Whirlpool of Imagination

Simple Solution on a Monday

Lately it seems like I need lots more quick birthday cards than usual and I've come up with an easy way to create extra for my stash without taking extra time. The key is to use embellishments as focal points and add a quick stamped sentiment to finish it off.

These first two designs are the same layout, different colors.

The sentiment from Papertrey was added to jazz up the cupcakes just a bit.

For the next two, I changed the layout but kept to the same idea.

This time the sentiment stamp came from Gina K designs.

In very short order, I've added a bunch of cards that are great for my kids to use or if I need to send simple birthday wishes.

Have a great day!

Buttons and Cake

Some of the most recent Stamping Boutique releases are Candyland themed and she had a fun set of contests using some new digi stamps. My computer was acting funny but I was able to snag one and play along for a little while.

The challenge was to use the image with three buttons, two embellishments and one ribbon and this is the final design I came up with.

The cake is colored with copic and prismacolor markersl. The bow is done using a sakura gelly roll glitter pen. The color scheme was built around this ribbon and because I wanted to go with a bigger size, I made this card an A6 size rather than my normal A2.

Allergy season finally caught up with me so I'm fighting with that this weekend. I hope you are all staying well ~ have a great day!

Mr and Mrs

Autumn is always good for a wedding around here and this year is no exception. Tonight I am going to the wedding of my oldest friend (well, in that we've know each other the longest no in how old she is since she's the same age as me and I'm not bowing to age yet!).

I still smile when I think of Lisa the first time we met over 35 years ago. And while life has sent us different ways, we still occasionally try to sneak in a visit. So I am so excited to see her get married tonight and wanted to make a special card.

And you know how sometimes you kind of know what you want to do but don't have the clearest picture? That was me and I found it one of the easiest final products to come up with, much easier than when I see a clear picture in my head of what I want.

I took the color scheme from Lisa's invites and I know the attendants are in chocolate brown so I wanted stay true to that color. All the stamps are from Papertrey Ink and I used espresso ink from Stampin Up.

I have more of these flowers in a few other shades. I think I want to play with color schemes on this one. I haven't used my beloved rose red in a while....think I may have to give it a try.

Have a great day!

My First Tent Topper

I don't know why I haven't given this layout a try before but after Gina K did a feature on Stamp TV, I figured I'd give it a try. I'm still in Halloween mode so you have one more Halloween card before I give you break for a few days with other stuff.

This rickety house stamp is from Prickley Pear and is a great image for the top of the card since the house seems like it would be on the top of a hill somewhere, looming over the neighborhood.

The sentiment and stars are from Papertrey Ink. All the images were stamped with tuxedo ink.

And the patterned paper is my beloved dots from Bobunny - I think I have just about every color they did in the dots. It's my go to paper for just about anything!

I promised to give you a break from Halloween for a few days (only a few though) so check back tomorrow. I'm thinking wedding for my Friday post.

Have a great day!

The Layout That Eluded Me

Happy Monday to you all ~ let's get to more spooky cards. This one was a long time coming. I had the image stamped and then nothing came to me. I couldn't for the life of me decide what to do and how to arrange it. I let it sit for several days, playing with it a bit and finally, yesterday, I was able to put it all together.

What made the difference partly was making this an A6 card. Having the extra room helped my thought process. Still took more time after that but I am now happy with the end result.

Let's start with the image. It's stamped with tuxedo ink and is from Prickley Pear stamps.

The sentiment is from, can you guess????? Yes, it's Papertrey. If you are ever in doubt of where a sentiment I used is from, guess Papertrey and you'll be right 99% of the time.

The sentiment is longer than the punch label I have (SU) so I had to play around a bit with with edges but I really like it. Just a hint - if you use a 1/2 inch strip of card stock, you can slide the paper in and through so one side if left out and you can punch longer sentiments. I know, without pictures, that's clear as mud. I'll try to get my act together and do pictures one day.

Have you noticed that some of my images have been from Prickly Pear lately? I just recently ordered from them - got their unmounted rubber stamps. And I've been really pleased with how well they stamp up. I did a bit of extra trimming before mounting them, but I'm really picky about that - for the most part, they are trimmed quite well.

I'm off - have a great day!

More With The Candy Corn

Yesterday I showed you the candy corn treat bags, today I have a card.

When I was stamping these up, I had two different inks going, trying to make a decision between light and darker orange. I went with the darker color on the treat toppers so I used the lighter version to make some cards.

The entire label part is exactly the same as yesterday but with a lighter orange. I played around with several backgrounds but finally landed on this one using Little Yellow Bicycle patterned paper.

I am on a Halloween roll at the moment. I've recently gotten stamps and am inspired to think Halloween so you have a couple more days of this. Hope you'll stay tuned!

It's Candy Corn Time!

If you told me to pick between sweet and salty, I'm a big fa of salty. But there is something about candy corn that I adore. I know it's pure sugar - it's probably all high fructose corn syrup which I truly wish would be banned int he U.S. but I'm still drawn to those darn things!

And since I just created new treat toppers with a candy corn theme, I just had to buy a bag to use the corn as photo props.

Here's the finished topper with the candy corn..

Edit: LOL...I just realized that my store photo has the disclaimer on it - ooops, deleted the other one.

The topper is made from Papertrey ink stamps and colored with copics. I wasn't sure how good I'd be with the cutting first, stamping on the die cut, but I have to say that for most of the ones I made, I had just one goof up.

Since these were going into my store in sets, I needed to take a picture that way -

And you will be happy to know that *most* of the candy corns are still intact.

Halloween is coming fast!

This time of year is so busy with back to school, kids sports, college football, our anniversary...............that Halloween comes before I'm quite ready for it. This year I'm trying to stock my store with candy treat inventory and in the process, deciding on what candy treats to send in with my kids. Today is Day 1 of candy treats.

Meet Frankie, the toppers for my pretzel bags.

All of these images and sentiments are from Papertrey Ink. They are stamped with tuxedo ink and colored with copics.

How about some "fang-tastic" fun?

This skull set is the last batch for today.

I need to buy some peeps - I think these bags may be the perfect size for some ghost peeps. What do you think?

Thank You For All You Do

Today I thought I would make it a day of gratitude. Thank you to all my blog readers and to all my craft peeps who have followed me on this journey. Thank you to my customers who faithfully believe in me and what I create. And thanks to my friends and family who put up with all my crafty talk!

I just got an order of stamps from Prickley Pear that I was itching to ink up. The image is inked with curry (SU) ink and then I added a touch of cocoa ink around the edges for a less one dimensional look.

Here's a close up. I haven't played around with inks like this is a while but I really like the finished look.

The sentiment is from Papertrey and is stamped with cocoa ink.

I've been working on a few things for my store so I will be adding cute little Halloween items shortly if you are interested.

Have a great day!

Flip Flop Thanks

I am just about ready to close the books on Meghan's birthday for this year. The last item on my to do list was thank you notes. Sometimes I try to match the thank you's to the invite them, sometimes not. This time around, I decided it would be fun to revisit the flip flop theme.

The beauty of thank you notes is that they can be super simple, which is what I was going for here.

The image and sentiment are from Gina K stamps. I took the same colors from the flip flop invite and used them to color the image on this one. The image block is pop dotted for a slight bit of dimension.

And therefore I was able to tie in the theme in a simple way.

I just got some stamps from Prickley Pear so that's what I'm playing with today. Hope your day is a creative one!