We Make a Great Combo!

Good news was recently shared in my family- my brother-in-law got engaged! To be honest, he's been with his girlfriend for so long, I cannot remember what life was like before her. It'll be nice to make it official though!

I wanted to make them a congratulatory card and I knew the exact stamp set to use. Years ago, I bought this set from My Favorite Things (RIP to a real one) entitled We Make A Great Combo and it's all different kinds of food that go together. I thought the burger and fries was beyond adorable and before I had put everything back into storage, I had started to stamp and color but never made anything with it. Until now!

I used the stitched heart die from Waffle Flower and colored it with Fired Brick, Scattered Straw and Squeezed Lemonade distress ink. Using copics on the stamps, I also used a white Posca marker that my husband gave me a long time ago for accents. The next part literally took me two hours. I had different letter dies that I cut out to spell combo and I tried embossing the first half of the sentiment on black paper, but I haven't embossed in years and I forgot just how tricky it could be! I kept messing it up and then the letter dies were too big so I just went for a simple sentiment. (finally got the hang of embossing again!)

Excited for a fun wedding! I know my son is looking forward to ring-bearer duties. =)

It's all coming back to me now

I finally got to a place where crafting was possible again. While my craft room now also doubles as my office and my son's playroom (Legos everywhere is super fun!) it's still a space I've been carving out for myself. When my friend Rachel's birthday was coming up, I knew I wanted my first card in over three years to be for her.

It took me a LONG time to figure this out. At one point, I had all of my birthday stamps laid out on my table and it was just overwhelming. So I picked something simple and looking at the card now, I'm kind of disappointed and how simple it actually turned out, but baby steps.

I used a balloon die from Waffle Flower partnered with the corresponding stencils which helped me use my distress inks to shade them red and yellow. Rachel shares my love for Disney so I grabbed another Mickey stencil I had and used it only for the larger balloons. I was going to add a border but then it looked too cluttered and then I tried balloon strings, but it also looked messy so I left it as it was. To end it, I added a small sentiment on the bottom. 

Not my best work, but I was dipping my toe in. It certainly opened the floodgates because I've been creating other things since then (oh the fun of discovering Copic markers that have dried up!) 

I'm tackling Christmas cards next.... in October.