Spooky Wishes, Using Repeat Dies to Create a Fun Background

Hey friends! It's Amanda from Twiddler's Nook and I'm back to my usual antics with a fun Halloween card for Mix it up Monday. Today we're playing with repeat die cuts to create a fun background on your card.

I've had the Mama Elephant Circle Combo dies out quite a bit lately so they were my first to reach for with the variety of stitched circle sizes in that set. I chose 3 fabulous colors that seem to be my Halloween palette for 2024 and cut the 3 smallest circles from each one. I arranged them on my 4x5.25 inch piece of white cardstock and used liquid glue to adhere them in place. I trimmed off the excess of the circles hanging over the edge and splattered the panel with orange metallic watercolor.

Next, I pulled out some of the Pretty Pink Posh Halloween release and cut bats from the Ghost Holder die set. I used mini foam squares to pop them up all over my design. Then I used a sentiment from the new Halloween Corners stamp set using Distress Oxide ink in kitsch flamingo and spiced marmalade. I love that this stamp set has dies for the sentiments along with the images.

I popped my sentiment up along with one final bat. Then I popped the panel up one an A2 size piece of black cardstock and used liquid glue to adhere the whole thing to a white card base. Sometimes I use black card bases with another white insert inside but I'm running low on black cardstock we have to ration things until my order comes. haha!

How do you feel about the abundance of non-traditional color palette for holidays lately? I feel like it's getting more popular every year and I'm absolutely here for it!

I appreciate you sharing your time with me. Have a fabulous day!

Links to products used or recommended are listed below:

Creating Simple Layered Cards With Pretty Pink Posh Flower Bouquet

Hello crafty friends.  I know everyone is excited for all the new fall and holiday products, but I'm not ready to abandoned summer yet.  It takes so long to get here in the PNW, I'm going to hang on to every last day of sunshine and enjoy the beautiful flowers in my garden, the inspiration for today's cards.

I stamped and colored the images with Copic markers.  After coloring my images I added them to my card bases with some additional layered die cut frames.  

I mixed up the sentiments and added a die cut "thanks" to one of the cards and a stamped sentiment for the other.

Thanks so much for stopping by.  I hope you were inspired!

-Cathy

Links to products used or recommended are listed below:  

Thanks...for all that you do

I needed to design a couple thank you cards so I'm thinking of having all my September posts feature that theme.

I designed this one especially for a friend of mine that always opens her home up to our group.  I'm featuring:

• Concord & 9th - Mushroom Medley | stamp and die bundle
• Concord & 9th - Friendly Florals | dies
• Lawn Fawn - Backdrop Stitched Woodgrain | lawn cuts

The overall color palette is by Concord & 9th:

• Cranberry
• Tidepool
• Pebble

Thanks for stopping by today!

Links to products used or recommended are listed below:

Florals For All Through the Year - Small Die Sets that Go a Long Way

Hey friends! This is Amanda from Twiddler's Nook. It's Mix it up Monday on the Doodlebugs blog and I'm moving outside of my typical and playing with florals. There are some newer die sets from Spellbinders that are a fabulous price point but adorable, fun to create with and really versatile. The one we're playing with today is called Little Blooms. The dies in this collection range from $7 to $15 and you can use them for a billion and one different cards!

For today's card, I cut the different elements from a limited color palette (happens to be a favorite these days) and used liquid glue to assemble all the pieces. I played around with arrangement on my craft mat and landed on a loose circle. To make it easy to add them to a card front, I used a piece of Press-n-Seal to hold them together while I added foam squares to the back of everything. This also made it a piece of cake to figure out what size circle die I could use for my background and actually adhering all the pieces to that circle at once. Definitely a kitchen item to keep in your craft room.

So after the florals were stuck to the Press-n-Seal, I die cut a white circle from the Mama Elephant Circle Combo dies and ink blended distress oxide spun sugar to the center. I spritzed it with water and blotted it dry. Then I cut two of the scallop layers from a peach-orange cardstock and used liquid glue to adhere all my layers together.

After removing the release paper from the foam squares on my flowers I popped them in place on the scalloped circle card front. To turn this into a card, I cut the same stitched circle a second time, scored it 3/8" from one side and used liquid glue to adhere it to the back.

I went digging for a specific theme of sentiment and landed on it in the Spellbinders I've Got You Covered stamp and die set. I stamped it with celery stick ink and cut it out before popping it up across the center with foam strips.

I'm not a floral crafter but sometimes they're just what you need. This little die set will be a long standing part of my stash for that reason. It's simple and so pretty.

I appreciate you sharing your time with me. Have a fabulous day!

Links to products used or recommended are listed below:

Congrats Grad!

 Last week I shared a college grad card design for a guy that received a musical degree.  Today I'm sharing a high school grad design. She will be attending college out of state:

Today's project features:

• Lawn Fawn - How you Bean? Money Add-On | stamp & lawn cuts die bundle
• Lawn Fawn - Backdrop Sunburst | lawn cuts
• Pretty Pink Posh - Simple Sentiments | stamp
• Pretty Pink Posh - Sentiment Strips | die

Since I'm sending along a Target Gift Card, I designed Target Bucks.  The shaker bits are from my stash.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Links to products used or recommended are listed below:   

Monochromatic Fun and Shaped Cards

 Happy Mix it up Monday everyone! It's Amanda from Twiddler's Nook and today I'm playing with monochromatic designs and shaped cards to make things a little extra interesting.

I started by creating an adorable Spellbinders Roller Disco Dottie with a red collar and red skates. She's the cutest but I couldn't decide on a complimentary color that I liked today. So I decided to keep it all in the family, the red family.

Next, I pulled out some Mama Elephant dies and created a sentiment banner using Spring Banner Greetings dies. Then I created my card base with the Mama Elephant Circle Combo dies. I love the wiggle room of liquid glue for all of these types of things. It gives you that couple of seconds to line things up.

After creating the 3 top layers of my circle, I cut an additional white circle, scored it about 3/8" away from one edge and then used liquid glue to adhere it to the back of the stacked circle combo. You can decide if your card opens up or to the side this way too. Total flexibility.

I ink blended the center of the circle on the front and splattered it with the same red ink color. Then I popped Dottie and her sentiment banner up with foam squares and strips.

 

I'm excited to pop this cutie in the mail to a special friend along with some crafty goodies I picked up. 

Products used:
Spellbinders Roller Disco Dottie dies
Mama Elephant Circle Combo dies
Mama Elephant Spring Banner Greetings dies
Liquid glue
Foam squares
Scoring board
Blending brush
Lawn Fawn lobster ink
Reverse tweezers 

I appreciate you sharing your time with me. Have a fabulous day! 

Hooray

 I'm late for a couple graduation cards.  I'll be sharing a different version next week.  Today's is for a guy who graduated from a Washington State college with the school colors of red + black

This could easily work as any other celebratory occasion.  The guy graduated with a music degree so the Target Gift Card caught my eye.  

This project features:

• Lawn Fawn - Giant Hooray | lawn cuts
• Pretty Pink Posh - Pierced Stars | cover plate

The shaker bits are from my stash and coordinate with the cover plate design.

Have a great week!

Links to products used or recommended are listed below:   

Pastel Christmas Wishes, Non-Traditional Color Palettes for the Holidays

Welcome to a fun Mix it up Monday for the Doodlebugs blog where I'm still thinking of the holidays that are far away but are sure to creep up on us in no time! Typically I'm not a make ahead Christmas card type of person, I start late fall and do my best. But this year I've been really inspired by all the Christmas in July releases and extra inspiration I've seen from other design team members. It's fabulous and so fun!

Another thing that happens for me when I create outside of the typical time of year for a holiday or season...I'm interested and willing to choose outside of my typical color palettes. It's been SO FUN!

Today I have the Spellbinders Delivering Joy Sleigh in pinks, teals and mint greens. I added a little gold for some flair and kept the gifts classy with white. Isn't is so pretty?!? I really adore it!

For the background, I went with the same green and teal color scheme using the Pretty Pink Posh Christmas Trees stencil set. I trimmed the panel down to 3.75x5 inches and popped it up on a pink card base because, well, pink. I chose the same teal from the poinsettias for my sentiment strip, which is also Pretty Pink Posh.

After popping the sleigh and sentiment strip up on the stenciled panel, I finished the design off with a scattering of Spellbinders pearls.

I'm really curious to know how you feel about non-traditional colors for any holiday season. Please share! I used to be really rigid with my colors and now I'm definitely enjoying playing around with it all. 

 

I appreciate you sharing your time with me. Have a fabulous day!

 

Links to products used or recommended are listed below:    

 

Snail Mail

 I seem to be on a pink + green streak.  I love that color duo!

I was searching for something perfect to add to the Oversized Postage...I'm pretty smitten with how this one turned out.  It features:

• Waffle Flower Crafts - Oversized Postage | combo stamp & die
• Waffle Flower Crafts - Oversized Postage | stamp
• Mama Elephant - Bunny | favor bag accessory

I did want to add more 'stamps' from the Oversize Postage set but couldn't bear to stamp on top of that sweet bunny face!

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Links to products used or recommended are listed below:    

Christmas Mixes

Hey friends! This is Amanda from Twiddler's Nook with another Mix it up Monday on the Doodlebugs blog and today I went the holiday route. I feel like Christmas is one of those holidays where mixing and matching all the themes together work, pretty much no matter what. It's all fun and festive, and I love it!!!

I started by playing around with the Waffle Flower Holly background die and stencil combo. These background dies from Waffle Flower are genius and so much fun to play with different color combos. I can never stop at one because one color idea leads to another and next thing I know, I've got 12 backgrounds and some serious cardmaking ahead of me. It's wonderful!

With the backgrounds inked up, I pulled out the Waffle Flower Merry Christmas sentiment dies and cut the shadows from coordinating cardstock as the berries on my background. The words are white and everything is assembled with liquid glue.

I really think I could have just popped the sentiment up in the upper center but what's the fun in that?!? So I pulled out the Pretty Pink Posh Winter Mug dies and created a couple of those in coordinating colors to each background as well.

I popped everything up on the background panel with foam tape and added a pearl to the center of each snowflake for a little something.

These cards would be simple and quick to mass produce for the holidays, especially if you got started early! I'll definitely be adding a few more color combos to my stash before I'm done with them. 

I appreciate you sharing your time with me. Have a fabulous day!

Links to products used or recommended are listed below:    

'Tis the Season for Pink and Green

 I'm behind on my holiday card stash, how about you?

Waffle Flower Crafts makes it so easy to whip up cards with their Postage Collage Stencil Collection.  Today's project features:

• Waffle Flower Crafts - Postage Collage Snowman | stencil
• Waffle Flower Crafts - Postage Collage | die
• Pretty Pink Posh - Sentiment Strips - Christmas | stamp
• Pretty Pink Posh - Winter Mug | die

I used the Waffle Flower Grip Mat V2 for all my stencil work.  It makes it so easy!

The Distress Oxides I used:

• Spun Sugar [cheeks]
• Kitsch Flamingo
• Spiced Marmalade
• Mowed Lawn
• Walnut Stain
• Black Soot

I used Waffle Flower Crafts' Shader Brushes when stenciling.

The sentiment as been heat embossed in white on black cardstock.  The snowflake has been cut from vellum and topped with an enamel dot.

Thanks for stopping by!

Links to products used or recommended are listed below:   

 

 

Birthday Card Fun - Summer Theme

Hey friends! It's Amanda from Twiddler's Nook today sharing a fun birthday Mix it up Monday with summer vibes. We don't have many summer birthdays in our family and friends so I don't make many cards this style and it was really fun!

I started with the fun Pretty Pink Posh Celebration Cupcake dies, wanting to expand the use from 4th of July vibes to general summer, so I cut the fruit and sunglasses, omitting all the other parts at first. I added some detail with copic markers instead of ink blending this time and used liquid glue to adhere all the parts and pieces together.

Next, I cut 2 Mama Elephant Arches from vellum and a green polka dot cardstock in my stash. I used tape runner to adhere the layers together and foam tape to add the cupcake to that.

I started with a blank pink background but didn't like that so I ran the panel through my die cutter with the Spellbinders Tiny Dots embossing folder, ink blended the edges with some picked raspberry distress oxide ink and splattered it with white paint. Ahhh, that feels so much more like me. Then I popped the arches up with foam tape.

I cut a couple of Pretty Pink Posh sentiment strips from white cardstock and stamped sentiments from the Pretty Pink Posh Sentiment Strips | Birthday stamp set in guava and peacock inks. These are popped up with foam strips.

Now my card is really bottom heavy so I went back to the cupcake die set and cut some of the other decoration type shapes out and glued them all around with liquid glue. I think they add a fun touch and extend the design up without pulling everything apart.

The last thing I did was add white gel pen accents to all of the images. 

I appreciate you sharing your time with me. Have a fabulous day!

Links to products used or recommended are listed below:   

Oh so Merry in July

 I'm back with another Christmas in July project!

Today's caffeinated design features:

• Spellbinders - Merry Mug Creations | dies
• Concord & 9th - Cup of Kindness | dies
• Pretty Pink Posh - Winter Mug | dies
• Pretty Pink Posh - Holiday Mug Additions | dies
• Mama Elephant - Everything Nice | stamps

I had that Spellbinders Merry Mug floating around on my desktop so I coordinated everything with that.  I always love seeing projects with pops of black so that's what I was my inspiration.

The sentiment has been stamped with Concord & 9th - Sweet Pea ink.

I love how postal friendly this turned out.  No foam dimensional tape on this.

 

Links to products used or recommended are listed below: