Snowflake Cards

Howdy and here we are rolling along in a new year! I am playing catch up. Here is what I think is the last of holiday cards I made in 2018.

 

This one was a fairly quick card. I glued down some silver glitter paper on a white card only far down enough to be behind the greeting. The greeting is cut out using a Hero Arts die Cut-Out Holidays which you can get at the a2z Scrapbooking Etsy store. I glued the blue panel down and then used some peel off sticker snowflakes someone gave me.

 

Here is another fairly simple card. I die cut a bunch of snowflakes and put them on the card.I used two different snowflake die sets for this card, Penny Black A Blizzard and Tattered Lace Snowflakes. I then die cut the greeting out of blue glitter paper and glued that on. Done! There is a bit of a challenge getting the die cuts apart when using the glitter paper. I need to get a metal shim.  I really like the white and blue and on the above card the silver and blue.

 

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Hubby’s 60th Birthday Card

Howdy! I am finally doing some catch up on my card posting. In October my hubby turned 60. We stayed in Lake Tahoe in a house for about 10 days. We love Tahoe and have stayed there many times. We had our two dogs with us and my son was with us for the first time for most of the time. We did dog walks to the river, hiking, bike riding and just hanging out. It was a great trip.

Here is the card I made for him. I made most of it there except the die cutting because I can’t take my die cutting machine with. He has 3 guitars. I have one guitar stamp. The one on the right is an electric guitar and the style of the guitar doesn’t look much like his but I colored it like his. I was sneaky and took pictures of all of them for reference.

The background is stamped with a music background stamp.

The guitars are stamped with a random guitar stamp I have. I stamped in brown and black and colored with Copics. I used a white glaze pen to put accents (not sure what you call all those things) on. The sentiment and 60 are die cut. I got a long Tim Holtz die that wouldn’t have worked that well in my old die cutting machine but works great with the Big Shot. It has numbers and letters.

Here is a little something else I colored for him. We both like to watch hawks him even more so. He bought this hawk stamp online to make something. He gave it to me after so I decided to stamp and color this for his birthday. It’s just a panel not a card.

Here’s a few photos from our Tahoe trip. We also had a family and friends dinner when we got back home.

My family at Fallen Leaf Lake. Aspen, Jeff, Lucy, Me, Scott

Bear having a feast on the salmon at Taylor Creek.

The birthday boy Scott on his birthday eating his favorite food.

A birthday toast with Pappy Van Winkle bourbon. I normally don’t drink bourbon but it was a special birthday and special bourbon.

Supply List:

• Stampington & Company – Large Sheet Music
• Rubber Hedgehog – Hawk
• Random Guitar stamp (can’t read company name on stamp)
• Spellbinders Die – Sentiments One
• Tim Holtz Alterations Die – Wanted Alphabet
• Copic Pens

Bo Bunny Christmas Card Die

Howdy and happy holidays! Well they are kind of past now but I hope yours were nice. Mine were! As you can see I am catching up on posting some cards I made for Christmas.

 

These are quick cards to make. This die set is called Bo Bunny Christmas Card Die.  I don’t need to explain much here. I made the all white die cuts card first. I like red, white and kraft together so I made that next. I am not sure I love the white snowflakes over the red ones. Maybe I should have just had the unattached snowflakes be white. Anyway you just die cut everything and glue it down. Done!

Hero Arts Tag Die Cutting

Howdy! Welcome to a new year! I hope you all enjoyed the holidays. They can be hectic but very nice with all the  family gatherings, decorations and of course delicious food (can you say homemade cookies).

 

When I thought about a card to make I decided it would be for my brother. You know those sometimes hard to make masculine cards. So here we are with a safari theme which I think can work for a male or female.

I used the Hero Arts Tag Infinity dies to cut out, guess what, a tag. Then out came the Oxide Distress Inks. Love the Oxide inks!! I blended 2 purples and 1 blue ink on Bristol paper. When you use the Bristol paper and the Oxide inks the blending works very nice. I have struggled with this in the past.

I cut out the sunset circle using a die from the Hero Arts My Monthly Hero June 2017 set and also used Bristol paper and blended Oxide inks. You can get this die by itself from Hero Arts.

For the tree and animals I blended some Black Soot Oxide Distress ink on Neenah paper (I liked it better on the Neenah paper) and then cut them out using the dies from the My Monthly Hero kit. In real life they look like a chalky black.  You could also use the Hero Arts Color Layering Elephant stamp set in the a2z Scrapbooking Etsy store.  Hero Arts also has several sets that include lot’s of fun safari animals, trees, sentiments, backgrounds, stencils, dies and stamps.

For the background I stamped with Quick Quotes ink using the Hero Arts Mud Cloth Bold Prints stamp. The Quick Quotes ink is very nice for inking the edges of paper and a lighter not so bold background.

Use my discount code Karen15 to get 15% off your purchase of $25 or more. Proceeds from the a2z Etsy store benefit Celiac & Behcets disease foundations.

Supplies:

• Hero Arts Color Layering Elephant Stamp
• Hero Arts Tag Infinity Dies – These can be ordered from the a2z Scrapbooking Etsy store using the Request Custom Order button on the left side of the screen
• Hero Arts Safari Huge Thanks Frame Cuts – elephant die along with other animals and a tree’
• Hero Arts Safari Wild About You Frame Cuts – giraffe, other animals, and tree
• Hero Arts Safari Sunset Die
• Hero Arts Mud Cloth Bold Prints stamp
• Distress Ink Oxide

Hero Arts Lisa’s Painted Maple Leaf

Howdy! I got a little bogged down posting so now it is catch up time. Here is a card I made as a thank you to someone who did a really nice favor that made my husband very happy on his birthday.

This is one of those wood block stamps from way back in 2013. Ha. What I did with this is I colored the stamp using Local King Rubber Stamp water based markers. I just used a couple different colors and did a very light mist of water and then stamped on off white Neenah cardstock. After stamping all the leaves I notice a little bit of ink got somewhere I did not want it. So because of that and the fact I am not crazy about a lot of “white” space I decided to fix it. The way I fixed it was color on the stamp but stamp it over on scratch paper until there wasn’t much ink left on the stamp. I ended up really liking the look.

The main panel I think is embossed brown paper and I ran a little ink over the grain to highlight it. The sentiment I die cut using a wood grain patterned paper.

It went to a male and he lives on a ranch so I think it worked well for that. Also the colors on it look nicer in person. I am really happy with the way these leaves turned out.

Even though I only used their markers I wanted to add a note about Local King Rubber Stamp company. They go around to a lot of the conventions. They are at many of the Stamp and Scrapbook Expo events. The owner does a lot of the demo’s and she is great at what she does. They have many interesting images, tons of tutorial videos and some techniques that are a little different and look great. Let me know if you have heard of Local King Rubber Stamp. I have nothing to gain by mentioning this but I really like the company and wanted to spread the word.

Supplies:

• Hero Arts Lisa’s Painted Maple Leaf stamp
• Local King Rubber Stamp markers – 24 set
• Spellbinders Die – Thank You

Hero Arts A Natural Christmas

Howdy! Merry Christmas to you all. It is just about here and we are winding down 2018. Boy does time fly. Today I have a card I made using digital images from the a2z Etsy shop. I had this on my mind after another fun coffee blog hop.

 

I started out by printing the background trees from the Hero Arts A Natural Christmas Digital Cut File on some Neenah cardstock. Then I sized a mug from the Sugartree Stamps Hug in a Mug digital kit.  I put the tree background paper back in the printer and printed the mug right over it. I cut out the mug by hand.

Then on to creating the scene. I sized the deer, the tree, and bird to fit on my mug and cut them out using my Silhouette Cameo. All of these are in the Hero Arts A Natural Christmas Digital Cut File along with a couple more deer, a sentiment, another bird and a branch. I really like the look of this kit because it has a rustic feel. You can cut all of the images out of fun paper or color them. The deer is cut from a wood grain paper and the tree from a green paper with a very subtle pattern. The bird I colored with a Copic pen. The star is colored with a Gelly Roll metallic pen and the lights on the tree are done with Nuvo drops.

I almost forgot to mention… I popped up the mug using fun foam.

While getting ready to post this my darn camera was acting up and saying communication error when I tried to move the photos from the camera to my camera. Very frustrating when you need to get it done. I ended up getting a decent picture with my phone which was surprising. In case this happens to you it may be that your camera memory card is to full. Once I moved some photos off the memory card it all starting working as normal again.

 

There is more time to join in this month’s “Winter Wonderland” challenge!

 

 

 

Take a look at the goodies over at the a2z Scrapbooking Etsy store. Use my discount code Karen15 to get 15% off your purchase of $25 or more.

Supplies:

• Hero Arts A Natural Christmas Digital Cut File
• Sugartree Stamps Hug in a Mug digital kit
• Copic Markers
• Nuvo Crystal Drops
• Gelly Roll Metallic Pens

 

Heat Embossing with Pink & Main Pumpkin Spice Stamps

Howdy! Today I am having some fun creating a card for the Coffee Lovers Blog Hop.  There is still a few hours to link up a coffee/cocoa/tea card.

I finally got to use the so darn cute Pink & Main set Pumpkin Spice. I just had to have the stamps and dies but did not get to use them until now. Almost to late for fall.

So for my card I heat embossed all the images on the card using rose gold embossing powder. I colored them in almost a monochromatic way with Copics. It is hard to see but I used a Glaze pen for the green, a white Glaze pen on the rim of the cup on the left and the skull, and clear Nuvo drops on the lid for the cup on the right. I used the matching dies to cut them out.

For the brick background I used a stencil by My Favorite Things and Gathered Twigs Oxide Distress Ink. The grout was to white so I went over the whole thing with Antique Linen Oxide Distress Ink. The brick panel is cut out using a Cottage Cutz die.

The background paper is from a Perfectly Plaid Lawn Fawn paper pad.

Supplies:

• Pink & Main Pumpkin Spice Stamps and Dies
• Copic Markers
• Nuvo Crystal Drops
• Glaze Pens – green and white
• Oxide Distress Inks
• Lawn Fawn Perfectly Plaid paper pad
• Stampendous Rose Gold embossing powder
• My Favorite Things Small Brick Wall stencil

Hero Arts Happy Holidays

Howdy, it’s Karen Happy December to you! Here we go with the countdown to Christmas. I started a couple years ago making my cards all year to avoid the craziness right before Christmas. It sure helps to ease the stress. Here is one you can make fairly quickly using the Hero Arts Cut-Out Holidays Fancy Die.

 

Here’s how it comes together. I glued a piece of the gold glitter paper on the card base to just go down far enough to be behind the sentiment.  So it is not a full panel. Then I used the Cut-Out Holidays die to cut out that sentiment at the top of the red panel. The DCWV glitter paper is very nice, my favorite. It is very smooth and not chunky glitter which is what I prefer. That gets glued to the card base. I used a die from Memory Box to cut out the poinsettia. I have either never or next to never used this poinsettia die so it was good to get it out. I have had it probably a couple years. On each layer of petals I went over them lightly with a gold pigment ink pad. Another thing I love is the Delicata Golden Glitz pigment ink. And that is it!

 

Please join in this month’s “Winter Wonderland” challenge.

 

 

 

Take a look at the a2z scrapbooking store which carries a wide variety of Hero Arts products! Use my discount code Karen15 to get 15% off your purchase of $25 or more.

Supplies:

• Hero Arts Cut-Out Holidays Fancy Die
• DCWV Glitzy Glitter Paper
• Memory Box Blooming Poinsettia Die
• Delicata Golden Glitz Pigment Ink

 

Coloring with Hero Arts Caffeine Fix Digital Images

Howdy! More coffee fun with a2z Scrapbooking and the Coffee Lovers Blog Hop! This is fairly new to me and I am really enjoying it. 

Check out my teammates wonderful cards over at the a2z Scrapbooking Fall/Winter Coffee Lovers Blog hop post. For more inspiration and linking your cards up for prizes check out the details on the Coffee Loving Cardmakers blog.

I started my card by sizing and printing out two coffee cups from the Hero Arts digital set Caffeine Fix in the a2z Scrapbooking store.  I colored them with Copics and a Gelly Roll metallic pen and cut them out. I really like that gold pen. The coffee has to be two different types, one with cream how I drink my coffee and one black.

The background is stamped with white pigment ink on kraft.

The snowflakes were die cut, sprayed and then colored over with the gold pen. You know sometimes it takes doing a few things to have it look right.

The sentiment was die cut also with the same steps as the snowflakes and one additional step of coloring around the edges with a red Copic pen. The reason the red came about is when I sprayed the pieces in my spray box some red paint from a previous spray soaked thru the gold a little and it looked pretty nice. I covered that on top of the letters but thought I would go around the edges with the red pen.

 

Check out the a2z Scrapbooking store to get the Hero Arts Caffeine Fix digital kit.  Use my discount code Karen15 to get 15% off your purchase of $25 or more. If you’re looking for a Hero Arts product you don’t see in the store, use the Request Custom Order button from with-in the shop.

Supplies:

• Hero Arts Caffeine Fix digital kit
• Hero Arts Snowflake Pattern Bold Print
• Hero Arts Unicorn Pigment ink
• Penny Black A Blizzard dies
• Bo Bunny Christmas Card dies
• Copic pens
• Gelly Roll Metallic pen

Hero Arts Thanksgiving Autumn Icons

Howdy to you all and I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving if you live in the US. I had lot’s of fun making a bunch of Thanksgiving cards. I started out thinking I would use this set below to make some of them. I also thought I would just make a couple for my family in Southern California. Read on to see what really happened.

Here the cards I made.

This uses the Hero Arts Autumn icon die set. I used some Hero Arts liquid watercolors on watercolor paper and then cut out the leaf and pumpkin. The acorns I think are Hero Arts liquid watercolor and the fun Hero Arts Glimmer Metallic ink over top. I really like those metallic inks!! The background paper is some paper I picked up at a crafty sale that someone was getting rid of. I love the pattern. The fun paper is cut out using a die and the sentiment is stamped with brown ink.

Entered in the Die Cut Divas November Challenge Anything Goes.

This card was made in a very similar way as the above card. The leaves and the acorns are heavier on the metallic ink.

I made this background recently. I probably used some liquid watercolors and I think I added some of the Hero Arts Metallic ink which is the dark spots and they look better in real life. For the leaves I painted bronze and copper metallic ink on paper and then die cut the leaves. The sentiment is from a Hero Arts set. The base paper is off white and inked along the edges.

As you can see I make little changes on each because I am not that into making a whole bunch of the exact same card. So I die cut the leaf and acorn using the Hero Arts set Autumn Icons. They probably have some metallic inks on them. The background I made way back and it is alcohol inks and a leaf stamp over it. The brown panel has a big leaf stamped on it several times but is hard to see in the photo. The sentiment is stamped with brown ink.

This background was really fun to make. I got a tip from a local card maker that I chatted with at a craft sale. She said she totally dips her watercolor paper in water. So I tried that and then dropped liquid watercolor on it. I don’t have very many colors so far but I really like the way this turned out. Again the leaves and acorns are die cut. The sentiment is a wood mount stamp I have had quite awhile. I don’t really buy wood mount sentiments anymore because I like to use clear stamps so I can see what is going on.

Entered in the Love Handmade Cards November Challenge Anything Goes in Flickr.

Tip: For the cards above I did a few different things with the die cuts. Sometimes I left just the outline, sometimes I put all the little pieces back in. Yes I did that. Ha. So at first I put the pieces back in a very tedious way. Then I decided to try the Press N Seal method. It mostly worked but the acorns were stubborn. So I die cut leaves, pumpkins or acorns. Then I put a piece of Press N Seal on the back side of the die to keep all the pieces together and in place. After I got them out I put Press N Seal on the front side and removed the piece on the backside. That way I could put glue on all the pieces and then put them down where I wanted them, stick them down and then take off the Press N Seal. I am not always efficient but I get it done.

 

 

These two are fairly similar. I used Hero Arts dies to cut out the wreaths, leaves, pine cones and acorns. I used some Oxide inks to color the wreaths. I cut some leaves from that nice background paper seen on the cards above. I cut some leaves from the watercolor paper leftover from the above. There are some leaves with metallic ink on them. The first wreath card has a watercolor background right under the wreath where the other has just kraft paper. I used a pierced rectangle die to cut the panels right under the wreaths. And then there are various papers from my stash including some fun Lawn Fawn plaid.

So as you can see the first stamp set I showed did not end up on any of my cards… And I made several more than I planned….

You can get the Hero Arts Metallic Inks and Hero Arts Liquid Watercolor in Moss at the a2z Scrapbooking Etsy store. Feel free to use my discount code Karen15 to get 15% off your purchase of $25 or more. Direct links to the products are below in the supply list.

Supplies:

• Hero Arts Glimmer Metallic Inks Bronze and Copper
• Hero Arts Liquid Watercolor Moss
• Hero Arts September 2016 My Monthly Hero kit – wreaths, acorns (on wreaths), leaves, pine cones
• Lawn Fawn Perfectly Plaid Fall paper pad
• My Favorite Things Pierced Rectangles Stax
• My Favorite Things Wonky Stitched Rectangles
• Hero Arts Autumn Icons Dies – The bigger leaves, pumpkin and acorns
• Lawn Fawn Thankful Mice – Give Thanks sentiment
• Hero Arts Celebrate Everyday – mixed font Happy Thanksgiving