Happy New Year - a look back at 2018

Sending You Comfort

Its almost time to ring in a new year! Hard to believe that 2019 is here already! 

I thought it would be fun to look back on a few of my favorite projects for the year. Underneath each photo, I will share a link to the original post. So if you want to learn more, or are interested in the products used, you can find it quickly and easily.

This first card may possibly be my favorite of the year. Reason being is, I envisioned this card quite a long time ago. Then, I was able to bring it to life, not only by creating it, but also using products that I designed! Once again releasing products with Papertrey Ink has been quite surreal! Its a huge learning curve each and every time. I am grateful for the challenge. But most of all, I am beyond thrilled when I see someone else using my products. Its indescribable really. Thank you for wanting to use the products that start as a crazy idea in my head. It truly is sharing a piece of yourself with the world when you design products. Thank you for encouraging me with your purchases!

Thank you - Color Block Stencils

More craziness from inside my head. When I designed Color Block Stencils, I wanted the creation of a trendy, yet timeless, color blocked background to be simple. These stencils allow you to ink unique backgrounds easily, as they line up with the outside of a standard A2 card.

You Are The Best - Bold Basics

Bold Basics was a stamp set that I also designed to work with Color Block Stencils. How elegant is this card when paired with florals?! The color combinations are endless. From girly to a card for the guys, I am very proud of the stencils!

Love Word Die

This Love Word die is another one of my designs, but this carries an even larger piece of me as that is my very own handlettering! I was writing the word for a lettering challenge and Jennifer McGuire saw it and said she NEEDED it as a die! After I picked myself up off the floor, of COURSE I made it into a die! :D 

While this word die was released for the wedding season, with Valentine's Day approaching, I will be taking it out again!! For a video tutorial on this die and all the creative ways you can use it click here: 10 Ways to Be Creative with Die Cut Words

7 Unique Ways to Use a Stencil for Card Making

This card is on the top of my favorites list for sure! Colored pencils combined with a beautiful stencil from Gina K Designs! Stencils are a personal favorite tool for me. So much so, that I created a video tutorial showing you: 

7 Unique Ways to Use a Stencil for Card Making

Hello Friend

This card started my obsession with a fall color palette. It was inspired by a floral arrangement I saw at Michael's. Fresh and trendy, I continued to be head-over-heels for it for months! The gorgeous image from Gina K Designs didn't hurt things either. Also, pop over to the blog post and check out how an accident made a lovely accent on this card! 

Hello Friend

My favorite fall color palette paired up with a Die Kit of the Month from Spellbinders on this card. Along with sneaking in my own Color Block Stencils. I still love gold...

You're All Write

More Spellbinders fun, along with Pebbles. Pebbles has this sweet aesthetic that always calls to me. I guess you could say it is my happy place for supplies! 

Palm Beach Layout

I had to share a layout for this year. I still love taking photos. So much. But, I often forget to share them. This layout was of a trip my husband and I took in February. My husband was a finalist for Engineer of the Year at his company. It was an impressive feat as there are over 6,000 engineers in his company! We were taken on an all-expenses paid trip to Palm Beach, Florida. However, our first trip alone in over 8 years was quickly ruined as we both came down with Influenza A. We spent the time in bed with Tylenol, in a stunning hotel, on the ocean. Glad I was able to capture a few lovely shots of the scenery before it all hit!

At least we were together...

Mail It Monday 

Mail It Monday moved itself over to Instagram and the community has grown immensely! There are over 1400 card-mailers joining in each week! Encouraging one another to mail cards. We share card drives for those needing extra love. Friendships have been formed. Small groups of card exchanges have begun. Its been so wonderful to watch how it grows. We would love for you to join in as well! Find Mail It Monday on Instagram. And if you want to become involved, simply post with the hashtag #mailitmonday. Your post will remind people to send love, send cards.

Pockets Full of Thanks

Once again, I want to end this year full of thanks and gratitude. Thank you for continuing to visit me here and on Instagram and on YouTube. Thank you for the comments, emails, and messages. I love them all---from kind comments to questions! Thank you for purchasing items through my affiliate links.When you click, you sent a small amount of money back my way. Those purchases help pay for swim lessons, tuba lessons, bass guitar lessons, and more. Being able to help my family in this way means so very much to me! I would hug you, if I could! Thank you for continuing to love the paper crafting industry. For supporting all the small businesses run by moms like me. Thank you for buying my stamps and dies as well! Thank you friends, thank you from the very bottom of my heart. Hey, from the very tips of my toes!

Happiest of New Years to you and yours! May 2019 be full of more happiness than sadness, more love than loss, and more wonderful moments of life!

Sincerely Yours,

All supplies are linked in the original posts. Thank you!

Sincerely Yours - Sending You Comfort - simple elegance

Yep, more cards. I know its shocking. But like I said yesterday, I am truly enjoying the card-making process with the images in Sending You Comfort! One more day and the entire release from Papertrey Ink will be available. The whole release is a home run. No, its a grand slam! Truly beautiful designs and I am so humbled to be a tiny part of it!

I promised I would not use my favorite color palette again today, so I didn't. Sort of. Today I only used the purple color. Because it is just.so.pretty!

Because I knew I wanted to heat emboss the lined leaf branch image from Sending You Comfort, I had an unusual order of how I created this card. Not my normal.

I began by heat embossing the lined leaf image and sentiment with gold powder on my cardstock. Once an image is embossed, the shiny and raised area does a ton of resisting of other inks, allowing me to create the background look I wanted.

I then inked the entire background with purple ink. Distress Oxide inks take forever to dry. Which is an awesome feature, but not if you are looking to heat emboss. Inking a background like this can take many hours to dry. I didn't have that kind of time in my day. Had I attempted to heat emboss the leaf branch after inking, it would have been a mess. The embossing powder would have stuck to the whole background. Even if I passed a heat gun over it. So, knowing the embossing powder would resist, that is why I chose that order.

I rubbed the ink away from the embossed areas with a dry paper towel. (any water would have altered the inked background)

Finally, the background still needed something. It was too plain. Too flat-looking. So I stamped the solid leaf image in the same purple ink. Once again, I could stamp over the embossed areas and wipe the excess ink away. Mixing the lined and solid image leaf is such a great look! I want to try it with more colors of ink. Maybe on kraft cardstock...My next post will be to tell you its time to shop. I will be at an outdoor concert that night, so my lists will get updated as soon as I get home. :D

Sincerely Yours,

Supplies.

Lists will be updated when the products are available on September 15.

Affiliate links used.

Sincerely Yours - Sending You Comfort - fall color palette

More cards today with Sending You Comfort. Its a pretty happy day when you continue to play with a stamp set and have more and more ideas for creating! I know you will love this set because while I am featuring it with sympathy sentiments, these leaf branches will have a place in your card-making year 'round! Once again, thank you for all the sweet comments and support! So much time and effort goes into putting together a stamp set, so when you share your own excitement, the thrill goes to the bottom of my toes!

Sending You Comfort and Sending You Comfort die will be available on September 15 at 9 PM central time via the Papertrey Ink website. When those products go live, I will start to update links here on my blog. I will also schedule a post to remind you to shop. This whole release is pretty amazing! For more about the entire release visit Papertrey Ink's blog.

This is the fall color palette that I cannot get enough of! Soft, trendy yet somehow classic. Once you find a palette that works, stick with it! It makes creating so much easier. Instead of tracking down colors, you only have to start creating. This frees me up and forces me to get creative with what I am designing. And its pretty. :D

On a piece of watercolor paper, I inked Distress Oxide inks. They blend so beautifully, which I have mentioned about a bajillion times. Then I took the Sending You Comfort leaf image, spritzed it with water and stamped. Using the water makes the ink react, causing a lifting effect. I finished off the background with some random splats of water. Yes, I did it. It was scary. Very scary. :D

To allow the background to shine through, I stamped and heat embossed this sentiment from Sending You Comfort with gold powder. I attached the panel with very thin Scor Tape at the top of the vellum. But I needed to hide that adhesive. So I wrapped gold thread around the top and eee! Happy accidents are always the best!

For this second card, I stuck with the same color palette. To make the background, I used my Color Block Stencils. This set of stencils allows you to make some great backgrounds and with this fall palette, its no exception. 

Along the edges, where the two inks met, I added a line of Scor Tape and topped it with gold gilding flakes. So classy. Once again, I stepped out of my comfort zone and added some water splats. Definitely getting braver...

I did stamp the small dotted images around the sentiment from Sending You Comfort.

Sending You Comfort die is the leaf image. Having the option to cut the image out and stamp also is something that makes me happy when making cards. I stamped and heat embossed the image on vellum, then die cut it. The die is partially open, making it easy to line it up for even edges all the way around.

Thanks to those of you who have started following me on Instagram! Be sure and say hi and see what happens during my day-because I would love to "hang out!" @kimberlystamps

Sincerely Yours,

Supplies:

List will be updated when products are available on September 15.

Affiliate links used.

Sincerely Yours - Sending You Comfort - metallics on dark cardstock

Welcome back for another look at more projects with my latest from Papertrey Ink! Thank you all so much for all your sweet comments on the Papertrey Ink blog! Reading your positive words and excitement about Sending You Comfort, means the world! I am also happy to know that what I am needing for my own card-making is exactly what you are searching for as well! I could just hug you all!

Once again on this card, I used the lined leaf image. Its my favorite. :D I embossed the image with gold powder. This can be a little tricky on dark cardstock. The key is using an embossing pouch of some kind before stamping. By applying a powder-filled pouch to the surface of your cardstock, it helps eliminate stray embossing powder from places you do not want it. They are reasonably priced and never go bad. You can't say that for very many supplies! Links to one are down below at the bottom of my post.

All the images were stamped before I applied the embossing powder as well. When you use a watermark or embossing ink pad, the medium stays wet for quite some time, allowing you the chance to work. And on dark cardstock like this, you can easily see where you have stamped previously.

Along with the sentiment and leaves from Sending You Comfort, I mixed in my stamp set released in the summer, Bold Basics. This diamond image from Bold Basics works with just about any image from any set! It is clean, modern, classy, and highlights your words beautifully.

Oh, look, more of the leaf image. I told you, I can't get enough of it! :D This time I stamped it and covered it with Perfect Pearls. The shimmer on the dark cardstock is elegant. 

On this card, you can also see the sentiment with "our" in it. So many of you requested having sentiments with "we" and "our" to add to your collection. I am thrilled reading your comments about how you love that feature! 

The leaves were stamped with Perfect Medium (it grabs the Perfect Pearls so much better than any other ink, in my experience) on a panel of cardstock. That way, if I did mess it up, I didn't ruin the entire card. Anyone else have those fears?

A thin strip of copper cardstock was added along the edge to bring out the shine.

Its tough to photograph the shine well, especially with waning sunlight...so, I am planning on sharing this card with a video on Instagram, in my stories. Pop on over and visit me! @kimberlystamps.

Sincerely Yours,

Supplies for Sending You Love
List will be updated when products are available on September 15.
Affiliate links used.



Supplies for Our Hearts
List will be updated when products are available September 15.
Affiliate links used.

Sincerely Yours Introduces: Sending You Comfort

The September release countdown at Papertrey Ink has begun! Today my latest products are being showcased and I am so happy to be able to share with you! Visit the Papertrey Ink blog for links to what the rest of the team has done with Sending You Comfort and Sending You Comfort die.

When I design a stamp set, I always start with, what do I need or want for my own card-making? One thing lacking in my stamp collection was fall images. The other was sympathy sentiments. I also love simple, clean, and elegant images. All of those ideas collided with Sending You Comfort.

Sending a sympathy card is something that we all have to do at times. This set will allow you to create heartfelt cards with ease.

The main images in Sending You Comfort are the two leaf branches. One image is detailed, the other is solid. This allows you to layer the images together, or to use them as I did here in creating this fall-colored background.

The set also includes several other leaf images, along with two sets of ink splats. Ink splats are gorgeous on projects, but making them traditionally makes me nervous. I love these small images. They will be used on many of my projects.

The rest of the set includes sympathy sentiments. The best feature of this set is something that you all requested---sentiments with "we" and "our." Many of you have lamented that sets only include one person in its wording. With Sending You Comfort, you will have both to choose from.

To see more of this set, be sure and visit the Papertrey Ink blog, and also my Instagram account @kimberlystamps. I will be sharing a closer look at the set and the die template there today. Stay tuned here as well for more projects to come this week.

Sincerely Yours,

Supplies used. This list will be updated as soon as products are available in the Papertrey Ink store.

Affiliate links used.