Birthday Balloon!

 This happy birthday balloon is an entry in the current Inky Paws Challenge: Birthdays. I used paper from the Newton's Nook Birthday Party pad for the balloon and the background. I used the Frames and Flags die set from Newton's Nook to cut the background, and the balloon shaker is one of their dies as well. The shaker is filled with silver sequins and clear seed beads. I like to use seed beads in my shaker fill-I think it helps the pieces move around. the string of the balloon is cut from matte silver cardstock and the sentiment was silver heat embossed, then stacked up on several layers of cardstock. I backed the panel with Altenew foam tape and mounted it on some yellow paper from my stash, cut to A2 size.

Hooray! This card won an Inky Paws Birthday Challenge Designer's Favorite award!

More organizing

 

I've been busy organizing my craft storage. The shelves to the left are new. I had outgrown my old shelves, below, and needed more space to stay organized, which is important because these shelves are actually in a corner of my living room, because my craft table is in a corner of my dining room and the living room and dining room flow into each other in such a way that there are no other corners in the dining room. I wanted to sort through everything and see what I still needed and what I was hanging onto out of guilt or misplaced feelings. The things I don't need are going to an organization that helps teachers, either by sharing the things I'm donating, or selling the things they can't use. The area that still needs help is the top of the original shelves. That's mostly stuff I use very occasionally, but has survived the purge because I just can't bear to get rid of it yet. Maybe someday. Everything on the shelves themselves is stuff I use on a regular basis and is 

labeled so I not only know where to look for things, I know where to put them back. I also have a database I use for my stamps and dies. All of my dies are in (170 sets so far) and most of my stamps (only my largest sets and backgrounds to go). I also intend to inventory my punches and stencils. I might do my embossing folders as well. I thought about putting my inks into the database, but I have them swatched on a ring above my desk and decided that was good enough. Now I just need to create something!

HBD!

 This is another card from the Crop & Create Delivered weekend. This one was taught by Angie from LDRS Creative. I shared it with my sister-in-law for her birthday. It did involve fussy cutting, not my favorite as everyone knows, but the cutting wasn't that bad and the card came out pretty nice. I know I'll be using these sets for other cards in the future.

Have a Happy Day!

 This little bear is properly dressed for sliding down rainbows! This card was created for a Lawn Fawn color challenge using the four colors you see in the rainbow plus the yellow of the sun. I ink blended the background in Distress Ink Tumbled Glass, and then used Distress Oxides in Broken China, Prize Ribbon, Wilted Violet, and Picked Raspberry for the rainbow and Squeezed Lemonade for the sun. The little bear is from Lawn Fawn's Beary Rainy Day stamp set and was colored with Copic markers and cut out with the coordinating die. The sentiment is from the same set. I finished off the card with some sequins from Trinity Stamps.

Another Purrfect Entry!

 This is my entry into the current sketch challenge in the Inky Paws Challenge group. The patterned papers are from the Newton's Nook Birthday Party paper pad, and the image of Newton and his gifts, as well as the sentiment, come from Newton's Birthday Bash. The image was stamped and then colored with Copic markers. Happy birthday!

Be Kind

Kindness was the theme of many of the cards we made over the four days of the Crop & Create Delivered Spring 2023 weekend. I especially like this one made with layering stencils and coordinating stamps from Brutus Monroe. Simon Hurley's inks give it such a pop!
 

Fun with Gina K.!

 

Here's another card from the Crop & Create Delivered Spring 2023 classes. This one was taught by the incredible Gina K. using her new Curved Floral Banner stencil and die set along with her Masks and Fillers stencil and her beautiful inks as well as Master Layout 2. I love how it turned out.

Shake things up!

 I love to make shaker cards and I've had the idea for this one for a long time. The Lawn Fawn bunnies and eggs on the front were stamped and embossed in Ranger Fine Detail white embossing powder and then I ink blended over them. The large egg cut out is from Lawn Fawn's Outside In Easter Egg Stackables. On the inside, I stamped and white embossed again this time using the Simon Says Stamp Doodle Egg Background stamp. Then I used Altenew foam tape to put it all together and decorated the front with some Gina K. sequins. The shaker fill is Brutus Monroe's Spring sequin mix. I was inspired by Jennifer McGuire to mix it up and use products from different companies together. I'm very pleased with how it turned out. Happy Easter to all who celebrate and for those that don't I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Fun with Pink & Main

 This card from the Crop and Create Spring 2023 event was taught by Michelle from Pink & Main. It's a pop-up card that fits in an A2 envelope. This one has a little more masculine flair than most cards. All dies and patterned paper are by Pink & Main. I colored the stars and sentiments to match with markers-I think I got pretty close.