Watery Damask Anniversary

Papertrey Ink is celebrating their 10th anniversary this year - and Nicole is posting a challenge on her blog every day highlighting her stamps released each year from 2007 - 2016.

 For 2009, one of the new sets released was Damask Designs designed by Dawn McVey, and I used that set for my card today.

I stamped the largest stamp in Hibiscus Burst Ink onto Arches Watercolor Paper and then spritzed it with water so that the ink ran a bit giving it the look of water coloring.   I dried the panel with my heat tool, stamped the sentiment from the same set in black and added 3 pink rhinestones.  I layered the watercolor paper to a Vintage Cream card base.

Here's a close up of the watery stamping.  You can still see the shape but the edges bleed out a little - so pretty!

I'm linking my card to:

Nicole's PTI challenge to use 2009 PTI stamps

February CAS Watercolor challenge

House of Cards -   Love theme

Happy Valentines Day everyone!  

Stamps:  Damask Designs - PTI
Paper:  Vintage Cream - PTI, Arches Watercolor paper.
Ink:  Hibiscus Burst, True Black - PTI
Accessories:  pink rhinestones - Kaiser Craft, Mini Mister.

Red Velvet Valentines

Red Velvet Valentines -  the cookie kind that is! 

I found this great recipe in the February 2017 Better Homes and Gardens magazine.  They are really quick and easy to make.  I got out all of my heart cookie cutters and decided to use this ~2" one that was my mothers.

Several of these got eaten right off the rack! Just to be sure they were ok of course.  The recipe made a whopping 50 cookies!

Now the fun of decorating them with Powdered (Confectioners) Sugar.  I got out two stencils I use making cards - and made a big heart mask with card stock and a heart punch!

I laid a stencil over a cookie, held my sieve with the powdered sugar over it and tapped the sieve.

Beautiful results!  My stencils are from MFT and no longer available - but here is another heart stencil from MFT.

Any stencil will do - or you can make your own mask by punching a shape!

Here it is with the sugar sifted over it.

And all the festive Valentine Cookies - ready to be enjoyed!   I'm going to bring some of these to my Bible Study Group tomorrow and some to the grands when I babysit on Friday!

 You can find the recipe at BHG.com under recipes - you have to sign in to access the site.

 A fun and festive YUMMY treat for Valentines!

A Cat and a Bear for Valentines

I have some cute Valentines to share that I made for my grand nieces and nephews this year. They are interactive - when you pull the string - the arms and legs jump up!

Here's the cat one I made for 4 year old Mila with the arms and legs down.  

I also stamped her name and the year.

And here's the cat one for 2 1/2 year old Madelyn with the string pulled - arms and legs up!

These fun stamps and dies are from Papertrey Ink - Jumping for Joy and you can make a cat, a bear, a lion or a pig by just changing the head. To complete the card, I just added a white base that I cut using a Stitched Mat Rectangle die from Lil Inker Designs.

I made two bear cards for the boys.

Here's the one for 5 year old James with the arms/legs down

and the one for 6 year old Landon with the string pulled and arms/legs up.

The kids love to get mail and I think they will have fun with this interactive card!

I'm linking my Valentines to:

Just Us Girls

Addicted to Stamps 

We're getting more snow today and Sunday night - to add to the foot we just got on Thursday!  Winter has reared it's ugly head in Massachusetts!

 

Stamps:  Jumping for Joy - PTI, alphabet and number stamps - Karen Foster retired.
Paper:  White, Soft Stone, Pure Poppy, Fine Linen - PTI
Ink:  True Black, Sweet Blush, Harvest Gold - PTI
Accessories:  1/8" brads, Blossom and Lemondrop Twine - The Twinery, foam dots, adhesive, Word Window Punch - SU.

A Blizzard of Holly

Well, we had a blizzard yesterday here in New England so it was a great day to stay inside and make more Christmas cards!  We went from nothing to a foot of snow in 12 hours.  Here's Kent snowblowing our driveway last night.

 Here's how it looked at 9 am when it had just started

I got my inspiration from the Merry Monday Christmas Challenge - to make a CAS card.

 

I stamped a simple holly sprig from Festive Foliage (so happy to see that Gina K Designs is now selling this stamp set by Claire Brennan!) on a white panel using Simply Chartreuse Ink and added die cut and stamped berries in red over the holly.  Then I stamped a lovely script Merry Christmas in red and called it done!  

This card looks so simple but actually took me about 30 minutes to get to this design.  I started with another sentiment and the holly and embossed them in gold - nope, didn't like it.  Tried stamping the holly in colors and the other sentiment in black - nope, didn't like it.   Then finally ended up with this design with the green holly and red simple sentiment and it pleased my aesthetic sense (!) 

And as I always try to do when I make Christmas cards - I made 6 of them for my stash!

I used a holly image 1) because I love holly -  

and 2) for the Happy Little Stampers Christmas Challenge!

Stamps:  Festive Foliage by Claire Brennan - Gina K Designs, Alpine Christmas - Waltzingmouse (no longer available)
Paper:  White - PTI
Ink:  Simply Chartreuse, Pure Poppy - PTI
Accessories:  berry die - Holly Die Set - Waltzingmouse (no longer available), foam dots.

A Bag for Valentine's Day

There was a fun Try a New Technique challenge over at Splitcoaststampers last week -  Karen Dunbrook was the host and she linked us up to a YouTube video by LeeAnn Greff,that shows how to make this chic handbag.  Here's a link to Karen's bags.

LeeAnn made these to put cards in to gift to people - so they are big enough to fit lots of 5 1/2" x 4 1/4" cards.

Inside view:

Bottom view.  I added a stitched tag with a punched heart layered on it with foam dots and tied it to the handle of the bag with twine - as I made these to sell at a Valentine Sale at my church.

This cute bag was so easy to make that I ended up making 5 of them using different patterned papers and colors.

 I made 2 using gold papers.  How elegant are these?!

I just love how perfectly these came out!

Paper: True Black, Pure Poppy, white - PTI,  gold card - SU, DP DCWV Modern Metallic 12x12 pad  
Accessories: white and gold brads, stitched tag die - Waltzingmouse retired, heart punch - Marvy, black/white twine, gold cord, Tombow Glue, ScorPal, Cropadile punch.

Raccoon on a Log

I made another card for the February CAS Mix Up Challenge - 

For this card I used stamps, corrugated paper, stenciling and a die cut.

I just got this cute Little Bits Raccoon die from Taylored Expressions and thought it would make a great masculine Valentine for my husband, Kent.

I stood him on a corrugated 'log' under the tree I made with Wendy Vecchi's Layered Tree Stencil and WV Archival Inks.  I made the log using the Key Tag punch from SU.  I cut the tag in half to give it a flat top.  I used a piece of corrugated paper that I've had in my stash for years and never opened!

I added a rhinestone heart to the racoon and stamped my sentiment from Love Struck by Paper Smooches over the tree.  

This little guy just cracks me up!  I layered him on the log with foam dots.  I sponged around the edges of the raccoon and of the log with Ranger Distress Ground Espresso Ink.

I'm linking my card to the following challenges:

CAS Mix Up Challenge

House of Cards - Love Theme

The Card Concept

my card is Clean and Layered

Fusion Challenge 

Inspired by leaves and hearts in the photo

Creative with Stamps

Stamps:  Love Struck - Paper Smooches
Paper:  white, Fine Linen, Soft Stone, True Black - PTI, Basic Grey and Sahara Sand - SU, Corrugated Paper.
Ink:  True Black - PTI,  Wendy Vecchi Archival Tree Branch and Leaf Green, Ranger Distress Ground Espresso.
Accessories: Key Tag Punch - SU, Tombow Glue, Layered Tree Stencil - Wendy Vecchi/Stampers Anonymous, foam dots, rhinestone heart - Michaels.