last minute cards...

 Hello!  Popping in with a couple of cards that I made at the last minute for two challenges:  Pinkfresh Studio May challenge and Altenew monthly challenge.  Let's have look at what I made.

My first card is for the Altenew challenge.  Back at the end of April I received a surprise in the mail.  A personalized stamp set from Altenew!  That is the stamp I used for my card.  Sadly as I was stamping the image I realized that there is a flaw in the image.  I was able to fix it so I will still be able to use the stamp in the future.  I stamped the image on watercolor cardstock using VersaFine CLAIR Nocturne ink, applied clear embossing powder and heat set.  I colored the image with Tonic Studio Aqua Flow pens.   Once the image was dry I die cut it with a Memory Box arched die.  Two more of the arched dies were cut and adhered behind the main one.  I adhered the panel to the kraft cardstock base and then added my sentiment.  I used the Altenew Fancy Thanks die and cut it from glossy black cardstock from Memory Box.   Two additional layers were cut and adhered for a bit more dimension.  Will add this one to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge. 

My next card is for the Pinkfresh Studio monthly challenge that is closing tonight!  Yikes... talk about last minute, lol!  Let's have a look.

The challenge at PFS is frame it up so I pulled out a couple of my favorite PFS stand alone dies and the pretty Amazing Things suite of products.  I used the Fancy Rectangle Frames and Nested Rectangles:  Postage Edge dies to frame up my floral image.  I stamped the image using Memento Tuxedo Black and colored it with Copic markers.  I layered up the frames and then added the die cut image and the sentiment.  The Fance Rectangle was die cut from pretty white glitter cardstock from Simon Says Stamp.

Well, that's it for me.  Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

JUGs challenge #774 - Word Week - Fruit

 Hello, hello!  I'm back for week 2 of my guest designer turn at Just Us Girls!  This week is word week and the word is fruit!   I must admit I wasn't even sure that I had anything in my stash that would work, but thankfully I remember a Simon Says Stamp stamp and die set that I have that features lemons.  Let's have a look at what I made.

I stamped all the lemon images in the stamp set in VersaFine CLAIR Nocturne ink, applied clear embossing powder, heat set and then watercolored them with just two Tonic Studio Aqua Flow pens:  yellow and dark green.  The same was done for the butterfly.   Once dry I die cut all the images.  The stamp set happened to be part of a card kit that I had purchased and so I used some of the patterned paper from the kit.  The paper is from Simple Stories, but unfortunately I don't know which paper line.  I die cut the paper, arranged my lemons and then stamped the sentiment from the kit.   The panel was added to a white cardstock base and then I attached the butterfly.  I'm super happy with how this card turned out. 

I hope to see you playing along with this week's challenge.  All the information can be found on the JUGs blog.   Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

hello... you're amazing

 Hello, hello!  Hope all is well in your world.  Autumn is on the way in my corner of the world and with that in mind I decided to take up the Color Hues challenge and create a card with the colors of rust and green.  Let's have a look at what I made.

Back in July, I think, I got a Simon Says Stamp card kit and instead of letting it sit around like I did with one I got last year I decided to use the beautiful floral image in the set for my card.  I used Tonic Studios aqua flow pens and a wet paint brush to do the coloring.  I first stamped the image on watercolor cardstock using VersaFine CLAIR Nocturne ink and then got to coloring.  I laid down a layer of yellow and then layered red over the top to get the rusty color I was going for.  For the flower centers I used a combination of the yellow and red along with some brown thrown in for a rust that was more brown than orange like the flowers.  

I have only one green in the Aqua Flow pens, but was able to get a bit of shading on the leaves by drawing the color out or removing some of it.  Overall, I pretty pleased with how the coloring turned out.  I die cut the panel with a Simon Says Stamp A2 Nesting Frames die that cuts a thin border.  I used the same die to cut glossy black cardstock to get the frame that I glued to a cardstock base.  I glued the leftover rectangle and two more to the back of my watercolored piece and then inserted that inside the frame after I had stamped the small sentiment from the same stamp set that the floral image came from (Graceful Flowers).  The A2 Nesting Frames set comes with the "hello" word die so I die cut that three times from the glossy black cardstock and adhered them together and then adhered it to my card front.  

Well, that's it for me.  Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

a spring flower?

 Hey there!  Popping in to share a card that I made for two challenges:  Paper Players and JUGs.  The JUGs challenge is a mood board challenge and it closes in just a few hours so I'm cutting it close for that one.  The Paper Players challenge is a clean and simple challenge to use spring flowers.   Take a look.

The JUGs mood board features soft muted colors and pictures of a flower, friends, coffee and a scene of the ocean.   I went with the flower and the ocean scene to create my card.  I tried to pull out a color from the color palette, but it turned out to be a little too dark.   I'm trying to use up different products that I have in order to free up space on my desk.  To that end I have been using my Tonic Studios Aqua Flow pens to watercolor things.  I used several for my flower that I die cut from watercolor cardstock, including a color called Cameo Pink.  Had I not used such concentrated color it might have been more muted, but I still like it.   The flower die is from Simon Says Stamp.  For the ocean I used a very old Hero Arts sea scape stencil to create the waves using Salty Ocean distress ink.  I then pulled out my distress grit paste and added some swipes of the paste to create "foam".   I made a boo-boo at the bottom of my panel so I created some "sand" by tearing a strip of kraft card stock and then adhering it to the panel.  I finished with a sentiment from a Simon Says Stamp set called Brushed Flowers.  The set has matching dies for some of the sentiments which comes in handy!

That's it for me!  Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

Simon Says Stamp Be Bold Release

 Hi friends!  Popping in to share some cards I made with a product from the Simon Says Stamp Be Bold release.  Simon Says Stamp kindly sent me the fun Groovy Blooms stencil set.   Simon Says Stamp has recently added opportunity to purchase items in a bundle.   There is the "want it all stamp and die" bundle, the "want it all extras" bundle and several others.  Now, let's take a look at what I made.

For the first card I used Altenew Fresh Inks in aqua shades to stencil the flowers.   Fresh inks in shades of green were used for the leaves.  For the final layer I used some Tonic Studio Nuvo paste in a bright sunny yellow.   The Boho Celebrate die is from another release and was die cut from aqua cardstock and then layered on a white shadow layer.  The sub-sentiment is from an older SSS stamp set.

For the second card I used the third layer of the stencil to create an overall polka dot look.  I used Spun Sugar and Bundled Sage distress oxide inks.  The sentiment is another Simon Says Stamp word die Fancy Hello.  I finished with some clear sequins. 

The last card was made using a strip that was left over from the first card.  Didn't want it to go to waste so I made this fun Easter card that I will send to one of my great nieces or nephew.  I used the bunny from the Simon Says Stamp Hello There Animals and stamped it with Memento Tuxedo Black ink and then colored it very simply with Copic markers in gray and aqua.  I used a scalloped border die and cut some aqua cardstock to layer below the strip.  I added the strip and then the little bow that I also colored with Copic markers.   The sentiment is from the SSS Bunny Kisses stamp and die set.   Adding this to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge of Easter/Spring.

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

autumn blessings

 Hello!  I hope your week is getting off to a good start.   I'm popping in with a quick post to share a card that I made for the Inspired By challenge.   Inspired By always has really fun inspiration photos and sketches.  Over the last few months I have often wanted to play along with their challenges, but due to other commitments I have not had the time.  But this weekend I was able to find that time... YAY! 

I love leaves and especially leaves during the fall.  I have several different die sets that I can use to die cut leaves.  For this card I used the BotaniCuts Mighty Oak die set from the Greetery along with sentiments from the Bittersweet stamp set from the Greetery.  I started by laying down water on watercolor cardstock and then adding in yellow, red and brown using Nuvo Aqua Flow watercolor pens.  I blended the colors to my liking and then dried the panel with my heat tool.  I die cut leaves twice and branches once and then assembled my leaves.  There are also cut little acorns in the die set!  There is some purply colors in the inspiration photo so to bring that in I watercolored more watercolor cardstock with purple and blue Nuvo Aqua pens.  My first panel was way too purple so I went back to the drawing board and made one with a more subtle wash of color.   Maybe this one was too subtle, lol!

After the panel was dry I die cut it and adhered it to a kraft cardstock base.  I stamped the word autumn using light and dark yellow inks and the word blessing in brown.  I then adhered my branch and the two additional leaves.

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

Creating with Jane Davenport Whimsical and Wild Stamps!

Hello!  I hope your week is off to a good start!  It is Tuesday (in case you have lost track of the days, lol!) and I'm popping in to share two cards that I made with stamps from the newly released Jane Davenport Whimsical and Wild collection.   These stamps are based on her Whimsical and Wild Happy Hour Art Journal book.  I am creating with the Panda Thank You and Brave Bear stamp sets.  First up is a card using the Brave Bear stamp set.   I stamped the main setimage on Canson watercolor paper with VersaFine CLAIR Nocturne ink.  I let it dry and then colored the image with Tonic Studios AquaFlow pens.   Once I was finished coloring the image and it was dry I deepened some of the shadows on the bear with a dark brown Polychromos color pencil.   I die cut the image with the elongated octagonal die from the Becca Feeken Sentimental Finery die set.  I then used the largest die from that set to cut some black cardstock and adhered it to a black cardstock base so that it is just an  subtle look in the background.   The main image was then popped up on foam tape.  I finished by stamping the sentiment on black cardstock with VersaMark watermark ink, applying white embossing powder and heat setting.   The sentiment was trimmed out and adhered to the card front.  As the layout of my card is similar to the sketch from the Paper Players I will be posting it there.

The second card using the Panda Thank You was done in a similar manner except that I heat embossed the image with WOW! black embossing powder.  I also used the AquaFlow pens to color the image.  I haven't used the AquaFlow pens much and a couple had never been opened so coloring both images was a bit of a learning process for me.  And I ended up using the orange color for the young girl's dress as part of that process.   But I do like how it turned out.   Once the piece was dry I decided to ink up the edges with watermark ink and apply embossing powder.  I went with Platinum embossing powder for the edges.  I decided to create a custom sized card so that my piece would have a border around it.  My card size is 4 3/4 x 6.  Because the piece was a little warped with all the watercoloring and heat embossing so I used foam tape to adhere it to my cardstock base.   These stamp sets are a little outside my comfort zone as they lend themselves to mixed media, but I sure had a fun time working with them and going outside that comfort zone.

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!  Compensated affiliate links used where possible.