Simon and Penny Black

 I love so many Penny Black stamps, but I have only a few and more than half of those sets are sentiment stamps. I have just started to get emails when new things come out.  Now that stores don't carry so many stamps, I just don't see Penny Black much.  Guess I need to seek them out more often.  

"Becoming" is one of the few image stamps I have.  So I used it with a sentiment from "Brighten the World". I love this stamp because it looks so much like watercolor when you get finished.  I usually color the stamp in various shades of the color I choose to get some darks and lights.  

I'm entering this in the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge.  

Thanks for stopping by and hope you liked looking at this pretty flower.  See you again soon. 

Wings and Things

 It's rare that I post twice in a month.  But it is Time for a Simon Wednesday challenge. And yet, here I am posting it on Sunday.  Because it's Father's Day today, I have to let hubby watch all the sports he wants.  It gives me more time to make a new post.  

The new challenge is Things with wings using Lawn fawn stamps.  I only have two Lawn Fawn stamp sets so I looked at them and figured out a way to give a mouse some wings.  

These little friends have been using leaf wings to float down into the pile of leaves.  I realized after I had the card all colored, that I should have given them a tree to be jumping out of. Next time. 

I'm entering this card in the simonsaysstampblog.com/wednesdaychallenge/.  

I enjoy these challenges so much because it reminds me to use stamps from many companies that I seem to forget I have stamps from.  So go out and give something some wings or use something that already has wings and come and join the challenge.  I'll be looking for your entry.

Here are a couple of other things I have been working on lately.  

I made several of these cards to sell at a Quilt Show that our local guild had a couple of weeks ago.  There were a few left so I will make use of them for sending to members of the guild. 

This is a card I made with a new set I got from Pink Fresh Studios.  

It has stencils and dies to go with the stamps.  It went together fast, so I used this for a card we made in my class this month.  Everyone really liked it.  

See y'all in July

Wow! What Happened to May!

 Yeah, I don't what happened to May.  Other than I spent it trying to straighten out all of our TV and internet issues.  It's a long story that I would really rather not think about too much.  Some of it is still ongoing and that is why I have come to show you the few things I did to release the stress.  Just today I played with a Concord and 9th die so I could enter in the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge.  They are featuring Concord and 9th products this week.  

My card uses the Hello and Thanks dies. That is the name of the die set, but my card only uses the Thanks dies (words and shadow).  It was fun to make.  I took some of my ink spots and dragged them in stripes across the semigloss paper that I have a ton of.  I think it made a pretty awesome background.  I matted that with Bermuda Bay CS from SU and cut the letters of THANKS in the same card stock.  A white card base and shadow for the letters finished off the card.  I had a small strip of the background left after trimming so I added it to the inside of the card to tie it all together.  

Good ole Simon keeps me coming back to my blog, just so I can enter the challenge.  I needed it this week.  A great break from all the non-fun things of the week. Keep your chin up everyone!

March blew by and April is here

First things first for April is to do the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge.  

I have had these Hoppy Days Ahead Stamps for a couple of years now and don't pull them out other than at Easter.  I decided that had to change and I am using them for the Anything Goes challenge.

I stamped the bunny and one daisy and cut them out.  the remainder of the card is stamped directly on the front panel, which is cut with the SSS Wonky dies.  I love the little detail of the wonky lines around the panel.  My bunny is smelling the one flower I cut out.  I decided not to raise up the bunny or the flower since my post office is getting pretty picky about the thickness of a card.  So much fun to make a card with the set that is not an Easter card.  

 

I do want to show you all some of the Easter cards that I did make this year.  I wanted to make this accordion fold flag book card.  It's really quite fast to make and the inside is a nice surprise.  Although I did have to have the thickness checked to make sure it would mail okay.  

See the fun surprises that are on this inside.  I used some of the images from an older Stampin up Easter set to make the side panel and the flags with the greetings on them. 

And then I had to use up the extra cross I got when I cut the colored one for the first card.  I inked it darker brushing ink over it on the edge of an envelope, so I got a matching envelope to go with the card.

This card came together from pieces I had in my extra bits box.  I just throw things in that box that I colored but didn't use or extra things that I cut while using a die or something I colored just for something to do.  The background was made as an extra for my card class while showing them how to use ink direct to paper.  The tulips were a small image I had colored one day. They were all in the box and just looked like they would go together well.  I even had the sentiment in my book so I didn't have to stamp one. 

I got this Pretty Pink Posh Valentine Cupcake a couple of months ago, I've made a few cards with it.  They all seem to look a lot like this one, because the cupcake is so large on an A2 card that there is not much space left.  I may have to try a larger card to have a little more design space.  But I do love the simple design and the large cupcake you get from it.  

Using up a few scraps for this card.  I love to make patchwork on a card front.  Then I used the very pretty tulips in the Stampin Up set called Mixed Florals. They are fun to color, and I decided to cut them out as well.  The lady bugs had to be added because we seemed to have a lot of the about the time I made the card.  

Just the other day I realized I was falling way behind in making my Christmas cards.  These fun Frosty Littles from Hello Bluebird Stamps seemed to be the perfect thing to make a couple of cards come together fast.  I stamp the whole stamp set and color everything at once. Then You can die cut the ones you want and use all or some of them.  I still have enough for another card after making these two. 

That's it for now.  Hopefully April will not fly by like March did.   

I've got more Christmas cards to make to get caught up. See ya soon! 

Simon Reminds Me

 Why do I only post when it's time for a Simon Says Challenge?  Because Simon reminds me it's time to make a card and put it up.  I make a lot of other cards but seldom get around to adding them here.  

Here's the one for the Wednesday challenge today, which is to highlight Hero Arts products.  I have a few Stamp and Cut sets from Hero Arts.  I chose to use the set titled PRAYERS today.  

I have made a background of blended inks using the ink smoosh technique.  The panel is a glossy CS but I put oxide inks over it.  So unless the lighting is just right, you don't see the glossy finish much.  

A friend of mine just found out her husband has bone cancer.  It does not look very good for recovery, so I thought I would send some prayers along to them.  Ethereal prayers will have more effect, but paper ones can't hurt. Just want her to know we are thinking of them.  

So, I said I have been making other cards as well for the past month.  Thought I would add a few to my post.   Just so I can keep track of actuallt doing something, when I start thinking I only sit and stare at the computer. My productivity wanes when I start down rabbit holes online.

It's always fun to try a new fold.  This was quite quick and I will probably do a few more of these.  The link to the video is here.  Make note of the one correction in the video, there is a change in the scoring measurements for the smallest block.   Stampin’ UP! Garden Poetry Sneak Peek Pop Up Block Thanks with Video | Stamps – n - Lingers

I had made some backgrounds from party napkins that I saved.  Finally used one of them for a birthday card.  The balloons seemed to be a good background for this old-style phonograph, an old Stampin' up set called Timeless Talk.

Easter is April 5th this year, so I made Easter cards for one of my cards for the class I lead each month. 

This is the second card we are doing for the class.  I loved that both were simple cards and we could get them finished in a reasonable amount of time.  We all get tired out if the cards take too long.  

I am creating more cards today trying to get ready for my next couple of classes.  maybe I can get another post made before Simon has to come and Remind Me.  

Have a great weekend.  It will be upon us soon.
   

 

It's Simon time again

 Yesterday I saw the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge again.  I get a notification each week for this challenge, but my emails get so bogged down that I didn't see it until today.  Yes, I get too many emails, and half of them are not even things I actually subscribed for.  Wish I knew how to get rid of them.  No matter if you unsubscribe, they keep coming anyway. . . the joys of computers.

This morning, I pulled out my one and only Pink and Main stamp set (Floral Sprays) to make this card.

I may have to go shopping at Simon and look for more Pink and Main stamps.    

I enjoyed coloring this with my alcohol markers and doing a little ink blending for the background.  

It's about lunch time, so I'll end now and go get myself something to eat.  

Trying to Start Off the New Year Right

 Last Year in November I won a stamp at the House Mouse and Friends Monday Challenge.

I received the stamp in December and then I saw the Challenge for January 5.   The stamp was perfect, with a few alterations for a card for the first  Monday Challenge of the year.  

                            This is the stamp set I won.  House Mouse - Noel by Spellbinders

This is the way I used it for the first New Year Challenge.

 I stamped and watercolored the bottom half of the stamp and cut around the upper part of the image.  Then I cut the numbers on my Scan 'n Cut out of mirrored silver card stock.  I have a pad of patterned papers that has a paper for every holiday of the year.  So, I found a sheet that looked like fireworks and put a panel of that on the card base, added the watercolored mice and the numbers.   But it just didn't seem finished.  I had a scrap of mat gold card stock barely big enough to cut a 4 x 5.25 panel.  That panel was turned into a frame with my paper trimmer.  I think that was just the touch the card needed. 

It was fun to use this stamp right away even though it is a Christmas stamp.  

I will be exploring other things that these little mice friends can hold up for cards throughout the year.  

Lots of thanks to Sue Kment for providing this stamp as a prize in the November Challenge.  

I think I will be checking out the Wednesday Challenge as well.