Hapy Autumn with SNSS!

I am still enjoying my time as a Guest Designer over at the Sweet N Sassy Stamps blog. For today I have created the adorable card you see pictured below that uses the digital stamp set from SNSS called "Leave Me Smiling."

This card uses a technique that I have never used before so if you want to find out what that is, and want more information about this card and the stamp set used, please stop by the SNSS blog for all the details!

Click HERE to go to my post at the SNSS blog!

I am excited to be Growing in Unity also this week, so I will be back

soon with a post using some Unity Stamps!

Happy Harvest Challenge Card

For the month of October I have the pleasure of being one of the Guest Designers for Sweet N Sassy stamps and today I have a great little card to share with you that uses the stamp set designed by Korin called Happy Harvest!

This card meets a couple of challenges. I was able to play along in my first Dirty Dozen challenge at SCS this month! The challenge is called "You want a {Paper} Piece Me?" and it is to use paper piecing on our card and to incorporate Fall (or Christmas) colors as well. The other challenge is a sketch challenge and I based my card's layout off of this week's Mojo Monday sketch which you can find HERE! I didn't follow it exactly, but I definitely let my design flow from that one so I wanted to give Julee the credit!

Here is a picture of the Mojo Monday sketch 109...

And here is my card based (slightly) on the sketch...

When I knew I was going to use the scarecrow image from the Happy Harvest stamp set sometime during this month as SNSS GD, and I saw this DP, I knew I had to incorporate it into the design. I felt like the DP compliments the feel that I was going for on this card. The DP is from K & Co. I paper pieced the scarecrow's face, shirt and the patches on his overalls. The rest of the images were colored with my Copic markers.

Obviously this card is a fall-themed card that is designed to give to some one over the Thanksgiving holidays. So it was important to me that through this card I could elicit feelings of a farm, raggedy fabrics and warmth.

I want to share with you the ways that I tried to accomplish those things...

To create the feel of a farm, I simply used the masking technique and created the scene that you see here. I stamped the scarecrow on the image panel and again on a piece of scratch paper. I placed the scratch paper over the stamped image and then created the cornfield by repeatedly stamping the cornstalks to make the scarecrow to appear that he is in the middle of a cornfield. I colored the ground to look like dirt.

To add to the feel of a farm, I chose to use Burlap which I frayed on all edges and placed under the image panel. Certainly a burlap sack makes you think of a bag of potatoes or vegetables that are harvested from a farm.


Raffia is another accent that can be used to add to projects that are rustic, or country-like. I added the orange button and the orange ribbon to add flair and whimsy to the otherwise muted colors on the card!

To continue on with the rugged feel, I also added staples to attach my image panel to the card base.

I hope you like it and maybe even got some ideas from me on how to carry out your card's themes as far as you can on your projects. Try to think things through and see what you can do to improve upon the theme of your card by adding extra touches!

Don't forget to stop over at Sweet N Sassy stamps! Korin has some wonderful Fall and Thanksgiving stamp sets that are perfect for your projects for this time of the year! And to see some more of the cards that were created for this month's Dirty Dozen challenge by some of the other DD or DDAlumni, enter DCPOM1009 into the SCS Galleries search bar.

Please have a wonderful day and may your bucket overflow with your own happy harvest in your heart!

Quick and easy Gift for a Friend!

A friend of mine from work recently had a birthday and I wanted to give her a little something that she could use over the holidays. I decided to put together a little gift set with the colors of Fall. I found this cute kitchen towel set, candle and dish from a local discount designer store and just needed to tie it all together.

Using the SU "happy harvest" sentiment and some Nesties I created the label for the candle. And with a leaf border stamp from Recollections, I applied the technique of stamping on a candle that is shown HERE at SCS


You need to look closely to see the stamped leaf border I applied. I probably could have used a little darker ink to help my leaves show up better, but in real life it does show up more. The white areas were already like that because the candle is a little rustic-like with a rougher texture than some candles you might find!


If you have never tried this technique you should give it a whirl. It is great for updating and repurposing inexpensive candles and makes a great gift for the holidays! The technique that I linked you to now has a video demonstration also. Have fun!!


May your new week start out smoothly and may your bucket overflow with warm thoughts on this chilly Monday!!

It's Wednesday....and it's Sweet!!

It's time for another Sweet Sketch Wednesday sketch challenge this week! We are happy to announce that we have a sponsor for this week and there are prizes to be won!!

Our great sponsor this week is Jen from Say it With Stamps. She makes incredible sentiments and word art that are created digitally and perfect to use with your stamped creations! Here is a closeup of one of her button sentiments that I used on today's project. You can purchase this and other stamps of hers HERE!

She has graciously offered the winner of this challenge to choose 2 months of her releases to receive for FREE. That lucky winner can choose from Aug & Sept, Sept & Oct, etc. OR pick and choose up to $10 worth of digistamps from her store.

Here is the sketch that we were given this week...

And here is the card that I created based on the sketch...

Because Jen's digistamps contain only words and sentiments, we had the liberty of using any other image stamps that we chose to. The stamp set that I used to create this scene is from Sweet N Sassy Stamps' Happy Harvest set. It is an acrylic stamp set that comes with multiple fall-themed stamps. Please visit the SNSS blog for today's post where you will see more details about this card including how I used the masking technique to create this scene.

To create the sign you see for the scene, I made my own sign base from a scrap of paper and distressed and inked the edges to give it a worn look. I stamped the sign lettering from the Happy Harvest set. To make the post that the sign is on, I used part of the fence post as my piece of wood. The papers I used are from the Recollections Autumn Paper pad. The images were all colored using Copic Markers.

The stitches that I put on each side of the main image panel are cross-stitches. They are very easy to do, but in case you don't know how to do it, I wanted to share it with you.

I have created a tutorial in pdf form that you can download from here...

Cross-Stitch Tutorial

Thanks so much for stopping by today! Now, please go over to the Sweet Sketch Wednesday blog so you can visit the rest of the DT's submissions. And then, be sure to create a card of your own using today's sketch and then enter it onto the SSW blog with Mr. Linky so you can be eligible to win this week's prizes!

Have a great day and may your bucket be overflowing with all the sweet things that Wednesday's bring!

Friends with Flair Friday Challenge Card

Have you guys seen the new blog for the upcoming online magazine called Embellish that is run by the wonderfully talented Ashley Cannon Newell? She is one of the current Dirty Girls in the Dirty Dozen at Splitcoaststampers. Talk about a class act...the things she produces and the blog she is running are top notch and incredibly inspirational. I hope you will visit her and see for yourself.

The Embellish Magazine blog held a challenge recently called the Polka Dot Paradise Color Challenge which was to make a project incorporating polka dots and the following color scheme.

What gorgeous colors that fit perfectly into the fall season. So I decided to make a fall-themed card using some new leaves from Unity's September Store Kit and the sentiment from Unity's September KOM.

Season of Blessings

The digiwords used for the background text underneath the leaves are from Say it With Stamps. Inks used are TH's Aged Mahogany Distressed Ink; Stampin Up's Pumpkin Pie, Apricot Appeal and Purely Pomegranate. I used the Rock n Roll technique on the stamped images to create the variation of colors on the solid stamps.

To create the cool ribbon/twine effect I just tied knots in the ribbon at three points that I tried to space evenly over the front of my card and then wrapped the twine around the ribbon and secured it at each end. It makes for great texture, interest and depth on the card!

Thanks so much for stopping by. If you didn't start at the beginning with the Unity blog to see all the Friends with Flair posts, then click HERE to go there now!

Enjoy your day and may your bucket be filled with flair!!

I Opened an Etsy Store!

So I finally decided to give Etsy a try. If you haven't heard of Etsy, it is an online site where handmade items can be bought and sold. I make so many cards these days, more than I can give away and I am tired of them sitting around here collecting dust. I already mail birthday and special occasion cards to my friends and family members and I also contribute cards to the Share a Card organization, but there are still too many left unsent. It only makes sense to try and sell them to somebody who would like to pass them on to someone in their life, right? Certainly people buy cards all the time, I am just hoping that maybe they will want to buy them from me!

I have no idea if this will be a successful venture or not, but I figured if I even recoup a small portion of the money I spend each month on papers and supplies it couldn't hurt!

Here is the link to my store. It is called none other than MyBucketOverfloweth! It is an appropriate name because my bucket actually does overflow with cards! Ha!!

I decided to additonally make some card sets to go into my Etsy store and I wanted to share with you the first set that I made. I tried to keep them clean and simple so the cost could stay down and it would appeal to the most people.

Here is the set that I call my Fall Four Pack!

Once again I used the adorable paper collection from Recollections that you can get from your local Michael's store. I just love how blue is an accent color for fall this year! I LOVE that!! Two cards are oriented landscape and two are portrait.

This card is called Fall Blessings and is made by paper piecing the Unity stamp tree stamp that came in the CKU Giggles set (which was sold only for a limited time). And yes, I individually cut out by hand each of the little circles for the middle tree! I made four sets of this card so that is a total of twenty little circles that I hand cut!! I know, call me CRAZY!!! The sentiment stamp is from Unity's Birdie Inspiration.

The next card is called Thankful Thoughts and it went together really nicely. I simply cut three equal squares to make a grid and them stamped the cute leaves stamp from Recollections where the fourth square would have gone. The sentiment is from Verve Stamps.

This third card was the most time consuming only because of the coloring involved. This adorable stamped image of squirrels and the sentiment are from The Greeting Farm set called Forest Friends. To color these I used my Prismacolor pencils blended with Gamsol. The layout for this card uses sketch SC244 at SCS

And finally the last card in the collection I call Happy Harvest. It is named after the SU sentiment I used that comes in the Loads of Love set. The die cut leave was made with my new Nestability die. I also embossed it and inked it and attached some cool fall fibers for an added touch!

So this whole set I am selling for $12 (plus shipping) which I think is a pretty good deal considering what you can spend at Hallmark for cards that are much plainer. I did get my first sale already when my neighbor and new friend Lisa bought a set from me! Thank you Lisa!!

Wish me luck! I would love to see this be an avenue to supplement my income and allow me to keep new products coming into my craftroom!

Have a wonderful Thursday and may your bucket overflow with new opportunities for you too!