Hi!!  Ok this is my last shaker for now :)  I just finished it up and couldn't wait to share it because I just love it!!

I had this awesome idea to try and use my Distress Paints to make a starry, galaxy type background.  So I tested it out, and while it worked on my first trial, when I went to actually make the background, all the embossed stars were covered up....I had to do some brainstorming but found a way to fix all that!

I pulled out my colorless blender to see if I could "color" off the paint from the embossing...and it worked!  But I didn't want to ruin my colorless blender...so I tried a few different ways and in the end the best thing that worked was dipping a paper towel into some rubbing alcohol and wiping it across the stars.  It cleaned all the paint off the embossed stars and sort of smoothed out the whole background, without ruining or changing it at all!  Loved it!!

I really wanted to keep the whole card black and white and only have the pop of color be in the sequins.  I think it worked out perfectly, and just adore this card so much!!!

Thanks for stopping by!  Entering this into the Pretty Pink Posh Sequin Shaker Blog Hop :)

Happy Monday!
I hope it's as gorgeous outside by you as it is here in Montreal!  After a rainy weekend, it's nice to wake up to the sun!

We have a new challenge starting today at Paper Makeup and the theme is:  For a Special Lady.
I have been frantically working on Mother's Day cards...mostly for my Etsy shop, but they have sort of taken over my work desk these last few weeks.  So this theme worked out well for what I had sitting around.

As I mentioned briefly in yesterdays post, I have been slightly addicted to shaker cards lately.  And I just love this Dandy Wishes set from Paper Makeup, so I decided to try something a little different with this card.  I did sort of a no-lines coloring with the image and colored the flowers in with my ShinHan markers.  And then made 3 little shaker frames for the flowers to peak out through.  Those shakers are filled with tiny beads instead of sequins.  I thought the tiny beads gave it a softer feel than what the sequins would have...and since the frames are so small, the sequins wouldn't have fit very well :)

I used a new stamp set form Winnie & Walter that I won from the online card class I took last month.  I have been obsessed with this stamp set since it's perfect for just about everything!  To help even out all the dimension, I wrapped some twine around the card and added a button to sort of pull that dimension through the rest of the card.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    2 Cute Ink #105-Mother's Day
    Catered Crop-Buttons
    Crafting with Dragonflies #24-Mother's Day/Special Lady
    Delightful Challenges-Love You, Mom!
    Ruby's Rainbow #77-Ladies
    Stampin for the Weekend-Buttons and Bows
    Try Stampin on Tuesday #164

I hope you will join us this week for this fun challenge!!

I also want to share one more shaker card (I may have another one today...just have to wait and see :) ).  It's not related to Paper Makeup, but thought it would be fun to include in this post anyhow.

Instead of the usual dimensional window for the shaker, I made it into a pocket.  It sort of worked, though while sewing the pocket together, the clear covering shifted a little...but it still lined up alright in the end.  I cut out a few hearts to fill in the shaker as well just for something a little different to go with the sequins.  And then stamped and colored my cute teddy bear from Lili of the Valley.

I would like to enter this card into the Pretty Pink Posh Sequin Shaker Card Blog Hop as well :)

Thanks for stopping by!! <3

Hello!
Wanted to swing in real quick tonight and share a fun card I made today for our niece's birthday next weekend.

I have been in love with making shaker cards lately.  This is my third one in just as many days...and I have a lot more ideas in my head.  I wanted this card to be a little more fun than just a shaker card, so I made it a little more interactive, allowing the butterfly to spin around the center sentiment.

It's so cute...I just love it!

I'd like to enter this card into the Pretty Pink Posh Sequin Shaker Blog Hop!

Thanks for stopping by!! <3

Happy Tuesday!
It was so nice having Matthew home for a long weekend.  I love spending time with him, and getting extra days just makes me happy :)  Much to his disliking though, I made him do some spring cleaning with me :)  We got a lot of stuff pulled out and ready to be sold or donated.  It surprises me sometimes how much we end up getting rid of even though we've purged most of our stuff with all of our moves these last few years, and we really don't collect junk anymore. 

Anyhow, today we are starting a new challenge at Tuesday Throwdown, and the theme is Lots of Sparkle!  If you've followed my blog for any length of time, you will know that glitter is probably my number one embellishment.  I just can't resist adding it to my cards :)  So I sort of went a little wild with this card.

Our awesome sponsor this week is Sassy Studio, and they have provided each designer with an image.  I chose Katniss Girl of Fire Sassy.  Even though I'm not a big fan of the Hunger Games series, I love this image!  I decided to be a little adventurous with my coloring on it though.  I'm definitely no pro when it comes to coloring with my ShinHan markers...and getting them to blend correctly can sometimes be a challenge.  But I gave it a shot. 

I chose to go with a grey and pink combination for the dress so that it matched my stenciled background, which had been made for a different card but ended up not working out too well.  It's actually been spritzed with a shimmer mist as well so the whole card has a nice sparkle to it.

The ruffles were colored first in the greys so that I could get the shadows layered on correctly.  Once that was all laid down, I went back in with 2 shades of pink and flicked it onto just the ends of the ruffles.  Not really adding any shading since the grey was already doing that.  Finished off the rest of the image with the same colors for the dress.

To go overboard with the glitter, I added stickles to the body of her dress for some bold sparkle.  Then for just a bit of shimmer, I took my wink of stella glitter pen and added that to the ruffles, her shoulders, eyes and a little bit in her hair.  She definitely shines!

The rest of the card was kept simple with a sweet sentiment and a little bow.

Be sure to stop by Tuesday Throwdown to see the rest of the teams sparkly creations, and then join in the fun!!
Thanks for visiting! <3

Happy Monday!
We're starting a new challenge today at Paper Makeup and the theme is Water.
We also have a new member to introduce to our team!  Excited to have Billie with us now :)

This was a fun card to make.  I used one of the sailboats from the Sailing By set and layered it onto some Lawn Fawn papers.  I did some swipe stamping (a technique demonstrated by Jennifer McGuire) for the clouds and then cut them out and added a little glitter so they sparkled.

I added a sweet sentiment that I felt fit perfectly with this image.  Pretty simple card, but I love it.

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Monday!
It's nice to see that spring has arrived...for the next few hours.  Apparently we're supposed to get snow again tonight??  Seriously...I have been loving the super warm temps, the sun shining in my house with the nice cool breeze.  The smell of the world coming alive and the major sneeze attacks that come with it.  So really, it's okay if the snow just never shows up again :)

But it's time to start a new challenge at Paper Makeup and we want to see anything Easter!  I have a hard time making Easter cards.  It's like the one holiday I can never really form any ideas for...so I normally skip over it in the card department and move right on to something else.  But I tried this week :)

I thought this sentiment was so super funny, I just had to use it :)
It's part of the Easter Bunny collection from Paper Makeup, though I can't seem to find it in the store right now.  But it was perfect for a fun simple card this week.

Trying to stick with an Easter theme still, I chose some pastel colored papers and did a bunch of different length flags beneath the image.  I also scored some lines along the outside for a simple border.  But that was it...very simple and still makes me chuckle!

I hope you will join us this week!
Thanks for stopping by! <3

Happy wet and rainy Tuesday!

We're starting a new challenge at Tuesday Throwdown, and it seems appropriate for this current season...it's Weather Report!  We want to see you use the elements on your creation!

Our fabulous sponsor is Digital Delights, so I used one of their images I purchased awhile ago on my card.

He just looks so sad...I want to scoop him up in my arms!  I pulled out some of my Lawn Fawn papers and stamps as well to add the sun and clouds to the top of the card.  The little tag is from Lili of the Valley.

I hope you will join us this week!  Be sure to stop by to see the rest of the design teams fabulous creations!  <3

Happy Monday!
I hope everyone had a fabulous weekend!  Matthew asked me out on a date Saturday :)  He took me to see the new Captain America: Winter Soldier move (which rocked!) and then we dined at Houston, which was a really cool bar and grill with the best steak ever!  It was nice to get out and "date" my husband again :)

It's time to start a new challenge at Digi Makeover, and we're back to Anything Goes again as well as putting out our May Guest Designer call!!

If you haven't been able to tell yet...I'm really loving this whole watercolor thing.  It seems to be the first place my mind goes now days when planning a card.  So of course it had to happen on this card.  I saturated my paper and then used 2 shades of yellow to create the background.  Then covered the whole thing in some PearlEx to give it a great sparkle.

Once that was all dry, I printed my images right onto the background and trimmed down the sides to fit my card.  I decided to layer it onto some black card stock to give a nice defined border.  So simple and gorgeous :)  I love all the sparkle!!

Be sure to stop by Digi Makeover and join in the running to possibly be our next Guest Designer!!!
Thanks for visiting me :)  Be sure to follow on Facebook, Bloglovin, or via the Google Friend Connect over on the right!

TGIF!!!!
Chilly this morning...but I'll take it since this past week has been so incredibly gorgeous and it's only going to get better!  The snow is almost all gone, leaving behind giant puddles everywhere :)  It has been so nice to throw open the slider door each morning and just let the fresh air in!

We have just the perfect release for you today at Sami Stamps!  The new release is Spring Flowers and will just have you longing to get into your garden and pray for those beauties to start popping up!
I loved this release so much, that I requested 3 images to work with...I couldn't get enough of them!
(Warning...long post...maybe grab a snack before you start :) )

For my first card, I've used the image Spring Branch:

 I've been on a bit of a quest lately to branch out my supplies and skills and try new things.  There have been some victories...and some major fails...but I've stuck with the challenge.  While I really love using my simple colored pencils, I have sort of fallen in love with the whole watercolor idea and wanted to try out the watercolor pencils.  Instead of spending way more money than I have on a full set, I decided to just purchase a few pencils to try them out and see if they were something I would want to use.  With this card/image in mind, I picked up a few of the Derwent Inktense pencils from our local art supply store...and fell in love with them!  Oh man where they a dream to color with!

I just love how softly the colors smoothed out over the image.  Definitely will be adding more of those to my wish list!  I paired my flowers with a sweet sentiment from Create with TLC and followed the sketch that we have for our April challenge at Sami Stamps (more on that below).

I would like to enter this Spring Branch card into the following challenges:
    Deep Ocean #74-For a Friend
    Work it Wednesday-Spring

My next card uses the Poppies Bunch image:

I mulled over this one for a long time.  My original plan was to combine this image with another one, but the layout never worked, and I couldn't find the right theme or papers to put it all together, so I canned that idea and started over...and decided to take a more elegant look to the card.

This black background paper has been hoarded in my stash for so long now...I love the pattern and the elegance of it all, and didn't want to use all of it since it's my last piece...but it called to me when I pulled it out of the pile and I knew I had to use it.  The scallop frame was cut with my Silhouette, and then I trimmed down some silver glitter paper and some black card stock to create a frame, so the image would sit down inside, not on top of those mats like normal.

The image has been printed a few times so that I could cut out the different petals and layer them all up for some fun dimension on the flower within it's frame.

Then came the work on the ribbon and buckle.  I didn't want to just layer 2 ribbons together and be done...I wanted it to really pop, so I pulled apart some twine to get just the white part and tied that into a bow, which was then woven through the buckle along with the rest of the ribbon layers.  Trimmed some black ribbon so that they criss-crossed through the buckle, but made sure the twine loops wrapped around into the front.  It took a lot of fiddling to get it just right, but I just love how it turned out!

I would like to enter this Poppies Bunch card into the following challenges:
    The Corrosive Challenge #196-Show us Your Metal
    Crafty Cardmakers #113-You've Been Framed
    Crafty Catz #225-Springtime

Ok, my last card uses the Red Rose image:

I have been trying so hard lately to make more clean and simple cards.  I love them, love how they can be simple yet striking...and a lot of people I know love simpler/flatter cards.  So I challenged myself to take our sketch and work it into a clean and simple card...and it worked!

I adore this card so much!  The blue watercolor along the side was supposed to be a bit more ombre, but it didn't wash down quite as nicely as I wanted...but that's okay cuz it still looks cool :)

For the stamped details, I raided my stamp bin and pulled out a set that I've had forever, stamped the dot stripe and sentiments and then clear embossed them so that they would resist the watercolor and pop through.  Before I added my image, I took a shimmer mist and sprayed the crap out of the card so now when held in the light, it has this awesome shimmer to it.  Plus it added the fun water marks to the blue along the side :)

The image was printed off and colored with my ShinHans markers, then cut out and foam mounted to the card.  Love love love it!

I'd like to enter this Red Rose card into the following challenges:
    A Creative Romance-Spring Flowers
    Loves Rubberstamps #97-Anything Goes
    Stampin for the Weekend-Spring Colors

I know this was an extremely long post...did you make it through?  If so, thanks for sticking it out!
Have you used Inktense pencils before?  The one thing I'm struggling with is when I print my image and use the pencils, the image lines smear...do you know of any way to prevent that?  Maybe it's just how my printer prints...and I have to just deal with it...but tips would be nice :)

Ok, now go check out Sami Stamps to see all the gorgeous creations with this new release, and be sure to join in our sketch challenge this month following this sketch:

Thanks for stopping by!!! <3

Happy Wednesday!
Wanted to quickly share a card that I made today.  I had the most fun making this card!  It came together so quickly and turned out just perfect!

I adore this sweet image from Meljen's Designs...of course, what image from them don't I love?  It's called Pappa Bear and is so precious, I had to throw it onto a Father's Day card.  Of course, I left the usual father's day sentiment off and went with the fun die cut "Dad."  I added a little bit of color to a piece of vellum and stuck that behind the die cut to give a unique coloring to it.

The image is colored with my pencils.  There are a few liquid pearl dots around the image, along with some silver Wink of Stella glitter pen.  I kept the image super soft and simple since the background paper was pretty dark and busy.

A few die cut stars, banners, and buttons finish off the card :)  Loved making this one!

I'd like to enter this card into the Meljen's Designs challenge: Let's Hear it for the Boys!

Thanks for stopping by!!  I love that you came to visit me today :)