Autumn Greetings!

Wow, can you believe it is October already? Here is a card I made recently. If you want to know specific details about how it was made, email me and I will send you the directions. I can tell you there are about 10 leaves that were cut out using the matching dies.

Thank you, Sara Sherlock!

Sara is another FSJ coach living far away from me, in Idaho, but she makes some stunning cards. I was visiting her blog recently where she posted her card using the Welcome (AT-0269) stamp. Check out her blog for more ideas and to see the card that inspired me. One thing she did that I had not thought to ever do was trace an acrylic block with a pen to give more pizazz to it. Here's one of the cards I made:

I used a retired set that was a Bloom Benefit, "Bloom for You" for the flowers. The pen lines were made with a gold pen from the "Just Write Gels" set (JD-0060).

Be sure to email me if you would like to order any FSJ products or to get your hands on a new catalog.

Clean and Simple card

I used a new die from FSJ called Lots of Dots(DI-0424), Bubble Gum Pink(CS-0099), Whip Cream (CS-0040), and Black Licorice(CS-0003) cardstock, white embossing powder and vellum cut with Journey Circles(DI-0039). The sentiment is from the Peony Blooms(SS-0464) set.

Sharing the Love

My sweet granddaughter and daughter in law have been learning to make cards with stamps and inks I have been sending them over the years. But they live in Oregon and I am in Florida, so when I get to visit we pull out the stash from the closet and I make cards with them. Last time I showed Liane how to heat emboss. I have been going through my abundance of supplies and am thinning out some of my old stamps and tools to make room for my new Fun Stampers Journey supplies and, of course, Liane and Luci are getting some of my "love"! The latest box has a cuttlebug machine and some dies. Embossing folders will be in the second box.

I am hoping to make videos to share online and this is my very first "how to" video in which I show how to use the Cuttlebug machine. In the video I couldn't remember how to get the Nestabilities die to emboss. Gina K does a much better job when she shows how to use a shim in her Stamp TV video on YouTube here. There are other Cuttlebug videos done by Gina K there as well.

Stamping with Friends

I was able to have a few friends here yesterday and we made these cards for fall and Christmas.

pierced card, inks, and ribbon

coloring with pencils and
sponged for highlighting

embossed sentiment and
small ornaments with silver

embossed flowers with white
and sponged distress inks on top

I added my initials as a kind of watermark.

Autumn Greetings

I have been making cards with a fall theme this week.
This one is my favorite.

I first stamped a white 4 x 5 1/4 in. card with the ink splat stamp using rich coral, pineapple smoothie, orange rave, and oatmeal cookie(all FSJ inks).

Then I ran the card through the Amaze machine with the Fall Text embossing folder( a Bloom Benefit, free with a $100 order). Then I used a hard sponge and hazelnut blend ink to rub lightly over the embossing and bring out the words.

I used scraps of paper from my stash, Versamark ink, and the Hello Fall stamps and dies to make the leaves.

I used an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of kraft card stock for the base and glued down the front piece.

Lastly I stamped the sentiment from the Hello Fall set, punched it out with FSJ 2" scalloped oval, sponged the edges with that same hazlenut blend inked sponge, mounted it with small foam squares, and put journey glaze over the whole tag.


I love the way the ink spot stamp looks like leaves in the background.

Pan Pastels

I needed to make a card that was one layer, so nothing glued on. I used my pan pastels to color the background, then stamped the images on top. I colored the turtles with colored pencils, using a white eraser first over the red area because I wanted to take out the background color before coloring.

All products are from Fun Stampers Journey.