Spiced Pumpkin Butter

Hello! 

Todays post is a little unusual, as I have a project, instead of a card, to share with you!  You see, I've had 3 little pumpkins staring at me from my CSA (community sponsored agriculture) share.  So what's a girl to do?  Make butter, of course.  Pumpkin butter, that is.  Incidentally, there's no actual butter involved, but there is lots of sugar!  Yum :) 

So after slaving over a hot stove meticulously stirring my pumpkin/sugar concoction until it thickened, the butter was ready for jars!  And, what did the jars need?  Labels, of course!  

I cut some fall-themed fabric to fit under the jar lid and made a label/tag with a circle punch.  I then cut the border out of American Crafts paper with a circle cutter.  To secure the tag, I punched a hole on either side of the circle and tied the tag to the jar with baker's twine.  I used Smitty's ABCs (Lawn Fawn) for the lettering and the little hearts are from the winter owl set.  In case you're wondering, Nov. 17 is when the butter was made.  

It was pretty simple to do.  Here are my supplies (minus the circle cutter and paper): 

I plan on giving these little jars away to family at Thanksgiving.  Here's another photo of the jars straight on: 

I also thought I would enter this into the latest Lawnscaping Challenge: Tags.

And that's all for me today!  Bon appetit! 

-Lizzy 

Stamping with Water & Distress Inks

Happy Weekend! 

I've had a bit of free time today, so, naturally, I made a card :)  I know we haven't even made it through Thanksgiving, but I couldn't resist making another Christmas card.  Here it is: 

I used a hero arts snowflake background stamp and inked it up with several distress inks.  I then spritzed the stamp with water before stamping it on some very vanilla cardstock.  This technique creates a pretty watercolor effect.  It's super simple to do-- here's how I did it: 

All you need are some distress inks, a water mister, and a background stamp.  I used shaded lilac, milled lavender, seedless preserves, and dusty concord inks.  My water mister is an Inkssentials tool, but any mister will do.  I've never tried doing this with any other types of ink, but I do know it will work with water color markers.  After gathering the supplies, randomly ink up the stamp starting with the lightest color and working towards the darkest.  

After the stamp has been inked, lightly mist it with water.  You'll see the ink bead up: 

Then it's time for stamping! 

See how it looks water-color-ish?  You can keep misting the stamp with water without applying additional ink and it will create lighter gradients of color, which is nice for filling in the paper.  And that's it!  Easy as pie! 

I embossed a hero arts sentiment in black and then created a frame with scor tape and prisma glitter around the sentiment.  And because the more glitter you add, the better the card is (duh...!), I added more tape around the outside of the card.  ....And then I added diamond stickles to the center of the snowflakes...ha!  [aka. best card E.V.E.R. ;) ] 

I'm entering it in this months Hero Arts contest: Bring on the Bling. 

Here's a close up of all that sparkly glitter: 

And one more of the whole card: 

That's it for today!  Thanks for stopping by! 

-Lizzy 

CAS-ual Fridays Challenge #78

Hello! 

Todays card is for CAS-ual Fridays Challenge #78: so torn.  The objective is to make a clean and simple project that has something torn on it.  

Here's my take on it: 

Instead of having torn paper directly on the card, I decided to tear some paper to use as a mask.  I used a snowflake from Papertrey Ink's Snowflake Medley stamp set and embossed it with clear-glitter embossing powder, which made it quite sparkly :)

I then masked around the snowflake with torn paper and blended distress ink onto the card (tumbled glass, peacock feathers, & shaded lilac).  The embossing resists the ink, which creates a distinct stamped image!  I then cut around the snowflake/inked background and mounted it on foam tape onto a standard sized card.  Lastly, I stamped the sentiment (also from Papertrey Ink) in dusty concord distress ink. 

That's my card for today!  Thanks for visiting! 

-Lizzy

Lawnscaping Challenge #45

Hello out there! 

It seems like such a long time since I've had the opportunity to sit down and make a card!  I think I'm going through withdrawal... ha!  I've been pretty busy with school work lately-- I'm currently in graduate school in a nurse practitioner program.  I love it, but it sure does make a dent in my card-making-time!  Anyways, enough about that boring stuff and on to the important stuff ;) 

 Todays card is for the latest Lawnscaping Challenge: Dust 'em off.

 The challenge objective is to use something in your stash that hasn't been used in a while...enter "Frosty Friends."  

I started with the background and inked up some white cardstock with distress inks.  I then used the Hero Arts "Snow dots" background stamp and spritzed it with water and stamped it onto the inked background.  I saw a tutorial a while back by Shari Caroll, I believe, using this same technique, but can't seem to find the link-- sorry!  After I used the background stamp, I used some snowflakes from the Frosty Friends set and stamped them in white to finish the snowy background.  Next came some fussy-cutting and paper-piecing so the snowmen could be properly dressed for winter.  I then cut out the hills, stamped the sentiment (let it snow stamp set), and added Perfect Pearls Mist to both for a little extra shine.  I also thought the hills could use some stickles so I added some along the edges.  I then assembled everything on the card and finished with some red baker's twine. 

And that's my card for the Lawnscaping Challenge!  Thanks for stopping by today! 

-Lizzy

CAS-ual Fridays Challenge #77

Hi Everyone! 

It's been a pretty busy week, but I wanted to squeeze in a bit of time to make a card for this week's CAS-ual Fridays Challenge: create a clean and simple masculine project.  

This one was tough for me!  Masculine cards are always a challenge, and to add the "clean and simple" bit made it ever harder!  

Here's what I came up with: 

It's a boy birthday card!  I created the background with distress inks and used Stampin' Up! inks for the balloons.  The balloons are from Papertrey Ink (Heart-2-Heart #2).  The birthday sentiment is from the same set and is embossed in black.  Oh, and the balloons have some lime baker's twine. 

Hope your week is going well!  Thanks for stopping by! 

-Lizzy

Baby Shower Card

Hello and Happy Friday! 

Today's card is for a friend's baby shower that I'm attending.  It's a simple card that features several sweet baby animals. 

The animals are from the stamp set Storybook Friends and the sentiment is from the set Teeny Tiny Wishes, which are both from Stampin' Up!.  I colored the animals with copics and used a 1 inch circle punch to cut them out.  I then embossed the sentiment with black powder and used antique linen distress ink to add dimension to the circles and sentiment strip.  The card ends up measuring 4x4.  

Thanks for visiting today!  

-Lizzy

Snowflakes

Happy November, Everyone!

The weather is definitely starting to get chilly these days, which makes it perfect to be inside and making cards!

Today's card is a bright and cheery holiday card.  I used the Snowflake Medley and the Think Big Favorites #8 stamp sets from Papertrey ink for this.  I stamped the snowflakes with pumpkin pie, melon mambo, and certainly celery inks from Stampin' Up!.

The sentiment is stamped in black.  I thought the card looked a little plain, so I added some silver striped washi tape and bakers twine to the card.  The front panel is mounted on pumpkin pie cardstock from Stampin' Up!. 

I like how this card turned out, but the ink seemed to really saturate the stamp and all the pretty "etchings" in the snowflakes weren't visible.  So, I re-did the card with some distress inks, but with the same layout.  

  
Since the snowflakes looked a little bland by themselves again, I stamped some small ones in the center using antique linen distress ink.  I like how it turned out AND I like that it was easy and simple to make! 

That's all for today!  Thanks for stopping by! 

-Lizzy