Warm wishes – season’s greetings {Purple Onion Designs}

October 29, 2026October 29, 2026 ElinLeave a comment

Hi, crafty friends! It’s that time of year: the holiday release from Purple Onion Designs is finally live!! This year, there are two collections: one from Pei and one from Holly Mabutas. Today I’m sharing a card with an image from Pei’s collection, but rest assured – I will have one with Holly’s over the weekend.

The It’s the season! collection consists of 11 images and a sentiment set with five sentiments. I’ll use the sentiments on cards in the upcoming weeks, but the sentiment on this particular card is from the Seasons Sayings sentiment set that came out last year. The image, however, is Magical Christmas, and it’s from this new release. I love the bear and cat waving at Santa’s sleigh in front of the moon. I used the Winter Trees background stamp from the Tofu & Friends Holiday collection from 2023 to fill out the scene a little. It makes it look like they’re deep in the woods in the middle of nowhere. I stamped the background and the moon with Classic Kraft ink from Papertrey Ink, while using Memento Tuxedo Black for the foreground. Once my coloring was complete, I re-stamped Santa’s sleigh with Obsidian ink from Altenew and white heat embossed the little trail of stars behind the sleigh.

This card came together pretty easily, and even though I had planned on using more bluegreens for the clothing, in the end I did go back to my trusty blues. You can just never go wrong with blue! I even stamped the sentiment in Altenew Winter Lake ink, to get even more blue in there. I like having the color of the sentiment match the rest of the card.

Simple color palette for this one. I used a lot of dark colors, and I also used BV27, which is a color I’ve made myself, as I find the gap from 29 to 25 a bit tricky to work with for large night skies like this.

For a limited time, the entire It’s the season! collection is available as a bundle with all 11 images and the five sentiments at a discounted 30% off. The offer is available until Wednesday 11 November, 2026 on the Purple Onion Designs website.

Confirmation card for a basketball boy {Mo’s Digital Pencil}

October 14, 2026October 11, 2026 ElinLeave a comment

Hi, crafty friends! A few weeks ago, I received an order for a confirmation card for a boy who loves basketball. He also likes football, but basketball was more important. I dug through my digital stamps and decided to use Basketball Teen from Mo Manning, as well as the actual football from Soccer Boy, also from Mo Manning. I also printed a few extras of the basketball and the football to use as embellishments for the card.

I colored the basketball teen, the extra basketballs and the footballs with Copics and fussy cut them all. I made an A2 card base using Capri cardstock from Concord & 9th and covered most of it with the Lovende patterned paper from the Ungdommelig collection from Papirdesign. Putting the teen directly on the patterned paper wouldn’t work as it was a very busy pattern, but by using the A2 Oval Basics die set from Kristina Werner, I was able to create a grounding element for my focal point. The die cuts out the oval and a frame in one go, so I die cut it once from Capri cardstock, and once from Soft Stone cardstock from Papertrey Ink. I used the Connected Alphabet die set from My Favorite Things to die cut the letters for the kid’s name in Capri cardstock, stacking a few for dimension.

For the insides, I die cut more of the ovals, and actually used the back of that same patterned paper that I used for the front. Double sided patterned paper is awesome. I rarely use patterned paper anymore, so it was fun to bring it back for this card. I stamped a sentiment from the Konf. 02 stamp set from Norsk Stempelblad AS on the panel on the left using Capri ink from Concord & 9th and embellished the insides with a few basketballs and a football. (I know the photo is a bit blurry, but it was the only one I took of the inside and I didn’t realize until I’d given the card to the lady who ordered it).

Same setup on the back of the card. Another sentiment stamped in Capri ink, also from the Konf. 02 stamp set.

With such a simple image, there weren’t a lot of colors used.

Take a little time to relax {Purple Onion Designs}

October 10, 2026October 10, 2026 Elin1 Comment

Hi, crafty friends! I’ve been MIA for a while, and I don’t really have a good reason. I needed to reorganize my craft room a bit, and my order for the storage I was missing arrived on the day I left for summer vacation. Bad timing, right? The motivation to get it done had taken a holiday by the time I got back, and it just took time with work and life getting in the way. Anyway, I hope I’m back, and I’ve seen lots of holiday cards recently, so you’d think I’d post one now, but nope. As much as I usually love creating holiday cards all year, I’m just not ready yet, in spite of Christmas items having popped up in the grocery stores and other shops weeks ago. The snow that’s currently falling outside my craft room window (yes, it’s snowing *why why WHY*) doesn’t help. In fact, it makes me long for summer, which is why I’m sharing a shaker card today with palm trees in the background and a pig jumping into the ocean!

This little guy (gal, maybe?) is part of the Sunshine and Daydreams collection that released this summer from Purple Onion Designs. (S)he is half of the Swim buddies duo, which also includes a goose. I used the goose on her own for this card, and I had a plan for a shaker card for this pig, and it turned out pretty much I wanted it to. Love it when a plan comes together!!

I stamped the Beachscape background in Memento Rich Cocoa ink and only colored in the part that would be inside the shaker window, leaving the rest uncolored. This is a great trick to draw your eyes in to a focal point, and it gives a cleaner look than coloring the entire background, and the bonus is that it’s also less work, which is always a win!

I used the First Class Frame die from My Favorite Things to create six layers of white cardstock for the shaker walls, using Shortbread cardstock from Concord & 9th for the top layer, with a piece of acetate from Hot off the press for the window. I filled my shaker with a blend of the Sea Glass and Starry Night sequin mixes from Little Things From Lucy’s Cards, as well as a few blue 3 mm diamonds from Kort & Godt.

I used Avocado ink from Concord & 9th to stamp my sentiment, which is from the Sunshine & Rainbows sentiment set. The green color stands out against the white background and ties in nicely with the colored palm trees inside the window.

The Farmhouse color combination from Concord & 9th was my inspiration for the colors I used on this card. It’s a combo I probably wouldn’t have thought of on my own, but I quite like the end result. Give me anything blue, and I’m here for it, that Capri color definitely is a show stopper!