Dies – My Favorite Things – Heart Air Balloon, Huge Love; Lawn Fawn – Grassy Hillsides Borders
Stamps – My Favorite Things – Mini Meows
Ink – Ranger Distress Ink – Broken China
Copic Markers
Cardstock – Bazzill and BoBunny
Well, I’m very late in posting my Valentines. We had an ice storm here in the Willamette Valley on February 12th (freezing rain that accumulated to over an inch on everything) that caused lots of tree and power line damage. Our power was out for almost 8 days and I had very spotty internet access, so I didn’t even try to post anything during that time. I’m still catching up on things and adjusting to being able to turn on real lights! We were very fortunate here compared to many across the country who had much worse circumstances. But we did enjoy Valentine’s Day under different conditions with a grilled dinner!
So now on to the card. I have always loved hot air balloons and as soon as I saw this die set at our local store, I had to have it! I inked the background with Distress ink and inked some additional paper a little darker to use to die cut the LOVE sentiment. The little clouds were part of the Heart Air Balloon die set, so I cut some of those for the sky. Once I assembled the balloon and inserted cat 😉 I popped it up so it would look like it was floating. I colored the kitties with Copic markers in the colors of our two cats (Max in the balloon and Sissy on the ground). They are not exactly in love in real life, but we’ll just go for that effect for purposes of the Valentine! I really had fun making and giving this card (I made one for my husband and one for my son). Thanks for stopping by. Better late than never!
I’m jumping ahead to Spring for a short visit! We’ve had rain, hail and sunshine this first week of February here in the Willamette Valley (and the Groundhog did not see his shadow). So here is a cheerful birdhouse made completely with Lawn Fawn dies. I decided to die cut all of these pieces in lots of happy colors and do some mixing and matching. This card had absolutely no stamping either. That doesn’t happen very often.
Supplies:
Dies – Lawn Fawn Magic Iris Birdhouse Add-On, Stitched Scalloped Rectangle Frames and Outside In Stitched Bubbles (for the “hi.”)
Cardstock in a variety of colors, plus Kraft for the card base
I plan to make more of these with some other color combinations and also to make a version with the Magic Iris die in the birdhouse opening for a little interactive fun. Thanks for stopping by.
I usually procrastinate in making Christmas cards in a timely manner, but my friend Barb challenged an online group of us to make a card with a poinsettia and I thought I should join in! I was sort of surprised that with all of the stamps I own, this set is the only one I found that had poinsettias, and it had two different ones.
Supplies used:
~ Stamps: Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Collection – Yuletide Gatherings CMS390 (poinsettia) and Modern Christmas CMS388 (sentiment)
~ Authentique Magical Collection – Magical Five
~ Karin Brushmarker Pro markers
~ Metallic gold watercolor and gold twine
I have been wanting to test out the Karin Brushmarkers direct to the rubber stamp and this one was a great candidate. These markers are great for watercolor and have a brush tip, so they are perfect for applying color to a rubber stamp. For this one, I didn’t spritz the stamp with water before or after, and the image came out very nice and crisp. I was able to get three more impressions after this by adding water to the stamp. Here is how they looked:
So depending on the look you’d like to achieve, you can get a lot of impressions from one ink application, which is potentially a big time saver. As a result of this experiment, I have several images to work with for more cards. Always a plus!
This is my most elaborate Halloween card this year. I’m not sure exactly what happened, but time got away from me and I just didn’t make many. I created this one for a swap that I participated in. We were to make a Halloween card that was a fun fold that the recipient could use for a decoration.
I had fun putting together several different Lawn Fawn stamp/die sets and patterned papers from different companies for a spooky night-time scene. I decided on a Z-fold card, and the beauty of this design is that it can stand up on its own but it folds up to easily fit into an envelope.
Supplies:
Lawn Fawn stamps and dies – Spooktacular, Hoppy Halloween, and Fox Costumes Before ‘n Afters and the Spooky Fence Border die
Papers – Authentique – Mysterious and Twilight collections, and Echo Park Bewitched collection (for the starry sky)
I colored the critters with Copic markers and backed the card with and cut the fence border from black cardstock.
This was very fun and quite easy to make. Have a Happy Halloween!
I created a clean and simple card with an adorable penguin designed by Stacey Yacula who is one of my favorite critter illustrators of all time! To find out more about her, please visit her site at http://www.staceyyacula.com/. This penguin, the sentiment and star cluster stamps all come from a My Favorite Things set from 2018, called Sweet Holiday Penguins. I used a card sketch from the latest My Favorite Things challenge: Wednesday Sketch Challenge #510. Here’s the sketch:
I used patterned paper from the Bella Blvd Merry Christmas collection. It seemed to be a perfect choice to me because the small white polka dots are not perfectly round and look like snowballs. I colored the penguin with Copic markers, keeping it simple and added a little bit of bling off his flipper to represent him sending the holiday cheer (or snow. or pixie dust).
Another holiday card completed! Hurray! I think this makes two, maybe three! Thanks for visiting today.
In my constant endeavor to find something positive in this highly unusual (okay, CRAZY!) year, at least we have a day dedicated to making cards! Right? So I spent today making a few gel plate prints and then I made three cards with some of them. Here’s what I did.
Above you can see the prints I made, using leaves from plants growing in my yard. Nothing exotic, to be sure! The difference in this gel printing experiment is that I used mini Distress Ink cubes direct to the gel plate to create kind of a geometric pattern. I didn’t brayer the ink out, but left it for a more distinct pattern.
I then placed the leaves on top of the inked plate and then pressed the paper over. Then I removed the paper and the leaves and replaced the paper, lining the paper onto the plate as it was before. This partially defined the leaves with remaining ink.
Here are the cards I made from the prints seen above.
I used sentiment dies respectively, from Sizzix, Elizabeth Craft Designs, and My Favorite Things. I layered the prints with cardstock and added some sequins. The center card also has ribbon and a border made with an EK Success “Fleur de Lis” border punch. I definitely shopped my stash with these cards!
Thanks for stopping by and Happy World Cardmaking Day!
Yesterday was National Coffee Day, but I wasn’t quick enough to post the card I made to celebrate coffee. It was fun to make a little scene with multiple stamp sets, and of course, to include lots of critters. I pulled mice from three different sets (and there are more!).
Here’s what I used:
– Lawn Fawn stamp sets: Dandy Day, Thanks A Latte, Crazy Antics and Really High Five
– Lawn Fawn die sets: Outside In Stitched Mug, Large Stitched Rectangle Stackables, Simple Wavy Banners, Dandy Day, Crazy Antics and Really High Five
– Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Collection stamp set – Fragments
– Distress Inks: Antique Linen, Scattered Straw and Tattered Rose
– Copic Markers
– Lawn Fawn Patterned Paper
– Cardstock
I colored each mouse with Copic markers and used Distress Inks to color the mug and sentiment background. I lightly inked the Tim Holtz stamp and spritzed it with water to stamp a light pattern onto the mug (see below).
I had lots of fun with this and I appreciate your stopping by to take a look.
Recently I took advantage of the nice weather (pre-wildfire smoke) and wandered around in my yard to get some leaves to use for gel printing. Leaves are probably my favorite texture to add to paint of ink to create botanical prints. So I used Distress Oxide inks and brayered them onto my hexagon gel plate, then added leaves that I’d collected. Some time later, I added stamped or die-cut sentiments and a few insects and sequins and made some lovely, simple cards.
Here is a closer look at a few of them.
I associate leaves with Fall cards, so I imagine I’ll be doing some more of this! Thanks for visiting today.
These little mouse is so cute, trying to stay aloft among the balloons!
Stamps and Dies – Lawn Fawn – Really High Five
Patterned paper – Lawn Fawn – Yellow Brick Road
Enamel Dots – Hero Arts – Hero Hues Aquas
Copic markers
I created this card for a class I’m teaching at Runaway Art and Craft Studio in Salem, Oregon. This mouse is so cute and I loved making it the star of this card! It was fun to color the balloons to match the colors on the rainbow stripes of the paper. All of the balloons and the mouse are colored with Copic markers. I cut the rainbow paper in a narrow strip, halved it and adhered it to both sides of the card base. It gave it a really different look. I added the enamel dots by the sentiment, stamped at a jaunty angle, to finish off the card. Thanks for stopping by!
Memory Box – Scallop Pinpoint Loving Heart Cut Out and Leafy Heart
Lawn Fawn – Valentine Borders
Patterned paper – My Mind’s Eye – Collectible
Cardstock – Bazzill and Bazzill Bling
I have really enjoyed making Valentines this year. I sent this one to my mom. I had a good time mixing and matching different products together to make this card. The main attraction is such a pretty leafy heart die from Memory Box! I look forward to making some other non-Valentine cards with it as well.
