WONDERFUL FRIEND

The May Card Chain Challenge wants raspberry, rose and cream for the colors and then I added friendship to my card to Hilary in England.

I watercolored Concord & 9th Wonderful Florals stamp in colors pretty close to the required ones - then die cut it.  Added the little friend sentiment from the same stamp set.  Used my black gel pen on the stamen of the flowers to set them off a bit.  And ready to fly off to England.

The Card Chain Challenge has reached 3000 card exchanaged and to celebrate there is a blog hop with prizes for comments on the various participants blogs.  The May CCC reveal will have all the hop info so be sure to check it out.  I can't even remember when I joined the CCC - way back when Deb Nolan started it - and have made so many friends - and have continued to be blog friends with them for many years.  Jo and Gail have fun games for the whole month so join in - you can sign up for the June challenge until June 6.

Thanks for visiting today - take care.

SENDING HUGS

The challenge this month at A Blog Named Hero is "sending hugs" - such a wonderful sentiment to be sending to friends now - especially those who are the most isolated.

I wanted to use my metallic glimmer inks on black watercolor paper which I recently purchased.  Stamped and white embossed the magnolia and did my coloring using rose gold and red for the flower and green and gold for the leaves.  Of course catching all the glimmery goodness in the photo is practically impossible, but it really is pretty and was very easy to do.  Did some die cutting for the stitched background and the hugs sentiment and mounted all on a white card base.  Added a few black enamel dots to the center of the flower and done!

There are two gift cards to be won to Hero Arts this month so be sure to enter our challenge.  Thanks for stopping by.

BLUE HIBISCUS

My card today uses the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches and the prompts from the Tic-Tac-Toe Challenge (wood, gray, emboss or wood, stripe (in the wood grain) and blue).

Supplies:

Paper: Papertrey Ink, Hero Arts

Dies: Altenew, The Ton, Spellbinders

Stamps: SSS, The Ton

Thanks for stopping by today.

BOUNTIFUL WREATH

I splurged and bought the bountiful leaves bundle from The Ton last week and have had such fun playing with it - you'll be seeing leaves and more leaves in the future!

I used almost all the leaves to make my wreath.  They are all stamped and gold embossed and then watercolored with my Zigs.  The berry branches were watercolored with Kuretake Gamsai gold metallic and the sentiment embossed in Hero Arts gold.  Dry embossed the stitched circle for added texture.

RetroRubber has a tic-tac-toe challenge this week and I used the line across the top - watercolor, circle, and die cut. The sentiment is from a retired Hero Arts set called "peaceful poinsettia" (guessing 2016). I am also entering my card at CAS Christmas - winter berries, and Christmas Kickstart - wreath.

 Thanks for visiting today. 

PEONIES

My cards today began with Jennifer McGuire's split card technique.  I remembered she said it would work with a large flower and that she had used a layered die cut flower.  Found it's a really BAD IDEA to use a mulit-layered flower die cut from 110 lb.cardstock - believe you would need an industrial strength paper cutter to get through the layers!!!  DUMB ME!!  So I managed to take it all apart and fixed - not quick and easy but then time is not a problem for me these days. 

I had die cut multiples of the peony parts (Altenew's 3D Peony Dream) so used them for my second card.  To make the background, I arranged the second layer around the edges.  Colored the pink peony with various DO inks (worn lipstick, festive berries, abandoned coral, picked raspberry and rusty hinge). The gray leaves were leftovers from the first card.

I am entering these cards at Darnell's Twofer Challenge (flowers), Virginia's Show and Share, Addicted to CAS #184 (flower),  and The Flower Challenge (monochromatic). 

Thanks for stopping by.

WINTER BERRIES

I have two very different cards today for the CAS Christmas Challenge for May.  The first one is my first attempt at no line watercoloring and the second is a wreath card in non-traditional colors for Christmas.

I stamped Penny Black's Christmas Berries in antique linen distress ink and then watercolored using various other distress inks.  I used some colored pencils to add the veins in the leaves.  Spattered with white gouache, die cut with a wonky rectangle, added the enamel dots and the sentiment and done! 

I die cut the leaves from a piece of alcohol inked yupo paper.  The die has little berries and so added the gold sequins on top of them.  Added a few more "berries" around the sentiment and circle background.  Mounted all on ocean tides card base.  I am also entering this card in the Christmas Kickstart challenge where the theme is a wreath.

Thanks for visiting today.

FISHY AND PUNNY

Today's card is for two challenges which meshed together very well so I could use one card for both.  For the Tic-Tac-Toe challenge I went down the middle vertically with blue, patterned paper and water (also a punny sentiment in it) and for Festive Friday there is water, fish, aqua and a pun sentiment.

The background is patterned paper from Altenew - stamped the seaweed is various shades of green and some rocks across the bottom.  The rest of the watery look is all from the patterned paper.  Die cut the fish from some silver metallic and pieced in the green bits.  Added the cute sentiment, matted it in ocean tides cardstock (a favorite color of mine) and then put on a white card base.

Thanks for visiting me today.

NATASHA INSPIRATION

Often I see a card on Pinterest, YouTube or Instagram and use that as a basis for my card - I try not to actually copy the card but use an element/elements on my card.  Today this card from Natasha caught my fancy.

I used two different HA cardstock colors - peony and mist for my backgrounds and stamped the lovely HA/Gina K. Friendship Blooms embossed in gold.   After the stamping and embossing were done, I did the rectangle die cutting.  Finally added some spatter and a little sentiment and done.  

A new challenge begins tomorrow on A Blog Named Hero so be sure to check it out - fun challenge theme and prizes to be won!  Thanks for stopping by.

DIAMONDS AND A RAINBOW

For this week's Tic Tac Toe Challenge I went across the top and chose rainbow, diamond and label maker.

This challenge certainly pushes me outside of my box - had to go through my stash to find the diamond die for my background.  Made my rainbow background for the "happy" sentiment on some watercolor paper and the "birthday" part was done on my label maker.  Added a few sequins and done.  Fairly simple card, but it took me half the afternoon to get it all together.

Lincoln, NE is opening up a bit tomorrow - not too sure about it and hope we don't see a spike in covid cases like other places have when they opened up.

Thanks for stopping by.

 

TIC TAC TOE #62

For this week's Tic Tac Toe Challenge I am using the diagonal from top left to lower right - pink, twine and layers - along with my usual flowers.

I stamped and embossed the wildflower bouquet in white and watercolored the flowers and leaves with my Zigs and then die cut with the matching die. The white embossed layer background was given to me by a friend and this was put on a kraft card base.  I made a tiny hello tag and added it to the bouquet with a little twine bow (not much twine but it's there!).

 Thanks for stopping by - stay well.

 

COLOR THROWDOWN

The colors for Color Throwdown #591 are not usually ones I would choose, but am really pleased the way my card turned out using them.  

I watercolored my flowers in the plum, pink, peach and white, die cut and added to a pale gray card base.  Layered up the piece with more die cuts rather than using foam tape.  Added the little sentiment - another sentiment like "birthday" or "day" or "anniversary" can be added on the inside when ready to send the card out to someone.

I am adding this to Darnell's NBUS challenge also - don't know why I never used this stamp as I love the results I had with it.

Thanks for stopping by - stay well and keep crafting!

 

TWOFER FOR GRETA

I have my friend Greta's name for the April Card Chain Challenge - so I made her an Easter card in the colors of the challenge.  

The background for the flowers is a cross stitch tag Greta gave me - stitched around the edges with some purple floss.  Waterolored the flowers, added some Wink of Stella to the blooms, blended purple ink on the card base and put it all together.

Another week of isolation - we'll get through this - stay strong and healthy.  Thanks for stopping by.