Dedicated to Mom & Dad

Hi!! This is always such an exciting time of the month when we get to share Lil' Inker Designs newest releases!  Hold onto your seats because I think you're going to LOVE the products this month!

If you are following the blog hop, you should have come from Isha's blog.  If you'd like to start at the beginning, visit Laura's blog.  Of course there are prizes during this release celebration!  For each comment you leave on the designer's blogs this week, you will have an entry into the drawing to win one of two $10 gift certificates to the Lil' Inker Designs store!

Let's get on with today's projects!  They are both very Clean & Simple today.

First up, a card for mom.  I die cut that beautiful "mom" out of patterned paper and die cut the heart out of glitter paper and popped it up.  I don't know about you, but recently when I was trying to find appropriate supplies to use on a card for Mother's Day I was at a total lost.  I just didn't have many "mom" items.  I LOVE that this die (and the dad die that is also being released this month) fills a void in my stamping/scrapping supplies.  And the font that this die features with the fantastic heart in the center...LOVE!

The scroll stamp is included in the new Mom & Dad stamp set which features sentiments perfect for so many occasions honoring your mom & dad.  I also LOVE that these dies are less formal than the traditional Mother & Father sentiments that you often see.  They are more intimate to me.

And now, a card to honor dad.  Do you struggle with masculine cards?  Well, I have to say that this die makes it so much easier to create a card for dads!

I die cut the Dad (don't you love that the "a" in dad is the "@" symbol!) with orange card stock.  That "Super Star" wood bubble has been stamped twice with one of the frames in the Flags & Tags Stamp set.  I stamped the frame directly onto the wood first in orange ink and then moved the stamp over to stamp the Hawaiian Shores color.  I also impressed the card base with a striped impression plate to give it some extra texture.

Let's take a look at the products being showcased today.

They are all available in the Lil' Inker Designs store now!  So, hurry on over!  These are PERFECT for Mother & Father's day that are just around the corner!

Don't forget to leave a comment for your chance to win!  To continue on & see more inspiring projects, visit Judith's blog!

It's a Banner Day!

Hello!  Welcome to another Twinery Challenge post!  This time the theme is all about banners, and I LOVE banners!

I took some old jean pockets and cut them out (I have LOTS of jeans to choose from because my son can't wear a pair of jeans for more than a few weeks before the knees have holes in them!).  I die cut some felt shapes and used various colors of twine from The Twinery to add accents to the pieces and to stitch them onto the pockets.  I only stitched through the first layer of the pockets so that I would be able to put something inside the pockets if I wanted and so that the back of the denim banner would look nice & clean.

For the first pocket I threaded some twine through the eyelet border at the top & added accents on the butterfly & sun on the bottom corner.  I used a sequin in the center of the sun for added shimmer. I also used one of my favorite new twine colors EVER :) and that is the Rainbow Teal Shimmer twine that is stringing the banners all together.

I loved using the new Purple Shimmer twine on the butterfly.  

For the middle pocket I stitched around the flowers with various twines and used it to hold the buttons onto the pocket.

I used the Purple Shimmer Twine around the top of the banner to add a bow and some sparkle.

For the last denim pocket, I again used the twine to stitch on some buttons and also used the shimmer twine as an accent around the flower.

Today is the last day to play along with this "It's a Banner Day" challenge!  There are GREAT prizes up for grabs, so be sure to link up your creation using banners in some way today.

Thanks for stopping by!

Papertrey March Blog Hop Challenge

Hey everyone!

I'm here with a quick post today for Papertrey Ink's monthly blog hop.  The theme this month was to make a card with sequins.

I stamped my little square that I die cut with Lil' Inker Designs Stitched Mats Squares with PTI's Folk Art stamp set and used sequins to accent the flowers.  I used the Striped stamp set to stamp the stripes on the gray paper and also on the red paper behind the gray that I offset just a little bit.

I also used a few sequins at the top of my card.  I used one of the hexagon stamps to stamp the pattern on my wood butterfly.  I love how this turned out!

This card was based on this sketch by "CAS(E) this Sketch!"

Thanks for visiting today!  Have a great day!

Smile! And Wish Big!

Hello!  I have enjoyed spending time crafting so much this Spring Break!  Sometimes I forget how relaxing it can be just sitting at my table and playing...for the fun of it...just because! :)  Amy is always telling me that I need to play along with challenges and so this week I have listened to her and done just that.

Today I am playing along with a new-to-me challenge that Amy introduced me to called Seize the Birthday!  It is a blog challenge dedicated to birthday cards and for this week we were to make a card based on the provided sketch that was feminine based.

Cameras are so trendy lately.  And I love them.  I have been looking and looking for the perfect camera stamp that was solid (that was a KEY element) so that I didn't have to color or paper piece them.  Yes, lazy stamper!  Webster's Pages recently released this set and it was love at first sight.  The only downside is that they are red rubber.  Yep.  I caved.  I really don't care for rubber anymore!  I love to see through my stamps so this set was a little more challenging for me BUT...I LOVE the images!

One of my good friends is a photographer.  A very good one too.  She has a birthday coming up so I made this card with her in mind.  She'll probably see this post though and I'll have to make a different one.  Just gives me another excuse to pull out these fun stamps! :)  That line of cameras is actually one border stamp, or I should say it WAS a border stamp.  I cut them apart.  Yep.  Sure did!  But, they were easy to line back up again to stamp them as a border like I did here, so now they are even more versatile.   That string of twine is one of the new ones from The Twinery called Purple Shimmer Twine.  I can't quit using it!

Well, if you are wondering where to get those cameras at, you can see them here and here.  

Thank you for visiting today!  I hope you have a GREAT weekend!! I'm planning to stay in Saturday.  We are expecting snow.  I am all about getting moisture, but I sure wish it would come as rain and not snow since it is officially Spring! :)

Take care!

Celebrate Today!

It's hard to believe that our Spring Break is almost over!  I wouldn't mind another week off, it just goes by so quickly!

So to celebrate Spring, I have a very Springy card to share based on this week's WPlus9 Mood Board.

I started with a rectangle panel die cut with one of Lil' Inker Designs Stitched Mat Rectangle dies.  The photo that we were to draw our inspiration from was an Easter photo, but since I didn't have Easter stamps I went with the color scheme and the theme of "hope".  I used the WPlus9 A Pocketful stamp set to stamp the pocket, sentiment and sun.  I also used the green lace image from one of my all time favorite WPlus9 sets, Mehndi Medallions at the bottom of my panel that was based on the grass in the photo (shown below).

Here is the inspiration photo from the Mood Board.

I can't help but showing you a close-up of the twine I used for this card that I'm sure you'll be seeing a lot more of it!  It is a new twine from The Twinery called Blossom Iridescent Shimmer.  LOVE it!

Those clouds are designed by my friend Laurie.  You can see the whole set here.  I added a few pearl sequins to sparkle things up a bit.

 

I am also linking this up to the Simon Says Stamp blog challenge for this week which is to make a Spring card!

Thank you for stopping by today!  I hope  you have a fabulous day!

Hooray for You!

Good morning!  How is everyone?  We've been enjoying Spring Break here, wishing that the temps were just a little warmer so we could do more outside but we've had a great time anyway.

Today I am stopping in with a card I made for the Pinspired Challenge.  The inspiration photo is bright colors and trendy triangles/hexagons and I knew when I saw it that it would be a fun one to play along with!

Here's my card.  It uses the arrow stamp from Mama Elephant's On Target set that I just love!  I popped that panel up on pop dots and left a space for my sentiment.  That cute sentiment is from Close to My Heart's For Always.  The panel was die cut from Lil' Inker Designs Rectangle Stitched Mat.  I love how that stitch creates a finished look!  Also, I'm not sure if you can see it very well from the photo, but I also embossed the rectangle mat into the white part of the cardstock and then lined the stamped panel on top.

To accent the card, I used some fun aqua sequins and a new piece of The Twinery's Purple Shimmer Twine!  I have always loved all things that glitter & shine and this twine is OOH LA LA!  So pretty!

This is the inspiration photo that my card is based off of.  Fun!

Thank you for stopping by today! I hope you are enjoying your day!

Springy Congrats!

Hello & Welcome!!  I hope your day is off to a great start! 

Today I have a very Springy card to share!  I love this Avery Elle floral set and couldn't wait to put some Springy colors to paper!  I am SO ready for Spring!

This card is based on this Retro Sketch #54.  It was fun to work with!  I am so glad I had a chance to finally play along!

I attached a tiny vellum strip across my stamped pieced and then attached the Lil' Inker Designs Mini Bow Die to the strip.  I LOVE, LOVE the size of this bow!  It was perfect for this sketch!

Thank you for visiting today! I hope you day is full of blessings!

A Very Vellum Birthday

Hey everyone!!  I'm so glad you stopped by today!

I have a fun birthday card to share today using vellum.  And...be sure to read the entire post because I have a GREAT source for vellum & a great trick for attaching vellum to your cards so the adhesive doesn't show!

This is a card that I had originally made for the January Lil' Inker Designs release and have yet to share!  I wanted to make some balloons that looked semi-transparent like real balloons are, so I searched online to find some bright vellum.  I found the perfect colors and I am going to share that great discovery with you in a little while.

To make this card, I used various sizes & shapes of the Lil' Inker Designs balloon dies and various colors of vellum.  I stamped the balloon string in black ink and then glued the various Twinery Twine to the bottom of the balloon.  I love that the balloon string can be moved around on the block to make it go a different way each time.  I used one of the middle sizes of the Stitched Rectangle Mats as the bottom layer on the card.

I found my vellum at an online store called Paper & More.  They have all kinds of vellum options to choose from...whites, metallics, pastels, speckled, dark & brights (which I used for this card).  The best thing?  You can buy it by the sheet as samples (and get how ever many you'd like) and shipping is a FLAT $1 no matter how many pieces you'd like!  AND...if you like the woodgrain paper, they have that too! :)  I was so impressed with their service, that I just had to share them with you!

And...one more little tidbit!  Don't you just hate trying to adhere vellum to your cards and not having the adhesive show?  Well, Paper & More also has vellum adhesive sheets that I purchased.  These are fantastic!  I cut the balloon shapes out with the adhesive shapes & then backed my vellum with it and you can't see the adhesive at all because the adhesive fits perfectly!  LOVE!!

Well, thanks for visiting!! If you try Paper & More out, I'd love to know!

Have a great Sunday!

A Green Hello: Twinery Challenge #2

This is Jen from Jen's Ink Spot here today.  I am participating in the newest challenge from The Twinery!  The theme this time around is Chevron & Green!  You can find more information about this challenge and the great prizes you could win by visiting The Twinery blog post here.

I love chevrons and  I see them everywhere!  I also seem to have a thing for green lately too, so this was a fun challenge to play along with!

I started this card by making the twine chevron panel.  I'll explain how I did that below.  The chevrons are made out of two different green twines from The Twinery, one of which is a sneak peek of a new green shimmer twine that will be available very soon from The Twinery!  

I wanted to show you a quick tutorial on how to make your own chevron card panel.

I started my chevron panel by cutting a piece of cardstock to the size I wanted and then cut the small circles.  I positioned the circles so that they would make a chevron pattern. (I did this on my cricut, but you could easily do this with your Big Bite/hole punch or other similar tool.)

To make the chevron panel, I chose two different colors of twine.  In this example I have used two totally different colors of twine (also sneak peeks of twine coming very soon to The Twinery shop!) so that it is easy to see how I put this together.  I laced the first color through the top rows of circles on the diagonal.

Then, I went to the second color of twine and laced through the holes that went the opposite direction. When I had finished each strand, I tied the ends together so that it would hold nice & tight.  That's all there is too it!  You could create several different patterns using this technique.

Here's a closeup of the bottom panel.  You can see that one strand of twine is the Peapod twine and the other strand is the new Green Shimmer Twine that is coming soon!

Would you like to play along?  

Visit The Twinery blog post here for all the details and to find out how to win Twinery spools of your choice AND a gift card to Michaels!  You can also check out the other entries for lots more twine inspiration!

Thank you for stopping by!

Avery Elle: February AEI♥U Challenge

Welcome!! How are you?  Things are beginning to warm up a little here in Kansas!  We had four snow days and now it's back to our normal routines.  I have a feeling that tomorrow is going to be very slushy as the snow really melts!  I am so ready for Spring!! :)

Today I wanted to share I card I made for the February AEI♥U Challenge.  I adored the challenge photo, it was so beautiful!  

This is the card I made that was inspired by the inspiration photo below.  I loved the color scheme from the photo, but also tried to pull in several other themes that caught my eye in the photo as well.

The elements that I pulled from the photo into my card were the denim (from the flower vase which I thought was adorable and I'd love to try sometime) and the fabric from the yellow chevron table runner, and of course the colors.  

As you can see, I used the blue from the denim as a accent color and also used a strip of denim fabric for the bow and one of the rolled flowers.  I also used fabric to make the yellow chevron flower and the pink flower.  And, instead of chevron, I used a herringbone pattern to tie everything together.

Thank you for stopping by today! I hope you enjoyed the card!  If you'd like to play along with the Avery Elle Challenge, you have until Sunday, March 3rd to add your card!  Have a wonderful weekend!