Happy Sunday! I wanted to write a quick post and share this with you, this one time.

As I mentioned earlier, my daughter was accepted at Parson’s School of Design in New York. As a single Mom, and some though times in our past, I can’t help her financially. She has to pay for all of this herself.

This is her dream. For as long as I can remember, she’s had a camera in her hands. And, she worked so hard in school, fighting health issues. She’s so strong and I’m so proud of her!

Please, if you can, check out her Go Fund me.

https://www.gofundme.com/5b09e00

Thanks,

Nicole

Happy Friday! I’m sorry, I don’t have a card to share today. But, I did want to put out a quick update on things.

First off, my amazingly talented daughter was accepted into Parson’s New School of Design!!! I can’t even begin to describe how I feel! This is her dream school!! It’s a bit overwhelming, thinking about her being so far away, and how to pay for it all. But, can you imagine, the best art school in the US, in New York City!!

Next, and not as big, I have a contract for a house! It’s still the beginning of the process, but stressful and time consuming. I’ve spent the last two weekends stressed out and a zombie. Hopefully I can settle down this weekend and get crafty. I really need it.

The best part about the house is that I will have an actual craft room, with great lighting!!! I might even be able to start making videos!

That’s the quick update of the rollercoaster I’ve been riding!

Since you took the time to check in, let me share an actual craft item with you.

These are Nuvo Shimmer Powders!!! And oh my, I’m in love!! They just arrived last night, and I played a little bit with them. Of course, I had to swatch them too!

Look at how cool the craftermath looked.

These were so much fun my daughter’s football playing guy friend was trying them out.

I’ll put together a post with more details about them this weekend. I should have a card to share by then too!

Thanks for stopping by!

Nicole

Hello! In an earlier post I mentioned how excited I was about the the Spring Shower Cover Die from Altenew. You know I had to play with it as soon as it arrived! I shared the background I made on Instagram and a request was made for a video tutorial. Unfortunately I don’t have the equipment to make a video tutorial, but I can write a quick post on how I made it.

The Spring Shower Cover Die is a die that is the size of an A2 card.

The die cuts out a bunch of floral pieces. What is different about this die is that you can layer the pieces to create different looks. Here is what I have leftover from my card, so you can see the pieces.

See how the pieces layer together (their are instructions that come with the die).

For my card, I used the die twice, once with white cardstock, and again with navy.

I kept the white frame, and used the navy pieces to fill in the frame.

Next, I took some of the layering pieces that I had cut in white and added them with adhesive.

I decided to emboss several of the accent pieces in gold. I did this by temporarily adhering them to a piece of scrap cardstock, smooshing Versamark ink over them, and then covering the pieces in gold embossing powder. I melted the powder with my heat gun and waited until it cooled off before carefully lifting the pieces off the scrap cardstock. I glued them in place with Multi Matte Medium.

I also use White Nuevo Drops and a Gold Copic market to color some accents.

I finished the card off using a sentiment from Altenew’s Build a Flower – Camellia stamped on a vellum strip and heat embossed in gold.

Here is and example of one of the white pieces fitted into the left over navy frame.

This card was pretty easy to make, just time consuming. Putting all of the pieces back in place takes time. One tip I have is before I add the pieces back, I flip the frame over and cover it with a light tack tape, like washi tape or micro-pore tape. I tape it on so that the sticky part shows through the openings. That gives the pieces something to grab and hold.

I hope this helps, and thanks for stopping by! Please let me know if you would like me to make video tutorials. I’ve been a bit hesitant as my crafting space has horrible lighting (I mean, look at the step by step pics, ugh). And, I sound like I’m twelve. But if enough people are interested, and you all sign a waiver that you will refrain from complaining about how I sound, I’ll start working on it.

Nicole

Hello all! Just a quick post to encourage you to check out the new release from Altenew. This release is all dies, and includes some really innovative products.

Here is their blog post for the release:

Altenew has had some layering dies in their roster for a little bit, but the new Peony Dream 3D die set is stunning! If I hadn’t already done so much damage to my budget this week I would have snapped that up. It WILL be a future purchase :).

The Rose Flurries 3D die set is another layering flower die set. This one caught my eye because it includes full blooms and buds, to add more design options. This is also on my wish list!

One item that I absolutely couldn’t pass up was the Spring Shower Cover Die. This is a Cover die that fits an A2 sized card, and cuts out a pretty flower design. What’s really neat is that you can take the cut or positive pieces, and make some layering flowers! Talk about a versatile item! And for $21.00, you can’t beat that! I’ll try to put a post together once it arrives. Hopefully I’ll be up and running by then!

I really encourage you to check out the release. There are so many great items!

Nicole

Hello and welcome back! Today I am taking the plunge with a new challenge blog, A Blog Named Hero! A Blog Named Hero host monthly blogs. This month the theme is Winter Holiday and they are collaborating with Simon Says Stamp.

If you’ve been on my Instagram feed, you know I am obsessed with the MMH October kit, so I decided to use the kit for my card today. I paired images from the kit with a sentiment from CZ Designs Coolest Yulest, a Simon Says Stamps exclusive stamp set.

I stamped the images from the kit in Hero Arts Intense Black ink on Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 80 lb card stock and colored them with Copic markers, along with some gel pens for the tiny areas. I die cut the mountains from silver glitter paper and the textured paper from the MMH kit (my go to for these mountains). I also die cut some snow banks with a MFT die. I used my favorite Simons Says Stamps Stitched Rectangle to neaten up the edges of all the die cut pieces and add it to Gina K Design’s In the Navy cardstock for the base of the scene. Before I glued everything together, I stamped the sentiment from the CZ Designs Coolest Yulest on the navy cardstock with Versamark ink and heat embossed with the silver from the MMH kit.

I adhered all the pieces with Scor-Tape, and used foam tape for Santa, Mrs. Clause and the sleigh. I add the assembled panel to a white card base with fun foam.

This card was a lot of fun to make! I really liked using the navy for the sky, and adding a different style of sentiment. Plus, who doesn’t love Santa and the Mrs? I’m not sure what I am going to do when Christmas is over? This kit just keeps drawing me back.

What do you think of this new challenge? I really liked it, and look forward to participating next month!

Thanks for stopping by!

Nicole

Happy Friday! I am especially excited for THIS Friday, as it is the start of a week of vacation!!!

This week I want to share with you the cards I made using CZ Design’s Coolest Yulest stamps and dies, along with the Hos die set. This set is only available from Simon Says Stamps.

When I first saw this set back in September, I had a lot of plans for it. But, then I got my hands on other sets and kept putting this set off. I think it would be good for mass producing, with the die cut images. However, I had so many other “mass produced,” cards that I stuck to single cards with this set.

First off are the cards I made with the Hos dies (it’s a lot of fun typing that).

Confession: Red is my favorite color. Red glitter is my core. I used a lot of it here.

The first card features a rectangle Kraft panel, stamped with Concord and 9th’s Triangle Turnabout using Candied Apple and Lucky Clover Distress Oxide ink. I covered the triangle panel with vellum, and then added one large and 2 small Hos, cut out from Dollar Store red glitter paper. I finished it off with Lucy’s Cards Cherry Jewels. All of the red card bases above are MFT’s Wild Cherry. The Kraft is also from MFT.

The second card is one large, and 2 small Hos, cut out from a Neenah Solar White panel, with the same Dollar Store red glitter paper under it. I also used the same Lucy’s Cards Jewels.

On the next card I cut out 2 of the large Hos from a Neenah Solar White panel, this time with lime green glitter paper from the same Dollar store set beneath it. I then cut out the third large Ho from red glitter paper I got from Michaels. The red Ho was layered with white die cuts to give it dimension. I used the Cherry Jewels as well as Lime Green jewels. The “Merry Christmas,” is from Lawn Fawn’s Frosty Friends.

Last we have another panel with a Concord and 9th Turnabout (this time the Sprinkle Turnabout). I used Candied Apple and Lucky Clover Distress Oxide ink, and one stamp with Versamark and gold embossing powder. I cut three of the small Hos from the red glitter paper from Michaels, and layered it on white cardstock to give it dimension. The jewels on this card are from the Lucy’s Cards Disco Mix, and the trees are from the Coolest Yulest stamp set, embossed in gold.

All of the cards above were adhered to the card bases with fun foam.

Next I would like to share the cards I made with the ornament images from the Coolest Yulest set. As you can see, these ornaments are very versatile. You could make a fun card, or an elegant card.

For the first card, I stamped the three ornament images with Versamark ink, and then heat embossed in gold. I die cut Altenew’s Our Family Framed frame from gold glitter paper from Michaels.  I tied gold cross stitch floss to the top of each ornament and stuck the floss to the back of the frame. I added the frame to the card panel with foam tape. Then I added foam tape to the back of the ornaments. The sentiment is from the same set. The card base is MFT Kraft.

The next card uses MFT’s Diagonal Stripe Cover Up, die cut from paper blended with Candied Apple Distress Oxide ink and sprayed with water (I saved the cut out slivers for another card seen below). I did the same thing with the gold floss and gold heat embossed ornaments. I inlaid white card stock in the Diagonal Cover Up. The “Merry,” is from Concord and 9th (a free with purchase die) and was cut from gold glitter paper from a DCWV Stack. The “Christmas,” is from the CZ Designs set. The card base is Neenah Solar White.

This last card was described on my post about Concord and 9th’s Joy set.

Last, I have the cards I made with the trees and reindeer from the Coolest Yulest set.

You will recognize several of these cards as I’ve shared them on post from earlier on in this series. I will describe the first two as they are new.

Altenew’s Our Family Framed Frame was used again (I think you’ll be seeing a lot of this frame from me, its gorgeous). For this card, I was trying to do a letterpress effect, dry embossing the frame with gold ink on it. The ink wasn’t distributed evenly,  which meant that half the frame impression didn’t have ink. I tried to even it up with a gel pen, which of course just made it worse. After I screwed that up, my only option was to try to cover it with a die cut, this one cut from gold foil paper from DCWV. You can still see some of the ink peaking through, but it’s not as horrible as my attempt to “fix it.” The “Merry Christmas,” is from the stamp set, as are the reindeer. The reindeer were stamped with Versamark and embossed in gold, then adhered to the card with foam tape. “Christmas,” was stamped in Altenew’s Ruby Red. I finished the card with Lucy’s Cards Cherry Jewels. The card base is MFT Wild Cherry.

The second card is where I used the slivers I saved from the MFT Diagonal Stripe Cover up, inlaid in white.  The “Merry Christmas,” and tree were stamped from the set, with “Christmas,” in Gina K Designs Christmas Pine ink. I added Lucy’s Cards Cherry Jewels to the tree as ornaments.

I had a lot of fun with this set, even if I didn’t get to mass produce them. It’s a different style from my other Christmas sets, and has a more simple, streamlined style. I recommend checking it out.

Thanks for sticking through another long post. Next week I’ll be sharing what I made with Hero Art’s October kit. This is another set that I didn’t really mass produce, but I did make a lot of cards. After that I plan on sharing one more post, with the Hero Arts November kit, which screams mass production.

Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by!

Nicole