A Card a Day in May!

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A few years back I started this card mailing challenge called “A Card a Day in May” as a way to challenge myself and others to send or hand deliver a card each day for the entire month. This truly is a challenge as each day we need to take a selfie of ourselves mailing and delivering each card.

I set up a private Facebook group where we can share our daily photos! It is a fun way to connect with my team and customers and to mail out and bright the day of 30 different people. I truly look forward to doing it and try my best to not just do a mailbox dump, but to actually send a card each day.

It is a challenge because it takes time, commitment and planning to hit up your mailbox each day! And it doesn’t always happen because of you know LIFE. But I make my best effort and its fun.

Fun Fact: I like a challenge which is why I am personally challenging myself to post a Card a Day in May on my blog as I have sort of been neglecting my blog. Which is silly because A) I PAY FOR IT B) YOU are here reading this right now C)This is a great memory keeping tool for me and a way to curate a collection of things I love.

Making the cards is not my issue so I am going to share a Card Picture a Day in May. I am not going to hold myself to any standards (why add stress) so I am going to share cards that maybe I already have on my Instagram account or are sitting on my cameral roll!

Here is my first card for May 1st! I LOVE IT. I actually made this card for a Color Challenge I have each month with my team. It uses Calypso Coral, Poppy Parade, and Night of Navy. Colors that were chosen at random that I probably would never put together on my own, but actually really love!

So Dear Reader (Yes, I am currently reading the Bridgerton books and watching the show) I encourage you to attempt to send a Card a Day in May. At the very least, follow me along here for some inspiration!

Please feel free to shop by shop by clicking on the image links. This allows me to keep loving what I do.

Gumball Goodness!

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Have you had a chance to play with the super fun and cute Gumball Greetings stamp set yet? I love this set as it makes the cutest kids birthday cards…or if I am being honest, what full sized human would not love to get one of these cheerful cards in the mail? I know I would!

This bundle can be found in the January to June Catalogue and it has endless possibilities! You can also add the Gumball Machine Shaker Domes and Frosted Beads Assortment to this cute product bundle. For my card below I turned my gumball machine into a traditional shaker card!

The base of the card is one of my absolute favorite colors, Coastal Cabana, and I layered on top a Flirty Flamingo striped DSP from the Hostess DSP collection, Pattern Party. I have gotten so much use out of this paper stack. It has definitely been one of my top Host picks!

I cut a piece of Basic White as the main panel and used the Gumball Machine dies to create the cut out for the shaker part. The base and top of the gumball machine is stamped on Flirty Flamingo card stock with the coordinating ink color and then die cut. I love the little details in this die set including the opening at the bottom where a gumball could roll out and the embossed details in the machines’s mechanism. I used some Silver Foil paper to cut that out. The dies even cut a little snit where you could add in your coin! So brilliant!

I also love how the die set includes a little die cut strip of hearts. You can use this as a border accent as I have here or to even die cut some bitty baby hearts to add into your shaker.

The easiest way to create a shaker card is to use our Window Sheets and the Adhesive Strips for a perfect seal around your shaker window!

I cut a piece of Basic White to lay behind the shaker window and stamped the gumballs and hearts from the stamp set in Gorgeous Grape and Pool Party. I then added a pinch of the Frosted Beads inside!

The sentiment was stamped twice, once in the base color of Gorgeous Grape and cut with our Layering Circle Dies. The second time was Coastal Cabana and I hand trimmed the word ‘sweetest’ and popped it up on a Dimensional to give the sentiment a fun touch. Adding a little coordinating Gorgeous Grape Sheer Ribbon behind also helps it pop.

And of course no card is complete with out BLING! Our Basic Rhinestones were the perfect addition here!

The Gumball Greetings includes great elements to complete the inside of your project as well. I added a few Coastal Cabana stripes to the Basic White layer. The sentiment is stamped in Gorgeous Grape and layered on a circle of Flirty Flamingo!

And just in case you missed my Artisan Design Team project from January—here it is again! I created two other cute cards with this fun bundle! You can see that the gumball machine is colored with Stampin’ Blends and uses the Gumball Machine Shaker Dome!

I hope you are inspired to give this fun bundle a creative go! I know I have enjoyed playing around with this fun bundle!

Thanks so much for checking out my blog today! I share way more creative content on my Instagram account so please go give me a follow @stampwithbrenda

Your support is so appreciated as it lets me continue to do what I love!

Color Fusers March 2022

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Hello friend and welcome to the March edition of the Color Fusers Blog Hop! We are all so happy you have decided to check out our Hop and projects! I love this Hop because it helps me focus on NEW color combinations instead of using my go to favorites all the time!

Our color combination this month is a fun one as it includes 2 of my favorite In Colors—Soft Succulent and Evening Evergreen paired up with Rich Razzleberry! I can’t wait to see what the team comes up with this month!

Isn’t this a great combo? Now when I was considering my design, I knew I wanted my card base to be Evening Evergreen and upon searching my Designer Series collection I realized that I had few options for Soft Succulent patterns and decided this was a great opportunity to create my own!

It was easy to create my own stripy fun background with a Soft Succulent ink pad and the largest brush tip from the Water Painters. I just love how we have 3 brush tips to choose from! The widest makes creating a fun background so EASY!

To create the background, I used an acrylic block and stamped my Soft Succulent ink pad onto it, to create sort of a painters palette. I squeezed a bit of water from my Water Painter beside the ink and dipped my brush into the water and then into the ink.

 

I just swiped my brush across the Basic White card stock, starting at a different end each time. I don’t worry about the stripes being too perfect, I think it adds to the uniqueness and charm when they don’t. So its easy to create your own background using any of our colors!

I also decided to use my favorite bundle on this project as well—the Artfully Layered Bundle! It just has so much potential and it makes me think of vacations, the beach and sunshine!

I added some die cut shapes in Rich Razzleberry and Evening Evergreen, however I think the best part of the card is the large leaf (I am sure it has a fancy name but don’t ask me what, hahaha!). I stamped it on Basic White card stock with Rich Razzleberry ink and then used my Blending Brush with a light hand and Rich Razzleberry ink to add a light dusting of color over top! It is such a nice way to add a hint of color to the shape.

I stamped the sentiment with Evening Evergreen Ink on Soft Succulent card stock and added some Evening Evergreen Open Weave Ribbon and Linen Thread behind.

The final touch was to add some bling—of course! I used the In Color Jewels and the little teeny leaves that you can die cut with the Tropical Layers Dies. I always like to add a few little bits and bobs to my cards, I can’t help myself!

Because this card is made with a dark color as the base I find you always need to add a light layer on the inside to write your greeting. And its another opportunity to STAMP! I stamped the large leaf in Soft Succulent ink on the same color layering piece. I added Thank You in Evening Evergreen ink over top.

I hope this project inspires you to try making your own fun background! I can’t wait to see what the rest of the team designs this month! Please feel free to comment, I love to hear what you have to say!

You can hit NEXT to see what Bonnie has created or you can go in reverse and see what Tami has designed. Either way, make sure you pop around to each of our blogs! Thank you so much!

Color Fusers February 2022

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Hello friends! Welcome back for another edition of Color Fusers! This month we have three new friends joining our blog hop—Sue Vine, Julie Kettlewell and Janneke Dijkstra-de Jong! I am so happy to be a part of this hop with them as they are seriously inspiring. I love this hop because it forces me to play around with color combos that I maybe had not considered!

This month our hop focuses on Misty Moonlight, Pool Party and Calypso Coral. I decided to make a slimline card to feature this color palette! I am really happy with how this project turned out, because I only used ONE stamp set to make this card! That is not something I can say very often!

I wanted to feature the new stamp set Flowing Flowers because I recently added it to my collection. It is a “Distinktive” style stamp as well so it has alot of natural texture built into the floral stamp images.

I was also inspired to create a slimline style card because we have the fantastic Slimline Envelopes in the new January to June (JJ) catalogue in Soft Succulent, Smoky Slate and Basic White. I incorporated the Basic White version into my project as well.

I stamped the largest floral image in Pool Party ink on the left side of the envelope. I added the sentiment “Sending a card instead of a text” with Misty Moonlight Ink and a quick spray of my Calypso Coral Stampin’ Blend and all three of our focus colors were on the envelope! WIn!

 

Let’s talk about the slim line card now! I made the card base after looking at the size of the envelope. I decided on 8 1/2 x 7, score at 3 1/2. This creates the perfect size to slip into your envelope.

I did a little background stamping with the large floral image from Flowing Flowers (same as the envelope) in Pool Party ink on the right side of the card. Because the DSP is heavy on the left I decided to not add any stamping on that side of the card.

The DSP is from the Sunshine & Rainbows Sale-a-bration collection. It is so fantastic! The Misty Moonlight pattern is 1 x 3 1/4 and the Pool Party print is 3 x 6. I added a little edge detail with the Tropical Layers Dies in Calypso Coral card stock.

Top Tip: You can use your Blending Brushes to transfer the ink from your ink pad to your stamp. I find with the Distinktive style stamps this helps the details from the stamp transfer more clearly to your card stock.

I stamped the mid sized flower from the set in Calypso Coral ink and the trio of smaller flowers in Misty Moonlight and Calypso Coral. All of the flowers are hand trimmed as there is no hardware to support this stamp set. I actually don’t mind fussy cutting and breaking apart the trio of flowers gives you alot of design options.

The sentiment is stamped in Misty Moonlight ink on the coordinating card stock. I added some white twine and Misty Moonlight ribbon from the Cotton Ribbon Combo Pack.

I finished off my project with my favorite embellishment (this week!) which are the Polished Dots. I used both of the colors in the package as well.

I hope this card inspires you to create a slimline card and to not shy away from using 6x6 DSP t accentuate your card!

Next up on the hop is Bonnie O’Neill! Make sure you go all around the hop, especially to see what our new members have created this month! You can also go to ‘Previous’ to see what Tami Hewlett has created this month.

If my project has inspired you to ‘add to cart’ please consider me as your demo! Every order let’s me keep creating and loving what I do!

You can click on any of the images below to be directed to my store. Make sure you come back next month to see what colors we will be playing with. We ‘hop’ the first Monday of each month with a fresh new color combo!

Gumball Goodness-Artisan Design Team Project

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Hello friends! Welcome to a brand new year of Artisan Design Team projects! I am so happy to be a part of the team again for 2022. I think it took me most of 2021 to get my bearings so I am happy to have another opportunity! One area that I didn’t do the best at was creating a blog post to go with my monthly assignments. There are often lots of fun things to share with you that go along with our monthly posts that don’t always come across in the 2 photos we submit!

Fun fact, we submit 2 photos but I usually take like—30! hahaha! Then I narrow them down to the two best, edit them and all that jazz, and then fingers crossed they get approved! Sometimes we do have to make little tweaks and since I photograph my projects in natural light, even an hour difference can make the whole series of pictures look very different!

These cards feature the awesome Gumball Greetings Bundle from the new January to June Mini Catalogue—or the JJ catalogue!

My first assignment for 2022 was the Gumball Greetings bundle in the new JJ catalogue—the bundle can be found on page 12 and includes some really unique accents—the Gumball Machine Shaker Domes and the little Frosted Beads Assortment! I used these beads in two ways—-as filler for my gumball machine and as an accent or embellishment on my card front!

Now truth be told, I did actually struggle with this assignment! I spent alot of mental time thinking about my projects and ripped apart several attempts until I landed on these two cards. I think they are a good representation of the stamp set and the dies.

For the gumball shaker card I pulled in some DSP from the Pattern Party DSP Stack (a hostess benefit!) from the Annual catalogue. I then made my own striped accent with scraps of card stock in Granny Apple Green, Real Red and Pool Party as they were the focus colors of my project. I cut a strip of Basic White to 1 x 5, covered it in Tombow Multipurpose Glue and then added the strips of card stock on a diagonal.

This close up view shows you all of the fun things I added into the Gumball Machine Shaker Dome!

On the other side of my DSP panel I have used a die cut included in the Gumball Machine Dies that cuts out a strip of mini itty bitty hearts! The bottom of the machine is stamped in Momento Ink on Basic White, colored with Stampin’ Blends in Real Red and Grey Granite. It is then die cut. The topper of the gumball machine is stamped with Momento Ink on Real Red card stock and then I added a bit of detail with the coordinating Blends.

To add a realistic feel too the coin spinner, I added the little die cut handle and a shape from the Adhesive Backed Hexagons to the center!

The dome shape is cut with a die from the DSP and layered behind it, I stamped the dome filler. I added some stamped gumballs in Read Red, then I stamped and die cut some more in Pool Party. I added these with Mini Dimensionals inside the shaker dome area. I also stamped and die cut some hearts in Granny Apple Green and added some of the mini die cut hearts from the die strip in Real Red and Pool Party. Finally I added in some of the Frosted Beads in green and red. All of these elements made for some fantastic gumball machine filler!

I added a cute #tammybow using the new Real Red Faux Linen ribbon that was cut in half plus a few little gumballs rolling out of the bottom of the machine for some extra touches!

Each month we also need to incorporate a tip or technique into our project. I thought it would be fun to color the inside of the dome with a Dark Pool Party Stampin’ Blend to give a soft blue hue to the dome. Think of how cool this could look if you turned the Gumball Shaker Dome into fish bowl!

My second project uses the little mini gumball machine stamp as a background stamp which I love! I stamped them randomly in Pool Party ink on the coordinating paper. My favorite part of this card is how I used the heart border die as an accent behind the sentiment! I also used my Tombow Multipurpose Glue to add some of the green Frosted Beads to the card front as an embellishment, along with some stamped hearts and hearts from the die cut strip!

The sentiment is stamped in White Craft Ink with embossing powder to help the white pop on the Granny Apple Green. A little distressing of the edges and this card came together pretty quickly! I think its a fun one to give with a gift card inside!

Thank you for following along on my Artisan Journey again this year! I appreciate all of your comments and LIKES and if you live in Canada and my projects have inspired you, please consider shopping my online store!