Friendship Grows Halo Card

My first project with the November Betterpress Society plate, Friendship Grows, was a Halo card.

I pressed the plate with Betterpress Tawny Brown ink, then used the coordinating stencils to colour it in with several Pinkfresh Studio inks.

The set comes with two edge dies to cut out either side, so I cut just the right edge of the image, and trimmed off about 3/4" on the left.  I cut coordinating yellow and pink cardstock with the edge die, and layered them under the right ege, leaving about a 1/8" halo of each colour.  Everything was glued onto a strip of green cardstock that served as the background.

I pressed one of the sentiments included in the set with the same Tawny Brown ink, and adhered it to the card with foam adhesive.  A few gold pearls finished it off.

You can get a Betterpress Society subscription from The Papercrafter's Workshop.

Valentines for Veterans

This is the fourth year that I've been participating in the Canadian Valentines for Veterans program run by the Federal Government.  The military accepts generic Valentines, and sends them out to Veterans in homes and hospitals across the country.  If you are interested in participating, Google it, and you'll find a webpage with all the details and an address to send them to.  *Read the fine print, there are a few no-no's like glitter or 3D embellishments - and they would like them to be signed with an encouraging or thankful comment.  They also encourage you to take cards directly to local care homes if you can - so check out who accepts them in your neighbourhood.  For my American friends, I know there are similar programs in the US that you can look into.

Happy to have assembled 27 of these this week!  Will try to fit in a few more, but want to get them off in the mail in the next few days.

Friendship Grows in Rainbow

Spellbinders has a new monthly challenge, and January is 'January Glam' - and I just happen to have a brand new Glimmer Hot Foil machine!  So far I've had really good results, as this is only my second foiled image.

I am using the rainbow foil that came with the kit, and wanted a large plate that would show off the entire rainbow, so this is the November Betterpress Society plate, Friendship Grows.

After foiling, I used the included dies to cut out both edges, then adhered it to my card base with 3D foam adhesive.  The sentiment is from the It's Your Day Sentiment Strips press plate, pressed on the wonderful Brushed Gold Treasured Cardstock.  A few gold pearls finished it off.  As always, it's hard to photograph metallics - but I think you can get an idea of how pretty this is in real life.

 

Simple Pattern Play

If you follow me, you'll have seen this die set appear several times on my blog - it's one of the favourite products that I purchased last year.  These are the Pattern Play dies from Concord & 9th:

It's my husband's birthday later this week, so I was in need of a masculine card (I made two of these!).  I have a jar with 'extra' bits and pieces that I've die cut using this set, so I pulled it out, and was able to get about 80% of what I needed for two of these from my stash.

Every time I pull these dies out, I've used a different pattern/layout, and different colour combos - keeps it feeling fresh every time.  The sentiment was done with my Betterpress on Brushed Gold Treasured cardstock from Spellbinders.

Glass Container & Birthday Journal Set

 I am on the Art Impressions blog today for their Watercolour Weekend post!

Welcome to a whole new year of watercolour painting!  I have two projects today featuring older products.  After all of the holiday crafting over the past few months, I'm always needing to replenish my stash of cards in the New Year, and birthday cards top the list.

I stamped the sweet pup from 5722 - Birthday Journal Set in Tombow #N45, masked him, and stamped the stack of presents beside him, and the banner across the top.  I am using the 5742 - Easter PP on both projects today, and choosing my pretty background paper was the starting point for picking my colour palette.  I painted the pup in #947, keeping the undersides a little darker, and the face area almost down to nothing.  The florals are from 5258 - WC Flower Set 4, painted in #703 & #636, surrounded by the small green from 5009 - WC Mini Flower Set in #312.  I took a damp brush to my bouquet, softening everything.  

The packages were painted with #761/703/312/N45/636 in various washes & patterns, and the banner was washed with N45.  565 was used as a wash in the sky, and to darken up a few shadowy areas.  I used my grey Twintone marker to darken up some of the lines of my scene, and to draw a bow on either end of the banner.  I used the 5061 - Square Double Stitched dies to cut out my scene, and mounted it on a larger square of dark grey textured cardstock.  I cut the hello from 5718 - Mini Journal Template in the grey cardstock, and adhered it across the top.  I added 3D foam adhesive and attached it all to my card base - the finished card is 5 1/4" square.

I have never painted a glass container before!  It was time to give it a try.  

Using Bonnie's examples as inspiration, I stamped the largest vase from 5921 - Glass Containers Set in #N45, then masking the rim only with a tiny sliver of paper, I stamped in the flowers and foliage from 5920 - Long Stem Foliage Set and 5919 - Long Stem Floral Set using #312/177/636/N45.  I picked up all of the colours from my palette, and painted in the foliage softly.

Most of the stems were stamped inside the vase, but for a few that weren't, I painted the stems using the green shades.  I used tones of #451 and 565 to paint in blue lines suggesting the inside of the vase and the waterline, adding a few streaks of green for the reflection of the stems.  #565 was used as a wash in the background, and around the base of the vase.  To add a little glimmer, I used my silver Gel Pen to paint the flowers of the baby's breath - to echo the silver cardstock.

The scene was cut out with a decorative rectangular die, and mounted on some silver cardstock.  Everything was adhered to the card base with 3D foam adhesive, and a few iridescent jewels added more sparkle.

Top 10 of 2025

I did a Top 5 of my Ai projects a few weeks ago, but always like to do a full Top 10 post of all of the projects I made through the year.  I prepped my choices for both posts at that time, and had 19 for this post!  So I managed to whittle it down to just ten, I don't do one per month, just my ten favourites in no particular order.

My undisputed favourite project of the year:

A huge thank you to everyone who takes the time to look at, like and comment on my projects - they are much appreciated.  And another huge thank you to all of the creative people and companies who design the products that I get to use - that's where it all starts.  I get an enormous amount of inspiration from those creatives, along with the many crafters that I follow, and hope to continue on creating through 2026.

Market Place Tags

In prepping my end of the year post, I realized that I hadn't posted the Christmas tags that I created to gift with the tri-fold cards that I made using the Market Place suite of products from The Greetery.  

Yes, I managed to get 18 of these little guys made!  I used the tri-fold card as my inspiration, sticking to a limited colour palette, and cut multiple pieces out at a time - it looks a little more daunting than it actually was.  Once you embrace the chaos of doing a project with a ton of tiny pieces, it goes pretty quickly.

This is the Market Place Mini die set, along with the Holiday Festoons set - that provided all of the wreaths, bows and swag details.  I made them into tags by backing them with a solid cream building, then glued another one to it like a hinge, so you can open up the house and write your Christmas greeting.  I punched holes through the top and threaded some jute twine through.

The finishing touch was to spatter some gold paint to go with the touches of gold on each tag.  Labour of love, and SO worth it!  Everyone raved about these.