little cards

I'm getting ready to do a little craft show, and I want to have some simple hand-stamped gift cards. So I've been doing a bunch of these little square cards with just a cute strip of patterned paper, a great stamp, and a little twine or ribbon. I'm mass-producing and I don't want them to cost too much, so they need to be simple. This card uses our Happy Mother's Day single and some purse patterned paper from the new Cosmo Cricket Upcycle line. I think it's cute!

Here's another little Easter card... I love these springtime colors.

playing with color

I had a day where I started to play with my Copic markers a bit and see what I could do with them. I've never taken a Copic class and my "coloring" skills cannot match what I see some of my design team girls doing, that is for sure! There are some amazing color-ers out there (if that's a word?!) I was pretty happy with these two little cards though... let me show ya what I did.





The card above uses our new Love You a Latte single. I wanted the latte cup and saucer to have that "chalk" look... like something you'd see drawn on a chalkboard at your local coffee shop. I used the clear blending marker to make the polka-dots on the cup by removing some of the red ink. Then I took my white gel pen, colored the saucer, and kind of smeared it around to give it a chalky look. I finished it off with a little gray shadow. The patterned paper is from Cosmo Cricket - Upcycle.






My next card features the little bird nest from our new Spring Follow Your Dreams Mix set. I love this little image, and I've been wanting to use it with my favorite color combination -- robins egg blue and brown. I wanted the eggs to be "speckled" eggs. So first I made polka dots with a brown marker, then I colored over it with a light blue marker, and finally I took my clear blender marker again and removed some of the color. I think it worked! The eggs match the speckled button I used on the side. I love the earthy look of this card.

I also pulled out my Versamark ink pad and stamped the flourishy eggs in the background (that egg is also in the new Spring Mix set.) That's something I haven't done for awhile and it reminded me that I love Versamark!

baby boy blue

The design team challenge at Lizzie Anne this month is to create a baby-themed card based on a photo from the Pottery Barn website. I actually found SO many things on that website that I had a hard time choosing. (In fact, I also found something to buy which is why my daughter will now be getting this bed for her birthday. Oh boy that site really sucks me in! Super cute.)




Here's my card. I used our Merry Marine Sixlets stamp set, which was perfect for this theme.




And here is the photo that was my inspiration! It's from the Jackson nursery collection. Notice how it's mostly a blue color theme with just a touch of red? That is really the key for this color scheme. Too much red and it's not "nautical" feeling anymore I just added a thin border of red to my card as well as a red button, and that was perfect.



I stamped a baby sentiment from our new Spring Mix set -- Follow Your Dreams -- on the inside of the card in white. I have a baby boy shower to go to next week and so this will be perfect, I am also going to dress up a gift bag to match!

spring mix cards

We're revealing our new Spring Mix -- Follow Your Dreams -- today at Lizzie Anne! It ships on April 1st to our Mix Members. I've been super busy lately, but so anxious to get my new stamps inky. I decided to give myself 30 minutes and make some clean and simple-style cards. So I grabbed this stamp set as well as Timeless Treasures (border stamps) and some new Cosmo Cricket paper we just got in, and here's what I came up with. 10 minutes per card. I quite like how they turned out! These make perfect little gift cards.














Did you notice the little crown I put on the cameo card? I've been looking for the perfect opportunity to use that little crown. Initially this image didn't stamp as dark as I had planned, but then I realized it looked very antique. I can see myself playing around with that cameo image quite a bit...

canvas decor

I just made some wall decor that turned out so fun I had to share! I've been wanting some artwork above my bed for quite some time, but couldn't decide what. We have a travel-theme in our bedroom. I've framed some photos of places we've visited and we also have some really cool retro prints of Paris, London, Rome, and New York. I wanted to continue my travel-theme above my bed.

I keep seeing these "canvas wall art" deals coming up on sites like Groupon, so I decided to give it a try. I used CanvasLifestyle. It turned out so fun! I used a photo of Venice that I had taken back in college during my study-abroad trip, and I wrote "The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page" at the top in a nice scripty font with a flourish. (That sentiment is one of my favorites and is also one I used in our Vintage Verses stamp set.)

Here is the photo I sent to them...



and here it is in canvas on my wall.



Here it is above my bed!



Isn't that fun? This is a great way to make your own home-decor using your own photographs and memories!