I admit...I've caught the Christmas card bug...I tried so hard to avoid it! Willing it to hold off for just a little bit longer...but alas...the crafting world has broke me and I now find myself dreaming up wintery cards and Christmas scenes...
I will try not to bombard you with too many (after this post :) ) for a little while longer...but they are coming!
I have had this gorgeous stamp set from The Cat's Pajamas called Elegant Christmas since last year (unfortunately it looks to be sold out...). When I purchased it, I absolutely adored it and felt I had a ton of ideas for using it...but it sat on my desk and I barely touched it. Nothing ever seemed to click or I got wrapped up in other things and couldn't get around to using it. I think the main reason I bought this set is for this stunning poinsettia image.
With the spark of Christmas hitting me this week, I decided it was time to put this set to use. So I pulled it out and started playing around with this poinsettia. I stamped it with distress inks so I could do some watercoloring. While my post yesterday was about simple watercoloring, this card is the opposite :)
I wanted to avoid all those perfect swirls so that they stayed nice and crisp white. Doing that was super easy with a really fine point brush and a steady hand. But you have to have patience! You can't rush or use too much water or the whole thing blobs out and you have to start over.
The flower was first stamped in Abandoned Coral distress ink to get the base color down. Then I went in with Fired Brick for my darkest color in the center and Barn Door for my mid-tone. Once I had those blended nicely, I came back in with some more Abandoned Coral and blended it all out to get a nice smooth finish. I trimmed around both flowers and layered them together.
The challenge over at The Cat's Pajamas is to case one of the DT. I fell in love with the layout of Christine's card and decided to use that as my guide. Of course, I got the placement of my sentiment wrong...but I think it works out better at the top for my card anyhow :)
The white background was embossed using the Simon Says Stamp Triangle Pattern die. I backed that with some Lawn Fawn paper and added a few sequins and that wrapped up the card!!
Thank you so much for stopping by! <3
read more →
Happy Wednesday!
Wanted to stop in and share a few simple cards I've worked on this week.
I won this Newton's Nook stamp set called Newton's Daydream from one of their recent releases, and I've only gotten to play with it a few times...and none of the attempts turned out all that great (hence why you haven't seen any cards with this stamp yet :) ).
The challenge at Newton's Nook is to use fall colors, and I wanted to find a way to use this sweet little sleeping kitty to enter. So I pulled out some of my other stamps, and found some small leaves that I thought might work well together. I wanted Newton to be sleeping on this giant pile of leaves, but decided to just keep it to a small bed so that things didn't get too cluttered around the image. To achieve the look of a leaf bed, I just stamped Newton first and then masked him off while I stamped the leaves :)
The image turned out so stinking cute! I colored him in like my sweet Ezio...he doesn't seem to make an appearance on my cards as much as Storm and Cloud, mostly because he's a tabby and a little bit more of a challenge for me to color correctly. But he deserved a place on this card!
I kept the rest really simple so the image took center stage...and because while I have tons of ideas swirling in my head and the drive to craft...nothing interesting has been making it out onto paper...but I keep trying!
I'd like to enter this kitty card into the following challenges:
Inky Impressions #180-Flowers and Leaves
Newton's Nook Inky Paws #14-Fall Colors
Ruby's Rainbow #89-Autumn Leaves
My second card also features a prize stamp set, but this time from The Cat's Pajamas called Bearing Flowers.
Another simple card but still cute in my opinion. I used a stencil for that small background piece at the top and some distress ink in faded jeans and rusty hinge, along with some grey ink from Stampin Up. The sunflower has been covered in glitter pen because I really wanted some sparkle on this card, but not anything too overwhelming.
I didn't have any blue twine that matched well enough, so I took one of my ShinHan markers and ran it over some grey and white striped twine to change the color. Worked perfect and now it matches exactly to my paper :)
I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Ooh La La #166-Use a Bow
Penny's Paper Crafty #198-Polka Dots
Sweet Sunday Sketch #239
The Cat's Pajamas #276-Light Grey, Rust, Dark Blue
Hopefully my creativity will come back to me soon so I can get some of these ideas out of my brain. I hate it when the drive is there and nothing works...my mojo has been gone for too long, I need it back!
So, thanks for stopping by!! <3
read more →
