Light It Up Blue Blog Hop + Virginia's View Challenge

I'm very pleased to be participating in the Light it Up for Autism Awareness Blog Hop, hosted by the lovely Tenia Nelson and Veronica Zalis! Our dear friends and neighbors have the sweetest boy ever who is diagnosed with Autism. They just got the good news that he will be able to attend kindergarten in our local elementary school with the other kids from our neighborhood next year! We are very blessed with caring staff and a wonderful school district to make sure that's possible.

We had a new addition to the family last week, baby Theodore "Theo", and are so excited to get to meet him at our Easter celebration in a few days. Unfortunately, he may have to sit out on the egg hunt this year : )

What a perfect coincidence that the lovely little man Tenia is dedicating this hop to is also named "Theo"!

   

Knowing that I wanted to play in my dear friend Virginia's View Challenge, I wanted to make sure to layer this one up. Keeping a mostly white palate helps it stay clean. I focused on layers of "love you" over the elephant, the repeated "baby" sentiment on the "T", the tiny heart on the "O" and the layered alpha letters. The bottom layer of alphas is made from blue distress ink.

 

For the inside of the card I chose to keep the coordinating strip on the bottom of the 12x12 patterned paper to introduce a little color.

A big thanks to the wonderful sponsors of this blog hop! Let's hear it for them!! For every comment you leave throughout the hop you will be entered in a whole slew of drawings for fun goodies.

Thanks so much for looking!
-Kelly

Functional Friday: Cover Plate Stencil

Hi all! Time for another Functional Friday installment. In case you missed this post, I'm featuring one die from Top Dog Dies each month, and each Friday I'm sharing a different way to use the die. My hope is that even if you don't own that exact die, the ideas will translate to similar dies you do own.

 

If you're reading this real-time, you may be wondering why it's indeed Saturday when I'm posting a Functional Friday article. You see, I had Summary Saturday all lined up, where I was going to recap of all the Heart Border Die projects, but there was one more idea I wanted to try. Let's take a look ...

Rather than use the actual negative or positive die on the card, I used the die as a tool for a stencil/blending project. The die is only an inch or two wide, but since there's a repeating pattern it's easy to sponge ink through it one time, move the stencil down your card, line it up with the previously inked area, and stencil some more. After repeating this several times you end up covering the entire card. 

After sponging in the hearts, I removed the stencil and blended the background with the same color to give it a richer look.

For the sentiment, I colored each letter of "color" with a different copic marker on top of the white embossing. 

OK, so aside from next week's recap, this is really it for the Heart Border Die. I pinkie promise!

Thanks so much for looking!

-Kelly

MFT Challenge: Breakin' In

Hi folks! You would not believe this adorable little dog, trying to get inside! Persistent little fella. Stop by this week's MFT Sketch Challenge to see the rest of him : )

You can also see the sentiment inside, which I tried to "wag" like the little dog's cute tail!

Sadly, this is my last guest post for MFT Sketch Challenges. A HUGE THANKS to Ms. Susan Opel for inviting me to participate for the month of March! It is quite an honor and I had so much fun playing along with all the AMAZING talent on the MFT team. Boy do they make some incredible cards!!

Thanks so much for stopping by!
- Kelly

MFT Challenge: A Blast from the Past

It's funny how someone will pin a random card from years ago and it will just take off and generate more traffic to your site than all of your current month's projects combined.


 
It's even more strange when that card is the FIRST CARD you ever posted on your blog, way back in January 2012 for a PTI blog hop. (nice kitchen floor in the photo, Kelly!) Trying not to take it personally that my first card posted has more views than ANY of the 500 cards I've posted since then, I have come up with a rationalization. I think the popularity may have to do with me linking cards up to non-card blog parties in the first couple months of blogging, before I really figured out the landscape of the card-making blogs. It must have gotten broader attention that way.

To honor my first card post, I used the same folding idea (instructions in this post) and adapted it to the sketch challenge at My Favorite Things. Stop by to see it if you get a chance! I colored in my first-ever girl stamp : )

Thanks for looking!
- Kelly

Playing Cards, Birthday Cards or Both!

Hi folks! I've got a fun idea for using playing cards to make a customizable, yet quick, birthday card. Stop by the Winnie & Walter blog for more details!

Thanks again for looking : )

- Kelly

Functional Friday: Dryer Sheet Leftovers

Hi all! Time for another Functional Friday installment. In case you missed this post, I'm featuring one die from Top Dog Dies each month, and each Friday I'm sharing a different way to use the die. My hope is that even if you don't own that exact die, the ideas will translate to similar dies you do own.

This technique uses the actual dryer sheet that I've been using to get all the pieces out of the heart border die in one step.  Let's take a look ...

Right after making last week's teen boy card with the Heart Border Die squares, I noticed that the dryer sheet I was using had a neat, unintentional, layered look to it. I was really excited to use this on a card as a background!



Love the overlapping, love that you can see some old layers of white hearts underneath, love the waxy texture that's developed from running it through the die cutting machine so many times, love that it's totally random and unplanned. And I love that I didn't need to spend any time creating it!

Here's a closer look at the Sheep Die. I cut a layer of silver for the head and legs, then a layer of white for the body, then a layer of batting to make it fluffy and more realistic.

You may be thinking this is quite an odd subject matter for a birthday card. A sheep with a "15. whatever" sentiment. Well, I really enjoy the dry sense of humor my Godson has, and I think he'd really love to see a sheep sassing him like this on his birthday. Whatever. You're 15. So? Hahaha! We'll try something than the usual "happy birthday" with him this year.

I think we may be done with the heart border die! The monthly spotlight somehow turned into 2 1/2 months. Next Friday I'll either pick a new die, or do a recap post.

Thanks for looking!
-Kelly

CFS Release: Twinkle

  
Hi Folks! I'm pleased to share the last new CAS-ual Friday set that was release yesterday! The small/medium/large star die in the Twinkle set is such a staple, I know it's one of those that won't leave my desktop. Turning them into the 3D barn stars is only a few scored lines away (here's a how-to).

So in love with the scripty sentiments in this set! The big, bold star, patterned paper, and sentiment do all the work, making this a quick card to put together. 

This card uses the star Fri-dies as templates for sponging distress inks. It was fun to layer them and put the sentiment in between it all.

The stamp set includes stitched star outlines that turned out to be just the thing this card was missing.

You're not going to want to miss checking out the other Ink Squad girls:

Marcie | Jingle | Virginia | Deepti | Zoey | Angie

  

This set and yesterday's mailbox set are available now in the CAS-ual Fridays store! 

Thanks for looking!

-Kelly