Swan and Only Interactive Card

Hello!  Waffle Flower is just about ready for a new release, and I realized that I have several projects I made with December's Better Together Release that I haven't shared yet.

The Intertwined Swans Die make a huge impact on a card and not just because of their large size.  I made an A7 card, so that I could nestle a sentiment from the Swanderful Stamp Set in the heart created by the two swans.

The interactive hinge element on the swans allows you to open the card to reveal a beautiful pond scene and heartfelt sentiment inside. 

I created the pond scene by using the Wavy Borders Die as a stencil and blending Concord and 9th's Sprout and Parsley inks for the grass and Tidepool and Oceanside for the pond water and sky. 

I stenciled on some fish using the Pond Stencil and added a bunch of ink blended cattails, lilies, and lily pads from the Pond with Lily Pads Dies.  After the scene was finished I flicked on a bunch of water. 

When lift the card open, you see a sentiment from Better Together inside.  And as you can see in the photo, you adhere the swan flap to the back of the card base, 

I had so much fun creating this pond scene and putting this card together.  Though simple, the interactive element really makes the card a lot more fun. 

Thanks so much for stopping by!  Wishing you all the best in the new year!

CARD SUPPLIES (with shoppable links)
Dies/Stamps/Stencil:

Intertwined Swans Die

Pond with Lily Pads Die

Wavy Borders Die

Better Together Stamp & Die Combo

Swanderful Stamp Set

Pond Stencil

Tools: 

Shader Brush 1+ Rainbow Pack

Shader Brush 0+ -15 pack

Inks: (Concord & 9th)

Sprout, Parsley, Buttercup, Pink Lemonade, Tidepool, Oceanside, Clementine, Nutmeg, Black

Crafty Meraki Floral New Year's Card.

Good morning!  This month has flown by shockingly fast, and today I'm sharing my final guest design post over on the Crafty Meraki Blog.  You can find an extra detailed post over there, but I'm super excited about this card, so I'm sharing it here as well.  

You may not automatically think of flowers when you think of New Year's cards, but any happy new year of mine will most definitely be filled with flowers, so I chose that for my theme. 

I really love that the Gilded Holiday Expressions Press-Tacular Plate has sentiments that carry you all the way through the new year, so I used them to hot foil a sentiment for my card. 

Next I pulled out the beautiful Peony Artisan Flora Dies, and die cut a bunch of flowers, buds, and leaves.  After blending ink on them, I followed the assembly guide included in the die packaging to put the pieces together.

I popped up the sentiment onto a cream colored A2 card base, and then I started arranging the flowers and leaves around it.

After everything was adhered to the card, I used scissors to trim off any over-hanging pieces.  

Finally I sprinkled gold pearls in various sizes throughout the card. 

I'm a firm believer that flowers are good any time of year, and I hope you've enjoyed seeing this card come together.  The Peony Artisan Flora Dies are pretty magical in my opinion and really do create the most beautiful flowers. 

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  I hope that you had a blessed Christmas and hope that those blessings extend throughout the new year.  

Crafty Meraki GIFT Card

 

Good morning!  I have a post on the Crafty Meraki Blog today (you can find it here), and I'm sharing a GIFT card.  I designed the card to look like a wrapped package and tucked a gift card inside for one of my nieces.  

You can find all the details on the other blog post, but I did want to share something that I was so excited about.  I used the Jolly Holly Hot Meraki Shimmer Plate to not only hot foil the holly onto the "ribbon" on my card, but also to emboss the background.  The embossing is so deep and beautiful.  I love it!

PS I'm also still loving how their Blooming Noel Effortless Artistry Papers speed up the card making process because for me the most time consuming part is coloring images, and that is already done for you.

I hope you'll pop over to the Crafty Meraki Blog and take a look, and if I don't make it back here before the holidays, I hope you have a blessed Christmas and a wonderful New Year to follow.

Fringe Tree Tags

Hello, friends!  I'm back with some more Fringe Tree goodness.  You've likely heard me say this before, but I really love making tags.  And Pretty Pink Posh's Fringe Trees were begging to be made into tags.

Those fringe layers were also begging to be ombre!  From top to bottom, the pink tag is made up of Concord and 9th's Pink Lemonade, Sweet Pea, Dragon Fruit, and Wildberry cardstock with a Wheat trunk.  I topped the tree with a sparkly, gold snowflake from the Big Christmas Cupcake Dies.

I embossed a sentiment from the  Upright Greetings: Christmas Stamp Set onto a couple of the Sentiment Strips Dies. 

I repeated the same design on my teal tag using Concord and 9th's Sea Glass, Tidepool, Juniper, and Rainforest cardstock.  I swapped out for another sentiment from the Upright Greetings: Christmas Stamp Set and added a star topper from the Fringe Tree Dies.

I hope that you are having a wonderful week, friends!  Thanks so much for stopping by!

CARD SUPPLIES: (with clickable links)

Fringe Tree Die

Big Christmas Cupcake Dies (snowflake)

Upright Greetings: Christmas Stamp Set

Sentiment Strips Dies

Cardstock: Pink Lemonade, Sweet Pea, Dragon Fruit, Wildberry, Wheat, Sea Glass, Tidepool, Juniper, Rainforest (Concord & 9th)

Crafty Meraki - Hot Foil Expressions Tree

Good morning!  I'm over on the Crafty Meraki Blog again today with a hot foiled holiday card for you.  It doesn't matter how many times I hot foil, I am in awe of the beauty and elegance it produces.

I have a full, detailed tutorial on the blog, but I'll give you a shorter version here. :) 

I started by hot foiling the Jolly Holly Hot Foil Plate with Champagne Glimmer Foil onto a cream card base.  It's a beautiful plate! 

Then I prepped all the pieces I would need to build my Christmas tree.  The sentiments were hot foiled with the Gilded Holiday Expressions Press-Tacular Plate and die cut it with the coordinating dies. Then I trimmed a strip of gold cardstock for the trunk and cut a couple stars with Waffle Flower's Retro Christmas Tree Die.

Working from top to bottom, I chose sentiments in increasing length to build my tree and popped each sentiment up with foam adhesive onto a vellum panel cut with Waffle Flower's largest A2 Piercing Layers Die. 

Finally I tucked in a few berries that I trimmed off of Meraki's smallest Canopy Leaf Die.

Thanks so much for joining me today!  I hope you have a wonderful, crafty weekend and don't forget to check out the Meraki Blog for the full card details. 

Fringe Tree Forest

Hello, friends!  It sure took me longer to get this post finished than I expected.  Life has been so busy lately.  I was in charge of a big church Christmas brunch and have spent most of my "spare" time making decorations and preparing for the event. It was fun to super-size my crafty/card ideas into real life versions. 

One of the the things we made were giant wood tree clusters, not unlike the cluster of trees on today's card.  These trees were cut with Pretty Pink Posh's fabulous Fringe Tree Die in Sweet Pea, Sea Glass, Ballet Slipper, and Blueberry cardstock.  I LOVE this die so much!

If you look closely, you'll see that I dry embossed the Cascading Snowflakes Stencil on my cardbase. 

Next, I stamped a sentiment from the Upright Greetings: Christmas Stamp Set and die cut it with the

Sentiment Strips Dies.

The CAS card is full of surprising texture and I love the modern feel.  I hope you, too! 

Thanks so much for taking the time to visit!  Hope you have a wonderful week!

CARD SUPPLIES: (with clickable links)

Fringe Tree Die

Cascading Snowflakes Stencil

Upright Greetings: Christmas Stamp Set

Sentiment Strips Dies

Cardstock: Ballet Slipper, Sweet Pea, Sea Glass, Blueberry (Concord & 9th)

Felt Stitched Ornaments with Spellbinders

Hello, friends!  We are way behind decorating for Christmas, but I'm hoping today is finally the day that it happens, and I thought I would share some cute ornaments I made using a bunch of dies from Spellbinders' November Felt Stitch & Create Release. 

I love these and am so happy I took the time to create them.  I'm extra happy when I get to make something for my kids.  These were definitely a labor of love, but worth it. 

Let's talk felt for a second.  Did I use all wool felt?  No, so you don't have to, but the thicker/studier 100% wool felt really was a lot easier to work with, quicker to stitch, and way less prone to ripping (in fact, it didn't tear at all).  I used the Merino Wool Felt Sheets - Neutrals Collection (they cut and stitched beautifully), a few brighter colors of wool felt from Papertrey Ink, and a white from my stash.

First up is the candy cane that is made out of the Felt Candy Cane Dies.  Nichol Spohr has excellent video tutorials with everything that you need to know to put these together, but the dies cut the stitching holes for you, which makes assembly quite straight forward. 

I used Melon Berry Felt and white my candy cane, and added the holly and berries included in the Felt Candy Cane Dies set.  They were cut with Berry Sorbet and Simply Chartreuse felt.  

Waffle Flower's Embroidery Floss 48 pack had all the floss I needed.  Instead of using the full 6 strands in the embroidery floss, though, I pulled out just three strands at a time to do my stitching.

I used the same colors to create this darling fox with the Felt Forest Fox Dies and added some neutrals from the Merino Wool Felt Sheets - Neutrals Collection. 

I added the holly and berries from the Felt Candy Cane Dies and a little Santa hat from the  Felt Gingerbread Boy & Girl Dies to make her a little more festive. 

The next set I made almost entirely from the Merino Wool Felt Sheets - Neutrals Collection.  

Isn't the Felt Reindeer adorable?!  I've seen lots of darling Rudolph versions with red noses, but I figured my son would like it a little more neutral. 

The hat and pom pom are included in the Felt Reindeer Dies, and I totally forgot to take a picture (boo!), but I cut the pom pom a second time and made it into a little tail on the reindeer's tush.  You'll just have to trust me, but it's pretty cute! 

The final felt ornament is made with the Felt Gingerbread Boy & Girl Dies.  This set comes with tons of dies and extra accessories, so you have lots of mixing and matching possibilities.  

Since I was creating a little boy gingerbread, I kept mine fairly simple with just a button and bow tie.  Oh, and the cute tree.  Of all the projects, this one comes together the fastest.  I was glad I saved it til last. ;)  Oh, I should mention, some of the little dies don't have stitching holes (like the cheeks and frosting lines), so I used a little hot glue to adhere them to the felt.  Worked like a charm! 

How about one last shot of them all together?  They make me smile big!

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  You can find all these dies and more in the Felt Stitch & Create Release, or you can click on the individual products in the supply list below.  Happy crafting, friends!

SUPPLIES USED: (with clickable links)

Felt Reindeer Dies S7-259

Felt Forest Fox Dies S7-260 Embroidery Floss

Felt Gingerbread Boy & Girl Dies S7-265

Felt Candy Cane Dies S5-659

Merino Wool Felt Sheets - Neutrals Collection

Melon Berry Felt , Berry Sorbet Felt, Simply Chartreuse Felt (Papertrey Ink)

Embroidery Floss (Waffle Flower)