My Pot of Gold

Hi friends! I'm back with another coffee card using the new Irish Coffee digi from Verve. This one's pretty simple in layout, but I had a lot of fun with it.

I started by foiling the sentiment from Irish Coffee in gold. Then I cut coordinating mats in shiny gold and green pattened paper. Next I colored the kettle with Copics, adding some inkagold for accent and some dew drops and glitter on the clover.  This is cut with the coordinating die from the Kettle Time Die Set.

For the background, I started by spraying some Sandra Dee Sepia flat fabio spray on a palette, spritzing with water, then inking up the coffee rings stamp from Better with You a few times and stamping on whtie cardstock.  I let this dry, then went in again with the stamp and stamped a crisp image with ground espresso distress ink.  I finished with splatters using the leftover fabio spray.  Easy peasy and lots of fun!

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  Hope you have a fantastic rest of the day.

Enabler's List
Stamps: Irish Coffee DIGITAL Set, Better with You clear set (Verve)
Paper: Emerald (Authentique), white (Neenah), shiny gold (Recollections)
Ink: laser printer, copic markers, Sandra Dee flat fabio spray (Lindy's Stamp Gang), ground espresso distress ink (Ranger), Inkagold (Viva Decor)
Accessories: Kettle Time Die Set (A Cut Above by VERVE), circle dies, paper piercer, morning dew drops (Nuvo), glitter, gold foil, Minc machine (Heidi Swapp)

Java Joy

Hi friends! I'm popping in with a coffee card. I made this card a while ago after seeing a sketch on the Coffee Lovers Cardmakers blog.  With spring break and then sick kids home from school all but 1.5 days of the past 2 weeks, this is the first time I've had to blog it.

Anyhow, about the card... I found the perfect scraps from my pile for a clean and layered card and put the pieces together just so, then accidentally upended my Archival Black ink pad right on top of it. Whoooops! So then I had to bring on the grunge to try to cover it up.  The crafting session ended up with me accidentally upending that same black ink pad a total of FOUR more times!  I'm a slow learner, I guess.  (wink)

I loved the listen to your heart strip, and thought it paired perfectly with the java cup from Better With You. I paper pieced it, coloring it in with watercolor pencils to match the colors in my paper strips. For the side panel, I stapled two strips of patterned paper together with a tiny attacher and then accidentally dropped my black ink pad on it.  I stamped the coffee ring stamp along the side to cover up my booboo, but it felt too black and dark then, so I fingerpainted with gesso to try to soften the colors a bit. But once the gesso is out, no surface is safe from being grunged up in my book!  {grin}

I painted some gesso onto a scrap I cut from a coffee sleeve, then stamped the java joy sentiment and the coffee rings stamp to fill it up a bit. The back panel is crumb cake cardstock grunged up with walnut stain and vintage photo distress oxides with a bit of black and white prima oil pastels mixed in. To make each layer more distinct, I outlined them all with a black marks all stabilo pencil and then painted around them with a watercolor brush. A bit of distressing around the edges and my card was done.

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Enabler's List
Stamps: Better With You (Verve Stamps)
Paper: designer paper scraps (MME and BasicGrey), coffee sleeve, crumb cake
Ink:  walnut stain, vintage photo (Ranger Distress Oxide), oil pastels (Prima), black Archival (Ranger), watercolor pencils (Prima), gesso
Accessories: paper distresser, heart punch (SU!), tiny attacher (IdeaOlogy), black marks all pencil (Stabilo)

Love From Me

Hi friends! I'm back again with another card I made with the limited time free digi set from Verve. Since most of the digis I've designed have involved coffee, I decided to keep with tradition and include a couple coffee related images and sentiments.  After all, love and coffee are a perfect combination, don't ya think? {wink}

For my card, I started with the pdf printable of the Love From Me set, and cut the hearts, the love cup and the from me to you sentiment with a stitched circle die.  I colored with Copics and added some Nuvo crystal drops for a glitzy accent.  Next I die cut the Coffee Word Die from early espresso and grabbed a piece of crumb cake cardstock to make the background.  The coffee stain stamp is from the Better With You stamp set and I added just a hint of sponging around the edges.

I balanced out the darkness of the coffee word with a panel of espresso below, then tied on a striped bow and added some little dew drops in the corner that I found while ransacking my craft closet for collage supplies for the boys this weekend.  They had a blast making their little art pieces.  I always knew my craft supply collection would come in handy someday!  Definitely worth the 30 minutes of priceless silence this activity created.

If you use the digi, I'd love to see what you create.  Link me up over on this post on the Verve blog and you might win a little Verve, to boot!

Love From Me Digital Set

Enabler's List
Stamps: Love From Me digital set, Better With You stamp set (Verve Stamps)
Paper: crumb cake, early espresso (SU!), white (Neenah)
Ink: espresso (Altenew), laser printer, Copic markers
Accessories: Coffee Word Die (A Cut Above by VERVE), stitched circles STAX (MFT), ribbon (May Arts), dew drops (Pink Hedgehog), Nuvo Crystal Drops (Tonic)

Coffee Dreams and a Blog Hop

Hi friends!  It's the 5th of the month and that means it's hopping time with Divas!  And I'm the first stop on the hop, so come hop along as we share our creations with this month's challenge theme... Winged Whimsy. As always, there's a PRIZE for commenting along the hop and also for a lucky challenge participant!

I went pretty whimsical with my approach to the theme, pairing  Better With You and Wings of Love for a dreamy little concoction close to my heart.  It's no secret that I love coffee, and with twin tazmanian devils two year olds running around the house, this girl runs on a LOT of coffee.   I do quite a bit of dreaming up things for Verve  (things that may or may not ever fly, but the dream is there!) while sipping a cup of joe, so I thought adding some wings to my cup would be the perfect fit!

I started with the coffee cup from  Better With You stamped on cream cardstock, then stamped the two wings from Wings of Love, overlapping the cup just a bit.  I stamped another cup, hand cut around it, colored the java jacket and then inked up with antique linen distress ink and glued over the top.  The wings are colored with a colorless blender and then highlighted with BG10 copic, for the mix of brown and aqua.  I stamped the dream sentiment between the cup and the steam, then sponged some ink around the edges and matted with a scallop square from early espresso cardstock.

The soft sky layer is stamped tone on tone with the coffee stain stamp, then I added the rule the world sentiment in early espresso.  A bit more sponging, then I added some espresso grosgrain diagonally to give a little balance to the layout.  My finished card size is 4.25 x 5.5".

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  Next up on the hop is...  Amy!

	1. Julee	8. Sony
	2. Amy	9. Susan
	3. Anya	10. Stacey
	4. Betty	11. Maureen
	5. Karen	12. Marisa
	6. Sankari	13. Charmaine
	7. Sarah	14. Andrea

Be sure to check out the Verve Blog today for all the prize info and deadlines!

And last but not least, it's time for a new sale over in Verveland.  This month we've got some of my favorite summer products marked 20% off!

Enabler's List
Stamps: Better With You, Wings of Love (Verve Stamps)
Paper: soft sky, early espresso (SU!), cream (Neenah)
Ink: early espresso, softy sky, blender pen (SU!), antique linen (Ranger Distress), Copic marker
Accessories: espresso grosgrain ribbon (SU!), Scallop Squares Nestabilities (Spellbinders)

Better With Mojo

Hi friends! Happy Tuesday!  We had a super fun-filled weekend with the boys, including their first egg hunt. Lots of fun, plus Trevor deciding that his crib is now unfit for sleeping meant that there was no time to play along with the Mojo Monday sketch until last night.

I was really craving coffee, even though I started the card at 10:30 pm, so I decided to feed my craving with stamps and pull out Better With You.  I flipped the sketch to accommodate the stamps I wanted to use, then started with the coffee stain in crumb cake and the better with you sentiment over that in black.  Next I pulled out some chevron paper from the Snap Color Vibe pad to paper piece the large mug.  The paper was white and I'd already chosen cream for my base color, so I sponged the chevron paper with crumb cake to make it fit right in.  The banners are hand cut from the same paper and matted with early espresso.  I added some background random stamping with the coffee stain stamp on the crumb cake top layer and around the mug.  A Flourished Trim  die cut was my chosen border and I finished off with liquid pearl accents and a button.

This also fits the current Chevron Chic challenge going on at Verve.  Hope you can play along!

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope you have a wonderful week!

Enabler's List
Stamps: Better With You (Verve Stamp)
Paper: Snap Color Vibe (Simple Stories), crumb cake, early espresso (SU!)
Ink: crumb cake, early espresso (SU!), black
Accessories:  Flourished Trim Die (A Cut Above by VERVE), classic and pinking circles nestabilities (Spellbinders), button, scrapper's floss, liquid pearls

Sip and Savor

Hi friends!  Happy Tuesday!  I can't believe it's almost the end of February.  Time seems to be flying by.  I've been wanting to play along with Jen's Sketch For You to Try all month, and this was the first chance I got.  I decided to pull out Sip and Savor and Better with You for this card.  I was super freaked out when I found out that I was pregnant that I wouldn't be able to give up coffee.  But as luck would have it, coffee has tasted SO bad to me throughout the pregnancy that I haven't had more than a sip here and there, which promptly got spit out.  I still dream about it, though, so I'm hoping once the pregnancy is over I'll be able to enjoy a mocha now and then.

Anyhow, you're probably here more for the card than for my ramblings, so here's the scoop...  I started by stamping the little java mugs from Sip and Savor on white cardstock 3 times, then on brown paper bag cardstock three times.  I punched out the white ones, and cut the little java jacket sleeves from the paper bag ones, to piece over the white cups, adding a little shading with a Copic marker.  These circles are matted with black, then glued to a piece of brown paper bag cardstock that I ran through my paper crimper.

For the sentiment piece, I randomly stamped the coffee stain image from Better with You in Crumb Cake on a white circle, then stamped the Sip and Savor sentiment, matted on a black pinking circle and added some liquid pearl accents.  The real red layer is stamped repeatedly with the java background stamp from Better With You.  I added a burlap square, a bit of ribbon and some black star rhinestones for embellishment.

Enabler's List
Stamps: Sip and Savor, Better with You (Verve Stamps)
Paper: Real Red, Basic Black (SU!), brown paper bag (Paper Accents), white
Ink: Real Red, Crumb Cake (SU!), Black, Copic marker
Accessories:  Classic & Pinking Circles Nestabilities (Spellbinders), circle punches (SU!), burlap square, ribbon (May Arts), liquid pearls (Ranger), star rhinestones

Coffee Talk

Hi friends!  Happy Wednesday!  I'm back from vacation and have already hit the studio with a little color throwdown for my stint as Guest Designer over on the Color Throwdown blog!  I hope you'll play along with us this week!

Our hostess this week is the fabulously creative master of color herself, Carole Burrage.  And the color palette she's throwing down is a real mild one...

I just love this sentiment... life happens over coffee.  For many years, Mark and I have periodically gone out to a coffee shop just to talk and plan and dream.  I think it started early in our marriage when we were struggling financially just to make ends meet.  We'd always pick a place that had rich surroundings, filled with fine art and good coffee... a place that made us feel successful and then we'd talk and dream and plan about the future.  The things we wanted to do, what our dream house would be like, the places we wanted to travel, the places we wanted our careers to go.  I look back at all of those talks and I see so much goodness and hope that came out of our little coffee talks.  They're like little seeds we planted that are now starting to bear fruit.  During some of those first sessions I don't think I could have even dreamed up where we are today.  Life is far from perfect, but we are blessed beyond measure and I feel so lucky that we can continue to dream up new directions we'd like our paths to go.  Sort of reminds me of a quote I came across recently...

"Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you have now was once among the things you only hoped for." - Epicurus

The Making Of:
Since I hadn't stamped in a while, I just let the card take itself wherever it wanted to go while I played with whatever tickled my fancy.  The layout is a slight variation on Amy's Viva la Verve! September Week 2 sketch.  I just skewed the panels a bit, but all the major elements are there.  The mug from Better With You is paper pieced with coordinating designer papers and I popped up a heart die cut from the From the Heart die set.  The tags use the Tiny Sweet Scallop Tag dies and are stamped with the java text background.  For the sentiment circle, I lightly stamped the coffee stain stamp in Antique Linen in the background then, inked up the sentiment with two inks and stamped.

Okay, I've probably rambled on long enough for today.  Head on over to the Color Throwdown Blog where you can read up on the challenge details. Then be sure to check out the blogs of the CTD Design Team to see their colorful creations for this week:

Kristin Eberline

Broni Holcombe

Barbara Anders

Danielle Kennedy

Tammy Hershberger

Carole Burrage

Enabler's List:
Stamps:  Better With You (Verve Stamps)
Paper: Journey (Authentique), Lime Twist Fly a Kite (My Mind's Eye), Newsprint, Basic Black (SU!)
Ink: Jet Black & Vermillion Archival, Antique Linen Distress (Ranger)
Accessories:  Tiny Sweet Scallop Die Set, From the Heart Die Set (A Cut Above by VERVE), Classic Circles Nestabilities (Spellbinders), Mat stack & paper piercer, Cherry Cobbler seam binding (SU!), lace trim (Webster's Pages), licorice divine twine (TCP), flatback black pearls (Pizzazz Aplenty), Tiny Attacher (Tim Holtz), crystal effects, zip dry paper glue, dimensionals

Perk Up

Welcome to Day 4 of our Anni-VERVE-sary Spotlight Hop series! Hop along with the Divas all week long as we share our first looks at a few of the new products releasing from Verve on Friday night! One lucky commenter along the hop will win today's featured sets and dies.  So be sure and leave a little love as you hop around the Divasphere!  Check the Verve Blog for prize details and deadlines.

Our spotlight for today is shining on a new set called Better With You, and its companion set, Sip and Savor.  You'll also be seeing peeks of the From the Heart Die Set, which will be available exclusively as a free gift with a $35 minimum order through August 31, while supplies last.  {This promotion starts AFTER the sets go live on Friday night, August 12.}

Okay, on to the peeks!!! It will come as no surprise to many of you that I love coffee... and tea.  The aroma, the warmth, and all the pretty designer mugs just make me happy!  So I thought it was about time for some more coffee/tea themed sets!

For my card, I knew I wanted to play along with Jackie's Tag You're It! Get Your Diva On challenge.  So I pulled out the Sweet Scallop Tag stamp and coordinating die to make a tag using the new Better With You set.  I thought this perk up sentiment would be perfect for a little pick me up and decided to make a card and gift in one by adding a little Maya Road library pocket to house a gift card.  The background is stamped in crumb cake randomly with the coffee rings stamp from this set, then I stamped the coffee mug, the skinny oval for the coffee inside the mug, and a decorative flourish, then colored with copic markers and trimmed out with scissors and a hobby blade.  Here's a little detail of the stamping...

The java background stamp is stamped repeatedly on the library pocket, then I inked up the pocket and ran it through the paper crimper to give it the look of a java jacket.  Next, I added some wide striped ribbon, a bit of linen thread, a button and some rhinestones as accents.  I finished off by tucking a gift card to a local coffee shop in the pocket.  Here it is when everything was said and done...

There's still time to play along in our Get Your Diva On Challenge!  The challenge is to incorporate a tag on your card or project OR make a set of tags  The winner of the challenge gets to be a Guest Diva for a future release.  It could be you posting sneak peeks next time around, so be sure to play along! Check out all the details on the challenge thread in our forum.


Thanks so much for stopping by today!  Be sure to check out what the rest of the Divas have to share today and leave a little comment love as you hop about for a chance to win!  Next up on the hop is ... Charmaine!

1. Julee 7. Sarah {Guest} 2. Charmaine 8. Marisa {Guest} 3. Tosha 9. Laurie 4. Andrea 10. Maureen 5. Sankari 11. Amy 6. Teresa

Enabler's Lists:
Stamps: Better With You, Sweet Scallop Tag (stamp) (Verve)
Paper: Basics Manila (BasicGrey), Black, Cream
Ink: Jet Black Archival, Pumice Stone Distress (Ranger), Soft Suede, Crumb Cake (SU!), White Dye Ink (Memories)
Accessories: Sweet Scallop Tag Die (A Cut Above by VERVE), Library Pocket (Maya Road), striped ribbon (SU!), linen thread (TCP), button, rhinestones (Pizzazz Aplenty), paper crimper (Fiskars), gift card