Tag: Paper Crafting

Let It Snow
Cardmaking · Challenges · Handmade Greeting Cards

Let It Snow

Happy Ink Designs3 Comments

Happy Holidays, my crafty compadres!!  I’m back just in time to share a Christmas creation with you.  I’ve joined back up with my talented friends at the Always Fun Challenges blog to share this months theme which is “A Christmas Carol”.  I went with the obvious.  Let It Snow is one of my all time favorite Christmas carols so this was an easy one for me this week.

This card was simple and quick, just my style.  I’ll list the products I used below, as always.  While I do love the song, unfortunately we don’t get any snow here in Northern California.  I know some of you may be snowed in even as we speak.  Sometimes I wish I lived somewhere that it snowed, but then again, I wouldn’t want to do all that shoveling…

IMG_1996-copy

IMG_2036-copy

Aren’t these snowflakes absolutely gorgeous??!!?  I just can’t get over how much I love them!!

I’ll keep this short and sweet, but I did want to update you guys on what’s been going on with me.  I had my surgery last month and while I did have a couple of little setbacks, I am well on my road to recovery.  Thank you so much for the well wishes and prayers.  That’s what gets me through all of these surgeries.  I had a 6 inch cyst on one ovary and the other one was twice as big on my right.  But they were able to save my ovaries!!  I wasn’t expecting that.  They also repaired a hernia that I got from too many abdominal surgeries.  I guess when someone has as many surgeries as I have, it weakens the abdominal wall, making me more susceptible to hernias.  Lucky me.  What’s interesting, is they used biological mesh to repair the hernia.  Biological mesh is also known as pig skin…  Yes, I have pig skin inside of me now..  My dog kept smelling my belly when I got home (they cut me from below the breast to below my c-section).  I don’t know if he could smell the wound or smell the pig.  I guess I’ll never know.  Anyway, I’ve been having a real hard time with the pain this time around, which is why it’s taken me so long to get back into the swing of things.  But the important thing is, I’m here now, I’m healthy, I’m with my family and I no longer have to worry about whether or not those cysts are cancer!!  WOOHOO!!  Life is good.  God is good!!

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas.  I hope you get to spend time with someone(s) that is special to you and I hope you all take a little time to reflect back on 2017.  Cherish the memories that mean the most to you and learn from the ones that don’t.  I’ll meet ya in 2018!!

I’m entering this in the Simon Says Stamp Flickr Challenge #86 as well.  The theme this week is Anything Goes!!

IMG_2020-copy

Amazon, Simon Says Stamp, Scrapbook.com, Blitsy Disclaimer:
These are affiliate links. What that means is at no cost to you, I will receive a small commission if you purchase something from the links I’ve provided. That small commission will help me maintain my blog and youtube channel while still providing the links to all the products that I use. Any time you use an affiliate link, I greatly appreciate it. And if you have any questions on any of these products, please feel free to ask!! I’ll always give you my honest opinion.


Happy Halloween!!
Cardmaking · Challenges · Handmade Greeting Cards

Happy Halloween!!

Happy Ink Designs6 Comments

Happy (early) Halloween!!  I’m so excited to announce this weeks’ theme for the Always Fun Challenges blog.  Have you figured it out yet??  It’s HALLOWEEN!!!  I LOVE Halloween!!  I’ve been working all month on getting our road closed to traffic on Halloween.  Which, I’ve learned, requires an encroachment permit.  That means I had to get signatures from every house on our entire street!!  The good news is, the City has agreed to close it!!  WOOHOO!!  The population of Fort Bragg is a little less than 7,300 and we handed out candy to a little less than 1,300 kids last year…  That’s just crazy!!  No one knows why the entire town comes to this street for Halloween, but they do.  And we LOVE IT!!  It was just getting too dangerous to have vehicles driving up and down with that many kids.  At some points while I was handing out candy last year, I looked up and the line was out into the middle of the street!!  I wish I would have taken pictures, but we’re always soooo busy!!  They start coming at about 4pm!!  Here are a couple pix that I did manage to get from last year.

IMG_9379-copyIMG_9374-copyIMG_9377-copy

Speaking of Halloween, let’s talk about this card I made.

IMG_1610-copy

If you can’t tell by looking at this, I was greatly inspired by Vicky Papaioannou’s “Glowing Moon Technique” card.  She does this background MUCH better than I, but I still had a lot of fun making this one.  The card came together pretty easy.  First I made the distress oxide background, and then I created the moon and placed my Silhouette witch (design ID #65963) over the top and lastly I added my sentiment.  As you know, if you’ve read any of my posts or watched any of my videos lately, quick and easy are about all I have time for these days.

I added some Shimmer Spray to top it off.  Can you see it?  It looks really cool in person.  Pictures just don’t show the cool details sometimes.

IMG_1635-copy

IMG_1632-copy

If you’d like to join us this week, just make something Halloween related and click here to add it to our challenge or go to the Always Fun Challenges blog and add it there.  Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope everyone has a Spooktacular Halloween!!!

 

Amazon, Simon Says Stamp, Scrapbook.com, Blitsy Disclaimer:

These are affiliate links.  What that means is at no cost to you, I will receive a small commission if you purchase something from the links I’ve provided.  That small commission will help me maintain my blog and youtube channel while still providing the links to all the products that I use.  Any time you use an affiliate link, I greatly appreciate it.  And if you have any questions on any of these products, please feel free to ask!!  I’ll always give you my honest opinion.

Lots of Layers Featuring SSS Feb. Card Kit
Cardmaking · Challenges · Handmade Greeting Cards

Lots of Layers Featuring SSS Feb. Card Kit

Happy Ink Designs3 Comments

Hi guys!!  Happy Belated World Cardmaking Day!!!  It was October 7th, for those that may not have known.  I just found out about 4 days ago, but unfortunately we were at an out of town football game so I didn’t get to craft at all.  That’s ok, I’ll make up for it this coming week.  The theme this week at Always Fun Challenges is Lots of Layers.  This is why I love being on this design team.  It makes me try things I normally wouldn’t try.  I don’t work with many layers very often so this was a little out of my league, but I did the best I could.

I mainly used everything from the February 2017 Simon Says Stamp card kit.  All the papers and sentiment are from that kit.  I wasn’t sure where to even start so I used a sketch to help get me going.  As you can see, this card was very easy to put together.  Here is the sketch I used.

Mojo397Sketch

Once I had this, the rest was a piece of cake!!

IMG_1539-copy

For the circles, the smallest circle I used was 1 3/4″.  The next one up was 2 1/8″ (craft cardstock).  The bigger set of circles start at a little over 2 1/2″ and the biggest circle I used is 3″.  The strip of pink card stock is 2″ wide.

The banners:  Smallest is 1/2″ x 2″

Biggest:  1/2″ x 2 3/8″

Thank you so much for stopping by!!

Misty

Disclosure: Please note that links to merchants mentioned within this post might be using an affiliate link which means that – at zero cost to you – I might earn a commission if you buy something through that affiliate link. That said, I never recommend anything I don’t personally use and find to be a valuable asset to my business.  Any time you use an affiliate link, I greatly appreciate it.


Well Hello There… Distress Oxides again
Cardmaking · Challenges · Handmade Greeting Cards

Well Hello There… Distress Oxides again

Happy Ink Designs7 Comments

Hi again!!  I’m back with some more distress oxide backgrounds.  I just can’t get enough of these!!  I want to take an entire day and just play.  In a perfect world, I’d actually have time to do that, but until then, I’ll settle with experimenting as I go.  I had a lot of fun playing around with these last week too, I actually ended up making a few cards which is always nice.  Seems like I just don’t have all that much time to make cards these days.  These boys keep me on my toes!!   You can check out my last week’s cards by clicking here.

This card was SUPER easy and super quick.  The theme this week at Always Fun Challenges is Dies and/or Punches.   I’m going to try and keep this post short and sweet as I am in the middle of yet another Birthday sleepover weekend.  This time for my son’s BFF that is living with us.  Hey!  My Birthday is tomorrow (Oct. 2), maybe I should have a sleepover too!!!!  That could be kinda fun, if I had some crafty friends that lived close by.  We could craft the night away!!

IMG_1535-copy

I have to show you how cute these boys are.  I just love them with all I got.  This is everyone singing Happy Birthday to Bub.  Mine is the one on the far right and Bubby is his BFF.

IMG_3641-copy

Here’s a recent one that I absolutely love.  My friend had just made this shirt for me so we were showing some Jr Cubs spirit.  This was right before a game.  I shared this on my IG, but I love it so much, I thought I’d share it here too.

IMG_3501

And one more of my card…

IMG_1537-copy

I am TOTALLY late to the show, but my crafty friend, Darnell is currently running her NBUS challenge so I’m also entering this into her 10 day long challenge.  This is one that I’m sure everyone can enjoy.  NBUS stands for Never Before Used Schtuff and if you guys are anything like me, you could participate in this every day for a month and still not get thru all of your NBUS…  Please check out her blog for all the details and follow her!!  She’s hilarious and she does this challenge a few times a year.  It’s the perfect push to use those products that you’ve never used before.

Anyway, below is a very simple video and below that is a list of the products that I used.  Thank you so much for stopping by!!  And I’ll see y’all next week ~

Disclosure: Please note that links to merchants mentioned within this post might be using an affiliate link which means that – at zero cost to you – I might earn a commission if you buy something through that affiliate link. That said, I never recommend anything I don’t personally use and find to be a valuable asset to my business.  Any time you use an affiliate link, I greatly appreciate it.


Playing with Oxide Inks
Cardmaking · Challenges · Handmade Greeting Cards

Playing with Oxide Inks

Happy Ink Designs3 Comments

Hi friends!!  I hope everyone had a fabulous weekend.  I had a crazy weekend, but I did find a little time on Sunday to play with the few distress oxide inks that I own.  I will say that after playing with these, I’ve gone ahead and ordered 7 more!!  I keep hearing people say how easy they are to blend and they are NOT exaggerating!!  These inks are AWESOME!!!  I’ve added a process video at the end of this post so you can see for yourself.

So in case you’re wondering what the theme is this week at Always Fun Challenges, it’s “Anything Goes”.  My favorite!!  I had so much fun playing with these inks, that I didn’t stop at just one card.  I made three!!!  Which is kinda crazy considering I didn’t even have a card made yet as of Saturday, the day I’m supposed to turn my project in (like I said, it’s been a crazy busy weekend).

IMG_1503-copy

I watched a video by Jennifer McGuire where she used stencils and oxide inks and it looked like a lot of fun so I gave it a whirl.  This is my version.  I only have 6 oxide inks at the moment so I started out using Cracked Pistachio and Broken China.   I spritzed some water on my stencil and placed it on top of my blended background and left it alone for a couple of minutes.  When I pulled the stencil off, I ooh’d and awed for a couple of seconds and then started on another one.

IMG_1454-copy

Once I got the feel for how these inks blend, I added in some Faded Jeans.  I absolutely LOVE how they turned out.  This next one I did, I used a more delicate stencil so I was a little worried that it wouldn’t turn out as good.  I made this stencil with my Silhouette Cameo awhile back and I think this was my first time using it.  The top part doesn’t pop as much as the rest of it, but I’m ok with that.  While less of the surface reacted to the water, I still love it.  It just has a more delicate look, is all.

IMG_1498-copy

I saved my favorite one for last.  I made this stencil with my Silhouette as well and even though I covered up a lot of the background with the vellum, you can still see the awesome reaction to water!!  I am in love with distress oxide inks.  Not only do they blend so seamlessly, but they have such a cool reaction to water!!  All distress inks do, but this is just sooo cool.  I can’t wait to get more colors now.  I added some vellum behind my sentiment, added a few clear Nuvo drops and tied some twine around the bottom and voila!!  Card complete.

IMG_1505-copy

Thanks for stopping by!!  Below is a process video where you can see for yourself how smooth these inks blend.  Below that is a list of all the products I used.  Until next time…

Misty

Disclosure: Please note that links to merchants mentioned within this post might be using an affiliate link which means that – at zero cost to you – I might earn a commission if you buy something through that affiliate link. That said, I never recommend anything I don’t personally use and find to be a valuable asset to my business.  Any time you use an affiliate link, I greatly appreciate it.


Back To School
Cardmaking · Challenges · Handmade Greeting Cards

Back To School

Happy Ink Designs5 Comments

Hi guys!!  Hope all you parents are getting back into the swing of a routine.  We started school last Wednesday and I think we’re finally getting our groove back.  It’s amazing how every year, we seem to forget how to cope with back to school!!! We struggle with the getting up early, getting lunches made, early bedtime routine, as if we didn’t just do it the year before!!  This year is particularly crazy because my husband is coaching football and I took over as the Vice President of the football league (first year even on the board so I have no idea what I’m doing).  I’m here to tell you, it’s a lot more work than I thought it was going to be!!  That on top of everything else in our lives is making me a little crazy.  So school and football basically start at the same time.  We’ve had Jayden’s best friend, Bubby and his Mom staying with us for a couple of weeks now so it’s been nice having another Mom here to help us function.

Speaking of “Back to School”, that is the theme this week at Always Fun Challenges.  So bust out your back to school stamps and get crafty with them!!   I don’t really have any school/teacher related stamp sets so this was the closest I could get.  I absolutely LOVE these little birds from the Stacking Animals set from Simon Says Stamp.  They work for so many different occasions.

IMG_1190-copy

Look how CUTE they are!!!  And the glasses from the Geek is Chic die (by MFT) fit perfect on the biggest bird.  I just can’t get over how cute they are.  I added some Spectrum Noir Sparkle to the glasses and then topped them off with glossy accents.

IMG_1188-copy

This will go live after our hectic weekend, but right now  I’m desperately trying to get my house clean for Jayden’s Birthday sleepover that we’re having Saturday night (so when you see this, that would have been last night).  We just realized 2 days ago that we have to do it this weekend.  My son’s Birthday is next week but next weekend is Labor Day weekend and I’m doing a 2 day craft fair, then we have football games every Saturday night from now until November.  Our next home game isn’t until September 23rd.  And I just realized all of this 2 days ago…  Way to go, Misty!!  My hubby is at the high school football game right now with Jayden and 6 of his friends so I’m taking advantage of this childless moment to CLEAN!!!

Thank you so much for stopping by.  You guys always leave the sweetest messages for me.  I really appreciate it.  If you have time, head over to the Always Fun Challenges blog and check out last weeks participants.  We have some beautiful entries.  If you have some crafty time, I encourage you to join us this week for some Back to School fun!  As always, AFC is open to anyone and everyone who’d like to participate.  We have a fun, new theme each week.

Copics:

Blue Bird:  BG10, BG11, BG13 Beak:  YR12, YR21

Orange Bird:  YR01, YR04, YR07 Beak:  YR21, Y32

If you’d like to see how I made this card, just click on the video below.  You’ll also find a list of all of the products I used below that.

Have a great week!!

Misty

Disclosure: Please note that links to merchants mentioned within this post might be using an affiliate link which means that – at zero cost to you – I might earn a commission if you buy something through that affiliate link. That said, I never recommend anything I don’t personally use and find to be a valuable asset to my business.  Any time you use an affiliate link, I greatly appreciate it.


Paper Piecing Challenge
Cardmaking · Challenges · Handmade Greeting Cards

Paper Piecing Challenge

Happy Ink Designs2 Comments

Hello crafty friends!!  How many of you love to paper piece when making cards?  I know some people prefer it.  And then some, like me, forget all about it until I actually do it again and then I say to myself, “Why don’t I do this more often?”  I tend to say that a lot lately.  All these new challenges each week have me trying different techniques and new ideas.  I have to say, I love it!!  If you’re ever lacking imagination or creativity, I suggest joining a challenge or two.  That’s kind of crazy coming from me, who had only participated in 2 challenges before joining this design team.  I like to do the Simon Says Stamp weekly challenge on flickr when I can and I LOVE my crafty friends’ NBUS challenge that she does a few times a year.  NBUS (Never Before Used Schtuff) is the PERFECT way to dip your toe into the wonderful world of challenges.  We all have stamp sets that have never seen the light of day, am I right?

Anyway….  I’m getting a little off track here.  Let’s talk about this week’s theme at Always Fun Challenges.  Have you guessed what that theme is yet???  Well, if you guessed paper piecing, then you are absolutely correct!!  I decided to go with this flower image from Purple Onion Designs.  I absolutely LOVE this flower image.  From this angle, you can see the added dimension and how pretty that Victorian Velvet distress ink turned out.

IMG_1024-copy.jpg

I think floral images are fun to paper piece.  As are clothes.  I did a card awhile back using Stamping Bella’s Uptown Girls and I had a lot of fun paper piecing their dresses.  You can check out that process video by clicking here.

Well ladies, I do hope you’ll check out the Always Fun Challenge blog this week and enjoy all the amazing talent from the rest of our design team and all the entries as well.  Please join us if you can!!  As always, these weekly challenges are open for everyone to play along.

If you’re interested in watching my process for this card, you can click on my YouTube video below.  I’ve also added links to all the products I’ve used.  Thank you so much for stopping by.  I absolutely love hearing from you guys each week.  Until next week….

Misty


Father’s Day Card No. 2
Cardmaking · Challenges · Handmade Greeting Cards

Father’s Day Card No. 2

Happy Ink Designs10 Comments

Hi friends!!!  Wow, I feel like I haven’t posted in ages!!  I had some health issues and landed myself in the hospital for awhile and I’m just now getting my energy and strength back!!  I’ve missed you guys!!  I’ve also failed at staying up to date on my lovely friend’s blogs, but I’m hoping I can get back into the swing of things really soon.  Especially now that school is out.  I know I’ll have more time, that’s for sure!!  I spent the whole last week at my kid’s school!!

Getting to it, this week’s theme at Always Fun Challenges is for a male/Father.  And like I said before, I have 4 of them to make so I feel like I’m killing 2 birds with one stone….  Yeah, that’s a horrible saying, but you get my point, right?  I made a pretty simple card Friday night, since I had a house full of kids.  It’s really a miracle that I got a card made at all.  We let Jayden have a sleepover on the last day of school so we had 7 boys here.  The only one we were missing was my part time kid, Bubby.  He’s my son’s best friend, but unfortunately his guardian is not very nice.  We sure missed him though!!  So back to my card…  For not having any idea what I wanted to do, I think it turned out A OK!!

IMG_0655-copy

IMG_0654-copy

OH!!  Before I go, I have SUPER exciting news!!  Well, it’s exciting to me.  I was picked as Blog of the Month in the June issue of Cardmaking and Papercrafts magazine!!!!  It’s a UK magazine and I would have never even known about it, if IsntSheCrafty hadn’t congratulated me!!  Well, I FINALLY got a hold of someone and they mailed me out the issue.  It’s not much, but it sure made my entire month!!  I don’t even care that they misspelled my name!!!  So thank you, Isn’tSheCrafty for letting me know about this!!!

IMG_0663

Anyway, I hope you guys join in this week at AFC.  I love seeing all of the entries.  Thank you so much for visiting me today.  I hope y’all have a fabulous week!!!

Misty

Floral Cards Featuring Altenew’s Spring Daisy
Cardmaking · Challenges · Handmade Greeting Cards

Floral Cards Featuring Altenew’s Spring Daisy

Happy Ink Designs8 Comments

Hello my crafty friends!!  I hope everyone had a nice weekend.  I love this time of year when it’s almost Summer, but not quite.  It’s not too warm out yet, it’s not foggy either (when it’s hot inland, we get the fog…) This weeks’ theme at Always Fun Challenges is flowers so with Summer on the brain and Spring in the air, I made this card using Altenew’s Spring Daisy set and I’m here to tell ya..  I am in LOVE with this set!! I stamped out a couple more panels because I want to copic color a few as well. There’s so many possibilities with this one!!  But for these two, I used watercolors. I also made a process video which is located below or click here to be redirected to my YT channel.  You can always just click on the video tab at the top as well.

I had a lot of fun making these.  I had no idea where I was going to go with this one so I just kept at it and this is what I came up with.  At first I was going to make that yellow flower gray, but I didn’t like where it was headed. I’m not that great of a watercolorist so I just couldn’t get the grays to do what I had in mind.  And since I wasn’t liking where that yellow flower on the right was going, I started another card front, just in case I had to abandon this one.  I’m soooo glad I saw it through!!  I ended up with TWO cards that I love!

IMG_0377-copy

I painted the background a really light blue color to get the outline of the flowers to pop out more.  I absolutely loved painting these.  I just took my time.  I did multiple layers of color, I added a few different colors in each flower.  I let them air dry instead of using my heat tool.  I heard I might get a better result that way.  Not sure if it’s true or not, but I really like how these turned out.

IMG_0383-copy

For the blue and purple flowers, I did the same thing only for the darkest color, I used a very small size 1 paintbrush to feather the color out, like I would have done if I were using Copic markers.

IMG_0389-copy

To finish it off, I added some Nuvo drops to both cards and matched some colored card stock for the background.

And that was it!!  It took me awhile to make these, only because I made two at the same time and because I air dried them, but it was totally worth it.  As soon as I have some free time, I’ll copic color the other panels I stamped out and share them with you.  Until then, I hope you all have a fabulous week ~

Oh!  And don’t forget to head over to the Always Fun Challenges blog and add your card(s) this week.  Remember, the theme is flowers.  Can’t wait to see what you create!!

Misty

CAS – Peony Bouquet by Altenew
Cardmaking · Challenges · Handmade Greeting Cards

CAS – Peony Bouquet by Altenew

Happy Ink Designs10 Comments

Well hello there my crafty friends!!!  I hope everyone had a fabulous weekend.  We are on week 3 at Always Fun Challenges and this weeks’ theme is Clean & Simple.  I must admit, I struggled with this one a little bit.  I don’t usually make CAS cards so I really had to make myself stop and think before I added something I couldn’t take back.  I used Peony Bouquet by Altenew.  This stamp set was so much fun to play with.  I actually just received another one of their lovely layered sets called Spring Daisy, along with a few other goodies.  I hope to have a haul video up on my YouTube channel in a couple of days.  Until then, you can check out my process video for this card by scrolling down to the bottom of this post or going to my YouTube channel by clicking here.  It’s a pretty short video, since these cards were so easy to make.

IMG_0323-copy

I decided to make this card for my son’s teacher who is really sick right now.  In the process of making this card, I realized I do not have ANY get well soon stamps.  At all.  I ended up using Sending and Wishing by SSS, but I definitely know what’s going on my Wishlist now.

I used the MISTI to stamp the flowers right where I wanted them.  Then I added the sentiment and I was done!!  I can’t believe how fast and easy this was to make.  I learned something very valuable while making this card…  I need to make more CAS cards!!!  I liked it so much that I made another one in another color.  Here’s the 2nd one.

IMG_0317-copy

Thank you so much for stopping by!  Be sure to check out the Always Fun Challenges blog to see all the inspiration from the other oh so talented Design Team members.  You can enter your own project here.  If you’re not able to playing along this week, I hope you will at least head over and check out all the beautiful entries.  I’m always amazed at the amount of talent there is.

Have a wonderful week!

Misty