Fun Friday with Emilia
Looking for holiday home décor ideas or a great handmade gift idea? Well, our Lovely Layer Lady, Emilia Sieradzan, AKA Lady E. has got you covered.
Emilia decorated these stars with a collection of our Creative Dies along with a touch of stamping and stenciling.
Lucky for us, we can watch these magically come together as Emilia shares her design process in her festive video.
Watch directly on YouTube HERE.
One more thing… TGIF!
“Like” our page on Facebook for exclusive inspiration by Birgit Edblom!
Shop for today’s featured Penny Black supplies
25-014 Oscillations
51-151 Whirl Wreath
51-177 Snow Time
51-262 Poinsettia Bough
51-277 Snowy Layered Tree
30-238 Footnotes
Decorate your Christmas
Looking for great clean and simple card ideas with our new collections, Be Merry and Hello Autumn? Look no further, our Simplicity Sister, Marion Vagg, joins us this week with exactly that! Are you making CAS cards, too? Why not share YOUR holiday creations in our current challenge for a chance to win a $100 shopping spree to our online store? Get all of the challenge details HERE.
It’s time to Gather Around (30-439) and decorate the Christmas tree! Okay, well not the real tree, but perhaps a few on your holiday cards.
Marion created her happy card by stamping our adorable critters and coloring them with Copic markers. Additional details were added with colored pencils.
It’s been such a fab week of clean and simple cardmaking with our newest holiday collections… big thanks to Marion for all of the inspiration! And if you are looking for even more clean and simple card ideas, remember you can see more work from Marion and the other talented Simplicity Sisters on our clean and simple site each week.
Shop for today’s featured Penny Black supplies
Trees, Hills, and Elegance
Looking for great clean and simple card ideas with our new collections, Be Merry and Hello Autumn? Look no further, our Simplicity Sister, Marion Vagg, joins us this week with exactly that! Are you making CAS cards, too? Why not share YOUR holiday creations in our current challenge for a chance to win a $100 shopping spree to our online store? Get all of the challenge details HERE.
Who knew that our Creative Die set, 51-381 Trees and Hills, could look so elegant?
Marion die cut her simple scene from paper inked with Distress Oxide Inks and spritzed with water. A very lightly inked background finishes the scene. Her unique color choices give a magical feeling to this holiday creation.
Shop for today’s featured Penny Black supplies
51-381 Trees and Hills
30-423 Banner Sentiments
Simply Autumn
Looking for great clean and simple card ideas with our new collections, Be Merry and Hello Autumn? Look no further, our Simplicity Sister, Marion Vagg, joins us this week with exactly that! Are you making CAS cards, too? Why not share YOUR holiday creations in our current challenge for a chance to win a $100 shopping spree to our online store? Get all of the challenge details HERE.
Our Slapstick/Cling stamp, 40-554 Hello Autumn, is perfect for simple stamping and coloring.
Marion has brought it to life using colored pencils. And we love how she positioned the sweet girl to be looking up at the leaf AND the sentiment. Such a nice touch!
And we can’t quite let you go yet! Don’t miss this week’s card on our SIMPLICITY site…
Shop for today’s featured Penny Black supplies
Clean and Simple Holiday Inspiration with Marion
Looking for great clean and simple card ideas with our new collections, Be Merry and Hello Autumn? Look no further, our Simplicity Sister, Marion Vagg, joins us this week with exactly that! Are you making CAS cards, too? Why not share YOUR holiday creations in our current challenge for a chance to win a $100 shopping spree to our online store? Get all of the challenge details HERE.
Marion’s first stunning card design features our Creative Die set, 51-378 Layered Poinsettia. We love how she has spotlighted the flowers with a basic circular frame.
And to give her card a classic holiday color scheme, Marion colored some of the petals green and used them as leaves. Genius!
Shop for today’s featured Penny Black supplies
51-378 Layered Poinsettia
30-439 Gather Around
alexandra’s Sunday scrapbooking – Watercolored Poinsettias
Runs with Scissors
Hello, Dear Readers. As I write this, sunshine has returned to my corner of Alabama after several rainy and windy days. I think Harvey was swishing his tail in spite as he left for wherever depleted hurricanes go. We citizens of Alabama were more than willing to accept Harvey’s rain for a couple of days so he would, at last, ignore Texas.
This week, each time I found myself inconvenienced about some trivial thing or other, I thought of the residents of Texas and realize how fortunate I am to be safe and dry. I have declared my home to be a “whine free” zone for the duration of the Harvey cleanup.
Did you ever have an idea creep into your head without knowing where it came from? I’ve been wondering why I decided to go black and white for several cards today. Perhaps it was the new package of black cardstock sitting on my desk. Perhaps I was craving clean and simple. Perhaps it was curiosity: could there be a one step process for using these awesome cling Brushstroke stamps?
Do not adjust your monitors. You haven’t lost your color. The first three cards really ARE done in shades of black, white and silver.
I had been working with the Bell and Berries cling stamp, fresh from watching Jill Foster’s super video (here). However, my work did not look like her work. The black cardstock was at hand and a light bulb went off. I reinked my stamp with Memento Luxe white ink and voila! I loved the result! All the fine details appeared and I emphasized a few with my white pen. Would this work with the other brushstroke stamps?
This time it was the Holly Sprig cling stamp using Delicata silver ink. In real life, the silver ink is more interesting than the white, as it has a bit of shimmer to it. However, the white ink photographs better. After I stamped the Holly Sprig image, I replaced it in my Misti with the Amaryllis stamp.
This may be my favorite of the three. The Amaryllis doesn’t use up all the “white” space and seems more at home on her black background. (Spelling “amaryllis” isn’t easy).
After a day of these three images sitting on my work space, I came back and finished them by cutting them out with the Antique Frames die set and mounting them on white cardstock. I loved the bright white trim around the edges. Next step was to die cut a sentiment for each image using the Greetings and Exultations die sets, thus adding a bit more bright white for contrast. I added texture with white Nuvo Crystal Drops.
We can be real artists with awesome results when we use the unique Penny Black brushstroke and scenic style stamps. The videos and designer examples provide the “how to” for the many ways to make these images work with any technique.
Red Cross Shelter
We have all seen the incredible news reports showing the devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey as it came ashore in the Gulf region of Texas. Since it was in no hurry to move on, record breaking amounts of rain quickly put an area larger than some states under water. I am sure we all shared similar thoughts: where are these people going to go to escape their flooded homes? Thankfully, there are people and agencies that plan for the unimaginable and very rapidly there were shelters set up for the weary citizens of flooded Texas cities.
I look at the pictures of the people in the shelters and in my head I hear the crying babies, the barking dogs, the loud voices, the sounds of people moving around and tossing on their cots. There is the coughing, the sneezing and snoring of disturbed sleep.
Spending time in a Red Cross emergency shelter was never an item on my “bucket list”, but it happened anyway. Maybe that’s why I empathize with the people in the shelters and can hear those sounds in my head.
It all happened one early spring when Mr. RWS and I, along with my single younger brother, planned a road trip from our home in Wisconsin to visit my sister and her family for Easter in Alabama. I was home packing, the men were at work and as the day wore on, the light snowfall that had begun that morning began to pick up and the predictions showed that a major snow storm was heading to the Illinois border, where we were headed.
I checked in with the “guys” and suggested we postpone our trip for a day, giving the storm time to pass and the plows time to clear the highways.
Of course, due to my reputation of being terrified of snowy and icy roads, my concerns were minimized and the decision was made to leave after work as planned. I did insist, however, on a promise that if I no longer felt safe continuing, that we would stop for the night and continue the next day. Mr. RWS and my brother agreed. Looking back, I realize they were probably crossing their fingers while they promised.
I will spare you some of the details of the frightening trip on snowy roads that became scarier and more harrowing as we crossed the Illinois border. In addition, we were in heavy “rush” hour traffic and the friction of so many tires crunching the snow was creating very icy road conditions.
I realized things were only going to get worse and asked (begged) that we stop for the night while a motel room might still be available. I must have offended their pride by even suggesting such a thing as all memory of the promise they made was wiped out. And so we crept along on a highway thick with ice, by now in the dark with a blinding snowfall.
After several hours of driving at a tedious 25 mph, the men were ready to surrender. I think the announcement on the radio declaring the highway closed may have influenced their decision. And so, like pilgrims, we began stopping at every motel along the way. Every place we stopped was packed with travelers filling up every inch of space. We didn’t bother to ask about the luxury of an entire room being available. We would have gladly accepted floor space.
The last place we stopped had information about a Red Cross shelter open in Effingham, another fifty miles south. Fifty miles might as well have been 500! However, it was either that or freeze in our car on the side of the road.
Effingham officials had opened a large park pavilion and set up hundreds of cots for weary travelers. A welcomed shelter from the storm, but unfortunately, the building was not heated and there was a shortage of blankets.
We were not allowed to stay together. There were separate areas for men, for women, for families with children and people with dogs. By the time we arrived, having made the usual four hour trip in almost ten, the shelter was crowded with folks who wisely left the highway when it closed. The donated food was almost gone and there were only a few pieces of KFC and about a dozen tacos left.
As angry as I was with my traveling companions, I did not hesitate to take the last pieces of chicken and happily left my picky eater brother with the tacos he refused to eat.
I wearily stretched out on my blanketless cot and the pleasant conversation I had with the young Naval officer on the neighboring cot helped pass the time and distracted me from the cold. Thankfully, Mr. RWS came to check on me during the night and brought me his blanket. That went a long way toward my forgiving him for our ending up in a Red Cross shelter.
The next morning brought sunshine and the decision to continue our trip. We were grateful for the shelter and the community of Effingham, but couldn’t wait to be in our heated car! The roads were still thick with ice, but sunshine helped and we drove slowly for an hour until like magic we left the ice for clear roads all the way to Alabama.
This is one of those family stories that is retold many times, sometimes with alternative facts, but finally and at last my husband and brother have admitted I was right.
Here is my colorized version of the Bell and Berries cling stamp image. For the leaves and berries, I colored directly onto the stamp with Tombow markers and then smoothed the color with a damp paint brush. For the bell, I applied Distress ink directly onto the stamp. I added some accents with my white pen. I followed Jill’s video instructions and masked off the image and then distressed the background and overstamped with the Letter Background stamp.
Can you tell I had fun making the background for this Peace and Holly diecut? It’s a blend of several Memento Luxe inks, liberally splattered with white Copic ink. I loved splattering, but next time I will put my project inside a box before flicking white stuff! This time I used the Snowflake Stitch Frames die for the border.
I couldn’t let this post go by without one “cute” card. The kitty is from the To All … transparent set and he seems to be hanging from the Merry Christmas diecut. Speaking of hanging, I’ve hooked the ornament from the Ornamental Branch die set over the letter “C” just for fun. Again, the Snowflake Stitch Frames die set created that sweet border.
Cooper is spending more time in his backyard kingdom now that the weather is cooler. He is not a warm weather dog, in spite of his southern roots. I love that he is secure and confident enough to express a preference. He has been known to plant all four feet firmly on the concrete driveway to let us know it is too hot to go for a walk, thank you.
Again, it is time for clean up and pick up. The scissors are stowed, the tiny vacuum has done its job on the itty bitty scraps. It’s been joyful spending time with you and sharing what I’ve done with the Be Merry release. Next time, Halloween and autumn for sure! Thank you for your comments and for stopping by the Penny Circle Flickr Gallery.
Shop for today’s featured Penny Black supplies
Card No. 1: 40-576 Bell and Berries, 51-174 Greetings, 51-397 Antique Frames
Card No. 2: 40-578 Holly Sprig, 51-174 Greetings, 51-397 Antique Frames
Card No. 3: 40-577 Amaryllis, 51-060 Exultations, 51-397 Antique Frames
Card No. 4: 40-576 Bell and Berries, 51-060 Exultations, 1999L Letter Background
Card No. 5: 51-367 Peace and Holly, 51-375 Snowflake Stitch Frames
Card No. 6: 30-445 To All …, 51-248 Merry Christmas, 51-345 Snowflake Stitch Frames, 51-368 Ornamental Branch
