STAMPlorations inspiration #73

Squeaking one more inspiration project into this month over at STAMPlorations.  I was so moved by a card I saw, that I ran to recreate something similar. But alas, this is one of those didn't-quite-turn-out-as-I-imagined projects.

Here's Yoonsun's card that I saw and loved, largely due to the colors, including that greige watercolor wash background. Well, and the berry sprigs too. I'm a sucker for berries.

Image Source

And here's my card. Suffice it to say my plan went a bit awry.

Here's what happened. I was ready to give the no-line watercoloring a go. Pulled out the new Smile set and Abandoned Coral and Barn Door Distress Inks (like Yoonsun) and used them to watercolor the lilies. Used Bundled Sage and Evergeen Bough for the stems. And then I used a mini mister. Um. No can do. Lotsa bleeding. Lots.

So I scratched the original plan and went from there. Had intended to heat emboss "smile" in yellow to bring in that spot of yellow in the middle of the card. And had intended to give the BG a wash of greige. But I opted to just stop, stick with black for my sentiment and splatters of Heidi Swapp gold shine spray instead. Love that golden goodness.

Trimmed the panel down, stamped the bud branch onto a red cardbase and adhered the panel (along the top only) aligning the branches. Forced to make it my own, I made it my own ;)

But not to fear, I gave it the old if-at-first-you-don't-succeed. Watch for my next STAMPlorations Spotlight post on May 7th to see how I did manage to achieve the look I was going for ;)

I'm sharing this card in the Anything Goes challenges at  SSS Wednesday Challenge  and at Addicted to Stamps and More.

STAMPlorations april release hop

Have you seen the slew of inspiration over at STAMPlorations using the stamps from the April release? Wow. I do love this release and its variety. The individual sets are 10% off, the bundle 15% off until May 6th, and there's free shipping too! Check out all the deets at the blog.

Don't want to keep you long. I was in a "rainbowed" frame of mind when creating my cards. Ready?

For my first three cards I worked with Distress Inks as a watercolor medium.

Cuz it was calling to me, I had to start with the funky shoe from Shirley's Groovy Shoes paired with an appropriate sentiment from Born to Roam. Kept it uber-CAS. Except for the splash of fancy from Wink of Stella ;)

Next up, a cardbase stamped with the bud branch from Deepti's Smile set in SSS Fog ink and topped with a "rainbowed" sentiment.

Hope you can see the background stamping on this close-up. Don't you just love how tricolore inking with a tiny bit of spritzing yields five color hues? Where the colors meet you get a hint of orange and green at no extra cost! Voila! Rainbow!

Moving on to feathers and tiny splatters. I used Shery's Trendy Feathers 2 set for my next card. Made it an extra long card in order to get a flow of wafting feathers across the front of it. Thought that design matched the "on my mind" sentiment.

Can you see all the teensy splatters better in the close-up? Used a size 4 brush with stiffer bristles to flick the leftover diluted Distress Inks from my acting-as-a-palette acrylic block.

And lastly, my card with one of Becca's sentiments from Strong Women. I used Easter egg dyes to watercolor this card's background. You can read more about that here if you're interested.

The sentiment really says it all. I stamped it with Versafine and heat embossed it clear. Sponged a few birds in flight using ARTplorations Some Birds stencil too.

That's it from me today. This is one cool release with lots of inspiration. As always, there are prizes galore! Get the scoop and check out all the inspiration at STAMPlorations. Thanks for stopping by and keep on hopping!

(not so) heavy metal

Feeling guilty about my last entry to the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge where it's about using metal on your project, and I used a staple.

Also wanted to make another attempt at a mixed media card with wings for the HLS Mixed Media challenge. Not just feathers.

So I made this!

This mixed media panel started off as a remnant from an ink-sprayed-through-a-stencil project. When working with colored embossing paste recently, I used the leftovers on the remnant, swiping it over a stencil gifted me by Loll T. (Thanks, Loll)

A peek-a-boo hole backed with a heat embossed sentiment from Neat and Tangled Everyday Circles, a multi-layered Memory Box Theo Butterfly cut from glitter CS and Easter egg dyed crepe paper (yep!) and a metal charm finished off my card.

Thanks for visiting! I'm visiting the following challenges too:

Little Tangles - Die Cutting

The Challenge - Masculine (I went with the black and metal of the photo)

Uniko Studio - Metallics

babies, die cuts and Easter egg dye

Feeling guilty about my last entry to the Little Tangles challenge

not using any Neat and Tangled product ... And seeing all these happy little baby die cut bits I had dip-dyed in my leftover Easter egg dye ... And just loving this card by Therese C. ...

I made this!

Quite simple, but so soft and lovely for a baby card, don't you think? I randomly stamped the heart from Jump Start My Heart in yellow, blue and green pigment inks cuz I think they have a softer look than dye inks. Stamped the sentiment from Just for You in gray nestled in between the hearts.

Then I strung my Little B Baby die cuts which had been colored by dipping them in leftover Easter egg dye (yep!) on cotton crochet thread and voila!

I'm sharing this card at:
Simon Says Stamp Work it Wednesday - Pastels
Cards and More - Focus on Die Cuts
Time Out - Celebration and die cuts

papertrey april blog hop

Thank goodness for aerobic class instructors with sore throats! Well, not really, but because tonight's class was cancelled, I made a card for the April PTI blog hop.

May I present the inspiration photo. Right up my alley.

Image Source

 May I present my interpretation of it. My card.

Yeah, yeah. So the circles. And earthy tones. But did you catch those dotted lines in the graphic? They jumped out at me screaming Stitches and Swirls. (Whoa! Vaulted!) So I backed into my design from there. Thanks to SSS Lots of Dots, Hero Arts white pigment ink and various SSS and HA dye inks, my circles were born.

Topped them with the stitched images and a heat embossed sentiment (one of my faves) from Keep It Simple: Birthday.

Happy to hop today. Can't wait to see how others were inspired!

I'm sharing this card at Penny Black and More's Birthday challenge and at Simon Says too:
Wednesday - Make it Girlie
Monday - Show us your Metal (notice the stapled-on-sentiment-strip?)

STAMPlorations inspiration #72

It's time for more inspiration from the STAMPlorations girls and trust me, there's plenty of inspiration to be found. Take a look. Tomorrow. I'm posting early to squeak in before Colour Q closes its doors ;)

I found my inspiration in one of the newly released sets designed by Shery, Trendy Feathers 2, which as you can see has feathers that are mirrored images of each other. At least as far as the shape goes. So what does that mean? That, my friends, means more bang for your buck!

 Cuz you can use feather #3 to stamp an entire card. And then come back with the reverse of feather #4 to color one of them. In tricolore, Broken China, Abandoned Coral and Delicata Gold, even! The only other step was to add a heat embossed snippet with my sentiment and a few sequins. See that sparkle on the gold tip of the colored feather?

I looked to the cool colors at Colour Q for inspiration. I think they fit this design so well.

And I'm sharing my card at:
A Blog Named Hero - CAS
Virginia's View blitz link-up party - Friendship

Appreciate your visit. Enjoy your day!

pinterest inspired

The ladies over at Pinterest Inspired challenge always get my attention with their inspiration photos. Here is April's.

I was playing with white acrylic paint and had some left over, so I grabbed a square piece of foam and stamped it randomly onto a piece of watercolor CS. I had the watercolor style of the inspiration photo in mind.

Then with Winnie and Walter Eva's Flowers I created an artsy floral background by inking the solid stamps with two colors of Distress Inks (Worn Lipstick, Festive Berries, Spiced Marmelade, Mustard Seed) and spritzing them before stamping. I added a couple of the outline images in black for contrast and spritzed the entire panel with a Perfect Pearls mixture to soften all the edges when I was done. Oh and I watercolored the BG with Tumbled Glass too.

Here's the finished product. A sentiment from STAMPlorations Artful Flutters and some Amy Tangerine PP. I'm sharing this card at The Artistic Stamper where it's about All Things Distress (which I hope includes Distress Inks too!) and The Craft Stamper where it's about Flowers in April. And I'm hooking up at the w&w Join In to Win too.

Hope you likey! And hope your week will be a good one.

hooray it's your 50+50+18 day

We've got a combo birthday party coming up (maybe you remember back in 2014 our family's 161 party?). This time it's for 50 + 50 + 18! ETA: Our married friends are both turning 50 and their daughter, 18,  and they are having one big party to celebrate! I took the opportunity to play with the

MFT Sketch and

 MFT Color challenge.

I'm heading to Time Out #55 where it's about Celebrations with the option of die cutting. Yep. And Seven Hills Crafts cuz of my colors. And I'm sharing at Seize the Birthday where it's Anything Goes too.

I knew the MFT High Rise Number dies were going to play a big role on my card due to the ages. So So happy to own these dies - I've gotten such mileage out of them!

Inked some Neenah CS with two tones each of blue, green and yellow inks (DI, Adirondack and SSS dye inks). Splattered and Perfect Pearled it before die cutting circles from it. Then I die cut the numbers from the circles and from white fun foam.

Took a creme cardbase, adhered a strip of B/W Pink Paislee PP and heat embossed the sentiment from MFT Birthday Greetings. Adhered the circles and numbers and a variety of gold and silver sequins (Pretty Pink Posh and Winnie and Walter) to get that "party on a card" feel ;)

Hope you're having a fabulous weekend. Thanks for looking.

*fist pump*

Squealing with delight I am, to be guest designing for the Essentials by Ellen Pin-Sights Challenge!

It's an challenge based on a gorgeous Pinterest Inspired mood board you'll find on the CLASSroom blog. A random challenge participant who has used Essentials by Ellen products and the mood board will win a $50 gift certificate to the Ellen Hutson store.

Here is this month's delicately gorgeous inspiration.

I was enamored with the softness of that bouquet in the top right corner and this is what I did using flowers and the white, yellow, pink and lilac colorblocked arrangement of the flowers.

I used Wild Garden dies, cut them from Neenah white CS and lightly applied Squeezed Lemon, Worn Lipstick and Dusty Concord Distress Inks to portions of them. I adhered them to my card and added a stacked sentiment from the Many Thanks die on a piece of vellum. I masked and lightly colored the bottom half of the sentiment with Peacock Feathers in a nod to the blue of the color combo.

My second creation is ultra CAS. I stamped the images from Up the Happy with Versafine and one cloud I heat embossed white. Then I watercolored that cloud "rainbowed" with Squeezed Lemonade, Spun Sugar, Worn Lipstick and Peacock Feathers Distress Inks. Love how the pink and blue create a tiny touch of purple too!

I'm in love with this card if I do say so myself ;) Kinda makes me wanna *fist pump* Thanks for stopping by today. Hope to see you over at the CLASSroom in the Pin-Sights gallery.

a set of cards for CTS

Well this latest sketch at CAS(E) this Sketch and the CAS challenge at Happy Little Stampers to monoprint with a stencil totally moved me to action!

SEE:

GRAB:
Monoprints (spray inks and acrylic paints) that have been waiting to be used
Some PP from the Amy Tangerine Plus One collection
Lil Inker Stitched Rectangle dies
Sizzix Celebration Words thinlits
And the conviction to make a set of cards happen

MAKE:

I'm happy. Turned stash (prints, PP, NBUS die) into cards pretty quickly. And that ain't normal for moi ;)

Which do you like best? I'd love to know. Thanks for stopping by. Hope your day is as sunny as mine.