Concord & 9th Sneak Peek

Good morning, friends!  I'm over on the Where Creativity Meets C9 Blog today with a little card using one of my all time favorite stamp sets.  I hope you'll pop by.  Wishing you the most wonderful day and a happy weekend!

Stamptember Concord & 9th Collaboration

Good morning!  I have the greatest pleasure today to help introduce the newest Stamptember Exclusive Stamp Set in collaboration with Concord and 9th.  Meet "Oh, Hello".

This fun set has a lot of uses and is great for both masculine and feminine cards...a win in my book.  I especially love the larger scale of the sentiments and couldn't wait to ink them up right away.  (Not surprising because I'm always drawn to Concord & 9th's sentiments.) The first card I made with Oh, Hello was completely inspired by the Stamptember logo.  I used the awesome watercolored circle stamp to create a big bouquet of balloons.

I stamped my "balloons" in the logo colors, and I love that the design of the stamp naturally adds shading to certain areas of the images. The balloon tails I added are from Concord & 9th's Happy Balloons Stamp Set.  It's the long straight stamp, but I curved it on my stamp block before stamping.  

Often I think of balloons just for celebrating special occasions, but is there a happier way to say hello than with a brightly colored bouquet of balloons?  And if that isn't cheerful enough, how about saying hello with a shaker full of sparkly sequins and balloons?  I for one am all smiles.

 

Now you may be thinking, "Hey, this looks nothing like the sneak peek I saw of your card." And you're right.  These balloons had me smiling so much that I decided to make a second card, and this time I used the tiniest stamp in the whole set.   You may not know, but I have a thing for triangles.  So I used that itty bitty trio of triangles to create a simple background using a fun fall color scheme. 

Next I stamped a sentiment from Oh, Hello and die cut the panel using Concord & 9th's Select-A-Size Edge Dies to create a hexagonal shape.  I finished my card by tucking in a few leaves cut from Concord & 9th's Layering Leaves Dies.

Isn't this sentiment perfect for SO many different occasions?  It makes a great card to have in your stash.

Now, I only used 4 stamps in this set to create both of my cards, so just think of the possibilities this one set holds.  

Thanks so much for joining me today!  Make sure you head over to the Simon Says Stamp Shop to pick up this fun Stamptember Exclusive set and visit the Simon Says Stamp Blog to see lots of fabulous inspiration using this set. Have a happy day!

Where Creativity Meets C9 Challenge #13

Good morning, friends!  Can you believe that it has been an entire year since the Where Creativity Meets C9 Challenge started?  It has sure brought me a lot of happiness and smiles this past year and hopefully to you, too. :)  Challenge #13 goes live today and the theme is....

...ink only!  This challenge is right up my alley.  Although I enjoy and find beauty in a huge variety of cardmaking styles, there is just something so magical to me about simply taking ink and stamps to paper.   So many of my very favorite cardmakers do this so beautifully.  Today I went clean and bold.  It just seemed fitting with as happy a statement as best day ever. :)

I used the backs of several stamps to get my circles, but mostly the three circular flowers in Concord & 9th's Hope Stamp Set.  (The other sets I used were Hooray and Lots of Blots.) I love the unevenness of each one...more like watercolored circles.  After I added my sentiment from Concord & 9th's Best Banners (which has quickly become a favorite stamp set), the card just seemed like it was missing something.  I toyed with a few ideas, buy then I saw the little ink splatter stamps in the Flourish Stamp Set and knew they were just what this card needed.  And that was that.  :)

I look forward to seeing what you create for our Ink Only Challenge!  There is lots and lots of inspiration on the Where Creativity Meets C9 Blog from my fabulous teammates, so head there next.  You'll love what they've done.  And last, but definitely not least, you most definitely should check out Concord and 9th's September Release that goes live today (click HERE).  The Magnolia Wreath made my heart go pitter patter, but I'm pretty smitten by it all.  This release is fabulous and has me wishing my birthday was in September or that Christmas was just a tad bit closer!  

Concord & 9th Pineapple Perfection

Hello!  I am SO excited to share my projects with you today.  I'm joining my fellow Where Creativity Meets C9 teammates for one final (sniff!) Feature Friday over at Concord & 9th's Blog.   August literally flew by and though I'm sad to see it end, I think that "Save the Best for Last" is totally fitting for today's post.  Today we are showcasing Concord & 9th's Pineapple Perfection Bundle.  I'm a huge fan of pineapples and this has got to be one of the most unique pineapples out there.  Today I'm going to show you how you can use this pineapple for nearly all occasions any time of the year.  

**Affiliate links used at no extra cost to you.  Thanks so much for your support!**

Since weddings start to pick up in spring, I decided to use that as the inspiration for my first pineapple tag.  I stamped the large pineapple image from Pineapple Perfection and then used the coordinating solid images to add color to the flowers and leaves.  You could definitely color this with whatever your preferred medium is, but I love how quick it is to stamp the images. The way the set is designed you are able to stamp multiple flowers/berries/leaves at the same time, so there are actually only six stamps needed to fill the entire pineapple.  How great is that? After everything was stamped I used the Pineapple Perfection Dies to cut out the pineapple and the banner, which was stamped with a sentiment from the Pineapple Perfection Stamp Set.  The final touch was a few Pretty Pink Posh Sequins from last year's Concord & 9th Anniversary Mix. 

The pineapple tag opens up like a card, which was easy to do.  Just fold your paper before die cutting and make sure to place the die just a tad over the edge of the folded side, so the top of the die doesn't cut all the way through.

Next up is my summer/birthday tag.  A quick switch out of colors and it changes the entire feel of the tag.  The sentiment for this one comes from Concord & 9th's new Here's the Scoop Stamp Set.  I wanted the embellishments to be slightly different for each tag, so on this tag I used glossy accents on all the yellow berries.  

This week we've been having gorgeous fall weather, so I'm especially loving this next tag.  I love these deep colors and decided to add to the richness by filling in all the gaps with gold sequins.  The sentiment for this one comes from Concord & 9th's Love Notes Stamp Set. 

My final tag may be the least expected...Christmas! Oh, this one just makes me smile!  This was the easiest to make because I decided I wanted white flowers which cuts out one stamping step.  I filled the centers with black rhinestones and added Wink of Stella to all the green leaves and the crown.  I used a Silver Delicata Ink Pad for the berries as well, so the whole tag has a great shine to it, which you can see a bit better in the picture below. 

My sentiment for this one is from Concord & 9th's Joy Stamp Set.  Isn't it the perfect fit on the Pineapple Perfection Die banner?  I can see myself making a whole lot of these Christmas pineapples to attach to neighbor gifts this year.  Isn't this such a versatile stamp set?  

I'll leave you with a pile of pineappley goodness.  Mmm...doesn't it just make you happy? 

If you are loving this Pineapple Perfection Bundle as much as I am or just want an explosion of inspiration today, make sure you click here to see all my teammates fabulous projects.  And don't forget that today is the last day for Concord & 9th's HUGE Birthday Sale.  Quick!  Head HERE to catch the sale before it is gone and to pick up some (or all! :) ) of the newest release.  Thank you so much for joining me today and a huge THANK YOU to Concord and 9th for inviting us to guest this month.  Working with their products is always a pleasure.  Love them!

12 Kits of Occasions - Teacher's Pet

Good morning!  I don't think there is a better way to celebrate the closing of a month than to "play cards" with my 12 Kits of Occasions teammies.  I love that this group connects friends from across the country, and this month our fabulous hostess is Lisa from My Paper Tales.  I had the hardest time using Lisa's Teacher's Pet kit...not at all because it was difficult to work with (because it was not), but rather I loved it SO much that I didn't want to use any of it because then it would be gone.  So many times I just looked through the pieces and smiled and smiled. Then finally I came up with an idea to use it...and to keep it. 

 I used nearly all the darling images Lisa sent from Purple Onion Designs as well as the cute apple buttons on my banner.  I cut the alphabet with Neat & Tangled Journaling Alphas Dies and adhered them all onto stitched circles cut with Concord & 9th's Hooray Ribbon Dies. Aren't these little critters so darling?  That is why I couldn't part with them.

Since I already had the Hooray Ribbon Dies out, I decided to use them to create a card using some papers and ribbon from the kit.  I really love all the layering pieces in this die set, and the the way the medallion part ends up being dimensional kind of blows my mind.  I made many a banner with medallions back in the day and it took forever to score and fold each one.  So glad to have this die to make it so easy.  And it's great on cards, too.  

I loved the floral patterned paper Lisa sent and florals + stripes is one of my favorite combos, so I stamped the stripes using Concord & 9th's Hooray Stamp Set then trimmed them into strips and pinked the edges with the Hooray Ribbon Dies.  I even used one of the edger dies in the set to cut the notches out of the real yellow ribbon Lisa sent.  The sentiment comes from Concord & 9th's Hooray Stamp Set .

I was all about using my scraps this time around, so I paired some of my leftover letters from the banner with this darling Enclosed Apple from Papertrey Ink and the cute sentiment banner (all from Lisa's kit). 

This last card uses even more scraps...the negatives from the letters, some extra medallion dies, even a strip of paper.  I paired all my scraps with the cute bus, pencil strip, and die cut sentiment circle in the kit. (PS You can find all the supplies Lisa used to put together this kit here.)

I was kind of surprised that I only ended with 4 projects because I used quite a bit of what Lisa sent.  I guess the banner alone used quite a few things.  Thank you, Lisa, for such a fabulous kit!  For even more inspiration (and there is lots!) makes sure to visit the 12 Kits of Occasions Blog next.