Tuesday, August 13, 2019

An AMAZING Birthday








Welcome to the Pals’ August Blog Hop! We’re so glad you’re here because we made some great projects for “Special Occasions”  – cards or projects that adds beauty to the special occasions we all love to make cards for! You may be starting the hop here or coming from a previous Pal’s blog. Either way, you’ve come to the right place. You’ll find the full line-up below to help you move, or “hop” along from Pal to Pal.

A birthday is a very special occasion, especially for teenagers!! I made this card for my grandchild who turned 14 yesterday.



I went to a Stampin' Up! demonstrator event in June and some of the attendees participated in a card swap. I did not participate but I looked at my table mates cards. One of the cards by Joy Hall used the Noble Peacock DSP (click on the name to see a Stampin' Up! video of how gorgeous this DPS is). I immediately realized I needed to add this paper to my next order! 

To make my card I used a piece of the Blueberry Bushel DSP and combined it with Granny Apple green cardstock and ink. The sentiment is from the Everything Amazing photopolymer stamp set. You can not tell from the photo but I used clear embossing powder to emboss the sentiment. Unfortunately the shininess of the embossed sentiment does not show in the photo but I think the embossing really makes this sentiment pop! To emboss it I used the Stamparatus. I stamped a Whisper White piece of cardstock that I cut with the Stitched Rectangle dies, first with the colored ink (and if you wish to have the sentiment a little darker you can even stamp it a 2nd time with the Stamparatus). Then once I stamp it with the colored ink I stamp it again with Versamark ink. Versamark is a clear sticky ink that will allow embossing powder to adhere to it. Then I sprinkle it with clear embossing powder and melted it with a heat gun. This is another fabulous use for the Stamparatus. 

The candles are stamped  with the candle stamp from the the same stamp set. I stamped them with Versamark on Blueberry Bushel cardstock, embossed them with clear embossing powder and snipped them out. I also stamped the candles with Versamark on Mango Melody cardstock and cutout just the flames. I then glued the flames on top of the Blueberry candles and colored the flames with a clear Gelly Roll pen. You can get two of the pens here on Amazon.       

More inspiration awaits! Use the Blog Hop Line-up below to visit the rest of this month’s Design Team. My fellow Pals are excited to show you what they’ve created! Don’t forget to show us some love by commenting on our creations. Mark your calendars for Wednesday, September 11, 2019 when our Hoppin’ Pals share their “It’s the Sentiment that Counts” projects. Don’t miss the fun!


Pals Blog Hop Line-Up

  1. Mary Fish at Stampin’ Pretty
  2. Jeanie Stark at Just Stampin’
  3. Terri George at Stamp Me Crafty
  4. Lisa Ann Bernard at Queen B Creations
  5. Stesha Bloodhart at Stampin’ Hoot!
  6. Debbie Mageed at Secrets to Stamping
  7. Leah O’Brien at Stamping By The Bay
  8. Karen Hallam at Karen’s Stamping Habit
  9. Jennifer Michalski at Stamping Serenity
  10. Rosanne Mulhern at Heartfelt Stamping
  11. Peggy Noe at Pretty Paper Cards
  12. Denise Hoepfner at The Mountain Magpie
  13. Wendy Klein at Doggone Delightful Stampin
  14. Pamela Sadler at Stampin Pink Rose
  15. Tricia Chuba at ButterDish Designs
  16. Su Mohr at Aromas And Art
  17. Mary Hanson at Up North Stampin’
  18. Katy McGloin at Just Fun Stamping
  19. Jill Killeen at Killeen House Studio
  20. Beth McCullough at Stamping Mom
  21. Lynn Kolcun at Avery’s Owlery
  22. Katie Ferguson at Cottage Paper ← You Are Here
  23. Rae Harper Burnet at Wild West Paper Arts
 comments and would love to hear what you think!!  

Leave your thoughts below! Thank you!!



Tuesday, July 23, 2019





Welcome to InKing Royalty's July Blog Hop! This year's Blog Hop themes are inspired by a single word - and this month our projects are centered around SUNSHINE. The Sun is the single most important source of energy for life on Earth - it guides our clocks, calendars and planting schedules. We may be enduring a heat wave this week, but we still associate the Sun with positivity, joy and renewal. We are excited to share our creations with you today! After you read my post, I hope you'll hop over to the next person on the list at the base of this post.

In June I attended a Stampin' up! demonstrator event in Huntsville. One of the things Demonstrators do when they get together is participate in card swaps. I decided not to participate in any of the swaps but I checked out the swaps that my table mates received. I took pictures of some of the ones I thought might serve as an inspiration for future cards. One of the swaps was for cards made with the Daisy Lane Bundle and one the Daisy Lane cards particularly caught my attention. I decided I wanted to CAS (Copy and Share) it. I loved the bright flowers punched out from two different colors of cardstock. They looked like Black-eyed Susans to me and really said summer and sunshine! Here is my card. 





Here is the card I CASed. I am sorry it and the following one are so dark! I just had better lighting when I took the picture of my card. :-) I took this picture at the event. It was in a cellophane envelope which resulted in the glare at the top of the card.





There were three things that caught my attention on the swap card and that I wanted to use on my card. 

1) I really liked the look of the wood background and was puzzled as to how it was done and it took me a while to figure it out. I realized that the grain pattern matched the pattern on the Pinewood Planks 3D Embossing Folder so I knew that was used. I then decided that a Soft Suede Ink Pad was drug over vanilla cardstock to create the wood design. I discovered after the fact that Kimberly Parker, the maker of the original card, had used several more steps to create her background but I had already used my shortcut worked and decided that it looked quite fine. (FYI Stampin' Up! is currently awaiting a shipment of the Pinewood Planks folder and it will soon be available to order. The item # will be 143708.)  

2) I also thought having the flowers stamped on two different colors of cardstock (Very Vanilla and Crushed Curry) made them really pop. 

3) I liked the Hello sentiment and really loved that it was tucked into the flowers. 


I added Gold Faceted Gems to my card and colored them with a Dark Soft Suede Blends. I used some brown grosgrain ribbon I had but you could also use a narrow strip of Early Espresso cardstock embossed with the Subtle 3D Embossing Folder in place of ribbon and added some leaves. I used a retired Christmas die set to create the leaves but lots of die sets would work. I stamped the Hello from the Free as a Bird set and cut it out with the Stitched Rectangle Dies

My monthly card class made this card on last Sunday. Sometimes they make cards that look exactly like mine but at other times they change things around. Thought I would show you one of the CASes of my card. This one is by Kay Cole. It is always fun to see what they do!  





Thank you for stopping by today.  I hope you'll hop along to the next stop on the blog hop, Pam Morris at Tap Tap Stamp. There's lots of inspiration to be found in this group - and you don't want to miss it!





Here are some of the products I used. Except for the Pinewood Planks Folder you can click on the name to see the product in the Online Store.

Pinewood Planks Embossing Folder (available soon)

 comments and would love to hear what you think!!  

Leave your thoughts below! Thank you!!

Tuesday, February 19, 2019







Welcome to InKing Royalty's February Blog Hop! This year's Blog Hop themes are inspired by a single word - and this month our projects are centered around BIRTHDAY. It's always special to celebrate the birthday of someone you love, so handmade birthday cards are always fun to share. We are excited to share our creations with you today! After you read my post, I hope you'll hop over to the next person on the list at the base of this post.

When I first look at a new catalog I am not always the best at choosing the stamp sets that will become favorites but I fell in love with the Hand Delivered host set from the very beginning. It can be purchased with the Stampin Rewards you can receive from a $150 purchase. Not only is it very fun and cute, in my opinion, it is one of the most versatile stamp sets ever offered by Stampin up!. In addition to birthday there are five other occasions provided in the images and sentiments! Of course today I am using it for a birthday card today. Here is my card. 



  


The attendees of my monthly card class like to make birthday cards to send to friends and family and we had not made one in a couple of months so I wanted to use this set for a birthday card. I love the sign she is holding but the birthday sentiment in the set is not designed to fit on the sign. It is designed to fit on a banner somewhere else on the card so I pulled a birthday sentiment from an old retired stamp set. After I did that I realized that the sign was a perfect place to simply hand write any sentiment for any occasion that one desires! After all isn't the sign logically assumed to have been written by the sign holder? What a great opportunity to have any form of custom sentiment! Think about all the possibilities - they  are truly limitless.


For my card I used the Buffalo Check stamp with Daffodil Delight ink to create the background. I stamped it several times using the Stamparatus. I then created layers using Daffodil Delight, Pool Party and Whisper White. I stamped the images with Tuxedo Black Memento ink on to a piece of Whisper White cardstock and colored the legs, hands and skirt with Stampin' Blends markers using Light Pool Party for the background of the skirt, Light Granny Apple Green for the leaves and various colors for the flowers themselves. I then cropped the image with one of the rectangles from the Stitched Rectangle Framelits Dies. I wanted a colored band behind the Daffodil Delight layer and since I did not have any Pool Party ribbon I created a band by cutting a piece of Pool Party cardstock the dimensions I wanted and then embossing the piece with the Subtle Embossing Folder. I have used cardstock bands many times in the past but now that we have the Subtle Embossing Folder the band has a slight ribbon texture.

Thank you for stopping by today.  I hope you'll hop along to the next stop on the blog hop, Shawn de Olivieira at Shawn Stamps. There's lots of inspiration to be found in this group - and you don't want to miss it!

Thank you for hopping along with us.  If you get stuck during the Blog Hop, please use this line-up as a guide:

Tuesday, January 29, 2019







Welcome to InKing Royalty's January Blog Hop! This year's Blog Hop themes are inspired by a single word - and this month our projects are centered around LOVE. You're certain to see some amazing ideas for Valentine's Day in the hop, but there are other ways to honor love in the lineup, too. What fun! We are excited to share our creations with you today! After you read my post, I hope you'll hop over to the next person on the list at the base of this post.

When I first saw the So Happy Together stamp set in the new Sale-a-bration (SAB) catalog I immediately decided that, while there were some cute things about the set, I was definitely not interested in getting it! (Please don't judge me!) There were plenty of other great things in the SAB catalog which, by the way, are all available as a free gift with an order of $50 or more. Then I saw this great New Year's card posted by my upline Brian King and I thought maybe I need it after all! Here is my card. 

                                    



As I was looking for ideas for Valentine cards to make with my monthly card class when my eyes caught a glimpse of the juggling frog on the unicycle in the So Hoppy Together set. It occurred to me that he could be juggling hearts! I had also planned to use the group of hearts in the Be Mine Stitched Framelits Dies on another card and had all the punch out hearts sitting on my table. I used the tiniest ones for the juggler and some of the other small ones for the sitting frog. (I had to cut out 2 pieces of cardstock with the die in order to get enough tiny hearts.) You also could use tiny hearts from other Framelits sets and punches. 

I stamped everything with Tuxedo Black Memento ink and used Stampin Blends for coloring the images. For the frogs I used light and dark Granny Apple Green with dark Daffodil Delight for the "spots". On the unicycle I used more dark Daffodil Delight plus dark Smoky Slate and dark Basic Black. The card base is Granny Apple Green cardstock with a layer of Daffodil Delight and then the Whisper White stamped layer which I cut with the largest rectangle die from the Rectangle Stitched Framelits Dies. I cheated a little on the sentiment. The set contains the sentiment "Hoppy for you". I found an old wood mount greeting set that had the sentiment "Happy Valentine's Day". I could have masked the unneeded parts of each stamp I took the quick and easy way out. I unmounted the wood mount sentiment and cut off "for you" and "Happy" from the two stamps to make the sentiment I needed. While the stamp I used to add the "Valentine's Day" is no longer available there are many current or retired sets that would have a sentiment that would work here.  

I think the first greeting cards that I ever made were ones that I helped my kids make to sent to their grandparents. That was a long time ago - probably before many of you were born. Our options for supplies were extremely limited! I think the only place to buy anything for crafting was our local Kmart or Woolco (a discount owned by Woolworth that is now out of business). Mainly our supplies consisted of construction paper and that was only in primary colors, no Bermuda Bay or Granny Apple Green! I remember wishing I could buy dollies, especially heart shaped ones. I knew they existed because I had seen pictures of them but I had never seen any for sale. Things have sure changed and it is wonderful to have the all fantastic products that Stampin Up! now offers to crafters no matter where you live. Hope you make some Valentine's Day cards this year either by yourself or with others. Happy Valentine's Day!!

Thank you for stopping by today.  I hope you'll hop along to the next stop on the blog hop, Pam Morris at Tap Tap Stamp. There's lots of inspiration to be found in this group - and you don't want to miss it!

Thank you for hopping along with us.  If you get stuck during the Blog Hop, please use this line-up as a guide:
  1. Brian King at Stamp with Brian
  2. Jennifer Spiller at Westside Paper Creations
  3. Sue Jackson at Just Peachy Stamping
  4. Katie Ferguson at Cottage Paper  ← YOU ARE HERE
  5. Pam Morris at Tap Tap Stamp
  6. Windy Ellard at Windy's Wonderful Creations
  7. Robin Myren at Songbird Designs by Robin
  8. Julie DiMatteo at The Paper Pixie
  9. Jackie Beers at Blue Line Stamping
  10. Nina King at InkPaperSequins
  11. Shawn de Oliveira at Shawn Stamps
  12. Lynn Kolcun at Avery's Owlery
  13. Candy Ford at Stamp Candy
  14. Robbye Hamilton at Miss Hammie's Crafts
Addendum 2/1/2019: Stampin Up! has just announced that Hop Around Framelits dies that coordinate with the So Hoppy Together set will be available to order from March 1, 2019 to March 31, 2019!! The die set will sell for $28. If you do not have the stamp set and would like to have it and the dies, you can purchase the dies and add one or two more things to your order to bring the total to $50 or more and you can get the stamp set for free!  




I comments and would love to hear what you think!!  Leave your thoughts below! Thanks!