What’s new to me is a Taylored Expressions Ever in Bloom Create-In-Quads layering stencils and dies! With this new create in quads stencil, I achieved four card flower backgrounds which were inked in two different blue inks and added a sentiment that will be sent to my daughter and daughter-in-law for Mother’s Day this year.

Wow! One stencil, four cards and now I can share with 4 different challenges and they are:

As You See It Challenge: Challenge # 298 New Stuff

Colorful Options – May Challenge featuring the color BLUE.

Stencil Fun Challenge Stencils are our Game: May Challenge option FLOWERS

Cardz4Galz – Challenge #198 Mother’s Day or Flowers for a friend.

Thanks for stopping in for a peek. I appreciate you and your time. Take care and be safe.

There is absolutely nothing better than raiding your grandmother’s berry patch and eating those fresh picked strawberries. Wonderful childhood memories and I’m sure my “Memmy” wasn’t too happy that we raided her patch everytime we visited. It was probably a few less jars of jelly that were made during those years!

My card today which will be shared with Double D Challenges and their theme of “Fresh Picked” but no flowers. Who needs flowers when you have strawberries. I pulled out an older Gina K Designs stamp set Enjoy the Sunshine StampTV kit for my strawberries and then another GKD set for the sentiment of the same name as the stamped sentiment. Patterned paper was also GKD. A little bling, some glossy accents completes my card for today.

Thanks for stopping in for a peek. I appreciate you and your time. Take care and be safe.

Well, I have Christmas flowers and coffee cups so I think I will share my card today with the:

Caffeinated Christmas Card Challenge

The May challenge is to use flowers and coffee on a Christmas card. Using Gina K Designs Christmas ephemera flowers and Taylored Expressions stamp, stencil, die coffee cup set Hugs in a Mug, Gina K’s Simple Snowflakes stamp set for the sentiment, patterned acetate paper pad from my Michael’s and Taylored Expressions A2 Thin Frame Cutting Plate completes my card. My die cutting was off a bit for the coffee cups so will need to work on that. It’s a coffee set with fun sentiments from TE which I can appreciate even though I’m not a coffee but rather a tea drinker.

This is a definite challenge because I’m still not really sure how cohesive this design works together. Oh well! It made me put my thinking cap on for a while.

May 2nd and it’s still really chilly and below normal temperatures in Pennsylvania. For the moment it is not raining and the sun did come out from behind the clouds for a bit today. Thanks for stopping in for a peek. I appreciate you and your time. Take care and be safe.

Today’s card will be for a sweet little one. Since the Hero Arts My Monthly Hero stamp kit was still on my desk from a previous card, I incorporated the die cut airplane and stamped the banner as it flies overhead of my little bear in a boat. This is a fussy cut ephemera image that I saved from a baby card I received after my grandson was born almost 9 months ago. For my embossed part of the card, I used a Sizzix embossing folder. After embossing on shimmer cardstock, I swiped a teal ink pad over the raised portions for a little more color. This embossing folder reminded me of ocean waves and bubbles and thought it would work well with the little boat. When we go to the Jersey shore there are always airplanes with advertising flying over the Atlantic Ocean and this was my inspiration.

My card today will be shared with:

Can You Handle The Pressure Challenge

which requires an embossing folder and a optional theme of BABY. Not sure if I’ll be needing any baby cards soon but I always like to play along with the theme. This will probably be sent to my youngest grandson.

Thanks for stopping in for a peek. I appreciate you and your time. Take care and be safe.

I get together each month with two girlfriends for dinner and a cocktail. Dare I say we spend as much time looking at the cocktail list as we do the menu!!! If I tried to drink all three of these drinks from Fiskar’s stamp set I would definitely find myself stuck in the Brutus Monroe Whirpool stencil. LOL! After stenciling my background and stamping, coloring and fussy cutting my martini glasses and sentiment, I first die cut a shimmery circle, then decided it was too dark so I die cut the circle from vellum twice and it was way too light so I glued the vellum layers on the shimmery cardstock and I think the soft shade is a much better background for the glasses. I tried a SimonSaysStamp glue stick that was part of a kit purchase on the entire backside of the vellum and the vellum didn’t have any glue marks showing which is a plus.

Today’s card will be given to one of my dinner date friends for an upcoming birthday and will be shared with:

Cardz 4 Galz #197 – Cocktails challenge

Thanks for stopping in for a peek. I appreciate you and your time. Take care and be safe.

Still raining in Pennsylvania.

Not a new type of sandwich but rather Blooms, Butterflies and Lattice card! My sister in Florida shared a card using a lattice card design and I was inspired to make one myself. My blooms are Gina K Designs Curved Floral Layeirng bundle, butterflies are from Martha Stewart triple butterfly punch that is ususally within arm reach of my work station. The curved floral layering bundle contains two dies, one for the outline and the stencils are used on the solid section to make your flowers. I did stamp the lattice strips and the front of the card with Taylored Expressions Sea Salt ink and a linen background stamp which is very faint to the eye.

My card today will be shared with:

Triple B: April Challenge which requires the use of blooms, butterflies and/or birds.

Thanks for stopping in for a peek on this very rainy, chilly day in Pennsylvania. I appreciate you and your time. Take care and be safe.

My card today is using the theme “Things that Fly” and my flying things are hot air balloons! Using a My Monthly Hero kit from 2020, I chose the cloud with rainbow image and then the hot air balloon icon die which were cut from shimmer cardstock. Stenciled in some pink clouds with a cloud stencil from my Buddy Bonnie and stamped a few hearts. Sentiment is Penny Black Flying By stamp set.

Today’s card will be shared with:

Double D Challenges: Things That Fly

Thanks for stopping in for a peek. I appreciate you and your time. Take care and be safe.

After watching, Mindy Eggen’s recent YouTube video, I was inspired to CASE her card and technique for overlapping colors with stencils. The stencil I used was Balloon Party from Taylored Expressions. This is a layering stencil & clear stamp combo using the largest balloon and well I was quite surprised that they all look lined up correctly. LOL. I then did partial embossing using a Darice clouds embossing folder and lightly inking with some blue ink left over on a brush. The grass was die cut with The Cat’s Pajamas CutUps grass die and Gina K Designs word die while stamping wishes from a GKD stamp set Garden Silhouettes after completing stamp surgery. The butterfly is American Crafts’ Garden Party dimensional sticker.

I’ll be sharing my card today with:

Can You Handle The Pressure? An Anything goes challenge with the requirement to use requires an embossing folder and an optional theme of CLOUDS.

Thanks for stopping in for a peek. I appreciate you and your time. Take care and be safe.

I felt inspired by the Two Old Bats mood board for April and Anything Halloween but I had to put my thinking cap on once again. My card is not too dark nor too wicked and was really fun to make this background. I made my lightning strikes by following Frenchie Stamps lighting technique. I used glue in a fine tip bottle to draw my lightning strikes on shimmer white cardstock, then added white embossing powder and heat set. To add a little interest, Frenchie recommends inking some yellow and pink in the beginning of the lighting. The stamped images were definitely oldies but goodies. The clouds are Cornish Heritage Farms large cloud, Outlines Rubber Stamp Company grasses, Inkadinkadoo Halloween Trails for my witch and sentiment from Gina K Designs Wicked stamp set. The background was inked in grays, charcoal and some blue and a few clouds were stamped in white pigment ink (I think my pad needs to be reinked).

I’ll be sharing my card today with:

Two Old Bats Halloween April Challenge – Anything Halloween

and Halloween Crafts All Year Round Challenge #2

Thanks for stopping in for a peek. I appreciate you and your time. Take care and be safe.