Hello folks! Scott here with my 10 cards from the Love From Lizi February Card Kit. This kit has sold out now, but I hope I can provide a little inspiration for those of you who have already bought this kit and are eagerly awaiting delivery! As usual I like to dig into the stamp set to begin with, and though there aren’t any stamps to color in this set, there are a lot of solid balloon shapes with decorations and text. This kit was screaming Happy Birthday to me so I set out to make a bunch of birthday cards!
For my first card this month, I thought it would be fun to do a bit of a pattern using the stamps, and creating a sentiment built in to the middle of the card. On a piece of 4″ x 5.25″ white card stock from my stash, and using my Tim Holtz Stamp Platform, I stamped the ‘Happy” balloon, the ‘Birthday’ balloon and the plain balloon 16 times in a simple grid pattern using Tim Holtz Distress Oxide inks in Broken China, Cracked Pistachio, Fossilized Amber, and Fired Brick. I reserved the center four spaces for the “Happy 50 Birthday” sentiment and embossed the ’50’ with VersaMark ink and Ranger White Embossing powder. I mounted the stamped piece to a mat of black card stock cut to 4.125″ x 5.375″ and foam taped the pieces to the Mint card base. I tied six little bows from plain white twine (from my stash) for the center balloons and added the small blue sequins from the sequin mix to add a just a touch of sparkle and to keep the shiny embossing company! The text on these balloon stamps is very fine so a LIGHT hand is called for when inking them up – that text and those patterns will fill up with ink if you’re not careful..! A very colorful birthday card, and right off the bat, I’ve used five of the stamps from the stamp set already! We’re off to a great start!
One of the 12″ x 12″ cut apart card stocks in the kit had this great HB sentiment with a bunch of candles. Never one to go the simple route, I cut the HB sentiment off, and fussy cut all the candles and flames. The black background showed off these candles much better than the off-white background they were printed on, and I added a touch of playfulness by mounting the candles on slight angles instead of perfectly straight up and down. I used my Zigg 2-Way glue pen to draw little highlights in the center of the flames and, once that dried, used the Nuvo Gilding flakes from the kit to add a touch of gold to the flames. Everything is foam taped onto a Black mat (from the kit) cut at 4″ x 5.25″. I added two corners of the wide gold glitter peel off stickers from the kit to the black mat and the thin ones around the sentiment, and realized that the flames needed a touch more bling so they weren’t overpowered by the peel offs – gold Stickles to the rescue – right in the center of the gold gilding – they matched the sparkle almost perfectly, and helped draw your eye to the flames! I mounted everything directly to the pink card base (almost hid that pink completely..!) and I think this birthday card is quite eye-catching!
Sometimes I think I’m a little too literal in my thinking, but when I’m looking for ideas, the stamps and sentiments in a kit will usually provide some inspiration. One of the balloon stamps had the sentiment ‘Flying by to say HI!” so, being faithful to that sentiment, here’s my flying balloon card…! On a piece of Bristol Smooth card stock cut with the largest Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle die, I used my Ink Duster blending brush and some TH Distress Oxide ink in Broken China, along with a new My Favorite Things Cloud Stencil to ink the puffy clouds for the background. (LOVE THAT!!) I stamped the balloon with Ranger Archival Ink in Manganese Blue, fussy cut it out, and covered that with a good layer of Glossy Accents. I dug up some blue and white bakers twine from my stash (not a perfect match, but close enough!) to use as the string on the balloon – just a simple knot around the neck and some extra for trailing in the wind. The balloon is mounted with foam tape and the string is glued down with my Multi Medium Matte, and everything is mounted directly to one of the white card bases. Still, something was needed to bring this card all together, and sequins and sparkly bits didn’t seem copacetic in the sky… but wait! I dug out my ‘Sea You Soon’ stamp set from Simon Says Stamp and I remembered how much I liked these three little flying bird stamps – I stamped those in Distress Oxide Walnut Stain ink and WOW! Almost a “tromp l’oeil” effect! It added so much depth and perspective to this card. Once again, sometimes the simplest of cards have the greatest impact. I like this card more and more every time I look at it!
Here’s another example of my being literal! This ‘gift’ stamp has the sentiment ‘It’s a Special Day’ so I figured I could use that stamp to highlight a particular DAY for someone’s birthday! I fiddled around with some monthly calendars for a bit but came to the realization that all you need is a box and a date to specify someone’s actual birth day! And to make that day “special” why not show a list of famous people born on that very day! (If you Wikipedia a specific date, they will have a list of people who share that birthday!) On my Silhouette, I added the (partial) list of people born on April 18th, and added my calendar box and date (in Lucida Grande font) to the center of the list, and cut out the whole piece measuring 4″ x 5.25″. I also cut the date box away from the background as well, and mounted that on a small mat from the striped ombre pattern paper. I cut an oval frame using my stitched oval dies from the glitter card stock specialty paper (and a piece of black fun foam) to make a stylized ‘circle that date’ frame for the gift stamp (stamped in Ranger Archival Vermillion ink (pigment inks work pretty good with these stamps!)) I mounted the date box to the background with some foam tape and attached all directly to the second pink card base. A thin strip of the glitter peel offs (between the years and the names) and a few gold sequins with the Nuvo Crystal Drops in the centers adds a nice touch of bling and keeps the glitter paper oval in check! I believe this is the MOST PINK I get with this entire card kit (glad that’s over! LOL!). I really like the idea of pointing out how ‘special’ a birthday is by showing who you share your birthday with! I will use this idea again!
I’m still trying to use all the stamps in the kit, so let’s put the “It’s Your Birthday” hat stamp on one of the balloons! I also have that great stamp booklet to dig into as well, so I stamped the hat in Fired Brick Distress Oxide and the balloon in Broken China Distress Oxide (masking the bottom edge of the hat) on the right half of one of the white card bases, added the balloon string stamped in Walnut Stain Distress Oxide ink, and added the stripe and polka-dot pattern paper to the left side. I picked the “Enjoy every moment” sticker from the booklet, and removed the sticky with my EK Tools powder tool and mounted that to the pattern paper with some foam tape for a touch of dimension. A medium strip of the peel offs next to the pattern paper and an assortment of sequins, gems and enamel drops to add a little sparkle. I did add a ‘Happy Birthday’ to the inside of this card using the die from the kit and the black ‘matte mirror’ specialty paper. I really enjoy the ‘balloon with a hat’ image and I LOVE the gold foil on these stickers!
I really liked the “simply amazing’ sticker from the booklet, and decided to try a gold and white card. I stuck the sticker down to some of the black card stock from the kit, and fussy cut a mat around it. I cut apart the “YOU ARE” off of a different sticker, matted that on black and used that to complete this sentiment. Since the ‘amazing’ sticker had some chevrons on it, this was my opportunity to use the gold mirror chevron pieces from the kit. I added some of the ‘liquid gold’ ribbon on the left side of the card base, added some of the thin black satin ribbon to the center of the gold ribbon, and used a couple of peel off strips on either side of that. I did run the ribbon(s) through my Xyron sticker maker to apply adhesive to their back sides before sticking them down to the white card base. I added the chevron mirror pieces to the top, and the three chevron stickers from the booklet to the bottom (that’s what I call really sticking with a theme!!). A few gold sequins from the sequin mix help give focus to the sentiment, and here we have a very sharp, highly reflective Birthday card. And yes, I did add another die-cut Happy Birthday sentiment on the inside of the card cut from the gold glitter paper. More glitz!!
Some of the stickers from the sticker booklet didn’t have white borders on them at all, and I was drawn to this ‘live the life you love’ sticker. Since that sticker had fish-tail ends, I decided to use the harlequin diamonds pattern paper and fussy cut two pieces to frame out this card. I did cut the outside edges of the patter paper pieces with my LF Stitched Rectangle die, and to bring in a little extra gold to match the foil sticker, I used my Zigg 2-way glue pen to trace the fussy cut edges of the pattern paper onto the card and, once dried, used the gilding flakes to foil the glue lines. The pattern paper and the sentiment banner are foam tape mounted to the yellow card base and that brings this whole card together, especially when I added the gold foil arrow stickers to either side of the sentiment. I did add a die-cut Happy Birthday to the inside of the card using the glitter specialty paper, and we have a very unique, colorful Birthday card suitable for any guy on your list! The foiling on the stickers is really nice and provides all the glitz needed!
Now my obsession with using all the stamps in this stamp set started to set in and I was wondering how I was going to use all the numbers in the stamp set. Just stamp them randomly for a background? Make a pattern with them? I don’t know anybody celebrating their 9,876,543,210th birthday..! Then I remembered those new “Turnabout Stamps” that Concord and 9th came out with this last year. HMMMMMM…!! Could I create my own ‘turnabout stamp’ using the numbers from the stamp set??? After much trial and error (obsessive? ME?) I finally came up with a layout that worked splendidly! 
This is all done on a 5.5″ square piece of card stock and it uses all 10 of the number stamps! I stamped the first pass in Wilted Violet Distress Oxide ink, and turned the page 1/4 turn to the right (clockwise) to stamp the second pass in Fired Brick.
Another 1/4 turn clockwise for stamping the third pass in Cracked Pistachio.
And the last 1/4 rotate clockwise for the final stamping in Spiced Marmalade!
SUCCESS!! I am so jazzed that this came out so nicely!! This arrangement gives an apparently random look that is, nonetheless fairly regimented and reproducible! Though the complete pattern is only a touch over 4″ square (square cards anyone?!), I figure there are a lot of uses for a pattern like this. Like in this next card for instance..!
I used my ‘turnabout’ stamping as background paper for this Happy Birthday card. I paired that up with the polka dot pattern paper from the kit, the ‘A Very Happy Birthday to You’ balloon stamp and the Happy Birthday banner from the color-able sticker sheet. I stamped the balloon in SSS Hybrid ink Orange Slush and fussy cut it out. I found that the hybrid inks worked very well with these balloon stamps – just keep a light hand when inking them up! I matted both pattern papers with the black card stock from the kit – each layer is 1/4″ smaller than the layer previous – the back piece is mounted directly to the mint card base, the numbers layer is mounted on foam tape, and the banner and balloon are mounted on foam tape as well. I colored the banner with my colored pencils and used my Zigg Clean Color Real Brush markers to color in the sentiment (boy that’s some tiny coloring!!). I tied a piece of Spellbinders Lumberjack Days Collection Jean Cord to the neck of the balloon and straight down to the edge of the top layer. Since the banner had stars on it (some of them in glitter) I used the banner die from the kit to cut some stars out of the glitter specialty paper and added those around the edges. That’s enough sparkle for this very colorful, Happy Birthday card. And 11 stamps used! LOL!!
Okay, enough with the color! Let’s go monochromatic!! In honor of all the chalkboard cut-aparts that came in the kit, I fount this great quote from Elizabeth Taylor. Perfect sentiment for one of the big wood-veneer gems in the kit!. Now, I don’t have glorious handwriting, so I usually turn to my Sillhouette for sentiments such as this, but I was a little concerned with matching up the sketch function of my Silhouette with one of the chalkboard pieces from the pattern paper, so I simply went ahead and created my own chalkboard label on the black card stock in the kit. I used my Signo Broad white gel pen in the sketch mode of my Silhouette Portrait, to draw the label and the sentiment (in Typewriter Hand font) and then cut it out. I also cut a mat for the label (hard to see in this pic) from the black matte mirror specialty paper. I then outlined the mat with my Zigg 2-way Glue pen, let that dry and added the Nuvo gilding flakes to the glue line. The label and it’s mat are mounted with foam tape on a card base made from the black matte mirror specialty paper (I couldn’t resist!)
The diamond veneer piece is foam mounted to the card base as well, and simply covered with – get this – gold Stickles!! SO PERFECT!! A small bow made from the ‘liquid gold’ ribbon in the kit adorns the top of the label, and here’s a card I think most woman the world over would love! I do go on to complete the sentiment on the inside of the card, actually using one of the chalkboard cut-outs from the kit and the Happy Birthday die cut out of some white glitter card stock from my stash. A perfect little addition to complete this stunning card. I am very impressed with this Happy Birthday die – it is very accurate and cuts perfectly no matter what material I used. This one is for all the ladies out there!!
Now we get to the last card from this kit – and I have to beg your forgiveness – or at least your indulgence – because, yes, I did it, I made another 2-way pull-tab slider card for you!! This mechanism has caught a lot of attention since the first of the year, and I figured what the heck! Third Time’s a Charm! Right!?
After all, a rising balloon makes perfect sense!!! So, once again, this uses the ‘double slider card’ mechanism to raise the green heart up from behind the other balloons. These balloon are stamped in the SSS hybrid inks in Watermelon, Orange Slush, Lemon Zest and Key Lime. The orange, red and yellow balloons are all glued together and mounted with foam tape to provide a little ‘garage’ to park the green balloon. A tug on the pull tab raises the green balloon that has the ‘4’ stamp embossed with white embossing powder and I added the ‘th’ with my white gel pen. This is all created on top of the small heart ‘chalkboard’ pattern paper, and my white twine is tied to the necks of the balloons and gathered together at the center and attached behind the notch. The pull-tab has another piece of white twine attached that reveals itself as the balloon is revealed. I LOVE THIS CARD! When I saw that this stamp set featured balloons, I knew I would do another slider card! This is yet another way to use this trick to actually make something appear! I promise to work on a how-to video that shows how to make these 2-way pull-tab slider cards. As soon as I get caught up with my Card Kits…! SO….
That’s my 10 Cards for the Love From Lizi February 2018 Card Kit… 9 Birthday Cards and 1 Flying Balloon card. A very colorful, clean, and eye-catching collection of cards! And, by golly, I used EVERY stamp in the stamp set! WOO-HOO!! LOL!!! Mission accomplished! Speaking of ‘every stamp’ – here’s a BONUS GIFT for all you folks that purchased this stamp kit – if you would like to receive my pattern for the homemade ‘turnabout’ numbers stamp grouping, go to the CONTACT page at the top of this post, and send me an email asking for the ‘turnabout stamp pattern’. If you are a follower of my blog and send me an email message, I will respond with a PDF file that shows the layout of the 10 number stamps so you can do your own turnabout stamping! SCORE!! And Remember! If you go shopping at Love From Lizi, please use my link: http://bit.ly/LFLlink
Thank you so much for sharing your time with me. I appreciate all your support and encouragement. Don’t forget to request that pattern, and Happy Crafting!!
Card stock – 5 sheets of 8.5″ x 11″ in Matte Black, White (2), Soft Yellow, Pink (sigh), and Mint Green. I like that Lizi has gone to standard USA paper size for her kit card stocks.
Our Specialty card stock this month is an A2 sheet of Matte Black mirror card stock (think chalk board) and a half sheet of gold glitter card stock – that glitter is truly a part of the paper and hardly sheds at all – which is also true of the Gold Glitter peel off stickers – I LOVE THESE (and ALL the LFL pin-stripe peel off stickers!!). We are also treated to a sheet of coloring stickers that have little gold glitter accents on each sticker.
Now we come to the exclusive stamp set for this month – Balloons, party hat, gift box and 0-9 number stamps! Oh! and there’s a balloon string too for good measure! The one balloon that doesn’t have a sentiment is useful for stamping the numbers on! Not particularly a stamp set that lends itself to coloring, but perfect for all the birthdays in your life! Seems like I ALWAYS run out of Birthday cards!
Now here’s the contents of our Embellishment bag this month – just about the best part of any LFL Card Kit!! Top row, left to right: LFL Sequin Mix with a couple of pinks, mint greens, gold and black heart sequins, some Nuvo Gilding flakes in Gold (these go a LONG way..!!), Nuvo Crystal Drops in Bubblegum Blush (more pink!) some self-adhesive gold mirror chevron pieces, two golden ‘diamond’ paper clips, and two wafer dies – a Happy Birthday die (nice detail!) and a small banner die that also has three star cut outs in the center. I think this is the first ‘banner’ die I own!! Bottom row, left to right: RIBBON! 1 meter of 5 different ribbons – a thin (1/8″) Mint satin and Black satin, a 1/4″ ‘liquid gold’ ribbon and a 3/8″ soft Yellow and light Pink ribbon. That’s a lot of ribbon! We get 5 wood veneer heart die-cuts (with a hole in the top) and 2 large golden veneer die cuts in a diamond and a heart shape with twine ties and little white banners. Very interesting! Now, Lizi usually includes a 12″ x 12″ sticker sheet with her card kits but this month she mentioned that she couldn’t get her hands on enough of those so we get this little sticker booklet instead. This booklet has 5 sheets of gold foiled stickers with a wide variety of sentiments and assorted accent pieces – I REALLY like these – looks like you could make 20 cards just using these stickers!
I would usually begin my 10 cards by coloring the images in a stamp set but, as you might be able to tell, besides a couple of heart stamps, there are no images to color. This is my 11th month as a subscriber with the Simon Says Stamp Card Kits and out of the last 11 months, only two stamp sets actually had NO hearts on them at all… LOL! I get it!! I get it! They really like hearts at SSS!! I did go ahead and make 10 card bases from the 5 sheets of SSS card stock. My goal with this kit, was to try my best to make some lovely Valentine’s Day cards that a guy wouldn’t be embarrassed to give to their sweetheart.
the pattern papers and pieced the strip together where the display hole was. I was going to use the Desert Storm card stock to die cut the heart, (with a 
I cut out a quarter of the sheet of Desert Storm card stock with the same stitched rectangle die, and stamped the ‘I Really like you’ sentiment in 
with the color flow! This Happy Valentine’s Day banner arrangement was one of the bigger images in the pattern papers, and when I discovered that I had a scalloped die that fit it perfectly, I decided to go ahead and use it. That scalloped die is one of the very first dies I ever owned, and I have no idea where it came from anymore… sorry! I paired that piece with the matching pattern paper (I like that the sentiment flowers are on white and the background flowers are on black – nice contrast while still matching!) and punched a scallop on the edges of that pattern paper with my 
that with the xoxo pattern paper. Again, the kraft color on the pattern papers matched my Recollections Kraft card stock better than the Desert Storm card stock, so I used that for a mat behind both pieces of the pattern paper, attaching the XOXO paper and mat directly to the card base, and the heart shape paper and mat with some foam tape. In my continuing efforts to use ALL of the stamps, I used the xoxo border stamp (I found both border stamps in this set a little short – neither would go clear across (horizontally OR vertically) an A2 card base – odd) stamped with VersaMark ink and embossed with my 
order to get it to spread enough to go through the stencil (that mousse dries out fairly quickly no matter how tight you screw the lid on..!) but I got some good coverage with the leftover mousse, and, after it was sufficiently dry, cut it out with my Stitched Rectangle die. I liked the color, the texture, and the pattern so much that I thought a simple sentiment was all this card needed. I did attach the stenciled piece to a black mat and attached those directly to the card base, then took that old scalloped rectangle die to cut another piece of black card stock from my stash for the sentiment. The ‘You’re My favorite” stamp is from the stamp set, and I stamped that (multiple times!) with the Delicatta Pink Shimmer ink cube using my stamping platform and attached that to the card with foam tape. I like the brightness of that ink on the black, but I don’t think the ‘pink’ particularly reads very well. However, the shimmer from the ink and the shine of the embellishment mousse are really very eye-catching and I think the pink and black work really well together without being too girly-girly… Do you think so?
great striped pattern paper from the kit, and outlined that with some thin strips of gold directly on top of the card base. There are 4 layers of the pink printed card stock glued together, 3 layers of the red mat glued together, and a single gold mat on the bottom – that whole assembly is foam taped to the card base. I stamped all of the tiny heart stamps in 
On the Mint card base, I created three mats – the bottom is Recollections Kraft card stock (3″ wide), then the teal polka-dot pattern paper (2.75″ wide) and the xoxo pattern paper (2.375″ wide) on top. I cut the ampersand on my Sillhouette out of 3 layers of my kraft cardstock in the 
I used my stamp platform to stamp two rows of that stitched heart stamp along the top and bottom sides of the card base with VersaMark ink and embossed them with Ranger White super fine embossing powder. I cut a piece of 
This action is based on a 
Here we have a very handsome set of Valentines that avoid the frill and frippery so often associated with the holiday, yet still feels artistic, sincere, clean and modern. I did have a fun time with this card kit, and am proud to say that I did use every single stamp in the stamp set, and I used a little bit of everything that came in this kit. Now THAT was the fun part! I do have plenty of ink and glitter left over and a few sheets of pattern paper and, of course, the ‘Really Like You’ stamp set will find a loving home in my stash! That about wraps up the SSS January 2018 card kit on this end! The last I looked, this kit was still available at 
and surprises in bright beautiful colors starring a couple of youngsters and child-themed stamps and papers. Almost TOO many choices for someone like me! I habitually try to use as many kit supplies and stamps as possible with my 10 cards in an effort to show you as many options as possible. This kit HAS sold out – as do most of the Love From Lizi card kits, so, if you would like to get in on the fun, I highly recommend 
For my first card, I was drawn to the ladybug die that demonstrated the great amount of detail that is possible with a wafer die-cut. On the vanilla card base, I matted one of the cut-aparts (in red to match a ladybug) on a piece of the green harlequin pattern paper 
and mounted those directly to the card base. I did outline the cut-apart with the thin Grass Green Mirror peel-offs and created a partial frame around that with the wide peel-offs. I think this type of incomplete frame really pulls the eye in, while still keeping the overall card light and unencumbered. After researching ladybug images on the web, I die cut the ladybug in dark blue and red and fussy cut a black background for the body.
I used my 
AHA! now my block structure can be multi-dimensional! I stamped the “Dream big LITTLE ONE” sentiment from the stamp set in 
On the Sky Blue card base, I cut a background from the alphabet pattern paper with my Stitched Rectangle die and used some
I took the vellum cut-apart that had the terrific “You Are Loved” sentiment in yellow with pink-ish flowers and green leaves, ran that through my
My parents read to me as a child, and sparked a life-long joy of reading that continues to this day! This is a TERRIFIC sentiment and I can’t wait to give this card (along with a book!) to a deserving parent. On the Sky Blue card base, I attached a strip of the bookcase pattern paper along the left side (there was a strip down the center of the pattern paper that was devoid of the A B C’s so that’s what I used) and added a thin strip of the silver pearlescent specialty paper to finish off the ‘side of the bookcase’ on the right edge. I mounted the cut-apart on a mat of the same specialty paper and foam mounted that to the card base. I wanted to try adding a little ‘ethnicity’ to the boy and girl stamps, and was able to achieve a decent skin color that could be interpreted in many ways…! I fussy cut both of the kids’ heads and the book and created a little vignette towards the bottom of the card. A few sequins from the sequin mix, and a few spots of the Nuvo Jewel drops add a touch of shine. LOVE this sentiment!!
Here’s a decent, very kid-friendly pun for this month! I used my Silhouette Portrait to design this sentiment in (drum roll, please…!!!) 
and outlined it with the thin green mirror peel-offs. A couple of strips of that great rainbow stripe pattern paper at the top and bottom fill out the rest of the card front. I did add a “Happy Birthday” to the writing surface on the inside of the card (in the same font) and here’s a simple single-layer card appropriate for young-uns!
I covered the die cuts with the rainbow striped pattern paper taking care to line up the stripes across all three letters. I decided to use the Vanilla card base to make the rainbow pop, but found that the color of the alphabet stickers from the sticker sheet a little bit too light to show up on pale papers so I colored the sticker letters with a 
I fussy cut a strip of the colorful ‘arrow’ pattern paper to mimic a picket fence and attached that directly to the bottom of the Sunshine Yellow card base. I cut a strip of the green harlequin pattern paper with my NEW 
I cut the Graphite shimmer card with my stitched rectangle die and mounted that to the card base. I trimmed that with the scallop sticker border from the sticker sheet on the top and bottom, and tucked pom-poms between each scallop. The alphabet stickers worked great for this sentiment, and I underlined that with a thin Silver Glitter peel-off from Lizi’s September ’17 card kit. Love the grey/black tones here, but the best is on the inside:
After way too much experimenting, I was able to take that concept and create a reversible pull-tab card. By cutting a small slit in the card front, I was able to make a small paper hinge that slides through the slit and is attached to the back of the rocket. So the rocket is attached to the front of the ‘trash bag’ conveyor and the pull-tab is attached to the back of the ‘conveyor belt’. OH BABY IT WORKS!! The boy and the sentiment are attached to the card with foam tape and I also left a little gap in the hillside to hide the rocket flame until the ship takes off…! I used the 
white card and trimmed that down to glue on top of the tab. PERFECT! I added some shine with a frame of the grass green mirror peel-offs around the card base and a couple of the gems on the ship’s windows. Oh my stars and garters! I am completely bowled over with this card! The rocket flies right to the top of the card and returns to the hillside with a simple push back on the tab. SO MUCH FUN!!! I don’t think I will ever be able to part with this card…! But now I know that you can adapt the magic slider mechanism to make something move on the front of a card… straight run penny-slider cards may be a thing of my past!!
Again, Lizi has given us standard letter size card stocks at 8.5″ x 11″ and we are treated to an extra full-size specialty embossed paper in that mottled pink pattern. Our regular 5 card stocks this month are in Sunshine Yellow, Apple Green, Sky Blue, Vanilla and Slate Grey. High-quality card stocks and always enough to make (at least) 10 card bases.
More specialty card stocks in 4.25″ x 5.5″ (A2 card) size in a shimmer Graphite, Silver Mirror, Copic-friendly smooth White and Silver Pearl. A regular item in Lizi’s kits are her peel-off stickers, this month – Grass Green mirror peel-offs. I LOVE LIZI’s PEEL-OFFs!!
We get 12 single side, 6″ x 6″ pattern papers with this kit – very colorful with lots of stripes, patterns, crayons, stars, apples, books and blocks. Perfect accompaniment!
One of my favorite regular items in the Love From Lizi Kits are her vellum sheets – this 12″ x 12″ vellum sheet has brushed silver foil highlights on over a dozen images and a couple of border strips too. I love these vellum sheets and I rarely see them in other kits.
And if that weren’t enough, we also get a 12″ x 12″ sheet of card stock stickers. A full alphabet, lots of images, borders, pennants and tags all in matching colors. WOO-HOO!
That brings us to the Stamp set for this month. One of the cutest stamp sets I’ve seen in a long time and a big departure from Lizi’s usual stamp sets. I love the boy and girl stamps and all the toys and we even get a couple of age-appropriate sentiments. I can’t wait to start coloring all these images! This is the first stamp set I own with images of kids! FUN!
On to all the extras and the embellishments for this month – always one of the best parts to all of Lizi’s kits! 4 ribbons and trims with a meter each of white satin ribbon with silver trim, pink satin/organza ribbon with silver trim (In Lizi’s unboxing, she mentioned that she included the pink ribbon and pink specialty card stock because she knows how much I love pink! LOL!!) and silver puffy stars – this is the third month in a row now where we have gotten some extremely interesting shaped trims! ALSO a couple of feet of white pom-pom trim! How long has it been since I’ve seen pom-pom trimmings!? WOW!
More to come! From the bottom left corner and clockwise – A silver teddy bear charm on a silver chain, 9 wood veneer die-cuts, our (almost) monthly Chameleon pen in OR3 – Tangerine, smoky grey self stick jewels in circle and star shapes, two ‘chalkboard’ tags, 3 wafer dies (a bow, ladybug and balloon) the New Beginnings sequin mix, and a full size bottle of Nuvo Jewel Drops in Orange Marmalade. I am looking forward to trying these Nuvo drops which are supposed to be translucent with just a tint of color. PRETTY!
And finally, we get a full lower case alphabet of wood veneer die-cuts! These are large pieces averaging about 2″ square! I will have to do some brainstorming on how to use these pieces on a card, but that is one of the delights of the Love From Lizi Card Kits – we always get supplies that stretch your imagination and some out-of-the box thinking!
came with the 
• As usual, I stamped a couple groups of images with 
first card. I used a white card base from my stash, and covered the front of that with the tiny polka-dot pattern paper and trimmed down the ‘living room’ paper to fit. I did add a couple of strips of the tiny red polka dot pattern paper to the sides of the image for a bit of extra framing, and added a touch of the larger red polka dot paper as a mat behind my sentiment. I used foam tape to mount the characters and sentiment to the front of the card, and now the characters are the focus of this scene instead of the living room. I used a 
Since that cut-apart sentiment was in the blue with candy-cane stripes, I decided to use the Tropical Tide glitter card stock for my background and the striped pattern paper for my focal image. I used my 
papers. I did use 
I stamped the Santa stamp on the Kraft card base (using SSS Intense Black ink), and colored him up with my colored pencils. I did put down a light layer of white pencil over the entire stamp before I colored it, and also cut some 
second set of characters with my 
cover up the second cookie on the cut apart print. I liked the way the Tropical Tide and Candy Floss glitter card stock worked together, so I cut a mat of the pink glitter at 4″ x 5.25″, and the blue glitter at 3.75″ x 5″ and used a simple 
I wish the animals had more interesting expressions on their faces, but I figured they would do here. I ‘drew” the sentiment (love my Silhouette!) in the Typewriter Hand font with my red Pilot pen (again) on a scrap of white card stock and cut it out using a 
Christmas…” sentiment stamp from the kit. I masked and hand-stamped Santa’s head, the gingerbread cookies, the round cookies and the hearts directly on the card base and colored all the images with my colored pencils. This took a little bit of practice to get the stamping placed just right and I wasted a little bit of my Kraft card stock in the process, but I finally got the images where I wanted them. I also did a light white ‘halo’ around the images to help make it look like they were ‘in her thoughts’. Two stitched ovals from the pattern paper and my red card stock provide a mat for Mrs. Claus, and I stamped the sentiment in 
four of the gingerbread men and lightly colored them with my colored pencils and used both my glaze pens (on the outside two) and Nuvo drops (on the inside two) for their decorations. I foam mounted them with a couple of the gumdrop sprinkles to a double mat of pattern papers (hearts cut at 1.625″ x 5.5″ – brown pattern paper cut at 1.25″ x 5.5″) down the center of the card. I did add .125″ strips of the Silver Screen glitter paper to the edges of the pattern paper and and matted two of the cut-apart stripes to the glitter card stock as well for the top and bottom of the card front. The “have a sweet Christmas” sentiment is cut from the pattern papers and foam taped up on the bottom strip, and here we have an adorable Christmas card starring the Gingerbread Man Stamp! • Now it seems the only stamp I haven’t featured in a starring role is the Christmas Tree, and I am sorely in need of a little bit of a pun, so let’s remedy that right now! Let’s do some paper-piecing! I stamped the tree (in SSS Intense Black Ink) three times on the green polka dot pattern paper and fussy cut the three different layers and then stacked them up with a little foam tape at their bottom edges. I did fussy cut a trunk from the brown pattern paper and of course outlined all the cut edges with a black brush marker. 
I actually had this brick piece already cut because I was thinking of using that with the ‘Santa colored with pencils on Kraft’ card but the white on the pattern paper was too white when compared with the white on the kraft colored Santa, so I had this piece already ready already! I used a square of the merry Christmas pattern paper for the background behind the tree, and mounted the brick pattern paper to the red card base with foam tape. Back to my Silhouette and my Red Pilot pen for this pun-y sentiment that is perfect for this card! Again, I ‘sketched’ this sentiment with my Silhouette (Paprika font) on a scrap of white card stock and die cut it out with a 
• SO… that’s 8 Christmas Cards and 2 ‘love’ cards from this card kit. I know this took me a long time to get out, but I hope you enjoyed what I came up with this month. I did think this card kit was a little high on the ultra-cute scale but, as usual, once I got started working on my cards, ideas started flowing a little easier. Though I didn’t use the Delicata Rose Gold stamp pad, I did use some of the pink in the kit for highlights, and I think I was able to avoid any real pink overload!! And now I have a real honest-to-goodness Christmas stamp set with images in my stamp collection. All in all a very nice, almost retro, vintage-y feel with these holiday cards. I have plenty of extras left over from this kit and I am looking forward to making some valentines with the Simon Says Stamp January Card Kit. Now even I can deal with some pink in my Valentine’s Day cards! Thanks for joining me here today and sharing your time with me! Please like me, List me, Pin me, Post me, Follow me and by all means… Happy Crafting!!
Hello Folks! Scott here with my 10 cards from the Love From Lizi December ’17 Card Kit. This kit is sold out but some of the items may become available at 
out. I attached the calendar to a plain white mat colored with the Spiced Marmalade ink, and use a touch of the thin burgundy ribbon from the kit to highlight the top of the calendar. I used the ‘trellis’ pattern paper for the main background and added two 1/4″ strips of the striped pattern paper to the sides. I pulled out some 
card stock writing surface inside the card, and used my craft knife to cut the top of the rose free so I could curl it up and use it as the easel catch. I am very pleased with my first easel card and I love the fact that it serves as a useful desk calendar as well as a greeting card! And orange roses seem slightly out of the ordinary (yet not unheard of) to me! • Now, I generally don’t think of myself as much of a sticker person, but there were some terrific stickers included with this kit that I was very eager to use. A couple of the stickers actually had the exact same sentiments that were included with the stamp set, so I had to avail myself of at least one of those – “If you can be anything be KIND.” I used a grey card
base for this card (because the background of the sticker was grey) and two different pattern papers. I punched a scalloped edge on the lovely floral pattern paper with my 
orange and white polka-dot pattern paper. I did cut about a half inch from the middle of one of the doilie to make it more oval instead of round to better match the sticker. I attached the sticker to the doily and glued those down to the polka-dot paper and used foam tape to add some depth on top of the grey mat. I did add some of the grey pearl dots from the kit to the edges of the sticker and I tied a double bow with the thin burgundy ribbon and attached that to the top of the sticker piece. Between the pearls and the silver doily, we have plenty of sparkle and shine on this card. Again, a basic, simple card that feels very Victorian to me. Must be those roses! And, of course, that doily!! • Back to the stamps! I did want to use the nice long-stemmed rose stamp on a card so I reached for the Forest Green card base and a panel of my Staples ivory card stock. Using my Tim Holtz Stamp Platform, I started in the center of the panel and stamped out a whole row of roses in 
the roses with red and the leaves in green. I like the way the stamps work when stamped with colors and filled in… I think it keeps the cards bright and colorful! The curly-cue border sticker worked perfectly to ‘tie’ the roses together, and, since that sticker is wood-grained, I grabbed the wood plank pattern paper to use as a base for the sentiment. I did fussy cut the top of the roses for added interest – I’m surprised and delighted at how nicely that detail catches the eye!! The pattern paper is glued to the ivory card stock and those are foam taped up on the card base – that helps the top edge pop as well! I did use my 
add the “You are so loved.” sentiment from the stamp set on the inside of the card (more ivory card stock for the writing surface) with 
Just barely! On a Wine Red card base, I cut a 2.25″ width of the swirly embossed pearlescent specialty paper (gorgeous) from the kit and centered that corner to corner on my card base. Since the sticker had those stripes as its background, I added two 1/4″ strips of the striped pattern paper to the edges of the pearl paper, and added the thicker burgundy ribbon to the outside edges of the pattern paper, and glued all of that directly to my card front. Of course, I used the peel-offs to define the edges of the card stocks, and, after removing the sticky from the sentiment sticker with my 
foiled vellum through my 
card – just a plain black print directly on the card base and accented with a die-cut rose. That is a great rose die we got with this kit – I didn’t play with it much for this batch of cards, but I know I will use this die over and over again in the years to come! This is a very simple one-layer card that actually packs a good punch!! This card makes me laugh a lot, and I am really looking forward to being able to give it to someone soon! • As usual, we do get a sequin mix in this months kit – Wild Rose is the mix – so I naturally want to make a shaker card! I used the Wine Red card base and the polka-dot vellum piece for 
this card – I was going to attach the vellum piece to my ivory card stock but I didn’t think the blue polka-dots showed up very well on top of the ivory – but I did like the ivory better than white in the open area inside the frame. So, I cut a piece of ivory card to match the frame, glued that in place and then added white card stock behind the ivory extending to the edges of the vellum. That worked very nicely, and the vellum actually gives the white card stock a bit of an ivory tint! Now that my vellum piece is stabilized, I cut out a heart window with my 
on the inside I stamped the “Always in my heart.” sentiment from the stamp set on the ivory writing surface. SO… “U R … Always in my heart.” Makes me giggle..! • Let’s try that wooden cart stamp now! I stamped the cart in 
the netting to the front of my grey card base. I cut a piece of the wavy lined embossed pearlized specialty paper just following one of the lines to be the ‘ground’ for my cart, and cut a piece of that polka-dot pattern paper for the top. I punched a scalloped heart border with my AC border punch on the pattern paper, and used the Nuvo Drops on the middle two rows of polka-dots. That piece almost feels like an awning on the street! I created the ‘Love you a bunch!’ sentiment on my Silhouette (
all the wheels stamped in the same brown color (BORING!) I decided to stamp them in all different colors of 
Here we have another rebus puzzle… I stamped the cart in SSS Intense Black ink on Bristol smooth card stock and colored it with my Spectrum Noir markers in RB1, RB2, and RB4. I found the eye (in green to match the card base!!) on line, and printed the letters in Gaudy Heavyface BT font and fussy cut and foam taped everything to the red pattern paper background. SOOOOOOOOO… the cart – which is not a wheelbarrow because it (appears) to have two wheels, is also known as a ‘tumbrel’ (if you have ever read A Tale of Two Cities you’ll remember the term) SOOOOOOOOO… the rebus reads “I’ll tumbrel for ya” If you were listening to rock and roll in the early eighties you remember Culture Club (Boy George) and “I’ll Tumble 4 Ya” was one of their first big hits. ANYHOW…! I thought this addition to the inside of the card would help the unknowing.
This is the actual Webster Dictionary definition of tumbrel… and naturally, I wouldn’t give this card to anyone younger than 50!! LOL! This may be off the beaten track, but I do think it makes a handsome card, and heaven knows, it has given me a lot of good hearty laughs, and I hope it gives you a giggle as well!
• That’s my 10 cards for the Love From Lizi December 2017 Card Kit – I hope I was able to provide you with a little crafting inspiration (whether you get this kit or not) and a smile or two. If you like this style of card kit I highly recommend subscribing or at least following LoveFromLizi.com to be able to pounce when the next months kit is offered! Thank you so much for sharing your time with me today – If you have any questions or comments don’t hesitate to say something and if you go to the 
This month, we go back to receiving a Chameleon Pen in RD5 – Burgundy. Love a deep red and this should provide just that!
Once again, Lizi is featuring 5 sheets of letter-size card stock (8.5’x11″) in Wine Red, 
Ivory, Peach, Forest Green and Grey. I really like being able to make full-size A2 cards (makes measurements for matting and layers easier!) instead of the slightly-slimmer card bases made from A4 papers. I hope Lizi keeps giving us letter-size card stocks! We also receive a 12″x12″ sheet of vellum in our kit this month! I always look forward to the
vellum images included with the LFL kits and this month is no exception! Foil embossed in silver, and featuring some beautiful floral images, and a wagon wheel, and even a skull with foiled antlers (hope that’s not one of Santa’s reindeer! LOL!). We are also 
treated to a 12″x12″ sheet of stickers this month featuring a complete alphabet and lots of
sentiments with floral highlights. Looks like dark red, silver, and lots of flowers are being featured in our kits this month! Not very New Year’s oriented, but Valentine’s day is coming soon, so this included piece of white tulle should come in handy when making Valentine’s Day cards! This is a very sturdy, stiff tulle and should be fairly easy to work with! (ruffles, anyone?? LOL!) Now we get to the specialty papers included in this month’s kit, and they are very special indeed! 
We get three half-sheets of this beautiful pearlescent white card stock in three different patterns – this swirly, almost painterly pattern,
and a wider softer wavy pattern on the third sheet. These are totally gorgeous papers – the movement that happens when the light reflects on these papers is almost magical! I’m looking forward to playing with these!
To finish out the specialty papers, we get two quarter-sheets of glimmer card stock in Platinum and Slate Gray. Both of these measure 4.25″ x 5.5″ so they are the same size as a standard A2 card. Very pretty.
they are in Soft Peach and are very shiny without being glittery…! I love Lizi’s peel off sticker strips, (in three different widths!) and even though “soft peach” isn’t REALLY pink… it’s close enough in my book!!
Shortly after posting that LFL August Card Kit, fellow crafter Beverly Stotz contacted me and mentioned that she had come across some pattern paper from Bo Bunny (on sale!) that would work perfectly with this gift book. The BoBunny Family Recipes Collection – both their 
index cards in the original book and it looks like there are 6 recipe cards on the 12×12 pattern paper, so that would make each card a 4×6 recipe card! PERFECT FIT! I decided then and there to get these papers and upgrade this Recipe Book for some actual Christmas presents this year. I didn’t have any more of the foiled vellum pieces that said “Let’s Cook Something Special Today” nor did I have any more of that lovely strawberry pattern paper that the vellum is mounted to, so I figured I should be able to use the 6X6 pattern papers to help me re-create that image on the cover. Unfortunately, I thought most of the pattern papers were either a little too busy or the patterns a little too large to stand in for the strawberry paper, so I turned to my Silhouette (and the laser jet printer at work!) to create the cover piece. I really liked the red polka-dots that were on the original vellum image, so I found a nice red polka-dot pattern on line and printed that on my 
(my tried and true all purpose card stock) and cut it to size on my Silhouette. There was a fun piece of mini ‘milk bottle cap’ pattern paper in the Family Recipe Collection that matched the ivory card stock quite well so I cut strips of that paper to stand in for the strawberry pattern paper on the top and bottom of the red polka-dots. I did use the brown LFL peel off stickers from the August kit for the top and bottom of the strips, and used my 
my Silhouette and used 
I tried to find 
To personalize the covers, I used my Silhouette to create the pairs of names on the same red polka-dot background, and cut 4 pieces of each so I could glue them all together for a chunky, ‘chip-board’ embellishment. Okay… I think that covers all the pieces for the front cover… Let’s work on the actual ‘book’ part and the insides. I based the dimensions of this entire book on using a half-sheet of card stock for the pages – so all the pages are 8.5″ x 5.5″. For the front and back covers, I used black chip-board cut at 8″ wide by 5.75″ tall for the cover, and7/8″ wide by 5.75″ tall for the ‘spine’. I punched 1/8″ holes in the spine pieces for the twine binding, and used one as a pattern for punching holes on both of the spine pieces and all the pages. For the hinge, 
I used Tyvek from UPSP Priority Mail envelopes cut to 5/8″ wide by 6″ long – two pieces for both the front and back ‘hinge’. I did use 
I attached all the completed pieces to the cover and let them dry while I worked on the inside pages. Since I ended up printing the pattern for the cover, I ended up having a great deal of the 6×6 pattern paper left… what to do?? I figured the back of the pages seemed a little bare, so I decided to make a little “notes” section for the final recipient to jot down any notes they might find relevant. I actually scanned the back of one of the recipe cards into 
the computer so I could match the lines and font for my ‘notes’ section which I printed on my Ivory card stock and cut to 5.25″ wide by 2.125″ tall. Since all of the recipe cards had a little scalloped border around their edges, I decided to make a scalloped background for the ‘notes’ section. I created the scalloped rectangle on my Silhouette and sized it so I could get 2 pieces cut from the 6×6 pattern papers – That’s
one of the things I love about working with my Silhouette Portrait – if you are careful and line things up accurately, you can cut right to the edges of most papers. Here you can see that I hardly wasted anything from the pattern papers I used and was able to get 2 ‘notes’ background pieces from each sheet of pattern paper. SWEET! As far as the recipe cards, I didn’t think slots in the page to hold them was very classy, so I found some 
corners to hold the recipe cards. There is more room on the back of the cards for ‘directions’ so you do need to be able to remove the recipe cards, and you don’t really want to take the whole book into the kitchen when you’re cooking, so I thought this was a sensible and decorative solution. I did create a couple of templates to help in positioning both the recipe cards and the ‘notes’ pieces on the pages, so the only thing you really have to pay attention to is matching the ‘note’ papers on the back of one page to the recipe papers on the front of the next page.
BONUS GIFT: Go to my COMMENTS page and send me a note requesting my “Let’s Cook Something Special Today” medallion for yourself! Simply specify whether you would like the file in a PDF format, or, for all the Silhouette folks out there, you can request a copy of my Silhouette file (You will need to have the 
with a flower arrangement around a block lettered “KIND”, lots of individual flower and leaf stamps, a lovely script “kind” and “kindness” stamps, block letter “KIND” and “NESS” stamps, a border stamp and (of course) a couple of small heart stamps, and a plethora of kindness sentiments. We also get a KIND bold outline 
how my shading came out – and how well it matched the Green Apple card base – that I stopped right there and didn’t add any more color to the stamp! I cut the water color paper and the gingham pattern paper with my Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle dies (
Using the Green Leaf card base, I once again, die-cut the watercolor paper and pattern paper with my Stitched rectangle dies and added a small ‘intermediate’ mat of 
Since there was a good deal of gray on the pattern papers, I decided to supplement the card stock in the kit with a piece of gray card stock from my stash. I water colored the stamp with my 
with this kit. On top of my gray card base, I have that gold embossed paper (I swear it looks like granny’s wallpaper..!) and die cut a ‘frame’ from the bronze embossed paper with two of the Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle dies. A scrap of black card stock provides a background for the silhouette sticker from the accent sticker sheet, and the frame is mounted up on some foam tape for dimension. I created and cut the sentiment in my Silhouette using the 
so I chose to use that “you are my home” sentiment (the one on the pattern paper was larger than the one on the sticker sheet, so I used the larger one). That sentiment is on some wood-grained pattern paper so, (after having such good results stamping on wood with my last card kit) I snagged some wooden coffee stirrers at my local coffee shop and used them for accents on this Cream card base. I stamped the border stamp on one of the stir sticks with 
Now here’s where the stickers and the pattern paper and the stamp set came together to make a truly wonderful card. I stamped the script-y “kindness” stamp on watercolor paper with VersaMark ink, and embossed that with the Love From Lizi Emerald City embossing powder. That is really gorgeous embossing powder – so smooth and shiny – I thought it worked very well on the Green Leaf card base. I used the pattern paper that matched the flower stickers for the background of this card, and I did trim the pink stripes from the top of that pattern paper for top and bottom accents behind the sentiment strip. I created the “MATTERS” sentiment on my Silhouette in the Sign Painter font and managed to match the color of the embossing powder pretty well..! I assembled two bunches of sticker flowers (a perfect match!) and attached them with foam tape to both sides of the sentiment and let a little bit come over the edges of the watercolor paper. I added two of the Darice gold leaves to the sticker arrangements and a few spots of 
for at least one card! A smart, simple masculine hello card is the result. I mounted the ‘hi’ square from the pattern paper on foam tape to a different square from the pattern paper as a mat and glued those to the gold foil stripe pattern paper. I added two strips of the bronze embossed paper to the sides and used my peel off stickers in chocolate brown and soft gold for some delineation between papers. A few sequins from my stash, a gold heart sticker from the kit, and I’ve got a very snazzy, fairly simple hello card for anyone! I do still have one more of the large stamps embossed in gold on my watercolor paper, and I wanted to see if I could disguise or even just cover up the KIND sentiment in the middle of the flowers. I stamped the two largest single flowers from the stamp set on watercolor paper and gold embossed them to match, and, lo and behold, no more words
in the middle of the flowers! I water-colored the flowers with my Pelikan watercolors (to match the gray/daisy pattern paper), and glued the 2 individual flowers right over the KIND in the middle of the flowers. To highlight the ‘new’ bouquet, I used it vertically on this Green Apple card base. I did a kind of half-and-half fussy cut with the flower piece and foam taped the whole thing up on the card. I did use that grey pattern paper with the daisies for a mat behind the rectangle part of the watercolor paper, and used the silver pebble embossed paper as a mat behind that. I cut that sentiment stamp into three pieces and stacked them to make the sentiment here – stamped in VersaFine Onyx Black ink and embossed that with clear embossing powder. I did use some Ranger Enamel Accents in Electric Lime to add the green dots to the stamp and the card. With the gold embossed stamp and the enamel dots, we’ve got plenty of shine on this ‘adapted’ spray of flowers! Now I still haven’t used the block print “NESS” stamp, so I paired that up with it’s natural predecessor “KIND” to make a trendy ‘sentiment only’ card. I simply adore this card.
I stamped both stamps with Versafine Onyx Black ink, clear embossed them on the watercolor paper, painted them with my Pelican opaque watercolors, and fussy cut them all apart. I love this sentiment! It is the moral from The Lion and the Mouse fable by Aesop. I used my Silhouette to print the “A IS NEVER WASTED •AESOP•” on the Cream card base. 
Without even owning a machine, you can use the Silhouette software to outline your card and place whatever sentiment you wish to print anywhere on your card. Check out my 
YES! It’s my ‘Random Axe of Kindness’ card!!! LOL!!! I recently got an axe die from the Spellbinders Lumberjack Days Collection “Camp Out” dies (discontinued, so I got it on a great sale!). I used my 
CardCut-ups 