two birthday cards...

Hey there!  As my blog title says I have two birthday cards to share today.  The first card is for the Essentials by Ellen pin-sights challenge and the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge to use more than one stamp.  I have been having a bit of a love affair with coloring on vellum lately.  I just love the soft look that you can achieve by coloring on the back of your stamped vellum.  The last card I made I used distress markers, but with today's card I decided to try using my Memento markers.  One of my favorite Essentials by Ellen stamp sets is the Mondo Hydrangea and so I pulled that out to use for my card.  I wanted my hydrangeas in opposite corners so I stamped the image on opposite corners of my vellum with watermark ink and then heat embossed in white.  Once that was done I die cut each image with the matching die.  I colored one hydrangea with a light pink and dark pink Memento marker (Angel Pink and Rose Bud) and the other with a light purple and a dark purple (Lulu Lavender and Grape Jelly).  The leaves were stamped and embossed and then colored with a light green marker from Stampin Up! and a Memento marker in dark green (Cottage Ivy).  I trimmed down a piece of woodgrain cardstock and then adhered all the pieces using rolled up glue dots.  For the sentiment I used stamps from the Essentials by Ellen Lovely stamp set.  The birthday was stamped directly onto the woodgrain cardstock and the phrase 'It's your' was embossed in white on medium gray cardstock, trimmed out and adhered.  

The second card is super simple and made for three challenges:  Reverse Confetti Stock You Stash (Birthday), Color Throwdown and Freshly Made Sketches.  I finally got a chance to purchase a couple of newer Reverse Confetti stamp sets and used one (Tall Blooms) for my card.  I knew the Tall Blooms stamp set would be perfect for the sketch! After two bad embossing results using Canson watercolor paper I switched to Arches Hot Press watercolor paper and got a much better result with my embossing.   Then I did some simple watercoloring using red and blue ZIG markers and clean water.  Once the piece was try I die cut it with an AJVD plain rectangle die.  The sentiment (from Tall Blooms) was embossed in white on vellum, trimmed down and then adhered using rolled up glue dots.   The panel was then adhered to a red cardstock base.  Super simple, but now I have one more birthday card!

Hope you have a wonderful day!

Supplies:  Card #1:  Cardstock:  SSS medium gray, Tim Holtz woodgrain, PTI vellum; Stamps and dies:  Essentials by Ellen; Ink:  VersaMark watermark ink, VersaFine CLAIR Nocturne; Embossing powder:  Hero Arts; Coloring medium:  Memento markers, Stampin Up! marker

Card #2:  Cardstock:  Stampin Up! Real Red, PTI vellum, Arches watercolor; Stamps:  Reverse Confetti; Die:  A Jillian Vance Design; Coloring medium:  ZIG markers; Ink:  VersaMark watermark ink; Embossing powder:  Hero Arts

floral cards...

Hello!!   I have a couple of cards to share today for a few challenges.  First up is a sunny little number that I made for the Color Throwdown and Freshly Made Sketches challenges.  I'm also going to add it to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge to add texture.  My texture is the embossed sentiments.   The flower and leaves are from the SSS Handwritten Floral Greetings and they were stamped in VersaFine CLAIR in Morning Mist and then watercolored.  I trimmed them out when they were dry.  Cut a strip of aqua cardstock and embossed the word "MOM" from the SSS Mom Flowers stamp set in white.  The sentiment was stamp on vellum and embossed in white as well.  Everything was layered on a white cardstock base and I was done.

The second card is for the current Essentials by Ellen Pin-Sights challenge and the Time Out challenge of spring time.  My peonies are growing quickly and will be in bloom in no time.  Nothing says spring to me more than peonies in bloom!  At least three of my peony plants have blooms in the color of the peonies on my card.  I stamped the peonies and leaves from Mondo Peony in watermark ink on Arches hot press watercolor paper and then embossed the images in black.  I then watercolored them with Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolors.  For the peonies I used a combination of carmine red and dark pink.  The leaves were a combo of may green and mid green.  Once they were dry I trimmed the out.   I then colored some Canson watercolor paper with a dark blue and splattered it with black.  Once it was dry I die cut it with an A Jillian Vance Design rectangle die.  I placed the flowers on my panel to determine where to stamp the sentiment (from the EE Lovely stamp set) and then stamped it in VersaFine CLAIR Nocturne ink.  The panel was adhered to a cardstock base and then I added the flowers. 

Hope you have a wonderful day!

Supplies:  Card 1:  Cardstock:  MFT smooth white, SSS Sea Glass, PTI vellum, Canson watercolor paper; Stamps:  Simon Says Stamp; Ink:  VersaFine CLAIR and VersaMark watermark; Embossing powder:  Hero Arts; Watercolor medium:  ZIGs

Card 2:  Cardstock:  MFT smooth white, Arches hot press watercolor paper, Canson watercolor paper; Stamps:  Essentials by Ellen; Dies:  A Jillian Vance Design; Ink:  VersaFine CLAIR, VersaMark; Watercolor medium:  Kuretake Gansai Tambi; Embossing powder:  Filigree black

if flowers could hug...

Hey there!!  Hope you have been having a good weekend.  Our crazy January weather has returned.... rain and wind!  And with weather like that staying inside makes lots of sense, lol!!!  I have a card for the current Essentials by Ellen Pin-Sights challenge, as well as the current Freshly Made Sketches challenge.   I pulled a few of the colors from the inspiration photo to make my card. I used the EE Mondo Peony stamp set and colored two of the images using Faber-Castell Art Grip Aquarelle pencils in two shades of purple.  The leaves were colored with Derwent watercolor pencils in two shades of green.   I cut down some purple cardstock to 4 1/4 x 4 1/4 inches and then adhered a layer of vellum that was cut slightly smaller.  The leaves and the flowers were layered on top.  One of the colors in the palette looks like gold to me so I heat embossed the sentiment from the EE set Lovely in gold on black cardstock, trimmed it down and layered it on top of the flowers.  Going to add this to the current Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge, as well.

Hope you have a wonderful day!

Supplies:  Cardstock:  PTI Royal Velvet, black, vellum; Canson cold pressed watercolor; Stamps:  Essentials by Ellen; Ink:  VersaFine Smoky Gray, VersaMark watermark; Watercolor Medium:  Faber-Castell and Derwent watercolor pencils; Embossing powder:  Tsukineko gold

birthday ballloons...

Hey there!!  Hope everyone has all their Christmas preparations done and are finding time to make a card or two.  I found some time to make a card for a few challenges that are running right now:  Freshly Made Sketches, Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge and Essentials by Ellen Pin-Sights challenge.   Inspired by the colors from the Pin-Sights challenge  I did some stamping and masking with my EE Up the Happy stamp set to create the balloons in the background.  Once the stamping was done I  water colored them with my Daniel Smith water color palettes from Simon Says Stamp.  Three additional balloons were stamped, colored and then die cut.  I arranged the die cut balloons on the background balloons and then stamped the strings (rather badly I might add, lol).  The die cut balloons were then adhered and a little twine bow was added to the strings.  I then did a light wash of blue around the balloons so they look like they are floating in the sky.  I matted my little panel with black cardstock and as I set about assembling things per the sketch I realized that I didn't really have a good place for the sentiment other than on top of the balloons so that's where it went!  The sentiment is from the EE Lovely stamp set.  I added my strip of black cardstock, the panel and I was done.

Have a wonderful day and Merry Christmas!!

Supplies:  Cardstock:  white, black and water color; Stamps and dies:  Essentials by Ellen; Ink:  VersaFine Onyx Black; Water color medium:  Daniel Smith; white baker's twine

many thanks...

Hey!!  Hope everyone in the US had a wonderful Thanksgiving day!  Popping in with a card for the current Essentials by Ellen Pin-Sights challenge, as well as the EE anniversary challenge to use your favorite EE stamp set.  For my card I used my favorite EE stamp set Mondo Hydrangea.   I really love that gorgeous big hydrangea in the set, but for this card I used only the leaf.  When I saw the pin-sights inspiration photo my eye was immediately drawn to the photo of the leaves in various different shades.   To create my variegated leaves I stamped the leaf multiple times on watercolor cardstock using VersaFine Vintage Sepia ink and then began watercoloring them with Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolors.  In order to get the variation that I wanted I would color a leaf in one color then move on to the next leaf and so on.  As each leaf dried I would add more color and let it dry again.  It was a bit labor intensive, but I love how each leaf turned out.  Once they were mostly dry I die cut them with the matching die and then shaped the leaves so they would have some depth.   I did a wash of color in teal on a panel of watercolor cardstock and then die cut it once it was dry.  The sentiment is from the EE Fancy Thanks stamp set.  I did a few tests runs to make sure that I got the word many placed as close to the thanks as I could.  Once I had it set I stamped it on the panel with Vintage Sepia and then added the leaves.  To jazz things up a bit I added the twine bow and Pretty Pink Posh sparkling clear sequins in 3 sizes.
I think I will also add this to the current SIP challenge of thankful, grateful, blessed.  I'm adding this to the new Time Out challenge to be inspired by words.   See the beautiful quote below.

Hope you have a wonderful day!

Supplies:  Cardstock:  SSS fog, Ranger watercolor; Stamps: Essentials by Ellen; Dies:  Essentials by Ellen and AJVD; Ink:  VersaFine; Watercolor medium:  Kuretake Gansai Tambi; Sequins:  Pretty Pink Posh; Recollections twine

merry poinsettia

Hello!  Have a card to share for several different challenges today.  When I saw that my sweet bloggy friend, Anita, is the creative guest for Inspired by All the Little Things I knew that I had to play along!  It also helped that the inspiration photo is that of a gorgeous dahlia and I absolutely love dahlias!!  I decided to team this up with the current Essentials by Ellen Pin-Sights challenge.  I pulled just a few colors (peachy pink, blue and gold) from the pin-sights inspiration photo and the inspiration I took from the Inspired All the Little Things photo is the positioning of the flower.  I would have loved to have a large dahlia image to color, but I thought my EE Mondo Poinsettia would make a lovely substitute.  I stamped the large poinsettia on watercolor paper with watermark ink and then heat embossed with gold embossing powder.  The same was done with the smaller poinsettia on a separate piece of watercolor paper.  I then colored both images with two ZIG clean color markers (Light Carmine and Flamingo Pink).  The center of the flowers were colored with another ZIG marker (Mustard).  Once the flowers were dry I die cut the smaller one with the matching die.  I added a light coloring of blue (pulled from the EE Pin-Sights photo) with a ZIG marker.  Once everything was dry I trimmed down the main panel and adhered the smaller poinsettia.  I added the foam tape to the back and then remembered that I had not stamped the sentiment!!  So... I stamped it on vellum and heat embossed in white.  A few dots of Nuvo Crystal Drops in Morning Dew were added to finish things off.   I will also add this to the current Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge of anything goes.

Thanks for stopping by... please remember to keep everyone in Las Vegas in your thoughts and prayers as they deal with this awful tragedy.

Supplies:  Cardstock:  SSS Fog, Ranger watercolor; Stamps and dies:  Essentials by Ellen; Inks:  VersaMark watermark ink; Hero Arts white embossing powder, Ranger gold embossing powder; Watercolor medium:  ZIG Clean Color Markers; Nuvo Crystal Drops

you rock...

Hey!!  Popping in with a card for the current Essentials by Ellen Pin-Sights challenge, as well as the current Freshly Made Sketches challenge and Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge of anything goes.  With summer coming to an end I have been in a bit of a creative funk... not sure why, but it happens.  I fiddled around with what to make for the Pin-Sights challenge and decided that I didn't want to do flowers... I always do flowers!  So I looked through my small assortment of EE stamps and dies and decided to use the You Rock die set.  I did through in a little flower that I created with the Bold Blossoms and Bold Blooms Matching dies.   No stamping on this card whatsoever!  I was inspired by the colors and to my eye I saw gold and silver thus the gold sparkle backing for my flower and the silver diamond.  Hope I'm not wrong!  Anywhoo... pretty simple... make lots of die cuts, stack and adhered to strip of woodgrain cardstock that had a thin border of red cardstock adhered to it.  I was going to put it on a white cardstock base, but went with light gray.  Overall I think this looks pretty darn boring... just being real, lol!

Hope you have a wonderful day!

Supplies:  Cardstock:  PTI Soft Stone, dark pink, light pink, green, red scraps, MFT silver and gold glitter cardstock, Ranger woodgrain; Dies:  Essentials by Ellen