#982 – Embossing

Hello and welcome!! A new challenge has started at Seize the Birthday and this time, the topping, chosen by our lovely teammate Barbara, is ‘Embossing‘. The toppings is optional, but as long as your project is birthday-related, it’s worthy of entry.

And I made this card –

I thought of incorporating multiple embossing types into my card. As Barbara has rightly mentioned in our challenge blog, there are many types of embossing – using an embossing folder, heat embossing, using stencil and paste.. and more. I managed to fit in 2 – i.e., using embossing folder and using stencil and paste, into this card.

I started with the texture paste embossed panel. I mixed a bit of shiny, sparkly acrylic paint from Prima with the white texture paste. Both the paint and the paste were a bit dried up, but they mixed well and ended up with the right consistency for application over a stencil. I used Mudra Ornamental Pattern & Corner stencil over a cream colored card stock panel. Setting it aside to dry, I used another panel and used the Tim Holtz-Sizzix Kaleidoscope embossing folder on it. This would be the background.

Lastly, the pretty sunflower – its from the Winnie & Walter In Bloom: Anna’s Flora. I stamped it with yellow ink onto Fabriano Accademia Disegno Drawing paper, then colored it with Faber Castell Polychromos pencils and used some mineral oil with a paper stub to smooth out the lines. I then fussy cut the flower out.

The sentiment is a print out, and I used foil on it for some extra shine. For assembling, I used normal glue on the bottom-most panel, and foam sheets for the rest of the pieces.

And that’s my card! I’m joining the following challenge –

AAA Birthday challenge #33: Two Favorite Colors (Yellow and Green)

Addicted to Stamps and More challenge #421: Make Your Mark

Watercooler Wednesday challenge #333: Dawn’s challenge: All About Occasions

Take your time to checkout the Seize the Birthday challenge blog to checkout more inspiration from our talented DT and our lovely Surprise Party Guest, Vicky Hayes!

Thank you so much for stopping by! 🙂

#979 – Hello to the New Year!

Hello and welcome!! A very happy new year to everyone!! May this year brings lots of happiness and keep you in good health.

With the start of the new year, we also have the challenges at Happy Little Stampers starting up. The very first one being Watercolor challenge, and as usual, Anything Goes!

Here’s what I made –

I used Concord & 9th Painted Rose stamp. I stamped the outline using VersaFine Onyx black ink. Then I used Altenew inks for the solid colors, misting the stamp before stamping, which helped cover the uneven paper well. I stamped the upper layers while the lower layered colors were still not completely dry, so that the inks mingled just the tiniest bit. I then watercolored the blue background using more Altenew inks. I then added splatters of the same blue on the flower, once it was relatively dry. To enhance the look, I added dots of black using a black fineliner pen from Uniball.

For the sentiment, I wanted to go with a die cut, if possible. Luckily I had the Altenew Bold Greetings dies with me. I die cut a piece from white photo paper (do they come in other colors??) to get that shine without embossing, and a few more pieces from scrap paper, and adhered them together for dimension. I had initially thought of using kraft cardstock for the background, but I added a strip of the photo paper on the side to tie in the sentiment. Of course, the base is still kraft cardstock. I added a few white flat sequins for embellishing.

And that’s my card! And I’m joining the following challenges –

Watercooler Wednesday challenge #331: Anything Goes

Timeout challenge #204: New

Checkout the Happy Little Stampers challenge blog for more inspiration from the design team.

And thank you so much for stopping by! 🙂

#978 – Another Set of Christmas Cards

Hello and welcome! Here’s my third and final set of Christmas cards for this year!! Whew!! I did have a fun time making them, but also found it a bit tiring since I’ve never made so many cards at once! But it was definitely a wonderful experience, and I’ll definitely continue making some for the coming years too! 🙂

This set of cards is actually my favorite of the lot. The one thing that I thought was totally awesome was the background – I used panels of silver grey metallic cardstock and heat-embossed silver embossing powder on them, after stamping various images… and the effect is totally wow!! I do have other metallic cardstocks, but this is the only one I could get a beautiful metallic tone-on-tone look with! And I absolutely adore it!

Well, like the other set I made, they use a central these…as is very obvious. One thing – I used Zig brush markers to color the images, along with the blender pen they offer, to minimalize and spread the colors. That gives the ‘barely colored’ look that I was aiming for! And down below are the other details about the various stamps I used on these too –

For the card on the left, I used Simon Says Stamp Lots of Snowflakes for the background, and added dots using a Versamark pen for heat embossing. The cute kitty and pup surrounding the Christmas tree are from Winnie & Walter Sweet Holiday stamp set and the sentiment is from Simon Says.

The card on the right would have been a one stamp set card, had it not been for the sentiment, I used Lil’ Inker Designs Rustic Christmas stamp set for the background’s heat embossing as well the trees and the bear. The sentiment, though, comes from Neat & Tangled Scandinavian Christmas stamp set.

Just look at the shine on these things – subtle, but still very much there! Love it!!

For the card on the left, I used Clearly Besotted Warm Wishes for the heat embossing, while the gifts carrying kitty comes from Simon Says Stamp Gifts of Love stamp set. The sentiment is from CrafTangles Happy Holidays stamp set. For the card on the right, I used a combination of a few stamp sets for the background – Neat & Tangled Berry Merry, CrafTangles Christmas Ornaments & Happy Holidays stamp sets. The adorable owls are from Winnie & Walter Happy Owlidays and the sentiment is from Simon Says Stamp Gifts of Love.

And that’s my last set of Christmas cards! And I’m joining the following challenges with it –

Timeout challenge #203: Inspirational

Global Design Project #323: Celebration

Watercooler Wednesday challenge #331: Anything Goes

Wishing everyone a very wonderful Christmas and a happy holiday season! Wishing you peace and happy crafting times for the next year too!

Thank you so much for stopping by!

#977 – Fairly White Christmas

Hello and welcome!! I did mention in one of my earlier posts that I finally managed to make time to create some Christmas cards to send out this year! It was seriously fun to think about and make them all. Well, here’s the second set of cards I made (the first set is here) –

Once again, they have a common design. I used a base embossed panel, which I made using two embossing folders – American Crafts Shimelle Woodgrain and Craft Concepts Grunge Stripes. The next layer is the starry background -which I did not use for one of the cards – I used the stars from the Neat & Tangled Beary Merry stamp set to stamp a large piece of cardstock with Kraft ink, and then die cut them using Simon Says Stamp Stitched Circles.

For coloring, I used distress inks to watercolor on all the cards. But due to the unique property of this cardstock, the water was sorta repelled, both from the paper and the VersaFine Onyx ink that I stamped the images with, giving it sort of an illustration like look… Totally unexpected, but an added bonus for me!! 😀

For assembling, I adhered the embossed panel directly on the white card base, whereas I die cut some foam using another smaller circle die, and used that in between the starry panel and the card base.

Coming to the card specifics…

The card on the left carries two baubles from CrafTangles Christmas Ornaments stamp set. The bows, which I diecut from some pale gold glitter cardstock which was gifted to me by my dear friend Rahmat, using Paper Smooches Bows die, is adhered on top. I added some shimmer and sparkle using Spectrum Noir clear Sparkle brush pen and then Sakura Gelly Roll clear glitter pen too.

The card on the right carries the lights stamped from CrafTangles Festive Lights. On the watercoloring, I added some shimmer using Spectrum Noir clear Sparkle brush pen and then I added some Glossy Accents on top.

This single critter card… I had originally wanted to add the bear from Neat & Tangled Beary Merry too, but that didn’t make the final cut.. comes from Neat & Tangled Merry Kisses stamp set. I added some sparkle using the Spectrum Noir clear Sparkle brush pen on their scarf.

My last set of cards for this post carries tree die cuts. The one on the left is from Neat & Tangled Scandinavian Prints Christmas dies, and the one on the right is from CrafTangles Reindeer with Christmas Tree dies. I added some glittery stars, die cut using the same glitter cardstock using Mama Elephent Confetti dies on top.

For some extra sparkle, I also added some holographic star shaped sequins on the starry panel or on the trees. They are subtle enough when looking from the top, but add that touch of colorful sparkle when the light falls on them just right! They are from CrafTangles too – what a clever haul that was for me! 😉

The sentiments are all from either Neat & Tangled Winter Wishes or Scandinavian Prints Christmas. I stamped them on stripes of cardstock, then wrapped some gold foil striped washi tape on either side before foam mounting them on the card.

I’m joining the following challenges with these cards –

Addicted to Stamps and More challenge #420: Die cuts and/or Stencils

CrafTangles challenge for December: Red/Green/Snow

Watercooler Wednesday challenge #331: Marsha’s special Anything Goes

And thank you so much for stopping by!

#976 – Poinsettia cards for Christmas

Hello and welcome! Its time to showcase a few Christmas cards I made for this year! Its only my second year making Christmas cards and I decided to make more this year. And since I wanted to make more, I decided to make sets of cards. And today I am presenting the first set.

I started with painting panels with metallic paints – I used the ones from Prima Marketing. I chose three shades of paint for each panel, swiped them on the card to give some gradation and set them aside to dry.

I then embossed them using We R Memory Keepers Geometric embossing folders. I also splattered some Unicorn sparkle paint..its a beautiful champagne like color and wicked sparkly, and Picket Fence distress paint..to resemble snow. Yes, sparkling champagne-like snow too. 😀 I then adhered these over ivory colored cardstock.

look at that shine!!

Coming to the poinsettia, I die cut them out of white/cream cardstock, adhered them and added a gem, from Lucy’s Little Things, in the center, to match the color of the embossed panel.

For the sentiment, I first die cut banner shapes using Stitched Jumbo Fishtail Banner. I stacked at least 3 of each, gold heat embossed the sentiment, from Winnie & Walter Happy Owlidays and Sweet Holiday stamp sets, twice on each panel, to give some additional dimension.

This made it look a bit plain, so added polka dotted gold foil washi tape on top and also added a bow using combination of white twine and gold metallic thread. Finally, I adhered the banner and the poinsettia in place. And that completed my first set of cards!

Although this was not actually the first set I made, this was the first ones that I finished photographing and editing, so here it is first! 😉

I’m joining the following challenges:

Watercooler Wednesday challenge #330: Anything Goes

The Flower Challenge #63: Christmas

CrafTangles December challenge: Red/Green/Snow

Hope you enjoyed these cards! Thank you so much for stopping by! 🙂