First Valentine Card Using Poppystamps Inlay Heart Die

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

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 🙂

Computer Signature

13Feb2018

Concord & 9th’s Love Always

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

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!

Computer Signature

28Apr2017

A Simple But Elegant Card

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

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…

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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24Mar2017

Getting Out of My Color Comfort Zone

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

With the Help of Freshly Made Sketches

I know the trend in card making is now about florals and bright colors. I’ve found myself getting too comfortable with those designs. I wanted to change it up a bit (at least for me) by using colors that I never really even think of when starting a card – orange and navy.

Now, for the design…I went to one of my usual sites for inspiration–Freshly Made Sketches. Here is the latest sketch…

While I usually don’t follow their sketches to the letter, I just received a new stamp set that is perfect—Hampton Arts Lift Me Up. The detailed butterfly is gorgeous, and the sayings are terrific.

I started off by white heat embossing the butterfly on navy Bazzill card stock towards the bottom right corner of the paper. I wanted this image to be kind of a shadow for the main butterfly. Next, I stamped the butterfly with Momento Tuxedo Black ink and cut it out with the matching die. I colored the butterfly with Copic markers and added a few small white extras with my white gel pen. I attached the butterfly with foam tape to give it some dimension. For the last touch, I covered the butterfly with my Wink of Stella clear glitter pen. The “You Lift Me Up” greeting from the stamp set seemed to perfect, so I white heat embossed it on the bottom left corner.

I knew that I needed to accent the card with some orange to balance the orange butterfly, so I cut the navy card stock slightly so that I could have a strip of orange on the left side of the card. Then, I realized that the card front was still a little dark, so I trimmed a slight edge off of the top and bottom so that the white card base would peak through. Once all of that was done, this card still needed something else. I’ve really been trying to incorporate sequins (another card trend) on to my cards, but I didn’t have any orange ones (remember, orange is not one of my go-to colors 🙂 Then, I remembered seeing Jennifer McGuire use her Copic markers to color some pearl accents. I found my pearl dots and colored them with one of the same orange Copic markers that I used on the butterfly. They were the perfect final touch on my card.

I hope you like it!

16Mar2017

Need Something to Brighten Someone’s Birthday?

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

I’m on a rainbow kick, and I’m pretty sure that it has something to do with this crazy weather we’re having. I really shouldn’t complain when I see pretty much everyone north of the Mason-Dixon line shoveling like crazy. As a former northerner, it gives me flashbacks!

I made this card (along with some others) to give to some friends as a small birthday gift. I wanted something that was pretty generic as far as birthday cards go. I figured that children or adults would enjoy receiving this bright, cheerful card.

I started off by heat embossing, with Recollections Gold Embossing Powder, the Hero Arts Tiny Star Background stamp. I used Barn Door, Mustard Seed and Broken China Distress Inks to ink blend the background. I just love Neat & Tangled’s Celebrate dies, so I knew that I had to gold heat emboss the detailed die cut. So that it wouldn’t get lost on the background, I also cut the die from black card stock and adhered it to the back of the gold die cut. It gave it a slight shadow–exactly what I wanted. To tie in the black shadow on the die, I white heat embossed a happy birthday greeting from the Altenew Birthday Greetings stamp set onto black card stock.

Because I’m so pleased with how this card turned out, I’ve included it in my Etsy shop. I hope you like it 😉