GD HLS Watercolour challenge

Hello there! I'm so excited to be guest designing for the February watercolour challenge over at Happy Little Stampers, after winning the December challenge with this card. Woot!

For the February challenge, the theme is 'Anything goes' with the option of 'Hearts'

The inspiration for my card came when I was looking at the supplies from a recent crafty haul. It contained both the Peace die (MFT) and the Joy die (Concord and 9th). And since the optional theme is 'hearts', this automatically made me think 'Peace, love and joy'. Easy peasy.

I used Brushos (ultramarine, turquoise and emerald green) and watercolour card to create my background panel. After my panel had dried, I used my go to stitched rectangle die (SSS) to die cut my panel and then die cut the words from my brusho panel and again from a scrap of white cardstock. I adhered the panel flat onto my white card base and inlaid the white die cut letters. For the love part of my sentiment, I adhered a green heart gem from my stash that really picks up the green colours in my background.

Do pop over to the HLS blog to admire the creations by the HLS DT members and to see how you can play along.

I'm also linking up my card at:

SSS Wednesday - Anything goes

January Rudolph Days - Anything Christmas goes

and I'm also popping over to the

Snippets Playground

 since I used a scrap piece for my die cut sentiment

Jingle Belles - Text me

Mermaid wishes

I have been playing with some new products this weekend and paired them with some old ones.

The sweet mermaid stamp is part of a large set by Sheena Douglas (Sea View Collection) that came with the Creative Stamping magazine that I ordered from the UK last month. I inked her up in Mememto Rich Cocoa and coloured her using my new Prismacolors. I die cut the edges using an old (but never before used) Memory Box border die (Bitty Scallop), stamped the sentiment in Black archival and matted my panel with a panel of (old) precut Core'dinations cardstock before mounting everything to my white card base. Since a mermaid needs some sparkle, I went over the scales with a Spectrum Noir glitter brush (really sparkly IRL) and added a few PPP sequins.

I'm linking up at:

Penny Black and More - Something new

Uniko - #45 Something old, something new

CAS on Friday - #125 Colour me pretty

Kathy's 30 day colouring challenge

Kleuren met potloden - Alles mag 

(Anything goes using coloured pencils)

Another twofer - owls

Hello, hello! I'm back with another twofer. I was looking for a snarky sentiment for a birthday event that's going on at StampNation and my eye fell onto this severely underused stamp set by Kelly Purkey (Make a wish for Simon Says Stamp). I think I have used only the smallest sentiment of this set once. Well, that's about to change, because this stamp set is really fun.

Anyhow, I decided to stamp the sentiment onto Neenah Desert storm cardstock using distress oxide ink (Peeled Paint), because I never have enough masculine birthday cards and am trying to stay ahead of the game this year. I looked for a stamp with a masculine feel and decided to use this fun owl stamp from a set that came with a stamping magazine from the UK (Creative Stamping). I usually buy back issues when they are on sale. This balances out the shipping costs lol. The bird was first stamped in Broken china and then I added Faded jeans to the perimeter and stamped again, with the help of my MISTI.

I die cut my panel using one of my new Crazy double running stitch dies by CUTplorations, matted it onto a panel from a fresh stack of pre-cut Core'dinations cardstock and adhered this to my white card base. I finished off with some googly eyes that I have had for a while but had not used until now because I did not know where I had hidden them. Duh! To make sure the recipient will be able to read the fine print under the main sentiment, I also stamped it in black Versamark on the inside. For those of you who also struggle with reading the find print, I will spell it out. It says: Well, happy birthday to you! Love it! Makes me wonder why it took me so long to ink it up.

For my second card, I decided to pop up the owl onto a branch from the same stamp set and stamped my sentiment (Good stuff, Winterhaven SOA collection by Catherine Pooler) in Faded Jeans DOI. I trimmed my panel down and adhered it to a yellow Core'dinations panel before adhering it to my white card base. I added a touch of Wink of Stella to the bird and used Glossy accents on the eyes.

I'm playing at:

Twofer Card Challenge - #1 Feathers

I'm also linking up my Birthday card at:

SOS - #338 You say it's your birthday

The Cutie Pie - #119 January blues

Naughty or Nice - NON47 Celebrate

Sweet Stampin' - Men's cards

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And my Thank you card is also playing at:

Pile it on -  #138 Thank you

SSS Wednesday - Add a sentiment

Twofer feather cards

Did you notice the new Twofer card challenge blog that was launched this month by none other than the lovely Darnell of djkardkreations? The idea is to create two different cards for two different occasions using the same stamp or die. A perfect incentive to stretch our supplies or to get more out of supplies, including our NBUS or underused supplies.

For my first set of cards (yes, I did create another set), I used the feather from Catherine Pooler's Birds of a feather set.

I'm linking up my Twofer set at:

Twofer Card Challenge - #1 Feathers

For my Thinking of you/Sympathy card, I repeatedly stamped the feather using Altenew ink. For my sentiment strip, I used the darkest of the warm grey inks to colour my cardstock and then heat-embossed the sentiment (Hero Arts) in white (SSS). I popped up the sentiment strip using foam tape and finished off with a sprinkling of espresso sequins (PPP).

I'm linking up this cards at:

MAWTT - #63 CAS

HLS CAS - Friendship

SSS Wednesday - Add a sentiment

And since I used a snippet for my sentiment strip, 

I'm also allowed a trip to Pixie's Snippets Playground.

For my birthday card, I started by inking up my new acrylic block by Altenew using 3 colours of Catherin Pooler ink (Sweet sixteen, Pixie dust and the new Royal treatment), spritzing with water and stamping this onto my Neenah card base. When the ink was dry, I usded my MISTI to double stamp the feather in Royal treatment and to stamp the sentiment from an old but useful set (Birthday messages, SSS) in Archival black.

I'm linking up my birthday card at:

LIM - #362 Purples

Uniko - #45 Something old (stamps, some inks), 

something new (acrylic block, new ink)

CAS Watercolour - Birthday

AAA Cards - #106 Quote

29 again?

Hello there! I've been playing in my craftroom this weekend and managed to create a few cards. StampNation is celebrating its 7th birthday with a new cardmaking class to help us build a nice stack of birthday cards for friends and family. It's also a great incentive to rummage through my stamp sets and give my underused stamps some love. Here's my first snarky and interactive birthday card.

When you rotate the top circle around the heart brad, the hidden message is revealed.

Materials used:

Stamps:

 Ring in the celebration (Winnie and Walter)

Young at heart (CAS-ual Fridays)

Dies:

Large circle die (Lifestyle Crafts nesting dies) (OLD)

Stitched circle die (Shaker Flower, MFT)

Crazy double running stitch die (CUTplorations) (NEW)

Inks:

Mandarine spice, Royal treatment, 

Peppermint scrub (Catherin Pooler) (NEW)

Versafine black

Cardstock:

Neenah solar white

Hot pink CS from my stash (OLD)

Other:

Heart brad (Eyelet Outlet) (OLD)

Dark red alcohol marker for colouring the brad

I'm playing at:

Seize the Birthday - Anything goes

Bugaboo 8th Birthday Bash - Day 1: Bold and bright

Naughty or Nice - NON47 Celebrate

SOS - #336 Out with the old, in with the new

Another CAS Christmas tree

I have another glittery card to share with you all. Really love how this one turned out.

I started by applying Ranger texture paste through a NBUS (never before used schtuff) stencil by Simon Says Stamp (Christmas Scene), sprinkling with embossing powder (Wanderlust by WoW for Catherine Pooler Designs) and heat setting the powder once the texture paste had dried.

I did not want a black sentiment so I usde Memento Elderberry ink to stamp my sentiment (Sentimental: Winter, Winnie and Walter). I die cut my panel using a die from Essentials: Noelle Cutaways (Winnie and Walter). I stacked my panel with two more panels in black to give a hint of a shadow.

I'm playing at:

AAA Cards - #105 Sparkle

CAS-ual Fridays - CFC190 All that glitters

STAMPlorations Theme and Sketch - I went with the sketch

Merry Monday - #271 Embossing

Sparkles Christmas - #84 White on White

CAS Christmas trees

Just popping in quickly with a CAS Christmas card.

Materials used:

Cardstock - Neenah Solar white

Stamp - Holiday Trimmings (Winnie and Walter)

Ink - Eucalyptus (Catherine Pooler)

Glitter - Glitter Ritz

Miscellaneous - double-sided tape, star gem from my stash, corner chomper, MISTI

I'm playing at:

AAA Cards - #105 Sparkle

HLS Christmas - Anything goes

STAMPlorations CAS - Anything CAS goes

CAS-ual Fridays - CFC190

Believe in the Magic

I'm back with another card. I'm still playing with my new Tombow dual brush markers, and also with a new Winnie and Walter stamp set that I bought during the Black Friday sales and which arrived just before Christmas.

When this stamp set (Sweet Holiday with Evelin T Designs) was released back in November, I immediately fell for the stamp I used on my card today.

Based on the swatches I had made (different watercolour mediums on different types of watercolour card), I decided to start by stamping the image onto my cheapest, smooth watercolour cardstock (200 gsm) twice so that I could play with the various marker colours. I did get some bleeding outside of my stamped image, but otherwise I was so happy with the results that I decided to fussy cut my image out and use it on a card right away.

To create my background, I started with a panel of Canson Montval 300 gsm and used blue painter's tape to mask off the lower portion of my panel and tape down my panel to a piece of board. After scribbling on my colours using my Tombow markers, I spritzed liberally with water and used a heat tool to move and dry the paint.

After die cutting my panel (Custom panels, Avery Elle) and heat embossing my sentiment in white (SSS), I placed the fussy cut image onto my panel without adhering, so that I could add snow to the background as well as the image by flicking Gansai Tambi white gold paint on top.

I adhered my panel to my card base using liquid glue and then foam-mounted my image.

I'm playing at:

W&W - Color Combo with Heather H

Jingle Belles - Look what Santa (Marianne) brought me

SSS Wednesday - Something new

ATSM - #273 Holiday

HLS Watercolour - Anything goes

HLS Christmas - Anything goes

Delightful

Hello everyone. I'm trying to make the most of my time off this week by creating a few cards for a couple of challenges.

This card was inspired by the sketch of this fortnight's LIM challenge, the products of the January Mix It Up challenge at the Ellen Hutson blog and the theme of the new CASology challenge.

I used my new Tombow dual brush markers to ink up my Mondo Hydrangea stamp (Essentials by Ellen) in my MISTI, spraying gently with water before stamping. I repeated this until I was happy with the stamped impression. I went lightly over the lines with a damp brush to further soften the lines and then went in with the markers to add more colour to the flower hearts. After die cutting my panel with my go to stitched rectangle die (SSS), I stamped the sentiment (Brushed Blossom, Concord and 9th) in black Archival ink. After adhering my panel to my card base (Bazzill), I decided to add a little oomph by adhering a heart-shaped jewl using Glossy Accents.

 

      

Birthday box

Today I'm back with a birthday box that I created using a tutorial by one of the DT members at StampNation in honour of the Housewarming Party celebrating the new member platform.

Materials used:

Stamps and dies from the Beautiful World SOA collection (Catherine Pooler Designs)

Catherine Pooler inks (It's a boy, All that jazz)

Cardstock/vellum - Neenah solar white cardstock, Bazzill vellum, scraps of red and teal

Scor-Pal

I'm linking up my creation at:

Tuesday Morning Sketches - #424 Anything goes

MAWTT - #61 Anything but a card

SSS Wednesday - Anything goes