From the heart...

When I chanced upon the From The Heart blog earlier this month and saw this adorable (digital) stamp, I simply had to have it. It was the free stamp of the month of August, provided you played in the July free stamp of the month challenge. Since I had just found the blog, I had to buy this one, but I cannot wait to find out what adorable image Faith has in store for us next month.

I also used the sketch from the current From The Heart sketch challenge:

I printed the image onto watercolour card (Crafter's Companion) and coloured the image with my new AquaMarkers (Letraset). The image and cardstock circles (Coreidinations ColorCore) were cut with Lifestyle Crafts circle dies and adhered using foam tape. The heart embellishments () were cut from a piece of veneer paper (Life birch wood, Simon Says Stamp), adhered with foam tape and finished off with a layer of Glossy Accents. I also used the Glossy Accents to adhere the button.

Materials used:

Digital image - The cat's out of the bag (From The Heart Stamps)

Sentiment - Birthday Bash set (Verve Stamps)

Colouring medium - AquaMarkers (Letraset)

Papers - Watercolour card (Crafter's Companion); Core'dinations ColorCore

Patterned papers - Bluebell 6x6 pad (My Mind's Eye)

Ink - Tuxedo Black (Memento)

Heart dies - Large Holiday Shapes, Simon Says Stamp/Memory Box

Circle dies - Lifestyle Crafts

Button & twine - from my stash

Glossy Accents, foam tape, glue tape runner

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

From The Heart - Free digital image stamp of the month challenge

From The Heart - Sketch challenge (no. 32)

Seize the Birthday - always Anything goes birthday

Sweet Stampin' - Spots and stripes

Just Add Ink - 180 Just add colouring

Sister Act  - 22 Anything goes

New and old

For today's card I'm combining several challenges. Hero Arts want us to make a project based on a project on the HA website/blog/gallery that inspires us. My inspiration came from this card made by Kelly Rasmussen. I thought it would be fun to turn it into a masculine birthday card using the new Number Pattern background stamp.

The colours were inspired by the following Design Seeds inspiration photo for the current LIM challenge:

I masked off the area where I wanted to stamp. I then stamped the Number Pattern stamp by Hero Arts in embossing ink (Ranger's) and heat embossed in clear embossing powder (HA). I used Ranger's distress inks (Scattered straw, Antique linen and Pumice Stone) to sponge in the background. The vintage car (from a gently used stamp set that I received as an extra gift with the stamp set that I won over at Kathy Racoosin's blog) and the the sentiment (HA It's your day stamp set) were stamped in HA ink (Cup O'Joe, from a set of 4 cubes) on a separate piece of Neenah solar white card stock, which I then cut out and adhered using foam tape. I finished the card off with some matching pearls, for which I rubbed a piece of Neenah cs with Cup O' Joe ink, punched circles in different sizes with my eyelet punch tool and then added Glossy Accents. I had just read about someone (don't recall where I saw it, sorry) who used this method to create gold pearls and I decided to give it a go myself.

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Less is More - 131 Colour challenge
Hero Arts - Stamp your story inspiration challenge

Seize the Birthday - Anything Goes Birthday

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Anything goes

CASEd hot air balloon card

Today's card was inspired by the new challenge over at the Clearly iStamp blog, namely to lift/case a card from the person before you, i.e. the person who commented before you saying s/he would play along. So I had a look at AJ's blog and found a card that enabled me to use my new hot air balloon stamp set by Dear Lizzy AND play along with Tuesday Morning Sketches again, which was long overdue. So here's my card:

I tried to incorporate the hot air balloon and the clouds, as well as the green and blue of AJ's card below, which was the one that I lifted/cased. I also threw in some hearts for good measure lol.

I first inked up my balloon with Hero Arts Pool ink and then applied some Tide Pool on the edges and Cup O' Joe on the basket before stamping on Neenah solar white cardstock. I used a stamp positioner to stamp a second time for a more solid image. I then masked the balloon and stamped the clouds from the same stamp set in Soft Pool. I matted the image piece on another piece of Neenah after rubbing the edges with the same Pool ink and rounding the corners of both pieces with my corner chomper. The patterned paper is from the Bubblegum Hills 6 1/2" paper pad collection by Kaisercraft. I finished the card off with a few rhinestones and hearts from my stash.

Both our cards are based on the following TMS sketch, which is an oldie (#161) revisited.

Since my main image already includes a prominent sentiment, I did not add a sentiment as a separate element.

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Clearly iStamps - 4 Lift the person before you

TMS - Sketch 209/161 revisited

Simon Says Wednesday challenge - Anything goes

Fairwee Daphne's Balloons

This week, I had to make a card for a sweet young lady who turned 6, and I thought Amy Young's sweet fairwee Daphne (Sweet November) would be the perfect image.

And here's the sketch I used from Papertake Weekly, #81:

I coloured the image with Promarkers/Flexmarkers and used some papers from a very old, brandless paper pad. I added a little glitter to the balloons and wings with some glitter glue. When cutting the paper, I made sure that the number 6 would still be visible. I coloured it with the blue marker and added some glitter glue.  I also stamped the single Happy circle around the number, but that does not show very clearly.

TTT TIP:
You can use markers for a lot more than colouring images, such as colouring pearls and rhinestones, but you can also use it to create borders that perfectly match your coloured images. I coloured a strip of Neenah solar white cardstock with the same marker I had used for the dress and then used this strip to die cut my border.

 Materials used:

Image stamp - Daphne's balloon (Sweet November)

Sentiment stamp - All Year Round set (Paula Pascuel)

Dies - oval (Crafts Too); round (Lifestyle Crafts); border (from Die'sire Grace Frame set - cut in 3 goes)

Inks - Tuxedo black (Memento), Lilac posies (Memento Dew Drop), Tide Pool (Hero Arts cubes)

Colouring - Promarkers (LE Spring/Summer); Flexmarkers

Glitter glue - from stash

Twine - plain kitchen twine from the supermarket

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Papertake Weekly - Sketch #81

Sentimental Sundays - 165 Anything with wings

Simon Says Stamp - Anything goes

C.C. Designs - 2 Summer dreaming

Top Tip Tuesday - 106 Spooled items
Incy Wincy Designs - Birthday and balloons
Cute Card Thursday - 280 Anything goes