Scrappy Sweet Creations

Happy Friday!!
Everyone ready for this wonderful fall weekend!? I am! Especially since it's our last weekend before a little vacation! Matthew and I have signed up to do the Tough Mudder race next weekend in Michigan, and while I am totally freaking out about the race, I can't wait for the little get away that surrounds it. And we get to celebrate Matthew's birthday while we are home, so that makes the trip even more awesome!!

Back to today's post though :) We have a sweet new release today at Sami Stamps - Beautiful Ribbons! In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, and the celebrate both her mother and grandmother's victory over breast cancer, Sami has drawn up some adorably heartfelt images for this release.

I will be sharing my cards in 2 separate posts. So be sure to check out my other card HERE!

For this first card, I used the Flowers for a Cause image:

I just loved this image. The flower is so sweet and while the focus is on breast cancer for this release, this image is really great for any awareness!

To start the card, I laid down a stencil I made with my Silhouette, and used some distress inks to make an ombre colored background. Once that was dry, I added another homemade heart stencil and used some white embossing paste to fill it in. Before it all dried, I sprinkled some glitter over top because I really wanted those hearts to sparkle, but the glitter didn't really stick all that well and proceeded to rub off the more I worked with the card...guess I'll stick with using sparkly embossing powder on the paste so I can heat set it.

For the image, I colored it all in with my ShinHan markers and added a bunch of glitter brush so it really shimmered! I used some fun lacy ribbon around the edge to give it a frame but still keep it soft overall.

The sentiment was the last part to be added...mostly because I didn't plan that out from the beginning and struggled to find one that I wanted to use. I decided to use this sentiment because it was encouraging and really said how I feel about anyone that is battling cancer. The strength they have to keep fighting blows me away and I really feel they are amazing!

I did add a few drops of glue that I sprinkled with glitter around the sentiment and image. Just wanted the whole card to sparkle!

You can see the rest of the release at Sami Stamps, along with the DT's amazing creations!

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Artistic Inspirations #108-Anything Goes/Round and Round
    Craft Your Passion #230-Going Round in Circles
    Crafting With Dragonflies #34-Girly and Lacy
    Crafty Catz 246-Clean and Simple
    Creative Fingers #48-Anything Goes/Flowers
    Delightful Challenge-Simple Times
    Simon Says Stamp-Create Your Own Background

Thanks for visiting! <3

Happy Thursday!!
Time to start another awesome challenge at Meljen's Designs! Did you know that you can now use any image you want on your creations for that challenge!? You'll get a double entry if you use a Meljen's Designs image, and we always love seeing what you can do with those!

For this weeks challenge, we want to see you use a funny sentiment! Make us laugh :)
This challenge can always be fun...who doesn't love to receive a funny card in the mail? I really wanted to do something Halloween related with mummy's and stuff...but just couldn't wrap my head around something funny to say on the card. So I sifted through my sentiments and knew as soon as I saw this one that I had to use it...even if it has nothing to do with Halloween (I'll try that theme again later :) ).

Bahahahaha! That sentiment just cracks me up! Fortunately there is no cake or ice cream around to come out my nose...but I'm still getting a good chuckle from it :)

I chose to use the Triple Treat Cupcakes image from Meljen's Designs for this card. It's colored in really softly with my Spectrum Noir pencils and blended slightly with some baby oil. I then covered each of the tops of the cupcakes with Wink of Stella Clear Glitter Pen, the swirls with some Star Dust Stickles, and the hearts with some Glossy Accents.

I wrapped the twine around my card and mounted the sentiment where all the threads met together. I was thinking of trying to make up a striped straw or something to use instead of the twine, but the twine was just right there on my desk...begging to be used. So I stuck with that :)

Finished it all off with some clear gems in the corners! Love this fun birthday card!!

So be sure to swing by Meljen's Designs to check out the rest of the design teams creations, they will crack you up!!!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    DigiStamps4Joy #100-Celebrations
    Divas by Design-Anything Goes
    Mojo Monday Sketch #362
    Totally Gorjuss #252-Bling

Thanks for visiting! <3

Happy Wednesday everyone!!
I worked on this card last week, and then it got lost in the piles of other stuff on my desk and I forgot about it. Do you ever lose cards on your desk? I've been trying so hard to keep everything organized and clean up after myself each day, but some days the mess just stays...

But since I've been on a sunflower kick lately...figured what's the harm in one more? :) I'm sure it won't be my last!

Sorry for the poor photo quality...been struggling really hard lately to get nice photos and it's frustrating me!..

But for this card I used the Our Friendship Grows set again from Lawn Fawn. The sunflower has been white heat embossed and I did some masking to get the leaves positioned correctly. Then I set to coloring with my ShinHan markers. I found a gorgeous sunflower color combo that I just love and can't get enough of! And the white outline just looks so elegant with this flower!

To keep everything one layer, I die cut out the Stitched Journaling card die from Lawn Fawn right from my patterned paper and did the same with my image so they pieced together.

To get the sentiment lined up, I first stamped it directly below the sunflower. Then used my Spellbinders banner die to cut out the sentiment banner, fit in the Kraft piece and stamped the sentiment again, using the top of the L to line everything up. Worked perfectly!

I kept the embellishing simple with just a few dots of liquid pearls and some Wink of Stella clear glitter pen to the whole sunflower. Super sparkly!! I love this card. Just so soft and gorgeous!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    Lawnscaping Challenge-One Layer
    Ooh La La #164-Clean and Simple
    The Paper Shelter #173-Embossing

Thanks for stopping by today!! <3

Happy Tuesday!!
We have a fun new challenge starting today for you over at Tuesday Throwdown! It's a recipe!! We want to see you use 1 image, 2 papers, and 3 flowers on your creation!

Our fabulous sponsor is A Day For Daisies, and they have provided the design team with some amazing images to use!!

I chose to work with Pearls in my Hair for my card. Such a gorgeous image! I wanted to keep everything soft and light so chose to use my colored pencils instead of markers...just have better control with those.

For my 3 flowers, I stamped an image from Penny Black and used my watercolors to paint them in. This was so fun and relaxing! And I just adore how they turned out! There is a bit of sparkle throughout all the flowers, so they really shimmer in the light!

To finish off the card, I black heat embossed a sweet sentiment from Hero Arts along the side, and added some liquid pearls to her hair, along with some clear wink of stella to the birdies.

I hope you will join us this week! Be sure to stop by Tuesday Throwdown to check out the rest of the DT's creations!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    Incy Wincy Designs-All Things Girly
    Loves Rubberstamps #120-Glitter or Sparkle
    Nutcrafters #76-B is for... (blue, birds, buds)
    Word Art Wednesday #148-Anything Goes

Thanks for visiting! <3

Good morning!
Stopping in on this rainy morning to share a few cards I worked on this week to go along with a few more challenges over at Winnie & Walter.

This first set of cards goes along with a challenge to choose a stamp set from both Simon Says Stamp and Winnie & Walter and make 2 projects with them (Day 3).
I chose to use Flower Friend from SSS, and The Big, The Bold & The Happy from Winnie & Walter.

This was the first card I made. I really loved a tutorial by Jennifer McGuire using this same set where she stamped her image in white pigment ink and colored over it with pencils. So thought I would give it a shot. My pigment ink wasn't the best...it's one of the old Stampin Up pigment inks that they no longer carry and it just isn't as smooth as I would like it to be. But maybe that's okay, because it gave the flowers a little texture, but was hard to color over.

For the sentiment, I die cut out the banner shape right from the flower panel and did a little inlaying to make it one layer. Finished off the flowers with some white enamel dots.

For the second card, I decided to try some multi-tone stamping, dabbing off ink around the edges to get some nice shading in the centers.

I really wasn't all that happy with this card at first. The flowers were just a bit boring and overpowering. But I stamped the striped background in a light grey, added the white embossing to the centers, and the little black dots, and the whole thing just sort of worked out.

It's really pretty and bright, and was fun to try out a bunch of new techniques with these fun stamps.

This card also works for the One Layer challenge from Day 4.

My final card is for the sketch that Winnie & Walter has for Day 5. Totally love simple/fun sketches like this one and I've been trying to get into the mood to make Halloween cards, so I ran with that idea for this card.

I stamped out and colored in a bunch of silhouette trees and layered a few behind some vellum so they were in the background. The kitties are from the You Are Pawesome set from SSS, and I used a hat from the Lawn Fawn Critters in Costume set.

For the sentiment, I mixed up a few embossing powders because I wanted it in black, but I wanted it to sparkle and I don't have any sparkly black embossing powder yet. I think mixing two together worked out pretty well..gave me the effect I was looking for :)

Finished the card off with a few Lawn Fawn bats in the sky. I just love the little witchy kitties! That hat totally belongs on them :)

Thanks for stopping by! Have a fabulous weekend! <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

It's Friday! Yay!! Anyone else as excited as me to finally have the weekend here?

Well before we get to the weekend, we need to check out the new release at Sami Stamps!! This release is oh-so-precious, you are not going to want to miss it!

Check out this Sweet Boy image! He's so cute!
To be honest, I loved him so much but struggled to find a good card design to go with him. Once again, turned to my wonderful husband and he rattled off some ideas...and the starry night theme stuck!

My first card was a disaster...the colors didn't work, the details were all wrong...I was so bummed out by it. But hubby to the rescue, he talked me through some other ideas and color schemes and helped me produce this adorable little card!

I totally love it! The black with the light blue, the bright shiny moon in the sky, the sweet little boy staring out the window. It's just so precious to me. So glad that Matthew helped me work this card out! Thanks babe :)

The sentiment is one that I have just fallen in love with using. It's from the Hero Arts Shoot for the Moon set. The perfect sentiment in my opinion!

Be sure to swing by Sami Stamps to see the rest of this adorable release!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    The Corrosive Challenge #206-"B" Unique (Black, Blue, Boy, Button)
    Fab n Funky #226-For the Kids
    Loves Rubberstamps #118-2 or More Patterned Papers
    Retro Sketches #129

Thanks for visiting! <3

Hey Everyone!
I'm running a bit late with my Meljen's Designs challenge post...sorry about that. This week has not been so great and my motivation/scheduling to get stuff done has been off kilter...but I'm trying to pick it back up :)

We have a super awesome sketch for you this week! I love working from sketches. That is the first place I turn to when looking for a card design idea. Seems if I don't follow a sketch, all my cards end up looking the same :)

Yes, more sunflowers :) They're just so bright and cheery and I really need that right now. So I couldn't help myself, I had to use this awesome Sunflower Buggies image from Meljen's Designs. It's an image that has been screaming to be used for so long and I kept putting it off for other images. But not this time!

I printed it off 3 times, colored it all up with my ShinHan markers and then did some layering on the sunflower for some fun dimension.

With the last sunflower card that I made last week, while trying to find some background paper, I found that I loved the honeycomb pattern, but it didn't fit very well with that card. So it was the first paper I grabbed for this card! Extra bonus that there are some sweet bees in the image :)

For the fun button and bow, I strung my twine through the button, looped it in the back and then coated the tails with some matte medium adhesive and wrapped them around a pencil to get the awesome curls. Saw that on a Shari Carroll card awhile ago and have been dying to give it a try :) I added touches of glitter brush all around the image, and that was it!

Hope you will stop by to play with our awesome sketch this week!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Chocolate, Coffee, Cards #72-Bingo (Yellow, String, Blue)
    Creative Inspirations #278-Flower Power
    Delightful Challenges-Layer It
    Let's Craft and Create #96-Anything Goes

Thanks for visiting! <3

Hey everyone!
Happy Tuesday!

We have a fun new Anything Goes challenge starting today at Tuesday Throwdown! And we have an amazing sponsor - Freckled Fawn!! They were so incredibly generous to send our design team a little goodie bag of materials to use on our cards! This was so much fun!

So this card is actually my second attempt to make something. The first one I had done weeks ago, but it just wasn't working for me...so I decided to try again.

I just love the little patterned acetate sheets they sent us! And I discovered that those cute sheets have a protective film over them...learned that with the first card (cuz you know...I sewed the panels down and then realized there was the protective film..oops :) ) I made sure to remove it for this card before adhering the sweet heart panels to their frames :)

The Daylily image is from DigiStamps4Joy, which I have used my watercolor paints on. The colors turned out a bit darker than I wanted...mostly because the printer ink bled pretty bad with the water...but overall I think it still turned out gorgeous.

For the sentiments, I used part of a stamp from Mama Elephants In My Heart set, and the big Happy is from Winnie & Walters The Big The Bold & The Happy, which I embossed with some sparkly embossing powder.

A few simple rhinestones in the corner and the card was done!
My plan was to follow the sketch at Seize the Sketch this week...I veered a little...but hopefully you can still tell where I got the inspiration from :)

Thanks for visiting!! <3

Hey!
Hope everyone's weekend is going fabulously!
Stopping in to share another super sweet card with you. I've been promising to share some projects featuring some of the other birthday gifts my amazing husband bought me. Well, today I am finally doing that!

See, I have this thing where I really really love animals. Lately they seem to be about the only thing I want to put on my cards...next to flowers. So for my birthday, Matthew decided to buy me a super cute set from Simon Says Stamp that I haven't been able to put down.

I adore this sweet little puppy from the You Are Pawesome set! He's so cute and so easy to put on any card I'm making! I decided to try flipping him for this card, which ended up working out pretty well. To do that, I inked up the stamp and then stamped it on the backside of a larger stamp so the ink transferred. Then all I needed to do was line up the outline with the coordinating die cut shape and it was done! I ended up tracing around the whole image to crisp up the lines, but it worked so well I know I will be doing that more often!

I have loved making little scenes for my cards lately too. So I pulled out a cute little star stencil I made with my Silhouette and used some embossing paste to give it dimension. There is a bit of sparkle gold pigment powder mixed into the embossing paste and in person you can really see the soft subtle shimmer it gives to the stars.

Then I used my Mama Elephant Landscape Trio dies to make the bushy background and hills for my pups to sit on.

The last part I added was the sentiment from the Hero Arts Shoot for the Moon set. I divided it up since the whole thing wouldn't fit in the banner die cut I wanted to use. So I stamped the I Love You separately and cut it out with the Landscape Trio as well. Both sentiments are embossed in gold and the second half of the sentiment is cut out with a Spellbinders banner die.

Totally adorable, I just love this fun stamp set and how sweet this pup is!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
AAA Cards #17-Stencils

The Crazy Challenge #178-Cute Little Animals
Fussy and Fancy #121-Pets or Favorite Animal
Pretty Pink Posh Cutting Edge Blog Hop

Thanks for stopping by!

Hey everyone!
Just wanted to swing in quick to share a super cute card that I adored making!
As you know, I'm addicted to my watercolors right now. Can't put them down...and I've been trying to find the right combo to use with the sunflowers in the Our Friendship Grows set from Lawn Fawn.
Well, I think I nailed it pretty well with this card!

Some people use coloring as a way to relax...for me it's painting. I just love to paint and watch the colors move and blend together. It's just peaceful for me.

So when this card design popped into my head, I took my time with it. Spent the afternoon painting in the flowers and getting the colors just right. I love it so much! Sunflowers are my favorite flower and I have been using this stamp set so much lately because it just makes me smile.

I really wanted the sunflowers to pop off the page so I painted in the background black, but mixed it with some shimmer as well so that it wasn't just a flat black around the flowers. It looks so awesome! Really hard to catch it in the picture, but the shimmer is just gorgeous! And I love the white embossed border of the flowers. Not only did it help me stay in the lines, but it helps pop those flowers up even more.

The whole card design was kept pretty simple. I used the Lawn Fawn Stitched Journaling die to cut out the sunflower panel, but stretched it a bit so that it was bigger than just the 3x4 size. I've really loved doing that, and it's super easy with this die.

For the sentiment, I used a banner from a Spellbinders set and stamped a simple greeting on it. I wanted to do a thank you greeting, but none of my stamps were big enough to fit well inside the die cut. So I used this one from the Simon Says Flower Friend set.

I added some liquid pearls to the little dots in the centers of the flowers and that was it! Simple card with a very detailed image that I just absolutely adore! I will definitely be making more of this card!

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Case This Sketch #89
Pretty Pink Posh Cutting Edge Blog Hop

The Cat's Pajamas #273-Photo Inspiration

Thanks for stopping by! <3

I can't believe that I'm already at 400 blog posts! That's a lot of cards! Lol :)
Thank you so much to all of you that have made these last few years of blogging so wonderful! I love and appreciate your super sweet comments, and that you take a little time out of your day to visit my small blog. You mean the world to me!!

So you've probably seen a lot of this type of card around lately (see Kristina, and Dawn's cards! And Jennifer just posted one too!). I've loved them so much, I decided to try it out myself, with a little twist.

I love the galaxy look. There is something so peaceful about space. It's mystery and beauty. While I don't think my card is totally accurate in capturing that beauty, I still love it!

Over the past few weeks I have been working to finally collect all the mini distress ink pads (and can I say that I have totally fallen in love with them!). I had wanted to try doing the galaxy with my distress paints, but just never got around to being that messy. And I'm a little chicken to try the watercolor style yet...but that one's coming, I can feel it! So I decided to try it with the distress inks.

I took a couple of the mini blending tools and splotched some of the colors onto my watercolor paper. Then covered it very generously with the black. I gave it a few squirts of water to get the inks moving and mixing a bit, then dried it with my heat gun. The black wasn't quite deep enough for me, and some of the fun color spots had faded out. So I reapplied some of the colors to intensify them and added more depth with the black. Light misting again and set it aside to dry.

I LOVE it!!! Oh, forgot to tell you. Before I did any inking, I heat embossed the Starry Backdrop from Lawn Fawn over the whole panel. Now that it's done, I think I might have chosen to do that more sparingly, a little more sporadically around the card instead of the whole card front..but I still love it so much!

While the stars are all amazing, I wanted some smaller flecks as well. So I pulled out my watercolor paints and did some shimmery white splatters around the card to get the tiny white star dots. Perfect!!!

To finish it all off, I grabbed the In My Heart stamp set from Mama Elephant and used one of the oh-so-fitting sentiments. I stamped it with the distress ink, and because it stays wet for awhile, I was able to cover it in clear embossing powder and emboss it!! The final touch was some die cut silver sparkly stars.

I can see myself making a ton of these cards! It was so incredibly fun and I love, love, love the end result!!

I'd like to enter this card into the Lawnscaping texture challenge.

Thanks for stopping by! read more →

Happy Friday!
Can you believe that it's almost time (or is time) for kids to go back to school? I don't have any myself but I see everyone else around me talking about summer break and everything, and it seems like it just started...
This year is flying by way too fast.

But because I don't have any kids, thinking about making back to school projects for teachers, or getting things ready for the kids just doesn't cross my mind, and I tend to have a difficult time wrapping my head around that topic.

So for this weeks Sami Stamps release, I really had to dig for some inspiration. The images are so incredibly cute and I always want to be sure that I'm showing off Sami's images in the best most awesome way I can.

I thought it would be really cool to have an alphabet stencil in sort of a tone on tone effect behind my image...you know school is all about the alphabet :)

So I typed out the letters and got them arranged how I wanted them in my Silhouette studio and then cut them out to make a stencil. Once that was done, I tinted some embossing paste with some grey ink and smeared it onto my stencil. It needed a little sparkle, so I lightly covered it with some glittery embossing powder and left it to dry.

I don't have very much red patterned paper in my collection...just doesn't seem to be a color I reach for much. So I decided to just do a simple watercolor wash for the background, but it really didn't turn out the way I was hoping, so I added some little white embossed dots by using the Swiss Dots embossing folder as a stamp. That helped a little bit.

Then I set into working on the image. I really wanted to watercolor this apple. I felt the most comfortable doing that since my coloring skills with markers/pencils aren't exactly the best and watercolor is a little more forgiving. Plus I just got that awesome new Gansai Tambi watercolor set and have to use it on everything :) So I painted up my images and set them aside to dry. The only problem is, they didn't really dry...the darker areas of the apple still seem to have some wetness to them, even after sitting for a few days.

I managed to leave a couple little red finger prints all over the image panel (strategically covered with some enamel dots:) )...but that frustrates me! I'm not really sure why those spots didn't dry completely...it's almost like I didn't use enough water to spread out the paint and there's just too much concentration in those spots...who knows!

But to finish it all off, like I mentioned, I added a few enamel dots and the simple sentiment flag. It's not perfect unfortunately...but with a few suggestions from Matthew for shading and detail, I'm happy with it.

Now go visit Sami Stamps to see the rest of this awesome release! And remember we have a challenge running right now with an Anything Goes theme, so join in!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    Penny's Paper-Crafty #190-Anything Goes
    Sassy Studio #242-Stack it Up
    Viva la Verve Week 2 Sketch

Thanks for stopping by, and making it to the end of my very long post! <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