No Time To Stamp?

Hi everyone!  It’s time for Wednesday’s May I Suggest…  and this week I have a lot of pretty suggestions up my sleeve.  Here’s a sampling of 2 cards made with this weeks suggestions in mind:

Is anyone getting the idea that I am totally IN LOVE with this bleeding heart image from Spring Ephemerals, which is Flourishes newest release.  LOL!!! Yes, I AM in love with this beautiful image, especially since my own bleeding heart is just starting to get some blooms on it!!!  And the fact that these 2 cards are the same, but different, is by no mistake.  I wanted to show you how these solid image stamps in Spring Ephemerals look stamped as a black silhouette and as a white silhouette (the white is embossed) .  Both equally as beautiful, just different. 

The paper I want you to get a good look at this week is Scarlet’s Letter by Basic Grey — again, in the 6 x 6 pad that I so love to work with — great, manageable size!  Both cards are made with papers from Scarlet’s Letter.  The prints in this pad are GORGEOUS — rich, luxurious, fairly large-scaled patterns — and they all seem to just be MADE to go with our new Spring Ephemerals stamp set — or maybe it was vice versa — LOL!!!  Whatever the case, they are a fabulous pairing!!!!

These 6 sheets are in the black/white/red/gray color scheme — very classic!!!  The ribbons, from left to right are:  Silver/Grey Velvet, Red Dotted Sheer, Black Sheer, Black Scallop Edge Satin, Dark Red Sheer, Black Velvet and  Black Dotted Sheer.

Here are a few more of the fun patterns and colors — all very rich — just love this look!  From the left the ribbons are Red Sheer, Chocolate Sheer, Brown Dotted Sheer, Champagne Wide Satin, Chocolate Velvet, Chocolate Wide Satin, Chocolate Scallop Edge satin.

And here are some more patterns with green in them.  Yes, these are still all in the same Scarlet’s Letter pad — and there are a few sheets I haven’t even shown you!!!  From the left the ribbons are Red Wide Satin, Olive Green Scallop Edge Satin, Reversible Satin, Dark Red Sheer, Chocolate Sheer.

Ok, I’ve suggested a stamp set — Spring Ephemerals; paper — Scarlet’s Letter; and ribbons galore!  The one last thing I want to touch on today is the scallops that I have used on both cards — aren’t they delicate and pretty!!!   And the really great thing — they were NO FUSS whatsoever to make!  First of all, both main images were cut and embossed with the Long Rectangle Nestabilities by Spellbinders, as was the scalloped framing.  But check out the tiny scalloped edge above the designer paper.  (Same picture as above, just put it here so you don’t have to scroll so much)

Look at the black and white card first.  See how tiny that scallop is?  You know how quick and easy it was to put that there?  Quicker than you’d ever think!  Since I had my Long Rectangle Nesties out, I just cut and embossed one more black scalloped rectangle and then cut it in half, as shown below.

Now I have two pieces to work with, enough for two cards of this size.  Just place the scallop behind your DP piece, adhere them together, then trim the ends to fit and attach to your card front — takes only moments!!!

Now for the green card — see that tiny scallop as well?  That is merely a piece of the Olive Green Scallop Satin Ribbon placed behind the DP panel — another delicate scallop that is so easy to do!!!

• Stamps:  Spring Ephemerals by Flourishes (Sympathy is from Flourished Words)
• Paper:  White, Black, Scarlet’s Letter by Basic Grey
• Ink:  Versa Mark, Basic Brown, Palette Noir Black
• Accessories:  White Embossing Powder, Ribbons, Long Rectangle and Petite Oval Nestabilities, Martha Stewart Butterfly Punch, Glue Dots, Mounting Tape, Aged Copper Hodgepodge Hardware.

That wraps up today’s May I Suggest — and after all this, does anyone remember what I suggested — LOL!!!

1. Spring Ephemerals Stamp Set by Flourishes
2. Scarlet’s Letter Designer Paper by Basic Grey
3. Long Rectangle Nestabilities by Spellbinders
4. Ribbons Galore

Thank you so much for stopping in!!! Truly appreciate it!!!  Hope you are all having a wonderful week!!!

Hi everyone!  Today I’m starting a new Wednesday feature called May I  Suggest…  I’ll be showing you a card and then giving you a better view of the things I’ve used to make the card, with some additional suggestions as to things that would work well with the selection of product used.  I needed a feminine sympathy card for today, so here it is:

The paper I am showcasing on this card is one of my very favorite Basic Grey 6 x 6 pads, called Lily Kate.   It has such lovely prints and colors so suitable for spring.  I’ve also used one of Flourishes latest releases, Lilac, and my sentiment is from Flourished Words.  I used Nestability Dies by Spellbinders to cut and emboss my main image as well as sentiment.  My lilacs were colored with Copics, and here are the colors:

As I said above, Lily Kate has been one of my very favorite of the Basic Grey pads, and that’s what I’d like to give you a better look at today.  I spread the sheets out so you can see them better and I’ve paired them up with some of the fabulous May Arts ribbons that Flourishes carries.  Here’s the 1st photo:

Aren’t these just the most gorgeous prints and colors!!!  The ribbons I’ve selected that work well with the Lily Kate colors are the Olive Green Scalloped Edge Satin hanging on top, the White and Ivory Wide Satin, and the Dotted Sheers in Light Blue, Apple Green, Maize and Lavender.  Just looking at these makes me want to go and do something with them!!!

And these gorgeous prints and colors finish off the pad.  There are 2 sheets of each in the pad, for a total of 36 sheets per pad.  Hanging from the top are again, the Olive Green Scalloped Edge Satin, Chocolate Velvet and the Pink Scalloped Edge Satin.  The Wide Satins are shown in Pink, Chocolate, Ivory and White.  The 1″ wide Sheers are shown in Pink and Chocolate, and the Dotted Sheers are shown again in Light Blue and Maize.

And I can not, in all clear conscience, make ribbon recommendations without showing you my all time favorite ribbons.  Yes, black ribbons are a staple in my stamp room — I just could NOT design without them.  My theory is simple — when all else fails — add black!!!  Or if you’re in a hurry, just add black!!!  You can never go wrong with black accents and black ribbon — a fool proof winner, every time!!!  The ribbons shown here are the Wide Sheer, Dotted Sheer, Scalloped Edge Satin and Velvet. 

I also wanted to recommend these soft and pretty colors in the LuminArte Twinkling H20’s, which are beautiful, shimmery little pots of watercolors.  They are sold in 12 packs, and this pack is number 1256.  Although I have not used the H20’s on the project shown in this post, this magnolia card shows how just a bit of H20’s added on as an accent after coloring can spruce up an image.  Fun little pots of color and they are so easy to use — just like watercoloring with a wet brush when you were a child, only our paints are so much prettier, plus they shimmer!!!  The H20’s are hard cakes in these little jars.  You need to wet them to paint.  You can take a waterbrush (which is a brush filled with water) and dip it into your pot of H20’s, or you can take a little spray bottle and spritz some water into your pot and use a regular paint brush if your prefer.  Whatever works for you — just get the hard cake dampened and paint.  And you can control the intensity of the color by how much water you have on your brush.  Once you load your brush with color, just dab it on a scrap paper first to get off that first “blob” of water so it doesn’t mess up your project, and then paint away. They are SO FUN to play with — GUARANTEED FUN — no matter what your age!!!  You can use them to entirely paint your image or you can color it first and then just use the H20’s as a shimmery accent — pretty much anything goes!!!  They are new to me and I am still experimenting.  The instructions say you can also apply this paint directly to your rubber stamp — which I will be trying later this week — so stayed tuned to see how that turns out - LOL!!!  Can’t wait to try!!!  Oh, also, it was recommended to me by the manufacturer that once you get your cakes of color wet, that you DO NOT recap the jars, just keep them open so the cake can dry up again.

Now, there is just one more item I’d like to recommend today, and that is the sentiment set called Flourished Words.  This is a set of 27 individual words that can be used alone or together to form phrases, all done in a small, elegantly scripted font.  It is what I used on the card above.  As an example of how versatile this set is, by combining the words, here are some of the options you have for a sympathy sentiment:  Sympathy, Our Sympathy, All Our Sympathy, With All Our Sympathy, My Sympathy, All My Sympathy, With All My Sympathy — so you get the idea.  And realize, these are only sympathy options — there are TONS of other words in the set so you can create endless sentiments.  This is just one of those timeless and classic sets you will use forever and ever once you have it!!!

And this wraps up today’s May I Suggest…

Thank you so much for stopping in and I hope you are all having a wondeful week and are enjoying some warm spring temps — something we are still waiting for!!!

Life has been busy, gee — wish I could control that — but since I can’t always, thought I’d do an Oldies but Goodies post today.  This is a sympathy card I made using the first 2 sets that Flourishes came out with when they opened their doors last July — Cake Decorating 101 and Flourished Words.

I really like the overall feel of this card.  It is a large, 5.5″ square, which has long been my favorite size!  The ferny type of foliage is from a retired SU set called Garden Silhouettes.  The tiny flowers on the foliage are from Cake Decorating 101 (they are cake decorations), and the sentiment panel is made of 4 separate words that I combined from Flourished Words.  LOVE that set of words — they are small, gorgeously scripted and so very, very versatile as you can combine them to suit your needs.  And they just exude elegance — I like that!!!!  And can you see that the little flower centers are colored in with a white gel pen — it just adds that extra POP to those tiny flowers.  Flourishes is now carrying a really great white pen that works beautifully — the Inkksentials Opaque White Pen by Ranger (a really great pen!).  I also used the luscious Chocolate Satin Ribbon by May Arts on this card.  Again, I’d just like to point out, this soft and supple ribbon is the same as the Chocolate and Pomegranate ribbon that SU had out last year, only Flourishes offers it in a wide variety of soft and delicate colors — truly a favorite ribbon of mine - it knots so nicely!!!  Also, I’d like to add that I made this as a masculine sympathy card.  I usually try to avoid ribbon and bows especially (even knots) on masculine cards, but I just thought this rich, chocolate ribbon was appropriate for a masculine sympathy card.  Hope you like it and that it inspires you to look at all your stamps with wide open eyes — a cake decoration as a flower — very logical to me!!!  LOL!!!

• Stamps:  Retired SU Garden Silhouettes, Cake Decorating 101 and Flourished Words by Flourishes
• Paper:  Blue Bayou, Sahara Sand, Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla all by SU
• Ink:  Black Stazon, same colors as paper, White Gel Pen
• Accessories:  Satin Ribbon, Ticket Corner Punch, Mounting Tape

Wishing you all a Happy Mother’s Day, whether you are a mother or mother-figure, tomorrow is a day to celebrate all women!!!  Happy Mother’s Day everyone!!!  Wishing you a wonderful day!!!

This is a masculine sympathy card.  I incorporated it into Julia’s Challenge at SCS today to either make or incorporate a tag into your project.  The main sentiment circle is a tag.  A combination of 3 SU sets were used, all retired.  Here it is:

This card is 8.5 x 4″ and fits in a business sized envelope.  The base is Barely Banana, the image is watercolored with refills and an Aquapainter  The sentiment tag is Pop Dotted up.  There is a twine run through eyelets on the decorative dividing bar.  I wanted to make a sympathy card that was not dark and drab but that had some brightness/life to it.  And I always like this sentiment from All I Have Seen for sympathy cards.

• Stamps:  Calms Seas, All I Have Seen, Peace and Comfort (inside), all retired.  With Sympathy by Stampendous.
• Paper:  Barely Banana, Black, Watercolor.
• Ink:  Versa Fine Onyx Black, vavious reinkers to watercolor.
• Accessories:  Aquapainter, Eyelets, Cropadile, 2″ Circle Punch, Twine, Red Sticky Tape, Pop Dots.

Thanks much for looking!!!  My Stamp Simply Challenge will be up in the morning — hope you can play!!!

This set is one of the new Easter releases by Flourishes, called Easter Blessings.  I need to mail out a sympathy card tomorrow, so I will be using this as a sympathy card — very appropriate, I think, with the cross and floral overaly.  I didn’t have a sympathy sentiment stamp appropriately sized for this card, so I just went with Thinking of You, and I think it works! 

This cross/floral image is large, and to give you an idea, the piece of watercolor paper that I have it stamped on is 3.5″ x 5″.  My card is 5.5″ square and I’ll use a 6″ envelope for this.  This image also works just wonderfully for a tall and thin card made to fit a standard business envelope — about 9 x  4. 

I stamped my Blush Blossom card base with the Damask Positive background in Versa Mark, and then went over it with Blush chalks/pastels, using a cotton ball, to bring out the pattern more.  Love that look!  My main image is stamped in Gold Encore Pigment and then embossed with a mix I made of Detail Gold and Iridescent Ice Embossing Powders — it’s so pretty and sparkly IRL!!!  I then colored it in using reinkers in various colors and an aquapainter.  I did use what I call my small *splatter* stamp from SU’s Itty Bitty Backgrounds, and that is embossed with the above mix as well.  Also, the edges of the stamped panel are DTP’d (ink applied direct to paper from the pad) with Gold Encore and embossed with the same mix.  Holes are punched for the ribbon using a 1/4″ punch, and the sentiment is mounted on Dimensionals and Pop Dots**.  The ribbon is May Arts Scalloped Edge Satin — really gorgeous — from Flourishes.

• Stamps:  Easter Blessings, Damask Positive, Open to Love - all by Flourishes; SU Itty Bitty Backgrounds
• Paper:  Blush Blossom, Pretty in Pink, Old Olive, Watercolor
• Ink:  Versa Fine Onyx Black, Versa Mark
• Accessories:  Pastels, Detail Gold and Iridescent Ice Embossing Powders, Aquapainter, Ribbon, Brads, Ticket Corner Punch, 1/4″ hole punch, Pop Dots, Dimensionals.

** Yes, I’ve used 2 Dimensionals stacked one on top of the other under the Thinking, and Pop Dots under the of and You.  If you’ll notice, my main image is 3 layers thick, one of those layers being heavy watercolor paper.  If I merely put the same type of *sticky* under each end of the sentiment, it would sit on the card unevenly — it would slope down towards the You.  That sort of thing bugs me, so to make it sit flat as it should, I merely use different thickness *stickies*, and even stack them when necessary, to create a level surface.  The Dimensionals are thin and are from SU, the Pop Dots are much thicker and I get them from Wal-Mart.

That’s it for now!!!  I’ll try to get the other new Easter release (really cute bunnies) worked up into something later today!!!  Thanks much for checking in!!!

I noticed that a Sketch Challenge was issued on the Crafty Secrets Member Company forum, so seeing as I just LOVE their Cotton Scraps, thought I’d give it a try.  Also, I am continually in need of, and out of, both sympathy cards and thank you notes, so once I found the scrap I was in the mood to use tonight, I figured it would make into a nice sympathy card.  Here it is:

Now, for anyone who may not know, Cotton Scraps (by Crafty Secrets) are fabulous things!!! They come in sheets, about the size of a sheet of printer paper, filled with fabulously gorgeous images and they are — of course - cotton!!!  Real cotton — kind of a twill type fabric — unreal!!!  I fell in love with these things the first time I saw them — I will never tire of these beauties.  They have a backing on them which you peel off after you’ve cut them out.  They are not self stick - you must either sew them on (fun, fun!) or you may adhere them with your choice of adhesive.  You can also pull threads to fray the edges if you like, or you can cut them with pinking shears.  I LOVE the look of real stitches on the Cotton Scraps, so mine are usually sewn on.

OK, now as to this card specifically, I sewed my Cotton Scrap onto a base of  yellow cardstock cut slightly larger than the scrap.  I used these kind of roaming stitches and went around 3 times.  I knew I wanted to have wavy ribbon tails (my favorite kind) so I thought these wavy stitches would go well.  I then frayed my edges up to the stitching, distressed the yellow cardstock, and mounted this onto a sheet of gray cardstock, which was eventually adhered to the card with mounting tape.  I used some pretty paper from a 6 x 12 pad from Crafty Secrets, Heartwarming Vintage Collection, Pastel Pad, to border the right side of the card.  I then did a very thin piping strip of Going Gray and then a strip of green which was punched with the pretty Martha Stewart Scallop Punch.  The sentiment is stamped right on the base cardstock.  The velvet bow is adhered with Mini Glue Dots, and I also use glue dots to keep my ribbon tails in the shape I like.  There is a glue dot under each place it touches the card.  I know some may not care to fuss with ribbon that much — but it’s my passion — LOL!!!

The yellow and green cardstock used are from the Prismatics line by Prism Paper.  The gray is SU, ribbon is May Arts.  That about sums it up!!!  If you have any Cotton Scraps at home that you’ve been hoarding, pull them out and give them a try — play the challenge — it’s an easy and fun sketch!!!

• Stamps:  Card Sentiments by Crafty Secrets
• Paper:  Prism:  Sunflower Light and Spring Willow Medium; SU:  Basic Gray;  Crafty Secrets:  Pastel Pad in the Heartwarming Vintage Collection
• Ink:  Versa Fine Onyx  Black
• Accessories:  Cotton Scraps by Crafty Secrets, Velvet Ribbon, Martha Stewart Lace Punch, Sewing Machine and Thread, Distressing Tool on Cutter Kit, Mounting Tape, Mini  Glue Dots.

And speaking of challenges, Flourishes is planning a contest on their Member Company Forum which will begin on February 1.  Check it out here!!!  Pull out your Cake Decorating 101 sets and be ready to play, or order them if you need to!!!  There’s plenty of time as the contest will run all of February!!!

 Thanks again for stopping in!!!  Have a great Sunday everyone!!!

Challenge #18 - Keyword ssnotime18 - There is no time limit. You can play this challenge and upload your project at Splitcoast and/or your Blog, anytime at all!  You can play as many times as you like!!!  The point is to keep it simple, quick and have fun!!!  Please link back here.

Today’s challenge is to have some portion of your paper torn.  So, tear it up!  When I started stamping years ago, I would often tear my paper.  Love the look, but just NEVER remember to do it anymore, so we’re doing it today!!!  Any kind of torn paper, anywhere, as long as there is torn paper on your project.   No other rules — just have fun!  But remember, the theme of my challenges in general is to *stamp simply*, so let’s just keep that in mind!

Remember when you upload to use the keyword above, followed by a comma.  Please come back here to post (as a comment) that you’ve played, and provide a link so I can check out your card right away. You can find all cards uploaded for this challenge by clicking Gallery Submissions Here.

Some wanting to play said they have never uploaded before.  If that’s you and you need help uploading,  just go to my Challenge No. 1 here.

This is the sample I made.  It’s the masculine sympathy card I’ll need for Saturday.  I am also keywording it for Julia’s Ways to Use it Challenge on Thursday to use embossing powder.   There are 3 different embossing powders used on this card.  The trees are stamped in Versa Mark, then copper embossing powder is sprinkled over the lower portion of the trees, remove the excess powder, then sprinke silver powder over the tops of the trees, remove excess and heat to emboss.  They look so pretty and wintery!! The sentiment is white embossed directly onto the designer paper.  The main image panel is torn on the lower portion to expose the sentiment.  3 different ribbons were used on the top — wide SU grosgrain, narrow SU grosgrain and May Arts striped ribbon.

This is a really quick and easy card to make, but I think it is still pretty enough to catch someone’s eye!  Hope so anyway!!!

• Stamps:  Winter Woods by Rubber Stampede; With Sympathy by Stampendous.
• Paper:  SU Whisper White and Brocade Background DP (retired SU).
• Ink:  Versa Mark
• Accessories:  Ribbon (1/4″ and 5/8″ grosgrain and May Arts striped), Embossing Powders in Copper, Silver and White.

That’s it for today!  Hope you can find time to play if you are so inclined!!!  As always, thanks much for stopping in.

OH, A QUESTION FOR MY FEEDBLITZ SUBSCRIBERS:  Have you been getting daily notices of my uploads?  I’ve uploaded each day this week, and it appears to me that the Feedblitz notices are not going out once again.  You should have gotten one each day this week. Do you remember if you have?  Thanks much!

I have 2 funerals coming up — so I need a feminine sympathy card for Friday, which is this one, and a masculine one for Saturday — which I still have to do.  I used the new Harlequin set by Flourishes and I just love it.  It is designed so the main grid design is one large stamp, and there are many, many smaller stamps to fit into the cross sections.  I chose the ovals for this card.  What a clever way to design a background stamp.  You can have a wide variety of looks from the same background stamp, which is rather unusual and most fun!!!

I used Prism paper from the Prismatics line for this card.  I’ve said it many times before, but they just have the best soft pastel colors.  The Harlequin design is stamped with Colorbox Fluid Chalk ink in a color close to the paper color for a soft, tone on tone look.  The piercing on top is done with an Ornare Piercing Template I got from Ellen Hutson.  I think it is such a pretty design!  The embossed piece is a left over from my class yesterday and it was already cut down to size.  I colored the flower with a blender pen dabbed into the ink pad and then glazed over the entire embossed image with a Clear Spica Glitter Pen (thank you, Deb!) The edges of the panel are lightly sponged directly from the ink pad.   It really doesn’t show up at all in the photo, but it is so soft and sparkly IRL!!!  The flower center is a Black Spica Glitter Pen.  They were a gift from my friend, Deb (DeborahLynneS) and she got them from Ellen Hutson.  I know I’m going to love my new pens!!!  Oh, the ovals on the Harlequin pattern were also gone over with the Spica Clear Glitter Pen.

Now, my Cuttlebug embossed image was left over from yesterday’s class, and it was already cut down to size.  Well, I wanted to frame it in a scallop, but it was not the right size to fit properly in any of my Nestability scallop dies, so I chose the one that was the closest fit.  It needed to be shorter, so after cutting and embossing the scallop, I merely cut the scallop in 1/2 horizontally, overlapped it so it became the size I needed, adhered my 2 pieces together, adhered the image on top,  and it is almost impossible to tell that my scallop is cut. See if you can find it!  (It’s between the 4th and 5th scallop)  Very hard to see it IRL even when you are looking for it!!  This made me so happy because even though a package of dies has so many sizes, sometimes you just NEED something a tad bit different — this worked so well!!  The Nestability dies are made by Spellbinders.

Overall this card has a much lighter and airier feel than a lot of my work, but I think it is just perfect for a sympathy card — a rather heavenly feel!  And it’s just what I was in the mood to make!

• Stamps:  Harlequin and Flourished Words by Flourishes
• Paper:  Prism Paper, Prismatics Line:  Perfect Baby Blue Light, White
• Ink:  Versa Fine Onyx Black; ColorBox Fluid Chalk in Ice Blue.  Clear and Black Spica Glitter Pens by Copic.
• Accessories:  Blender Pen, Ribbon, Cuttlebug and Fancy Corner Embossing Folder, Scallop Rectangle Nestability Die by Spellbinders, Ornare Piercing Template, Mounting Tape.

That’s it for this project!  I still need to do a masculine sympathy and, of course, my Stamp Simply challenge will be up tomorrow morning.  And I guarantee, it’ll be another super easy one!!!  And thank you all so very much for all the warm and wonderful birthday wishes!!!  I had a great day at home teaching classes, so I had a lot of friends in and out all day!!!  And seeing all these well wishes from you all just topped it off so perfectly — THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

Hi, everyone!  I have nothing new to show you again, but I had an idea.  I have a gallery full of projects over at SCS that have never been posted on my Blog.  I thought maybe it would be OK if on occasion I could pull a favorite project from my SCS gallery and share it with you here.  Now, if you are one to frequent SCS, this may be old hat to you, and if so, I’m sorry, but I’m just assuming there may be many of you who have never seen this one.  I’ve created a category for my Oldies But Goodies, and plan to add these Oldies from time to time.  Here’s the one I chose for today:

This card uses a favorite set of mine, Baroque Motifs, and this is a sympathy card; however, any sentiment could be used for any number of occasions.  I used a favorite sentiment of mine from All I Have Seen.  The sentiment is done with Marvy punches and is up on pop dots, with a rhinestone brad on top.   The card is my favorite size, 5 1/2″ square.  The stamped panel, framed in Soft Sky, is raised up on mounting tape.  I love to do that on special cards.  It lends such — gee, I don’t know what — an air of importance, or grace.  I think it just adds so much.  The Groovy Guava strip is stamped in the same ink and highlighted with a Signo White Gel pen.  The edges of the large panel are softly sponged in Soft Sky.  And I doubled up on my ribbon here — I love doing that — again, I think double ribbon just adds to the *specialness* of the card.  And, quite frankly, sometimes neither color is just quite right, but when you double them up and use both, it works!!!

• Stamps: Baroque Motifs, All I Have Seen (retired)
• Paper:  Groovy Guava, Soft Sky, Whisper White
• Ink:  Black Stazon, Groovy Guava, Soft Sky, Creamy Caramel, Signo White Gel Pen
• Accessories:  Marvy Punches, Rhinestone Brad, Ribbon, Mounting Tape, Pop Dots, Sponge

Hope you didn’t mind seeing an Oldie today!!! Thanks much for stopping in.  I’m excited about my first workshop with the new catalog tomorrow!!!   Talk to you later!!!

I made this set of 3 sympathy cards for the Featured Stamper challenge at SCS on Sunday.  The featured stamper this week was Charlene, or LilLuvsStampin as we all know her at SCS.  Her gallery is fabulous and it was fun choosing which card to do. But I was on a mission when I went into her gallery, so that made it easier!  I knew I needed to do several sympathy cards, so I wanted to select a card that would be suitable as a sympathy card and that would be easy enough to quickly produce several cards.  Here is the card of Charlene’s that I chose, and below is my CASE of her card.

The card on the upper left is the one that would be the direct case.  For the other 2 I merely changed the orientation of the card for a little different look.  To make these cards I stamped the floral image in More than Mustard on the ivory/saffronish striped DP (non-SU) for sort of a watermark effect.  Then, with the small tip of the black marker, I just dotted the flower center for a little interest and definition.  The sentiment was stamped, the panel was matted in black, ribbon adhered and the panel was then attached to the card.  These were SUPER quick to make — 15 minutes or LESS per card!!!  Oh yes, I almost forgot, I then outlined the petals with a glue pen and covered with Dazzling Diamonds.  All 3 are done that same way, but it shows up best on the card at the lower left.  They are very sparkly IRL!!!

• Stamps:  Blush by Penny Black.  With Sympathy by Stampendous.
• Paper:  So Saffron, Basic Black.  The DP was a card front in a pack of cards at Michaels by The Paper Company — the pattern was called Ivory Stripe.
• Ink:  More Mustard, Versa Fine Black Onyx.  Black Marker.
• Accessories:  Black organdy ribbon, Sakura Quickie Glue Pen, Dazzling Diamonds.

That’s it!!! I’m glad to have 3 feminine sympathy cards done!!!  I have so much stamping to get done this week, I am hoping for daily uploads all week long!!!  I’ll be working with some new sets from Flourishes and I am expecting my SU Spring Mini preorder in Monday or Tuesday.  I’ll have some baby cards to do when that box arrives!!!  (and all the pretty new papers to work with!!!)  And, of course, more Christmas cards need to be done as well!!!  Thanks much for stopping in.  Hope to see you again soon!!!