I don't have to send very many sympathy cards, but had to this week, unfortunately. I started by doing some light water-coloring onto some Strathmore smooth watercolor paper using Gina K inks in sweet mango and fresh asparagus. I dried the ink and then stamped the tree and sentiment from Stampin' UP's Thoughts & Prayers stamp set onto the panel using versfine onyx black ink and heat setting them with Zing clear embossing powder. I cut the panel down using a stitched stacking rectangle die from Paper Rose, and matted it onto some plain black cardstock. I adhered the panel to my A2 sized card base and added a few black gems in the corners for a finishing touch. I will be submitting this card in this week's Color Throwdown card challenge. Thank you for stopping by my blog today. I wish you all a wonderful weekend!
Today's card was created for my best friend's birthday and because I used a stamp that I've never inked up before I thought I would enter in the latest NBUS challenge. I started with some Strathmore coldpress watercolor paper and stamped the witch image from the Unity Stamp Company's Esmerelda Girl stamp set and the moon and bat image from Craft Smart using Versafine onyx black ink. I poured on some Zing clear embossing powder and set it with my heat tool. I watercolored the image using a variety of Tim Holtz distress inks. Once I was satisfied with the watercoloring I spritzed on some Tsukineko frost shimmer spray for some shimmer and to add a bit of distress to the watercoloring. I mounted the whole panel onto my white cardbase using Sookwang mounting tape so the panel would warp the card. I then inked around the edges of the card using black soot distress ink. I stamped Happy Spooktacular Birthday on the inside. I know my friend will love it...I hope you do too!
My last card today was created for the latest Lawnscaping Challenge. I have never been very good at painting, especially watercoloring. I've watched plenty of YouTube videos on a variety of techniques but I've never really been able to master the whole art form. Given that in mind, I chose to participate in this challenge and use some very simple shapes that I didn't think I could do much damage to, so to speak. LOL. I started with a piece of Strathmore cold press watercolor paper. I prepared the paper using my powder tool because I planned on embossing my images to help keep the paint from mixing around too much. I stamped out the adorable lanterns from the Lawn Fawn Lunar Lights stamp set as well as one of the sentiments using Versamark ink and then heat embossed all of them using some black detail embossing powder by Recollections. Using my Simply Art watercolor palette I colored the images in using reds, dark pinks, blues, and greens. I masked the images and the sentiment using some Inkadinkado masking paper and splattered on some Ranger Distress Spray Stain in black soot. I heat the whole thing with my heat tool to dry it and then popped the whole panel up onto a white card base using some 3M foam tape. I then added a few dots here and there using a gold gel pen by Forever In Time. I hope you like it!
It's been a while since I've had a chance to post a card. Life has gotten in the way...work, visiting relatives, and making time for friends I've not seen in a while. But when I saw this week's Time Out Challenge I knew I had to make time to participate in this one simply because I knew it would force me outside of my typical comfort zone for holiday card making. The challenge is to create a Christmas card with the optional twist to include pink and/or purple. I stopped and thought about it and I have to say that I don't think I've ever made a holiday card with either pink or purple on it so I thought it might be fun to try. I started with some patterned paper from My Mind's Eye. I apologize that I cannot recall the name of the paper but I only bought a single sheet of it years ago and had thrown the strip with the name of it away right after I bought it. But that pretty paper had all of the right colors in it to launch my focal panel. I decided to try my hand at watercoloring. That's something else that's very much outside of my comfort zone. I'm not very good at it and most of my efforts in the past have failed but I was determined to make this work. I started with a piece of Strathmore cold press watercolor paper and I cut it out using a Gina Marie Design stitched line die. I prepped the paper with a powder tool and stamped the adorable stocking image by Hero Arts using some Versafine onyx black ink and then heat embossed it using some American Crafts clear embossing powder. Using some Tim Holtz distress ink in Spun Sugar and did a nice wash of light pink over the entire background and then added some darker pink splatters using my Simply Art watercolor palette. I stamped the stockings again, embossed them, and then watercolored them using my Simply Art watercolors in pink, purple, and green. I fussy cut them out and popped them up off of the focal panel using some Stampin' UP foam dimensionals. I added some frosted lace Stickles over the stockings for some added sparkle and dimension and then added a few sequins from Pretty Pink Posh in the corners. I stamped the greeting from the Simon Says Stamp Be Joyful stamp set and heat embossed it. I cut the paper out and created a banner by creating fish tails on either end. I love how adorably this turned out and I hope you do too!
