Hey There, Card Fans!

Guess who got to play today?! I was going to spread the goodness out over a few posts, then thought...what the heck, get it all done in one doozy of a post. LOL

Steve took the girls for a hike in the canyon this afternoon. Both girls got new hiking boots this weekend (and nope, no boots for me. I must be chopped liver or sumthin'). They were hankering to break them in and I decided some time on my own would suit me just fine, so I sent them off with a kiss and a have fun, then gleefully played in my corner. LOL

This first card grew around the tree image, which is a new Basic Grey itsy bitsy stamp I found at Archiver's Hot Spot recently. I must have learned from passing up that leaf set, because I didn't hesitate to nab this set and (cough, cough) a few others.

I first stamped the image with Chocolate ink, then I went back over it with a Kohinoor pencil. I colored in the leaves with another pencil and added Xmas Red Stickles for the cherries. I colored and blended in the "grass" below the tree. The paper is from DCWV Sweet Stack that I've had for a while. I thought matting with a scallop rectangle Nestie in Holiday Red and pop dotting the image would help the image stand out. I decided I wanted to crochet an edge for the card and pulled out a book called 101 Easy Edgings, picked a design I liked, and had fun crocheting that. I adhered it with glue dots after a quick ironing to shape it better. A final touch to help balance the card was the addition of those red "jewels," which were found at Hobby Lobby in the jewelry/beads area. I really like how this one turned out.

Next up is another tree image...this one from Gel-a-tins' Sheltering Tree stamp set (found at A's). I remember having a few issues the first time I used this set, but keep seeing really neat tree images on cards and wanted to make one for myself. This time though, I found my Clover Meadow Embossing powder and wondered how the tree would look with the upper portion embossed. I like it. I toyed with the idea of adding some red Stickles in the centers of the circles, but wasn't brave enough to attempt it (this is the 4th card I made today and my mojo was slowing way down by this point).
As you can see, I kept it pretty simple using the image cut out and the leaf portion pop-dotted. The paper is from DCWV's Spring Matstack and I like how it mimicked grass and the sky. A couple of brads and a bit of White Organdy ribbon to offset the sentiment (inked in Clover Meadow) finished off this card. I got to use my new EK Success edge/emboss punch to give the feel of hills. Not sure if my punch is bad or it doesn't like thin paper, but I had a couple of issues getting the punch to work well, I thought.

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Here's another "simple" card that I really like. I was inspired by this card created by Dawn Easton of Treasure Oiler Designz. Isn't hers pretty? I thought I had a monarch butterfly type stamp set, but a pretty thorough search of my craft corner yielded no such image. So I "settled" for this one from Inkadinkado's Pattern Bugs butterfly image heat embossed in gold. I really, really like how it turned out. I tried a different butterfly image with copper embossing powder first. While it looks gorgeous, I ultimately decided the image was too large for what I wanted to do, so I set it aside and went on the hunt for my gold embossing powder (during that search, I re-discovered my CTMH embossing powders which were tucked away in the garage. That discovery led to the above tree card being made~funny what inspires you, isn't it?).
The ribbon is American Crafts found at Michaels. You can see I used my Cuttlebug D'Vine embossing folder and my oval and scallop oval Nesties. I wanted to add the black brads and used my SU piercing template only the second hole I made was in the wrong spot. Argh!! But inspiration struck(because I didn't feel like pulling down the Cuttlebug yet again) and I played up the gold by using the itty bitty gold rhinestones to cover up that little boo-boo. Yay, Me!

My final card is one I originally wanted to create and share yesterday, all dolled up for the holiday. Since I never did get to it, I decided to color in the All That Scraps digital Kiki image using colors not so patriotic to see how the image would work. I'm tickled with the result. I pulled the colors I used from the new Basic Grey Lemonade paper pack.
I had some fun 'sperimenting with a few different things on this card (can you tell it was the first one I worked on today...my energy level was high, LOL) First off, I used my quickie glue pen to lay down adhesive for the Prisma glitter on the halo. That seemed to work well, so I used my Versamark pen to lay down some Zing embossing powder (it's supposed to look like metallic pink) for the bracelets and the scallop on the bottom of the pant leg. That didn't work quite like I expected, but I wasn't about to start coloring all over again, so I thought...hey, they can be bangles, right? I picked up some new Shimmerz Bling paints the other day and wanted to try some out, so the wings are painted over with the white glittery paint. It's pretty "glitterified" in real life. I Shimmerzed the pink shirt and the yellows in the image as well. Finally, I decided to add some flowers. I've been so impressed with how others use the Primas, that I am pushing myself just a tad to try new things. Here I've layered a few Prima flowers (that gift from A's sure has a great variety of colors and sizes) with some jewelry/bead spacers I found at Joann's. The package is Darice brand and it was a value pack. I added a gold brad on top to adhere all the layers together. Then I decided to add the gold brads on the upper corner for a little more balance. The image is matted with Vineyard Berry cardstock cut with the oval scallop Nestie. I probably will eventually add some sort of sentiment along the lines of make a wish or happy birthday...

Whew! Are you still with me? Did you read all that or did you skip all the words and just look at the pictures? Either way, I'm very glad you stopped by!

Hope your Sunday has treated you well and that your week is a great one!