“Celebrate” card using Lovely & Beautiful DSP and Simply Beautiful bundle, stamped & sponged

At first, the large prints of flowers in the Lovely & Beautiful DSP pack and corresponding Simply Beautiful stamp and die set were so intimidating! The prints were beautiful though so I decided I needed to get over that. LOL

I embossed the background using the floral embossing folder from the Cheers & Sips Suite of products. And then I stamped the large floral and two sets of double leaves on a piece of scrap white cardstock and die cut them out.  I used finger daubers to add color, purposefully making the color uneven in places. The gold strip and gold flower centers all pull together with the gold on the printed DSP. A small “celebrate” message (from the Banner Sayings stamp set and corresponding punch) set the tone for a celebration.

Here’s a close up of the background embossed panel. I love how an embossed background adds a touch of elegance and fills the background without being too busy:

And here’s a close up of the coloring of the focal flower and the sentiment was also sponged to match. I purposely tried to let go and not try to make every petal of the blossom and leaves have an even coverage. I rather like the way the flowers turned out!

And in closing, a second card made in the same way:

I hope you enjoyed these cards…I loved making them! Thanks for stopping by 😉

Paper Pumpkin Inked Occasions April 2025 Kit Alternate Designs

I love Paper Pumpkin kits, though I’m  not quick to starting them. But there’s nothing wrong in admiring the kits and saving them for another day when the mood (or need?) strikes, right? And it was done the same year so, really, not so bad! Lol Yes it was a combination of “need” and being in the mood to use this cheerful kit💕 

As I often do, I cut apart the provided card bases and used them as mats on my own (plain) card bases. This act alone can significantly increase the number of cards I can make from a kit. 

I needed a bunch of Thank You cards and thought the bright and cheery colors would work well. 

The card at the top left, is a gold panel with a 4x5.25” panel of the card front. The label and words are cut from the Paper Pumpkin add-on and the “sending” is from an old Paper Pumpkin kit as well (WHICH ONE?)

The top right card base is a 8.5x11 cut in half on the diagonal and scored to form a 4.25x5.5” card! The focal panel is 4x5.25” and cut on the diagonal to coordinate.

The bottom card has a focal panel of 4x5.25”.

The leafy panels are using the bough punch.

The following card uses a gold panel near the fold line and the focal again measures 4x5.25”. This is on a Gorgeous Grape card base to emphasize the purple ink swirls in the center of the focal panel. Added to the sentiment is the gold leaf die cuts included in the kit.

And the last three in the photo below used a gold strip, Blackberry Bliss strip and a smaller panel from one of the card bases in the kit. The orange and pink floral die cuts are from the kit and I stamped “feel better soon” and Lthabks” in the corners as shown.

And last but not least, a few more thank you cards using die cuts from the kit:

There were additional quantities of each of these cards and in the end, I made about 20 cards with 3 more panels waiting to be used! Definitely a good kit! 

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

Perennial Lavender meets Along These Lines Fun Fold

I had fun creating this card with the Perennial Lavender DSP. This particular print is perhaps my favorite print in the paper pack because of the touch of Proud Peacock in the foliage of the leaves. I knew I wanted to use the stamp set called Along These Lines as well as the Blooming Phrases stamp set. And because I love fun folds, I came up with this design which is a play of an often used partial Z-fold design:

This is the card opened and as you can see, I used another of the prints in the DSP pack on the inside as well. The split sentiment is from the Blooming Phrases stamp set and I decided to split it between the front and insides of the card. The front sentiment is stamped  and matted with the banner dies from the Stylish Shapes Dies:

And the “aerial” photo below shows the partial Z-fold design of the card better:

Here’s a close up of the coloring of the stamped rose. I also added splatters of ink (Fresh Freesia and Just Jade) on the background. The plain oval panel looked too stark otherwise and it needed something to add interest. 

And of course the finishing touch of the Fresh Freesia bow! 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed a closer look at this card.

Sunflower 3D Embossing Folder

I still remember the first time I embossed a piece of plain white card stock…and the feeling of WOW this is amazing!! And the Sunflower 3D embossing folder is definitely a WOWer! I love that it’s a 6x6” folder so that you can place your A2 sized panel anywhere in the folder and get different angles of the flowers based on where you want your focal flower(s) to be.

There are so many fun techniques you can use with this: coloring a white card stock panel with sponge daubers, markers, pencils, and brayers. You can tear the embossed panel and of course embossed a colored panel of card stock. For my first play with this folder I decided to use sponge daubers for a softer look:

I used the small sponge daubers that fit over your finger tip, and these ink colors: 

• Pecan Pie
• Daffodil Delight
• Garden Green
• Calypso Coral and 
• Poppy Parade

And I wanted to use a frame to focus on a particular sunflower — the Textured Notes Dies were perfect for that!

Tip: I attached two of the dies together using a post it note and ran the dies with Daffodil Delight card stock through the Cut & Emboss machine. That resulted in a perfect frame for the floral focal (and an extra inner rectangle which will be used on a future project💕) 

Tip: I attached the “frame” to the card base using Adhesive Strips (item#141825). These are thinner than the 6-sided Dimensionals foam stickers and come in a sheet of long strips that you can easily cut down to the size you need. These also make shaker cards so easy to make!!

Since you can never have too many birthday cards, I chose a simple die cut and Happy Birthday sentiment.  To finish off the front of the card, I added some opaque gems in colors that matched the card front. Here’s the full card front: 

The inside is always the last thing and  I try to embellish the inside of my cards somehow, with either a scrap  strip of patterned paper or a stamped image. I found the perfect sunflower-looking leaf from the Friendly Hello stamp set, a  Salebration freebie from a few years back, and stamped it in Garden Green:

That’s it for my first Sunflower Embossing Folder card! Plenty of future ideas but as always, so little time! Thanks for spending some time reading this blog & hope you’re  inspired to do something creative💕

Florals in Bloom fun fold Double Triangle Card

I saw this card design on many a card making website so I don't recall which I accessed for the measurements of this card. I love it but had a dickens of a time getting everything "even". I'm in love with the look but...I may never make another one again! But I suspect it's one of those that are easy once you make a second and third one...I am just not there! (yet?? LOL)

I should have used a different pattern from the DSP pack, but I was drawn the vibrancy of this pattern on a red card base, so that was what I chose to create with.

Since I hate when you write inside a card and it shows when the card is closed, I added a decorative panel as well as a white cardstock angled panel so that you could write a personal message inside and yet know what the boundaries of your writing should stay within. Here's what the inside looked like:

And since I don't know who I will send this card to, it remains without sentiment for the time being. But it is a pretty card, isn't it? 

Thanks for stopping by...have a wonderful day!

Florals In Bloom HUGS cards

My first cards using the Florals in Bloom DSP pack  used  two of my favorite prints from it.  I love how the tone was set based on the colors of each print:

This DSP pack has some fun and cheery floral prints, with some intriguing reverse prints:

Here is a close up of the red card...it grabs your attention and the focals just pull you in! Lots of energy in the colors of this card!

And here is the "blue" card...softer, more thoughtful...calmer. 

The insides of the cards were done like this:

These made for some simple but sweet cards!

Thanks for stopping by...have a wonderful day!

Hello Fabulous card with Bird’s Eye View

OMG isn’t this a darling card with the PERFECT sentiment? It's just one of the options you can put together with the birds (and eyewear) in the Bird's Eye View stamp set!

I found a Pinterest pin by Stamping with Aloha with this design, totally different paper AND different sentiment AND different coloring of the bird. Still, definitely inspired by it but looking quite different! That's often what happens with Pinterest pins...I don't have the set they used, or the same paper or dies but using what they share as inspiration...and voila!!

Since there's little room to write anything without it showing, I added an extra panel inside (as I often do) so that any writing doesn't show on the front of the card. So this is what you see when you lift the first panel (the one with the bird):

And here's the true inside of the card, with a sentiment and a stamped little bird. 

This was a super fun card to make! Thanks for stopping by...

Dainty Delights and Paper Florist trellis/fence cards

I had a ton of fun a few months ago with a new-to-me card design called a fence card and I recently revisited this card design! It’s the PERFECT use of my stash of 1/2” strips of card stock and I had enough of these strips to make several cards… The perfect stash buster of strips for sure! 

I started with the Paper Florist Dies. For the first card, I chose pastel colors including Balmy Blue, Fresh Freesia and the retired Mint Macaron. For all of my fence cards, I added a layer under the card front so that any writing inside the card would not show through the slats! The softness of the color scheme suggested that a get well message might be well suited for this card:

And similar to this one, I created one in Petal Pink and Balmy Blue, and added a bit of background texture using one of then designs in the Foursquare Decorative Masks set and a blending brush with Balmy Blue ink. And some edging color using Sponge Daubers on the petals before I curled the petal edges slightly.

Here’s a closeup of the mask:

Still with the Paper Florist Dies but choosing a different, BOLD color scheme, I chose red! Poppy Parade to be exact. Between the red and the Garden Green leaves, it initially looked very Christmasy, which wasn’t the look I was going for. So I added a die cut in dotted black on top, and under the fencing, I added some paper from my stash that had irregularly drawn black stripes. And to get more depth and a shadow effect, I die cut the leaves in Garden Green, then topped them slightly offset in Mint Macaron. (I really miss that color…). To prevent the black twine from slipping off the edge of the sentiment piece, I clipped a tiny half-hole punched and wound my twine in the depression to keep it put.

For the next two cards, I used the Dainty Delights bundle of stamps and dies. I stamped, colored and die cut two of the stamp images, and added a die cut of the angled stem underneath them. I used another one of the stencils in the Foursquare Masks set for a bit of background color and texture. I added a little more color this time compared to the blue in the Paper Florist card.

And then I created a card using only die cuts from the Dainty Delights set and cut them using Daffodil Delight card stock. I used the same green angled stem but cut it in two to create two shorter stems. I then decorated the stems adding the cheery little daisy like flowers (brown eyed Susans?). And I used yet another of the Foursquare Decorative Masks (there are 4 in the set):

Oh, the inside of this card is stamped: …You’d be better already!

Time to get on with the day…I’ve loved making these fence cards and I can imagine that when my stack of 1/2” scraps pile up again, I’ll be stash busting and making a bunch of these! Hope you enjoyed this post…have a wonderful day!

Festive Trucking Along card

There's something appealing about a red pickup truck...maybe a little of the rural vibe, definitely classic! When I saw this adorable set, I knew I had to get it ASAP and based on the insider chatter at the time, I knew if I didn't get it then, it would sell out and I wouldn't be able to later. And I was right! Either the stamp set or the coordinating punch or both have been on and off availability since it released. Not all the stamps in the set are specifically for the holidays so it also applies afterwards, but since I was lucky enough to be able to order it and the holidays ARE coming up, here's the card I created with it:

Here's a close up of the stamp for the truck. It's actually multiple stamps: the outline of the truck, a solid stamp for the body, and a separate stamp for the wheels. And then of course I chose to add a pine tree in the back of the pickup:

For the background, I used the Whimsical Trees embossing folder, which retired last year. You could say that I'm not quite ready to let it go though as yet...I have other folders which are in the current catalog but thought the "trees" theme would go better with the tree in the bed of the pickup...(can you tell how I over think things? LOL).

If you're curious, the red and black plaid strip in the background is one of the designs in the Joy of Christmas DSP pack (item#161958) and the stitched circle is from the Stylish Shapes Dies (item #159183). The Trucking Along stamp set is #162299, the Trucking Along Builder Punch is #162305 and the bundle (which offers a 10% savings) is #162306. 

Thanks for stopping by...and have a wonderful day!

A Coffee Kind of Day card

 I have a retired stamp and die set called “Nothing’s Better Than” and the die set called “Love You More Than…” which I hadn’t used yet. So I jumped on the opportunity to include a “coffee” card with a gift set of Starbuck coffees that my daughter donated to a community silent auction.  I thought it’d be the perfect occasion to include a hand made card with it. And this is what I came up with:

I love the vintage style of the coffee cup and chose a teal ink, like the old melamine dinner sets that were popular several decades ago!

Here’s a closeup of the focal panel: 

And of course the inside is embellished simply, with the same vintage coffee cup as well as the envelope…after all, the little touches add so much to a handmade item!

Just a fun little card. Someday I hope to have (or make) the excuse to use the other images in this stamp set: cocktails, chocolates and cookies!! Stay tuned…