Thursday, October 23, 2014

The Greeting Farm, Penny Black and Thanksgiving Cards!


Hey there!  It's me again!  I actually made this card a week ago I believe.  I can't remember.  I wanted to share it because of the paper doily in the background.  I bought the doily on Etsy, 50 for about $4.00 and it has gone a long way.  I still have at least 25 left.  There are quite a few shops that sell them on Etsy!  I love using them on my card.  I usually cut them in half and use it as a layer on my cards.  I want to buy other patterns but I can't until I use up the ones I already have.

I've been very conscious about bulk purchases.  I never thought about it much in the past.  This includes food.  It appears to be cheaper to buy bulk.. . . only if you intend to use them otherwise you end up with a whole bunch of stuff you either lose interest in or just that there are too much of it that you can't use them all no matter how hard you try.   

So.  . .I stopped buying bulk all together other than the occasional purchase.  Some people sell their left over craft supplies in order to buy more but it's okay if you are willing to lose a little bit of money for the benefit of being able to buy more of something else.

Today, I just cleaned out my freezer.  Despite my best intentions of eating what I bought, some of them expired before I could eat them.  I've been very careful about not buying too many things at once when I go grocery shopping but I still end up with expired food.  It usually happens because I'm inspired to cook a particular dish or eat a particular food while at the grocery store (usually because I'm hungry at the moment) but when I get home, I end up forgetting about them.  Okay, starting today, I will eat what I buy and buy only what I need for the week.


 Alright enough of my rambling.  The image is by the Greeting Farm and the designer papers are by Stampin Up.


Oh. . . talk about bulk purchase.  Dew drops!  Don't even get me started.  I have enough of them to last a life time.  I kid not!  I bought every color that exist and I use them on my cards like crazy because I have so many of them.  Remember when dew drops were popular?  Well, I don't care if it's no longer the "in" embellishment.  I am going to use them on my cards until I can get my supplies down to the point where I feel like I got my money's worth!


Oh Stickles!  That's another thing!  I have Stickles galore!  I also every color that exist.  I do use them on my cards more often than not but not often enough.  Not every image looks good with glitter so can't use them on every card I make.  But from time to time, it looks good especially on a cupcake image.  Don't you agree?  The image is by Penny Black!  I love their images.  I don't think their images will ever go out of style.  

I decided to use this pumpkin patch image again.  I don't have too many Thanksgiving images so I'm left to use what I have over and over.  I again used the microbeads on the flowers.  Nothing much to say about this card.


Thank you once again for stopping by my blog.  I am getting into the blogging thing again.  Hopefully I can continue blogging regularly.
Hope you all have a wonderful day!

Etsy Shop: Inspired & Unscripted
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Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Christmas Cards Using Stampin Up Images




 Hi there!  First of all, thank you so much for those who left comments.  You were all so kind and I feel so welcomed after not blogging for a few months! I haven't blogged much this year.  There was a time when I blogged almost every day.  Life has changed and other things in life became a priority.  I miss those days when blogging was still new.  It was so fun to meet new friends and share our work with one another.   I've been blogging for 8 years I believe.  I started back in 2006 or 2007 and I still keep in touch with a bunch of my blogging friends that I've met through my blog.  We keep in touch on Facebook.  A lot of them have moved on and no longer make hand made cards or rubber stamp and instead moved on to other hobbies or just quit crafting all together but most still craft and create regularly.  

I did make a few cards the past few days.  I had a bunch of projects, assignments and exam for school the past week but I'm done with last weeks assignments so I was able to make a few cards yesterday. 


 All the cards I'm sharing in this post are larger size cards.  They measure 6.25 x 4.5".  I really like this size.  It's not too big or too small but it has a large enough area to work with so it's a pretty flexible size.   With the card above, I rubber stamped the image then heat embossed it with red embossing powder.  Do any of you still heat emboss?  I like to heat emboss solid images.  Heat embossed images really stand out on a card.  I still own quite a few jars of embossing powder and I use them from time to time.  All the images on my cards are from Stampin Up by the way.

I heat embossed the Christmas tree on to textured card stock and that's the reason why you see a bit of a pattern on the image.


I found this card layout on the Verve Stamps website.  I changed it up a little but I really liked the overall layout.  It worked great with the image and designer papers I used.

Do you see the designer paper?  Well . . .it's by the Greeting Farm.  I'm not sure if they still sell the designer papers but I still have a bunch of them so I decided to use them on this card.


I like the little pop of pink in the color combo.  I worked it in using the paper's colors to pull the color from.   I was hesitant at first to use the pink color for the background color of my card but I like how it turned out.


I had this rubber stamp for ages and never used it.  I'm on a mission to use as many of the stamps I have and especially work with images that I've never used.  I don't know why I never used this image.  Now that I've used it, I can't wait to make more cards using the snowman image.


Anyway, that's it for now.  If you're not a card maker and like to buy cards.  I listed all the cards that I shared in my Etsy shop.  Stop by my shop and check out the other cards I listed.

Thank you for stopping by my blog.

Etsy Shop: Inspired & Unscripted
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Saturday, October 18, 2014

Hello! Holiday Cards - Christmas and Thanksgiving!



Hello there Friends!  Gosh it's been a while since I last blogged!  I do miss blogging.  It's been a huge part of my life and maybe I'll start blogging again on a regular basis.  I've thought about it but we'll see. 

What have I been doing?  Well, I've been busy with life.  For one thing, I decided to return to college. Yay me!  I've been enjoying the experience of learning something new again.  I'm actually pursuing 2 post-baccalaureate certificates in Medical Case Management and Community Case Management.  They are certificates for RNs who want to move into the field of case management.

I've always wanted to do case management work and hopefully, in the future I'll be able to land a job in this area of nursing.  Many of the jobs in the field are within the community and I've been learning quite a lot so far.  I'm currently taking a Clinical Ethics class and many of what we are learning has really helped me to understand what is going on with the Ebola crisis. It's a very interesting course so far.  I'm really enjoying learning more about the ethical dilemmas that occur in the medical field. 

Anyway. . . that's what I've been doing.  I am still making cards regularly but I haven't blogged my cards in a while. I usually just post them on my Etsy Shop and on my Facebook page.  Social media has changed quite a bit in the past year or two, where Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter have been the main area where people share their work as opposed to blogging them.

I think the reason why a lot of people turn to Instagram, FB, etc is that there is instant gratification.  The interaction is more social and you normally receive an instant response.  And with the fast pace of life, it's easier to post a small blurb than to write long commentaries.  I don't know. . .I have noticed that many of the more active bloggers don't blog as often as they used to or there are less of them it seems.  I'm not sure if most of them moved on to sharing their work on Facebook or the other social media sites.


I've noticed recently that the majority of the Christmas images I have are snowman images.  I have a lot of snowman rubber stamps and very few Santa images.  I thought that was interesting.  I never really noticed that in the past.  Believe it or not but I've had these High Hopes rubber stamps for years and I've never used them!  I have so many rubber stamps that I just can't get around to using all of them. Yes, I have that many.  It's actually insane how many I have.

Another thing I hoard and use with great care are the retired Stampin Up designer series papers.  I still have designer papers that retired several years ago.  Honestly, I prefer the older prints than the newer ones.   I miss the old colors too.  You'll notice a lot of my cards use the older designer papers because I use every piece of paper and waste none.  One sheet of 12x12" paper can go a long way.


This snowlady image is by High Hopes.  I bought both the male and female images back in the day.  Snowman images will always be a favorite of mine so I don't think I'll ever part with any of the snowman rubber stamps I own.


This is another rubber stamp image that I never used until now.   It's an image by the Greeting Farm.  I thought she was a perfect image for a Christmas card.


One of the embellishments that I use a lot on my cards are flowers.  I have a buttload of them that I bought in the past and despite using them on literally every card I make, I still have a buttload of them left.  It's really incredible how crafters tend to overbuy when it comes to embellishments.  Then instead of using them, we hoard them.  My goal is to use them up and not to buy in bulk anymore.



I can't remember what brand is this rubber stamp.  It's unmounted rubber so I threw away its packaging so now I can't remember who made this image.


Another thing I've been using regularly lately are my Prisma Color Pencils.  Remember them?  I remember when they were the big thing before Copics came along.  After I started using my Copic Markers, I stopped using my Prima Color Pencils.  Well, I brought them back from the depth of the storage dungeon and began using them again.  I use them for the background coloring and for shading.  I really dislike the fact that I had bought a lot of things in the past and forgot about them when a "new" big thing came along.  It's consumerism at its best!  But the good thing about materialism and consumerism, the old usually finds its way back to the present.  It's like a revolving thing. . .just a part of the circle of life.


This image is by CC Designs.  I've used her several times in the past.  The only thing different about this card is it's size.  I found a stack of 6.5 x 4.75" Stampin Up envelopes, again in one of the containers that I stored and I decided I need to make cards for them.  I rarely make the standard 4.25 x 5.5" size cards anymore although I know I should because I have many A2 size envelopes (again, one of my many purchases).  The reason I usually make 5.5 x 5.5" square cards instead of the A2 size cards is because I have a larger area to work with.  I can add more embellishments and use larger images which I tend to have a lot of.  The A2 size card have so little space that some of the larger images overwhelm the whole card.


I noticed that the trend in the card making world is to use less ribbons and designer papers.  Card making has gone the simple, minimalist route which is a trend in all areas of life it seems.  Many people are purging their things and opting for the more minimalistic lifestyle from clean food to owning less things.  I am all for minimalism.   I'm trying to do the same thing in my life. . .well, not the clean food.  I haven't gone that far yet.  But in the meantime while I still own a lot of things, my goal is to use them up and not necessarily purge everything.  So one of the things I do is use a lot of designer papers and ribbons on my cards.  I haven't jumped on the "simple/clean" cards bandwagon yet.  Not until I've used up as many of what I have and maybe I'll consider going simple!

 My first Thanksgiving card this year!  Do you see the sunflower images?  There was a time when I bought a lot of "microbeads". . .remember those?  Well I decided to use them on the flowers and I really like how they turned out.  In the past, I used the microbeads for shaker cards but I think they look great on flowers to give them a bit of a dimension.


I think you can see the microbeads better in this photo.

 Oh my first Santa card this year!  I used a retired Stampin Up rubber stamp for this card.  I did make a new purchase recently.  I bought the Zig Wink of Stella glitter brush.  I bought the clear one but I'm thinking of buying the set.  I really love them.  They add sparkle to your colored images without have to deal with messy glues and glitter. 


To color the background, I used my Prisma Color Pencils.  I'm so glad I never sold my Prisma pencils.  It is now turning out to be very useful.

 Mr Snowman again!  I used this Stampin Up snowman image every year for at least the past 5 years or even more.  It's one of my "go to" snowman image.  I stamped the snowflakes in the background and used Stickle glitter to give them a little sparkle.


This card turned out to be very sparkly with my using the Stickles and Wink of Stella glitter pen.

Last but not least, another Thanksgiving card.  And. . . it's my first time to use this retired Stampin Up image.  I've never used it.  I've always been meaning to use it but never got around to using it.  There are only so many cards I can make.  I wish I could use all of the rubber stamps I have.  I have so many pretty ones.  I'll try harder to use the ones that I've never inked so I'll feel less guilty for buying them in the first place.

Well that's it for now.  Thank you for stopping by my blog and it's nice to be here again.  I hope to maybe post again some time soon.  In the meantime, stop by Facebook page or my Etsy shop to view the new cards I make.  I'll try to post again soon!  Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
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