Love You Bunches - Stenciled Background Technique

Hello!  In my online stamping group, we do several “fests” each year where we have challenges. It is always a very creative time, and I plan to share some of the cards I create here on my blog too.

One of the challenges was to use this ingenious Stenciling technique by my stamping friend Beth.  She did a nice tutorial here on How to Add Depth to your Stencils.

I used an older Plaid stencil and used 3 Distress Oxide colors and tried to blend them as best I could. I added black pen marks and tried to be consistent as to where the light source would be, although I know I need to work on that.  

I simply finished off the card with this cute stamp, colored with markers, and adding some glitter glue  Nuvo drops accents to the bouquet. 

I like that I could use this card for Valentines, Birthdays or even a Get well.  

I would love to enter Penny Black’s Saturday Challenge - Anything Goes/Optional Love is in the Air challenge, SimonSaysStamp’s Monday Challenge Floral Frenzy.

Supplies: Penny Black Good Day Stamp set, Plaid Stencil, Distress Oxide inks Peacock Feathers, Picked Raspberry, Squeezed Lemonade, other items from my stash.

Here is the background alone, and the other one I made (a little preview of a card coming up soon!)

Thank you for visiting today!

Dance Like No One’s Watching!

Dance like no one’s watching!  Because they aren’t!  They are probably looking on their phones. And they might just be watching animal videos!

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Hello!  I hadn’t yet used this cute duck image from the Mostly Mice stamp set, and I needed a birthday card for a young person, so I thought I would use it with a funny saying. 

I colored the image simply with alcohol markers and then used a die to cut an aperture in some fun patterned paper.  I stamped the funny sentiment from the Monster Mash set with blue ink onto some yellow cardstock.

Save 10% on your entire order at the I Brake for Stamps store, using my code SAVE10HEIDI.

I like mixing and matching sets, and I do think this is pretty funny.  I hope it will bring a smile to the face of the little boy I will be giving to!

Do you mix and match stamp sets?  Or do you usually stick to stamps and sentiments within a set? I am interested - let me know in the comments!

Thank you for visiting!

House Mouse Strawberry Card

Hello!  Just a quick share of this card made with such a sweet image.  I think mice (that are not in my house) are really cute.

I colored the image, House Mouse Sleeping with Strawberries, with markers and added white gel pen on the seeds. I simply cut it out with a Gina Marie Wonky Stitch Oval die and put over some patterned paper.  The sentiment and banner is from Close to My Heart.

I would love to enter House Mouse’s Anything Goes challenge, SimonSaysStamp’s Wednesday Anything Goes challenge and WordArtWednesday’s Anything Goes challenge.

Are you crafting this weekend?  I hope you have a really good one!

Who Loves You? - Owl Valentine

Hello all! I wanted to sneak in a post today to enter some challenges.  I had half of an idea on how to use this owl (which is actually from a Halloween set) with some other products in my stash to make a Valentine.  The rest of the idea came to me this morning.  

I die cut a heart in my pink cardstock and then embossed it with a woodgrain folder. I used a tan inkpad direct-to-paper to bring out the embossing.  I used some foiled pattered paper behind this, and then nestled my owl right in there.  

The inside of the card has a sentiment that I stamped out with an alphabet set.  

I think I know just the little girl to send this to.  

I’d love to enter Art Impressions Shades of Pink Challenge, ModSquad Challenge Animal Stamps, and SimonSaysStamp’s Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes

Supplies:  Art Impressions SC0735 Fright Night stamp and die set, Hero Arts Log Letters and Numbers alphabet stamp set,  Sizzix Thinlets Sentiment words dies, Firefly Hearts die set, Darice Woodgrain Embossing folder, Hero Arts Soft Sand ink, Gina K Dark Chocolate ink

January Carnations - Flower of the Month Card

Hello!  The Carnation is the Birth Flower for January and I always like to make a card for the flower-of-the-month, if I can.  I usually have used this stamp to color in, and I just sortof decide what color I want, but this time I wanted to use the stamp as a background.

I simply stamped the Jumbo - January Carnation in Gina K Wild Lilac ink, onto lavender  cardstock and die cut the panel.

I then cut out a sentiment in white cardstock, and used the same purple stamping ink to color the die cut.  I layered this over a sentiment cut from glitter cardstock, and voila, my card is finished. 

This stamp does come in a smaller version, as to all in the Birth Flowers series.  These are probably my favorite stamps in the entire I Brake for Stamps store.  (As always, save 10% on your entire order using my code SAVE10HEIDI)

I’d love to participate in WordArtWednesday’s Anything Goes challenge.

Thank you for visiting today! Have a wonderful day!

Coffee Cup Christmas Card set

It is the 25th of the month, so it is time for the Rudolph Days challenge!  I knew that I would need to make a card set this month in order to meet my monthly goal.  I also decided that I will keep a tally of total Christmas cards for the year at the bottom of each Christmas card post this year.  

I had a new stamp set I wanted to work with. I stamped the coffee cup in 5 different colors, added the cup outline in black, and then created a different card layout for each one.

The first card uses some cool patterned paper, a punched snowflake and gems.  

Word Art Wednesday - Anything Goes!

I really love this red, white and black card.  I embossed the background with an old Martha Stewart folder, and used little coffee beans instead of berries by the holly, and used some Wink of Stella pen to make them sparkle!

Inskpirational - Glitz a Strip challenge

 This pink card is home for my green cup. The papers were from a magazine. Boy! They are thin and shiny and a bit hard to work with.  It is a good thing they are pretty.  I had to heat emboss the sentiment because the ink wouldn’t dry on this paper.

This was actually the first design I did.  I used Nuvo drops to create my own sparkly berries.  

This final design is classic Christmas!  I used a sketch here and decided to mat in green to add a more Christmassy feel.  I love how it turned out with the sparkle of some silver gems.

Tuesday Morning Sketches #538

There were plenty of sentiments in the set and I was able to stamp inside all the cards.  

Supplies: Joy Clair Christmas coffee stamp set, various inks, BoBunny Altitude 6x6 paper pad, Heidi Swapp Christmas paper, Gina Marie Wonky Stitched Ovals and Tag dies, EKSuccess Snowflake punch.

Thank you for visiting!  I hope you will have time to leave a comment to let me know you were here. Please consider following my blog, and I am happy to visit and follow you as well.  

Have a great weekend!

2020 Christmas Card Goal to Date: 5

2020 Christmas Cards finished: 6

Chickadee Thank You Card

ETA (2/5/20):  Thank you to the Card Concept for choosing my card as an Honorable Mention!

Hello everyone!  I have had a busy week and it is just going too fast.  We painted the kitchen and family room on Monday, and there is a lot of work to finish up for that project (touch up + the putting away stuff + all the trim work I will need to be working on) and then all the normal stuff too!

I was thinking this morning on how to use of some of the 12 x 12 Plaid paper pad I got at Michaels, and I had an idea that “just worked.”  This card came together so fast!

I stamped the branches using a green inkpad and a brown marker.  The pinecones were stamped with marker too, and the wee chickadee was just barely colored in.  My Versafine ink had a hard time drying on the green cardstock, even with heating it. It must be some type of coated cardstock that I grabbed out of my scrap bin.  

Supplies: Close to My Heart Spruced Up stamp/die set, Memento and Versafine Black ink, Hero Arts Forever Green ink, Tombow markers, Recollections Christmas Plaid 12x12 paper pad, Gina K Designs Dark Chocolate cardstock.

I’d love to participate in Freshly Made Sketches #419, And The Card Concept Cozy Cabin Challenge (I used the blanket and woodsy setting for my inspiration). And the ModSquad Challenge Animal Stamps.

Thanks for visiting today!