Hello beautiful

Today I'm sharing I card I made for the February Essentials by Ellen Pin-Sights Challenge.  The board this month is gorgeous!

The thing that stood out to me the most was the beautiful bucket of flowers.  I really love red and purple together, so that was my starting inspiration for my card.

I decided to use a technique that I saw on Melissa Phillips blog, LilyBean Paperie.  Here's the LINK if you'd like to check out her gorgeous cards!  To start my card I die cut the largest flower die from Mondo Magnolia using a piece of scrap paper to use as a stencil.  I taped my stencil onto some Tim Holtz watercolor paper and used my ink blending tool and several inks to apply random color.  The red is Barn Red distress ink and I used 2 shades of purple that I got from Club Scrap years ago so I'm not even sure who they're made by.  When I was happy with the colors I added some water droplets.  Next I used a text stamp from Waltzingmouse Stamps and Barn Red distress ink and stamped on top of the flower (with the stencil still in place).  After removing the stencil I added some splatters using both the red and purple inks mixed with some water.

To make the vellum flower I die cut the middle flower shape from Mondo Magnolia from vellum paper and then embossed the center portion of the flower on the vellum with white embossing powder.  The word "hello" is from Mondo Magnolia.  The die cut "beautiful", and the hearts, were cut using Concord & 9th's Beautiful You dies.  It's hard to see in this picture but after I cut the shapes I coated them with Versa Mark ink and white embossing powder and embossed them.  I wanted the white to match the white in the center of the flower.  And one of the things I love best about this card is the cool border die which is from Sugar Pea Designs.  This is my first purchase from that company.  I saw a card made by Amy T. using this die and I had to have it.  What I love about it is that it cuts an A2 card front just as you see here.  So many times I want a very subtle border around my cards and this fits the bill perfectly!  I'm sure you'll be seeing it on a lot of my cards.

That's all from me for now.  I'm headed out of town in 2 days for a week at my Mom's in GA so I won't be on the blog very much for the next week or so other than with my scheduled DT posts.  See you when I get back!

The Challenge #62

Happy Monday, hope you had a wonderful weekend!  Today at The Challenge we have a masculine inspiration challenge.

This challenge was quite a challenge for me lol!  The first thing my eye was drawn to was the map on the wall, and of course I have no map stamps or papers.  I could have gone with just the colors, but I really wanted to pick something out of the room.  I saw the hat, but I have no hat stamps.  Then I spied the camera on the table (almost missed it!), and I thought, BINGO, I have a camera stamp, and it's a Tim Holtz camera stamp which gives it a masculine feel.  Hooray and score!  Next I pulled out the slide frame die from PTI since it worked with my theme.  As for paper,  I wanted to use some kind of brown on my card because the big brown leather couch really stands out to me, so I searched through my paper pads and found the brown arrow paper in a Studio Calico THATAWAY paper pad and I thought it would be perfect with the stamped image.  All of the papers on my card are from that paper pack.  I cut a few little arrows with a die from MFT and stacked several layers to give them more dimension.  I also added several layers to just the outside piece of the slide frame for dimension.  The card is finished with a bit of twine.  For as much as I angsted over what I was going to do for this challenge,  I'm very pleased with how everything came together.  Ahhh, such is the life of a card maker!

I hope you'll try your hand at the inspiration photo, can't wait to see what you create!  Be sure to pop over to Lesley's blog to see her card and what the rest of the DT has created!

Have a fabulous week!

 

Happy Easter

I'm sneaking in with a last minute card for the February Reverse Confetti SFYTT.  I was waiting for the Hippity Hoppity stamp set to arrive, along with the Lawn Fawn plaid paper pad that I'd ordered from Simon Says Stamp, to create my card.  I had an idea in mind for the sketch, and although my original plan didn't work out I'm very happy with the card I ended up creating.

I stamped some of the tiny images from Hippity Hoppity onto the larger hearts from the Love Note Confetti Cuts and colored them with Copics.  I used the heart outlines from Stamped Note Confetti Cuts to "frame" the Love Note hearts.  I used a piece of the Lawn Fawn plaid paper and cut out the scalloped frame from Love Notes.  If you look closely at the card base you'll see that I stamped some dots (PTI) using light blue ink, I felt that the white background needed a little something but I wanted it to be very subtle.  I finished my card with some light blue bakers twine.

I'm so glad you stopped by today, hope you have a wonderful weekend!

The Card Concept #49

Well hello there, so glad you stopped by today!  I have a card to share that I'm entering in the current Card Concept challenge in the freestyle collage category.  I fell in love with the gorgeous colors in the inspiration photo and had to try my hand at making a card!

The flowers are from Concord & 9th's Floral & Flutter Dies.  I cut them from white card stock and then used a variety of inks and my ink blending tool to color them (Hero Arts Fresh Peach, PTI's Harvest Gold, and Spiced Marmalade distress ink).  For the background I used Cracked Pistachio distress ink and my ink blending tool to lay down some soft color, then I stamped the leaves from Concord & 9th's Wildflower stamp set with Cracked Pistachio for a very subtle look.  I added some splashes of Spiced Marmalade and Cracked Pistachio to the background also.  The sentiment is from Concord & 9th's Beautiful Words stamp set.  I added a few highlights to the flowers with my white gel pen and some Wink of Stella (which you can't see in the photo unfortunately!), and finished the card with gold sequins.

That's all for now, hope you have a wonderful day!

Fusion Card Challenge

Today I'm playing along with the Fusion Card Challenge-Pretty in Pink!  I really love the inspiration photo, the colors pack a real WOW factor in my book!!

I also have a close up of the cake, I added Wink of Stella which you can't see at all on the above photo.

I used the Eat Cake & Celebrate stamps and dies from Concord & 9th to make my card.  They're having a special this month to celebrate their 6 month anniversary and I got these stamps and dies for FREE with a purchase!

To make my card I first stamped the card base with the stripes (Watercolor Stripes from MFT), using Wplus9 Little Piggy ink.  Next I stamped the word "celebrate" repeatedly on a white panel using Versamark ink and white embossing powder, then I added the blue color by using my ink blending tool and Hero Arts Navy Shadow Ink.  The candles were stamped on white paper using the Little Piggy Ink.  I stamped the sentiment and cake using the Navy ink, and added some clear embossing powder to them.  You can do this with the Hero Arts and Wplus9 inks if you do it very quickly, the powder will stick.  I colored my cake with Copic markers and added the Wink of Stella.  I added a the star accents above the sentiment with a cute little stamp that's in the Eat Cake & Celebrate set.

I don't normally buy the dies to match when I buy stamps, because it more than doubles the price of my purchase, but OH MY how I loved having the die here to cut out that cake!  It makes me feel positively SPOILED lol!  I might have to just bite the bullet and start purchasing fewer stamp sets so that I can get the matching dies, particularly when the stamps are more complicated to fussy cut.

Hope my card inspires you to create today!  Thanks for stopping by :)

Caught a bug?

I'm playing along with the Paper Smooches February Challenge-Fun & Cute today!

This is my first time inking up these cute little bugs from the Healthy Vibes stamp set.  Aren't they funny?!  I colored them with Copic markers.  The sentiments are also from the Healthy Vibes stamp set.  The hexagon shapes were cut with MFT dies, and the patterned paper is from the Elle's Studio Cienna collection.  I'm sure this will cheer up whoever receives it (thankfully nobody I know is sick at the moment :) 

Have a wonderful day and thanks for stopping by!

The Challenge #61

Hello there!  It's Monday and that means it's time for another great challenge at The Challenge!  This week we have an inspiration challenge for you, and it's a beauty!

I love this shabby chic kitchen, there are so many lovely textures and if you look closely there are more colors in this picture than you might see at first glance.  For my card today I was inspired by the beautiful bowl of flowers, the pink and green, and of course the luscious wood grain.

I stamped 3 of the hydrangeas from Winnie & Walter's In Bloom: Addie's Garden onto white card stock and heat embossed them in white, then I fussy cut them.  I added 2 shades of light grey Copic markers to the flowers to make them stand out a bit more.  The die cut leaves are from PTI.  I cut the word "home" (a die from Winnie & Walter), and used the negative piece rather than the positive, popping it up with foam tape.  The sentiment "there's no place like" is from Winnie & Walter's Happiest of Holidays with Evelin T. designs.  I based my card layout on the current sketch at Freshly Made Sketches and I'll be entering it there.

The Challenge design team has created a variety of beautiful cards to inspire you, please be sure to check them out on Lesley's blog!