Waltzingmouse Revisited and Revived!

Claire Brennan’s Waltzingmouse Stamps were AMAZING, but world events (Brexit) crushed her small business exporting from Ireland. She’s stayed busy in the meantime (lots of beautiful fabric designs posted to her Facebook feed!), but for those of us in stamping who’ve missed her brilliance…she’s working on a comeback. 

It’s going to be slow, she assured me, but she’s coming BACK! Yippee!

To celebrate, I’m playing around with one of her old sets, Fine Feather. Today’s card uses Impress Fresh pigment inks, which give such a lovely, opaque finish. My pigment inks have been sadly neglected lately, but it certainly was fun pulling them out. 

And below, there’s a photo of the packaged cards for Karen’s Card Shop from Kathryn, Pat, and Eddie!  Took them to church today and restocked the shop. For the first time in a few months, get well cards were fully stocked!

Finally, here’s a bonus picture of my son Nick (he of “it’s just water over beans”) and our Best Boy Cooper, just for fun. 

Mercy, grace, peace, and love,

Susan

It’s Just Water over Beans

My firstborn Nick is a self-confessed coffee snob and works at “the best” coffee shop in Cincinnati. He sometimes he has to consciously remind himself that “it’s just water over beans.” 

In getting back to basics and this blog’s mantra “doing simple things well,” today’s cards fit into the “it’s just ink on paper” category.

Both cards use stamps from Simon Says for the shapes. These very basic sets have solid and outline circles and hearts in a wide range of sizes. Inks are all Simon Says pawsitively saturated ink, except the black, which is Ranger Archival. 

I challenge you to share a card that’s just ink on paper. Have fun making it! Then share it in a comment on the blog or on Simplicity’s Facebook page. 

Mercy, grace, peace, and love,

Susan

Simple Card Set

 A lovely stamp set from Gina K features in today’s three cards. I wanted to make some very basic—but very pretty—cards. I’ve been messing around with dies and BetterPress plates and watercolors (making pretty trash, mostly) and wanted to get back to my roots as a clean-and-simple stamper.

So satisfying!

Lavender, aqua, and lime…a lovely combination for a set of monochromatic cards. I was so surprised I had coordinating colored card stock to mat each stamped panel. The tags were punched from an old StampinUp punch, and of course a bit of craft thread makes up the bows. A final little touch…I used a very old and still working Sakura stardust pen to accent the centers of the little flowers.

It’s so easy to be seduced by all the products and gadgets and techniques, but we used to make cards with paper, stamps, ink, markers and pens, and an occasional punch. I love that we have so many options today, but sometimes, back to basics is enormously satisfying!

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Quick prayer request for a friend. Mary has stage 4 colon cancer, a recurrence of the disease from about 13 years ago. She has two surgeries in July and begins a new chemo treatment. 

Mercy, grace, peace, and love,

Susan

Hello in Gold and a Nightmare in Springboro, OH

A big thank you goes out to Kathryn and Pat whose boxes of cards for Karen's Card Shop arrived today!

For today's card, I needed something quick and remembered several cards I'd seen on Pinterest that had letters half-inked or half-embossed. Thought I'd give it a try!

While I did heat emboss the gold on the sentiment, the gold added to the stem was done with a Sakura stardust gold pen...much quicker and easier than embossing. I'm surprised how much the three different golds match in real life. The photo above distorts the colors somewhat on my screen.

This 6.25" x 3.5" card also has a mat of gold shimmer paper from Sizzix. The sentiment die is from Poppy Stamps, and the stem is from Alexandra Renke. 

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Now for the nightmare!!! Beware!!! You cannot unsee the picture at the end of this post!!!

Now, you have to see it, right? And it will haunt your dreams as it does mine. 

So a few weeks ago, I was leaving church and glanced up at a building beside the parking lot. After a double-take, I saw a terrifying sight:

The cinder blocks and vines and wiring--not to mention the moss and iron bars--combine to make this SUPER creepy! 

She overlooks the church parking lot (who knows for how long!), and I want to save her. 

But I'm scared. So very scared!

Mercy, grace, peace, and love for sure.

Susan

Guy Cards

If you’re anything like me, you find guy cards difficult…just like guys, really, because they are hunters and generally approach life with a “see mastodon, kill mastodon, grill mastodon, eat mastodon” approach to life. The finer points of gathering flowers and cute little creatures and little embellishments are often lost on them. There are, however, exceptions to the rule, and my son Nick is one of them. He likes design, art, creativity. So there’s extra pressure to make him a card he appreciates. 

Here you go. A guy card that was super fun to make and looks (according to Nick, at least) great.

The square was die cut from a piece of watercolor paper I’d made with Twinkling H2O paints. The shimmer is lovely and works well with the gold embossing. The script embossing folder was used on a piece of watercolor paper cut from a large sheet (Arches 90lb) with a raw edge. The bit of gold thread sort of hugs the focal point. 

Mercy, grace, peace, and love, 

Susan

Do You Have Favorites?

Many, many thanks to Eddie for the fabulous box of cards that arrived today for Karen's Card Shop. Stampers are the best, and Eddie has contributed so many cards for the shop! 

Now, on to stamping by way of books. As a lifelong and very vocal reader, I am often asked, "What's your favorite book?" That's like asking me which of my sons is my favorite...and thus the question is unanswerable. I don't have A favorite, but I do have a whole LIST of favorites, though, in no particular ranking.

When it comes to stamps, my tastes change, or I use a set to death and get bored, or I run out of ideas. Surely you know the feeling? But a few sets have withstood the test of time, and today's set--A Wreath for All Seasons by Papertrey Ink--is one of them for me. It's definitely on my list of favorites. 

It's not a terribly versatile set as far as design goes, but there are so many techniques you can use to make these stamps wreath your heart with joy!

The card uses Simon Says Stamp inks (honey and the warm grays) and incorporates a berry stamp from Simon Says and a tiny circle for the center of the flowers. The results are sweet, summery, and oh so pretty!

And on to life....

Computer gremlins have been messing with me. First, I can't comment on my own blog on my iPad, which explains the delay in replying to your comments on my recent posts. I caught up this afternoon on my computer and want you to know how incredibly honored I am that anyone takes the time to comment on blogs still. Second, I've not been receiving Simplicity emails from follow.it and suspect some of you may not be either. Not sure what's going on there, but I'm investigating. 

Third, my printer...can we digress a moment on that special place in hell for designers of printers? Seriously, I'm not a violent person, but our last HP printer almost had the crap beaten out of it BY ME with a baseball bat AFTER I spent three hours on the phone with HP support, only to be told my printer, which was four years old, was obsolete. My husband intervened on its behalf, but when I dropped that %$#&* into our trash bin, it was with force, I tell you! 

The sound of crunching plastic...so satisfying.

Anyway, back to my third point. George can't get his work-from-home printer to work at home at all, and my printer prints only when the spirit moves it. The spirit wasn't moving yesterday when George needed to print a document. Sometimes, when his computer won't work with my printer, mine will. So I went to my computer to print his document, which he emailed to me, but my computer updated and rebooted yesterday, and for some reason, Outlook wouldn't work. It said it was "NEW!" and asked for passwords I haven't used in years...and then would not accept them. 

Now, after 20 minutes of trying to get Outlook working, and maybe but not definitely swearing and slamming of hands on a desk, George came in and very gently suggested that he could email the document and perhaps it was wine o'clock and time to Wordle.  

I love him. 

So today, I worked myself into a really good mood and decided to try to fix Outlook. First off, I restarted the computer...and magically, everything works now. No problems at all. 

And that's life in a nutshell. 

And now back to our topic of favorites. Do you have a few sets you love immoderately and have loved for a long time? Care to share?

Mercy, grace, peace, and love,

Susan

You Are Wonderful

Today’s Question: Have you ever used Sizzix stamps, and, if so, did you like them? I found a set on sale at Marco’s and bit. The images are darling, but the stamps themselves feel different from my usual brands. They obviously stamp just fine (see card below), but I do so love the smell of photopolymer in the morning, and these don’t really have an odor. So just wondering if this is an issue for anyone or just a variation on normal.

Today’s card goes out to all those who have contacted me about sending cards to Karen’s Card Shop! Charlotte A’s shipment arrived today and is already packaged for me to take to the shop tomorrow. Thank you all so much for supporting this little ministry. We’ve pulled in $5,000 since 2016, and keep in mind the pandemic hurt sales considerably for several years. EVERY ONE OF YOU who has donated over the years is wonderful!

To make the card, I took a 3” x 4.25” scrap and randomly stamped images from the set onto it in Archival black ink. I’d planned on coloring with Copics but forgot to use Memento Ink, so I flexed to Distress inks and water colored the images with them. (Note that Archival ink is waterproof but will bleed with alcohol markers like Copics.) For most of the images, I left a lot of white to keep the whole effect feminine and soft, and then I used a black mat, heat embossed the “you are” on black cardstock, and then diecut the “wonderful” twice, glued them together, and then glued them onto the card. The sentiment is from Hero Arts.

While this is a busier card than I usually make, it certainly was fun! What do you think?

Mercy, grace, peace, and love, 

Susan