I'm Late

Color throwdown day again, I am really loving this challenge. It makes me push myself to be creative. Check out the challenge here: CTD442

When I saw the colors for this week, I knew this was the stamp I wanted to use. It is this tiny set by Avery Elle called I'm Late and it is made up of three little stamps. The snail with the balloon and two sentiment lines, Happy Birthday and Sorry I'm Late...


And since this was such a simple little stamp set I wanted to make a simple little card. I chose a one layer, clean and simple card. I actually colored on the card base y'all!!! <---seriously don't know where the y'all came from because I'm from the Midwest.

I embossed a wonky stitched rectangle on the front of the card base and I loved how that looked. I stamped the image and sentiment in Lawn Fawn Jet Black ink and colored with my Copics. You can see the colors this week are a pale aqua, pale beige, pale grey and pale yellow. I used three greys, N0, N2, & N4 for the snail. I used Y0000, Y11, Y13 & Y21 for the balloon ( I probably could have skipped the Y11 it really didn't even show up). I used BG0000 & BG32 for the background aqua color  and E000 & E40 for the beige color. I blended the backgrounds out with the colorless blender 0 marker. I also added some texture to the ground with the 0 marker. A simple highlight with the white gel pen on the snail, darkened his eyes with a black glaze pen and then some spectrum noir sparkle pen and glossy accents on the balloon and the party hat and the card front was complete.

I finished the inside of the card with the remaining half of the sentiment, Happy Birthday and stamped the snail in an aqua ink. That finished the card for today.

Sketched Mother's Day

I pulled out one of my new favorite stamp sets to make a Mother's Day card and sample for the 4H kids project for the week.

I used the sketched ranunculus set and heat embossed the flowers and leaves onto some Bristol Smooth Cardstock. I used Versafine onyx black ink and clear embossing powder. You still get the crisp black embossing but not the stray black powder bits black embossing powder can sometimes leave.

Then I used my Zig clean color real brush markers and added a little color to each image and pulling it out with my water brush. I only used one shade of red and one shade of green for each image. I really like the variation in color you get by pulling it out with the water. I set that aside to dry and then die cut a panel of bristol card stock with this rectangle die from the Simon Says Stamp Stitched Shapes set.

 I used the MFT hybrid ink in a neutral shade to stamp a Stampabilities medallion onto the corner of the panel. I wanted this to be very subtle. With a little distress ink and a blending pad I blended in some blue from the corner.

I heat embossed a sentiment from Avery Elle in Antique Gold Embossing Powder from Simon Says Stamp and then fussy cut the images out. These were simple shapes so they were easy and took no time at all. I used some foam tape to pop up the main flower and then adhered the remaining flowers flat using Tombo Mono Multi adhesive. Once the flowers were placed I added my leaves.

I mounted the panel on a piece of black cardstock and that finished my card.

You're Sew Amazing

One of the benefits of participating in the Growing In Unity GIU week is getting to pick out a free kit from any of their stamps, new or old. 

I received my kit the other day and I had been eyeing up this sewing machine because I have these quilt dies and figured the combination would be sew perfect. ;)

I participated in this week's color throwdown challenge. You can check out the challenge here:  Ctd 441 

The colors are a pink, light aqua and light purple. White was also on the list and then any neutrals I wanted to use.

I really love how this turned out. I even used a bit of thread from my personal sewing machine and put that behind the stamped image.

All patterned papers were MFT
Colored Cardstock was MFT
White Cardstock Nina
Die from Gina Marie Dies

May the Fourth Support Heterotaxy Day!

Never heard of Heterotaxy Syndrome? It is a rare birth defect that involves the heart and other organs. The beginning of the word (hetero-) means “different” and the end (–taxy) means “arrangement.” There are different forms of heterotaxy syndrome. All usually involve heart defects of varying types and severity. You can read more about it here: CHoP

This is how it has become a part of our lives. Follow me, because this may be a bit confusing.

Delaney was born 10/22/13 in Kenosha, WI and was transported to the NICU at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, Milwaukee a few hours after birth. Two days later she was taken into the Cath lab where her heart was perforated and she ended up on an ECMO machine. For the nature of her care, she was in the CICU, Cardiac Intensive Care Unit. While we were there we had, what we would have called classic bad luck, and our electricity was turned off at our home due to an error. I was sobbing on the phone with the Electric Company, begging them to turn the electric back on because I had pumped breast milk in the freezer for my critical daughter and I couldn't lose both her and the milk in the same day... and this woman asked me if she could help.

You see, her daughter had been born a few days earlier and was in the CICU because she had HLHS (her heart didn't completely form and she was born with basically half a heart). HLHS wasn't her daughter's only diagnosis, she also was born with Heterotaxy Syndrome. I'd never heard of either condition at that point in my life. Although she was in a tremendous amount of stress with the uncertainty of her daughter's life, she reached out to help us!

After Delaney passed away we stayed in touch.

It was amazing to see their daughter "B" grow and get stronger and go home and become a person, an honest to GOD person. I had the pleasure of meeting "B" when she was 2. One of the hardest moments of my life since Delaney passing away.

Anyway, back to my reason for today's blog post. B's mom Kristen was able to get our Governor to acknowledge May 4th as Heterotaxy Day a few years back, she wanted to bring awareness and fund research and help these special kids live full lives.

The colors used to represent Heterotaxy Awareness are Aqua/ Teal and Yellow. I saw this photo of "B" from last year and had to create a card to send her, to blog about to try to do my little part to raise awareness.

I finished the inside of my card with a simple restamping of the main image in the Tide Pool color. I cannot wait to write a message in this to a little girl who is stronger than she thinks.

 All stamps used are from Unity Stamp Company.
Paper from DCWV, AC, & MFT
Ink from Lawn Fawn
Pearls from A Muse Studio
Coloring with Copic Markers


*** Please leave Miss B a comment below, I'm sure her almost 4 year old self would love to know you are all thinking of her and others with this rare disorder***

Welcome, Baby

I love mixing old and new sets and products to create cards. I feel like you really get a one of a kind look when doing it.

My brother and his girlfriend will be welcoming a baby in early July and I received an invitation for a baby shower so I needed to make a card.

I recently received a set from My Favorite Things called Welcome, Baby and it has amazing sentiments for new baby cards. I also picked up a paper pad by Taylored Expressions called Double the Joy and it has a mix of baby boy and baby girl themed papers.

I could have found a new set for the image but I wanted to use these two sets by Stampingbella, Ketto's Clothesline (with pegs) and BabyLingerie. I've had these two sets for years and love to pull them out to make cute baby cards.

I die cut a white panel of Nina Solar White with a wonky stitched rectangle and then stamped the clothes line using my Misti and some Lawn Fawn Jet Black Ink. I also created a mask for each of the poles (but I probably didn't need to). I stamped the clothes onto a scrap of Nina Solar White and the center image was stamped directly onto patterned paper.

Post-it notes laid around the outside edge of the panel masked the stitching off so I could keep that white border. I hand cut a cloud border on a sticky note and used that as a stencil to sponge in some sky and clouds with tumbled glass distress ink.This is where I used the masks but the tumbled glass ink is so light I could have skipped this step. Then I used a little mowed lawn distress ink to add some grass.

I colored the image with Copic Markers, the clothes line poles, flowers at the base and the two outfits; one blue, one green. Then I fussy cut the three outfits, one from patterned paper and the two I colored, as well as three clothes pins.

I used a bit of foam tape to pop them up over top the clothes line. I mounted this main panel onto a piece of patterned paper from that same Taylored Expressions paper pad and added it to a standard A2 side folding card base made from Smooth White Cardstock (MFT).

I finished the card by adding the rest of the sentiment to the inside along with a strip of coordinating paper from the same paper pad.


That finished today's card off.

Magical Day

Since receiving this cute Doodlebug 6x6 pad and this Taylored Expressions stamp set I knew I had to create a card using both, together.

A simple layout helped me keep the focus on this adorable, sparkly, dragon. I say, even boy dragons would sparkle and have shimmer, right?

Simple Copic coloring helped me create this coordinating dragon image. I cut the panel out with a MFT pierced rectangle die and used foam tape to mount it to the card.

I thought the Richard Garay Amazing Dots in the matte grey were perfect so I added a few of those around the sentiment panel.

I finished the inside with a strip of the cloud patterned paper (side note, the castles and the clouds are the same piece, just different sides!) and I stamped the Have a Magical day sentiment inside.

I think some little boy, or girl, would love this one.

My Tribe

I have some amazing people in my life and there are a few that mean more to me than most. Four years ago I joined a pregnancy support group when I was pregnant with Delaney Jane and met over 100 of the kindest, warmest, most supportive women on the planet.

There is one in particular that I grew close to. I think it has to do with the depths of her faith and her belief in God. I wasn't religious, I was faithful. I never got mad at God during her ten short days nor did I after, but I struggled with her death and still do, to this day.

However, I met this woman online and she has been so supportive and understanding and she is my person. You know, that person you can say just about anything to, can just vent to, can hope for, can pray with, that person.

Her name is Amanda and she is amazing. Besides her family and faith, her passion was and has always been helping people. She went to school to be a personal trainer, focusing on pregnancy and postpartum fitness and then took a leap of faith and became a Beachbody Coach a little over a year ago.

Amanda held my hand, virtually, while I went on my own weight loss journey. I lost a total of 83# before I got pregnant with our now youngest, Ryker. If I needed something, Amanda was there. If I struggled, Amanda was there. If I was celebrating a win or achievement, Amanda was there.

I wanted to remind her just how special she is to me and I did what I know how to do, I made her a personalized card.

It may not seem like much, but for a few hours I totally and completely thought of no one else but her. I strived to create a beautiful card, something worthy for her to receive. I really hope it is received with as much love as it is sent with.


I heat embossed the words, be bold, be brave be wild on a piece of bright pink cardstock with clear embossing powder and then used a blending tool to do an emboss resist technique with black soot distress ink, leaving the bright pink as the words.

I heat embossed the sentiment onto a piece of smooth white cardstock and die cut it with a SU die as well as another piece of that same pink cardstock with the scallop circle ( quick tip: I cut it from the back panel because no one will ever know- except you and I)

I had this super cool feather paper in a paper stack from Michael's and it matched. How could I not use it.

I cut the edge with a border die that has some stitching and this cool curve. I layered it all together and then turned to the inside of the card.

I layered another piece of that feather paper on a panel of the hot pink card stock and decided to stamp an image and another sentiment, dream big.