An Exciting New Announcement!

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I am so excited to finally share the BIG NEWS! There is a new stamp company in town, and you are absolutely, without a doubt, going to love them. They are winnie & walter and have some really fresh designs. I was so into the stamps, I even took them with me to Christmas so I could continue sketching designs out.

This weekend starts the first-ever release!

And with a new stamp company comes a new design team.

Right? More excitement! These are some crazy-talented ladies!
  
Heather Pulvirenti | Joni Andaya | Vanessa Menhorn | Suzanne Dahlberg

 
Stay tuned ... we've got 4 days and 4 stamp sets to debut. It all starts Saturday! Also, there are giveaways on the winnie & walter blog throughout the week (including being a guest designer for the next release, which you know means getting all the stamps for that release too!) Yipee!
  

Thanks for looking

-Kelly

CFS: Cupid's Arrows and Heart Board Fri-Die

The final set to be released this month for CAS-ual Fridays Stamps is Cupid's Arrows with a coordinating Heart Board Fri-Die. As well as a fun heart shape, there are several different word arrows in this set. This card was quick to create, but I like how it ended up. One of the word arrows makes its target, but the rest of them fell short. The fallen arrows are made by masking the heart, inking two sides of a word arrow, and connecting the line in the middle with a marker.

Here are the graduated heart dies making a bouquet. They're backed with American Crafts Pow! Glitter Paper. The wire is wrapped with washi tape at the end. The sentiment is a word arrow, just without the arrow part inked up. The patterned paper is Crate Paper.
 

This one was fun to make! It uses a birch paper straw as the shaft of an arrow. The graduated hearts are slipped through a slit cut in the end of the arrow. The smallest three hearts are scored down the middle and used on the tip as an arrowhead. You can definitely use this arrow as a decoration by itself, but I adhered it to a long card base.

 
For the sentiment I tried my hand at painting. Just mix the paint right on your acrylic block. It was tricky though. It took a couple tries before I got the right amount of pressure and the right consistency of paint. A stiffer brush would have been more helpful.

 Here's an example of making lemonade out of lemons. This was the original front of the card where I adhered the arrow just above the sentiment. But it looked a little busy to me. Instead of tossing it in the scrap pile, I folded the card in the opposite direction and now it's the inside of the card.
 



This is my absolute favorite! The two large glitter heart dies are interlocked with each other.

Interesting, you say, but why?

Because they serve as a clasp! It's a belly band around a set of note cards. The narrow bottom of the hearts are glued to the paper and the tops are left loose so they can interlock with each other and hold the band closed. This would also be a fun idea to use for a gatefold card.

More inspiration waits for you with the rest of the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps Design Team:

Virginia

Sylvia

Piali

Lynn

Jingle

 Dana

 Angie

Also, be sure to comment at CAS-ual Fridays Stamps ... one lucky winner will receive the ENTIRE release (stamps and dies!!) Tomorrow the three stamp sets and two dies will go on sale. Thanks for looking!

-Kelly

CFS: Sands of Time

The second stamp set released this month for CAS-ual Fridays Stamps is Sands of Time. How adorable is the heart shape made by the sand inside the hourglass?!? Michele is just too clever. Also love how the sentiment goes so well with the hourglass theme.

Here I wallpapered the card with the hourglass image. Isn't that color ink a dream?! It's Fresh Ink's Pool by Impress. Cristina was kind enough to share it with me, with a warning that once I used the pigment ink I wouldn't want to put it down. How did she know?! I've also been using the Slate ink a lot (like on the first card). It's the perfect warm gray.

Anyway, I colored the negative spaces gray so the hourglasses would remain white. Here's another great sentiment to go along with the main image. I was going to ink it in black, but then I thought what the heck, let's be crazy and give yellow a try. It's a little different : )

Instead of tossing the scraps in my overflowing pile, I used them on the inside of the card, along with a marquis shape for writing a sentiment. You can see how the markers show through on the other side of the front. Normally this would bother me, but in this case I think it makes a nice pattern (and shows the recipient that you hand colored it).

No hourglass image for this card, it just uses the row of hearts stamped in multiple shades of red. It's mounted on foam core and gallery-wrapped with chevron American Crafts ribbon. I chose a gray background to make the white pop.

There's a fun little surprise on the lower right corner ... xoxo!

More inspiration waits for you with the rest of the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps Design Team:

Virginia

Sylvia

Piali

Lynn

Jingle

 Dana

 Angie

Thanks for looking, and stop back tomorrow for the last day of the release sneaks! Also, be sure to comment at CAS-ual Fridays Stamps ... one lucky winner will receive the ENTIRE release (stamps and dies!!)

-Kelly

CFS: Love Notes and Heart Note Fri-Die

It's a total love affair with this month's CAS-ual Fridays Stamps release! Can't wait to show you all the stamps and dies over the next three days. The first set is Love Notes with a coordinating Heart Note Fri-Die. That black note on this set of note cards is actually a DIE! Crazy, right?! I love how thin and delicate it is. My criteria for buying dies is usually that it's something I can't replicate easily with scissors. So rectangle shapes, simple fussy cuttings of images, I don't tend to buy. This note I would never be able to cut with scissors. No way.

The set of "note" cards came together quickly. I swiped the bottoms with Versamark and embossed in gold. Stamped the sentiment, glued the die and adhered that fun patterned paper from Crate Paper on the inside. The colored paper is a new purchase from We R Memory Keepers at my local discount store (12 sheets for $1)!

The stamped staff of sheet music comes straight, but you can certainly bend it to get some more movement. I colored between the lines with markers and added a few more notes trailing off the card where the staff ends. The staff is also stamped in black on the card base so you can see the rest of the treble clef, and the notes above and below the staff.

Because I fussy-cut the staff, I took this opportunity to give it a little dimension and curved it outwards. I think it comes more alive this way.

Patterned paper inside is We R Memory Keepers Crazy for You.

Here the staffs are straight and stamped multiple times in silver. This set comes with a single note stamp so you can customize your music ... perfect for adding "just a note" in red. Hahaha : ) You could make a set of these quickly by just stamping one staff of music with a single note and sentiment in red.

More inspiration waits for you with the rest of the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps Design Team:

Virginia

Sylvia

Piali

Lynn

Jingle

 Dana

 Angie

Thanks for looking, and I hope you can check back tomorrow! Be sure to comment at CAS-ual Fridays Stamps ... one lucky winner will receive the ENTIRE release (stamps and dies!!)

-Kelly

CFC #125 - Trickin' out the Beverage Dispenser + Other Christmas Party Crafts

It's time for our first CAS-ual Fridays Challenge of 2014! Instead of a resolution, choose a word that describes what you hope for the new year, and use that word on your project. If you're stuck for a word, you might want to check out Ali Edward's One Little Word project. Each year Ali picks a word that she can "focus on, mediate on, and reflect upon" as she goes about her daily life. In the comments section of this year's post, there are 800 people talking about what word they've picked for 2014. Lots of inspiration!

This is a two week challenge, and the talented winner will receive a prize from CAS-ual Fridays Stamps!

For this challenge, I don't have a particular word, but an idea represented by the words.

We hosted Christmas for my side of the family this year, and I got to try out my new 3 tier beverage station. Hello color! I loved the way it looked on the appetizer table. I got the idea to label each drink from an awesome wedding that features typography. It doesn't tell people what kind of drink it is (they were all types of fruit punch), but I thought it was fun, cute and something different.

So why am I posting it for this challenge?

This year I'd like to focus on using my dies, stamps, paper, ribbon etc. where ever and when ever I can. Cards, of course, but I'd really like to get the most of what I have and use my supplies for other things too. Putting words on beverage servers is an example of this. 

Other examples from the Christmas party are:

Holders for hot chocolate bar toppings. Having hot chocolate in a crock pot is an easy beverage/dessert at the party. To make it a little more fancy, I put out toppings like marshmallows, chocolate chips, cinnamon sticks, wafers, etc. Double-sided 6x6 Christmas papers folded into a cone and stapled together hold the toppings. So easy.

  

Punched snowflakes to hide. I usually have 100-200 and hide them for the kids to find when they start getting restless before presents. We end up finding them for weeks afterwards. But it's a great reminder of the party, and the kids have fun trying to see how many they can get. This year I gave Logan the bowl of punched snowflakes and had him do the hiding. 
 

Baked potato bar labels. New this year, we tried mashed potatoes in a crock pot with toppings (ham, bacon, chives, cheese, french onions, sour cream). Not only did people enjoy making their own creations, but it's a huge time-saver to make mashed potatoes the day before! The craft supplies were used to make labels for the toppings. I had the bowls in an old gun case I got from a garage sale for $2 (score!)

Felt numbers on the Santa hats. A couple years ago I glued felt die-cut numbers on Santa hats for all of the cousins. We're up to number 21 now. Before opening presents we make them all get on the steps for a photo with their hats on ... it's quite a sight to see all 21 of them together! While cute, they also serve a practical purpose. We let the youngest kids open presents first, and the bigger our family got, the harder it was to figure out who was born next. Now we know! Their names are inside each hat, and after the party we put the hats all in a bag for my mom to store until next year.

Wow. This post really took a different direction than what I had planned! Sorry if it was longer than you expected : ) But I would love to do more things like this with my craft supplies throughout the year, not just on cards or for parties.

Can't wait to see your creations in the CAS-ual Fridays Challenge gallery!

Thanks so much for looking! 

-Kelly

Featured Artist on Paper Crafter's Library

Hi folks! Exciting news today, I'm the Featured Artist on Paper Crafter's Library! I could make absolutely anything I wanted. Umm, that's a little paralyzing!! Fortunately they contacted me back in October so I had plenty of time to think about it. Being so in love with the dimensional barn stars, I thought I'd explore what else could be done with that same folding technique. Wouldn't you know, it works with a lot of different shapes besides stars!

I'd love for you to stop by and check it out. There are 6 projects in my post. My favorite is the inverted star (shown on the card on top of the present). The edges incline upward like the "normal" barn star, but the middle folds inward. I can't believe that actually worked!

Thanks so much for looking!

-Kelly

Fusion Challenge - Stenciled Design on Ribbon

 

You're gonna need your magnifying glasses to see the photo inspiration for this one ... check out the rug. It looks like a sisal rug with a stenciled design painted on top. That's what I wanted to mimic, so I stenciled a design on some natural fiber ribbon for my card. Also grabbed the white and orange from the photo, and the general layout from the sketch for a fusion of the two.

The stencil is made from thin plastic wrap I saved from around a bouquet of flowers my husband gave me. The die is the Leafy Branch Die from Top Dog Dies. You'll notice I didn't paint around the upper right branch, only because I was too lazy to position the two orphaned pieces that are not connected to the outline of the design. I think it looks just as good. I would definitely consider doing this for a special present wrapping. It went fairly quickly.

 My favorite alpha dies (Highrise Alpha Uppercase from MFT) are going down the middle like the three circles in the sketch, ending in a tiny "you are awesome" sentiment on the tab. A silver barn star and PTI sunshine impression plate rounds out the card.

I'm so excited for this first Fusion Challenge with the new team of wonderfully talented ladies, and all of their inspiring projects! I sure hope they inspire you to play along. As a reminder, here are the guidelines on the challenge:

1. Play with just the sketch challenge.
2. Play with just the inspiration photo challenge.
3. Or you can create FUSION by combining BOTH challenges into one card.
4. Use the challenge graphic and link back to Fusion in your post.
5. Please read the other considerations on the Our Rules Page before playing along.

Here are some fabulous cards by our design team showing you how it works!

Betty J.

Cathy Weber
 

Danielle Robeson
 

Deepti Malik

Geri Freeman

Julia Aston 

Katie Brooks

Lynn Mangan

Kimberly Wiener

Lyndal Higgins

Michelle Williams

Michelle Lupton

Sindhu

Stephanie Severin

Winners: Will be chosen by all of our teammates in two weeks. We each will choose one favorite! The winners will be announced at 4am (PST) in two weeks!! Please check the linky for the days left to play with us 


Thanks for looking!
-Kelly