#857 – A Sympathy Card

Hello and welcome. This time I’ve made a card, that most card-makers would prefer not to make – a sympathy card. I’ve sent it out to a very dear fellow blogger, Monika, who recently lost her young son in an accident. My heart aches for her – what a terrible thing to go though.. 😦

To make this card, I first used the dies from My Favorite Things Birds of a Feather and Pretty Fresh Studio Dainty Blossoms, watercolored them and kept them aside to dry. On the card base, I embossed using one of the die cuts from Winnie & Walter Essentials: Lana Cutaways. I then adhered the die cut pieces and then stamped sentiment from Reverse Confetti Banner in Bloom using MFT Hybrid Black ink.

I hope Monika finds solace soon.

Joining the following challenges with this card –

Inkspirational challenge #208: Designers’ Choice: Animal: Real or Magical

Happy Little Stampers March Anything Goes with Dies challenge

Stamplorations March CAS challenge: Anything Goes with optional color twist Light Blue

Perfectly CAS challenge #7: Die Cuts (I’ve used the center of the 3/3 grid)

Addicted to Stamps and More challenge #381: Anything Goes

Thank you for stopping by.

#856 – STB: Touch of Green

PE: Spotlight at Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge!

Hello and welcome! We are starting a new challenge this week at Seize the Birthday challenge, and the topping this time is ‘Touch of Green’, which is given to us by Vicki. Of course, as usual, you are free to skip the topping and join us with any Birthday project, as long as it is new.

This year, I one of my goals was to improve my watercoloring. I’ve never tried free style coloring – I usually stamp and watercolor. So I am trying to learn it. This challenge was perfect to try painting leaves, so I gave it a go. And after I was satisfied (at least, for the time being) with my attempt, I made a card out of it.

I used watercolor paper from Hndmd/CrafTangles, and Gansai Tambi watercolors. I basically was aiming for a shade like Pthalo Green, so its a bluish-green tinge (and not a photo mistake 😀 ). This is supposed to be a branch of eucalyptus leaves, but I am not really sure if it is looking as much! But I am sure I liked how the watercoloring itself turned out, so that’s ok, I guess! 😉

Once everything dried, I added a few splatters and then once that too dried, I added the sentiment, trying to go for the same ink color as the painting. The stamp set I used is Winnie & Walter In a Word: The Big, the Bold and Party. I then trimmed the piece a bit on the sides, and mounted it on a black card base.

I hope you are inspired by my card!I am joining the following challenges too –

Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge: A Bit of Green

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge: Use some Green

Happy Little Stampers March CAS challenge: Use Your Favorite Technique (Mine is watercoloring)

Happy Little Stampers March Watercolor challenge: Anything Goes (haven’t used the optional ‘Flowers’)

CrafTangles March challenge: Anything Goes (And I’ve used their watercolor paper)

Check out the Seize the Birthday blog for more inspiration from out fabulous DT and also from our talented Surprise Party Guest, Stef Perry! And don’t forget to join the party! 🙂

#851 – Happy Birthday Friend

Hello and welcome! Somehow managed to make a card today – I wanted to make a shaker, since I recently bought some shaker sequins + beads mix! 🙂

On this card, I first applied a light coat of brown distress ink, then used the smallest polka dots stencil from the Simon Says Stamp Seeing Dots I added a bright blue ink. I used the same ink on a scrap strip of white cardstock also, to use for the shaker background. The critter is from Mama Elephant Three Amigos stamp set, which I watercolored using ink from my Zig Brush pens. I then fussy cut them all, and also die cut a strip of cardstock using the ‘Friend’ from My Favorite Things. I then made a shaker card using all these pieces. Pretty quick to make, I should say. 🙂

I am joining the following challenges –

Happy Little Stampers January Watercolor challenge: Anything Goes + optional Die Cuts

STAMPlorations January Stencil Challenge

AAA Birthday challenge #9: A Shaker Card

Fusion Card Challenge: Critter

Thanks for stopping by! 🙂

#849 – Another New Year card!

Hello and welcome! Here’s another new year card. I made this one to send to a dear blogging friend of mine. Hope she liked it! 🙂

I was totally inspired by this card made by Jennifer McGuire (the last card in the series). I don’t have any such die, but I wanted to achieve a similar effect. So instead of a single die cut, I used many!! 😉

Of course, as you can see, I made the card a more-or-less tone-on-tone, rather than colorful, as I first intended to. I kinda liked this look! 🙂

I first started with a card panel – 6″x4″. I used MFT Flutter of Butterflies and die cut a few of the butterflies from the panel. I then used the flower and leaf dies from Paper Smooches Flowers and Flowers 2 dies, and die cut from the gaps in between the butterflies. I also added a few dotted swirly lines using Paper Smooches Stitched Flourishes 2 die. I retained all the die cut pieces, to use them later in my card.

I first adhered the die cut panel on a cream colored cardstock. I then started adhering the die cut pieces, layering a few and finally embellishing a the butterflies and flowers with cream half pearls.

Finally coming to the sentiment. After finishing the card base, I had no idea how to proceed. I finally settled on using the happy die from Mama Elephant along with a strip of stamped sentiment from Reverse Confetti Whole Lotta Happy. I first die cut three pieces of the die and stacked them. I added some liquid glue behind both the die and strip and just laid them on the card – no pressure, so that they would appear floating on top of the butterflies.

And that finished the card! With this card, I am joining the following challenges –

Just us Girls challenge #514 – Trends Week: Create Dimension

Global Design Project #223: Celebration

Happy Little Stampers January Anything Goes with Dies challenge

Just Add Ink challenge #488: Celebrate! A BIG congrats on completing 10 years of the challenge! Wow! What an achievement!!

Thanks for stopping by!

#847 – Happy New Year!

PE: Honorable mention at Happy Little Stampers Anything Goes with Dies challenge!

Hello! I am already almost half a month away, but I think I can have the whole of January to wish someone a Happy New Year, so there! 😀

These are the cards I made for the family this year.

As I do for every year, this time too, I have common theme and design. This year, I planned to

• Use colored cardstock as my card base
• Use layered flower stamps as the focal
• Use dies for the background
• Have some kind of a different fold than the usual.

For these cards, I made the card open in between. The bottom half is tucked in between the foil strip and the colored card base. So, one has to kinda pull the bottom half of the card towards themselves to open the card.

For the first card, I used navy blue cardstock, added pieces die cut from Simon Says Stamp Clustered Flowers die. On this I added a strip of silver mirror card stock. I then adhered all the leaves and flowers in layers. The focal flower comes from Hero Arts Flower Layering Hibiscus stamp set, and the other pieces are from other stamp set.

For the second card, I used Spellbinders Doily Circle dies, die cutting cream and yellow cardstocks and alternating them between each circle when adhering. I used a gold mirror cardstock strip on this one, and the focal rose is from Altenew’s Build a Flower: Rose.

For the third card, I used Stamplorations Bloomtangled 1 die with a strip of silver mirror card stock. The flowers are a stamp set  from Right at Home called Sunflower.

For the fourth card, I used Altenew’s Doodled Lace die cut, a strip of gold mirror cardstock and then Altenew’s Layered Lili as the focal point.

On all of these cards, I used the sentiment which is a combination of Lil Inker Designs’ Rustic Spring and Reverse Confetti’s Whole Lotta Happy stamp sets. I used the same on the self made envelops as well. This time I used Fabriano Tinta paper to make the envelopes.

With these cards, I am joining the following challenges –

Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge: Something New

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge: Fun with Florals

Happy Little Stampers: January Anything Goes with Dies challenge

Virginia’s Show and Share for January. Thank you Virginia for hosting it!!

Thank you for stopping by!

#844 – Christmas Poinsettia

Hello and welcome! Time for another Christmas card!! This time, the focus is on the poinsettias. The red of the poinsettias against a white (or, in this card, a cream) background is just fantastic! The red looks absolutely dashing! 🙂

I first die cut the top and bottom pieces using the My Favorite Things Stitched Scallop Basic Edges dies. Then, on the card base, I drew the outline of the two pieces using a pencil and set the pieces aside. I then die cut a bunch of the poinsettia leaves using the Simon Says Stamp Poinsettia Cluster die using the same cardstock. I then adhered all the pieces, flat on the card base, taking care not to go much beyond the pencil markings.

Next came the sentiment. I used Paper Trey Ink ‘Tis The Season stamp. I first stamped the upper half in red ink, then stamped both using Versamark watermark ink, and heat embossed the bottom half using platinum embossing powder, and the top using clear embossing powder. I repeated this a couple more times to give it a bit more dimension. I then foam mounted the top and bottom pieces on the card. Finally I adhered the poinsettias, which are from Itsy Bitsy, on the card. For embellishing, I added half pearls on the centers of all the poinsettias and added silver glitter shine on the poinsettias.

I am joining the following challenges –

The Flower challenge #39: Use a Die

Inkspirational challenge #202: No Stamping (I have stamped for heat embossing the sentiment, so if this doesn’t count, please take my entry off!)

Happy Little Stampers: December Anything Goes with Dies challenge

Just us Girls challenge #516: Anything Goes

Thank you for stopping by! 🙂

#839 – Merry and Bright

Hello! Continuing from the post yesterday, this is the second card I made during my free time yesterday. I got inspired by the Winnie & Walter Color Combo challenge which is hosted by Heather. The colors are beautiful this time too!! But before that, here’s what I made –

I started with stamping the images that I wanted to use – they all came from In Bloom: Victorias Very Merry Flowers, plus a few die cuts from In Bloom: Paulina’s Greenery. I used dye inks, misted them and then stamped them, giving them a watercolored look. Once they dried, I fussy cut them. On the die cut piece, I blended in a bit of green tinted distress oxide inks.

On the card base, I adhered a piece embossed using We R Memory Keepers Geometric embossing folder and trimmed the sides from. On this I adhered all the fussy cut and die cut pieces, foam mounting a few of the flowers, some of them partially even.

Coming to the sentiment – I used In a Word Merry Co-ordinating dies. I cut the shadow using vellum and white cardstock using the word die, which I then colored a bright red using Zig Brush marker, which I adhered together. The stamped piece of the sentiment comes from In Bloom: Victorias Very Merry Flowers, which I stamped and then fussy cut. I adhered the all the pieces using foam tape.

For embellishing, I added a few tiny drops of Nuvo Silver Lining crystal drops on the center of the flowers and also added sparkle using Spectrum Noir clear sparkle pen. This finished my card!

I am joining the following challenges –

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge: Anything Goes

Winnie & Walter October Color Combo challenge with Heather H

Happy Little Stampers November Watercolor challenge: Anything Goes with optional ‘Animals’ (I haven’t used the optional here)

Thank you so much for stopping by!