by Karen Endress | Oct 7, 2016 | Congratulations
Hello again!! As promised, here is the second housewarming card I made recently đ While I had all the house stuff out, I used some of the elements from the previous card (brown embossed paper, Echo Park cardstock sticker, glitter foam heart, Stampin’ Up dies, Neenah Solar White) plus some modifications to make the second card đ  This one went to one of my dearest friends.  After living 40 minutes away for 25 years or so, she recently moved about 5 minutes from my house!! Which means we will see each other ALL the time, right? UmmâŚ
For her card I die cut two of the houses into the brown cardstock and layered the yellow patterned paper under them, then layered two more yellow houses on top. Â The edges are inked with Ranger Distress inks in Scattered Straw and Vintage Photo. I added the heart to the front door & popped the house up on foam tape and the outside was done!!
On the inside, I stamped a sentiment with the Nicole alpha set âTypewriter Uppercase.â (I know AC Moore still sells these, but I could not find a link for them đ I was afraid to stamp the letters for the WELCOME directly onto the cardbase (donât ask), so I stamped onto white scrap and punched them out with a ½ âsquare punch (Recollections, again no link, their website was not cooperating). The rest of the sentiment was easy because I used an alpha set I got once at a scrappy yard sale (Karen Foster Small Casual) and they connect together to form the words!! Score! These are go-to for me for that reason. I die cut a piece of the scrap brown with a Spellbinders classic scalloped rectangle die to back the sentiment.
Since that same yellow DCWV Mi Casa paper (circa 2009) was out on my desk, I made an envelope out of it and my project was done!! In the next post youâll see what I did with the rest of those yellow scraps đ  Once I have a piece of patterned paper out, itâs hard not to keep going with it! Anyone else do the same thing?
Hope you are all crafting up a storm & using up your stash!! Â 
by Karen Endress | Oct 4, 2016 | Congratulations
Hardly anyone I know ever moves, so who would have guessed I would need two housewarming cards within a short time of each other? SoâŚI dug around till I found some brown cardstock embossed with cute little houses that I knew I had somewhere. This is why itâs a good practice to go through your stash from time to time. It reminds you what you already have and, theoretically at least đ keeps you from buying duplicates.
The first card was for a very special niece đ I covered the whole cardbase (Neenah Solar White 80 lb.) with the brown paper, then die cut & layered the four houses. Slap on a sentiment sticker, pop up a house sticker on Scotch foam tape, add a self-adhesive glitter craft foam heart & wowâa card that didnât take me two hours to make!!
The cardstock stickers are from the Lori Whitlock âThe Story of Our Familyâ collection by Echo Park. (I only bought the sticker sheet, not the whole collection but now sort of wish I had!) The heart was in one of the many âbits & pieces dishesâ on my desk from a previous project so I donât remember which die I used. Sadly, these stash items are no longer availableâthe house dies from Stampinâ Upâs Homemade Holiday set and the teal paper from the Kelly Purkey Second City 6×6 pad by Basic Grey.
I did use current product to ink around the edges of the brown and patterned papersâMemento Luxe ink in Teal Zeal and Ranger Archival ink in Potting Soil. Â Both of these links have videos explaining the qualities of the ink so you can compare the differences if you like.
I needed a gift card holder to go with the card, so I used a piece of beautiful floral paper from a coordinating (but confusingly named) Echo Park collection, We Are Family, also by Lori Whitlock! The striped circle pull tab is the reverse of the floral paper.  I was inspired by that combination to make a hello card for a friend right after that, so look for that post after my second housewarming card đ
Till next time,Â
by Karen Endress | Sep 14, 2016 | Congratulations
I was flipping through an old copy of The Stamperâs Sampler and saw a card that had a rectangle stamped in a pale ink color which was then overstamped with the top part of a long-stemmed flower. I thought aha! I have a solid rectangle stamp like that! Iâll try the same thing. Well, it wasnât a rectangle, it was a square (and a slightly wonky square at that). I needed to send a congratulations card, so I decided to turn it into that!  A lot of my cards start out with that sort of inspiration, but donât usually end up the way I originally envision! đ
This card is one of my rare clean & simple cards. The cardbase is Neenah Solar White 80 lb. cardstock. I centered and stamped one of the sentiments from the Lawn Fawn Grand Greetings set in VersaFine Onyx Black pigment ink and embossed it with WOW Clear Gloss embossing powder. Â After I stamped the cardbase, I stamped the Rubber Stampede âSkewed Squareâ in the Hero Arts Shadow Inks Pale Tomato and Butter Bar and Ranger Archival Aquamarine.
I lined the squares up on scrap paper the way I wanted them on the card, turning the center one upside down for variety. I stamped the sentiment again over the squares and embossed each one separately with the clear WOW. Once they were dry, I lined them up over the sentiment on the cardbase and adhered them with some Tombow tape runner.
For the finishing touches I found a coordinating washi tape and just the right colors of enamel dots in my stash. Donât you love when that happens?
Hope youâre finding time to get crafty!Â
