New Ink Colors and a Fintastic Birthday – Catherine Pooler Designs

What could be better than layers of beautiful color and layers of choppy water with shark tales? Well, in person, that might not be something you want to be swimming with. But on paper? I think it turned out pretty cool!

On a recent Facebook Live, I went all in with Catherine Pooler’s newest ink colors. They are gorgeous. Bold and beautiful blues and greens. Might be my favorite to date… although I think I say that every time. LOL.

I blended the inks on a couple pieces of cardstock. I wasn’t being careful or trying to blend them well, but as they dried, they almost blended themselves! I knew I wasn’t trying to blend them perfectly because I planned to stamp the waves on top. Along each color line, I cut the waves into sections so I could raise them up on stacked adhesive.

It was fun to craft ‘live’ with some of my crafty friends. They helped me decide on the number of wave layers, and on the perfect color for the life saver. I’m pretty sure they also helped me make the decision on where to place that cute life saver.

All products are from Catherine Pooler Designs. The stamp set I used is from the Refuse to Sink release. What a great set that is!

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You’re the Best – Spotlighting with a Cover Plate

Only thing that could make this better… is if I made it say “You’re Simply the BEST!” I have that song in my head… do you have that in your head now? Sorry.

I love how this card turned out. I was trying to make a ‘spotlight’ type of card, but in a different kind of way. Instead of coloring an image in, and then cutting out a certain section, I used a cover plate and colored in just a certain part. That counts as spotlighting, don’t you think?

After I cut out my color piece, my daughter thought it would be fun to use the remains on another card. There you go – a two for one! She enjoyed using it to make a thank you card for her teacher. We did this together on a Facebook live. Didn’t see it? Watch the replay on my Facebook page, titled The Crafting Life.

I have to say I love how this turned out. I don’t think I’ve done this before, but I sure should be doing this! It was fun and easy – and I love the final look. I used bright colors including Melon Ice, Garden Party, Be Mine… and then some Stone Blue and Juniper Mist. The blues are my favorites all the time.

Here is Reese’s card up close. She was using the scraps, so the flower pieces aren’t quite perfect. But you get the idea she was going for and I think it’s a nice way to show how you can use a full cover plate to make a really beautiful border on your card!

Join us on Facebook for some of our lives. We’ve been having fun and will continue here and there.

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Mother’s Day Baskets of Love

Sweet and simple and perfect for moms. Right? I wanted to create some cards that would show the ladies in my life some love and appreciation. A ‘thank you for being amazing’ or a ‘hope this brightens your day.’ What do you think?

I love this basket set. The actual die-cut of the basket has texture, which is hard to see in these pictures. But it’s there… like a basket weave. So neat in person!

This set was part of Club Sursee last May. I love the florals and how they fill up the basket so quickly. You could really do so much with this set!

The background stamp seemed perfect for this set to me. I didn’t buy them together, though. They are all products from Catherine Pooler Designs. I think the basket alone looks perfect situated on top of the background design. And, on the second card, I did add a panel to break it up and add the larger sentiment. I think both ways work well!

I think I could enter this into our StampNation challenge for adding ‘texture’… but it’s all of the texture in the die-cut. Would that be an easy way out? haha.

I think this would brighten my day if it arrived to me. So they are out in the mail and here’s hoping they bring smiles.

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Cheers to Shaker Cards – and my first Live

So… you might have caught my first ‘live’ on Facebook a bit ago. I had so much fun making some drink cards and celebrating the end of the week.

Find me on Facebook under the name – The Crafting Life. You can see my posts and all videos there!

The ‘challenge’ at hand was to use patterned paper. Often times, I don’t incorporate my beautiful patterned paper, but I should! Look how fun these papers are. The plaid and these fun drinks. This whole set is from Catherine Pooler Designs. Her paper packs match her inks perfectly, so you really can’t go wrong.

I had to make this one a shaker card. Couldn’t help it. I have all of the fun sequin mixes that match all of these colors, so why not?!

And since I was going for a shaker on one, I decided to make BOTH into shakers. Again, this is such a cute set of stamps. You can make drinks with fun cups, add mint or olives, and even more! So many options and this works for lots of occasions.

This one is perfect for a friend of mine and her upcoming birthday. Just saying! Who would you make a card like this for?

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