Scrappy Sweet Creations: Hello

Showing posts with label Hello. Show all posts

Happy Friday!!
Oh boy...do we have a super cute release for you today at Sami Stamps! It's called Round Easter Friends and adorable doesn't even begin to describe how cute they are!!

I've chosen to use the Sweet Carrot Bunny image for my card:

I decided to make a spinner card with this image! He just looked like he needed to be on the move. I started by first creating a watercolored background by just dropping some colors onto a wet piece of watercolor paper. I'm a fussy painter so of course I couldn't just let it sit and do it's own thing. I had to mess around and move the colors till I felt like they were how I wanted them.

Once that was dry, I took the Lots of Dots stamp set from Simon Says Stamp and created a bokeh look over top of the watercoloring. This helped mute down the bright colors and give it more detail and texture. I purposefully left some areas empty so that some of the bright color would peak through and add some variance to it all.

When that was done, I created my scallop frame with my Silhouette and cut out the openings from my card base and the watercolor panel. I colored up my sweet little bunny with some pencils and then attached him to the string in the center of my window. I learned that stronger thicker string works better...if the string is too whimpy, it won't stay nice and tight with the weight of the image.

I chose a fun sentiment from the For the Record stamp set from Simon Says Stamp and embossed that below my spinning bunny. Then added a few dots of glossy accents and the card was done!

We are starting a fun new challenge today at Sami Stamps - Add Stitching (real or faux). I hope you will join us! Just be sure to use a Sami Stamps image!

Thanks so much for visiting! Have a fabulous weekend! <3

Hi Everyone!!
Happy Friday! I hope you've all had a fabulous week! It has been so gorgeous here in Washington! I was able to get out into my gardens a few times and got my veggie garden seeds started! Woohoo!!

I'm here to share a card featuring the newest Sami Stamps release.

This is Heart Girl. I absolutely love her! She looks so comfortable and relaxed, just a perfect image. I used my ShinHan markers to color her for this card and then used one of the colors in her skirt to make matching borders for the image and the sentiment. I covered those with Wink of Stella glitter brush so that they sparkled a bit.

But lets talk about the background! I used to be huge into using patterned papers. But as my style and techniques have changed, the use of patterned paper has decreased a lot. I always try to create something fun and unique for my cards and papers just don't give me what I want sometimes. So for this card, I wanted something simple and decided I needed to make it myself.

I did a little shopping this week at Ben Franklin and found some fabulous glitter tapes there from Best Creation Inc! So I decided to give them a try. I picked up the black and white tapes but there is a whole range of colors to choose from. The tapes are just slightly over a half inch wide.

For my background, I wanted to have varied stripes, so I took the white tape and adhered it to some cardstock so that it would be much easier to cut into smaller stripes. Once those were cut they were really easy to peel off the cardstock again. I lined up the black glitter tape with my grid mat and spaced the stripes about an inch apart. Then filled in between each black stripe with a white stripe that is now 1/4 inch wide.

This background came together super quick and looks amazing! The tape was so easy to use, the glitter does not rub off and the sparkle is gorgeous! It's absolutely perfect for this card and image! I encourage you to try this out! Check out your washi tapes and see what ones will work together to create a fun new pattern for your card!!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    Addicted to Stamps #182-Make Your Mark
    Freshly Made Sketches #225
    Simon Says Stamp-Anything Goes

Thanks so much for stopping by!
And remember we have just a few more days left of our Paper Piecing challenge over at Sami Stamps! Just use a Sami Stamps image and join in!! <3

Hi everyone!
Wow, twice in one weekend! I never post on weekends, so this is a change for me. I can't guarantee it will continue, but I had so much fun making these cards this week that I wanted to take the time to share them all with you.

I shared one of these cards on my Instagram feed earlier this week. You can find me HERE if you wish to follow along! I'd love to have you join me! I'm really trying to stay consistent with posting there...social media is a little tough for me because I always feel a bit stupid sharing things in my life that I'm sure no one is really interested in (how many cat photos can one person handle in a day?)...but I'm working on it :)

So for Christmas, Matthew bought me the super cute Polynesian Paradise stamp set from My Favorite Things. Ever since our vacation to Hawaii this past August, I have been drooling over this set and dreaming of the day when I could get my little fingers on it. I was so excited to open that gift! And couldn't wait to get around to playing with it! I did use a few of the flowers in our Christmas card this year but that was all I had done, until I saw the sketch this week at My Favorite Things and knew I had to play along!

Don't you just love this card!! I am over the moon excited about how it turned out! I started by cutting out the frame with my Silhouette and then taking each of the rectangle inserts and coloring them up with some soft beachy colors. I splattered them with a little water so they had some fun flecks to them and then set to work coloring up the flowers.

I used my Inktense pencils for them...totally addicted to those right now!! I added a little bit of shimmer to each flower as well. The tucan in the set actually comes facing to the left..but the way I wanted to position him on my card needed to have him facing the right. So I did a little mirror stamping by inking up the stamp, pressing it down onto the backside of a larger stamp and then pressing that onto the paper. The lines don't come out super bold, and it took me a few tries to get the whole image to fully stamp. But it worked well enough so I could go back over the whole image with the outliner pencil in the Inktense set and darken the lines up. Then I colored him in as well :)

I finished this card off with one of the awesome sentiments and a scattering of Sparking Clear Sequins from Pretty Pink Posh..of course!!

My next card is the one I gave a sneak peak of on my Instagram. I couldn't resist sharing a little bit of it because it's just so cute!!

When I created the first card, I actually cut out two of those frames so I had one ready for a second card. So I decided to use just the rectangle inserts on this card. I lined them up the way they should fit into the frame, and then stamped them with a woodgrain background and heat embossed that in white, so it's a fun white on white design.

The background colors are Hickory Smoke, Blueprint Sketch, and Twisted Citron distress inks. These colors come together in the mini set and I thought they would work so well together on this card...which they did :)

I got those all blended together and then once again splattered it with water and some shimmer mist to give some fun texture and sparkle. While that dried, I colored in a few more flowers and the sweet Chameleon. You can see that just the tips of his little toes are turning pink from where he's standing on the flower, but the rest of him matches the background. So much fun!!!

I wanted to make this a birthday card, so I stamped a few tags from Lily of the Valley and used a little coordinating twine to tie them all together. And then finished it all off with the Clear Droplets from Pretty Pink Posh.

I'm in love...this stamp set is my favorite and I am so excited to keep playing with it!!!

I'd like to enter these cards into the following challenges:
    Crafting When We Can #110-Something New
    My Favorite Things Sketch #262
    Simon Says Stamp-Something New
    Word Art Wednesday #217-Anything Goes

Thank you so much for stopping by!

Happy Friday!!!
I hope you have had a wonderful week back from the holidays! It was rough here in our house...we got so used to staying up till 2 in the morning and waking up whenever that trying to get back to a normal sleeping pattern was tough. But a little touch of coffee in the mornings has been helping a bit. We aren't huge coffee drinkers, but we have found a simple blend that works for us. I like to mix a little spoonful with some cocoa powder so it's more like a hot chocolate than coffee...but I'm weird :)

So with the slow groggy mornings brought inspiration to put together a few cards using a super cute image from the most recent Sami Stamps release - Fuzzy Cup Friends. I used the Cup Pup image and went to town!

For this card, I started by taking a jar that was sitting on my desk and inking up the rim to use as a circle stamp to try and mimic coffee rings on my watercolor paper. I'm not sure it fully worked the way I wanted, but it looks pretty cool in the background. I did some splattering and inked up the edges as well so it wasn't a stark white background.

I printed off and colored up my image using Spectrum Noir pencils and some Gamsol to blend. I have used baby oil in the past and that worked fine, but I was able to purchase some Gamsol a little bit ago and gave it a shot. It does work a bit better than the baby oil which makes me very happy :)

Since the cups are normally all blank, I decided to do a little doodling on them with the pencils, a white gel pen, and some glittery pens as well. I think the added detail really helps finish off the image.

Then I simply layered the image onto some glitter cardstock and vellum and mounted it onto my dry card base. I stamped the Enjoy sentiment from the Simon Say Stamp and Winnie & Walter collaboration set Big Bloom and adhered that on the edge of the image.

My colors for the cups were pulled from Lawn Fawn's Sweater Weather paper pack, so I added a thin strip of that to the side as well, and that finished this card!

I did make another card with this image that I'll briefly describe.

It's pretty much the same card, but I watercolored the image with my new Derwent Inktense pencils and then added funny sayings to each of the cups. I have terrible hand writing and had planned to print those on, but decided it would be easier to just write them out. So I went super slow to try and not mess any of them up :)

Since there are so many words on the front of this card, I added the sentiment to the inside so it wouldn't clutter the front too much.

Super cute cards that I loved making!

Be sure to stop by Sami Stamps, we have an Add Sparkle challenge running this month! Just remember to use a Sami Stamps image and join in!!

I'd like to enter these cards into the following challenges:
    Craft Your Passion #293-Anything Goes
    Fab n Funky #286-Something New
    Inky Impressions #281-All Things New
    Simon Says Stamp-Something New
    Try Stampin on Tuesday #252
    Word Art Wednesday #217-Anything Goes

Thanks so much for visiting!! <3

Hi Everyone and Happy Friday!
We are preparing to head down to Ocean Shores for the weekend for a fun little trip with our friends. It's going to be cold, but who cares! I love being on the beach and being there with friends just makes it better :)

So today we have an awesome new release from Sami Stamps and the cool thing with this release is that it was featured in the Through the Craftroom Door Magazine!! I've never been published in a magazine before, so this is super cool for me! And the images are just gorgeous, you don't want to miss them!

The first image I chose to work with was this Pretty Flower - which is currently the freebie image at Sami Stamps! I loved the simplicity of it. That gave me so many options on how to use it. So I decided to color it up multiple times with my pencils and fussy cut around them so I could add dimensional tape behind them and pop them up off my card panel.

Overall the card is simple, but that's the beauty of this image. It can be kept simple, or embellished out and it's still beautiful. I layered up a simple Hello die cut and then scattered some clear sequins around each of the flowers. Gorgeous!!

I'd like to enter this Hello card into the following challenges:
Creative Inspirations #334-Sparkle
Fab n Funky #280-Die Cuts/Punches
Fussy and Fancy #151-Flowers

My second card features the Blossoms Girl image.

I adore this cute little flower that Sami draws, so when I saw it covering this beauty, I knew I had to use this image. I really wanted the whole card to have a graceful elegance to it so I kept the colors soft. I used a piece of watercolor cardstock that I had colored up in the past as my background. It was made by dabbing distress paint onto an embossing folder, misting it with water and then pressing my paper into it. It's a super fun technique and the results are so gorgeous!

I layered a piece of embossed vellum over top of that to mute the colors a little bit and then strung a couple layers of ribbon along the side to help draw the eye to the sentiment. Everything was colored in with my markers and I've added a lot of shimmer to her dress and the sentiment frame. So incredibly gorgeous!!! I love this release!

We are also starting a new challenge today at Sami Stamps and it's simple - Anything Goes! Just be sure to use a Sami Stamps image on your project!!

I hope you will stop by Sami Stamps and Through the Craftroom Door to check out this wonderful feature! I'm so happy and proud of Sami for all the work she has put into this! She is an incredibly amazing person and I'm so thankful to know her and get to work with her gorgeous art!!

Thanks for visiting!! <3

Hi Everyone and happy Tuesday!!
I hope your weekends were fabulous and the week has started off with a bang! We celebrated Matthew's birthday with friends on Sunday at our place. It was fantastic and I'm thankful for those that came :)

We have an awesome color/image challenge for you this week at Tuesday Throwdown! It's perfect for fall. And our amazing sponsor this week is Winnie & Walter!!! They have kindly provided materials for our team to use on their projects.

I chose the In Bloom: Addie's Garden stamp set for my project. I adore all the giant flowers and can't wait to put more of them to paper!

To begin my card, I stamped all the leaves and the fun little flower/berry branch onto watercolor paper and heat embossed them in a gold and bronze powder. Then did some really simple watercoloring by covering the image with water first, and just dropping my paint in the centers. The clean water pulls the paint out and gives it a great fade.

While those were drying, I worked on my background. I started by blending together Faded Jeans and Black Soot. I really wanted a dark blue at the bottom but using just the blue wasn't getting it there. You have to be careful when blending ink on watercolor paper though. This type of paper doesn't allow the ink to soak in very quick, so it sits on top for quite awhile and if you rub too hard to blend the ink, you're just going to pick it back up. So I did sort of a dabbing motion with the black and again with the dark blue over top of it.

Then added Broken China above the Faded Jeans and blended that out to a nice white at the top. I felt the bottom needed a little bit more interest, so I pulled out a few of the words from Winnie & Walters Big & Bold sets and lined them up.

When you do tone on tone stamping, you can usually use the same ink that was put in the background like I did here. I used the Faded Jeans color for my stamping. You can see it gets a little hard to see at the very bottom where there is black as well. But for the most part, when you do ink blending, you're not applying the full strength of the color. So this allows you to stamp something that is at full strength and have it show up over those colors. It's an awesome technique and really adds a lot to the projects!

To finish the card off, I cut out 3 layers of the Hello die cut from Winnie & Walter and heat embossed it with glittery gold. A simple piece of twine was wrapped around everything and tied in a bow, and then I added a couple of glossy accent dots around the lower corners. This has been a fun way for me to add a little more detail and dimension without too much bulk, or worrying that I don't have the right color of gems or sequins :)

I hope you've enjoyed this awesome card! Give the tone on tone stamping a try and let me know in the comments below how it went for you! I'd love to check your projects out!!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Addicted to CAS #72-Leaves
Crafty Cardmakers #148-Make it Sparkle
Simon Says Stamps-Die Crazy
Winnie & Walter's Join in to Win

Thanks so much for visiting! <3

Hi Everyone!
Happy Tuesday! Seems I just got back into this crafty world and I'm already running behind in it! Sorry my post for today's new challenge at Tuesday Throwdown is late, but at least it's here!!

We have an awesome new challenge with a fabulous new sponsor this week! MilkCoffee has graciously provided our team with some wonderful images to go along with our Tic Tac Toe board!!!

And I just realized I didn't watermark my card image! Ugh...need to pull it together :)

Anyhow, I have used the adorable Heart Sign with Butterflies image from MilkCoffee. I decided to keep everything pretty light and pastel for this and I followed the "Image, Enamel Dots, Die Cuts" line from our board:

I used an awesome Mama Elephant border die to do my die cut edges, and a fun butterfly die cut from Simon Says stamp. I cut those out of vellum since I again, wanted everything to be super light. My image was colored up really simply with pencils and a little glitter brush, then cut out and framed in a scallop oval. I stamped the simple "Hello" sentiment right on the image and finished it all off with some coordinating enamel dots in the centers of the butterflies.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! Be sure to check out the rest of the DT's creations at Tuesday Throwdown, and then join in our fun Tic Tac Toe challenge!!! <3

Heellllooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!
Wow it's been a long time! I've missed you guys so much! But so much has happened at the same time! My absence has been because we moved!

We were so fortunate when Matthew finally landed a job. It had been a long, long journey for that to finally happen. While we absolutely loved his job at Ubisoft, Montreal just wasn't working for us and we knew we needed to leave...

After several heartbreaking rejections, God finally opened a path for us to get home, and Matthew was offered a job at Motiga in Bellevue, WA. So for the last 3 months, we have been getting everything settled back into our home here in Washington!! I'm so happy to be here! There is no place like home, and man...Washington is definitely home! Our house was in pretty good condition, considering it had been rented for 4 years, but there was still a lot of work that needed to be done. So that has occupied a lot of my time (a lot!).

It's taken me a bit longer to get back to work here on my blog, but I'm happy to finally be back at it! My work desk is still a bit disorganized as we work to find storage shelves and what not. But it's workable and I'm diving in! (I'll share pics of our house later :) )

And I'm so happy that I get to return with a Sami Stamps card!!!! There is nothing better than working with Sami's images! This release is called Birds and Beauties...such a fitting title! They are beautiful! I've worked with Bird on my Knee:

Now, bear with me as I work on figuring out how I want to take my pictures. I thought this super cute plant stand would be perfect for featuring my cards on...but the cream background doesn't work for me. So my pictures will probably change over the course of these next few weeks as I work that all out :)

I kept this card really simple since it is my first one back and I'm dusting out the old cobwebs in my brain :) Just some simple ink blending in the background through a triangle stencil from Winnie & Walter. The colors I've used are the new Cracked Pistachio and Fossilized Amber distress inks. Oh My Gosh! If you don't have these new colors...run and get them now! I just got mine and this is my first card using them on, and I'm hooked! They are amazing and I know they will not be leaving my desk for quite some time!

Oh, and the Hello die cut was colored with the Mermaid Lagoon distress ink...my heart melted when that ink hit the paper...it's so gorgeous!!

Anyhow, there is a little piece of scallop cut vellum behind the image but you can't really see it. I did some light shading on the beauty (need to get coloring practice in again...) and then affixed her to look like she was sitting on the Hello die cut. Surrounded her with some clear sequins and called it good! I really do love this card! First one in 3 months, and I'd say it turned out perfect :)

Thanks so much for stopping by and for sticking around while I was away! I love you all and I'm so happy to be back sharing my passion with you!!! <3

Also, don't forget we have a new challenge starting at Sami Stamps and it's super easy!! Anything Goes!!! Whoohoo! So run on over, check out the DT's amazing creations and then join in the fun!!! <3 read more →

Happy cold and chilly Tuesday! I'm wondering if we will see snowflakes falling today! Lol :)

So we start a new challenge for you today at Tuesday Throwdown, and it's a good one for the season! We want you to use Halloween colors - so green, orange, purple, and black!

I decided to twist this a little. I love this color combo, but I didn't really want to make a Halloween card (shocked! Can't believe I said that...I love making Halloween cards!). Surprisingly, this color combo works great for those non-spooky cards too :)

See! I LOVE how this turned out! I know I used that sparkly green circle paper on my project a week or so ago, but it was on my desk and worked perfectly for this card too :)

That fun dotted type patterned paper under my wagon was actually green and pink dots, but I took some of my shinhan markers and colored over the pink with some purples and it worked perfectly!

For my image, I combined a couple sets from our wonderful sponsor - Doodle Pantry. I adore this company, their shop is full of amazing and cute images! Made it really hard to choose what I wanted to work with for this card.
I combined the Wagon Hello and Floral Jug set for this image. I had my sweet hubby help me get the images totally lined up because I'm not an expert at doing that in paint.net yet and he's a genius :)
As always, thanks babe! I love you <3

We got the images lined up perfectly so the flowers and pumpkin are all sitting in the wagon. It looks so cool, I just love it!! I colored them all in with my pencils and then filled in the grass and sky with my markers. I did a little out-of-the-box cutting for the top flower jug and the wagon handle and then added it to my card!

I kept the sentiment simple and sweet because the card is pretty loud with those colors and I didn't want to crowd it too much. But I adore this card! That color combo is never one I would have come up with on my own, so I'm excited that something meant for Halloween could be used for something else too :)

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    Doodle Pantry #51-Anything Goes
    Simon Says Stamp-Halloween Color Coordinates
    Word Art Wednesday #154-Anything Goes

Be sure to stop by Tuesday Throwdown to see the rest of the DT's amazing creations, and then join in this awesome challenge!!!

Thanks for visiting! <3

Happy Saturday!
As you may know from the last month or so of my posts, I'm a bit in love with sunflowers. They are just too gorgeous and I adore adding them to my cards. So this card is no different. But since I've used them so much lately, I wanted to try something different with them.

So I took a shot at the no-lines technique. I'm not sure I mastered it this first time, but it did turn out pretty good.

I stamped these sunflowers from the Lawn Fawn Our Friendship Grows stamp set in some really light distress inks before pulling out my watercolors. Not having those lines to define each petal and add the detail in the middle was a bit frustrating because I couldn't get the right depth I wanted with the colors I chose. But it was still super fun to finally give this technique a try, and I know that I will try it more often.

This card was made following the inspiration image over on the Winnie & Walter blog. I loved the woodgrain in the image but I don't have any paper patterned like that. So I attempted to make my own. I used some watercolor paper and smeared 3 shades of brown inks across it to try and imitate a wood grain pattern. I think it worked out pretty well! It was fun to watch this come together as it dried.

To pull in the pinks and oranges from the inspiration photo, I used another piece of watercolor paper and added touches of pink and yellow and sprayed it with water to get it all moving. This helped create an orange tint as well and I softened it all by lightly adding some white over the colors. Totally love how soft but colorful it all is! The perfect background for my sunflower woodgrain piece :)

I used just a simple sentiment, which is not normal for me, but it seemed to fit perfectly. Then finished it all off with a few matte black sequins. I always struggle to find good placement for sequins on my cards. They never flow correctly it seems...but I keep trying :)

Oh yeah, and all the sunflowers have been generously sprayed with some gold glitter mist! The sparkle is incredible on them!!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
AAA Cards #23-Watercolor
    Addicted to Stamps & More #116-Anything Goes
    Inky Impressions #180-Flowers and Leaves
    Simon Says Stamp-Use Watercolors
    Winnie & Walter-Pinspiration with Vanessa

Thanks so much for stopping by! I will be back a little later today to share another card for a Winnie & Walter challenge..it's just in the middle of drying right now :) <3

Happy Sunday!
I hope everyone has had a lovely weekend so far!

I wanted to stop in real quick and share a few cards that I've been working on. If I haven't mentioned it before, I love my Winnie & Walter stamps! Unfortunately right now I only have 1 set...but I'm dying to get my hands on more as soon as I can afford them. But even with just one set, there are always fun new designs to make with them!

For this first card, I followed the colors and sketch that Winnie & Walter have for their Playdate #3. I was a little intimidated to be honest. The colors are quite different than my normal palette..but I really wanted to step out of my comfort zone and give it a shot! Believe me...a lot of attempts went into the trash before this one stuck!

I couldn't be happier with this card! As I mentioned, the colors for the playdate are so much different than anything I'd ever put together, but I really wanted to try. I had this awesome patterned paper in my stash forever...the other side is covered in some gorgeous butterflies, which is usually the side I use...but this backside pattern offered up some fun ideas and I thought it would work great for this card.

Something else new and exciting for me to try was using embossing paste on only part of a stencil! I mixed the embossing paste with some purple ink and swiped it over the Distress Grid stencil from Memory Box. It was really really (really...) hard not to just cover the whole thing, or fill in all the little squares around the edge...I like things neat so leaving the edges messy was tough! But I did it...and I love it!

The "Love" sentiment (from The Big, The Bold & The Happy) was a left over from a previous card attempt that I thought would work perfect on this card. I wrapped some sparkly white thread around the card and added some wood veneer hearts that I had covered in white paint, dipped in glitter, and then coated with glossy accents. They are so awesome and sparkly!!

Of course, since I construct my cards on the fly, I assembled everything and then decided on where to add my sentiment...which resulted in some uneven stamping...but that's okay. It still looks awesome! The last touch was a few enamel dots. I layered this panel onto a patterned piece of coordinating purple paper that's been covered with a piece of vellum to help tone down the color. Otherwise the papers just clashed too much.

I'm so in love with this card! It's totally different for me, but so awesome! I hope you love it too!

I'd also like to enter this card into the Creative Fingers challenge #46-Texture.

My next card is for the Winnie & Walter Share the Love Day 1 to use a rainbow palette. Well...rainbow colors are another thing I'm obsessed with right now. It just works for everything and I had a ton of fun making this card!

I started by adding my distress inks to a piece of watercolor paper and misting them a little to get the colors to mix. Then I placed a stripe stencil that I created with my Silhouette over top and weighed it down with a few bottles. Unfortunately those weights seem to have caused the water underneath to pool a bit in those areas...but overall it turned out super cool! I love how the stripes are a bit bolder and helped bleed the colors together a bit more!

For the sentiment circle, I used the large Hello from the Winnie & Walter The Big The Bold and The Happy set. The "miss you" is from a stamp in the Mama Elephant In My Heart set, and the dotted border is from the Simon Says Music to My Ears set. I embossed all of those with black embossing powder on a piece of vellum because I really wanted the background to still show through.

But I wanted some dimension on that panel. Let me tell you...trying to affix itty bitty pieces of dimensional adhesive behind those letters was not easy! But I did it, and it looks totally awesome!

I surrounded that whole panel with some fun color matching sequins and added little tiny gems to the centers for some extra sparkle. Love it!!

I'd like to enter this card into the AAA Cards Watercolor challenge as well.

I hope you made it through all that! Quite a long post today...but I couldn't resist sharing these cards! :)

Have a fabulous rest of the weekend!! Thanks for stopping by! <3

Hello!
I want to say a quick welcome to my new followers! I'm so thrilled that you are here! Thank you so much!

We have a new challenge starting for you today at Meljen's Designs and it's Splat! We want to see you use your ink, paints, and mists!

I have been addicted to my paints lately, and having just bought the awesome Gansai Tambi watercolor set from my local craft store, my obsession grew quite a bit more. So this challenge was super fun for me!

It's a bit different of a card than my normal style...but I really love it! I was also able to use up another couple of scraps for this card, which is always exciting :)

That gorgeous butterfly (Fancy Butterfly), yeah that was one of my failed attempts for the "cardstock only" challenge at Meljen's a few weeks ago. It was too pretty all colored for me to throw it out, but it really didn't work on the card I was attempting. But it fit perfectly for this one!

I started by mixing up some embossing paste with 3 different shades of pink ink from Stampin Up. Then swiped them over a checkerboard stencil I cut out with my Silhouette so that they formed an ombre pattern. Looks so cool!

I took a thin scrap of paper and embossed it with some gold embossing powder, then trimmed it down into 3 stripes. They were going to all be the same size, but my measuring was off and they all ended up different sizes, but it totally worked!

Now for the fun part, which is always something I struggle with...the paint splatters! It seems no matter how hard I try, I can never get the really good large splats of color down on my paper. They are always super small little flecks...so I added a few larger ones myself.

Any tips on how to get larger drops? I tried adding a bunch of water to my brush...but that didn't help either.

I covered a couple of the drips with glossy accents so they stood out a little more. The vellum panel is cut with the Landscape Trio from Mama Elephant. Absolutely love that those can be used for so much more than just landscapes! It made the perfect wonky rectangle to go behind my butterfly!

The finishing touches were some wire antenna for the butterfly and a simple embossed greeting flag. All done! I so so love this card!!

Stop by Meljen's Designs to see the rest of the DT's creations, and then join in the super fun challenge!!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    Addicted to CAS #44-Gold
    A Gem of a Challenge #125-Embossing
    Crafting When We Can #75-Bright Colors
    Sketch Saturday #322

Thanks for visiting! <3

Hello Hello! It's been super quiet around here lately...anyone still around?
While I haven't posted much, I have been super busy! It's the sort of cycle where I make a bunch of cards, love them all, and then set them aside for other projects...only to forget that I didn't share them with you and they get filed away in my baskets...

I'll try to do better :) Because, yes I do want to share my makes with you! I get super excited when they really turn out...so I just need to not set them aside, and pick up my camera right away :)

Matthew and I also celebrated our 11th anniversary this past weekend. 11 years! Crazy...I still feel like a giddy school girl who's heart flutters when he walks in the door. To celebrate, we had a small shopping spree this past weekend and he let me buy some super duper awesomely fun stuff! So I can't wait to share some projects using those goodies with you soon.

But for today, we have a new challenge starting at Tuesday Throwdown! It's a totally fun sketch, and our sponsor is MyGrafico, who provided some adorable images for us to use.

Now, to be completely honest...this card hasn't grown on me too well. I loved it when it was first finished..but for some reason my liking of it has shrunk. Maybe the glittery star stripes are too big?...or too glittery?...I'm not sure what it is.

But I had fun putting it together! I'm always wishing and looking for ways to use my glitter paper and I thought it would be perfect to pair it up with some of this awesome Lawn Fawn paper. I didn't really realize it while assembling everything, but the big yellow circle pretty much represents a huge full moon. Wasn't my original plan, but it works :)

I really love how the owl turned out though. I wanted him to be really flecked, so I did a lot of short flicks with my markers. So super cute! I left all the embellishments off (maybe that's what's missing?...) and just did a simple gold embossed greeting at the bottom.

Anyhow, even if my card isn't all that fabulous, I know the ladies at Tuesday Throwdown have blown this sketch away! So go check their projects out, and then join in the fun sketch!

Thanks for visiting! <3

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Happy Friday!!!
The weekend has arrived, yay!

So we don't have a new release this week for Sami Stamps, but there are some amazing deals going on at the shop for you to check out! Instead, we are revisiting some of the past releases and making our samples from them. I, of course, have 2 cards to share with you today :)

My first cards features the Sunny Spot image, but instead of a sunny spot, I put the sweet little foxes under a night sky. They just looked so peaceful snuggled up together.

I really love how soft this card turned out. The vellum in the background really helped to mellow it all out and really make the image pop that much more. For the sentiment I used one of the Lili of the Valley stamps and tucked it under my cord bow. I'm frustrated with how stiff that cord still is...I couldn't get that kink out of the tails from the bow, so it looks really goofy...

To finish it off, I added a few Hero Arts pearls.
I'd like to enter this Fox Friends card into the following challenges:
Artistic Inspirations #100-Anything Goes
    Crafting When We Can #73-Friendship
    Retro Sketches #123
    Simon Says-Spots and Dots

My second card features the Bird on a Branch image.

This card looks so much better in person. I was really skeptical about it at first. There seemed to be something missing from it, but I really didn't want to clutter it all up. I wanted the bird to pop off the card. But once I added it to the yellow card base, the whole thing pulled together perfectly and I just adore it!

I colored in the bird with my pencils and added a little glitter pen around the wings. I also paired this image with the Spring Branch image, cutting up the flowers to scatter along the branch so it looked like the bird was sitting on a cherry tree branch. Love!

Again, to finish it, I scattered some Hero Arts gems around the bird and sentiment.
I'd like to enter this Birdie card into the following challenges:
Chocolate, Coffee, Cards #69-Birds
Fusion Card Challenge

Penny's Paper Crafty #186-Anything Goes

Thanks for stopping by! And be sure to check out the deals at Sami Stamps! <3

Hello!
Time for a new challenge at Tuesday Throwdown and it's an easy one - Anything Goes! Woohoo!
Our sponsor this week is Robyn's Fetish, and they have provided some sweet images for the DT to use.

I chose the fun Sunflower Smiles for my card this week. Decided to do a little watercoloring for a simple background.

My image is colored in with my ShinHan markers and I've embossed the sentiment with black embossing powder. I really love using sequins on my cards, but realized with this card that I need a bit more practice on the placement of them. Always seems like when I add embellishments like gems or sequins, the card ends up looking like I just dumped them on there....even though I try really hard to get them in the right eye-catching positions! Just need more practice I guess...

But overall, I love the simple cheeriness of the whole thing! So stop by Tuesday Throwdown and join in the fun!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    Addicted to CAS #41-Sun
    Catered Crop-Summer Lovin
    Fussy and Fancy #117-Summertime
    Sentimental Sundays #213-Summer
    Stampin for the Weekend-Anything Goes

Thanks for visiting! <3

Happy Thursday!
I'm so excited that the weekend is almost here! We get to go camping down in New York with the family and I can't wait! Hoping that it won't be too hot again this year. Last year when we went camping it was over 100 degrees the whole weekend...miserable! But I know it will be fun either way :)

So we start a new challenge today at Meljen's Designs!! I'm in this weird boy card mood. Not normal for me as it's out of my comfort zone, but it's been kind of fun to see what pops out onto the paper :)

When I laid eyes on this cutie a little while ago, I knew I had to have him! He's just so perfect!
To start my card, I distressed all the edges with my scissors. Something about boy cards requires distressed edges to me.

I cut a star background with my Silhouette from a transparency to make a stencil and then colored up some embossing paste with a really light yellow ink. I didn't want them to be too bright. But I love how they turned out!!! Seriously, how fun is embossing paste!?

The sentiment was a little tough for me. I really wanted something nerdy to add to the card, but nothing seemed to work out properly. So I stuck with a regular hello, cut out several times so that it's a bit thick and sticks up off the card.

My cute Nerd O Saurus is colored with my Spectrum Noir pencils and blended out with baby oil. I added just a touch of glossy accents to his glasses to. And a bunch of sparkle to the Hello cut outs :)

Hope you will join us for this fun challenge!!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Delightful Challenge-Hello Friend
    Incy Wincy Designs-Bright Funky Colors
    Inky Impressions #164-For the Boys
    Simon Says Stamp-You Gotta Have Friends
Sweet Sunday Sketch #223
    That Craft Place-Men

Thanks for stopping by! <3

Happy Monday!
Time for a new challenge at Paper Makeup! This week we want to see stitching on your projects!

I kept my card pretty simple. My sewing machine has been acting funny lately, not sewing properly and leaving a lot of loose stitches...really bugging me. So I didn't want to add too many layers.

I started by using a stencil to lightly emboss the background of my card. Very subtle but I love it. Then added a few little scraps and did a zig-zag stitch between them. My sweet image is Felicity the Fawn from Paper Makeup and I colored her in with my Spectrum Noir pencils.

The sentiment is a couple of stamps from Simon Says pieced together in the order I wanted, and then tucked behind my little fawn's foot.

Stop by the challenge and join in the fun! We'd love to see what sort of stitching you add to your projects! <3

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Deconstructed Sketch #155
    Loves Rubberstamps #107-Clean and Simple
    Ruby's Rainbow #81-Flora and Fauna
    Simon Says Stamp-Stencil It

It's Friday, it's Friday!!!
I hope the day has started off fabulously for everyone!

We have a soft and fuzzy new release for you today over at Sami Stamps. This one touched my heart because I just love my kitties, and Sami drew us a whole release full of them!

I chose to use Persian Kitty #2. I had to do a little searching online to get some coloring ideas because I didn't want to just have a white cat on my card. It may not be the exact coloring of a Persian, but I still love how it looks. Reminds me of my little kitty that I had when I was younger. Her name was PurrBox because that's all she did was purr :)

This card turned out very soft and elegant..love it! That wasn't the plan but it sort of went off in that direction on its own, so I rolled with it. I tried something a little different with the background. Instead of just using an embossing folder to get texture, I tried out one of my stencils. Ran it through my Cuttlebug with one of those rubber mat things to see if I could get a good impression of the stencil pattern, since I really wanted that pattern on my card. And it worked! It wasn't a strong impression, just subtle enough to know it was there. I decided to go back over it again with some vanilla ink just to highlight it a little more too.

The punched border is from Martha Stewart and I paired it with some pretty striped paper to go along with the new challenge we have started at Sami Stamps :)

For the image, I wasn't entirely sure how I wanted to put it on the card. My first thought was to have some sort of bed of flowers behind it so that the kitty was just sitting in a flower garden. But none of the flower images I had really worked all that well. I pulled stuff off my desk and laid it on the card, trying several things, until I pulled one of my left over circle frames over and tried that. It clicked! I wanted it to have a wooden feel though, so I cut 3 layers out of some Kraft cardstock and then lightly inked them in brown for some dimension.

Printed and colored up my kitty, and used an image from a previous release (Spring Branch) for a little floral decoration on the circle. A few pearls, and a sweet sentiment from Winnie & Walter, and it was done!! I adore how this card turned out!!

Now, run over to Sami Stamps, check out the rest of this cuddle worthy release, and then join in our Stripes challenge!!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    DigiStamps4Joy #93-Girly/Feminine
    Loves Rubberstamps #106-Anything Goes
    The Paper Shelter #161-Flower Power
Winnie & Walter-Join in to Win
    Word Art Wednesday #135-Anything Goes

Thanks for stopping by! <3

Hi All!
Hope your day has started off with a bang! It's a little chilly here in Montreal, but I'm okay with that since we've been bouncing all over the place with our weather lately.

It's time to start a new challenge today at Little Miss Muffet! I've loved being their guest designer so much this month! Hard to believe that it's almost over...
Our challenge for you is Anything Goes! Nice and easy :)

I had this fun idea in my head to make sort of a Polaroid frame for Fiona to peek through, but as I was assembling the card, it just didn't work out right. So I went with a circle frame instead. Fiona is colored in with my pencils, and I added a little bit of glossy accents to her glasses...just for fun :)

The flowers were stamped and "watercolored"...I used a few distress markers but because I only have about 5 of those, there isn't much shading or depth to the flowers. But they were still cute enough to put on the card :) The stamp set I used for the flowers was Lawn Fawns Flutter By set.

I wrapped some twine around the bottom and then did my favorite double loop bow behind a button. I've been doing that a lot lately...for some reason it just seems to always be the perfect finishing touch on a card. Then I stamped a few Lili of the Valley sentiment tags, masking the inside of one off so I could stamp the Hello from Winnie & Walter. A few touches of glitter pen and some liquid pearls, and it was all done!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    Charisma Cardz #11-May Flowers
    Chocolate, Coffee, Cards #65-Use a Tag
    Send A Smile 4 Kids-Anything Goes
    Sentimental Sundays #207-Funky Flowers
Sweet Sunday Sketch #220

Stop by Little Miss Muffet, check out the rest of the DT's creation, and then join in the fun!!!
Thanks for visiting! <3

Happy Wednesday!
Just popping in quick to share a fun card with you. I made it last week, but held off sharing it because I debated on remaking it...and I still might. But decided to share it anyhow.

It was a really fun card to make! And took me several days. I sort of built it up by each layer...making one layer and then setting it all aside to ponder what to do next while I worked on other projects.

Ultimately I think it turned out really cute because I've tried a lot of new stuff on it and love how it all came together. But my fabulous husband made me second guess myself :)

See that sweet little string behind the big butterfly? I've seen a lot of people using string/thread on their cards lately. It always looks so dainty and elegant and I thought it would be perfect behind the butterfly, sort of give it some whimsy. But bless his heart, my husbands first response was "why is the butterfly caught in a web?"....sigh...guess it wasn't all that cute after all :) I'll have to keep trying to see if I can get better at the placement of my strings now.

But besides the string, the rest is super cute! I tried out the letterpress technique that I learned from my online card class last month. It looks so awesome, and I've learned that it works best on colored cardstock so the white will show up better. The circles were stamped with the Lots of Dots set from Simon Says Stamp.

I also used the big scripty Hello stamp from Winnie & Walter's The Big, The Bold & The Happy. I love that the white pigment ink dots sort of peak through the letters so the word is a bit polka dotted itself.

And I tried out some more washi tape! My selection isn't all that great and I never seem to use it on any of my projects...so I pulled out a few that I felt matched relatively well.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Penny's Paper Crafty #178-Spots and/or Stripes
    Winnie & Walter Join in to Win
    Viva la Verve-Week #1 Sketch
    Work it Wednesday-Patterned Paper

Thanks for stopping by!! <3