Doggie Birthday

This is a card I made for my cousin who has two dogs and loves her pups. Lately I have been trying to use some of the panels and images/pieces I have saved. The background I made fairly recently. I have a ton of panels that didn’t work for something else or I just had to use up the ink on my craft sheet so panels get smooched on the ink. Or maybe I was playing around with something. I do that way more than I used to these days and I think that is good for learning. Now on to the card…

The background as I said I made somewhat recently. I turned the bricks vertical which is not a common way to see them but I like that background for the dogs. For the bricks I used an embossing folder. I then blended some Distress Ink over the bricks.

The crazy dog I colored some time ago and it was just waiting for the right place and card. I think that is colored pencils that I used on the pup. The balloons are from the accessory set for the dogs and I colored them for this card with colored pencils.

The sentiment is stamped onto the bricks.

Background – The Paper Studio embossing folder Brick

Dog – From Stampers Anonymous/Tim Holtz set Crazy Dogs (CMS271)

Balloons – Stampers Anonymous/Tim Holtz set Crazy Things (CMS237)

Prismacolor Pencils

Sentiment – Hero Arts set It’s Your Day (CL661)

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Gingerbread and Candy Canes

Inspired by Merry Monday challenge #291. The challenge was add candy canes, cookies, and/or sweets to your cards! I did not enter these cards but the switching things around ideas kept coming after I made the first one.
Check out Merry Monday Challenges here.

Let me know which you like best, which one second, which leaves third place for the other…

For the backgrounds on the right and left I stamped those using Hero Arts stamp Cling Dots (CG139). The middle card background is from a paper pad.

The frame die cut is Simon Says Stamp Holiday Frames (SSSD111393). As you can probably see I backed the word Christmas with red paper on two cards. On the third I glued the cut out letters back into the frame.

The gingerbread man is from the set Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Christmas Blueprint 3. I stamped with Versamark and used white embossing powder and heat embossed. Two guys I left as it stamps and one guy I cut out.

The candy canes are from the same Tim Holtz set. One I stamped with Hero Arts Royal Red ink and cut it out. The other two I heat embossed with white powder and cut them out.

Bright Birthday

Here’s a little card I made with no stamping. I was playing around with these dies and decided to make some flowers for a card for a friend who likes bright colors.

I die cut a bunch of these flowers out of white paper. I have had this die set for a couple years and I don’t think I’ve used it before. I put the color on the flowers using Distress inks and the ink pad direct to paper technique.

Funny thing about the scalloped panel and the stitched rectangle panel. I have both of those for years also possibly longer than the dies. Barb (I can’t remember her last name but not Barb Engler) sent me these die cut panels, with a prize from a Hero Arts Scramble I think, along with a hello die cut. They got put away and I ran into them recently and here they are. Thanks to Barb!

For the card base I blended Oxide Distress ink onto a white card.

The sentiment is die cut out of black paper and you can’t see it in the photo but I went over it with a Wink of Stella pen.

Oxide Distress Ink – Wild Honey

Distress Ink – Spiced Marmalade, Picked Raspberry, Squeezed Lemonade

Flower Dies – Top Dog Dies Pretty Petals #2

Sentiment – Elizabeth Craft Designs Happy Birthday, Wink of Stella pen in clear

Starry Christmas

The inspiration for this card was Merry Monday Challenge #289. The theme is add a star.

 

For my card I had in mind to use this star from a Hero Arts My Monthly Hero set. Then I thought why don’t I use something other than the traditional colors. I did a search on the internet and decided on a color scheme. I used several of the colors but not all.

Photo credit: http://colorpalettes.net/color-palette-2543

I started out with a few different things and as we all do at times you make several different pieces until they all work together. It is kind of different from my norm but you have to try different things occasionally. I have a white panel with the background pattern stamped in Aged Mahogany Distress ink and that was too busy with the stars over it. I won’t go on about all the different pieces but I will say that if someone took apart the card there is clear embossing on the back side of the burgundy panel. I decided that the Versamark stamping of the background was the best.

The stars I heat embossed on blue paper with gold powder and the same on red paper. I hand cut those and then decided they needed a little border so I used the die to cut the stars out so they are layered which I think adds a nice touch.

For the sentiment I heat embossed using the same gold embossing powder on a white piece of paper. I then cut out the sentiment with dies.

Background – Hero Arts Snowflake Pattern Bold Print (CG723)

Stars – Hero Arts My Monthly Hero November 2017 kit, Queen’s Gold embossing powder by Ranger

Sentiment – Sizzix/Tim Holtz holiday words, Queen’s Gold embossing powder by Ranger

 

 

 

Kraft Flowers

I got the idea that I wanted to create flowers on kraft paper to go over a kraft background and this is it!

I created the background using a large background stamp and then stamping the flowers with white pigment ink.

Then I stamped 3 of the flowers and stems on kraft paper and heat embossed them in white. I colored them with Prismacolor pencils.

It seems fairly simple when I explain it but I colored several flowers to come up with ones that I really liked including a bigger one from another set.

Flowers and stems – Stampers Anonymous/Tim Holtz Mini Bouquet (CMS269)

Background text – Heidi Swapp Script (HS01140)

Sentiment – Simon Says Stamp Birthday Messages 3X4 (SSS101391).

 

Watercolor Sympathy

I created another sympathy card for my hub.

For the background I created a watercolor panel using watercolor paper. I likely put some Distress ink down on my craft mat and sprayed with water. I also probably put water on the watercolor paper before laying it down over the watered down ink. I stamped over that with Hero Arts stamp Silhouette Grass (S5316) with a very light brown ink. For the more obvious flowers I used Hero Arts stamp Exotic Bloom (H5424). The sentiment is from that fab Paper Smooches set Sympathy Sampler (NOS298).

Sepia Sympathy Card

It’s kind of interesting how this card came about. I stamped this Hero Arts image Large Blossom (CG271) on some watercolor paper and had some ideas on how I wanted it to look. I was thinking stamp in lighter olive green and have some light pink flowers. I started working on that. This card was for a friend of my husbands whose father passed away. When I showed my husband my original idea he wasn’t really diggin’ it. He says why don’t you make it a sepia look. At first I thought nah. Then I thought why not try it. I really like how it turned out. On the one hand I think it is ok for a sympathy card and a part of me thinks it is a bit dark colored for a sympathy card. If you have a thought on this please comment.

I painted some Tea Dye or maybe another brown Distress ink on some watercolor paper. Then I stamped the image, which is a reverse image, using a darker brown Oxide ink (can’t remember which one). I like how it has a texture look to the background from the watercolor paper. The background piece is stamped with a Rubbernecker stamp Distress Dotted Lines. The sentiment is from Paper Smooches set Sympathy Sampler (NOS298). This is a really good sympathy set with several different sets of words for these type of cards.

Merry Monday #286

I created a card for Merry Monday #286 and got it in before the last minute. Yeah! The theme this week was use your Favorite Christmas Verse. I looked around and only had simple Christmas sentiments. The first thing I thought of for this was the last line from Twas The Night Before Christmas. This always reminds me of my Mom who loved to read it out loud at Christmas more when I went home to visit after moving out.

The background – I created it by applying Distress Oxide ink to a craft mat and spraying it with water. I wet the watercolor paper also before putting it down on the ink. At the end I stamped some snowflakes, from Hero Arts set Snowflakes by Lia (CL901) using Versamark Frost ink, across the sky. They pretty much don’t show in the photo. After I took the photo I brushed some Perfect Pearls pearl powder over the snowflakes and went over it with a heat gun. If you tilt it or in the right light you can kind of see the snowflakes.

The houses and trees – I cut this with my Cameo and it is christmas house border design #52275. I was starting to think I would do a monochromatic color scheme at this point.

The santa and sleigh – I stamped with a Stampabilities stamp called Santa Sleigh Silhouette that I got at Hobby Lobby using Cobalt Archival ink. It didn’t stamp all the way so I colored in with a Copic marker.

Favorite Christmas verse – This was probably the most time consuming thing on the card. Hard to believe but true. My printer doesn’t seem to like thick cardstock. This wasn’t 110 lb. Neenah paper either. I was using the 80 lb. Neenah and every single time the ink smeared all over. I probably printed this at least 8 times trying to make it better by changing settings. I ended up using some thinner cardstock but it still has a few streaks. I had another one that I went over with Distress ink but decided I didn’t like the blue so I printed once again and smudgy once again just a little. I was running out of time so I just went with it. I ended up going over it with ink and then went over it with a Copic pen to get the “perfect” color.

 

 

Gnome Birthday

This is a card I made for a guy.

This background was also created while playing around with the Oxide Layered stamping. However this is not that exactly. It is just stamping with Oxide ink. I stamped with Hickory Smoke Oxide Distress ink using a Stampers Anonymous/Tim Holtz stamp Mesh (CMS221) on the dark blue paper. The card base gray paper was from my stash and it matches the Hickory Smoke Oxide ink pretty darn close. I tried several grays from light to darker.

The gnome is a stamp from Simon Says Stamp from a set called Secret Garden (SSS101629). Such a cute little gnome. I colored him with Copics. His belt and buttons are colored with a silver Pen Touch pen. I am not sure, now that I look at it, why I didn’t color the belt black and the buckle silver.

For the sentiment I applied Hickory Smoke Oxide ink direct to paper using the ink pad. Then I stamped the frame and sentiment over that possibly with Versafine onyx black ink. They are both from Stampers Anonymous/Tim Holtz set Saying Stuff (THJ009). I die cut the frame.

Entered in the Simon Says Stamp Challenge 95 in Flickr.

 

Oxide Christmas

I was playing around trying another Jennifer McGuire technique she calls Layered Oxide Stamping. So I made this background just playing around. Then I had a idea for a Merry Monday card for challenge #285 which was to use ribbon. I didn’t have the ribbon idea until the end. I also did not get it submitted but like I have said before “another Christmas card done”.

The background – I did a direct to paper layer of Oxide Distress ink in Fired Brick. I stamped on top of that with Oxide Distress ink Antique Linen using a Hero Arts background stamp Designer Woodgrain (S5208). I like the look a lot.

Then I decided I would have everything be Oxide ink.

So the tree stamp is Sizzix/Tim Holtz Tree Blueprint (649379). I stamped it with a darker green Oxide ink on top of a lighter green Oxide ink that I applied direct to paper using the ink pad. I die cut all three tree layers. Under the second layer I put foam tape and the third layer thick glue. The star is where the ribbon comes in. I was struggling with that part. At first I just tried to glue the ribbon down on the background and the ribbon wasn’t sticking very well to itself and the star shape wasn’t working out. I took the star I cut off the tree and glued the ribbon to that so it had a better shape. I would say it looks ok not great.

That cute little reindeer is from Hero Arts set Christmas Reindeer (CL540). For him I also applied Oxide ink in Antique Linen ink pad direct to paper. I then stamped the reindeer with a darker brown Oxide ink. I colored his nose and sweater with you guessed it Oxide ink using a paint brush and picking up the ink from my craft mat. I used red and two different greens. I hand cut out the reindeer. Instead of trying to cut out the antlers by hand I stamped them on the background.

The sentiment is from the Tim Holtz set mentioned above and stamped with a dark brown Oxide ink.

It was kind of hard to photograph in a way. It looks washed out but that is the look of Oxide ink.