I mean it

My second Valentine's Day card:

 It's simple and I love it!!  The die cut heart and sentiment strip were in my bits and pieces stash.  And the patterned paper was a scrap, I only had to trim a bit off the length.  For a little more interest I stamped a damask background stamp with a light pink on the card base.  It's so subtle and pretty in real life.

Supplies:
Stamps: Lawn Fawn "Somebunny"; MFT "Essential Sentiments"; JustRite Stampers damask background
Dies: MFT "Bold Stripes" cover up die; the die cut heart was a gift from a friend

Challenges:
Pattie's Creations #166--anything goes
Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper--anything goes with patterned paper
Brown Sugar #297--anything goes
Penny Black--make it feminine
2 Crafty Critter Crazies--anything goes
Paper Funday--anything goes with the optional twist: friendship
Cardz TV #105--anything goes
Pink Gem--anything goes
Use Your Stuff #389--anything goes
Crafty Sentiments--anything goes
C.R.A.F.T. #540--anything goes
ART Impressions #273--Hugs & Kisses
Crafty Catz #488--anything goes with the optional twist: animals
Stick It Down--sketch

You're Sweet

It's time to start my Valentine's Day cards.  It's also the time of year when I feel the desire to really work on using up my bits and pieces stash.  The two events seem to work well together.  Here's my first Valentine:

The pieced tag and the small piece of patterned paper the cupcake wrapper is stamped on (used it for some paper piecing) were both in my bits and pieces stash.  The gray strip, the heart, the cupcake and the sentiment panel were all made from scraps, so this is a very scrappy card!

Supplies:
Stamps: PTI "Baker's Dozen" cupcake; MFT "Candy Jar Companions" sentiment and pink hearts
Dies: Spellbinders "Scalloped tag trio" tag and "Label's One" sentiment panel; Sweet n Sassy Stamps heart; PTI "Baker's Dozen"

Challenges:
Crafter's Cafe #234--Something beginning with "c" (Cupcakes)
Word Art Wednesday #421--anything goes with uplifting sentiment
Craft-Dee Bow Z--anything goes
Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper--anything goes with patterned paper
Creative Sketchy Girls #43--anything goes
Love To Craft Challenge Blog #42--anything goes
Creative Inspiration--something new or something new (I chose old; I've had the cupcake stamp set for several years, probably over 5, the heart die and tag dies as well)
Crafty Calendar--add a tag
Sweet Sketch Wednesday 2--sketch

Pink Gem Challenge--anything goes
Incy Wincy--anything goes
Use Your Stuff #389--anything goes
Crafty Sentiment--anything goes
Little Red Wagon #531--have your cake and eat it too

Christmas Cheer

Happy Wednesday!!  It's time for another challenge from The House That Stamps Built.  This week we have a fun Tic Tac Toe board for you:

  Tic Tac Toe challenges are probably one of my favorite challenges (other than sketch challenges).  I love that you can pick and choose what YOU want to do for the challenge.  I don't usually take time to make fun folds, but for this challenge I decided to step outside my comfort zone and have a little fun.

Here is what I created for your inspiration:

I decided to go with a swing (flip) card so I could use one of the awesome swing stamp sets from Repeat Impressions.  I think with all of my swing sets I have cut apart the sentiments and images so I can use them as intended or in whatever way I want to use them.

I used the top row of the board: Fun Fold, Snowmen, Silver/Gold (I used gold eyelets for just a touch of gold).

The poor snowman on the front looks so plain, but once you open up the card, he puts on all his Christmas cheer!

At first, I was thinking there wasn't any place for writing a greeting, but there is plenty of space on the back of the card.  If you are interested in making your own Swing (Flip) card, I used this tutorial, and she has a whole A-Z list of fun folds that you can check out here.

Thanks for stopping by!  Make sure you head on over to The House blog to see what the rest of the Design Team has done with this photo.  And if you "need" any of the stamps I used, check out my 10% off your entire order coupon code over in my lift sidebar.

Supplies:

Stamps: Repeat Impressions "Snowman 2-sided Swing Stamp Set" (both images and all of the sentiments are included in the set) and "Holly Sprig"

Dies: Verve "Vintage Oval"; MFT "Blueprints 25" stitched banner; PaperTrey Ink fancy border die

Challenges:
C.R.A.F.T. #539--Christmas: the last stretch
Word Art Wednesday #420--anything goes with uplifting sentiment
Crafty Creations #405--anything goes
Cute Card Thursday #615--anything goes
Krafty Chicks--stamp act
Christmas Cares All Year 'Round--anything Christmas or holiday
Crafts Galore #71--anything goes
Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper--anything goes with patterned paper
Creative with Stamps #46--scarf

Stinkin' Inkers--warm up
ABC Christmas--A is for Anything Goes B is for Bingo (I chose anything goes)

Pick of the Week

Happy 2020!!  It's my turn to share my Pick of the Week project for The House That Stamps Built.  Continuing in my Inspired by Pinterest theme, I was inspired by this card:

I have a whole Pinterest board full of cards that caught my eye because I could reproduce them using Repeat Impressions stamps.  I thought this card would look beautiful using either the Flower Power Background stamp or some of the individual flowers from the Flower Power Separates collection.  But as I was thinking about what I wanted to do for my Pick of the Week, I decided to create a masculine card inspired by this very feminine card.  Here is what I came up with:

As you can see, I kept the layout the same and even used some ribbon (yes, you can use ribbon on masculine cards), but the result is very different because of the colors and image I used.  First, I die cut my cream panel with a stitched rectangle die.  Then, I masked off the top of the panel and stamped the "African Post Collage (lg)" image across the bottom of the panel.  It didn't quite cover the whole panel, so I inked it up a second time and just stamped part of the stamp along the bottom edge.  I used a blending brush to blend on some Antique Linen Distress ink along the edges and stamped my sentiment, "it's your birthday!" (from the Holy Crap series) on the top in a dark brown ink.  Adhered the ribbon across the top of the stamped portion of the panel and added the star brad to finish a very quick and easy card.

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope this inspires you to create some cards based on your Pinterest finds, and I hope it reminds you that you can be inspired by something even if it turns out looking quite different from the original.

Supplies:
Stamps: Repeat Impressions "African Post Collage (lg)", "it's your birthday!"
Dies: MFT "Blueprints 13" stitched rectangle

Challenges:
MFT Birthday Challenge--CAS
Crafty Creations #405--anything goes
Mod Squad--make your own patterned paper
Little Red Wagon #529--use your NBUS (never before used stuff) I got this collage stamp back in May and this is the first time I've inked it up.
Cute Card Thursday #615--anything goes
Krafty Chicks--stamp act (use a stamped image)
Crafts Galore #71--anything goes
Kat Scrappiness--no patterned paper
STAMPlorations CAS Challenge--anything goes with the optional twist: anything metallic (I used a metal brad)

Birthday Boy

It's Saturday!!  That means it's time for another challenge from Di's Digi Designs.

The challenge this time is: Celebrations
And here is my card for your inspiration:

I always am in need of masculine birthday cards, so I decided to create a birthday celebrations card.  After all the coloring, I wanted to keep the rest of the card simple, so I stenciled some stripes down the side, added a strip of teal cardstock and some teal enamel dots.

I hope you will get a chance to play along with us; I can't wait to see what you create.  And make sure you hop over to the Di's Digital Designs blog to see what the rest of the team has made for this challenge.

Supplies: 

Stams: Di's Digi Stamps "Party Boy Bear" digi; MFT "Essential Sentiments" sentiment

Dies: MFT "Blueprints 25" stitched rectangle and "Striped Cover Up" banner strip

Challenges:
Simon Says Stamp Monday--party time
Crafty Creations #405--anything goes
Mod Squad--make your own patterned paper (the stripes are stenciled)
Cute Card Thursday #615--anything goes
Crafts Galore #71--anything goes
Creative Sketchy Girls #43--anything goes
2 Crafty Critter Crazies--anything goes
Kat Scrappiness--anything goes
Cardz TV #105--anything goes
STAMPlorations Stencil--anything goes with a stencil

Don't worry

Happy Wednesday!!  It's time for another challenge from The House That Stamps.  This week is a Designer's Choice Challenge and Shirley has chosen: Use an image that reminds you of your childhood.

And here is the card I created:

 At first this was a very challenging challenge for me!  I can barely remember what happened yesterday, never mind during my childhood!  But as I was looking through my Repeat Impressions stamps to see which would work best for this challenge, I came across these beautiful Sea Urchin images and just knew they were the ones!  My grandparents used to spend the winters in Puerto Rico when I was growing up and we were blessed enough to be able to visit them several times.  They lived just a few houses down from a nearly deserted beach and we always had so much fun down there.  There were so many shells, sand dollars (you could walk along in the water and feel them just under the top of the sand), and sea urchins.  I have a small collection of sea urchins and they have always been my favorite.  The white ones are so elegant and simple, but the green and purple ones are so gorgeous!  My mother used to have the giantest purple one and it was just stunning!  So, that is what I came up with--I created a pattern of purple and green sea urchins for my background.  Then, I heat embossed two of them with a really sparkly gold embossing powder.  And finished everything off by adding some dots with a gold paint pen to both tie in the gold sea urchins and fill in the pattern a little bit.  You can see the sparkle and shine of the embossed images in the photo below.

Thanks for stopping by!  Make sure you head on over to The House blog to see what the rest of the Design Team has done with this photo.  And if you "need" any of the stamps I used, check out my 10% off your entire order coupon code over in my lift sidebar.

Supplies:

Stamps: Repeat Impressions "Sea Urchin (lg)", "Sea Urchin (sm)" and "Be Strong"

Challenges:
Double Trouble #46--something, anything, everything (Thing #1: anything goes)
Lil' Patch of Crafty Friends #120--anything goes

Love

A new month has arrived and that means a new challenge from the Love To Scrap Challenge Blog.  This month's challenge is Anything Goes.

And here is the card I created:

I made this for my parents' anniversary--43 years!  They were married the day after Christmas and we were with them for Christmas and to help celebrate the anniversary.

Thanks so much for stopping by!  Head on over to the LTSCB blog to see what the rest of the team has created and to get the full details of the challenge.  Then get inky and play along with us; I can't wait to see what you create.

Supplies:

Stamps: MFT "Essential Sentiments"

Dies: MFT "Stitched Alphabet" and "Blueprints 12" leaf; Sweet n Sassy Stamps small heart
Stencils: MFT "Diagonal Stripes" and "Brick Wall"

Challenges:
Sweet Stampers #39--anything goes
Lil' Patch of Crafty Friends #120--anything goes
Double Trouble #46--something, anything, everything (Thing #1: anything goes; Thing #3: out with the old, in with the new {the flowers were from a prize I won recently and I hadn't used any of them yet})
Incy Wincy--happiness