Happy Hugs!

 Hi friends!

What start with an H and wraps around you with big squishies?

Happy Hugs!

 Today's class cards were taught by the absolutely lovely Laura Bassen ~
one of my biggest card stars ♥

Her sense of humor and use of color and whimsy just make me smile!

This is my duo of cards based on her class ~
and yes,

we fancy!

We dipped in gold! 

 

Okay, I would just like to state

~ for the record ~

this card is really pretty in real life!

I know, I know ...

it looks like I found it under my couch after it's been there for a month!

Let me 'splain!

I did a rustic gold dipping ... I wasn't going for perfect lettering

or lines and when I did my dipped gold, it looked a little ......... off. 

So I took the letter S and peeled the gold foil up a little bit

and loved how it looked a little weathered

so I repeated that for the rest of the letters.

I promise it looks super  ~

it just photographed a little more on the funky side!
.

 For this card, I used the only letter die cuts I own - Spellbinders Grand Shapeabilities.

I carried the same color palette through to both cards.

And there's a 3rd card!

I will probably post that at a later time :)

 And I'm definitely sending happiness your way!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Big hugs, bigger blessings ♥

~Kelly 

Card entiered to: Southern Girls Challenge

CCEE2018 ~ World Penguin Day!

Hi Crafty Friends,

  There's a new challenge at the CCEE Stampers 
and Frances has asked us to create a card with penguins!

 
April 25th was World Penguin Day ... 
so feature penguins on your cards this week.
If you don't have penguins, then create a black and white card!

My card is using Avery Elle Bring on the Joy - one of my favorite holiday stamps!
I've used the stamp and matching die set to create a little joyful scene.
I've added an Avery Elle-ments stitched die frame
and popped it up on 3D foam for dimension.

 

 You can see what the Design Team has created by
heading over to the CCEE Blog here!

Thanks for stopping by!
Big hugs, bigger blessings ♥
~Kelly

Grateful for crafty friends!

Hi friends!

As someone who loves to write,

words make me happy!

 I'd definitely call myself a wordsmith :)

This homework for Spring Card Camp with this set of cards

was super duper fun!

 I noticed a couple of days ago that almost all of my cards from camp

are blue and teal!

So I decided to switch it up a bit and go for hot pink :)

 

 I used 4 Ranger Ink distress oxide inks to create this set ~

blending them with the TE Blender Brushes.

One is a die cut inlay and one is popped up ~

and I really wish I knew where this grateful die was from.

I bought a destash stamp set from someone and she included it

as a free gift to me - isn't that sweet!

I've long forgotten the who and how as it was a year ago ~
so if it looks familiar, please let me know!

I used the word grateful as my word 

as that's certainly how I feel amidst the Covid19 craziness ~

and I'm certainly lucky to have crafty friends like all of you!

And that's it from this class 'homework!'

Thanks for stopping by!
Big hugs, bigger blessings ♥

~Kelly

 

 

CYS: Cajun Mango Flowers!

 Hi friends!

I have another card today ~ for the CYS card group.

The Challenge Your Stash began as a way to inspire us

to use our older, perhaps forgotten, stamps!

Nothing new can be used and we dig through our stash

and create a card with a chosen theme.

This month, Joyce chose a theme of flowers!

Critters are my absolute favorite stamps of all time

but next in line - flowers!

I paired my card today with the color challenge at SCS ~

 Cajun, Mango and Poppy!

The colors lend themselves to a fall or autumn feel to me :)

 

I've used my older Reverse Confetti Cotton and Thistles stamp set

which I just love!

I purchased this from a crafters destash for just a couple of dollars

last year and was so excited to add it to my collection :)

I've used just the flowers from the set

and colored the flowers and cotton stems to match the color theme.

I've added a small sentiment that was on my desk already

from a previous cardmaking session - I went with a white embossed version

so I'm putting this little guy to good use ~ no throwaways!

 

 Thanks for stopping by again! :)

Big hugs, bigger blessings!
~Kelly

TPB: Mom ['mäm ]

 Hi friends!

 Mother's Day is coming up so it's a good time to make a few cards :)

My mum is from England (born and raised!) 

so we celebrate with her in March, too ...

it's a small tradition of ours and gives her a little bit of home ♥

 

 

 My card today is celebrating all the moms!

I've created it with a stamp set from The Project Bin called Defined.

It's a wonderful clear stamp set with stamps for the front

and for the inside of your card, too!

I've made a card and a matching gift tag 

for my mom's giftie!

 

 Here's the inside of my card, continuing the theme

 with the designer paper ↓

 

 

This stamp set and many more wonderful stamps and dies

are available here in The Project Bin shop.

You can see the stamp set I used here today in it's entirety:

If you'd like to see what the Design Team creates each weekday,

you see some pretty amazing cards on the blog. 

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

Big hugs, bigger blessings ♥

~Kelly

Sending you rainbows!

Hi friends!

I hope you are all doing wonderful and are safe and sound!

Today's cards are the 'homework' from Spring Camp.

I have loved this camp so so SO much

and I'm a little sad it's ending this week :(

And I know we aren't supposed to have a favorite but ...

this class gave me all the feels!

♥

 

  This class has so many things that I love ~

rainbows and happiness,

bright, vivid colors and fluffy clouds!

(I'm a daydream believer and cloud-watching makes me happy!)

I started with this 

↓ 

I have a set of circle dies somewhere but had to improvise a little bit :)

We crafters are good at that right?

I used the stacked dome die-namics from My Favorite Things,

and clear heat embossed one. 

I wasn't sure about how I felt with the end result 

so I left the next one un-embossed

and began stamping and creating these cards.

 For the 2 sweet sentiments, I used one from a Lawn Fawn stamp set

and one from MFT stamps.

There's a lot of dimension on these cards and 

they have a lot of pop up!

I certainly found joy in the blessing of this card camp homework ♥

I actually ended up making 6 cards!

Yep, I loved it that much :)

Thanks for stopping by, friends!

Big *air hugs*, bigger blessings ♥

~Kelly

Linking this to:  Word Art Wednesday!

WAVE-ing hello!

  

Hi friends!

Wave-ing hello to all of you from a sunny South Florida!

It's been super hot here and the summer showers have moved in early.

Aside from cooking our big Sunday dinner, 

I'm hoping to add crafting to the day's activities :)

 

 

For the next duo of camp cards,

 I just went with the flow for my 'homework' :)

 I used my Go With The Flow stencil

from Taylored Expressions and the TE Blender Brushes 

and Ranger Ink distress oxide inks in

Salty Ocean

 Cracked Pistachio

Tumbled Glass

 

 

The first card was created using the second card's imprint!

I added the hello die and and then stamped the matching sentiment

 from My Favorite Things.

 I heat embossed the sentiment with white embossing powder 

and popped it up on 3d foam.

And the duo card ↓

 Time to start making dinner here :)

On the menu tonight is Arroz con pollo 

(chicken with yellow rice)

 which is a labor of love that I really enjoy making ♥

Thanks for stopping by!

Big hugs, bigger blessings!

~Kelly

You make life brighter!

Happy Saturday!

Thanks so much for the anniversary wishes ~ you are all super sweet ♥

I have another set of cards for the FAN-TAS-TIC card camp!

I have enjoyed this camp so much

and in addition to learning new things, I'm always finding my comfort zone.

Today's card duo is written in the stars!

 For this class, I used 4 distress ink from Ranger Ink,

a Ranger Ink watercolor brush,

come chunky sparkly glitter to create a shaker card

and a reverse pop up card!

 For my cards, I've used the My Favorite Things stamp set Stars Above.

I used this because I wanted a bold die cut for my shaker card

and this set had both and some super fun sentiments.

Here's card #1 

 And my second card ↓

It's hard to photograph the glitter inside the shaker card 

 My house is pretty quiet at the moment which is RARE

so I'm excited to get inky and continue onward!

 Thanks for stopping by!
Big hugs, bigger blessings ♥

~Kelly

Let's Fiesta!

Hi friends!

 Today my cards for the #OCCSpringCardCamp are all about a fiesta!

I have a Bestie who has a birthday on May 5th ~

and her son was born just a few days shy of that date,

so we lovingly call her Cinco de Mama :)

I think she may end up with one of these as a birthday card!

When I was doing my cards for the next class at the #OCCSpringCardCamp,

I new the date would align with our anniversary

so I chose one that had a party theme.

I don't own a lot of 'word' metal dies so it was kinda slim pickings!

I remembered I had this fun fiesta die-namic from My Favorite Things

(I think it's retired now - I couldn't find it to link to the die.)

I used an MFT framework stencil to create a background,

blending with my Taylored Expressions Blender Brushes.

I found that they glide very smoothly over a stencil easier than

my Tim Holtz blending tool (which I love!) and I used 3 distress inks:

Squeezed Lemonade

Mowed Lawn

and Fired Brick.

 If you have visited my blog this week,

you've probably noticed a theme :) 

↓

 

And I'm super excited for the next set of cards!!

 

Have a great weekend, friends!

Big hugs, bigger blessings ♥

~Kelly

Anniversary wishes and crafty friends ♥

Hi friends!

27 years ago, my husband and I said "I do!"

We met as teenagers

 and had a long dating and engagement before we got married

and have been together for 36 years ♥

He jokingly tells everyone "I should get a medal!"

 And I didn't know I married a comedian :)

#OCCSpringCardCamp continues!
 

 And this is my homework from the last class taught by Kristina Werner.

I loved her class so much!

She takes her time and is very detail oriented so it's easy to follow

and I just love the set of cards I made with this class.

  

It's no secret that I love bright, bold, whimsical colors ~

the more colorful, the more cheerful they are ♥

 I chose these 3 patterned papers from an Echo Park 

Summer Loving paper pad.

For the sentiments, I've used Simple Strips at Taylored Expressions.

The stitched dies are from My Favorite Things and

here's a close up on one of the cards ↓

  

 I'm smiling HUGE because I chose 3 of the simple strips at random

and I noticed at the time of blogging that they all start with H!

Just like Happy ♥

 

 Thanks for stopping by today!

Big hugs, bigger blessings ♥

~Kelly

CCEE2017: Interactive cards!

Hi friends!

There's a new challenge at the CCEE Stampers this week ~
interactive cards!

Frances is our hostess and she is truly the queen of cards that move!

This is her challenge:

 Anyone who knows me knows how much I love cards that pop, 

slide or move in any shape or form. For our challenge this week, 

let's create an interactive card ... what type you make is up to you.

It's a Happy Birthday card!

Today's card is my interactive card that opens and closes - LOL! 

I bought this Happy Birthday Sizzix die from Stephanie Bernard

during the big Hobby Lobby clearance and thought it was kinda neat!

From the outside packaging, I thought it was a pop up/pop out die ~

it's a 3D drop in framelit and opens similar to a tent style card.

Still - it's really cute and I think I'll use this often.

To create this card, I put the framelit dies together

 on Cookie Monster cardstock from Taylored Expressions.

 and secured them with washi tape and used my Gemini Jr. to cut the shape.

I used a small piece of designer paper from My Favorite Things 6 x 6 pad

as a little backdrop.

The 3rd die is the Happy Birthday lettering ~ about A2 size.

Just to give it a little more color, I cut out several of the letters

in a variety of colors and skipped a few letters for contrast :)

Instead of a square insert for the inside,
I used the same framelet to match the HB die shape so it would line up perfectly.
When the card is closed, you can't see it - tada!

 Once it's complete, it folds flat and fits into a regular A2 size envelope

like this Lemon Meringue one from Taylored Expressions.

Be sure to head over to the CCEE Stampers blog 

and see what the DT has created this week!

You can also link up your interactive cards by using the LINKY at the bottom.

Thanks for stopping by!
Big hugs, bigger blessings ♥

~Kelly

Day 5 ~ Joyful Winter!

 Hi friends!

Oh how I love snow!

It holds a magical, memorable place in my heart of growing up in Europe

and the adventures my brother and I had :)

I can still close my eyes and see it all ♥

We have a snowy mountain vacation planned for this Christmas

but with Covid19, it just might be on hold ...

Like most of us, plans are at a standstill until we know it's safe. 

Onward to the next class at the #OCCSpringCardCamp card class ....

This one was taught by the talented Debby Hughes.
Yes!

That Debby from Lime Doodle Design - she is so inspiring! 

When I have that (rare) free moment, I love watching her YouTube videos ..

they are so relaxing and serene and her cards are so beautifully done. 

Well ... I'm calling my cards today the Old College Try!

I tried.  That's it.

LOL

 For my 'stencil', I didn't have the one anywhere close to what I needed

to I did the next best thing and used a die cut. 

I created the sentiments from a Lawn Fawn stamp set 'winter village'

and spritzed it when dry with a little hint of Ink on 3, 

a gift from my friend Jeanette.

And done and done!

I'm SUPER excited for the next class set of cards ....

and hopefully I won't sit in the corner long for these two!

I adored the class and the watercoloring process ~ just not the result.
It looks a little like a fallen tree in the middle of a lake - LOL!

BUT!

I'm posting anyway because it's all about learning

 ~ love it or not ~

and finding that happy medium ♥

Thanks for stopping by!

Big hugs, bigger blessings!

~Kelly