SSS Sweet Wishes, Merry Everything

  *This post contains affiliate links to Simon Says Stamp.

Just a very quick card share today.  I made some very simple cards using my new Merry Everything sentiment.  This big sentiment was created for a friend from work who wanted a sentiment that covers everything in the year.  There's a coordinating die that goes with the sentiment but I went with easy one layer cards here.

I used the large rectangle from my Printmaking Houses stencil to mask off the portion of my panel to be inked, and then chose two colors of Distress Oxide for each panel.  Clockwise from top left, I used Abandoned Coral/Broken China, Villainous Potion/Blueprint Sketch, Twisted Citron/Lucky Clover, and Chipped Sapphire/Crushed Olive.

I mixed up the orientation of the inking - diagonally from corner to corner as well as top to bottom.  I had another panel that gave me issues with the gold embossing.  I was having a hard time getting even inking for the embossing...it was hard to tell when the Versamark didn't fully cover the area.  My fix was to ink all the sentiments with Versa Claire black, and then some were embossed in gold and some in clear.  

I also added some splatter to the Chipped Sapphire/Crushed Olive card, and for the Abandoned Coral/Broken China card added some very subtle stamped accents using the small stamps from the Zippy Winter set using Versamark.

That's all for me today.  Hope everyone enjoyed the long weekend!

SSS Sweet Wished Blog Hop, Sketched Leaves

*This post contains affiliate links to Simon Says Stamp.

Happy Friday!  Today I'm helping celebrate the new Simon Says Stamp Sweet Wishes release with a blog hop.  All good blog hops have prizes, and there are lots to be had here.  Simon is giving away a $25 store credit at every stop on the hop.  All you need to do to be entered is to leave a comment.  AND, with any order placed this weekend, you can receive the Tidings of Cheer die set pictured above with code FYCHR.

You should be arriving from Mindy Eggen's blog, and I'll have the full hop list at the end of this post if you need it.  

Today I'm showing off my Sketched Leaves set.  I have to say I'm pretty thrilled with how this set turned out.  I had so much fun creating today's cards.

For this first card, I used all four of the leaves in the set, randomly stamping them with Watermelon, Amethyst, Pucker, and Cherry ink to create my own patterened paper.  I love the look you get when the leaves overlap!

Once I was happy with the coverage, I trimmed the panel down, and added a dark purple mat.

The sentiment, also from the set, was embossed in white.  I added a mat to that as well and popped it up with foam tape.

I went super simple with the next card.

I started by creating a panel using Distress Spray Stains and water.  I used Ground Espresso, Carved Pumpkin,, and Candied Apple for the panel.  I started by liberally spraying my panel with water, and then with the spray stains.  I added a bit more water and then more spray stain moving the panel around to mix the colors until I got the look I wanted.  This is a very inexact science, but I love the depth and coverage you get from the sprays vs just using watercolor.

Once the panel was dry, I ran it through my die cutting machine by itself to help flatten it out, and then gold embossed the leaf and sentiment.  The panel was then popped up on my card base with foam tape.

I created several panels along with the one above, and used another of them for this last card.  This time I used Villainous Potion, Candied Apple, and Carved Pumpkin, and Ground Espresso.

I used three different metallic embossing powders for this card, one for each leaf: Copper, Princess Gold (this is actually my go to gold) and regular Gold. 

Each of the leaves was placed on the panel using my stamping platform, stamped and embossed, and then I rotated the panel 180 degrees and stamped and embossed again.

The sentiment was embossed with Princess Gold on a watercolor panel, inked with Villainous Potion and Ground Espresso Distress ink, adhered to a Matte Gold mat, and popped up with foam tape.

That's all for me today.  Your next stop is Bibi Cameron, and the full list is below.  Don't forget to leave a comment ot be entered to win.  Good luck!

Simon Says Stamp Blog
Laura Bassen
Nichol Spohr
Cathy Zielske
Barbara Tarayao
Mindy Eggen
Miriam Prantner
Bibi Cameron
Cheiron Brandon
Heather Ruwe
Keisha Charles
Karin Åkesdotter
Kath Stewart
Barb Engler
Betsy Green

SSS Sweet Wishes, Positivity Stencil

 *This post contains affiliate links to Simon Says Stamp.

The Simon Says Stamp Sweet Wishes release is now live in the store!  Today I'm showing off one of my new stencil designs, Positivity.

For my first card, I inked up the stencil using Morning, Twilight, and Galaxy starting with Morning in the top right corner and transition to Galaxy in the bottom left.

I inked up the Joyful sentiment using the same colors in a similiar fashion, and then die cut the sentiment with the coordinating die.  Originally I was going to use this on it's own, but then decided I wanted it to stand out a bit more, so I adhered a white shadow cardstock shadow piece using the Joyful standalone die set.  This was popped up with foam tape over my stenciled panel, and I added a secondary embossed sentiment from the Joyful stamp set.

For. my second card, I inked up three panels, one with Morning, one with Twilight, and one with Galaxy.

I used the Morning panel as my base panel, and then fussy cut a bunch of positive signs from the other two.  These were then randomly positioned over the design and popped up with foam tape.

The sentiment, from the Big and Bold set, was stamped on a piece of white cardstock inked with Morning, die cut, and also popped up with foam tape.

That's all for me today.  Be sure and head over to Simon to check out the full release.  I'll see you back here tomorrow for a blog hop!

September 2024 in Books

It was a very slow reading month for me.  Back sto school has put a real crimp in my reading time!  Not my favorite month of reading, but here are the recaps:

The Lost Story - Meg Shaffer - fiction - three stars - Jeremy is a famous for two things:  being able to find lost girls/women; and being lost himself with his best friend when he was young and suddenly reappearing.  Emilie is looking for her lost sister and enlists the help of Jeremy.  This book started out really strong, I was hooked,  It really fizzled for me in the middle and never recovered.  I didn't care for how Shaffer ultimately explained the story, tied things together, it seemed a little too elementary.  Overall disappointing, particularly in light of the promising beginning.

The Ministry of Time - by Kaliane Bradley - science fiction - four stars - This story takes place in the future.  The ability to time travel has been discovered, but is a secret.  The government is utilizing a device to grab people from other times and see how the react to the current time.  The main character is hired as a 'bridge' assigned to one of the individuals who has been taken to help them assimilate to the world as it is now.  This was a really interesting premise.  the first 50 pages or so really had me engaged, and then things got very bogged down for me.  There were some very interesting twists that I did not see coming, but I also thought that the climax/ending was clunky and needed work.  Still a decent story.

The Little Liar - by Mitch Albom - historical fiction - five stars - Nico Krispis lives in Salonika.  The Nazis have captured Greece, and life is about to change.  Nico is honest to a fault and looks the part.  He's manipulated by the Nazis into telling Jews departing the island that they are going to new homes and jobs.  When he learns the actual truth, Nico promises never to tell the truth again.  The story tells how he survives the war, and how he has tried to atone for his actions for the rest of his life.  I loved this one.  It's been a while since I read one of Albom's books, but they are always so good.  I've got another in my queue already.

The House of Eve - by Sadeqa Johnson - historical fiction - four stars - This story follows two women, Ruby who is growing up in Philadelphia, and working to become the first person in her family to go to college.  When she accidentally becomes pregnant, her dreams are in jeopardy.  Meanwhile, in DC, Eleanor and William meet at Howard University and fall in love.  Both women are fighting to be part of a society/world new to them and higher than they came from.  Their stories eventually intersect.  I thought the book was quite good, although I found the endings somewhat too convenient.

Not shockingly, The Little Liar was my favorite this month, and The Lost Story my least favorite.  Hoping that October is better for my reading production!

Hello, Block Alpha Words

  *This post contains affiliate links to Simon Says Stamp.

Hi all!  I've got a fun monochromatic card today mixing some old and some new.  

I love this robot from a retired Mama Elephant stamp set.  The added bonus is that robots are pretty easy to color since you can just go with a neutral.  This guy was stamped with Gina K Black Amalgam ink, and then colored with Copic Toner grays, I used 0-6.  Once the coloring was done, I die cut him, and I used a craft knife to cut out the spaces between his elbows and body because I wanted the background to show through.

For the background, I used the Sunshine stencils.  They were masked off to cover the sun portion, one was inked with Flannel and the other with Charcoal.

The completed panel was adhered directly to my card, and the robot popped up with foam tape.

I then stamped the sentimenr, from the Block Alpha Words set, using Flannel ink for the negative spaces and and Versa Clair black for the sentiment itself.  I was actually going to cut out each letter and pop them up individually, but liked the look of the whole sentiment popped up, so went with it.

STAMPtember, Snowflake Stripes

 *This post contains affiliate links to Simon Says Stamp.

Happy Thursday!  Today I'm sharing a couple of cards using my new Snowflake Stripes stencil set.  The set includes three stencils, two that work together to create the negative background space around the snowflake. The third is the snowflake itself, and is centered on the 6x6 stencil so you can use it either in combination with the strips or as a standalone snowflake.

For this first cad, I used Morning, Twilight, and Galaxy inks.  Morning was used twice, for the two two stripes, just more heavily the second time.

The panel was trimmed down, and then adhered directly to my card base.

The Joyful sentiment die was cut from Matte Silver cardstock, adhered to the white cardstock shadow piece and then popped up with foam tape.  

This one was super quick and easy to put together!

For this next card, I used just two colors, Sweets and Lucky.

I then placed the snowflake stencil over top, and spread Nuvo Moonstone Glimmer Paste through it.

While waiting for the paste to dry, I die cut the Merry & Bright sentiment from Gold Matte cardstock once andtwice from white cardstock.  Once the paste was dry, this was adhered directly to the panel.

These stencils were so fun to use, I'm looking forward to creating with them again!

STAMPtember Quilting Quarters stencils

 *This post contains affiliate links to Simon Says Stamp.

Hi all!  I'm sharing a few cards today using my new Quilting Quarters stencil set.  The set includes five stencils that went used together completely cover a panel. 

My first card uses the three main stencils that create that basic quilted design.  You take each stencil and ink it four times, turning it 90 degrees each time.  I wanted to create a rainbow look for this first card, but didn't want to have to think too hard about the colors, so I pulled out my Rainbow Splash inks.  I used Ballet, Princess and Crimson, Canary; Dandelion, and Pumpkin; Lime, Grass, and Emerald; and Lake, Sea, and then Royal (not part of Rainbow Splash) for each of my four quarter sections.

I added a red mat, and then finished things off with the Basic Box Card Happy Birthday die set.

For this second card, I used the two stencils that weren't used for the previous card.

I used metallic paste with each of these.  Silver Lunar Paste for the smaller squares, and Hero Arts Gold Paste for the larger squares.

The Cheering You On sentiment was die cut from Matte Gold cardstock, adhered to the shadow piece cut from black cardstock, and then popped up with foam tape.

For the final card, I used all five stencils and went with a monochromatic look.

I started by inking the basic three stencils with Flannel, Earl, and Charcoal ink in each quarter.

I spared Silver Lunar Paste through the stencil with the smaller squares, and used Distress Black Opaque Texture Paste for the larger squares.  This ended up being a little too black for the panel, so once it was dry, I placed the stencil back over those squares, and used some white pigment ink to soften the color.

The Hi There sentiment was die cut from Matte Silver cardstock and adhered to a shadow piece cut from dark gray cardstock.  The entire piece was then popped up with foam tape.

I hope this post gives you some good ideas for how to use these stencils.