Wishing you a relaxing day! {Purple Onion Designs}

Hi, crafty friends. I have a sweet, relaxing birthday card to share today featuring the new Bubble Bath Time stamp from the Spring is in the Air collection from Purple Onion Designs, illustrated by Pei.

I stamped the image with black ink onto X-Press It blending card and colored it with Copics.

I added a mask to my image, then used the Bokeh Elements stencil duo from Waffle Flower to softly ink blend additional bubbles in an ombré effect in the background. I used Sweet Pea, Grapefruit and Buttercup inks, all colors from Concord & 9th, making sure to add slightly more color on the smaller circles than the large ones, while still keeping it fairly light.

I stamped a sentiment from the Good Libations stamp set using Dragonfruit ink from Concord & 9th, and I also stamped a sentiment from the Summer Days sentiment set using Grapefruit ink.

I trimmed my panel down slightly and added it with of dimension to a top fold white card base that I ombré ink blended using the same three colors I used with the stencils. I did also add a dot of black Glaze pen to the eyes of the ducks for a finishing touch.

Simple color palette for this one.

Friendly reminder: this image is part of the Spring is in the Air collection from Pei at Purple Onion Designs. A bundle with all 12 images in the collection is available at a 30 % discount until July 10th, 2025.

Gratulerer – I dag feirer vi deg {Papiria}

Hi, crafty friends! I’m back today with a card I created for the Papiria blog, featuring the Sweet Stems bundle from Concord & 9th. There’s a die set, a stamp set and a stencil set that all coordinate. I’ve made a card previously where I focused on the dies, but today’s card is all about those stencils (though I did use both the die set and the stamp set as well).

I started with a panel of white cardstock. I put down the first stencil, which is for the background, and used Harbor and Powder inks. The second stencil does the stems and leaves, and I used Sprout with a bit of Parsley at the base for those. For the large part of the flowers, I used Ballet Slipper and for the fourth and final stencil, which is for the smaller part of the flower, I used Honeysuckle. I also used the small circle burst stamp in the stamp set to add a little more detail. I stuck to Honeysuckle ink, and I just love the way these flowers turned out.

I used the cover die to create a frame from white cardstock that I glued on top of my ink blending. I mounted sentiment sticker strips from Kort & Godt using foam tape and adhered the sentiment in the top third of the card. I rarely add my sentiments to the top right, but I think it works. I finished off very simple with a few iridescent dew drops from Pinkfresh Studio.

Screaming tigers

Hi, crafty friends. I’m sharing a simple birthday card today that I created for the Kort & Godt gallery blog. I focused on one product: a pack of stickers that include tigers, a bunch of sentiment strips and some larger sentiments. These stickers are 200 gsm, making them nice and sturdy.

I started by running a panel of white cardstock through my die cut machine with an embossing folder. I chose the Crystal Distortion embossing folder from Simon Says Stamp, which leaves some fun texture in the background without being too distracting.

I added the tigers to the panel with some foam squares. The texture on the dry embossed panel makes it uneven, and the foam squares help – I also love the dimension it adds. I cut off the parts of the tigers hanging off the edge, trimmed the panel down and mounted it on foam tape to a card base I created from Canyon Clay cardstock from Papertrey Ink.

The large sentiment is from the same sheet of stickers as the tigers, which means the colors fit perfectly. I added some foam squares to the back and adhered it above the bottom tiger.

I added some black bling in a couple of different sizes to finish the card. This is actually the third card I’ve shared in a row without any stamping. I’m sure I’ll use some stamping soon, but it’s fun to use other products and techniques.

Products used:

ST1006 (tiger and sentiment)

BE107 (small bling)

ST208 (large bling)

Gratulerer {Kort & Godt}

Hi, crafty friends! I shared this card on the Kort & Godt gallery blog yesterday, but I thought I’d share here, as well.

It’s kind of weird that I, as an avid colorist, really enjoy using images like this, where all the work is done for you and you just have to cut it apart from the other images on the same sheet. I created a 4 bar card this time, so even though the image itself isn’t THAT big, it still takes center stage on this smaller card. I added a thin strip of copper glitter cardstock above and below the image. It gives more definition and it also works really well with the orange balloons in the image.

I used the Terrazzo press plate from Altenew to create some fun texture in the background. I inked up the press plate with Caribbean Sea ink from My Favorite Things and pressed it onto Caribbean Sea cardstock, also from MFT. I mounted my image on foam tape, added a sticker sentiment that I also popped up and finished off the card with a few faceted pearls. I love these!!

Kort & Godt products used:

MA1008

May all your wishes come true {Mo’s Digital Pencil}

Hi, crafty friends. I shared the coloring of this cute Kissing Frogs image from Mo Manning last week on Instagram, with promises to share the finished card this week. Today’s the day, because the week is almost over. Time is flying by so quickly right now, it’s crazy.

When I printed my image, I printed Kissing Frogs in full strength, but I also put the Cottage Treehouse behind her at a 10 % opacity. I erased the bottom part of the background before printing it all, and I like the look of the faint background behind the little princess.

Once my coloring was complete, I used the Notebook Edge die from My Favorite Things to cut from the edge of the panel for a little bit of interest. I mounted my little scene using foam tape onto a card base I created from Cornflower cardstock from My Favorite Things.

I stamped a sentiment from the Birthday messages stamp set from Mama Elephant using VersaMark ink onto a scrap of Cornflower cardstock, added super fine detail embossing powder from Ranger and heat embossed. I always heat emboss from the back of the back of the cardstock only, it gives a much better result than heat embossing from the front.

I cut my sentiment down to a strip, added a couple of layers of cardstock behind it for dimension and adhered it near the top left of the card, before finishing off with a few gems and confetti stars from the Starry Night mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards. The stars made me think of “When you wish upon a star”, which goes perfectly with the sentiment and the “Once upon a time” theme for the Coloring Club Challenge.

I used a fairly limited color palette for this one, I feel.

Enjoy your day {Kort & Godt}

Hi, crafty friends! I’m sharing a fairly simple birthday card today with goodies from Kort & Godt, as well as a fun stencil set I bought at a craft fair last weekend.

To start, I die cut this focal image with a tag die. I die cut another in white to put on the back for a little strength and put my tag aside while I worked on my card base.

I used the Wimpelkette stencil set from Create a smile to create the pennants in the background. The set consists of 3 stencils that layer and create an easy pennant background. I used Peachy Glow and Amber Blaze inks from Altenew with two of the stencils, and through the third one, I added a layer of Solar Paste in the Golden Hour color. It creates a little bit of shine and some texture.

I mounted the tag with foam tape in the center of the card, used 1/16″ foam squares on the back of the Gratulerer  word sticker to make it stand out a little, then trimmed down the sentiment strips slightly and adhered them to the tag.

To finish off the card I added a few black gems and tied a bow using black cotton thread from Kort & Godt.

Kort & Godt products used:

MA1008 – image

Die 211 – tag die

BE107 – black gems (small size)

ST208 – black gems (larger size)

ST1002 – Word and sentiment sticker strips

TR124 – black cotton thread

Happy happy happy happy birthday {Papiria}

Hi, crafty friends. Today’s card features a single stamp set, four ink colors (and black) as well as matching cardstock colors. Nothing else. Sooo simple.

First of all, this card is huge. It measures 5 1/2 x 7 1/4″. I started by stamping HAPPY from the All the birthdays stamp set from Concord & 9th onto half a sheet of Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink. I used Aqua Sky, Buttercup, Grapefruit and Honeysuckle inks, all from Concord & 9th. It was easy to shift the cardstock up and down in my Misti to get them all lined up. I then stamped the scripty birthday word in the stamp set using Obsidian ink from Altenew, making sure that the bottom part of the letters matched up with the Grapefruit stamping.

I trimmed down the panel, added a few more panels behind it for dimension and adhered it to my card front that I had covered with strips of cardstock colors in the same colors as my inking. I decided not to add any embellishments to this, sometimes you just need a simple card. This one would be super easy to create in a lot of different color combos. I’m longing for proper spring and summer, so mine’s with happy colors.

Happy birthday {Papiria}

Hi, crafty friends! Today is Mother’s Day in Norway, and I probably should have thought ahead enough to make a Mother’s Day card to share today, but I’m not always a good thinkaheader and have a birthday card to share instead. My design is pretty generic, though, and it would be easy to swap out “birthday” for “Mother’s Day”. I even think the color scheme is perfect for mother’s day.

So many things went wrong in the creation of this card, but I fixed/covered up most of my mistakes and I’m pretty happy with the end result. I started by stamping birthday from the All the birthdays stamp set from Concord & 9th onto an A6 panel of Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink, as well as onto a piece of Nectar cardstock from Concord & 9th that was large enough to cover the shaker area. I didn’t want to stamp it directly onto the card base, that would have made it harder to line up. More on that later. So far, so good, right? I then die cut the HAPPY from the Happy Birthday words dies from Kristina Werner into my white panel, and kept the counters of the A and the Ps to put back in later. Things were still going according to plan. There’s a small asterisk looking stamp in the All the birthdays stamp set. I wanted to stamp that randomly across my white panel and pulled out an acrylic block. We used to stamp with acrylic blocks all the time before the Misti was invented. I’m not a ding dong, surely, I’m capable of stamping this tiny stamp a few times with an acrylic block without messing up, right? Turns out I AM a ding dong and royally messed up on the Eucalyptus colored asterisk above the A and P. Pretty much in the middle of the card, isn’t that typical? I knew I was going to add sequins, and I could strategically place one to cover up my boo boo. I cut off 3/16″ on all sides to allow the card base color to work as a frame once the card was complete.

I then adhered a piece of acetate behind my letters, glued the counters (interior pieces of the letters) back in onto the acetate, flipped the panel over and added tons of foam tape around the shaker window pretty close to the window, even putting tiny strips behind the counters of the Ps, before putting a few sequins from Altenew into the shaker well before sealing it shut with another piece of acetate. I made sure to add the sequins the right side up. That was not a good idea, but I didn’t realize at the time and adhered my shaker piece onto the stamped piece of Nectar cardstock to line up the stamping on the two pieces. The problem with the sequins all facing the same way is that once they shook around, they clumped together like stacks and were pretty much impossible to separate by flicking the card. The other mistake? Adding the foam tape so close to the letters and behind the counters, my sequins didn’t really have a chance to move much. I had adhered everything to the card base at this point.

I’m not shy with glue when adhering things, but I was able to slide a thin 6″ steel ruler under my shaker panel and basically used it as a saw to cut it away from the card base, cutting horizontally so I would preserve the card base as well as I could. I didn’t have another sheet of Nectar cardstock to create a new A6 card base, so this was the way to fix it. I then pulled off the nectar piece with the stamping, then the back acetate piece, which took with it a few of the small pieces of foam tape that were in the way anyway, and then I emptied out the sequins, made sure there were no sticky pieces left behind, put sequins back into the now rectangular shaker window, this time randomly with some upside down and some right side up – and I added way more sequins too, before sealing it shut with a new piece of acetate. The piece of Nectar cardstock I’d stamped on initially had crease lines after being pulled off, so I had to restamp birthday on a new piece of Nectar. Evidently, I didn’t put the stamp into the Misti the same way as I had the first time, because the new stamping wouldn’t really line up with the old stamping – part of the nature of photopolymer stamps, they’re soft and can be curved. The loops on the b and h don’t perfectly line up with the stamping on the white panel the way they initially did, but this is me embracing imperfection, I wasn’t redoing the white panel too.

I adhered my shaker panel to the card base and cut a couple of additional white panels to put on the inside of the card. This means I have a white panel to write my personal message, the card is a little sturdier because it’s now thicker, and the piece I adhered on the back of the front covers up the fact that I could actually see through parts of the card base after my little sawing earlier. Not shy about glue, remember? Yeah, the glue does its job, and I tore parts of it down to almost printer paper thickness. I added sequins to the front of the card (one covering up my stamping mishap) and I was done. At least I thought so… I was happy with the card, but then noticed as I was writing up the blog post for Papiria that the counter of the second P had slipped a little and wasn’t in the right spot anymore. It was bugging me. It was *really* bugging me, so I peeled it off, die cut a new one that I adhered in the right spot and took a couple of new photos. You can still see the droopy counter in the first two photos here, but that’s my card. I got there in the end.

Birthday hug {Kort & Godt}

Hi, crafty friends. It’s been a while since I’ve posted. I have no excuse. I always start the year a little slow crafting wise. It takes me a while to wind down after the hustle and bustle before Christmas. I think I just need time to start fresh. Last year my post holiday slump lasted until March, I was just making cards on autopilot until an event weekend away, which helped. This year, I’m hoping to get my mojo back sooner. I’ll clean up the mess on my desk left from creating this card, and then we’ll go from there.

Speaking of the card, I tend to go for spring/summer themed card and color palettes when we’re in the dead of winter. I want summer so badly, it’s not even funny. Last summer was cold and dreary, the summer before that all rained away. Can we get a proper summer this year? Please? Anyway, I used a floral image from a cut out sheet and paired it with a new die from Kort & Godt. New products help with mojo! This die cuts a circle sentiment, and what I didn’t realize before I actually used it was that it cuts an inside circle, too. It makes the die more versatile than if this were one large sentiment circular panel, but I wanted to use the flowers, so I puzzle pieced the two back together, added another circle panel on the back for a little bit of strength and a place to adhere the thin frame to.

I ran a quarter sheet of Ballet Slipper cardstock from Concord & 9th through my die cutting machine using an embossing folder, which gave this fun dimensional background. I mounted the die cut image in the center, cut down a couple of sentiment sticker strips and mounted those as well, before finishing off the card with a few faceted pearls.

Kort & Godt products used:

MA1012 (image)

ST1001 (sentiment sticker strips)

Die 365 (circle sentiment die)

ST178 (faceted pearls)

You’re not getting older, just better {Papiria}

Hi, crafty friends. Fall is here, but I’m not a fan, so I’m holding on to summer for dear life with today’s card, which happens to be a floral one I created for Papiria using the Blooming Delight Build-a-Garden bundle from Altenew. It includes a stamp set, coordinating die set and coordinating layering stencils, as well as a small blender brush.

I started by stamping the large floral image using Obsidian ink from Altenew. This is a very crisp, dark black pigment ink, so I heat set it before moving on to avoid the risk of the ink smearing. I used the stencils to color them in with Fresh dye inks from Altenew. I used the Sun-Kissed Delights collection for the yellow, the Blushberry Bliss collection for the pink and the Jade Dreams collection for the green. I left out the darkest shade in each of the color families, and opted for Wheat and Nutmeg inks from Concord & 9th for the center of the yellow flower.

Once the image was properly inked, I used a die from the die set to cut out the image. I put foam tape on the back before adhering it to a top fold landscape card base I created from Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink, which is the same cardstock I used for the flowers. I trimmed off the small bits that were hanging over the edge of the card base.

Using a die set from Kort & Godt, I cut the word gratulerer a few times from Honeysuckle cardstock from Concord & 9th, and the shadow layer from 40 lb vellum. I stacked two of the pink on top of the shadow and another two behind the shadow, giving it a little bit of lift off the flowers.

I used a sentiment sticker strip from Kort & Godt for the sub sentiment. The sticker was originally white, but I ink blended with Misty Sage, which is the second lightest color in the Jade Dreams family of fresh dye inks from Altenew. I then trimmed it down to be a little bit narrower and adhered it to the word die cut, before finishing off the card with a couple of enamel dots from the Fall Harvest pack from Altenew.