Simon Says Stamp October 2014 Card Kit: Inspired by Stephanie Klauck

On our camping trip, I started playing with the October Simon Says Stamp Card Kit.  I finally signed up for a subscription after seeing so many cute kits.  I loved the stamp in this kit.  The paper seemed a bit too, well, loud for me, but that wasn't going to stop me from playing.  I started out my making my own take on the card inspiration sheet sent with the kit.  First up:  Stephanie Klauck's super cute card. You can find her original card on her blog here.

I stamped the mug from the stamp set with the kit onto some Neenah card stock with Memento Tuxedo Black Ink so I could use my copics. The cup turned out to be a lot grayer than I planned. I guess I still need a lot more practice with my copics.  Once it was colored, I took the cute veneer glasses and added them on top of the cup, drew in the eyes and then filled them with Glossy Accents for that shine that glasses have.  I cut a couple of strips from the striped paper in the kit, but I didn't have any grey.  So I took the Smoke ink pad from Simon Says Stamps and swiped it onto some white card stock to cut down for a grey strip.  I stamped out the sentiment bubble in Smoke ink and then added the sentiment using Slate ink from Simon Says Stamp.  I then fussy cut the speech bubble (yes, I did fussy cut). Then it was just a matter of layering the panels onto a top folding card base, adding my speech bubble with pop dots, and rounding the corners with my Corner Chomper.  I finished it off with some Pretty Pink Posh sequins I had brought with from my own stash and that is my card.

Hello Friend

Today's card came together in a snap. I had the Lost and Found Two 6x6 paper pad from My Mind's Eye sitting on my craft desk.  I love the paper in it even though it's a bit more distressed and fancy than what I usually like.  I loved this blue script paper and I thought it would be nice as a background so I cut it to just cover the entire card.

I've been watching a lot of Nichol Maguirk's videos lately and I love how she uses vellum.  So I ran some vellum through the largest frame from the Femme Frames from Mama Elephant.  I layered it over the blue paper then cut down my watercolored image from Simon Says Stamp Stamptember exclusive Tim Holtz stamps using the Lawn Fawn Stitched Journalling Card.  I added it to the top of the vellum then finished the card off with some Pretty Pink Posh sequins. 

I picked this card for today because today is my sister-in-law's birthday.  We had been best friends before I married her husband's brother and we became sisters.  Now we don't talk as much as we used too and this card kind of reminded me of that.  Happy birthday Val.  I hope it's a good one.  Coincidentally, it's also my Uncle Jim's birthday.  So I'm sending big birthday hugs to him too.

Have a Moo-tiful Birthday!

I love that hockey season is back in full swing:  last night the home opener and tonight the first game at home in my easy chair watching on the big screen.  Yes, this is the life.

The only big dilemma in my life right now is whether to drive to Seattle on Thursday night to take Sandy Allnock's class on coloring funny people at Impress.  I so want to go, but it's a long trip and I'm a bit of a introvert.  I have a hard time sometimes convincing myself to go do new things even when I know I will enjoy it.  So in the next couple of days, I have to make up my mind.

In the meantime, I've finished up with the last of the Birthday Farm Animals stamp set she designed for Simon Says Stamp.  I've had so much fun coloring these cuties.  Today's card came together pretty quickly too.  There's a flag shaped die in the My Favorite Things Blueprints #13 that I had been looking at and thought would be perfect for the cow stamp, so I had already cut it out the other day.  Then it was just a matter of picking only two of the fun patterns in the Sunny Side 6x6 paper pad from Pebbles to build my card.  I added some baker's twine I found in my stash, a little Wink of Stella to the banner, and the now almost required Pretty Pink Posh sequins and Glossy Accents. 

It's Your Pig Day and Mine Too!

It's here!  It's finally here!  It's the home opener of my favorite hockey team and the hubby and I are there watching the banner raise from last year's winning season.  So excited!  So it only seemed fitting to do a card for a big, I mean pig, day. 

This is another image from the oh so cute Birthday Farm Animals set from Simon Says Stamp that I colored over the weekend.  This card came together so quickly since I had these scraps left from the Carta Bella Hello There 6x6 paper pad on my desk that were just calling my name.  A few cuts to trim the paper down to fit the background of the card, a few more cuts to create a banner and then I die cut my image using the Notebook Basic Die from Paper Smooches.  Then all it took was some tape, a few Pretty Pink Posh sequins and some Glossy Accents on the balloon and eyes to finish it off. 

Happy Birthday Spring Chicken!

Ahh... It's Thursday.  Just one more day before opening night of hockey and I just can't wait.  This time tomorrow I'll be yelling and cheering and celebrating one of my favorite things about Fall:  the return of hockey!

In the meantime, I continue to make birthday cards using that Simon Says Stamp Birthday Farm Animals set.  Today's card features the chicken (which is so stinking cute).  Once I had it colored, I was back to that same place:  what do I do with it now?  This time I pulled out the tag die from Lawn Fawn from the Winter Gifts set.  It was the perfect frame for the chicken.  I cute a second one from patterned paper from the Pebbles Sunny Side 6x6 pad, which was still sitting on my desk.  Then I cut down another piece using the stitched frame die from Mama Elephants Basic Set and some vellum from the scalloped die from the same set.  Then it was just a matter of layering the papers together, added some Hemptique baker's twine and finishing it off with some Pretty Pink Posh sequins and Glossy Accents on the eyes.  Super cute!

Got Cupcake? I Do and Lots of Upcoming Birthdays...

For some reason the end of September and beginning of October bring a lot of birthdays to my world.  Not much cake because many of those birthdays are for people too far to celebrate with in person, but then that's probably a good thing.  I certainly don't need cake, okay, well my waistline doesn't need cake.   So on Sunday, I spent some time in my craft room, watching movies and coloring the images from the Simon Says Stamp Birthday Farm Animals set.  (Can I just take a minute to say that Jennifer Lawrence is pretty darn amazing?  I watched American Hustle for the first time and was stunned about how well she played the part which is so different than Hunger Games, which I've watched probably a dozen times this year alone - it's a great background movie for crafting).

Anyhow, so once I had colored all my images, I wasn't sure what to do with them.  I was flipping through my dies and saw the polaroid die from Amy Tan's set and knew exactly what I was going to do.  I pulled out my largest stitched rectangle die from My Favorite Things' Blueprints #13 to cut out the background from the dotted paper from the 6x6 Sunny Side pad from Pebbles for my background.  Then I cut out the polaroid from white paper and made the frame for my goat image.  I stamped the sentiment from the set, added a little pink card stock behind the heart and finished it off with some Glossy Accents on the heart, the flame and the goat's eyes, some Pretty Pink Posh sequins and a little Marvy Liquid Applique on the cupcake (note to self:  put the applique on first and heat set it before the Glossy Accents). 

The Last Baby Card with Newton's Nook Wild Child

Okay, so the title may be a bit misleading because I'm sure sometime in the future there will be another baby card from this set because it's so adorable.  But, for now, here's the last baby card I've made with the Newton's Nook Wild Child set that I colored the weekend we went to Seattle for Sandy Allnock's class.

I used paper from the Day Dreamer 6x6 paper pad from Dear Lizzy/American Crafts but I wanted to change things up a bit.  I had bought the Pretty Pink Posh Stitched Border Dies a while back with the idea of cutting some fun edges to my cards, but had yet to break them out.  I had an idea of adding the sparkly polka dots on the background of the white paper that colored the image on, but it didn't look right, so I ended up fussy cutting the image out.  I just used the patterned paper cut with the border and cut the border again on my card base. 

I used that American Crafts Project Life banner to cut out the banner to stamp with the sentiment from the set.  I added some Lawn Fawn Sky Lawn Trimmings to the top with a Glue Dot holding the bow in place. A few pop dots gave some dimension to the image and the banner.  Then I decided to try my sparkly dots on the inside bottom of the card since it would show through to the outside at the bottom.  I used a dot stencil to pounce on some VersaMark and some JudiKins embossing powder in White Diamonds.  It worked much better there, but is harder than heck to photograph with a curved front panel...

 

Party Animal!

I just love this Avery Elle stamp set.  I've loved it but never bought it until I saw it at Impress when my family was up there to take Sandy Allnock's class.  I knew I just had to have it when I saw it in person and perfect timing too because I need a lot of birthday cards coming up. 

For this card, I was playing with the background,  I'm really enjoying sponging on Distress Ink with the round blending tool.  It's so much easier to use.  I then used a new chevron stencil from Memory Box to add some embossing paste for more texture and then dripped water onto the Distress Ink for a little more texture. 

Then I stamped out the cute little balloon animal from the Avery Elle Party Animal set in some Simon Says Stamp Sunshine ink and then sentiment from the Lawn Fawn Chit Chat set using Slate ink from Simon Says Stamp. I cut them both out, added some Wink of Stella and then Glossy Accents.  Once they were dry, I added them to the card with some pop dots and finished it off with some Pretty Pink Posh sequins. 

Thinking of You Inspired by Stretch Your Stamps 2

Since I still had the Hero Arts Antique Flower Background stamp sitting on my desk and I loved how it look embossed in the JudiKins White Diamond embossing powder, I decided to do another card to show off how pretty it is.  Kristina Werner had made a beautiful card on the Onlinecardclasses.com Stretch Your Stamps 2 class using a background stamp and a large die.  I didn't really have the right die to replicate that, but I saw the recent stamp from the Simon Says Stamp card set for July and knew that was perfect for the sentiment.  I couldn't believe how quickly this card came together and all I needed was a few Pretty Pink Post sequins to finish it off. 

A Lawn Fawn Birthday Inspired by Stretch Your Stamps 2

I signed up for the Onlinecardclasses.com Stretch Your Stamps 2 class and I love it, but it's pretty bad timing because life is just crazy busy right now so I haven't had as much time to play as I would like.  I was trying to clean my craft room when this card just sort of materialized out of things I had on my desk. I'm a crazy messy crafter so it seems like I'm always cleaning my room, but at the same time, the mix of crazy stuff all together brings up some of my best mojo.  Today's card started when I stamped the Impression Obsession Circle Fusion stamp and heat embossed it.  Then I just added some Distress Ink that were on my desk and yet seemed to go together well.  Then I decided to cut it down using the Avery Elle Dotted die.  I found this navy colored card base in my stash of pre-made card bases as I was putting it away.  I wasn't quite sure where it was going until I found the Into the Woods set from Lawn Fawn.  I just had to color and cut the cute fawn, but, for the sentiment, I needed a different set.  I picked the Chit Chat set, also from Lawn Fawn.  I looked at a few ink colors but finally settled on Audrey Blue from Simon Says Stamp.  I really love that color.  To finish it off, I added some crystal clear sequins from Pretty Pink Posh that I picked up at Impress during my trip to Seattle last week.