Sandy’s Craft Bag

Tic-tac-toe challenges are so much fun!  For the  Creative Confetti: Tic Tac Toe Challenge I chose a diagonal row with: use a background stamp, use the color blue, and use twine. Since I had just made a card using the Jacob’s Coat technique, which is just a variation of the Trapped Emboss Resist technique, and had been thinking about how pretty is would be to make a more monochromatic version, I had my idea. I’m sending this to my dad, so I’ll also be entering it in the Sugar Pea Designs September Meant To Be Sent challenge. On the bottom layer I used Catherine Pooler Stone Blue, Suede Shoes, and Juniper Mist ink. I then stamped over it with my Inkadinkadoo Flourish stamp using Versamark, and embossed it with Nuvo clear fine detail powder. Using a sponge roller, I covered it with Black Jack ink and buffed the excess off the embossed portions with a paper towel. I wrapped blue twine around it 3 times and tied it together in front with a steel button. Next I added 4 blue pear...

This card was created for the  DRU Challenge #153 - One For The Boys . In my opinion, masculine card ideas are always more difficult to find than feminine cards, that’s one reason I purchased the Stampin Up Beautiful World Bundle. I also stuck to neutral colors. Using black cardstock, I cut a card base, a 2 3/8” x 5” mat, and 2 die cut Happy Birthdays. Then with metallic gold I cut a 2 5/8” x 5 1/4” mat, a die cut Happy Birthday, and a die cut lace strip.  Using a piece of pale greenish-blue wave print scrap of paper, I stamped a globe with MFT Extreme Black. I cut it out using the circle die from the set, and cut the stand with the die on white cardstock. Next, I used a black Ranger embossing pen to color the continents on the globe, & embossed them with Stampendous fine detail black embossing powder. I embossed the stand using using 2 layers of Versamark and Lindy’s Stamp Gang Groovy Granite. The small piece of black cardstock I embossed with the compass from the set us...

A few challenges have come up using similar colors:  Creative Confetti - Colors of Fall! ; The House That Stamps Built - Inspiration Palette Challenge ; & the MFT Color Challenge 150 . Woo hoo! One card, three entries. So here’s what I came up with. The Painted Harvest stamp & die set from Stampin Up is retired, but I found a used set on ebay for a good price, so what better to use for these colors?   For the background I applied a light layer of Catherine Pooler Garden Party to white cardstock, spritzed it with water, & dried it quickly with my heat gun. Next I stamped the 2 layer fern-type leaf in Melon Ice & Lime Rickey, then attached it to a Kraft card base. On another piece of white cardstock I stamped 2 of the leaf sets with Sage & Spruce, one flower with Limoncello & Shea Butter, one with Shea Butter & Tiara, and one with Bellini & Orange Peel. For the centers I used Sahara Sand and Memento Espresso Truffle. I then cut them all using the...

 I’m not good at rainbow color cards. I always seem to have difficulty getting the combinations to look harmonious. So here is another try - a rainbow color card for the  Pinkfresh Studio September Challenge: Rainbow . As I was skimming ideas I saw this “ Jacob’s Coat Technique ” card by Dawn Griffin and thought I’d give it a shot. The colors I used underneath were green, yellow, orange, red, & violet. I used a navy blue on top & for the bottom mat. Then I added some clear rhinestones, a sheer white ribbon, & a white cardstock “hello”. That’s it!  I do like this technique, I’ll probably try it again with fewer colors & a different stamp. Wouldn’t it also look pretty done with different shades of the same color? Maybe shades of blue using my big flourish stamp? Thanks for stopping by! Sandy

Steampunk can be so much fun, so I was excited when Simon Says made it this Monday’s challenge theme!  I’ve used a streampunk heart before, for my dad’s birthday card, so I figured I’d try something different this time.  I didn’t have any appropriate stamps or dies, so I went online to Etsy and found a couple of graphics that I liked. Cricut Design Space has an application called “Print then Cut” that is mainly meant for ink jet printing in color on vinyl, but I’ve been experimenting with using it with a laser printer to create the inside verses for greeting cards and decided to give it a shot for the front graphics too. Upon finding a free steampunk frame online I imported it, along with the graphics I purchased, into Design Space.  It turned out to be very difficult to get the image to print nice & sharp. I think I can do it eventually but after spending 2 evenings I put it aside for now and ended up using the Adobe Photoshop Mix app and printing it from my photo f...

I do love poppies: in real life, stamped, die cut... so it wasn’t a tough decision to pull out my Poppy Moments dies again when I saw the colors chosen for the MFT Color Challenge 149 :  Jellybean Green, Natural, Coral Crush, and Tangy Orange. I also made this card so I could enter it in the Simon Says Monday Challenge: Frame It .  I used orange, coral, and white paper to cut out the poppies and then added some shading using some finger daubers and Catherine Pooler ink in Bellini and Orange Peel.  I cut the leaves in 2 shades of green and used CP Sage ink on the top layer. The centers were cut in black cardstock. For the frame, I used tan/natural linen cardstock, and used 2 sizes of stitched rectangular dies to cut 2 frames. This also left me with 2 smaller stitched mats. From the same sheet I made a card blank using my Cricut Maker.  Doing it again, I would have just cut the frames using my Maker as well, since the stitching  created difficulty when it came t...

 The theme for the Lavinia World Challenge #35 was anything goes. Using a Lavinia stamp wasn’t a requirement but I happen to LOVE Lavinia stamps and am trying to increase my collection. I used the fiddlehead fern stamp embossed in gold.  The background is one of the ones I made using the mica spray, Brusho, & Saran Wrap technique by Eileen Godwin . This time using gold mica spray & black Brushos. It came out looking more navy blue than black, so I used a navy card blank, added a white mat, gold ribbon, & Happy Birthday sentiment. The gold in the background really shimmers too. Fun, yes? Thanks for stopping by! Sandy

Yikes! I missed a birthday! It wasn’t on my calendar (it is now, with reminders) but I still feel terrible. So, since I was going to make a card for the  MFT Wednesday Sketch Challenge - Sketch 506 , I now had a subject. Here’s what I came up with. I created the background using a mica spray, Brusho, & Saran Wrap technique as shown in this great video by Eileen Godwin . I used blue & purple Brushos, and silver & gold mica sprays that I mixed up myself. Once it was dry I stamped 3 sizes of daisies from a set in my stash. For each one, I began my inking a stamp with Versamark Ink and then added on top some Catherine Pooler Sand Castle Ink in the middle and Juniper Mist on the outer edges. Once stamped, I covered it with Nuvo Clear Fine Detail Embossing Powder and heated it. I repeated with the other 2 stamps. Once everything was set, I cut it to size using a stitched rectangular die. A while ago I cut some lace pieces from cardstock with my Cricut Maker so I’d have the...

One of my favorite stamps so far is the Power Poppy XL Chrysanthemum.   Power Poppy has some really great designs and I can’t wait to get more! I made this card for the  Simon Says: Stamp It In STAMPtember® Wednesday Challenge. The criteria was that you had to use a regular/physical stamp, not a digital stamp. I stamped this on alcohol ink paper with MFT Extreme Black ink and colored it in using alcohol markers. The sentiment is from the same set. (Unfortunately, my alcohol ink blender went dry, so I’ll probably go back & do a little more work on it once my new one is in). I then cut it with a stitched rectangle die. I cut white and striped mats, adhered everything to a black card base, and added a few red rhinestones. Thanks for stopping by! Sandy

This is a back to school card I made to enter in the Dies R Us  Challenge #152 - Back to School and the MFT Stamps - Wednesday Sketch Challenge - Sketch 505 . The theme is back to school and I needed to use cutting dies in the design. I’ve been playing around with the “print then cut” feature of my Cricut Maker.  Drawing with it can be difficult and unsatisfactory, so I’m looking into alternative techniques. Reading about digital stamps gave me the idea of downloading images to the Maker than could be printed.  We only have a laser printer, so I’m limited to black & white, but toner will hold up to alcohol markers, watercolors, and most ink pads, so it’s ideal for images you want to color. I downloaded the 2 images and typed in the”back to school” sentiment. After printing them, I loaded them into the Maker and it cut them out.  Next, for the 2 images, I used a square cutting die and also cut a lace die on a scrap of cardstock.  I used an alcohol marker to ...

 Here is the card I just finished for the  Simon Says: Oodles Of Doodles challenge. I think it’s a bit much & would have looked better without the silver marker, but that’s how we learn... I took a piece of watercolor paper and sponged on 8 colors of Catherine Pooler ink: Shea Butter, Orange Peel, Coral Cabana, Be Mine, Pixie Dust, Suede Shoes, All That Jazz, and Lime Rickey.  I was going for a rainbow effect. After the inks were dry, I used a water brush with fresh water to smear around and add some drips and drops to each section one at a time, drying in between.   After touching up a few spots and drying again, I added the Stampendous “Ranunculous Field” stamped with MFT Extreme Black ink.  This is where a stamping platform would have come in handy. I really would have liked the image to be darker and would have restamped it another time or two but I used what I had. Once the ink was dry I used alcohol markers to add some additional color to the flowers...

I used the Trapped Emboss Resist technique to create this card for the  Simon Says: Anything Goes card challenge. For the trapped emboss resist technique I followed this great tutorial from Jennifer McGuire . I started with a piece of smooth white cardstock, approximately 6” square, and blended on 3 shades of Catherine Pooler ink: Samba, Orange Peel, and Bellini.  Next I stamped it using the Power Poppy XL Chrysanthemum with a Tsukineko embossing pad, and embossed it with a Nuvo clear embossing powder.   Once the embossing was set, I blended Tsukineko Brilliance Galaxy Gold ink over the top and rubbed the ink off the embossing.  After cutting it using a double-stitched rectangular die and my Cuttlebug, I attached it to a white mat & Orange/peach card blank.  After stamping the sentiment in black, also from the XL Chrysanthemum stamp set, I attached a chrysanthemum flower design, cut using my Maker, and some little gold pearls.  I love this technique ...