Dual pattern Texturz Valentine

After my post yesterday, I decided to test out 2 different Texturz patterns and created this Simple "With Love" Valentine. I do love the heart and button look that was inspired from Kristina's post on www.kwernerdesign.com. Here's the card I created:

I love how these 2 different Texturz embossing plates look together! I used the Large Dots and the Flourish plates. I really do recommend trying it out and seeing for yourself what types of different combos and looks you can come up with!

Now one more thing I wanted to share with you - more Valentine Top Note treats!

I wanted to put my Candy Lane Designer Series paper to good use and thought that these little treats would be great to give to my nieces and nephews for Valentine's Day. How perfect that the stamp in the Love You Much set says "Hugs and Kisses!"

Hope you have a great day and thank you for visiting!

A Fortuitous Finding!

This was a fun accidental discovery! At my stamp class this weekend, we made several cards using the Texturz embossing plates. Well, when one of the girls tried the bigshot, it turned out that her cardstock wasn't placed completely on the embossing plate, so we repositioned it and ran it again through the Big Shot. What we found was that it had a really cool effect! I had recreated it here in this card, where I ran the cardstock through twice, slightly repositioning it to get more emobssing texture. Here's the card I made using the swirly background:

It definitely looks more dramatic in real life. The embossed background actually looks like it has 2 depths - with the first round of embossing a little less pronounced than the second run through. Here's a picture of the exclusive Stampin'Up! Backgrounds Texturz plates so you can check out the different designs. These backgrounds coordinate perfectly with Stampin'Up!'s stamps, but they're so pretty, they'll dress up any of your papercrafting projects!

You should definitely give this 2 step embossing technique a try. Now I'm gonna have to try 2 different patterns to see what that looks like!

Mojo Monday Challenge 73

Happy Monday! I checked out today's Mojo Monday sketch and got motivated right away to create a card. My inspiration today came from the weather. It's been off and on rainy here in Southern CA and right now as I type, its in the middle of a downpour. I just love it! But alas, there is no sun to be had, so I thought I would use the Good Morning Sunshine DSP to fill in the void. And with Spring right around the corner, I decided to use the Upsy Daisy stamp set for all the flowers that will be starting to come up after this rain! Here's the card I came up with.

I'm really digging the subdued feel of this So Saffron/Chocolate Chip color combo. Now for the recipe:

*So Saffron and Chocolate Chip Classic stamp pads
*So Saffron, Chocolate Chip, and Shimmery White cardstock and Good Morning Sunshine DSP
*Upsy Daisy and All Holidays Stamp Sets
*Trio Flower, Curly Label, Slot and Ticket Corner punches
*Brads, Filigree flower and Chocolate Chip Double Stitched Grosgrain ribbon

For the daisy image, I stamped first in the So Saffron color then stamped again in Chocolate Chip just a tad off the original image to get that shadowy effect. What do you think? Hope you like it! Thanks for visiting and have a great Monday!

Freebie Friday 5 Winner!

Happy Monday everyone! It's time to start the week off with the Freebie Friday 5 winner....and that lucky person is Lisa Brown!

Congrats Lisa! You'll be getting the Little Sunshine Birdie in the mail this week. I'll be sending you an email to get your mailing address. :)

Hope you all had a good weekend! I wanted to wish a good friend of mine, Mary Anne, a Happy Birthday today. We are old childhood friends and over the years had lost touch, but I am happy to say that through the beauty of Facebook, we were able to reconnect and catch up the 10+ years since we had seen each other last. Isn't Facebook amazing? For those of you that have been on the fence about getting on it, I would highly recommend it. While it can seem overwhelming at first, the fact that you are able to reach out to people whom you have completely lost contact with and revive old friendships is worth the initial time investment to go through and set up your profile, etc. I'm not gonna be preachy about Facebook, but it definitely is a fun way to keep in touch - with old and new friends alike.

Ok - now where were we? Oh yes, back to some stamping and papercrafting...Stay tuned later today for my Mojo Monday card challenge entry post. I have yet to check out the sketch, but I am already looking forward to it! :)

Wanna Free Stampin'Up! Catalog?

How cool is this offer - if you are one of the first 22,000 that places an order online from Stampin'Up! or if you place an online order before April 30th - whichever of these 2 comes first - you'll get a FREE CATALOG shipped with your order and there is no minimum amount! Of course, you could also kill 2 birds with one stone and place a $50 order to qualify for one of the Sale-a-bration rewards. To start shopping, you can visit my demonstrator website and click on the "Shop Now" button in the upper right of the screen and you'll be good to go...have fun!

Top Note Valentine Treat!

Here's a little Valentine treat I created for my Godson, Ethan, who I got to see earlier this week! Just a simple treat I made using the Top Note die as a topper. I love that die! Of course, I had to embellish it a little bit, so I used the Serif Alphabet to create his initial and then scallop circle, small oval, and full heart punches topped with a button to complete the ensemble. The cute sentiment from the Yummy stamp set has been one of my faves for Valentines. Hope you like it and have a great Sunday!

Kwerner Design Challenge 40 meets non-traditional Valentine

Here's Kristina's color challenge for the week. I enjoy this type of challenge because rather than having a specific sketch, it pushes you to design around the colors. This is a fun color combination, which I probably wouldn't have thought of if I were left to my own devices. :) It uses Taken with Teal, which isn't in my normal repertoire of colors, so this is good that we're using it because I have a whole pack of this cardstock that I've barely used! Now, the card I came up with is along the lines of the circles and hearts card I did the other day, but slightly different. Here's my rendition of a non-traditional Valentine's card:

What do you think? Kind of different and funky, huh? It sort of has a retro-ish feel when I look at it. The only stamping I really did was with the sentiment from the Sale-a-bration set, "Yummy." Here's the recipe:

*Whisper White, Old Olive, Taken with Teal, More Mustard and So Saffron cardstock
*1 3/4" circle, heart to heart, eyelet border and small oval punches
*Texturz embossing plates
*Linen Thread, So Saffron ribbon, and brads

Hope you like it! Thanks for looking and have a great Saturday!