Monday, February 27, 2023

Layered Sentiments Dies Add Color to This Simple, Black and White Card

What do you do with a bunch of die cut sentiments?  Make a set of cards, of course.

I wanted to use the Blended Petals stamp set again.  I'm trying to challenge myself to use a set of stamps or dies several times in completely different ways.  Earlier this month I used the Blended Petals stamp set and stencils to create a lovely, soft, ink blended card.  If you'd like to take a look at that card you'll find the details in this post.  Here's the link to another card I created using the same set.

This time I thought bright and graphic would be fun.  I cut and layered a bunch of sentiments from some bright colors.


 

Concord and 9th just saying sentiment die

I cut and scored several pieces of white cardstock to create side folding note cards.  Then I set up my MISTI stamping tool and stamped the same images on each of them in a nice, black ink.

Concord and 9th Blended Petals Just Saying die

After creating all the card bases, I added the layered sentiments.  That's it.  Super simple, bright and fun.

Concord and 9th Blended Petals Just Saying


Concord and 9th Blended Petals Just Saying

I love all the dimension created when stacking multiple layers of dies.  Are you a fan of the layers, or do you prefer to have just a single layer?

Concord and 9th Blended Petals Just Saying

Hope I've inspired you to create something fun.

Cathy

Links to products used or recommended are listed below:  

Friday, February 24, 2023

Just a [Wintertime] note!

Is anyone else ready for the weekend??  For a short-ish month, this February seems to have gone on long-ish! lol  

Hello, Doodlebugs friends - Michele here with a wintery note to brighten someone's day!  I loved getting the Doodlebugs 'back in stock' email for Honey Bee's Lovely Layers: Winter Greenery!  My card came together with a few lovely 'supporting actors!'

Concord & 9th Just Saying Honey Bee Stamps Winter Greenery

Concord & 9th's Just Saying dies cut from custom-made pink cardstock 
is such a pretty addition to the greyish greens paper I found in my stash.  

Concord & 9th Just Saying Honey Bee Stamps Winter Greenery

A sweet friend of mine recently sent me vellum panels that she had embossed - I decided to give it a try using my old friend:  Forevergreen embossing folder from Spellbinders.  I loved that Stephanie had positioned her vellum to catch just a portion of her folder, so I followed suit here.  Isn't it pretty?  I used the same vellum to cut the shadow layer of my sentiment die.  A little dusting of Stickles-snow and my card was done!

I hope your weekend plans include CASEing something you've been inspired by - if that is something your saw here you've made my day!
=] Michele

Links to products used or recommended are listed below:  

Wednesday, February 22, 2023

Mass Producing Cards for Gift Sets


I created a few sets of hand-made cards and gave them as gifts during the holidays.  I thought I'd share a few cards from one of the sets with a brief description should you want to create something similar.

 When creating a large number of similar cards, I find it easiest to create and assemble all the components first.  I began by die cutting, gluing and layering all the flowers, bows, and sentiments.

spellbinders sealed bouquet altenew versatile greetings

The sentiment above was hot foiled, but the one below was created layering die cuts.  I do mix up the colors and sentiments to keep it interesting but I leave the basic components the same.  This makes prep and assembly easier for me.

spellbinders sealed bouquet pink fresh studio scripted greetings

Once I finished the "embellishment" pieces, I stamped the backgrounds, cut and layered the frames and secured them to the front of my folded note cards.  I love layering everything with multiple layers.  However, if you prefer a flatter card, you can skip the layering.

spellbinders sealed bouquet pink fresh studio scripted greetings

To finish the cards, I added flowers and sentiments.  As you can see, each card is different,  but the layout and assembly is similar.

Add envelopes, wrap them with some tissue and tie them with a beautiful ribbon.  

Here's a full picture of some of the cards.  Do you have a favorite?

spellbinders sealed bouquet altenew versatile greetings

spellbinders sealed bouquet pink fresh studio scripted greetings

spellbinders sealed bouquet pink fresh studio scripted greetings

Hope this inspires you to create some cards and gift them to someone who might love them.

Cathy

Links to products used or recommended are listed below:  

Monday, February 20, 2023

Create Beautiful Embellishments with Layered Die Cut Floral Images

Happy Monday crafty friends.  I have another quick and easy floral card to share with you today.  We're expecting cold temperatures and more snow this week.  Like every year, I'm trying to rush in spring, but mother nature keeps reminding me that it is still winter.  I'm hoping these lovely flowers will bring some cheer until the garden wakes up.

Altenew Leaf Frame Spellbinders Be Bold Blooms

To create the background, I cut the Floral Frame die a few times from cream cardstock and stacked them together for some dimension and added them to the front of a white, side folding note card.

Altenew Leaf Frame Spellbinders Be Bold Blooms

The center panel was cut from the Love You More Than die set from Concord & 9th.  It's a great layering piece for adding a sentiment and some embellishments to your cards.  It's just the right size for many of my card designs and the scalloped edge and stitching finish it nicely.

Altenew Leaf Frame Spellbinders Be Bold Blooms

The layered floral and leaf images from Spellbinders Be Bold Bloom die are the finishing touches for this card.  I love the layered dimension you get when you add additional layers to the flowers and the soft pink / coral colors remind me of spring.

Have a great week everyone.  I hope you'll find some time this week to get creative.

Cathy

Links to products used or recommended are listed below:  

Friday, February 17, 2023

Altenew new inks, layering dies, and debossing - oh my!

 Altenew Open Peony die

I adore layering dies - Altenew has lots of gorgeous ones, and I was very happy to add this Craft-a-Flower: Open Peony die set to my growing collection!

Hello, my Doodlebugs friends!  Yes, it is Michele - are you just a little surprised to see me using blue today?  Now just because I have made it well known that blue is my least favorite color that doesn't mean I won't make exceptions to that rule!  I was really curious about the new inks from Altenew and thought these shades would be a good match for those hydrangea-periwinkle-ish shades of blue I do like!  I grabbed a piece of Bristol card and my Altenew blues and blending tool and got to work creating some paper to cut my Peony layers from.

Altenew Open Peony die

I'll have more about this pretty Pinkfresh Studio set soon - but couldn't resist this
wonderful sentiment considering the recipient of this card!  The Indigo Skies ink is a wonderful match to these Pinkfresh Studio gems!
I nearly forgot to mention this Dotted Geo Cover die - isn't she lovely?  Altenew really knows how to push my buy buttons!

I really think I'm becoming friends with blue!

Wishing you all a fun and crafty weekend!  Thanks for dropping by today!

=] Michele

Links to products used or recommended are listed below:  

Monday, February 13, 2023

Ink Blending with Concord & 9th's Blended Petals Stamp and Stencils

When I created last week's card (the one with the FREE instruction sheet) I had a few ink blended floral images left.  I used them to create these cards.  Hope you like them!  You can view last week's cards HERE.

Concord & 9th Blended Petals and Spellbinders Postage Edge Circles

I cut the ink blended images using the circle from Spellbinders Postage Edge Circle dies and layered them on top of the larger postage edge die from the same set.  This created a nice focal point for my card.

Concord & 9th Blended Petals and Spellbinders Postage Edge Circles

The background was created using the Pretty Petals background die from Pretty Pink Posh.  I stacked a few layers together and then placed it on some colored cardstock for a nice dimensional look.  

Concord & 9th Blended Petals and Spellbinders Postage Edge Circles

Finally, I hot foiled the sentiment and glued it atop a few die cut layers for more dimension.

Concord & 9th Blended Petals and Spellbinders Postage Edge Circles

I love how these turned out!

Concord & 9th Blended Petals and Spellbinders Postage Edge Circles

I'm curious, which version is your favorite?  I think I'm partial to the card with the darker blue background.

Have a great week!

Cathy

Links to products used or recommended are listed below:  

Friday, February 10, 2023

Sending Sympathies with Pinkfresh flowers

Hello again, Doodlebugs friends.  Hope you're ready for the weekend - I surely am!  But before you get yours started, I have a question for you - do you struggle creating sympathy cards?  Even if the card itself isn't that difficult to make, it isn't easy to find the right words to say.  Pinkfresh Studio created the With Sympathy set with that in mind.

PinkFresh Studio With Sympathy and Spellbinders Flower Frenzy Embossing Folder

My card started by stamping the main image onto white cardstock in Copic-friendly ink.
Then a multitude of Copic markers came out to play - but I kept the coloring quite simple.


After die-cutting the image out with its coordinating die, I took the negative and
ran it through my machine tucked inside this wonderful 
Spellbinders Flower Frenzy embossing folder.

PinkFresh Studio With Sympathy and Spellbinders Flower Frenzy Embossing Folder


PinkFresh Studio With Sympathy and Spellbinders Flower Frenzy Embossing Folder

I love that the stamp set includes SIX wonderfully heartfelt sentiments - 
each with a coordinating die in that set.  They even tucked in a few more that can be used inside your cards.  That truly can take the stress out of it.

I popped up the floral image with thin foam adhesive squares, but simply glued the sentiment [which I had doubled] over top of all that fantastic dimension from embossing.


I am sending you good wishes for a wonderful weekend!
=] Michele

 
 Links to products used or recommended are listed below:   
 

Monday, February 6, 2023

Easy, Single Layer Cards with Concord & 9th's Blended Petals Stamp

The cards featured in today's post and project download use the Blended Petals stamp and stencil.  I love how these flowers turned out.  They are a reminder to me that spring is just around the corner. I've included a link to a FREE PDF instructional download for this project.  It can be found at the end of this post.

I've also created quite a few additional cards with this set.  I'll be sharing them here on the blog through out February.

Concord and 9th Blended Petals

I made quite a few of these cards and changed up the look using different inks.  You can use any dye inks or Distress Oxide Inks.  However, I found I like the look of those I made with the dye ink best.
 
Here's a slightly stepped up version.  I used the coordinating die to cut the sentiment giving the card a bit more dimension.
 
Concord and 9th Blended Petals


 
You'll find all the details for creating this card in our Printable PDF Project Sheet.  It's FREE.  The link will take you to the website and the product page.  Add it to your cart, check out, and start creating.
 
Links to products used or recommended are listed below:   
 
 

Friday, February 3, 2023

Pinkfresh Studio it's all in the details: stenciled, stamped, die cut, and foiled!

Hello, my Doodlebugs friends!  Michele here again - so that must mean it is FRIDAY!!  Yay!  I have a beautiful card for you today - by now you must know how much I love leaves?  This one from Pinkfresh called Detailed Leaf has many means of making it: stenciled, stamped, die cut, or foiled.  I wanted to see if it could stand up to just one - stenciling - but it fell quite flat for me.  Oh, it's pretty enough, but with a few extra steps you can get to this:

Detailed Leaf Stamp Die and Stencil from PinkFresh Stuidio

from this:


BTW Here's a tip - don't waste that lovely ink after blending the first stencil!
Just give it a spritz of water and flip it over onto a piece of cardstock...



I continued to spritz and flip until I achieved the inky look I wanted then, after drying, used one of the Spellbinder Essential arched dies to cut then adding my favored Altenew Dotted Swirls debossing:

Detailed Leaf Stamp Die and Stencil from PinkFresh Stuidio

Die-cutting, and adding the stamped image to the stenciled one really 
brought life to the leaves!  This sentiment is part of the stamp and the coordinating die set cuts it so perfectly in one piece.

But what if those lines were foiled?  Even when stenciled in shades of grey, the foiling really added gorgeous details!  

Detailed Leaf Stamp Die and Stencil from PinkFresh Stuidio

The sentiment on this masculine version comes from Fancy Script Words - foiled and cut with the coordinating dies.  I've added just a little more interest to the background using my Pinkfresh Diagonal Stitched Plaid die.

Detailed Leaf Stamp Die and Stencil from PinkFresh Stuidio

I hope I've brought a little fun into your day with these gorgeous leaves!  Wishing you the best crafty weekend, my friends!
=] Michele

Links to products used or recommended are listed below:  

Wednesday, February 1, 2023

Layering the Be Bold Blooms onto Hearts from Spellbinders

Spellbinders Be Bold Bloom and Altenew Versatile Greetings

What do you do with extra floral die cuts left over from a previous project? I covered a heart from the Spellbinders Essentials Hearts set with them!  You could also cover a square, oval, or circle for a similar look.  I used the Be Bold Blooms from Spellbinders, but you could use any floral or foliage dies.

After covering the heart, I added a sentiment and some gems. Having all those die cut and on hand made this card quick and easy to pull together.   I think I'll be making a few more of these with all my leftovers.


Hope you enjoyed this quick and easy card.

Links to products used or recommended are listed below: