Day 1: Coffee Loving Cardmakers Fall/Winter Hop

Hey there inky friends!  Today is the first day of the FALL/WINTER COFFEE LOVERS BLOG HOP!  WOO HOO!  I'm so excited to be joining all my coffee-loving peeps as we celebrate our love of coffee/tea/cocoa/cider goodness...In crafty form!  All week long we'll be sharing projects we're proud of and we hope you'll join us in the fun!  Thanks to all of our amazing Super Sponsors, we have a TON of NEW and LOVED products on display and our Super Sponsors have once again shared some amazing goodies for our give-aways.  In order to have a chance at any of our Super Sponsor prizes, just play along and share your creations with us HERE!  

I created my first card/ornament combo featuring the yummy new stamps/die/stencil combo from Wendy Vecchi and Ranger called Warm Wishes.  I blended some Wendy Vecchi ink around the edges, stenciled the leaves, vines and berries (Potting Soil, Carnation Red, Fern Green, Leaf Green) and then stamped the sentiment along the edge.  I then splattered some black acrylic paint onto the panel to give it another layer of yumminess.  

To create my "2020 COFFEE LOVERS Ornament, I machine stitched a pouch using a piece of laminated film and then tucked some coffee beans and grinds into the pouch.  After it was all sealed up, I added some ribbon, corrugated paper and some bakers twine/sparkle ribbon before attaching some buttons and a little tag.  I hung this on my cardfront using another piece of baker's twine and a foam square.  I love giving cards that have a multi purpose- and this one does the trick.  

Thanks so much for hopping over to check out my card!  I hope it inspires you to create something FUN and coffee-licious!  See you again tomorrow for another fun hop project!

Love Languages...

Hello there inky friends!  Today I'm sharing a fun little Valentine card featuring a brand spankin new set from Joy Clair called Love Languages.  I fell in love with this set because it had so many fabulous languages on it which included my heritage language German!  I was thrilled to see "Ich liebe dich" in stamp form and knew this would be the sentiment I would choose for my card!  Check out this set:  

I love that this set also includes a variety of tiny hearts that can be used to create backgrounds, pops of fun and lots of feature elements on a card.  I used the sketchy heart on my design.  So...Wanna know how I created this fun card?  Here goes:  

I started out by cutting out twelve little inchie squares.  I wrinkled them up a bit to soften the cardstock and create a bit of a "fabric" texture.  After that, it was on to inking!  I selected some Memento inks and laid a plastic sleeve on the table and rubbed the ink all over the squares.  I spritzed the squares to make the color bleed and to saturate the squares then rubbed additional color on that was left over on my plastic sleeve.  After they were colored to my desired intensity, I sprayed a bit of golden shimmer onto the squares to add a bit of shine.  I set them onto some paper to dry a bit (they picked up the grid lines on my graph paper) and then used my heat gun/tweezers to dry each square.  

Next, I punched a heart out of each square and threw my scraps away.  I used my sewing machine to sew the hearts in a chainlike formation.  After cut into sets of four hearts, I assembled them onto a piece of white cardstock.  

I glued the heart chains onto the cardstock by just adding glue to the center of the heart stitch area so that I could lift the edges when it was dry.  I then stamped the sketchy heart onto my blue hearts with clear pigment ink and then added gold embossing powder.  

To finish the card off, I sprinkled some pearlescent silk onto the card and then added a few golden pearls.  The sentiment tag worked perfectly hovering over the chains of hearts! 

Yummy, yummy!  Don'tcha think!?!  Thanks for stopping by today.  I hope you have a fabulous week!  

Sunday Sip and Share...It's In the Bag!

Hello there coffee-loving cardmakers!  I'm here with a fun little Sunday Sip & Share on the Coffee Loving Cardmakers Blog!  For this week's post, I decided to make a cute little bag of fresh roasted coffee beans with a coordinating cards.  Not only do I love making cards, I love sewing too!  So...I created this quick and simple bag to hold my roasted beans.  It'll be a great little happy mail treat for someone soon!

I started off by sewing a few little cotton bags.  No frills, just white Moda cotton fabric.  The stamping, embellies and fiber tie would help them shine!  After sewing, I started creating some fun background paper.  This background paper would not only be used for my card, but it would also be incorporated in the gift bag design.  

The background was created using my Gelli Plate and some of my favorite coloring mediums.  First, I dabbed some Dusty Concord Ranger Distress ink onto my Gelli Plate.  I spritzed it with some water to accentuate the beading effect of the ink.  I laid that down on my cardstock then began the second layer.  For the second layer, I spritzed some FSJ Cosmic Grape Color Splash onto the plate, then flicked some FSJ Silks (Silver, Gold, Cosmic Grape, Turbo Teal) onto that.  SInce they are water based, they bead up a bit.  The Color Splash has some acrylic paint-like characteristics, so it retains much of the spray effect and doesn't bead up.  I also added some Liquitex Metallic Silver Acrylic Ink splatters/drips too.  I like this ink because it leaves an opalescent sheen on the surface and is translucent enough to allow the color underneath to peek through.  

I continued adding layers and layers of color until I was satisfied with the results.  When done, I applied some Whip Cream Reinker to the plate and rubbed it around with an acrylic block.  When laying my cardstock over this ink, it softened and muted the vibrant color.  It was exactly what I was hoping for!  The final touch was to add some Pineapple Smoothie Acrylic Paint.  You'll probably notice the little flower bloom diecuts on the piece too.  They were laid onto the Gelli Plate and they transferred themselves.  

After all was dry, I applied some Uniko Background Builders:  Vines and tiny florals using Dusty Concord Ranger Distress ink and Versafine Onyx ink with Journey Black Embossing Powder.  

I mounted the background onto Black Licorice cardstock then onto Lavender Fusion cardstock then sewed a few zips through my sewing machine.  The panel was glued to an A2 Whip Cream card base in an off center fashion.  I then stamped and embossed the Uniko "I LOVE COFFEE" cup and stamped just the piece of the coffee sentiment using Versafine Ink.  I arranged the collage on the front with foam squares and the card was done!  

The scraps from my card were used to create the coordinating pattern on the coffee bean bag.  I adhered them with Journey Glaze so they would remain pliable after drying.  I stamped the trio of beans and the sentiment with Staz-On ink.  

Now I have a perfectly coordinated gift set!  Wahoo!!!  It's heading out in Monday's mail to someone who went above and beyond... :)

Now it's on to the coordinating sketch!  I'm so matchy-matchy today!  ;)  If you would like to join the fun (and possibly win coffee-loving treats), please post a coffee/tea/cocoa creation inspired by this sketch-or any of our September sketches in the inlinkz below.  Make sure to include the hashtag #clcsipandshare when posting to social media!

An InLinkz Link-up