GIU Day 3 - Watercolor Because I Care

Good morning everyone, and welcome to Day 3 of my Growing in Unity week! I'm the Growing in Unity gal this week over on the Unity Stamp Co. blog, which means I'll be sharing a project created with my Unity stamps with you every day. I invite you to come back each day and leave a comment for a chance to be one of the (2) lucky people to win a bag of (25) Unity stamps! Woohoo! If you're new to my blog, I'd love it if you became a follower and join in the fun over on the Caffeinated Papercuts Facebook page or followed Caffeinated Papercuts on Instagram. :)

I am still on my flower kick - who's up for some stamped watercolors?

These are FUN to make - grab two Distress Inks and your stamp. Start with the lighter ink and cover the roses, then come in with the darker ink to make the middles. Now spritz with water (make sure the spritzer is pointed away from your face...just saying...) and stamp onto watercolor paper. Look what you made!

Now continue stamping until you fill a sheet with roses. Or is that just me? When you finally run out of paper, trim them out and arranged artfully on cardstock stamped with the wood grain stamp, which is also super cool. Snip the leaves out separately to stretch your placement and help balance them back out.

Heat emboss your sentiment, then go to town with foam tape and gluing down the little leaves. It actually goes super fast. Add some sequins (because, sequins!) and you're done.

Thanks for stopping by today! Remember to leave a comment every day this week to better your chances of winning those stamps, and I'll see you tomorrow for Day 4.

Happy Crafting!

Growing in Unity Day 4 - What a Pear we Make!

Happy Thursday everyone - welcome to Day 4 of my GIU fun! I'm the Growing in Unity gal this week over on the Unity Stamp Co. blog, which means I'll be sharing a project created with my Unity stamps with you every day. I invite you to come back each day and leave a comment for a chance to win your choice of (2) Itty Bitty stamps! Woohoo! If you're new to my blog, I'd love it if you became a follower and join in the fun over on the Caffeinated Papercuts Facebook page. :)

All right, today we've got something completely different - a CAS (clean and simple) card with no sequins. Yeah, I'm not sure how that happened either. I'd also like some applause for not going back and adding some later. ;)

And let the puns begin! I ran a second piece of white card stock through the Big Shot with my chevron embossing folder to create the background, making sure to stamp the sentiment first. (Trust me on this.) The pears I stamped on pear-ish colored card stock, then decked out with Glossy Accents and Distress Glitter.

I then let them dry a reeeeaaaaallllyyyy long time. We're talking overnight here, people. And no poking at it before morning to see if it's dry; been there, done that, got the fingerprints in a previous project to prove it.

Just look at that sparkle and shine! A bit of foam tape to hold it all in place, and you've got a really fun card for your stash.

Tomorrow is my last day as GIU gal! I hope you'll stop by, and in the meantime, Happy Crafting!

Bunches of Love Card

Happy Thursday everyone! Almost to the end of the week and Easter goodness. I snuck into the craft room the other day to play with my new Stamp of the Week from Unity and made a 'just because' card for my Gram. She's as addicted to strawberries as I am to coffee, so this really fit!

Bunches of (strawberry) love

I'm hungry just looking at these berries. Seriously. I pulled out a pad of MME 6x6 paper and went to town stamping the berries & stems, then fussy-cutting them out. The patterned gray paper was from MME as well, then backed with a lovely deep red card stock. The sentiment was stamped with the Ranger embossing pad then embossed with the Black Soot distress embossing powder.

I added dimension to the stems with one of my Spectrum Noir pens, then coated the berries with Crystal Lacquer to give them some shine. A few sequins from Pretty Pink Posh and this card was ready to mail!

{linking up to the Unity FWF!}

Thanks for stopping by today, and happy crafting!

Double, Double Toil and Trouble

Anyone who follows me on Instagram or Facebook will remember that yesterday I posted a teaser of spooky things to come:

Ghosts and owls and bats and spiders, oh my!

I have the joy of belonging to an art group locally where every couple months we get together and just CREATE. Tonight we meet again, and our "homework" was to alter a witch's hat and Tim Holtz clock. Tragically, the clock is barely started. I blame the fact that my boys want clean socks and spoons. Obviously they've become spoiled...my witch's hat, however, I'm bringing with me tonight to show off and I love it!

The really scary part is that messy craft table!

Oh this was a fun project! The base was a plain, kraft colored witch's hat ready for finishing. The top half of the hat I covered in 1" strips of scrapbook paper using Modge Podge. The brim was then coated in Modge Podge and topped with a glitter mixture I made myself; black, deep purple, and lime green all mixed together. I then hid my paper ends with some black grosgrain ribbon.

My little rat familiar

Once everything had dried, I added on my little rat friend here. I found him at Joann's and I love him. There's just something about rats and Halloween that just seem to go together. His little paws got glued down to the hat brim with the help of some 3-in-1.

My stylish owl familiar

Then I found my owl at Michael's. It's an owl. Wearing a top hat. Um, YES! His feet got tacked down with 3-in-1 as well, and he's so stinkin' cute. I think he and my little rat friend need names.

Boo! Meow!

Of course, since it's my hat, I had to have a Halloween kitty on it. There's little Salem, hiding behind the ghost tag ready to pounce!

Spoooooky Halloween tags

Speaking of those tags, are you loving them as much as I am? I inked up two of the freebie tags Unity loves throwing in with their orders. The large one is a mix of Concord Grape and Black Soot Distress Inks and the little one is Peeled Paint, Wild Honey, and Black Soot. The images were stamped with Black Soot as well, then when they were dried I added in liberal amounts of Rock Candy Distress Paint. I love how grungy and spooky they turned out! The ribbon I had stashed in a drawer and looks like it once came from the dollar bins at Target. Some Glue Dots holds them down nicely.

Scary spider bling

Finally, I added spiders; big, blinged out, spiders and their web. Yeah, they're pretty awesome.

I cannot wait to see what the other ladies came up with tonight! It's bound to be a good time. I'm linking up to Unity Friends With Flair.

Happy Crafting!

Distance Has No Meaning...

Hello everyone! I'm sharing one of the last cards I made up for Operation Write Home with my Unity Stamps today.

 I colored the sentiment and image using my Distress Markers and coloring the stamp itself. Especially an image like this, it's so easy! The texture is from my stamping it on a linen cardstock and I love the result.

Speaking of Operation Write Home, today was to be the day I announced the winner of the giveaway. Just one problem - there were no entries. Not a one. So, the short answer is that there is no winner. The longer answer is that I'm giving up on hosting contests for the foreseeable future. Either my promotion skills are severely lacking or I simply do not have a large enough audience or my giveaways are terrible and no one has mentioned it to me. Anyway you look at it, they are almost always a bust and I'm taking the hint.

As for Operation Write Home, I'll be sending in a nice bundle of cards to them, including many of the ones I've made for blog hops.

I'm linking up to the weekly Unity FWF today!

Enjoy the weekend! I'll be having a crafty one with my friend Rachel from Sheepish Shenanigans. :)

Happy Crafting!

Winter Songbird Card

Happy Friday everyone! I'm hopping along again with the Unity FWF crew. I decided to get a head-start on creating some cards for Operation Write Home and World Card Making Day, and came up with this sweet little winter scene:

Not that I want it to be winter just yet, but still darn cute

The sweet little birdie and her sentiment are an Itty Bitty set from Unity and, as always, are absolutely adorable. No glitter, some layers, and some pretty paper means it's perfect for Operation Write Home.

Have you caught on that I'm pushing Operation Write Home? ;) In case you missed yesterday's post, here's the 4-1-1:

If we're all making cards anyway, why not send them to people who need them the most? Let's see just how many cards we can send! Mailing address is in the giveaway post, as is the deadline of Friday, October 11th. The holiday card deadline is fast approaching, hence my chosen date.

Oh, and I had 'help' photographing my card this morning...

No Mommy, I wasn't trying to knock the card off my windowsill...

She's lucky she's so pretty and affectionate.

All right, I cannot wait to see all of  your cards! Feel free to post them to our Facebook wall or tag us on Instagram at #caffeinatedpapercuts before you pop them in the mail!

Happy Crafting!

Playing in Leaves Tag

Happy Friday and happy fall everyone! In my neck of the woods it has definitely turned into sweater and boot weather and the leaves have started changing colors. The perfect mood-setter for today's tag!

I'm playing along again with Unity Stamp Co.'s Friends with Flair Friday hop, and had to ink up this little cutie this morning:

Leaf me alone; so punny!

 Yup, a little snowball playing in the fall leaves. Too. Cute. I stamped her up in Memento Espresso, aka my new favorite ink color EVER. It's nice and dark for coloring, but not as harsh as the Black. I say 'her' as when I reached for my colored pencils I decided to color the hat & scarf set in sage green and pink. Hey, it's not often around here that I get to use pink, after all! The tag is actually one of the freebies that Unity likes to toss in with their orders that I inked up with Rusty Hinge and Wild Honey Distress Inks. The background is a leaf stamp from the dollar bin somewhere (worth it) stamped in Memento Toffee Crunch (another awesome color). The sentiment was stamped in Memento Tangelo and mounted on some chocolate brown cardstock I had in my scraps pile. Ta da! A cute, simple, quick & easy fall tag.

View from above, taken while I tossed cats out of the way...

I used some twine and yellow/green trim I had in that stash pile for the topper and called it awesome.

I'd love to see what YOU have made for fall! Feel free to share on our Facebook page, via Twitter, or tag us on Instagram at #caffeinatedpapercuts.

Happy fall and happy crafting!

Die Cuts, Doilies, Twine, and Buttons, Oh My!

Ohhh has it been a month of ups and downs! We were buying a house, then we weren't, then we were, then they buyers for OUR house fell through...aaarrrrgggghhhhh! So now we're staying put, renovating, and trying again next year. C'est la vie. One day I will have my larger house with a massive craft room and a double wall oven. Ah dreams...

Because of all the chaos (though omg, is my house CLEAN!) I really didn't have time to play in my craft room recently. I did find, however, my failed attempt at the previous 10 Minute Craft Dash. I meant to enter it anyway (despite it taking me 18 minutes, it still could have been a favorite) but, of course, I was busy packing. I'm pleased to share it for Unity's FWF instead!

Washi, doilies, twine, AND buttons?? Yummy!

 I scrap-lifted a beautiful card I found on, shock!, Pinterest, and came up with this beauty. It really does have all of my favorite things on here: kraft paper, twine, buttons, washi tape, Stickles...sigh. I love it. The sentiment is from Unity (of course) and is truly wonderful. It can easily be used as either an 'I care' or a sympathy card.

All right, I'm off to go shopping for my baby's 3rd birthday party tomorrow! I still cannot believe I'm the proud mama of a three year old. Sigh.

Happy Crafting!

Playing with Sprays

Happy Friday everyone! I've been playing along with the Unity Stamp Co. Itty Bitty a Day Challenge on Facebook this week and decided to finish it all off by playing with my new Heidi Swapp template I snagged with a birthday certificate (thanks again, Kristen!!).

I wanted CAS, shimmery, and FAST. My first attempt is still drying (bit too much spray, perhaps too thin cardstock) but this one came out, I think, pretty cute.

Shimmer and shine in the early morning light

Little hexagons dancing across the front...hehe, with the edge of the template visible as well. I rolled with it, and made the mental note to cover areas I don't want glitzed better next time. The 'thanks' is an unpackaged Itty Bitty I have which is, well, awesomely versatile.

Pardon my iffy lighting, but the sun wasn't quite up yet when I was snapping these before work. Oops.

Top view to see the overall effect

The dots in the hexes are from my rolling a paper towel roll over the sprayed area to pick up the extras. It came out so neat!

Thank you everyone for your comments via the blog post & Facebook about my 'Not Quite Perfect...' card. I love the change-up ideas, and the ones that basically told me to lighten up. Sometimes we crafters just need to hear that!

I'm also linking up to Friends with Flair today! Happy Crafting!

Not Quite 'Perfect'...

Ever have one of those ideas/designs that look fantastic in your head, but when you put it to paper...well...not quite so fantastic? That's what happened to me last night.

I'm trying to get caught up on thank you cards and had the idea of using a kitchen-y Itty Bitty Unity stamp with some matching paper I had. Instead of stamping the image in black (like always), I decided to change it up and use gray. I colored, I layered, I threw more embellishments at it to make it better. After all, when in doubt, add more embellishments!

The result:

Perfect? Maybe not...

  My reaction to the result: meh. I've done better, I've done worse. It's perfectly usable, I'm just underwhelmed by the result.

Even Liquid Pearls didn't really help

I tried the border punch to give it some pizazz as it looked quite sad just sitting on the paper. But then the holes were lost, so I filled them in with Liquid Pearls for some pop. It needed some texture, so I chose the crocheted ribbon to hide the edges.

Side view - I'm thinking my towel looks like a scarf. :/

So I ask you, my loyal readers - how would YOU redo this card? Help a fellow crafter out!

Friends and Rainbows

Happy Friday everyone! I'm hopping along again this week with the Unity Stamp Co. Friends With Flair party. While I was busy organizing all of my Itty Bitty stamps, I came across this little cutie again. Seeing as it's POURING rain here (hence the iffy photos; no sunshine!) it seemed totally appropriate for today. :)

friendship is the rainbow between two hearts

I love how it came out. A bit of pretty storm gray twine, some Stickles, watercolor pencils and a bunch of foam tape. Done! :D

Closeup of the rainbow and sentiment

Yes, the Stickles took forever and a day to dry but they were soooo worth it.

Now, don't forget that Sunday we'll be hopping along with this month's DeNami Blog Hop; Sweet & Simple and starting Monday I'll be trying to play along with the Itty Bitty a Day challenge for Unity!

Also, you still have time to enter our giveaway over at Joie Joelle's blog! It's a lovely treat package of bottlecap magnets, tea and cocoa pouches, and more.

Happy Crafting!

Sew Lovely Card and a Giveaway!

Happy Wednesday everyone! I never got the card I made yesterday for the Itty Bitty Challenge up on the blog and posted it right to the Facebook group instead. So I made extra sure to get today's up. Ready??

Buttons and fibers and markers, oh my!

 I colored in my stamp with Distress Markers instead of ink pads, gave it a 'huff', then stamped away! I love how you can easily incorporate many different colors that way very easily. Since it's a sewing mannequin, I of course had to add in some twill ribbon with a sewing theme and some cute buttons threaded with twine. I really like how it came out!

Here's a look at the one I created for yesterday. Can you guess how many Itty Bitty stamps I used on it? :D

Love that wood grain embossing folder!

Still hanging in there for news about the giveaway? It's very simple; a fellow Out of the Box Sampler teammate of mine, Joie Joelle, is featuring my shop on her blog today! Head on over to learn more about me, my shop, and my design process then enter to win a lovely gift package.

Happy Crafting!

An Itty Bitty a Day Keeps the Boredom Away!

Happy Monday everyone! I decided to take a break from listing new items for the store and play along with a new Unity Challenge we have going on via Facebook; using one Itty Bitty stamp a day all week long! Seeing as I have a crap-ton few Itty Bitty stamps, I'm ready to play along! Today I wound up inking up my little gobbler with some seriously cute results:

Gobble Gobble!

Isn't he adorable? Some simple stamping and watercolor pencil work was all it took, finished off with some Distress Ink on the white panel and card base and some orange and yellow washi tape!

Of course, I couldn't stop at just one...especially since I have the Mabee Farm craft show coming up at the end of August.

No two tails are the same!

It's true, I colored each tail differently as I still simply cannot make perfectly identical cards. Nope, can't do it.

Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow with another fun card. Until then, Happy Crafting!

A Little Christmas in July, Part 1

Happy Friday everyone! We're back from our vacations and settling back in to our routines...and doing laundry. LOTS of laundry. Browsing through all of the Christmas in July sales on Etsy, I found myself reaching for my holiday stamps. Of course, my craft room is approximately the temperature of lava thanks to our lovely heat wave this week, so I wanted something I could make before I melted clean and simple that I could add to our holiday line. And, of course, I wanted to play along with this week's Friends with Flair over at Unity Stamp Co.!

A little holiday peace

So, a bit of stamping, some embossing powder (that I almost didn't need a heat tool for, it's so blasted HOT) and we have a lovely holiday scene.

I can totally see making more of these

I love how the kraft paper is the perfect backdrop for some sparkle and shine. The glittery 'peace' is actually glitter embossing powder. All the loveliness of glitter without the mess! Huzzah!!

Hehe, a glimpse of my new shoes. How do I always get my feet in these shots?

I'm linking up to the FWF party. If I have you in the holiday mood, be sure to see what else I've cooked up in my Christmas in July section. Sale ends the 21st!

Happy Crafting!