My heart is still smiling

 I am addicted to my local gas station's fountain drinks.  I don't know what they do different, but it is the best fountain drink in my town.  We battled the flu hard and heavy over Christmas and my throat was raw from coughing.  A sweet friend of mine dropped by out of the blue with a drink from the gas station without even knowing how miserable I was.  Talk about putting a smile on my face and relieving my throat.  I used a die from my stash that I purchased years ago on sale. The stamped sentiment came from a fairly new stamp set I got on clearance at scrapbook.com.  I spy another Craft Consortium ink spots  background paper.  Have I mentioned I'm in love with those?  They look like alcohol ink backgrounds with gold in them...I'm inpatient nor do I have the funds to invest in alcohol inks and supplies at this time so these papers are a big win for me.  I used a crochet die from Tim Holtz on the border, these are gorgeouse dies as well. Satin gold Nuvo drops for accents. I believe the Thanks die is a Tim Holtz as well I picked up on clearance a long time ago. Another card you could easily use for Valentine's day. 

Thanks Beary Much

 I made this card to thank a friend for a night out to dinner.  She supports us in so many ways and is just an incredible person and friend.  I used one of the Craft Consortium ink spots paper pads for my background...I LOVE that line of paper pads and want to get them all in my collection eventually.  The card would make a cute valentine card as well. The sentiment is from an old, Hero Arts stamp set I got as a freebie from Simon Says Stamp many moons ago and I thought it paired nicely with this die from the Stamps of Life. It was a club set many years ago and the card was quick to make.  The bears arms cut so you can slip something in them, and I used a stitched heart from my stash to tuck in there.  I did a little spectrum noir alcohol marker coloring for his ears and pads of his feet.I added a little glossy accent to his nose to finish the card.  

A little love for my seestore

 My sister loves, and I mean, LOVES elephants.  I was laying down one night in bed and this card idea came to mind, as I stated in an earlier post, I want to do more stamping.  I had found this stamp set at goodwill last year and have no idea the brand, but I thought the images were cute and it was cheap!  Initially, I had wanted to color each elephant with some messy alcohol marker coloring as shown by Laura Bassen on her youtube channel, but it was not going well. I defaulted to coloring one elephant with my spectrum noir triblends.  The don't forget sentiment was in the stamp set and the I love you is from an old Stamps of life stamp set.  There is glossy accents on the heart in I love you. I still struggle a bit with get pen highlighting, too much...not enough...the struggle is real.  I sent it to her for Valentine's day and I doubt she'll care about the highlights.😂

How about a heartfelt feel better?

 I was inspired by a card on pinterest that used colored card strips to make a birthday card.  The pinner made her card a celebrate card.  I put my own touch on the card.  I used a die from Scrapbook.com and their warm slimline paper pad for my color palette.  Each color is represented.  I used some vellum as a shadow.  I used some enamel dots I've had in my stash, but the Rose pops of color match this paper pad very nicely.  The heart die is from Simon Says stamp, I purchased it a long time ago on one of their special deal days.  

Blessed

 I make a lot of thank you cards, and I love a heart motif.  Being that it is the month of love (and also my birthday month, bring on 47) I thought I'd share a few recent cards.  My medically fragile daughter  was ill over Christmas and each day someone blessed us in some way shape or form financially, groceries, or meals and I whipped out handmade cards to express our appreciation.  I saw this particular technique on Natasha Foote's youtube channel using Nuvo drops.  I have several Nuvo drops but have found that I prefer pops of color from scrapbookcom, so I wanted to use up some of my Nuvo drops.  Basically, you scrape the blobs of drops down the cardstock and you get this really cool mixed media...very, very neat.  I started and just couldn't stop.  Any of these would make cool valentine cards for anyone you wanted to share with.  

If you haven't seen the ink drops paper from Craft Consortium, go check them out, they are GORGEOUS.  This is one of the papers on the background of this card.  I purchased mine from the Stamp Simply Ribbon Store.

 This card was my attempt at a rainbow look. Inked the edges with black ink and I think it helped it to pop.

And this little beauty is my favorite.  I really got a wide variety of looks on my hearts.  Added some embossing on the background sheets to complete the look.  I enjoy mixed media, but I just hate waiting for stuff to dry...love how these turned out.

Love is in the air

 My mom recently asked me to make some cards for her to put in her stash.  She requested a card for her hubby for Valentine's Day.  They live in the woods and he's a skilled builder.  I thought I would fashion a card that appeared as though their initials had been carved into wood.  I stamped the background with a Stamps of Life stamp set.  Heat embossed their initials on the heart "wood" which I inked on the edges with black soot distress ink.  His favorite color is yellow, so patterned paper to the rescue!  I realized that I really enjoy stamping.  I tend to die cut a lot because that is what I have access to most.  The goal this year is to get back to more stamping because I really love that aspect of card making.  

Galentine's for my gals

 Been a hot minute since I posted...HA!  That's the understatement of the year.  I'm going to try to stay on top of this blog. Hopefully, it will inspire you or just give you a smile.  Today I'm sharing a couple "Galentine Day" cards I made for two very dear friends.  These cards were CASed from Joy from her youtube channel, Create it with Joy.  She is an amazing cardmaker and she inspires me LOTS.  I used my Cricut to cut my tic tac toe board and my lay out is a touch different than hers, but really loved how they turned out.  I know my "gals" will too.