Hello Folks! Scott here with my 10 cards from the Simon Says Stamp December 2017 ‘Milk and Cookies’ card kit – FINALLY !! The holidays really kept me busy this year and it was difficult for me to find time to sit down at my desk and work on this kit. Add to that the fact that we made and sent 120 Christmas Cards this year (video and post to follow soon..!) and you might see why I am a little bit behind!. The Milk and Cookies Card Kit came with the “Christmas Squad” stamp set featuring Santa and Mrs. Clause, a gingerbread man, a cookie, glass of milk and a dog and a cat as well as a few holiday sentiments. We received a dozen double-sided “Milk and Cookies” pattern papers from Doodlebug with an exclusive set of matching ‘sprinkles’ (enameled stickers) and a Tsukineko Delicata stamp cube in Rose Gold. Also included in the kit were three sheets of glitter card stock (A4) from Tonic in Silver Screen, Tropical Tide and Candy Floss, and one sheet of Simon Says Stamp Ivory card stock and one sheet of Neenah 100# Desert Storm card stock, and a teaspoon of Colorful Confetti sequins. This whole kit is very cute and very Christmas-y. • As usual, I stamped a couple groups of images with SSS Intense Black ink on some Bristol Smooth card stock and colored one set with my Zigg Clean Color Real Brush Markers. These are very nice images, but, other than the heads, they have very small areas for coloring – that’s why I like the Zigg brush markers for coloring images like this – the brush tip will get into those tiny areas with no problem. I did like the pattern paper that featured Santa sitting in his chair in front of the fire and Christmas Tree, but I thought the image of Santa was comically tiny – kind of looked like Edith Ann (Lily Tomlin) in her giant rocking chair (and that’s the truth! THBPBPTHPT!). The stamped images were much larger than the printed images, so I decided to fussy cut the colored images and group them together in such a way that they covered up the Santa and the cat on the original image. Now, I may be old and behind the times, but I had to look up to see what #squadgoals meant. Not something I have ever used or have ever even seen used, but obviously a modern reference to ‘family’. I ignored the ‘squad’ sentiments and created a simple “From our family to yours” sentiment (Arial font) to use with this 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 black glaze pen on the characters eyes, and a few confetti sequins from the kit on the wreath and tree, and some Spectrum Noir Sparkle Pen on the fire, star and white ‘fur’ parts of the costumes. I did stamp the ‘Merry Christmas’ stamp on the inside of the card, and  voila! my first card for this kit came together very nicely. • There were a couple of sheets of cut-apart images and sentiments included in the pattern paper set, and I went with the ‘we belong together’ sentiment for my second card. 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 Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle dies to cut the glitter card stock and some plain red card stock from my stash (excellent match!) and used my We R Memory Keepers Next Level embossing folder to add some hearts to the red pattern paper. Those are glued flat to the Ivory card base (from the kit) and then I used my stitched oval dies to cut more blue glitter card stock and the red and white striped pattern paper and a scrap of white card stock for the base of my Milk and Cookie (and heart) stickers from the kit. I used foam tape for the top two layers and for the milk and cookie stickers as well. I also cut a small blue glitter card stock mat for the sentiment and mounted that with foam tape as well.  Nothing Christmas-y about this card! I only wish the milk and cookie stamps were larger so I could make more cards of this kind rather than more Christmas cards. • Though I am not really one to use a lot of cut-apart images on my cards, I did like the “December 25” image, and when I discovered that the gingerbread man sticker was the same size as the printed gingerbread man, I decided to use this image and paired it up with the Christmas tree cut-apart and the holly pattern papers. I did use Glossy Accents for the gumdrops to the left of the gingerbread man (the gumdrop stickers were not the same size) to match the g-bread man, and chose two of the cut-apart sentiments – “Santa Clause is comin’ to town” and “have a holly jolly Christmas”. I cut the holly pattern paper to 2.5″ x 5.5″ and glued that straight down to a white card base from my stash, and (because of the pink berries on the pattern paper) added two thin strips of the Candy Floss glitter paper to the top and bottom edges. I added the holly stripe from the pattern papers below the center piece to punch up the ‘holly’ theme and sentiment, and used foam tape to mount all the sentiments and images to the card. I did cut out the tree circle and added a thin mat of the pink glitter to that piece for a little extra pop. Some of the Colorful Confetti sequins on the tree and by the sentiments adds a nice touch of bling and pulls your eye to the sentiments. It wasn’t until I finished this card that I realized that both of these sentiments are actually holiday song titles! And, even though I did use some pink accents, this card doesn’t scream pink at all! • Now, I think this is the first time I’ve actually held the Neenah Desert Storm card stock in my hands and it was good to see and feel what appears to be the ‘go-to Kraft card stock’ these days. I wanted to experiment with coloring on the card stock directly, so 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 stamping mask paper to cover Santa, so I could create a soft blue (Broken China Distress oxide ink) halo around the image. I did use my new Ink Dusting Brushes and I love the soft effect that those brushes create. That highlights the stamped image very nicely. I did re-stamp Santa after coloring to reinforce the outline of the stamp which tends to get a little ‘fuzzy’ when colored with colored pencils. I simply left the stamp in the same place on my stamp platform to facilitate a second stamping. That really added a lot of detail and a crisp black outline to the colored image. Of course I also dotted his eyes with my black glaze pen! I cut an oval window in a 3″ wide strip of the small red polka dot pattern paper and mounted that to the card base with foam tape for some dimension. I used the ‘HAPPY HOLIDAYS’ cut-apart sentiment and since the text was blue, added two 1/4″ strips of the Tropical Tide glitter card stock to either side. Foam tape for attaching the sentiment adds a little more dimension, and some snowflake sequins from my stash along the edges of the window really highlights the opening. I did add a touch of Ranger Enamel Accents in Caribbean Coast to the center of the sequins, and this is my Holiday card starring SANTA! I really liked coloring this on the Kraft card base and hope to experiment with that technique more!  •  I do really like the “Christmas is Clause for Celebration” sentiment in the stamp set and decided I had to feature Santa on one more card! I went ahead and colored the second set of characters with my Crayola Fine Line markers that we received with the SSS May ’17 Card Kit, and I was pleased at how nicely those markers move on the Bristol Smooth card stock. Using the second Desert Storm card base, I used the mini polka dot pattern paper (1.75″ x 5.5″)  and the red and white striped pattern paper (2.125″ x 5.5″) and glued those directly to the card base for my background. I fussy cut the Santa (leaving a white border this time), and mounted him with foam tape to the Santa head pattern paper cut with the stitched oval die, foam mounted that to an oval cut from the Silver Screen glitter card stock and foam taped the whole assemblage to the background. I stamped the sentiment on a scrap of white card stock with Ranger Archival ink in Vermillion, and cut that out with a small Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle Die. I  did add two silver glitter peel-off stickers (from the Love From Lizi September ’17 Card Kit) to the sides of the background to pull the focal image and the background together, and I used a few Colorful Confetti sequins, black glaze pen for the eyes and a little bitty tree gem from my stash (can’t find those anymore!) for a final touch of bling. I really love the full Santa on top of all those Santa heads on the pattern paper!  • I did go back to the ‘sprinkles’ sheet and used the milk carton sticker and the other cookie sticker to do a shaker card. I used the milk and cookie cut-apart square as the background for the shaker because the cookie sticker was the same size as the printed cookie, and the carton of milk would cover up the printed glass of milk while still being able to use the ‘straw’ (and hearts!) as part of the image. I did use a little bit of white-out correction tape to 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 Darice Nesting Heart die to cut the shaker shape. I glued the pink glitter mat directly to a Kraft card base from my stash. I doubled up my foam tape for extra shaker dimension behind the blue glitter card stock, and used the confetti sequins for the shaker bits and the stickers for the focal image. I couldn’t find another appropriate sentiment for this card among the cut apart pattern papers, so I created one of my own using the sketch function on my Silhouette to write “We are better together” in Paprika font (that’s a Silhouette font) with a Pilot G-2 red ink pen on a scrap of white card stock. I LOVE that sentiment and being able to ‘draw’ it in red made me a very happy camper! I cut out the sentiment with a small LF Stitched Rectangle Die and outlined it with some pink peel-off stickers (from the Love From Lizi July ’17 card kit) for a little extra pop and then felt the need to add a couple of pink ‘racing stripes’ down the sides of the blue glitter card stock. I also really like how the straw and the hearts on the printed cut-apart work with the stickers attached to the top of the shaker acetate. The last two heart stickers from the sprinkles sheet highlight the sentiment, and we have another card that is more oriented towards Valentine’s Day than Christmas.  • Okay! Back to the stamp set! I stamped this scene of the cat and dog and tree with SSS Intense Black Ink using stamping masks on some Bristol smooth card stock, and colored everything with my Zigg Clean Color Real Brush Markers. 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 Darice Word Bubbles die. I cut out my little scene vignette with a Darice Nesting Circle die and hand cut mats for both the die cuts from pattern paper and my own red card stock. I used my new ink blending brushes (again) to add a little Cracked Pistachio (Distress Oxide ink) halo on the Ivory card base. I used my Signo Broad white gel pen to add some stitching around the circular red mat, and added the ‘treats for santa’ pattern paper strip (matched the cracked pistachio ink!) along the bottom. Colorful Confetti Sequins provide ornaments on the tree (I even cut a couple to fit around the dog) and some black glaze pen for their eyes and I have a pretty funny Christmas Card!   •  I wanted to feature the Mrs. Claus stamp on a card so I grabbed another Kraft card base from my stash, and fussy cut the Mrs. Claus stamp colored with the Crayola markers and kind of combined a couple ideas from earlier cards to come up with this card that uses the “All I want for 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 VersaMark ink on a strip of pattern paper and embossed that in Ranger white embossing powder. A few stickers of sweets from the Doodlebug Sprinkles, black glaze pen on the eyes, some Spectrum Noir sparkle pen on the cookies and Santa, and that’s plenty of bling for a card starring Mrs. Claus!  I was shooting to make this card look like Mrs. Claus was day-dreaming about Santa and cookies, and I think I achieved that!   •  Now I have a number of extra Gingerbread men stamped on Kraft card stock left over from my practice runs on the Mrs. Claus card, so let’s use those to make a card that features the gingerbread man stamp! My red card stock from my stash (Recollections) was such a good match I decided to do the last couple of card bases on red. I fussy cut 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 Darice Banner die. I did add a couple of .125″ strips of the candy floss glitter card stock down the sides of the card front (some of those bricks are rather pink!) and used the Colorful Confetti sequins for all the ornaments on the tree. I really appreciated that these sequins fit on the tree stamp perfectly. A gold star gem from my stash and couple more of those adorable tree gems (I know I got those at Oriental Trading Company an number of years ago, but I can’t seem to locate them now!) highlight the sides of the sentiment and now there’s a pun-y card starring the Christmas Tree Stamp.!  •  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 lovefromlizi.com in the coming months. The pattern papers, sticker sheet and vellum images included with this kit felt very Victorian and Valentine-y to me, so that’s my mind set for this collection. • I was initially interested in the small tear-off calendars included in the embellishments bag, and wanted to do an easel card (a first for me!) featuring one of those calendars. I used a top-folding Peach card base to build on, and stamped out three copies of the blooming rose stamp on Bristol Smooth Cardstock using Distress Oxide ink in Spiced Marmalade. I colored in the stamps with an orange colored pencil and fussy cut them 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 Darice Gold leaf sequins from my stash to help define the roses, and cut two super-thin strips of gold mirror card stock for some matching glitz between the pattern papers. I even stamped the flourish from the stamp set below the calendar – fit perfectly!  I stamped the sentiment from the kit in Spiced Marmalade Oxide ink on a piece of my ol’ stand-by Staples Ivory card stock and die-cut that with a Darice Banner die. That die fit the calendar perfectly so I just ‘wrapped’ the edges around the sides calendar and attached both pieces to the mat. I wanted the cluster of roses to be the ‘shaped’ top of the calendar when the card is folded into an easel shape, so I attached the roses and leaf sequins to the back of the calendar assembly – I did use some foam tape to add a little dimension and definition to the roses, and scored the card front 2.5″ up from the bottom. I did look through the pattern papers and stickers to find something that would work as a ‘catch’ to hold the easel in shape, but decided that another rose would work perfectly – I stamped a fourth rose on the Ivory 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 cardbase 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 American Crafts Border Punch and fussy cut the edge of the pink geometric paper following along with the pattern. I separated the two pattern papers with a strip of the Platinum specialty paper from the kit and added a single ‘soft peach’ peel-off from the kit between the platinum and floral papers. I also added some of the burgundy ribbon to the left edge of the pink paper and glued everything down to the card base. I cut a piece of vellum from my stash with a Spellbinders Deckle Rectangle die and attached the sticker directly to the vellum and used some foam tape to attach those pieces to the card for a little dimension. The vellum helps the sticker pop on top of the pattern papers, and that platinum glimmer paper provides all the shine I needed for this card. A fairly simple card, but I do like the combination of the pattern papers with the sticker. • Now, I don’t think I have ever used a paper doily on any of my cards, but Lizi included 3 silver doilies with this kit so I was determined to use at least one of them! Another sticker caught my eye because of it’s unique shape and terrific sentiment, so I decide to stick with the stickers for another card. This card is on the Peach card base again, and I cut a couple of mats with my Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle dies out of the grey glimmer paper and theorange 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 Distress Oxide Fired Brick ink. Using colored pencils again, I lightly colored 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 WRMK corner chomper to round the bottom corners of all the papers – I don’t tend to do that a lot, but I though it worked especially well with this card. The ‘love’ sentiment is made from the alphabet stickers in the kit, and I centered that over the white boards on the pattern paper. I used one of the silver bows from the kit to ‘tie’ on to the center rose, and decided we needed a touch more silver to help justify that ribbon – the Love From Lizi peel-off stickers in Silver Glitter (from the September ’17 card kit) to the rescue! One thin peel-off at the top of the pattern paper does the trick and provides just the right amount of sparkle for this card. I didn’t want to leave this card just saying “love”, so I did 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 Versa-Mark Onyx Black ink, and added two flourish stamps in the Fired Brick Oxide ink for a bit of decoration. Very Victorian! • I did notice a few people on line talking about the fact that some of the stickers in the kit were way too big to be used on a standard A2 card – well, I’m never one to turn down a challenge, and I particularly liked the ‘DREAM. BELIEVE. DO.’ sticker that was a touch longer than 5 and 3/4 inches – too long for a straight application, but it fits on a diagonal!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 EK Tools Powder Tool, I  used foam tape to pop the sticker up in the center of the card. A small, simple bow to accent the ribbon and we have another faintly Victorian inspiration card! I do like that sentiment!!  • Now, these first five cards are my ‘serious’ cards from this kit, and things do get a little sillier from here on out. If you have seen my other LFL kit videos you know I like to print on the vellum pieces with my laser printer (at work! – shhhh!!) and then use deco-foil and my Laminating Machine to foil my printed sentiments. This kit was no exception, and I was looking forward to using my Silver deco-foil for the first time! I chose the vellum piece with the door and flowers on the right side, and, using my Silhouette Software, printed my sentiment in Smoothie Shoppe font with my laser printer in the open area of the vellum. I used my silver deco-foil to cover the printed sentiment and ran it through my laminator two times. Success! Excellent silver foiled sentiment that goes along with the silver highlights on the vellum images. I sent the foiled vellum through my Xyron sticker maker and attached the vellum directly to the top of the Ivory card base. “If you don’t have anything nice to say…” Of course, this sentiment is continued on the inside – “come sit by me.” but I didn’t foil the inside of the 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 Darice Nesting Hearts die right in the middle, and traced the actual die with an Emboss It pen and embossed that with silver embossing powder. I added acetate behind the window, and used the matching polka-dot pattern paper for a couple of stripes on the card front and as the background for my shaker window. I added a “u” and an “r” from the alphabet stickers to the shaker background, and lightly filled the shaker with some sequins – avoiding the green sequins and not putting too many in the window so they don’t block the ‘u’ ‘r’. A random scattering of the Nuvo Drops (‘Neptune Turquoise’) from the kit match the polka dots and kind of ‘brings the shaker outside of the window’. Naturally, we need to finish this sentiment, so, 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 SSS Intense Black ink on Bristol smooth card stock, colored it with my Spectrum Noir markers in TN1, TN2 and TN4 and fussy cut the whole image including the wheel spokes. Now what to put in the cart…? The fabric roses of course! I trimmed down their stems and taped them down to the back of the cart. I did stamp some of the leaves from the long stemmed rose stamp in Distress Oxide Peeled Paint and fussy cut those out to add around the edges of the roses in the cart. I took a piece of the tulle netting and using a light touch of spray adhesive, attached 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 (Ballerina Script font) and printed that on a piece of my Staples Grey card stock. I took one of the wood veneer die cut frames from the kit, and cut 1/4″ out of two of the sides to shrink it down a bit and, after gluing it back together, used silver embossing powder on the top for some shine and an almost pewter look to that frame! All is glued directly to the card front but the cart is attached with some foam tape. I love the way the red roses play off of the greys and light blue, and how they really pop on the front of this card! And a sweet simple pun. • I haven’t used that single wagon wheel stamp yet, but how can I use it and keep to my ‘romantic Victorian valentine’ theme…? And wheel puns are all too easy! I though it would be interesting to see if I could use whole wagon wheels to create a heart shape for this card. I ended up with a bit of a ‘wheel collage’ that I reinforced with a heart shape die-cut from the embossed pearlized card stock and the red pattern paper. After trying all the wheels stamped in the same brown color (BORING!) I decided to stamp them in all different colors of Distress Oxide ink – Fired Brick, Spiced Marmalade, Broken China, Cracked Pistachio, and Wilted Violet. On the Ivory card base, I ran the wide glitter-berries ribbon down the center of the card, added two thin strips of the embossed pearl card on either side of the ribbon, and added the wide burgundy ribbon to both sides as well. I attached the fussy cut wheels (yes, I cut out the spokes too!) to the heart mats with foam squares and added one of the metal wheel buttons from the kit to the point of the heart. I was actually able to push the thin burgundy ribbon through the holes of the button and tie a little bow on the front.  I created the “Wheel you be mine?” sentiment with my Silhouette software in Typewriter Hand font and printed that on my ivory card stock and cut it out with the same Darice banner die used on my first card. A sweet simple pun on a bit of a wacky valentine card – I’m surprised that the rainbow wheels actually seem to work on this card – I almost went back to the brown wheels at one point, but I’m glad i didn’t! • And now we are at the final card for the month! I debated this card for quite a bit, but was ultimately won over when I figured out how to ‘sell’ the idea…! 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 Contact page, you can email me directly! Please Pin and Post and Share me wherever you can! Happy Crafting!

 

Hello Folks, Scott here unboxing my Love From Lizi December Card Kit. Unfortunately, this card kit HAS sold out! If you want to get in on the fun, go to lovefromlizzi.com and subscribe to her monthly card kit! As usual, this kit is bursting with goodies! Here we go!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 thevellum 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,

 

 

 

 

a thin wavy line 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.

 

Naturally, we do get our Love From Lizi peel off stickers as well! This month 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!!

That brings us to the pattern papers in

this kit – 12 sheets of 6″x6″ single-sided pattern papers with a good assortment of patterns and colors, lots of images that match the vellum and sticker sheets, and, of course, some touches of dark red (cranberries, anyone?) and one sheet covered with beautiful roses.

And that brings us to the stamp set for this month. This set features roses – – a full bloom, a small rosebud and a long-stemmed partially open rose. There is also a wooden wheelbarrow and an extra wheel as well as four sentiments. I really like the “Live everyday with purpose” stamp, and I can see why we got that burgundy Chameleon Pen this month! The wheelbarrow will be interesting to play with as well…! Now we get to the fun stuff – – the embellishment bag! We get four different ribbons this month – a meter

each of 1/8″ and 1/4″ satin burgundy ribbon and a 2″ wide linen ribbon with glittering cranberries all over. We also get another ‘shaped’ ribbon (about 20″)  this month – silver leaves on a vine with stitched lines embossed on the vine, and veins on the leaves. All three types of ribbon are lovely and I can’t wait to figure out how to use those leaves!

Continuing on, we get 3 silver paper doilies, 6 paper roses, 6 shiny ‘cranberries’ and the ‘Wild Rose’ sequin mix featuring pinks, whites, black and brushed gold sequins in assorted sizes. Hmmmm… is there any silver in there? I will have to look closer!!

We get another LFL embossing powder this month – Fluffy Snow embossing powder which is supposed to puff up when heated… very interesting…! Our Nuvo Crystal Drops are in Neptune Turquoise this month – lovely! We also get 2 small silver glitter tags, two 2018 tear-off calendars, three silver bows (pre-tied, thank-you-very-much!), three metal wagon wheel buttons in two sizes and two wood-veneer die cut frames. Still more…

Self-adhesive enamel dots in pearl and grey – very shiny! And our monthly die – a nicely intricate Rose die – I did run a die-cut just to see how it looks and I am very pleased with this die – very intricate and detailed with a few leaves around the edges. Excellent! I believe Lizi mentioned that this was her ‘winter-y’ kit and that inspired her to bring all these pieces together. I will probably do some New Year’s and Valentine’s cards with this kit and see what all these groovy supplies inspire me to create! Stay tuned for my 10 Cards 1 Kit video featuring the Love From Lizi December 2017 Card Kit.! Happy Crafting!

Hello Folks! Scott here with a different post for you today. If you caught my post (or video) for the Love From Lizi August ’17 card kit you may remember my ‘extra project’ I created with one of my favorite vellum images included in the kit. You can check out that full post by clicking here: 10 Cards 1 Kit Love From Lizi August 2017 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 12″x12″ Recipe Cards and the 6″x6″ Family Recipes Collection:

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I was especially taken with the 12×12 recipe card pattern paper – I actually just used 4×6 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 Staples Ivory card stock (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 American Crafts border punch on the top and bottom edges. Now for the foiled sentiment piece! I went to my Silhouette again and used curly brackets { } to make the shape, and created a sentiment that I felt echoed the original vellum piece. I laser-printed and cut the shape on my Silhouette and used deco-foil in gold to foil the sentiment. Ok… so I got a little ahead of myself here…! I hadn’t given much thought to personalizing the covers yet, so when I got around to doing the names, I had downloaded a few new fonts by that time, and fell in love with the Smoothie Shoppe font. That font has ‘and’ ‘the’ and ‘with’ as complete words at a saucy angle and worked perfectly for my “John and Jane’s Favorite Recipes” part of the cover. However, with the foiled ‘Let’s Cook…’ in a different font, I thought things were getting a little disjointed on the cover. Therefore, I redid the “Let’s Cook..” sentiment using the Smoothie Shoppe font – laser printed, cut and foiled – and that pulled everything together for the cover. I tried to find book plates that were as large as the one included with the LFL August ’17 Card Kit, but could only find metal ones in a smaller size – actually they worked quite well, and didn’t pull too much focus. I printed the ‘Favorite Recipes’ in Lucida Calligraphy font on my Ivory card stock, and cut them down to fit the book plate – I did do a light touch of ink blending (with Distress Oxide Walnut Stain ink) on the edges of the card stock before gluing them to the metal plate. I didn’t want the brads poking through the cover of my book, so I just spread the prongs open on the back and glued the whole plate to the cover with Ranger Multi Medium Matte. 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 Antique Linen Distress ink to add a little color to two of them (the front cover and the back ‘hinges’ will be covered with the red heart washi tape) and used my Spectrum Noir Dark Red 7 alcohol marker to color the inside hinges before use. I used 1/4″ scor-tape to attach the Tyvek hinges to the chip-board leaving 1/8″ in the center of each strip for folding. That Tyvek material will fold and fold and fold over and over and over again and never break, come apart or fail. Best material I ever found for making ‘paper’ hinges! Once the spines and covers were attached I added gold eyelets to the holes for some decorative reinforcement, and covered the Tyvek with some washi tape (I did add a touch of glue to the ends of the washi tape to help keep it from pulling off accidentally). 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 gold photo corners and used those on opposite 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.

Now that the pages are complete and the cover is dry, we can bind our book together. I found that some simple twine was the best option – thick enough to hold tightly, and it contributes to the very rustic, handmade quality of the whole book. The more I thought about it, the more I was intrigued by the notion of giving someone a present that they have to do something with, and then they get to re-gift it! It feels very ‘recyclable’ to me, and, besides, aren’t we getting to the age where we don’t really need Christmas presents anymore?  LOL!!!  I hope our friends like these as much as I do, and they don’t get irritated at me for putting something else on their ‘to-do’ lists! Who knows, I may end up getting them all returned at Christmas next year !!!!  At least I’ll have a bunch of new recipes!!! Thanks for sharing some time with me here today, Your support means the world to me!

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 Smoothie Shoppe font installed on your computer for the file to register properly). Simple enough to cut out by hand, I thought some of you might like to have this sentiment available in your own stash!

I hope you enjoyed this posting, and that you might be inspired to think about other purposefully re-gift-able presents this year!  Spread the Cheer!!!

 

Hello Folks!  Scott here with my 10 card posting for the Simon Says Stamp November 2017 “Kind Flowers” Card Kit. I made it just under the wire to get this posted on WORLD KINDNESS DAY!! This kit is unfortunately sold out, but I will provide links to individual products if they are available. Featured here is a big 6″ x  8″ ‘Kind Flowers’ stamp setwith 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 wafer die that matches the “KIND” on the flowers and the “KIND” stamp. This is paired with 16, 6″ x 6″ single-sided pattern papers and a 12″ x 12″ accent sticker sheet from Pebbles, Inc. ‘Heart of Home’ collection, and get a bag of Darice Large Leaf Gold sequins, We are also treated to 1 sheet of Silver embossed paper, 1 sheet of Bronze embossed paper, and 1 sheet of Gold embossed paper. All three of these papers are heavily textured and outright beautiful! To finish up the supplies in this kit, we get 4 sheets of SSS 100# card stock in Green Apple, Green Leaf, Dark Chocolate, and Cream. I haven’t ever seen such a large stamp set included with a card kit, so that is amazing, and there are lots of products featured this month. I guess I just have to resign myself to the fact that Simon Says Stamp Card Kits will almost always have some pink in them. LOL!! I did feel like the pattern papers and sticker sheet, though perfect matches with each other, did not really match the card stock colors, and (with the exception of one ‘kindness’ sticker) even matched the stamp set. Granted, flowers go with everything, but the stickers and pattern paper were very ‘home’ and ‘family’ oriented and had very little to do with the “kindness” stamp set. Ce la Vie! To get started on this kit, I decided to do some water-coloring this month, so I stamped the large flower grouping on Strathmore 140# cold press watercolor paper four times – twice with VersaMark ink  embossed with gold embossing powder, and twice with VersaFine Onyx Black ink and embossed with clear embossing powder. I reached for my Zigg Clean Color Real Brush Markers to color the “KIND” sentiment for this first card and was able to achieve a really nice ombré effect using just pale green and yellow. I was so pleased withhow 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 (large and small) and used a Green Apple card base. The water color paper is foam taped to the pattern paper which is attached directly to the card base. I trimmed the “kind” from the end of one of the sentiment stamps and stamped that in VersaFine Onyx Black ink on a scrap of watercolor paper, trimmed that down to size, and mounted that with foam tape above the colored “KIND”. The liked the fact that the gingham pattern paper is kind of a magenta-ish pink and went very well with the green card base. A few sequins of mine add a touch of sparkle, and “Be Courageous and Kind” is a great encouragement card.  For my second card, I used one of my gold-embossed stamps and added the “KIND” stamp (also gold embossed) and die-cut with the included die on top of the flower group.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 gold glitter paper between them. I used the sap green color on the Daniel Smith watercolor pallet that was part of the Simon Says Stamp June ’17 Card Kit to create another ombré effect on the sentiment which is foam taped on the flower grouping. I also cut the “kind” word from the end of the “YOU ARE ONE OF A KIND” sentiment, stamped that with VersaFine Onyx black ink on watercolor paper and mounted that on foam tape above the KIND sentiment. The gold embossing is very reflective and shiny, so, no sequins required here! I like that that the large stamp is so intricate and detailed,  it hardly needs any color! Though very similar to my first card from this kit, I think this feels very earthy and (dare I say) much more masculine! But enough of that… let’s watercolor those flowers!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 Pelikan Opaque watercolors and fussy cut the image to mount on foam tape to that lovely gray and gold-foiled pattern paper. Each of the 6″ x 6″ pattern papers has a complimentary strip of different paper along the top of each page, so I cut the thin strips from the top of this gray pattern paper and used them to define the edges of the pattern paper. I did create the “IT’S COOL TO BE” sentiment in my Silhouette software in the Arial 9pt. font, and was thrilled to discover that my watercolor paper would piggy-back through my printer with no problem! I like the pop that the gray affords the colored flowers, and with a little Spectrum Noir sparkle pen on the “kind”, and clear embossing on the stamp, and the gold foiling on the pattern paper, no further glitz is required! But enough of that stamp!!  Let’s move along to those embossed papers and the sticker sheet and see what I can come up with… It didn’t take me long to dive into some simple punswith 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 Ballerina Script font. I cut 5 copies and glued them all together to make a nice chunky sentiment for the bottom of the card. I fiddled around quite a bit with a bunch of the stickers before I settled on the silhouette as my ‘art’. I really like the fact that the flower on the silhouette echoes the embossed paper. Both pretty and funny! The accent sticker sheet featured a variety of styles from silhouettes to black-and-white line drawings to colored flowers and leaves and trees and interesting house stickers. There was one sentiment featured on the sticker sheet AND on one of the pattern papers 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 Distress Oxide Walnut Stain ink, and paired that up with two more to make a little ‘foundation’ for the house sticker. I split one of the tree stickers in half to provide some foliage behind the house, and I cut a couple of rectangles from the silver embossed paper to be ‘stone’ walls in front. I paired up 7 pieces of the stir sticks on a piece of scor-tape and cut them out (scissors cut the sticks easily) to be a bit of a mat behind the wooden heart. I did use my Distress Crayon in Picket Fence to ‘whitewash’ the heart mat, and added another stick (cut to size) to the top of the card for balance. A gold heart from the sticker sheet and a few sequins from my stash adds a nice sparkly touch. I like the clean symmetry of the scene set off with the asymmetrical placement of the hearts. The stir sticks are so thin (I have foam tape that is thicker!) that they lend themselves extremely well to card-making. I really LOVE this sentiment, and I will be looking for ways of using (and stamping on) wood in my cards every chance I get! FUN!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 Nuvo Crystal Drops in Carnation Pink on top of the sentiment paper. I was a little surprised that we didn’t get a stamp that said “matters” since it seems to me that ‘Kindness Matters’ is at the heart of the whole kindness movement… nonetheless, I love that stamp and I actually enjoyed using the pink flowers and pattern paper together… pink and green will always be a go-to combination for me! Great sentiment! Lovely card! As I continued to search through the pattern papers, there was one of the square sentiments that kept catching my eye and my funny bone, so I decided to use that piece with the Dark Chocolate card base and ignore all the kindnesses and family sentimentsfor 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 “Printing Sentiments for Cards” posting for even more information on my ‘piggy-back’ printing technique. I used the Arial Black font in a blueish-green and attached all the letters to the card with foam tape. (I actually mixed up the Ns at first, and couldn’t understand why the rainbow looked so weird, until I realized that I had the yellow and the blue in the wrong place!) And can we talk about those leaf stamps in the stamp set that that come in pairs – mirror image pairs! LOVE those stamps! One set of those leaf stamps is stamped on either side of the “A” at the top of the sentiment and lightly colored with a dark green colored pencil – don’t want to use watercolors on the Cream card base..! (Those leaf stamps are going to get LOTS of use!!!) I did use some of my Wink of Stella pen to add some sparkle to the letters, and an old heart brad (with the tabs cut off) glued underneath the sentiment ties everything together for one of my favorite cards of all time! The big reason this card came about was when I realized that the open block KINDNESS stamp was SO large (actually 4.25″ across on this card) that I figured it should really be THE focal point of the whole card. And that great sentiment from Aesop lent itself so nicely to this idea. LOVE IT!! I can see me making a lot of these…! Since I have only dabbled with one pun-y card so far, I thought that I needed to wrap this 10 Cards 1 Kit posting with with one more. (I’ve been holding back on this one till now..!)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 Sticky BARC wood sheets to cut out the handle of the axe and some silver mirror card stock for the blade. Of course, this is the Dark Chocolate card base, the bronze embossed paper for a mat and that lovely gold foiled pattern paper (both cut with the lawn fawn stitched rectangle dies). I actually printed the speech bubble and sentiment (again using Arial Black font) on the back of one of the pattern papers and fussy cut the speech bubble and cut the sentiment out with another LF Stitched Rectangle die. All of the background papers are glued flat to the card base and everything else is attached with foam tape to the front of the card. A little bit of a frame on the sentiment with my soft gold peel off stickers highlights it quite nicely. This card gives me the giggles every time I speak the sentiment! A perfect finish for this card kit and a nice heartfelt laugh to celebrate WORLD KINDNESS DAY! Thank you so much for sharing your time with me today – please post a comment if you like, and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to go to the CONTACTS page and send me an email! Happy Crafting!!!

Hello Folks! Scott here with my 10 Cards post featuring the Love From Lizi November Card Kit. This kit is sold-out (setting another speed record) but some of the items may become available individually in the coming months. This kit features actual letter-sized card stock (instead of European A4 sized card stock) something new Lizi is trying out, so making your A2 card bases couldn’t be any easier… I personally love this format better! I generally use the colors of my card bases to compliment my card designs, so you will rarely see me covering up a card base completely with pattern paper or card stock.This kit is holiday oriented with kind of a ‘wood-grain’ theme reflected in the stamp set featuring a star, tree, heart and stag head rendered in wood-grain. The usual over-abundance of pattern papers, card stocks, embellishments and specialty items round out the supplies in this kit – everything from wood-grain paper to puffy reindeer trimmings, matchsticks to mirrors – this kit has a little bit of everything!  I usually start with the stamp set in a new card kit, but I wasn’t particularly in the ‘holiday spirit’ yet – so I ignored the sentiments and went for a simple pun to start. I was a little obsessed with the notion of stamping on the match sticks and loved the stag head stamp so here we go…I had to split the matchsticks in half (lengthwise) in order to create enough surface area for the stamp – I simply attached them in a slightly off-set pattern onto a piece of 1″ scor-tape and stamped the stag head with a Distress Oxide Walnut Stain ink pad right on top of the ‘raft’ of matchsticks. Truly amazing! The combination of the wood-grained stamp and the actual wood texture of the matchsticks gave me a truly unique focal point for this first card! I attached the ‘raft’ with foam tape to a piece of the stag head pattern paper, and matted that on some of the glossy wood-grain specialty paper and added some of the peel off stickers to the sides. I pulled out my old stand-by card stock (Staples 110# Ivory card stock) and printed the sentiment using my Silhouette software and the Smoothie Shoppe font. (I actually filled the text with a little wood-grain pattern). I cut the sentiment out with a Lawn Fawn Stitched rectangle die and distressed the edges with the Walnut Stain ink using a mini ink blending tool, and also added the smallest peel off stickers around the sentiment for a little added sparkle. The sentiment is foam-tape mounted to that great embossed Kraft card stock from the kit, and a few Nuvo Glitter drops in Chocolate Fondue add just the right touch of shine to the front of this card. No Holiday here, just matchsticks…! I was having a bit of a problem figuring out how to incorporate a heart stamp into a batch of holiday cards, and figured this was the perfect opportunity. I (of course) created a writing surface on the inside of the card (cut with another Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle Die) with my Ivory card stock and stamped the wood-grain heart at the top again using the Walnut Stain Oxide ink. Perfect use of that heart for this out-of-season Valentine or friendship card with a simple pun that actually highlights the theme of this month’s kit! I really like how this card came out, and I will keep my eyes open for more opportunities to stamp on something other than card stock…!    Now BRING ON THE HOLIDAYS…!I was fascinated with the puffy reindeer fabric trimmings in the embellishment bag and knew I wanted to ‘hitch’ them all together to make an “eight tiny reindeer” card! I LOVE this card. I used a light blue card base and the dark blue shimmer specialty card stock for the background. I used the bronze cording included with the embellishments to ‘hitch’ two rows of the reindeer together – on the front for the front row and on the back for the back row (I did have to use Glossy Accents to get the cord to stick to the fabric) – and tried to keep a little slack between each deer (don’t want to strangle them)! I used the smallest soft gold gems from the kit to disguise the glue spot on the front row of reindeer and, after attaching the back row directly to the card stock, I used thin foam tape to add some dimension to the front row. I used my White Sharpie ultra fine point marker to add stars to the background, and the sentiment is a sticker from the kit mounted on the gorgeous blue shimmer card stock with foam tape. Other than the foam tape, some glossy accents and the white sharpie, this card is created completely with items from the kit…! I did take the time to add a little something to the insides of all my cards this month, so I used another fabric reindeer and one of the sentiment stamps from the stamp set that completes the “BELIEVE” sentiment on the front of the card. Stamped in the Distress Oxide Walnut Stain ink down in the bottom left corner of the ivory card stock writing surface, this is a nice completion of the card. I did find the small sentiment stamps in the stamp set a bit fussy to stamp – they are very tiny, and I had to practice a bit to figure out how much ink the stamp would take before it all smushed out into a big blob… Most of my stamp pads are pretty juicy, so that probably didn’t help me when trying to get a good impression with these small stamps. The dark blue shimmer card stock has great depth to it and actually feels like a night sky. No sleigh with this card, but here’s eight tiny reindeer to take us straight into the holiday season!We were treated to a full 12″ x 12″ sheet of coordinating stickers with this kit and I was immediately drawn to this large “Merry and Bright” sticker. I mounted the sticker to a mat of the gold linen specialty paper and then to a mat of the gold glitter card stock from the LFL July 2017 Card Kit. I wanted as much sparkle for this card as possible (merry and BRIGHT!) I did hand letter the ‘may your days be’ above the ‘Merry and Bright’ with my Pigma Micron pen to help complete the sentiment, and used Glossy Accents to add a little shine to the Christmas lights and actually colored the “Merry and Bright” text with my Sakura Gelly Roll Stardust pen – to make the whole sentiment very sparkly. I foam taped the matted sticker on top of a strip of that very dark wood/snowflake pattern paper and added more gold glitter card stock strips to the top and bottom on that dark chocolate card base. I did use the ‘Merry Christmas’ sentiment stamp on the inside of the card to finish things up, and here we have a toasty warm, rather masculine holiday card. Lets do a shaker card now! I created a shaker using another great sticker from the kit. I did have to die cut the center “Merry Christmas” circle from the square shaped sticker, and I die cut a frame from the warm gold specialty card stock using my Darice Nesting Circles dies. I thought it would be fun to make a kind of merry-go-round shaker where the sequins go around the center circle instead of just shaking around behind it. It was simple enough to create a foam circle behind the center and with that simple step, we have a circular path for the shaker bits to follow. I used the blue satin ribbon with gold trim to embellish the bottom of this card front and added a small bow to give it a finishing touch. The light blue snowflake pattern paper provides a background for the shaker, and I packed it quite full of sequins from the ‘Merry and Bright’ sequin mix from the kit. Everything is mounted to the dark blue card base, and despite being quite full, there is really some good shaker action with this card. Now I want to experiment with other ways of creating paths for shaker cards… the possibilities seem endless!In addition to the sticker sheet we also got two 12″ x 12″ pattern papers. We did have a sheet of bright white (letter-size!) card stock in this kit, so I was on the lookout for something that would work with a white card base. This ‘NOEL’ piece on the white wood worked perfectly. Since I was trying to keep to the ‘wood’ theme with this kit, I found some real wood sheets in my stash that I had purchased on sale somewhere and never got around to using… Now’s my chance! The mat right behind the cut-out image is a piece of Sticky BARC Wood in Cherry that I ‘white-washed’ with the Ranger Distress Crayon in Picket Fence. I simply colored the wood with the crayon, and then, using a baby-wipe, rubbed the crayon into the wood to smooth it out and soften the ‘white-wash’. I love these wood sheets – Great texture and a great look – you can almost tell that this is real wood just from the picture, and that just can’t compare to how it feels in your hand. The ‘NOEL’ cut-out piece is foam taped up on the wood mat, and (believe-it-or-not!) the mat behind the wood is that dusty pink shimmer card stock from the kit – matches perfectly! One of the gold crystal star gems from the kit fit on top of the printed star on the ‘Noel’ arrangement, and a beautiful, soft, wintry, wooden Holiday card comes to light. I really love the simple beauty of this card and am thrilled to be able to experiment with those Sticky BARC wood sheets – You can cut them, you can die-cut them, you can even PRINT on them! WOW! For the inside of this card I die-cut the BARC wood sheet with the ‘Merry Christmas’ die from the kit. I was actually worried that this die was so small that it would be very difficult to use and too small to make any kind of an impact, but I was pleasantly proven wrong – a GREAT die that is readable and just large enough to make an impression – and the great thing about the Sticky BARK is that it is sticky-backed – and with good adhesive too!!  Instant wood stickers!! I will use this more!

Now, ever since I saw Lizi’s unboxing, and saw that full-sized sheet of acetate with the snow print, I knew I wanted to make an actual acetate card using that sheet!So I cut the acetate to 5.5″ x 8.5″ and scored it down the middle to make an A2 card base. I used a Darice Cityscape background die that I bought on sale a couple of years ago and haven’t ever used, to create the city background out of some black card stock from my stash. The die is very interesting in that it doesn’t cut out all the windows, but it embosses them, and then you can use the die as a stencil to color in the windows – so you can see some of the windows have a little bit of ‘light’ showing. I used a stitched hillside die to cut the shimmer white specialty paper into a snow bank for the front of the card and used my Silhouette and a gold extra fine tip Sharpie to sketch the sentiment (Ballerina Script font) on the snow bank. I added a small strip of ‘snow’ to the bottom of the Cityscape die cut and used a Darice Nesting circle die to create the crescent moon from the same glimmer white card stock. All of the pieces are adhered to the acetate with dry (ATG) adhesive, and all the shapes have matching pieces attached to the back so you can’t see the adhesive through the acetate. I did stamp the Merry Christmas sentiment from the stamp set on the strip of snow inside the card, and added a golden snowflake sequin from my stash to the front with a little soft gold gem in the center. I DO live in NYC and this card feels very much like home to me! There is plenty of room on the back of the card to add whatever writing you may like – though you will need a gel pen of some kind to write on the black…! This card has a great sense of movement as you open it and, even though it’s a black-and-white card, It does feel like the holidays in NYC to me.When I created the windy swirl sketch on my Silhouette for the LFL Thanks Giving kit, I knew I wanted to use that sketch on a card with this kit. No leaves this time, just lots of snow! I drew my swirls on that frosty pine branch pattern paper with a Copper Rose extra fine tip Sharpie and mounted that with some foam tape to a piece of the dark wood-grain paper on top of the light blue card base. LOVE the snowflake die in this kit! Cut the snowflakes from the white-washed BARC wood sheet, and added the soft gold gems to the centers and points. I used two of the wood veneer die-cut snowflakes from the kit, and if you look closely, you can see that those are on top of two of the gold mirror triangles – major light reflection from those!! I added three snowflake sequins from my stash and a scatter of sequins from the Merry and Bright sequin mix. The sentiment is from the sticker sheet, mounted on a thin mat of the dark wood-grain paper, and foam taped to the card. I love the mix of snowflake styles on this decidedly chilly holiday card.Now I need to use the star stamp for a card. Here, I stamped the star with Delicata Golden Glitz ink on my Ivory card stock and cut three of them out. This is also the Stag die from the kit cut from my BARC wood sheet and attached to die-cut black fun-foam for a little added thickness. The Stags are mounted to the stars and then to a piece of the shimmer gray specialty card stock from the kit. That is all mounted to the dark chocolate card base framed with the golden woven ribbon on each side and some peel off stickers at the edges. The Delicata ink gives a very nice shine to the wood-grain stamps, and helps set off the wooden stag die-cuts. And… if you haven’t gone there yet… this is on the inside:LOL!! Printed on the BARC sheet with the ‘Futura’ font in bold, and mounted to a scrap of black card stock for pop. I was amazed that the BARC wood sheet would print so well!It only seemed appropriate to make this a gift card holder! I have found the easiest way to include a gift card is to cut a slit the width of the gift card, add angled slits at the end about 3/8″ long and then punch the tiniest hole at the end of the cuts to relieve the stress. Careful placement of adhesive on the back about a half inch below your slit will hold everything together nicely. This card cracks me up! With the seeming ubiquity of Starbucks gift cards during the holidays, this card will certainly get some use this year!I did want to use that nice 2.5″ linen ribbon with the deer printing, so, here we have another fun pun featuring that ribbon on the embossed Kraft card base. I really enjoy the rhyme with this pun – printed on my Ivory card stock in the ‘Ballerina Script’ font, I cut that out with a Spellbinder Deckled Rectangle die, distressed the edges with Walnut Stain ink, and mounted that to a small mat of my Ivory card stock that has peel off stickers all around the edges – I think that really highlights that deckle edge. I did remove the wire from the sides of the ribbon, and ran the ribbon through my Zyron sticker maker to cover the back with adhesive and positioned that on the card base from corner to corner. I really like using the Zyron adhesive with ribbon, if you burnish the adhesive down nicely, you can trim your ribbon right at the edge of the card with no fear of fraying or having to wrap the ribbon around the back of your card. The golden woven ribbon on the ‘Star Bucks’ card is attached the same way. I used some peel off stickers on the edges of the ribbon, followed that up with two 3/8″ strips of the lovely blue stripe pattern paper and finished off with the small peel off stickers. I did mount the sentiment to the ribbon with foam tape at the same angle as everything else. Another lovely guy card..!!

Now I haven’t used the stencil included with the kit, and I haven’t used the tree stamp in the stamp set… though I have to say a tree stamp in wood-grain seems a little redundant to me… !  LOL! I decide to use my iCraft Deco Foil Transfer Gel and my Deco Foil sheets with the stencil on the dark blue card base. I used the great Thermoweb / Gina K Designs Fancy Foil gold sequin sheets for the foiling. WOW! Truly lots of bang for your buck here!Now the stamped trees kind of got lost on the stenciled foil background, so I ended up just cutting out two strips of the foiled triangles, and used the large ombre pattern paper to be the background for the tree stamps.  I stamped the trees in three different brown inks: Walnut Stain Oxide ink and Stampin’ Up ink in Early Espresso and Chocolate Chip. Subtle differences… After fussy cutting the trees (very easy) I did outfit them all with little crowns and presents. I used all the gold specialty paper included in the kit as well as some of that blue wire, sequins, gems, and another golden mirror triangle to make these fun little crowns and presents. I rarely make cards with no sentiment on the front, but for the second time with this kit, the ultimate pun is revealed inside the card. Again, this makes me laugh out loud! I don’t know if it’s the simplicity of the pun or the unconventionality that strikes me as funny, but I just can’t help myself!There’s that ‘Brady Bunch Remastered’ font again – works perfectly! I printed this with my Silhouette software directly on an Ivory card base (I cut up the dark blue card base to get the two strips of foiled trees), and added the die-cut Merry Christmas (from the dark brown wood-grain sheet) towards the bottom and next to the wood veneer die cut of a gift that I colored up with a Gold sharpie. “Bearing gifts we traverse afar..” LOL! Not only do I adore this pun, but I love how this card all came together and the triangle theme that developed and is even reinforced with the design of the tree stamp! SO MUCH FUN! There we have a very handsome set of cards – mostly holiday in unconventional colors with a unique wood theme running throughout. I realize I didn’t have pictures of every card’s inside, but if you check out the 10 Cards 1 Kit video on YouTube, I do show every one. As with almost every Love From Lizi card kit, I have bunches of leftovers to add to my stash – LOTS of pattern papers, stickers, embellishments and ribbons. I love all three of the wafer dies, and the Heart and Star stamp should be very useful all year round! I had much more fun with this kit than I originally thought I wood, (LOL!) and am perfectly thrilled with the results. If you have any questions or comments, please ask away, and if you want to contact me directly, just go to the CONTACT page and send me an email! Thanks for joining me here today! I hope you enjoyed, and I was able to share some laughter and a little inspiration with you. Happy Crafting!!!

Hello folks! Scott here with a little bit of an extra for you today. I received the Love From Lizi Special Edition Thanksgiving Kit – the ‘Happy Harvest’ card kit recently, and this card kit is actually currently available at LoveFromLizi.com!I believe this is Lizi’s first kit to come in a 12″x 12″ box and zip-lock bag, and is jam-packed with 12″x 12″ pattern papers, stickers, vellum images and cut-out sheets along with 6″x 6″ pattern pages, chip-board stickers and 5 specialty card stocks including a green cardboard with gold glimmer, a brushed gold mirror sheet and a linen textured gold card stock as well. A ‘Happy Harvest’ sequin mix, three leaf dies and an exclusive stamp set complete the set. Be sure to check out my video for a complete piece-by-piece un-boxing for this kit. I don’t generally make or send ‘autumn’ or Thanksgiving cards but after completing this batch of ten cards, I just might have to this year!!

I usually LOVE the vellum images Lizi includes in many of her kits, and the vellum in this kit was no exception – so that’s where I went to begin my 10 cards for this kit. Thank You cards are always in season, and I adored this bunch of carrots and sentiment on the vellum sheet. I ran the vellum piece through my Zyron sticker maker and adhered that to a piece of my old stand-by card stock – Staples Ivory card stock.  A strip of that green/gold cardboard topped with a couple of retro fruit advertisements from the patter papers provides a background for the vellum which is foam-taped to the orange shimmer specialty card stock. (LOVE that card stock!) I die-cut two of the short leaves from the linen textured gold card stock to add a bit of dimension, and finished it off with a few sequins. Since there is such a plethora of images in this kit, I decided to do something to the insides of each of my cards this month. I found the perfect compliment to this card on the 12″x 12″ cut-out sheet and I think it adds a lovely touch mounted on more of my Ivory card stock. See how closely that Ivory card stock matches the banner on this cut-out – I find myself constantly reaching for this card stock for so many cards – I recommend it as a budget ‘use it for anything’ card stock to have on hand in anyone’s stash!        Having rarely used chip-board stickers on any of my card kits, I was very interested in seeing what I could create with the chip-board stickers included in this kit. There was a lovely line of leaves that drew my attention right away and inspired me to make this card. This is on that great Kraftembossed card stock included in the kit (There is a piece of this card stock in the November subscription card kit as well)! I trimmed the scallops off the burlap scallop sticker from the sticker sheet to make the strip down the left side of the card, and created this sentiment on my Silhouette using the Staples Ivory card stock (with the ‘Marguaritas’ font) and cut six pieces to glue together to try and approach the thickness of the chip-board pieces. Two more chip-board leaves and a few sequins from the mix finish off this card with a little touch of sparkle. I did add liquid glue to the backs of the chip-board stickers since they didn’t want to stick very well to that specialty card base. I absolutely LOVE this sentiment and adore this card – though autumnal in theme, this sentiment elevates this card beyond a simple Fall Card.   Since I wanted to save the two gold specialty card stocks and the green/gold cardboard, that only left me with the Kraft and Orange shimmer card stocks for card bases, so I did bring in some card bases from my stash. This is on a core’dinations Auburn Pearl card stock from my stash. (I also used 1.5 sheets of Kraft card stock and a half sheet of the Staples Ivory card stock for a total of 6 card bases from my stash.)I used the maple leaf die from the kit to die-cut the center leaf from the brushed gold mirror card stock and used my Lawn Fawn ‘Quinn’s Capital Abc’s‘ to die-cut the letters from the linen textured gold card stock. I added some veining to the leaf with my Embossing Stylus Set and foam taped all the die cuts to some more of that Ivory card stock from my stash. I used one of the Ellen Hutson Stiching Lines die to add the cross-stitch detail on the edges, and glued that to a mat of the burlap pattern paper and foam taped that to a mat of the ivory polka-dot pattern paper. The Auburn Pearl card stock adds a lovely shimmer to this card, and I really like the simple rebus puzzle sentiment demonstrated here. Another card not necessarily autumnal themed..!     Okay… it’s time to stop fiddling with all the groovy cardstocks and pattern papers and dig into the stamps from Lizi’s exclusive stamp set. Finally, I get a chance to color something! I start with the pumpkin stamp and with some simple masking, stamp three pumpkins in a row using my Tim Holtz Oxide Distress ink in Walnut Stain on my ivory card stock, and colored the pumpkins with my (vintage) Prismacolor colored pencils. I cut the pumpkins out (creating a little variety by cutting the stems at different lengths) and mounted them with foam tape to a strip of that green / gold cardboard from the kit – BOY! that makes those colored pumpkins pop! I used a Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle die to cut out a background piece from my Ivory card stock – wrapped a couple short pieces of burlap glitter ribbon (from the LFL August 2017 card kit) around the top and bottom, and foam taped that whole piece on a mat made from the striped pattern paper in the kit and mounted everything to one of my Kraft card bases. Those stripes have touches of blue, orange and ivory that match the pumpkins perfectly! I created this sentiment on my Silhouette Portrait and printed it directly on the Ivory card stock in the ‘Casual’ font – Love this pun – and yes, a pumpkin is a gourd! I tried to highlight that fact by coloring the pumpkins in different colors. I did take advantage of the ‘Fall’ sentiment to use one of the stamp set sentiments on the inside of the card, along with a small sticker from the sticker sheet. The burlap ribbon adds plenty of sparkle to this card – no need for sequins here – and I have to admit, I am really over the moon for these pumpkins!! No more strictly orange pumpkins for me!!      Ok – That’s one sentiment from the stamp set – let’s see what we can do with the others. I really like the ‘Sweater Weather’ sentiment in the kit but don’t find any pattern paper or images that seem to go along with that sentiment… If you have followed me at all, you know I rely on my Silhouette Portrait machine a great deal – from creating and cutting sentiments to cutting whole shapes to use on my cards. One thing I haven’t done with my Silhouette for any of my card kit videos is use it to sketch with… Yes, you can use your Silhouette to draw with! I spent a bit of time coming up with this pattern to use with my Silhouette but am completely thrilled with the result – and now I can draw with any pen (color) I have that will fit in the carrier! This is actually drawn with a Sharpie metallic gold extra fine tip marker which, I am pleasantly surprised, does fit in my Silhouette! I used a piece of the blue pattern paper (die-cut with a Lawn Fawn stitched Rectangle die) to draw the swirly windy dashed lines in gold and framed that with a thin frame of the brushed gold mirror card stock. I embossed the sentiment in gold on a piece of the polka- dot pattern paper and die-cut it with a Darice Banner die, distressed the edges with some Walnut Stain Oxide ink, and mounted it on foam tape to the front of the card. I die-cut all three of the leaf dies from assorted pieces of pattern paper and added veins with a simple brush marker. I attached the leaves with thin foam dots and made sure some of them went ‘off the edge’ of the card. Everything is mounted to the other half of my core’dinations Auburn Pearl card stock for the base, and a generous sprinkle of sequins complete the windy effect. I don’t know if it’s the blue pattern paper, or the gold wind swirls or the ‘randomness’ of the leaves, but I have a definite soft spot for this card! There was this great sentiment on a couple of the cut-out pattern paper images but I had a hard time seeing the sentiment printed on the patterns, so I decided to re-create this sentiment to go on top of this GREAT vellum piece featuring flowers made out of leaves. I did run the foiled vellum piece through my Zyron sticker maker and attached it to the front of my Ivory card-base. The foiled vellum piece was a touch narrower that the card base so I added a couple strips of the brushed gold card stock to the top and bottom. I did the sentiment on my Silhouette using the ‘Ballerina Script font and a simple Times New Roman font. I printed the sentiment on a piece of vellum because I still wanted to see the leaf flowers through the sentiment – one layer of vellum obscured the sentiment too much, but two layers highlighted the sentiment enough while still letting the background show through. Again, the sentiment is run through my sticker maker and attached directly to the card front. This card seemed a little flat at this point, so I die cut more of the rounded leaf die from the gold mirror card stock and added another ‘flower’ on the right and a couple of leaf pieces in the open areas of the pattern. I also used a piece of a spool-top sticker for the center of my flower. The added pieces filled out his pattern nicely, and, due to the beautiful gold foiling, sequins seemed like overkill. I really like this sentiment and the fact that it matched this vellum piece so perfectly.   There were so many vellum pieces that I liked, I had to continue on with the ‘leaf frame’ vellum piece.Yes, again with my Zyron sticker maker and I attached the vellum to more of my Ivory card stock before I fussy cut the center out. I trimmed the Ivory card stock down to 4″x 5.25″, filled the shaker with lots of the sequin mix and added a die-cut maple leaf cut from a piece of core’dinations Glitter Silk card stock in brown. I did double up my foam tape around the leaf frame to provide enough height for the shaker bits. The polka-dot pattern paper provides the background for the shaker, and I used a strip of the linen textured gold card stock to transition from the vellum to the card stock. Happy Fall Y’all is another sentiment from the stamp set, and I stamped that in Stampin’ Up Chocolate Chip ink before doing some clear embossing on the top. There was a long border sticker of that great striped pattern paper on the sticker sheet, so I trimmed two pieces into banners to throw focus on the sentiment. Everything is mounted to my Kraft card base, and I can’t think of a ‘happier’ card than a shaker card! Great shaker action here as well!Back to the chip-board pieces! I figured I had to do a true Happy Thanksgiving card with this kit, and there was a lovely chip-board sticker that worked perfectly. I used a piece of the pattern paper covered with seasonal words for my background, added strips of the pumpkin vellum piece to the top and bottom and framed them out with some LFL peel offs in Chocolate Brown (from the August ’17 card kit). I guess I couldn’t do 10 cards without some peel off stickers somewhere! A thicker piece of the peel off stickers goes behind the chip-board sentiment, one of the chip-board flourishes is added below the sentiment and glittered up with my Spectrum Noir Sparkle Pen, and all is glued down to my Kraft card base. The shine from the peel offs, the foiling on the vellum strips and the touch of glitter on the flourish told me no sequins were needed on this card, but I did take special delight in adding a cut-out from the kit to the inside of the card. ‘Lettuce Celebrate’ is a terrific pun and totally appropriate for this Happy Thanksgiving card (note the added chocolate peel off ‘underlining’ the cut-out)!      There are still a couple of the stamps I haven’t used yet, so before I get completely lost in the land of pattern papers and chip-board stickers, let’s do some coloring! I stamped the sunflower stamp (on Bristol smooth card stock in Versafine Onyx Black ink) and colored it with my Spectrum Noir Alcohol Markers. I added some dots of Sakura Glaze pens in black, orange and clearto the center of the flower which adds some nice texture and shine without having to resort to glitter. This stamp is large enough to be the solitary focal point on a card, so, after fussy cutting the sunflower, I simply die-cut some of the green pattern paper with the medium leaf die from the kit to provide an anchor for the sunflower. The brushed gold mirror card stock piece is actually the center cut out (Stitched Rectangle die, again) of the frame on the  ‘Sweater Weather’ card (waste not, want not!). The golden yellow mat and sentiment are some leftover pieces from a Recollections Jewel Tone card stock pack (which has since been discontinued), but it compliments this card perfectly. I found this lovely quote from Helen Keller that I printed in American Typewriter font on my Silhouette and die cut with a small stitched rectangle die and glued to a mat of that Glitter Silk card stock in orange. The sentiment and sunflower are mounted with foam tape but everything else is glued directly down to the orange shimmer card base. Since sunflowers literally keep their ‘face to the sunshine’ I thought this quote made a perfect sentiment for a lovely sunflower card. This is certainly not just an autumn card at all! Now I get to use the ear of corn stamp! This stamp is the unique stand-out of this set!I stamped and colored these ears on Bristol Smooth card stock with VersaFine Black Onyx ink and colored them with my Spectrum Noir alcohol markers. I knew I wanted to use this ‘rows of corn’ pattern paper with this stamp, so I created the pun-ny sentiment on my Silhouette (Typewriter Hand font) and printed it directly on the pattern paper. In order to kind of drive home the -maize- part of the pun, I did color two ears as Indian ear corn, and that provided the right pop of color this card needed. Two more strips of that striped pattern paper down the sides correspond with the blue and red on the ears of corn. Everything is attached flat to the embossed Kraft card base with the center ear of corn attached with foam tape.  I thought sequins would distract from the earthy, harvest feel of this card, so I avoided anything shiny or sparkly, and like the pumpkin stamp before, I may never color a simple yellow ear of corn ever again!! Between the pumpkins and the sunflower and the ear of corn stamps in this stamp set, I know I will get a lot of use out of them over the years. And can we talk about left-overs..! I still have masses of pattern paper, chip-board stickers, card stickers, a few vellum pieces and good-sized chunks of the specialty paper that will go directly into my stash! I am surprised at how much I enjoyed this kit, and am thrilled at the truly beautiful cards inspired by all the supplies included. If you have any questions at all please leave a comment or you can go to the Contact page and email me directly. I hope you enjoyed this sojourn into Autumn and the Special Edition Thanks Giving ‘Happy Harvest’ card kit from Love From Lizi, and remember, this kit is still available at LoveFromLizi.com!  Happy Crafting!

Hello Folks, Scott here unboxing my Love From Lizi November Card Kit. Unfortunately, this card kit has sold out – in record time, again! I’m going to try something a little different with my unboxing post today – I will try to do an actual list of all the supplies included in the kit, and if any of the pieces are available individually at Love From Lizi, I will provide a link. Here we go!This month Lizi has gone to a different format for her cardstock – Letter-size cardstocks (8.5″x11″) for all us North Americans who haven’t adopted the metric system!!5 Sheets of  8.5″x 11″ cardstock in Bright White, Sky Blue, Dark Blue, Deep Chocolate, and tiny pin-stripe embossed Kraft cardstock, and 1  8.5″x 11″ wood grain gloss paper.1  A4 size acrylic sheet featuring a printed snowfall pattern.

12  6″x 6″ single sided pattern papers.

2  12″x 12″ double-sided pattern papers featuring 12 3″x 4″ image fronts which reverse to a brown and gold ‘stag head’ paper, and an assortment of ornate gold frames which reverse to an ombre pattern in brown and blue. 1  12″x 12″ Sheet of cardstock stickers.  Our specialty cardstock is in a little different format this month as well – we get 8 sheets of 4.25″x 5.5″ cardstock in a Bronze shimmer, Dark Blue shimmer, Warm Gold shimmer, White shimmer, Grey or Graphite shimmer, Brushed Gold mirror cardstock, Rose Grey shimmer, and a Golden linen textured paper as well.1  8″x 8″ sticky-back stencil featuring a triangle pattern.1  sheet of ‘Gold Moon-dust’ peel off sticker stripes (brushed gold with glitter highlights)

1  4″x 6″ clear stamp set with wood-grain images and assorted holiday sentiments.

And now, on to the ever-envied embellishments bag! This month, instead of the usual Chameleon Pen, we get a Tim Holtz Distress Crayon in Picket Fence (white).

1 meter of 3/8″ dark blue satin ribbon with gold trim, 1 meter of bronze cording, 1 meter of 1/2″ woven gold metallic ribbon, 1 meter of thin blue wire, and about 20″ of satin deer die-cut puffy trimming – you kind of have to see this to believe it! AND 1 meter of 2.5″ kraft linen wired ribbon printed with dark brown stags.3  Tags (2 large 1 small) with wood-grain patterns and 3 natural twine ties.1  bottle of Nuvo Glitter Drops in ‘Chocolate Fondue’.92  Soft Gold sequins in 3 sizes. 5  Soft gold star-shaped gems along with 15 wooden matchsticks.

9  Christmas themed wood-veneer die-cuts, and 9 Snowflake wood-veneer die-cuts.10  self-adhesive triangle mirror pieces in Gold.     1  sample bag of the ‘Merry and Bright’ Love From Lizi sequin mix.3  dies – a Stag Head, a Snowflake, and a ‘Merry Christmas’ sentiment.

PHEW!!! Is that quite enough product for you! I am looking forward to diving in and putting together my 10 Cards 1 Kit video for this kit! Please stay tuned!!!

 

Hello folks, Scott here with my 10 cards from the Simon Says Stamp “Brushstroke Messages” Card Kit for October 2017. This kit is chock full of mirrored card stock, embossing powder, and embossed pattern papers – lots of shine this month.

As you can see, this kit has sold out at Simon Says Stamp, but most of the kit supplies are available on their own. This month the stamp set is the “Brushstroke Messages” Stamp set which includes 5 bold brush stroke stamps and a little brush stroke heart along with six different sentiments – “thank YOU”, “YOU ARE loved”, “happy BIRTHDAY”, “YOU’RE GOING TO ROCK THIS”, “JUST WANTED TO SAY YOU’RE AMAZING”, and “YOU GOT THIS”.  We get 12 double-sided sheets of  My Mind’s Eye 6 x 6 BLUSH Designer Card stock Paper with rose gold foil accents – the gold foiling is very nice, and the papers feature dark navy blue, a blush pink (sigh), and ivory to go along with the rose gold foil. We are treated to a die this month – the Small Spiral Flower wafer die which is about 1″ square, and a full pot of Simon Says Stamp Steel Navy Embossing Powder, as well as a Ranger “Emboss It” pen in clear and Ranger’s .5oz. Mini Multi Medium Matte Glue,  and a disposable mini applicator adhesive brush. The card stock in this kit includes a sheet of Tonic Studios Burnished Rose Mirror card stock, and 1 sheet each of Simon Says Stamp 100# card stock in Ivory, Smoke Gray, and Soft Navy. Only 3 sheets of card stock, so I have to add to that to get card bases for 10 cards. I search through my stash and discover that I don’t have any card stock that matches this color pallet. My Ivory is much darker, my Gray is much lighter, and none of my dark blue card-stock is even close to the same color. So I do something that I have never done before with any card kit – I cut the Soft Navy and Smoke Gray card stock into quarters and mount them onto simple white card bases from my stash. I guess there’s a first time for everything, and I do end up with 4 Soft Navy card bases, 4 Smoke Gray card bases and 2 Ivory card bases. I worried that I didn’t have any ink pads that would match this kit either, so I did a little stamp test and did find that my Stampin’ Up Stampin’ Spot in ‘Night of Navy’ matched the Soft Navy card stock very well! I have to admit this stamp kit and color pallet did not particularly inspire me (more pink and no images to color!) so let’s see what I can come up with…I started with a piece of the pattern paper that had a large swatch of the gold foil paired with the ivory, and cut that out with one of my Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle dies. I ended up using almost all of the Stitched Rectangle dies in my stash – both the large and the small – I do love the sharp detail that the stitching adds. I decided to use some of my Gray card stock from my stash (Staples Cover Stock in Gray) and cut a mat at 4″x 5.25″ to go on top of the Soft Navy card base. I used the Emboss It pen to draw corners on the top left and bottom right corners of the gray mat and embossed those with the Steel Navy embossing powder – really nice embossing powder – great color and great shine! I felt like the gold embossing was a little overpowering, so I took the medium brushstroke stamp and stamped it vertically on the foil with VersaMark ink and embossed it with some of my own silver embossing powder. I figured I could add silver embossing to this pallet in compliment to the grey colors, and this vertical stripe did break-up the large expanse of foil on the pattern paper. I DID have something in my stash that matched this kit – the Nuvo Crystal Drops in Navy Blue matched the navy blue in the kit perfectly! Three drops of those on the silver embossed ‘brushstroke’ added just the right touch of texture and shine. I stamped the sentiment in VersaMark ink and embossed it with the Steel Navy embossing powder – REALLY nice embossing powder!! I like this card a lot, and discovered that the ‘rose gold’ foiling on the pattern papers reads a little more like copper when it isn’t paired up with the blush pink in the pattern papers. Aha!! Let’s see if I can create 10 cards from this kit that are real elegant, masculine cards!For this card, I wanted to try to emboss the Spiral Flower Die on the mirror card stock without cutting it out. It took me a couple of tries to find the right pressure on my die-cutting machine, but I got a good embossing of the die on the top of a 1.5″x 3.25″ piece of the mirror card stock. I added two rectangles of the navy pattern papers to match, and mounted all three on 1.625″x 3.375″ gray card stock mats that I embossed on their edges with my silver embossing powder. I embossed the sentiment on the mirror card stock with the Steel Navy powder from the kit, which worked very well. I thought three dots of the Nuvo Crystal drops under the mirror card stock would finish this card but, with everything mounted on foam tape to the Soft Navy card base, the card felt a little dark to me. I reached for my Love From Lizi Silver Glitter Peel Off stickers to add touches of glitter over and above the rectangles – that brightened up the whole card quite a bit! For the next card on the Soft Navy card base, I embossed some scrap card stock with my silver embossing powder and the Steel Navy embossing powder, and die-cut the Spiral Flower die three times from each. I used the negative space from the die cuts and glued them to the card base along its opening edge. I took one of the navy pattern papers and embossed some irregular stripes of Steel Navy using the Emboss It pen from the kit. I cut one edge of the navy pattern paper with one of my stitched hillside dies and cut a matching curve on a piece of my gray card stock to use as a mat – the left side of the gray card stock has a stitched detail using my Ellen Hutson Stitching Lines die. The gray and blue are glued together and foam taped up on the card base. I again embossed the sentiment on my gray card stock with the Steel Navy embossing powder, cut that out with one of my Stitched Rectangle dies, and mounted that on the pattern paper with foam tape. I think the negative pieces of the Spiral Flower die are a little more abstract than flower-y and I really like the lack of any gold foiling on this sharp Thank You card. One more Soft Navy card base to go…! I die cut three Spiral Flower die cuts from the mirror card stock to add to the silver and navy die-cuts left from the previous cards, and layered them all together (three times) to make this card. I was going for a ‘fireworks’ thing here and I think these look like fireworks (everyone who has seen this card live still thinks they are flowers, but what can you do with people who have no imagination?  LOL!!). I did draw the trails and ‘explosions’ with the Emboss It pen and embossed them in my silver embossing powder – maybe if I had forgone the firework ‘trails’ they might look less like flower stems…?? Nevertheless, I added dots of my silver Sharpie extra fine point metallic pen to the ‘explosions’ and made a simple banner from the mirror card stock to which I embossed the sentiment in Steel Navy. I added a tiny gray card stock mat behind the banner and foam taped it up on the card base. Fireworks or Flowers, I like this card a lot and think it’s a very classy, very potent, birthday card. Now I move along to the Smoke Gray card bases. I take the Emboss It pen and draw a ‘mat’ on the Smoke Gray card base and emboss it with the Steel Navy powder. I cut one of the navy / gold foiling pattern papers with a Stitched Rectangle die and glued that to my card base. I selectively cut three small rectangles (with another Stitched Rectangle die) from a second piece of pattern paper (avoiding the blush pink portions) and added those to the navy pattern paper with foam tape. I actually double-embossed the sentiment on the center rectangle. I used my Tim Holtz Stamp Platform to stamp the sentiment in VersaMark ink, embossed that with the powder from the kit, then returned the piece to my stamp platform to stamp it a second time with VersaMark ink and embossed it a second time. This gave me a nicely textural sentiment with lots of shine. I love that Steel Navy embossing powder! And card #5 is another dashing guy card! I am working my way through the sentiments in the stamp kit, and only have the “YOU ARE loved” sentiment still left to be used. I’m still trying to keep things masculine here, so I cut a heart shape out of one of the pattern papers (capturing a little slice of the foiling on the left edge) with one of my Darice Nesting Heart Dies and stamped the sentiment on that with my Night of Navy Stampin’ Spot. I mounted that up on foam tape to a square of the polka-dot pattern paper (cut with a Darice Nesting Squares die) glued down to the Smoke Gray card base and highlighted with a couple strips of the mirror card stock on the top and bottom. I used the brush stroke heart stamp to stamp a single heart at the bottom of the die cut and to create a pattern across the bottom of the card base – both in Night of Navy ink. I think this is about as masculine as you can get with this sentiment! Now that covers all the sentiments in this stamp set. Last month’s Simon Says Stamp card kit was all about birthdays (I made 6 Happy Birthday cards) so I decided to add more Thank You cards to this batch. Second only to Happy Birthday cards, Thank You cards are always useful to have on hand! Now, I really like this card a lot, and think of it as kind of hyper-masculine! (it’s the pin-stripes!) Again, on the Smoke Gray card base, I cut a piece of that great pin-striped pattern paper and glued it to the center of my card base, and added two thin strips of the mirror card stock to the sides. I double-embossed the sentiment (again) on the ivory & gold foil pattern paper cut out with another Stitched Rectangle die. I really love the sentiment spanning both the foiling and ivory parts of this pattern paper – textural and shiny – I think that Steel Navy embossing powder really holds its own with the gold foiling! I  used foam tape to mount the sentiment to a piece of the polka-dot pattern paper (you know I love stripes and polka-dots together!) and glued those to another piece of the mirror card stock cut out with a larger Stitched Rectangle die. Those three layers are then foam taped over the pin-striped pattern paper and another Thank You card fit for the stout-hearted is borne!  Though I don’t have any gray ink pads in my stock, I know that stamping with VersaMark ink will create a ‘watermark’ on your card stock – so I stamped the large squarish brushstroke stamp in the middle of another Smoke Gray card base. I figured I would then emboss the ‘Thank You’ sentiment on top of that watermark. WELL… I don’t know if it was the humidity or what, but I couldn’t get my VersaMark ink to give up its stick! I tried using my heat tool, my EK Powder tool, and nothing I did would completely remove the sticky from that ink. SO… I ended up just stamping the sentiment on the watermark with the Night of Navy ink pad and then embossing the entire center stamping with clear embossing powder from my stash. The Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle dies make great frames when paired up, so I cut the smallest frame from the random ivory & foil polka-dot pattern paper, and the third frame from the regular ivory & foil polka-dot paper. The second and fourth frame are cut from the mirror card stock. I glued the polka-dots down to the card base and elevated the mirror card stock frames with the Darice double-sided sticky foam strips that we received with our SSS July card kit. I think this card is very striking and it’s amazing how much the dimension of the frames really pulls your eye into the center sentiment block.   Now I still have 3 of the brushstroke stamps still to use, so I paired up the long skinny and the long thick brushstroke stamps and stamped them with my Night of Navy Stampin’ Spot on the top and bottom of the Ivory card base. I added a strip of the random foiled polka-dots pattern paper down the middle, and two thin strips of the mirror card stock right in the center. I like how the mirror stripes echo the stamped stripes. For the sentiment, I recently purchased this Spellbinders “Be Amazing” stamp and die set on sale at Scrapbook.com and thought the “Be Amazing” sentiment went right along with the theme of this kit re: ‘just wanted to say you’re amazing’. LOVE these stamps that have an outline die!! I stamped and embossed this on vellum with the Steel Navy embossing powder – WOW! Really sumptuous!! I die-cut the vellum and a piece of white fun foam with the included die, ran the vellum through my Xyron Sticker Maker, and stuck it down to the foam die-cut. A little Scor-tape to attach the sentiment and it makes a very chunky  embellishment that I didn’t have to cut and glue 5 pieces of card stock together to create! After using all the navy in this kit, I really enjoyed the light feeling and brightness here! Now I have one more Ivory card base and one final brushstroke stamp from the set to use, so another Thank You card couldn’t hurt, and as much as I like the Steel Navy embossing powder, I was getting a little tired of the navy and the grey and the gold….Anybody looking for some color this month!!?? LOL! I decided to throw caution to the wind and go for some really big color! With the assistance of my Tim Holtz stamp platform, I stamped the brushstroke at an angle across the Ivory card base with Ranger Archival Ink in Deep Purple, Manganese Blue, Emerald Green, Monarch Orange, Vermillion, and I used the SSS Hybrid ink cube from the April ’17 kit in Lemon Zest for the yellow. The sentiment is a Lawn Fawn Scripty Thanks die and I used some Stick It adhesive sheets to attach some white card stock to one side of a piece of fun foam, added more Stick It to the back of the foam, and then I die-cut the sentiment and colored the card stock side with some red Spectrum Noir alcohol markers. I was able to use the Stick It adhesive on the back of the fun foam to attach the sentiment to the card front. I did use my Spectrum Noir Sparkle Pen to add some sparkle to the brushstrokes and the die-cut. Here’s another nice chunky sentiment that’s casual yet quite lively! Of course, I love this card and actually felt a little liberated making something truly cheerful and bright!!    That concludes my 10 Card 1 Kit post this month! That’s 4 Thank You cards, 1 Birthday card, and 5 cards of affirmation..!!! I think this is a very handsome set of strapping cards! I am quite proud and personally thrilled that I was able to complete 10 cards without using any of the blush pink!! WOO-HOO!!  LOLOLOL!! Thank you so much for joining me here – I hope you enjoyed!  If you have any questions, please go to the contact page and send me a note! Please, please share this post with others, and Spread the Cheer!!

Hello Folks! Scott here with my 10C1K post of the Love From Lizi October 2017 Card Kit!

This month’s kit is loaded with all sorts of Halloween oriented goodies and a unique stamp set featuring skeleton bones and pun-y (you heard me right) sentiments! I was thrilled at the masculine qualities of this card kit – no pink in sight – and was eager to dive in!! Lizi’s kits feature European-sized card stock (always 5 sheets) and I usually begin by trimming down the 11.7″ x 8.3″ cardstock to 11″ long, and can then divide the sheets into two card bases measuring 5.5″x 4.125″ – just an eighth of an inch narrower than a standard A2 card. As usual, I start with the stamps to get the juices rolling…

This was possibly the most obvious pun in the stamp set..! I dug out my (what’s turning out to be invaluable) Staples Ivory cover stock to do my stamping on (you can see how closely that Staples cardstock matched the off-white card base from the kit). I used Tim Holtz’ Distress Oxide ink in Walnut Stain to stamp the humerus bone stamp in a bit of a parade across the card. I wanted to match the angle of the washi tape that was included in the kit, so I used my Tim Holtz Stamp Platform to help me line everything up correctly. I scooted the cardstock over a 1/2″ between stamps. I lightly colored the bones with the Chameleon Pen included in the kit (in BR1 Taupe), and stamped the sentiment in the same Walnut Stain ink. I used that great washi tape from the kit to frame the stamping and added little strips of the black shimmer specialty paper to the edges of the tape. All of this is glued down flat to the off-white card base from the kit. I am really struck at how sharp and masculine this card turned out, and it really doesn’t have to be used for Halloween – I believe that’s the most interesting thing about this stamp set – what one would think of as Halloween images but NO Halloween sentiments! I liked this so much, I decided to continue the theme through a few more of the stamps and sentiments.

I think I was just so pleased to be able to make a pure unabashed masculine card with lots of style, that I wanted to run with it for  little bit..! Here I used the rib-cage stamp and the ‘Stole my heart’ sentiment on the Ivory cover stock and added a die-cut ‘you’ (trimmed from a Lawn Fawn I Love You Border die) cut from the bronze shimmer specialty paper. Again, using the washi tape to frame things up and I repeated the bronze shimmer paper in strips down both sides. Again, everything glued flat to the off-white card base and VOILA another hyper-masculine card. No sequins or sparkles, but the specialty paper adds a nice shine to the card. I could do a whole set of cards like this..!

So I shall!! Here I’m using the pelvis stamp and thought I could clarify the sentiment by adding the “Hip” “Hip” die-cut from that same bronze specialty paper. I used a text die from my stash – “Marker Micro” from Die-Versions – to die-cut the letters, added the strips of washi tape, two strips of the bronze paper and a couple strips of the black satin ribbon from the kit. Here, all was glued down to the chocolate card base, and I completed the sentiment on the inside of the card. I thought it was great fun to have to open the card to  finish the sentiment! Again , that Staples Ivory cover stock was used for the inside, (trimmed down to 5.25″x3.875″) and it makes me giggle to see the simple “Hooray” all alone inside. I suppose if the ‘Hooray’ was on the outside, you wouldn’t have to clarify things with the ‘Hip Hip’, but I really liked the ‘you’ on the last card and wanted to continue along with that same feeling. Well, three cards do not make a complete set, so I had to do one more masculine card.

What better way to represent ‘I Love You to Pieces’ than with all of the bone pieces from the stamp set! (Though I almost ran out of room!!) I did color the stamps with the Chameleon pen from the kit (almost got the skull too dark) but it does add a nice dimension to the stamps. I printed the sentiment using my Silhouette software in Sign Painter font on the bottom of the Staples Ivory cardstock, and had enough room to add some (thin) washi tape to the top and bottom, and strips of the black shimmer specialty paper along the sides. Once again, all is glued down flat to the chocolate card base, and my sojourn into masculine, non-Halloween cards is complete. I do like the fact that you don’t HAVE to make Halloween cards from this kit, and think it was very smart to have different non-Halloween sentiments featured with the stamp set. I wasn’t finished with these stamps yet, and wanted to see if the seemingly innocuous sentiments could be manipulated into something that WAS Halloween oriented.

Here’s my shaker card for this month. I thought it a little macabre to have someone’s spine on display in a bell jar, and that certainly adds another (darker) dimension to the ‘Got your back’ sentiment! Instead of creating a frame for the shaker, I used vellum to create ‘reflections’ around the edge of the acetate and that did a pretty nice job of hiding the foam tape. I also used a bit of my white gel pen to add more highlights on the vellum. There is also vellum behind the spine to add to the illusion, and the spine is stamped, fussy cut and mounted on foam tape to kind of ‘float’ in the bell jar. A few ovals cut out with my Silhouette creates a nice base for the bell jar on top of a black cardstock ‘table’ and mounted to that intricate pattern paper that looks like wallpaper. I stamped the ‘Got your back’ sentiment in Walnut Stain oxide ink on a scrap of the Staples Ivory cover stock and die-cut with a Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle die. The sentiment is attached with foam tape and the whole assembly glued down to the black card base. I added stripes of the Pumpkin Pie embossing powder on either side of the pattern paper, and thin strips of the green specialty shimmer paper to add some pop! I pulled all the smaller sequins out of the sequin mix to use for the shaker bits, and added a Halloween sentiment from my image stash to the inside. This is a fun card though rather subtle in its scare value… certainly a double entendre in any case! The embossing powder is very interesting and gives you a glitter-y textured effect when heat-set – not shiny and smooth. I think the bell jar is very old-fashioned and a little reminiscent of Frankenstein’s laboratory, and I had a great time creating a (seemingly) frame-less shaker element. This bell jar shaker concept is something I will have to experiment with some more – Maybe with some colored vellum?

When I first saw Lizi’s unboxing, I knew I wanted to make bottles for the large extract labels included in the kit. It took a little finessing (the labels were a little larger than I anticipated) but I was able to come up with a decent apothecary bottle shape that would fit the labels. I created the shape and cut it out using my Silhouette and some core-dinations Auburn Pearl cardstock that I have had in my stash for years – it has a nice glass-like shimmer to it. My favorite part of these labels is the description of what each extract is for – the Spider Hair “Improves perception” and so on…! You could easily personalize these ‘treatments’ based on the descriptions. I really wanted the bottle to actually be the card for this design so the surprise with this card is how it opens – the

bottle itself flips up to reveal the Happy Halloween inside. Some thin cork sheeting from my stash adds just a touch of a stopper to the bottle top and the assemblage is mounted to some black and kraft cardstock from my stash. I did Shimmer Spritz the black for a good bit of sparkle (the close-up shows the sparkle), and added some highlights to the bottle with a gold sharpie. I loved these labels quite a bit and had a blast picking out ‘concentrates’ for friends and family.

I knew I was going to make a whole set of these bottle cards (I will probably turn the other 6 labels into cards as well..!) so I didn’t really include these on my 10 card count so on we go with some real Halloween Greeting card fun..!

This card makes me laugh just looking at it. Yellow card base, strips of that groovy black lace from the kit down the sides, purple mirror peel-offs on the edges of the bookcase pattern paper, and the focal image. I cut out a head shape on my ivory cover stock, and colorized the gauze in the kit with a CT4 Spectrum Noir marker, printed and cut a couple of eyeballs out of the same Ivory cardstock to glue to the head shape, and then I started wrapping! There are at least 2 layers of gauze on this head. I did find that folding over an edge of the gauze helped to define the ‘wrapping’ and soon I had a pretty convincing mummy head. But why the yellow? Surely you saw this pun coming from a mile away..! I couldn’t resist the bright colors and I concluded that  Lizi expects us to make mummies with her inclusion of surgical gauze in the kit. I fount the yellow and black calibration circles on-line and, after sizing them, printed and cut them out with my Silhouette and glued them to the appropriate spots on my mummy’s head. The medium size googly eyes from the kit fit my printed eyeballs perfectly, leaving a touch of color around their edges. I added a touch of shading around the head with a Spectrum Noir GB2 marker and just left the stray threads of the gauze as they were. This fellow looks like he has been through one too many crashes, and tickles my funny-bone to no end!

This month Lizi included another 12″x12″ sheet of vellum images and I loved the bats with the moon and the trees. I found a pic of the moon on-line and printed that on my Staples Ivory cover stock, ran the vellum through my Zyron sticker-maker and mounted them together to create this background. I cut some of the ‘woven wood’ pattern paper with a couple of stitched hillside dies and inked them up with the Walnut Stain oxide ink and some Black Soot Distress Ink to give them a little more of an earthy feel. The coffin pattern paper caught my eye and I immediately wanted to try something with the idea of opening the lid of a coffin. I cut out a single coffin from the pattern paper and glued it to some scrap black cardstock to make a little ‘mini-card’ that I could add some surprises to on the inside. I fiddled around a bit and came up with a simple pop-up that says ‘BOO” (there’s that Brady Bunch Remastered font again!) with a little trick-or-treat graphic as well (all highlighted with a little stardust glitter pen). I did stamp a simple ‘OPEN’ on top of the coffin with a MFT ‘Interactive Labels’ stamp that I recently bought. I also broke down and purchased a Versafine Onyx Black Ink Pad to use with these little fine stamps and I’m pleased to say the ‘OPEN’ stamped perfectly on the front of the coffin. I trimmed the back attachments from the gravestone buttons and added them to the hillside as well as a couple of thin strips of the yellow shimmer specialty paper to the top and bottom to complete this scene on the front of this black card base. Of course, I can’t leave well enough alone, and had to add a bit of a pun on the inside of this card as well. Again, printed up with my Silhouette software on the Staples Ivory cover stock in the Typewriterhand font. Just another little bit to drive this card home and give an appropriate Halloween wish to the recipient. I have to admit, I love the moon here, and the coffin that you can pull up out of the ground with a little pop-up action. Add a simple pun, and you have an interactive card anyone would enjoy.

As far as my personal Halloween craft stash goes, I literally have only 3 stamps and 1 die in my collection that are Halloween oriented. I was thrilled to be able to finally use my Darice Spider Web Background die with this kit. With the inclusion of the spider sequins, the plastic spiders, the decorative webbing, and the spider web pattern paper this was my chance to bring it all together for a fun Halloween card.

I die-cut the spiderweb from vellum and trimmed off the bottom right corner. I added a few spider sequins here and there on the spiderweb pattern paper, and covered them all with  light layer of the webbing. I die cut a heart from a scrap of red shimmer cardstock and topped it with a good layer of Glossy Accents. A single strand of grey DMC embroidery floss wraps around the heart and attaches to a bit of the web on the top right. I did (again) cover the edges of the yellow card base with the black lace, and glued my assemblage on top with the smallest purple peel-offs for a frame. I printed the sentiment (Typewriterhand font again) with my Silhouette on Ivory cardstock, cut with a stitched oval die and layered that with foam tape on a piece of the purple glitter ribbon and then on a scrap of shimmer red cardstock that matches the heart. The inside of this card sports the same Happy Halloween sentiment as the shaker card. I did cover the plastic spider’s back with the Nuvo Glitter Drops from the kit, and used my stardust glitter pen to draw fine lines on the vellum webs. I got the spider to glue down to the card fairly easily using Ranger Multi Medium Matte for glue, and weighing the spider down with a jar of jelly while it dried. I was a little worried that this card might turn out to be overly busy, but was actually surprised at how pretty this is. On to Card #9 (or #10, or #15) depending on how you’re counting!

Pretty self-explanatory here…!! I actually traced the hand image from an old AllState Insurance logo I found on-line using my Pigma Micron pens on Bristol smooth cardstock and colored with my Zigg Clean Color Real Brush Markers. Appropriately Frankenstein-y! I found the bloodshot eyeballs on-line and topped them with some Glossy Accents for a little dimension and shine. I cut the fingertips to be able to slide the eyes behind, and mounted it all on foam tape to the miniature Extract Label pattern paper. I edged the labels with strips of the diamond pattern paper, and the medium purple peel offs. I printed the sentiment on the extra strip cut away from the off-white pattern paper in the kit using Lucida Blackletter font and added a spot of the Nuvo Glitter drops on the ends. The inside of the card has the same Halloween graphic as the shaker card, and this is about as ghoulish as I could manage while still keeping my tongue firmly in my cheek…!  I haven’t used the door die included in this kit, yet so let’s wrap this month up with that.

I love this card! I die cut the door die twice from some old dark blue and dark red Recollections textured cardstock from my stash, and swapped the inlays between them. I did die-cut the windows from my Ivory cover stock and added a touch of alcohol markers to add a little life to the light behind the doors and I also die-cut the doorknobs from some gold cardstock. I found this ghost image on line, and managed to add some tie-dye patterns to his sheet and a peace sign to his bag (using my Silhouette software, of course). Everything is foam taped to the glimmer black specialty paper that I scored to suggest siding and a curb. I did use the peel offs for a frame on the orange card base – love the shine on these purple peel offs!!  If you haven’t jumped to the pun yet… here it is… “Hippy Halloween!” LOL! This probably dates  me way more than I would like to admit, but I adore this fun Halloween Card. The sentiment is printed on my Ivory cover stock in the Brady Bunch Remastered font – I think that font is going to get the prize for ‘Most Used Font’ this year! I really enjoy the colors that the tie-die introduced with this card and I really like the simple ‘scene’ created with the doors and scored shimmer paper. I think this little trick-or-treat-er is coming to your door next! WOW! That’s 16 cards for this month! I tried to create as much variety as possible with this kit and I hope I was able to inspire you to reach beyond the obvious and create cards that are usable all year round! Thank you so much for joining me here – if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to send me a comment here. THANK YOU and Happy Halloween!!   – Scott