Monthly Archives: March 2015

Hello Beautiful Spring: SSS Flickr Challenge #15

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Hello-Beautiful-Spring: SSSflickrchallenge#15

 

This card was made for Simon Says Stamps’ Flickr challenge #15. The theme for this challenge was to create a project that symbolized spring.

Spring for me is difficult to pinpoint in Chicago. The season usually starts with slight, very slight, hints of days of sunshine and warmer temperatures. Then for some reason, just as the last bits of winter snow have melted, we get another dusting of snow which usually last for a few days and then disappears as temperatures start to warm up again. Early spring is such a tease in Chicago. It never makes you feel fully assured that it is on its way and wants to stay.

So to bring a little spring that lasts, you have to be content with making cards that are bright, sunny and warm your imagination of more pleasant days ahead.

I made this card by creating a soft blended background of water color washes in yellows, spring sky blues and greens on watercolor cardstock. I then used a stamp set from Simon Says Stamp called Summer Garden and stamped the largest flower and a few leaves from the set. The images were stamped on watercolor cardstock using Versafine Onyx Black ink and then colored using watercolor shades that remind me of what spring should be. The flowers and leaves were die cut using the coordinating dies for the stamp set. The sentiment “hello, beautiful” was also part of the set. That was stamped in a green ink. I added the die cut word “spring” from Winnie & Walter for emphasis and covered the word with shimmer using Wink of Stella clear glitter pen.

Everything was then mounted as you see and matted against a 4.25”x5.5” piece of wood grained-cardstock and then mounted on an A2 horizontal top-folding card base.

Hope Spring likes this card so much that it decides to stay.

 

Supplies used in making this card:

Stamps:  Simon Says Stamp: Summer Garden

Dies:  Simon Says Stamp: Summer Garden craft dies; Winnie & Walter: The Big, the Bold and Seasons Cutaways (dies).

Inks and watercolors: Tsukineko’s Versafine Onyx  Black Ink; Papertrey Ink: New Leaf dye ink; Zig Kuretake Gansai Tambi 35 color set (watercolors)

Cardstock:  Papertrey Ink: New Leaf 110 lb. (for die-cut “spring”); water color card stock; Neenah Solar White 110 lb (card base); Essentials by Ellen wood grain cardstock.

Other:  Wink of Stellar clear glitter pen.

All My Love: Ellen Hutson’s Pin-Sights Challenge

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All-My-Love: Ellen Hutson Pin-Sights Challenge

 

I created the card above for the Ellen Hutson Pin-Sights Challenge. The inspiration for this challenge came from a Pinterest picture below:

Pinterest Challenge 1

I love the pairing of the black, and white with the gold in this picture. It’s very striking and full of bling!

I was very pleased with the way my card turned out. I think it captures a lot of the elements from the inspiration picture and I incorporated dies and sentiment from the Essentials by Ellen winter release. There are a lot of great brushstroke images and sentiments in the release.

Hope you like the card!

Supplies used in making this card:

Stamps:  Essentials by Ellen: Love You So stamp set (for the sentiment “all my love”).

Dies:  Essentials by Ellen: Folk Hearts (the largest and second smallest hearts were used); Papertrey Ink: Stripes Diagonal Cover Plate (cut from black cardstock).

Inks: Versamark Ink.

Cardstock:  Papertrey Ink:  True Black 110 lb.; Recollections: gold metallic cardstock from their Metallic paper pack (gold background underneath the black diagonal stripes); Bazzill 40 lb. vellum.

Other: Pretty Pink Posh: gold sequins; Gold thread (from my stash); WOW Metallic Gold Rich Pale embossing powder; Glue Dots.

Brushstroke Happy Birthday

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Brushstroke-Happy-Birthday

 

I’m very happy when I can make a masculine appropriate card that does not involve fishing, golfing or some other kind of sport. LOL!

For this card I used more subdued shades of green and a kraft-colored ink to slightly brighten up things. I love the artsy look of the brushstroke stripes in these colors. The stripes slightly overlap each other and are paired with the brushstroke “happy birthday” sentiment from Avery Elle. I stamped the birthday sentiment and ink blots (also from the same Avery Elle stamp set) in Versamark ink and then heat embossed them using gold embossing powder. The two stamp sets really complement each other and the gold embossing powder gives the card a richer look.

My inspiration for this card came from Maile Belles. She is on the design team for Papertrey Ink and she designed the brush stroke stamps I used for this card. I love Maile’s creations. She has a very identifiable style which I can’t fully describe. It’s part graphic, simple and straightforward. She has a great eye for just the right placement of all the elements she uses on her cards. Love her style. Maile is definitely one of several card makers who are my source for inspiration.

Supplies used in making this card:

Stamps: Papertrey Ink: Watercolor Wonder stamp set; Avery Elle: Brushed stamp set (happy birthday sentiment and ink splats)

Cardstock: Neenah Solar White 80# for card front; Papertrey Ink: Pinefeather for card front mat; Neenah Solar White 110# for the card base.

Inks: Papertrey Ink: Ocean Tides, Classic Kraft, Aqua Mist, and Pinefeather; Versamark ink.

Other: WOW embossing powder in Gold Rich Pale (for the sentiment and ink splats).

 

Super Duper Birthday Card

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Super-Duper-Birthday

 

This birthday card was made for one of my daughters.  Though she is not a child any more, she still appreciates receiving whimsical, fun cards from her Mom. Love that bit of child that is still in her!

Love these Tiny Heroes stamp set from Mama Elephant. The images are so cute and perfect to color. I used my Copic markers to color the super hero and the curved skyline. Though I used a skyline stamp from an old obsolete Studio Calico stamp set, I think you could use any of the more current skyline stamps to create a similar look.

The female hero was stamped, colored and then die-cut using the coordinating die set for the Tiny Heroes stamps and then mounted using foam tape to add a bit of dimension.

I used primary colors of red, blue, yellow and green to convey the look and feel of a comic book character.

I created the sentiment for this card from a couple of stamp sets. The “Super Duper” was from the Tiny Heroes stamp set. I inked the” Super Duper” separately, masking off all the other words from the sentiment using painters tape before inking and then removing the tape before stamping onto the cardstock. I then used the individual words “have”, “a” and “birthday” from an Impression Obsession clear stamp word set called Sentiments I. I placed these words on small acrylic blocks and stamped them separately.

I love this stamp set for two reasons. Firstly, the individual words are in a nice font, and secondly, there are lots of different words. These two reasons make it so versatile that you can create your own sentiment or alter a sentiment from another stamp set, like I did here to make a completely new sentiment.

Impression Obsessions has another word set, Sentiments II the words in that set are all in caps, in a block font and focus more on holidays and occasions. It’s a great set to have as well. I love it when I can use some basic stamp sets to help me stretch my stamps.

Hope you have a super duper day!

 

Supplies used in making this card:

Stamps: Mama Elephant: Tiny Heroes stamp set; Studio Calico: curved skyline (don’t know the name; the stamp set is from an old monthly card kit).

Inks: Memento Ink in Tuxedo Black, Versafine Ink in Onyx Black for the sentiments.

Dies:  Mama Elephant: Tiny Heroes Creative Cuts (the coordinating die set to the Tiny Heroes stamps set).

Cardstock: Neenah Solar White 110# for card base; Neenah Solar White 80#; Stampin’ Up: Real Red cardstock for mat.

Other:  Copic markers, 3-M foam tape.

Happy You’re My Friend: Simon Says Stamp Flickr Challenge #14

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Happy-Your-Are-My-Friend

The Simon Says Stamp Flickr Challenge #14 requires you to make a card in the clean and simple style. This means one layer, effective use of white space and very few embellishments.

I decide to make a bright and cheery graphic-styled card. It was fun because the stamp images were stamped randomly and I really like the way it turned out.

To begin, I went through my stamps and looked for any kind of circles or dots. I wound up with several dotted, patterned and solid circles for the card. I chose bright ink colors that would pop agains the white cardstock. The colors were kind of complements to each other. I have read that colors on the opposite sides of the color wheel cause tension or energy when viewed and I wanted that kind of energy for the card. The orange-reds, orange-yellows and red kind of complement the chartreuse green (yellow-green).

I then masked my card front with 3-M, 2-inch wided post-it tape and left an open strip on the card front about 1.25″ wide across the length of the card. The unmasked area is the area in which I stamped my circles. I started with large circles first and stamped them randomly on the card. I then filled in the other areas with the smaller circles and used a dot stamp to fill in any areas I thought looked empty. There was no real method to the ink colors I used for each of the circle. The only thing I was careful to try to do was not concentrate a color in one particular area.

I pleased with the random look of the card. I used a long sentiment that went across the card front just like the dotted area.

Supplies used in making this card:

Stamps:  Simon Says Stamp: Lots of Dots, Sunnier Days, and Love This; My Favorite Things: Bokeh Builder stamp set; Simon Says Stamp: On My Mind (stamp set in SSS March, 2015 card kit).

Inks: Papertrey Ink: Orange Zest, Summer Sunrise, Berry Sorbet, Pure Poppy, and Simple Chartreuse; Versamark Black Onyn pigment ink.

Cardstock: Neenah Solar White 110 lb. cardstock.

Other: 3-M 2-inch Post-It tape.

 

Bling It On – Essentials by Ellen Mix It Up Challenge

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Bling-It-On

 

I love Ellen Hutson’s shop. They have such a great selection of high-quality stamps and craft supplies.

They are initiating a twice a month challenge on their blog! Yay! Some chances for me to win a gift certificate so I can buy more stamp supplies.

The first challenge is one that incorporates their fairly new line of stamps, Essentials by Ellen which are designed by Julie Ebersole and any Hero Arts stamp or product. I decide to create the card you see above.

The card uses the Essentials by Ellen, Hello Gorgeous stamp set and a cling background stamp from Hero Arts, Tiny Star Background. To up the bling factor, I stamped the Tiny Stars background with Tsukineko’s Delicata Ink in Golden Glitz. The sentiment and the diamond images from Ellen’s Hello Gorgeous stamp set were inked with Versamark ink and then heat embossed using WOW Gold Rich Pale embossing powder. I love this gold embossing powder. Not too brash, just a nice rich gold color as the name of the product implies. A few Pretty Pink Posh gold sequins were added to the card front for additional bling.

The card front was originally 4.25″ x 5.5″, but I cut it down to 4.00″ x 5.25″ and then used 3-M foam tape and mounted it onto a black top-folding A2 card base. I did this so that the card front had black framing around it to make it pop visually.

Hope you like the card!

 

Supplies used in making this card:

Stamps: Essentials by Ellen: Hello Gorgeous stamp set, Hero Arts: Tiny Star Background cling stamp.

Inks: Versamark Ink, Tsukineko Delicata Ink in Golden Glitz.

Cardstock: Neenah Solar White 80 lb. cardstock for card front; Papertrey Ink: True Black for card base.

Other: WOW Gold Rich Pale embossing powder; Pretty Pink Posh: Gold sequins; Glue Dots: Micro size (for sequins).

 

Thinking of You: Flower, Sun and Cloud

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Thinking-of-You-Sun-Cloud-Flower

This card was made for a dear friend who is under the weather at the moment. I thought that the Spring scene and the sun would reminder her that Spring is coming soon. We’ve had a long cold winter here in the Midwest.

For this card, I created my own stencil using My Favorite Things (Die-namics) Snow Drifts die set. There are 2 curvy snow drifts in this set and I chose the more gently curving drift. I die cut the drift from a sheet of acetate from some packaging and used this cut out piece to create the illusion of a hill in the background. I’m really happy when I can extend the use of my dies!

The other elements are pretty much die cut and placed as you see. I don’t know what I’d do without my Vagabond machine. The cute stitched tag is from Pretty Pink Posh. As you can see the landscape goes across the card front and onto the tag for visual interest. I also raised the tag using foam tape and hung the sun and cloud off the edge of the tag for additional dimension.

Hope you like the card and Spring can’t come soon enough for all of us in the Midwest.

 

Supplies used in making this card:

Stamps: Papertrey Ink: Flower Fusion #7.

Dies: My Favorite Things Die-namics: Flat-Bottomed Clouds die set (larger cloud), Snow Drifts die set (to create the stencil used for the hill); Lil’ Inker Designs: Sunshine Dies (larger sun); Papertrey Ink: Flower Fusion #7 coordinating die (flower and sentiment); Pretty Pink Posh: Stitched Duo #1 tag.

Cardstock: Papertrey Ink: Lemon Tart (for the sun); Neenah Solar White 80# for card front and tag; Neenah Solar White 110# for the card base.

Inks: Stampin’ Up: Melon Mambo for the flower, Pear Pizzazz for flower stem; Papertrey Ink Aqua Mist (for cloud and hill);

Other: Hot pink flat-bottomed dot from my stash