Bridal Congrats

Today's design team project for the Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge is a bridal shower card for my niece who is getting married in October. I will also be entering it @ Angie's Digital Stamps for "Anything Goes -BINGO" , @ heARTful Stamping Challenge for "Anything Goes + a stamp" and @ 613 Avenue Create for "Anything Goes + Button and Bows". 

I used the "Ribbon/Twine - Glitter - Embossing" diagonal row, as the dress and sentiment are embossed with black holographic embossing powder...the dress is colored with clear Wink of Stella  glitter pen and then I added the blue bow.

A touch of patterned paper on the inside carries over the theme from the front.

After die-cutting the main image with the pierced rectangle, I added the subtle touch of some pale blue chalk all around the dress image and sentiment stamp.

Until next time~

Best (Bridal) Wishes

Today's Bridal Shower card was made as my July Design Team contribution @ the Mix It Up Challenge Blog showcasing "Distressing" techniques and using the June Card Team's sketch from Stick It Down, but I missed the cut-off to enter since today is July 1st already, but that's ok...maybe my timing will be better next time around, lol. In the meantime, I will be entering it @ Words 2 Craft By for "Keep Love In Your Heart", @ Frilly and Funky for "With This Ring" and @ Double "D" Challenges for "Anything Wedding". 

The stamp set I chose is a retired one from Close To My Heart and contains very detailed stamps, so I have found Memento ink to be a good choice for capturing all the fine lines. Using the stamp positioning tool helps with re-stamping if necessary.

The card was make from a speckled white A2 side folding card base and I cut the pink patterned paper to the full size card front to start with. Then I gently tore the edges to get the softly distressed look along each side. Using the wide paint brush, I spread a thin layer of gesso across the center of the paper to tone it down and give it another level of distressing.

Once the gesso was dried, I splattered FSJ Gold Silk across the front and adhered it flat to the card front. Using Spectrum Noir pens, I carefully colored the cake centerpiece.

I don't know if you can tell from this photo or not, but I used Crystal Lacquer on the ribbons that are on the cake to add shine and dimension. I also colored over all the flowers with a clear Wink of Stella pen for a subtle shimmer. I really love how the gesso dried so that you can see and feel the actual brush strokes!

Using foam pop dots, I adhered the cake to the card front, die cut "Best Wishes" from gold glitter paper and added 3 gold sequins to complete the look.

On the inside, I used left over patterned paper as accents, stamped the sentiment in grey ink and traced/shadowed it with a clear Diamond Dust sparkle gel pen. The tiny hearts were die-cut from scrap glitter gold paper. Another of my nephews is getting married in October and this card is for his future bride...we have 2 family weddings, for 2 nephews, coming up this year! 

Until next time,

Beautiful Bridal Bouquet

Today's card was created for one of my soon to be "niece-in-laws" who is marrying one of my nephews this coming August...I was unable to attend her bridal shower over the weekend, but I made sure to send along her gift and a hand made card with my daughter who was attending. I will be entering this card for the "Girly" challenge @ Dare2BArtsy, the "Feminine" challenge @ Great Impressions and the "Flowers" challenge @ Retro Rubber.

The stamp set I used today is retired from Close To My Heart and is at least 5 years old, but I have lost track of what year I actually bought it in. I used a side-folding A2 white cardstock base and Whisper White cardstock from Close to My Heart for the watercolored pieces. I began by adhering the 3 small roses on one block and randomly stamping them in Versamark ink (to fill the panel) and create my own pattern paper -then heat embossed the images in white embossing powder. I made sure to use my Perfect Crafting Pouch first to eliminate any static and when I was done embossing, I brushed off any residual powder with the Perfect Cleaning Cloth. 

When it came time to do the watercoloring, I was wishing I had an artist's palette to work out of, but I made do using the lid instead. I like using a waterbrush because right now I don't have a large selection of  actual watercolor brushes and this way I could control the water output better. I used 3 shades of pink, green, blue and a purple to color the background images and the large bouquet. (The watercolors are nothing fancy -just a set I picked up at Michael's a few weeks ago)

To assemble my card, I first ran a piece of wide gold glitter washi tape down the card spine and then slightly overlapped the watercolored rose background panel. I die cut the word "love" from both pink glitter paper and fun foam so that I could layer it to get some dimension...the No Clog Writing Cap I have on my Best Glue Ever really comes in handy to do fine detail gluing like this! 

I fussy cut the bouquet and adhered it with thick foam dots to the watercolor panel after adding a swirl of fine gold metallic thread behind it. The pearls had an adhesive backing on them already, so I just spread them around the card front until I got the look I wanted...using both the small and medium sizes.

I heard through the grape-vine that the Bride-To-Be was very pleased with her card -she too is a paper crafter and I knew she would appreciate the effort that went into it's creation!

On the inside, I just left the sentiment speak for itself...keeping it clean and simple.

Until next time~