Snow Day Creation

Another snowy day here in NJ. Not fun snow but heavy wet snow. Ugh. Despite the fact that my girls were home all day and there was some bickering going on, I got some time in my craft room this afternoon.

I had fun playing along with this week's Make It Monday challenge Layering Coverplate Diecuts. After seeing Dawn's video I knew I wanted to layer my horizontal and diagonal striped coverplates. The hardest part was selecting the colors to layer. After trying several combinations I settled on my three favorite PTI colors - Hawaiian Shores card base, Enchanted Evening horizontal stripes, and Aqua Mist diagonal stripes on the top.

Love these colors together! Sentiment from Keep It Simple series and I added a Jenni Bowlin pale orange vellum butterfly for some contrast. 

I also made a tag inspired by Debby Hughes' gorgeous and elegant creation for the Tag You're It Challenge. 

Since I'm in the midst of a snow storm right now, I wanted to make a bright tag for the summer so I colored my embossing paste with Summer Sunrise reindeers and used it with my Heidi Swapp arrows stencil in the same direction as Debby's sunburst. I added coordinating washi tape to the bottom of the Hawaiian Shores die. Sentiment and popsicle from Summer Sweetness. 

I clear embossed the Hibiscus Burst popsicle to give it a shiny, wet look. Love all the dimension on this tag. 

That's all for me tonight. Hope you are warm whereever you are and thanks for stopping by! 

Colour Me Birthday

Happy Saturday! Had a some time to make a card this morning for the Colour Me and CASology challenges this week. The color palette is very bright and varied and the only thing that kept popping in my head was flowers. The card design is inspired by one of the January PTI release sketches. The small flower is from Round Repeats and of course the sentiment is from Everyday Happiness which hasn't left my craft table in weeks! 

Have a great weekend! Thanks for stopping by! 

Clean & Simple 4

I'm really enjoying this class this week. Lots of ideas brewing in my head. I don't have necessary supplies for a few of the more complicated techniques but there's still many other things left to try. 

First card uses the faux embossing technique demonstrated by Yana Smakula.  I wanted to make a masculine card with the fun die cuts from PTI Handy Hardware. I used Rustic White cardstock layered on an adhesive sheet to make gluing the pieces easier. Can't imagine adhering them with liquid adhesive. 

Simple sentiment on a chocolate banner. I LOVE how this look and I think this will be a technique I use again and again! 

Next card uses the Layered Inking technique that Jennifer McGuire demonstrated. I inked a piece of white cardstock completely with Hero Arts Soft Stone ink (direct to paper) and then blended Heidi Swapp dark blue ink along the edges. Love the 

Now here's where I cheated. The technique called for the butterflies to be stamped in Versamark ink and after some time, the Versamark ink would react to the dye ink and lighten on the background and appear white. But somehow this part didn't work for me...the butterflies never appeared. Not sure why but the technique worked for others in the class so maybe I did something wrong. 

I cheated by stamping the butterflies in white to achieve the same effect. 

This pretty background seemed perfect for a sympathy type card so I partially die cut a vase and stamped the sentiment beneath and adhered the strip with foam tape so that it floats above the dark sky and butterflies. 

So that's it for me now. Hoping to get some crafting time in tomorrow. Have a great weekend friends and thanks for stopping by! 

Border Gap Die Cutting

Hello friends! I'm taking the latest Clean & Simple card making class at onlinecardclasses.com this week and having some fun getting inky with the new techniques I'm learning. Kristina Werner, Jennifer McGuire & their special friends are making me bring out the big guns, the stuff that rarely sees the craft light in my room - distress inks, blending tools, stencils, and even the big Tim Holtz craft mat! Have to tell you that I'm in love with the look of ink blending...just need to practice a bit more so that I get a smooth and even finish and a better gradient look. 

On Day 2, Kristina shared the border gap die cutting technique. Here's my birthday card - 

I used a couple of bright distress inks to form the colored portion under my copic-colored cake. To give it a little more sparkle, I used my new gold wink of stella for the candles and heat embossed the brown cake topping in clear to give the chocolate ganache a more realistic look. 

But my favorite new trick I learned was to use big strips of foam tape (or even an entire layer of fun foam) to make the top card panel stand out. I would have used foam squares in the past and after a while the card panel would be uneven and when the card is flattened for an envelope the panel would be distorted. Now with the big strips of foam tape...looks nice and even for the long haul. 

And Post-It tape...LOVE it! Makes masking so much easier. Gonna have to get both foam tape and post-it tape in large quantities next time I'm shopping. 

ETA - Also entering this into the CASology Birthday challenge. That was the whole reason why I picked the cake in the first place. Meant to do that but got distracted getting the kids ready for school this morning! 

That's all for me now. Will have more to share from this class soon. Thanks for taking a peek!

Happy Cards

Sharing a few HAPPY cards with you today....

First card uses the gorgeous color combo at ColourQ this week. I used a border stamp from PTI Love & Marriage and stamped in Scarlet Jewel, Melon Berry, and Raspberry Fizz. I cut the scripty Happy one liner die out of grey Bazzill cardstock and add the Mother's Day from Year Round Happiness underneath in Scarlet Jewel.

Nothing says birthday to me like balloons so his card for the CASology challenge uses the simple Happy word die to go along with a trio of colorful balloons. 

I die cut the balloons from Balloon Bash in several fun colors and clear embossed the star pattern on top to give them balloons a shiny look. I inlaid them into the card for a 'one-layer' look.  And of course a few enamel dots to finish off this happy card....

Not sure if you can see the glossiness of the balloons but I thought a bit of shine would bump up the fun factor. 

I did opt not to use the word birthday even though it is meant to be a birthday card. The font/size of the birthday word stamps in the Everyday Happiness set didn't quite look right with the die cut happy.  I liked how the 'everything' is the same size as the die cut but still conveys birthday wishes. 

And on the STOVEFRONT....I made this Mediterranean Kale, Cannellini and Farro Stew in anticipation of the big monster snowstorm that was supposed to come the other day. Well, thankfully we only got 6 inches and the soup was delish!

I'm linking all the recipes I share so that you can give them a go too!

Thanks for stopping by! 

Papertrey Ink January 2015 Blog Hop

Hello friends! It's PTI Blog Hop day.....I'm so excited to play along this month. Haven't been able to participate in a while.  This month's theme is hearts and to create a card beautiful both inside and out. 

After seeing THIS card by gorgeous Laura Bassen in a video, I was inspired to use embossing paste and reindeers in my stash that have never been used (also known as NBUS in the crafty world). Before watching this video, I'd been scared to death to use embossing paste. 

I colored embossing paste with the Pure Poppy and Raspberry Fizz reinkers and used a Heidi Swapp stencil to make a scattering of hearts falling to the bottom of the card. Since the stencil had a different scattering of shapes in each corner, I masked off the other shapes so that only the hearts were exposed. Then after I added the colored embossing paste to the stencil on top of my card panel, I realized I didn't have any of those cool palette knives Laura used in her video. Yikes! Talk about a chef not having their mise en place ready before starting to cook! I'm improvised with popsicle sticks.   Not the perfect tool but a good stand-in. As you can see below, the hearts aren't perfectly smooth which I'm completely blaming on the popsicle sticks. :)

The sentiment from Everyday Photo Finishers and stamped on a Hibiscus Burst diecut from that set. The white panel was matted with black for some contrast before adhering to the red card base.

I added some embossing paste hearts inside too with a sentiment from Words of Comfort. 

Sharing a card I made for my Uncle's 80th birthday today. I used the the three panel technique that Ashley used in this week's Make It Monday. Can't enter it as the new rules only allow one entry per person but thought I'd share it anyway. 

I cut an 8.5 x 11 piece of dark blue paper so I had a 5.5 inch panel and scored it so it fit into a larger envelope I had. For the front panel, I used Big Birthday Wishes for the celebrating and amazing years (heat embossed in silver) and die cut the 80 our of silver shimmer paper and used foam squares to give the numbers some dimension.  I used a border punch for the edge and created silver wine glass from Propose A Toast die cut which was heat embossed in Brown Sugar for the 'champagne and bubbles' and adhered it to the edge. 

For the other side I stamped circles from Sketched Shapes in a random way in a glimmery silver/black ink for some interest when the card is closed. Forgot to take a photo of the finished card closed before I gave it. 

On the inside, I included two pictures of us - one when I was one year old and the other at his daughter's wedding. The left side has a panel of white glimmer paper with lots of space for my personal note and stamped with another sentiment from Big Birthday Wishes. Love how it turned out! 

On the "stovefront", I made Italian Sausage Lasagna Soup the other day. Very delicious and easy to make. This one is a keeper and definitely one of those recipes that I can make and freeze. Next time I'll add a small dollop of ricotta cheese on top when serving for added lasagna flavor. 

Looking forward to seeing all the pretty cards everyone made for the Hop today! Thanks for stopping by! 

Three For Thursday

Happy Thursday! Here today with three cards to share and a fabulous recipe for you to try.

First up is my card for the CASology cue card FRIEND. I made this for a friend that I don't see very often but think of often. 

I heat embossed the FRIENDS from Wet Paint in black and added small scattered hearts in some of my favorite bright colors. I left lots of white space so the hearts were not overwhelming. The white card panel is mounted on black cardstock to give nice contrast to the colorful hearts. 

I'm playing along with the Tag You're It! challenge for the first time. Figure if I play along with every challenge I'll build a good stash of gift tags.

I was inspired by the gold in Heather's beautiful tag and the scribbled circles under her cluster of flowers.  My tag features a favorite color combination - gold and teal (Hawaiian Shores & Aqua Mist). I used some gold Washi tag for the bottom of the tag and stamped gold circle scribbles to anchor my balloon. I scattered the stars on the tag to go along with the stars in the balloon. Finished it off with some Hawaiian Shores ribbon. 

I also used the tag reinforcer circle die at the top - never used it before but just realized the die came with one of my tag dies. It was beginning to annoy me how the hole at the top would always rip when I used ribbon. 

My last card to share uses this week's Make It Monday - Three Panel Card challenge. Thanks Ashley for the easy directions and measurements. Super easy! Got a head start on my end of year teacher thank you cards. 

I stayed away with traditional 'school' colors, the primary colors but opted for bright fun colors like teal and orange. I used one of the edgers die for the flap and stamped a bunch of different THANKS from the Thanks All Ways set. The bottom flap has the dotted lines from Ombre Builders (my FAVE stamp from that set). Love how the orange twine finishes it off. 

For the inside I used the sentiment from Wonderful Words:Teacher leaving lots of room for my daughter and I to write a personal note in there. 

I created a pocket cut out of Summer Sunrise on the bottom panel to hold the gift card and stamped some flip flops in Summer Sunrise for a tone-on-tone look and the sentiment (both from Flipping Out) in Hawaiian Shores to stand out. Can you tell that Hawaiian Shores is one of my favorite colors?? 

Also going to start sharing some recipes here on my blog. One of my New Year resolutions is to cook more and to cook outside the box. I'm going to be trying a lot of new recipes this year since I've got a gazillion food related pins on Pinterest and a hundred ripped out recipes from magazines that I'm determined to tackle this year. I'm a foodie - love to eat, love exotic ingredients, and watch all sorts of cooking shows - but finding it tough to balance cooking for practicality (we all gotta eat right?!) and cooking for fun. So I'll be sharing my successes here - both the quick & easy meals as well as the fancier complicated ones that I may try. 

Last night's dinner was a complete success. I made Slow-Cooked Salmon, Chickpeas, and Greens from Bon Appetit magazine. It was so delicious and even the kids loved it. Well, 2 out of 3 because the 3rd hates salmon so there's no preparation could make her love it.  The chickpeas were creamy and the fried capers....yum. Kinda like popcorn when you can't stop eating them. The slow roasted part threw me a little as I am used to cooking either fast or at a high temp and I was doubtful that 30 min at 250 degrees would result in anything good. But wow, the salmon was moist and perfectly cooked. The recipe is a little complicated as there are four distinct components to be cooked/assembled before the whole thing is put in the oven but definitely was worth the effort. 

I used kale instead of mustard greens and I doubled the recipe because we are big eaters and also love leftovers for lunch the next day. 

Thanks for hanging till the end of this extra long blog post. I appreciate you stopping by and hope you are having a great week. 

CASology #129

So cool that this week's CASology challenge is NBUS, a phrase coined by the crafty maven Darnell Knauss. NBUS means "Never Been Used Schtuff" which whether we want to admit it or not, we all have NBUS in our craft room! 

For this card I used the "HAD TO HAVE THIS BECAUSE ITS SO COOL SET"  PTI'S These United States which I've never used despite needing it so desperately so many months ago. 

I fell in love with the purple & red color combo after seeing some pics like this on Pinterest - 

so I made a card using this gorgeous color pairing. 

I stamped Royal Velvet polka dots on Royal Velvet cardstock for a tone-on-tone look, giving my card plenty of 'white' space (ok, really purple but you know what I mean!). I added a diecut the United States in the same color and added a heart in the northeast (where I'm from!) and popped it up using foam tape for subtle dimension. I love how the red heart stands out on the dark purple. 

That's it for me tonight. Thanks for taking a peek!