Mission (IM)Possible ~ Star bright!

 

Hello friends!

Today's card is for the Mission  Impossible Possible 

quarterly-ish card group

where we receive a mystery item from a hostess

and then create a card with the item!

This mission's mystery item was a beautiful star bright stencil

from Spellbinders and it was sent to both Barb and I from Jeanette.

She also  purchased one for herself and

 we 3 have the same stencil to create our own versions of cards.

Mine probably should have been a candidate for the Hot Mess card!

I started by taking  a sheet of watercolor cold press paper

and did a dry flat wash using Altenew watercolors.

Once it was dry (several hours naturally), I used the Spellbinders

Star Bright stencil over the top, my ranger distress inks and blending 

foam brushes from Scrapbook.com.

The last creative part was a dusting of ultra fine glitter after 

pouncing the stencil and paper with versamark.

This card has a great New Year's flair with the sparkle and shimmer!

I added the string for a bit more drama 

and as a reminder of how we always have streamers and horns 

that blow strings each New Year's celebration :)

The sentiment is from Taylored Expressions simple strips Crafty

stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black Ink.

You can see Barb's card here 

and Jeanette's card here.

I'm up next Mission and the item I'll be sending them found me last week!

Honestly, I'm a little scared, LOL!

But a challenge it is!

Stay tuned for that mission -

 coming to a blog near you in the Spring '22!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Rainbow bloom!

 

Hi friends!

I'm still here!

GOSH ... it's been FOR-EH-VAH since I've posted!

Aside from summer, trying to squeeze in cleaning, exercising

and watching my little 2 year old granddaughter, I'm filming!

First, thank you so much for visiting my teeny tiny YouTube channel!

I appreciate your comments and support - it means the world to me <3

I have been filming a lot of summer short craft videos,

a few shopping hauls and cardmaking - a little this, a little that :)

On to my card ....

This is probably the favorite card I've made like ALL year!

I made this for the #lovewins blog hop on Instagram

and never showcased it here on my blog.

So here we go!

Happy Friday!

Wishing you a great start to your weekend <3

Thanks for stopping by!

Double Duty card #2 ~ Lawn Fawn

 

Hi friends!

Thank you SO MUCH for your super sweet words 

from this post - it is so exciting and so fun and you are awesome! :)

Another thing that is fun?!

  The Double Duty card challenge

where Barb, Jeanette and I create 2 cards with a chosen theme.

This is similiar to a series I did previously called Spot The Difference.

The spin off of this one is that Barb choses a stamp company

each month for us to create 2 different cards.

 February's stamp company = Lawn Fawn :)

YAY!

I adore Lawn Fawn and have many many stamps and dies <3

For my cards, I've used Lawn Fawn's Our Friendship Grows.

I adore sunflowers but decided not to go traditional with these cards.

And I just love them :)

It took forever and a day to create it because I started with just this!

A distress oxide background from Creative Chick's distress oxide class!

I wasn't happy with this one panel at. all. so I 'repurposed' it 

and ended up stamping directly onto the panel and die cutting it.

And then I did like it so much!

To create the card base, I added a die cut panel of Spiffy Speckles 

and used my LF stitched rectangles to Licorice cardstock.

I used nearly every millimeter of the panel with the flowers

and leaves and then had an idea - add some sweet ladybugs!

I followed the current Lawn Fawnatics #95 sketch for this card

and I love that it made a 'quad' with the sunflowers.

For my 2nd card, I kept it SUPER simple 

and had an idea to use just one of the sunflowers as a contrast to the

black and white cardstock and background.

No coloring and just popped up the watercolored sunflower

and added a quick sentiment.  

This year I'm 'stocking my stash' + now I have one more get well card!

Here is a final look at both of my cards:

One stamp company, 2 different cards!

I love LOVE that I was able to use something I didn't like so much

and made 2 pretty cards that I DO like so much :)

Tomorrow I have a lunch date with my 2nd daughter 

who has some pretty big life changes - and I'm super excited

to catch up!  We're going to one of our favorite restaurants

as well as a book store and the fresh farmer's market <3

Thanks for stopping by and making it to the end of this post!

HIPPO Valetine's Day!

 Hi friends!

I have a new YouTube video up on my itty bitty channel!

In the video, and with this card, 

I'm sharing how I created an ombre blue Valentine's Day card

that will be for my husband.  

He's so sweet and says often watches my channel when he's at work

 just to hear me :)

Guess I won't be doing any crafty HAULS

of all the things he's buys me and doesn't know of new goodies! 

HA!

These cute hippos are from Clearly Besotted

and were exclusive to orders spending $60 or more.

Lucky for me, I did not!  

I got mine brand new from someone selling it in the forums - yay me!

I've also used the Lawn Fawn lawn cuts and distress oxides.

I would love for you to check out the video

as I'm trying to grow my audience 

and have some fun things coming up!

Thanks for stopping by!

COF: Butterfly Kisses :)

Hi friends!

Fluttering by with a hi!

I couldn't be more excited that it is officially summer!

It's so wonderful to have carefree summer days,

not driving back and forth (and back and forth!) to school

and having a schedule that's much. more. relaxed!

My card is for the Crafters of Faith card group

and it's the first card I've made in almost 2 weeks :/

We have a wonderful theme from our hostess, Michelle: 

 Scripture: 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Challenge: Keeping it simple with "feature butterflies on your project". I know how the summer months can be!

 And butterflies have always been a favorite of mine.

 I used Butterfly Kisses from Lawn Fawn to include butterflies on my card,

and the cloud die stencil from My Favorite Things

with tumbled glass distress oxide ink.

I also used my much loved and used hills die from Pink and Main 

 (these dies are PINK!)

 to complete the sweet and scenic look. 

This set is just SO SO cute ~ I can see a lot of cards ahead with it!

 Thanks for stopping by my blog today!
Big hugs, bigger blessings ♥

~Kelly

Day 5: Friends in any weather!

Hi friends!

It's the final day of my weekly blog series
 "5 days of ..."

The Alphabet Game!

It's been such a fun week
and I'm already excited for the next one ahead :)

Today's card is based on letter "H!"

 

 This was such a happy draw for me as I have quite a few stamp sets

with this letter

and almost all of them haven't seen ink.

This darling set is by Hello Bluebird stamps and it just touched my heart 

when I saw this various social media sites during release week!

I used a background panel to create the weathered look 

with distress/oxide inks and popped the images up on the card with foam. 

I stamped the sentiment on the completed background piece

and popped up a die cut to frame it in - 

then added coordinating sequins.

 

 This card is part of my #kindess cards

(as per kindness being my word of the year!)

Each of the cards during this week's release

 is being sent to someone in particular!

While this rainy day card is vibrant and bright and cheerful in color,

so is she - my friend :)

We have weathered a lot together, too!

Thanks for stopping by each day!

Remember there is a prize for one lucky commenter,

and each winner will be annoucned at the end of the weekly series:  July 27th.

Thank you for your KIND and sweet words, your encouragement,

and inspiring me with each of your creations as I visit your blogs, too!

Big hugs, bigger blessings ♥ 

~Kelly

DBC ~ You Make My Heart Melt!

 Hi friends!

I'm on the Drive By Crafts blog today with this card ~ You Make My Heart Melt ♥

I think this is probably one of my favorite cards of this year :)

I absolutely adore it ~ 

from the distress ink blending to the shimmery snow to the cute little kitties ...

it's just so cheerful :)

{and we can always use cheer and happiness} :)

Here's how I made this card from Products at Drive By Crafts online store:

I used the You Make My Heart Melt stamp from the My Favorite Things stamp selections and stamped those out with Brutus Monroe Raven ink.

Oh I love this ink!  So crisp and clean and spot on!

Then, I ran the images through the Cuttlebug with the matching die-namics ~

but remember, you don't need the dies - just fussy cut your images!

I colored the images and then set them aside to work on my background.

 

Since this card is going to a sweet friend,

I knew I wanted pinks and purples as a background.

The exact shades I wanted were Ranger Tim Holtz Picked Raspberry Distress Ink

and Ranger Archival Ink is Magestic Violet.

Using my mini blending tool, I blended both the raspberry and violet inks outward 

until the entire A2 size cardstock was covered and put it aside to set.

For the lake, I wanted to simulate the sparkle of the sun on the ice,

so I added clear Wink of Stella to the image - instant ice skating shimmer!

*A little tip!  I'm a little (okay - a lot!) heavy handed when it comes to blending,

so I hold a scrap piece of paper over the area as I've blended ...

keeps the ink off my fingers AND smudges off your paper! :)

For the frame, this part took a bit of creativity

 and thinking outside the box ... or outside the frame!

I used my My Favorite Things die-namic frame but discarded the actual die cut,

and used the outer area that looked like a window box frame.

So I basically kept the part you toss and tossed saved the part you keep!

I added Scrapbook Adhesives 3D foam to the under side of the white A2 size frame and inverted it and attached that to background to frame it out.
I repeated this with the kitties and the owl - popped up on 3d foam for dimension.

And lastly, I used my white embossing powder and heat gun to 

embossed the sentiment to the card and popped that up, 

too.

To create the water color movement in the ink,

I took a medium size paintbrush with plain water and flicked it onto the ink

background.  It breaks up the monotony of the background color.

 And that's my card .. I hope you enjoyed my rambling today :)

You can stop by the DBC blog and see more inspiration,

as well as take a little drive through the DBC store here or the blog here.

 

My time is almost up being on the Drive By Crafts Design Team ~

it's been a fun ride! 

Thanks for stopping by today!

Big hugs, bigger blessings ♥

~Kelly