I try not to save every tiny little thing that comes in to the house for ‘just in case’, but I do save somethings. Sometimes I even use them! Can you pick it out in this card?

I suppose you’d only notice if you’ve bought Magnolia stamps, because the eggs on this card are cut from Magnolia’s packaging! I’ve been saving the little sheets, because I thought I wanted to use them to paper-piece a dress for Tilda. I still can, I have a few. I used the smallest sizes of my oval Nestabilities, and cut out the pink striped eggs. I also used some of the handwriting from the other side of the paper, and there are a few eggs with lacy borders.

I’m also proud because both papers came from my scrap pile – I can’t remember where I used the blue dot, and the green print is actually the back side of a Christmas paper!

The clouds and the little bubble around ‘Happy Easter’ are from a fabulous build-a-sheep set from Local King Rubber stamps. I wanted a cartoon-y Easter look, and I think I did very well at that. The card was inspired by the fact that Magnolia Down Under has an Easter challenge on right now, and the fact that my first craft fair is March 13th, and I have no Easter cards yet!

Today’s card was inspired by some old journaling tags that I bought  last year and haven’t yet used. Not sure why I bought them…. probably for use in my recipe scrapbook, but they’re much too small for recipes! I thought ‘Today is the day’ would make a great birthday card, for the Just Magnolia birthday challenge.

I also wanted to use this Magnolia stamp that I hadn’t inked up yet.

I love the sunflower and her little tiered dress. I had trouble getting all the cross-hatching on the bottom tier to stamp properly, but it fades out naturally I think. I think someday I’ll use this stamp, but cut the sunflower off and have her holding a balloon or something else, I think it’ll be very versatile!

I also had a go at making some paper flowers – I punched these circles from an old, falling-apart book I have. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, but it took a challenge from All That Scraps (book/newsprint) for me to do it!

I just used brads for the centers; I think it would be nice to use some of my vintage button stash, but I couldn’t be bothered to find needle and thread when I was making them, I just wanted to keep going! One flower is just rounds, the small one I fringed with my scissors, and the other one I folded then rounded the corners to give a petal shape. I rubbed a gold inkpad around the edges so they’d have a bit of shine too.

I don’t usually decorate the inside of the cards, but I stamped Happy Birthday inside this one with red ink. I used a brown Spica glitter pen for highlights in Tilda’s hair, a clear one on the lace at the bottom of her dress, and yellow Distress Stickles on the centre of the sunflower.

I love combining stamps from different companies almost as much as I like combining papers from different lines. I decided that this window stamp from Local King needed someone peeking through it. I don’t have any people stamps except Tilda, so there she is!

I stamped the window in brown ink on to a kraft paper envelope that was in my scrap bin, then coloured it with Copics. The bricks are R27 with a bit of W00 for shading.

I inked up just the top part of Tilda with Bike, and stamped her in brown on white Copic paper. I coloured her red to match the bricks, and those red pears in the background paper.

The sentiment (seconds minutes hours days weeks I Miss You) is from Penny Black. I stamped it in brown on to some twill ribbon. It’s easiest to read from a distance, I wish I had a fine brown multiliner to touch it up, but I only have black.

After spending Monday making a fancy cake, I thought I needed to make a card with Chef Tilda. This isn’t a stamp I own, I received some stamped images in a prize from The Stamp Shoppe, and this was one.

I’m entering it in another Stamp Shoppe challenge, which is to make a card in ‘Swedish Style’. Magnolias are Swedish stamps, and there is a particular look to the cards in Magnolia magazine, but it’s a little hard to imitate without quite knowing exactly what it is. I think the secret is layers, ribbon, and flowers, which I have, but I do feel my card is still much more simple. I liked the pink kitchen-pattern paper though, so I let a lot of it show.

The spoon and the tag were cut from some of my oldest supplies – it was a sheet of various vintagey things.

I gave Tilda a gingham dress by colouring like normal, then going back with the colourless blender and drawing a grid of lines.

I might have to purchase this stamp for myself – I love the whole line of kitchen/chef Magnolias.

I bought a couple new Magnolia stamps from The Stamp Shoppe, along with my new issue of Magnolia Ink magazine (I think I may do a post on that later…). This stamp is Tilda with Lilacs.

Magnolia Down Under is having a pink & grey Magnolia card challenge, so I coloured the lilacs pink, and put Tilda in a simple grey dress.

I also decided to use this wonderful marbled paper I’ve been hoarding. It was in a pack of handmade papers I bought a while ago. The lace is vintage, from a lady’s sewing stash I found on craigslist a couple years ago. There are tons of colours of seam binding, and a fair amount of this lace in a few colours.

I found out Copic will be doing certifications in Calgary this April, but I’m working. sigh. I think I’m going to try to remember to take notes or photos of the markers I use – if only for my reference!

I know there’s a lot of talk about colour blending groups with Copics, making sure you use them in sequence: ie YG63, YG65, and YG67 are all increasingly darker versions of the same colour. I love mixing outside those groups though! For instance, I used two colours for Tilda’s hair: Y26, and E35. And even though Y26 is technically darker (the second number, 6, is higher than 5) I put it down first, then did shadows with E35, then blended out with Y26. It’s all about experimenting. I even blended a bit of RV13 (pink) into the ribbons on the end of her braids, which I coloured with C1, a grey! I just love colour.

I also love sticky-back pearls that come in a line – I don’t have to worry about spacing them out myself!

Another pink card with a heart! It’s that time of year, I guess. Not sure what I’m going to do with all these cards I’m making – I don’t correspond with enough people to use them all up. I also have a pile of Christmas cards that never got used, because P never sent out cards to his family. oops!

I’m thinking maybe putting them up in my Etsy store – although I’m undecided as to whether I should just put them up with the stitch markers, or start a new store…

For a different look, I stamped Tilda with ‘London Fog’ grey ink, and coloured her with pale markers, same with the roses (also a Magnolia stamp).

I dove into my scrap bucket for most of the papers – you can see the flourishes from another stamp peeking out here. I kept the main part pale, but wanted to add a pop with the bright pink ribbon. That ribbon was a freebie in a recent stamp order. I have exciting plans for those stamps that I’ll reveal sometime soon I hope. All the pinks make this card eligible for Magnoli-licious’ Pretty In Pink prize.

I could have masked the rose stamp on to Tilda, but because I have this habit of colouring images first, and making cards later, they are two separate pieces. I stuck them both to the heart frame before sticking the whole thing down with foam tape.

Again, I traced cookie cutters for the heart shapes.

After the adventures of yesterday, I needed to make something simple. I decided on a Valentine with un-traditional colours. Magnolia Down Under want to see a Valentine this week, so I used Tilda and put her in a blue dress.

I wanted it to be rich, so I chose a deep purple-y blue for the background. The hearts I made by tracing around some cookie cutters onto the back side of paper, the cutting them out. Tilda’s little corsage is about the same pink as the pink heart. The black and white one is more of that paper I love.

I used Stickles glittler glue to give her some fancy diamond earrings, and you can’t really see it, but I put Glossy Accents on her shoes to make them shiny.

I rarely colour my images the same day I make my cards. Most evenings after work I’m too tired to do much more than colour and cut out. It’s great for quick gifts, because I can just pull an image out of the little bowl and throw a card or tag together.

I had St. Patrick’s day in mind when I coloured this Tilda, but decided that she’d make a nice birthday card. It’s also Birthday week at The Pink Elephant, so it works with that challenge!

I stamped the Kraft background with one of the many stamps from that giant lot (Frank B. Mullett – Salal Branch) and used Oatmeal VersaMagic ink.

I pleated some patterned paper from a fall/thanksgiving pack from Making Memories, because that’s the monthly challenge at Just Magnolia this month. The little circle is some handmade paper I bought at my LSS – the pattern is shiny and raised up. It’s too deep to just be embossing powder – it’s almost like Glossy Accents glue, painted silver.

I found the ribbon in a bin at Michaels – it’s my favourite colour, and one of the most useful sentiments, I think! I also distressed the pleats a little with Gingerbread Versamagic ink. I just love the texture this card has in person.

And if anyone is looking for a chance at a little freebie – check out the blog candy at Cats Whiskers.

This is another stamp from the 2009 Winter Magnolia club kit. I think this Tilda is great for any occasion!

The rusty-looking cardstock is from DCWV’s Old World 8×8 pack, and I have to say that I love every single paper in there. I almost want to buy another one. I’ll restrain myself though.

The hearts in the background are a gorgeous stamp from the Old Island Stamp Co. I love their stamps, and especially this one – it’s just perfect for that holiday coming up…. I went rustic with it here, but it could be very fancy done with different papers, maybe some embossing powder. I think I’m going to use it a lot.

I stamped ‘LOVE’ from a Local King stamp set on white paper, the glued it to a similar but more purple paper from the same pack. Then I covered it all in a generous splodge of Glossy Accents. Once it dried I cut the whole thing out and glued it on here.

I coloured Tilda’s dress & shoes with R24, R27, and RV17, and put Glossy Accents on her shoes too.