A trio of baby cards

Last summer I ordered Waffle Flower's Little One Baby stamps and dies following a blog hop full of darling cards. The set has sweet folk-style images of florals, seasonally bundled babies, and dainty fonts. I have few baby related stamps thus the purchase. Several friends are new grandparents and I like to send a card with a children's book to the new family. In January twin girls arrived in Seattle where their 43 year old parents also have a two year old boy. Grandma Shirlie, my friend, is helping the frantic parents as a temporary live-in nanny but admits it's a circus of laundry, feedings, and no sleep. I planned to make a card with twin babies decorating the card but just in case mama Wendi makes two baby books I made each girl their own card. With the stamps out I also made a boyish card for their big brother. The two pink cards have backgrounds made during a recent Distress Inks/Oxides class with Jean Shurkus. One was ink blended with oxides and the other uses a smooshed technique with acetate and distress inks.

Card #1

Card #2

Card #3

This card also used Waffle Flower Color Combos geometric shapes cut from pattern paper.

The girls' cards were shared previously on Instagram. This card is linked to the NBUS challenge #24.

It's been two months since I've blogged on this site. I'm sorry but Instagram has proven easier to share brief details and photos on my crafting projects. Thank you for your visit.

Happy New Year a few days late!

Welcome to 2021 friends! Confession: I'm a very lazy blogger. I've viewed many of your blogs and have spent a lot of time on Instagram at vikkispapertrailetc the past couple of months as it is easier to post. The mail carriers have been kind to me with new products and new supplies of ink and glue to reinforce my stash.  Next week marks the end of our first year in Portland. We're grateful to live in a walking neighborhood after 40 years on a rural hilltop. It has made the difference in my outlook in this quarantine life. As a natural introvert it has been important to see people daily walking to and fro living the best they can in these circumstances.

I alluded to new items and the two cards in this post feature one of them, the Altenew Hanging Garden dies. My cards use the positive and negative parts of the die in an inlay technique with the additional touch of red to brighten the neutral gray and white. The Color Hues Jan. 1-14 challenge to use gray and red determined the colors of my paper and ink. The two grays vary in their cool and warm tones but work together, I think.

Card #1

Card #1 begins with a side folding PTI Weathervane gray card stock splattered with white. Textured gray woodgrain paper and a white panel were each die cut with the larger die. The positive parts of this process were inlayed in the opposite negative panel. The berry portion of the die was cut twice from red linen paper. The encouraging red sentiment is from a PFS Partial Cut Floral Frame set from 2019's SS Stamptember. A thin red strip on the left finishes the triangle of red areas on the card.

 

Card #2 

My second card uses a PTI soft stone card front and the gray woodgrain panel finished with the largest SSS stitched rectangle. A PTI Enclosed: Wreath's sentiment, Peace, die cut in red and embellished with Wink of Stella clear finishes this one. The texture is so pretty. Christmas card #1 done for the year. I almost wished that it was turned horizontally with the sentiment in another corner.

Both cards are linked to three challenges: 

Color Hues #TCH 9, SSW: Something New, and NBUS

                      

Thanks for your visit and again, Happy New Year! 

25 Days of Christmas Tags: Day 2

Today's sponsor of 25 Days of Christmas Tags is Simon Says Stamp! I was inspired by the darling gnome tag Lin Brandyberry shared! Since I've never used the gnome die that she used, I grabbed it and had fun paper piecing the various parts into my funky little gnome. Here's my tag for day #2!

Card Menu: PTI Basic Bookmark #2, Warmest Wishes (sentiment/snowflakes), Tag Sale #8 die; SSS Li'l Gnome; Recollections pattern paper

Linking this also to SSSMChallenge, NBUS

Thanks for the visit!

Blessed

Good morning! Here's my card today made after many minutes of gluing fine lines of the navy outline and filling in the details with blue and turquoise leaves. Due to an accidental ink spot on the background the entire project was splattered with more color! Ha ha for CAS - not.

 

The NBUS Leafy Envelope (PFS) was die cut from watercolor paper and all the pieces fell out.  I gently ink blended HA Navy ink over the outline and glued it to a white panel. Next the large leaves sections were colored with copic markers and inlaid in the appropriate spots. The other leaves were left unfilled but colored again with copics.  I masked the envelope area and splattered ink around the area. The panel was placed on an aqua-turquoise card front. My friend Greta kindly shared the PTI Blessed die cuts a while ago and this statement touched my heart. In this pandemic time I've been blessed by old friends and new acquaintances found on card blogs sending "thinking of you" and "hello" cards. Thank you all.

Card linked to Color Hues TCH #2 , SSSW: No Stamps Allowed, and NBUS

Today would have been my dad's 94th birthday. We surprised him on his final birthday 40 years ago so that he could meet his youngest grandson, six months old then. Little did we know he would die from a stroke five months later. I was loved and blessed by him.

September SSS Card Kit Group

With all of the smoke in the air keeping us inside, I finally opened the SSS September card kit box this week.  So far I've made five cards. I usually prefer plain backgrounds for my cards but with all the pretty pattern papers included in the kit, I put aside my preferences. FYI, the fires are mostly in the mountains and river canyons in Oregon but not in Portland.

The first two cards feature the wonderful sentiment die included with the kit. I used green vellum for the shadow sentiment on the first card and yellow vellum laid over white card stock on the second. I fussy cut a yellow flower and popped it up as a center for the orange flower. The entire panel was trimmed with a SSS Wonky Rectangles die.

The sunglasses card reminds me of a postcard you might send to someone saying "wish you were here".  The panel edges were finished with a SSS Stitched Rectangle die. The card front was textured with a PTI linen impression cover plate before the panel was added. 

Both of these cards will be linked to the SSSW Challenge: No Stamps Allowed. 

The next two cards share the same background paper with the positive and negative images of a PTI United States die. The first card used a sentiment from the kit embossed in gold and hearts stamped in aqua. It's companion card has a sentiment from PTI's These United States and an extra "Let's Explore" poster from the kit added.

I'm linking this card to NBUS #18. I had not used this kit until this week plus I had never used the USA die or its sentiment.

My fifth card again uses a background pattern paper from the kit in shades of navy, blue and cream. The kit provided the fussy cut clouds, heart balloon and sentiment. This card's colors were chosen for the new challenge, Color Hues TCH #2.

Thanks for your visit today! See you around the internet!

Autumn wishes

Just a quick drop in as it's almost the 

last day for Darnell's 12th NBUS Challenge

If you don't know NBUS = "Never Been Used Before"

Both the frame and the stamps are new to me this summer. 

(Oops! I lied. The grass was stamped with an old wood stamp)

I fussy cut the pumpkins as my order from PTI had not arrived 

with the dies. The scarecrow was colored with copic markers.

PTI Stamp: Autumn Scarecrow

PTI Die: Infinity Frames

I fell in love with Heather Nichol's funny scarecrow 

and have several panels ready to color some October 

evening while watching the baseball playoffs. 

SaveSave

Sending you sunshine

Nothing like sunflowers to cheer up one's day!

Card Menu:

Papertrey Ink Stamps/Die: Simple Sunflower

Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangles die

Hero Arts Shadow Inks - Butterbar, Cup of Joe, Lemon Yellow; PTI Soft Stone

Top-folding kraft A2 card 

                                           Linking this to: CAS(E) this Sketch #187

                                                                     CASology Week 213: Stitch

                                                                     Darnell's NBUS Challenge #7