Love Note

Hello!  Happy Valentine's Day!  A couple weeks ago Kara (from K and R Designs) celebrated her 300th Week of Inspiration.  I've been enjoying and pinning from Kara's Friday Inspiration Files for years, so I had to play along.  Unfortunately life got in the way, and I wasn't able to post any of the cards I made for her challenge, so today I'm sharing one of them.  I haven't CASEd anyone in a while, and I forgot how fun that can be.  I chose to CASE this card from the super talented Alice Wertz.  It was from Week #249 of Kara's Inspiration Files.  I loved the fun layout (something I would have never thought to do!) and had fun mixing products from lots of companies. I'm linking this up to the Simon Says: Cute Wednesday Challenge because aren't these little critters from Mama Elephant's Up, Up & Away darling?  So glad I pulled them out.  It's been a long time.

I drew little stems and added hearts cut from Concord & 9th's Love Notes Envelope Dies and the sentiment is from Concord & 9th's Love Notes Stamp Set.  The leaves come from PTI's Embellished Elegance, the hexagons from Simon Says Stamp. I finished the card off with a few Pretty Pink Posh sequins that I pulled out of a past 12 Kits of Occasions kit (thanks, Lisa!).

I hope you've had a wonderful day.  I am so grateful for my sweet friends from this cardmaking community!  I've been extra blessed by your kindness this week.  Thank you!

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Where Creativity Meets C9 Challenge #6

Good morning!  There is a new challenge up at Where Creativity Meets C9 today that is absolutely perfect for this month.  The theme for Challenge #6 is "Love" and since it feels like I've done a lot of florals lately, I wanted to go in  a different direction.

This card comes together in a jiffy...always a good thing in my book!  It starts with stripes.  I sure love stripes.  They are great for feminine and masculine cards, and Concord and 9th's Stripe Builder is so perfect for creating large striped backgrounds.  

The large sentiment from Love Notes takes center stage and the little heart trios are actually one of the flower clusters in Concord & 9th's Flourish set.  I've always thought they looked like little hearts, and was happy to finally use them in that way.   

I can't wait to see how Where Creativity Meets C9's Love Challenge inspires you!  There is so much to love about Concord & 9th, and you might just be the lucky gift certificate winner...giving you even more to love. :)  Make sure you head to Challenge Blog to link your projects up and to see the other designer's awesome cards.  Hope you have a fantastic day!

**Just a not: Affiliate links used at no extra cost to you. :) Thanks for your support!

Heartfelt Greetings

Hello!  Last night I had a bit of time to make a card.  I was inspired by lots of challenges and went to bed with a smile. :) The theme of the card came from Simon Says: The Color of Love.   The colors and feel of the card were also inspired by Inspired by All the Little Things #41.  (It only took me 41 challenges to play along...I always love the inspiration photos...but better late than never, right Tracey?)

And my sketch was inspired by CTS #207.  My sweet friend Michele made this sketch, so I had to play along.  I placed all my pops of color in accordance with the placement of the little sunbursts in the sketch. The large sunbursts being the large flowers and the small sunbursts being the buds. These beautiful flowers come from PTI's Don't Forget to Write kit, and I am SO excited to finally be able to use it!  In the fall I was talking to my sweet mom about how I wished I had gotten the kit when it came out because Marybeth had sent us some of the flowers in our July 12 Months of Occasions kit.  I pulled it up online to show her pictures and much to my shock, Papertrey still had the kit available.  My sweet mom bought it for me as a Christmas gift, and I've had the box for months waiting for Christmas to arrive, so I could use it.  And now I get to link it up to NBUS Challenge #10.  Yay!

12 Kits of Occasions - January '17

 

Good morning!  I'm so excited that not only is this the first 12 Kits of Occasions post of the new year, but it also is my month to host. :) I chose my color scheme about 8 months ago, and it is one that I love, so I packed my kit full of things that I love.  We have a few new faces joining us this month.  Birgit Norton is joinus us as our newest Design Team member.  Yay!  I invited my friend Leigh Penner (who I love!) to be my guest designer, and we have a second guest designer as well, the super sweet Kathy McCloskey who won my kit giveaway. 

I have so much fun collecting supplies throughout the year for my kits.  This kit was extra fun to use because with the exception of just a couple things, I hadn't used any of the supplies before I created my cards.   First up is one of my favorites.  I love this little fox.  He's a digital image (Fantastic Mr. Fox by Just ME Prints), and I think he is adorable.  I'm also so excited to finally use this floral spray from Clearly Besotted's Fairytale Ending set and MFT's Jumbo Peek-a-Boo Circle Window.  I've loved them both since the first time I saw them. 

Next up is a super simple card for my husband.  I absolutely love this line of word dies from Simon Says Stamp and wish I had every single one.

Next up are the fun Flashy Florals from MFT and a favorite Concord & 9th set of mine, Kindhearted.  After all, to be kind is one of my biggest goals in life.

On a trip to Michael's a few months ago I stumbled across a pad of DCWV Favor Boxes that just happened to be almost the exact colors from my kit.  There are a bunch of different patterns and styles all pre-cut and scored, which made putting the box together easy peasy.

The paper pad even came with different tags/bows/banners to embellish the boxes, but I used a flower form Altenew's Beautiful Day to top it off instead.

This next one was kind of fun.  I had stamped out a few of the images from Altenew's Adore You set on a paper for everyone with fairly big spaces around each image, so they could cut them out.  But when I got my paper out to cut out the flowers, I really liked the black and white images all together, so I got my stamp set back out and filled in all the spaces with smaller stamped images.  The little scallops are actually a row of circles from one of the patterned papers that I cut out.

My final card uses the Big Hugs Die from MFT and Concord & 9th's Hello Lovely, which I have had for month's but never used.  I was a bit intimidated to color it, which was silly because they have stamps that do all the work for you!  I did, however, opt to try out my Zig markers to color the images.  I'm still trying to figure out Zigs.  I decided to use a paintbrush this time instead of a waterbrush like I usually use with them, and I liked the results a lot better.

One last shot of my cards.  I hadn't realized it, but apparently I was in the mood for flowers when I sat down to create because I think I used nearly every single one from the kit.

And as I mentioned before, with the exception of two things, all the stamps and dies I used on my cards today were NBUS, so I am entering them into Darnell's awesome NBUS #10 Challenge as well as Simon Says Anything Goes Wednesday Challenge.  And as a fun side note: Darnell's optional theme was to use whatever holiday it is to inspire your card (you know, the silly holidays you've probably never heard of).  For instance, did you know that today is National Inspire Your Heart With Art Day?  Seems fitting for the occasion, huh?

  

I have several more cards in the works from this kit to hopefully share soon.  I'm consistent in that I always run out of time, and since I truly loved everything I included in the kit, I want to use it all!  If you'd like the full supply list for my kit, you can find that on the 12 Kits Blog HERE.  Oh, and you'll definitely want to head over to the 12 Kits of Occasions blog right away.  First, you will love what the other designer's created.  Second, you do not want to miss out on the giveaway there!!!  The oh-so-generous Jeanne is giving away two of her upcoming kits, and they are guaranteed to be packed chock full of fabulousness!  Thanks for visiting today.  I hope you have a wonderful week!
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Enjoy! NBUS #9 & SS Anything Goes

Hello, friends!  Popping in really quickly to share some last minute cards that undoubtedly took me longer to write about than to make.  Yes, you read that correctly.  I had a bunch of packages to mail today, and with less than 30 minutes before the Post Office closed I realized I was a few cards short.  Yikes!  After a moment of panic, I pulled out a never-been-used stamp set of mine - Concord & 9th's Lots of Blots.  (At least I don't think I've ever used it!  My memory is pretty terrible these days, but it looks brand new to me.)   I grabbed a couple inks, hoped the colors would work, and quickly stamped some cards.  And then I liked them so much that when I got home from the post office I made a few more, so next time I'm prepared. :) I really, really get a whole lot of happiness from a simply stamped card. PS I'm a little addicted to this love note sized card.  What is that you ask?  It's a mini size card measuring 2.75" x 4.25" when folded that fits perfectly inside Concord & 9th's Love Note Envelopes.  They are tiny and cute and super duper quick to make....win, win, win!

 

Though I wish I had had time to add in Darnell's optional "camouflage" technique for NBUS #9 (which I am thrilled to be able to enter), time truly did not allow it. Interestingly enough, though, I used that camouflage technique on my card for last week's NBUS Challenge.  What are the odds?  And I have to let you know that the NBUS item I am most excited about using for this project was my Lawn Fawn stamp shammy.  I just ordered one, and I am in LOVE!  No more leftover baby wipe fuzzies for me.  My stamping world just got a whole lot happier with this shammy.  It's amazing.  Oh, and I'm also linking this up to the Simon Says Anything Goes Challenge. Yay!  Okay, now I really need to head to bed.  Thanks so much for stopping by!  Hope you are enjoying your weekend!

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