Denver - Coming Home

Yeah!  Today I come home from Denver and the hubster will get his last card for this trip.  This one is really outside of my comfort zone - it's messy!  I'm not a fan of splatter, but when I saw this card on Rita's Creations, I knew I just had to lift it so I could use the new stamp set I got from Fiskars called Latte Love. 

There's a fabulous stamp from Hero Arts that does the messy coffee stain circle, but I don't have that one, so I had to improvise with some Vintage Photo Distress Ink mixed with water.  I mixed the two on my craft sheet and used the stem of a candle holder as my "stamp" to simulate the coffee cup ring.  I sprayed the card with Coffee Shop Glimmer Mist (how appropriate is that name for this card?) and added a few extra larger drops.  I then stamped the sentiment in Versafine Onyx Black and cut out the banner.  After coloring the stamped coffee cup image with some Spectrum Noir markers, I fussy cut it out (the steam was not fun to cut) and added it to the card with some pop dots. 

Warning:  Those who are purists about their stamp sets should skip this paragraph.  I added a coffee bean border along the top and bottom of the card on this inside.  I wanted a sentiment that said "love you a latte" but the stamp set only comes with "thanks a latte" so I cut the thanks off (oh, the horror!) so I could team it with the "love you" sentiment from my Fiskars All Year Greetings set.   Too bad I also managed to get the feet of my Martha Stewart stamp press in the ink and ended up with some stray marks.  But hubby won't care. 

Sympathy Card

Well, well the day I knew was coming finally arrived.  My colleague passed away.  I know that it's for the best because he was not doing well, but it's never easy.  I needed a card for his family so I went back to my Pinterest board for some inspiration, which, as happens a lot, I found in a card by Rita of Rita's Creations.  This was one posted for challenge #91 on Freshly Made Sketches.  I really do love her style. 

Lately, I've really been drawn to pink.  I don't know why because I'm not really a girly girl and pink has never really been a color I've favored.  But I really like how it looks with the black.  For the sentiment, I pulled out the Sympathy4you set by The Stamps of Life for the sentiment.  I stamped it with some Versafine ink on some white linen card stock, then cut the edges into banner.  I secured it under the butterflies I created on the Silhouette using an Echo Park cut and the pink Authentique paper from the Lively 6x6 pad I used in a card I made a few days ago.  By using the two sides of the paper, I was able to the right look for the card.  I cut the front of the card about .375 of an inch shorter than the back and added a scalloped border punched with my Stampin' Up border punch.  I then finished it off with some scattered rhinestones added with my Irock.

For the inside, I stamped another sentiment from that same set with the Versafine.  I thought it still needed something, so I inked up the butterfly from the Teresa Collins Spring Fling set, but decided to stamp it off one so it wouldn't be so stark on the inside.  With that, I called the card done. 

Fly High

Today I'm sharing another card I made from inspiration found while browsing through older posts on Rita's Creations. She made this delightful kite card that I just loved.  I don't have the stamp set she used, but I did have a kite shape to cut on my Cameo.  I used my french curves to draw the hills out of a piece of paper from the Sunny Side 6 by 6 pad by Pebbles.  I couldn't draw a straight or curved line to save my life without a straight edge or a french curve.  I used a Darice embossing folder called Cloudy Sky for the background.  The blue and white papers are from my scraps stash.  The brown cardstock has a linen texture and is from the Paper Company. The green background paper is from the 6 by 6 paper pad called Vanity Fair by My Mind's Eye.  I used some baker's twine from Hemptique to finish it off.  I haven't added a sentiment yet.  I think I'll probably save that for the inside only on this card. 

Happy Birthday Card

I spent quite a bit of time over the weekend looking at old blog posts of new blogs I've started following.  One of the new blogs I picked up was Rita's Creations.  She's a Stampin' Up demonstrator and I don't have a lot of that product, but her style is pretty universal and beautiful.  I like the challenge of trying to recreate the beautiful work she does in the supplies I have on hand, which is great because I have a huge stash and I really want to put it to use.

So for this card inspired by her post here, I used that NEVER-ENDING 6x6 pad from My Mind's Eye called Stella and Rose.  I feel like I have been using that pad forever and yet I still have a lot of it left.  For this card I used two coordinating papers with a cream background and a sentiment from the Fiskars Happy Birthday set stamped in Night of Navy Stampin' Up ink.  I fished a button out of my stash and added some embroidery thread to finish it off.