Jewel of my Heart(s)

The challenge is use only cardstock and the papers from a Basic Grey paper pack I've had in my stash for about a year.  A friend of mine was also feeling uninspired by the Scallop Heart Nesties she had bought, so to make things interesting, use this set of dies on every. single. one.   Turned out limiting your supplies is a great way to get inspired.

You can click on the pictures to see larger versions.

Card number 3:
Supplies:
Cosmo Cricket Mr. Campy Green Velvet Scallop Ribbon
Crafty Secrets Sentiments Stamp Set
Basic Grey Bittersweet Paper Pack
Spellbinders Classic Ovals, Classic Hearts & Scallop Hearts
Tim Holtz Distress Ink Tattered Rose, Worn Lipstick & Tea Dye
Kaisercraft Silver Rhinestones

Sending Love

The challenge is use only cardstock and the papers from a Basic Grey paper pack I've had in my stash for about a year.  A friend of mine was also feeling uninspired by the Scallop Heart Nesties she had bought, so to make things interesting, use this set of dies on every. single. one.   Turned out limiting your supplies is a great way to get inspired.

This one is one of my favorites and I completely scraplifted it off of another person here (lots of great inspiration, really you should go check it out)

Card number 2:
Supplies:
Martha Stewart Lattice Arch Border Punch
Crafty Secrets Kewpie Stamp Set
Basic Grey Bittersweet Paper Pack

Spellbinders Classic Ovals & Scallop Hearts
You could use a template or a cricut to create a little envelope, but I just folded in the corners of a scrap square of white cardstock to make mine.  Easy peasy.

Heart Attack

Well I'm home sick today (the shop is open Sunday afternoons) with what is hopefully the last grand headcold of the season, so I'm all curled up with my laptop, my laptop cord munching kitten, and watching glorious weather reports of rain.  Rain! So exciting to have rain not snow :-) and it's not even going to be FREEZING rain. Spring is definitely on the horizon.  So I'm going to spread the love and catch up with you, my bloggy buddies, with a series of hearty cards.
The challenge is use only cardstock and the papers from a Basic Grey paper pack I've had in my stash for about a year.  A friend of mine was also feeling uninspired by the Scallop Heart Nesties she had bought, so to make things interesting, use this set of dies on every. single. one.   Turned out limiting your supplies is a great way to get inspired.

Card number 1:

Supplies:
Basic Grey Bittersweet Paper Pack
Mark Richards Rhinestone Alphabet (X &O)
Spellbinders Classic Hearts & Scallop Hearts
Kaisercraft 12" Pink Rhinestone Strips
The Greeting Farm Pirate Anya (I think she's been discontinued, but there's lot's of other great characters there that would look just as cute, like this sassy little number)

Oh Boy!

Paper:          Daisy D, Anna Griffin
Die Cuts:      Elephant & Balloons by Cricut
                   Label 1 by Spellbinders
Stamps:        Brayton Alphabet by JustRite

Sorry for the blurriness of the photo.  Every have one of those days where no matter how you sweet talk your camera, it's not going to take a good shot?  Today was one of those days.

This card was made for a Baby themed card swap, but since all my friends (and I) are lining up to be Old Maids, I thought I'd come up with something that could swing for birthdays or other festive events as well, preferably ones that involve cotton candy.  I love cotton candy :-)  What you can't see due to excessive blurriness, is that I sanded nearly every square inch of that card and then rubbed brown ink over it in an artistic manner.  Even the elephant, who looks way cool distressed, btw, like an 1950s storybook about a circus that was very well loved.

Spellbinders Designer Spotlight

In case you want to feed my narcissistic tendencies and show Spellbinders how my public loves me ;-)  Here is a link the design team spotlight on moi.
http://spellbinderspaperarts.com/blog/designer-spotlight-on-donya-schroeder/
I'll be back tomorrow with a few new projects. Ciao dahlings!

Might as Well be Spring

Hooray, hooray~ It's up above freezing today!  The birds are singing and the dog is chasing them all the way to the neighbors farm.  Definitely something Springish in the air, groundhog be darned.  Here's a pretty little card to celebrate:

This is an uber simple card, easily replicated for masses of Valentines or birth announcements, you don't even have any major coloring to do, just stamp the main image (Crafty Secrets) in Versafine Black ink.  Normally I stamp images with Tsukineko's Archival Brillance Graphite so I can color them with Copics and not worry about bleeding, but with really detailed images you need that Versafine or you are going to wind up with a blob.  A very sad blob.

I did this card once using Marvy punches and one with Spellbinder Nestabilities in what I suppose could be called a cardmaking version of the WWF Smackdown.  Guess what? Nesties won, hands down.  They just look way more polished, especially when you are working with vellum, like on the background scallop here.  One other thing you can't do with the punches in that reverse stenciling technique to create a border (you can see a how to on reverse stenciling a couple of posts back, the blog party post).  Nope that's not an extra piece of tan cardstock behind the main image, I just inked up the die itself with a light brown fluid chalk inkpad.

Winner!

Congratulations to Patty, winner of the Tire Swing Stamp!  Here's what she wrote:
"I’m so excited! How awesome…I won something…I’m weeping so it is difficult to type or see what I’m typing. I’m so new to all of this and this ole dog is trying to learn all this new blogging, posting, and stamping stuff.  Thanks so much for blessing me with this precious stamp."
Patty also had some great memories of swinging with her friends at recess when she was a girl:
"It reminded me so much of when I was a child however; we didn’t have a car much less a tire to use as a swing.  At school during recess, my friend and I would swing all during recess.  I loved that you colored her hair reddish brown as that is my hair coloring. Believe it or not, my hair was almost that long"
Personally, my hair was never long.  I was one of those kids who cried when I got the tangles combed out of my hair (it's curly underneath the top layer, so evilly prone to tangles!), so my mom decided I was a pixie cut girl, lol.  I always envied those long locked beauties!

This is my "tire swing"- an old rope that goes out over the quarry.  Not for the faint of heart.  There are picnic tables, old cars, and TADPOLES (eeee!) lurking under the surface of that water.

Bless you, too, Patty! And I hope you have tons of fun with your new stamp!

XO
D