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

As usual, the October Card Kit is chock full of great supplies, and this month the kit is Halloween themed! Let’s start with the LFL exclusive Stamp Set:

Now, I have a bone to pick with this Stamp Set! (Sorry! I couldn’t help it!) What a great set of stamps! One could almost assemble a complete skeleton here..!! And to make things better, the sentiments are all puns!! This is a very interesting combo of great Halloween images paired up with fun sentiments that can be used most anytime! Very cool!

We get 5 sheets of A4 Cardstock (11.7″x8.3″) in Black, Cream, Bright Yellow, Deep Brown and Orange. This is standard letter size paper in Europe. It is easy to trim it down to 11″ and then split the 8.3″ in half for a standard A2 card base (just slightly smaller at 4.15″). Then we get 5 half-sheets of ‘specialty’ metallic cardstock in Copper, Golden Yellow, Graphite, Burnt Orange and Citrus Green. We also get that interesting piece of black lace that’s fairly stiff and lightly shiny – very interesting!

Pattern paper is next with this great collection of 12 6″x6″ single-sided pattern papers – great Halloween colors, and fun patterns… love the yellow coffins and blood splattered handwriting! Green and black stripes is quintessential Halloween, and the harlequin patterns are great fun as well.

WE also get this great 12″x12″ sheet of bottled extract labels (cut below the horizontal labels for shipping). The Chicken Toes and Spider Hair make me laugh! Though I do believe Octopus Ink is a usable cooking ingredient these days!

On the back of the Extract Labels is this great tree and bat pattern in  oranges and reds.

And vellum images return this month with this 12×12 collection of 7 Halloween panels with black embossing. I love playing with the vellum images that Lizi often includes, and I think of them as a very European craft staple. Love the moon and bats!

Of course we get a Chameleon Pen – this month in the color BR1 / Taupe, and the Love From Lizi Peel Off Stickers!!! PURPLE MIRROR PEEL OFFS!  STUNNING! (I wanted to break out last month’s peacock die when I saw these peel offs!) Can’t wait!

And now the goodie bag of embellishments! We get over a yard each of Orange and Black 1/4″ satin ribbon, black rick-rack, and black and white baker’s twine. Middle left to right is a FULL roll of washi tape in Taupe, Black and Cream stripes, a jar of LFL Embossing Powder in ‘Pumpkin Pie’ which is orange and brown with glitter. The die this month is this great Door die which seems very intricate and begs for inlay die-cutting! We have three RIP plastic Gravestone buttons, and 3 sets of googly eyes in three different sizes. We get more glitter with the Nuvo GLITTER Drops this month in ‘Midnight Sky’ – kind of a grey-blue with tons of multi-color glitter throughout. We also get 2 plastic spiders on a nest of ‘spider web’ flossing, and on the bottom, actual surgical gauze in 2 widths (did someone say “mummy”?) and that lovely 2.5″ wired ribbon of glittery purple!

This month’s Card Kit seems to be right up my alley…!!  There’s NO pink and puns are included!! I can’t wait to start playing around with this kit and see what I can come up with…! I’m not real big on Halloween celebrations, and I don’t think I’ve ever sent anyone a Halloween card, but this kits sparks my imagination and I see Halloween cards in many of my friends and families future…!! Thanks for joining me here, and I will do my best to come up with some fun and unique ways to use this kit! Spread the Cheer!!

 

Hello Folks! Scott here with my 10 Cards 1 Kit post for the Simon Says Stamp September 2017 “Best Birthday” Card kit. This Card Kit comes with the “Best Ever” clear stamp set,

a custom paper pack (8 double sided 6″x6″ sheets) inspired by the Doodlebug Fairy Tale collection, custom Doodlebug Sprinkles epoxy sticker assortment, 2 Jillibean Soup “Small Heart” shaker tags, 2 Jillibean Soup “Balloon” shaker tags, 1 Jillibean Soup “Small Heart” shaped shaker, 1 Jillibean Soup “Balloon” shaped shaker, and 5 sheets of Simon Says Stamp cardstocks in Audrey Blue, Doll Pink, Lavender, Cotton Candy, and 120# White. I found it a little odd that we got 4 tags but only 2 shaped shakers, and even odder that we got no sequins, no rhinestones, NO shaker bits of any kind? In contrast to other SSS Card Kits I have received, this kit feels rather light on supplies. But, I do seem to constantly run out of birthday cards, so I eagerly dug in did my best to come up with a nice variety from the supplies provided. We did get 5 sheets of cardstock, which I cut down and folded into 10 card bases.

As usual, I started with the stamps on a piece of white cardstock (die cut with the Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle die) from my stash. I stamped the cloud with my SSS Intense Black Ink, cut a mask for the cloud from 1″ Post-it tape, and then stamped the rainbow stamp coming out of the top of the cloud. I colored the rainbow and cloud with my Zigg Clean Color Real Brush Markers, blending the rainbow to lighter shades on the left. After coloring, I stamped the other sentiments (I do really like that script-y ‘happy birthday’ sentiment), but this still felt a little bare to me. I remembered that I had received the SSS ‘Magical Birthday’ stamp set as a freebie on one of my first SSS orders, and it did have that great ‘wishing you a’ stamp that finished out the sentiments very nicely. I did cut the ‘FROSTING YUM.’ away from the cake sentiment and moved it into the inside of the cardfor a bit of a finale.  I used my EK Tools Powder Tool to neutralize the sticky on the epoxy sticker, and used a spot of foam tape to give the cupcake a little more dimension. I mounted the white cardstock using foam tape on the star pattern paper and mounted that on the Audrey Blue card base. A lot of these sentiments were quite small but the ‘FROSTING YUM.” font was extremely small. I may have to break down and get a Versafine Onyx Black ink pad to help stamp these small sentiments a bit more legibly…!

I have seen these style of plastic shaker containers around for a while and wanted to try one for myself, so I reached for the ‘Small Heart’ shaker tag and shaped shaker for this card. I covered the tag with that great rainbow heart pattern paper, used one of my American Crafts Border Punches on the bottom edge of the Doll Pink card Base, and used some black cardstock from my stash to mat behind both. When I saw the original reveal of this kit, and realized that there were no shaker bits included, I happily purchased some Queen & Co. ‘Toppings’ to use with this kit. I had been pining for these ‘Fimo Fun’ Toppings ever since I saw them a number of months ago, and here was the perfect opportunity to add them to my stash. The heart shaker is full of red and pink hearts from this topping set – they really look like little polymer ‘Millefiori’ slices and I thought they worked perfectly as the shaker bits for this card. I do like the repetition of heart shapes throughout this card – definitely a theme going on here…! I used some of my pink peel off stickers from the Love From Lizi July Card Kit to form a frame around the card, and used some pink and white bakers twine (from the same LFL July Card Kit) tied in the hole on the top of the tag. Another one of the (tiny) stamp set sentiments in the bottom corner and we have another card completed. Though I am getting a little tired of all the pink in my card kits this season, I do really like this ‘Doll Pink’ cardstock.

Now on to the ‘Balloon’ shaker tag and shaped shaker. I thought this looked more like a hot-air balloon, so I covered the tag with the smiling clouds pattern paper, added a purple pattern paper hill and matted that all on top of a piece of scrap white cardstock. I used that terrific rainbow stripe pattern paper behind the balloon, and filled the shaker with Queen & Co. ‘Tiny Bubbles’ Toppings in all six rainbow colors (yes, I also bought this set along with the Fimo Fun set!) – these almost look like little candies inside the balloon! I cut a crude little ‘gondola’ out of the orange pattern paper, outlined that with my Pigma Micron Pen 03 and drew a couple of straight lines to suggest the rigging. The “You Send Me Soaring” sentiment is from the Stampin’ Up ‘Sky is the Limit’ Sale-A-Bration stamp set from 2016. A few of the epoxy stickers from the kit and another shaker card is air-born!

Back to the stamps… I really think stripes and polka-dots work great together, so I used the big polka-dot pattern paper to cover 2/3 of the Cotton Candy card base (more pink!) and die cut a circle through the front of the card so that great rainbow heart gets seen both on the front and on the inside of this card. I cut a frame for the window out of a scrap of white cardstock with my stitched circle dies (because my stash of pink cardstock is almost nonexistent!) and colored it with my Spectrum Noir BP1 (bright pink) alcohol marker. I used that same marker to color the heart along with LV1 (lavender), IB2 (ice blue), LG3 (light green), CT4 (citrus), OR2 (orange), and DR2 (dark red), and then covered the whole heart with my Spectrum Noir clear sparkle pen. I took great pleasure in figuring out where to stamp the ‘best birthday ever’ sentiment over the heart where you can’t see it until you open up the card. The simple ‘Happy Birthday’ sentiment is stamped on the outside of the card, and with a few epoxy ‘sprinkles’ and one pink peel off sticker, we have a very cute (albeit very pink) card with a little bit of a surprise inside.

Just a couple of colored rainbows, and I’m already itching to see how else I can color and use these stamps beyond the simple obvious rainbow approach.

Here, I’ve stamped the rainbow stamp 5 times in a row, overlapping both ends at the width of the rainbow. I really like the Gothic arch effect where the stamps overlap. I colored the stamps with colored pencils, letting the overlapped ends blend naturally. Lots of color achieved here without using the rainbow motif. I fussy cut the rainbows out, and used foam tape to mount them on some of the purple pattern paper with the scalloped edges punched with my American Crafts Border Punches. I stamped the heart border along the top of the pattern paper using Archival Ink Deep Purple, and the ‘best friend’ stamp (in SSS Intense Black ink) over one of the arches. I stamped the ‘sending lots of color your way’ on a scrap of white cardstock and added a thin strip of the rainbow stripes pattern paper to the bottom. I used foam tape to mount the ‘color’ sentiment at the bottom of the rainbows, and everything is attached to the Lavender card base. Three of the epoxy dots from the included stickers – blue, green, purple, add a little sparkle and shine, and just happen to match the three central arches. Now, this could be used as a birthday card, but I avoided a birthday sentiment so I can use this card for other occasions – that’s three Birthday cards and two love / friendship cards so far…

And now I’m having some fun with the small candle stamp. I am not and have never been a great stamper, and have used stamp platforms to assist me for most all of my stamping.  I am proud to say that the candles here were all hand-stamped – no stamp platform used!  I did find The Gentleman Crafter’s handy guides for pattern stamping on-line and used the circular grid with eighteen sections on top of my light board to stamp the candles in a radial circle. I used the Tim Holtz distress oxide inks in Wilted Violet, Broken China, Cracked Pistachio, Fossilized Amber, Spiced Marmalade, and Fired Brick. I did do a practice run on some plain paper which helped me figure out how to line the stamps up to get a nice even circle in the center. Though the distress oxide inks are not a PERFECT match, I thought they were close enough to suffice. I do not have a lot of stamp pads in my stash, so I found it a little difficult to perfectly match the pattern papers in this kit with the ink pads that I own. I did stamp the sentiments in SSS Intense Black ink and mounted the white cardstock with foam tape on the rainbow stripe pattern paper (my favorite!). I did cut out the center of this rainbow mat to conserve some of that paper for other uses. Everything is mounted on the 120# white card base, and I added a few Fimo Fun Toppings for accents. That candle stamp is a great stamp, and I can see many uses for it in the future. I do love this card, and the juxtaposition of what is a basically a simple card, with a little more complex pattern of stamping! Maybe this will encourage me to embrace the chaos and try a little more hand-stamping with other cards!

I still have the two shaker tags left, and, even without the ‘shaped shakers’, I figured I can use them make more shaker cards. I decided to embrace the PINK and made this card.

I opened up the shaker tag and cut off the tag ends to make a full size panel down the front of this card. Once again, displaying my affinity for stripes with polka dots, I used the solid stripe stamp from the set to stamp and clear emboss a couple vertical stripes on the sides of the shaker tag using Worn Lipstick distress oxide ink. I covered the center of the heart shaker tag with the pink-on-pink pattern paper and mounted that on foam tape to the pink polka dot pattern paper. I decided that the heart opening was a little small for this arrangement, so I enlarged the window a little bit with one of my heart dies. I backed the shaker window with some core’dinations Glitter Silk cardstock in pink, and filled the window with whatever pink sequins I could find. I did add some Martha Stewart heart shaped glitter in Sugar Plum (discontinued) and some of the clear Tiny Bubble toppings to finish filling out the shaker. The sentiment is from the Paper Pumpkin July 2016 “What a Gem’ kit, and after adding a couple of the epoxy hearts from the set, I finished out the sparkle on this card with the Love From Lizi pink and silver glitter peel off stickers. The three horizontal stripes of pink peel offs in the center were useful in camouflaging the fold line in the center of the shaker tag. I think the abundant use of sparkling, shining, and glittery accents reinforces the ‘Brilliant’ sentiment!

Even though I am not a huge pink fan, I did like that card a lot and, since I still had one Doll Pink card base to use, decided to make one more perfectly pink card.

This card is pretty self-explanatory. I stamped the ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY” border stamp on a scrap of white cardstock, added more of that pink polka dot pattern paper on top, and mounted those flat on the Doll Pink card base. The circle die cut is actually the piece I cut out of the window card (#4) stamped with the ‘best friend’ sentiment (curved a little more than natural to fit). I liked the two sizes of polka dots together and I did have that pink frosted cupcake sticker to use as well, so I mounted the sticker to the die cut with a spot of foam tape and used more foam tape to attach the die cut to the card. I outlined the pattern paper assemblage with more LFL pink peel off stickers (I’m addicted!), stamped the ‘birthdays are for…’ sentiment on the card base (I did not use the ‘frosting yum.’ portion) and added 3 epoxy dots (polka dots!) from the sticker sheet for some added shine. Surprisingly, I didn’t turn into a big pink blob of quivering cytoplasm after completing two VERY pink cards in a row…!!

I have now used all the stamps in the ‘Best Ever’ stamp set except for the little smiley faces. Now, I’m not much for putting cute little smiley faces on things, but I did come up with an idea that would justify the use of one of these faces.

I used my stitched sun die to make an ‘epoxy’ sticker that would match the cloud and rainbow stickers from the Doodlebug Sprinkles collection. I did have to cut the sun down quite a bit to make it more size appropriate to use here, but after stamping one of the smiley faces on it (with a little touch of blush) and covering it with Glossy Accents, I think it looks like it could have come with this set! I used the + and = stamps from the SSS August Card Kit to complete the equation (stamped in SSS Key Lime and Orange Slush Hybrid inks from the SSS April Kit) and clear embossed them to match the shine of the stickers. The stickers are mounted flat to a scrap of white cardstock edged with the Ellen Hutson Stitching Lines die and foam taped up on the ‘confetti’ pattern paper with little strips of that great rainbow stripe pattern paper top and bottom, and all mounted to the Lavender card base to finish it off. I added little raindrops with the tip of my Spectrum Noir alcohol marker in AB1 (a new color – Aqua Blue) under the cloud, and topped them all with a tiny spot of Glossy Accents. I think this is great fun, and just needed an appropriate sentiment to complete. I found this quote which seemed very appropriate.    I created this sentiment in my Silhouette software in the ‘Times’ font and printed it directly on my cardstock then trimmed it down with a Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle die. This perfect sentiment ties everything together and makes this card one of my favorites!

I have now used all the stamps in the ‘Best Ever’ stamp set, and I still have the ‘Balloon’ shaker tag and a 120# white card base to use, so I got this wild idea to abandon the whole colorful rainbow theme of this set to make a monochromatic card.

And here’s my Silver and White Christmas Card!! I outlined the tag and the right edge of the card base with my Love From Lizi Silver Glitter peel off stickers, (ADDICTED, I said!). I had to make some homemade silver glitter paper (I actually did not have ANY silver glitter paper in my stash – lots of silver papers but nothing with glitter!!) to die cut the branches with a Darice Border die, (I used the branches to cover up the crease on the tag) and to make the little ornament topper to cover the balloon nipple. I used Sheer Shimmer Spritz on the tag and the scrap of grey cardstock on the back of the ornament shaker to add some more glitter, and used more of the LFL peel off stickers to add a little pattern to the grey backing of the shaker window. I did outline the ornament with my Sakura Stardust pen, and I used some silver cord from my stash for the hanger and bow, a silver grommet in the tag hole and a tassel I made from DMC silver metallic thread, and some old silver rhinestones for the shaker bits. The sentiment is from the Paper Pumpkin November 2016 ‘Wonderful Winterland’ kit, stamped with VersaMark ink and embossed with Ranger silver embossing powder.  I did try stamping the sentiment with my Delicata Silvery Shimmer stamp pad, and also tried it with the WOW! Cloud 9 glitter embossing powder (from the SSS August kit) but I think the Silver embossing was the easiest to read. I love this card a lot – I think I was a little overdosed with all the rainbows and colorful papers in this kit and I found it extremely satisfying to do a simple silver and white card.

I do like this ‘Best Ever’ stamp set quite a bit even though it doesn’t give us a lot of images. While in the midst of making these cards, someone at work celebrated a birthday and I was able to come up with a quick and easy gift card using this stamp set.

The package is actually a set of inexpensive alcohol markers for my colleague who recently discovered the joys of coloring, so the sentiment was extra perfect!

So that makes 6 Birthday Cards, 3 friendship/love cards, 1 Christmas card and a gift card for this month’s kit. I really did enjoy all the bright colors in this kit, and I hope I was able to provide a little inspiration for you and your card making adventures, whether you bought this kit or not. Thank you for all your support and Happy Crafting!!

For the Love From Lizi Birthday Hop, we were all given this great ‘Peacock Feather’ die from Sizzix. I love the fact that this die not only cuts the feather, but also cuts two smaller pieces for the ‘eye’ at the end of the feather.

 

Since I had an extra card base and all my materials from the LFL September Super-Card Kit still out, I decided to stick to that theme for my Birthday Hop Card.

Here’s all the supplies I used for this card: a Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle die, the Peacock Feather die, Spectrum Noir alcohol markers in BT2, BT3, BT4 and the Spectrum Noir Sparkle Pen, My Zigg 2 Way Glue Pen, and EK Tools 3D Dots. I love these foam squares – they are in two sizes and very thin – actually listed on the label as 1/16″ thick – so they cut very easily and the adhesive is quite strong. I used my leftover Mint card base and die-cut the feather from the green and purple pattern paper (I covered the pattern paper with the sparkle pen BEFORE I cut the die). I cut the background out of the purple pattern paper with the stitched rectangle die, and cut the center of the ‘eye’ and a background mat from the dark blue specialty paper, and the larger ‘eye’ piece from that spot gloss pattern paper. I also used a piece of vellum. I wanted to give a little lift to the feather, so I traced the feather die on the vellum, and fussy-cut it with a little bit of an extra border to go behind the feather die-cut. This cut vellum backing is a little trendy right now… Lots of dies (especially sentiment dies) are coming out with a background / outline die in addition to the main die. I thought this would help the feather pop a little visually as well as adding a touch of dimension.

I used my Silhouette to create the sentiment in Abadi MT Condensed Extra Bold font and printed that directly on my purple pattern paper background, which is mounted to the dark blue specialty paper mat and then onto the mint card base. I did some coloring and shading with the Spectrum Noir markers on the feather itself, and then glued that to the cut vellum backing with the Zigg glue pen. I added the ‘eye’ pieces to the feather and then used the foam squares (trimmed very thinly) to mount the feather assembly to the card. I thought “your are not here to be AVERAGE you are here to be AWESOME” was a perfect sentiment that played right along with the inspirational theme of the September Super-Card Kit – and I do think that Peacock Feather die is pretty awesome! Very detailed, very feathery, and unmistakably peacock..! I can see me using that die on a regular basis!

The Love From Lizi Birthday Hop is a GIVEAWAY!

– To enter the giveaway you must like and comment on each video by 18^th September
– The grand prize is a years free subscription to the Love From Lizi monthly card kit (including shipping)
– There are several other prizes that include stamps, dies, embossing powders and more
– The giveaway is open worldwide
– The winner will be announced within the Love From Lizi Channels October card kit unboxing on September 19^th.

– https://lovefromliziblog.wordpress.com/2017/09/02/love-from-lizi-first-birthday-celebrations-and-giveaways

Needless to say, that grand prize is worth  more than $500.00… Please play along and help us celebrate www.lovefromlizi.com’s First Birthday!!  GOOD LUCK TO ALL!

Hello Folks! Scott here with my first 10C1K post as a new Design Team Member for Love From Lizi! This is a Super -Card Kit by any definition, with bonus supplies included so we can all celebrate the First Birthday of LoveFromLizi.com on September 2nd.

This kit is overflowing with lovely cardstocks, specialty cardstocks, three styles of 8″x8″ pattern paper with a watercolor theme, and, of course, tons of embellishments, some new Love From Lizi embossing powder, a new stamp set deisgned by Lizi herself, and more..! PHEW! As usual, I turn to the stamp set to get started with my Kit.

I wanted to try the Love From Lizi “Emerald City” embossing powder first, so I stamped the wreath with the included VersaMark ink cube, and embossed it with the new Love From Lizi brand powder. Really, really, nice embossing powder – super-smooth and super-shiny. I stamped the sentiment in Stampin ‘Up ‘Night of Navy‘ ink in the center of the wreath. I was originally going to cut all these images out, but, as I was using my Tim Holtz Stamp Platform to stamp with, I ended up stamping the flower image (with Ranger Archival Ink Deep Purple) nicely placed in the four corners of the white cardstock. I colored the flower stamps with three of the Chameleon pens  we have received in the LFL kits – the grey from July, the green from August, and the purple from this kit. This arrangement looked so nice, I decided NOT to cut everything out. I threaded the organza/satin/glitter ribbon behind the wreath and added the three organza ribbon roses to the wreath. I used a blue sequin from the Peacock Pride sequin mix at the center of each flower and topped those off with a small dot of the Nuvo Crystal Drops. I mounted this to the purple card base, and with a few silver stars from the sequin mix trailing down the middle of the card, and, of course, the silver glitter peel offs for outlining, and my first card is complete – I really like the purple / green combination with just a touch of blue.

I was eager to see what I could do with the sheet of lace included with the kit, as well as the Nuvo Gilding Flakes, so I coated the lace with my Zigg 2-way glue pen and let it dry before taking the silver Gilding flakes to it… I had to use an old toothbrush to clear the flakes from the open areas of the lace, but, surprisingly, it worked and gave the lace an almost metallic look! I stamped and embossed the sentiment on a piece  of the blue specialty paper – this took me a few tries… first I tried embossing in silver, but I didn’t think that showed up very well.. I tried embossing with the Emerald City green, but I didn’t think that showed up very well either, so I ended up using white embossing powder – not only did this pop, but the white really points up that the lace is silver…! I did emboss the satin rose leaf with the Emerald City embossing powder using the leaf stamp from the LFL July Kit. I die-cut the sentiment with a Nestabilities Deckled Rectangles die, and mounted that on top of a scrap piece of cardstock with the edges covered with the silver glitter peel offs. That really shows off the deckled edges of this die. I used that gorgeous opalescent pattern paper and wrapped the lace, the organza/satin/glitter ribbon, the cool grey velvet ribbon and the square rhinestone ribbon buckle around on the left, defined the edges of the lace with more peel offs, and mounted the sentiment on the right side with foam tape. I glued everything down on top of the dark blue cardstock and, WOW! – you can make some truly beautiful cards with this kit – this one feels very fancy, very high-end to me… a $10 card if I ever saw one!  LOL!!

If you have followed me at all, you know I am a little image-obsessed, so I looked around for some ‘girl’ images to compliment the feminine sentiment in this kit, and ran across the Mona Lisa – any more iconic you cannot get!! I paired that up with one of the canvas-textured pattern papers (get it?!) and embossed the sentiment on a scrap of my own Kraft cardstock in the Emerald City green, and matted both on a small black mat (from my stash), and added the graphite specialty paper as a ‘frame’ around the artwork. These were all mounted to the canvas pattern paper with foam tape, and then glued to the kraft card base along with one of the kraft envelopes from the kit. Notice the ‘monogram’ on the envelope… yes… there is something inside…

Need she say more??  LOL! This card tickles me to no end…! The letter is just a scrap of ‘parchment’ paper and I wrote the ‘letter’ with a Pigma Micron pen 02.  I love the whole idea of a ‘card within a card’ and think this is a little bit of giggle heaven!

I actually had this great graphic in my image stash and was so amazed at how well the colors matched this canvas-textured pattern paper, that I had to use her. I stamped the sentiment on a scrap of watercolor paper (to compliment the canvas-texture) with Ranger Archival Deep Purple ink, and cut it and the purple specialty paper out with a stitched oval die. I glued those together, and used foam tape to mount it to the pattern paper. I printed and cut 4 of the girl images on my Silhouette, and glued them together to make a pseudo-chipboard piece, and used foam tape to attach it to the card. The pattern paper is glued to the purple card base and trimmed with more silver peel offs and a few silver stars from the sequin mix.  I love the combination of the sentiment and the image on this card – a GREAT encouragement card for young and old alike!

I wanted to color something, so I reached for the sheet of color-able stickers in the kit, and colored one with my Zigg Clean Color Real Brush Markers, in colors to compliment this floral pattern paper. I mounted the sticker to the purple specialty paper, added a light purple heart gem in the center, cut that out with a stitched circle die and used foam tape to mount it to the card. The sentiment is stamped with the Archival deep purple ink again on a scrap of light purple cardstock (from my stash), mounted to the pattern paper which is glued to the dark blue card base and, YES, ONCE AGAIN, trimmed out with the silver glitter peel offs.!! (I’m currently looking to see if there are any 12-step programs that will address my peel off addiction!) I’m usually not one for flowers – but I wanted to highlight this terrific sentiment, and  I thought the stickers complimented this pattern paper very well – kind of blending together to focus on the sentiment. At this point, I have used every stamp in the stamp set and am ready to move on to the terrific peacock die!

This is a GREAT die – lovely and intricate and it cuts “like buttah”! Of course I went for a shaker card! The peacock and the frame are both cut from the purple specialty paper – acetate glued behind the frame and the peacock glued on top. Foam strips around the frame and attached to a circle of this lovely pattern paper with plenty of the ‘Peacock Pride’ sequin mix for the shake. I used another piece of that organza/satin/glitter ribbon across the bottom and added my Dr. Seuss quote printed on the same pattern paper in Century Schoolbook font. This peacock die is extraordinary – it has amazing detail while still being a fairly small die. LOVE this shaker card!

Now, I want to try some die-cut inlay with that peacock die, so I cut the peacock out of the Blue specialty glimmer paper, used the purple specialty paper for the feather inlays and some of the LFL gold mirror specialty paper from her July kit for the ‘eyes’ on the feathers as well as the peacock’s eye. Though it was a little fussy and keeping track of those tiny little pieces drove me a little nuts, the end result is well worth the headache! Such a beautiful die! The peacock is mounted on the mint specialty paper and that on the graphite specialty paper and those foam taped to the pattern paper background (all cut with the Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle dies). I love this sentiment I printed and cut on my Silhouette – the script words are Sign Painter font and the block letters are Britannic Bold font – and I did print five of them and glued them all together for more of a ‘chipboard’ look. The sentiment is mounted over the dark grey velvet ribbon with foam tape, and the sequins are a combination of the kit mix and some from my stash. There’s a touch of the Spectrum Noir Sparkle Pen on the sentiment, and all is on the mint card base. I really like this sentiment and I think it works perfectly with this die!

The lace still fascinates me so I wanted to see if I could color it with an alcohol marker – I used the green Chameleon Pen from the August kit and it colored the lace beautifully. Now… how to attach the lace to a card front. I laid the slightly oversize piece of lace face down on a piece of newspaper and used my Aileens Super Tacky Spray Glue to give it a light coat of adhesive. I immediately moved the lace to the card base and VOILA! it stuck down perfectly – there is no sticky on the top… no edges wrapped around the sides of the card… I was pleasantly surprised that the spray adhesive worked so well, and I think it looks terrific on the white card base, as well as adding a great texture to the card. I adjusted the “She turned her can’ts into cans…” sentiment to be “Turn your can’ts into cans and your dreams into plans” in the Sign Painter font on a piece of scrap white cardstock and cut it and the green and graphite specialty paper with the Stitched Oval dies again. I love pairing up the organza/satin/glitter ribbon with the velvet ribbon for some added plush, and, with the addition of a few sequins, we have a unique ‘lace’ card! I would be interested in trying this with some different patterns of lace as well!!

I was jonesing for a little whimsy by now, and I hadn’t satisfied my coloring demon yet, so I found this cute image and had to pair it with this fun sentiment. Traced onto some white cardstock with a pigma micron pen and colored with my Zigg Clean Color Real Brush Markers, I printed the sentiment in… yes, you guessed it, my font of the year: Brady Bunch Remastered! A dot of the Nuvo Crystal Drops to top off the tail feathers is a nice simple highlight for this design. You can’t really see it here, but I did cover his tail with the Spectrum Noir Sparkle pen – very glittery in real life! This is my ‘clean and simple’ card for this kit – a simple mat of the dark green specialty paper and a kraft card base make for a totally whimsical card that stays true to the ‘encouragement’ (and peacock) themes in this kit.

And now… for the final card this month… I was interested in trying something unique with the peacock die, and seeing if I could fashion a different way of using it. I came up with the idea of cutting off the tail and adding my own…

Of course, once I got this on a card, I needed a lot more ‘feathers’ to fill in the space. I made a little teardrop pattern and traced and cut all the ‘feathers’ from that great shimmer pattern paper, and here’s the result:

This came out better than I imagined! I printed the sentiment directly on the purple watercolor pattern paper (in Bradley Hand font) using my Silhouette, and affixed the trimmed die-cut and ‘feathers’ with little spots of foam tape – I have some EK Tools 3D dots that are only 1/16″ thick – just thick enough for a little lift but thin enough to be able to trim them down to size easily. I added tiny dots of the Nuvo Crystal Drops to help disguise the trimmed tail of the die cut, and all over between and around the tail. Mounted on the dark green card base, and trimmed with more peel offs, I consider this card to be the best of both worlds: stunning yet whimsical. I love the range of colors I got from the pattern papers, and I am liking those Nuvo Crystal Drops more and more every time I use them.

That wraps up my first ‘official’ 10C1K post as a new member of the Love From Lizi Design Team. I hope I was able to share some usable ideas with you, and possibly inspire you to think a little outside the box with this month’s kit! Be sure and tune in on Saturday, September 2nd for a Love From Lizi Birthday Hop on YouTube with chances to win terrific prizes including a one-year subscription to the Love From Lizi Card Kits!

Hello Folks! Scott here with my unboxing of the Love From Lizi September 2017 Super-Card Kit. Love From Lizi has their first birthday coming up on September 2nd, so she has assembled a SUPER Card Kit to let us all join in the celebration with her! THIS KIT DOES NOT DISAPPOINT!

We get SIX sheets of A4 (European Standard) cardstock this month! White, Mint, Kraft, Dark Blue, Forest Green and a warm Purple. That’s an extra piece of cardstock to start with! AND FIVE half-sheets of specialty cardstock with a great shimmer… Purple, Dark Blue, White, Forest Green and Graphite – there’s an extra sheet of specialty cardstock too..! And along with all this great cardstock we get an A4 sized piece of white lace..! I’m looking forward to seeing how I can use this lace on my cards this month!

The pattern paper in this kit is certainly SUPER – to begin with, we get 16 sheets of 8″x 8″ pattern papers this month, beginning with these specialty pattern papers – the top three are a thick canvas texture cardstock, the middle three are beautiful glimmer cardstocks, and the bottom two are spot gloss pattern paper cardstock. All the pattern papers this month are following a watercolor theme as well as coordinating smartly with the solid cardstocks in the kit.

Then we have 8 sheets of 8″x 8″ double-sided pattern papers – one side has a little bit more detail to the designs and introduces some warmers colors into the palette.

While the reverse sides are a little more of a watercolor wash and looser designs – all these pattern papers are lovely and I especially like the top two on the right stack – That red looks like a storm at sunset to me…! That comes to TWENTY-SEVEN cardstock pieces in this month’s kit. Super-Card Kit indeed!

Of course, a Love From Lizi kit is never complete without her addictive peel off stickers in three widths, and this month they are silver glitter peel offs! The glitter is totally encased on the stickers, and won’t rub off no matter how hard you try! We also get this great sheet of ready-to-color stickers in a nice medium-weight cardstock that have MORE of that great silver glitter sprinkled among all of them. The Stamp set this month has a new look !! Exclusive to Love from Lizi and completely designed by Lizi herself, this stamp set features a free-form wreath image, a flower image and 5 sentiments: “She believed she could, So she did”, “This girl can!”, “You go Get it”, “She turned her can’ts into cans, and her dreams into plans”, and my favorite, “Nevertheless, she persisted”. LOVE that last sentiment – very topical especially for those of us in the States. HOWEVER… as a member of the male gender, I find it a little unfortunate that 4 of the 5 sentiments have “girl” or “she” in them. The “You go Get it” sentiment is gender neutral, but it would be nice if, for instance, the “cant and can” sentiment read: “Turn your can’ts into cans, and your dreams into plans” That would apply to anyone regardless of sex…! I’m just saying..!

Finally, we have the embellishment goodie bag!! I’ll try to describe these from left to right, and top to bottom. As always we get a Chameleon Pen in PR4 Purple Grape (yumm!) and a Spectrum Noir Sparkle pen in ‘clear’ – This is very similar to the Wink of Stella clear glitter pens, and lays down a lovely amount of glitter! BONUS!! A bottle of Nuvo Crystal Drops in Navy Blue, 3 mini organza bows, 2 mini kraft envelopes, a canvas star and heart with eyelets, 3 grey satin mini roses, 3 grey satin mini bows, 3 organza mini roses, a VersaMark ink cube, and a NEW Love From Lizi Embossing Powder in ‘Emerald City’ – ultra-fine embossing powder that is supposed to give a high-gloss shine when heat set.  We get 3 chalkboard stickers – two round and one banner, 8 burlap butterflies in two colors and two shapes, a circular and a square ‘ribbon buckles’ – these are LOVELY – studded with rhinestones and they slip onto a 3/8″ ribbon perfectly – 5 different ribbons and cords – a jute twine, a silver tinsel cord, a 3/8″ cool grey velvet ribbon, a 3/8″ warm grey velvet ribbon, and a 1″ organza ribbon trimmed in grey satin and silver glitter – more than a yard of each!! BONUS!! A beautiful Love From Lizi exclusive peacock die – very detailed and just begging to be used! We also get a sampler package of the Tonic Nuvo Silver Gilding Flakes, and, of course, a sequin mix – this month the mix is ‘Peacock Pride’ and it has blue, green, and silver sequins in a variety of sizes and some tiny silver stars. WOW! now that’s and embellishment pack worth writing home about!! Today is Monday, August 21st and there are still a few kits available at https://lovefromlizi.com/products/love-from-lizi-september-17-card-kit-65171. So, if you are interested, move fast! Lizi’s kits always sell out fast!! Thank you all for your support and I hope you stick with me as I embark on my journey as a new member of the Love From Lizi Design Team!!

I got my new Tim Holtz Stamp Platform!! Thinking I may make an ‘All Tim Holtz’ card to break in my new tool!!!

I recently got this Sizzix / Tim Holtz Alterations stamp and die set “Compass Blueprint” that caught my eye on line. This was right around $19 for the set – which seems to me a very good price considering you get 3 nice rubber stamps and 5 dies. Brand name dies are so expensive, you’ll often pay $20 just for 5 dies with no extras. I haven’t used this set yet, so It seems a good one to use with my ‘All Tim Holtz’ card…!!

I rarely buy 12’X12″ paper packs – no real need for that big of patterned paper when making cards. However, I can’t resist a deal, and I have always admired Tim Holtz’s paper packs. When I found this Crowded Attic Paper Stash by Tim Holtz Idea-ology on-line for $9.29 I jumped at the deal. Regular price for a 12X12 TH paper pad runs at least $15. A heck of a bargain! I like the Tim Holtz pads because they offer the initial full page designs reduced to quarter-page size (6X6) and then even smaller at 2″. That makes what might be too large of a pattern for a card, more in line with the scale of an A2 card. I think I will use this Paper stash for my “All Tim Holtz’ card to christen my new Tim Holtz Stamp Platform.

We received a new Tim Holtz Distress Oxide ink pad in Worn Lipstick with the Simon Says Stamp June 2017 ‘Blissful’ Card Kit. I was so impressed with this ink that I did purchase the other 11 pads from this first release of Oxide Inks. I LOVE THESE INK PADS. So versatile, very blend-able, works great for stamping, reacts with water… the list goes on and on with this new line of Distress Inks. Of course, the minute I got that whole set, Ranger released the second set of 12 Oxide Ink pad colors… sigh… So… let’s add the Walnut Stain Distress Oxide ink pad to do my stamping, and my ‘All Tim Holtz’ card is starting to take shape! A simple Kraft card base will work well. I like the Recollections (Michael’s) Kraft card stock – very inexpensive, and I like the nice medium tone with this card stock – not too light, not too dark. I tend to shop the sales at Michael’s where you can get the 50 sheet card stock packs for $2.50. Now that’s a bargain at a nickle a sheet!

The Crowded Attic Paper Stash by Tim Holtz Idea-ology has a great map of the Pacific Ocean… Of course it’s way too big in the 12″ X 12″ sheet but it’s perfect for an A2 card in the 6″ x 6″ size. There are also a number of 6″ X 6″ distress colors on the back sides of the reduced patterns. I really like the dark red, brown, sage green and beige colors on this other sheet from the pack, so I’ll use those colors for the different parts of the compass. I do want to conserve as much of that map pattern paper as possible so I divide that piece into four 6″ X 1.5″ pieces. I can get four cards out of that one piece of patter paper that way.!

Okay… lets wrap this up! I seem to have lost or inadvertently deleted my stamping pics so let’s just go right to the finished card! I did all the the stamping in the Walnut Stain Distress Oxide ink… basically just stamping the whole compass stamp on each of the papers. I did use the Tim Holtz Stamp Platform to stamp the kraft card base and then added the map pattern paper in place to stamp it again… that prevented me from having that thin blank line between the papers where the stamp cannot reach if you stamp both papers together. I then used all of the die cuts for the compass pieces and the banner, and I layered everything up with foam tape. I spattered the whole card with some plain white watercolors, added some mini brads on the sides of the banner and the center of the compass, and for a final touch, traced the shadow lines on the ‘needle’ with my Sakura Gelly Roll Stardust Gel Pen. Along with the brads, that Stardust pen adds a nice touch of glimmer to an otherwise very ‘distressed’ card – I like this card a lot – the papers all go together very well, matching up with the hints of red, green and beige on the map pattern paper. Next time, I will die-cut all the pieces but probably skip the foam tape between the 2 ‘needle’ pieces. 

I posted  this on the Love From Lizi group over at FB but thought I should add a post about this here. I mentioned that I had not made a shaker card with the LFL August Card Kit, but someone asked me about my fridge magnet and did I ‘seal’ the magnet to protect it from kitchen grime? No, I hadn’t, but that got me thinking and I made this adjustment:

I cut a simple frame from some gold glimmer specialty paper along with a piece of acetate and foam mounted that to the existing magnet with a bunch of the ‘Cookies and Cream’ sequins from the kit. I even went in and covered the sides of the foam strips with some gold glitter paper (from the LFL July kit) to kind of ‘seal’ in the whole magnet. Just a little extra effort here and we have a shaker magnet for your fridge!

As you can see, the magnet still sticks to the card base with no problem. It even shakes without falling off the card..!! Plenty of sequins but not so many that you can’t make out the sentiment. I don’t know why, but this did not occur to me until the question about sealing the magnet came up. And now I can say that I DID make a shaker card with the Love From Lizi August 2017 Card Kit. Hope you enjoy this little extra tidbit!!

Hello folks!, Scott here with another Love From Lizi Card Kit for August of 2017. Check out my previous blog for the un-boxing of this ‘foodie’ card kit. Lizi always includes a bunch of supplies in her kits and this month was no exception! My goal is to use as many pieces and parts from the kit in my 10 cards as possible… often that proves to be a challenge as there are so many goodies.

Lizi always includes 5 pieces of A4 cardstock in her kits, so I trim a half an inch from the long ends and split the cardstocks in half to make 5 1/2″ X 4 1/8″ card bases – just shy of a regular A2 card. From my stash, I added some assorted pieces of white cardstock, black cardstock, dark red cardstock, and I discovered that my Staples 110# Ivory cardstock was almost a perfect match to the off-white cardstock from the kit, so all of the vellum pieces from the kit got mounted on that ivory cardstock. I keep that ivory cardstock in my stash mostly for mock-ups, experiments, and as my inexpensive trial and error cardstock… This stuff is so cost-effective that I don’t mind making mistakes with it!

I admit I had some qualms about the sentiments in this kit… they didn’t particularly seem like card sentiments, more like scrapbook sentiments and cooking craft sentiments, but I have no problem bringing in my own sayings and sentiments to make cards that are more useful to me…!

My first card features the “Home Cooking” vellum from the kit. Mounted on the Staples Ivory cardstock with Stick It adhesive sheets covering the entire back of the image – that way, you can’t see your adhesive through the vellum. I outlined the mounted vellum with the chocolate peel-offs from the kit, mounted that on the gold glimmer specialty paper from the kit, and mounted those on a black cardstock mat and foam taped the entire assemblage to the apple pie pattern paper included in the kit. I did add small touches of the burlap and velvet ribbon from the kit (they match perfectly) to the top and bottom and mounted it all on the dark red card base. Fairly clean and simple, but “Home Cooking” doesn’t mean much to me as a sentiment, so I added a little more inside –

Now there’s a reason to send this card to somebody!! LOL! This sentiment I printed with my Silhouette Software in the Marketing Script font on that Ivory cardstock, stamped a couple of hearts from the stamp set in Fired Brick Oxide Ink and die-cut the cardstock with my Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle dies. Just a simple addition inside the card and what might be considered an unwieldy sentiment on the front, takes on new meaning…!

For card number two, I took the large 6″ wide vellum piece with the apron and banner and cut the images off the gingham background. I thought the color of the gingham on the vellum was not nearly as bright and lively as the gingham pattern paper, so I mounted the vellum apron and banner to some ivory cardstock and popped that up with some foam tape on the gingham pattern paper. I added some twine from the kit to stand in for the apron strings, and cut thin strips of the cherry pattern paper to trim the top and bottom. The “made with love” die cut is from the kit – I die-cut 4 black pieces and one from the gold glimmer specialty paper and glued them all together to make a nice chunky die-cut. I thought that would be enough, but when I went to add the die-cut to the card, it seemed a little naked to me, so I glued the die-cut to one of the cork tags from the kit (twine removed) but that still wasn’t enough. I die cut a circle from the glitter specialty paper in the kit and mounted the cork tag to that, but I still wasn’t satisfied, so I broke out one of the wood veneer die-cuts from the kit, colored it red with an alcohol marker, added a little Wink of Stella to it, and attached that to the whole assemblage. Finally, a big, chunky sentiment that fills the space very nicely. I can see using this card with a gift of pound cake or banana bread, but other than that, I don’t see much traction to be had with these sentiments.

Now I’m going full tilt with my own sentiments…! There were plenty of vellum pieces without sentiments, so I focused my attention on them. I really like this retro image of a young lady at the counter with a cook book and egg beater, so I mounted that vellum piece to some ivory cardstock, mounted that to some gingham pattern paper and added that to a square of the black and white tile pattern paper. That whole piece is foam taped up on a rectangle of the red glimmer specialty paper, which is outlined with the chocolate peel-offs. The sentiment is printed with my Silhouette software on the ivory cardstock in Lucida Calligraphy font and I used the peel-offs around that piece before foam taping it to the red glimmer paper. I complete the sentiment inside…

“I’d bake you a cake today … if I knew how to work an oven! Happy Birthday!” The inside sentiment is printed on the ivory cardstock, cut with a stitched rectangle die and mounted to some of my own dark red cardstock, which was also die cut with the stitched rectangle dies. An excellent and totally appropriate birthday card! I did add some small sequins from the ‘cookies and cream’ sequin mix in the kit to the front of the card and added a couple small dots of the Nuvo Crystal Drops in Autumn Red which, of course, were included with this kit. I really like this card and can always use another birthday card in my stash..!!

Here’s another one of the vellum pieces that I liked, but found very difficult to read… the “WHAT” is very hard to make out, and I found the order of the text slightly confusing… Not one to be deterred, I went online and searched out a similar stand mixer image and added my own text to it:

Printed on the ivory cardstock with my laser printer (at work), the “Live a Little” is in the Script MT Bold font, and the “Lick the bowl” is Goudy Heavyface BT font. Of course I was able to foil the image with gold deco-foil and a laminator – I have to admit I really enjoy the results I get with the deco-foil! I outlined the image with the chocolate peel-offs, mounted that with foam tape to the mint utensil pattern paper (outlined with the peel-offs too!), wrapped some more of that burlap and velvet ribbon around the mint paper and glued it all down to that great food advertisement pattern paper. Everything is attached to one of the mint card bases and a few sequins from the kit finishes this card off nicely. No sentiment inside, but this would make a great birthday card for any age and would be appropriate for a variety of occasions. AND it’s easy to read!

There was a magnet included with this kit, and, what with the ‘foodie’ theme, I’m sure Lizi was thinking of a refrigerator magnet. Here’s my fridge magnet card – I figured the “Kiss the Cook” stamp went well with the lips stamp in the kit and that made sense to me for something to go on your fridge… so I stamped the lips in the Fired Brick Oxide ink and embossed it with my Ranger Clear embossing powder, stamped the Kiss the Cook sentiment with my Simon Says Stamp Intense Black ink and embossed that as well.  All on the ivory cardstock. I added the red and gold vellum strips I cut off of the stand mixer piece and added a couple strips of the peel-offs on the sides.

I used a black card base, with a frame cut from the bronze glimmer specialty paper (cut with Lawn Fawn stitched rectangle dies) to frame a piece of the polka-dot pattern paper with a strip of the striped pattern paper down the middle. I stamped the banner from the stamp set in Walnut Stain Oxide Ink on the ivory cardstock and stamped the “Made with Love” sentiment stamp with the Fired Brick Oxide ink and added a little clear embossing to that too. If you look close, you can see a bit of the outline of a ‘holding’ magnet under the striped pattern paper which holds the magnet to the card while allowing for easy removal. This did use both of the sentiment stamps included with the stamp set on this card. I suppose, this would be an appropriate card to accompany a gift of food or something homemade. Nothing inside the card but some of my ivory cardstock to provide writing space.

“Sorry… sometimes I bake mistakes” is a great little pun to use for an apology card. I went with the older lady vellum piece from the kit, and mounted that to some ivory cardstock and printed the sentiment on the same piece. I created the sentiment on my Silhouette software in Marker Felt font and outlined both pieces with the chocolate peel-offs. I mounted the ivory piece to a mat of the gold glimmer specialty paper and added some peel-offs to the top and bottom of that. I stamped the mint card base with the silverware stamp in Cracked Pistachio Oxide Ink making a little pattern on the top and bottom. I colored the silverware handles with a TN1 Spectrum Noir alcohol marker just to add a little definition to the silverware. I glued one of the craft heart stickers to a piece of the glitter specialty paper and fussy cut that around the heart shape. A bunch of Wink of Stella on top of the heart, and a few sequins paired with the small golden rhinestones finishes up this card with a touch of sparkle. A pun-y apology card!

I’m starting to run low on usable vellum pieces in the kit so I jumped to the cherries and leaf stamp for my next card. There are so many ‘cherry’ puns you can use (since cherry rhymes with so many words!) that I had to reign my baser impulses in…!

“I love you cherry much” is printed on white cardstock in the Noteworthy font. I LOVE using the Silhouette software to design my sentiments. The basic software is free and very intuitive, so I suggest some vast experimenting out there! I stamped the cherries and leaves using a couple of small leaf masks in SSS Intense Black ink on white cardstock and colored the cherries and stems with my Spectrum Noir alcohol markers. I did use the Chameleon marker included in the kit to color the leaves. I fussy cut the image out, and mounted it to the white cardstock with foam tape and then mounted that whole piece to a black cardstock mat. I stamped the border stamp from the kit in SSS Intense Black Ink on another piece of white cardstock and colored the balls with my alcohol markers and added a touch of highlight to them with a white gel pen. A couple of small pieces of the striped pattern paper adorn the top and bottom, the focal piece is foam taped to the white and striped layer, and the whole thing goes on one of the dark red card bases. As a last embellishment, I added Glossy Accents to the cherries for an added touch of dimension and some great shine. I think the border stamp and the cherry stamp goes very well together, and I really like the simple pun on this card.

I have this classic saying in postcard form on my desk:

“Keep Calm and Carry On” was a motivational poster produced by the British government in 1939 in preparation for World War II. The poster was intended to raise the morale of the British public, threatened with widely predicted mass air attacks on major cities. Of course this has been adapted to many uses over the years… I actually found one that said “Stay Alive and Avoid Zombies”! So I felt justified in adapting this to my own uses, and, inspired by the lips stamp in the kit, came up with my own Keep Calm card.

I printed the sentiment on white cardstock in the Din Alternate font using my Silhouette software (I know, I know!) and stamped the lips in Fired Brick Oxide Ink and embossed them with some Ranger clear embossing powder (mmmmmm! –  makes the lips look nice and juicy!). I mounted that on a piece of my own dark red cardstock with the edges glittered up with my Wink of Stella pen. I mounted that piece on one of the light yellow card bases and added golden rhinestones from the kit at the four corners. I thought I was being totally original with this, but, naturally, a quick search on the internet and “Keep Calm and Kiss Me” has obviously been around for a while. After completing this card, I also found a Keep Calm font at dafont.com! Oh, well, I guess I’m not as forward-thinking as I might have wished..!! LOL!! But I still like this card very much!

I wanted to try and use all the stamps in the stamp set this month, so I was looking forward to using the triangle pattern stamps to make my own ‘quilt’ using various pattern papers from the kit.

I concede that the stamping on pattern paper may seem like overkill, but I like how it looks on the red and the star pattern paper, and I even like the striped triangle stamp on the striped pattern paper. I stamped all with the Walnut Stain Oxide Ink and fussy cut all 32 triangles out. I actually assembled the quilt on a simple piece of typing  paper before mounting it to the light yellow card base. I was thinking of this as a “Welcome to your new home” card and liked the abbreviation of “Welcome Home” as my sentiment. I printed that in Signpainter font on the ivory cardstock and cut it out with my Silhouette Portrait machine. I added one of the wood veneer die-cuts from the kit colored with my Delicata Gold ink pad and a little knot of twine from the kit to finish it off. I was worried that this wouldn’t work out – that the pattern paper would be way too busy – but am ultimately very pleased with the result. I can see my using these triangle stamps to create assorted ‘quilts’ for my card backgrounds!

And now, for card number ten, I realize it’s not the season but I couldn’t resist:

I loved the cherry pattern paper so much – it felt very Christmas-y to me, so I stamped the cherries and a couple of leaves with SSS Intense Black Ink on white cardstock, colored them with my Zigg Clean Color Real Brush Markers and fussy cut them out with a little white border. I had the Santa hat in my image file from a previous Christmas Card as well as the curvy Merry Christmas sentiment. A little fiddling around in Photoshop changed Merry to Cherry and the Santa Hat fit the cherries perfectly without even having to re-size them!  The Cherries and the sentiment are foam taped up on the pattern paper for a little dimension, with a couple of thin strips of the gold glimmer specialty paper down the sides and everything mounted to the black card base. I added a little sparkle to the fur on the hats and the sentiment with my Wink of Stella pen and Voila! a very Cherry Christmas card! This makes me giggle a lot!

There was one vellum piece in the kit that I absolutely adored, but couldn’t figure out how to use on a card, so I decided to do a little bonus project this month. All the cooking, baking, food, and related sentiments in this kit kept making me think of a recipe book…

“Let’s Cook Something Special Today” was my favorite vellum piece from this kit – I just couldn’t set it aside and not do anything with it, so I created a nice “Favorite Recipes” gift book! This was the only vellum piece to feature the strawberries and yellow flowers which matched one of the patter papers perfectly, so I mounted the vellum on my ivory cardstock, did a border punch with hearts and scallops on the strawberry pattern paper and added that to the top and bottom of the vellum with some chocolate peel-offs between the two. I used the ‘book plate’ embellishment from the kit but couldn’t print my sentiment on the included tag because it was super glossy, so I printed “Favorite Recipes” on the star pattern paper in the Lucida Handwriting font.

I based the size of this recipe book around a half-sheet of cardstock – 8.5″ X 5.5″ – and I felt like 12 sheets (recipes) should cover most anyone’s favorites – so I only used 6 sheets of black cardstock for all the pages.

I cut slits in the 12 black cardstock pieces to fit a 4″ x 6″ index card for the recipes, and created a cover out of black chipboard that was a little larger all the way around. (8 3/4″ x 5 3/4″) I cut 7/8″ off one end of the chipboard to serve as the ‘spine’ (scoring the cardstock pages at 3/4″ for their fold) and then created a ‘hinge’ out of the red stripes on a USPS tyvek priority mail envelope. I simply cut the strips off the envelope and, using scor-tape, attached the chipboard pieces back together with a small gap to facilitate the fold.

I punched small holes on the ‘spine’ and pages, added gold grommets to the holes on the covers and bound the book together with  some twine from my stash (the twine in the kit was a little too thin for binding purposes). I added a little washi tape to the front cover for a little decorative touch and my “Favorite Recipes Gift Book” is complete. Now, I could fill this up with my favorite recipes – in which case I would add my name to the upper right hand corner of the cover. OR, I could give this to friends to fill with their favorite recipes in which case I would add their names to the cover.

I believe that this kit lent itself to projects like this or even to scrapbook pages more so than to cards, but I still had a great time creating with this kit. I actually used ALMOST every stamp from the stamp set (the small heart stamp did not get used) and I also used a little bit of everything in the kit (except the chalkboard tags!). I have lots of supplies left over to augment my stash and I am looking forward to the September Kit! Let me know if you have any questions or comments and, as always, Happy Crafting!

Hello folks! Scott here with my first ever unboxing post for the Love From Lizi August 2017 card kit. We get so much product in these card kits that I thought I would show off the supplies before I started making cards!

Lizi always includes 5 sheets of very nice A4 card stock in her kits. This month we get mint, black, off-white, pale yellow, and a deep red. We also receive 4 half-sheets of specialty paper including a lovely chocolate brown glitter card stock and 3 sheets of glimmer card stock in gold, a kind of bronze, and that deep red. A great assortment of high quality card stock!

The British crafters I follow seem to love printed vellum sheets, and Lizi does not disappoint with 2 sheets of printed and gold-embossed vellum. A dozen pieces (you have to cut them apart) of various sizes with an assortment of sentiments on many of them: “Home Cooking” “Happiness is homemade” “Life is what you bake it” etc. I think you could easily make 10 cards just using the vellum pieces!

I really like the pattern paper included with this kit. We get a dozen, 6″X6″ single-sided pattern pages, featuring that great deep red, mint and light yellow from the card stock sheets. I am a big fan of red so I really like these pattern papers and that black sheet featuring vintage advertisements for food is stunning in and of itself!

Love the little cherries on the black background and the quilt piece pattern paper uses all of the colors in this kit. The mint stripe on the upper left is actually utensils (spatulas, rolling pins, spoons, whisks, etc.) that make the tone-on-tone stripes.

Of course, we get an exclusive stamp set with our kit as well. Two sentiments: “Made With Love” and “Kiss the Cook” in a nice font, a large double cherry, utensils, a banner, a great lip stamp, a couple of hearts, a leaf and those four triangles that seem to echo the quilt pattern paper. I’m sure some quilters out there could stamp out some unique patterns with these!

Lizi has been featuring a Chameleon alcohol marker in her kits for 3 months now, and this month it is a GR3 Grass Green color. I hope she continues this perk for a long time!    I am also becoming a big fan of Lizi’s peel-off strips in multiple widths (this month in chocolate brown) for being so easy to use and the fact that they add a great ’embossing’ touch without having to break out the heat gun!

This is where the Love From Lizi Kits kind of blow me away – so many embellishments! Beginning at the bottom left and going clock-wise we get; two round cork tags with twine attached, over 100 translucent gold rhinestone in 4 sizes, a Nuvo Crystal Drops in ‘Autumn Red’, six craft heart stickers, a 3″ square sheet magnet (refrigerator magnets, anyone?), a metal tag frame embellishment with removable tag, 3/8″ velvet ribbon, thin natural twine, 1″ burlap ribbon with a delicate scalloped edge and sparkles (more than 3′ of each), 2 chalk board tags with gold glitter and white sentiments, a wafer die that says “made with love” accented with a heart, 3 wood veneer cut-outs, and a “Cookies and Cream” sequin mix.

That, my friends, is a lot of product in one card kit! I’m looking forward to delving into these supplies as I work on my 10 Card 1 Kit video for this subscription. Remember, this kit is still available at Love From Lizi but these kits usually sell out quickly! If you do purchase one this month, tell Lizi that Scott sent ya!! Thanks for your support!