January Mini Catalog

Happy Day

We’ve made it to the midweek, friends! For us here in North Texas, where everything is still covered in a thick sheet of ice, that’s kinda saying something. Kiddos are out of school again today, and it’s a good thing given the current conditions. The sun is shining bright and we’re supposed to get above freezing today, so we will see if we have greater success than yesterday at thawing out.

This week, we’re using the new Days Like This Memories & More card pack to design our projects. And today’s card is another clean & simple design where we’re using a few dies, some patterned paper, and the new pack of Unforgettable Times ephemera to create a bright and happy card. (See what I did there? *wink*)

We get started with a base of Basic White cardstock that sits under all of our pretty patterns. A sheet of the green Pleasant Patterns foiled paper serves as the backdrop for our Days Like This card covered in butterflies that has been sized down using the Perennial Postage dies. We wrap some white with gold ribbon around the center of the butterfly panel before adhering to the card front with dimensionals. To help the sentiment from the Unforgettable Times ephemera pack really pop against the busy butterfly background (whew — that was a lot of Bs!), I cut a circle of vellum with the Spotlight on Nature Dies to break up the pattern just a bit. Both the sentiment and circle panel are adhered to the card front over the ribbon with dimensionals. I added a combo of green and pink In Color pearls on and around the sentiment.

This easy peasy card makes me happy just looking at it! It will be sure to brighten someone’s day, don’t you think? I hope you’ll tune in tomorrow when we pair the Days Like This cards with the Beautiful Butterflies bundle. It’s sure to make your heart flutter!

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January Mini Catalog · Online Exclusives

Celebrate Days Like This

Happy Monday, crafty friends! Is it cold where you are today? We’re experiencing super cold temps here in North Texas as Winter Storm Fern has left a cold air mass in place. All of the sleet and snow that fell over the weekend is solidly frozen in place and a perfect slippery ice rink for the kiddos to play in. On days like this, I like to stay warm and craft. What about you?

Speaking of days like this, this week we’re beginning a new design series incorporating the new Memories & More pack called Days Like This. The pack includes a mix of 3×4 and 4×6 cards with an assortment of spring(ish) designs. Pair it up with some patterned paper, like I have a here, and add a sentiment, like this one from the Unforgettable Times ephemera pack and you’ve got a super quick — and cute — design!

We get started with a base of white cardstock, which isn’t visible on our card front. A full quarter panel of a sheet of the Lovely Blossoms paper serves as the backdrop by our large focal panel. I used one of the larger cards from the Days Like This card pack as the focal panel and matted it with Pool Party shimmer paper. The panel is wrapped with white & gold baker’s twine at the top, and then we adhere our sentiment from the Unforgettable Times ephemera pack on top with dimensionals. The full focal panel is adhered to the card front with dimensionals, as well. We finish things off with a touch of sparkle with some iridescent foil gems.

You could celebrate all kinds of occasions with this card, making it a good all-around design to have in the stash. I hope you’ll drop in tomorrow to see more of the Days Like This Memories & More pack.

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Christmas · No Stamp Design

Joy of Christmas

Happy Saturday, everyone! Who all is frantically trying to get all of those last-minute Christmas list items done this weekend? *raising hand* It’s been a busy one today as we’ve squeezed in all sorts of things, including (finally) getting our outdoor decor set up. And now I’m frantically working in the craft room working on gifties for friends, coworkers, and loved ones and still whittling away at the Christmas card stash in hopes that I might at least get them in the mail by Christmas Eve……

So this week we’re working through the crafty stash to put together some (mostly) simple holiday cards. Today’s design is by far the most detailed design so far, but I would still say it only took about 15 min to put together once I got everything situated. We’re pairing up the new Beautiful Pattern embossing folder with the Delicate Pines dies to create this lovely card full of joy!

I was inspired by a card I saw over at Stampin’ Fancy Friday, and I just ran with it from there. We get started with a base of Real Red cardstock. Our focal panel is a quarter sheet of red that is machine embossed with the Beautiful Pattern embossing folder. I went over the embossed panel lightly with some metallic ink to really make the embossing pop. You could easily use paper with a white core, but I like the sheen & sparkle from the metallic ink rub myself. Our sentiment panel takes center stage here with lots of detailed elements and pops of holiday color. The joy sentiment is from the Greetings for You ephemera pack and is mounted on a panel of Traditions of Christmas plaid paper diecut with one of the smaller Traditional Labels dies. We mount the sentiment panel with dimensionals on top of a bow of Real Red shiny ribbon, along with winter evergreens cut from Shaded Spruce and Mossy Meadow cardstock and pinecones cut from Crumb Cake and Pecan Pie cardstock using the Delicate Pines dies. We finish it all off with a scattering of gold glitter dots.

With the template done, this card will come together much more quickly each time since you can cut lots of greenery pieces, pinecones, and sentiment panels all at once. I really love how this turned out and can already think of some variations that I plan to do for my personal stash.

I hope you’ll join me next week. I’ll still be in full-on Christmas mode as I work to finish the card stash and continue making gifts and gift tags.

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Christmas · No Stamp Design

Merry Through the Branches

TGIF, everybody! I’m not sure if I feel like this week whizzed by or if I feel like it dragged. I guess it kinda depended on the day. All is I know is that I’ve been in race mode to get back home every day to hide all of the boxes that Amazon delivered. *snicker* Anybody else?

Well, I’m still whittling away at my holiday card stash in hopes that I’ll have enough cards made to send out to at least half of the annual mailing list. We shall see how many I can turn out this weekend. One thing that really helps when you get in a crunch is finding easy designs, and that’s exactly what we’ve been up to this week. And today we’re pairing up the Joyful Days Memories & More cards with the Regal Distressed Patterns paper and using a sketch from the Holiday Mini catalog to create this simple card. Let’s check it out.

The inspiration for today’s clean & simple card layout comes from the first sketch in the Holiday Mini catalog. We get started on our card with a base of Mossy Meadow cardstock to tie in the evergreen needles in our focal image. I pulled the small evergreen Merry Christmas card from the Joyful Days Memories & More card pack to serve as the focal image and sentiment. We dress it up just a touch with a secondary sentiment from the Greetings for You ephemera pack that is layered on top of some Mossy Meadow & Gold ribbon. We finish off our pops of coordinating green elements with some sparkly glitter dots in opposing corners.

This card comes together in less than 5 minutes flat! Another perfect addition to the arsenal of make-it-quick designs. I hope you’ll drop in tomorrow to see what else I can pull together from the holiday product stash. I’m thinking we’ll dig into the dies tomorrow, but we’ll see where the crafty muses take me once I lay out the options.

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Christmas · No Stamp Design

Plaid Tidings

Welcome to hump day. Midweek. Middle of the road. It always seems like the weeks go more quickly as we get into December. Is it just me?

This week we’re whipping up some super quick Christmas cards. And today I’m still hanging out with the Christmas Tags & More pack and getting a closer look at the and more part, in particular, as the tags take center stage.

Today’s card gets started with a base of Shaded Spruce cardstock. The Christmas plaid paper from the Christmas Tags & More pack serves as our festive backdrop for the main attraction. The focal image is the Christmas tree tag from the pack that has been cut with one of the smaller dies from the Sentimental Framing set. A larger die from the same set gives us our dazzling spruce glimmer mat, which really helps our tree pop against the plaid. Our sentiment — from the Greetings for You ephemera pack — sits atop a twist of gold ribbon and a banner of Crumb Cake stripes. The bow of Real Red shiny ribbon and festive sequins scattered across the front finish things off with the perfect amount of holiday twinkle.

I hope you’ll tune in tomorrow as we pair up some more fun holiday goodies from the crafty stash to make another quick and easy card for the holiday card list!

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Christmas · No Stamp Design

Baubles and Bows

Welcome back, everyone. I don’t know about you, but today was a Monday disguised as a Tuesday — whew! But luckily I worked ahead in anticipation of a tight schedule today.

This week, we’re making clean and simple Christmas cards for my holiday mailing list. Today’s card combines a little old and some new to create this festive design as we pair up the retired Take a Bow paper with the Christmas Tags & More paper pack.

We get started with a base of Crumb Cake and use a sheet of the retired Take a Bow paper to serve as our focal panel base. I chose the sheet of ornaments from the Christmas Tags & More paper pack as the focal panel. I added a bow of gold trim to dress up the center ornament. And from there we’re just adding a sentiment and some embellishments. The sentiment from the Greeting for You ephemera pack sits on top of a small panel of holly and ivy paper with a sprig of holly and ivy on the side to coordinate. This are all popped up with dimensionals to draw our eye to the sentiment section. A few Old Olive glitter sequins in the corner add the perfect pop of color and sparkle.

This is another no-stamp design you can turn out in five minutes or less. And when you’re pressed for time to get those holiday cards in the mail, that’s the perfect answer to a more personalized holiday greeting!

The kiddo has a basketball game tomorrow, but I’m hoping I’ll be able to steal a few minutes to make and share another fun clean and simple holiday card with you!

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Christmas · No Stamp Design

No Stamp Merry Merry

Well, how do you do? Isn’t that the appropriate thing to say when you’re meeting a stranger….. I kinda feel like a stranger at this point. I just need a little break because I was feeling overwhelmed trying to keep all of the balls in the air. Do you ever feel that way? It’s perfectly normal. And knowing what you need to recenter is key. I knew I needed to put a few balls back in the basket for a little bit.

Now that life is a little more manageable, I’m diving back in. And I am SO excited because it’s time to gear up and make my Christmas cards. Although I’ve taken a break from social media for the last month, I haven’t been away from the craft room. And I learned some nifty new tricks as I was prepping for a big Christmas craft faire and look forward to sharing the new giftie fun folds I have in the repertoire! But this week we’re keeping things simple.

Today we’re getting started with a no-stamp holiday card design because y’all, I’m behind on my own Christmas cards! EEK! So I need some designs that I can turn out quickly. And today’s card combines some of my current faves in the holiday-ish crafty stash — with SU!’s Traditions of Christmas and Season of Elegance paired up with ephemera and pops of gold foil for support. You’re going to love how easy this is!

We get started with a nice neutral background of white cardstock. A sheet of the beautiful Real Red Season of Elegance gold foiled paper serves as our background. The focal section is a combination of what I like to call and artsy panel element and a sentiment. The artsy panel has a background of the white and gold foiled graph pattern from the Regal Distressed Patterns paper pack, a mat of gold foil, and the pièce de résistance — the poinsettia & mixed greenery patterned sheet from the Traditions of Christmas paper pack. This whole panel is elevated with dimensionals to really give it that piece-of-art feeling. I chose a simple sentiment — the round merry & bright panel — from the Greetings for You ephemera pack as the compliment and placed it in the bottom-left corner of the artsy panel, putting it just a tick above our patterned panel. We finish things off with a box of Real Red shiny ribbon & some of the Pool Party Traditional Sparkling sequins.

Isn’t this just a stunner? Super easy and oh-so elegant! I hope you’ll pop in this week to see what other quick & easy holiday cards I come up with!

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L2S Group Instahop · Winter

Snowy Window

Thanks for dropping in today, friends! After a looooong day at work yesterday, I didn’t have any zip left to play in the craft room. But never fear, that childhood throwback card is coming to you tomorrow!

But today, we’re hopping along with the Luv 2 Stamp Group over on Instagram. And we’re continuing our snowflake series as we combine the Elegant Pine Snowflakes paper with the Winter Scenes stamps to create today’s shaker window card. Let’s check it out.

We get started with a base of Pretty Peacock cardstock. Two panels of the Pretty Peacock frost pattern from the Elegant Pine Snowflakes paper cover both the front and back of our front card panel. The window is cut using the Everyday Arches dies, and I ran the whole sheebang through the machine a couple of times to be sure it cut all the way through all of the layers. Acetate window sheets create our shaker panel, and we adhere one on each side of our card front, filling the shaker with sparkly things, and then adhering our patterned paper covers on each side. We dressed up the window with two small arches cut from white cardstock using nesting dies from the Everyday Arches set. And then the upper corner of the window has a snowflake cut from a combination of Peaceful Garden silver glimmer paper and a sheet of the Elegant Pine Snowflakes paper. This snowflake is the perfect compliment to our snowy winter scene.

The smallest center arched piece is used for our image panel. The image from the Winter Scenes stamp set is stamped in black and then colored with a combination of Stampin’ Blends and blending brushes. To give it the sparkle of falling and fallen snow, I covered the snowy bits with Wink of Stella. The sentiment from the Greetings for You ephemera pack is adhered over Balmy Blue sheer ribbon with several layers of dimensionals and affixed underneath the focal image. A few Traditional Sparkling sequins on the inside and outside focal panels finish things off with the perfect amount of twinkle.

Today’s card is a part of the Luv 2 Stamp Group Instagram Hop, which goes live at 9 AM Pacific Time (PST).  Click here to head over to my Instagram feed at 9 AM Pacific/11 AM Central and check out what the other demos in our L2S Group have created for you today! 

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Elegant Pine Snowflakes · Winter

Season of Snow

Welcome back, friends. This week, we’re having all kinds of snowy fun as we explore some of the great snow-inspired products in our crafty stash. Today’s clean and simple design uses the Elegant Pine Snowflakes products and Greetings for You ephemera to create this lovely embossed design. Let’s check it out.

We get started with a base of Secret Sea cardstock. The focal panel starts with a sheet of the Elegant Pine Snowflakes patterned paper, which we’re going to mat with a sheet of the Cloud Cover Flower Garden Foils specialty paper. I really wanted the patterned paper to take center stage, so I opted for an embossed effect for the focal images. I arranged three of the Delicate Pines stamps over the coordinating images in the paper and stamped in Versamark before heat embossing with clear embossing powder. I just love this shimmery, raised effect that really draws attention to the beautiful detailed snowflakes. We finish things off with a ’tis the season sentiment from the Greetings for You ephemera pack, which is mounted over a twist of Mossy Meadow & Gold ribbon using dimensionals. A scatter of Old Olive sparkling sequins finish things off with a touch of coordinating color.

Tomorrow we’re going to have a throwback to our childhood as we use the paper snowflake effect. I hope you’ll drop in and check it out!

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Winter

Joyful Flakes

Welcome to fall, y’all! When I was choosing this week’s design theme, ironically, I didn’t even think to make it coincide with the changing of the seasons here. That’s a real face-palm moment, don’t ya think? *snicker* But that’s just the way it goes sometimes when you’re excited about digging into some new crafty goodness.

This week, we’re delving into everything SNOW. There are some wonderful new snowy products in the new SU! Holiday Mini catalog and Online Exclusives that I can’t wait to show you. And today we’re getting started with a mixture of Elegant Pine Snowflakes & Snowy Delights to create this beautiful card. I decided on the word joy from the Greetings for You ephemera pack because snowflakes bring me joy. What about you?

Our card today gets started with a base of Cloud Cover cardstock. This brings out the subtle hues of blue in our background paper from the Elegant Pine Snowflakes paper pack. Our trio of snowflakes is built from two sets of dies – Delicate Pines and Snowy Delights. Using a scrap of the Elegant Pine Snowflakes paper, I cut several different sized snowflakes from a corner of the sheet. I paired up the larger printed snowflake with some of the Summer Splash glimmer paper and cut a detailed snowflake to go behind using the Snowy Delights die. Before adhering the two layers together, I sandwiched a faux bow of Lost Lagoon soft cording in between. The smaller snowflakes are paired with some Shy Shamrock glimmer paper cut using one of the smaller detail snowflake dies from the Delicate Pines die set. They’re adhered together with dimensionals to give them a more realistic depth of field before adhering them to the backdrop with dimensionals. Each snowflake has a center of Traditional Sparkling sequins. The sentiment from the Greetings for You ephemera pack is adhered toward the bottom-center of the card front. (HINT: did you know that these sentiments are already sticky? Just peel the backing & stick!) I added another sparkling sequin as the tittle for J in joy. A few blue sequins in opposing corners finish things off perfectly.

I hope you’ll drop in tomorrow to see what other snowy goodness there is in store!

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