Feeling Blue?

I have a family member recovering from illness so thought I'd send him this card with The Greeting Farm's Cheeky Nurse. MarkerPop is doing a Blue Challenge so thought I'd play along.

Copics Used:
Hair: E15, E17, E19
Skin: E000, E00, E11, R20 (cheeks)
Shoes and stethoscope: C5
Nurse's uniform: BG000, BG13, BG49 [C1 for stockings]

Other Material Ingredients:
brads from my stash
yellow hearts from small Recollections heart punch (from Michael's)
Sizzix Textured Impressions Embossing Folder - Tropical Paisley
Sentiment stamp "Get Well Soon" from my wood-block stash
Tim Holtz Broken China Distress Ink Pad

I would like to enter this card into the following challenge:

MarkerPop Challenge #29 - The Blues

Labeling Distress Ink Pads

I have a quick SHOW AND TELL for you today on how I label my Distress Ink stamp pads. This ink is so great but I find that the pads work best when the stamp pad is stored upside down. This keeps all the inky goodness at the top of the pad. Tim Holtz Distress Ink pads are also super easy to stack; however, this leaves the small problem of not being able to tell what colors are in each stack. The sides of the Distress Ink pads are black. This is how I solved the issue:

Step 1: Using my Stampin' Up Word Window Punch, I punched out the word windows from an Avery label sheet (so the back side is already sticky). What worked best for me was pulling the label off the sheet first and then placing it in my punch. Trying to get the label backing off of the already-punched word window was not possible or extremely frustrating in the best situation.

Step 2: Place sticky word window on index finger (or any finger of choice depending on mood).  ;)

Step 3: Rub color onto the word window (note: you will get inky but that's part of the fun right?!).

Step 4: Place word window on the side of the Distress Ink pad (see how perfectly it fits!)

Step 5: Enjoy your crafty wonderfulness!

Manly Birthday Card Ingredients

Here's a quick card for you today.

Ingredients:

The Greeting Farm's CC James

Tim Holtz Stamper's Anonymous "Stuff to Say" Stamp Set

"Boys Only" Doodlebug 6x6 Paper Pad

Tim Holtz Broken China Distress Ink

Tim Holtz Wild Honey Distress Ink

Tim Holtz Distresser & Sander

Memento Tuxedo Black Ink

Copic Markers: 

Hair: BG13, BG49, C1, C3, C5

Skin: E000, E00

Jacket: C1

Pants: B28 or B29 (sorry, don't remember)

I would like to enter this card into the following challenge:

The Greeting Farm's Farm Fresh Friday Challenge - Anything Goes!

Baby Time

Today I want to show you a card I recently made for my sister (who is, as you've probably guessed) getting ready to have a baby! This is her first one and I'm just so excited for her!

Card Top Ingredients:
Saturated Canary Rubber Stamp Image of Ice Cream & Pickles
Stampin' Up Punches - Word Window & Modern Label
Doodlebug Stars & Stripes 6x6 Pad
Copic Markers (sorry, didn't record them this time)
Red Stickles (for the cherry)
Blue & Red cardstock, twine, and buttons all from my stash

Card Inner Ingredients:
The Greeting Farm's baby boy stamp (retired)
Broken China Distress Ink Pad

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

7 Kids College Fund Challenge #78- Anything Goes with a Twist of Vintage

Oozak Challenge #18 - Anything Goes with Texture

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Dry & Wet Embossing with The Greeting Farm

Hi all, just a quick card to show you today. I had to make something fairly quickly for an anniversary card. With two kiddos under three I feel like I am forced to do many things quickly. :)

Using an embossing folder from my stash (sorry, forgot the brand), I quickly dry embossed some basic black cardstock. Next, I inked up three fun stamps from The Greeting Farm's Creeper Crew Volume 1 Collection. I used Sasha and Tyler. I love Tyler and I thought he was totally perfect for this Anniversary Card as the hubby in question is quite the guitarist! Sasha is always in style so she was great to use for the Better Half. :)

I wet embossed the stamps using Zing Metallic Gold Embossing Powder and Top Boss Tinted Embossing Stamp Pad.

The inside was created quickly using two CTMH stamp sets  (Butterfly from CTMH "It's Your Day" Set and Celebration No. from CTMH D1421 "Cherish the Moment").

Well, that's it for now. Next week I hope to show you some of the crafty projects I've been working on for my (+ kiddos) craft room. Stay Tuned!

I would like to enter this card into the following challenge:

The Greeting Farm's Garden Variety Tuesday - Anything Goes

A Little Taste of Just Wrong

Halloween is my absolute favorite time of year. I love the cuter side of Halloween - little ghosts and goblins saying "trick or treat" at my door, funny/scary Halloween stories, dressing up in fun costumes, witchy home decor, etc. So, when 7 Kids College Fund issued a "Just Wrong" challenge, I knew I had to join. I'm not too into the gory side of Halloween but I thought this card wasn't too too bad.  I'm thinking of giving it to my husband on Halloween - what do you think?  ;)

I used The Greeting Farm Stamps - Cafe Ian and Creeper Crew Jill stamp from the now retired Vol. 1 Collection of Creepers. I replaced Cafe Ian's coffee mug with a still-beating heart. I free-hand drew the heart using my copic pen and colored with copic markers. 

Paper from DCWV "The Green Stack" recycled paper pack 

Inks: Memento Black Tuxedo, Tim Holtz Distress Ink Barn Door & Crushed Olive

Ian's hair: G03, G05, and G07

Ian's suit: shades of C1 through C9 - Ian's shoes: 100 (black)

Heart: R29, R24, and B24

The zombie skin was colored using YG06 and C1 for shadows. 

Zombie Eyes - R29 

Jill's hair: BG72, BG75, and BG78

Jill's dress & bow: W1, W3, and W5

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

7 Kids College Fund Challenge #75- Just Wrong
Oozak.com Challenge #16 Anything Goes with Sentiment

Teacher Appreciation Gifts - Revisited

Hi all, sorry I've been slow in posting a new update - we've had a crazy fun month with our two-week vacation to DisneyWorld/Clearwater Florida/Chicago. The one major take-away from this vacation is that flying with two small children is no bueno. We will drive next time for sure. I just got my new baby (see below) so we are ready for some road-trippin'   :)

In an earlier post, I talked about making super quick cards for teacher appreciation gifts (see post HERE). Well, here is the finished product:

I used the teachers' favorite colors to make each card and tried to personalize the contents of each mason jar with the types of things they liked such as their favorite chocolates/candy. These were fun and came out to about $10/gift (if you exclude any gift cards I put in some of the jars for the lead teachers).

The stamp at the top of the bee is from a retired Stampin' Up Set and the thank you is just a wooden stamp from my stash. I cut the circles for the top of the mason jars using the Sizzix Circle Framelits.

Saturday Stress Reliever

One of the kiddos is sleeping and one is watching a movie through Netflix so I stole some time to make a quick card for a few challenges. We are in the middle of a car-buying process and it is so stressful!

I did half of the card sitting on the couch with my oldest daughter though! That was a challenge!

Here is my card and the first one I've ever done for a photo inspiration challenge. There is an interesting one over at Anyone for Anya? Here is the picture for the challenge:

I used the Limited Edition Wonderland Stamp - Alice from The Greeting Farm. I also used the Delicate Words die and threw a little pink bling on the card.

I colored her hair using my favorite blonde combo- Y11, Y21, YR23. I used the typical pink copics - R81, R83, and R85 for her dress and bow. I used B34 for the shoes and eyes and C1 for the shadows on her. apron.

I'm also following the Garden Variety's Challenge on The Greeting Farm which is a sketch this week.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Anyone for Anya? Photo Inspiration

The Greeting Farm - Garden Variety Tuesday Sketch

No Time to Waste - 10 Thank You Cards in 40 Minutes

Hi all,

I wanted to share with you a brief post about not obsessing over perfection in cards. Sometimes my cards take more than two hours to complete (including coloring) and I use a Clean & Simple (CAS) style. I can't imagine what kind of time commitment truly intricate cards take you.

It is Teacher Appreciation Week at my daughters' daycare/preschool. With two little ones, it is very hard to get time to craft. I had one hour and ten thank-you cards to complete. With some cardstock, a bit of washi tape, some embellishments, my favorite The Greeting Farm stamps, and sentiment stamps...you too can have quick thank you cards! What' even better, these cards cost pennies to make.

Make a quick A2 card, stamp TGF stamp

Attach Washi Tape & Embellishment of choice

Added "To" stamp from TGF's Signature Set. Added Person's name (not shown). Colored one element of the stamp using clear atyou spica pen (sorry doesn't show up well in photos - colored the cloud here)
DONE!

Used the Thank You stamp for the inside of the card (sorry no photo)

Whew, quick and easy. I'm going to pair these with little gifts I have yet to get. Teacher Appreciation Week is half-way over so I better get crackin'!

Recycling Old Cards

Today I would like to share a card with you that uses a recycled element. I don't know about you but I hate throwing greeting cards away, even the (gasp!) store-bought kind. Compound that with a mother in law that loves sending multiple cards for every holiday and happy occasion and it results in a huge basket with a few years worth of Hallmark greetings. About a year ago, I started combing through the older ones and cutting out cute sayings, embellishments, and cute characters (like Mickey Mouse, Snoopy, etc) and saving them in a zip-loc bag for use on my cards. However, that's where they sat. Until Today! Anyone for Anya has a great challenge right now - Recycled!  This was just the perfect opportunity for me to reach into my stash and find something fun.

The card I made using Miss Anya Lounge. I love, love the Miss Anyas! They are so stinking cute! I'm not sure if this set is retired or not but I couldn't find it on The Greeting Farm's website - really glad I already have it.

The recycled element is the Happy Birthday sentiment. I took it from a fun Snoopy card where he is riding a motorcycle. Don't worry, I also cut Snoopy out and plan to use him someday on another card. The rest of that card went into the recycling bin. :)

For Miss Anya, I wanted to play with my new blue copics - B32, B34, B28, and B37. I had to add some sparkle to her headband, her eyeshadow, and her number on the jersey - used the copic spica glitter pen.

Enjoy!

The sentiment comes from the TGF Anya Lifts stamp set. Circles were cut using the Sizzix Framelits.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Anyone for Anya? - Recycle!

The Greeting Farm's Retro-Fresh Challenge - Polka Dots and/or Plaids

Purple Wonderland

Today, I wanted to share with you another of the TGF Limited Edition Wonderland Stamps - Hatter Bean!

I colored her up with my usual medium of choice - copic sketch markers! Since she is a little "mad" I wanted to give her a funky hair color. I love my purples and had a great time giving her locks of that hue. I specifically used V12, V15, and V17 for the hair and V04, V06, and V09 for the coloring on her outfit and hat. I used cool greys (i.e. C1, C3, C5) for her hat, dress, and boots.

I couldn't find any papers in my stash that had purple and gray in them so I decided to make my own! This was the first time attempting this but I think it came out great. I used the chevron stamp from the Close To My Heart Stamp Set and stamped it with dusty concord distress ink (shown below):

I also added flowers from my Sizzix Sizzlits Flower & Loopy Flower #2 die and finished it off with brads from my stash. I'm still loving the Delicate Words die from The Greeting Farm so I used that as well.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my show-and-tell and this helps you be even more frugal by creating your own paper. Look around at your stamps...I'm sure you have lots of possibilities! This leaves more money to spend on cute stamps and copics!

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

TGF's April Showers Bring May Flowers

The Perfect Sentiment - Make it Feminine

Mad for Markers May Challenge - One for the Girls

7 Kids College Fund - April Showers Bring May Flowers

King of My Heart

I recently had my four-year wedding anniversary to my hubby and used this as a chance to showcase one of my new TGF Limited Edition Wonderland Stamps - Queen Bean. I recently won the whole set in a blog hop and was itching to play with them. I also used all three Delicate Words Dies (also from TGF). Let me tell you, I was concerned that such small/delicate letters would rip when I removed them from the die, but that was not the case...they came out very easily and looked great!

I loosely followed a sketch from the TGF Double Take Tuesday's Challenge. Well, without further adieu, here she is - Her Highness, Queen Bean in all her glory:
I used my favorite blonde copics for her hair (to sort-of match my own): Y11, Y21, YR23  - it makes such a pretty golden blonde color

The Entire Card - Pink and Fabulous (it's not manly but it's from me, so I made it reflective of my personality)

My Supplies (Love my Sizzix Framelits!)

The Back of All of My Cards - The Heart stamp is from Stampin' Up and I bought the barcode stamp at Joann's a few years ago.

I have to also have a mom-moment and leave you with my 2.5 year old daughter's first picture using TGF stamps and crayons. :)

I am entering into the following challenges:

TGF's Double-Take Tuesday Challenge - It's a Sketch!

7 Kids College Fund Challenge #71 Anything Goes

Sizzix May Challenge

For the Love of Washi

For the Love of Washi

Ok, I'll be the first to admit it - I jumped on the Washi bandwagon awhile back. I bought a nice stack of washi tape during a sale on Pick Your Plum and Scrapbooksteals.com.  However, I keep forgetting to use it! When I made this card, I looked through my washi tape and saw this cute green scrolling one and thought it fit so well with Your Highness Lucy. This was my first time getting inky with her and I had a great time. I'm actually pretty pleased with the way her hair turned out. For pearls I used white liquid pearls. To give the image a little more sparkle, I colored her crown, shoes, and champagne with Copic Atyou Spica Glitter Pen - Gold. 

I'm submitting this to the Sparkle Creations Rubber Stamps Challenge #102 - Washi Tape

Flower Child

Ok, I've been incredible MIA lately but I wanted to get back to publishing some of my cards. As you know I'm a complete TGF addict so I just had to get Anya Blooms as soon as she came on the market. I still don't have an acrylic block big enough for the Big Time Anyas but I find that just applying even pressure to the back of the stamp is all that is required to get a good impression on the paper. I just purchased a few W copics so I played around with making her dress Khaki. I used W1, W3, and W5. I now want W00 and W7 & W9 to complete the collection and offer more versatility. These daisies remind me of my wedding - I made the colors of the daisies the colors I used in my wedding. Very happy with how this card turned out, especially her hair color. What do you think?




Close-up image of her hair.

I'm entering this card into Marker Pop's Challenge Anything Goes