A Bunch of Thank-You Cards with BetterPress

A few weeks ago, my Aunt Sylvia asked me to make her some thank-you cards. I felt this was the perfect opportunity to get my neglected BetterPress out and play. Woohoo!

Here are a few of the results.

So much fun! The BetterPress paper is thick and soft and oh so touchable, and it takes the impressions of the plates beautifully. I’ve tried using my beloved Papertrey white card stock, but the results are not so good. The butterfly card uses Hero Arts ombre ink in Sylvia’s favorite colors, and it performed well. The background plate cards use Archival inks, and the leaf card uses BetterPress inks.

Overall, I’m glad I bit on the BetterPress and appreciate its ease of use. 

What new product have you used recently that is making you happy?

Mercy, grace, peace, and love,

Susan

A Random Assortment of Cards

Life is good, and I have a few cards to share.

My artist mom’s birthday card. Her favorite color is blue.

A Christmas card that looks better IRL than in the photo.

Using an ancient poinsettia stamp from Papertrey.

A fun fall grid card…makes me want a PSL!

Funky and subtle at the same time.

Went to a beautiful wedding today. The bride and groom are older, and it was simply delightful to see them forming a new family. Their golden retriever attended the reception, so of course I was smitten.🥰 

Wishing cooler weather and some rain for our Midwest US area, and whatever weather you want for yourselves!

Mercy, grace, peace, and love,

Susan

Big Flowers and a Crazy Week

Today’s card spotlights some lovely flower dies from Poppy Stamps and branch dies from Simon Says. The sentiment is from Simon Says. Love the scale of the whole card! And the rhinestones are iridescent and oh so gorgeous. 

The flowers are sponged with distress inks and arranged in a triangle. 

And now for this week….

It was a week of overlapping things. Because of COVID, I had to reschedule many routine follow-up appointments, and they all ended up being this week since school starts for me on Monday. Among the appointments was a routine mammogram on Wednesday. Thursday, while I was driving to the base hospital for two more appointments, the call came in that we needed to repeat imaging on the left breast. Well, crap. That triggered me hugely, but today’s repeat proved that what the radiologist saw was just an artifact and nothing to be concerned about. Whew. 

Needless to say, I’m having an extra glass of wine tonight. And praying for one week of my life without a crisis of some sort. Pretty please with sugar on top!

I sure hope that your week was better!

Mercy, grace, peace, and love,

Susan

Three for One Feathers and a Challenge

Quick COVID update: I finally tested negative Sunday night. Yippeeee! I’d forgotten how irritating masks are.

Today’s post spotlights a Tim Holtz feather die. I decided to explore my specialty paper file box and play around. After much trial and error, I present you with three cards, six feathers, and one very satisfied card maker. 

First up, some gorgeous, iridescent marbled paper I’ve had for over 20 years. Add some dark green velvet paper for the top feather, and then a gold wax seal and gold cord for embellishment. Couldn’t decide where to put a sentiment, so I didn’t.

Next, we see some textured blue paper and some rather thick mulberry paper that came with a gift from a friend about ten years ago. A “hope” charm combined with pearls, DMC floss, some pearls, and a birch-bark background finish the piece. 

And finally, we have some gorgeous patterned vellum and a marigold inclusion paper. The creamy pearls came from a reader probably 15 years ago, and the grass stamp is from Papertrey. 

What a great layered die, and what fun to dig out pretty papers I’ve not used in quite a while!

What do you want to play with from your stash that’s gone largely unused for a while? Pick a supply or technique and run with it!

Mercy, grace, peace, and love,

Susan 

Hero Arts for the Win!

During the recent sale on Hero Arts at Simon Says, I purchased several of their fancy dies to experiment with.  I love all things owl (read our family’s story of rescuing a barred owl here and here and here). This little peekaboo owl is just darling…and gave me an excuse to use my birch tree bark embossing folder.

There are white spatters on the night sky, and I shaded the owl with Copics.

Not a huge fan of my shading under the owl’s wing, but live and learn. For a first effort, I was quite pleased!

Covid continues, but I am finally improving a bit, which is very welcome. 

Mercy, grace, peace, and love,

Susan 

Working the Processes

Years ago, I put a process in place for integrating new products into my stash. I keep a basket for all new products, and I can’t put the new stuff away until I’ve used it. Generally speaking, the process works well to keep me from getting too far ahead in my buying. 

For the past year, though, the basket has gotten fuller and fuller…and I kept buying and buying. Not egregiously, of course, but a little here, a little there, into the basket to sit. 

Last week, I set an intention to empty the basket. As of today, there’s very little left. Having Covid, it turns out, is good for crafting. 

Today’s card was one of many resulting from that intention. These flower dies from Simon Says are soooooo pretty! I used distress inks to ink the white die cuts, Copics to color-match the rhinestones, and a Tim Holtz 3D embossing folder to add texture to the background. 

The process of healing from Covid is running its course slowly this time, but I’m starting to feel better. I re-tested Tuesday morning, and the test was still aggressively positive. Whatever. The guidelines are indecipherable as far as contagion is concerned. Some sources say you’re good 5-7 days after symptoms start, others say you can be contagious up to 20 days after symptoms start. Still others say that 24 hrs after your fever breaks, you’re good to go. One website said that the darker the line on the test, the more contagious you are, so I continue to isolate and mask up at home. 

Therefore, I’ve had plenty of time to craft. So yay! Many more posts to come!

Mercy, grace, peace, love, and Kleenex, 

Susan

Using Copics the Easiest Way Possible and Hoarding Pins

Y’all know I’m no Copic expert, but a new set from Simon Says called Friendship Leafy Cluster was tailor-made for coloring with Copics the easy way. 

The overlapping outlines of the leaves let you play around with different shades without the pesky difficulty of, you know, actually shading anything. Just fill in each space with light, medium, and dark colors, with the overlaps being the darkest shades. 

These coloring projects were easy, soothing, and stress-free. And blingy. Gotta love the bling. I used monochromatic choices, but you could make rainbows or whatever. 

So let’s talk about Pinterest for a minute. Electronic image hoarding is a thing, and I’m a fan. It doesn’t cost anything (except the effort of ignoring ads), and you can start a new board anytime you want. 

I recently started a new board called Card Design, which is making me happy. It’s centered on the idea, funnily enough, of card designs I want to make. That’s key. Not card designs I like, but ones I want to try to adapt to my style. I’ve made quite a few cards that make me happy since focusing on design: layout, background techniques, die cuts, embossing folders, color choices, etc. Studying this board has given me a bit of much-needed focus. 

If you, too, hoard electronic images, why not check out Card Design, and start a card design board of your own. Name it something more interesting than Card Design, though. That’s sort of boring.

Mercy, grace, peace, and love,

Susan 

Big Hugs and Air Hugs

So Monday, my throat hurt, and I felt a little off. Took a COVID test, and it was negative. Woke up Wednesday to drive home from Maryland, and I knew something was wrong. Gave my family air hugs and left. Took a second test Wednesday evening, and it was unambiguously positive. 

Now I’m missing out on a trip to DC for a friend’s retirement ceremony (George went without me). Surprisingly bitter about this…not his going. I’m grateful at least one of us can go, but I’m bitter about  being sick in the first place. 

My case of COVID is worse than I thought it would be, especially since I got the booster back in February. But overall, it’s like having an ordinary case of the flu. I’m quarantining and am so very grateful Jack can drive to the grocery store for me. 

Today’s card is a BIG HUG inspired by this pin. 

I stamped the three shades of Simon Says ink onto white paper using an old Hero Arts block stamp and die cut with a Sizzix flower die. The embossed background adds fun texture.

Now I have a use for some large sentiment dies! Thanks for the inspiration! 

Mercy, grace, peace, and love,

Susan

A Very Cool Baby Shower Idea

 Over Christmas last year, I made a birthday card for each of the first 12 years of my great-nephew’s life. I wrote a letter for him to read when he opens the last one, signed them all, and sent them to my sister, who put them out for all the baby shower attendees to sign. 

Most are not my usual style, and they are all large, 5 x 7 inches. My favorites are 5 and 9. Which are yours?

Little M was born in February, and I got to see him when he was only 2 weeks old. I’m back in Maryland now and got some quality baby time. He’s adorable, but his parents do not want his picture online, so I can’t share. 

I can, however, share some pictures from the Phillips Museum in Washington, DC, the first of which will make you laugh if you’re a long-time reader of Simplicity.

The pear at the bottom of the table. Oh, my! (In my best George Takei impression, LOL!)

This one is so sweet…Nick and I having a moment with Renoir. 

Isn’t the painting gorgeous? The Luncheon of the Boating Party. It was bigger than I thought it would be. Nick and I enjoyed discussing the painting, especially trying to understand what’s going on between the woman and two men in the back right corner.

Mercy, grace, peace, and love,

Susan

Copics and Pretty Trash

I’m enjoying my Copic storage tower of little plastic drawers, and it’s making coloring with Copics easier. Well, it’s much quicker to find the right one, which is easier, I suppose. 

This new set from Hero Arts provides a lovely design for basic Copic coloring…which is the only type of Copic coloring I do, actually. 

It’s important, I think, to keep things real, and coloring with Copics results in pretty trash on more occasions than I might wish. Which is fine because the amount of trash made has very slowly decreased just as my stash of Copics has very slowly increased. So either I’m getting better or my standards are lowering. Either way, having a growth mindset and tolerating the pretty trash works to my advantage.

By the way, the phrase “pretty trash” was given to me by my friend Leslie, who lost her battle with breast cancer years ago. I miss her snarky self. Her screen name was Crooked Stamper. 

Bob Ross was wrong, bless his heart. There ARE mistakes, and we thank the good Lord that we don’t have to share them in public like Olympic athletes do. Holy cannoli, I can’t imagine the pressure those athletes are under with all the world watching! And what about the garbage thrown at Simone Biles in Tokyo? Seriously? She’s showed them. 

Go, athletes!

And now I’m off to mix some spicy birdseed for our Birdfy feeder. The cardinals are quite perturbed that the feeder has been empty since yesterday, and are very vocal right now. Today’s pics from the feeder show the birds’ irritation, such as this lovely lady glaring at the camera!

Or this one who pitched a hissy fit. 

Such a diva.

Mercy, grace, peace, and love,

Susan

Angles Love Curves and an Update

Today’s card is bold and balanced, with curves and angles everywhere. But mostly, I love these colors. They are so calming. Plus, please give me credit for using a colored card base on a card that still looks like I made it. Simplicity, indeed.

Stamps by Simon Says and sentiment by Papertrey. 

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Update

So I’m still working through the emotional garbage that my dad’s death dredged up, but it’s all ultimately good and necessary processing. But that distraction meant that my 6-month cancer appointments snuck up on me. Today was Zometa infusion day to keep my bones healthy. 

Monday will be a DEXA scan, which will tell us if the Zometa is doing its job. I’ve got mammograms, bloodwork, and an appointment with the oncologist. After six months of no appointments, I’m feeling a bit of PTSD getting stuck (Zometa requires a blood test the day before in addition to the infusion). But I’m not expecting any bad news. My health seems pretty robust, actually!

And just for fun, here’s a gift I received from my friend Kim, whose BC diagnosis came a year before mine. She found these mugs and bought one for each of us. My first drink out of it was wine. 🍷😉

Makes me wish I had a flamingo stamp to make her a thank-you card.

Go be flocking fabulous today! 

Mercy, grace, peace, and love,

Susan

Birds of a Feather

First of all, a big thank you to Martha B for sending some lovely card for Karen’s Card Shop! Stampers are the BEST!

Today’s card comes courtesy of Tim Holtz dies, continuing my feather theme. These layered dies are so pretty and interesting…and help me use some of reams of colored card stock I’ve been hoarding collecting for years.

And speaking of hoarding collecting, I had to add another set of drawers for my Copic markers. They needed room to breathe, especially after I added another ten colors. 

It’s so much easier to find the color I’m looking for, now. And of course, I had to make some cards with Copics and will be showing them over the next week or so. 

A friend has recently been a bit down, and she decided to start a sewing project. Perked her up quite a bit. There’s a lesson in that for all of us. While doing a creative project won’t “fix” serious depression, it is worth the effort, when you feel a little down, to seek out creative stimulation. 

And for an extra mood booster, put on one of the top ten songs that make people happy while you create. What a great list!

Mercy, grace, peace, and love,

Susan 

Soft Christmas

It’s rare that I make a card I actually like with a colored card base. I love lots of cards with colored card bases made by other people, but the cards almost never look like I made them when I do it. There’s some sort of cognitive dissonance that afflicts me almost every time. 

But not this time. 

This card feels completely mine. The soft, grayish, greenish blue (or bluish green) makes me so very happy. *squeal* Stamps by Papertrey. 

____________

It feels good to speak your truth. I finally sent the email I composed in May to the lawyer for dad’s estate. She’d sent me a form, as per South Carolina law, but let me know in no uncertain terms that I was excluded from his will. Big surprise, that. 

Not really. He disowned me when I was 19. For a while, my sister was the sole beneficiary of his will, on the condition that she gave me not a penny. Narcissists like to sow discord and division, and I’m proud to say that he never succeeded at that with me and Lisa. Then, Lisa did something to piss him off, so we were both cut out. 

Anyway, I considered not responding at all to the lawyer’s letter, but this morning, I realized that this poor lawyer was doing her job. I assured her that his beneficiary deserved his estate given how kind he was to them in life, and they to him. Those of us treated unkindly by him don’t want a thing from him. He didn’t give us the one thing we valued, which was honest love.  

THAT would have meant something. 

It felt good, but so sad. How can one human create so much chaos, conflict, and harm in his life? As my sister said, it ends with us. 

Mercy, grace, peace, and honest love, 

Susan

Angles and Curves

One maxim of design I learned from Cathy Zielski was that angles love curves. When a card has too many curves, throw in some angles. When it has too many angles, throw in curves. 

Today’s card uses lots of both. Curves come in the flower forms, the leaf fronds, and the wood-grain embossing of the background panel. The angles come in the rectangles and squares. This card makes me so happy! Especially the white on white, the Stickles on the flowers, and that embossing folder. 

I’m currently writing through some of my feelings about my dad now that he’s dead. It’s hard, and sad, and painful, but I know it’s necessary and very much worth it. One pattern keeps popping up in the writing: all the good people who helped me through his narcissistic abuse. 

Over and over, good people stepped into the breach. And that news is amazing. Because good people still do! Right now, the United States are not very united, or so it seems if you pay attention to the media. I think there are far more good people than bad, and far more people who want unity over division, peace over conflict, love over hate. Nobody is perfect, but there are more good people than bad. Kindness isn’t loud, nor is unity. But the impulse for both is all around us, if we take the time to look…and to be.

Mercy, grace, peace, and love,

Susan

The Soft and the Bold

Today, we’re looking at two cards made with the same Waltzingmouse Fine Feather stamp. The first is soft, monochromatic, and, well, feathery. It takes advantage of quick-dry pigment inks in three shades of pink. 

The card is serene, symmetrical, and appropriate for the sentiment. 

Our bold cards is, well, bold, with a Kaleidacolor spectrum ink pad as the star of the show. Since the feather has white dots, it made sense to go darker to enhance the contrast, but then, how to create a background? 

Speedball brayer to the rescue! The colors got so rich and beautiful! I cut two strips from the brayered panel, flipped one so they fade in different directions, and added the gold speckles, gold thread, and sentiment. The boldness, beauty, and touches of gold fit the birthday sentiment perfectly!

I hope my American readers had a lovely Independence Day celebration. We attended a concert by the Centerville Community Band and Chorus. Our younger son plays trumpet in the band. 

Last night I slept with Cooper because he’s so scared of the fireworks. [I sleep in the guest room as George snores like a chainsaw, and Cooper usually sleeps with George.] He settled down once the trazadone kicked in.

As long-time readers know, our dog Lily is a bit of a demon. More like Puck than Beelzebub, but still, a demon. Here’s some photographic proof.

The two of them sounded vicious…and of course, 
Neither one meant it. Because they are goldens.

I snapped this picture two minutes after the first.
Such pretty and patriotic pups!

Mercy, grace, peace, love, stars, and stripes,

Susan

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