Sandy’s Craft Bag

This card took a few different turns. I decided to go with a pond theme for the  The House That Stamps Built Theme Challenge J2321 ~ Scenery and for the 'I love....' Stamping Sensations June challenge. I love lily pads and froggies, so I thought I’d make a pond scene using Altenew Paint-A-Flower Lotus stamp and a die cut frog.  Unfortunately, the triple layer mandala frog pattern I had just would not cut on my Cricut from cardstock. I tried a new blade, making the image bigger, but nothing seemed to work; so I thought maybe I’d try a dragonfly. I do love those colorful dragonflies that zip around the water.  Every dragonfly file I found would have ended up with the same problem, though, so I decided to find a zentangle dragonfly to color with Copics. The stamped lotus flower image is smaller than an A2 card, & I was making an A6 (all I pretty much do anymore), so I found some pretty patterned paper to use for a mat.  I colored both the lotus stamp and dragonfly image wi

I made this card for both the  Simon Says: We Can See Clearly and DRU Challenge #171. I actually started it last week, die cutting all the flowers to use for a card for 2 completely different challenges, but ran out of time, so here we are! A few changes to my plans and this is what I have instead. I just love how this card came out. The vellum really makes it look like the back flowers are off in the distance, doesn’t it? The die cut flowers are from the Altenew Cosmos Layering Die set. I can tell this is a set I’ll be using again & again. I cut 3 each of both types of flowers and 2 each of the 3 types of leaves. After attaching a frame to the vellum, I added 3 flowers & leaves to the bottom half. The other 3 flowers & leaves I attached to the top of the card base. Next I attached the vellum to the base using foam tape to for depth. I attached a small sentiment and that was it! Thanks for stopping by! Sandy

I just finished my 4th of July cards & they turned out pretty cute. I’m going to enter this in the  Simon Says: Red/White and/or Blue challenge before I send them out Beginning with pieces of navy cardstock, I used Deco Foil Transfer Gel Duo to add the fireworks with a stencil and both red & silver foil. Next I stamped the banner at the bottom with VersaMark and embossed it either in silver or red Frantage. The sentiment I stamped and embossed using the other color.  I popped them on a mat of red foil cardstock and attached to a white card base.  Thanks for stopping by! Sandy

My niece just graduated from high school so I just finished a card for her in her school colors: maroon & gold.  Using my Cricut, I cut the gold and maroon mats, with “Congrats” and 2021 cut out of the maroon. I also cut 4 sets of 2021 and 1 Congrats in gold. I attached the 2 mats together. After gluing the 4 sets of numbers together, I heat embossed them in gold twice to get a nice thick covering that also went around the edges.  I kept the maroon Congrats that was cut out so I could use the centers of the letters and, after gluing the gold Congrats in the space left by the removal of the maroon one, I inserted them into the gold letters. I also glued on the numbers and put it in my Tim Holtz stamp platform to hold them flat while they dried. Then I attached it to a maroon card base.  I die cut the graduation cap in maroon with a gold tassel, and attached it to the card front with black foam dots to pop it up.  Thanks for stopping by! Sandy

I made 2 Father’s Day cards this weekend. I was planning to use an argyle stencil, but in the mess that is my yet-to-be craft room I couldn’t find it, so I went with some dry embossing instead.  First I cut pieces of both silver and gold cardstock. The silver I ran through a gear embossing folder and the gold through a honeycomb folder. Next I swiped the silver over with a black hybrid ink and the gold with brown dye ink (I didn’t have any hybrid or pigment, which would probably have worked better). After attaching them to a black card base, I added strips of vellum at the seams.  Using my Cricut I cut 8 little gears and glued them together in 2’s, then heat embossed them with black and glued them on either side of the vellum. I had glued the vellum on in the spots where I was going to put the gears so it wouldn’t show. I die cut the sentiments from gold cardstock and glued them in the middle.  I’ll be entering them in the  Simon Says: Mixed Media challenge and The House That Stamps B

For the  MFT Color Challenge 166 I decided to use my Polkadoodles ‘Time to Bloom’ stamp set. I love the hand drawn imaginary flowers! The teal/aqua and purple colors would work great with it. I stamped it on white marker cardstock using MFT Extreme Black and went to work with my Copics, using the colorless blender to create the washed look for the background. I attached it to a teal/aqua base and added lavender rhinestones. I love how this turned out! It was easy to create & looks pretty cool. Thanks for stopping by! Sandy