Water Coloring

I love the look of water coloring on a card, the shading is so beautiful. So that's what I tried to do in this next card. I guess practice will make it perfect.
I first stamped the flower in stazOn black and then created a mask for the flower before I stamped the leaves. I think it makes it look prettier. Then I used my aqua painters and SU ink pads to water color the flower and leaves.

Recipe:

Stamps: Embrace Life
Ink: SU Pale Plum & Perfectly Plum, black stazOn
Paper: SU Pale Plum, Perfectly Plum, Very Vanilla, water color paper, DP is unknown
Other: Nestabilities, purple rhinestone brads (I think Making Memories) and SU Eggplant ribbon

Good Morning!

It's a rainy day over here and it's a holiday so it makes for a perfect lazy day. Which translates into lots of cardmaking...

My Christmas card today is something I've seen done by quite a few artists and have been wanting to try. I think I might have missed the boat on this one though, I don't think the colors look quite right, but you never learn if you don't try, right?
For the circles I punched out the baja breeze with my 1 1/4 punch from SU, then I stamped with versmark and the heat & stick powder, next I used my heat gun to melt the powder, while it was still warm I added the dazzling diamonds and used the heat gun once more to set the glitter.

Here's the Recipe:

Stamps: Sincere Salutations, Priceless
Inks : StazOn black
Paper: The two browns I believe are bazzil but I don't remember the names, the blue is the new In Color from Stampin Up! Baja Breeze.
Other: Hemp Twine, SU! Heat & Stick pwd, SU dazzling diamonds

What a beautiful morning!

I love waking up to a steady down pour of rain and that's what I woke up to this morning. I think I'll have to bake a fresh batch of whole wheat buns, I always feel like baking when it's raining or snowing.

Well I guess I must be back in my groove again since I made two cards this morning. The first one is another Christmas card. I made this card using the faux tearing technique, it was my first time using this technique and it was very easy to do. I brayered the sky with my SU spectrum pad (retired), then stamped the trees in Staz On black. I also added some dazzling diamonds to the evergreen tree, which I think gives it just the perfect holiday sparkle.

Here's the recipe:
Stamps: Lovely as a Tree, Holidays & Wishes
Inks: Black StazOn, Blue Frost Spectrum
Paper: Not Quite Navy, Whisper White
Other: Dazzling diamonds

The second card I had to make using my new swiss dots embossing folder. I love the look it gives on a card. This was a very simple card to make and I like how the colors turned out.

Recipe:
Stamps: Priceless
Inks: Pale Plum, Perfect plum
Paper: Perfect plum, ivory, bazzil brown?
Other: Eggplant ribbon, rhinestone brads, round nestabilities, slit punch to make the scallop, and the swiss dots embossing folder.

Busy summer days

Wow, it's been a while since I sat down and made a card. Our summer has been really busy. We just got back from a week of holidays and then we had our local town festival which is always a lot of fun. I can hardly believe that the kids are going to be in school in just over a week. (doing the happy dance) My baby will be starting pre-K this year and she is so excited. Last year she struggled each time I dropped her brothers off at Pre-k and she couldn't stay. I'm very excited to see her enjoy school this year too.

Well I have managed to make two cards, the first one is a Christmas card that I cased from a talented scrapper at SCS (sorry I don't remember who). First I used my colluzle to cut out an oval on cardstock and used it as a mask before I stamped the line of trees. I then used a sponge to dab light blue ink for the sky. I also paper pierced around the oval. The evergreen tree has dazzling diamonds on it which makes it look sooooooo much better IRL.

Recipe:
Stamps: Lovely as a Tree from Stampin Up! and the Merry Christmas was purchased at Michaels years ago.
Paper: Always Artichoke, whisper white
Ink: Always artichoke, bashful blue & Bravo burgundy
Ribbon: Bravo burgundy

The next card is just a simple card made with my new "Bird Call" embossing folder. This folder really makes for a fast and simple card but yet they're so pretty.

Recipe:
Stamp: SU! Sincere Salutations
Paper: Black cardstock (source unknown), SU whisper white
Ink: Black Staz On
Ribbon: Dollar bin from Michaels

Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas...

Sorry if I'm scaring you. I love Christmas, it's my favorite holiday but this is early even for me. I told myself last year that I was going to start my Christmas cards very early this year, so that's what I'm attempting to do. Plus the craft sale that I want to get ready for is in November which means I have a lot of cards to make. TFL.

This first card was made using cs from our LSS (sorry, that's all I remember). I used silver embossing powder on vellum and then attached the vellum to the light blue pp. The ribbon is old olive from Stampin Up.


Another simple card made with whisper white CS from SU and the rest of the pp is again from our local store. I used SU white craft ink to do all the snowflakes and also used the scallop circle punch, also from SU. Ribbon is from a $1 bin from Michaels! They had a bunch of wider grosgrain on clearance, I really wish I had bought more, not that I really need it.


This card is made with designer pp that I've had in my collection for years already, it actually has a shimmer to it, very cute. Ribbon is SU's old olive.

Catching up

Summer is such a busy time for us, I have a love/hate relationship with summer. I love doing all the fun summer activities but I hate feeling like you have no time for a normal, slooooooooooooooow lifestyle.

So having said that, prepare for photo over load. I have been making cards, just not putting them up. A lot of these cards have the same layout, just different colors. I'm trying to get used to the idea of duplicating a design instead of always having each card have completely it's own look. I think it'll save me a lot of time that way.

All of these cards are made using stampin up cardstock but patterned pp is from various designers. TFL.




This next one is a project that I've been wanting to try. I bought a cheap tin dora money bank at Dollar Ramma and used modge podge to adhere the paper. I still want to add some more embellishments to the top of the can but I think it turned out pretty cute. I'm thinking about making these for a craft sale that I'll be joining. I could do baby's first piggy bank, older kids banks or even a "mom's savings account". The best part, they're cheap to make and take so little time.

Christmas in July

My husband would cringe if he knew I made a Christmas card today. He's the kind of guy that doesn't want to think about Christmas until December 1st. This card is a complete CASE from this blog. I've saved this card for almost a year already with the intentions of making it for Christmas but I never had any glossy cardstock, well I finally got some. TFL.

Learning...

I'm trying to get my own creative thoughts flowing, I CASE a lot of cards so I just finished card that I cased from myself (the irony) but I tried to change it up a little. As you can see, not much changed but maybe with practice, it'll help me to be able to come up with most of my own layouts.
For this card I used Stampin Up cs in very vanilla, choc chip, and so saffron. The stamps used are from the Embrace Life set, I used some Crystal effects on the "flower" parts which you can't really see in the picture. I also used chocolate chip ink and my nestabilities, which I am still totally in love with! TFL.

Hello Friday!

I love Fridays, even though I'm a SAHM but I think I love it still from when I was in the work force. I quickly made two simple cards today, nothing special but I like them. I used some stampin up stamps and rubons, the rest is from different companies which I can't remember. TFL

Fun, Fun, Fun!

These quick cards were so much fun to make. I used my nestabilities to cut the cute circle scallop card along with the "Embrace Life" set. After I colored in the petals I went over them with some crystal effects. Then while I was waiting for the CE to dry I decided to try a quick and simple card which I actually really like. TFL

Wedding bells

So I'm going to a bridal shower this week and I needed a card. Lately we only have baby showers, no bridal showers so it's a nice change to be able to make a bridal shower card. This card looks sooooooooo much better in real life. First I stamped the flower from the "Embrace Life" set from Stampin up in craft white onto vellum, and then embossed with clear EP. Next I flipped the vellum over and painted them using Stampin Up's ink pads, certainly celery, so saffron, and bashful blue.It made for a really pretty effect. I can't seem to take pictures of my cards without losing a lot of detail like the embossing from the nestabilities. I guess I'll have to practice a little more. TFL

I love my nestabilities!

I can't believe I waited this long to buy my first set of nestabilities! I bought the entire circles set and I'm ordering either the rectangles or squares next. Love them. Here's three cards made with both the scallop and circle nestabilities. Paper is mostly from Stampin up with the designer paper being from our LSS. TFL

Butterflies

This card is a CASE and I don't remember from where, so sorry about that. I used white craft ink for the butterflies and then clear embossing powder to finish them. I also used the mat pack from Stampin UP to pierce the holes to make the faux stitching with a white gel pen, also a SU product. TFL.

Rain Rain Go Away...

I love rain, absolutely love it. But when you have so many days in a row of the wet stuff, you start to long for the warm sun to make an appearance again. My plants are not growing very fast right now.
Well, I made some more cards again today, and a few days ago. All are made with mostly Stampin Up product except for any patterned pp. TFL.

It's been a while

I got a little caught up in the normal life schedule and fel behind with card making. But I've got five today to catch up with. These cards are made using mostly Stampin Up product, although I did buy my first set of acrylic stamps which I used on the thank you card. (Yeah, I'm way behind the times) I really like using them, I love being able to see where I'm stamping without having to use the stamp-a-ma-jig. TFL