Spring Time Friendship Card

Today I'm sharing a Spring card. I love Limelight Hydrangeas and so I wanted to create something similar on this card. I die-cut a design into the card panel and added a Distress Ink background to create a shaker element. I added little sprigs of yellow for interest and to break up some of the green. I love the color scheme from this week's Color Throwdown. It is always fun to play along and create fun cards based on their weekly challenges. 

 

Coloring Tips

 This week as I began working on my card for Color Throwdown #738, I considered just using the colors given without any highlights. I started watercoloring the flower petals on the background with Mustard Seed Distress Ink. As I got the flowers done, they felt flat. Even though they are more whimsical instead of realistic, I just did not like the flat feel. 

I went back with Fossilized Amber Distress Ink and added shading on the petals and then finished the card background with Shabby Shutters and Rustic Wilderness Distress Ink. Even though they were not lifelike flowers the additional shading brought depth to the images. 

The Sentiment and the flowers were all stamped with Rustic Wilderness Distress Oxide and clear embossed. I added shading to the fussy cut sentiment with Shabby Shutters Distress Ink. I finished the card with sequins and pearls from Lucy's Cards. 

Next time you feel like your card is feeling flat, go back and add shading and highlights. This is possible with watercoloring, using colored pencils, and even by adding a darker color beneath die-cuts. Just a little bit of extra shading & depth adds so much to your  card and keeps it from falling flat.

Working for the Weekend

 As we begin to wind down the school year I get more and more excited about weekends and the possibility of summer. The card I created today celebrates two of my favorite weekend (and summer) activities: reading and plants.

I used this week's Color Throwdown color inspiration for my card. 

Today's card features stamps from Cocoa Daisy and Heidi Swapp which were watercolored with 

Distress Inks. I figured out that Rusty Hinge and Wild Honey used together made the best terra cotta color to watercolor my pots. Everything got fussy cut and popped up for emphasis & then placed on an ink-smooshed background of Tattered Rose Distress Ink. 

This one was fun and I may have a hard time parting with it!

Color Throwdown Guest Stamper

 I am honored to be the Guest Stamper for the Color Throwdown #736. For this challenge I created a birthday card using yellow, gray, and sage. 

The background uses the Simon Says Stamp Solar Burst Stencil (SSS121424) which I inked blended over with Pumice Stone Distress Ink. I also mixed Perfect Pearls with water and splattered the stenciled image before adding the flower pieces and sentiment. 

The floral pieces were created using a number of different stamp sets and embossed with white or gold embossing powder. The big floral image is an older one from Hero Arts called Stencil Flower (CG194 circa 2010). I watercolored it after embossing with Fossilized Amber and Scattered Straw Distress Ink & added Star Dust Stickles to the center of the flower. The leaf images are from the Simon Says Stamp Be Kind stamp set (SSS202099) and watercolored with Bundled Sage Distress Ink. The final floral images are the small gold embossed pieces that are from the Simon Says Stamp Thanks and Leaves stamp set (SSS101894). Before adhering the stamped floral images I splattered them with Perfect Pearls. 

To finish the card I stamped the sentiment, from the Simon Says Stamp Sending & Wishing stamp set (SSS101475) in black ink and then added a mix of sequins from my stash.

Masculine card

 I don't make a lot of masculine cards, even though I live in a household with all guys. Today's card uses blue, rust, and brown and is inspired by this week's Color Throwdown #735.

For this card, I stamped Hero Arts Alphabet Background (ST501) stamp onto a piece of cold press watercolor cardstock using Chipped Sapphire Distress Oxide Ink. Since cold press watercolor cardstock has a slightly bumpy texture I repeatedly stamped the stamp using my Misti stamp press until I was happy with the result. I then ink blended Stormy Sky Distress Ink over the entire background. To add rust and brown to this card, I smooshed Rusty Hinge and Walnut Stain Distress Ink onto my craft mat and then used water and a small paintbrush to add color to the background. When I added the Distress watercolor it moved and picked up the blue, leaving behind the brown and rust. I love how it turned out and I want to try it with other background stamps and color schemes. I matted the blue background onto a piece of brown cardstock & then I added brown brads, both are from my stash.

For my sentiment, I used Ground Espresso Oxide Ink to stamp the Simon Says Stamp You (SSS101211) sentiment & then I used Walnut Stain and Antique Linen Distress Ink to blend over the sentiment. The die-cut sentiment was splattered with Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls and added to the card using foam adhesive. I also added cream colored thread, sandwiching it between the background piece and sentiment piece so I didn't need any more adhesive. I finished the card with a few iridescent sequin stars from Lucy's Cards Ocean Adventure Sparkly Shaker mix.

Excited to put this card in one of my boys' hands soon. I tell them all the time how proud I am of them and how much I love them, but sometimes having something tangible in your hands makes you feel even more special. Thanks for stopping by!

Favorite Color Distress Ink and Watercolored Card

 Today, I am part of an Instagram card hop with a few of my crafty friends. The theme for our hop today is our favorite color.

Green happens to be my favorite color, especially lime-y, peridot shades of green. For the background of this card, I chose two yellow-green Distress Inks to ink blend over a gold embossed image. At the top is Twisted Citron Distress Ink, which is blended into Crushed Olive Distress Ink on the bottom. The gold embossed image is an older background cling from Hero Arts called Leaf & Floral Background (CG405 circa 2012). The gold embossing powder is Princess Gold from Ranger Ink. Before adding my florals and sentiment, I flicked water onto the background and then added a few splatters of old pearlized paint mixed with water that I have in my stash.

I originally considered making a fully green card but then decided to add florals for interest, so I added my next favorite color, which happens to be shades of aqua & blue-greens.  Using a floral image from Altnew's Beautiful Day Stamp and Die set and additional flower and leaves images from Simon Says Stamp Delicate Flowers (SSS201900) I gold embossed and Distress ink watercolored the images. 

The flowers were first washed with Salvaged Patina Distress Ink and while still wet I brushed darker Mermaid Lagoon Distress Ink into the crevices where a natural flower would be darker. Using my paintbrush and a paper towel I was able to delicately move and manipulate color to where I wanted it. I used the same technique with the leaves using Twisted Citron and Crushed Olive ink. I left more ink on the leaves because I wanted them to blend in more so that the flowers would stand out. The floral images & leaves were then splattered with Perfect Pearls Perfect Gold powder that I mixed with water. I fussy cut or die-cut the images after coloring and popped them up on the card base using foam adhesive squares. 

To complete the card I added a die cut You from the Simon Says Stamp You Are My Sunshine Die (SSSD111834) and a gold embossed sentiment from the Simon Says Stamp You stamp set (SSS101211). The pearls and sequins are from Lucy's Cards and are from her Ocean Adventure and Fresh Grass Sparkly Shaker Selections. 

 Anything that is still available for purchase I linked in the description above. If you have any questions about techniques or products, please leave a comment and I will get back to you. Thanks so much for stopping by! 

Nature Inspired Cards

 Today's cards started with The Color Throwdown #734 color inspiration.

Shades of green, brown, and cream are some of my favorites in nature and also in my creative life. I went looking for an older Hero Arts woodblock stamp as my jumping-off point for my cards this week and in the process of digging through my woodblock stamp drawer, I found a number of other woodblock stamps I love and had forgotten about. I love when I find "new" things in my stash!!

 

For my first card, I used the Hero Arts Heart Winged Butterfly woodblock stamp (F5158 circa 2009) stamped in Distress Oxide Ground Espresso Oxide and heated embossed with clear embossing powder. The inside of the butterfly was watercolored with LuminArte Twinkling H2O's in Lemongrass and Fern. The butterfly's body is a little green metal piece that I used Ultra Thick embossing powder on to give it a glossy raised finish. The brads I used are the same color. Both came from an old Making Memories metal attachment collection.  The background of this card was from a box of scrap pieces and I believe it is actually the back of a wedding invitation that I saved because I liked the subtle cream leaf design. The sentiment is stamped in Ground Espresso Distress Oxide. I matted the card on khaki-colored cardstock and added a few Crystal Stickle drops to finish it. 

This get-well card was created on a ledger background from Scenic Route papers. The gold mulberry paper was die-cut into a frame for the fern and the sentiment. The fern stamp is also an older one from Hero Arts called Silhouette Fern (K5314 circa 2010). It is stamped in Rustic Wilderness Distress Oxide ink. The sentiment is stamped in Versamark clear embossing ink and then heat embossed with Ranger Ink's Princess Gold embossing powder. 

My final card uses two older Hero Arts woodblock stamps- Three Ferns (S5154 circa 2009) and Old Letter Writing (S4878 circa 2007). I started with a scrap of watercolor cardstock & a wash/splatter of Antique Linen Distress Oxide all over it. I then stamped the Old Letter Writing in Versamark ink randomly over the background and added Princess Gold embossing powder. Before embossing I brushed away sections of the embossing powder to give the background a more weathered/antique look. The fern stamp was stamped in Rustic Wilderness and Peeled Paint Distress Oxide then sprayed with water before stamping onto watercolor cardstock, then dried with a heat gun and fussy cut. I splattered the background and the fern-stamped pieces with Gold Perfect Pearls & water.  The sentiment was embossed and edged with Princess Gold embossing powder. Both the fern piece and the sentiment were popped up with foam squares. I finished the card with sequins and clear pearls from Lucy's Cards.

All three cards use sentiments from the Simon Says Stamp Handlettered Encouragement stamp set (SSS101705). 

I love the color scheme and the natural feel of all three of these cards and I especially like that I was able to dig into my stash and use things I already had. 

Thanks for stopping by!