HYDRANGEA

The current Ellen Hutson's Pinsights challenge has some pretty blues and grays for inspiration - so I chose to use those colors with the mondo hydrangea stamp (a favorite of mine).

I watercolored the white embossed flower with my Zigs and a damp brush, stamped the flower again in a soft gray onto a light gray base, added the sentiment from the same set in black and heat embossed in clear, added some clear raindrops, rounded the corner and done!!

Thanks for visiting today and love to read your kind comments.   

 

JANUARY CARD CHAIN CHALLENGE

This month the Card Chain Challenge uses two shades of purple and yellow (I substituted gold for the yellow).  My card is going to Jo in England.

Used my Zigs to color a flower from a HA My Monthly Hero kit and added the sentiment.  Sorry that large dot looks black in the photo - it's really gold - just noticed it now - and Jo already has the card so I can't undo.

All for now - thanks for stopping by.

"INSPIRED BY" VALENTINES

Since Valentine's Day is only a few weeks away, I've been making quite a few lately.  The Inspired by All the Little Things challenge today prompted me to make these two.

The background paper in the first one is from the Target $$ bin and I made the background for the second one with some swirls from EH - the "happy" sentiment is from Concord & 9th and the rest is from an old HA set.

Thanks for visiting today and have a great rest of the weekend.

HEARTS & FLOWERS

The challenge this month at A Blog Named Hero is "New to Me" - and just about everything on my card is new.  

First I colored the floral heart from my new January My Monthly Hero kit  with my new Altenew alcohol markers (crazy easy to use).  Die cut the background with my new HA confetti heart die - once in white and once on a piece of gold with Stick-It on the back so I could get those little gold hearts in place easily.  The large gold heart was cut with my new HA infinity heart dies.  I love to make valentines to send to those I love - but I think I kind of went overboard on the new heart stuff this month:)

I am entering this in a few challenges - Darnell's NBUS (never been used), CAS on Sunday (hearts), and the Paper Players (flowers).

Thanks for visiting today.

 

BLUE AND YELLOW

Am just going to get in under the wire with my entry in the Flower Challenge for this month.  I had been wanting to do a card with the technique used on the MIM challenge a few weeks ago, so combined this technique with the blue and yellow for a Valentine.

I die cut a heart on a post-it note and then did the stamping around it with the little flowers, leaves and hearts from the January My Monthly Hero kit - just used a variety of inks.  The sentiment is also from the kit.  Trimmed it out and mounted it on a blue card base.  Fun technique - also did one in shades of pink and purple.

 Thanks for stopping by and for all your kind comments.

DEER IN THE FOREST

This week the challenge at Merry Monday is "reindeer".  Decided on a shaker card with the deer die cuts on the outside of the shaker.

 

Stenciled the trees onto white that had first been sponged randomly with some frost white paint.  This gave the background kind of a shimmery look plus it made the trees look like there was snow/frost on them.  Die cut the piece with a frame die and put it back together again with foam tape on the frame, acetate and sprinkles to make the shaker.  Added the deer - done and dusted!

 

 

Thanks for stopping by and love to read your kind comments.

 

 

MERRY

This is my first post for A Blog Named Hero Facebook Team which I was asked to join in December - I will be posting a card to carry out the monthly theme for ABNH the second and fourth Thursday every month. The theme for the January challenge is "New to Me" - this can be a new stamp, a new technique, new anything.

I chose to use a "new to me" technique - painting with alcohol inks.  TaeEun has colored flowers with alcohol inks, but i have no idea how she really does this - so I decided to just do my own thing.  First I gold heat embossed the flowers and leaves (from the April My Monthly Hero Kit).  Then I added cranberry, watermelon and shell pink inks, wet a small brush with blending solution and just played around with the color.  Did the same for the leaves with lettuce and botanical inks.  Since I kind of went out of the lines while doing this, I put some ink on an acrylic block with some blending solution and painted all around the leaves and flower.  Wasn't intending to make a Christmas card, but since the flower looked like a poinsettia, I went along with that.  Lastly I put some of the green on my brush and spattered it.  Added some gold seed beads and the glitter sentiment backed with black.

This card goes along with the following challenges:

CAS Mix-Up (liquid inks, stamping and embossing)
Happy Little Stampers Christmas (anything goes)
A Blog Named Hero (new to me)

Remember to stop by A Blog Named Hero Facebook page and A Blog Named Hero for the latest Hero Arts inspiration and to enter the monthly challenge!  

Thanks for visiting today and reading your comments makes my day!

MR. & MRS.

The Paper Players' challenge this week is "going green" - use something recycled on your card.  I often save cards that have a potential for remaking into a new card.  The recycled part of my card is the embossed piece with the sentiment in silver on the bottom right.  It was the front of a thank you from a recently married couple.  I couldn't get the sentiment to show up very well in the photo, but it says Mr. & Mrs.

I trimmed the piece down and matted it in black.  The flower and leaves were colored with Zigs - covered the whole flower with spectrum noir clear, added a few sequins and done.

I am also entering this in Color Throwdown.

 

Thanks for stopping by today and also for your kind comments.