Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Keeping Christmas Inspiration Hop


Hello! I'm joining some delightfully talented ladies on the 25th of every month with a fun Christmas creation. I don't know about you, but I always find myself rushing to get things done in the couple of months leading up to Christmas. I'm trying to keep that from happening this year by putting together a couple of creations each month to put in my stash so I won't be crazy busy when Christmas rolls around.

It's the 25th, so it's time for a Christmas creation!


This card is so super simple to put together that you could mass produce it without a problem. I simply arranged all those snowflakes (I used the retired Snowflake Flurry set from MFT) in my MISTI so I could stamp them all at once with Versamark ink and then heat embossed them with white powder. It would be so easy to just stamp and heat emboss a bunch of card bases at once.

I used an ink blending tool to blend in some Broken China distress oxide ink through the top left corner to cover all the stamped snowflakes and make them stand out. I kept blending it out until it eventually melted into the white card. Again, it would be super easy to mass produce by blending a bunch of card bases at once. You could even mix it up by using a bunch of different inks.

Last, I used my MISTI to stamp my sentiment in the bottom right portion of the card. And once again, it would be super easy to stamp multiples because of the MISTI! You could use the same sentiment for every card or mix it up with other sentiments from the same hand-lettered set I was using.

That's it for this month's card! Don't forget to hop along with the rest of the ladies in the hop!


Tuesday, April 24, 2018

CASology: Active

Hello! It's time for another brand new cue from CASology!


This is another cue that I really struggled with. I think I was just overthinking it. (I almost missed my deadline because I was so stumped!) I finally sat down and just flipped through a few of my stamp sets. I stopped on this particular sentiment set from Mama Elephant. It's a gorgeous script that creates a line across your card front. Then I thought - Wow, I bet I could get an image to look active on top of that line! And that's how my idea was born!


This card is incredibly simple to put together and requires very little coloring! I used my MISTI to stamp my sentiment so I was sure that it would be straight and then stamped my little penguin so he would be skating on top of the line. I used just a few copics to color him in and give him a little bit of dimension, but I thought he was still missing something. So I went back in with a little heart from my sentiment set and added just a touch of red ink. I think it helped balance it all nicely.

That's it! One layer and super simple to put together. I hardly used any copic ink, so there wasn't even any bleeding through my paper. Can't get much more CAS than that!

Thanks for stopping by!



Tuesday, April 17, 2018

CASology: Parent

Hello! It's time for a new cue from CASology!


With Mother's Day right around the corner, I decided to create a card that I could send for the holiday. (Most likely my mother-in-law because my Mom creeps on my social media!)


I started this card by creating the card base first. I knew I wanted to add an extra little something to it to make it super special. I just love these coverplates from Lil Inker Designs so I settled on this pretty stitched spiral plate. They're a fantastic way to add interest to a plain card base without adding any extra layers or bulk. I simply ran my card base through my Big Shot with my coverplate and I got this incredibly pretty card! I also cut out a circle from some vellum so that my focal image wouldn't get lost in the stitching on the front of the card.

I set these aside and then used my MISTI to stamp my floral image. I colored it in with my Copics and then used my Brother Scan N Cut 2 to cut it out. Then I used my MISTI to stamp my sentiment on a strip of black cardstock in Versamark ink. I heat embossed in white powder and then used my scissors to snip a flag on the end. I added a dab of Multi Medium Matte to the end of the flag to adhere it to the back of my floral image.

I adhered my floral image with attached flag to the vellum circle using some foam tape and then added a little bit more Multi Medium Matte behind the image on the back of the vellum to adhere it to the card base without the adhesive showing through on the front. I finished it off by adding just a few Lemon Drop jewels from Pretty Pink Posh.


I know this is a little more elaborate than I normally go for, but I wanted to make something extra special for Mother's Day!

Thanks for stopping by!


Saturday, April 14, 2018

Waving Hello Tutorial

Hello! I'm here today with a photo tutorial for how I colored water from an earlier post featuring a Chubby Mermaid.  I had a lot of people across social media asking me how I created the background, so I decided to create a new card with the same technique and photograph the process. Forgive me if the photos are a little dark, I created this card this morning in my craft room and it was pretty overcast here in Utah. I did the best I could, but the weather just wasn't cooperating!

Here's what the card looks like as a finished product:


Looks complicated, right? Wrong! It's actually really easy to create your own project that looks just like this without much effort. I'll walk you through my creative process below...


Here's what I started with. Simple, really. I just stamped my two images on some plain white cardstock and got to coloring.


I started with my mermaid. (If you'd like another tutorial showing you my process for coloring people/creatures, just let me know and I'll do it another day!)


Next up, my fishies. Still looks a little bare, right? Well, we're about to start on that background!


I grabbed a bunch of blues from my copic stash and set them out on the table. I started with my lightest blue to give it a bit of a base to build on. All I did was add stripes of color coming up from and down from the images. Looks pretty choppy. Don't worry, as you add color, the water comes together and starts to actually look like water!


This is after a couple additions of darker blues. Starting to come together, right? I just kept adding stripes of color on top of the lighter colors. I didn't color it in completely, but left spaces so that the lighter colors shine through from behind the darker stripes.


To give my water some dimension, I also added some blue green and blue violet. If you really look at water, it doesn't just look like one color. If you use just one color, it'll look a little flat. By adding in some purple and blue green, it begins to look shimmery like there's light shining through it.


Okay, now it's time for bubbles. This also helps to break up those stripes of color a little bit and make it look more like water. All this is are spots of colorless blender. I varied the size of my dots because bubbles aren't all the same size. I then went in with my darkest blue yet and added a few varied dots with it. Those bubbles look like they're farther behind the images because they're darker.


Time for some white bubbles. I went in with my Signo white gel pen and added just a few dots of white bubbles. Some of them overlap where my other bubbles already are. These are the brightest bubbles, so they're going to appear closer to you.


Now it's time to cut out my panel. I centered the mermaid within the die and then used my Big Shot to cut it out.


Now that everything is cut out and centered, I used my MISTI to stamp my sentiment. This ensures that the sentiment is straight and doesn't stamp incorrectly. It would seriously stink if I went to all that coloring trouble and then ruined it with a crooked sentiment!


Now I went back in with my colorless blender, darkest blue, and gel pen and added just a few more bubbles around the sentiment to tie it in with my images.


Time to bring it all together into a card. I simply used my glue runner to attach my panel to a white card base. I want to keep it flat because it's going to be mailed.


I finished it all off by adding just a touch of clear Wink of Stella to my fish and my mermaid's fin. It adds just a touch of fun detail. I decided that this was all the embellishment this one needed.

That's it! From start to finish! Simple, isn't it? I bet you could create your own underwater card just like mine! Give it a try and let me know how it goes!

I'm entering this card into the current Addicted to CAS challenge - bubbles. It was just perfect timing!


Thanks for stopping by!


Thursday, April 12, 2018

Freshly Made Sketches Entry

Hello! I've been in the crafty mood lately and I've been looking through some of the challenges that I used to enter, but haven't had time for in a while. This week's Freshly Made Sketch was right up my alley, so I broke out my supplies and whipped something up to join!



I used a ton of different supplies from different companies for this one. It gave me a chance to just be creative for the sake of creativity which is something that I haven't had much time for recently. It's so much fun to just use the products I love because I love them!


Okay, so to start this card, I knew I wanted a white card base. I cut and folded a base from some Neenah Solar White and then stamped my Marble background in Versamark ink. I heat embossed the card front with Pearl embossing powder to create a fun tone-on-tone look with some shine. It's really beautiful in real life. Super shiny and shimmery. I'm in love with it!

Next up, I cut a piece of Crumb Cake cardstock down to 1 1/2 inches by 5 1/2 inches. I ran it through my Big Shot with my Stitched Woodgrain cover plate to give it that stitched detail. I adhered this to my card front using foam tape for some dimension.

I stamped my images using my MISTI and then used my copics to color them. I cut them out using my Brother Scan N Cut (yay for no fussy cutting!). I stamped my sentiment in Versamark on a piece of pink paper to match my roses and then heat embossed with white embossing powder. I cut the piece down to a strip and then adhered it behind my image.

I used a combination of foam tape and my tape runner to adhere the flowers and the sentiment strip across the base/woodgrain strip. To finish it off, I added a little glitter detail to the water using my Clear Wink of Stella pen.

So there you have it. A card created with a bunch of my current favorite products. These are the things that have been living on my desk for the past couple of weeks and seem to find their way into cards frequently - but never together until today!

Thanks for stopping by!


Tuesday, April 10, 2018

CASology: Believe

Hello and welcome back for a brand new cue from the CASology challenge!


This week's cue is perfect for my stash because I have a ton of stamp sets that will work. And luckily enough, Mama Elephant recently released a couple of stamp sets that I just couldn't resist featuring some adorable dragons.


Isn't this little guy adorable!? I just love him! I stamped him on some scrap cardstock and then used my Brother Scan n Cut to cut him out. I colored him with my Copics and then set him aside and got to work on my card base.

I used an embossing pad to emboss a die cut into the front of my card base. This is a great way to stretch your dies and get even more use out of them. Plus, it helps keep my card extra clean and simple by avoiding the bulk of another die cut.

I stamped my sentiment in Versamark ink on some black cardstock and then heat embossed in white powder. I cut it down to a thin strip and used foam tape to adhere it to the front of my card base. I adhered my dragon using a mix of foam tape and multi medium matte so that it was even with the sentiment strip, but still supported on top of the card base.

I finished it off by adding a few gems from the newest Pretty Pink Posh release.

Thanks for stopping by today and don't forget to link up your creations to the challenge!


Friday, April 6, 2018

Merlin's Pants!

With my husband away, the mice will play! And by mice I mean me! I've been playing with my Copics and experimenting with drawing in backgrounds and that's where this card came from.


I cut a piece of white cardstock down the size of an A2 card base and then stamped my little Ron to the side. I then went about sketching in my Whomping Willow with my lightest brown marker. I outlined the basic shape that I wanted and then gradually started adding in streaks of darker browns until it looked relatively like a tree!

I then went on to the grass. I colored the base area with YG01 and then started adding in small flicks of grass with gradually darker greens. When that was finished, I moved on to the sky. I added B00 in upward flicks from the ground toward the sky and then added flicks of B000 through the middle. To finish it off, I used B0000 to flick through the top. This created a gradient look for the blues.

I finished up the coloring by coloring in my little Ron the way I normally do.

I used my Calli Letters from Mama Elephant to stamp my sentiment in Versamark on black cardstock and then heat embossed it in white. I cut the strip down to the right size to fit over the bottom of the card base and then used double sided tape to attach it.

I used the same double sided tape to attach my panel to a top folding card base.

Thanks for stopping by!


Thursday, April 5, 2018

Be a Mermaid

Hello! My husband's away on a business trip for a few days, so I've been playing in my craft room. I decided to break out my copics and try my hand at a water background.


I stamped my mermaid on a panel cut from a Stitched Rectangle die using my MISTI. At this  point, I left the sentiment off because I didn't want it to get in the way of my coloring.

I started by coloring my mermaid the way I always do and then moved on to the new part - the background! It's actually a lot easier than it looks, I swear! I used several different shades of blue to create stripes of coloring all around the mermaid. As you add more and more stripes, the colors begin to blend together and look like less of a mess a more like abstract water. To finish off the creation, I took my colorless blender pen, BG10, and B93 to create bubbles surrounding my mermaid. To add the final touch, I added just a few white bubbles with my gel pen.

I added my sentiment by stamping in Versamark ink and then heat embossing in silver powder. I adhered my panel to a white card base with my glue runner and it was all finished!

Seriously, this card looks really difficult to put together, but it was actually really easy! I was nervous to try it out, but really pleased with the results!

Thanks for stopping by today!


Tuesday, April 3, 2018

CASology: Start

Hello! I'm back today with a new cue from CASology!


I took a look through my stamps and was stuck for a little while until I started thinking a little outside the box. I stopped looking for a sentiment with the actual word in it and started thinking about what you can start in your life. And what's better than a fun trip!?


This card is super simple. It's one layer and doesn't feature any coloring (totally different for me!). I started by using my MISTI to position my silhouette of London (retired stamp set from Clearly Besotted). I stamped it once in black ink and then used a circle die to make a mask from some scrap paper. I placed it over the city and then used some post it tape to mask off the bottom of the circle below the city.

I used 3 different Mama Elephant pigment inks to create my sunset blend - Apricot, Orangeade, and Sunshine. I blended Sunshine lightly up from the bottom of the city and then blended Apricot in from the top. I used Orangeade in the center to create a smooth blend between the two original inks.

I removed my mask and then used my MISTI again (I simply left the stamp in the same position inside it) to restamp my cityscape in black ink to make sure the impression was really dark after all the blending. I then used the MISTI to stamp the sentiment below my city.

Easy-peasy!

Thanks for stopping by today and don't forget to link up your own creations on the CASology post!