You Rock! for Color Hues

Hello, my friends!  Can you believe half the year is gone by already? I can almost hear the wind whistling in my ears as the year seems to be flying by lol!

Anyway, let's get down to business.  It's time for a new challenge at Color Hues and the amazing Julie is hosting.  She's chosen a lovely color combination.

Color Hues

These colors would work beautifully for a wedding or anniversary card, but I decided to go a different direction.  Take a look!

Once again, I am filling the need of masculine birthday cards.  This one, with the Retro Radio from Concord & 9th went to my nephew Ron a while back. When he was young, he and my sister lived with my parents and me for a time.  My mom had an old cream-colored radio she always listened to during the day, which inspired this card.  He and I both had a good time reminiscing about that memory on his birthday.

The radio components were die cut from glossy black, matte gold and off-white cardstock.  The music notes are also part of the die set.  The You Rock sentiment, heat embossed in gold and off-set layered on black, is from the coordinating stamp set.  

All the components were super easy to put together but I felt like the card needed a little something more. I die cut a frame from both gold and black, and, as you can see the black won out. It seemed to bring it all together better. I know I'll be making at least two more cards with this die set for each of my BILs, so it may make an appearance in a future post.

Thanks for taking time to visit!  I encourage you to visit the challenge blog, where my talent teammates have some beautiful inspiration for you.  The challenge will remain open until Tuesday, July 14th at 9am EDT.  I hope you'll join us!

Stef

• Concord & 9th Retro Radio Stamps and Dies
• Simon Says Stamp A2 Nesting Frames die
• SSS Glossy Black and Matte Gold cardstock
• Neenah Natural White cardstock

Toucan Birthday for PP792

Hello friends!  I'm here with my card for the new sketch challenge at the Paper Players.  This week the fabulous Joanne is hosting and has given us a wonderful sketch.

Paper Players

I'm also joining the Anything Goes portion of the current Seize the Birthday challenge.

STB #329

I had recently attended The Weekender Goes Wild retreat and created a card with some of the products.  I did take some liberties with the sketch, but I'll explain that below.

The retreat is all about tropical animals and environments.  This is Tiki Toucan and the branch upon which she is sitting, which extends across the panel and has vines and flowers hanging from it, represents the horizontal strip in the sketch and the larger leaf and flower on the left represents the heart.  Unfortunately, I had to move the sentiment up above so it wouldn't cover up many of the flowers and vines.

I started by die cutting all the parts of Tiki, along with all the other elements, from colored cardstock.  Since I'd already used the toucan twice in the class, putting her together was easy.  I did find a Toucan reference photo on the internet and the one with a similarly colored beak had blue feet!  So, of course I had to use that. ;-)

For the background I used the Tropicana Texture embossing folder. It is sized at 5.5" x 8.5" and creates two different A2 patterns, which is so handy!  I used one half which was layered on a lighter piece of green cardstock, then all the scene elements were added, and I thought I was good.  Somehow, though, it looked unfinished to me, so I ended up layering it on a larger black panel, with the card ending up at 6.75" x 5". The black really made Tiki pop and I had a better place for the sentiment.  I love how this turned out, and I hope you don't mind how I riffed a bit on your sketch, Joanne!!

Thanks so much for visiting and I encourage you to visit the challenge blog to see how my amazing teammates used this sketch.  The challenge will remain open until Friday July 3rd at 3pm EDT.  I hope you'll join us this week!

Stef

• *Items from The Weekender Goes Wild 2026 Craft Kit.  The kit and the retreat (on video) is still available on the Spellbinders website.
• *Tiki Toucan die set
• *Jungle Blooms die set
• *Tropicana Texture embossing folder
• Spellbinders Just Add Cake sentiment set (from the Just Add Cake card kit)

Hello Sunshine for PP791

Hello friends!  Here we are on the first day of summer and it's time for a new challenge with the Paper Players.  The lovely Jan is hosting our CAS week and wants us to reflect weather on our cards.  However you interpret that, just be sure to keep it simple with lots of white space and minimal layers.

Paper Players

I was looking out the window the other day to brilliant blue skies with puffy clouds and that inspired me to create this card...

This card took me about 30 minutes to create. The clouds I left white but added a bit of ink blending to the yellow die cut sun.  I masked off the edges of the scallop panel, lightly added some yellow ink where I wanted the sun to be peeking out from behind the cloud, then used a large blending brush to softly add a light aqua to the rest of the sky.  

The sentiment was stamped then I layered the panel on two more die cut panels for a small amount of dimension on the card base.  The sun was adhered directly to the panel and the clouds with thin foam squares.  I was going to leave it at that, but I felt like it needed a bit of sparkle, so I added a few gems.

Thanks for taking time to stop by!  I encourage you to visit the challenge blog for some amazing inspiration by the rest of the design team.  The challenge will remain open until 3pm EDT on Friday, June 26th.  I hope you'll join us!

Stef

• Spellbinders Sun and Clouds die set
• Hero Arts Nested Circle die (for the sun center)
• Honey Bee Stamps A2 Scallop die
• Simon Says Stamp Wild & Free Flowers sentiment stamp
• SSS Butter, Zest and Seafoam inks

Summer Flower for CH135

Hello friends!  My card today is for a new Color Hues challenge and this time the amazing Carol is hosting.  She's chosen a very striking color combination.

Color Hues

 

When I saw this color duo, the obvious choice seemed to be bees, which would be so fun, but then I remembered a NBUS press plate that I knew would work well, so I'm linking up to Darnell's NBUS challenge as well.

NBUS

And here's my card...

Isn't that a gorgeous sunflower design?  It was made using a press plate from Alex Syberia that I bought last summer.  My first attempt at creating the image was to use the Betterpress, inking up the plate with black pigment ink, which encompasses the background and the outline of the sunflower.  The image came out fine but not a sharp as I was hoping, so I went the foiling route, and that turned out better.

Using foil rather than pigment ink also allowed me to color the sunflower with my Copic markers, which I have been neglecting as of late. (having too much fun with dies!)  After coloring, the panel was trimmed down and mounted with foam tape onto a white panel die cut with a crimped edge A2 die, then added to the card base.  

The greeting is from a sentiment press plate set, also from AS and it was foiled in black as well, then cut out with the coordinating die.  I like this particular sentiment because it can be used for multiple occasions.  Keeping things simple, just three opal gems were added as embellishment to finish the card.

Thank you so much for taking time to stop by, I really appreciate it!  If you have another moment, I encourage you to visit the challenge blog for a peek at the fantastic inspiration my fabulous teamies and our guest designers Barbara Campbell and Diana Karlova have to share!  The challenge will remain open until 9 am EDT on Monday, June 29th.  I hope you'll join us!

Stef

• Alex Syberia Summer Flower Press Plate
• AS Essential Sentiments Press Plates and Dies
• Simon Says Stamp Crimped A2 rectangle die
• SSS Dazzling Opal gems
• Copics - YR27, 24, Y19, 15, 11, E29, 27, 25

Fragrant Floral Birthday for PP790

Hello friends!  I hope your summer is off to a good start. Today we have a new challenge at the Paper Players and this time the amazing Christy is hosting our monthly color challenge.  She's chosen a beautiful foursome of colors.

Paper Players

I'm also playing along with the Anything Goes option at Seize the Birthday.

 STB #328

It was not a hard choice for me to go with flowers and one of my most used floral stamp sets worked perfectly with these colors.

The image is from Altenew's Fragrant Floral Craft Your Life set, which includes a large floral and sentiment stamps, a die for the large floral and a layered stencil set.  I opted to use my Copic and Olo markers rather than the stencil to color this.

I'm afraid Gorgeous Grape got a bit short-changed in this image, but it is there on the small berries.  I'd used a stamp positioner to stamp the image and after coloring but before die cutting, I put the panel back in it and stamped with black pigment ink for a nice, crisp image.  

After die cutting I added a second die cut layer then adhered it to the postage edge panel, which was then added to the card base with foam tape.  The sentiment is from an old MFT set and was cut with a label die and popped up with thin foam squares.  The final two steps were to use a white paint pen with a fine tip to color the flower stamen and add three opal gems.

Thanks so much for visiting and it would be wonderful if you'd take a moment to hop over to the challenge blog where the rest of the design team has some fabulous cards to inspire you.  The challenge will remain open until Friday June 19th at 3pm EDT.  I hope you'll join us this week!

Stef

• Altenew Craft Your Life Project Fragrant Florals
• MFT Stylish Sentiments
• Altenew Featured Sentiments Label die
• Simon Says Stamp Postage Edge die
• Posca White 0.7mm paint pen
• SSS Opal Dazzling Gems
• Copics - RV14, 13, 11, BG49 13, 11
• OLOs - YG 1.6, 1.4, 1.2

Pool Room Birthday Card for PP789

Hello friends!  It's time for our first challenge of the month of June over at the Paper Players and it's a theme challenge.  I'm hosting this week, asking everyone to create masculine cards.  It's a great time of year, especially with Father's Day a week away. Or, in my case, I have 2 grandsons, 2 nephews, 2 brothers-in-law and my husband celebrating birthdays this summer!

Paper Players

For this week's card, I created a slimline style with a scene.  

The die set is a Lovely Layers set from Honey Bee Stamps called Man Cave.  It rang a bell for me because my husband and I have a pool table and I thought the entire die set was so cleverly designed.  

All the components were die cut from colored cardstock with the exception of the glasses of beer and the pool balls. The beer glasses were cut twice from vellum and then, to make two beers facing one another, I simply flipped one over and adhered the yellow cardstock piece to the back of each glass for the look of beer.  The pool balls were cut from white cardstock then colored with Copic markers.  Glossy accents was then added to the beer foam, the light fixtures and the pool balls.

The blue wall was ink blended then I used an old rag to create some texture by dabbing it in the ink then randomly dabbing onto the panel.  I created the wood floor using a plank die, doing partial die cutting on one end then flipping it around so that I could make it 8 1/2" long. I added the sentiment to the TV screen along with some holographic stars for the finishing touch.

Thanks for visiting and I encourage you to head over to the challenge blog to see all the fabulous masculine cards from the rest of the team.  The challenge will remain open until Friday June 12th at 3pm EDT.  I hope you'll come join us this week!

Stef

• Honey Bee Stamps Lovely Layers: Man Cave
• Simon Says Stamp Wood Plank Die
• Spellbinders Just Add Cake Sentiment Stamp and Die
• Trinity Stamps Oh My Stars embellishments
• 
  

Kaleidoscope Floral Birthday for CH134

Hello friends!  The first of June has rolled around and it's time for a new challenge at Color Hues.  The lovely Bonnie is hosting this round and has chosen a gorgeous color duo.

Color Hues

This is such a soft and lovely color combination but remember that any hue of these two colors is permitted.  

I was searching through some dies and came upon this fun set that I'd bought a couple years ago (it was the Spellbinders March 2022 Large Die of the Month which I bought on sale).  It's not available anymore but I thought it would be a great design for these colors.  And I always feel better about buying new "schtuff" when I've made an effort to use the older products. I have made other cards with this but not for a team challenge.

I started with the turquoise panel, which was cut using a retired slimline rectangle die, then die cut the white flourished base twice for layering and adhered it to the panel. I inlaid all the white leaf pieces but left the large flowers open.  Next came the all the pink flowers that were layered on top.  It was time consuming but so satisfying when complete.  I chose the gold foiled Happy Birthday and finished up with a few gold pearls.  I hadn't made a slimline card in a while, so it was a fun change-up.  

Thanks so much for stopping by and I encourage you to head over to the challenge blog to see all the gorgeous creations by the other team members and our fabulous guest designer Kim Miller!  The challenge will remain open until 9 am Sunday June 14th. I hope you'll join us!

Stef

• SB Kaleidoscope Floral Slimline Dies (March 2022) retired
• Simon Says Stamp Slimline Nested Rectangle die (retired)
• SB You Are Everything Betterpress Plate and Die
• Honey Bee Stamps Metallic Mix Pearls