STAMPlorations inspiration #262

Happy April! It's time for the first Tuesday inspiration of the month from the STAMPlorations inspiration team!

I finished up last month with masculine cards and that led me to a theme of masculine CAS cards for this month. Ready for #1?

 Birds of Paradise stamp and die

Zig clean color real brush markers

bronze embossing powder

So the Birds of Paradise were out cuz I'd considered using them for my cards last month. And I was feeling all Ziggy. So I heat embossed and colored a fun bird. What to do with him? How about plop him onto the middle of a white card? Opted for a sketchy sentiment on a punched blue circle and Voila!

You could win yourself a $10 GC to the store by leaving a comment on this month's inspiration posts! Check out today's post over at STAMPlorations. And if I ever inspire you to order something from the store, I'd really appreciate it if you used my STAMPGIRLMARIA discount code for an additional 20% off your order - at no extra cost to you, just with perks for me ;)

Looking for more inspiration with these fun birds? Check out this post.

Thanks for stopping over today. Have a great week. I'm stopping by at:
Craft Stamper - TIMI April
Die Cut Divas - Animals
AAA Cards - Made in Minutes

simon says stamp - united we craft 2

Have you checked out the United We Craft Party over at Simon Says Stamp. Lots of inspiration with some of the older products you might have in your stash as you get creative in your #stayathome and #flattenthecurve time.

In yesterday's post I did some die cutting with the Faberge Egg. Then I looked through my background stamps thinking it was due time for some therapeutic coloring. These two cards happened.

 SSS Kaleidoscope stamp

SSS Hello die
Papertrey Hello die
Action Deutschland banner die

Copics

Hope you are all doing OK with the home isolation. We're hanging in there. I believe that united we got this! Happy Sunday.

simon says stamp - united we craft

So I gotta be honest. When the Corona virus came to town, my mojo just got up and went.

I know everyone has a load to bear during this. Mine is worrying about my Dad who I should be moving back to his house right now after his snowbirding for the winter. But that ain't happening. Instead he's hunkering down in his apartment in the senior living place. And I'm prayin' we make it through to the other side. Perhaps this is why I haven't been in my craft room.

But I was glad to get the kick in the butt to participate in this fabulous United We Craft Party Simon came up with. And getting a commission for a couple kids' Easter cards helped too. (Too funny, my friend texted me "Are you in home office? Could you make..." I'm always in home office ;)

Enter Faberge Egg die.  Which is from the recent Lucky to Know You release at Simon Says Stamp.

First up for a three-year-old. Can you spot the egg?!?

 SSS Faberge Egg die

SSS Happy die

fabric, thread, pom pom, googly eyes

Got the idea from Pinterest. Why not make the bunny's head with a nice big egg? Since I'd just been in a face mask sewing mode (here's where I got the pattern), I used some fabric scraps for the ears. And whiskers from all the threads I'd cut off while sewing! Even stitched the PP onto the cardbase. Sweet. Interactive (eyes) and tactile. (Inside reads "Easter" from the fancy part of the egg die.)

Then for the 7-year-old...

 SSS Faberge Egg die
Savvy grass die
Alexandra Renke rabbit die
Action Deutschland cloud die
Basic Grey PP, glitter CS, sequins

I thought she could have fun with the various layers (I glued two cardbases together to have three panels before die cutting). Even stamped some pink eggs all over the card so she could go on an egg hunt ;)

Of course for a girly card I couldn't not use some glitter cardstock and add some iridescent butterflies.

For more ideas using this fun die, take a look at this post.

I hope you are all doing OK with your "loads". Hang in there and craft away. An idea I thought I'd share with you... I put together packages of five hello/thinking of you/birthday cards from my stash (in recycled cellophane stamp set bags) and dropped them off in neighbors' mailboxes with a note saying "no time like the present to send a handwritten greeting to brighten someone's day".

United we got this!

CAS cards challenge april

Hello there! So how many times have you already been fooled today? We're back with a new CAS card challenge at STAMPlorations and it's no joke. 

Here's the April CAS Cards challenge inspiration.

As always the challenge is anything goes with an optional color twist - this month is lemon yellow and I just had to go with the lemon yellow color (as I create these cards in Feb and am really ready for bright and sunny days). And why not go with lemons too? Though I must admit both my cards this month are pushing the limits of CAS ...

Today's card.

STAMPlorations Layered Citrus stamp
Zig clean color real brush
embossing powder

So I had this idea to use the lemons and do some black heat embossing and some white heat embossing. In my reminder post you'll see the white embossed design. It's amazing what different looks they have.

I tried something different here. Instead of using the layering stamps to color the lemons, I swiped color inside the embossed areas with a Zig marker (light yellow inside, brighter yellow for the skin) and then spritzed the entire panel with water. Let the water activate the color. Tilted the panel a bit this way and that and voila! Looks like sloshed on watercolor.

CAS card tip: Although kinda busy, by using only one color and still maintaining a lot of white you can achieve a sorta clean and very simple design ;) 

For more inspiration with this stamp set (and a real CAS card) 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.

STAMPlorations inspiration #261

Because March has five Tuesdays, I'm back with one more Tuesday inspiration from the STAMPlorations inspiration team!

This month I've been creating cards all inspired by a card I saw last month that just took my breath away - the central design idea being "something framed on an inked background". Today ... well, if you saw last week's card you'll understand where today's originated.

I had chosen the dragonfly die as a potential candidate for the "something" but hadn't used it yet.

Dragonfly Layering die

New Day clear sticker

Distress inks - Cracked Pistachio, Evergreen Bough, Broken China, Blueprint Sketch

So there I was following the same design process, though trying to make it more masculine. I decided to go with the dragonfly but instead of die cutting and watercoloring, I'd dry emboss them on the distress inked BG. And pop on a clear sticker sentiment and call it good.

Subtle dimension, but it's cool. Hope you enjoyed this month's series.

You could win yourself a $10 GC to the store by leaving a comment on this month's inspiration posts! Check out today's post over at STAMPlorations. And if I ever inspire you to order something from the store, I'd really appreciate it if you used my STAMPGIRLMARIA discount code for an additional 20% off your order - at no extra cost to you, just with perks for me ;)

I've used the dragonfly on this card too.

Thanks for stopping over today. Have a great week.

STAMPlorations inspiration #260

Back with  another Tuesday inspiration from the STAMPlorations inspiration team!

This month I've been creating cards all inspired by a card I saw last month that just took my breath away - the central design idea being "something framed on an inked background". Today ... I gotta say this card took my breath away.

Trendy Spring Blooms stamp

For the Birds die

Zig clean color real brushes

Distress inks - Cracked Pistachio, Twisted Citron, Mermaid Lagoon, Blueprint Sketch

So there I was following the same design process, though trying to make it more masculine. I decided to go with the bird die cut and use blues and greens to watercolor them. The first WOW moment came when I spritzed the watercolored birds with perfect pearls mixture. Look at that lovely texture that happened!

So I'd seen Laura B create with her favorite cool DI colors so thought I'd give them a go on my BG. Well HELLO! May I just say there should be more Twisted Citron in the world!

You've heard me say this before, but when I had that BG inked, I just couldn't dry emboss it or splatter it or cover it up too much with a frame and sentiment. Adios this month's design!

So my creative session went from my first card totally CASEing TaeEun's card to this! This is my favorite this month.

You could win yourself a $10 GC to the store by leaving a comment on this month's inspiration posts! Check out today's post over at STAMPlorations. And if you're placing an order at the store, I'd really appreciate it if you used my STAMPGIRLMARIA discount code for an additional 20% off your order - at no extra cost to you, just with perks for me ;)

For a different way of using these birds, check out this card.

Thanks for stopping over today. Have a great week.

I'm stopping over at:
Die Cut Divas - Anything Goes
Watercooler Wednesday - Masculine twist
Bastel Traum - Spring

Happy Little Stampers - AG with Dies

Pinspirational - Spring

STAMPlorations digital stamps with patterned paper

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

So as I mentioned in my last Digital Wednesday post, I'm a newbie to digital stamps, but there are definitely 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).

My technology tools are limited to Microsoft Word and my Canon ink jet printer. I watched this video for a great intro to digi stamps.

For today's projects I used a pad of patterned paper from the dollar store. The pastel colors caught my eye. The paper is thin however, so to print on it I used cellophane tape to attach the 6x6 sheets to a normal sheet of copy paper. This went through my printer without any problem.

TIP: First I print the image onto copy paper and then hold that up to the light with my 6x6 PP in front of it to see where I would like the image to be. (See how I lined up the flower on the floral PP so that one of the red roses was in the center of the bloom?)

Here's a look at the PP pad and some of the images I printed.

Another TIP: I use Photoscape to edit photos. I'm no pro. But since I knew I was only using the bloom from the latte-cup-with-bloom image, I cropped the image to remove the top portion of the to-go cup. This was then what I printed to waste less PP. (As if I don't already have enough PP to last 300 years...)

Let's get to my cards, shall we? First up, I used a cup of blooms image and thought I was going to mix and match cup and blooms - paper piece just the mug from PP onto the image printed on white cardstock and then give the white blooms just a little dab of color. But I liked the look of the image on the watercolored-look PP so much I couldn't cut it apart! So these two cards happened.

For the first, I fussy cut the image printed on Neenah solar white, added dabs of color to the flowers and adhered it on a floral PP.

Cupful of Blooms digi stamp

Just Caffeinate clear stickers

alcohol markers

patterned paper

Then for the second card I added color to the centers of the flowers on the image fussy cut from the pretty watercolored-look PP and added it to a shimmery, linen texture cardbase.

TIP: Look for pencil colors fairly close to your PP colors to keep the contrast minimal. I used a pink, a purple, a blue, a gray and a green cuz they were closest to the tones of the watercolored-look PP.

Cupful of Blooms digi stamp

World Birthday Cakes stamp

Prismacolor colored pencils

patterned paper

embossing powder

For my next card I used an image that covers the front of an A2 card. I printed it once onto white cardstock and once onto PP. When fussy cutting the blooms from the PP to paper piece on the other panel, I carefully cut out the frame too.

TIP: When I fussy cut the flowers touching the frame on the PP panel, I made sure to leave the thick black line around the frame intact. This enabled me to use the frame for a second card. In general when paper piecing, fussy cut on the black line. Since you will be adhering the fussy cut piece to a stamped or printed image, those outlines will show.

I lightly applied some Spun Sugar and Squeezed Lemonade to the Neenah panel before adhering the PP flowers. Then I stamped the sentiment and added some sequins.

Coffee Blossoms digi stamp

Dream the Impossible stamp

Distress inks

PP, sequins

To accompany the fussy cut PP frame, I shrunk one of the other coffee cup images, printed it onto contrasting PP (twice so I could see which size I preferred) and fussy cut just the flowers to use to embellish the second card. (This was when it dawned on me to use Photoscape to crop the image so only the part I need would print and I wouldn't waste PP ;)

Added a sentiment in the form of a clear sticker to the frame. And colored the leaves of the flower spray and added gems too.

Coffee Blossoms digi stamp

Birthday Word Art clear stickers

This last card was such fun. I printed the image (sized to my liking) onto four different patterned papers, felt like I was back in kindergarten as I fussy cut the flowers and then arranged them on my cardbase.

TIP: Use the bits and pieces you trim off around the edges to fill some of the white space on your cardbase. I only had four flowers but it looks like I used seven.

I did not add adhesive to the outer edges of the petals so there's some dimension. I love how the sequins fit perfectly in the flower centers. Adds dimension. And that sentiment die with the drop shadow adds even more dimension.

Holiday Lattes digi stamp

Skinny Sentiments die

sequins

Whew. That was a lot. Don't forget to leave me a comment. And on my Digital Wednesday post here too, for another chance to win.

With card #1 I'm playing over at:
The Flower Challenge - Anything Goes
SSS Wednesday Challenge - Whatever the Weather (card's going to girlfriend who combats stress with coffee)