A little Verve Goodness on a Saturday Night....

Hi Friends,
It is Saturday night and I had a few minutes to play in my craft room with some new products from Verve Stamps.  I fell in love with the new "Happy Place" stamps and dies and decided to get them inky tonight.  I am linking this card up to the "Show us your VERVE challenge" over on the Verve Blog. 

Thanks for taking a look.  I have been super busy with some home maintenance issues the past few weeks and it is keeping me far away from my craft room sadly.  It sure has felt good to make some cards these past few days.  Thanks for taking a peek and as always for your lovely comments!  They always bring a smile to my heart!
:) Jill

Have A Very Merry Christmas in almost July...

 Here with a little Victorian Country Christmas spirit in almost July.  For the first time ever I am trying to make Christmas cards all year around so that I will have less to do come December and can relax and enjoy family and friends more during the season.  To this end I have a card this week for the Festive Friday Challenge #11.  It is an element challenge and here is the inspiration photo:

I have a ton of ideas for using tree elements bouncing around in my head tonight.   But I have to say that this card took me a while to pull together as several of my ideas did not pan out (yet!). Needless to say my spare parts box has lots of extra diecuts tonight for future Christmas cards! LOL!  The one thing that did work perfectly was the gorgeous sentiment from Verve that I wanted to use:

I finally settled on using a pine cone stamp and 3 small Magnolia tree diecuts in cardboard and cardstock for my tree elements.  Here is a close-up:

The heart dies are from both Cheery Lynn Designs and PTI.  The ribbon is from Really Reasonable Ribbon.

Thanks for taking a look at my card!
Happy Weekend!
Jill

You're so Sweet!

Hello Friends,
I received some new millinery flowers and ribbon in the mail this week from some lovely ETSY shops and wanted to make a card.  I used a Gorjuss girl stamp set called "Little Foxes" from the UK.  I paper pieced her clothes with some of my paper scraps (the pile I have needs to be USED so I am trying to work on that!).  And added a tag for the sentiment which is from Verve.  It is the "So Sweet Plain Jane".  And used one of my lovely Lil Inker Designs square stitched mat dies!  Love these!

The sweet bow is made with some fabric ribbon I purchased from a woman named Mary who lives in Twisp, Wa. and has an Etsy shop called Homestead Treasures.  I love the sweet vintage feel of it!  So soft and fun!

I used this sketch (below) as a jump off point when making my card - but it ended up being a very loose interpretation of the sketch.  I was using a square card base and was struggling to fit my elements with my Gorjuss girl and her two foxes as the three circles....anyway I have a lot of the elements of the sketch in my card like the 3 "brads" which I made into 2 buttons and a heart bling but I am not sure that it resembles the sketch enough to link up....but thanks for the inspiration Julee!!!

Thanks for taking a look at my card!  The picture above gives you a peek at how sweetly Mary packages her fabric trims! 
Happy Weekend!
Jill

The-e-e-e First Verve-OEL...a little Christmas in August for the Verve Card Carnival

Hello,
Here tonight with a card for the Verve Card Carnival in hopes that I will win their GRAND PRIZE of the full release of all their new stamps!  If you haven't been following their blog hops and all the excitement of their anniversary please check out their BLOG.  There is some incredible inspiration along the way and something will be sure to inspire you to make a card.

I went through my Verve stamps and decided to ink up a Christmas set called Glad Tidings. Here is my card:

I really wanted to get a card entered for the chance to win but I am not sure that I am satisfied with the layout of this card that I made.  I liked the background stamping I did with the snowflakes in the set.  I like the wreath also as it is one of my favorite images but I don't like the patterned paper that I stamped it on and I forgot to emboss the white focal piece that sits on top of the doily and couldn't remove it after I adhered it without ruining the card!  I also don't like the way I placed the flourish...Oh well...not every card is going to be a favorite and I did have fun making it! 

 

I also really like the way the velvet ribbon turned out! Love red velvet at Christmas especially layered like this!

 
Thanks for taking a peak at my card for the Verve Card Carnival!  Hope you get to join in for a chance to win all of the wonderful upcoming release!  They are also having a HUGE sale right now on all of their existing stamps...and I am so tempted to spend a little money....we shall see....I am trying to be GOOD and play with what I already HAVE as it is the playing that makes me happy and feeds my inner bliss!

Happy Crafting my friends!
: ) Jill