{little one}

Lawn Fawn's new Plus One stamp set has to be my favorite new stamp set in a long time. I have loved random things with cute little smiley faces ever since elementary school classrooms decorated in Carson-Dellosa products! :) The images are so clever and I love how all the sentiments are separate and can be combined into so many different options.

(Sorry about the weird angles here. I got the light just right on my bookshelf and I didn't notice how weird the angle looked!)

I litterally cannot get over how much I love this image! I mean, come on! It's a bun in an oven! Seriously! The instant I saw this stamp, I knew I wanted to color the oven 1950s retro turquoise, and now I'm not sure I'll ever color it any other way! :) Plus, I really like unexpected color combos for baby cards (cutesy works well when combined with sophisticated), and I just happened to have Copic markers that matched this My Mind's Eye Stella and Rose papers. (That doesn't happen very often!)

This one's a little more "traditional" for a baby card, and very simple. I love how the button looks, but it's super dimensional and not really mail-friendly. Love the ribbon from a recent Studio Calico kit - totally inspired the gender-neutral yellow theme.

Funny coincidence: I've gotten really into making rag quilts recently (via this amazingly simple tutorial) - I call it cheating because it's so not quilting. I made one using pre-cut, pre-coordinated Minkee fabric (feels like an expensive stuffed animal!) and then I made another one (turned out way bigger than I expected!) out of flannel my mom had been saving from when she made my jammies when I was little. This technique lends itself so well to baby quilts (crib quilts or "tummy time" mats), and now I've got the cards to go with... Now if only I knew someone who was having a baby! :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Holiday Tag Swap

I am SO excited about this! My first swap! And what a great way to start... My LSS, {Colorful Creations} in Hyannis, MA, is sponsoring this Holiday Tag Swap. I wish it was the type of swap where everybody got together and made the tags, but it's still going to be super fun. I signed up for two "groups," which means I made two sets of 5 identical tags and I get two sets of 5 unique, handmade tags in return.

My first tag is inspired by an amazing card that Maile Belles made for the Lawn Fawn October release countdown. I just fell in love with the simplicity of it. I used the mistletoe stamp from Lawn Fawn's Bows and Holly set. Also, I decided to make 3x3" folded "gift enclosure" cards instead of using the traditional tag shape.

My second tag design uses another technique from the Thinking Inking class - the same technique that I used in my card for the Caring Hearts Blog Hop. This is the acrylic block stamping technique, and I am obsessed with it ... especially in this Tumbled Glass/Milled Lavender/Pumice Stone combination with snowflakes!

And just to show you how much I love this technique and Distress Ink color combo... Here are the two cards I originally made that inspired these tags! :)

Have a great weekend! :)

a Distress Ink experiment

I was so inspired by a card that Ms. Papertrey Ink herself, Nichole Heady, made for the most recent PTI release. She embossed flowers on vellum and rubbed ink on their centers using a sponge. Then she flipped the vellum over and adhered it, wrong side out, to her card.

Here's a photo of her card (and you can see the original post on the PTI blog)...

Is this not the prettiest thing you've ever seen? My immediate thought when I saw this: How gorgeous would this be with snowflakes! :) So I grabbed my then-brand-new Lawn Fawn Frosties stamp set and...

Epic Fail. No matter what I did, I could not get that amazing, vibrant, gradient color with my Distress Inks! And wherever I tried to add a new color and blend, the new color just wiped off the old color. I used makeup sponges, sponge daubers, Inkssentials foam blenders, my fingers... I just couldn't get that pretty gradient color concentrated behind my snowflakes!

Ok, Ok, so maybe calling this card an 'epic fail' is going a little too hard on myself. I like the end effect, and I like how sweet and simple the finished card turned out. But I'm not pleased that I couldn't get the look I wanted. I wonder if it might work with a different type of ink? Hmm...

I have a confession...

If you were to make a list of Anna's Top Ten Rules to Live By, number one on that list would be "Christmas music may only be listened to from December 1st until December 25th." Well, yesterday I sat down to work on some more Christmas cards, and I just couldn't resist the urge to break my own Number One Rule :) So, for two evenings now, I've been crafting along to some of my favorite Christmas tunes on my ipod! And I'm having a blast... I just hope now I can stop and wait until December! :-D

Most of the projects I've made are things I'm not quite ready to share, but I do have some Basic Grey Jovial collection and Lawn Fawn Bows and Holly for you today.

 One of my favorite things about the Jovial collection is the really unique color combination. I used Broken China Distress Ink to stamp the label on this card... Now, I mean, how often do you see turquoise for Christmas? :) I muted it a little with some Antique Linen, because the turquoise in the paper is a little bit greener and somewhat distressed.

I apologize for the supreme crumminess of this photo... I'll try to take a new one tomorrow! 

This card was totally inspired by Brit Swiderski. She had the amazing idea to use the Distress Ink Bleeding technique that I used on my fall placecards with this adorable wreath stamp from Lawn Fawn's Bows and Holly. Genius. I love how it turned out... even though when I re-stamped over the image with bleeding I kind of, well, missed :) So there's the bleeding and also a little bit of a shadow effect. I used a Sakura Stardust pen on the ribbon that's wrapped around the wreath. The bow was painted with Fired Brick Distress Ink mixed with water and gold Perfect Pearls. (This is Technique 3 from Week 1 of the Holiday Thinking Inking series.) I also added a little Glossy Accents (I *finally* bought some!) to the berries.

Here's a closeup of the wreath so you can see all the special treatments.

Wish me luck in turning off the Christmas music! :) Thanks for stopping by!

Paper-Piecing-Palooza

(LOL I know, I know, that's a wicked lame title.)

In honor of the previews beginning for Lawn Fawn's October release (it looks amazing - check it out!), I finally busted out the second stamp set I bought from their September release, Cozy Christmas. Also, after everybody else is totally over it, I finally *finally* received the Cosmo Cricket Mitten Weather items that I ordered a billion years ago! So I decided to combine them. Word to the wise: Don't try to paper piece the stockings in this stamp set. They're teeny-tiny! There's a third stocking that I didn't end up using - an adorable striped on that I got halfway through before I gave up because I was going crazy and blind! :)

This is an über-simple card I made using Hero Art's So Thankful set and Lily Bee Designs' new Catching Fall collection. I got all three of the new paper collections - plus they have cardstock stickers, chipboard buttons, and a 12x12 sheet of rub-ons. (I was actually somewhat disappointed that the rub-ons are so big, because many of my fave sentiments are too big to use on a card). The designs of the papers are so beautiful and the details are really nice. My favorite are the two (count 'em, two!) text print snowflakes in the Christmas Town collection.

Here's a close-up of the turkey. I ended up embossing the outline using a Ranger Embossing Pen and black embossing powder, because it was hard to see the black ink on the dark brown cardstock.

horn of plenty

Just one more quick post today to show another card I made with Lawn Fawn's Harvest Season. I didn't think about this card at all while I was making it, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the stamp set I recently lauded for its whimsy can also be used on really elegant cards :)

Happy 'Hump' Day!

squash!

Hey everybody! Just a super quick post today to show you this card I made with my *first ever* purchase from Lawn Fawn! Their latest release was just irresistible! And these stamps are amazing in person.

Supplies: Cardstock - Pure Luxury by Gina K. Designs (white), Stampin' Up (yellow, kraft); Ink - Versamark, Colorbox Chalk in Chestnut Roan; Stamps - Harvest Season by Lawn Fawn; Misc. - Labels 8 dies by Spellbinders, Stampin' Up clear embossing powder, Pure Luxury by Gina K. Designs ribbon, Copic Markers, 3M foam adhesive

I bought two of the three sets from the new release. This card uses Harvest Season, which is so adorable. I LOVE this cornucopia! My one complaint (sorry Kelly Marie!) is that I can't really tell what some of the vegetables are supposed to be, exactly. But I decided they're various types of squashes and colored them accordingly. ;) I love how perfect this set is for coloring, but it's really fun and whimsical, which is awesome because I don't have the skills or marker selection to make things look super realistic!

I haven't busted out the Christmas set yet - but I promise you'll be seeing it here very soon! :)

Hope you had a happy Monday!

ETA: Haha, it's totally Tuesday! I really had no idea! :)