With Sympathy

 I've somehow gotten 8 Sympathy cards made in the last month?  But I find when you come up with a card that works, it's best to make multiples, as they're something that you need to have on hand.  So here are this week's efforts - I was able to make four of these, using the pretty One Canoe Two papers, Verve die and sentiment, Spellbinders edge die and leafy die from Pinkfresh Studio.

Sympathy Cards

 I always need a stash of these at work, so put together four of these.  My love of patterned paper, means that I have plenty of pretty papers on hand, and this is the perfect way to use them.

Stamp set is Verve, die is Pinkfresh Studio, paper is One Canoe Two.

You are Simply Amazing

 I love this sentiment and word die from Verve!  I am making a couple of cards to donate today - using this pretty yellow/taupe/blue floral from my stash of old CTMH papers.  I kept them simple, due to the busy print. The butterflies are die cut from a shimmery tan cardstock, with a little Pinkfresh Golden Pearl to finish them off.

Deepest Sympathy

 They are the hardest cards to make, but we all need them from time to time.  I made up a couple of sympathy cards for coworkers this week.  I kept it simple, and used this beautiful paper from One Canoe Two, and a sentiment & die cuts from Verve.

My Spellbinders Hemstitched Rectangle die provided this pretty eyelet detail for a little contrast with the dark blue background.

Caffeinated Christmas

 There's a new challenge starting this month called Caffeinated Christmas, with (you guessed it!) coffee/tea/beverage themed cards with a Christmas theme.  Every month has a little something extra, and they're starting with snowflakes.  It's the last day to enter, so I rummaged through my file of Verve bits to find some mugs, and pulled out my Verve Holiday Treats stamp set to make the sentiments.  Some Echo Park papers and a little glitter cardstock and they came together pretty quickly:

And these are my first two Christmas cards made this year!  I hope to play along with the challenge often.

2021 Spring/Summer Coffee Lover's Blog Hop!

 It's here!!  And I'm all prepped and ready to go with my (first?) post...  Visiting a couple of old favourites, as nothing beats Verve coffee stamp sets:

                     

Patterned paper is from Home Again by Carta Bella.  Dies are Cups of Cheer from Memory Box, Hexagons from MFT and A2 Double Stitched Rectangle Die from Art Impressions.  Stamp set is Better With You from Verve.  You can find the rest of the hop here!

Anything is Possible with Coffee

I was able to put together a second card for the 2020 Spring & Summer Coffee Lover's Blog Hop, and wanted to do a slimline card:

 Using all product that's been around awhile... Cream & Sugar Doodlebug Designs paper, Verve sentiment & die, and Tim Holtz Blueprint Sketches from Stamper's Anonymous.

 The white circle & squares are all adhered with 3D adhesive tape to raise them up a little.

Many thanks to Amy Tsurata for putting together a fun week as always!

2020 Spring/Summer Coffee Lover's Blog Hop

Today is the start of the 2020 Spring/Summer Coffee Lover's Blog Hop, so I dug into all my coffee themed goodies to put together a little something:

The plaid is from my favourite paper pad of the moment - Goldenrod by One Canoe Two.  All stamps and dies are from Verve - still my go-to products for coffee cards!

 The pink and silver papers behind the sentiment are both lovely and pearlescent, providing lots of shimmer along with the matte sequins.  I die cut the coffee word die and layered it 4 times to give it a little extra height.

Check out the hop - there will be hundreds of entries, and lots of fun prizes for participants :o)

2019 Fall/Winter Coffee Lover's Blog Hop!

It's Day 1 of the 2019 Fall/Winter Coffee Lover's Blog Hop!  I pulled out an image and sentiment from a Verve digi set from a couple of years ago to put a little Pumpkin Spice card together:

Bit of a busy card with a mish-mash of die cut shapes and patterns...  (It's a little less wild looking in person!)  Just using up a few older paper bits and pieces from some Doodlebug designs sheets, as it's a bit of a mission of mine to use things up from my craft room stash!  I'll be back with a few more fall & wintry coffee cards later throughout the week.  Enjoy the hop!

Most Days Require Chocolate

Using a bunch of old stuff today, to put together a couple of fun cards for a friend.  Verve's Chocolate stamps and word die were perfect for what I had in mind, and these ancient Close To My Heart papers with the chocolate accents made them even better:

 I couldn't resist adding a little zigzag detailing with chocolate coloured thread... and the new Art Impressions Tag Die is amazing!  Notice the little ring around the hole?  Yes, it's a separate die that comes in the set - there's a wonderful attention to detail, that let's you add the perfect finishing touch to your card (you're going to hear me go on and on about these dies!!)

Enjoy the day!

2018 Holiday Coffee Lover's Blog Hop

*Two posts in one day!  Please scroll down for my Colourific design team post*

It's back!!  The 2018 Holiday Coffee Lover's Blog Hop kicks off today, so I hustled home from work and put a little something together.  I'm using some of my much-loved Verve stamps today... and I'd like to give a huge shout out to Julee Tilman who's been a big supporter of the hop for years, and made the best coffee lover's stamps around.  Here's my first effort for the hop:

I pulled out some Lawn Fawn Perfectly Plaid Christmas papers from a couple of years ago, and used Laurel Seabrook's Sketchy Saturday sketch.

Ink Blended Sky

Another of my ink blended cards to share today, using this wonderful Spellbinder's tree die:

I don't know if you can see it or not, but I spattered the background with a little water, and it gives the impression of a few stars in  the evening sky.
Inks are Twisted Citron, Broken China, Mermaid Lagoon & Blueprint sketch Distress Oxides; Spellbinder's die, Verve Sentiment.

Ink Blending

It's been a little quiet here on my blog... I've been doing lots of class planning behind the scenes, so I'll have those to share in a little bit.  I spent the day experimenting with some Distress Oxide inks, tweaked this idea that I saw on Pinterest:

Inks are Picked Raspberry, Spiced Marmalade & Wild Honey Distress Oxides; Sentiment is Verve's Happy Thoughts; Butterfly Die is Memory Box; Verve Pastel Sequin Mix.

Verve Inspiration challenge

I am happy that the Verve Inspiration challenge is back!  It's been on hiatus for a while, and though I didn't always get to play along, I followed it religiously every month in the past.  So tonight I decided to play with my oxide inks, and was inspired to use the Freshly Made Sketch for my design.  I went with a couple of different greens, and started out with white mugs like the inspiration photo, but ended up painting them to give them a little more life:

Distress Oxide Inks are Lucky Clover & Twisted Citron; Stamp sets are Borderline, One Cup and Simply Amazing by Verve; Verve pastel sequin mix.

Non traditional valentines

I made up a couple of Valentines for my family this weekend... I pulled out some bright papers to put a couple of fun cards together.  The first one is also using the Fusion Card Challenge sketch & inspiration photo:

Patterned papers are Let's Polka in the Meadow by Lawn Fawn; Heart dies are Wavy Hearts by Verve; Chocolate word die by Verve; Stitched Circle & Square STAX dies; Stamp sets are Better Together & Chocolate by Verve; Happy Valentine's Day sentiment is Art Impressions.  Inks are Glacier by CTMH & Cocoa by Memento; Gold cardstock & sequins are CTMH.

A Card for Allie

It is my niece Allie's birthday today!  And one thing that Allie & I share is our love of cardmaking (you can see a link to her blog over there on the right side of mine).  So when her birthday rolls around, I pull out all the stops to make something extra special, as I know she'll appreciate the love & work that go into it.  Being that she is a tea lover, here's what I came up with:

 This is Verve's One Cup stamp set, along with Lawn Fawn's Perfectly Plaid Chill papers.  The dark blue cardstock & ink is Sapphire from Close To My Heart.  I coloured the cups with Copic markers and added a few translucent sequins to finish things off.

Happy Birthday, Allie!

Fusion & Inspired By

I am using my new favourite Verve set to play along with a few challenges today.  I started off being inspired by the Fusion sketch & photo, as well as Laurel Seabrook's Inspired By photo with all the graphic shapes/muted colours... and this week's Cas-ual Fridays inspiration is "More Coffee Please!":

 I just tweaked the colours a little and made a second one:

I really adore this taupey/grey with the chocolate... I can see why it's such a popular home decor colour combo. *It's a little warmer in real life!

Stamp set is Happiness Is by Verve; Patterned paper is Knit Picky by Lawn Fawn; Ink is Chocolate by CTMH; Cardstock is Whisper, Cocoa, White Daisy & Glacier by CTMH.

Masculine cards

I've got a couple of masculine cards to share today, for several challenges that have closed!  Just couldn't quite get them photographed in time.  Oh well, I'm sharing them anyway :o)  Both are using the older Marjolaine papers from Basic Grey, and the Happy Thoughts stamp set from Verve.  *I am in time for The Paper Players colour challenge, though!  Scroll down to see the combo at the bottom of my post.  Here is one that was for the Fusion Sketch Challenge:

 And another shot to show how lovely the metallic silver strip is!

And this one was from last week's Freshly Made Sketch:

I used the colours from The Paper Players challenge this week: