It's always better when...

Happy Friday and thanks for visiting! I hope you are staying warm wherever you are! It's been bitterly cold here in the Midwest. The kids only had 1 day of school since the end of Winter break. They were so excited!! Me too, I would have hated to go out in this weather. I do love snow and winter in general, just not this extreme cold.

Time for me to share my first 2015 "Just for Fun - Rubber Stamps"  creation with you.
Their 40% New Year's Sale is still going on until January 15th. So there is still some time to shop. These stamps are a wonderful red rubber quality, and you can choose from wood mounted, cling mounted or unmounted.

There is something about the stamp "Collaged Row of Houses" that I absolutely love and it was something I had chosen for my very first Design Team packet last year.

This was a very simple card to make. I just cut out some "hills" using old designer papers and an old oval template. Next I stamped the image, colored and fussy cut. The houses actually connect in the stamp, but I wanted to use them separately. The background paper is also a very old designer paper from my stash. Sentiment is by JFF as well. It's perfect to cut apart and adhere the lines to the card or mixed media project separately. To finish it off, I simply added a prima flower with brad and a punched out butterfly with some sticky pearls. 

Here is a closer view of the houses.

Product list:

Collaged Row of Houses, when friends gather together
SU retired designer papers, copic blending card, SU olive
prima flower, brad, MS butterfly punch, sticky pearls
copics for coloring

I am playing along here:

Clear It Out - Anything Goes   
Loves Rubber Stamps- Anything Goes
Papertake Weekly --  Anything Goes
Party Time Tuesdays- - Anything Goes
Crafting from the Heart - -- Anything Goes
Ooh La La Creations -- Words to Inspire

Have a great day!!

Guiding Light

Today's card is actually something I made a while ago, but I never posted it on my blog. You might have seen in on Whimsy's Inspirations Facebook page, if you are following it. But since I didn't get time to make a card for this week, I thought I could post this one here, since most of my blog readers never saw it. 

I used the stamp set "Guiding Light" from Whimsy's Raindrop Echo Designs. This is one of the older stamp sets, but so beautiful, and perfect for those hard to make masculine cards.

The blue-ish colored squares were done using dylusions inks, and then I simply stamped the images onto the panels using black ink. As you can see, I only used part of the lighthouse to fit the square. I also used white craft ink to stamp some of the sentiments onto the squares. 

On the white part on the bottom portion, I  used the same set to add a design using kraft colored ink. Simply embellished with some twine to finish it off.

The sentiment is from the set "Simple Everyday Greetings" also from Whimsy's RED.

You can see the complete sets below.

 

And that would be all for today!

 I will be back with a new project on Friday. 

Stay warm and enjoy the rest of your day. School is cancelled here for the second day due to extreme cold. As much as I actually love snow  (yes, I do, I just hate driving in it), I have to say that these extreme cold temperatures take the fun out of it! But luckily it's supposed to warm up a bit in a couple days :-)

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!!

JFF Rubber Stamp Sale!!

Happy Friday everyone! Just a quick post to let you know that Just For Fun Rubber Stamps is having a fabulous sale going on RIGHT NOW until the 15th of January. 

All stamps are on sale for 40% off. This is an amazing sale, and don't forget you can choose the stamps from wood mounted, cling mounted or unmounted. You don't need a coupon code. The discount will be applied once items are in the shopping cart.

Have fun shopping!