Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Adorable Elephant

Hello, my friends!  Today I will be showing a Thank You card that I recently made featuring a super cute elephant stamp from MFT.  This chubby guy makes a great focal piece for all sorts of cards, but I decided I wanted to use the cute sentiment that goes with him.


The Sweet Safari stamp set comes with these cute leaves, so I decided to add some little flowers to the design that surrounds him.  You gotta watch me carefully sometimes - I will add flowers to anything and everything I can!  But I just really like them, and also the bright strawberry color, so there they are :-)


Here you can see that I popped up the elephant, the flowers, and a few of the leaves.  I love adding dimension, and when you have clusters it really helps separate the elements so that you don't have a "pile" of stuff on your card.  I also added a layered circle frame under the elephant to draw your eye to him.  Another common trick of mine is to make a couple of cards at the same time - since all the supplies are already out, it's super easy to duplicate!  Here I made the same card again, only I added some little blue flowers that I had on hand.



Supply list and shopping links:

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Saturday, February 20, 2016

Butterflies On My Mind

Today's offering features another of my obsessions:  Butterflies!  You will see them pop up again and again in my creations because I love them and can never have enough :-)


This gorgeous butterfly was created the same way as the other one from my last post.  I used watercolor paper and some Distress Ink in three different shades, dipping the paper into the different colors and drying the ink after each layer.  Once it was done, I added the detail layer in black card stock and found a butterfly tag in my supply stash.  I brought more pink into the design with a panel behind the tag, mounted it on black, and then found a tone-on-tone orange patterned paper.  A scattering of Pretty Pink Posh sequins is the final detail.


I like to attach my sequins with Ranger's Multi Medium Matte, which is a creamy paste-like glue that dries clear and holds things VERY securely.  You can still get them off the paper, but you have to aggressively tear them off - they won't just fall off by themselves.  The only other dimension is a little bit of foam tape under the butterfly.



I picked a sentiment stamp from MFT that has a cute font and fits perfectly in the center of the tag.  Since I make so many cards of all sorts, I will often select a sentiment for aesthetic reasons.  Plus, a sentiment such as this one can have multiple meanings, and the message you add to the inside of the card can be anything you want :-)

Here's a partial list of the items I used and links where you can find them:

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Friday, February 19, 2016

Wild Watercolor Butterfly

Hello, friends!  Todays offering is a little bit wild, but I was so in love with the background and the butterfly that I just had to put them together.


It all started with playing around with my Distress Inks and making some small watercolor pieces.  I used Peacock Feathers to start, then added splashes of Picked Raspberry.  Even though I was making multiple layers and drying between each, the water activated the colors and mixed them into the most GORGEOUS purples you have ever seen.  I wanted vibrant colors with clearly defined edges, which is accomplished by drying your inks between every application of ink.  It's SO much fun to play with your inks like this, and I encourage you to do the same :-)


This picture shows the background stamping with it's fabulous glitter and shine!  I got this look by stamping black paper with clear VersaMark ink and adding a glittered clear embossing powder.  The powder has the same turquoise/hot pink sparkles that are a perfect match for my butterfly.  Since the watercolor paper had some scraps left over, I used a heart-shaped die to cut out some little embellishments.  I glued them down and then covered them with glossy accents.


Isn't this the prettiest shot of the butterfly?  You can see all the variations in color, and the way that the background glitter coordinates so nicely.  I decided to add dots of white gel pen around the edges of the wings to help it stand out against the busy background.  I also found the perfect turquoise colored card stock to edge the background with and use in my sentiment piece.


And, of course, you know I HAD to bump up the butterfly on foam tape!  It's a favorite trick of mine that I will probably use on 99% of my card creations :-)  Embrace the foam!!

Here's a pretty complete list of all the materials I used for this project:

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Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Stained Glass Roses

Good morning!  Today I'm feeling a little under the weather, so this will be a quick one.  I was browsing the deeper pages of one of my favorite online shops when I stumbled across the Elizabeth Craft Designs outline stickers.  I had always wanted to try them but never did.  Boy, are they fun!  They have a wonderful look of stained glass about them, and the stickers have a glossy raised surface.  You can see a bit of the shine in the upper left on the second photo.  I was worried about them distorting but, as long as you're careful, you can lay them down gently and they fall into place perfectly.  Just be aware that static cling is an issue, and the stickers are drawn to your paper as soon as the two get close to each other :-)


For this rose I decided to go with a classic pink combination with a pretty yellow-green leaf.  The Copic background is actually lavender, but my camera turned it blue :-(  I hand trimmed my white card stock around the oval sticker, then layered it with a cute Doodlebug floral paper and a scallop-edged panel of black.  The focal piece was then popped up over a background of simple stripes and another layer of black.  I absolutely LOVE to use black as a base for papers, and go through it faster than any other color of card stock.  I like to buy the 50-sheet Recollections black card stock from my local Michael's - the price is excellent and the paper is thin enough to work very well in layering.


This closer look shows the delicate floral pattern on the pink paper.  I am a huge fan of Doodlebug and all of their adorable papers, and this tiny pattern is amazingly versatile.  I only had a few sheets of it and it's already gone - I guess I need to go shopping again :-)


Here you can see the focal panel is popped up just a bit over the background.  Again, I do this just about every time I make something, but it's such an effective way to add instant interest to a card!  It also draws your eye to the delicate scallops.  The minute I saw those dies I knew I had to have them, and I think they'll pop up in many future projects.

Again, I've complied a list of most of the items I used to create this card.  The roses were colored with my Copic Sketch markers, and if you'd like to know the colors I used please leave me a comment below.

Supplies I used:

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Modern Blooms

This is a card that I just made recently.  I was playing around with MFT's (My Favorite Things) Modern Blooms stamp set and matching dies.  I think that it turned out really cute!



To start with, I cut a panel in Black Licorice card stock and then arranged some of the flower and leaf dies on it and ran it through my machine.  This created negative spaces in the panel.  I then glued a piece of Neenah Solar White card stock to the back of the black piece so that I could stamp the coordinating flowers and leaves, through the black layer and down on the white layer beneath.  This effect would be accentuated if I had bumped up the black panel on foam squares, but I didn't choose that this time.  I also ran into a bit of an issue because the red flower didn't exist in the stamp set!  Somehow, I had this random die in the envelope with the others, and used it on the black piece without realizing it.  When I was later stamping and saw my mistake, I grabbed a Fantastix coloring stick and used it to draw in my own flowers.  I think they look just fine :-)

When the stamping was done, I felt the panel needed something more, so I used my white gel pen to draw dashed stitch lines around all of the shapes.  This really helped tie them together, and I think gave the panel a cute sewing-pattern look.  To play up the pretty red flowers, I attached the panel to a sheet of red & white pinstriped paper, then tied on a double layer of red & white baker's twine and tied a double bow.  The finished panel was then bumped up on 3M foam tape over a coordinating green patterned paper and attached to a top-folding card base made from Neenah Solar White card stock.

As is often the case, adding a sentiment was the final step.  I decided on a little stitched-edge tag, then found 2 different Simon Says Stamp birthday sets to create a custom message.  I just tucked the tag under the bow (they aren't tied together) and then secured it with a piece of double-sided tape.  Viola!  A bright and happy birthday card that would work for just about anyone!

Here's a list of most of the items I used for this card:

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