Happy Birthday

 Hello -

My Bestie is celebrating a milestone birthday and I wanted to create a card for her in her favorite color Pink. She and I have known each other since we were both 13, more than 4 decades.  

She is my sister of choice. We talk weekly and haven't see each other for a few years now.  I miss her hugs, her smile and our ability to communicate with just a glance.   

 

The flowers are from Colorado Craft Company, the big bold dogwood blooms. These are large images. My card is A2 sized. The blooms are layered - some flat to the gray cardbase, some popped up. 

So dearest Evelyn, I am wishing you a very Happy Birthday, and I am blessed to have you in my life.

Thanks so much for visiting.

April CCC

 Hello there!

This post is for the April Card Chain Challenge.  This challenge gives you 5-7 options of themes, colors, sketch, and technique for a card which you make and mail. Everyone who plays along makes and mails a card and gets one in return.

This month my card is going to Norway.  I used muted versions of the colors suggested (walnut, jade and lavender) and the theme of small furry animals.  I really enjoyed making this card and I hope the recipient likes it.

Thanks so much for stopping by.

Floral Essence in Yellow

 Hello -

Seeing the flowers and the yellow door on Just Add Ink, I knew I had to make a card.  I pulled out a new to me stamp set from Stampin Up called Floral Essence.  It had line and full color image stamps.  I went the quick route with the full color blooms and leaves for this card. I added a piece of designer paper also from SU (I think it is pattern play.)

The flowers were stamped and fussy cut along with several leaves.  Some leaves were stamped on the front panel. I laid out the flower and added leaves here and there. The designer paper was added to that panel and all were cut down to be placed on an A2 card base.  The sentiment was stamped in the green of the leaves and added at the end.

Thanks for visiting.

CUYL May Guest Designing

I am thrilled to be guest designing for Challenge Up Your Life this month (and next!)  I was among winners picked from their flower challenge in March and Martina offered a chance to Guest. Of course I immediately said yes.   CUYL is once a month challenge which gives everyone plenty of time to come up with a project.

I love a good gnome, and this challenge is perfect for sweet little gnomies.  The set I used is next door gnomes from Hello Bluebird.

My fascination with gnomes goes back to childhood. I was enraptured by the Mainzelmannchen on German television, they made me laugh.

From Wikipedia : The Mainzelmännchen are six cartoon characters used as mascots for German public service television broadcaster ZDF. They appear in between ads during broadcast, in roughly three to five second clips, and often during the satirical news program Heute-show. The name is a combination Mainz, headquarters for ZDF, and Heinzelmännchen, a type of gnome common in folklore surrounding the city of Cologne. Wolf Gerlach created the characters.

A collection of the very short clips is here.

Thanks for visiting and I hope to see you in the gallery!

Pencil and Copics

 Hello-

Today, I am attempting a technique case of Sandy Allnock's Layering Copic and Pencil for blending.  Her blog post is here and the you tube video is here. 

I made two cards. I tried it first on a lighter colored cardstock and a no line look, and felt fairly good about it, then went to a darker cardstock. I feel pretty good about that one too. The photo picks up more light on the white than it looks IRL. 

Give it a try it was fun.  Thanks for visiting.

Thinking of you -Woodland Wonder

 Hi there,

I spent an enjoyable afternoon at my craft table with the window open, and a little bit of fan action. It was 80+ outside so a bit of indoor breeze made it perfect.

I am sending this card to Addicted to Stamps and More - Any Occasion and to The Male Room - Wood.

I've used the stamp set Woodland Wonder from Stampin Up.  I thought it would be perfect for a slimline card.  It comes in 3 separate stamps for the whole tree so it can also make a great fun fold card.   I also decided on a whim to add a bit of the stamping to the envelope.  The sequins on the envelope are there only to obscure my address for the photograph. (Those slimlines are tough to photograph!)

Thanks so much for visiting.

 

Thinking of you

 Hello -

I have a card today for two challenges -  Time Out and Inspired by.  I grabbed my one dog stamp, Woof Pack from Newton's Nook for the challenge.  

This image has a lot to color, but I thought it would be fun just to have pops of color from the collars and scarves. I added bits of C1 and C0 copic color to each of the dogs to stop them from being too flat. I mounted the die cut panel onto a black card base, and added a black frame.  The sentiment comes from The Greetery along with the die cut shape.  The little bow is from Pretty Pink Posh. 

I really like using Thinking of You sentiments for everything, you can add a happy birthday or other specific sentiment inside and personalize the card that way. 

Thanks much for visiting.

Thinking of you

 Hello-

Hubs and I had a lovely day out in the sunshine, it was 83 degrees and not at all humid. We found a little park near the potomac and hung out for a few hours. I find water calming.  Then we did something we haven't done since before the pandemic...we ate at a restaurant.  They had outdoor seating and we were the  only customers...likely due to the time 4 pm before the dinner rush. It was lovely to be waited on and not have to deal with takeout containers. Had they been busy, we would not have stopped. We are still one vaccine short of being fully immunized.

On to my card for today.  The challenge at Color Hues is yellow and gray.  This is one of my most favorite color combinations.  I am also entering at Tic Tac Toe using the center row of Embossing, Florals and Encouraging Sentiment.

I used my new Reverse Confetti coverplate - I can't remember the name and its not on their packaging, but it is a newer one.  I cut it in gray and yellow.  I mounted the gray on to a gray card base; added the yellow petals to the gray panel after adding some Copic coloring to the inner portions of each petal.  

I finished the flowers with yellow gems though they are showing up a peculiar color in the photo.  The white embossed sentiment is from The Greetery.     

 

Thanks so much for visiting.

Happy Anniversary

Happy Anniversary to my Dad and his Bride.

 I'll be entering this to Watercooler Wednesday Challenge - Dawn's Challenge all about occasions. 

Thanks for stopping by.

Back On Your Feet

 Hello--

Well I think I am over my snit at blogger and the elimination of Feedburner in July.  It will work itself out and we'll all adjust as we do every time blogger tosses in a wrench.

On to happier things.  I got a few new stamps in the mail this weekend and today I played.  After making one card, I went on to make a card with the other image stamps in the set.

Here they are individually:

I am a lover of puns, so this one makes me giggle. Even hubs laughed since the puns were better than most.  I also rediscovered some beloved Spellbinder dies for the layers which were fun to put together. Not my usual clean and simple, but maybe we can go with cleanly layered?

Here is the set, I think its going to be my go to for a while for feel better type cards.  No challenges for these cards...I just had fun playing.

Have a great week.

Are you an Email Subscriber

 Hello-

No cards for this post.  

Blogger is discontinuing feedburner in July.  Feedburner sends email subscribers my blog posts each time there is a new one.

I don't know if I'll sign up with a new email service.  I tried looking at a couple of them, but they were too complicated for me to want to spend time learning their ins and outs.

I follow blogs using bloglovin, and feedly as a back up.

If you are an email follower for any blogspot.com blogs I encourage you to think about how you want to get your content after July. 

If you really just want an email with new post content, please send me an email at  catluvspaper(at)gmail(dot) com. If the list isn't too long, I'll happily send it manually with a link to the blog post for commenting if you are so inclined. 

If anyone has figured out another automatic solution to this already and is willing to share...let me know please!

Back to cardmaking soon, I hope.