Double Duty-Squared!

On the 22nd of each month a group of friends have a challenge called Double Duty. We have a predetermined stamp company assigned to each month. We are to make two different cards, using the same stamp (or stamp set) from the designated company. 

As another way to double up, at least one item has to be used on both cards. It could be card stock, an embellishment, embossing folder, a stencil, etc.

Since I'm a bit behind on this fun challenge, so this month my Double Duty is squared! That is, I'm posting 4 cards. The current month's DD and the DD from May.

July's Double Duty:
Unity Stamp Co. 

Both cards use the same stamps, same ink colors and same card stock. Both are highlighted with Spectrum Noir's glitter pen.

Stamp Set: Born Again Today by Unity Stamp Company.

Card Stock: Stampin' Up Barely Banana and Cameo Coral.

Designer Paper: "Vanilla Sunshine" paper pack by S E I.

Ink: "Ocean Mist" by Gina K Designs. 

Embellishments: hearts and ribbons are from Stampin' Up. 

May's Double Duty:
Stamping Bella 

Both cards use the same stamps, the same marker colors, the same stencil and the same card stock. Both are highlighted with Diamond Stickles and a clear rhinestone on her belt.

Stamp Set: "Tiny Towne Haley the Super Hero" by Stamping Bella.

Stencil: "Here Comes the Sun" by Taylored Expressions.

Card Stock: Purple and yellow from my stash, possibly Stampin Up.

Ink: Image is stamped with Hero Arts INTENS-ified black. Stenciled yellow is Pineapple by Taylored Expressions & the purple is Plum Punch by Gina K Designs.

Markers: Spectrum Noir.

Please visit the blogs of my team mates and admire their own Double Duty Cards:

Barb

Jeanette

Carol

Thanks for stopping by. Please be kind to a neighbor or a random stranger today!

Dueling Darlings: Christmas in July!

 Tracie and Carol hosted this month's challenge and decided to feature the often overlooked Mrs. Claus.

Here is the front of my card, featuring some of the lovely papers sent in Tracie's kit.

Image: Mrs. Claus Baking Co. by Jaded Blossom.

Designer papers by Authentique Rejoice

Embellishments: 
Doodlebug red doily, miscellaneous sequins and crochet lace.

The image is colored with Spectrum Noir markers and a Spectrum Noir glitter pen highlights her apron, glasses, hair and ribbon. I just HAD to sparkle her hair, because she's a magical person after all!! Here's a close up.

The papers were so pretty that I used more on the inside.

Thank you Tracie for such a fun kit!

Tracie included one of her favorite holiday cookie recipes and asked that we also post a favorite cookie recipe.

After some thought I remembered how much my kids liked Spritz cookies and how my Mom would bake them every Christmas. 

So here's the recipe, although we never decorated our cookies. They are delicious as is!

• 
  
• Spritz Cookies
• 1cup butter, softened
• 1/2cup sugar
• 2 1/4cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4teaspoon salt
• 1egg
• 1teaspoon almond extract 
• Food color & currants, raisins, candies, colored sugar, finely chopped nuts, candied fruit or fruit peel, if desired

• Heat oven to 400°F. Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed, or mix with spoon. Stir in flour, salt, egg, almond extract and a few drops of food color.
• Here, I refrigerate the dough to make it easier to work with.
• Place dough in cookie press. Form desired shapes on ungreased cookie sheet. Decorate with currants if desired.
• 
  
  Bake 5 to 8 minutes or until set but not brown. Immediately remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. To decorate cookies after baking, use a drop of corn syrup to attach decorations to cookies.

Hot Mess = Success July, 2022

I am determined to get caught up with my card making commitments.  Life has been a little too full the past few weeks, and my amazing friends understand that. However, I don't want to abuse their generous nature!

Today is posting day for our Hot Mess = Success cards! This is the brain child of our dear Kelly. The idea is to create a card while getting messy. 

Way outside of my comfort zone is GLITTER.  To me, it just has messy written all over it.  Inspired by Carol, who has glitter and glitz in her veins, I decided that it was high time to tackle glitter!

Here's my card.

Please overlook the poor attempt to hand cut the brown card stock as a layer behind the glittered medallion.

Card stock is old Stampin' Up stock. The ribbon and gems are from my stash.  All other components are pictured here and can be purchased at Taylored Expressions.  

Stencil: Mandala (a clear favorite of mine)
Glue: Glitter Grab 
Glitter: Cookie Monster

I used Scrapbook.com's "All Purpose Craft Scraper" to apply the glue over the stencil.  It takes some practice since it is different than applying other mediums.  Then I removed the stencil, popping it immediately into warm soapy water.  Holding my breath (literally) I shook out the glitter, patted it gently into the glue and WALKED AWAY. Hahahaha.  Returning later to shake off the excess.  Then walked away again for several hours before attempting to brush off stray glitter.

Then I hand cut the edges and really wanted the dark brown accent behind it. Not satisfied with any choice of die cut panels I hand cut the border. Now I wish I would have just used a die cut shape. Oh well.

Will I try the other fantastic colors of glitter from Taylored Expressions?  You bet!! Will I use Glitter Grab? Yep! 

Hop on over to these blogs to admire the Hot Mess Successes created by my friends:

Kelly

Jeanette

Barb

Terry

Carol

Thanks for stopping by!

Dueling Darlings: We Are a Rainbow!

It's the 15th of the month, and time for another Duel.  A group of friends on Split Coast Stampers have joined together to challenge each other with a monthly Duel.  Our hostess this month for both teams is Kelly and she dished up a great challenge for us!

As Kelly wrote in our instructions:

"...your theme is "We are a Rainbow!"  Each of us brings a light and color to life...each of you are an important 'band' of the rainbow, because in order to have it, we all need to be together as one."

Kelly randomly assigned each of us to a color and challenged us to use ONLY that color to make our card. We are allowed to use a white base for the card. My color is red.

Here's my card.  

May I just make this PERFECTLY CLEAR?  My face is as red as my card!  Hahahaha   It was a day where nothing went as planned.  What can I say? 

Kelly included red rainbow die cuts from My Favorite Things, red gems from Horizon Group Go Create and a rectangular scallop panel cut from white Stampin Up card stock.

I found THE LAST piece of SU Real Red card stock in my stash and used that for the base panel. Searched everywhere for a stamp set by Taylored Expressions with a rainbow image that would have been perfect as a background.  No luck. I think it may have been paid forward to someone in a card kit.

Then I decided to try this jar of chunky red glitter gel by Stickles and painted it on to the rainbow pieces.

Next I thought, "Ah ha!! I'll use Red Cosmic Shimmer paste on the scallop rectangle."  You can see that the color was not at all compatible with Real Red.  What to do?

I'll die cut "Friend" out of the panel, leaving the outline on the panel. Could not find the exact die that I wanted (it's still MIA) so I subbed this die. Yep, you guessed it! The word did not show up well on top of the Real Red panel. 

Ok, now I've ruined the scallop rectangle panel...what to do? I fiddled around a ridiculous amount of time and ended up using the die cut "friend" on the front of the card, cut some the rainbow segments to decorate lower left and right of "friend", and cut the remainder of the scallop rectangle and used it on the inside panel.

Kelly, I'm sorry!  You really came up with a fun idea for us.  Maybe it's the whole Mercury in Retrograde that made my attempts run amok. Now I'm off to admire the cards by the rest of the Dueling Darlings!   

Holographic Dueling Darlings!

Here we are on the 15th of the month and it's time for another Duel!  

The ever-so-creative Terry and I are partners this year and this is our month to choose the theme.  A while back some paper by Pink & Main caught our eyes. "Holographic Set 2" and the rest is history, haha!

I put together a kit of items that I thought could further the holographic theme and sent them out to my team mates.

Pink & Main's "Holographic Set 2" papers

Die cuts with Altenew's "Fine Frames Diamonds" die set - also cut onto the Pink & Main's holographic stock

Say it With Stamps by Beck Moore, by Photoplay, Birthday images and sentiment. 

Sparkly and Gem laden ribbons from Merchant 41

Gems from Paper Studio

Here's my card:

It was a bit of a trick to get the fun holographic papers to photograph at all, so the card is tilted toward the light and maybe it gives you an idea.

I fussy cut out the balloon shapes onto one of the holographic papers, and used 3 others behind them. The gift and sentiment panel are colored with Spectrum Noir markers.

I really hit the jackpot at Hobby Lobby and found some great gem/holographic ribbons for the kits. Hopefully everyone had a good time with their kit.  After so many years of Duels it's getting to be a challenge to come up with a new idea!  But I wouldn't trade this group of friends for anything!

OK!! Time for me to admire the Galleries and Blogs of the other Darlings. Thanks for stopping by!

March Double Duty with Pinkfresh Studio Stamps

It's the 22nd and time for another Double Duty Challenge.  A group of friends invited me to join the fun this year. The concept is to use one stamp set from a specific company each month to create two cards, (Double Duty). 

At least one thing should be the same on both cards. We can use different images and sentiments from the same set. Or we can use the same image two different ways. As an added challenge, one item must be used on both cards, Double Duty yet again.

Posting day is the 22nd - another double!

This month's company is Pinkfresh Studios, a new favorite of mine.  Here are my cards:

The set is called Just a Little Lovely and has a matching die for the floral spray.  

The image is colored with Karin Brush Marker Pro markers and is on Gina K's Heavy Weight Pure Luxury white stock.

The background panel is on watercolor stock, colored with Brushos and then spritzed with Shimmer Mist by A Muse.

This is a picture of the panel drying.

Here's the other card using the same image and sentiment. 

The panel was colored with blending brushes using Magenta Madness ink by Stampin' Up. 

The image was stamped directly onto the tinted panel and then die cut. I used my Castle Arts pencils to color it and framed the panel in black.  Don't look too closely because I had to hand cut the black panel, ha ha!

The last part of double duty on each card are the clear water droplets by Dress My Craft.

Both of these cards have been mailed out to two friends in other parts of the country. Each of them is working very hard at reshaping their life at this time. Hopefully this gives them a smile!

Hop on over to the blogs of my team mates and admire their own Double Duty Cards:

Barb

Jeanette

Carol

Thanks for stopping by!

Dueling Darlings - "Team Tea"

I am a few days late with this, our Dueling Cards are to be posted on the 15th...I seem to have a streak of Too Much Life.  More likely it's Too Disorganized...but that's another story!  

Barb ("Team Coffee") and Lorraine ("Team Tea") brewed up a coffee and tea challenge for this month. Lorraine put together a fabulous kit for us to work with!  Thank you Lorraine!!

Here's my little cuppa:

Image/Sentiments are Hampton Arts Heart Mug, steam wisps and small hearts.  The mug and sentiment are stamped with New England Ivy ink by Close to My Heart.

Designer Papers are Close to My Heart green, Papertrey Ink Ivy paper and Simply Stories brown polka dot.

Ribbons are Close to My Heart Sheer Green and Celebrate It tan jute polka dot ribbon.

Embellishments are Jolee's small white mugs (which I colored with Spectrum Noir markers), white hearts by Park Lane and a green enamel dot by Close to My Heart.

Lorraine also treated us to a teabag in our kits, thereby sending us a "hug in a mug". Isn't that thoughtful of her?

Lorraine, I truly apologize for being late, but let me assure you that it was not because your kit was hard to work with!  Thank you so much for a fun challenge this month.