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!

Cheers to Us!

Today's card was inspired by sketch #330 @ Try Stampin' On Tuesday and by the Tic-Tac-Toe challenge @ Tuesday Throwdown where I went with the middle horizontal row and used the theme of "Silver -Sparkle -Wedding/Anniversary". I will also be entering it @ A Perfect Time to Craft and @ Through the Craft Room Door where "Anything Goes".

Today's card was made on a white A7 side folding vertical card base. Black cardstock and old red patterned paper from CTMH were trimmed for the first layers. I die cut the ornate label from white shimmer cardstock and stamped my Unity Stamp Company girl on a scrap of plain white cardstock. I hand trimmed the banners according to the sketch from scraps of black and white glitter papers and adhered them to the bottom left of the card front -overlapping according to the sketch.

I die cut "cheers!" twice -once from brushed silver metallic cardstock and once from white fun foam. I then used small amounts of the Best Glue Ever to glue the 2 diecut pieces together for added dimension.

Using watercolor pencils to color the Unity girl, I blended with a Dove pen and then added glimmer and glam using the Gelly Roll Stardust pen on her bracelets and the clear Wink of Stella pen on the wine glass. I ended up fussy cutting her out and mounting her separately on top of the white shimmer label using mini foam dots to add it all to the card front.

I added some bling using clear rhinestones is three sizes to accent the focal point.

The last step of bling was to cover the focal point so it wouldn't get dirty and splash FSJ's Silver Silk across the card front for a bit of glittery grunge look.

Inside I added some extra banners and did a bit of stamping and watercoloring. I was making this card pretty late at night and was very tired -the last thing I did for the whole card was stamp the "Happy Anniversary" at the bottom...and boy did I ever manage to get that crooked -I blame my tired hands and eyes at this point, lol. But since it is handmade, I will leave it as is  and just claim that it is "perfectly imperfect"!!!

My hubby and I are celebrating 26 years of marriage in a few weeks -so I will be putting this card aside to give to him in August. Until next time~

Easy Layered Anniversary Card How To

Hello from Create.365 ~ Kathy here...today's card is my first post for the month of June with ScraPerfect and I have  an easy layered anniversary card to share with you. This uses a technique that I always admire, but often forget to utilize. So just in case it is a new one to you, I will walk you through it and then you can give it a try too!

This card will be entered several places for challenges this week: "Anything Goes/Flowers" @ Artistic Inspirations Challenge, "#365 -Inspirational Photo" @ City Crafter Challenge Blog and @ Penny Black where "Anything Goes" for the month of June.

To start this card, I used an A2 size top folding horizontal card base in a rose red color. I trimmed 3 rectangles from white card stock, layered them evenly and temporarily adhered them together with repositionable sticky dots so that I could stamp them all at once. Using rose red dye ink and a stamp set from Close To My Heart, I repeatedly stamped the solid rose base image all over the 3 layers then added leaves in a sage green ink and the "Happy Anniversary" sentiment (retired from TAC) in black ink. (No need to worry about the white halo around the layers on the stamped images -that's the beauty of this design because they will be covered up in another step down the road.)

Before moving on to the next step. I tapped the newly stamped layers with the Perfect Crafting Pouch to quickly dry the inks so that the embossing powder in my next step would only stick to the Versamark ink. Using the 2nd step rose detail stamp, clear embossing ink and Silver Pearl embossing powder I added a second stamped and embossed layer to the 5 roses in the center of the card only. Once melted using the heat tool and cooled off, I wiped the Perfect Cleaning Cloth over it to remove any stray pieces of powder that may have been left behind.

The next step was to carefully remove the temp adhesive to separate the stamped layers and trim a red layer to back each one of them with a narrow border using my paper trimmer and the Best Glue Ever to hold each layer together as I built up the card front. 

 The Best Glue Ever also worked perfectly to adhere the red micro beads to the center of several of the flowers for added interest and dimension. The No Clog Writing Cap ensured that I had utmost control of where I wanted to apply the glue too.

While it's very hard to see in the photo, there is an added element of clear sparkle sprinkled over the card front because I splattered FSJ Sparkle Silk across it. It is subtle, but gorgeous in person!

The inside was kept super simple with just a retired TAC sentiment stamped in black ink. This card is now ready to be mailed out later this month to my brother-in-law and his wife.

Until next time, happy crafting with ScraPerfect~

Lime Your's

Today's card was made using sketch #335 from My Favorite Things as my inspiration and I'll be submitting it for "For the Guys" @ Unicorn Challenge Blog, "For a Special Man" @ Crafty Cardmakers and for "Dude" @ Shopping Our Stash. I made this for my hubby last week -just because I could, lol...no special occasion. Just celebrating our love and using one of my new stamp sets that I recently bought from FSJ during their "Break Up Sale".

This "Let's Twist" stamp set from Fun Stamper's Journey is a super cute one with fruity puns but sadly it is on the retiring list and I believe may now be sold out, so I am glad that I got it when I did! The square punch is an oldie from Creative Memories and the heart embossing folder was also from FSJ.

I trimmed all my white and lime cardstocks using the sketch as my guide. I then used the smaller of the 2 square punches on a lime scrap. After running the largest lime green piece thru the heart embossing folder, I sanded it with my sanding block and used the Perfect Cleaning Cloth to remove the residual dust.

Before adhering the heart embossed panel to the card front, I repeatedly stamped the half of a lime image in black ink along the card bottom to make my own patterned paper.

Then I stamped the lime slice 3 times across the white rectangle and colored it with Prismacolor watercolor pencils using the Dove Blender. The sentiments were stamped in Versamark ink and embossed with white powder on a darker shade of lime green cardstock. I also brushed clear Wink of Stella over the colored lime slices to give them a littler glimmer before gluing on 3 lime sequins.

Both sentiment banners were adhered using foam pop dots for added dimension and the Lime Your's square was rubbed around the edges with a bit of white ink first.

The inside is simple, with a bit of embossing on a scrap of the darker lime and white ink brushed across the surface. The inside sentiment is an old one from my stash and I have no idea where it is even from, after all these years, lol. A heart punch and a bit more sanding completed the look.

Until next time~

Embossed Anniversary -Celebrate the Memories

Today's card is my first as a Design Team member for the new Mix It Up Challenge Blog...each month we will highlight a technique and challenge you to share a project with us -with or without using the optional highlighted technique. For the month of May, our technique is Embossing(Heat or Dry)...read on to find how how I incorporated Heat Embossing into an anniversary card I made for my in-laws.  

The first thing I did in designing was to determine what size card I would need to accommodate the large diecut opening I knew that I wanted...so this card ended up being about 4.5" x 6.5".  I cut the gold metallic cardstock to fit the ivory card front and ran both layers through my Amaze machine at the same time to make sure they lined up perfectly...just took a few extra passes to get the cuts complete. 

Next step was to stamp the Today Flower clear stamp from Technique Tuesday in Versamark ink 4 times on the gold card front panel -once in each corner - and once on the inside of the ivory card so that it would show through the diecut opening in the front. Using my 10 x 10 Stamp Perfect positioning tool made things super easy to get lined up precisely. I then heat embossed all 5 images with Gold Detailed Embossing Powder.

Because of the shine off both the embossing and the metallic paper, it proved to be a challenge to capture the beauty of this card in a photo (but I still tried, lol)!

I also stamped and embossed three sentiments on the inside of the card as you can see below. For the coloring, I used 4 colors of Spectrum Noir pens -2 for the flowers and 2 for the background.

To blend the 2 background colors alittle better (because my Spectrum Noir pen collection is still rather limited) I also added some iridescent light blue chalks around the flowers with a light touch, which you can see better in the last photo below of the inside details of the card.

One thing I learned in the creation of this card is that metallic cardstock shows no mercy when it comes to impressions...if you look closely, you can see the rectangular outline of where I had placed the washi tape to hold my diecut in place when I sent it through my Amaze machine in step one...I think this was in part because I had tried to send so many layers through at one time and the sandwich was snug...oh well, lesson learned! And here's to hoping that I am the only one who truly notices it, lol. 

Until next time~