Scrappy Sweet Creations

...but I'm sharing a Christmas card with you today!! I apologize...I usually do my best to put that sort of stuff off until after the other holidays...but these adorable new images from Sami Stamps just screamed Christmas! Please forgive me :)

So I hope everyone is well! We've had a pretty mellow week...until yesterday when we woke up to the sound of gushing water in our bathroom. Well, not in our bathroom, but under it. Yup...broken pipe...ugh...Matthew thankfully was able to stay home from work and get it patched, but even with the fix, it still highlights a much larger problem with our pipes that neither of us really want to deal with, but know we should...someday.

It was awesome having him work from home though! Being in the office together..me crafting, him clicking away on the computer. It gets a bit lonely here at home all alone, so having him here was nice. And it kept me motivated to get my work done! I cranked out this card showcasing the new Cats in Cups release from Sami Stamps:

I have used the very sweet Cup Kitty 1 image. It's just so precious! I, of course, colored her in like my sweet little Cloud. Then fussed over the cup...I tried coloring it solid with my markers but I couldn't get the blending right and it just looked horrible...so then I decided to paper piece it with some fun Lawn Fawn paper and only added shading around the bottom. That worked pretty well so I pieced it all back together.

The shape of this image just seemed super perfect to try and make an ornament from it! Sandy Allnock has a "Go for the Gold" series going on right now and her first card/lesson was about making an ornament and adding it to a card. Figured I'd give it a try. To fit some of the gold in, I embossed little hearts on the cup in Enchanted Gold embossing powder and added little gold dots around them, though it's hard to see those in the picture.

I did add a little adhesive behind the image to help it stick to the card, but I rubbed it against my shirt a few times to take most of the sticky away. My sentiment is from Pink Cat Studio which I printed on vellum and embossed in clear. This panel is what should be used to hold the ornament in place, but mine isn't super tight. I did add the little gold brads to help tighten it a little and it's fine, but the adhesive behind the ornament was definitely needed.

Finished the whole card off with some sparkly gold enamel dots!

Be sure to stop by Sami Stamps to see the rest of this adorable release! And check out the rest of the DT's creations!!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Fab n Funky #275-Anything Christmas
    Penny's Paper Crafty #247-Anything Goes
    Sandy Allnock's Go for the Gold Day #1
    Simon Says Stamp-Anything Goes
    Tuesday Morning Sketches #320

Thanks for stopping by! <3

Hi Everyone!!!
It's been super quiet around here! That was absolutely not intentional, but you know...life gets busy and the work desk stays empty for a few days longer than it should. Hopefully I'm over my little creative slump and can get back to sharing super adorable cards with you, along with some fun techniques!

Today's card was put together in a little bit of a hurry. I needed to leave at a certain time so I could get to a friends concert yesterday but felt like I really needed to get something made. So after searching my brain (and the internet) for some inspiration, I was finally able to put something together.

It was a really quick make, but man I love it! I started by using some distress inks in Seedless Preserves, Milled Lavender, and Worn Lipstick to ink up my background in a slight ombre style. This color combo was inspired by a recent card by Julia Altermann at Just One More Card. Don't you just love her blog name! It's always so true!

Once I had the background blended the way I wanted, I sprayed it with some perfect pearl shimmer mist to give it a ton of shine!! It's gorgeous!

A little tough to see the sparkle in the picture but if you look right by the cat's back and up by the spider webs, you can see it!

For the images, I decided to combine a couple of stamp companies..two of my favorites-Lawn Fawn and Newton's Nook! You know I can't resist Newton's Nook...I've featured their products in 3 of my most recent cards...their stamps just never leave my desk! So I wanted this cute little scene of a kitty walking through the pumpkins, and decided that the sweet cat from the Lawn Fawn Critters in Costume set would be perfect paired with the little pumpkins from the Newton's Nook Newton's Perfect Pumpkin set. I stamped them out and colored them in with my ShinHan markers and then cut them out.

I laid my images on my sparkly background to get the placement right and then stamped and embossed the fun spider and webs around the outside with some sparkly black embossing powder. You have to be really careful when using black embossing powder as it can be a pain to get a good crisp emboss with. I don't use it often, but when I do, I try to really load up my paper with an anti-static powder and get a good impression with my Versamark. That seems to help get the excess powder to slide off, and with the thick layer of Versamark, you can flick your paper a little harder as well. Works pretty good for me!

Once everything was dry, I adhered it all down and created a striped pennant to go behind my image panel. Used a fun sentiment from the Newton's Nook set as well and stamped it on a die cut banner. Finished everything off with a few purple and black enamel dots!! So..Much..Fun!!!

I hope you've enjoyed this sweet Meow-oween card!!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Artistic Inspirations #141-Anything Goes/Black
Deep Ocean #113-Autumn
    Newton's Nook Inky Paws #25-Halloween
    Our Daily Bread-Ink or Emboss Your Own Background
    Simon Says Stamp-Anything Goes
    Sweet Sunday Sketch #288
    V's Sweet Ideas #38-Technique Tuesday
    Word Art Wednesday #203-Anything Goes

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 and happy Friday!!
I hope you've had a fabulous week and are ready for an amazing weekend! We're having a birthday party for Matthew on Sunday so I'm going to be baking my little heart out!

Today Sami is re-releasing one of her past image sets, and it's one of my favorites, so you have to go check it out! The set is called Butterflies and will steal your heart :)

I worked with the same image I used when this set first came out because I just absolutely adore it!

The image is Butterfly Flower and is so gorgeous! I decided to push my watercoloring a little bit on this one...it may have gotten a little out of control but I think that's what makes it so beautiful.

To really make it stand out, I did a no-lines coloring on the image as well. Printing on watercolor paper can be a pain because once you add water, the printer ink will smear. So I needed to find a way to get the image onto my paper without having to print it. I decided to do a transfer, which was done by printing the image onto vellum, tracing the image on the backside, and then laying that vellum (facing up with the pencil lines down) onto my watercolor paper and rubbing it with my bone folder to transfer the pencil lines.

Depending on how hard you push, you can get dark lines or light lines. I did this several times because each one turned out different, so by the time I got to doing this one in particular, my pencil lines had lightened up quite a bit. If they were too dark in some places, I just lightly erased them before painting.

Painting without any lines isn't really that difficult. You still apply your darkest colors in the shadows and make sure your colors go all the way out to the image lines to fill it all in. The nice thing with this technique is it looks more natural instead of having a dark black line around the outside.

I also did a little splattering with this image...as I said, it went a little crazy :) To get the bursts of paint coming out of the image in a few spots, I simply applied clean water around the outside of the area I wanted the paint to "bloom" and then connected that clean water to the wet paint. The water picks up that paint and spreads it into the clean water. I added more paint as needed to get it to spread as much as I wanted and then did a little splattering for more detail.

The background was made separately, and I did basically the same type of "bloom" technique for it so that it looked like the paint continued out from the image. Added a lot of splatters and then used the Zig Zag Dots stencil from Simon Says Stamp with some Wendy Vecchi embossing paste to add more texture and detail.

Super crazy card, but I'm so in love with it!! And that was a giant wall of text, but I hope you made it through all that! It was a lot to explain and I wanted to be sure you had the full details so you can give this fun technique a try!

If you do, let me know about it in the comments below!!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Addicted to Stamps and More #162-Make Your Mark
Word Art Wednesday #201-Anything Goes

Thanks so much for visiting! Be sure to stop by Sami Stamps to see the rest of the DT's creations with this awesome image set!! <3

Hi Everyone! Happy Friday!...evening!
This card seriously took me all...stinkin...day!
Between not having a set plan or design, to getting distracted by my own brain a thousand times, to still not having a plan....ugh...it just took forever!
But maybe that's a good thing, because in the end I absolutely love this card!

I haven't really done a card like this before (meaning, cluster of flowers behind a die cut sentiment)..so getting the flowers placed in an appealing way was tough for me. I think that's probably what I struggled with the most...and coloring them.

I started by stamping these roses from the Winnie & Walter In Bloom: Addie's Garden set in a super light blue ink. My original plan was pink, but the coloring didn't come out right and my blue's matched better...
Once they were all stamped, I pulled out my Spectrum Noir pencils and lightly colored them all in. I really wanted the tips of the petals to be super soft, so I kept a really light hand and only applied intense color to the darkest parts of the flowers. It's not perfect, but I really love them and hope that with more practice, I can be more confident in my coloring.

I did the same steps for the leaves and cut them all out. The Thanks die cut is a cut file from Winnie & Walter that I layered 3 times and then embossed with some sparkly silver powder. I did a light ink blending on the background with some Tea Dye ink just to add a little more color and interest and then set about getting the arrangement together (which again...took forever...)

Once it was all laid out the way I wanted, I adhered it all down, sprinkled some Pretty Pink Posh sequins around the flowers and added little drops of glossy accents. I also added tiny sparkly dots around the whole arrangement. That wasn't originally in my plan, but I think it really helped finish it all off.

I hope you enjoy this card, and it inspires you in some way!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Addicted to Stamps & More #161-Anything Goes
    Chocolate, Coffee & Cards #99-Fancy & Feminine
    Craft Cardmakers #147-Floral Embellishments
Retro Sketches #180
Simon Says Stamp-Use A Stamp
    Word Art Wednesday #200-Anything Goes

Thanks for visiting!! <3

Happy Tuesday!
Anyone else get a little mixed up with the holiday yesterday? I did! Totally forgot today was Tuesday and we have a new challenge starting at Tuesday Throwdown! Sorry my post is late!

We have an awesome new sponsor for this challenge: Newton's Nook! I love this company and I love that we have them as a sponsor now! And with our challenge being Anything Goes, I got to do whatever I wanted with their fun stamps :)

I absolutely LOVE this card! It makes me giggle every time I see it...I think because I colored my kitty from the Newton's Antics set up to be like my little Ezio and this is totally something that would happen to him. Now, if you look at past cards where I have colored a kitty like Ezio, you might notice he is more orange/brown in those cards...while looking at him again to make this card, it dawned on me that he's actually more grey than brown...so I had to adjust my coloring with just a little bit of brown. This kitty is much closer to what Ezio looks like :)

I stamped out the balloon from the Newton's Birthday Flutter set, along with the birdie and then cut them all out. The bottom panel was watercolored with a few different shades of blue to give a nice soft sky background. I die cut out a few clouds and stamped my sentiments on the larger ones before arranging them around my scene.

Getting the balloons lined up properly was interesting. I laid them all out the way I wanted them and then used some washi tape to keep them in the correct order while I attached different levels of adhesive on the backs. Once it was all on the card, I took all the little balloon strings and wound them around Ezio's tail and off to the side of the card.

Finished it all off with some glitter brush and glossy accent dots around the card. So stinking cute!!!

I hope you will stop by Tuesday Throwdown to see the rest of the DT's creations, and then join in the fun of our Anything Goes challenge to win an awesome prize from Newton's Nook!!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    Craft Your Passion #278-Anything Goes
    Incy Wincy Designs-For the Boys
    Simon Says Stamp-Make it Colorful

Thanks for visiting! <3

Happy Friday!
We have an adorable new Sami Stamps release to share with you today! This release, titled Little Angels, is absolutely the sweetest! You won't want to miss it!

I got the chance to play with Little Love Angel for my card:

With such a sweet image, I wanted to try and keep my card colors soft as well. It kind of worked, but some of the papers turned out brighter than I expected...which still works!

I started by using some Stampin Up Sage Shadow and inking up a full background with that color. When I was done, I splattered it with water to get the little faded water drops. I die cut out a fun cloud type border from Mama Elephant's Landscape Trio die set and bordered that along the edge of my image panel.

I kept my coloring simple on my sweet little angel, again going for soft colors..though that green sort of steals the show :)
Of course, I added touches of glitter to all the hearts and the cloud. The sentiment is printed off and framed with Notebook Edge border die from My Favorite Things.

I finished my image off by adding a little pierced frame around the edge for some extra detail, and a few little enamel dots in the corner.

I hope you enjoy this sweet release! Be sure to stop by Sami Stamps to see the rest of the DT's amazing creations. We also are starting a fun new challenge this week--Frame It! So join in the fun!!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    Crafty Catz #291-Anything Goes
    Creative Fingers #91-Anything Goes
    Penny's Paper Crafty #243-Use A Sentiment
    Simon Says Stamp-Make It Colorful

Thanks for visiting! <3

Hi Everyone!!
I hope your week has been fabulous! It's been a bit rainy and cool here in Washington, but I absolutely love it because fall is in the air!! Don't get me wrong...I love summer too but nothing beats cooler weather and the smell of fall. Which is what inspired my card today, along with getting new goodies from Newton's Nook :)

I had so much fun putting this card together! I'm not sure the background works all that well combined with my pumpkin kitty, but I couldn't resist putting the two of them together.

To start my card, I blended together 4 different colors of ink onto a piece of cardstock. Then stamped my leaves from the Falling Into Autumn set from Newton's Nook with Versamark and clear embossed them so the ink colors below would show through but be protected so I could go over the whole background with black ink. I left the black ink layer a little light so that hints of the colors below would show through but the black would still be bold enough to make the leaves pop. I learned this technique from a card that Kelly Latevola shared over on the A2Z Scrapbooking blog.
Lets just say I loved it and will probably be using it a lot more :)

I couldn't decide how to add my kitty from the Newton's Perfect Pumpkin set to this fun background. I didn't really want to stamp her on white and have all that bright white paper clashing with such a dark bold background. In the end I decided to stamp her onto watercolor paper and watercolored her in to match my sweet Cloud. Die cut out some grass and blended some greens to give it a little dimension. Then popped it all up on foam tape.

The sentiment is from the Autumn Blessings set from Simon Says Stamp. I clear embossed that onto watercolor paper and then blended the red around it, just like I did with the background, making sure the edges were a bit darker than the rest of the tag.

To finish it all off, I die cut a curve along the bottom and added some sweet Lawn Fawn paper so it would just barely peek out.

Love this card so much! It's nice to finally get the chance to really play at my work desk. We've had so much going on that my desk has not seen a lot of love. But hopefully that is changing now :)

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
AAA Cards #47-Spectacular Embossing
    Creative Inspirations #325-Warm Colors
    Incy Wincy Designs-Anything Goes
    Newton's Ink Paws Challenge #24-Sketch

Inky Paws #24 Sketch Challenge | Newton's Nook Designs

Simon Says Stamp-Make It Colorful
The Paper Shelter #217-Embossing
Time Out #39-Make Your Mark

Thanks for stopping by! <3

Hi!!! Happy Friday!!
Today is a great day! It's the start of PAX Prime here in Seattle!!!! It's been 4 years since we've been able to attend any sort of convention, and we are so excited to finally be back to an area that has some of the best conventions around! And one of the best parts is Matthew's company has a very large booth set up for people to sit down and play their game!

I've had the opportunity to play the game twice, once being last night with a couple of my best friends. It was So. Much. Fun!!! If you happen to be going to PAX this weekend, seek out this desk and PLAY THIS GAME! You won't regret it!

If you aren't at PAX, visit their site: Gigantic
Beta will be opening up soon so get your name in for the chance to play!! Woot!!

Since we were in downtown Seattle last night, the joy of being back to our home in Washington sort of re-flooded me today. It's an overwhelming love for this state...something I can never find the right words to say. But being here never gets old and I'm reminded each day that this is home, and it's only going to get better.

So of course, I had to make a card to reflect that :)

And of course that card has to have a cat :) The kitty stamp is from Newton's Antics.
Matthew bought me this amazing die cut of the space needle for my birthday last month and I'm finally getting the chance to sit down and play with it. It's from Impress Stamps, and it cuts so beautifully! I absolutely love it!

I did a bunch of distress ink blending on my card to keep it all soft and sweet. Since everything on here was die cut, I decided to do no-lines coloring for my kitty. This scared me a bit, but I think my little Stormie kitty turned out super cute! I impressed myself! Considering my time at my craft desk has been super limited lately...picking those markers up was intimidating, but inspiring :)

I added little bits of detail to the hills around the space needle and kitty. It was looking a little flat without all those flowers. Then stamped out my awesome sentiment and placed it over the space needle! It felt so fitting for how I'm feeling right now :)

A little heart above the sentiment and everything was done! Love this card so much!!!

I hope you are someplace that fills your heart with joy and love! I am learning just how important that really is in life :)

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Chocolate, Coffee, Cards #98-Use A Sentiment
    Craft Your Passion #276-Anything Goes
    Newton's Inky Paws Challenge #24-Sketch
Simon Says Stamp-Anything Goes
    Word Art Wednesday #198-Anything Goes

Thanks for stopping by! <3

Hi Everyone!
Happy Tuesday! Chilly morning here in Washington, but the cooler temps are very welcome! Just wishing they would help with the wild fires on the east side of the state. Please keep everyone in your prayers as these fires have been brutal and unstoppable so far...and it's hard to watch my state go through something so difficult...

It is time for a new challenge at Tuesday Throwdown. This weeks challenge is "Just Because!" I love sending these cards because they have no purpose other than to just say Hi :)
Our awesome sponsor is A Random Fan, and they have provided our team with some adorable images!
I've chosen to use Sweet Honey Bee.

I've been so busy the last few weeks with other projects that I completely forgot that it was my teams challenge week. So this card was one of those last minute "oh-my-gosh-get-something-done" type of cards. But I think it turned out super cute!

I colored in this cutie with my ShinHan markers and added touches of glitter brush for some fun sparkle. The orange background paper was embossed with glitter embossing powder in a fun dot pattern, but most of that pattern got covered up...so now it's just sparkly :)

I added a quick sentiment and some hand drawn stitches and called it good on this quick and sweet card!
Be sure to stop by Tuesday Throwdown and join in this super fun challenge!!

Thanks for visiting! <3

Hi Everyone and Happy Friday!!
We are finally back from our wonderful vacation in Hawaii! What a magical place! I loved everything about being there and can't wait to go back again some day!
This week has been super busy helping my best friend get ready for her wedding reception this weekend, so my time ran a little short to get anything created. But I squeezed a little time in to get something done for our Sami Stamps re-release this week!

Sami is re-releasing her Back to School collections! It's perfect for this time of year!
I got to work with the adorable My First Day image.

This card was created at my friends house, so I didn't have my usual craft supplies with me. But she had some awesome stamps that fit perfect with this image!
I kept the coloring pretty simple and used my Spectrum Noir pencils.

While there isn't much detail to the card, I actually really love it! The simplicity of it makes it that much cuter :)

So be sure to stop by Sami Stamps to see these fun releases from the past!!

Thanks for visiting! <3

Hi Everyone!
I'm currently enjoying the warm beaches of Hawaii!!! I hope you are all doing well!

We're starting a fun new challenge today at Tuesday Throwdown. We want you to make a card for your favorite occasion!!

I have lots of favorites, so this was hard to choose. But with my sister having a baby soon, and several other people I know being pregnant, right now my favorite occasion has to be babies!! So I made up a sweet little card to go with that.

I adore this sweet little cuddle bunny from our sponsor - Digital Delights. I tried to keep the card pretty soft, but I just loved this background paper so much I had to use it! The bunny is colored in soft grey's with little touches of pink, and I added my little sentiment banner with a sweet little bow.

Pretty simple card, but full of sweetness! Be sure to stop by Tuesday Throwdown to see what occasion is the rest of the teams favorite, and then join in the fun!!

Thanks for stopping by! <3

Hi Everyone!
Sorry it's been super quiet around here. We have been super busy preparing for a big vacation to Hawaii!!! I am currently on the plane so this post is scheduled :)

We have a fun new release for your today from Sami Stamps - Beach Fun! Such a perfect release for this time of year! We are finally seeing a little bit of relief here in Washington from all the heat. So the beach has been our friend this summer!

I've used the super cute image A Friend From the Sea!

Still working on getting my creative mojo back, so I kept this card pretty simple. Our challenge starting today is to use 2 patterned papers. So I pulled out this fun pack from Lawn Fawn and found a couple patterns that worked well together. I also stamped out a few star fish from the So Jelly stamp set to add around my sentiment.

My image was colored in with pencils. I used a border die around the outsides to get that fun x pattern. It overlapped funny in the corners and cut a few off, but I still think it looks cool!

Be sure to stop by Sami Stamps to see the rest of this awesome release! And don't forget to join in the fun new challenge!!

Thanks for visiting! <3

Happy Friday!
I hope everyone is ready for an awesome weekend! The sun is shining, it's going to be nice and hot here in Seattle again! We're going to pick some massive bucket loads of blueberries! I'm excited!

I'm also excited because today we have another amazing Sami Stamps release for you! This release is Shell Mermaids, and they are so precious! You must check them out!
I decided to work with the Shell Mermaid 2 image for my card.

I'll be honest...I struggled coming up with a card idea for this sweet image. My brain isn't quite back into the creative mode and I kept drawing blanks every time I tried to brainstorm. I eventually ran out of time and knew I had to get something made. So I used this fun Hero Arts woodgrain background stamp to try and mimic flowing water. I misted it a bunch and dropped water all around the image to try and represent bubbles. It turned out pretty cute, but I think the blues are little too dark...should have gone lighter.

For the image, I colored that in with some watercolor pencils and a shimmer brush. It was going beautifully till I got to her sweet hair...and I stalled...I wanted there to be curls and swooshy waves in her hair and I just couldn't get it to work out right...guess I'll have to try again sometime.

Since I was drawing blank on a good design, I decided to just keep it simple and did some zig zag stitching around the edge with a simple sentiment and some white glitter enamel dots to finish it all off.

Now be sure to stop by Sami Stamps to see the rest of this release and the DT's jaw dropping creations! While I struggled, they pulled out all the stops...their work is amazing! You must see it!

And remember we have an Anything Goes challenge still running, so join in that as well!

Thanks for stopping by! Have a fabulous weekend! <3