CAS watercolor

I have a problem with watercolor. When I've created some gorgeousness with it, I have a really hard time not plastering an entire card front with it. Take this, for example.

Grabbed a sheet of watercolor paper and my kids' old watercolors and created the one on the left. Cuz it was such fun, I created the one on the right too, using a bit more pigment.

I had seen this card of Kylie's and just loved the ombre look on her die cut. My plan was to create a set of super CAS cards for my mom. So I die cut some word dies from vellum and used them as a guide for where to place my dies for the color gradient I wanted.

My plan also included combining die cut words with stamped words. Took me the longest to decide on the right sentiment/font combinations! This is what happened.

Dee's Distinctively meets Papertrey

WPlus9 meets STAMPlorations

Paper Smooches meets STAMPlorations

Amy Tangerine meets STAMPlorations

Essentials by Ellen meets Avery Elle

And may I introduce the set for my mom. I think they are going to be right up her alley. Do you have a favorite?

 I'm joining a few great challenges:

CFC 136

HSL Feb Sketch Challenge

Anything Goes

and Addicted to Stamps #129 - Clean and Simple cuz yep, they certainly are! Happy weekend.

day 5 of STAMPlorations spotlight week

Welcome to the last day of STAMPlorations spotlight week. I bet today's stamp set is gonna put a smile on your face. Today we are showcasing A Girl and her Shoes! I've got a two-fer fer ya.

First off the Audrey Hepburn version. (Perhaps a turquoise cardbase and a gold embossed sentiment would have been more appropriate!?!)

Next up, the version inspired by Christian Louboutin.

Love how the peep toe is a solid stamp. I just had to bring in some shiny red to mimic the red soles of his shoes. Heat embossed the sentiment in black onto a speech bubble (recycled packaging) and backed it with a shadow bubble too.

Remember, there are lots of prizes to be won - from comments left on the DT blogs and the STAMPlorations blog  - you have until end of Feb 3rd. Take a look and leave some comments. There will be lots of prizes and winners will be announced on Feb 5th. Certainly hope you enjoyed the week. We had fun bringing it to you :)

now you're vintage

Someone in the neighborhood is turning 50 this weekend! Welcome to the club. Or as my card says - "Congratulations. Now you are vintage."

I jumped on the glittered blues bandwagon at House of Cards January challenge. Those certainly look like milkweed pods to me. Milkweed and I go way back. As a kid on the shores of Lake Huron I would watch big, fat, green caterpillars disappear into and emerge from cocoons dangling on milkweed plants as Monarch butterflies. And at summer's end I would tear open those pods and blow the seeds to high heaven. Now? Now I spend a week pulling all the weeds on the beach every summer when I am there. Adios milkweed.

Back to the card at hand. The glittery blue was easy. Some bottles cut with my new SSS Adult Beverages die and labelled with personalized vellum labels. Just love this touch. And I'm playing at A Blog Named Hero - Personalise too.

The front panel (Stampendous Wine Labels) and the clear embossed, ombre stamped sentiment strip (Stempelküche Grüße II)) were inspired by the Heat Embossing challenge at Stempelküche.

Distress inking over the heat embossed panel with ombre blues was also inspired by Inkspirational #74.

And the entire theme of the card was inspired not only by the recipient (we've emptied many a bottle together) but by the great Cheers challenge over at City Crafter.

Phew! Just wanted to squeak this one in here. Do come back later today for the last installment of the STAMPlorations release.

day 4 of STAMPlorations spotlight week

Welcome to day 4 of STAMPlorations spotlight week. Today we are showcasing The Bee's Knees: Newlyweds Extras and Sentiment Builders: Love. If a couple of those sentiments look familiar, maybe you saw them here ;)

First off the Newlyweds Extras.  Today I'm sharing with you a CASE of myself. Remember these one-layer cards?

Well, one of the trends I'm calling for 2015 I'm calling "the illustrated look". So I've tried to capture that feel again with these stamps. What do you think?

I arranged the stamps in a group and stamped once with black Versafine on white and once with Versamark on kraft which I then heat embossed. Colored in a few details with colored pencils, pink on the B/W version and blue and green on the kraft.

Then I had the brilliant idea to make the diamonds sparkle.

Rock Candy Stickles worked great on the white card.

Wink of Stella, ahem, not so great. It seeped around the embossing and left a stain when dry :(
Must be some oil in there. Oh well. Thought I'd share that with you.

I think these are cute designs for one of those we're-getting-married-in-a-chic-old-barn kinda weddings. Know the ones I mean?

Image Source

One of the other trends I don't see going anywhere in 2015 is watercolors. I achieved a watercolor look with distress inking through a mask on this card using heat embossed Sentiment Builders: Love.  I think this design makes for a great card to send to a couple whose wedding you do not attend.

Bet ya didn't notice the slightly different fonts in the small sentiments. "Sending" and "to" are from Sentiment Builders: Christmas and New Year. Happy that those fonts work well together.

I'm joining the Ombre fun at Inkspirational #74.

As always, there are lots of prizes to be won - from comments left on the DT blogs and the STAMPlorations blog - and eye candy from the DT and our super special guest. Have a looksee.

celebrate in bold colors

Have you seen the bold and beautiful inspiration photo at Cure for the Monday Blues?

Not having enough bold and beautiful embossing powders, but wanting to work on a black background, I came up with another option.

Not having the word celebrate in a Winnie and Walter set (it's just coming out), I used one from Altenew's Super Script. Stamped it with white pigment ink and then took a paintbrush and watercolors and carefully painted over it. Vibrant, eh?

Added a heat embossed secondary sentiment and a strip of zebra print PP for some oomph.

Are you playing? Winnie and Walter are sponsoring the challenge in honor of their first birthday!

I'm also hooking up at Simon's Work it Wednesday for January where it's all about "New". Painting with watercolors on white pigment ink is new to me!

day 3 of STAMPlorations spotlight week

Welcome to day 3 of STAMPlorations spotlight week. Today we are showcasing Shirley's stamps, The Bee's Knees: Newlyweds.

I've been having such fun with this set, although I must admit I was skeptical at first. I need to make lots of new single friends to use all the cards I've produced ;) Today I'm sharing with you the first two cards I made with this set.

I heat embossed the bridal couple onto vellum, in white and in black. I wasn't sure which to use on my first card.

As you see, I chose white. Somehow when I first looked at this image I thought it looked like the typical pose for a wedding photographer... thus the photo frame card ;)

I did some very soft watercoloring on my cardbase and added some metallic pink splatters. Then I fussy cut the couple and positioned them behind the frame die cut with Amy Tangerine's Associate die. A heat embossed sentiment (just keep watching!) and some sequins and star confetti finished it off.

And then I noticed the other couple, heat embossed in black, laying on a piece of ribbon. And this card was born.

I layered the vellum with another image of the couple stamped on white CS, hiding the glue dots behind the areas with the most embossing, and added a fussy cut heat embossed sentiment (just keep watching!). I love the color combo of B/W with gray and yellow. It never seems to go out of style.

As always, there are lots of prizes to be won - from comments left on the DT blogs and the STAMPlorations blog - and eye candy from the DT. Have a looksee.

day 2 of STAMPlorations spotlight week

Welcome to day 2 of STAMPlorations spotlight week. Today we are showcasing Bold Sentiments: Hashtag Authentic. You can probably guess that I love these babies.

This is how they moved me...

I watercolored a piece of CS with ombre yellow tones using the wet-on-wet technique. Then I heat embossed the sentiment and random hashtags in gold. Lastly, I dipped the edges into Versamark and added  heat embossing to the edges too.

I was going for the "looks-like-a-child-made-it" (read: sloppy) look which I'm noticing is kinda trendy these days. Do you agree?

And I also paired the yellow with metallic gold, cuz I don't see the gold trend going anywhere anytime soon. As a matter of fact, I'm calling the pairing of gold and silver as the trend of 2015.

Anyhoo, do you like these stamps? I think they'd be wonderful too for mixed media projects. Which is, BTW, another trend I see ramping up in 2015. Mixed media is not just for the artsy fartsy anymore!

I'm hooking up to the Ombre challenge over at Inkspirational #74.

Visit the STAMPlorations blog here to see the eye candy from the DT and leave a comment here and there for a chance to win some great prizes. Thanks for coming by today.

day1 of STAMPlorations spotlight week

Welcome to day 1 of STAMPlorations spotlight week. Today we are showcasing these cute litte dwellings in The Bee's Knees: Houses set.

Pulled out my new Radiant Neon and Memento Luxe pigment inks and did a bit of masking to create this.

I decided on a "missing you" sentiment (created with Bold Sentiments: Cherish - love that drop shadow), but have also created a new home, new baby and just plain hello card too.

Check out all the creations from the DT and our special guest, distress-inking-rainbow-and-french-fry-loving, the one and only, Laura B, and leave a comment here for your chance at some great prizes. CU tomorrow I hope.

faux gelli for ric

Here comes another one of those posts about the evolution of a card. Are you ready?

I saw this outfit over at Runway Inspired Challenge and immediately got a Japanese cherry tree and manga (read: Pokemon cartoon background scenery) vibe. Had been itching to try some faux gelli plate work again. And had just received my cool new ARTplorations stencils in the mail. This is what happened.

Meet card #1.

And card #2. Heavily influenced by the bag the model is carrying!

If you'd like to see and hear about my faux gelli plate mono printing, here comes.

On my plastic bag (on top of stacked newspapers) I brayered light pink acrylic paint. Took a monoprint of it, and then a second print on a second piece of paper.

Then I sponged red acrylic paint through a Dylusions stencil onto the first print (top) and flipped the stencil over and "stamped" it onto the second print (bottom).

Then I brayered turquoise and green as sky and grass(from the inspiration photo) and took a first print (bottom) and second print (top). Sponged on darker blue through a SSS Wave stencil, flipped it and stamped it onto the other print.

Then I pulled out Stampendous Winter Trees and stamped the one print with nestled villages and trees using Archival ink.

I then sponged a few red hibiscus (that's what I'm callin' 'em) through my ARTplorations Bold Florals Stencil onto the print.

Trimmed a front panel from the above print, added a Little B die cut sentiment to the front and that was card #1.

Then I approached the second print. Stamped it randomly with Stampendous Floral Tapestry and red ink. Took my ARTplorations Leaf Prints stencil and white paint and doctored the print up a little.

And for some crazy reason, I decided to test my new Spellbinders Glass Effects die. Four times. Once from the print, and then again from shiny red and black recycled packaging and white CS. Now you know how I spent Friday evening. Arranging and rearranging and glueing little geometric pieces!

I'm sure you will see the other three Glass Effects cards make an appearance at some point, but my brain is fried for now! Tomorrow is another Fastnachtssitzung. A group of ten of us are going as Forest Witches. Got a costume to tweak. Helau!