Twofer Card Challenge #8

Another month went by and it's time for a new Twofer Challenge! Visiting the gallery last month really made me thirsty! Thanks to all who played along!

This month we would like to see you using geometric shapes. As always you have to use the same die or stamp to make two different cards for two different occasions.

I chose to play with my new (to me) Altenew triangle stamps and dies. I made a birthday card for my younger son who just turned 15! He loved the cool geometric design.

The second card is an encouragement card. I used the same tiny triangle die for the sun that I used for the silver accents on the birthday card. I also used some of the same stamps to make clouds. What do you say? There are no triangle shaped clouds in your neck of the woods? That's strange...

Stamps: Altenew (triangles), PTI (sentiment)
Dies: Altenew (triangles)

Stamps: Altenew (triangles), Hero Arts (sentiment), PSX (swirl in the sun)
Dies: Altenew (triangles)


If you haven't checked out what the amazing Design Team has come up with and our Guest Designers, Cheryl from Paper Panacea and Brenda from Inkspired to Stamp please click here and then get creative and play along! Hope to see you in the gallery!

Be well and keep in touch!

Twofer Card Challenge #7

We just returned from our yearly trip to Germany to visit family and friends and it is already time for the new Twofer Card Challenge! I especially enjoyed seeing the gallery last month filled with creative tree cards! This month the word prompt is

It doesn't matter if this makes you think of cold, refreshing or warm, comforting drinks, alcohol or soda - it's up to you (and your supplies)!

I played with the sweet tea set from Uniko. I really love tea (one of my favorites is a good Earl Grey) and wish that we had a place here that served a proper English tea with little sandwiches, etc. While in Germany I met a good friend at a tea house there. That was fun! Anyway here are my cards:

For the birthday card I embossed the cup with Antique Gold from SSS, added the flowers, colored them a little und cut the cup out. I backed it with a punched out oval of lavender colored vellum, added a layer of PP featuring little cupcakes, and an embossed panel. I was going for a Victorian look...

Stamps: Uniko (tea cup), SSS (sentiment)
Dies: PTI (border), SSS (banner)
Other: Taylored Expressions (embossing folder)



To make my other card look different, I stamped, colored and cut out three cups, added white enamel dots, and stacked them together. Added a bit of stenciling in the background, some Washi tape, and a sentiment from the tea set.

Stamps: Uniko (tea cup, sentiment)
Other: PTI (stencil), Washi tape

Now it's your turn! Which type of beverage will you choose?

Please find all the rules and lots of inspiration from my teamies as well as our two fantastic guest designers, Bonnie and Marianne on the Twofer Card Challenge blog

Be well and keep in touch!

Graduation Cards

As you might have noticed I have not been posting a lot lately. The end of the school year is always very busy but when both of your boys graduate there is even more to do, organize, and decide than usual!

My younger son graduated from 8th Grade which is kind of a big deal in his school and I made him this card (I used paint chips for the numbers):

The eight I covered with Wink of Stella and Glossy Accent. Here is a close up so you can see the shimmer better:

And here is the card I made for my older son who graduated from High School. The school colors are the same (purple) since it's a small, private school.

One day while I was walking it came to me that I could make a card for all the High School Seniors since I have known most of them since First Grade, some of them since Pre-School. Once that thought popped into my mind I couldn't let it go even though I had enough other stuff going on. Since it's a small class it was possible (wouldn't have done this with a class of 500 or so, hehe). I made the purple background with Brushos and splattered with gold. (One sheet was lighter than the other.) The two cards in green and blue/green are for some friends who graduated from different schools.

Dies: Memory Box (large numbers), My Favorite Things (words), PTI (larger stars), SSS (small star)


Sending this to Inkspirational where the word prompt is "Power". I think it fits!






And if you have made it this far (thank you), you get to see a picture of my two tall guys (the High Schooler is on the left). I am very proud of them:

Also wanted to let you know that I will be going to Germany to visit my family so this blog will be even more quiet and I probably won't get to commenting. But I shall be back (and hope you will be, too)!

Be well and keep in touch!

Orange Lily for Uniko's 6th Birthday

Yes, yes, I know, I am posting the second card in a row on a kraft card base but it is not my fault if that seems to works best with my elements...

If you wander regularly about in blog land you probably know that Uniko is celebrating it's 6th birthday! Bev, the owner is so sweet and she does it all alone while also taking care of little, active twin boys! One of the celebrations is a birthday linky party where we can upload birthday cards. Even though we are not required to use Uniko products, I wanted to play with the gorgeous lily again, a stamp set that I won last year.

Stamps: Uniko (lily), My Favorite Things (background), PTI (sentiment)

I stamped the lily on Bristol paper, colored it using my Akashiya Sai watercolor brush pens and fussy cut it. On the kraft card base I stamped the wood plank background using kraft ink from My Favorite Things and added some embossed splatters. The sentiment was stamped on a scrap of vellum and embossed with SSS Antique Gold embossing powder which goes well with the kraft, I think. The funny thing is that I thought I had ordered the Rose Gold embossing powder and was really surprised when my order came and I held Antique Gold in my hands! I checked my order and, sure enough, what had been on my wish list all along was Antique Gold and not the Rose Gold and I hadn't looked closely when I put it in my cart. Anyway I do like the Antique Gold, too and will just order the Rose Gold next time. This all just to say that it was not Simon's fault!   

Challenges:

Uniko 6th Birthday linky party





Time Out Challenge #104 "Bold"
I think that flower and the coloring is quite bold...




Thanks for your visit!

Be well and keep in touch!

Two Cards in Blue and Yellow

It seems that a lot of stamp companies are celebrating an anniversary at the moment. Made these cards for two of them. Didn't make them on the same day but the color combo really makes me happy and it fit so well for the theme of the second card so I used it again. The blue inks are from Altenew.

Stamps: Winnie & Walter (sentiment, sun), Hero Arts (background)

Was planning to use some Washi tape down the side but in my large collection of Washi tapes I couldn't find one that worked!!!

Stamps: Papertrey Ink (stripes from the Ombre Builders and swirl from the Scribble Circles), Hero Arts (sentiment)
Die: Gina Marie (stitched rectangle)

The stripes would stamp smoothly no matter how often I inked them. Don't know if it is the stamp, the inks or the paper. Decided to call it distressed look and use them anyway.

Challenges:

Winnie & Walter Shay's 4th Birthday Bash Challenge

Winnie & Walter Crystals Birthday Bash Challenge

Papertrey Inks 11th Anniversary Stripes Challenge





CAS(E) this Sketch #259





Hope your weekend was fun and that you could squeeze some crafty time in! I really appreciate your visit!

Be well and keep in touch!

Sympathy Cards

Today's cards were inspired by three people: Michele and Cornelia who both played with the colors from the current Color Throwdown , and Maria who reminded me that I needed a sympathy card. And because it's always good to have one on hand I made two. Thank you, ladies, for the inspiration!

Stamps: Inkadinkado (branch), Alexandra Renke (sentiment) - thanks to Elisabeth from aufspapiergebracht for this stamp!
Die: Memory Box (bird)

Stamps: Inkadinkado (branch), Penny Black (background script), PTI (sentiment)
Die: Memory Box (bird)


Entering this at the

Color Throwdown #474

Are you getting excited about the Twofer Challenge? Come back on the 10th to find out what the first prompt is going to be...

Be well and keep in touch!

Masculine 60th Birthday

This is the card I made for my brother-in-law who loves maps and geography. When my guys signed it they all admired it! That was a first! Usually they don't show too much enthusiasm for my creations. I am also happy to report that my brother-in-law liked his card!

Stamps: Toybox (map), PTI (sentiment), My Favorite Things (wood plank background)
Dies: Memory Box (large numbers)


The blue/turquoise sponged piece of card stock I found in my stash. As it was some kind of coated paper I had to heat emboss the image because it wouldn't dry. Die cut the numbers from it and from black foam. Stamped the background on a kraft card (not entirely happy with the ink I used). The rest is self explanatory, I think, but if you have any questions let me know in the comments.


Seize the Birthday "Kraft Card Base"

Have a fabulous weekend!

Be well,

Playing with Embossing Paste

So, this month's theme at the CAS Mix Up Challenge is Embossing Paste/Gel which prompted me to have a play with them (it's been too long anyway). My first attempt reminded me that you need heavy, sturdy paper because thinner paper will buckle. Normally I would use Bristol or Watercolor paper (my Mixed Media is too flimsy) but I wanted to use colored card stock. Anyway it buckled and when I lifted the stencil I smudged it! I saw that one strip looked good and so I cut it off and made this card!

Stamps: PTI (Happy)
Dies: STAMPloration (Birthday), PTI (pink star), SSS (heart and white star)
Other: Stencil (Memory Box), white spray (Mr. Huey's)


I used the same grey card stock for the card (because the strip didn't look good on white), splattered it which resulted in several more grey splattered panels. Isn't it funny, I get so excited when I am able to use a scrap on a card but each card that I make creates many more scraps! Anyway... I just received happy mail from STAMPlorations and really wanted to use this cool Birthday die (cut from a scrap).



Challenges (click on the links for more information and lots of inspiration from the DTs and the galleries):

CAS Mix Up June Challenge "Embossing Paste/Gel"
My choice is die cutting and/or splattering







STAMPlorations June CAS Challenge
Probably without the twist of masculine colors, although there are guys who like pink






Stay tuned if you want to see the card I made with the embossing paste panel that came out ok... Hope to post it soon!

Be well,

Love You For W&W Rerun

Hello there,

Winnie & Walter have a rerun every month where they put the spot light on an older stamp set. You can play along even if you don't have that particular set by using any of the cards made by the DT as your inspiration. But, oh surprise, I do own this month's rerun set "True" and was more than happy to bring it out to play.

Stamps: Winnie & Walter (heart)
Die: PTI (love)

The hearts are silver embossed on grey card stock, then filled with Wink of Stella and Glossy Accents. The love die is cut out from a piece of glossy glitter paper by Recollection, mounted on vellum (with the heart raised).


Challenges:

Winnie & Walter Rerun #11





Winnie & Walter "Join In To Win"



CAS Mix Up June Challenge








Be well,

Sending You Sunshine

I have a hard time committing to one style but if I absolutely had to I think I would choose CAS (Clean and Simple) Mixed Media. I do like the clean look but I also like to try out different techniques. So I was very excited when I read that there would be a new challenge called CAS Mix Up. It is run by two amazing ladies: Loll and Bonnie. I always was a bit intimidated by mixed media but they make it very easy to understand. Their first challenge is going on at the moment and it is:

With "your choice" they ask us to pick something from the list on the right side of their blog. I picked die-cutting and stitching (the watercolor panel has stitches around the border).

Stamps: Hero Arts (sentiment)

Dies: PTI (word die), Nestabilities ("sun"), SSS (rectangle)

For the sun I used a technique that I learned years ago and haven't done since then. Unfortunately I don't know what it's called. There are probably tutorials around but since we don't know the name how should we search for them? If any of you knows the name of this technique let me know and I'll add it to this post. Also tell me if you would like me to try and do a tutorial myself. It's pretty easy. I remember when I was first introduced to it we had to trace around a template and cut out all those points! Then they came out with very expensive punches which I fortunately did not buy. Now it's easy to do with dies! 

Since this was the first time I was using the "sunshine" die I am squeezing in at Darnell's NBUS challenge before the door closes. I love how she challenges us to use the stuff we keep buying!

Also entering it into the STAMPloration CAS Challenge:

Thanks so much for spending some time with me! Your visits and comments make my day!

Hugs,

Susanne

Big Flower with Stenciled Background

Do you know the Make It Monday feature on the PTI blog?  This week I loved Betsy Veldman's stenciled ombre background technique plus I had ordered PTI's first stencils and wanted to try one of them out.

Stamps: Stampendous (flower), PTI (sentiment)

Other: stencil (PTI), Faber Castell Polychromos, Marvy ink pads

I used two different colors of Marvy ink pads. It does require some time and patience to achieve a nice smooth ombre background but I like how it came out. Then I used one of the stencils in the 3-pack. The flower was stamped and colored with Polychromos (lots of layering and shading. A gold embossed sentiment on a strip of vellum finished the panel that is mounted on a 5x7 card. I like the graphic pattern paired with the flower. 

I am sending this card to the following 

Challenges (as always, click on the links to see the fabulous cards of the DT and in the gallery):

Make It Monday #241 "Ombre Stenciled Backgrounds"

NBUS #6

The stencil and the flower are my "Never Before Used Stuf"

Inkspirational #103 "Geometric"

Freshly Made Sketches #226

I appreciate your visits and comments and wish a wonderful week!

Hugs,

Susanne