Play Dates aren’t just for kids!

I love how stamping has connected me with so many people, some of which have turned out to be my very best friends. One of these is my super talented friend, Ree Nathan, who credits me for getting her addicted to stamping. LOL! She is now my wonderfully talented and creative SU demonstrator and I am her customer...what a fun role reversal! And we always enjoy our little stamping play dates together. Who else would get so excited over a UPS box showing up with new products in it the way we do! It is so nice to have that friend to share cool tips, borrow each others goodies and inspire one another to try new things. There is nothing like a stamping buddy! 

I don’t mean to leave out any of my other stamping buddies, but today I share this creation I made at a stamp night with Ree. It was shortly after my aunt’s funeral and I was still a bit emotional and low in spirits. I stamped, I weeped, We shared and I left feeling a whole lot better than when I arrived! Above is one of the cards I made titled Tropicalflora Thanks. It features some older SU designer series papers, but I couldn't resist using them since the colors were just perfect! For the background, I used the NEW embossing folder called Elegant Lines. (Had to order that one right away since I fell in love with it, and it has so many great possibilities!) I embossed the cardstock then used my chalks in accent colors to bring out the texture and the Razzleberry Lemondade DSP (designer series papers) were diecut with my NEW Island Floral BigZ die. The verse is an OLD Thank You which is one of my favorites over the years. You can easily substitute any phrase or designer papers to remake this card for any occasion. Most importantly, plan a play date with a stampin’ friend to recharge your creativity and your spirits!

2-2-2!

Do you know that my favorite number is 2. It is my birth date and I have just always loved that number. When I logged on to do a new post for today, I saw that I had 222 posts as of August 2nd. Pretty amazing, isn’t it!?? So I am now looking forward to hitting post 2,222...have some work cut out for me!

I am going to catch you up on some hybrid card inspirations using some of my digi desgins sold on MyGrafico.com. One of my favorite illustrative sets is the Hip & Happy set. I use this cross all the time. Most crosses have a rigid, stiffness to them, which reminds me nothing of the Jesus I know and love —
a compassionate and loving God that gave his own life for me. He surrounds me with his love and guidance so I tried to achieve that in my artistic interpretation of the cross. On this first example, I used it to create a sympathy card for our friends who just lost their father/grandfather just a few days after my aunt passed away. I typeset the verse and printed out the cross in b&w. I added a touch of soft pink on the swirls and heart as a soft accent. For the background, I used a flower and design element in black to create the hand stamped background. It is from one of my favorite new stamp sets called Que Sera Sera by K&Company. It is an eclectic mix of designs and verses. I used the same stamp to handcut a lavender floral accent that I raised up with a rhinestone accent.

Working with the same color combination of pink and black I also created this hybrid card for my cousin’s daughter’s Baptism. I just love digital brushes & Photoshop. I used my Mod Twist Garden brushes to create the background, which nicely complimented the lines in the cross illustration. This card was 90% digi, cut out and mounted onto card stock layers. Pretty easy. See below for another modified version of this same card art. That is the cool thing with using digital stamps, art and brushes, you can set up the art, print & experiment with lots of variations of the same design so no cards have to be the same!

I called this version Hip & Girly Baptism Card. The gold, pink and black made it just a bit fancier, yet it still has that girly style to it. You can also dress up hybrid cards by adding brads, ribbons, diecut borders, etc. For this, I kept it simple and classic.