Christmas in July - FTH Stamp of the Month

I recently bought some Inktense pencils, which had been on my wish list for a long time, and thought it would be fun to try them on kraft cardstock, since the set also included a white pencil.

I printed this month's stamp of the month (Winter Friends) by From the Heart Stamps onto some Neenah Desert Storm cardstock (love the light colour) and coloured it with my new pencils, smoothing out the colours (except the white) with a very fine-tipped brush with the tiniest bit of water. I had intended to use this month's sketch by FTHS for this card (mirrored), which is why I printed the image in the lower right corner, but after I finished my colouring I decided I really liked it just the way it was, so I decided I would simply stamp a sentiment inside the card and call it a day.

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

FTHS - Digital stamp of the month challenge
(all participants will receive next month's stamp for free)

Less is More - 182 Anything goes

Christmas at Sweet Stampin' - Kraft Christmas

CHNC - 187 Cute (Christmas)

Completely Christmas - 22 Anything goes

Die-cutting fun part 2

My second card for today was inspired by my new flipflops. I love the graphic print and the colours and I thought it would be fun to try and recreate this pattern with the MFT chevron dies that arrived in the mail last week (bought in a recent sale) and combine it with the Simon Says Stamp grid border die that I still hadn't used.

After I had finished die cutting all MFT chevron stripes from SSS cardstock (the yellow was a little too yellow compared to my flipflops so I darkened it by applying a layer of versamark embossing ink) and partially die cutting the SSS grid border (which actually has 4 rows) and then glueing everything in place, I thought I needed to add a little extra umph. I then happened to lay the red die cut bicycle (I had simply die cut it to try another new die by Savvy Stamps) and decided I really liked the pop of red. I gave the bicycle a little more body by putting 3 layers on top of each other and added a few tiny hearts (SSS) that seem to come floating out of the basket. To finish things off, I added some glitter to the red items using my Wink of Stella pen (again LOL) and added some glossy accents to the hearts.

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Virgina's View Challenge - Die cutting

Curtain Call - Anything goes

Card and Scrap - 79 Use bright colours

Simon Says Stamp - Work it Wednesday June

Die-cutting fun part 1

Hello there. I finally managed to finish another card. I recently saw this really fun card where a crafter had turned a round balloon die cut upside down to create her card. I immediately thought of turning one of my new Simon Says Stamp balloon dies into a Christmas bauble. I know I commented on this crafter's blog to thank her for the inspiration, but I cannot for the life of me remember where I saw it and have been unable to retrace my steps and find out.

Anyway, I die cut the balloon shape and also used the same shape to create the masks for inking my sky after white heat-embossing the stars (using distress inks - I was inspired by the colours that Loll Thompson used on this card) and creating the snow banks using Alleene's real snow by way of embossing paste and adding a layer of white embossing powder. All the stamps (plus the matching die for the reindeer that I used to create mask) are by Hero Arts. After stamping the reindeer and sentiment I added some clear Wink of Stella (of course) to the reindeer's sweater.

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

Virgina's View challenge - Die cutting

Addicted to CAS - 42 Sky

A Blog Named Hero - 48 Sheet Cake (one layer cards)

Hero Arts - One layer challenge