Sunday, July 30, 2017

So Glad There's You!

Today's card was inspired by sketch #222 @ Atlantic Hearts and will also be entered @ the Sisterhood of Crafters for "Boys to Men", @ Sasayaki Glitter for "Your Favorite Color" (because my favorite color is green) and @ Just Us Girls for their "Wild Card Week: Something Old/Something New" (because the patterned paper from my stash is at least 5 years old and the Doily stamp/diecut set is a new one that I just bought from Fun Stamper's Journey early in the summer). 





















For starters, this card is an A7 size - seems like I really find myself making alot of 5 x 7 size cards lately! I stamped the doilies in brown ink randomly on the textured DCWV green patterned paper and then adhered it to a layer of kraft cardstock before adding it to the front of a subtle white and green marble patterned card base.


I stamped and heat embossed 2 of the smaller doilies with metallic copper powder on to white cardstock and then diecut them out for using as the focal accents on the card front in place of the circles that were used in the sketch.


The sentiment strip was cut from the same green marbled cardstock as the card base and I chose coordinating buttons (tied with white scrapper's floss), staples and sequins to embellish the card front with.


Before adding all the 3D embellisments, I splattered the card front with Bronze Silk (to me it looks like copper though, not bronze) from FSJ for a bit of the grunge/shabby chic look.


Using liquid glue, I carefully added all the sequins...mini glue dots were used for the buttons and foam dots for the diecut doilies. The sentiment  is retired from TAC and stamped in brown ink. There is also a large swath of free-handed clear Wink of Stella brushed underneath the sentiment that looks very striking in person but is barely perceptible on camera, sigh.


Inside I off-stamped the doily several times to get a lighter ink impression so that the sentiment would show up on top of it. Here you can really see that subtle green marble pattern on the card base -it really is gorgeous in person and will be tucked into my hubby's over-night bag on one of his upcoming business trips.


That's it for me this weekend -until next time~


Friday, July 28, 2017

How to Make an Easy Embossed Butterfly Watercolor Splash Card

Hello ~ Kathy here from Create.365 to share an easy card with you that I made using 2 of my favorite ScraPerfect products! This will be one of the cards the gals at my local library will get to make in the month of September at our cardmaking class, but I will also be entering it @ Shopping Our Stash for "Butterflies, Bees & Bugs", @ Pause Dream Enjoy for "Summer Bugs" and @ Happy Little Stampers for both the Watercolor and CAS July challenges.





Making the watercolor background on this one layer white A2 size card is as easy as scribbling with 3 colors of Metallic Gel Sticks and then wetting it with a flat, wide water color brush! I used the purple, blue and green sticks today.


While the background was drying, I prepped a scrap of white cardstock with the Perfect Crafting Pouch to remove static and stamped the butterfly from Fun Stampers Journey in Versamark ink on it. I then heat embossed it using black powder. I really won't do this anymore without the Crafting Pouch because tiny bits of stray black embossing powder can ruin a card front in the blink of an eye, lol! Once the powder was cool, I brushed the Perfect Cleaning Cloth over the image to remove any residue and then fussy cut it out with small detail scissors.


 Once I added the butterfly to the card front with foam pop dots, I brushed clear Wink of Stella over some of the butterfly details to add shimmer that matches the shimmer in the metallic gel stick watercolors.


After stamping the sentiment in black ink at the bottom center of the card, I rounded all four corners with a corner punch.


Keeping it Clean and Simple (CAS), I only stamped the "happy birthday" sentiment (retired from TAC) on the inside in more black ink.


That's it for me today...until next time, happy crafting with ScraPerfect~




Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Simple Summer Stems

Today's card was inspired by the July theme and sketch challenge @ STAMPlorations and will be entered @ Daisy Chain Challenges for "Floral" and @ Word Art Wednesday for "Anything Goes". But I did change the card sketch orientation from vertical to horizontal in order to accommodate the size of my stamped elements.




The first thing I did when making this card was stamped each flower stem (stamps are long ago retired from TAC) in black ink on white card stock, colored them using a new set of colored pencils that we are going to start use at my library classes and then fussy cut them out.


The card base itself is made from an A7 white card base and the dry embossed layer is also white and was trimmed just shy of the 5 x 7 card front size before I cut three circles out of the front of it using my CM circle template cutting tool set. After cutting the circles, I ran it through my die cutting machine with the embossing folder.

I lightly traced through the circles to the card front so that I could see what area needed to be colored using Marigold Distress ink and a blending tool then spritzed it with water to get it to react with the water droplet pattern.


Using two different sizes of foam pop dots, I added the embossed layer centered on the card front with the thinner ones and the stems with the thicker ones to help them stand up higher. 


But before I added the stems I decided they needed to be sponged lightly on the edges with a pale blue ink to help them stand out a bit more from the white background...very subtle touch, but it worked perfectly! I did also add clear Wink of Stella over the middle flowers, but sadly the camera doesn't really do a very good job of capturing that at all.


The sentiment is also a retired stamp from TAC and I stamped it on a strip of marigold cardstock according to the sketch. (Now that it's all done and the final pics are taken, I almost wished that I had done some kind of distressing to the edges of the marigold cardstock the sentiment is stamped on...so who knows, I may go back and do that before I send it out in the mail, lol! If I do, I will go back and add it at the end of this post so that you can see it too.)


The inside I kept super clean and simple with a large birthday sentiment -also retired from TAC -and a small scrap of left over marigold cardstock from the card front.


That's it for me today...until next time~


Monday, July 24, 2017

Make a Splash!

Today's card was inspired by sketch #47 @ Paper Play Sketches and will also be entered @ Craftaholics for "Beach", @ Glitter 'N' Sparkle for "Summer Sunshine" and @ My Creative Scoop where "Anything Hand Colored Goes".



The first thing I did was cut my layering papers to fit my stamp size according to the sketch- then to add some texture I ran the lagoon strip through a bubble embossing folder and then highlighted it using blueprint distress ink and the distressing dauber tool.


Next up, I used more distress ink  -that same blue and then a peacock green -to swirl over the stencil from Stamplorations on the white card front panel. the card itself is a top folding, horizontal A2 base in a dark teal/lagoon green color. 


I stamped the lovely mermaid from Stamp AnnieThing in black Momento ink so that I could color her with Prismacolor pencils and then blend it with the alcohol based Prismacolor blender pen and not have the image bleed out on me. But, I learned a very important lesson working with this stamp for the first time...don't try to draw the nose in after you've start coloring her...I used a micron pigma pen and ended up with a horrible smeared mess in the middle of her face -WAH!!! I was soooo upset...but I took a deep breath, pulled out my trusty white art eraser and went to work on the repair. At one point, I almost gave up...but I was persistent and got it to the point where I don't think you would even notice the flaw if I hadn't told you about it first -at least that is what I am telling myself, lol! Next time I will draw it in first, give it plenty of time to dry and even heat set it if necessary.


I stamped the sentiment in versamark ink and then embossed it in black powder for added dimension on the card front.


To add some glitter and shimmer, I used the Stardust Gelly Roll pen to color the pearls in her hair and the details on the starfish's body. I used the clear Wink of Stella pen to highlight sections of her hair and to color her tail fin. I glued 3 teeny tiny rhinestones over 3 of the pearls in her hair, added 3 enamel dots in graduated sizes and coated them also with the Wink of Stella pen so they would stand out a little better from the stenciled background. Before layering her on with some mini foam dots, I edged her panel with a pale blue ink for added definition.


For the inside sentiment, I stamped the brushstroke stamp from CTMH in the distress inks and sprayed it with water to mute out the colors a bit. After drying it with my heat tool, I then stamped the sentiment (from the ACMoore $ bin) in black ink over the top. Not sure who this card will go out to quite yet, but I just loved working with my first Chibi Kids stamp that I won from the very generous Stamp AnnieThing during a podcast from So Suzy Stamps earlier this summer -love those 2 gals!!! 


Until next time~

P.S. -I made a last minute edit to this card to add some sequin stars to the design so that I could also enter it on the Stamp AnnieThing FB Fan Page Group contest "Seeing Stars"...and I thought you might enjoy seeing it too, so here it is...enjoy!



Friday, July 21, 2017

Have a Seal-y Great Birthday!

Today's card was inspired by sketch #221 @ Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge and will be entered @ Stampotique Designers for "Use Tape" and @ Seize the Birthday for "Splatter". 



This super cute card was made by starting with a lilac top folding vertical A2 sized card front and lining up strips of coordinating washi tape across the card bottom to mimic the banner flags from the sketch.


Using a stamp set from Close To My Heart, I stamped the seal scene piece by piece in archival ink with the aid of a stamp positioning tool. ( I did test the stamp positions out first on a piece of scrap paper  to make sure I was happy with their placement)


I chose watercolor crayons to color this time, blending them with a blender pen and topping the birthday banner and beach ball with clear Wink of Stella shimmer. Using a black micron pigma pen, I free hand drew the horizon line along the bottom to help ground the design.


I then fussy cut out the identical scene I had first stamped on scrap paper to use as my mask while splattering the beautiful FSJ Silk. When that was dry, I then sent my colored square through my diecutting machine four times to add the straight stitched edge (die set from Lawn Fawn) around the perimeter.


To make the flower embellishment, I sponged pink dye ink and Wink of Stella over a white paper flower and then layered a smaller flower punched from vellum with a mini white brad to the middle. The darker lavender strip was mounted on the card front with a full strip of foam tape, which allowed me to make the indented texture in it with a ball tipped stylus for added detail and dimension. The last step for the card front was to heat emboss the "happy birthday" sentiment across the bottom of the card 3 times in Pearl white powder.


Inside I simply stamped a retired TAC birthday wishes and accented it with a GellyRoll Stardust pen and a snippet of washi tape left over from the front.


that's it for today...until next time~