altenew november inspiration - take 4 and 5

Today I have two more makes for the current November Altenew Inspiration Challenge. 

This was yesterday's card inspired by the challenge...

Along with the scrap paper I had left after watercoloring those bloom layers...

Well I added a bit more distress oxide to the mess and got to die cutting. These two cards happened.

Altenew Super Script stamp

Altenew Virginia Rose 3D die

Altenew 36 pan watercolor

oval die, gold paint, patterned paper

Altenew Peony Bouquet

Altenew Beautiful Day

Altenew Virginia Rose 3D die

Altenew inks, copper embossing powder, copper cardstock

Did you notice the little dots on some of the leaves? That's where the temporary adhesive runner was, holding my bloom layers in place as I watercolored! It acts like a mask for the watercolor/ink. When i rubbed the adhesive off, there were dots! Fun, eh? I'm just so happy I didn't throw that scrap paper away!

 

altenew november inspiration - take 3

Yesterday I shared my first two makes for the current Altenew challenge. 

It's a beauty and has me totally inspired to create. November Altenew Inspiration Challenge. 

I mentioned my cousin had given me a few panels dry embossed with 3D designs. One of them she'd actually gussied up a bit.

She didn't like it. I LOVED it. And I love it even more now....

Altenew Alocasia embossing folder

Altenew Virginia Rose 3D die

Altenew 36 pan watercolor

So much that I couldn't bear to put a sentiment on it and cover up any of that grungy goodness!

Now I don't even know exactly what my cousin had done to the panel. Dry embossing, come ink swiping, a little heat embossing? SUCH goodness.

Well I decided to pull out my Altenew watercolors and color this wonderful layered die cut bloom. It took a while. I have such a hard time keeping a light hand. And trusting the process! But I 'm crushing on the result. (Magenta was my favorite color in the Crayola box of 64;)

I'm not done yet. The ideas just kept on coming. Especially when I had this sheet of scrap paper left after the watercoloring...

 

CAS cards challenge may reminder

Hello peeps! Back with a reminder about this month's CAS card challenge at STAMPlorations. 

Here's the May CAS Cards challenge inspiration.

As always the challenge is anything goes with an optional color twist - this month is baby pink.

Today's card.

STAMPlorations Art Marks 2 stamp
STAMPlorations  New Day clear sticker
Altenew watercolor

I used pink watercolors for my first card this month. To use up the leftovers, I grabbed the Art Marks stamps and stamped with watercolors in a masked off rectangle on my card front. Added a couple orange rings of color too to warm up the pinks.

Then I added a few pops of black and a sticker sentiment and called it good and CAS.

CAS card tip: Mask off an area of the card and go crazy within that area only!

For more inspiration with this stamp set check out this post.

Have you joined us yet? Your project might be chosen as the winner of a GC to the shop. Check out how the DT was inspired by this month's photo here.

And don't forget about my STAMPlorations discount code STAMPGIRLMARIA for 20% off should you find yourself shopping ;)  Thanks for stopping over. See you in the gallery.

I'm heading to the gallery at:
ATSAM - CAS

CAS cards challenge may

Hello there peeps! How's it going these days? Hope you and yours are staying healthy. We're back with a new CAS card challenge at STAMPlorations. 

Here's the May CAS Cards challenge inspiration.

As always the challenge is anything goes with an optional color twist - this month is baby pink.

As my mojo went when Corona came along, I went to my craft room with no idea what I wanted to make. I saw watercolors and decided to make things really easy on myself. How about a pink rainbow?

Today's card.

STAMPlorations Birthday Word Art clear sticker
Altenew watercolor

Grabbed a flat brush. Painted some curves. The sticker sentiment reminded me of a cloud, so I cut it into a cloud shape and adhered it. Voila!

CAS card tip: Although the card is full, thanks to the monochromatic color scheme and the big pop of black it's still very clean and simple. All the attention goes to the font of the sentiment.

For more inspiration with this sticker set check out this post.

I'm looking forward to your CAS card creations this month! Your project might be chosen as the winner of a GC to the shop. Check out how the DT was inspired by this month's photo here.

And don't forget about my STAMPlorations discount code STAMPGIRLMARIA for 20% off should you find yourself shopping ;)  Thanks for stopping over. See you in the gallery.

simon says stamp - mum die

It may not be the easiest to shop and get delivery of goodies these days, but Simon Says Stamp has some newly released items that we are sharing with you today. And according to Heidi, owner of the store, as of yesterday shipping has now resumed, albeit at a slower pace!

The new release is called Sunny Days Ahead. One of the products in the new release is the Mum Word and Shadow die and lucky me, I got to have a play with it. Clearly, this would be a great product for creating Mother's Day cards, but I lost my own "mum" about three years ago. You can bet I had her in mind as I was in my craft room playing with this word die.

Rainbow colors happened...

 SSS Mum Word and Shadow die
Altenew Watercolor Pan
SSS Sentiment Strips Reverse Love

I painted the rainbow with a wide, flat brush and then adhered the gold, stacked "mum" and a sentiment strip. Simple. But true.

For my second card, I used up the leftover watercolors from the rainbow to paint some die cut roses. I started with the most watered down tone on the top layer and then added more pigment for each subsequent layer. The sentiment was die cut from glitter cardstock and I stamped a "wishing you only the best" sentiment from an older SSS stamp set, Apothecary Labels, inside.

SSS Mum Word and Shadow die
Altenew Rose Flurries die
Altenew Watercolor Pan
vellum 

I have one more card for you, this was the result of wondering which other word dies I had that could work with "mum". I chuckle about this card - it's a mixing of British and American English at its best ;)  How dare I, eh?

SSS Mum Word and Shadow die

SSS You Da Best die

SSS Large Hearts Set die

The only question was a color scheme (I had some recycled pink cardboard in my hand and chose black to show it off) and where to place the die cut heart! 

Check out all the makes with the products from the release in the gallery here. And watch for the hops this weekend too.

I'm adding my second card to the SSS Wednesday Challenge where it's all about Flowers this week. The perfect theme!

altenew march challenge

I had to join in over at this month's Altenew challenge. Norine is so inspiring, I love the colors she chose and add succulents to the equation... it was a no brainer!

And could I be more predictable? Mega Succulent here I come.

Altenew Mega Succulent stamp

Altenew watercolors
MFT Deepest Sympathy stamp
vellum

white embossing powder

I love how Norine did her BG so I mixed up some green, blue and purple watercolor and had some fun watercoloring the heat embossed image.

I decided to turn it into a sympathy card. Isn't that a great sentiment for those times when you're truly at a loss for words. The inside reads "sharing in your sorrow".

Then I made a totally different version using up the watercolors that were on my palette. I thought the purple in my first card seemed a bit too bright for the inspiration photo. And the blue touches on some of the leaves kinda disappeared. So I pulled out the flowers.

Altenew Engagement Wishes stamp 

Altenew Birthday Builder stamp

Altenew watercolors
white embossing powder

I heat embossed, watercolored and die cut the peony and leaves. For my background I stamped all the happy birthday sentiments as they are on the packaging, heat embossed them and did a light wash of green over them. And added some green splatters. And Nuvo drops. Figured the background did the talking so I skipped an additional sentiment.

Have you played along? Why not give these colors a try?

I'm joining the fun at:
The Daily Marker - 30 Day Coloring Challenge (first day in my craft room since it started)

The Flower Challenge - Anything Goes

Happy Little Stampers - Watercolor

STAMPlorations digital stamp bloomdala coffee-to-go

I'm over on the STAMPlorations blog today with four digital stamp projects. You could win a $15 GC to the store for comments left here and there. Just sayin...

So. I'm pretty much a newbie to digital stamps. I love getting inky with actual stamps. And I'm a pro at ink smudges. But there are some benefits to digi stamps - no smudges, perfect coverage without a MISTI, image resizing, even layering images (though I've yet to give that a try).

I grabbed me a couple digital stamps from the STAMPlorations digi store (where all digi stamps are 30% off til end of January) and used good old Microsoft Word and my Canon ink jet printer to give them a try. I recommend this post for a great intro to digi stamps. It's where I figured out how to print them using Word.

Today I have printed from Bloomdala Coffee Cup to Go four cups in their original size, colored them using different techniques, fussy cut them and turned them into tags. Ready to learn more?

1.  My first thought was I had to "rainbow" a cup. Cuz... why not?

Since I knew I would use alcohol markers, I printed the cup on Neenah Solar White cardstock. My markers are from Action Deutschland, they're similar to Touch markers. Though I did try to keep within the lines, I noticed no problems with the printed image bleeding.

I added a purple gem to the center to add a spot of bling to the tag.

2.  For my second cup I chose kraft cardstock and colored with Prismacolor pencils.

Here I also used Neenah kraft, it's nice and smooth and the Prismacolor pencils work great on it.

3.  My third cup nearly ended up in the garbage can. I thought I'd be clever and print on colored cardstock and then just apply some quick color with distress inks...

...not so pretty. Here's where my lack of experience with digis comes in. I think somehow there was some "smearing" with the water-based inks

Could be a cardstock issue. I used Hero Arts Arctic. The surface is more grainy.

Could just be the result of using distress inks on colored cardstock. (The photo you see above is after I decided to try to make it work and applied even more ink and some darker colors. I had originally hoped to just put down some pink tones on that bloom that comes in on the left. That really didn't work.)

Could be the ink wasn't completely dry. I've read you should use your heat gun to dry the printed images, or let them dry 24 hours before coloring. Don't know. (All I know is after this I did dry my other printed images with a heat gun!) It was, as I've heard many cardmakers say, a hot mess. Maybe I'll try distress inks again, on a heat-dried image printed on Neenah white to see what happens. (And to think I was just trying to save myself some time using an "easy coloring method"!)

But my perserverance paid off. After adding more ink and darker tones, I masked the lid, applied Versamark and holographic embossing powder and voila!

The image is still there. Tough to capture on camera however!

4.  My last cup is watercolored. I love the result - makes me feel all Debby Hughes-ish for some reason ;)

It's funny, I had no plan for the coloring. Only knew I wanted browns and blues. Pulled out my Altenew watercolors. I started at the left edge and worked my way right, deciding on the colors and color placement as I went along.

BTW, I printed the cup in light gray onto Derwent watercolor paper. In Word, in the Picture Tools "Format" tab, under the "Color" tab there is a "Faded" option. I used this and it printed in a light gray. Thought this would be good for this technique, similar to stamping in a pale color ink before no-line watercoloring. No problem with the image smearing or fading, even with the addition of water.

Don't forget to leave a comment here.  And here too, for another chance to win.

May your coffee be strong and your work week short!

I'm playing over at:

Always Fun - One Layer

ATSAM - Make your Mark

The Flower Challenge - Shaped Cards (this coffee cup could easily be turned into a shaped card)

   

simon says stamp - waves for summer

Have you seen the latest SSS release, Rest and Refresh?  I got to play with this wonderful background stamp, Waves.

So I know, it's called "Waves". But...  if you stamp it once, turn it 45 degrees and stamp it again... you get the coolest design. Just sit back, chillax and watercolor. You may have seen this in my IG stories...

SSS Waves stamp

Altenew watercolors

orange embossing powder

And maybe you saw the first three cards I posted using portions of the watercolored 6 x 6 panel.

The pattern and colors screamed summer to me, so using the panel I reached for the Simon Summertime die and made two cards. First with the negative. Did some ink smooshing with acetate to match the colors of the die cut piece and added two tropical die cuts Kesi Hibiscus and Flora and Fauna Flamingo.

With the positives I revisited a CAS design. Used an older Simon set, Summer Garden and some Nuvo drops.

Check out the release if you haven't, and all the makes with it in the gallery at Simon Says Stamp. Thanks mucho, Simon.

I'm joining the fun at:
SSS Wednesday - AG

Happy Little Stampers - AG with Dies June