April 29, 2020

Thanks



I have a quick and easy card up on the Birch Press Design blog today that uses only one essential die!



Complete instructions over ton the Birch Press Design blog.
Stay safe!




April 26, 2020

Sending Rainbows - Assembly Line Production

I hope that you are staying well through what seems to be the new normal. Here spring has been a bit of a roller coaster so far, but it seems like we have finally turned a corner and the temperatures are on the rise and for the first time there isn't any snow in the forecast! The squirrels, chipmunks, robins and other birds are busy busy in the yard. We have a mama and baby deer who have been visiting us daily at dusk to munch on the abundance of acorns on the property right outside the kitchen window, that has been such a treat. Today the little one showed up for breakfast too!




Today a have a set of rainbow cards that I have made to stock up my happy mail supply and I am continuing to make cards to send to friends and family that I wish I could just go and give a hug to. There are a lot of steps with this card so I used the assembly line to easily put the cards together.


tracey_rainbowhappy

I used the My Favourite Things Magical Rainbow dienamics die and cut six rainbows, one from each colour of cardstock I was going to use. In my sample I used--pink, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. That gave me enough bands to make six unique rainbows. The die comes with a solid base and I cut six of those and assembled my rainbows.

I cut a panel of cardstock 5 1/2" x 4 1/4" in three of the six colours and then adhered them to front of six A2 sized white card bases. I used green, blue and purple. I cut six more white panels sized 5 3/8" x 3 7/8" and then stamped the large Smile sentiment from the My Favorite Things All Smiles stamp set on all six panels. This set is now retired but you can use any sentiments you have to create whatever message you would like to send.

TIP: I have had this set a long time and it was the first time using the large Smile. It had a little bubble in the 'm' that left a white hole when stamped. So I just dotted a black Copic marker over the hole and you can't even tell.

Next I masked over the white inside panel with four strips of 1" Post-it tape. Right at the top and two sides and them the bottom strip just above the 'S' of smile I used the My Favorite Things Cloud stencil to ink blend clouds in the opening with Peacock Feathers Distress Oxide Ink using blending brushes.

I white embossed the second line of the sentiment also from the All Smiles stamp set on the same colour of each background paper I used. I ended up with 2 sentiments of each background colour.

I cut 18 white clouds from white cardstock--3 for each card. I used an older Papertrey Ink die, I think it may have been from one of my first purchases from them.
Now that I had all my pieces prepared I adhered everything together. All pieces were glued flat except I put a bit of foam tape behind the rainbows.

Thank you so much for stopping by today, stay well!





April 21, 2020

Thinking of You Friend


I hope you are still managing to cope with staying home and staying safe. Social distancing is definitely a new way of life but we are all in this together and right now it is what we have to do. My husband, daughter and I have been filling our days and it seems like the days are going so fast. We have been playing games, cooking together, crafting, hot tubbing sometimes more than once a day and fortunately because we live in the country we are able to get outside and walk. My daughter is finishing up her last couple weeks of her teaching placement working with her associate teacher to deliver lessons through online learning. A pretty unique experience and thankfully she will be graduating with her Bachelor of Education in May!

Today I am over on the Studio Katia blog. I created a card I am sending out to a friend that I haven't been able top give a hug to in a while. I hope you have a chance to head over to my post for full details about how I made this card!



Have a great day and stay safe!

April 17, 2020

The 12 Kits of Occasions - Special Blog Hop for Sharron

Today over on the 12 Kits of Occasions blog we are having a special post and blog hop to honour the memory of our dear friend and design team member Sharron Gregory, On Papillon Wings,  who passed away March 30th. The design team members past and present have created friendship cards to celebrate Sharron and if you follow along the hop you will get find a personal post about Sharron at each stop along the hop.




I connected with Sharron very early on in my blogging days through the 12 Kits of Occasions which was the 12 Kits of Christmas back then. Right from the beginning Sharron was the sweetest, always visiting my blog and leaving the kindest and most thoughtful comments behind. I ended up joining the 12 Kits of Christmas in the second year and had the chance to really get to know her on a more personal level. Over the years we began to share snail mail with each other between the US and Canada. We regularly exchanged friendship cards, birthday cards and Christmas cards. Cards from Sharron always had the cutest images on them, mostly of children and critters. When I visited her blog to see what she created with her monthly kit she always had done something completely unexpected with the supplies that we all got. It usually ended up with me telling her how creative she was and that I had never thought of doing what she did. I am going to miss my friend but I am glad that we are celebrating her life today. I can't wait to see what the other girls have to say about Sharron.

For my card today I used the Avery Elle Rainbows stamps and dies. I just love all the possibilities of what you can do with this set. I used the largest die and cut on the fold of my card base to create a shaped card and then I die cut the rainbow, blended the bands with Distress Oxide inks and spritzed some water over the bands and blotted them with paper towel. The pieces were all inlaid back into the rainbow and I popped the whole thing up with foam tape to give it a bit of dimension.

tracey_forsharron

Thank you so much for stopping in today. Head over to the 12 Kits of Occasions blog to see the full blog hop line up if you haven't already been there. Have a good day.

April 12, 2020

Mother's Day Swan



It's the beginning of a new week and I'm hoping it's the beginning of getting my creative mojo back again. I know I am not alone when I say that my mind hasn't been settled lately nut the weather is getting nicer and better times have got to be on the way. I am getting ahead a bit and have created a couple of Mother's Day cards for my two favourite Mom's using the new Lawn Fawn Swan Soiree stamp set. Also a bit of colouring for the Daily Marker 30 Day Coloring Challenge.





My background was created by making my own stencil using a grass border die that I cut from a piece of lightweight cardstock. I started with the top piece and I ink blended my grass going downwards using Mowed Lawn and Twisted Citron Distress Oxide Inks. Then I used the bottom portion of my stencil to cover the grass and blend upwards with Tumbled Glass Distress Oxide ink to create my sky. I trimmed my panel and stamped my sentiment to the top.

I cut a piece of grey Lawn Fawn Gotta to Have Gingham patterned paper to 5 1/4" x 4" and taped it to my card base. The ink blended panel was attached using foam tape.

The other elements from the stamp set were stamped, die cut and coloured with Copics markers. Then I created my pond scene by adhered the elements with foam tape for dimension.

Thanks for stopping by today!


April 11, 2020

Glittered Hugs



Hi there and Happy Easter! I hope that you are managing through this pandemic. It's so hard to know when we will be able to resume life as normal. In the meantime we are staying at home with family or missing family. Regardless we are, as a world, trying to maintain some type of normalcy. Here in Canada, we have a stay at home order and only essential business is open. Fortunately, for the children, the Easter Bunny was declared an essential service so hopefully he made it around to deliver some chocolate.

To day I have a card and video up on the Birch Press Design blog and my YouTube channel for a complete start to finish of my card. I hope you a chance to watch and a chance to visit my post over at Birch Press Design.



You can watch my video here, or you can watch it over on my YouTube channel!




Thank you so much for stopping in today and I really hope that we will all be reunited with our loved ones and enjoying the warmer weather together again very soon!





April 2, 2020

An Awesome Birthday Card



Hi friends I hope you a keeping well as we are now three weeks in social distancing. What are you doing with all your time at home. I see people are organizing like crazy, cooking and baking, playing games with family and hopefully staying home. I am doing all of those things and trying to find the desire to go into my creative space and do what I love. I can't say I am spending as much time as I would like to, my mind in on what the rest of the world's is on.  However today, I am up on the Studio Katia blog today with this card.



A quick and easy card to put together with one die and a bit of ink blending.

Complete details of how I put my card together is over on the Studio Katia blog, I hope you have a chance to stop in to say hello.


Stay well my friends and stay home. Social distancing is what we need right now to flatten the curve!