Paper Pumpkin With Love & Gratitude

I quite like this month’s Paper Pumpkin “With Love & Gratitude”. The colours are so pretty. Totally not your typical Fall colours! And I have fallen in love with Lost Lagoon since Stampin’ Up! brought it back. But I also love that it’s a card AND bag kit… not just one or the other. These will be great to bring to any Thanksgiving celebrations next weekend!

I always make at least one of all of the original designs. And then it’s alternative projects with the rest of my supplies. It’s just a question of how quickly I go through all my supplies. Some months the inkspiration flows a lot faster than others! So far with this month’s kit I’ve made two alternatives.

The first one uses a Mossy Meadow card base. Next I cut up one of the bags to create a Designer Series Paper background. And then I layered on some more Mossy Meadow cardstock and a bit of Basic White that I stamped with Crumb Cake ink (foliage) and Mossy Meadow (pumpkin). To finish it off I added a few of the die cut pieces and some Linen Thread. The best part of this month’s kit is definitely the die cuts!

Paper Pumpkin With Love & Gratitude

For the second card I used Pebbled Path for my card base. Then I layered lots of foliage on top. I stamped some with Lost Lagoon ink. I cut up one of the envelopes to create a strip of patterned paper. And then I popped up one of the die cut pieces with some Stampin’ Dimensionals.

Paper Pumpkin With Love & Gratitude

I’ve seen some great alternatives with the Paper Pumpkin “With Love & Gratitude” kit! It’s definitely sparked some more ideas. I hope my designs have sparked some inkspiration for you. Post your alternative projects in the comments. I’d love to see them!

Check out the original designs that I made live over on my Facebook page here. And you can sign up for next month’s Christmas themed Paper Pumpkin kit here. This one comes with glitter glue!!!

If you want to see some of the other designs you can check out my post about the “Welcome Inn” Paper Pumpkin kit here.

Handmade Father’s Day Card

June is here! Soon it’ll be summer and in just a couple of weeks is Father’s Day. There’s lot going on around here. Hopefully it settles down soon so I can get to my garden. In the meantime I’m sharing a handmade Father’s Day card. I was very glad to hear that the He’s All That stamp set and dies were carrying over to the new Annual Catalogue! This was one of the first sets I got when it came out in last year’s catalogue and I’ve been enjoying crafting with it. It’s definitely made making masculine cards a lot easier!

For this card I put Mossy Meadow and Crushed Curry together for my colour combination. I also added in a splash of Night of Navy. The sentiment is from the He’s All That stamp set, of course. Next I die cut it using one of the coordinating dies and then popped it off with a couple of Stampin’ Dimensionals.

In the background I stamped some paint splatter using the Quiet Meadow stamp set. And added a few of the argyle die cuts around the sentiment. For these I used all three colours and popped them up using some of the Mini Stampin’ Dimensionals. Then to finish it off I added a few Brushed Metallic Dots. A nice way to add some bling to your masculine cards!

Handmade Father's Day Card

Now this isn’t the handmade Father’s Day card I’ll be giving to my dad. But I’ll definitely be using the He’s All That stamps and dies!

Check out another card I made using He’s All That here.

And grab the stamp set and dies over in my online shop.

Green Handmade Card

This Friday is St. Patrick’s Day! I don’t know about you, but I don’t do a lot of crafting for St. Patrick’s Day. Although I might enjoy a green beer. Instead I decided to make a simple green handmade card. Stampin’ Up! has SO many different greens to choose from. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I don’t have all of the different shades so I just looked at what I had and chose three.

I chose Granny Apple Green, Old Olive and Mossy Meadow for my card. The inspiration for this card came from a design I saw on Facebook that reminded me of an Argyle sweater. And the All That dies has a great die to create that same pattern. I haven’t used this die very often so I’m glad I had this idea. Once I had a whole bunch in each colour I stuck them on a piece of Basic White cardstock using Mini Glue Dots.

The card base is Basic Black to really show off the different shades of green. On top of my argyle background I stamped a simple sentiment using the Biggest Wish stamp set. Then I cut it out with one of the Layering Circles dies and popped it up with some Stampin’ Dimensionals. To finish it off I added a few of the Brushed Metallic Adhesive-Backed Dots.

Green Handmade Card

This green handmade card was fun to make! Check out my Facebook live here, which is where I first shared this card. You can also check out one of the other cards I made using the He’s All That bundle here. I love this bundle and hope it carries over to the upcoming new Annual Catalogue!

If you do like to do St. Patrick’s Day crafting then you should definitely check out the Lucky Clover stamp set! This is such a cute stamp set, but I have a feeling it’ll be retiring once the Mini Catalogue is finished.

Favored Flowers

At first when I saw the Favored Flowers Designer Series Paper in the Sale-a-bration catalogue I was not a big fan. I love flowers, but I wondered if the patterns were a bit much for me. But I’ve been seeing some card designs lately that are helping change my mind. So I pulled out my pack and I think the designs look much better in real life. This pack of patterned paper uses some of my favourite colours and some of the blooms are easy enough for fussy cutting. I’m not fussy cutting for this card, but I did want to show off some of this pretty paper.

This card is a nice simple one because I really want the DSP to be the focus. I started with deciding which design I wanted to use for this card. This one has Petal Pink and Calypso Coral in it for the flowers. And Mossy Meadow and Evening Evergreen for the leaves. I used Mossy Meadow for my card base because it’s a nice neutral colour and not too dark. Plus it really helps the colours from the blooms to stand out.

Next I stamped a phrase from the Something Fancy stamp set using Mossy Meadow ink. I cut it out using one of the Stitched Rectangles dies. And then I framed it with the flip side of the same sheet of patterned paper. Finally I popped it all up with a few Stampin’ Dimensionals and added a few Rhinestone Basic Jewels for a bit of bling.

Favored Flowers

I’m so glad I opened the Favored Flowers pack of Designer Series Paper! It really is pretty!

There’s lots of great patterned paper that you can earn for free during Sale-a-bration. Check out this card that I made using the Dainty Flowers DSP here. And you can see all the great free Sale-a-bration products over in my online shop! Don’t wait too long though! Sale-a-bration is only here until the end of February and things could sell out before then.

Fall Watercolour Background

It’s the Thanksgiving long weekend here! Which means Halloween and Christmas are right around the corner. But before I dive deep into my holiday crafting I wanted to share this idea I had for a Fall watercolour background card. I’m not sure where this idea came from, but I just love it! Maybe it’s because I wanted an excuse to do some watercolouring, who knows?!

The card itself is very simple. I used my Water Painters to add Crushed Curry and Calypso Coral to some Fluid 100 Watercolour Paper. And with the one sheet I was able create the background and some leaves. To make the watercolours pop I wanted a fairly dark card base. Mossy Meadow worked perfectly… not too dark like Basic Black.

Over top of the larger piece I used the Aspen dies on a piece of Basic White cardstock to create my forest. This is such a great set of dies, with or without the coordinating stamp set Perched in a Tree. I also used the leaves from this set of dies to create my watercoloured leaves. But not before I embossed the paper using the Timber 3D embossing folder to add a little more texture.

I laid the die cut trees right on top of the watercoloured paper so that I could pop up the leaves and the phrase using Stampin’ Dimensionals. Surprisingly enough the phrase comes from the Friends are like Seashells stamp set! I just love the phrases and fonts of this stamp set! So even though it might be more of a summer stamp set, it really is versatile. Then to finish it off I added a few Brushed Metallic Adhesive Backed Dots.

Fall Watercolour Background

The Fall watercolour background turned out really nicely I think. And I just love the look of it so much I want to make another one using more “wintery” colours.

Check out another card I created using watercolouring here. And you can find the Aspen dies in my online shop.