Paper Pumpkin Alternatives March 2019 - Teal

I have never really been a fan of teal and aqua until recently and nor it seem to be invading every square inch of my life! I am not sure what color set I like the most out of the pink, yellow or teal selections, but the teal was was the ones that came last, mostly because I really did not like the balloons, the polka dot numbers or that polka dot teal paper, so these are the ones I altered the most - but are some of may favorites for sure!

~Enjoy

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This one could easily be turned into a menorah! I tool a white background and lightly sponged the edges with Bermuda Bay. Embossed the light Pool Party & Daffodil Delight Banners with Swirls & Curls Embossing Folder. I placed a few continuous lines of tear-n-tape across the back of the polka dot letter sheet & cut off a piece to use as a background for the candles.

I took the strip of red & white candles & turned them over to the back. I added the flames on the outside in Daffodil Delight and the inside of the flame with So Saffron. I loved the way they turned out and used this technique several times with this kit.

The present is sentiment label is made with one of the presents from the inside of the card and the Itty Bitty Birthdays stamps. Topping it off with a double bow made with Linen Thread.
The envelope is stamped with Daffodil Delight and Bermuda Bay using the stamp set included with the kit.

I was really trying hard to use this polka dot "paper" and I also wanted to start adding a little more depth to my cards in general so I started adding Soft Suede to the background to hide the 1980s teal polka dot & at first I was like, uh-oh, the numbers show through, but I kept going.

I added Soft Suede to my Swirls & Curls Embossing Folder & ran that through my machine and even though it came out uneven - I kind of liked the effect. I knew I wanted to do a background color-on-color cupcake with Pool Party. By this point, this was looking really good & I was thinking - who would I give this too - then I remembered my great niece will be turning 16 soon & she loves teal - perfect!

I added the 16 cut from the retired numbers set in Crumb Cake sponge edged with Soft Suede and the Sweet is stamped with Bermuda Bay and the Hello Cupcake set. Add a off white hand cut banner edged with Bermuda Bay, a double bow with Linen Thread, a small border of the 1980s teal polka dot paper & the party hat with the excess border trimmed down. I rough up the edges on most of the layers & then sponged the rough edges with a coordinating color. I LOVE the way this card came out!

This was a pretty quick and easy variation. The background is trimmed down from the card base provided, the cakes are trimmed from the card insides. The sentiment is from Hello Cupcake in Black and some yellow ribbon from my collection.

I took the strip of red & white candles & turned them over to the back. I took the hat stamp & carefully positioned it so the stripes would line up to be stripes on the candles and miss the flame. Make sure that you do not get in on the top part of the hat where the pom-pom is. I then added the flames with the outside in Daffodil Delight and the inside of the flame with So Saffron. These little striped candles add so much to the card!

The envelope for this one came out so cute! It is stamped with Pool Party and Hello Cupcake for the large confetti, The 3 little dots are with Bermuda Bay, Daffodil Delight & Amazing Life Then the Flirty Flamingo & Black dot are hand done with markers. It matches perfectly!

Here is another version at a grungy card. I started with a background of Lemon Lime Twist (nooo... please do not retire), I added the trimmed off edges of the scalloped tag provided. A piece of the light blue polka dot card base trimmed down, topped with the rest of the trimmed down tag embossed with Swirls & Curls.

For the sentiment I cut apart the stamp "It's your" and also "Today we celebrate YOU!". I stamped the sentiment with Bermuda Bay onto Pool Party and edged all of the items with Soft Suede.

I made the candle with the candles provided and the party hat stamp using Bermuda Bay and Daffodil Delight & So Saffron markers. I trimmed down the border of the party hat & edged those also with Soft Suede. Everything is popped up with dimensionals and topped off with the Polka Dot ribbon, Gold Mini Sequin Trim and some green and white Baker's Twine form my collection.

This may have turned out to be my favorite card. Unfortunately it uses a LOT of outside of the box product, but I finally got that teal polka dot "paper" to look good!

This uses the retired Cupcakes & Carousels DSP and behind those is a swatch of cheesecloth. The cupcake is heavily Wink of Stella-ed and stamped with Hello Cupcake, Daffodil Delight and Bermuda Bay on Pool Party.

The cupcake sits on a piece of Whisper White embossed with Swirls and Curls and the 3 background papers have torn edges. It is topped off with a White Baker's Twin double bow and the sentiment is provided in the set and inked with Bermuda Bay.

The envelope for is stamped with Daffodil Delight and Hello Cupcake for the large confetti, the 3 little dots are with Bermuda Bay, the little flourish is from Amazing Life and stamped with Pool Party. It's so cute!

The collection

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Paper Pumpkin Alternatives March 2019 - Pink

I was really excited to get this month's Paper Pumpkin, I am always running low on birthday cards. I struggle with items that have a lot of colors - 3 is usually my ideal then mixed with neutrals & probably something shiny, so this one was color overload! The key I have found is focus on one of the main colors & let the others fall to the background. The papers & envelopes were really cute, but I was a little disappointed with the stamps. I mean, who already doesn't own Happy Birthday in all caps & a serif font? To top it off I lost my candle for the entire process & then found it when I was cleaning up. I usually make one of each card per the sample but I just could not get on board this month, so here come LOTS of alternatives.

~Enjoy

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I will start with my favorite pink card I made and I think it was the last one. I absolutely love this little "hairy" cupcake from the Hello Cupcake set (I am sad it will be retiring soon). It is stamped in Flirty Flamingo & then I hand traced it with Poppy Parade. And I topped it off with a generous helping of Wink of Stella and popped it up with dimensional.

I am trying to grunge up my cards a little more to add interest, so for this one I applied some Poppy Parade to a sponge & very lightly tapped around the edge of the white cardstock giving it a slightly speckled appearance as well as adding some color. All of the background papers are torn, some top & bottom. The polka dot is from the inside of the envelope, the strip is from the kit as a stripe, I added Flirty Flamingo stamped hats to Flirty Flamingo cardstock and the white is embossed with the Swirls & Curls embossing folder. Tying the whole thing together is some retired Seam Binding Ribbon - I LOVE this ribbon - it is my favorite!!!

The envelope is stamped with Powder Pink, Soft Sky and Poppy Parade using the Amazing Life & Hello Cupcake stamp sets and I added single dots of Bermuda Bay.

This is the 3rd pink card I made & my second favorite pink card, it is pretty simple using the envelope for the background. I trimmed the inside of the card and removed the presents/cakes which left me these 2 inch strips of light yellow & light pink. I embossed the pink with Swirls & Curls (Actually - I could not find my embossing folder - so I think this one is another brand - but the intention was S&C). I had cut off the scallop border on the fish-tail banner for one of the other projects, so I added that to the soft pink.

I cut one of the label in half and stamped with Flirty Flamingo and a sentiment from the Hello Cupcake stamp set. I trimmed the obnoxiously large borders from the hats & bow and added some Poppy Parade pen detailing for the bow. Topping the whole thing off is some iridescent sequins from my stash. All of these I popped up with dimensionals.

The envelope is stamped with the set in the kit and Poppy Parade & Flirty Flamingo.

Next come some "also-rans", not my favorite cards but there are some good techniques here, so I will chat about those. This one used the presents theme and I again trimmed the border down on the bows & added pen detailing with Poppy Parade. I had some leftover trimmed scallop pieces and applied wink of Stella for some sparkle.

The background was made with two 2" strips of the soft pink card insides trimmed and placed next to each other. Then I stacked the Happy Birthday sentiment & stamped with Powder Pink and then stamped again before re-inking. Photopolymer is not a really big fan of this technique. Even though my lines were not incredibly straight its ok, it gives the feeling of whimsy and for this card that is ok.

Have the kids look away now if they are squeamish about cutting stamps apart. For the sentiment I trimmed off YOU! and stamped with Poppy Parade. I die cut YOU from the Celebrate You Thinlits Dies. The striped border is actually the leftover pieces from the striped borders and I added small Powder Pink dots around the outside of the sentiment tag. It is topped off with some Silver & White Bakers Twine.

I used the same background technique above for this one. The one thing I wanted showcase here was the cute little candles!

I took the strip of red & white candles & turned them over to the back. I then took the hat stamp & carefully positioned it so the stripes would line up to be stripes on the candles and miss the flame. Make sure that you do not get in on the top part of the hat where the pom-pom is. I then added the flames with the outside in Daffodil Delight and the inside of the flame with So Saffron. I loved the way they turned out and used this technique several times with this kit.

I can't help it - that red and white banner just screamed Christmas to me. Here is a half sheet of the striped banners as the background on Real Red cardstock.

The sentiment and snowflakes are from the Snowflake Sentiments stamp set stamped in Real Red. Rudy is from Seasonal Chums. Topping it off is some retired red and white Baker's Twine and Silver Glimmer paper. The envelope is stamped with Read Red and the Amazing Life stamp set.

Here is a birthday version using the retired Birthday Blast and the cupcakes are made from the Lift Me Up stamp set

This was the first pink card I made & absolutely my least favorite & probably made the decision to go completely away from the presents & cake idea and create alternatives.

The pink collection

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St. Patrick's Day 2019

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I have had this little QuicKutz polaroid die for years and finally found a good use for it! The first card was the original idea and the others came from the leftovers of the original. I had only planned on doing about 12 cards, but by the time I got done I think I sent out about 40!

~Enjoy!

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I cut the polaroid die out of Gold Glimmer paper as well as the 17 using the retired Large Number framelits. The shamrocks were cut from another old QuicKutz die and the retired Myths & Magic and the Joyous Noel Glimmer Paper sets. The backgrounds of Whisper White and Shaded Spruce were embossed with the Swirls & Curls Embossing folder. March was cut from a die form my stash as well as the ribbon accent.

Once I had cut my polaroid out, I was left with all of these squares! Thinking ahead, I strategically cut out all of my 17s I needed for the above card, so I could reuse the scrap for this card! This one uses the same basic materials as above as well as some scrap Christmas paper as the background and more ribbon from my stash - I have a TON of ribbon!

Once again, after I cut all of my shamrocks for the first 2 cards I had all of these little scrapped squares leftover, so I trimmed them all up to the same size and wha-la! The white background is embossing with a polka dot embossing folder and the retired Gold Cord from a few years ago. The envelopes for all 3 were decorated with the shamrock from the Amazing Life stamp set

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Stampin' Up! products used:

• Amazing Life Stamp Set
• Large Number Framelits
• Gold Glimmer Paper
• Myths & Magic Glimmer Paper Set
• Joyous Noel Glimmer Paper Set
• Whisper White
• Shaded Spruce
• Swirls & Curls Embossing folder

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5 January Swaps with Sale-a-Bration!

After making over 400 cards for moving notifications, Halloween, Christmas and New Years, I found myself signed up for more swaps at a recent event, so I created 92 more! Add in the Mad for Plaid series and the January birthday cards, I have made and personally handed out or mailed over 500 cards in the last 3 months! Here are the most recent ones I needed to make for January swaps I signed up for!

~Enjoy

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This first card I started by playing with the cute little 4-leaf clover that came in the Amazing Life Stamp Set. I knew I wanted to make a background paper with it, so I went off to select a few of my favorite staple colors. I am so happy that Stampin' Up! brought back Blackberry Bliss, it is one of my all time favorites! Combined with Crumb Cake & Old Olive it is just perfect! Everything is stamped on Whisper White cardstock and matted on an Old Olive card base.

I wanted the background paper to be the star so I just added small strip of Blackberry Bliss embossed with the Swirls & Curls Embossing Folder and added a small hand cut banner tag stamped with the sentiment and Memento Black Ink and then popped up with Dimensionals. A small bow made from Whisper White 1/8" Sheer Ribbon added the finishing touch!

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The moment I saw the wavy lines in the Incredible Like You Stamp Set, I knew I wanted to do something with some small skinny candles. Luckily the set also came with a little flame, ok, it is probably a leaf - but I saw a flame! Once I stamped all the candles on Whisper White Cardstock with Poppy Parade Ink and the flames in Daffodil Delight, I contemplated adding the Memento Black Ink sentiment right on top of the candles but thought it would get lost so decided to stamp it on Vellum instead. I think it makes it pop & added a little more dimension to the candles without breaking that they are really tall skinny candles although it almost looks like striped paper also! I added the black bow made from Black 1/8" Cord and then, tragedy struck.

There was this huge empty space at the top of the card & I did not know what to do with. I am not opposed to white space but this one was just too much. This set on my desk for about 2 weeks taunting me.

One day, I was looking for something else for another project & picked up the Wonderful Moments Stamp Set and while I was looking through it I noticed all these little tiny dots, what the heck were those??? WAIT a minute, those would be cute as little sparks above my candles & fill in that gigantic white space!!!!

Note about this card - I made 20 of them & its is really forgiving when it comes to errors, not all my candle are straight, some of the flames do not touch the right candle and I just noticed that one of the flames is actually straddling 2 candles - oops - but see forgiving!!

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I love the hibiscus flower from the Humming Along Stamp Set - maybe because they were in my front yard as a child so they have fond memories for me. I am not a colorist by any means, ask my friends Shannon & Tracy. So I wasn't sure what to do about this huge empty outlined flower.

I decided to apply the "swoosh" technique. I started with a piece of Whisper White Cardstock and the Granny Apple Green and Highland Heather Ink pads. You take the open ink pad & hold it at about a 22 degree angle (it is almost flat to the paper, you are really only touching the top edge of the ink pad). Then you drag the edge of the ink pad back & forth, mine is done at even a little diagonal of an angle across the card front. Then I switched colors in the middle of the card. You could do a whole rainbow with the effect, but I wanted the purple for the flower & green for the stem & leaf. No measuring, just eyeballed about half way down & went for it!

Again, I was worried that the flower would disappear in the background so I stamped it on vellum. as well as the sentiment.

Once I layered it on the background, the flower was still not popping enough for me so I decided to back the flower with... a flower! I stamped the flower on Highland Heather Cardstock & the leaf on Granny Apple Green Cardstock & hand fussy cut them out. After some strategic glue dots were applied  to the backside of the vellum, I was pretty happy with the overall result.

Adding the finishing touches were the Daffodil Delight Organdy Ribbon from the Sale-a-Bration catalog and some rhinestones and mounting the whole thing onto Daffodil Delight Cardstock card base.

What I intended to be a simple card kept getting more & more difficult and ended up probably being an avid stamper card.

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This card you have seen before but it was actually created with this swap in mind and actually turned out to be the inspiration for my New Years cards (of which I made about 85).

I was trying to be conservative with the paper since I knew I wanted to use this for a swap - so I cut the 6x6 into 4 equal parts. I used the Amazing Life set that everyone got at convention. I love the mixed fonts sets. I used just the top portion of the 3-tiered cake, Swirls & Curls embossing folder, gold glimmer paper and the black 1/8" cord. I gradient-colored the word Cake with the light and dark Daffodil Delight blender pens as well as the cake.

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The last card I really wanted to make a masculine birthday card, but had the hardest time deciding on a color combo - see the last image, but finally decided that the green one would be good for the swap.
I got a birthday card from my friend Tracy that really inspired this card. She had a stamp set with multiple birthday & friendship greetings in it & inside she stamped them all and wrote - I couldn't decide which one to use - so I used them all! I thought that was so funny! But it inspired me to use all of the birthday greetings in the Itty Bitty Birthdays Stamp Set. I lined them all up on my Stamparatus on a 45 degree angle (eyeballed it again) and it stamped the cutest little strip which I intended to fishtail & turn into a banner. I positioned all of the stamps really closely together - see the Stamparatus picture below.

I pulled out the Corrugated Embossing Folder - my favorite - and layered the hand cut fish-tailed banner. As I was looking through to find another layer I came across a piece of scrap in Soft Suede that was embossed with the Hexagons Embossing Folder and that was a perfect fit for this masculine card!

I roughed up all of the edges and added a small bow from Braided Linen Trim (can't help myself, its not done if it doesn't have a bow), I tried a knot, but it was knot enough (pun & typo intended).

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Mad for Gingham Gala Plaid

At the 30th Stampin' Up! Convention this year, one of the prizes handed out for Prize Patrol was the Gingham Gala 6x6 paper pack. This pack comes with 5 different colors and 2 styles of plaids, a large and a small gingham check.

I wanted to see what the plaids would look like dressed up a little more so I decided to add some lines in assorted widths and colors to make them a little more robust. Everyone loves a good plaid - here is what I came up with!

~Enjoy

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I started off with just a simple complementary color and a fine stroke (bottom set). Those were nice - but I wondered what some black would do, so I started with a fine black line only & still wasn't overly happy with the result - then I decided to add a thick black line & alternate with the thin black line - this is when things started to get interesting!

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The first card I made - I was trying to be conservative with the paper since I knew I wanted to use this for a swap - so I cut the 6x6 into 4 equal parts. I used the Amazing Life set that everyone got at convention. I love the mixed fonts sets. I used just the top portion of the 3-tiered cake, Swirls & Curls embossing folder, gold glimmer paper and the black 1/8" cord. I gradient-colored the word Cake with the light and dark Daffodil Delight blender pens as well as the cake.

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For my Sale-a-Bration item - I just had to have this roster from the Home to Roost stamp set - I am not sure why - but I thought he would be versatile. For the plaid - it was just too plain when I starting adding it all together so I decided to add some yellow to the Grapefruit Grove. It added just enough color to tie it all together. I did a quick hand coloring of the rooster with blends. The "Thanks" is part of the "Thanks so much" stamp from the Wonderful Moments set.

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The moment I saw this set on the big screen, I knew I had to have it, it is such a cute cupcake from the Hello Cupcake stamp set and it was FREE from Sale-a-Bration!!!! (Even thought I have several cupcakes already). I left the Highland Heather plaid with only the black addition and added just enough Lemon Lime Twist to give it a little interest. I shadow stamped the sentiment by stamping the black first, then the green, by hand.

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My friend Tracy sent me a card similar to this that I used for inspiration and the Amazing Life stamp set. I added Lemon Lime Twist to the Balmy Blue plaid next to the thick black line. The banner is hand fussy cut and the green stripe is embossed with the Subtle embossing folder. Note the envelope "Brackets" for YAY!. They are made with several small pieces from the Amazing Life set, the corner flourish, the little splash element and the 3 dots, I think that is super cute!

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I just can not get over the Lemon Zest stamp set - every card I make with it I just LOVE. My favorite sentiments to use with it are "I couldn't have picked a better friend than you" and "Thanks a bunch", I love the play on words for these 2 sentiments. Both are from the Beautiful Bouquet stamp set.

For the plaid on this one I added yellow next to the fine black line to give it a little more punch.

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