CardMaker Magazine Blog Hop featuring JessicaLynnOriginal Stamps

| marialrussell

I am just so excited for today’s blog hop as we are collaborating with CardMaker Magazine plus we can use whatever favorite stamps we like from JLO Stamps!  There will be a FREE DIGITAL STAMP for all – anyone can visit www.jessicalynnoriginal.com and download that digital stamp.

PRIZES, PRIZES!  To be eligible to win a $50 Gift Card good for ANYTHING at Jessica Lynn Original’s website, we ask that you please leave a comment on each blog. Jessica will pick one winner.

Are you ready to see the cards?  The first one that you see here is a Halloween-themed card. This stamp is called Ghost of Christmas Past. I must admit that I overly-embellished this card. A common occurrence when I have my creativity mojo going. Sometimes I get really carried away. This card must have taken me 4 hours to make. It was a lot of work, but totally worth it. My husband keeps commenting that my cards are so detailed and embellished that they will be too expensive to sell. I don’t really sell my cards. I mostly give it to friends. I love that when they get my cards, they like it so much that they put it in a frame and display it at their home offices! That is a huge compliment for me! I feel that if I don’t take my time or put a lot of effort into making my cards, what’s the point of even making one?

With the exception of the pumpkins, everything has been handmade/die cut by yours truly!

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The second card is one of my favorites. It’s so simple but adorable at the same time. I used two stamp sets for this card. The owl is one of my favorites from JLO Stamps. She is called “Ruby With a Martini” and the cute bat is from “Ghost of Christmas Past”. Halloween is my favorite holiday and I make a lot of Halloween cards and scrapbook layouts.

Created by Maria Russell For www.jessicalynnoriginal.com
Created by Maria Russell
For http://www.jessicalynnoriginal.com

The third card is a Valentine-themed card. I love the simplicity of this one. I love Jessica’s sentiments on this stamp set as well. I think she has the most amazing handwriting I’ve ever seen.

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Last but not the least, is a birthday card!  Today is MY birthday so of course I have to make a birthday card somehow.  I combined two digital stamps on this card, and used some of my confetti stamps to create the confetti background.  I also used my magnolia doohickey balloon dies to cut out the cute little balloons that you see below.  I wanted this card to be happy, girly and adorable.

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Created by: Maria Russell For: http://www.jessicalynnoriginal.com

Which one is your favorite? Mine is still the Halloween Witch card just because she looks so stylish and I love Halloween! We are all little witches in our own sort of way, aren’t we?!

If you got lost along the way, this is the order of the hop:

CardMaker: http://www.cardmakermagazine.com/blog/

Vickie Yeakley: http://stuffbyvickie.blogspot.com/…/jessicalynnoriginalcom-…
Mendi Yoshikawa: http://www.snippets-of-mendi.blogspot.com/
Sharon Rogers: http://sharonshowcase.blogspot.com/…/jessicalynnoriginal-ca…
Stacy Morgan: http://twinshappy.blogspot.com/
Amanda Pollock: http://wombatleu.blogspot.com/2015/…/cardmaker-magazine.html
Maria L. Russell: https://mariarusselldesigns.wordpress.com/
Jeanette Cloyd: http://creativeplayischeaperthantherapy.blogspot.com/…/its-…
Jennie Harper: http://stampawaytheday.blogspot.com/
Jennifer Greco: http://glitterinmyhair.blogspot.com/…/cardmaker-magazine-bl…
Gini Williams Cagle: http://ginicagle.blogspot.com/
Chrissy Hsu: http://bubblegumpaper.blogspot.com/
Chitra Nair: http://www.craftingchitra.blogspot.com/
Jessica Lynn Mould: http://jessicalynnoriginalstamps.blogspot.com/…/CardMakingM…

Please don’t forget to leave a comment on each blog for a chance to win a $50 gift card.  Good luck and I hope you all have an amazing day!

Digi Weekend Celebration at JLO Stamps

| marialrussell

Are you aware of how amazing digi stamps are? This is the weekend for you to find out. Digis are quick, resizable and take up no space in your craft room. You can print as many images as you want to add to your handmade cards, scrapbooks, project life, pocket letters, etc.

For this weekend only, all digital stamps at JessicaLynnOriginal.com are on sale for $1.00. If you have wanted to try digis, this is the perfect time to do it. Please follow along the hop to see some of the amazing work our design team has put together to show you how versatile these stamps truly are.

If you’ve come from Jeanette’s Blog, you’re in the right place!

The first two cards you see are made for a new baby boy and a baby girl.  I have used the baby giraffe digi stamp to create these two simple cards.

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The second card is one of my favorite digi stamps from JLO. It’s Brentwood as Mad Hatter. Of course I had to create an Alice In Wonderland themed card. I spent quite a few hours die-cutting the pieces to create a cute scene for this card. I know this is a bit much for some but I love spending a lot of time making my cards. To me, they’re little pieces of artwork!

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Last but not the least, is my favorite out of all the cards I made today! It’s a Halloween-themed card and yes, it’s a fun shaker card. I used Brentwood Owl and dressed him/her as a warlock/witch. I dry-embossed the “moon” and included die-cut bats, orange sequins and seed beads for my shaker element. I love making shaker cards. Do you like this one too?

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Please don’t forget to go http://www.jessicalynnoriginal.com to download your digis for $1.00 each – this weekend only!!  Here’s the link: http://www.jessicalynnoriginal.com/digital-stamps-download-now/

The next person is Sharon Rogers.  She is an amazing carmaker/designer from Australia.  Please check out her amazing designs: http://sharonshowcase.blogspot.com

Have a great weekend, and happy crafting!

Happy Haunting ~ Lawnscaping Challenge No. 112 ~ Embossing

| marialrussell

Good morning crafters!  I wanted to start my Halloween cards early this year so when I checked my emails and received a notification for another Lawnscaping Challenge, I just couldn’t resist.

For my card today, I am using the Lawn Fawn Spooktacular stamp set, Sweater Weather stampset and their coordinating dies, Grass Border and Stitched Rectangle dies. These stamp sets and dies are so much fun and so versatile; you can mix and match them for any occasion.

Happy Haunting
Happy Haunting

I first stamped all the images that I needed for the card on white card stock and colored them using my copic markers. Then I cut my card base, and black card stock as well as the vellum using the stitched rectangle die. I didn’t really have any design in mind at this point. I knew I wanted a round moon, so I cut it using my circle die, and dry-embossed it with my dots embossing folder. I then sponged the edges of my moon using my yellow inkpad to add a little bit of color. I proceeded to die-cut the trees with black card stock using the sweater weather dies, then went ahead to die-cut the rest of the stamped images and the grass border. I also used my bridge dies to create a cute little scene for my cat. Now that I had everything laid out in front of me, I started to create my card. The last thing that I did was to stamp the sentiment “happy haunting” using my white embossing powder on some dark purple card stock, then I adhered it to the front of my card. Oh, of course I had to use my wink of stella to give the moon some glittery effect, as well as the pumpkins, the witch’s hat and the leaves.

What do you guys think? I hope you like my card today.  Happy Crafting and Happy Haunting!

Lawn Fawn Life is Good Box Card ~ Process Video

| marialrussell
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Created by Maria Russell ~ http://www.youtube.com/rprmlr772
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Created by Maria Russell ~ http://www.youtube.com/rprmlr772

You’re My Honey

| marialrussell

One of the reasons why I love jet lag is the fact that when I am wide-awake at 3:00 a.m., I can make some really strong coffee, go to my craft room and work on my cards in peace. Everything is just so peaceful at dawn. It really helps my creativity. The only downside is I am already fading by 4:00 p.m.

The card below turned out to be so stinkin’ cute! To be honest, I didn’t picture this card to look like it does now because I changed my mind quite a few times while I was creating it.  I wanted to fuzzy-cut the image but I was worried about the Antennae.  I decided in the end to cut it out and replaced it with a die-cut piece using a butterfly die. I almost gave up at one point, but decided to keep going until I was happy with the results.

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Materials used:

Honey Bee Stamp Set from www.jessicalynnoriginal.com

Gray card stock – cut at 8 ½ by 5 ½ scored at 4/14

Pink Card stock – cut at 5 ¼ by 4, also used some to diecut the flowers

Beige Card Stock (for the Deco Label in the front of the card)

Green Card Stock – to diecut the grass die

Honeycomb Die

Deco Labels Die

Spellbinders Banner Die

Magnolia Doohickey Grass and flower die and butterfly die from Le Jardin Collection Vol. 4

Copic Markers – W0, W1, W3, W7

Copic Markers – E77

Copic Marker – B00

Copic Marker – R11, toned down with Copic Blending Ink 00

Memento Tuxedo Black Ink Pad

Glossy Accents

Scotch Foam Adhesive

Ranger Multi-medium matte adhesive

I hope you like this card.  Please note that Jessica was kind enough to offer a 10% discount for all of my YouTube subscribers, Instagram followers and Blog followers. If you are interested to purchase her amazing stamps, please go to http://www.jessicalynnoriginal.com and use code: save10.  This code is valid until September 1, 2015.

Sanura Egyptian Cat Princess Stamp by Jasmine Becket-Griffith/Jessica Lynn Original Stamps

| marialrussell

It is launch day and I have made a few cards featuring the newly-released stamp set by Jasmine Becket-Griffith/Jessica Lynn Original called Sanura Egyptian Cat Princess. Whew! That’s a mouthful!

Let me just say, I am in-love with this stamp set. Simply because I’ve always been interested about Egypt and its past since I was a little girl. I remember watching the movie Cleopatra when I was a child and I thought that if I were given the chance, I would visit Egypt and see the Pyramids.   Fast-forward to 2002, my family and I traveled to Cairo and Luxor. We rode the camels and saw the Pyramids, went to the museum and got to see the mummies, shopped at the Khan Al-Khalili Grand Bazaar and got some great Papyrus artwork and experienced Cairo’s traffic and crazy night-driving. We then traveled to Luxor and visited the Valley of the Kings. What a great experience! We had such a great time that we decided to go back in 2006, and headed to Sharm El-Sheikh. I can write a book about my travel experiences but this post is not about that; it’s about the beautiful Sanura Egyptian Cat Princess Stamp Set.

This is an amazing set to add to your collection if you love beautiful stamps. This set will be perfect to use for your cards, as well as scrapbook layouts. Please visit www.jessicalynnoriginal.com to check it out.

Here are the cards:

Processed with Moldiv
Created by: Maria Russell for http://www.jessicalynnoriginal.com
Processed with Moldiv
Created by: Maria Russell for http://www.jessicalynnoriginal.com
Processed with Moldiv
Created by: Maria Russell for http://www.jessicalynnoriginal.com
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Created by: Maria Russell for http://www.jessicalynnoriginal.com

Halloween in July ~ Halloween Diorama Using Empty Candle Jar

| marialrussell

I wanted to make a cute project for my Halloween in July challenge and decided to use an empty candle jar to create a diorama.  I used my Magnolia Doohickey big house and small house dies, Lawn Fawn Happy Haunting stamp set and its coordinating dies with Lawn Fawn Sweater Weather dies. It turned out so cute.