Flower Trio for Atlantic Hearts Sketch

One of the blessings I'm thankful for is to be a part of this worldwide cardmaking community. There is a never-ending source of ideas for colors, techniques, and sketches. It allows our bit of creativity to grow so we can bless others with the result of our efforts. The sketch at Atlantic Hearts Sketch  this week is perfect for a birthday card I need for a friend. I was intrigued by the scallop design and thought it would be great for a scallop window cut out of a frame.

I also wanted a fun background for these flower outlines, so I decided to try inking my largest acrylic block and spritzing it with water to see the result.  I made several in different colors and this is my favorite. This one is made from the colors of the Gimme Some Sugar papers, Blossom, Juniper, and Tangerine. The pale spring-like colors looked good on a silver glitter paper background.

The second one came out brighter with the addition of a fourth color, Sweet Leaf. The colors were brighter and looked like they needed a gold glitter paper background.

The sentiments were stamped on die cuts from the Party Banners Thin Cuts. I wasn't sure I'd like them until I tried these. Now I love the way they add variety to the design. Before stamping, I creased them on their fold lines, opened them flat again, and using washii tape to hold them down flat and to mark the beginning and end of the stampable part.  I curved the second one by setting the clear block over the stampable part of the banner and attaching the stamp, curving it to match.

Thanks for visiting! May your crardmaking bless both you and the recipients of your creativity!

I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:

A Gem of a Challenge #216 - Female Birthday with a Sentiment

Atlantic Hearts Sketch #258 - sketch above

Craftaholics R Us #14 - Birthday Cards

Crafty Catz Challenge #411 - anything goes with colors of spring

DL.Art Thankful Thursday #225 - Flowers

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Happy Birthday

Simply Create Too Challenge #137 -  use die cuts

5.5" x 4.25" card recipe:

Stamp - Many Congratulations (flowers), Hunting for Words (birthday)

Papers - Watercolor Paper, Silver Glitter Paper, Gold Glitter Paper

Stamp pads and Reinkers - Blossom, Juniper, Tangerine, Sweet Leaf, Memento Tuxedo Black

Embellishments - White Pearls, Gold glitter gems, white and gold ribbon, White Twine

Tools - Thin Cuts Party Banners, MFT wonky stitch rectangle dies, Spellbinders large scallop rectangle dies, spray pens, acrylic block 4" x 5" and heat gun

Happy Birthday, Super Boy!

One of my grandsons is celebrating his 12th birthday today! Over the years he was enamored with superheroes and action figures. He's also an amazing artist and took a class at Nelson Atkins Gallery of Art in cartooning. His favorite subject was, of course, superheroes, with a humerous twist. So naturally, here's the card I made for him using the CTMH Super Boy stamp set and Thin Cuts.
I want him to know that we think he's amazing and so very loved!

The red striped paper from Stargazer was perfect for this theme. I stamped the lightning background behind the boy and the extra zap and pow words using the stamp set Comic Book Scenes. You can barely see it, but I used that set to stamp stars at the top of the inside to go with the birthday sentiment from PTI. The image and words were colored with Copics. The Happy Birthday sentiment is from a very old CTMH stamp set, Nursery Bash. I chose it because of the similar font style.

Thank you for visiting! 

I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:

Always Fun Challenge #52 - Happy Birthday

Cardz 4 Guyz #191 - Super Heroes

Heart 2 Heart Challenge - Birthday Bash

HeARTful Stamping Challenge - anything goes with stamping

Send a Smile 4 Kids Challenge - anything goes or for boys

The Paper Girls Challenge #149 - Masculine Birthday

 

April Stamp of the Month Blog Hop - Color Your Life

Welcome to our CTMH April Stamp of the Month Blog Hop. If you just came from Kathy Burrows' blog, you're on the right path.  If  you'd like to see the entire list of participants, you can see it here at Melinda Everitt's blog.

This month's stamp set has large sentiments that work really well with a scrapbook layout. The words also fit perfectly with photos I just took of my grandson's basketball tournament. His team played three games that day and won the tournament. I chose to use the words "COURAGE" and "celebrate" to go with these photos.  Pattern 13, page 30, in Make It From Your Heart Volume 3, was perfect for the photos I selected. I'm also adding the 6" Pocket Plus Memory protectors (Design 1 and Design 3) to include the extra photos I took.

 Here's a close-up of the title. It was stamped in black and colored with WG7 Warm Grey ShinHan Touch Twin alcohol ink marker. The fine tip worked perfectly coloring the tiniest spaces.

The subtitle on the 2nd page was heat embossed in white on the dark Sapphire Enchantment Fundamentals paper.  The extra embellishments were from the All Star Complements (sorry, they just sold out this month), Black Shimmer Trim, Black Glitter Paper,  and Black and White Enamel Dots. Pocket cards and stars were cut from light Pewter and Goldrush cardstocks.

If you really need sports embellishments like the ones I used and if you have You Are Here, you're welcome to use one of my Cricut cut files. Here's the way I cut extra stars by taping two Thin Cuts Basic Stars (not adjacent sizes):

Thank you for visiting!  Now you're ready to hop on to Jean McNulty's blog to see what she's created for you!

Easter Blessings!

For many, Easter's blessings may be dressing up for church, decorating Easter eggs for an egg hunt, baskets of chocolate bunnies and eggs, and brunch or dinner with family or friends. These are lovely traditions! I especially like to think of this day as Resurrection Sunday when I focus my thoughts on what kind of amazing love God has for you and me . He knew that none of us could be sinless and since something had to shed it's blood and die to pay for our sins, He sent His own sinless Son to die on a cross to take our punishment for all of our sins. He didn't love me because I was sinless, but while I was sinful! That's the focus of the verse below that I used to make this Easter card: "But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8" This verse is one of the free verses from Word Art Wednesday's February 28, 2018, post.

But His death wasn't all that He did for me. His second gift was that He rose from the dead like He'd said that He would to show us we also had the gift of eternal life when we believe in Him and what He did for us! His amazing love for us wasn't just words! What a blessing! I will forever be thankful!

Here's one of several cards I made to share that message with family and friends. 

The two background circles were both from Spellbinders, the sentiment is MFT's Wonky Stitched Rectangle,  and the silver-embossed cross is an older CTMH stamp that I fussy cut. The light gray flowered background paper is from the CTMH Basics Fundamentals paper pack.

I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:

Always Fun Challenge #51 - Easter
Deep Ocean Challenge #178 - Easter/spring
Die Cuttin' Divas #362 - Easter with die cuts
Fab 'n' Funky #387 - Easter
Word Art Wednesday Challenge #328 - 329 - anything goes with uplifting message

Hugs for Heart 2 Heart

This week's challenge at Heart 2 Heart focuses on "cutting out" using dies, Cricut, or scissors.  I have a new passion for letter dies that I didn't have before. I bought some from Spellbinders 12 years ago to use for titles on scrapbook pages. Eventually, my Cricut took over that job. But now I enjoy putting patterned paper under a cut out word. Here's one with a little Chelsea Gardens leafy floral paper under the word "HUGS" with even more leaves embossed at the bottom.

I used Spellbinder's Grand Calibur to cut the CTMH Block Letters and to emboss with the CTMH retired Vine embossing folder. The dies were sharp and deep enough that I was able to stack two pieces of cardstock and cut both at the same time. I took a slightly damp paper towel to swipe over the bottom part of the card above before embossing so the white core of the Peacock cardstock wouldn't show from cracking. I didn't remember to do that with the first one I made (below) and I decided I needed to sand/distress the embossing to show the white core more uniformly.  I embellished with Peacock Stitched Ribbon and (Black and) White Dots.

Thank you for visiting! May you share lots of hugs with those you know and be blessed with happy hugs in return!

I'm sharing the first card with the following challenges:

Heart 2 Heart Challenge - Cut It Out
Shopping Our Stash #347 - No ink
Southern Girls #180 - Die Cuts
Tic Tac Toe Challenge #41 - down: die cuts, leaves, bold sentiment

Chelsea Gardens Mother's Day

Heart 2 Heart challenged us to make something inspired by the cover of this catalog:

 I loved the garden-themed papers of Chelsea Gardens, but it took me a while to think about what I'd make. Then I thought about how my mom knew so much about plants and shrubs and passed on that love to me, so a Mother's Day card was my choice. Even though my mom went to heaven nine years ago, I've had a lot of moms in life so I decided to make one for a friend's mom who was my Sunday School teacher, mentor and inspiration. She's still living in Texas and I need to write her a message about how much she meant to me. One summer when I took Driver's Ed with my friend, my dad dropped me off really early at their house. Mrs. Stewart would come to the door in her robe and let me in before the rest of her house woke up. She was always the perfect hostess. She shared notes she had taken at church or from messages she'd heard, always challenging us to live the Christian life to honor the Lord. When we started dating, her lovely family room in the basement became the meeting place to entertain the young men we dated. She let me borrow her tredle sewing machine when I started sewing most of my clothes. I loved that machine! I even used it to make my wedding dress.  My card will have a lot of details to express my appreciation for her mothering!

The papers are from CTMH Chelsea Gardens and the butterfly and leaves are the Chelsea Gardens Cardmaking stamp set. The sentiment is from the Mother's Garden stamp set. The butterfly and leaves were stamped then cut with the matching die and colored with Copic markers.

Thank you for visiting! I hope you'll have opportunities to share your gratitude with all the moms in your life, and  those who inspire you!

I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:

Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper March Challenge - anything goes with patterned paper
Create and Inspire Challenge #72 - anything goes/all about moms
D.L.Art March Linky Challenge - anything goes
Heart 2 Heart March Challenge - use the cover inspiration
HeARTful Stamping Challenge - anything goes with stamping

Rainbow Colored Flowers

When I was a teenager I learned how cloudy, rainy weather can make some people depressed. I decided then that on such days I should wear bright colors and a bright smile to help lift someone's spirits, including my own. We've had such a such a long stretch of rainy weather here in the Midwest. Even though the rain is badly needed, it's been pretty gloomy. So I was happy to make this rainbow card following the challenge at Heart 2 Heart. Playing with paper and bright colored inks is great therapy for gloomy days!

I die cut  the flowers using one of the stamp and die sets that are 25% off this month at CTMH, Falling for You. I measured the largest negative space and found it was three inches.  That meant I could have about 1/2" inch space for each of six colors of the rainbow. I lined up the top layer over the card base and  made small pencil marks at the top and bottom of the largest flower cut-out so I'd know where to place my colors. Then I used sponge daubers and made stripes of each color within the three inch space. The entire process was pretty quick.

Thank you for visiting! May you be the rainbow in someone's cloudy day!

I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:

Crafter's Castle Challenge #3 - anything goes - option: share a favorite technique
D.L. Art Thankful Thursday Challenge #225 - Flowers
Fussy and Fancy Challenge #208 - spring flowers
Heart 2 Heart challenge - Rainbows
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge - Floral Frenzy