Everything Eleanor

Oh my gosh, what a lovely stamp set.  I had seen some cards on Pinterest quite awhile ago using Everything Eleanor, and I finally ordered it early this month.  I happily spent most of today creating these cards.  I love the flourish.

I added pearls,  rhinestones or candy dots for embellishments. I will need to add the sentiment to some of  them at a later date. 

Rose Garden

A new Thinlit die is Rose Garden.  It also comes with a stamp set called Rose Wonder that I have not used yet. These are both in the new catalog and I've only had them for about a week. The sentiment is from Birthday Blooms, which is also a new set.  I love the font.  I cut them from Whisper White and sponged with Pink Pirouette and Wild Wasabi.  I adhered green vellum behind the leaf outline and layered a scrap piece from a commercial card behind the rose.  The scrap piece has a little glimmer design and the card is really beautiful.  This goes to Carol who has a January birthday. 

Swallowtail Butterfly

A stamp that makes a striking card is Swallowtail by Stampin Up. In these three examples I embossed the image and colored by sponging on ink. 

It was really fun to play with different color combinations. On the first example, I added a speckle stamp for a little background detail.  The second has some gold thread and gems and the third has a strip of gold trim.  I will  definitely use this stamp often. 

And the winner is...

This is the card I finally chose for this year.

It is really beautiful in real life. The large snowflake is stamped in Crumb Cake, the smaller ones in Rich Razzleberry.  The back panel was embossed with the Gently Falling folder. The smaller panel is popped up with foam tape.  The small snowflakes were punched out and have a pearl center.  I also sprinkled a few pearls on the small panel. A sheer gold ribbon was added between the layers.  The card base is Blackberry Bliss.  Such a clean and simple design.  I love all the white.  I saw this originally on Pinterest with a large satin gold ribbon, but I didn't think that would go through the mail so decided on the sheer ribbon. 

Too many choices

I made several cards before I finally settled on the one that I would send out this year.  Here are some of the contenders.

Cards with Charisse

My friend Charisse came to make cards for Christmas.  She has a cabin at Mt. Hood and liked the rustic, simple style.  Here are her cards. Sorry for the bad photography.  These are much prettier in real life. 

Winter Wonderland Trees

The winter wonderland tree set is beautiful.  I have seen so many cards on Pinterest using this set. 

Stamped in Always Artichoke and stamped again without reinking.  A piece of gold speckled vellum was laid over the top.  Mounted on dark green cardstock.  When I ran out of the vellum I created some of my own by spattering gold mica paint on plain vellum.  The ribbon has threads of gold to coordinate with the gold on the vellum.  These are very pretty cards and I considered using this as my main card to send this year but changed my mind. 

These trees were stamped in Night of Navy. Marina Mist was sponged above a curved mask several times to create the hills.  Silent night was stamped and heat embossed in silver. I made this at Joyce's stamp camp. 



The trees were stamped with Night of Navy on Crumb Cake paper.  Crumb cake ink was sponged around the edges and the edge of the banner.  I added dots of white gel pen for the snow and a die cut snowflake from silver foil.  The card base is also Crumb Cake.  I loved this card.  I found the original on Pinterest. 

Embossed Pumpkin

Even though it is December I am still catching up to posting fall cards. This idea came from Vicki Burdick's blog. 

The photo is a little dark. I die cut the ovals and ran each one through a different embossing folder.  They are cut from white cardstock and then I sponged Crumb Cake lightly over the top of each oval.  I free hand cut a stem, and die cut the leaf from Mossy Meadow.  I glued them to a scrap piece of light tan checked paper and added some sequins and a bow from twine.  The hello was die cut from black paper.

Anna's card

My granddaughter Anna likes to make cards when she stays with me.  She made this card for her brother, Brandon, for his birthday.  She used his favorite color (orange) for the card base.

She used stamps from more than one company to create her card. The clouds are actually the cupcake tops from the Sprinkles of Life set. The sentiment comes from Sizziz.  The rest of the stamps are from Simon Says. I think she did a great job. 

For All Things

This was one of my favorite fall cards.  It was CASEd from Pinterest. The stamp set is For All Things by Stampin Up.

I use Crushed Curry and Hello Honey for the oak leaves.  The acorns were Crumb Cake.  The leaves were Pear Pizzazz. The sentiment was stamped in Tip Top Taupe. Before adding the bakers twine I spattered gold shimmering mist.  I do love a little glitz! The stamped panel was adhered to a piece of Crushed Curry card stock before being added to a white card base. 

Giving thanks

These cards were all Thanksgiving inspired.  I made them for Molly to give to her friends and co-workers.  This was a really fun project that I worked on over a span of a few weeks. There were 24 cards in all.  I also included some of the ones with the Woodland embossing folder.  They were shown on the previous post.    

 The leaves and sentiments are all Stampin Up except for the one sentiment that was die cut.  The top 4 cards use the Vintage Leaves set.  I also used the leaf framelits to die cut some of the leaves.  The lower 3 photos show the Lighthearted Leaves set.  These are 2 of my favorite stamp sets.  They can be used year round. 

Woodland textured embossing folder

When the new holiday catalog from Stampin Up was released, this embossing folder and stamp set was my first purchase.  There are many examples of cards similar to this on Pinterest. 

By inking the inside of the folder using a brayer you can change the background.  On some of the cards I used a sponge dauber to add color to the tree rather than the background.  The card with the spooky tag was made by my friend Linda.  We added a specialty yarn for texture and effect underneath the tag.

A few summer cards.

Wow! I have a blog! Thanks go to Molly for helping me get started. This is my first entry. 

Since retiring from teaching I have been enjoying spending time at home in my garden or craft room.  I love making cards. Here are some cards I made this summer.

I am building my collection of stamps, ink and paper.