Ingenious Inkling

A New Baby

The theme of the current Impression Obsession Challenge is New Beginnings.

I needed a baby card for my stash, so that seemed like the perfect New Beginning.

 

I have never been a liquid adhesive user ... but after watching several people have success with Gina K. Designs' Connect Glue, I took the dive ... and haven't looked back.  I used it to attach those cursive letters from Impression Obsession's Congrats Word Set and it worked like a charm.

I die cut the four icons from Impression Obsession's Baby Set from Red & Blue cardstock and finished my design.

I'm also joining the Anything Goes Challenge at Cute Card Thursday.

The Biggest Footprints

I was thrilled to be chosen as the winner of the Color Throwdown Challenge a few weeks ago ... and even more thrilled to be invited to Guest Design for this week's Color Throwdown Challenge.

I was inspired not only by the colors, but also by the pair of boots and the patterns in the shingles & door on the house.  Instead of L. L. Bean Boots, my pair of shoes are baby walking shoes from Technique Junkies Welcome Sweet Baby.

 

I used the sketch from Crazy 4 Challenges for my layout.  I needed a little texture on the triangles, so I took the inspiration from the shingles & doors in the picture and embossed with bricks.

 

I finished with some Little Stars Washi Tape from Alexandra Renke.  You can save 10% on everything in the Technique Junkies Store if you use my code TJ10Stephanie at checkout.

 

The Snuggle is Real

The Stock Your Stash Challenge at Reverse Confetti is Baby Cards ... since Jen has made my absolutely favorite and most used baby set of stamps (Cute as a Button), I knew I had to ink them up.

I decided to use the colors from the CAS Colours & Sketch Challenge since they were pretty gender neutral (which is good to have when you're making stash cards).

I stamped my Cute as a Button Onesie in Grapefruit and added Scalloped Square Confetti Cuts in the other two hues.  I finished with a sticker sentiment (if I win, I'll be adding her Congratulations set to my stash).

I'm also joining the BABY Challenge at Addicted to CAS Challenge.

Baby Congrats

I love the graphic for The Library Challenge.  I had to look it up ... it's an award winning cookbook of vegetable recipes.

 

I thought about several food-themed ideas, but ultimately, I wanted to stack stamps or die cuts like the pots and bowls on the book cover.

I found several baby-themed die cuts in my stash (Memory Box & Little B), and I die cut them from scraps of Gel Press prints.  I used the Pink & Main Congrats Die Cut, which allowed me to use a white sentiment like the book cover.

With my Stork at the top of my creation, I'm also joining the Simon Says: Animal Magic Challenge.

Blue Baby Tax Deduction

It's an Anything Goes Challenge at the Joy Clair blog in April inspired by this photo board.

For some reason, even though the pictures are tea/coffee themed, all of the blue made me think of a baby card, so that's what I created.  I just love the Joy Clair New Baby Onesie set.

I pulled in yellow from the sash on the dress in the upper left photograph together with the caramal color of the tea/coffee ... and added hearts inspired by the heart on the teapot handle ... and I couldn't resist adding a mustache just because.

The layout is this week's Match the Sketch.

Onesie Funsies

I love Baby Onesies, so when I saw the New Baby! Stamp Set from Joy Clair, I knew I wanted to use it to create for our March Collaboration with Joy Clair & My Sweet Petunia (remember leave a comment on all posts with the Collaboration Image for a chance to win at the end of March).

I decided to use a piece of Gel Press Print that I created with my MISTI for my Onesie "fabric" ... it's the perfect shade of red for gender neutral designs.

I also used my MISTI to position the sentiments & images to adorn the front of my Onesies ... so many possibilities in this set.

I fussy cut the images and then used a Black Sharpie to make sure the edges were nice and defined ... so stinkin' cute.

 

I decided to go with some Clean & Simple designs for these cuties ... the first one uses this week's CAS(E) this Sketch!

I added a blue strip of paper and coordinating blue enamel dots from Eyelet Outlet.

The second one uses the layout from CAS Colours & Sketches.

I love that the set has both a Congratulations & Congrats Sentiment ... and what a fun font.

 

Sweet Little One

The February Reverse Confetti Sketch For You To Try comes to the rescue for a needed baby card.

I am also lovin' my new VersaFine Clair Inks (onesies are stamped in VersaFine Clair Cheerful with a single impression ... look at that coverage) and sentiment is stamped in Catherine Pooler Garden Party.  All Stamps are from Reverse Confetti Cute as a Button with coordinating Onesie Confetti Cut Die.

With my dotty background, I'm also joining the Retro Rubber Challenge.  My Reverse Confetti stamps are at least one year and 4 months old (I made my first card with them in October 2016).

 

Welcome Baby

It's World Card Making Day (and my birthday if you want to click over and help me celebrate), so of course I had to find some time to make a card.

I chose to join the October Mix It Up Challenge with AlteNew & Essentials by Ellen.

I started by die cutting Essentials by Ellen Concertina Tag from ivory cardstock and then trimming it down to use a single tag.  I die cut the star to frame the tag hole from yellow cardstock.

I stamped & die cut my AlteNew Little One Onesie from the same yellow and then stamped and die cut the flopsie bunny from Essentials by Ellen Bear Wear.  The sentiments are both from AlteNew Sentiments & Quotes.  The Ink is Taylored Expressions Earl Grey.

And the layout is this week's CAS(E) this Sketch!

MISTI and The Snuggle is Real

I use my MISTI for almost all of my stamping, but today's card features two types of stamping where I find it particularly essential.  The first is for solid images.  No matter how juicy my ink pad is and how conditioned my stamp is (you can tell this one is WELL used), I never get the coverage I'm looking for with just one inking.  There is just too much white cardstock showing through.

Another essential for me is using the grids on the MISTI to help me line up long stamps.  In the past, it always took me several tries (even with a gridded acrylic block) to get things straight ... not any more.  

Another MISTI trick I used on this card is that when I first inked this stamp with red ink, it was a bit TOO red for the color palette I was going for, so I inked the stamp a second time using the more peachy toned Poppy ink from the Baby Onesie, which provided the additional coverage for the solid circles and toned down my red perfectly.

I used these two stamped images (from Reverse Confetti Cute as a Button & Elemental Stripes) to create a cute little baby card for the August Sketch for You to Try.

I used one of the die cut frames from Reverse Confetti All Framed Up Confetti Cuts.  The colors are from the Summer Petals inspiration palette at Sunday Stamps.  The gems to finish the design are from Eyelet Outlet.

Baby Blessed

I have two goals for today ... clean-up my studio & re-stock my card stash.  This card helped me accomplish both.  These baby stickers have been on my studio table some April when I made a card with the other pieces from the set ... and today, they finally made it onto a card.

I used this week's Freshly Made Sketch with scraps of paper from my scrap bin.  It's their 300th Sketch, which is absolutely amazing!  Since the stickers covered most of my oval, I added a small sticker sentiment to complete the design.