Today's card is part of a blog collaboration between my friend Debra Davison of Meticulosity and myself. Debra and I met through a shared love of card making and have been friends for about two years now. She and I are both in the medical field (she is a critical care RN and I'm a phlebotomist and medical assistant) and we both love coffee and crafting! We thought it would be fun to do a month of collaborations every Sunday for the month of October highlighting our love of card making and coffee. Today's card is in honor of Debra because she is a cancer survivor. Debra was diagnosed with thyroid cancer one year ago and, after some grueling radiation therapy, is alive and well today and continues to share her crafty goodness with the blogging world! This card represents the colors of thyroid cancer awareness. I started my card by layering some Stampin' UP basic black cardstock onto a white card base. I then die cut a piece of Canson cold pressed watercolor paper down 1/4" smaller and painted bold swatches of turquoise, purple, and pink using a Simply Art watercolor palette. Once dry I layered on a smaller piece of white cardstock that I'd cut using a Gina Marie Designs wonky stitch die and matted it with the same black cardstock. I popped it up using some 3M foam tape and stamped the sentiment from the A-Muse Studio's Fight Like A Girl stamp set. I then die cut the butterfly using My Favorite Things butterfly die and watercolor paper as the base layer and black cardstock as the top layer. I added more of the same watercolors to the base layer and dried it using my heat tool. Once dry I attached the two layers together and added some large clear rhinestones from Recollections to both the butterfly and the corners of the focal panel. As for my coffee, I have to say my selection is going to be much more boring than Debra's since I'm pretty much a dark roast black coffee drinker. My selection today is Seattle's Best Rich Dark Roast served in a Pier One mug. I know...pretty boring! LOL. Anyway, please hop on over to Debra's page and show her some love by leaving a comment and/or subscribing to her blog!
My last card today was created for the latest Lawnscaping Challenge. I have never been very good at painting, especially watercoloring. I've watched plenty of YouTube videos on a variety of techniques but I've never really been able to master the whole art form. Given that in mind, I chose to participate in this challenge and use some very simple shapes that I didn't think I could do much damage to, so to speak. LOL. I started with a piece of Strathmore cold press watercolor paper. I prepared the paper using my powder tool because I planned on embossing my images to help keep the paint from mixing around too much. I stamped out the adorable lanterns from the Lawn Fawn Lunar Lights stamp set as well as one of the sentiments using Versamark ink and then heat embossed all of them using some black detail embossing powder by Recollections. Using my Simply Art watercolor palette I colored the images in using reds, dark pinks, blues, and greens. I masked the images and the sentiment using some Inkadinkado masking paper and splattered on some Ranger Distress Spray Stain in black soot. I heat the whole thing with my heat tool to dry it and then popped the whole panel up onto a white card base using some 3M foam tape. I then added a few dots here and there using a gold gel pen by Forever In Time. I hope you like it!
It's been a while since I've had a chance to post a card. Life has gotten in the way...work, visiting relatives, and making time for friends I've not seen in a while. But when I saw this week's Time Out Challenge I knew I had to make time to participate in this one simply because I knew it would force me outside of my typical comfort zone for holiday card making. The challenge is to create a Christmas card with the optional twist to include pink and/or purple. I stopped and thought about it and I have to say that I don't think I've ever made a holiday card with either pink or purple on it so I thought it might be fun to try. I started with some patterned paper from My Mind's Eye. I apologize that I cannot recall the name of the paper but I only bought a single sheet of it years ago and had thrown the strip with the name of it away right after I bought it. But that pretty paper had all of the right colors in it to launch my focal panel. I decided to try my hand at watercoloring. That's something else that's very much outside of my comfort zone. I'm not very good at it and most of my efforts in the past have failed but I was determined to make this work. I started with a piece of Strathmore cold press watercolor paper and I cut it out using a Gina Marie Design stitched line die. I prepped the paper with a powder tool and stamped the adorable stocking image by Hero Arts using some Versafine onyx black ink and then heat embossed it using some American Crafts clear embossing powder. Using some Tim Holtz distress ink in Spun Sugar and did a nice wash of light pink over the entire background and then added some darker pink splatters using my Simply Art watercolor palette. I stamped the stockings again, embossed them, and then watercolored them using my Simply Art watercolors in pink, purple, and green. I fussy cut them out and popped them up off of the focal panel using some Stampin' UP foam dimensionals. I added some frosted lace Stickles over the stockings for some added sparkle and dimension and then added a few sequins from Pretty Pink Posh in the corners. I stamped the greeting from the Simon Says Stamp Be Joyful stamp set and heat embossed it. I cut the paper out and created a banner by creating fish tails on either end. I love how adorably this turned out and I hope you do too!
