Paper Crafters Unite Against Racism

Ever feel like you just don't know what to do? How to help others feel supported?

I'll be honest and thus lean into being vulnerable. I live in central, almost rural, Kansas. I have always said that I am not racist, but honestly I have never known the term anti-racist until now.  I can guarantee that I have made mistakes, said and done the wrong things and been seemingly non-supportive as I lived like an ostrich with my head in the sand. 

My promise is to learn and find ways to do better and to be more supportive to People of Color. Although this is blog hop is a very, very small gesture, I feel it is a start.

 A small one but a start in the right direction. 

I support YOU and stand with YOU !

Here is my piece of creative to add to this hop. 

Thank you for stopping by my blog! 

Your next stop on the blog hop is here:

Michelle Woerner

Enjoy the HOP!

Eva

You Are Incredible

After a mighty long stamping break, I am gearing up for a little time off soon for spring break.

Maybe mother nature will bring temps a little closer to "spring like".

I have had my eye on a few stamp sets from Erin Lee Creative and decided to dive in. 

I used Lyra Colored pencils for coloring, which are not my normal but they did a nice job. 

It's funny how awkard something feels to do when you haven't done it for a bit. Even when you have done it for years. 

Thanks for stopping by my blog!

Eva

Rainbow on a Snowy Day...

Sunday was a productive, cold and snowy crafting day here at my house.I woke up this morning and quickly helped my daughter finish up her 2 scrapbooks we were working on so she could head back to college. Then something strange happened....I has MOJO!! I knitted a little (which by the way I have now completely torn apart, LOL) and then started making cards. 

This little gem below is the product of having two cut pieces from the Lil' Inkers Chevron Cover Up plate setting on top of each other after cutting them.

 I ended up going with it. I simply put one on top of the other, going in opposite directions. I glued the two pieces together and them placed on top of a piece of card stock that I had blended ink on. 

I used the Lil'Inkers Seriously Die and cut it out of black and layered it on top of a white banner. Since it is a thinner word the solid white banner helped it to stand out. 

I added a few little sequins...and I love it!

   Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

Hope you have a wonderful week! 

Eva

Hello, Hello

I'm stopping in to share a bright and cherry little number with you!

I know black is not cheery but those flowers are!!

I used Hero arts ink and WPlus9 Pretty Peonies for the stamped piece. I layers a little piece of black ad white stamped cardstock to the edge and a yellow button with twine to finish it off. The Hello stamp is from Reverse Confetti.

Thanks for visiting my blog and until next time...stamp, stamp, and stamp s,more!

Eva

Change of Scenery...

I thought it might be time for a little change of scenery here on the blog. Seems as though I have forgot all about this blogging thing since right before Christmas. Time flies!!

This Valentine card was made with a PTI die and stamp set. 

I added a little bling and twine for texture and interest.

Thanks for stopping by my blog!

Have a great week.

Eva

NN Inky Paws Challenge #16 Christmas

As promised, I have one last Holiday Hounds Christmas card to share with you.

I will say that using the same stamp set on 8 different cards all at one time made me feel more creative!! Kept me focused!

If you click on the picture you will head over to Newton's Nook Blog post that features the challenge cards. 

This time, I decided to make my very FIRST shaker card!

I used my Spellbinders to make the shaker window and then added foam tape to the back.

I filled my little shaker window with beads and sequins....to be honest, I didn't want to use too many sequins. I have the fear that so many other crafter's have..."what if I run out and need one in the middle of the night"...so I have more beads in there.

I placed a layer of sparkly icicle at the bottom of the window and attached a sparkly snowflake and gold floral die cut to the top, tying it off with a little bit of red scrapper's floss.

I stamped the sentiment in brick red ink onto a strip of vellum and attached it to the card front.

I was not so sure about this card, but it has grown on me and it was my friend's favorite out of the 8 that I made.

Thank you so much for stopping by today!

Until next time make sure you Stamp S'More!

Eva

Curtain Call Challenge

I saw the Boho Brights Curtain Call Challenge and decided to play along as it would require me to work outside of my box. I figured it would make me hunt up a color combo that I have not used before and that it did!!

Rich Razzleberry, Lucky Limeade and Sunshine Yellow...the only frequently used color in that batch is the Lucky Limeade.

I also had the opportunity to eat a little crow here. Just like sequins...I said I would never ever get into this "gold" thing that is happening right now...Oh I certainly ate my words on that!

Not only did I eat my words but I now think I need every word die made so I can cut them all out in gold!! I used gold poster board from Hobby Lobby. 

And the die word...SERIOUSLY.... One of my favorite words of ALL time! The die and You Rock stamp are from Lil' Inker's Designs. I handed my husband my Christmas list with the Lil' Inkers website and ALL of the sticth mat dies. Told him I would be happy with all my Christmas from all family being Lil' Inkers...I hope it meant it when he said OK.  

For the inked piece, I blended the ink on white cardstock and then placed a stencil over the top. I then took a baby wipe and dabbed over the stencil, this pulled ink off the cardstock, creating an awesome piece. The background stamp on the card base is from Heidi Swapp.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.

Have a great week!

Eva

Blend, Blend, Blend

I must admit, the other day I was looking at all the cards that I have made recently...in hopes of finding something I have colored...and well, it seems I REALLY like this ink blending thing. I had no idea how many cards a recently have created that I have used this technique!

You all will be seeing blending, blending and more blending...and stencils!

This is a stencil from Heidi I love her stencils!

The ink is all SU! and the sentiment is from PTI.

I used Martha Stewart glitter on the pretty little star.

There have been a lot of cool things happening here in Kansas now that it is fall.

I hope to post pictures from The Barn Sale, Stamp Away Weekend and Mentor Craft Day in the next few days. For now, time for a drive to Emporia for work!

Thanks for stopping by my blog!

Eva

Here We Go!!!

Off she has gone...my beautiful young daughter has headed off to college and is going to conquer the world!!

Last week was tough on this momma!! I look back and I am so very thankful that I stopped focusing on papercrafting when I did! It allowed me the time to be with and know my girl, to watch her grow into the beautiful young woman that she is today. Funny, looking back the things that happened that seemed to pull me away from constantly creating were God's way of saying "I have more important things in store for you".

So, I am back to creating and blog posting...maybe someday I'll catch another design gig, LOL!!!

As I made my girl her first piece of mail last night, I realized that I now feel a new purpose in creating. 

With that I am committing to posting at least once a week on Thursday's. 

I'm calling it "Thinking of You Thursday". Each week Ill make a card to send to my girl and on Thursday Ill post the most recent mailing! This should get me started on the whole blogging track again!

But for now (Monday) here is a little something I whipped up recently.

Lots going on here...

 First, I used a stencil and glossy cardstock to make the background. Its so yummy!

I added the little handmade banner (yup no die for that one...its amazing what a gal can do with a centering ruler and sharp small scissors!!) Added a little stitching with my sewing machine.  The leaf die was from SU.

The small flower dies are from PTI along with the congrats die. It is such a pretty card!

Thanks for stopping by and I will see you soon!

Closer...Closer...

My blog posts that is...they are getting closer together than they were for a while!

My girl heads off to college in a couple of weeks and my goal is to start creating and posting more 

once that happens. 

I recently went through my stash of "pieces" of stamped "stuff" and started making cards with the pieces.

This is a great guy card! I did use some old TAC images but  the sentiments is all newer stuff. 

The tab die is from MFT and the Birthday is a die from PTI.

I took this bottom picture hoping you would be able to see the stripes reflecting on the card front. 

One of the cool things about this card is that I used glossy cardstock. It can be intimidating to use but the results are awesome!

 Thanks for stopping by!

Graduation 2014.......

Yeah A Blog Update! I promise, someday, they will be on a regular basis again! Thank you to everyone who keeps me in their feed and continues to subscribe!!

Today, I have several graduation cards to share...and I'm super excited about my card hanger die from Soapbox Creations!!

My Cricut and SCAL made these cards more manageable! All of the graduation specific words and shapes were cut with my Cricut from black and white line images I found online.

I also used the PTI stars cover plate and Simply Stars stamp set.

This is one of my favorites...of course it was for one of my favorite graduates! That boy who hangs around here and swoons over my girl!! 

This was the last purple, white and black card I made (school colors)...I kinda really liked adding the name to the front of the card!! It sure helped when it was time to distribute them at the school!!

This card was my FAVORITE of them all...and its not even the right school colors!!

Of course, it had to be extra special as it is going to an extra special...extremely strong and kind young lady!!

You notice, although it is my favorite, I had to put it at the bottom of this post, hoping she does not read my blog...as she hasn't received it yet!! The colors will give it away.

Here are pictures of all the gift bags with the cards hanging on the outside. I {{{L.O.V.E.}}}

 this concept....{{{ SERIOUSLY LOVE }}}

it!! I often put much more work into the card than what is inside the bag.

 The card hanger die puts the card front and center and calls ALL the attention to the art.

The card hanger die is the brain child of my friend Laurie over at 

Soapbox Creations.

The card on the gold bag is larger than the rest of the cards so I improvised with my small slot punch from SU!...and some slow punching on glitter card stock.

Thanks for taking the time to check out my post!!

Have a fabulous day!!

Eva

My favorite of this week!!!

Well, the week is over and I must quickly get my creations posted and linked ...fast!!

This is by far my favorite card of the week!! Inspired from Jennifer McGuire's bonus video.

Both the butterfly stencil and the patterned stencil are Heidi Swapp products. 

I used my Hero Arts Inks on this project...I so LOVE them!! 

Below is a close up. I die cut the "birthday piece" 4 times and glued each one together. I covered it with black liquid pearls for a different effect.

The "happy" along with the "birthday" are from PTI.

Thanks for looking!! Have a fabulous day!

Hello Cupcake...

I was looking around on Instagram the other day and a friend had pulled out this old Hero Arts Cupcake stamp set. I felt a little inspired and took the set out and played for a little bit.

I had just received my new handy dandy stripes set from MFT and this was a perfect opportunity to pull out my new die and stamp set from PTI for the sentiment.

Below you will see a close up of my cupcake. I used Liquid Pearls White Opal for the icing to make it look YUMMY!

Thanks for stopping by!

Have a FABULOUS day!

Eva

Stencils....

It was about 10:30 pm Friday night and I had just made the 3.5 hour drive from Salina to Oklahoma City. 

I had visited with my dad a bit and we had said our good nights....then I opened my phone and found a ton of gorgeous cards using stencils. Not wanting to miss out on anything great, I signed up for the Online Card Class, Stenciled.

I made a quick trip to Michael's in Wichita on my way home Sunday...with my 25% off my entire purchase coupon (score!!), and back home to start playing.

I do think I like this stencil thing! Stencils of today are so much different than the stencils I purchased 10 years ago when I started scrapbooking! So much cooler!

Now that I have invested a little into Heidi Swapp's next paycheck....here was the first project that I made for one of the Day 1 techniques. Ohhhh, I love this technique!! I'm pretty sure it will be used A-LOT in the future.

I'll be back soon for card #2 of my stenciling projects!

Thanks for looking!!

Until next time, may you be blessed!

Eva

Supplies:

Stencil: Heidi Swapp

Sentiment Stamp: Verve

Paper: White Heavy Weight Paper Studio 

Ink: Hero Arts: Tide Pool

Dies: PTI and SU!