So Many Challenges at Winnie & Walter's Birthday Bash!

Who's up for some challenges?!

Who's up for some crazy-awesome prize packages? As in ... Winnie & Walter Guest Designer? $75 store credits? ALL THE W&W STAMPS IN 2016?!?

Hurry over to the Winnie & Walter blog to see all the Birthday Bash challenges, and start planning your entries! While you're there, be sure to check out my Over the Edge Challenge. I can't wait to see what you create!

Adding Your Sentiment Inside a Stencil

Hi Folks! I had some fun stenciling the secondary sentiment through the heart stencil on this card. Since the words are cut off, you have to work a little to read it, which I think makes you pay more attention to the card. Even though the "love ya" primary sentiment is on the bottom of the card, the large size and the bold red color is meant to draw your eye there first. Then you can pick up the "always & forever" in the heart above.

  

This card is over at the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps blog today.

Thanks for looking!
-Kelly

Papercrafting Supplies in Valentine's Day Deco Mesh Wreath

 

Hi Folks! I've gone a little nuts with the after-Christmas sales at Hobby Lobby this year. A friend alerted me to one of the new store locations with a full stock of holiday merchandise at their 90% off sale. It was crazy. Nuts. People (including me!) had multiple carts full. One of our friends bought 94 rolls of wrapping paper, and there were still hundreds left. I filled one cart just with deco-mesh and wreath forms. All the Christmas red works just as well for Valentine's Day red, after all! This wreath is a super-simple one, which I was going to have my second-grade son's class make at their Valentine's Day party. It took 5 minutes to make the actual wreath, and cost $1.70. Then I thought the kids could hang some foam hearts in the middle. For my own purposes, I made my own heart with papercrafting supplies : )

Details on the heart itself are on the Winnie & Walter blog today.

Thanks for looking!

-Kelly

Three Cards, Same Group of Supplies

  
Hi Folks! I've been getting into a habit of making multiple cards while I have a particular group of stamps, dies and inks out. After thinking about this, I've figured there are two reasons I do this:

1) I love to be efficient with things and use my time wisely. I'm always conscious of time passing and each day I want to be sure that I've accomplished something. I'm happier if it's more than one something!

2) I'm often left with the feeling that the card I'm making could be better. That's when I grab another card base and try again with a slightly different idea. Using mostly the same products helps me figure out if the next card is an improvement or not. Ironically, I'm often drawn to my first attempt. That's frustrating!

This card was the first attempt on a scrap piece of paper to see what stamping through a stencil would look like. The paper was too narrow so I added the navy blue patterned paper on the bottom to fill the space (also worked to ground the design),

This was the last card I made, combining the overall placement from the card at the top of this post, with the idea of stamping through the stencil from my initial attempt. I do like the addition of a secondary sentiment on this card. Were it not so late, I probably would have gone for a fourth card, but I decided this would be good enough and called it a day.

  

These cards are over at the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps blog today.

Thanks for looking!
-Kelly

2015 Year In Review

I wasn't going to do a Year In Review post, but I did miss looking back over the year to see what's been going on. And, picking one card each month is way too much stress for me! So we've got a Top Eighteen here. The photos/captions have links to the original post if you're interested.

Here are officially my favorite cards of 2015!

Rotating a stamp

  

Canopy of stars, collection of feathers and the blended sentiment

   

Torn background die, mix of elements

  

Set of six cards with tiny heart dies making one big heart

     

Recreation of the back of the Cosmo Cricket catalog with a stripe stamp and some watercolors

 

Small dies for DIY embellies

Layers of die cut metallic paper for a necklace charm

So many fun flowers

The TV is removable ... it's a magnet! Plus I like the post.

 

It's a rather quirky card, but it uses the dryer sheet that collected all my tiny die cuts.

 
You will LOVE this tip for tiny die pieces!

An actual scrapbook page! Jackson's first time eating spaghetti.

Birthday cake topper. I feel it's a bonus when I can use supplies for things in everyday life.

  

Rainbow Hanukkah

  

Same idea with repeating the circle stamps in different holiday colors

Patterned papers with a white poinsettia, and tiny black sentiment

A boatload of masking,

No specific reason, I just like how it ended up.

 

Rainbow stars pointing to a sentiment

    
There are two things that struck me as I assembled the cards:

1) This year I selected more "pretty" cards than in prior years, rather than "out-of-the-box" cards. Maybe because it's more difficult for me to create pretty cards, so when I do I get extra happy. Or, maybe it's because I've been trying more pretty cards. 

2) My creative times of the year are definitely the "quiet" months of January - March. A whopping 60% of my favorites come from that time period. Summer (April - September) had one scrapbook page and ZERO card favorites. The rest of my favorites are from the holiday season (Halloween/Hanukkah/Christmas).

 Thanks so much for all your comments and support this year, it means so much to me! If you've created a year-in-review please let me know as I'd love to stop by and check it out!!

All the best for 2016!

-Kelly

• 2014 Year in Review
• 2013 Year in Review
• 2012 Year in Review

Happy Birthday FUSION Challenge!

Hi Folks! I am so thrilled to be asked by the wonderfully talented Lyndal Higgins to be her guest in the Fusion Challenge's second birthday celebration. I really miss being on the team. The girls are so fun to work with, and the challenge itself is always a good one. I love the concept of being inspired by the photo, the sketch or both.

 

This time I couldn't help but be inspired by both. 


The bold yellow chevron table runner is so eye-catching that I had to recreate it with Winnie & Walter's V for cheVron creative screening. The stencil has a lot of different chevrons nearby, so I just put painter's tape on top and bottom of the area I wanted to stencil so I didn't have to worry about sponging ink through any stray areas.

I made the center of the flower by running a stitch along the bottom of some lace trim and then gathering it all to form a circle. For the middle I layered some Pretty Pink Posh sequins and made a slip knot in the center of each with silver thread.

The sentiment is from Winnie & Walter's Winter Woodland set, and the large flower is from the Simon Says Stamp Stamptember Big Bloom set. I like paring the gold embossed flower with yellow. The format on this card is large (8 1/4 x 4 1/4) since I really wanted to feature the chunky chevrons. It fits nicely in a legal sized envelope. 

A big thanks to Lyndal for inviting me to play along! I can't wait to see what deliciousness she's created, along with the other girls. If you'd like to participate in the Fusion Challenge, it's open all month so you have plenty of time to get on over there!

Thanks for looking!
-Kelly

CASual Fridays Pinecone Die turned Flower Die

Hi again! I know, I know, my blog has been really quiet last month and now there's a flood of posts. We're all busy catching up with things now that the holidays are over I guess : )

I've got one more post featuring the CAS-ual Fridays girlfriends set of stamps and dies that are set to release tomorrow (Wed, Jan 6th).

 

  

This card uses the previously-released Pinecones Fri-Dies to make a flower. Anything that's close to being an oval shape can easily be turned into a classic 5 or 6 petal flower, right? To mix it up, I chose two different colors of patterned paper for the petals.

The Friend Fri-Die (released tomorrow) works well as a green stem for the flower. I love it when the word used as a stem has loopy letters, perfect for leaves, like the "f".  Best of all, you don't have to struggle for where to put a sentiment. It's already there!

For the flower, freehand score a curved line down the middle of each petal and fold slightly to make your petals stand out. Layered sequins for the center are always fun too. 

This card uses the entire Curtis background stamp embossed in white as a base on which to layer distress inks. To break it up a little, white lace is mummy-wrapped around the front of the card. Just like vellum, lace is good to use when you still want to see what's behind it a little. The Friend Fri-Die is used again, along with a sentiment from the Girlfriends stamp set. Finally, the Friendly Flowers Fri-Dies are layered and tucked behind another layer of lace.

Be sure to check out the rest of the Ink Squad to see more awesome projects with these stamps:

Julia | Angie | Archana |  Jingle | Joanna

   

Thanks again for looking!

-Kelly