Pink Ink Stamps - Sending Prayers

Hello friends!
It has been a while since I posted on my blog. I have SO much I'm working on right now! They will all get posted here eventually along with some super exciting news, so don't think I have lost my crafting love, it's going strong :) 

Today I have a sweet card I made with some beautiful stamps from Pink Ink Stamps. 

I stamped Cheery Windowbox and Saying Prayers on some white card stock and colored them with my Copic Markers. I decided to try something a little different for my background around the image. Instead of just some blending, I added a few dots with the darker grey color after I had gone around the image with the lighter shade. I thought it added some fun detail :) I then cut it out with a stitched rectangle die and added a little twine bow at the bottom. I then mounted the whole panel to an A2 top folded kraft card. 

Supplies used from Pink Ink Stamps:

Cheery Window Box 2239
Saying Prayers 10121


Thanks so much for stopping by! Hope you have a wonderful week!

Kay :)

Paper Smooches Design Team Blog Hop

It's Pep Rally week and we are here today to share a sampling of the NEW Paper Smooches April release with you!  FOUR new stamps and EIGHT new dies will be available to purchase on March 31st at 8:00pm pacific time. Once our release goes live, you will find our new products HERE.  

To add extra fun to our blog hop...we are offering up a prize! 

The prize - a $25. gift code to choose what you like at the PS online store.

Here are the details:

• FOUR winners will be chosen at RANDOM from any of the design team blogs and the PS Blog to win the $25. prize.
• Just leave a comment on any of the design team blogs listed below or the PS blog for your chance to win!  (you do not need to comment on all blogs to qualify but it increases your changes) 
• Deadline: You have until midnight PT on Sunday, March 29th to leave a comment. 
• Please check the Paper Smooches blog on Tuesday, March 31st to see if you are one of the FOUR lucky winners.  

Ashley Marcu

Emily Leiphart

JJ Bolton

Jocelyn Olson

Kalyn Kepner

Kay Miller - ( You are here)

Laura Bassen

Laurie Schmidlin

Michele Boyer

Pamela Ho 

Teri Anderson

To increase your chances of winning:

• Tell us that you Facebooked about our blog hop
• Tell us that you Tweeted about our hop
• Tell us that you posted on your blog about our blog hop

(which means that you have up to three extra chances to win on each blog)

I used the new stamp set called Hip Hands for this card and I got a little creative with the watercolor here. It was pretty fun! I inked up the heart hands stamp and then misted it before stamping it on watercolor paper. Then I wet around it and added more of the pink and some yellow ink with my brush and kind of let it run down the paper. I just kept playing and messing with it until I liked it. I stamped the hearts the same way by misting them with water. After this all dried, I added the tiny hearts cut out of glittered fun foam and the love die out of the white fun foam. I threw on a few sequins for some bling :)

Paper Smooches Products used:

Hip Hands stamp set ( Available March 31)

Love and Cherish Dies

Next stop on the hop is Laura!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Hugs,

Kay :)

Just for Fun #2 Easter

Hello! I hope your week is off to a good start! I have to tell you I have a serious case of spring fever. I just want to be outside, even if I'm just sitting out in the grass! I'm having a hard time staying in the house, even in my wonderful and happy craft room! 

I did make some fun cards over the weekend though. Easter is rapidly approaching and I hadn't made any Easter cards, so I got out my new Lawn Fawn Easter set and dies. 

I colored the images with Copic Markers and I used Distress inks for the background. I used the new Cracked Pistachio for the green! OH my is that ever a wonderful color! Love it!

Here's another

I watercolored the circle background. The grass was cut out of some paper I had watercolored first, and the bunny and flowers were colored again with Copics and some tiny white dots on the flowers with my white gel pin :)

And the finale :)

This one I watercolored the background with the smooshing technique. I really have to watch auto correct, because it keeps changing to smooshing to smooching!  And although I do love my stamps, I don't go around kissing them. Haha! Well I wouldn't share it on my blog if I did anyway...

I watercolored the basket of eggs, but I used Copics on the egg with jellybeans. I don't know why I changed mediums in the middle of this card. I was just messing around and trying out different things. It's okay to do that you know ...

Supplies I used:

Eggstra Special Easter by Lawn Fawn

Stitched Rectangle dies by Lawn Fawn

And since all of this is brand spanking new to me stuff (NBUS) I am adding this to Darnell's NBUS challenge!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Hope you're enjoying some spring weather too!

Hugs,

Kay :)

Happy Days with Penny Black

Hello Friends!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

I have another cute card made with Penny Black stamps! Do you know that I still have Penny Black stamps that I bought years ago when I was first stamping and card making. They are still one of my all time favorite companies. I just love their cute images!

I don't do one layer cards, because I can't. I mess up and then have to throw away good paper. I've never been able to do them, but yes, this is indeed a one layer card! And I masked! Another thing I don't do! :) So anyway, I stamped the adorable little Mimi in black ink and colored her with Copic markers, then my friends, I made a mask... yes I did. I cut around all those tiny little flowers and inside the watering can handle, I did it.... Then I stuck that masked down and sponged a little blue sky in and a little green grass in. With the mask still in place, using a paint brush and a little water added, I  flicked a little bit of the green and blue ink over the sponging. 

Penny Black Supplies:

30-277 Happy Days

Distress Inks:

Peacock Feathers

Crushed Olive

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Hope you have a wonderful week!

Kay :)

Penny Black Sneak Peek!

Hello there!

I have a fun card up on the Penny Black Simplicity Sister site today!

To see the whole card and read all about how I created this cute card head on over to the Penny Black Simplicity Sisters site!

Thanks so much stopping by!

Kay :)

Paper Smooches Funness

Hello Friends!

I wanted to share a card I made for the March Paper Smooches release! I have had so much fun watercoloring lately! I used to watercolor years ago, and really didn't want to get back into it. It seemed "old" to me, but I am so glad that I did! I have had SO much fun playing with my watercolors and using my distress inks for watercoloring and I just love the look!

I simply wet my piece of watercolor paper and dabbed on some distress ink with a watercolor brush. So very easy! After it dried, I splattered it with water, embossed the swirly stitches, heat embossed the sentiment, and added the butterfly with foam tape. The butterfly was cut out of some paper I had sponged with Distress inks. I added a little detail with my white gel pen.

Supplies From Paper Smooches Used:

Butterfly Duet Dies

Stitched Flourishes Dies

Luminous Spring Stamp set

Distress Inks:

Worn Lipstick

Picked Raspberry

Spiced Marmelade

Mustard Seed

Thank you so much for stopping by!

Hope you have a happy day!

Hugs,

Kay :)

#1 Just For Fun - Because It's Spring

Hello Friends!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! We got up to 70 yesterday and the sun was shinning all day. My favorite little girl ( well she is not so little anymore) and I got out for a very long walk in the woods, one of our favorite things to do.  We hiked and rested on big rocks, waded in the creek and laughed at the crazy pug who came along with us! It was great!

Today I have a card that I made over the weekend just for fun. I am going to start posting once a week, one card that I do just for fun. I buy way too many stamps and dies, I know a lot of you can relate to this, and so many of them get put away and never used. Sometimes you just need to dig though that box of NBUS ( from Darnell) and start playing with it. 

I have had Fresh Cut Flowers from WPlus9 ever since the set came out as a new release, and I have never used it. It's one of the prettiest stamp sets I have ever seen. I have SO many fabulous cards pinned on Pinterest with this set... but still it sits in my unused stamp pile.  Why? I have no idea! It's like I was saving it because it was too beautiful to use?? Weird, I know!

So anyway, that is the stamp set that I chose to use for my first "Just for Fun" post! I stamped and stamped and cut out and cut out all the little flowers and leaves from the set, and then I played around with lots of different card design ideas. I made 6  cards with this set!! They are so springy and happy and it was so fun!

This one was heavily inspired by this card, by Laura Bassen. I pretty much love everything she does, and when I saw the shaded circle, I mentally tucked that away in my "totrysoon" box. So here it is!

Pretty simple card, I just cut out a circle for a stencil and blended some Peacock Feathers distress in in it. I added the little strip of striped paper down the side. Wow, I love that! I have that tucked away in my idea box to use again too! I glued the two biggest flowers down with foam tape and tucked everything else underneath them with glue dots and Mono Adhesive. I cut out four of the Hellos and stacked them together for dimension. A tip here, I have found it SO much easier if I glue the first one down to the card and stack them from there. I was having a really hard time gluing them together before hand. Grrr...

Supplies:

Fresh Cut Flowers - WPlus9

Hello die - Clearly Besotted

Stitched Rectangle - Lawn Fawn

I will be back this week with some more of my Fresh Cut Flowers cards! I even have a Christmas one to share!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Hugs,

Kay :)

Poppystamps Sneak Peek!

Hello Friends!

I have a new card up on the Poppystamps blog! Very Eastery!

To see the whole card and read all about how I put it together, hop on over to the Poppystamps blog!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Hugs,

Kay :)

Welcome with Taylored Expressions!

Hello Friends!

I can't believe it has been so long since I posted on my blog! I have been busy making cards, but they are for design team work that will be posted in the future. I have also been cleaning out my craft room and organizing a bit, because I have three new storage units coming today! One for my Distress Ink Pads, one for my regular ink pads and one for my Copic Markers. I am SO excited! I'll try to get some pictures to show you when I get them all set up! Can't wait!

And to top all of this busy-ness off, it has warmed up here! The snow has melted and we had one day this past week that hit 70! I have a touch of spring fever I am afraid :) I get all funny and want to play outside when this happens.  But today it is raining, and that's okay, because I have lots of fun inside things to to do!

So I do have a card up on the Taylored Expressions blog today! I just love these adorable little houses! 

To see the whole card and read all about how I put this together, hop on over to the Taylored Expressions blog!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Hope you have a lovely weekend!

Hugs,

Kay :)

Cozy Christmas

Hello Friends!

It's Friday! Yay! And even with all the snow on the driveway and the roads, the girl and I are going to McDonalds for breakfast! That may not sound that exciting to you, but we love to take the iPads with us and get coffee, hot chocolate and Egg McMuffins, and just relax and chit chat. 

So I managed to make a Christmas card this week! I'm going to do my best to post at least one Christmas card a week. That's the plan anyway.

For this card, I used a die from Cottage Cutz that I got for Christmas. Am I the only one who gets Christmas stuff for Christmas? :D Anyway, I cut a piece of watercolor paper out with one of my rectangle stitched dies, and sponged a small amount of Antique Linen distress ink in the center. Then I smooshed my ink pad down on an acrylic block mixed it with a little bit of water and flicked some little speckles on the piece.  The holly and bow, I cut out of white card stock and colored with my Copic markers. I had never tried this before, but I loved the way it turned out, so this is a technique that I will for sure being doing again. I layered the holly and bow with foam tape and glue dots, stamped the sentiment and added the little gold enamel dots last.

Supplies:

Holly Branch w/Bow - Cottage Cutz

Sentiment - Papertrey Ink

Stitched dies - Lawn Fawn

Well that's it for me today! We have a warm up on the way, so hopefully some of this snow will melt, and we'll be able to get outside and play more. Until then, I'll just make cards and clay things, because that's real fun :)

Have a great weekend!

Hugs,

Kay :)

Springtime With Poppystamps!

Hello Friends!

Well, it snowed all day long yesterday, so we have more inches on inches, but... I have a sneak peek of a Spring :)

I have a card up on the Poppystamps blog that's full of Springness!

To see the whole card and read all about how I made it,  just hop on over to the Poppystamps blog.

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Warm thoughts....

Kay :)

Sending Love with Pink Ink Stamps

Hello Friends and happy Monday!

We got more snow over the weekend! We are up to about 11 inches now with a coating of ice on the top.  The hubby and I got out for a long walk in it yesterday and let me tell you, it is very difficult to walk in snow with an ice crust! First you have to crunch through it, then you sink down in it, then you have to pull your feet back out again. Now do that over and over again for a long time. Whew! I worked up a sweat fast and had my hat and scarf tied around my waist long before we got back home. I do have to admit, it was very pretty though.... even on March 1st :)

Well, I have some exciting news! I was invited by Peggy Jo Ackley to be on the design team for Pink Ink Stamps.  After spending many years licensing her beautiful designs and illustrations to the paper, gift, and home decor industry, Peggy has recently acquired the much beloved images created by Karen Lockhart for the Lockhart Stamp Company, and is now offering her own gorgeous artwork as stamps, through Pink Ink Stamp Co. You can visit her store here, and you can purchase Pink Ink Stamps at Ellen Hutson which carries the entire line.

Isn't that stamp beautiful!! It looks so detailed, but it really only took me a few minutes to color. I used my Copic markers. I used three shades of red, three shades of green and two shades of warm grey.  The kraft colored background mat, I cut out of kraft paper and speckled with some white acrylic paint. I mounted everything with foam tape for a little dimension. 

Supplies:

Wings of Love stamp

Stitched rectangle dies - Lawn Fawn

And before I leave you, I must share a photo of me beside our lovely little creek in the beautiful winter wonderland :)

Thanks so much for stopping by! Hope you have a happy week!

Kay :)