#708 – Best of 2017

Hello! So I finally decided to compose a post about what I think are my best cards from each month of 2017. I went back and forth quite a few times about whether I wanted to publish this post or not, but finally decided to go ahead. I mean, it feels good to see my best creations.. hopefully it will lead to a good creation spree in 2018! 😀

I have 137 posts from last year, and more cards than 137.. not sure how many, since I’ve posted multiple cards in some posts, single cards in others. Some others are about mixed media creations, and others – not even cards! But it definitely has been a fun year! And I have a lot of favorites to share, even if I was out of mojo too many times throughout the year! 🙂

So here we go! (Since I have more than 1 card for some months, I am linking the image with the post where I published it.)

January

I started trying new techniques this year. I loved the technique LauraJane uses for coloring, so I tried something similar. The first card below is the result. I even came up with a marbling technique using alcohol inks – something I would love to try once again! 🙂

February

The very first vintage card of the year – I started liking this style very much by the end of the year!

March

I think this (the first card) is the only heavily textured card I made throughout the year. And somehow, the entire month turned out to be very ‘green’!!

April

Getting a few new stamps in the stash is always wonderful. I made cards just to be able to use them!

May

Both these cards are for my parents – turns out my best cards are those which I give to my family! 🙂

June

I’ve even been trying to make cards without using too many embellishments. Stamping and coloring the entire card, and using other ways to highlight sections – like die cutting, vellum and embossing.

July

Finally starting the get accustomed to making CAS cards… but still, flowers do make everything easy! 😉

August

I went all out on painting, colors and techniques this month – everything was new and fresh!!

September

Attempts at no line coloring – something I absolutely adore – so happy that they came out so well!!

October

And I finally started getting the hang of making cards using critter stamps – something I have a hard time making.. Gotta try some more!

November

Bringing a portion of mixed media into card making, is the highlight. Also tried out the double heat embossing technique.. one of my favorites to achieve that fabulous, sparkly, metallic look! Jennifer McGuire rocks! 😀

December

Getting the verdigris embossing powder made me create a few cards! I also tried bringing in some acrylic paints into cards, and the combination of the paints with embossing and foil is just spectacular! Gotta try it again!!

So these are all my favorite cards from the year past! Have I missed any of your favorites? You can check them all here.. and tell me if I’ve messed any!

Cheers to the year past and the fresh one coming ahead! May we all have some cherishing crafting times!! Thank you so much for stopping by! 🙂

Advertisements

#706 – Celebrate! Happy New Year!

Hello! With the new year just a couple of days away, I thought of making a few new year’s cards… And also, I wanted to experiment this new cardstock I got.

Since I live in India, its difficult for me to get my hands on some quality cardstock – and I wouldn’t like to make orders from abroad for this basic crafting supply. I tried a lot of stores, before coming across the CrafTangles cardstock. I like the basic colors they’ve got, and the quality of the card stock too – it withstood heat embossing very well and the stamping looks great on it… so I tested some more – I tried my Zig brush pens on it…

…with mixed results. When I was coloring them, I felt that the colors were blending well, and was happy. Only when they dried did I see that the colors were kinda sucked by the paper – so there was less of the colors, and also, the blending wasn’t looking as good as before. 😦 Well, it still wasn’t bad enough for me to discard the whole card, so I continued with it.

Coming back to the card.. I used Altenew Hennah Elements and gold heat embossed the images on this beachy brown cardstock. I then colored it with Zig brush pens. The sentiment is two part – the die cut is from Neat and Tangled, called ‘Celebrate’, which I die cut and heat embossed twice in gold. It is layered on top of vellum, die cut using another die from the same set – the second part is stamped, using Reverse Confetti Whole Lotta Happy stamped in black ink.

I am joining the Altenew Year Review Inspiration Challenge, my colors inspired by the August challenge colors –

Global Design Project challenge #119: Home for the Holidays

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes

Now off to experimenting some more!! 😉

Thank you so much for stopping by! 🙂

#571 – New Year’s Cards

Hello! I usually post New Year’s cards I make for my family right on the first day of the new year..this time I am late since I was just plain lazy, carrying over the sloth to take photos of the cards to the new year.. please don’t mind me, I am pretty sure I’ll pick up in a few months! 😉 😛

Here’s the set of cards I made –

I had a very simple design concept in mind – I wanted to do stamping, no other special techniques, just simple stamping followed by die cutting and inlaid die cut pieces in silver (I painted them silver using acrylic paint) for the sentiment.

Now that I had decided this, I of course, went for my favorite stamps – flower stamps to make my cards! The flowers came from different stamp sets, as you see, and once done, I die cut the panel, added the sentiment using some scotch tape and then mounted it on my card base.

Event the envelopes are all the same. I wanted the sentiment font to be as similar as possible to the one on the card, so I chose Reverse Confetti Whole Lotta Happy stamp set. I stamped this in black ink first and then stamped it again using Memento Brilliant Galaxy Gold ink.

Before I stamped the sentiment, I used Hero Arts Leaves and Flowers background stamp on the envelope, stamping using Versamark watermark ink and then wiped some Perfect Pearls, each corresponding to the color or the envelope. However I was a bit unlucky with this, as the ink somehow didn’t stick to the paper and the neither did too much of the Perfect Pearls; and since I hadn’t used MISTI, I couldn’t stamp it again, without messing it up big time. But I thought it was still ok.. since the cards were pretty! 😉

Here are the details –
My Favorite Things Emmitt Alphabet
Altenew Layered Lily
Altenew A Beautiful Day
Altenew Watercolor Wonders
Simon Says Stamp Sketch Ranunculus

Submitting my cards to the following challenges –

Card 1 –

CAS-ual Fridays: Celebrations –

Card 2 –

Happy Little Stampers: January Watercolor Challenge: Anything Goes (I misted the stamps with water after applying distress inks, spreading the colors using a brush whenever required, so that’s a bit of watercoloring!) –

Card 3 –

Paru’s Card Challenge: Anything Goes (Congratulations on First Anniversary!!) –

Just Us Girls Challenge #375: Word Week – New – (Altenew A Beautiful Day is a new stamp for me; plus, the card itself is for a new year!!)

Card 4 –

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge: Start Afresh –

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: New Something –

Simon Says Stamp: Work it Wednesday: Something New with a New Product –

Thanks for stopping by! 🙂

Save

#390 – The Best of the Past Year

Hello!

I began this blog in May 2014. The beginning of the year 2015, I saw many card-making bloggers post the best of their cards from the previous year. I loved that idea so much, I wanted to try it myself. But since I had started only in the mid of the year, I thought of postponing this idea to the next year, when I would have posts throughout the year. And that’s what this post is all about. I am posting here cards which are my favorites, from each month of the year 2015. I mostly have chosen a single card from every month, but I have more in a few others, where I just couldn’t choose which I like the best!

Here goes… 😀

January – original post here

February – original posts here and here

March – original posts here and here

April – original posts here

May – original posts here and here

June – original post here

July – original post here

August – original post here

September – original post here

October – original post here

November – original posts here and here

December – original post here

I had a tough time selecting these cards – more so for some months than the others. I skipped cards I had made for family – if they are included, I would omit some other favorites of mine and the post would be too long! 😛 But I did love to see my own cards after such a long time! I’ve written a total of 280+ posts this year, and more cards than that!

Since I started with card-making, I have been knocked off my feet by so many card makers, inspired and inspired again by their fabulous creations. I’ve been lucky enough to win in challenges, even honoured by others to participate as Guest Designer. I have even been graced by the friends I’ve made over blog land, who comment on my post, giving me so much support. Most of all, by my family, who have never once said a word against me buying so many supplies, instead praise even the worst of my works!! 😉 I couldn’t thank you all enough, but I must say – Thanks, from the bottom of my heart! 😀

Last but not the least, a very happy new year to every one of you! May the year ahead bring you lots of happiness, peace, health and joy of achievements and success!

And here’s looking forward to another fantastic year! Thanks for stopping by! 🙂

#389 – Happy New Year!!

Hello and wish every one of you a very happy new year!! May the year bring you loads of joy, notable success and see you always in great health!

Here are a few cards I’ve made for my family for the new year (since the techniques are all pretty straight forward, I am only giving the ingredients of the recipes here :D). I actually ended up making four cards, when I intended to make three. So I thought of giving one to myself – I do deserve it!! 😛 😀

For my first card –

The card base is Paper Trey Ink Rustic White. I used Altenew Golden Garden stamped in Hero Arts Black ink and the watercolored it using Distress Inks Mermaid Lagoon, Crushed Olive and Peeled Paint. The sentiment is from Winnie & Walter The Big, The Bold & The Happy, stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black ink. I added some shimmer and shine using Wink of Stella clear glitter brush pen.

For my second card –

The card base is Fabriano Elle Erre White. I love this paper for the fine texture and a good stamping experience. I used Altenew Layered Lily stamped using the combinations of Memento Dandelion, Hero Arts Butter Bar, Hero Arts Soft Cantaloupe and Hero Arts Neon Red. The sentiment is stamped using Paper Smooches Alphadot and Memento Tuxedo Black. I added some shimmer and shine using Deco Art Glamour Dust Ultra Fine Glitter Paint in gold (for the flowers) and silver (for the leaves).

For my third card (which took the longest for the coloring) –

The card base is Fabriano Elle Erre Brina. I used Altenew Lacy Scrolls and first stamped the flowers using Hero Arts Soft Pool and the leaves in Memento Pear Tart. I then colored them using my Faber Castell Polychromos. The sentiment is from Winnie & Walter The Big, The Bold & The Happy stamped using Memento Tuxedo Black. I added some shimmer and shine in the flower’s centers using Deco Art Glamour Dust Ultra Fine Glitter Paint in gold.

And here’s the extra card –

The card base is Paper Trey Ink Rustic White. I used flowers from Altenew Painted Flowers and WPlus9 Fresh Cut Florals. I colored the Painted Flowers using PTI Sweet Blush, Hero Arts Soft Cantaloupe and the Fresh Cut Florals using PTI Sweet Blush, Hero Arts Bubble Gum. I used Memento Pear Tart, PTI Simple Chartreuse for the leaves. The sentiment is from Hero Arts Fanciful Swirl. All the black are inked using Memento Tuxedo Black. I added some shimmer and shine using Wink of Stella clear glitter brush pen

Did you notice I’ve used Altenew stamped as the main focus on all the cards?  Did you notice that they are all one layer? Yay!! I love them all!! 😀

And here are the hand-made envelope. I got a stash of white copy paper and made these envelopes using them. Co-ordinating each envelope with the card inside was really easy, I only turned then BnW! 😀 I used Hero Arts Soft Granite & Tide Pool for the envelopes of the last three cards, but I used Zig Clean Color Real Brush pens in Cool Grey and Blue Grey for the first card’s envelope, since it was neither a solid stamp, nor had filler stamps for the flowers. I’ve handwritten the sentiment using a Copic Multiliner 0.3.

I hope my family loves these cards and I hope they have a fantastic new year (and all the rest of the stuff written in the messages inside the cards)! And I once again wish you all a very happy new year!

Thanks for stopping by! 🙂

 

#385 – Happy New Year!

Another year (almost) gone, a new year coming! Another reason to make and share cards! 😀

Made these set of cards (and envelopes) for sharing the new year happiness with my friends –

Made all of the cards using Zig Clean Color Real Brush pens and WPlus9 Watercolored Anemones. I just love the watercolor effect created!! ❤ ❤ ❤

I used PTI Rustic Cream card stock for all the cards. I just love that cardstock! Gives a special feeling! 🙂 After everything had dried, I stamped the sentiment, from Paper Smooches Alphadot using Memento Tuxedo Black ink. I then lightly added some shimmer using Zig Wink of Stella Clear Glitter Brush pen – you can see some of it in the close ups.

And, of course, the envelopes –

I just stamped the flower-and-leaves image from the stamp set in color co-ordinating inks. I used Hero Arts Butter Bar, Memento Grape Jelly and Memento Lilac Posies inks on the color paper. The sentiment, from Winnie & Walter The Big, The Bold & The Happy, is stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black.

Thanks for stopping by! 🙂

Celebrate!

Hello!

I am used to the color white for card bases. Maybe black sometimes. Any other color? Can’t start imagining it! I mean, it’s one thing to make a background and adhere it on the card base, and another to actually use a different colored card base! Completely!

So, I tried using this hot pink card stock for base (I had used the first half in this card) –

This is actually a very simple card using dies and heat embossing. I first cut out pieces for the sentiment and the decorative corners using Die Version Celebrate die and Spellbinders Persian Accents die.

I then heat embossed them all using Black Sparkle embossing powder. Doing the heat embossing after cutting the dies gives them a smooth surface around the cut corners, which I like 🙂 After this, I adhered them directly on the card base, adhering the center first and then surrounding it with the corner designs at an even distance.

I am pretty happy with this card – what with all the sparkle and the contrasting colors! 🙂 And I am submitting this to Runway Inspired Challenge #75

Thanks for looking!