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

Thanks for stopping by! <3