Make it Monday Watercolor Smooshing

I wanted to try my hand at "smooshing" so I decided to join in with the Papertrey Ink Make it Monday this week.

The colors I used to "smoosh" are Hibiscus Burst, Harvest Gold, Limeade Ice, and Blueberry Sky.  The stamp sets are No Strings Attached and Birthday Bash Sentiments.  I loved playing around with this technique and can't wait to try it on more cards!

Have a lovely day!

Simon Says Stamp March 2015 card kit

I've spent the last couple of days making cards using the March Simon Says Stamp card kit.  I really love receiving these kits in the mail each month.  I'm a "kit" lover from way back in my scrapbook days when I was subscribed to several monthly kits.  There's just something about receiving a monthly box of coordinated products that is irresistible to me!  I love that the SSS kits contain a new stamp set each month, along with an assortment of 6X6 patterned papers, card stock, occasional dies, and fun embellishments.  There's also lots of inspiration to be found in their card kit gallery if you're stuck for ideas of how to use the kit.  With the March kit I was able to create 13 cards!  The only thing I needed to add from my stash in order to do that was several sheets of card stock for the card bases.  That's quite a value in my book.  I'm sharing just a few of the cards I made with this month's kit:

The Classique journaling cards that came in this months kit made creating cards an absolute snap.  All of these cards except the first one uses one of the those cards.

Thanks for stopping by today,

Diane

Make it Monday Doodling with Stamps

This week at Papertrey Ink their Make it Monday video is all about doodling with your stamps.  I picked the sweet little houses from Love Lives Here to try my hand at it.

The houses were pretty easy to "doodle" around because of all the straight lines.  I stamped them first on watercolor paper with Papertrey Ink inks, then used a wet brush to lightly paint over them.  This is such a fun technique and I can't wait to try it with more stamp sets :)

Diane

Hello

I had a chance to play around with some of my new PTI products today, and I must say I am IN LOVE with their new vellum!  It's a beautiful weight, and the patterns are simply lovely.  I love how the striped vellum in my card below muted the Pure Poppy card stock base.

The new floral set, Bitty Bouquets, is a breeze to stamp with.  Here I cased Betsy Veldman's wreath card that she made for the February release.  The wreath was stamped with New Leaf, Pure Poppy, Hibiscus Burst, and Summer Sunrise.  To make the wreath easier to stamp I first traced a circle on the card stock lightly with a pencil.  I stamped the leaves around the circle, then erased the pencil marks, then proceeded with stamping the flowers.   I splattered some ink on the wreath using New Leaf.  The lovely sentiment is a new one from Maile Belles new set, Swoosh.  I almost didn't order this, it was a last minute decision to do so, and I'm so happy I did!  I can tell I'll be using these sentiments a lot!

Have a lovely day!

PTI 8th Anniversary Day 3 (Bagged & Tagged)

Today I'm sharing a bag with a matching gift tag I made for PTI's Anniversary celebration.

I used the Front & Center #1 die to cut out the bitty dot paper to make my bag.

I made a shaker tag (inspired by Melissa Phillips), using the Journal Card #7 die, and stamps and dies from Birthday Style.  The papers are from Monthly Moments: June Journal Card Collection.  I love how the tag turned out and can see myself making many more of these!

Thanks for stopping by today,

Diane

PTI 8th Anniversary Celebration Day 2 (inspired by Maile Belles)

Hello!  I've recently started making cards again after living through an extremely difficult time where all I could manage to do was survive day to day.  My struggles were deeply personal so I won't be discussing them here, but I can say I'm in a much better place now thanks to the love and support of family and friends.  I've started this new blog (formerly Peaceful Lane) as a way of touching base with the crafty community I've grown to love, and have really missed these past months.  I'm going to be keeping things very simple with this blog, sharing when I can, but not putting any expectations or pressure on myself.  Art is supposed to be fun and therapeutic, after all :)

I made this card for PTI's 8th Anniversary Celebration.  PTI announced that Maile Belles was returning as a designer after a year's hiatus.  I love Maile's clean, simple style and was inspired by this card she made.

I used the same colors and card design as Maile (Harvest Gold, Pure Poppy, Aqua Mist), but I used the Big Hugs stamp set to stamp my images.  I love the versatility of this design and plan to try it with different words/stamp sets and colors.

Diane