Monday, July 29, 2019

Pet Sympathy Card

Hi Everyone!

I hope you all had a great weekend! Sorry for not posting on Friday, the day was busy celebrating my son’s 15th birthday! We didn’t do too much, just had some cake and presents and then I made his favorite dinner Salisbury steaks. He even deemed it a a worthwhile event enough to take a picture with me, which these days as a teenage boy is a rare occurrence! Somewhere over the last year he legitimately grew taller than me...which really isn’t hard to do since I’m not exactly a tall person!



Ok, so on to the card for today. I made this card for a dear friend who lost her furry family member last week. It’s always hard when we have to send our beloved pets over the rainbow bridge. She has a 4 boys who will surely miss him so very much so I wanted to make the card with some bright vibrant “boy” type colors so I chose a red, blue, green and yellow palette. The stamp set is from Great Impressions Stamps and I stamped it with black ink from Simon Says Stamp, and then used some Copic markers to fill in the hearts. I covered a few of the hearts in glossy accents as well. I heat embossed the little paws on the edge of the card with some platinum embossing powder. I added a little personal touch with the “RS” in the small circle on the left which are the initials of the pet.






That is all for me today. I am trying out a new photo technique. I hope you like the new picture styles and I hope you all have great evening and I’ll be back in a couple of days!


Lots of challenges for this card today!

1. Creative Crafters Challenge: Anything Goes
2. Love to Scrap Challenge: Anything Goes
3. Love to Craft Challenge: Anything Goes
5. LeAnns World 101: Anything Goes
6. Crafts Galore: Anything Goes
7. A Gem of a Challenge: Anything  Goes (2nd Entry)
8. Cute N Crafty Challenge: Anything Goes
9. Double Trouble: Something Anything Everything
10.

Wednesday, July 24, 2019

CAS Butterfly Birthday and Thank You

Hi Everyone!

Welcome to my blog! If you’re a first time visitor, thanks for stopping by and visiting me. I hope you like what you see and get some good inspiration. For my returning visitors, thanks for coming back again, it’s always good to know people come back!

Not a whole lot of extra things to talk about today, so I’m going to just jump right into the cards for today. Today’s cards were simple to make and ones that can be made into multiples easily just by changing the center color panel and sentiment or embossing folders.


For both of the cards I used the Quatrefoil embossing folders by Paper Studio that I bought from Hobby Lobby. I used the small die cut from Papertrey Ink’s What the Doodle: Butterfly Die Set. The sentiments are from Verve Stamps “Joyful Blooms” set. I kept them both black and white except for the pop of color with the teal and pink. I added some glossy accents to the center of the butterfly’s an some sparkle around the outer scalloped cut circle.



Have a great day everyone, and I’ll see you again soon!

Tuesday Challenges

1. Lemon Shortbread: Anything Goes
2. Through the Craft Room Door: Anything Goes

Wednesday Challenges:

1. Addicted to Stamps and More: Anything Goes
2. Crafty Creations: Anything Goes
3. Creative Moments: Anything Goes
4. The House that Stamps Built: Anything Goes
5. Mod Squad Challenges: All that Sparkles (stickles around the scalloped circles and glittery ribbon)


Monday, July 22, 2019

Happy Thoughts with Watercolor Swiping and Embossing.

Hello Everyone!

Welcome back. If you’re new to my blog, thank you so much for stopping by and spending some time with me. If you’re an “used to be regular visitor until I stopped blogging a couple of years ago” thank you for returning. I am slowly getting back into the crafting groove and blogging. It’s important to me to blog for my own pleasure and the satisfaction I get from sharing my creations. This was something I struggled greatly with when I blogged previously. I have learned many lessons about myself and what is important in my self care process and fulfillment. Lessons, I am endeavoring to put into practice.
Ok, now onto the cards for today. While I didn’t blog or craft a whole lot over the last couple of years, I did do a little; and I did keep up with a few of my favorite industry crafters, including Kristina Werner, and Jennifer McGuire. The cards I’m sharing today were inspired by this “watercolor swiping technique” I saw on Jennifer’s blog. I found this very simple technique to be so effective and eye-catching. I struggled initially because I didn’t have a small acrylic block to use to swipe the colors (I have since acquired something I think will work much better the next time I do this, however.😉) Nevertheless I persevered and found something to work. I made a variety of backgrounds with this technique and I’ll share a few more in later posts as well.
Now, since I haven’t done a lot of crafting lately, I also haven’t purchased a lot of new items. So, you’re going to have to just put up with me using some oldies but goodies when it comes to stamp sets and accessories etc.
 ðŸ˜Š Also, a quick note about products. Because I am not a blog with a lot of visitors (and I’m ok with that) I am not providing link backs to the products and where you can purchase them...that’s a lot of enon if you want to buy the items, you’re going to have to go google it and find them. 

Ok, back to the original broadcast information...I wanted to keep both of the cards fairly simple. So, I chose white bases for both of them. I also used these watercolors that I bought from Michael’s on both of the cards as well.


For the first card, I used an old Hero Arts stamp set called “Live Life” and heat embossed in white right on to the watercolor background. I popped this up on a small piece of black cardstock, added some faux white stitching and some sequins as a final touch.


   

Here is a close up of the center panel




For the second card, I used one of my favorite Simon Says Stamp sets  “You Matter” I just think this is such a versatile set. I used the “You” diecut and cut out about 5 pieces from black card stock and stacked them together and then glued them. This is a great way to give a “chipboard” dimension to your diecuts. When I laid the piece onto the water colored piece, I realized that it all just blended together; I needed a way to let it “pop.” So, I cut another “You” this time from white card stock and put it under the black to create a kind of shadow for the word. I embossed the other parts of the sentiment with white embossing powder again. I added some small black dashed lines and again added some small sequins.




Phew....lots of information in this blog post, at least I feel like I’ve been typing for a long time! If you’re still here, thank you for hanging in there with me. If you just scrolled quickly and looked at the pictures, that’s ok too! I hope you like what you saw and I hope my little creations inspire you to create something of your own.

Have a great day, everyone and I’ll be back again soon!

Saturday Challenges:
1. A Gem of a Challenge: Anything Goes
2. A Place to Start: Anything Goes
3. Crafter’s Castle: Anything Goes

Sunday Challenges:
4. A Lil Patch of Crafty Friends: Anything GoesS
5. The Corrosive Challenge:  Anything Goes


Friday, July 19, 2019

Christmas in July

Hi Everyone!

Well, it’s been a minute hasn’t it? Lots has happened since I stopped blogging a couple of years ago...too much to bore you with all the details here. I took a long break from blogging and really a bit of a break from crafting for a while as well. I’m ready to get back into the crafting groove and one of the best ways for me to do that is to start blogging again! So, here we go. It may take me a little while to get back into the groove again; but best foot forward, right?!

What better way to get started again than to share some Christmas in July cards. I figure it is never too early to start, right? This was an easy design and one that I know I will use again because it’s easy to create multiples of it.

I used the classic favorite “Lovely as a Tree” from Stampin Up and decided to create a layered shadow image by stamping the lighter inked images first. I actually stamped off first to make the image even lighter. To get the front darker image placed just right, I used a stamp positioner


I stamped all the tree pieces first. 


Then I assembled the cards.  For the first card, I used surf blue cardstock from Simon Says Stamp with the Neenah Solar White. I used two Close to My Heart Ink colors for this one: Crystal Blue, and Twilight. (These are new inks to me and I like them. A friend recently relocated to Italy and chose not to take them, so they needed a new home...lucky me!!) 



The next card features Certainly Celery card stock from Stampin Up along with Green Leaf ink from Simon Says Stamp and Sweet Leaf from CTMH. 



For the third card, I chose Enchanted Evening card stock from Paper Trey Ink along with Caribbean Blue and Soft Navy inks from Simon Says Stamp.



For the final card, I chose Pine Feathers card stock also from PTI and used Pine Needles and Cracked Pistachio Distress ink. Yes the original ones...no I don’t have any Oxide inks. Yes, I realize that’s the equivalent of using VHS tapes in the craft world; but I used what I have, what can I say?!  





I am entering these cards into the following blog challenges:

1. Crafty Catz: Anything goes, optional Christmas

2. Creative Fingers

3. Polkadoodles Challenge: Anything Goes

4. Crafty Creations: Anything Goes

5. Crafty Gals: Christmas in July

6. Creative Moments: Anything Goes

7. Cute N’ Crafty Christmas: Anything goes Christmas

8. Mod Squad: Christmas in July


Have a great weekend everyone and I hope to be back on Monday!