Happy Easter

Hi! How are you today? I thought I'd add this Happy Easter card before it got to be too late to join in on the fun at Mod Squad Challenges.

Again, I used the Eggstra Special Stamp/Die set from Lawn Fawn for my card. I dry embosssed the background on some hot pink paper and then die cut the Sizzix Label, basket & bunny after coloring with Copics.

This was a very CAS card to make. I'm staying as simple as I can, since I'm still itching, scratching and aching from my paint allergy. YES! I found out I'm allergic to the paint I used on my Kitchen Cabinet Doors project. It was worth it, anyhow. Wanna see?

This is only half the kitchen, but you get the idea. The doors had been solid dark brown before we ordered new ones to paint. Now it seems like the kitchen is twice as big...until somebody else walks in! Then it's crowded as ever, but it's a happy crowd. We can even see the sun coming in on the doors now. Love it!

Thanks for stopping by today. I appreciate your comments and visits very much, and I hope to see you again real soon ~

Bicycle!

Hi everybody! How's your day coming along? We're hanging the cabinet doors today, so I'm happy. This has been a week-long project, and I'm ready to be DONE. You know how you feel when everything is a mess? You feel like a mess, and that's me right now. I'd love to sweep that hallway, scrub the kitchen counters and get my belongings back in the cabinets again. Not gonna happen just yet, but close. That helps.

You know what else helps? CREATING CARDS! I knew that would help me feel better, so I found a little round spot on the table that was clear and I went to work. I just received this bicycle stamp/die set from Stephanie Barnard's Stamps of Life, so I was itching to use it. (Speaking of which, I've broken out in itchy spots all over my body. Any hints?)  The hot-air balloon, sun and clouds are also from SOL. I love her products!

I used patterned paper from North Pole paper pad by American Crafts. It's full of green and red patterned papers, and I'm enjoying it immensely. For sky, I sponged Salty Ocean Distress Inks onto white cardstock.

I found Simon Says Anything Goes Challenge and will add my card to their linkup. I'm also entering it in Darnell's NBUS (never-before-used-schtuff) challenge.

Thank you for stopping by today. I appreciate your visits and comments very much, and I hope to see you again real soon ~

Stretch Your Dies Day 7!

Hello! I'm back with -- can you believe it -- homework for DAY 7 at Stretch Your Dies with Online Card Classes! That means I'm DONE! WooHoo!

Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed every moment of this class. I just thought I'd never get the homework done. The kitchen cabinet doors are finally going up, too, which means they are out of my hallway! YES! The sweet things in life that mean so much...hmmm. Gotta think about that one.

Anyway, I was happy to get out my new alphabet dies for the lesson. We were learning different ways to use them, and I chose the one for the background. I cut them out twice on one piece of white cardstock and then glued it onto another piece of white.  Thank goodness the dies were still in one piece and not broken up yet. That made this a lot easier. I think I'll keep them that way.

The sentiment is from Gina K Designs Birthday Essentials Stamp TV Kit. I just used a scrap piece of grey paper for that. Then I die cut a Spellbinder's Butterfly, layered the white top onto the pink bottom and then added a little bling to finish it off.

Done! YAY!

Thank you for stopping by today. I appreciate your patience as I got through this class. Your comments and visits mean the world to me. Hope to see you again real soon ~

Stretch Your Dies Day 6

Hello everyone! Here I am again, this time with homework for Day 6 at Stretch Your Dies Day 6 with Online Card Classes.

This card was fun to create, too, just like my last one. I die cut waves using a die from Stephanie Barnard's Stamps of Life and then fit them together. Everything's glued to a piece of white cardstock, which I also used for the base. The ribbon, flip-flops and sentiment are also from SOL.

Like I said, I enjoyed putting this card together. I loosely followed a lesson on Border Dies by Debby Hughes. She had waves on her card, which gave me the idea, but the rest of it is original.

One more day left for homework! WooHoo! Stay tuned, please!

Thank you for stopping by today. I appreciate your comments and visits very much, and I hope to see you again real soon!

Stretch Your Dies Day 5

Hello again! I'm back with another card from Day 5 at Stretch Your Dies with Online Card Classes. Can you believe I got to the homework for Day FIVE? That amazes me because my life's been such a jumble this past week.

My home is so disorganized from painting the kitchen. Half my kitchen's "ingredients" are on the dining room table. That means I only get the other half for creating cards. I'm making progress, however; I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. WooHoo! We got the final coat of paint on last night. Whew! Never thought I'd see that before Christmas! lol

Today's card is one of my favorites. Following the lesson by Dawn Woleslagle, I die cut several pieces using masking paper. Had to do that twice because I cut the sticky part of the masking paper on the wrong side! Anyway, after placing them like I wanted onto the cardstock, I sprayed the page with Stampin Up! reinker. Dawn sprayed a Copic marker onto hers, but I didn't have the sprayer so I just used regular spray. Removing the masks after the cardstock dried, I stamped the images into the appropriate white spaces.

This was so much fun I didn't mind doing it twice. I used some Sizzix and also some Gina K Designs dies and stamps.

Thanks for stopping by again today! I appreciate your comments and visits very much, and I hope to see you again real soon ~

Stretch Your Dies Day 4

Hello, hello, hello! How are you doing? I hope you're having a good day. As you can see, I'm still struggling with homework (and kitchen cabinets). One of these days I'll get the homework done (AND the cabinets!).

Today's card is not one of my favorites. It looks too simple to me. I also forgot and threw away the parts of the letters that fill in the word "hello." Oops. I do like the papers, however. The mini dies, which is what our lesson was on, are from Stephanie Barnard's Stamps of Life. The sentiment is from Stampin Up! I had fun going through my supply of dies and finding the mini's. They were included in nearly every packet but I hadn't used them very often.

All I did for this card was cut out the dies from the green cardstock and back it with black. Then I layered it onto the patterned paper.

Thanks for stopping by today! I appreciate your comments and visits very much, and I hope to see you again real soon!

Stretch Your Dies Day 3

 

Hello! How are you today? I finally got homework done for Day 3 for Stretch Your Dies Online Card Classes. Like I said in a previous post, we're painting kitchen cabinet doors the same time I'm taking this class. (I've been told to correct that statement and change it to "Refacing the Kitchen" so you'll have a clue about the amount of work this takes! I'm sure Lowe's Hardware will be glad when we're done with this project!) Since I can't do two things at once, I'm way behind on homework.

For this day's class, I followed a card created by Debby Hughes to demonstrate the use of dies. The flower and sentiment is from Gina K Designs, and the tags are from Stephanie Barnard's Stamps of Life. The paper was in my stash. You can hardly tell, but the larger tag was created using a piece of glitter gold cardstock.

Thank you for stopping by today. I appreciate your comments and visits very much, and I hope to see you again real soon ~

Stretch Your Dies Day 2

Hello! How's your day coming along? I have so much going on right now I hardly have time for homework while I'm taking Stretch Your Dies Online Card Classes. I'm getting there, but I'm way behind.

First, I want to thank my friend, Kevin, for this awesome banner at the top of the page. That guy worked on it endlessly until he finally got everything I wanted included in the frame. (I just LOVE the little bunny, and I feel the cross is very important to include.)

The kicker is he's recovering from a major car accident that happened last weekend and has to get around on crutches due to an injured knee. Besides that, we're painting new kitchen cabinet doors that are strewn all across the living room. What a mess!

So, today while the cabinets were drying, I finally got a card together for Day 2's homework in the Stretch Your Dies class. After watching several video lessons, I decided to follow Yana Smakula's instructions for my card. I simply cut out some images on white cardstock and layered it onto colored cardstock. We were to focus on flower dies, but I added butterflies to make it extra special.

I have several friends who could use a Get Well card right now, so I know exactly where I'll send this. You can never have too many cards for that occasion.

Thank you for stopping by today! I appreciate your comments and visits very much, and I hope to see you again real soon ~

Stretch Your Dies Day 1

Hello! How are you today? I'm enjoying Online Card Classes again, this time with Stretch Your Dies. I don't have that many dies, but I love using them. This classes teaches us how to get the most from our dies.

For Day 1, we had several videos to watch, but I decided to follow the lesson from Jennifer McGuire where we learned how to create a background similar to embossing. We also learned  how to cut fun foam with our dies and then shrink them using our heat gun. It's been fun trying to accomplish that, believe me! I chased that word die all over the table before it finally stayed put long enough to shrink! Next, I colored the sentiment. I also cut the flowers with the fun foam so they'd have some dimension and colored them, too.

This was my second attempt at this card, which is why it's a few days late. The first time I tried it, I mistakenly die cut the larger "Thanks" for the background out of fun foam--over & over & over. (Well, I couldn't help it--that's what I thought I remembered from the video. Let's call it an Aged Mind.)

My background turned out to be so puffy I couldn't fit the die cut sentiment on to finish the card! So, I started over and this time cut the words for the background out of regular cardstock. That looked a lot better, thank goodness!

I hope you like today's card, and I do appreciate you stopping by today. Your comments and visits mean the word to me! See you again real soon!

Eggstra

Hello Everybody! How's your day? I hope you're able to enjoy some sunshine. It's just about Spring, for sure!

I received this new stamp and die set called Eggstra Special Easter by Lawn Fawn, and I just love it! First thing I did when it arrived was stamp and color with my Copic markers. Then I started punching polka-dotted butterflies with my new Martha Stewart punches. I've been wanting them for a long time and finally got them.

This card was created with the intention of adding it to the Lawnscaping Challenge that required dots and/or stripes, but I didn't get it posted in time. So here it is, posted purely for your enjoyment. Hope you like it!

Thank you for stopping by today. I appreciate your comments and visits very much, and I hope to see you again soon ~

Fabulous Flower

Hello! How's your day coming along? Our weather is warming up, some days warmer than others, but you can tell Spring is just around the corner. YAY!

This card is for the Mod Squad Challenge where it asks for Flowers to be the main focus. Since I used a stamp set from Melanie Muenchinger, I get a bonus entry. That's fantastic, since I love her Fabulous Frames sets such as the one I used for this card. I really like it when you stamp the flower in a soft color and then hit it with a bold one for the main focus. I'm beginning to really like pink, too.

Thank you'all for stopping by today! I appreciate your comments and visits very much, and I hope to see you again real soon!

Step-Up

Hello! How are you today? Hopefully you are enjoying warmer weather by this time. I know it's been very pretty here in NC lately, although rain is on its way.

I'm happy to post my first attempt at a Step-Up card, created with Sizzix dies from Stephanie Barnard's Stamps of Life. I was curious to see what all the fuss was about when I saw several of these in her Gallery. Now that I have the dies, I understand! It's lots of fun putting together various flowers, words and vines. The dies include sizes that work perfectly for the layers and smaller panels. I can't remember exactly how many dies are included, but there's a bunch! The paper on this card is also from SOL.

Thank you for stopping by today. I appreciate your comments and visits very much, and I hope to see you again real soon!

I Knead You!

Hello everybody! How's your day? We have warm temperatures here in North Carolina, but lots of wind is bringing in cooler weather along with harsh rains. I don't look forward to THAT at all!

First of all, thanks to my friend, Kevin, for the St. Patty's Day Banner! I enjoy adding the changes throughout the various seasons. Thanks to him, I can do that.

I just received this cat stamp from Stamps of Life, and I LOVE it! I also got the dies that go with it, which helps when making cards such as this. I added some ribbon I had in my stash after using my Copics around the edges of the image. It's layered on top of paper also from SOL.

Thank you for stopping by today! I appreciate your comments and visits very much, and I hope to see you again real soon ~