HAPPY EVERYTHING

My card today is Jerrie in Wisconsin as part of the June Card Chain Challenge.  I went with the suggested colors of sage, baby blue and pine green and a theme of friendship.

The wreath and sentiment uses C & 9th Wreath Turnabout in various shades of green and the baby blue flowers are from EH's Courage set.   Nuvo drops were dotted here and there and the sentiment was stamped in black and clear embossed.  

The Card Chain Challenge (link to 2018 dates) is a fun way to meet new stamping friends - every month is a sketch, colors and theme from which to choose - you don't have to use them all.  So come and join in sometime!

Thanks for visiting today.

 

 

SUMMERTIME FUN

Last summer I made this card for A Blog Named Hero when the theme was florals.  Thought something similar would work again with the "Summertime Fun" theme for this month.  Ice cream, flowers and summertime certainly go together!!  What is your favorite flavor???  Breyers ice cream with Heath Bars added in is mine!  Love blue hydrangeas, but thought this peach color was a better fit!

I stamped the hydrangea with fresh peach on a heavy piece of vellum and then clear embossed.  All the stamping was done that way - it gives such great shine and texture.  After fussy cutting the flower, I colored a bit on the back with some alcohol markers. The cone was stamped in soft brown and cup o' joe, the little leaves in field green and the sentiment (this is a fantastic set if you need a variety of holiday stamps) in black.  The cherry on top was a fun afterthought - it's also stamped on vellum and colored with red royal.  The little pink accents are Nuvo rosewater drops.  The focal point piece and mat were both cut using the rectangle infinity dies (these are on my desk all the time).

Join our "Summertime" challenge this month here - Hero Arts has a $50 and $25 gift certificate for our winners!

Had fun making this card and hope you like it - and enjoy your summer too!

BEAUTIFUL DAY

My card today is for Altenew Academy - day 5.  It involved some masking and then several coloring techniques with alcohol markers.

One of the things Kelly had in her lesson was a gradient background for her flowers.  My colors that I chose for both the background and the flowers were running dry so didn't do any shading of the blue and really had tough time with the flowers.  I couldn't bring myself to do the sentiment the way she did it - I am too much of a perfectionist and didn't have the guts to do it in case I messed up my coloring.  I did add drop shadows though and other details which I really like.  I will finish this card when I need it for something special  as I think the coloring took over an hour.

EDIT:  A friend need a 50th anniversary card - I die cut "50" from gold metallic paper and placed that in the middle - added a nice anniversary sentiment inside - done!!  And Susan loved it!

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

SENDING YOU PRAYERS

This week Altenew Academy is having another class and this time it's with Kelly Latevola doing one-layer cards.  Yesterday I worked all afternoon on the first lesson and thought for sure I flunked the class right off the bat.  So not being one to give up, I started entirely over with a new card today.  

 

Kelly's card used background stamping with individual stamps and that's where the problem was yesterday - I am just rubbish at that and getting something to my satisfaction. Today I used the Sketchy Flower (very large) stamp for the background.  Used the Altenew alcohol markers in the soft greys for shading in the flowers and also for the bit of green on the leaves.  The sentiment is from Hero Arts as I had nothing from Altenew that would work for this technique.  A few black Nuvo drops covered up a few little smudges.  Am way behind in the homework department for this class, but will carry on!  

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

 

HAPPY

CAS Colours and Sketches has a sketch challenge this week - so made this card.

Stamped the flowers in the corners and then masked and stamped smaller flowers and leaves to fill out the space and colored with my Zigs.  Die cut the rectangle and added the larger piece with foam tape to a gray card base.  Inserted the smaller cut out piece back into the space along with the sentiment.  Colored the stamen of the flowers with a glossy black gel pen.  

Thanks for stopping by today.

BUTTERFLY

Even though our A Blog Named Hero's current May/June watercolour challenge is over and a new challenge begins tomorrow, I'm still playing with watercolors - it's Brushos this time.

I first sprinkled a piece of watercolor paper with blue and green Brushos - and then heavily spritzed with water.  It turned out way darker than I like - so die cut with the HA butterfly which lightened it up a whole lot. Stenciled a background with HA rain dance using some light grey ink. Had the black die cut striped piece sitting on my desk and wondered what it would look like on a shaker??? Decided it would work - used HA ocean sequins.  Added a little sentiment (stamped in black and clear embossed) - done and dusted.

Check out A Blog Named Hero tomorrow (15 June) for a new fun challenge with great prizes from Hero Arts.  Thanks for visiting today and love to read your kind comments.

PRIZE STAG

Decided to have a go with CAS Christmas Challenge this month - make a masculine card.  A long time ago I won the stag die from Ellen Hutson and he hasn't seen much love - mainly because I don't do that many guy cards.

Cut the stag from some gold foiled paper and then 3 more times with white - stacked them all together and used a gold pen around the edges.  The holly leaf wreath was die cut, sponged with distress inks (shabby shutters and peeled paint) and used the gold pen again on the stitching lines.  Put it all together with some red sequins, patterned paper and a little sentiment.

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

BLUE PEONY

Some of my blog friends are so skilled at making a card to fit multiple challenges - me, not so much.  Today though I'm getting this one in five!!!! 

I did some coloring with copics on the peony - works for Kathy Racoosin's Coloring Challenge; the design will fit the sketch from Cas(e) This Sketch; spattered some alcohol blending solution and foiled some gold speckles on the background piece - fits Just Add Ink's spots, speckles and splatters;  the colors are from Color Throwdown; and finally The Love Challenge #30 is anything goes.  Karren mentioned Just Us Girls wants alcohol inked cards so am adding it there also.  I used copic reinkers to make the background and then colored the peony with the same colors.

Thanks for stopping by - always really appreciate your visits and kind comments.

CARDS FOR KATHERINE

My daughter, Katherine, teaches at the University of Texas-Arlington and likes to send cards to her music theatre students - good thing she has a mother who likes to make cards!  Several weeks ago I saw a set of alcohol inked cards on Sue's blog and thought they would be perfect - Kath likes bright colors and that's what she's getting!!  

I also made little sentiment strips with double sided tape on the back so she could add if desired.  Used gold foil on my cards also to give them some glitz (Kath likes that too).  Made fifteen total for her and all different (due to the wonders of AI) - had such fun making them!!  Thanks Sue for the inspiration!

So pleased you stopped by today and love to read your kind comments.

BUTTERFLY SQUIGGLE

CASology's challenge this week (squiggle) made me think outside my "flower box" and finally came up with something.  Had a small alcohol inked piece on my desk, so die cut the PTI butterfly as my starting point.

The gold embossed flourish is also from PTI.  I cut out three more butterflies to give my butterfly a little weight and backed it with some more gold as there was gold foiling on the AI piece.  Sponged on some broken china DO, spattered with water, added a few Nuvo drops and done!  The CAS in my card is mostly monochromatic with lots of white space.  Definitely an easy card to reproduce and great for using up scraps.

Thanks for stopping by and always enjoy your kind comments.

 

PENGUINS FOR MERRY MONDAY

Surprise!!! No flowers!!!  Penguins are the theme for this week's Merry Monday challenge - and just happened to have a few courtesy of Linda W.  

Watercoloured a sky and added some torn snowbanks on the bottom of the card.  Used a stencil, Versamark and white embossing powder to do the snowflakes.  Also added some Nuvo glitter snowflakes in the sky and some Spectrum Noir to the tops of the snowbanks.  The little sentiment was stamped in black and clear embossed.  Sorry it's so difficult to see all the shine and sparkle (poor photography skills).

Thanks for stopping by and always enjoy reading your kind comments.

 

 

CARD CHAIN CHALLENGE FOR MAY

My CCC card for May goes to Dawn in New Zealand. I chose to use the suggested colors (honey, strawberry and raspberry) and the themes (flowers, CAS and friendship).

Awhile back, Heather Nichols used this technique of a black outline image accented with colored flowers on MIM.  I loved the idea and used it on my card today.  I stamped Altenew's Sketchy Floral for the outline and Ellen Hutson's Courage for the little flowers.  The sentiment is from Poppystamps.  The card was finished and decided to add some Nuvo black drops - and accidentally put my thumb right into the wet black and created a lovely smudge. So found a little flower stamp and die and added them over the mistake with a few more black drops.  Fixed!!  If I hadn't told this, probably you'd never know.

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

WATERCOLOUR HIBISCUS

The challenge this month at A Blog Named Hero is "watercolour" and wonderful prizes are being donated by Hero Arts.

My hibiscus are not really watercoloured - I stamped them on vellum and when I layered the inks, they just sort of spread around and ended up looking like I had used water on them.  The background was watercoloured tho using smooshed distress inks and a misting of water.  I layered a piece of vellum over the watercoloured piece with some "Stick-It" and then die cut this background with the HA rounded rectangle die.  Arranged my little flowers and leaves into a bouquet - added them along with the sentiment and done!

The current challenge is open until 10 June so add your watercoloured card here for a chance to win a $50 or $25 g.c to Hero Arts.

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

TWO CHALLENGES

There are two challenges I always intend to enter and never seem to get around to it, until it's too late.  So today, I got down to business and created a card for each of them.  The first one is for SSS Flickr Challenge which is embossing and the second is for PTI's Make It Monday - above and below is the theme.

Recently my friend, Cat, sent me some stamped and embossed card fronts with SSS Center Cut Flowers.  I colored the flowers with my Zigs and added a sentiment from You Matter.  My second card uses PTI's Rosie Posie, Turning a New Leaf and a sentiment from Beautiful Butterflies.  I used four PTI inks - sweet blush, melon berry, simply chartreuse and ripe avocado.  

Thanks for stopping by and your comments make my day!

 

 

LOVELY

After cleaning out and organizing my craft stuff all week, I just had to make a card.  Found this new (to me) challenge and it ends tonite - so another reason to make a card.  The challenge is Inspired By..., but their theme also fits The Card Concept and Concord & 9th's floral challenge.

I stamped C & 9th's Hello Lovely with black, clear embossed and colored with alcohol markers.  Used a hexagon die to dry emboss part of the background to echo the hexagon shape in the Inspired By... challenge.  After fussy cutting and mounting on the top of the card, I couldn't bear to cut off the edges, so will just use a larger envelope. I added some extra "dots" with a black glaze pen, since the stamp had lots of spatter on it. Couldn't decide on a sentiment either (and really didn't want to take away from the floral arrangement) so will put one inside when the time comes. The colors from the Card Concept photo inspired me and my style for it is clean and layered.

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

CARDS FOR LAYTON'S LEGACY

Sharing two of the cards I made for Lea Lawson's card drive for Layton's Legacy.  I had a grandson who was only with us for about five months so this was particularly important for me.  Lea had a lovely thought that Layton and Sammy are best friends now in heaven.

If you would like to join in this wonderful card drive, all the details are here.  She will need the cards by 31 May.

Thanks for visiting today.

PEONIES

Was playing around with distress inks and water with the EH mondo peony yesterday - today made them into two cards for two different challenges.

On both cards, I stamped and embossed the flowers and leaves on some watercolor paper and then smooshed with picked raspberry and wild honey.  The sentiment on both is from SSS "You Matter" set.  

The first card is for "Inspired by All the Little Things" and the second is "The Paper Players".  My colors aren't as vibrant as the challenge colors, but they're all there.

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

SENDING PRAYERS

I'm still "putting a flower on it" for A Blog Named Hero's April/May challenge even tho the current challenge is finished.  Another fun new challenge with prizes will be up tomorrow, but for today I'm still going with flowers (like that is anything new, eh??!!!)

I first stamped Altenew's gradient stripes in a pale gray ink and the Hero Arts flower from the April 2016 My Monthly Hero kit over the stripes.  Any one of Hero Arts gorgeous large flowers would work for creating a card similar to this.  Check out all they have here.  Then added the leaves from that set embossed in HA silver.  Finally die cut the "prayers" and stamped the rest of the sentiment.  Mounted this on a base of pale gray and done.

Be sure to check in tomorrow for a fun new challenge.  Thanks for visiting today and love to read your kind comments.