Cardmaker Lawn Fawn Hop

 Good morning!  Thank you for joining us today for our hop!  Lawn Fawn is sponsoring, and giving away a 6x6 paper pack and stamp set of your choice, so be sure to check their blog for details on how you could win!  

I enjoyed using their adorable stamps, patterned papers (Daphne's Closet) and dies  on this card for a friend who just moved.  The little houses from the Home Sweet Home set are so, well, sweet! I paper pieced the house and popped up the banner in two layers, and then stamped the stitched line on the side of the card.  It's great to be able to customize each house with the little windows and doors.   The little attached heart dies can be popped apart to kept together to punch out several at one time, which is what I did here. One coming out of the chimney was the final touch. Cute, cute stuff!

Cardstock, ribbon, and button are from Gina K Designs. 

Have fun checking out the rest of our hop!  

Next stop is

Yainea Nunez 

Thank you for visiting today!

Update

Apologies for not posting in awhile, we are very busy with kids' activities as well as finding out our beautiful cat of 12 years has cancer.  Homey has not been doing well the past 4 months, (hiding and sleeping all the time, not eating, lost 8 pounds!) so we are glad to at least know now what it is (vet first diagnosed a soft tissue injury that was making him want to lay low and heal) and give him some medicine to make him more comfortable.  It's in his spine and has calcified which presumably is making it hard for him to jump without pain, so he will have to be indoors full time from now on. The Prednisone has actually perked him up quite bit and given him an appetite again.  We are thankful to be able to have some time to love on him now that he's showing an interest in life and us again and acting like his old affectionate, curious self, if only for awhile.  The photo above is with William a month before he started showing signs of illness, perhaps the last time we see him up on the bed. :( Below he is up to some old tricks, like making room for himself by pushing out all the towels on a low shelf before Spring Break.

He's not real happy with how skinny he looks now, so I'll have to dig up some older healthy pics to show later of his better days.  Visitors always commented he looked more like a panther than a cat, he was so tall and handsome.

 
Last night on March 25th we celebrated one year of having our adult rabbits with a big homemade birthday carrot cake, of course, William insisted. He has actually been keeping track of when we got them so we could have their birthday party.  That day marked the 6 weeks birthday of our newest litter of bunnies (which were born on William's birthday in February), and interestingly enough, we realized that means that the actual birthday of our adult rabbits, although we've been saying it's the day we got them, was actually probably on or about Feb 11 last year since they'd just been weaned when we bought them from the pet store.  So, Pegasus probably had these babies on her 1st birthday!  Anyway, lots of Easter fun coming up, hunts, crafts, snuggle time with the bunnies in the evenings, watching "Hop" as a family, and weaning them starting today I think.  Not sure yet how many we are keeping.  At least one female.
 

Gosh, they are all so cute and sweet, hard to pick!  This is a "Blue" bunny.

 Love those pink, pink ears on this Chocolate bunny!

 Snugglers!!  A Fawn and a Lilac.

Have some CardMaker posts tomorrow and Thursday, including a blog hop with prizes, so look forward to that.  Hope to get my next video done in the next few days, thanks for your patience and those of you who have written to me with suggestions for techniques you'd like to see.

I still have to share our Spring Break. Oy!  Fun and eventful, but also some drama.  Hey, we survived and enjoyed not being at school.

More later!! Hugs!

I Spy with My Little Eye...

...a gorgeous card with gorgeous new dies! I got this announcement from Northridge Publishing 

in my inbox the other day about CHA release products and to my surprise, there is one of my images, smack dab in the centah!! 

Check out that rose from Stately Flowers 6! Looking fab I must say framed up on those two Spellbinders die sets, must have them now!! 

Do your recognize that signature coloring and design style from our Gina K. team?? (not mine)

 Also, BACK IN STOCK!!!  A Year of Flowers 2, yay!  thanks for clearing the shelves for it half of you and the other half patinetly waiting for it!  Poster Board Sentiments, which I used on this sample, is also back in stock.  Work great together!
 Cardstock is Pure Luxury Black Onyx, Innocent Pink and White.

If you like, I can post a short video later this week showing to color the daisy.  Again, *so* simple to do. just big swipes with your brush tip, feel free to go outside the lines!

Finally, here is pic of our new litter of bunnies from February, now about 5 weeks old, crowding around some pellets after filling up on timothy hay while my hubby cleans out their cage! Mom at right. this time we have some "blondies" and "brownies" instead of "blackies" like last time, how sweet!  Hope they haven't got identity crises eating from a bowl that says "GOOD CAT". Hee!

Lots of other stuff from our Spring Break,  etc to catch you up on, but will have to wait just a bit more!  Hope all is well in your world!

Tell me: what should my next video be???
 

*Theresa Momber :)

CardMaker Tip

I have a post up on the Cardmaker Blog today.  Check it out to see a favorite tip I have for you!

You can find the post HERE!
Thanks for stopping by!

Hooty Hoo!

This owl is so darling!  I decided after stamping and coloring to snip the balloons and owl apart to show you different possibilities for a layout, and give me an opportunity to throw on some bakers twine!  I originally intended to "tie" balloons onto one of the large letters in the Stamp it BIG "Wishes", but then decided I wanted the card to be landscape style, which wouldn't allow for much room for the balloon to go that high, but also realized it would be really fun and less expected to instead substitute the "i" for the balloon bunch!  So I just used a glue dot to tack down the knot over where the dot in the i would be to help the illusion.  I love when a plan changes like that! Cardstock is Pure Luxury White and Wild Dandelion.

If you place more than one order and qualify for extra Birthday Hoots during this promotion (ends March 15th, this week!), a fun thing to do with your extra  duo set  is to give it as a birthday gift, what crafty person wouldn't love to receive a mini set complete with a birthday wish sentiment??

Outside the Box

Good morning!  Today I have a post on the CardMaker blog for a card I made that was inspired by one in a past issue of CardMaker. The challenge was to recreate it in a very similar fashion, but use different products.  Please check out the blog to see the card I got inspired to recreate (actually one of my own, from the second issue I was ever published in!) as well as which products I swapped.

(You'll spot some new Gina K. release stamps!) ;)

Have a fabulous day, friend! :)

Inspiration Hop Day 3: Lots of Dots, Darling Divas, Petite Borders

Good Morning! The Design Team for Gina K. Designs welcomes you to our final day of fabulous Inspiration Blog Hops! Gina and the Design Team will inspire you with many beautiful ideas for our newest sets, and as you hop through their blogs, make sure to leave a comment on each of them because we will choose a few random comments and those stampers will each win a grab bag of Gina K. Designs products! To see the winners, check the Big News forum at Stamp TV a few days after the hops.

Today we are sharing samples with Beth Silaika's Lots of Dots, Debbie Corbari's Darling Divas, and the new Free with Three Petite Borders set.

I mixed Lots of Dots with Debbie's Mommy-to-be Diva, who can resist a fabulous lady with a bump? (look for more diva samples I'll make with the other cute sets later this month!)
 
Pardon my very very dirty block, took this photo on a whim!  Just wanted to to show how I stamped the border of large dots in Gina K. Powder Blue ink, then rotated it 180 degrees to stamp off the lighter blue shade of dots neatly between the first set to create that look.  Last I added just a few stamped hearts from "Mommy to Be" to the lighter dots and then picked out some buttons from the Singing the Blues button collection over the dot of the same shade.

 Cardstock is Pure Luxury White, Kraft, and Powder Blue.

  Next, here are a couple fun, quick cards made from stamping out the Lots of Dots rings of dots in different Gina K. ink colors (Red Hot, Ocean Mist, Honey Mustard, and Dark Sage), punching with a 1/14" circle, matted with 1 3/8" Pure Luxury Black Onyx CS circles, and then layering them over my new A Year of Flowers 2 daisies and sunflowers stamped in black.  

Aren't those dots fun as centers for these flowers?

Finally, a super simple card with Petite Borders, the Free with Three set!  

So versatile!  I really like using long stamps like these to make pretty ribbon even wider and fancier.  Greeting and frame is from Poster Board Sentiments and sunflower is from A Year of Flowers 2  (and the matching Studio cut file) No coloring!  Gotta love classic black and white. 

 (Yes, I totally made this card in five minutes)

 And of course, it is perfect for adding a really sharp detail to any card when you need a little something, or just want to fancy it up!

Lots of Dots

Petite Borders

Mommy-to-Be Diva

Day at the Park Diva

Serenity Diva

  

Now please check out more designs and inspiration from our team for these new sets, and
remember to leave comments for more chances to win the prize from Gina!

• Gina K
• Beth Silaika – Illustrator Lots of Dots
• Debbie Corbari - Illustrator Darling Divas
• AJ Otto
• Carolyn King
• Carolina Buchting
• Cathy Tidwell
• Latisha Yoast
• Laurie Schmidlin
• Lee Murphy
• Melanie Muenchinger-you are here, thanks for visiting!
• Sean Fetterman
• Sharon Harnist
• Tami Mayberry
• Theresa Momber
• Valerie Stangle

Inspiration Hop Day 2: The Northwoods, Poster Board Sentiments

Good Morning! The Design Team for Gina K. Designs welcomes you to day two of our Inspiration Blog Hops! Gina and the Design Team will inspire you with many beautiful ideas for our newest sets, and as you hop through their blogs, make sure to leave a comment on each of them because we will choose a few random comments and those stampers will each win a grab bag of Gina K. Designs products! To see the winners, check the Big News forum at Stamp TV a few days after the hops.

Today we are sharing samples with Theresa Momber's The Northwoods and Becky Oehlers' Poster Board Sentiments.   First, here are step step photos for creating the background for the card I made with Theresa's set...

 Begin sponging Dandelion 1/3 way up on your Pure Luxury White mat.

 Add Ocean Mist to top of mat, leaving white space in between that and the yellow.

 Darken the very top with Danube Blue.

Cover top of mat with torn scratch paper and sponge on black ink, concentrating ink along the torn edge.

Just add trees!  And a greeting.  If you look carefully, I added one tiny point of white ink pen at the top right. I always love spotting Venus first in the evenings...always give me a feeling of smallness but connectedness at the same time (there's a place for us...) :)

And here is a very simple card I made with the Poster Board Sentiments and the Gina K. inks (in order, Red Hot, Honey Mustard, Fresh Asparagus and Powder Blue) and banner stamp image as a background.  Stamp the sentiment in black in on several scraps of colored cardstock, and then trim individual words to mount over the greeting stamped on white.  Base is Pure Luxury Black Onyx.  I love how this card turned out!  (Love this quote, made if for my soon-to-be middle schooler, sniff!)    The v in the banner point is just so dynamic, conveys great energy.

 

The Northwoods

 

Poster Board Sentiments

If my lighting in photos looks a bit wonky this week, I apologize.  My OTT Lite bit the dust, and the replacement bulb I bought for it does not work.  At all.  I am scrambling and surviving with some very yellow lighting from all the house, that is very tricky to make look normal when I go to edit.  Hope to remedy soon...

 

Now please check out more designs and inspiration from our team for these new sets! 

Remember to leave comments for more chances to win the prize from Gina!

• Gina K
• Theresa Momber – Illustrator The Northwoods
• Becky Oehlers - Illustrator Poster Board Sentiments
• AJ Otto
• Beth Silaika
• Carolyn King
• Carolina Buchting
• Cathy Tidwell
• Debbie Corbari
• Latisha Yoast
• Laurie Schmidlin
• Lee Murphy
• Melanie Muenchinger-you are here, thanks for visiting!
• Sean Fetterman
• Sharon Harnist
• Tami Mayberry
• Valerie Stangle

Inspiration Hop Day 1: All Occasion Tags 2, A Year of Flowers 2

Good Morning! The Design Team for Gina K. Designs welcomes you to another fabulous Inspiration Blog Hop! Gina and the Design Team will inspire you with many beautiful ideas for our newest sets, and as you hop through their blogs, make sure to leave a comment on each of them because we will choose a few random comments and those stampers will each win a grab bag of Gina K. Designs products! To see the winners, check the Big News forum at Stamp TV a few days after the hops.

Today we are sharing samples with my new A Year of Flowers 2 and Tami Mayberry's All Occasion Tags 2.   Here are some cards I shared at the party...

I added one of the Free with Three Petite Borders for interest and because that border went so well with the petals on these flowers.  (Yep, I hand wrote the "for you" stamp..wait for it, just... "for you"! :)

Since they are sets of primarily greetings in one and images in the other, I've been using them together on most every sample.  I made a new video showing how to create the tulip scene with some of the different elements in my set, using the same simple coloring technique as may previous video, fast and loose (hee!) but this time with the tulips and different leaves. I also wanted to show  stamping in a similar shade that you'll be coloring with when you want something more subtle, instead of stamping your images in black. I had so many of you mention how much love purple in my previous post, so here is a purple field of flowers! (plus another card with a different color palette I have not yet photographed...)

Here are the full sets so you can see all the stamps you get in each!

A Year of Flowers 2

So many techniques still to demonstrate!

 

All Occasions Tags 2

You will see this set popping up again and again with my flower sets and others for its versatility, beautiful sentiments, font and tags!   So many ways to use these, with dies, cut files... or just fussy cut (which I actually did on my samples today, have the dies, have the cut files...but just felt like cutting!

  Now please check out more designs and inspiration from our team for these new sets!
Remember to leave comments for more chances to win the prize from Gina!

• Gina K
• Melanie Muenchinger – Illustrator A Year of Flowers 2-you are here!
• Tami Mayberry - Illustrator All Occasion Tags 2
• AJ Otto
• Beth Silaika
• Carolyn King
• Carolina Buchting
• Cathy Tidwell
• Debbie Corbari
• Latisha Yoast
• Laurie Schmidlin
• Lee Murphy
• Michelle Woerner
• Sean Fetterman
• Sharon Harnist
• Theresa Momber
• Valerie Stangle

New Gina K. Products Now Available

What a fun release party last night! All the new stamps sets and products are now available for purchase in the Gina K Designs store! 

Don't forget to add that adorable free Birthday Hoot owl to your order!  :)

Here is the full reveal of my new A Year of Flowers 2 set, in clear photopolymer.

Inspiration hop for this set with the Gina K. Designs team on Monday!

 Which flower is your fave??

I also wanted to show you what the Silhouette cut files for this set look like:

A Year of Flowers 2 masks

These cut the exact size and shape of the images in the set.  Use them when you want NO border.

A Year of Flowers 2

This cuts all the image with a 1/8" border all the way around, see example below.  As you can see, they look more rounded and are larger. Cute, right?? (And easy peasy! Cut first, then stamped with Teal Zeal and colored with BG05 and B02) Use these when you want a border or 1/8" mat for the flowers from the masks file that cut on the edge (or your fussy cutting.)

If you bought the cut files for A Year of Flowers/Pressed Flowers already, they ARE very similar, but the shapes and outlines ARE different, so it will not be an exact match for this new set.  Just wanted to clarify in case you are wondering!

And here is a link to the A Year of Flowers book, still a few copies left!  I'm so looking forward to flipping through myself and choosing a design to recreate with the new images!

Hope you have a terrific weekend!  I look forward to hopping with you and all the new sets next week! Until then, be sure to check out the Pinterest gallery for the new sets.  Happy pinning!

Again, thank you all so much for the wonderful feedback on the video! Lots more to come!

Hugs!!

You're Invited! Gina K. Designs Illustrator Hop (and a video!)

Good morning!  Welcome to our Gina K. Designs illustrator hop today, sharing inspiration for all our new sets releasing tonight and making sure you put tonight's party down on your schedule! 

As always we'll have contests, chatting, prizes, and full reveals of the new stamps and projects made with them from our fabulous design team!  

Here is a quick card I made with my new A Year of Flowers 2 set.  In this set, you get all the same types of flowers, leaves and stems (plus a few more!)  that are so versatile for building designs for all the different holidays and seasons from the first A Year of Flowers set, but this time drawn in a more stylized, sketchy way. I think you will love being able to change up the look this way, or really enjoy it if more whimsical images are your preference (or your recipient's) over realistic ones.  They certainly lend themselves to the same techniques as the first set, as well as some others!

Also, if you are a fan of my previously released Pressed Flowers bold set, you'll be happy to know how well those images work two step stamping style paired with these new line art ones.  A sketched  image layered over a more realistic solid image is such an easy way to add color to your projects as well as being a fun, trendy look!  The sentiment here is from Tami's new All Occasion Tags 2, and with the script font and year round sentiments, it is just a perfect match for this year round floral set!  This card uses just two markers, one pad and 2 colors of cardstock, how's that for economical?

After tons of requests from my readers and our StampTV fans of how I do certain techniques since Gina started sharing videos on STV, I finally made a short video for you, of how I colored the card above. Go easy on me, it's my first!   A bit of trivia, this video is just over 5 minutes long but I had to check watching it: the flowers took me only 1 minute and 20 seconds to color! And that's with talking and pausing! Soooo fast and easy! Love it!

Let me warn you,  I didn't notice until afterwards that I called my Copics "Memento markers" (ack, so different!! but at least I listed the colors correctly), presumably since I'd just mentioned my Memento pad*, trying to be all like Gina, ya know,  listing "all the products and tools needed to complete the project", hee! So *please* don't email me that those are Copics in the video. Yes, I know, lol!  Hopefully you saw my notation at that point. My next video will be better!

Anyway, goofs aside, I  hope this conveys how ridiculously quick and simple it is to get beautiful results with your markers and the new images from A Year of Flowers 2! :)

  Supplies used:  Gina K Designs Pure Luxury Black Onyx and Sandy Beach cardstock, A Year of Flowers 2 and All Occasion Tags 2, Memento Tuxedo Black ink pad, Copics R05 and G99.

See you at the party tonight! 7-9 PM CST on StampTV

Now be sure to check out samples from our other illustrators today who are reviewing their new sets! Be sure to leave a comment on each blog for more chances to win a fun prize pack from Gina K:  a package of Birthday Hoot patterned paper (to match the free owl image with any purchase this month!) and coordinating cardstock pack!

 Happy hopping!

 Gina K.

Becky Oehlers

Beth Silaika

Debbie Corbari

Melanie Muenchinger- you are here!

Tami Mayberry

Theresa Momber

*Although I didn't even call it a Memento pad, the name from the lid just burned itself into my brain!

Blog Candy Winner, and some news!

 Good morning!  Time to announce of winner of the My Favorite Products giveaway!

 Denise Bryant said...

Ocean Mist is my top pick, and Dark Chocolate is my choice for a new Color Companion selection.
DeniseB

February 25, 2013 at 10:14 AM

Congrats, Denise! Please email me your snail mail info within 48 hours and I will send it to customer service to get your prize pack of color companion goodies and stamps in the mail to you!

Thank you for playing!

NOW!  I'm very excited to report:  I've started making videos for the blog! Yep, I'm super excited, and think you are really going to like seeing techniques or coloring certain images in action.  

First one is TOMORROW.  With my new set.  And more to come!

So what I'd like to know from all of you, many who own most of my stamp sets or have seen just about every card on my blog from the past:    

what would you like to see me demonstrate for future videos? 

Be specific.  Let me know if there are certain images you really need help with coloring 

 (or just want to see variations of), certain color palettes you want to see for certain images, a particular card you can't figure out from the photos I've shown etc.  

You can make these requests in today's comments section,

 or any day going forward that you think of something you'd like to see.

Thanks!