Vintage Hive All-Occasion Card

Happy Wednesday! I love making cards that are suitable for lots of occasions, and my card featuring Honey Bee Stamps new Vintage Hive stamps and coordinating Honey Cuts is another one for my stash! I decided to step outside my usual color comfort zone and play with colors I don't normally. Read on for the details!

First I stamped all of the Vintage Hive stamp set images with Intense Black ink. This is a fabulous ink for Copic coloring, which I did next. I created the look of a worn painted wooden stand by adding in some brown Copics, then finishing it with blue-green colors. For the hive I used markers that were much less of a bright yellow, as I might have typically used. This time I colored it with YR27, YR24, YR23, and YR12. I stamped the grass pieces with green ink, and then I used the coordinating Honey Cuts to cut them out.

I began to plan my arrangement for the images on an A2 card base. I quickly realized I needed more room!! So I went with an A7 card base made from 80# Neenah. Then I die cut a black layer with the largest A7 Double Stitched Frames die. I adhered it to the card with Bee Creative glue. Then I used some patterned paper from the new Bee Bliss paper pad (I love the little bees on this paper!) and gingham piece from the Back to Basics paper pad. I added a narrow black card stock strip between the two pieces. This layer measures 5-7/8" x 4".

I adhered the images to the card with foam dots and Bee Creative glue. I tied a little gingham bow and adhered it to the hive with a glue dot. The sentiment is from the Vintage Hive set and die cut with the coordinating Honey Cut. I absolutely love having coordinating dies for sentiments!

I always appreciate that you've stopped by for an extra look at my cards!  I hope you have a wonderful day!

You Are A Blessing -- New Floral Stamps With Coloring Stencils

Hello friends!  Today I'm sharing a card with one of Rubbernecker Stamps' new floral stamps called Radiance In Bloom!  It's such a beautiful set and has something new:  coordinating coloring stencils!!!  I've really enjoyed these coloring stencils--they make for a quick, easy and pretty card!

First I stamped the Radiance In Bloom flowers in black ink.  I made sure it was dry before I began the stenciling, otherwise the ink could smear.  I used the yellow inks in Color Fuse set #1 for the flower.  I just followed the included layering guide as I added the inks with blender brushes.

When I got to the flower centers, I decided to add some Ripened Pumpkin Nuvo Crystal Drops instead of ink.  I spread it through the stencil with a pallet knife and then added a bit of glitter on top.  I washed up the stencil and set the panel aside to dry.

When the piece was dry, I added some black and metallic gold splatters with a watercolor brush.  Before I splattered on the black drops, I set the clear stamp on top of the image to mask it.  I didn't want black splatters on the flowers, but I did want some of the gold ones and removed the stamp for that part.  Be sure to wash your stamp to remove the black drops before it dries!

Next I die cut the largest Outside Scallop Frame die three times and glue them together.  I adhered the stacked frame to an A2 card base.  Then I used the same die to cut the floral piece so it would fit perfectly inside the frame.

I die cut one of the tags from the Small Tags die set from black cardstock.  Then I stamped the sentiment from the Radiance in Bloom set with Versamark ink, added white embossing powder, and heat set it.  I added some foam tape to the back to pop up the sentiment.

Rubbernecker has several new floral sets that are in this release that are so beautiful!  There's another set with a coordinating stencil too.  I'll be sharing that soon!  Thank you so much for stopping by today!

You Are Kind Hearted -- Stitching and Foiling on Cards

Happy Sunday friends!  Today I'm sharing a fun card featuring Spellbinders new Stitched Alphabet collection.  The collection includes every letter of the alphabet and die cuts holes for stitching!  Each letter is sold separately for you to choose just the ones you want.  I have quite a collection of embroidery thread as I used to do cross stitching and crewel embroidery, so it's fun to be able to use my thread again!

First I die cut the top layer of the letters Y, O, and U from 120# cardstock.  I like the heavier weight for stitching as the letters hold their shape easily while stitching.  I used DMC 445 to stitch the flowers and DMC 959 for the french knots in the centers.  I die cut the shadow layers from teal cardstock.  To adhere the letters to the shadow layer, I cut foam tape into very thin strips.

I used Moondust foil and the Essential Duo Lines Glimmer Rectangles hot foil plates to create the top layer of my card.  I adhered this and a teal cardstock layer to my card base.

Next I die cut flowers and leaves from the Forget-Me-Not and Ladybugs die set.  I used two shades of teal card stock and yellow for the flower centers.  I love adding dimension to die cut flowers and leaves and used tools from the Ultimate Tool Kit for shaping each one.

I chose a couple sentiments from the new Stitched Alphabet Glimmer Descriptors set and hot foiled them with Moonstone foil.  There 26 awesome words/phrases in this set to go along with all of the Stitched Alphabet letters.

Have you tried any of the stitching dies yet?  This is one of my first ones, and I have to say that I really enjoyed doing a bit of easy stitching to add an extra special touch to my card!  Thanks so very much for stopping by.  I hope you have a wonderful, and crafty, week!

Hot Foiled See-Through Birthday Card with Peonies

Hello crafty friends! Today I'm sharing a see-through birthday card with a foiled acetate front using Honey Bee Stamps Ombré Dots Hot Foil Plate.  I'm also using the gorgeous Lovely Layers: Peony Honey Cuts to create a very special birthday card. Keep reading for all the details!

I followed the directions for my hot foil machine (which is on sale, as of this blog post date, at a very good price HERE) to add Aura gold foil to my acetate with the Ombré Dots Hot Foil Plate. This acetate is a specialty product that is thicker than the acetate sold for creating windows for your shaker cards and it is called Spellbinders Glimmer Specialty Clear Film Sheets.  This product works beautifully with your hot foil plates!

Next I took an A2 card base and trimmed the front off, leaving about 3/8" at the top. On the inside of the flap, I added some double-sided adhesive and adhered the foiled acetate. Then I cut three 3/8" x 4-¼" strips of white cardstock and adhered two at the bottom of the acetate--one on the front and the other on the back. I adhered the other strip on the top inside edge. This gives a clean look with the card is opened.

Next I die cut three Double Stitched Ovals and adhered them to the card. I adhered one on the card front, the other behind that one, and the third, to the card inside directly behind the first two.

I created a sentiment for the inside of the card using two sentiments from the Inside: Birthday Sentiments stamp set. I heat embossed one with gold embossing powder and die cut it with the coordinating die. I adhered that to the oval and stamped the other sentiment with Intense Black ink.

I die cut all of the pieces of the Lovely Layers: Peony Honey Cuts from white cardstock. Then I used some Copic markers to color each one. For the peony I used: Y13, Y00, RV02, and RV10. The leaves are colored with G28, G46, G24, and G43.

If you go to the Lovely Layers: Peony in the Honey Bee shop, there is a link for a downloadable layering guide to assist in getting those layers just right! You can use glue to adhere the layers together, or use foam tape, as I did, to create even more dimension!

I stamped the sentiment from the Squeeze The Day stamp set with clear embossing ink, sprinkled on gold embossing powder and heat set it. Then I used the coordinating Honey Cut to die cut it out. I used more foam to pop it up on the card.

I absolutely love how this turned out! Trying something new, like hot foiling onto acetate, just gets my creative mojo going! Thank you for stopping by and I hope you have a beautiful day!

Altenew Craft-A-Flower: Butterfly Bush Release Blog Hop + Giveaway (total of $200 prizes)

Hello, and welcome to my stop of the blog hop to celebrate the release of Altenew's gorgeous Craft-A-Flower: Butterfly Bush!  You should have arrived here from the blog of Virginia Lu.  If you'd like to start at the beginning of the hop, head over to the Altenew Card Blog.

Don't forget that the Craft-A-Flower line is available as a monthly subscription.  When you sign up for the subscription, you are guaranteed a spot in the monthly Craft-A-Flower releases and will receive a set each month--at a specially discounted price! ($35.99 reduced to $29.99)

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To begin, I created my card base by inking the edges of an A2 top-folding card with Hydrangea Crisp Dye ink.  Then I embossing white cardstock with the Cloudy Day 3D embossing folder.  I trimmed it to 4" x 5-¼" and then used the large ink blending tool to add some light blue ink to the embossed clouds.  The flat surface of this brush makes it very easy to add the ink just to the embossing!

Next I die cut the Craft-A-Flower: Butterfly Bush flower dies from white cardstock.  I used the inks in the Enchanted Garden Ink Cube set and blending brushes to color the pieces.  I decided I wanted the center layer of the Butterfly Bush to be sparkly, so I added a layer of some glitter paste over the colored image.  I did need to use my craft pick to remove the paste from the die cut openings.  When it was dry, I adhered the layers together with glue.  (I wish all the sparkle showed up in photos!)

I used papers from the Green Meadows, Coffee Break, and New Purple Gradient Cardstock sets for the leaves, stem and butterfly.  One layer of the leaves uses Titanite from the Forest Canopy Glitter Gradient Cardstock set.  I adhered the layers together and added them to the card with glue.  I used a sentiment from the Build-A-Flower: Coneflower set, stamped it in black ink, and popped it up with foam tape.

Thanks so much for stopping by!  Be sure to leave a comment for your chance to win an awesome prize before hopping on to the next stop!

Your next stop on the hop is Nathalie DeSousa.

Giveaway Prizes
$200 in total prizes! To celebrate this release, Altenew is giving away a $50 gift certificate to 2 lucky winners and a $20 gift certificate to 5 winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog and/or each designer’s blog post on the blog hop list below by 05/13/2022 for a chance to win. Altenew will draw 7 random winners from the comments left on each stop of this blog hop and announce the winners on the Altenew Winners Page on 05/15/2022.

Blog Hop Order:

Altenew Card Blog

Jenny Colacicco

Cheryl Espie

Jaycee Gaspar

LauraJane

Terri Koszler

Nenette S. Madero

Virginia Lu

Carol Hintermeier ---> that's me!

Nathalie DeSousa

Angela Brennan

Reiko Tsuchida

Rosie Neustaedter

Ann Taylor

Laurie Patterson

Sande Woodson

Amy Hill

Linda Westfall

Natasha Davies

Susan Stagno

Daniel Diaz

Eva Bussom

Hussena Calcuttawala

Nandini Karmarkar

Nichol Spohr

Preeti Chandran

SathyaKala Sankaran

Susan Busada

Sweet Birthday Card with a Dimensional Paper Gardenia

Hello crafty friends!  Today I'm sharing a birthday card I made using Spellbinders' gorgeous Gardenia Etched Dies from the Through the Garden Gate Collection by Susan Tierney-Cockburn.  I am quite fond of gardenias and their lovely scent because this flower brings back sweet nostalgic memories for me.  There is something about taking paper and shaping it into a beautiful flower that just makes me lose all track of time!  Haha!

It's been a while since I've made any dimensional flowers like this, but no worries!  Susan, the designer of these dies, does video tutorials for each of her sets to help us get the layers just right!  Watch Susan's Gardenia video to see what I mean!

I die cut each of the dies for the gardenia from Susan's Garden Specialty Cardstock with my Spellbinders Platinum die cutting machine.  The dies have the number of times to die cut that particular piece etched on them.  I colored the centers of each petal layer with Scattered Straw Distress ink with a small blender brush.  I blended Rustic Wilderness, Mowed Lawn, and Twisted Citron Distress inks onto the leaves.  NOTE:  I discovered that when I used Distress Oxide inks, the metal flower shaping tools left marks where the ink was!  Something about the ingredients in the Oxides does this, I suppose!

I shaped the flower layers and leaves following the directions Susan gave in her video.  I used various tools from Susan's Garden Ultimate Tool Kit to aid in shaping the petals and leaves.  I used liquid glue to adhere each layer together.  I set the flower aside to dry while I made my card base.

For the card base, first I used the frame from the Tulip Trio die set to cut white cardstock.  I adhered it to an A2 sized piece of pink cardstock.  Then I adhered the layers to my white card base.  I used the circle die from the Tulip Trio die set to cut pink cardstock.  I popped it up with foam tape on the card front.

Next I stamped the sentiment from the Essential Sentiments set onto the card with black ink.  Then I adhered the flower and leaves.  I think every birthday card should have sparkles, so I added a few gem stickers to my card.  I added some subtle sparkle by using a clear glitter pen around the edges of the flower petals.

This was such an enjoyable card to make, and I hope I've given you more inspiration for this beautiful set. Thank you so very much for stopping by!  Have a wonderful Friday!

Springtime Wisteria Thank You Card

Hello crafty friends! Today I'm sharing a card made with the new Honey Bee Stamps Layering Wisteria stamp set, Layering Wisteria Add-On stamp set, and the coordinating Honey Cuts for both. These are brand new and part of the amazing Birthday Bliss release. I find I can never have enough thank you cards in my stash and I'm in love with the fonts of the sentiments in this set!

To make the stamping of these layering sets easy, I followed a template technique I was reminded of when I saw Jennifer McGuire's video demonstrating this! You will need your MISTI, or other stamp positioning tool, for this technique. I die cut the Layering Wisteria and Layering Wisteria Add-On Honey Cuts flowers and leaves first, retaining one of the negative portions to place my die cuts in. Then you center your stamps in the open space, insert the die cut pieces, and stamp each one. I know this sounds a bit confusing, but if you watch her video, I think you'll see what I mean. I also used the very helpful stamp layering guide that you will find on the Honey Bee website by scrolling through the product photos.

I used various purple, green, and brown inks (linked in the product list below) from my stash to stamp the layers of the wisteria, leaves, and branch. Die cutting these pieces with the coordinating Layering Wisteria Honey Cuts and Layering Wisteria Add-On Honey Cuts before stamping is sure a time saver! I set these aside and worked on my card base.

I pressed some of the purple inks I used for stamping onto my glass mat. Then I used some water and a paint brush to add splatters onto some watercolor cardstock. Next I added drops of the new, and SO beautiful, Bee Shimmery Liquid Shimmer Watercolor. When this was dry, I adhered the piece to my A2 card base. I adhered the frame that I die cut from the Wood Frame Builder Honey Cuts with foam tape to add dimension.

I arranged the wisteria blossoms and leaves on my card, attaching them with foam dots and some Bee Creative glue. Then I stamped the sentiment from the Layering Wisteria set with Intense Black ink and die cut it with the coordinating Honey Cut. I used foam tape to attach it to the card.

I was amazed at how pretty and sparkly the Bee Shimmery liquid shimmer watercolor is! So I painted on more of it onto the darker portions of the wisteria blossoms. Then I just splattered what was left all over the card! LOL! It's even prettier in real life!!

Thank you so much for stopping by today!  Have a wonderful, crafty day!