect to create an updated tutorial for the Shaker card. It was one of my first tutorials and needed a new look. Why didn’t anyone tell me that flash photography and tutorials don’t mix well, especially when using Acetate. LOL

We had a lot of questions about the Spellbinder image in the SCS gallery with the Pumpkin frame. I thought it would be great to use that in the tutorial to show how it’s done.

I cut my Pumpkin Frame with Pumpkin Nestabilities out of Dusty Durango textured cardstock. I also cut a Pumpkin out of Acetate and Grandma’s kitchen patterned paper. My shaker was filled with Crafty Sparkles - Chunky Crystal.

My card base is Chocolate Chip cardstock cut with the Clear Scallop Square Big Shot die from Stampin’ Up! I love to use that die to create card bases. What’s not to love about a square scallop card, right? LOL

A 3 3/4″ square of Whisper White cardstock was layered with a 3 9/16″ square of All Fall Fancy Pants Patterned Paper. The Patterned Paper was stamped with a the leaf swirl stamp from Simple Blessings in Vintage Photo Distress ink and sewn to the White layer. The horizontal strip measures 1 5/8″ x 3 1/2″ and from the Grandma’s Kitchen paper collection. It was stamped with Unity’s Giving it all meaning in Vintage Photo. The edges were distressed and sponged. I used a triple stitch to sew the strip to the square layeres and tied 5/8″ wide Organdy ribbon around it. The bow as topped off with a Recollections Brad (Michaels).

The Pumpkin Frame was sponged with Really Rust and Chocolate chip ink. I small bow was made out of SU Mistletoe ribbon with the help of my BowEasy. The sentiment is from Verve’s Hello Pumpkin set. It was stamped in Vintage Photo on White Cardstock, cut out with the small oval punch and sponged with Old Paper Distress ink. One of the leaves from Simple Blessings was stamped over it in second generation Old Paper ink for added texture.

Here is a video for the visual learner:

Today’s Product Focus was a really tough product to review. Spellbinders Seasonal Dies.  I LOVE Spellbinder Products. Love them and am addicted to them. It was fun to play with them and easy to review them. I wish I could have just posted one word, AWESOME! It describes what I think about them perfectly.

Ever since I saw Sherry Cheever create her first Snow Flake Medallion, I knew I needed her to write a tutorial for it on SCS. Well, she has and it’s featured today. If you have the Spellbinders Create a Flake 1 dies, make one….they are so beautiful. If you don’t have those dies yet. You better buy them fast. They are only available until the end of November! I got mine on Monday!

My card base is a 5″ x 10″ piece of Chocolate chip cardstock folded in half. The edges were sponged with Adirondack Expresso Dye ink (I bought all new inks. I am excited about the colors the Adirondack inks come in! November first I can start selling off my Stampin’ Up! merchandise. Look for a big for sale post.)

A 4 1/2″ square of My Mind’s Eye - the Merry Days of Christmas Patterned Paper was adhered to a 3/8″ bigger piece of Whisper White cardstock, sanded and stitched.

The sentiment layer was cut with Label 1 Nestabilities out of Whisper White and Chocolate Chip Cardstock. The greeting is from Unity’s Embellished Season stamp set and was stamped in Expresso Dye ink. Keeping the Label die on, I placed some snowflakes I had cut with the Create a Flake 1 dies over the layer with removable adhesive and sponged Adirondack Aqua ink over it. The white layer was adhered to the Chocolate chip label, after that had been sponged with Expresso ink. The white spots from the Snowflakes were covered with Crystal Effect and Dazzling Diamond Glitter was added over that.

My Snowflake layers were cut out of Neenah white cardstock ( I LOVE how thick this is), sponged with Adirondack Shell Pink, covered with Crystal Effects and Vintage Glass Glitter. I wish I had the Vintage Shard Glass Glitter Sherry used. I ordered it this morning from Cindy.  Once they were dry I added a Basic Grey Button with wire and adhered it to my card with dimensionals. 1″ White Organdy Ribbon finishes off my card front.

The inside of the card uses the same paper as the front. The blue snowflakes are the ones I had used to sponge the sentiment layer. I added Crystal Effect over them and Dazzling Diamond glitter. The button is one from my Mom’s stash. It was tied with Dark brown waxed Linen.

When I saw last week’s color challenge I thought I could use the color combo for recreating another old tutorial of mine: Serigraph. It’s fun to revisit these old tutorials and try to come up with a new sample.

The card base is a 4 1/2″ x 9″ piece of cardstock from Core’dinations Chocolate Box Collection folded in half. The background was created with Distress ink Colors: Old Paper, Worn Lipstick and Fired Brick. The stamps used were Verve’s Happiness Found and Harvest Blessings.

The background base is a 3 13/16″ square of Whisper White cardstock. It was layered on a 4″ Whisper White square and was stitched to it. The strip on the side was cut and embossed with Spellbinders Harvest Border out of the same Core’dination cardstock as the base. It was sanded and taped to the side. 1″ Wide Organdy Ribbon was taped around it. The bow was made with Bow-Easy.

For the sentiment I cut Whisper White cardstock with Spellbinders Label 4. It was sponged first with Old Paper, then with a hint of Worn Lipstick. Leaves were stamped over it in Old Paper and second generation Worn Lipstick before the sentiment was stamped in Vintage Photo. The leave is a punchout from the Harvest Border Borderabilities.

The inside of the card is rather simple. I love that the Core’dination cardstock from the Chocolate Box collection has a different core then it’s front. Here it’s a soft red that went perfectly with my leave colors. The leave on top is stamped in Worn Lipstick and is from the stamp set Harvest Blessings. The two leaves on the bottom are punchouts from the Harvest Border.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a wonderful day!

Here is a video for the visual learner:

I love Flourishes stamps but hadn’t played with mine in a while. When the color challenge came around a couple of weeks ago, it was perfect for these poppy stamps.

The images were stamped with Tuxedo Black ink on Gina K. Pure Luxury White cardstock, cut with Circle Nestabilities and colored and airbrushed with Copic Markers (YR61, YR65, YR68, YG95, YG99, E25, BG11). The cutout was layered on a slightly bigger Chocolate chip circle, followed by a Bermuda Bay circle that had been cut with Spellbinders Eyelet Pendant Dies.

The card base is created out of a 4 3/4″ x 11″ piece of Confetti White cardstock. It was scored at 4 3/4″, 9 1/2″ and 9 3/8″. The front flap was cut and embossed with Eyelet Borderabilities. Retired SU Valet Ribbon was tied around the flap.

The 4″ Apricot piece of cardstock is from Core’dinations. It was embossed with a cuttlebug folder, sanded and then stitched to a 1/4″ bigger piece of Chocolate Chip. Two Kaiser Chocolate Pearls were added to the left top.

The sentiment is also from the Poppy set. It was stamped in Tuxedo black on Gina’s white cardstock, cut out with Oval Nestabilities, airbrushed and layered on a slightly bigger Chocolate Scallop oval.

Remember this card?

The card has a decorated inside with a detachable bookmark. I couldn’t show it back then because we hadn’t run the product review on the Xyron Creatopia yet. So here is the inside of the card.

And here is the bookmark part:

You can find a step by step tutorial written by Mary Brown for this card style on Splitcoast. Here is a video for the visual learner:

I love the vintage look of Crafty Secrets stamps. Whenever I need a “Vintage fix”, I pull Crafty Secrets out. I thought their Santa from Seasons Greetings would be perfect for a Cracked Glass sample.

Santa was stamped with Tuxedo Black ink on Natural White cardstock and colored in with Copic Markers (BG93, BG96, E97, E99, E50, E51, YR23, YR24, W1, W3, R27, R29, R20, BG000 and 110). It was cut out with Circle Nestabilities and embossed with Glassy Glaze. Once it cooled down I cracked the image a bit. It was layered on a bigger circle that had been colored with YR23/YR24 to match the image.

The card base is a 4 1/4″ x 8 1/2″ piece of Always Artichoke cardstock folded in half. It is layered with a 3 15/16″ Basic Black cardstock square. A 3 3/4″ x 4 1/4″ piece of Natural White cardstock was punched on one side with the Eyelet border punch. It was layered with a 3 5/8″ square of Chatterbox patterned paper. The last two layers were sewn together.

A piece of Basic Black cardstock and a Chatterbox patterned paper were cut with Label One Nestabilities, layered and stitched together. Those are the mat for my Santa Circles. Gina’s Pure Luxury Organdy Ribbon was attached to Santa with a paper clip.

The sentiment is from the same set as Santa. It was stamped in Black ink, punched out with a large oval and layered on a Scallop oval punchout.

The inside of the card is like always very simple but matching to the card front.

Here is a video for the visual learner: