Coffee Loving Cardmaker Guestie!

Happy Aloha Friday friends!  I'm guesting over at Coffee Loving Cardmakers!! I look forward to this awesome coffee/tea/cocoa lovin' blog hop each season.  If you haven't heard of it, head on over to the blog and join us each season with some delicious looking projects.  Of course there's lots of prizes from super generous sponsors and even blog hoppers do giveaways too.  Truly the best part of the hop is sitting down with a cup o' joe and ooing and awing over everyone's amazing designs with my favorite theme!

 I'm super ecstatic to share my favorite Coffee Blog Hop card (shown above) and a new one I made just for being a guest.  A BIG MAHALO to Amy the the crew for allowing me to share!

This card was inspired by the latest Avery Elle Challenge

 using their fun set Pixie Dust and Tea Time.  The background was made with Distress Inks in Spun Sugar and Carved Pumpkin on the edges and Hickory Smoke for grounding.  The images were copic colored and die cut with the matching dies.  I hope you'll stop on by and leave me some comment love!

Rainbow Aloha

Thanks to the hubby I've been able to get some time in for me to play!

So happy to finally have a day off from work and oncall and

 just be able to spend time in my crafty space. 

It truly is so therapeutic...haha.

I wanted to jump in to the latest Avery Elle Challenge

This was totally my kind of challenge as I realized I don't usually use too much white for 

my card bases.  I do love COLOR and went with this idea that popped in my head...

The Stay Fresh stamp and die set is one of my favorites from Avery Elle!

Super easy to do with die cutting a rainbow of cardstock from some scrap pieces and adhering 

to a black cardbase with multi medium matte glue.  Then I heat embossed the pineapple on 

vellum using Ranger Liquid Platinum powder and adhered with the same glue 

(tip: to keep the glue from showing through, I placed tiny dots 

in places where the stamp lines would cover).
I'm gonna enter this in the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge as well:  Make it colorful!

Hope you liked this fun way to use your dies and a non white card base!

Mahalo for stopping by!!

First Christmas Card for the Season!

Happy Hump Day friends!

I've been feeling a bit sluggish lately with work but this quote was a great

reminder of why I do what I do!  All too often I find

myself learning so much about life through my patients.

And on to my card, because crafting is my fuel to

keep me sane...haha!

I was hoping to capture that fun sparkle

 in the DCWV Glitzy Glitter matstack.  It's such a fun paper to die cut 

especially because the glitter doesn't get everywhere!

I used the Avery Elle Fill in the Blank

Holiday Dies with those sweet bells and with the matching stamp set,

red heat embossed the word Christmas.

I wanted the bells to appear dangling from the word merry.

And that folks is my card!

I'll be entering

and

Mahalo for stopping by!

Sending Prayers

Some of you may or may not know that I travel frequently between Oahu (the island I live on) and Hawaii (AKA the Big Island) due to work.  Hurricane Iselle ended up doing a lot of damage over on the Big Island and I have a coworker that had her house damaged by an uprooted tree.  This coworker is an amazing person and so giving. She feeds me every time I'm at the office (because she thinks nurses don't get to eat or use the bathroom...haha (sometimes true ;o)  She's bubbly and always with a positive attitude and the most humbling thing about her...she never mentioned having her house damaged by the storm, is still going to work and is still without water or electricity since Thursday!

Our office is gathering up some funds to help out and of course I needed to make a card...

inspired by the latest AEIHeartUChallenge: Kraft

Anyone else spend waaaay to long on a design?  I first stamped out the bouquet.  This Avery Elle set has the perfect sentiments, and the build-a-bouquet set is so fun to ink up with various ink colors.  Then I knew I needed a Kraft card base...then what?!  My coworker has a bit o' pizazz so I needed something sparkly...so in came the sequins.  That bit of pattern paper is from Echo Park Everyday Eclectic which has some kraft colored design to it as well.  The edges of the bouquet panel was distressed with Soft Sand ink from Hero Arts to blend in a little better with the embossed, kraft cardstock.

That's it for me.  I so appreciate you stopping by and reading my blog!  MAHALO!!

**ETA-  when uploading my card I realized a lot of people used this stamp set!  Great minds think a like and have good taste...haha**

Storybook Birthday

Hi there!  I made some time to make another card using the latest Avery Elle release!  This time I used the Storybook set with matching dies (I'm a sucker for stamps and matching dies!) and can I just say there are soooo many sweet possibilities.

Here's what I came up with...

using the latest AEIHeartUChallenge as inspiration

So a few techniques on this card...I first die cut the circle and white heat embossed the grass and duck.  I colored in the little beak and feet with a copic and then used a Versamark pen to color it in to add clear embossing powder and then heat set.  I did this in order to keep my duck white and be able to color my background with distress inks.  I wanted my balloons to stick out and white heat embossed, die cut and added glossy accents to them.  They were foam taped on.  I wanted them to appear more raised which is why I ended up making the duck more a part of the background scene and allowing the balloons to shine...literally...hehe

The sentiment was cut using the die from the Custom Panels die set and stamping the sentiment from Handwritten Notes (it has a cool font).  Added some twine and there ya have it!

I'm gonna slip this one into the next Simon Says Wednesday Challenge as well.

Mahalo for stopping by!

Ombre Sunshine

Happy Aloha Friday!  Making it short and sweet today with this card inspired by several challenges...

Avery Elle Fill in the Blank, Tim Holtz Rays Stencil, Distress Inks Faded Jeans, Salty Ocean and Tumbled Glass,

Memento inks in Tuxedo Black, Dandelion and Canteloupe and Hero Arts inks in Butter Bar and Orange Soda, Lawn Trimmings

Inspired by CAS(E) this Sketch

and the next Moxie Fab Challenge: Styling With Stencils.  I used the Tim Holtz Rays Stencil and a bunch of yellow inks to create the ombre look to enter the AEIHeartUChallenge

I've also created the ombre blue background using Distress Inks and water color paper.  Lastly because I used a button for the "O" I'll also enter the next Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes With Buttons.

Phew...that's it for me!  Have a great weekend!!!

Picking Up the Pieces Vol. 15 A Shaped Card

Hello.  Today I was inspired by this sweet little gift my coworker gave me for Christmas.

I'm super surprised that it has even lasted this long because I'm not known for having a green thumb!

I love this terrarium...totally low maintenance and just gorgeous!













So Avery Elle has this fun stamp set which is totally fun to stamp out and thought I'd enter in the AEIHeartUChallenge

 It's not my typical colorful and sparkly birthday card, but I'm trying to make some gender neutral card.

 

Avery Elle Bottle It Up, Hero Art Shadow Inks in Passion Flower, Green Hills, Field Greens and Soft Granite, Memento Tuxedo Black Ink and Potter's Clay, raffia

I love the idea of using the die shape to create the bottle shaped card.  Easily done by doing a partial die cut on the fold of a card.  The stamp set comes with all those fun plants and rocks and the little cork top too!  I just tied some raffia for fun and popped up the label with some foam tape. 

Here's another look...

So that's it for me!  Have a great week and mahalo for stopping by!!