Starfish Birthday Card

I was over on Splitcoast Stampers and found that the wonderful lady who owns McMahon Five Designs online store had posted some free digital images to color and place on paper crafting projects. Great advertising tool for her. I sent her an email to thank her, and she said that if I put her company logo on my blog, then every time someone clicks it and purchases something from her store, I get to earn a discount. So, I said great, sure I can do that and I will also make something with one of her freebies and post it on my blog, and over at splitcoast. So, here I am: I used her Starfish freebie, and made a cute birthday card for a child or an adult with a silly sense of humor. So, here it is:

Is that starfish hilarious or what? His big grin made me giggle. The sentiment is from Whimsie Doodles digi images. Both McMahon Five and Whimsie Doodles are on my sidebar, so you can click on over to their Stores/Blogs from there.

Well, I colored Mr. starfish with Stampin Up markers Cameo Coral and Ruby Red, then cut him out with one of my Spellbinder's Square Nestibilities. The card base is SU Cameo Coral, the blue panels are from Provo Craft, the buttons are from DCWV, the fibers on the buttons is EK Success Adornments, and I punched the sentiment out with my Stampin Up Designer Label Punch and cut off the round parts with my paper snips. Didn't the world used to call them "small scissors"? Funny how the paper crafting world changed the names of tools so that they are in "paper crafting language". Here is another: Liquid glue is actually "liquid adhesive" in the paper crafting world. If you can think of any more, drop me a comment, it will give me a giggle. Even if you can't think of any drop me a comment, I love hear from my viewers.

Have a great weekend. Blessings, Lisa

Patience From Whimsey Doodles

Is who this little girl on my card is. Her name is Patience, and she is a digital image stamp from Whimsey Doodles online stamp company. A link to their store and blog is on my sidebar if you want to see more of their cute images. I printed Patience out with my ink jet printer onto some Georgia Pacific card stock that can be purchased at Wal Mart in the office supplies section. The reason that I didn't use Stampin Up's Whisper White, is that the ink jet printer ink smears on that card stock when I am coloring a digital image. So for digital images only, I use the GP card stock.

You all know that I like Purple, so here is Patience in purple:



Is she too cute or what? After I printed her out, I colored her with my Stampin Up markers and blending pens, then cut her out and placed her on a square cut with a Spellbinder's large square nestibility with SU Almost Amethyst card stock. She has a bit of SU Elegant Eggplant punched with the scallop edge punch sitting behind her. The purple flowered vellum paper under her is from my unknown stash, and the sentiment is also from Whimsey Doodles from their "Button Sentiments" set; which I adorned with a satin Prima flower, DCWV button, and some EK Success purple fibers. That about sums it up. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions, and have a great week. I'll be back soon. Blessings, Lisa

Watercoloring with Stampin Up Supplies

Hello. Sorry I am so late posting today, since it is almost dark out here in good ole' Ohio. Better late than never. Lately, I have been really into Clean and Simple cards. I have no idea why, but it is what it is. Tonight is no exception. I took a stamp from one of my sets from The Greeting Farm stamp company and did some detailed water coloring, then cut the image out and placed it on a very simple card base. Water coloring is very therapeutic mentally, it relaxes me, and makes me smile. It really isn't hard once you get the hang of it, and use the right tools. Stampin Up happens to have some awesome coloring tools to work with. So first here is the card, then I will provide some instruction.

Feel free to double click on the photo to enlarge it and see the detail of the water coloring. I was frustrated with the way my water coloring looked, so I did some digging and found some instructions somewhere on the Internet. We are so fortunate to have so many paper crafters that blog and are nice enough to show us how to do things. I do apologize, but I can't remember where I saw and read about water coloring. I do invite you to visit the Website and blog link for The Greeting Farm stamp company, as the owner always has some beautiful samples posted on weekdays that her design team has made and they are excellent examples of awesome water coloring. Just click on the store name above, I attached a link to take you right to their store.

Anyways, I use a variety of Stampin Up products and tools when I am coloring a stamped image. I always make sure that I have the following on my table or nearby when I color: Stampin Up Classic Ink pads and refills, SU Watercolor Wonder Crayons, SU Blender Pens and Aqua Painters, Sponge Daubers, Watercolor Paper (cold-pressed 140lb), old wash cloth, and scrap paper of any kind.

What I have learned is to start out with a light color, and gradually color with the darker hues. For instance, if you look at my flower centers above you will notice that the centers appear lighter than the edges. Same thing with the flower petals and leaves. For instance, when I went to color the flower petals, I got out all of my Yellows, tested them in a row next to each other on my scrap paper to see which ones would look best together, then started coloring with the lightest of them, working my way outward to the darkest. I know it sounds intimidating, because it did to me at first. However, the more you practice, the easier it gets and the better your outlined images will look on your cards. I still don't think of myself as an expert on this, I just wanted to share with you, what I do know. I hope I have inspired you to give water coloring a try. The old wash cloth, is for when you get a little too much color or moisture on your blending pen or more specifically your Aqua painter. This brings me to a tip about Aqua painters, a little water, goes a long way. There is no need to fill them up all the way, because then you will have more water than color. Now if you are coloring a sky background that you want really soft looking, then more moisture can be good. The whole thing is a lot of trial and error. I hope however that I have provided you with a good starting point. If you have any questions feel free to email me (see my side bar) or leave a comment. Of course if you need any supplies or tools from Stampin Up, I can help you out there as well. Don't forget to check Stampin Up's web site, to see what their deal of the week is this week! Also, don't forget to click on over to The Greeting Farm's website and blog to see the great colored samples.

Until next time................................Blessings, Lisa

Stamping on Patterned Paper

is something that I rarely do, and I have no idea why, because it looks really cool. I think that we all get into that same stamping habit, to stamp on white card stock, always white card stock. Think about it, what color card stock do you run out of the quickest? Me.....white of course. Try to challenge yourself sometime, to not use any white or vanilla card stock on a card. That is a definite challenge, especially if you are using stamps. Anyone can come up with a "no stamps used" card without using white or vanilla. Anyways, I used some simple ideas...........three to be exact to show you today. The first card has the same layout that my color challenge post from the other day has. The difference, is that I stamped on some DSP. Here they are:


I used the bird stamp from the Stampin Up stamp set called "Bird on a Branch" to stamp on the coordinating Designer Series Paper called "Flock Together". The paper that I chose had alot of turquoise in it, so I stamped on it with Taken with Teal craft ink. I think if you try to stamp on DSP with SU classic ink, it will smear, due to the water base of the ink and the slick coating on the paper. Anyways, as you can see I used the Full Heart punch to punch out the bird .

The second card, I did the exact same thing, except that I punched out the bird with a square punch, and arranged them on the card slightly different.


The third card, I decided to do very little stamping. The sentiment is from the Trendy Trees stamp set, and is stamped with Night of Navy Classic ink. The hearts were punched out of the same paper from the pack "Flock Together". The two different hearts are the pattern on the reverse side of the turquoise hearts. I love two sided paper. The base of this card as I am sure that you noticed is Very Vanilla, unlike the first two which were Whisper White. See, there is that Whisper White again. So hard to avoid. The panel that the hearts are adhered to is Night of Navy card stock.


That sums up my shares for today, I hope you saw something that you liked. I have out of town family member to see Sunday afternoon, so I will be back to blogging on Monday. I already have something ready to share with you. Until then.......Blessings, Lisa


P.S. Sorry about the position of my name watermark, I am dealing with some photo software kinks. I think there are Gremlins in it, but I have no proof.

Card Sketch Fun

Hello. I had some fun once again with a card sketch over on Splitcoaststampers.com. I had so much fun with this weeks sketch, I have 3 cards to show you featuring it. The first one utilizes a stamp from Stampin Up's stamp set Autumn Days, the second two feature a couple of my favorite paper punches. Here is the sketch:




Here is the first of my cards following this sketch. I used the leaf stamp from the new Stampin Up set called "Autumn Days". I first stamped it onto my Crushed Curry ink pad, them tapped the edges of the stamp on either my Old Olive, or Dusty Durango ink pads, then stamped the image onto some Whisper White card stock. This gives the leaf images the look of the changing colors of fall. I created my own DSP by stamping one of the other stamps from the same set with some Soft Suede ink on Soft Suede card stock. The other card stock colors used are Crushed Curry, Old Olive, Dusty Durango.





This next one, I was having some fun with my Martha Stewart Butterfly punch. It is hard to see, but the butterfly body is some faux silver pearls from Michael's Craft store. The sentiment is from the Stampin Up hostess stamp set called "Kind and Caring Thoughts". The card stock that I used was Night of Navy, Ballet Blue and Whisper White. The sentiment is stamped with Night of Navy ink.


Now, if you have been following my blog for very long, you know that I am fascinated with seahorses, so I had to try out this sketch with my Martha Stewart Seahorse paper punch. The photo doesn't show it, but the seahorses were punched out of this beautiful silver shimmer card stock from Die Cuts With a View. It is so pretty in person. The other card stock that I used was Night of Navy.


Be sure to come back over the weekend, as I have some more card samples to share with you.
Have a great Friday.


Oh and a special thanks today to Susannah over on Card of the Week.com for listing my blog. Go visit her when you have time, she always has some interesting links and information. Scroll down to see my blog listed.


Blessings to all, Lisa

Summer Colors on Simple Cards

Hello. Sorry for my absence. Drop me an email and tell me how I can make it up to you. Please make sure it doesn't involve money, I am unemployed.



Anyways, here I am. I have been crafting, dealing with my very spoiled for attention kitty, nagging my 10 year old daughter to get into the shower (thank heavens I only have one). Finally, I got back to the computer to post something. Phew!


After browsing the Splitcoast Stampers Website, that I would play around with this weeks Clean And Simple Challenge, as I have before. I love those challenges, I love simple cards, I love quick cards. Heck, I love alot of things. Jennifer McGuire posts alot of Simple cards on her blog's card gallery, so does Jana Millen, and so does Lydia Fiedler of Understand Blue, all three of which are on my favorites blog list over on my side bar, or I added links to their names. Check them out. Not that we don't all enjoy a complicated design, or technique once in awhile, but clean and simple are fun. So, without further adieu, I have THREE, yes THREE cards to show you tonight!


The challenge was to use three colors...........Yellow, Orange, Turquoise, in a clean and simple pattern. Well, could I have gotten any simpler than the one above? Maybe, but who cares. I ran my Whisper white card stock through my cuttlebug with my Swiss Dots embossing folder, stamped a quick sentiment (from Pocket Silhouettes), and punched 3 flowers with my Stampin Up Trio Flower Punch out of Yoyo Yellow, Only Orange, and Tempting Turquoise. This will be one of the very few times that you see me use Only Orange, not my favorite. However, I did use it in the bottom two cards as well. Like I said, I was just playing along with the challenge. I think that anyone of these three would be great done as monochromatic cards!

This card was made with Stampin Up's 5-Petal Flower punch, Trio Flower Punch, and some Hero Arts Sticky Gems.



This final card was made with Stampin Up's Full Heart Punch, some DCWV buttons, and some tone on tone stamping with a stamp from Pocket Silhouettes stamp set from Stampin Up.



Until next time, blessings to all. Lisa

Using leftovers on cards?

Sounds like I am talking about food, but I assure you that I am talking about paper crafting. If you have been following my blog for awhile, then I am sure that you had read that I try to use all scraps and leftovers that I possibly can. Well, today is no exception. I got inspired by a card that I saw on Lydia Fiedler's blog, Understand Blue, where she had used some leftovers from cutting out one of Stampin Up's newest BigZ die cuts on another card. So, I began to remember that I had some leftovers from cutting out some flowers from the SU Flowers Daisies #2 BigZ die cut. So, I went to work on it, and this is what I came up with:




I took the negative piece left over, trimmed around the flowers to get it to the size that I wanted, and adhered it onto a card base. One word of warning though. This card is the second on that I made, the first one that I made, I made a tiny boo boo on. The medium size flower down at the bottom gets cut off a tiny bit to fit onto the standard A2 size card (4.25" x 5.5"). So, adhere the leftovers first, then trim the bottom very carefully with an xacto knife and a straight edge of some kind. The centers of the flowers were made with Stampin Up's Sizzlets die cut Buttons #5, and were adhered with some stampin dimensionals just to pop them up a wee bit. Card stock colors used on this card are Barely Banana, Almost Amethyst, and Lavender Lace. The sentiment if stamped in Lavender Lace ink, and is from the stamp set Trendy Trees.

The card below is the one that I made first. As you can see I covered the little boo boo with a strip of Crushed Curry card stock. A strip of ribbon probably would have done the trick as well. Other than that, the card base is Lavender Lace, the leftover piece is Elegant Eggplant, and the flower center buttons are Crushed Curry. The sentiment is from retired stamp set "Warmest Regards", and it is stamped in Elegant Eggplant Ink. I hope you liked them! Until next time...............................

Blessings, Lisa

Purple Flower

Hello. Well, as most of you know, I love the color purple. So, I couldn't resist making a purple card, it has been awhile since I have done this. It is still in the somewhat simple mode, so It should be easy to case. I hope you enjoy it.

The stamp set that I used was once again Stampin Up's Hostess Level 3 set called "Kind and Caring Thoughts". This a big stamp set with several image stamps and 3 short sentiments, and a handful of verses that would work great for the inside of your cards. I began by stamping the flower image onto my Versamark pad, then onto a Lavender Lace Classic ink pad, then with a sponge dauber, I stamped the edges of the flower with some Elegant Eggplant classic ink, then finally stamping the flower onto some Whisper White card stock. Next I sprinkled some Iridescent Ice embossing powder on the flower and heat set it. I apologize, but you can't really see the sparkle on it in this photo. I hate it when that happens, but sparkle is hard to catch in a photo. Next I cut out the flower with one of my Spellbinders Large Oval Nestibilities, and mounted it onto another oval (Elegant Eggplant) made with a scalloped oval nestibility. Next I cut out a wide strip of Lavender Lace card stock, scored it a few times to give it a little dimension, tied a piece of 1/4" Eggplant Grosgrain ribbon around it, punched the bottom of it with my SU scalloped border punch, and mounted it with some foam pop dots. The last things that I did was to mount the flower with some foam pop dots and add a few faux silver pearls just for the heck of it. If you have any questions, you know where to find me.

Blessings, Lisa

Quick and Simple Cards

Hello. It feels great to be back to blogging after having a little time off. I had mentioned on my last post that I was preparing some really quick and simple cards to show you for my next post. I decided to use Stampin Up's "Kind and Caring Thoughts" hostess stamp set again for these quick cards. Here is what I came up with:

You can't get any more simple than this. I saw this over on Splitcoast stampers and had to case it, to share with you. Two stamps on a single layer card, easy peasy. It was so easy, that I had time to come up with another easy card of my own design with another stamp from the same stamp set. Here is that one:

All supplies used are Stampin Up. Until next time..................Blessings, Lisa

Kind and Caring Thoughts

stamp set which is a level 3 hostess stamp set from Stampin Up is what I am stamping with today. I thought it was time to show you this stamp set, or at least some of it, to temp you into hosting a workshop so that you can earn it for free. So, here is what I have stamped for you today:

I first stamped the floral image into some Ballet Blue Craft ink, then used a sponge dauber to add some Night of Navy (craft ink) accents to it, then stamped the image onto some Whisper White card stock. I matted it onto some Night of Navy card stock and added some 1/4" Navy Grosgrain ribbon. I then cut a rectangular piece of Ballet Blue card stock, mounted that onto a Whisper White card stock base, place my stamped image over that and added the sentiment from the same stamp set and 3 sticky gems from Michael's to finish it off. Pretty simple. The next time I post, I will have some super quick, clean and simple card samples to share. Until then............Blessings, Lisa

Kitty Stencil Card

Hello. What a busy day I had today, I have had no time to stamp. Bummer. However, I have a card ready that I am sending to my mother-in-law for her birthday. I have always tried to find ways to use my brass stencils for something other than just dry embossing, and that is what I decided to do for this card. My mother-in-law is very fond of cats, so here is what I came up with:


Sorry about the photo quality, I had no natural light to work with. Anyways, I have no idea where I got this brass stencil, I have had it for several years. Anyways, I sponged some ink with the stencil instead of dry embossing. Then, I added some Stampin Up Crystal Effects to the kitty and her window. When that dried, I decided to add some stickles to the dangling toy and the white space surrounding the kitty. Of course all of this can barely be seen in the photo. It just was not my day I guess. The pretty trim under the cat was made with my Martha Stewart Double Arch Border Punch, and the matting for the cat was cut with one of my Rectangle Nestibilities. The dry embossing on the far right was done with one of the cuttlebug border embossing folders and my Scor Pal made the straight line embossed near the floral border. All of the card stock and ink used is from Stampin Up and until next time.............Blessings Lisa

Mini Sunflowers - Punched

I just couldn't stand it, I had to use this simple sketch again. I imagine I will use it alot, but I promise I won't post about it after this card. It is just that it was so perfect for these mini punched sunflowers that I was playing around with. I used my Stampin Up Boho Blossom Punch for the flower, and the 1/2" circle punch for the centers. Anyways, here it is:





Now I know that I am probably not the first person to think of these mini sunflowers, but who cares....aren't they cute? They would look cute on several different card layouts, or on a small scrapbook page. The sunflower is made with Stampin Up's new Crushed Curry, and the centers are Chocolate Chip card stock with my white gel pen making the small dots. The one inch square that the flowers are on, is Garden Green card stock, and the sentiment is in Chocolate Chip ink with the Retired stamp set called "Warmest Regards". The card base is Stampin Up's Very Vanilla. I did forget to mention that I decided to alter the card sketch a little, by leaving the size at the typical A2 size so that a sentiment could be placed at the bottom. Until next time...............

Blessings, Lisa

Simple Card Sketch

Today, I decided to play along with the card sketch over on Splitcoast Stampers website that was posted for this week. It is such a versatile layout, there are many, many stamp sets that will work.




The sketch shows circles on it, but any shape you can stamp on will do. Some people posted cards with squares, hearts, tag shapes, etc. This is actually the first square card that I have ever made, as I don't usually keep square envelopes around. I am going to be ordering some though, as this is such a fun sketch. Remember, if you need any square envelopes, I am a Stampin Up Demo and we sell them. Just let me know, or click onto their website from my sidebar link, and submit me as your demo.

The card is pretty self explanatory, so I will just tell you what products that I used. All card stock is from Stampin Up (Bashful Blue, Ballet Blue, Whisper White). I used a 1 inch, and 1-1/4" circle punches. The stamps are Hero Arts mini stamps in a tube; this set is called Sea Life...Duh! I actually bought them for my 10 year old daughter, but she isn't using them, so I decided to put them to use. Well, that is it for today. Happy Friday and have a safe and happy 4th of July celebration! Blessings, Lisa

Circle Circus stamp set

is so versatile, there are many many different cards or other projects you can create using this stamp set. Here is my funky little take on it for today:

These are three of the stamps from Circle Circus. Call these trees, flowers, whatever, I am not picky. The far left circle was stamped in Taken with Teal (no my Bermuda Bay ink pad still hasn't arrived - bummer) and punched with a 1" Circle Punch. The Circle in the middle was stamped with Melon Mambo and punched with a 1-1/4" Circle Punch. The circle on the right is stamped in Rich Razzleberry and punched with a 1" Circle Punch. The stems were cut from Chocolate Chip card stock. The base of the flowers is Old Olive card stock. The Top Note die-cut piece is Whisper White card stock sponged with Taken with Teal ink. The sentiment is from the Pocket Silhouettes stamp set and stamped with Chocolate Chip ink. The flower on the bottom right is from the recently retired Flower Fusion II. A silver brad from Stampin up is in the center of the flower. Finally, the two yellow circles on the bottom left are the smallest circle stamp in the Circle Circus stamp set stamped in Crushed Curry, and embellished with Crystal Effects. Sorry it is so hard to see the Crystal Effects in the photo. Oh, the card base is Crushed Curry. Short and sweet today! Until next time...............Blessings, Lisa