You make my heart smile

Happy first Sunday of the year everyone and thanks so much for taking the time to stop by my blog today! I hope your year is off to a great start! I can't believe winter break is already over, as of tomorrow. I know the kids are not ready yet to go back to school and daily homework, and I wish they had a few more days of winter break too.

I am very happy to let you know that I am continuing with most of my Design Team spots, Penny Black and More Challenge, Whimsy Stamps and Just for Fun Rubber Stamps. I truly love being part of all these 3 wonderful teams, two of the three I have been part of for over 4 years now, and I feel very blessed that I can continue with them!

Today's card was made for our first Challenge of the year at Penny Black and More.

This month we'd like to see 

Masks, Stenciling, and/or Embossing

Lots of possibilities here, so I hope you'll join us for a chance to win one of the wonderful prizes!

 I used 3 new transparent stamp sets from Penny Black's newest Love and Friendship collection.

 "Mimi's Love",  "Posted with love", "So very much", they are available in my Etsy shop. 

I hope you can see my stenciling. I used a chickenwire stencil. Tried a darker shade of beige/brown, but it just didn't appeal to my eye, so I decided on the lighter shade.

I started out by stenciling, next I stamped the sentiment heart, then the sentiment in black. I thought the little bird from the same set "So Very Much" would look cute sitting on the sentiment, so I used some turquoise ink to stamp him. I needed something below the sentiment, and the "posted with love" sentiment set was perfect for that. Simply stamped the circle postmark, in turquoise ink, then the cancellation mark ink beige ink. I added a little button and some twine and finished it off with sewing. The little girl "Mimi" is from the set "Mimi's Love". She's been stamped onto xpress blending card, colored with copics and fussy cut. This was actually my very first time using Mimi. She's so cute and was a joy to color! Can't wait to color up another Mimi from the set!

In the photo below you can see my stenciling a little bit better.

By the way, have you tried the new Penny Black clear stamps yet? I don't exactly know when they changed the material for their clear stamps, but these new stamps will surely not fall off your clear blocks anymore, and they stamp beautifully. You can't even compare them to their first few lines of transparent stamps. I absolutely love the quality of these clear stamps! 

I am also entering my card to the following challenges:
Crafty Catz -  Anything Goes
Creative Corner -  Be Mine
STAMPlorations Challenge Blog -   January - Stamps & Ink
As You Like it Challenge -  Favorite Card Shape or Fold & Why (I know my favorite shape is boring, but I just love that this card shape is easy to mail and doesn't cost extra postage. And I generally love designing my card on a a rectangle shape.)
DRS Designs -  Stencils
Red Rubber Inspirationals -  New Stamps
Divas by Design - Anything goes
Simon Says Stamp -  Anything Goes
Loves Rubber Stamps - Something Old, Something New ( I used old papers and new stamps.)

And that would be all from me. I hope you have some time to check out the rest of the Design Team's work. I know they all  have created something fabulous too! Don't forget you can enter our challenge up to 3 times, and you don't have to use a Penny Black stamp to play along. We just ask that no digis are used. As mentioned above we have several wonderful prizes up for grabs by these very generous companies: Penny Black, All occasion dies, PPR Papercrafts, Crafty Ribbons. 

Product list:
Mimi's Love, So Very Much, posted with love

Prima Marketing designer paper, SU kraft card stock, xpress blending card

Distress Inks, SU inks, memento ink

button and twine

copics for coloring

Happy Stamping!!