#1005 – A Night time Birthday Card

Hello and welcome! Time for another challenge at Seize the Birthday challenge and this time, the topping, chosen by me is ‘Use Your Favorite Technique‘. And if you’re not a toppings kinda person, you can just join our usual ‘Anything Goes‘ challenge! The choice is yours!

And here’s what I made –

This card actually went to my sister who had her birthday a few months ago. I am just publishing it for this challenge! 😀

Well, I did start with watercoloring – that’s my favorite technique, after all! I chose stamps from My Favorite Things Sky-High Friends, stamped them on watercolor paper and colored them using (I think) distress inks. I then fussy cut them. I used another watercolor paper for the background and used another set of watercolors for the background. I chose a few places I wanted to add the stars to and colored them in yellow. I would adhere the tiny stars over them later.

Thinking I wanted a special fold card, I went through Jennifer McGuire’s tutorials and chose this one in the end. I trimmed some cloud shapes for the inside using My Favorite Things Stitched Rolling Clouds Edges, using Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangles to trim the sides.

For the sentiment, I used stamps from My Favorite Things Sky-High Friends and Well, Hello stamp sets, head embossing them in gold. I added a strip of thin gold washi tape on the sentiment strip’s ends before trimming them and adhering them on the card. To finish, I added some gold glitter on the stars using Deco Art Glamour Dust Ultra Fine Glitter Paint and a bit on the moon.

After I finished the basic card, I realized how silly I’d been. The critters were all sleeping – shouldn’t they be celebrating?? And then I had absolutely no space left to write a message – what was I thinking? I clearly wasn’t. I was so involved in coloring the critters and their vehicles carefully, that there was no space in left in my brain for thinking anything else. I owe my sister an apology. Sorry about that sis! 😦 I hope the watercoloring compensates it though! 😀

And that’s my card! Checkout more thought-through cards from my DT friends at the Seize the Birthday challenge blog – you’ll also get an extra inspiration from our Party Guest Lorraine A!

Thank you so much for stopping by! 🙂

#1003 – You Always Believed in Me

Hello and welcome! Time for a new challenge at Happy Little Stampers Watercolor challenge! As always it is ‘Anything Goes’ challenge, and you can join as long as you feature watercolor in some form in your creation.

And here’s what I made for this month’s inspiration –

I stamped the images from Simon Says Stamp More Spring Flowers and Even More Spring Flowers on watercolor paper from Hndmd using VersaFine Onyx black ink and then colored it using Distress inks. I waited for the images to air dry in between layers and finally added a layer of splatters using brown ink. After letting it dry, I die cut the panel using a die from Winnie & Walter Essentials: Lana Cutaways and then stamped the sentiment from My Favorite Things Kind Thanks on it and foam mounted it on brown cardbase

And that’s my card! Do stop by the Happy Little Stampers Watercolor challenge blog to checkout more awesome inspirational creations from the DT!

And thank you so much for stopping by!

#996 – Distress Oxide Ink Smooched Background

Hello and welcome! Time for a new challenge at Happy Little Stampers Watercolor challenge. It’s always ‘Anything Goes‘ challenge!

Here’s what I made for this month –

The colorful splotchy background is my watercolor art work for this month! As I tend to do more floral watercolors, I thought of doing something different and went for backgrounds this time. This is, though, an old technique of using distress inks/distress oxide inks and ink smooching.

For making the background, I actually used normal cardstock. I then added layers of ink smooching, dipping the whole paper to grab the color the first time, and then selectively picking color on certain parts from then on. I used various shades of inks to make the background nice and colorful. In the end, I used Distress Micro Glaze to really bring out the colors and the layers. The Glaze really does make a difference!

Once done, I started die cutting for the front. I used My Favorite Things Elegant Rectangle for the frame and Mesmerizing Mandala for the focal, die cutting several pieces of the mandala to get stabilize the intricate die cut. I then foam mounted both the pieces on the background.

For the sentiment, I die cut Simon Says Stamp Painted Hugs from gold foil paper and a sentiment from Concord & 9th Lots to Say, which I stamped and trimmed. I added these two pieces on the card to complete the card.

Checkout what the rest of our incredible DT created at the Happy Little Stampers Watercolor challenge blog and join the fun with your own project with watercoloring.

Thank you for stopping by! 🙂

#994 – Spring Birds

PE: Honorable Mention at As You See It challenge!

Tic-Tac-Toe challenge winner!

Hello and welcome! This is another card I made in my free time, and this one is watercolored. Had a fun time creating this! 🙂

Sorry for the bad picture – bad lighting and camera I used for so long stopped working – and I had to adjust.

So anyway, I used My Favorite Things Spring Songbird, stamped it in Adirondack Ginger ink, which reacts to water. I used Gansai Tambi watercolors to color it, and added branches to make it look like the birds are on trees.

Finally, I trimmed the piece, then mounted it on a blue card base cut out to the size fit for mini slimline card. The sentiment I used on the piece is from Neat & Tangled Scandinavian Print stamp set.

I am joining these challenges with my card –

My Favorite Things Sketch challenge #585

As You See It challenge #270: Spring is in the Air

Tic Tac Toe challenge #153: I’ve chosen Bird – Coloring – Flowers

My Favorite Things Slimline March challenge: Spring Scenes

Thank you so much for stopping by! 🙂

#980 – New Year Wishes

Hello and welcome! As is tradition, I made New Year’s cards for my family this time as well. I wanted to make an interactive/shadow box kinda card for quite some time now, and thought this would be an opportune time for it. The technique is better described by Jennifer McGuire in this video, where I learned it from.

Anyhow, these are the cards I made –

I used a combination of stamps from different companies which worked well together. I shall list them below as well. However, the sentiment on the top of the cards are all the same, from Winnie & Walter Wishing You stamp set. I used Faber Castell Oil pastels to color all the images, and mineral oil to blend them.

For this card, I used My Favorite Things Scene Builder except for the little butterfly, which I hand drew. I used Concord & 9th Retro Petals Turnabout stencils for the background. I added the dots and lines using a grey fineliner pen and Sakura clear glitter pen.

For the inside, I used My Favorite Things Piggy Pebbles, My Favorite Things Scene Builder and Purple Onion Designs Blossoming Perch stamps.

For my second card, I used Purple Onion Designs Blooms 2, the butterfly from Waffle Flower Happy Day and the background Simon Says Stamp Botanical Split. I went over the flowers with a red pencil from Faber Castell Polychromos pencils, then highlighted some areas with a grey fineliner pen, then the flower centers with the glitter pen.

Within the card, I used My Favorite Things Friendly Foxes, Purple Onion Designs Blooms 2 and Birch Tree Background, butterflies from Waffle Flower Happy Day.

For the last card, I used stamps from My Favorite Things Gill Friends and Waffle Flower Mermaid Mail stamps, pairing it with bubbles from Simon Says Stamp Be a Mermaid. I had to add another stamp for the bubbles since they weren’t big enough, and then I drew over them with the fineliner along with the reflected light and the little fishes.

For the inside, I paired the stamps from My Favorite Things Gill Friends and Waffle Flower Mermaid Mail stamps. For the giant sea weeds and those waves in the background, I didn’t have any stamps, so I hand drew them.

I must say, the finishing isn’t the best in all these cards, I had a hard time getting the right measurements for the supports, and then adhering them properly so that they stood up when the card was opened. It definitely wasn’t a total failure, but I felt I could do better with practice. I kept the coloring at relatively low levels, so I could concentrate on the rest of the card, so I wouldn’t feel exhausted, and I must say that was a good decision I made! 😀

But I am really happy to have tried them. They came out well and I have a good idea on how to make further cards if I want to.

I’m joining the following challenges with my cards –

Wishing every one a wonderful new year! Hope this year brings in plenty of new and happy for everyone!

Thank you so much for stopping by! 🙂