Lawn Fawnatics Sketch Challenge

Happy Sunday everyone!

I decided to play along with the Lawn Fawnatics sketch challenge.

I love the clean and simple design.

Here's my card. I decided to make a fun little scene featuring the unicorn from Critters Ever After. I first cut out my circle and blended Peacock Feathers and Wilted Violet Distress Oxide to make a sky background. I die cut a few layers using the Puffy Cloud Border dies.

Next up, I stamped, coloured and fussy cut the unicorn and stars. I added plenty of shimmer to all of these, which you can see a bit in my close-up shot. I stamped one of the greetings on this cute little die cut banner made out of Harvest Gold. I framed the circle scene on a piece of Summer Sunshine. The last step was placing that all on a piece of Hawaiian Shores card front and then onto a white card base. It's super cute! Love that dainty unicorn.

Altenew Academy Celebration Stencil Techniques

Hello everyone!

So I received exciting news last week- I was approved to join the Altenew Educator Certification Program. I have been stamping a long time, but I love learning new tips, tricks, and techniques.

I have a few projects to share from some of the recent classes I have taken as part of the certification.

Also for one more day, you're in luck, the classes at Altenew Academy are available for buy 2, get 1 free.

My next card was inspired after I took the Celebration: Stencil Techniques class.

This class was so fun! I have quite a few stencils, but i also liked how this class had you looking at ways to make your own stencils. I decided to make my own stencil using the Striped Leaf Cover Die. I carefully taped that to a piece of cardstock. Next I got out some embossing paste and mixed up a few custom colours. I applied the light colour first on the the bottom. I applied the darker colour of paste on the top, then I went back in with the lighter colour and mixed them a bit in the middle.

I pasted the background on a white card base. The final step was embossing a greeting from the Painted Greetings onto some coordinating green cardstock and popping that up on top.

Thanks for coming by! Be sure to check out Altenew Academy for lots of class options!

Altenew Academy: For the Guys

Hi everyone!

So I received exciting news last week- I was approved to join the Altenew Educator Certification Program. I have been stamping a long time, but I love learning new tips, tricks, and techniques.

I have a few projects to share from some of the recent classes I have taken as part of the certification.

Also for one more day, you're in luck, the classes at Altenew Academy are available for buy 2, get 1 free.

My first card is from the class For the Guys. This is a great class. I don't know about you, but I sometimes struggle with masculine cards. This class has so many great ideas and really helps you re-look at your stash and see how you can make something work for a masculine card.

For example, this stamp set, Simple Flowers- at first glance one would think this set would be best for feminine cards- it's a bold graphic floral set. However, when you break down the images, they are all mostly geometric.The font is also a nice clean and bold one, which works great for masculine cards.

I chose a masculine colour palette- Mountain Mist, Volcano Lake, Sand Dunes, Espresso. Next, I chose a few of the circle images that don't necessarily scream "flower". I started stamping with the largest image in a random-ish pattern and then worked my way down in image size. I also made sure to overlap some of the images for added interest.

I stamped the sentiment on some vellum and used some clear foam tape to pop it up. To add a bit more "pop" to the sentiment I added a very thin strip of brown cardstock. I really love how it turned out!

Last Few PTI Annivesary Projects and MFT Olympics

Hi everyone!

I've got several cards to share today!

I'll start with my Papertrey Ink challenge projects. First, the colour challenge card.  I chose Betsy's palette: Royal Velvet, Winter Wisteria, Tropical Teal, Aqua Mist and Green Parakeet.

I started with making a few watercolour backgrounds using the Smooshing technique. I loaded up a large block with all 5 inks, spritzed with water and stamped. I added a few splatters and decided that the colours would look fun with as planets. I die cut a few from Out of This World and decorated them further with the coordinating planet images.

For the background, this was also one of my previous smooshing techniques. Because of the type of paper I used, it was less subtle. In order to make it more interest, I added more splatters and then I used one of the stencils from the kit and the corresponding inks.

Next up, the Stripes challenge. I brought out a PTI oldie-Faux Ribbon and started making a stamped background. I pulled out Superstar and decided to cluster a few stars and added some Spring Moss ribbon and a sentiment from Ways to Say It: Birthday

Now, onto the MFT Olympics!

Event One: Stamping Slalom 

The goal was to use at least 3 MFT stamp sets. I used a dragon from Magical Dragons, a heart balloon from Adorable Elephants, and the sentiment from Bitty Bears. I also brought in a 4th MFT image product- the ray stencil. The card is pretty basic. I stamped and arranged the dragon with the balloon and then coloured it in with Stampin' Up markers. I blended coordinating ink on the Lemon Tart background to add the ray pattern.

 Event Two: Freestyle Cardmaking

For this challenge, the card could be in any style, but had to feature a winter theme. I brought out Polar Bear Pals, Beast Friends, and Paradise Penguins for the stamps. I coloured these with Stampin' Up markers again. For the background I used the Stitched Snowdrifts and the Cloud stencil.

Event Three: Crafty Biathlon

For this challenge,you had to choose a card type and a technique. I chose the card type of Shaker and the technique of Emboss Resist. I embossed two flowers from Desert Blooms in white embossing powder. I blended several distress inks over that. Next I die-cut the word Smile out of the background. That's where I made my shaker card! To finish it off, I added a white embossed greeting and some black nuvo drops to the background.

 

Event Four: Speed Cardmaking

This card is the one I made for my sketch challenge over at Clean & Simple Stamping. It was a nice quick card made with the retired MFT set Pretty Poppies.

A few challenge cards

I found time for a few challenges for the Papertrey Ink festivities this week.

My first card is for the sketch challenge. I was inspired to use Heather's sketch. I don't have the bird from the original card, so I decided to use one from Spring Woods instead. Since I used a robin, I went with a bit of Aqua Mist since it's a bit of a robin's egg type blue. The sentiment is from the Ways to Say: Congratulations

My second card is for the Transformation challenge. This is a card I made using Distress Oxide inks and the Cutaway Tags: Spring several months ago. I don't mind it, but it is a bit flat. 

I decided to transform it by adding some of the coordinating stamps and embossing them in white. I also cut out a few more layers of the tag and layered them on top of my original tag. I like the added dimension it gave the card.

My third card is for the floral challenge. I love Gran's Garden, but don't have the dies, so I decided to do a one layer scene with the flowers.I finished it off with the Ways to Say: Thank You die and a few black Nuvo drops.

My fourth card is for the use a retiring stamp set challenge. I also made this one to work with my sketch this week at Clean and Simple Stamping.

I used mostly Lilac Grace and the Beautiful Butterflies set.

My final card is for the Use Dies Only (no stamps allowed!) challenge. This card looks much better in person. I used the dies from the XOXO set and a few hearts from a retired set (sorry I don't have the name- it was designed by Maile Belles and featured speech bubbles). I cut out the hearts from Lovely Lady, Hibiscus Burst and Pure Poppy. I also used the stitched rectangle from the Noted: Scalloped Vertical die for my main image panel. I die-cut several layers of the "Be Mine Valentine".  Before die-cutting the final layer, I blended the a few inks. Once cut out, I embossed them with clear.

Thanks for stopping by!

Papertrey Ink January Blog Hop Challenge

Hello all!

It's time for another Papertrey Ink Blog Hop!

I keep meaning to participate in the blog hops each month, but apparently the week of the 25th tends to be a busy one for me. I managed to squeeze in some time Tuesday night for this challenge. Isn't it a fun one!

Once again, I started the challenge by brainstorming colours, ideas, and images that spoke to me from the inspiration piece:
For images: Ice Cream (obviously, lol), Party Hats. Candy Confetti
For colours: Berry Sorbet, Sweet Blush, Blueberry Sky, Hawaiian Shores, Gold, Silver,
For ideas: birthday card seemed like the obvious choice as well.

Photo Source 

I was kind of all over the place when I started crafting for this challenge. At first, I was going to use the ice cream cone from Love Songs, but I really wanted to use something that wasn't retired. And as I was looking through my stash, I realized that the Colorful Treats set was the perfect set for this inspiration piece!

So I started off with the ice cream cone, stamping it and colouring it with Copics. And I liked it, but I just couldn't decide how I wanted to use it on the project with the other colours I had picked out. So I started over! I stamped the ice cream cone once more onto watercolour paper, heat embossed it with white and used the PTI colours I had picked out to paint it. I loved the look a bit more than the Copics version. But I still had the same problem- what was the rest of the card going to look like.

I started to play around with smooshing- I used Berry Sorbet and Sweet Blush and then when dry, I gold embossed the dots from Good Times over top. Once again, even though I liked how it looked, I just couldn't make it work with the ice cream cone. 

So.... back to looking through the stash. Finally I came up with something that worked!

I used the Noted: Scalloped Vertical A2 set to finish off the card. I used the larger stitched rectangle piece to cut out some Berry Sorbet. I used the card base scalloped piece on white. Next I stamped two of the greetings from the Colorful Treats set onto the Berry Sorbet and heat embossed those in white. I adhered the Berry Sorbet panel to the card base, and then, last minute, I decided, I needed to add some tone on tone stamping. So since I had already glued it down- I placed several post it notes on the white base to protect it from the ink and stamped a few ice cream cones in Berry Sorbet.

Finally, I was ready to add the coloured cone, which I did using foam tape. The very last step was adding a few sequins.

So yeah... I was kind of all over the place with the process, but that's just the way it is sometimes. If you stuck with me and read all that, thanks!

If you're here just for the pics too, that's okay! Thanks for stopping by! I look forward to seeing others take on the challenge!

Supplies (affiliate links used, whenever possible):

Stamps: Colorful Treats

Ink: Versamark, Berry Sorbet

Inks used for watercoloring: Classic Kraft, Dark Chocolate, Berry Sorbet, Sweet Blush, Amethyst Allure, Green Parakeet, Bright Buttercup, Orange Zest, Hawaiian Shores, Raspberry Fizz, Blueberry Sky, Pure Poppy

Paper: White, Berry Sorbet, Watercolour

Accessories, etc.: Noted: Scalloped Vertical A2 dies, white embossing powder, sequins (note: you could use the Colorful Treats dies to cut out the ice cream cone, I don't have the dies, so I fussy cut it)

Glimmer

Hello!

I'm back again this week for another CASology challenge. This week's cue is Glimmer.

When I went into the craftroom tonight, I wasn't necessarily setting out to make a card for this challenge just yet, but it just kind of came together. It started like this...

I asked my husband for a "reasonable" challenge. I said reasonable because some of his challenges are a bit out of the box. Anyway, he decided to take it easy-ish on me and said, text your friend- Ask her what colour her shirt is and ask her what the first colour she sees is. So I did. My friend was wearing a white shirt and gave me gold with red pop as the colour. When she sent me her OOTD she had a gold feather necklace on and a red belt. So suddenly, I was thinking Fanciful Feathers!

And how perfect would they be in red, with just a bit of gold ink on the edges! So that's what I did!

I die cut a stitched rectangle. I used the MISTI to stamp the feathers in Pure Poppy first, and then I added Gold pigment ink over top to add that gentle gold glimmer. I stamped the greeting in Versamark and heat embossed it in gold. The final step was using foam tape to pop up the image layer.

I was going to leave a link to Fanciful Feathers, by WPlus9, but apparently I've been living under a rock and it's not available anymore! Even though I own the set, I'm a little sad. It's a classic.

Hugs!

Time for another CASology challenge card. I tried to keep things a bit more traditionally CAS this time! I used a lot of white space and a mostly monochromatic colour combination.

I cut out three layers of the "hugs" die from white cardstock and lightly sponged the top layer with a bit of Mermaid Lagoon distress ink. I made my own patterned paper using images from Embellished Elegance on Dark Indigo. I thought the leafy images in this set paired nicely with the little botanical type design of the letters. I finished off the card with stamping and cutting out the little "sending" banner and adding a few sequins.

CASology #281: Encouragement

Good evening!

I've got a sunny sort of encouragement card to share today. I saw that this week's CASology cue was encourage, which I thought was a nice theme to start blogging with in 2018.

This colours of the card may not seem like your traditional "white space", but the background itself is uncluttered. I also think that the simpler stitched images help achieve a graphic, clean look.

I cut out the scalloped stitched layer and blended the background. Next, I placed the stencil, and blended another layer of the same colours. I die cut the sun and a few clouds, as well as the word "sunshine" and then pieced it all together.

Supplies:
Ink: Squeezed Lemonade, Mustard Seed, Orange Marmalade, Candied Apple, Wilted Violet, Mermaid Lagoon, Twisted Citron (Distress Inks), Summer Sunrise (PTI), Black
Stamps:Sending Sunshine (WPlus9 Design)
Dies: Sunshine Layers (WPlus9 Design), Sunny Skies (MFT)
Stencil: Radiating Rays

A few challenge cards...

Well, it's been over a month since I posted (to be fair I was away for 2 of those weeks and then sick for another week)...

Anyway, nothing like some challenges to get the creative juices flowing, right?

I had a lot of fun with these two!
First up- the sketch challenge! I really enjoyed this one, as it is such a clean and simple sketch, which I am obviously a fan of!

I have to say, once I had my elements all together, it was a bit of a struggle to not flip the sketch. I really have such a comfort with white space in the bottom third, but nevertheless I stuck to the sketch! I started with this festive yeti and a hat from Beast Friends. I coloured the images with Copics and then cut them out (don't have the dies yet!). I grabbed a sentiment from Bitty Bears. I'm seriously loving the simple sentiments in that set (as if the adorable little bears weren't enough of a reason to pick up that set!)

To finish it all off, I die cut a few circles, the base circle using Smokey Shadow and the scalloped circle from Pure Poppy. The sentiment was stamped on a banner die-cut. Finally, everything got placed on a nice Kraft card base with the bottom corners rounded.

Here's a close-up of my colouring. I didn't do anything super extravagant for shading, but I did add little dots of white gel pen to each bulb. To make them really twinkle I also added a bit of shimmer using a Sakura gelly pen.

Next up, the colour challenge! Now when I saw these colours, they really shouted Halloween to me. However, this challenge was posted Nov 9- Halloween is over- so I really liked the challenge of making a non-Halloween card.

 I have to say, this card turned out even better than I had hoped! I used the bold letter Smile die. I cut it three times out of the white cardstock, making sure there was space between them to add in some greetings from the corresponding stamp set.

I set that aside and got to work on my background. I grabbed 4 Distress Oxides that were a good match for MFT's colours (Wild Honey, Spice Marmalade, Wilted Violet and Black Soot). I don't think I can really say it enough times, but the Distress Oxides blend soooooooo well. Seriously, I don't think I could get the same smoothness of blending with this kind of colour combination with other inks, at least not as quickly and easily.

I attached the smile layer to the blended background and thought I was done... Well wouldn't you know it, I got a yellow smudge on the white layer (GASP!). I refused to give up. I stamped a few flowers using the smallest flower from Large Desert Blooms. I fussy cut those out and covered the smudged area (and two other spots to help achieve a visual triangle). And you know what, the flower totally made the card feel finished. So yay for smudges, I guess??.

Here's a close up (that purple flower is the one that's hiding the smudge, lol)

Thanks for popping by!

WCMD MFT Challenges

It was World Card Making Day this past weekend, so I decided to play along with some of the challenges.

Here are a few My Favorite Things challenges

#1 ROYGBIV (Rainbow)!
This challenge wasn't too out of the box for me. I am already quite a fan of featuring a rainbow colour palette on my cards

I went with a fairly basic layout. I stamped one of the flowers from the Large Desert Blooms set multiple times in various colours and then added a greeting from Rainbow of Happiness. To add a bit more interest to the card I used white brads as my flower centres.

Supplies:

Stamps: Large Desert Blooms, Rainbow of Happiness (both retired)

Ink: Pure Poppy, Orange Zest, Bright Buttercup, Green Parakeet, Hawaiian Shores, Blueberry Sky, Amethyst Allure, Jet Black

Paper: White, Black, Bright Buttercup

Accessories, etc.: White Brads

#2 Die-Namics Design

This challenge was a touch trickier for me. The challenge was to use only dies- no stamps! I pulled out my new Smile die. I blended some Picked Raspberry and Black Soot distress oxide inks. I love that you can blend any colour with the black ink-it creates such a cool look! I paired the smile greeting with a few flamingos. To add some more depth I added one of the stitched scallop basic edge dies and some black rhinestones

Here's a look at the dimension of the letters. I cut out two layers from white and one layer from the blended inked paper.

Supplies:

Dies: Double the Smiles, Flamingos, Stitched Scallop Basic Edges 2

Ink: Picked Raspberry, Black Soot Distress Oxide

Paper: White, Raspberry Fizz, Black, Basic Gray

#3 By The Numbers- feature numbers or a numerical element on a card.

I just picked up last month's MFT order and the freebie dies were the Pop-Up Numbers. These aren't something I would typically choose for myself, but I decided I've got them, might as well use them! So I just started with a milestone number 40 and designed the project around that. The words and images all come from the Bitty Bears set. I masked off most of "birthday" to get the "TH", in case you were wondering.

It's a bit of a simple layout, but it was kind of just a test/learning the product kind of card. The numbers and bears were coloured with Copics.

Here's a close up of the numbers:

Supplies:

Stamps: Bitty Bears

Ink: Pure Poppy, Jet Black, Tuxedo Black

Paper: Pure Poppy, Orange Zest, White

Dies: Pop-up Numbers

Accessories, etc.: Copics

#4 Make and Mail- make a card and SEND it!

These Adorable Elephants were in my recent order and I thought, how cute would it be to just feature one and the little butterfly with a simple greeting. I made this one 4-bar size and stamped on the envelope as well.

Supplies:

Stamps: Adorable Elephants

Ink: Tuxedo Black

Paper: White, Spring Rain

Accessories, etc.: Copics