Tag Archives: Love

A Very Simple Valentine Card Using Heart Dies and Ink Blending

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Like most card makers, I’m really stuck on rainbow ink blending.  It’s so bright and cheery that I just can’t help it.  This time I used it as a background for my cut out heart card front.

Rainbow Hearts Love You Card using MFT Pierced Heart dies and Distress Oxides

I started by ink blending a piece of 4 1/4″ x 5 1/2″ Bristol paper using Wilted Violet, Mermaid Lagoon, Twisted Citron, Fossilized Amber, Spiced Marmalade and Candied Apple Distress Oxides.  While I let that dry, I cut out hearts using 3 of the heart dies (My Favorite Things Pierced Heart Stax dies) from another piece of Bristol paper the same size as the ink blended piece.  I had to be careful and collect the some of the small paper scraps because I knew that I would probably need some of them to fill in the heart shapes (note the tiny white piece on the top left corner of the card front).

Putting the card together was very easy.  I adhered the die cut heart piece on top of the rainbow piece first.  Once I did that, it was easy to see where I needed to complete any heart shapes.  It turns out that the only white scrap piece I needed was for the purple heart on the top left corner.  The sentiment is from The Ink Blot Shop’s Tiny Bubbles set.  I white heat embossed the bubble and words onto a scrap piece of black card stock and attached it to the card front using a foam square.

At this point, I was finished with my original idea, but I felt it looked a bit blah.  I decided it needed a few black additions, so I outlined each of the hearts with black dashes using a fine tip black marker and added a few black Nuvo dots.  That was exactly what it needed.  To finish the card, I attached it to an A2 top folding card base.

I hope you like it!

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First Valentine Card Using Poppystamps Inlay Heart Die

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I’ve been away from card making for quite a long time.  Life became much more important to my husband and me.  We became grandparents for the first time about a month ago (6 weeks early) to twins—a boy and a girl.  We are beyond blessed!  Life certainly is good.

After being away for so long, I kind of lost my creative mojo.  My husband has been trying to get me into my craft room just to make something because he knows how much I do truly enjoy it.  So…here’s my first stab at a valentine card for 2019.

My Empty Nest Creations Valentine using Poppystamps Inlay Heart Die

I just bought this beautiful Inlay Heart die from Poppystamps, and the Messages for Every Day stamp set from Simon Says Stamp.  Poppystamps dies always cut perfectly, and the sentiments on this SSS stamp set are awesome!

I cut the die on a piece of pink Bazzill card stock (sorry, I don’t know the color name), and then cut it again using a piece of patterned paper from the 6×6 Front Porch paper pad from Pebbles, Inc.  I added a strip of the same patterned paper to the bottom of the pink piece and adhered it to an A2 white card base made from Neenah Solar White #110 card stock.  I placed the single patterned paper heart into the space on the inlayed heart and glued it down.

All that was left was to pick the right sentiment.  As I said before, this stamp set has an incredible selection of greetings.  There were 3 or 4 that would have worked, but I settled on the “I love you so much!” and white heat embossed it onto a piece of dark brown scrap paper that matched the striped paper I used for the heart.  I attached the sentiment strip using foam tape to give it some dimension.

I hope you like it!  Thanks for stopping by 🙂

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Using the Soft Bokeh Look on a Background

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My Empty Nest Creations Ink Blended Heart Bokeh Butterfly CardI’ve seen so many famous card makers do this beautifully on their cards, so I thought that I’d give it a try.  This card background is a piece of Bristol paper that is ink blended using Distress Oxides Twisted Citron, Peeled Paint, Broken China, Salty Ocean and Wilted Violet.  To get the bokeh effect, I stamped a heart stamp from Simon Says Stamp’s Tons of Hearts stamp set with Hero Arts Unicorn pigment ink.  Before stamping on the paper, I stamped it first on a piece of scrap paper (I believe that this is called second generation stamping.) because I wanted the bokeh hearts to be very soft.  Because they were stamped with pigment ink, I set it aside to dry for a bit before putting the card together.

The butterfly was die cut using Poppy Stamps Ornamental Butterflies dies and colored with an orange Copic marker (no color blending here).  The black details were added with a fine tip black Sharpie marker.  The sentiment, from an older Teresa Collins Now & Then stamp set, was white heat embossed onto a strip of black card stock.  To give it a bit of character, I fishtailed the ends using a small square punch.

I used foam tape to adhere the butterfly and sentiment banner to the bokeh background and then used the same foam tape to attach it to my card base.8

Happy Spring everyone!

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Concord & 9th’s Love Always

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I just love the cascading hearts border stamp in this set, and I’ve been wanting to use it for a long time.  Today is the day!  My original plan was to have the hearts cascading  from the center out of an A2 size card front.  Just as I was about to implement my plan, I realized that it would mean that the top portion of my card would have upside down hearts 😦  So, I had to come up with something else.

My Empty Nest Creations Cascading Hearts Love Card

I decided to stick with original plan and have the center of my card be “heartless”, but to avoid having upside down hearts, I just stamped the border stamp in the same direction–once on the top and once just below center.  Next came my favorite ink blending.  I used Candied Apple, Picked Raspberry and Worn Lipstick Tim Holtz Distress Oxides.  My Favorite Things Love die is one of my favorites.  I die cut that out of the center, and attached my pink card front onto an A2 top folding card using foam tape.  I just love the recessed look of the letters (unfortunately, the photo doesn’t show that very well.)  The sentiment is from Simon Says Stamp Handwritten Borders stamp set.  The stamp actually has the word love at the beginning.  I just wiped the Versamark ink off of the word love, so that I could have just “everything about you”.  The greeting is white heat embossed onto black card stock.  After trimming out the black piece, I thought that it seemed too wide and covered too much of the love die cut area.  To get around that, I just fussy cut around it–perfect!!!

Thanks for visiting!

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A Simple Cut Edge Card Front

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I think I’m kind of obsessed with the popular emboss resist technique partnered with Distress Oxide inks.  With that said, I figured I needed to come up with something just a little different from my normal card fronts.

My Empty Nest Creations Rainbow Emboss Resist Technique using Distress OxidesI started with one of my favorite large stamps—Simon Says Stamp’s Emma Background.  I white heat embossed it onto the front side of an A2 top folding card base, and ink blended it with Candied Apple, Spiced Marmalade and Fossilized Amber Distress Oxides.  They just blend so smoothly and don’t leave any kind of harsh lines or marks.  They are definitely easier to blend than the traditional Distress Inks.  To emphasize the beautiful stamp image, I lightly wiped away any ink that was sitting on top of the embossing.

To change things up a bit, I decided to fussy cut around the bottom portion of the embossed image and stamp my greeting from Altenew’s Adore You stamp set below my cut edge.  All that was left was to add a few matching sequins.

Thanks for visiting 🙂

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Making Multiple Cards from One Stamped Image

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I’ve kind of been on a little creative slump lately.  I always love making cards during the winter holidays, but that excitement always seems to leave around December 26th.  Even Valentine’s Day doesn’t get my creative mojo fired up.  That said, I just love it when I can get multiple cards using just one stamped image.  Two for the price of one…who doesn’t love that!

I have a few of Simon Says Stamp beautiful background cling stamps that I always seem to go to.  They are great for any kind of card.  Stamps are expensive, so I love it when I can buy one that is so incredibly versatile.

For my latest cards, I used Simon Says Stamp’s Emma Background.  I white heat embossed it on Bristol paper, and ink blended over it using Worn Lipstick and Picked Raspberry Distress Oxides (I just love how the oxides blend so effortlessly).  I die cut a heart out of the center of the image.

For my first card, I placed the background minus the heart onto my card base and lightly traced the heart outline.  This helped me stamp my greeting in the right spot.  Using one of my new fav stamp sets, Pretty Pink Posh Everyday Greetings, I stamped my greeting within the lightly traced heart space.  After erasing the heart outline, I adhered my stamped background onto my card base with dimensional tape.  The final touch was adding a few small pink hearts to finish it off.

For the second card, I embossed a piece of white card stock using the Doodle Hearts  embossing folder from The Paper Studio.  I then die cut that piece using a Gina Marie Designs double stitched rectangle die.  Using Altenew’s Halftone Happy die, I cut the beautiful script Happy out of silver metallic card stock.  To finish the sentiment, I die cut a banner out of white card stock and stamped “anniversary” from Altenew’s Halftone Happy stamp set.  I matted the white background piece with the same silver metallic card stock.  All that was left was to simply glue it all together.  Once again, the final touch was adding a few tiny pink hearts.

Thanks for stopping by 🙂

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A Simple But Elegant Card

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I have to admit that I’ve been in a creative rut lately.  It happens to me quite a bit, but I have learned one thing…go back to simple.  It works for me every time.  So, that’s what I did.  To help with a little inspiration, I checked one of my favorite sketch sites, CAS(E) This Sketch.  I love their sketches because they are generally simple, but allow for a lot of creativity.

Here’s their latest sketch…

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My Empty Nest Creations Card using Lil' Inker Designs Filled Heart stamp set

For my card, I started with a stamp set from Lil’ Inker Designs that’s been out for a while…Filled Heart.  It’s such a beautiful stamp set, and the design practically makes your card for you.

I gold heat embossed the heart image onto watercolor paper.  The light coloring is from my Light Violet Zig Clean Color Real Brush marker applied with my water brush.  It is very subtle, but adds just the perfect softness to the image.

The greeting from the same set is gold heat embossed onto a strip of watercolor paper.  I cut fish tail ends on both sides and attached it with foam tape to give it some dimension.

All that was left was matting the card front.  I decided on a piece of Recollections gold glitter card stock.  This was the first time that I have used this paper, AND I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT!!!  It has a nice heavy weight (and it comes in silver, too)!!  The photo doesn’t really do it justice.  It sparkles beautifully.

After attaching the card front to a white, top folding A2 card base, I added a few gold and iridescent sequins to finish it off.  Unfortunately, the photo makes the gold sequins look brown.  Trust me, they are a beautiful, shiny gold.

I hope you like it.  I’m thinking of adding it to my Etsy Shop.

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