Mermazing Holiday Wishes

Today's post is for Happy Little Stampers and I used this cute little Mermaid scene that was pieced together using digital stamps from Craftin' Desert Divas.

This is a 5 x 7 card and has quite a few layers. The images were all colored with pencils and light blue ink was blended onto the background.

The biggest challenge was placing all the clam-shell presents in the background...much easier to do that with physical stamps vs digital stamps in the humble opinion of this non computer savvy person, lol.  I then muted the background by adding a layer of patterned vellum over top and popping up that top layer using foam tape for dimension.

So, another card down to add to my holiday card stash...how are your holiday cards coming along?

Until next time~

Looking Sharp! - Make a Punny Card For Your Sweetie

Today's design team post for Itsy Bitsy will make a cute Valentine card for someone special! I started out with a piece of white cardstock and the Honeycomb stencil. I first blended Green, Royal Blue and Lavender Pearl Pigment inks together through the stencil.

Then, leaving the stencil in place, I spread Acrylic Matte Medium over top of the ink using a palette knife. I gently removed the stencil and washed it off while setting aside the panel to dry.

I then got to work on the rest of my card, stamping the cacti images from the Llama Birthday stamp set in Black Chalk Ink on pieces of white that I cut into squares and rounded 2 of the corners on. I also blended some of each of the pearl pigment colors over the cacti once the chalk ink was set. This not only looks great, it saves you time from having to hand color in each of the images.

I popped the cacti and the Looking Sharp banner up on the card front using mini Foam Dots for added dimension.

Inside the card, I die cut an oval using the Cross Stitched Ovals thin cut die set, brushed some ink along the edges and stamped on it -building up the sentiment from the set one word at a time. I also brushed a little bit of ink on the aloe-vera plant image to help tie everything together.

The texture is subtle but really eye catching on this card front so I let it take center stage!

Well, my time here on the Itsy Bitsy design team is quickly coming to a close...but I've learned alot, made some great friends and had a ton of fun during my term with this great company. I am so glad they gave me this opportunity to be even a tiny part of the crafty goodness that they bring into this world! 

Until next time, happy crafting with Itsy Bisty!

Chilly Time Planner Spread

Today's design team post for the Craftin' Desert Divas January Mood Board found me using my favorite Christmas present for the very first time...that's right, my awesome hubby surprised me with a Brother Scan N Cut 250 machine on Christmas Eve and I have been in crafty heaven ever since!!!

Craftin' Desert Divas January 2018 Mood Board Challenge

Using the Scan N Cut to make my own stickers for my planner spreads is wonderful and such a time saver! I printed them on sticker paper, then scanned and cut all the penguins from the Chilly Time digi stamp set using the 1mm border setting and colored them up using my Chameleon colored pencils.

I was even able to play around with the cutting settings so that it cut only my image and not the sticker backer paper -making them super easy to pull off -just like a traditional sticker that you would buy in the store -WOWSERS!!! How awesome is that?!

The washi tape is metallic silver, so it did cause a bit of an issue with reflection when I tried to take the pictures. The ink blending was done with sage green dye ink to mimic the feel of the cool winter tones from the CDD Mood Board.

For the functional task stickers that came from the CDD Planner Basic Bundle digi stamp set, I colored them with Spectrum Noir alcohol markers and then directly cut them right on the line so that they would fit in the planner boxes perfectly. And that is the beauty of digital stamping -having exactly what you need in exactly the right size -ALL the time!!!

The patterned paper I used on this spread is old and from my stash -I think it may have come from Stampin' Up at one time, but I can't be sure? I punched those perfectly sized planner rectangles using the medium/classic box punch from the Happy Planner.

I think this is one of my favorite layouts so far and with digi stamps and my new machine it was a cinch to pull together! That's it for me this week...until next time~

My New Planner + October Recap

Whew -wow -October sure was a whirlwind and I finally have some time to sit down and share my new Classic Happy Planner with you!

This is the one I chose for my main planner this year and I couldn't be more pleased with my selection -it's totally PERFECT for me!!!

I did some personalizing to it -starting with the Rose Gold Classic Deluxe Cover and some Themed cards from the Fresh Floral Pocket Pages MAMBI memory collection. I also then altered some of the monthly dashboard dividers -with the "stay curious" one above, I added the black and white floral from one of the months that I recycled because I was not going to use it.(Because this was an 18 month planner that started with July, but I am not using the months prior to October)

For my monthly spreads, I will be using the retired calendar box die from Sweet Stamp Shop with patterned paper to highlight the birthdays and anniversaries that I need to send cards for. I also plan to decorate the pages using die cuts, patterned paper, stickers, ink and stamps.

Each week I complete a 2 page spread...sometimes I use Happy Planner stickers and cardstock, like below...

...and other times I will make my own stickers using stamps and ink like I did here in this post a few weeks ago.

On this one, I simply combined HP stickers with ink blending.

And on this one, I used patterned paper from my stash with the Happy Planner Weekly Box Punch and stamps from TAC, HP, Sweet Stamp Shop  and SU. Stazon has been my ink of choice for stamping directly on the pages and many other inks work when making stickers and ink blending.

Here you can see some of my supplies assembled while I was working on the pre-planning.

I chose to color my stickers with alcohol markers this time and then shaded them with colored pencils -I find myself doing this alot now that I've discovered how well it works!

Well, that's it for me today. I am loving using my new planner as a creative outlet that allows me to use my extensive collection of retired stamps and also keeps me organized. Until next time~

Fintastic Birthday Set

Today's projects were created for the Itsy Bitsy design team using another of the adorable new clear stamp sets they just released earlier this month. This one is called "Fintastic Birthday" and it was so much fun to work with!

I decided to think outside the box a little using the Stitched Square Thin Cut Dies...I layered them and cut the pieces out of a scrap piece of white fun foam two times and then I turned the foam shapes into stamps. Using a temporary adhesive, I adhered the 4 foam shapes to both sides of two small acrylic blocks and then stamped an alternating background design using the Green and Royal Blue Pearl Pigment ink pads on a 6" x 6" white card front. While this design is a rather basic geometric example, any die cut you have can be turned into a stamp this way- And it's so much fun to do!!!

I also diecut a square from a White Glitter Sheet to layer on the card front. Another, slightly smaller, square was die cut from white cardstock and then shaded with the Royal Blue ink using a round sponge ink blender to get that circular, bubbly underwater look behind the octopus. I also used the blue ink on the blending sponge tool to fill in the empty white space at the bottom of the card front.

I stamped the cute little octopus in Black Chalk Ink on white card and colored him using a blending sponge and the Green Pearl ink. I then fussy cut him out and adhered him to the blue square using Mini Adhesive Foam...I did the same with the blue square to add it to the white Glitter sheet to add dimension. I hand trimmed the banner for the sentiment and layered it on more Glitter Sheet paper. I also attached 3 Silver Foil Jewelled Florettes to the top left side using more mini adhesive foam.

On the inside, I stamped the octopus in the middle first, then stamped again 2 times without re-inking the stamp to get the lighter shades of the Black Chalk Ink. I added some soft blue and green ink behind them and then did the same to stamp the sentiment 3 times.

Since I don't like to throw anything away, I ended up with a bonus project using the foam pieces once I was done stamping with them and had removed them from the acrylic stamp blocks. I stamped using the tiny fishes onto a bookmarker and topped it with some matching fancy floss from my stash. I think it will make a cute little tag on the top of a birthday gift.

To make my own envelope for this card, I paired a 12" x 12" piece of patterned paper from my crafting stash with the Envelope Punch Board. I trimmed the paper down to a 9.5" square and followed the printed directions on the Punchboard. It's such a useful tool that I utilize often! Here is a quick video from Itsy Bitsy's You Tube Channel that showcases the Envelope Punch Board, in case you are wondering more about how it works:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2s-7Kbqt2s

Front of the bookmark tag:

Back of the bookmark tag:

Sometimes when making my own envelopes I will put the pattern in the inside so that it is easier to address and then pop in the mail, but I know this will be hand delivered, so I put the pretty pattern on the outside instead.

That's it for me today -thanks for having a look and please let me know if you try making your own stamps from diecuts too! Until next time, happy crafting with Itsy Bitsy~