backyard wren...

 Hello!  I'm popping in with a card for Freshly Made Sketches and Color Throwdown.  I think it also works for Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge as there is alot of shimmer going on, lol!   Take a look at what I made.

Lately, my mojo has been missing.  I have spent alot of time making projects that I haven't been able to share right away.  I shared many of them earlier this month and I will be sharing more this coming week, but when it comes to making something just for fun I have been struggling.   I have some new products that have been sitting on my desk for a few weeks now and I was determined to use at least one of them!   So I sat down the other evening and made this card.  I used the super sweet Memory Box Backyard Wren die set, along with a leafy branch die from the MB Serene Bird and Branch die set.  The sentiment is from the Simon Says Stamp Sunshine Flowers set.  I die cut the pieces of the bird from white cardstock and then inked them up with Salvaged Patina and Frayed Burlap distress oxide inks using my new Waffle Flower grip mat.  That grip mat makes ink blending so easy!  I let the pieces dry for a bit and then adhered them together with liquid adhesive.  I die cut the branch from sparkly gold glitter cardstock.  Initially I had only one branch, but when I decided to use the FMS layout I added the second branch.  I went old school and tore a piece of vellum for the strip element in the sketch.   I brought in the required cream by die cutting a piece of Memory Box woodgrain cardstock in cream.  I love the texture that the woodgrain cardstock brings to the card and it is the perfect backdrop for my little bird.  I stamped the sentiment using Salvaged Patina distress oxide ink and then trimmed it out.  That was adhered with foam squares.  Very clean and simple, but when I have no mojo, clean and simple is the way to go!

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

Birch Press Design

 Happy Friday!  I have a post up on the Birch Press Design blog today.  Here is a little peek at what I created.   

I hope you will head over to the Birch Press Design blog to see the full project.  Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

birthday wishes

 Hello!  I'm popping in to share a card that I created using the brand new Waffle Flower Grip Mats.  Waffle Flower generously sent me two different sizes of the Grip Mat.  For today's card I used the larger 6.5 x 8.5 grip mat.  I do show a photo of the smaller 4.5 x 5.5 grip mat in it's new home, my mini MISTI.  I haven't decided if I will put the larger grip mat in my regular size MISTI, but most likely I will.   My card today is for the Paper Players. I went with anything goes. 

The Paper Players challenge is a color one of two shades of pink, a teal color and black.  I used the Waffle Flower Layered Box die set, Small Prints stencil and a sentiment from the Subsentiments Birthday die cut set for the card.  The background was embossed with a Spellbinders embossing folder.  I die cut the bows for the presents from glossy black cardstock.

Below are photos showing the grip mats and how they work.  The grip mats are made from high quality photopolymer, just like your clear stamps.  If you have a glass work surface like a Tim Holtz glass media mat the grip mats will grip onto the glass surface and not move.  In my photos I place a piece of white cardstock behind the grip mat so you could see the grid.

These are the two that Waffle Flower sent met.  There are two more sizes to pick from.  If you decide to try out the grip mats I would suggest watching a video that Waffle Flower put together for the launch of the Grip Mat.

This shows how I set up my grip mat in preparation to do some stenciling.  The grip mats come with two clear grids.  The grid is actually smaller than the Grip Mat.  Waffle Flower did this so that the mat can grip onto whatever surface you are using.  In my case the Tim Holtz glass media mat.  When you remove your mat from the packaging the mat is sandwiched between two clear sheets.  Hang onto the sheets to provide extra protection for your mats.   As you can see I laid my white cardstock on the mat and then place the stencil on top.  The stencil didn't move one bit!

Here you can see the stenciling after I finished.   The grip mat held everything tight and I didn't get any color seeping underneath.  I used Spun Sugar distress oxide ink for the dots, Kitsch Flamingo distress oxide ink for the stars and Mermaid Lagoon distress oxide for the stripes.   The next photo shows the tops of the presents on the grip mat after I inked them up with the same inks.   They held in place nicely.

Cleaning up the mat was pretty simple.  I just used my Lawn Fawn stamp shammy to wipe off the ink.  I haven't used dye ink on my mat yet, so cleaning that up maybe a little different. 

Final photo shows the smaller mat inside my mini MISTI.  The grip mat replaces the piece of black foam that is in the MISTI.   I added one of the grid sheets to the back of the mat before placing it in my MISTI.  I placed the second one on top to keep the mat clean. 

Overall I really like the grip mats.  I will say that it was my experience that the mat doesn't seem to work well with textured cardstock.  I needed to stamp on some watercolor cardstock and decided to try it out.   Even after pressing the cardstock firmly onto the grip mat, it would stay in place.  But I was still able to get the images stamped, as you can see. 

Thanks for staying with me for this long.   Have a wonderful day!

sending good vibes...

 Hello!  If you want to check out my Altenew July release post, please click here.  I'm popping in to share a card that I made for the Paper Players challenge, as well as Freshly Made Sketches.  The Paper Players challenge is a theme one of beach and I have been wanting to use my Simon Says Stamp Beach Huts stamp set.  I even tried about two weeks ago to make a card using this set but only got as far as stamping, coloring and die cutting the little beach hut and some waves!  So happy for the Paper Players theme so I could finish the card, lol!  Take a look.

I played around some more with my Altenew gouache paints and did simple coloring.   You can't really see the waves as they are stacked behind the little fence, but I stamped three of them, used a dark blue gouache paint to color them and then die cut them with the matching die.  Once dry there were stacked to create a layered looking sea.  I stamped the fence and painted it with a dark reddish brown paint and then used a lighter wash of it for sad.  A green with a teal base to it was used for the grass.  I die cut that with the matching die and layered it on top of the waves.  The beach house was colored with red, blue and white paints and then die cut when dry.  I used white and kraft Memory Box woodgrain paper for the background and then layered on all my die cuts.  Then I did a little "living on the edge" and stamped the sentiment and the birds after all of that had happened!   Thank goodness it turned out fine! 

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

Altenew July Stamps, Dies, Inks, and More Release | Blog Hop + Giveaway ($300 in prizes!)

Hello everyone!  I'm so excited to be guest designing for Altenew's July stamp, die, stencil, ink and more release.  I won Altenew's monthly challenge in March and was asked to participate in the July release.  I would like to thank Altenew for this opportunity!  This is a photo heavy blog post so I hope you will stay to end.   You can find the entire new release right here.   So lets get to some of the details of the blog hop: 

To celebrate this release, Altenew is giving away a $100 gift certificate to 1 lucky winner and a $40 gift certificate to 5 winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog and/or each designer’s blog post on the blog hop list below by 07/12/2023 for a chance to win. Altenew will draw 6 random winners from the comments left on each stop of this blog hop and announce the winners on the Altenew Winners Page on 07/14/2023.

*The winners of the $100 gift certificate will be chosen from comments left on the Altenew blog. 

Affiliate links used within the body of this blog post where possible. Using my links allows me to earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.

You should have arrived from Rachel Alvarado's blog. If you didn't you can head to the Altenew card blog for the entire link list. For my first card I used the following new products: Sketched Florals stamps and dies and the Dotted Waves Debossing cover die.

I have a very small collection of Altenew Crisp Dye inks and all of them got used for many of the projects I'm sharing. Stay tuned, though, as I have projects to share that use the newest additions to Altenew's Fresh Ink line up. The florals in the Sketched Florals set are so whimsical and sweet. I used the following ink groupings for the flowers and leaves/stems: Red Cosmos, Green Meadows, Green Fields, Deep Blue Seas, Golden Sunset, and Red Sunset. The background was created using the Dotted Wave debossing plate. I first die cut my rectangle of white cardstock and then debossed it with the Dotted Wave plate. The panel was adhered to a light gray cardstock base and then I arranged the flowers and leaves. There is a die for the large "thanks" sentiment in the set so I used that sentiment along with a subsentiment for my card. I finished with clear sequins.

For this next card I used the new Shimmery Hummingbird bundle that includes the following: Hot foil plate, stencil and coordinating die.

I foiled the hummingbirds using matte silver foil and then used Sea Breeze ink and an Altenew mini blending brush to ink up the images. I tried to go heavier on the top of the birds and lighter on the bottom. Once I had the ink blending done to my liking I die cut the birds with the coordinating dies. For my background I used the Altenew Magnolia Ballerina 3D embossing folder and then added the same blue ink to the centers of the flowers. The sentiment is from the new Sincere Sentiments stamp set. The sentiment was stamped with watermark ink, covered with silver embossing powder, heat set and then die cut with one of the labels dies that is part of the Fragrant Flowers die set. I adhered the background to my card base and then arranged my hummingbirds and sentiment.

This next card uses the main die from the Fragrant Flowers die set along with the Versatile Greetings 2 die set.

Originally I made a card in a different color combo, but ended up not liking how things turned out. So I went back to the drawing board and created this card. I found a piece of light lilac patterned paper and die cut the Fragrant Flowers from that along with two additional pieces from cardstock. All the layered were adhered together and set aside to dry. I pulled out my Altenew metallic watercolors and watercolored the simple background with the amethyst paint. The sentiment was die cut from the same patterned paper as the floral die cut and the shadow layer from heavy weight vellum. I like how the vellum really blends into the background. I adhered the die cuts to my watercolored background and then added that to a white card base. Simple, but I'm very happy with the end result.

The next set of cards use the newly released Altenew Fresh Inks. They have released inks in the following groupings: Deco Garden, Green Fields and Golden Sunset. They also released a white pigment ink called Cloud White. For my first card (and my favorite of the group), I used inks from the Deco Garden set to do some watercoloring.

To start my card I used the 3D embossing folder from the Watercolor Flowers Craft Your Life kit to emboss the image on watercolor cardstock. I then used the following colors from the Deco Garden ink collection to color the flowers: Mid Yellow, Navy, Pool and Coral Red. I simply smooshed the colors onto a large acrylic block that I have and started painting. I used the Coral Red for the petals on the cluster of three flowers and Mid Yellow for the centers. I decided to use the Pool color for the larger leaves and stems. I then combined the Navy and Coral Red inks to create the purplish color for the rest of the flowers. The smaller leaves were colored by combining the Mid Yellow and Pool colors. After I had finished all the painting I decided to add a little of the Navy to the Pool leaves. I was a little worried as to how it would look, but I really like it! I finished the card with some fine splatters of white gouache and the two sentiments from Watercolor Flowers set that were stamped in the new Fresh Ink Jet Black and then die cut with the coordinating dies.

This card features the Golden Sunset and Field Greens inks. The Field Greens bundle includes Jet Black ink and I used that to stamp the images. I used the older Build a Flower Japanese Mum stamp and die set. I think this is my second time actually using this stamp set! Shame on me for not using it as it is beautiful! I stamped the images and die cut them with the matching dies. I used the new Dotted Wave Debossing background die to deboss a panel of light peach cardstock. I die cut the Fancy Hello from the same peach cardstock three times, layered them and then adhered the word to the panel. I wanted the floral image to take center stage so that is why I went with a tone on tone look for the background and primary sentiment. I arranged the flower and leaves on top and then added the "just saying" sentiment that I stamped using Snapdragon ink, the darkest ink in the Golden Sunset collection. The new Fresh Inks stamp beautifully the first time you stamp!

For my last card I used the new Cloud White pigment ink. I initially tried an embossing folder technique that Jennifer McGuire shared recently, but it really didn't work that well with the Altenew Sylvan Baroque 3D embossing folder. So I tried something else. I used burgundy cardstock to emboss the image and then swiped the pigment ink over the top. I did get some of the ink on the surrounding cardstock so I decided to trim out the embossed image. Altenew sent me a pair of their Fine Blade Scissors and I used those to trim out the image. I used the pigment ink to stamp the sentiment from the Watercolor Flowers stamp set, applied white embossing powder and then heat set it. I die cut it with thee matching die and added the Cloud White pigment ink to the edges. I adhered the sentiment and the floral image with thin foam squares and then added some color change gems to the center of the flowers.

That was a long post, but I hope you have stayed with me! Your next stop on the hop is Seeka and I know that you will be blown away by what she has to share.

Thanks for stopping by and don't forget to comment for a chance to win one of the fabulous prizes!

Guesting at Color Hues!

 Hello and happy 1st day of July everyone!   Today I have the pleasure of being the guest designer at Color Hues!  If you haven't played along with any of their challenges, you really must give them a try.   The premise is that you are given two colors to work with and today's colors are Merlot and Navy.  Take a look at what I created.

I must admit that I did have a little bit of a hunt on my hands to find an ink that was pretty close to the merlot color.  I ended up using a Catherine Pooler ink in a color called Cranberry Fizz.   I used that color to stamp the flowers from the Simon Says Stamp Happy Hello stamp set.  The stems were obviously stamped in navy and then I die cut everything with the matching dies.  For more interest I embossed the large heart die from the die set into my white cardstock panel.  I then adhered the stems using liquid adhesive and popped up the flowers with thin foam squares.  The sentiment was stamped using the Cranberry Fizz ink, trimmed it out and then popped it up with foam squares.   I added my panel to a white cardstock base and then added some clear drops to the flowers. 

Thanks for stopping by and I hope that you will play along with Color Hues!  Going to add this to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge of anything goes.