~Create.365 ~ Sharing My Paper Crafting Life

Today's design team project uses the latest sketch from Atlantic Hearts and a cute layering bird stamp set that I received with one of my British craft magazines several months ago and am just finally getting around to using for the first time! 

Since the branch and leaves are all one stamp, in order to get them to have two different colors I had to color the stamps up first with water based markers -after stamping the image I then went over everything with a water brush to try to help the colors flow better. It didn't work perfectly, but it'll have to be good enough, lol!

The bird layers I stamped in 2 shades of brown plus the slate blue. This stamp set also came with 2 matching die cuts, so I used them to cut out the bird and his wing for dimension on this otherwise CAS card.

After stamping the sentiment in the slate blue, I then die cut the whole stamped panel out and layered it on to the front of a slate blue card front.

Until next time~

Today's card was designed for the "Inlaid Die-Cut" challenge @ the Mix It Up Challenge Blog and inspired by sketch #271 @ Hand Stamped Sentiments. I will also be entering it @ Fashionable Stamping Challenge for "Use Your Inks Any Way You Like". As I said last week, October is a busy month for wedding anniversaries for our family -so here is Anniversary card #2...

All the stamps and dies used for this card are from Close To My Heart and the circle cutting tool is from Creative Memories. I made the card using an A7 size white card base and covered it with a wine colored patterned paper from my stash of 12 x 12 sheets.

I trimmed 2 circles of the same size -one for the front layer and one for the back layer. The front layer is where I did the stamping and the die-cutting. Using a stamp positioning tool with layering stamp sets is such a Godsend! I used two different shades of gray dye ink (Memento and Stampin' Up!) to stamp the swan body and the wings. I saved the beak for last -so much easier to do it AFTER you've die-cut them out!

Once I had them die cut out of the front circle I carefully blended 2 colors of blue Distress inks -using the lighter color (Stormy Sky) at the top for the sky and the darker color (Faded Jeans) at the bottom for the water. I then stamped the waves also in the darker ink across the bottom.

I also stamped the cat-tails in two steps -the green first and the brown after I had them already die-cut out. The banner was stamped twice on the soft blush/petal colored cardstock and heat embossed in Pearl White before being fussy cut out. (Wine and Petal were the featured colors at my daughter's wedding last October and that is why I chose these colors for their card)

After assembling all the basic layers, including the wine colored ribbon, according to the sketch, I stamped "Happy" in wine ink and heat embossed "Anniversary" in Pearl White on a piece of vellum.

To get the inlaid die-cut look, I adhered the swans flat to the back circle that I had blended the lighter blue Distress ink over and then popped the top layer up around it using foam tape. I also stamped the hearts in wine ink and fussy cut them out -popping just the biggest one up with a mini pop dot.

Although this card took a lot of steps to complete, I was so pleased with the way it unfolded...I'd had a vision in my head of what I wanted to do and just wasn't sure if I could pull it off, lol. But I am happy to report that I did it!

Inside I kept things nice and simple, stamping the sentiment and the tiny heart in wine ink and that's it! My daughter and I both love the Nicholas Sparks book and movie of The Notebook, so I am hoping she will catch the Swan reference, but if she doesn't that's ok too. I love swans for the symbolism they represent of a lifelong love -I even have a swan charm on my Pandora bracelet. Because I love them so much, I just had to have this stamp and die set when it went on sale last month!

Until next time~

Today's card was inspired by sketch #328 from Try Stampin' On Tuesday and will also be entered for "Wet -n- Wild" @ Little Red Wagon, for "Primary Colors" @ Pile It On, for "Gone Fishing" @ Fashionable Stamping Challenges, for "Make Your Own Background" @ Come And Get It, and for "Bright Colors" @ Dare 2B Artzy.

This card is made on a white, side folding A2 size card base and the first step was sending the light blue layer through my Amaze machine with a swirly, wave like embossing folder. I then highlighted the embossed images with Blueprint Sketch Distress ink and the distressing tool.


I trimmed a banner from white cardstock according to the sketch and stamped the penguin and some of the small fish (both from a long ago retired Stampin' Up set) in Momento Tuxedo Black ink. The rest of the fish I inked up using a black brush marker so that I could eliminate the little  motion lines behind the fish each time.


I dug out an old Close To My Heart sentiment stamp set for the "You Make Me Happy" phrase  that I stamped in the front right corner of the banner and then colored the whole image with Spectrum Noir alcohol marker pens.


For some added interest, I wrapped and tied a piece of pretty variegated blue ribbon across the top and adhered the banner to the card front using foam pop dots.


I lightly brushed the edges of the white card front with the blue distress ink and added 3 blue sequins to the water. I finished by adding some details with a white gel pen and a Stardust glitter Gelly Roll pen.


For the inside sentiment, I used a black brush marker to selectively ink the "you're fin-tastic" from an old SU! valentine stamp set (see the whole stamp 3 photos above) and then stamped and colored the little fishie too.


This card is now finished and ready to be given to my hubby sometime in the next few weeks!

Today's card was made using sketch #65 from Your Next Stamp and inspired by the "Winged Things" theme from The Artistic Stamper, the "F for Feathered Friends" theme from The Alphabet Challenge and the "Flowers and Friends make Life a Garden" quote challenge from the Time Out Challenge Blog. 

I started out with a birch A5 side folding card base and a piece of birch cardstock that I cut into a 4" circle using my Creative Memories circle cutting tools and templates.

The stamps I used are from A*Muse Studio (I think they were a past stamp of the month set from 2016) and the patterned paper was from an old Basic Grey Collection called Sweet Pea Alyssa.

The vintage bird was stamped in Tuxedo Black Momento ink and colored using water colors. Once that was dry, I used 2 shades of distress inks to give the edges of the circle a vintage photo look...but after I did it, I was wishing I hadn't, lol...oh well -it was clearly too late now. So I made the best of it and used some sky blue chalks to brighten up the sky a bit more.

The "hello" was die cut from both pink glitter paper and white fun foam to layer and add some dimension to the front of my card. Foam pop dots completed the look by popping up the bird circle just a tiny bit too. 

Final touches to the card front included clear sequins in 3 different sizes from Pretty Pink Posh and I even used my Gelly Roll Star Dust pen to add some glittery details to the middle of each flower blossom.

The inside of the card was stamped also in black ink, softly colored with chalks and I then tore the edge of a patterned paper scrap and glued it to the bottom right corner. This card is now finished and ready to mail to one of my aunt's later this year.

Until next time~

Today's card was a fun one to make and I will be entering it @ House-Mouse and Friends for their "Embossing Challenge", @ Deep Ocean Challenge Blog for their "Your Furry/Feathered Friends" challenge and @ Words 2 Craft By for their Spring = Party Time challenge.

Once again, I broke out my well-loved Old World mat stack, along with a top folding A2 white card base. I currently only own 4 House-Mouse stamps, but I just adore them! The Doily Blooms stamp set is from FSJ, but was on the Retired stamp list that came out last week and is sadly now Sold Out. 

I chose to do heat embossing for the challenge and stamped my images around the edges of the card in Versamark ink. I repeated each image 2 times, but only stamped and embossed (in white powder) one design at a time so that I could see my placement on the patterned paper better. I also used ScraPerfect's Perfect Crafting Pouch to prep my paper before embossing and the Perfect Cleaning Cloth when I was all done.

Then to give the paper more of an ombre look and to help those gorgeous lacey images pop against the light blue, I blended Faded Jeans Distress Ink all along the edges. The mouse image was stamped with Momento Tuxedo Black ink and carefully colored with Spectrum Noir pens and fussy cut out.

I popped the focal image up with mini foam dots to give it dimension and adhered the panel to my card front with my ATG gun.

To finish the card front off, I used a corner rounder punch on the four bottom corners. I am really in love with the way this card turned out...now I just have to decide who I want to give it to.

For the inside of the card, I used the scrap of patterned paper left over from the card front on the bottom and used my mini blending tool again to color the white doily a soft blue. The retired TAC "hello" I stamped in FSJ Licorice Black ink and the "lovely" is die cut from metallic gray cardstock and adhered with my ScraPerfect Best Glue Ever.

Until next time~

Today's card is one we will be making at our library class for the month of July and was inspired by the Tic-Tac-Toe challenge #342 over at the Paper Players blog...this was my first time participating in that kind of a challenge and it was fun being presented with so many design possibilities to choose from! I went vertically with the first "down" column and chose "Circle-Sequins -Pink" for my card. I will also be applying it to the "Anything Goes " challenge at Word Art Wednesday and the Simon Says Stamps "Hint of Pink" challenge.

Using an A2 size side folding white card front, the first step was to create the circle background using dye based inks in two pink colors and "stamping" with the circular blender applicators. Once I had the alternating color rows laid out, I then went back in and blended the color a bit so that there was no white space showing. Next step was to take the mini mister and drop water onto the inked background to pull up some of the color for a very subtle pattern...also in circles, for the most part, lol. This showed up much better on the darker of the two pinks, but I just kept going until I got the look I was after.

Both of the stamp sets I used today are retired and from The Angel Company (TAC). I stamped in Licorice Black ink on white for the flamingo image and sentiments, then trimmed an aqua and a green panel to frame it with on the card front.

Before I put the blending tools tools away, I used the darker pink color to ink the white paper flower and added a mini white brad thru the center of it. After assembling the layers on the card front with the Best Glue Ever, I added a light pink organza ribbon tied into a knot to the spine of the card on the left side. I then used the ScraPerfect Best Glue Ever (also known as BGE) to make 2 dots of glue on my label sticker backing sheet...let them dry until clear and you have DIY mini glue dots -perfect for securing both the ribbon and the flower on top of the knot.

The coloring was done with several Prismacolor pencils and the 3 sequins were easily adhered with the help of the magic Embellie Gellie wand and a tiny amount of the BGE...using the large No Clog Writing Cap  with the thin needle tip made controlling how much glue ended up on my project super simple! 

The final touch to the card front was to trace the sentiment with the clear StarDust Gelly Roll pen and to brush clear Wink-of-Stella over the flamingos.

The inside of this card started out as a mistake...I first stamped the "Happy Birthday" sentiment horizontally -thinking that was going to be the final orientation of my card, but I later changed my mind and so decided to do a little bit of "word art" to remedy the situation, lol. The shell was added to bring the tropical theme into the inside and now it is ready to mail to another one of my sister-in-laws during the month of July.