Bunches of Love - 7 (with Love Notes)

I love this card! It was a little fussy, although not difficult. As promised yesterday, it combines Bunches of Love with Love Note, which only shows up in "SENDING." Tomorrow I'll start featuring more of the Love Note set.

Here's the supply list (with links for your shopping convenience):

• Bunches of Love
• Love Note
• Pomegranate ink
• Peacock ink
• Charcoal ink
• Black ink
• Charcoal paper
• Micro-tip Scissors (and, trust me, you need these scissors for the precision cutting on this card)

Again, this wasn't technical, but you do need to have patience to cut out the top portion. I stamped it as the set was designed, with some images left open. I also took advantage of the precise cutting to give myself a wider border around "love" than in yesterday's card. Against the charcoal background here, it needed some white space.

My cruise is winding down. We should be in Nuremburg, Germany by now. I'm probably looking forward to sleeping in my own bed but regretting that our time in Europe is coming to an end.

Until next time,
Becca

Bunches of Love - 6

And now for something completely different...

How great is this? I simply took the longest sentiment, "thinking," mounted it on my acrylic block upside down, stamped it in five different colors (although I wish I'd done the lighter blue in a green), then stamped "hello" in black, cut it out, and glued it over the top. I think I'm going to make about eight of these. So fast, easy, and versatile.

Who knew this...

...could do that?

Here's the supply list (with links for your shopping convenience):

• Bunches of Love
• Raspberry ink
• Nectarine ink
• Lemon ink
• Glacier ink (but I should have used Willow)
• Carolina ink
• Black ink
• Micro-tip Scissors

Tomorrow, I'm going to start pairing Bunches of Love with the Love Notes set. I hope you'll come back and see it.

Until next time,
Becca

Bunches of Love - 5

Here's the third card combining Bunches of Love stamp set with Hello Pumpkin paper. (See previous two posts for more.)

Here's the supply list (with links for your shopping convenience):

• Bunches of Love stamp set
• Raspberry ink
• Willow ink
• Black ink
• white sewing thread
• Hello Pumpkin paper

Like yesterday's card, there's nothing too technical going on. I trimmed 3/4 of an inch off the left side of a top folding card base and glued my strip of Hello Pumpkin paper to the inside of the card.  After stamping the images, I connected the small flower and bud trio to the main image by wetting a small paintbrush, picking up some Willow ink from the lid, and drawing some mostly straight lines. That's about as techy as this gets. Oh...and wrapping some sewing thread around my fingers and securing it with the sentiments mounted on foam tape.

I hope you'll come back tomorrow for another card with Bunches of Love.

Until next time,
Becca

Bunches of Love - 4

As promised yesterday, here's another card combining the new Bunches of Love stamp set with Hello Pumpkin paper. I've also added colored pencils to the mix.

There's nothing terribly technical about this card. I glued my Hello Pumpkin paper to the card base first, then stamped my row of sentiment on a separate piece of paper and glued it over the top. I stamped the main image from Bunches of Love in black, colored parts of it using dry Watercolor pencils, cut them out very close to the edge, then glued them down before mounting the center flower over the top with foam tape. Pretty straightforward but very eye-catching.

Here's the supply list (with links for your shopping convenience):

• Bunches of Love stamp set
• Black ink
• Watercolor Pencils
• Hello Pumpkin Paper
• Micro-tip Scissors
• 3-D Foam Tape

Back tomorrow with another card using almost identical supplies

Until next time,
Becca

Bunches of Love - 3

I'm not only in love with the new Bunches of Love stamp set but also the new Hello Pumpkin paper. I don't do much with Halloween, so the limited number of Halloween specific patterns combined with the large number of general patterns--including this awesome black and white print--makes the entire pack usable. You'll be seeing more of it combined with Bunches of Love in the next few days.

Here's the supply list (with links for your shopping convenience):

• Bunches of Love stamp set
• Hello Pumpkin paper
• Mint ink
• Emerald ink
• Peach ink
• Smoothie ink
• Black ink
• Sponge Daubers
• Paintbrush set
• Micro-tip Scissors
• 3-D Foam tape

The only special techniques on this card were: 1) stamping the flowers and leaves in a light color (Peach and Mint) then adding the darker coordinating colors (Smoothie and Emerald) with a sponge dauber to create shading, and 2) adding water to ink squeezed into the lids of both Emerald and Smoothie, picking up the watered-down ink with a paintbrush, then flicking the colored ink over the image.

I'm still on my cruise, but I've scheduled another card for tomorrow. I hope to see you then.

Until next time,
Becca

Bunches of Love - 2

For my second card with the new Bunches of Love set, I wanted to do something completely different than yesterday's card. I love the versatility of this set!!

Here, I used just the floral "filler" stamps and left off the outline. It was a very simple card to make, which is the best kind!

Here's the supply list (with shopping links for your convenience):

• Bunches of Love
• Canary Ink
• Saffron Ink
• Carolina Ink
• Sage Ink
• Charcoal Ink
• Micro-tip Scissors
• Foam Tape

The only thing I didn't get from the new catalog is the white sequins.

I'm still cruising, but come back tomorrow for another card using this amazing new stamp set. And, if you'll let me be pushy for just a moment, let me say you should order this stamp set now. By the time it arrives, you'll have lots of ideas about how to use it.

Until next time,
Becca

Bunches of Love - 1

Welcome to the new Holiday Expressions from Close to My Heart. As always, there are things I can do without and things I was losing sleep over until they were in my hot, little hands. The new "Bunches of Love" set is in the latter category. I couldn't stop playing with it.

The photography doesn't do this justice. The colors are Ballerina, Glacier, Linen and Black. The bottom border of paper is from the new Boutique collection. It's a gorgeous paper suite, and my favorite pattern is this soft watercolor stripe pattern. Soooo pretty. I accented it with Black Shimmer trim.

Here's the supply list (with shopping links for your convenience):

• Bunches of Love
• Ballernia ink 
• Glacier ink
• Linen ink
• Black ink
• Black Shimmer Trim
• Boutique paper

As this post goes live, I'm enjoying a European cruise down the Danube River. It's the first "grown up" vacation my husband and I have taken. We're going with his sister and brother-in-law. I can't wait to show you the pictures...probably in scrapbook pages. If I get the chance, I'll post a few shots here but, I'm tellin' ya now, I'm going to spend as much time as possible enjoying this once-in-a-lifetime vacation.

I have posts scheduled to go up once a day while I'm gone, so I hope you'll come back tomorrow to see what else I've created with this amazing new set.

Until next time,
Becca