Colors That Will Make Your Digi Garden Smile

Anticipating the latest cool front to move on out so that we can kick start spring time, I designed this set of coral, melon, yellow and brown flowers. You can use these designs individually or in groupings for graphic design, greeting cards, invitations, birth announcements, scrapbooking and crafting. These would make beautiful embroidered designs, too!

The Fresh Florals set is a combination of loose doodles combined with softly textured edges on the solid petal shapes. Coral is a hot color trend and these designs look great on a soft yellow or solid white background for a fresh, contemporary look.

If you still need to send a Valentine card, check out the email version I created using the photo card in my Owlentines Printable card and invitation set. I just personalized by adding photos in Photoshop and our family name.

Sweet Deal - 40% off Today Only on Cheri Wenger Digital Designs at MyGrafico.com

It's the perfect time to treat yourself to some crafty goodness. 40% off on everything in the MyGrafico shop today only until midnight! You can stock up on some basic brushes or svg cutting files, get a jumpstart on Spring crafts and scrapbooking or take advantage of the sale by purchasing some of my sets that have Love/Valentine's related images, such as Love is Plentiful Scrapbooking Kit, The Loving Tree color clip art, my new Sweetness Collection,  Forever in Love Flourishes, Forever in Love Style Collection, Forever in Love Frames, Fluidity brushes or Fluidity Color Clip art, Hip and Happy, Lovey Dovey clip art and brushes. You can click here to view my entire shop.

Need a fast E-Valentine or clip art to make a last minute card? Download this Cheri Wenger A Little Love digital card freebie today! Enjoy and have a happy Valentine’s Day! I will post some additional Valentine's day Project 365 creations later.

Project 365 Challenge/Days 27 to 34 - A Week of Creativity

Day 27 - Be My Valentine Card

Valentine cards don’t have to take hours to be wonderful. Here is a simple card idea created using stickers, cardstock cut outs, some ribbon, some punched decorative elements and a little bit of bling in the form of some adhesive pearls. This design can be used over and over again by switching out elements, punches, ribbons and papers of your choosing.  In my sample, I paired some reddish-brown Cardstock with wonderful papers and elements from the manufacturer Little Yellow Bicycle.

Day 28 - Cork Board Date Night Card

Wanna try a fun card idea? For this Date Night card I used paper die cut elements from Shabby Chic Crafts along with a scrap piece of cork to create a faux cork board. Try this idea with your own layered elements. I used a paper clip and stick pin to add to the stationery look with two colors of twine from the Twinery and a diecut ribbon heart strip from May Arts. This card was featured as a design team project on the Glue Arts Blog. See the link for instructions and a complete supply list.

Day 30 - Uplift Card

I used pieces from a craft I made at last year's CHA show (the butterfly) to create this inspirational card for my daughter. I love pairing brights with black and white. It gives a high contrast look. Since the butterfly had a stamped french verse, I paired it with a wheeled elegant background in Tempting Turquoise ink. I smudged black ink on the white grosgrain ribbon to make it stand out from the white cardstock and add to the vintage feel. A torn bottom edge with a strip of black glued to the inside panel makes the deckled edge stand out. Try this fun handmade embellishment - layer rhinestones over top of sequins to create your own fun bling accent! I used my Glue Glider Pro and some mini extreme adhesive squares for assembly of the pieces on this cheery card design.

Day 31 - preliminary tree art for digi set

This art shows some preliminary ideas and the evolution of the loving 

tree 2 color clip art which will be the basis of a new themed digital clip art collection.

Stay tuned for the reveal of the completed collection.

Day 32- Guess Who Card

Day 33 - The assembly of the 1st Birthday Invites

Day 34 - The Loving Tree Collection

(the finished set based on the digi art created earlier this week)

Next week's creativity will include some layouts and other crafty surprises, 

and some more digital artwork concepts, too. Please tell your friends to visit. 

I will reveal the details on MY Favorite Things Giveaway contest. 

Project 365/Day 18 - Glue Arts & Girls Paperie Hearts Shadowbox

Tired of making boring covered boxes? Try taking them apart and making them into a fun item of home decor. That is what I did with this heart shaped paper mache box from Darice. Pairing it up with some favorite supplies, Glue Arts adhesives and papers from The Girls Paperie, I was able to turn this box into a fun little Valentine shadowbox of Dan and I. I had a harder time locating pictures than creating the project! LOL. See if you recognize any of the diecuts or punches used here. I also snuck in a crocheted poisie from Fancy Pants that I have had stashed away for too long now and a leftover flower chipboard from my favorite summer collection from Cosmo Cricket, DeLovely. The possibilities are unlimited when you have a little bit of paper and some endless creativity!

A little bit closer view...

The back view (great when it is set on a ledge and viewable from both sides)...

Keep watching the Glue Arts blog for a complete supply list and instructions on how you can make this fun project. Also, if you haven't signed up to receive email alerts for their blog posts, be sure to do that. If you are on Facebook, be sure to comment on their page. They are giving away products to celebrating hitting over 4,000 fans!

Project 365/ Day 11 - Sweetness Digi Collection

You saw my sketches, my project from a couple days ago. Well, today’s challenge was to scan, perfect and put together the set to post in my shop on mygrafico.com. I hope you are ready to start creating some cute Valentines. This Sweetness Collection set has some fun images to get you started! I know they will be used in some of my upcoming Project 365 challenge projects.

Project 365 Challenge: Day 4/Digital Valentines

One thing I promised myself in doing this challenge is that I wouldn’t sweat it if I didn’t get to post daily each of my projects, so I apologize if I don’t always get to post my project the next day. Life & work sometimes gets in the way but I will post them as soon as possible. However, I am sticking to the challenge of finishing a new project each day. Sometimes photographing them might have to wait until the next day.

Yesterday was filled with work, a doctor’s appt. and my children’s request to watch My Sister’s Keepers together. And these were all priority over my challenge. So later last night I sat down to think about what I wanted to create. With Valentine’s Day in mind, I decided to work with my Fluidity Multi Color collection to create these digital card fronts in Adobe Illustrator.

In these, I used the colors in the set, however, you can edit the eps files 

in Illustrator to recolorize the art.These can be printed and mounted on cardstock 

or simply emailed to friends and family as an attachment.

Be My Valentine

Heart Flutter

Free My Heart

A Card for A Craft Idol

American Idol is in full swing and it got me to thinking about how I actually got to meet and eventually become friends with one of my crafting idols, Susan Stringfellow. You see as I go go through my scrap and stamp magazines and find projects I REALLY like, I always check out who the designer is. More often than not the name was Susan Stringfellow. I was a huge, anonymous fan of her work so imagine my surprise when our worlds collided when designing for Inque Boutique. Susan and I have kept in touch and share projects and inspiration whenever we can via email and our blogs. Now the real dilmena...I wanted to send her a surprise along with a card. Talk about intimidating! I finally let go of trying to create the most fantastic Susan worthy card and sent one that reflected my style. Here is the card. I used papers from Me & My Big Ideas Sassy specialty CS pad, fiskars scallop heart punch an old hostess set of occasions verses for the greeting, flourish set from Autumn Leaves and this cool new wood mounted rubber stamp flourish from Inkadinkado that I used over top of the two side hearts. I used black and pixie pink ink from SU.

P.S. She liked the valentine surprise and the card!

Love is in the Air, even if it is 40 degrees in Florida!

Oh, I know most of you northern girls have had your share of cold, snowy weather, but for us Floridians, we are just not used to waking up to temps in the 30s and 40s. Enough of this already! By now, I have usually purchased atleast a few new flowers for the garden to begin planting for spring. Instead, it is ground zero. Dan and Ash had to cut back most of our bushes and plants. They all looked dead, most dropped their leaves or showed severe signs of the cold temps. Even the palm trees are browned with only a little bit of green. Despite the chill in the temps, the warmth of Valentine's love is still in the air. Here are some cards I created for my Valentine's (aka my girlies and husband).

Hugs & Kisses Cupcake Card (for Kai)

detail shows bow and mini tag and that houndstooth digi paper I love from mygrafico.com

A Stylish Love (this one matches Ash's personality)

Check out the rub on flourishes used on this from

Basic Grey Wholy Cow rub ons

this shows inside the mini card on front panel with Valentine message

guess you can tell who this was for! Stamped the frame and mounted paper on inside, then used Versamarker to emboss name in Gold on the envelope. Cut and glued on hearts as accent.

You and Me, Valentine Card and env. set

Used scalloped border, scallop heart punch and brown pearls as fun accents. Yes, I used pink and brown again, sorry, but a personal fave color combo. This time I mixed it with gold Core' dinations paper, chocolate chip, ivory naturals CS and pp from Chatterbox found at JoAnns.

These two owls from Sassafras' Olivia and Pals set reminded me of me and my DH. See, he is 6'3" and I am 5'2 and a half inches! {LOL had to add the 1/2!} And this is what we look like side by side. We are pretty opposite in many ways. He likes to cycle; my butt has real issues with bicycle seats. He loves all foods; I am a picky eater. I love color; he prefers navy and green, but somehow we are a great match and have been married for

23 years and together for 25!

Note: on the frame, this time, I handcut the center and mounted contrasting CS behind the opening after stamping the verse You and Me.

Here is a fun technique to try with your punches...cut a strip of patterned paper or contrasting CS and place in your punch at the angle you want to mount on top of your solid punched image. Now you have matching edges to align and mount on top and your strip is an even width.

Not going to post my personal love letter to my DH, but this is what was inside the top portion of the card. He loved the distressed edges smudged with ink and the cut out hearts. The love you stamp was embossed in gold. Both it and the heart were from a Brenda Walton Inkadinkado stamp set.

Tomorrow I will post the cards my family made for me...what a treat!!!

Combining Digi and Stamping

Love & Friendship Card

My friend Lindsay is a designer on a site called www.mygrafico.com so I purchased some of her sets and a couple others to play with along with my other crafting and stamping supplies. I had some baby cards, birthday and valentine’s cards to make so I got busy doing some hybrid and digital creations. Here is a peek at some of those cards. I especially love the uptown houndstooth set of papers. I have used the black background and altered the brown in Photoshop to match the elements of Cocoa Studios Mod Nature set. The Baby Bingo set is a free download and I had fun changing up the colors to use the sweet bingo card on a variety of cards. I will post more cards this week. Wait ’til you see the cards I made with the Love Grows Here set. Too cute!

Your Family Has Grown (Baby Card)

Inside Detail (see coordinating gift card from Toys R Us)

A Little Birdie Told Me (congrats for new grandma card!)

(inside the card - plenty of space to write my message)

Houndstooth Hugs & Kisses Card ...Tri-fold card with heart tied into bow

Birthday Boy Bingo Card

So you ask how do you work with digi stamps/art? You can use the jpegs or png files to place directly in Word, Photoshop or a layout program. Print them as is, color them in, change their color, combine art, etc. You can scale them, edit them and have fun creating! Sign up on the site. It is free. Ooh, and they are having a 20% off Valentine's weekend sale! Don’t you just love sales?

Valentine Hoot Box and Mini Card

Using my SU bitty box and envelope die with my sizzix big kick, I created this adorable gift box and card set for Valentine's Day. The owls are from Sassafras' Olivia & Pals clear stamp set, the flower petal is an older SU punch, the heart is a Marvy scallop heart punch and backround flower is also a Marvy Punch. The cardstock is a personal favorite collection called Classic K McKenna from K&Company along with Soft Vanilla from Stampin' Up!® and Tan CS from The Paper Co. Other supplies used: Brown satin ribbon, light and dark pink rhinestones, Chocolate Chip ink, Regal Rose Marker, stamping sponge (to distress edges), Glue Glider Pro with high tac adhesive, Glue Arts' ribbon adhesive and mini adhesive squares. I displayed this project at the CHA Craft SuperShow this past Saturday. This is a close up view of the gift card and box top. Scroll down for more photos.

Some design notes: I used mini adhesive squares to make & attach the ribbon loop under the punched flower. If you don't own this punch, you can substitute with a similar size flower. To create the 2 toned owl, I stamped once in chocolate chip, then once using the Regal Rose brush marker to color and stamp. I trimmed out the heart shaped face and adhered to stamped brown image. I trimmed around owl shape and mounted to layers on mini gift card. For edging on card, I used a stamping sponge dipped into ink pad. I drug along CS to distress. I freehand cut the mini pink heart from the wing portion of the owl I stamped in Regal Rose.

Don't forget to dress up the outside of the envelope. Here I used the scallop heart punch with a lightly patterned solid CS from the collection so I could write the name of the person I was giving it to inside the heart. Again, I edged in brown ink to make it pop!

This shows a view of the inside of the mini gift card with the ribbon wrapped around the inside. I added a tiny verse from a retired SU set, called Be Mine, but you can add in your own stamped verse or set up a message on your computer and print out. I edged Vanilla CS with rose marker.

Tell Your Valentine...You Rock!

Here is a fun Valentine's Treat Bag for your daughter, mom or wife. Wanna make it more manly? Change the colors to red & black and add a bandana to the skull to make more dude appropriate! (Challenge: If you try this, send me an email so I can post on the blog! Also, send me your spin on this girl version. All products available for purchase on my SU website. Plus get a FREE catalog while supplies last!)

This project uses pretty in pink, basic black, going grey and whisper white CS from Stampin’ Up.!® For the pink glitter elements, I used a marker to handcolor the hearts and as my ink for stamping the bow. I used some 2-way glue on top of those and the teeth along with dazzling diamonds to rock out this gift bag. The stamp set is Just Jawing (not just for Halloween use!!!) and Scary Skulls, both from Stampin’ Up!®. The wide ribbon is 5/8" striped Pink Pirouette and the skinnier is 1/4" pretty in pink grosgrain, also from SU. The box template is my original design. Email me if you are interested in the pattern.

Love You Gingham Card

Carrying on with my love of the Bella Rose Designer Paper and A Happy Heart Stamp set, here is another quick card idea using Riding Hood Red ink and a Pretty in Pink marker. The white accents were done with a white gel pen. I used a 1/2" circle punch to raise up the encircled heart with Stampin’ Dimensionals adhesive foam. I used my Glue Arts® Glue Glider Pro with Perma Tac adhesive cartridge on the rest of the card. The cardstock is Real Red, Whisper White & Pretty in Pink from Stampin’ Up!®. Order these and other products on my Stampin’ Up!® website. 

Love - buttoned up no more!

I wanted to show that you don’t have to spend a lot of time to create a great card. This card is called “Buttoned Up Love”. 

Sometimes simple is good. Here I used a gorgeous red patterned paper from Stampin’ Up!®’s Bella Rose Designer Paper pack, some green galore CS for the button and Whisper White for the background and layer. Using a Pink Passion, Real Red and Green Galore marker, I colorized the wishy graphic and verse from A Happy Heart set to give a multi-color look. I worked from light to dark by coloring the Pink Passion first and adding darker red accents over top. This gives the stamping more interest. I used my Sizzix® Big Kick with the Buttons #5 die to create the paper button. I left this really plain and simple...no extra ribbons or floss, brads or other embellishments. I just let the bold colors pop. If you don't own a diecutting machine, substitute a large button in the corner. All adhesives were from Glue Arts!

So, don't be intimidated to make a card, just try something plain and simple today. You may end up loving it!

Valentine's Checkered Love Make-n-Take

So as you can see, I have gotten into the Valentine’s spirit. I loved this new set that I purchased from Stampin’ Up!® that has so many great stamping possibilities. It is called A Happy Heart. Later this week, I will be posting some of the other card creations done with this set, if possible. ; )

Here is a peek at the Checkered Love make-n-take card done at my Stampin’ Up!® Friday night Stamper’s Club workshop. And here is a list of supplies used on this project:

Inks: Riding Hood Red Classic Ink

Markers: Pretty in Pink & Basic Black

Cardstock: Pretty in Pink, Whisper White, Basic Black and Real Red

Designer Paper: Bella Rose

Tools: Scallop Edge Punch & 1/2" circle punch

Ribbon: Black Hemp

Adhesive: For this sample I used Glue Arts Perma Tac Adhesive with Glue Glider Pro (for my demo, I used the dotto adhesive from Stampin’ Up!). On the raised elements, I used Stampin’ Dimensionals.

Here is a picture of the inside view and message. I carried a touch of the patterned paper to the inside along with another raised heart circle. This is actually part of a larger stamp that says i (heart in circle) u, shown at the bottom of the card above. You can use the omission technique to just stamp the heart or stamp the whole image and punch the circled heart out using a 1/2" circle punch.

Order this set on my Stampin’ Up!® website to get it in time for making your very own cards using the ideas I will be posting this week. Also, you can take a peek at the brand new Spring/Summer catalog and all of the great new products!

A Peek at the Glue Arts Display for CHA!

With Valentine’s day just a little over three weeks away, I created this poster, centerpiece and candles to showcase Glue Arts’ Wall Art Decor Adhesive at the Craft & Hobby Association Winter Trade Show, often referred to CHA. The Winter show is taking place right now in Anaheim, CA showcasing the latest product releases from Craft and Hobby manufacturers. It is a crafter’s dream to walk and observe the show. There are project samples, make-n-takes and lots of products to drool over. Can you tell that I am struggling not being there this year?

Well, even though I am not there, a bit of me is. The foam board poster shows how you can combine your own personal diecutting machines, punches, papers, Wall Art Decor Adhesive and your own creativity to decorate a room, table top or a wall for any occasion. You can customize a hallway, embellish around framed artwork or shelving and liven up a room with temporary designs using this product. This project also is great for creating school projects & posters!

For my sample, I used my QuicKutz Silhouette digital craft cutter & software along with some diecut flowers using my Sizzix Big Kick and the Flower Layers #3 die. I used papers from assorted manufacturers with coordinating colors. Here are some pictures of the items. I did also use some other Glue Arts adhesives on the centerpiece and candle wrappers.