With a nome de plume of “Wendie Bee”, I just had to have these Busy Bee stamps & coordinating dies from Honeybee Stamps.
I like to create cards without sentiments often so that I have a selection of cards handy for whatever I need.
Looking back across my posts lately, you’ll know I am a big fan of the mini slimline card. It’s great for using smaller images to create a scene without having a lot of white space.
Every once in a while I come across a collection that may not be my usual go to theme / style, but I could not resist this Mists Of The Toolbox collection from Craft O’Clock when I saw it in my local craft store.
Over the years I have accumulated a great variety of ‘steampunk’ and masculine style dies. So I pulled them out to accent the hot air balloon I had chosen from the “extras” collection cut aparts. Yes, I hate fussy cutting, but these are absolutely worth it. So that the focal piece can appear more seamless, I inked it with Tea Dye distress ink, then used a gold pigment ink pad and ran it along the edge to give it just that little extra pop.
To add a little pop of color I distressed a panel of embossed cardstock in a patina green color I had in my scraps. It was just enough to break the monotony of all the neutrals but still keep with the theme.
Spring is officially here for me in Vancouver, Canada so I thought I would pull out one of my favorite stencil sets from Taylored Expressions. This set was part of a Crop & Create workshop, and I have gotten so much use from it!
I was inspired both by blooming daffodils, spring colors and a similar colour palette I saw while scrolling through Pinterest.
Taylored Expressions stencil quads are great for getting multiple cards in one sitting! All I needed to do with this panel was mount it on a die cut scalloped frame, add a hot sentiment and a few clear enamel droplets and the card was done.
My Favorite Things really hit it out of the park with this Gingerbread Greetings card kit! The second I saw a preview I knew I had to have it.
Using the MFT snowfall stencil with Lawn Fawn pearl paste over a lightly blended distress ink background with spun sugar I recreated a background from one of the design team examples.
Using Kraft card stock with a very light splatter of Distress Oxide ink in gathered twigs to give it some texture, I also added just a light hint of shading to all the gingerbread pieces with Oxide gathered twigs as well to give it that freshly baked look.
I love this kit, and have so many more ideas on color combinations to use and various layouts I can do.
Fall is officially on it’s way! And what better way to welcome what is my personal favorite time of year, than with a batch of fall themed cards.
I LOVE these triple slim layering stencils from Taylored Expressions! The same amount of work, but you get THREE cards!
Foiled sentiment and gold dots really gave it a perfect finish; you can also add gold gel pen details to the leaves and dots if you like as well. I did this with a second batch that I made and it also turned out very lovely.
For inks & card stock colors I used:
Taylored Expressions ink: mulled wine, Sweet Potato Pie, Dijon, Mocha, Toffee
TE Cardstock: Mulled wine & Toffee (kraft)
You can also find equivalent ink colors in Lawn Fawn: Cranberry , No 2 Pencil, Pumpkin Spice, Walnut & Crunchy Leaf
Stenciling can be rewarding, but can also be time consuming. That is why I love these create in quads stencils. Being able to make multiple cards at once is always a bonus.
While the colors of ink used are the same, I find changing the cardstock base colors really gives an opportunity to create a variety of cards, and highlight many of the key colors in the chosen pallete.
Inks & cardstock in my projects below are Taylored Expressions: Rose Water, Cupcake, Spearmint & Sweet Basil.
The sentiments are hot foiled and die cut using my go-to set from Pink Fresh Studios.
This Stylish Ovals collection by Spellbinders was an instant hit for me – generally I will love one or two things from a collection, but this collection had me hitting add to card!
The Fill My Heart stamp set was designed to fit perfectly into the oval frame of the Infinity Punch & Pierce Plate. A quick copic marker shading for the image and a gorgeous card is ready!
This stamp and plate really is incredibly flexible for pretty much any color palette. I took a tour around Pinterest and saw so many gorgeous options. If you’ve been on the fence about getting any of the pieces in this collection, I encourage you to grab them!
These washi panels really are a crafting game changer! Instead of buying a single ephemera pack that you can only get a set amount of cards from, these washi panels really give you a bang for your buck!
Using this Berries & Blossoms PinkFresh Studio washi panel and coordinating die, I always layer the washi onto 100lb card stock to give my images more strength for layering.
The hot foiled the sentiment was perfect for this card as it tied in the gold accents on the die cut images.
My partner’s niece was having her baby shower this weekend and I wanted to create a card for her.
The gender is a surprise so I needed something gender neutral – pale yellow is always a perfect choice!
Paired with some punched dots in champagne gold, I wanted to keep it nice and simple.
The inside stacked sentiment is from My Favorite Things All-Occasion Scripted Greetings and added just enough to the inside while still leaving lots of room for a personal message.
My partners sister was having her 60th birthday & I knew I needed to create something memorable for the big milestone.
I had some assembled pieces left from my previous card with this set, so I created a few more and changed up the layout a bit to suit the occasion
Inspired by a card that Cathy Zielskie made, I used the My Favorite Things numbers die set to make the shaker focal point.
I decided to go with a hot fouled sentiment from a spellbinders set I had, to tie in a bit more gold on the card.
Stamp Right Up! 