World Cardmaking Day: Heffy Doodle

Hello everyone!
Happy World Cardmaking Day!  I was super excited when I woke up today to create a card.  As I was perusing through Instagram and other social media outlets so many cards sparked my attention.  Then I saw on Heffy Doodle's blog an image that was sooo cute!  I was just in luck because the it was a digital stamp image that the company was giving out just for World Cardmaking day!  I super excited about this and went straight to my craft room to create a card.  A few week ago I saw a beautiful background by Kristina Werner and wanted to make a similar background.  I have not used my Gansai Tambi watercolors in a while and thought this would be a perfect occasion.

First I used my Cricut to Print and Cut the image.  I used my Copic markers to color the image.  Then I used painters tape to tape down my Strathmore watercolor panel to a clip board so the paper would not warp too much.  I knew I would be using a good amount of water to get the color to move.  I used a 3/4 flat watercolor brush to cover the watercolor paper panel.  I then used a 6 round watercolor brush to dab on the colors blue (No.64), purple (No.139), and pink (No.34).  I did one layer of this and let it dry and then made sure the panel was saturated with more clean water and did another layer of color, so that it was vibrant.  I then mixed black (No. 20) and white (No. 10) to create a gray color for the ground.  Once the panel was dry, I picked the metallic white (No. 95) with a brush and flicked it all over the top portion of my panel.  This created such a pretty glimmer.  I also used white (No. 10) to flick some white on the panel for contrast.  I cut down the panel to 4x5.25in.  I used Lawn Fawns Happy for the sentiment which was heat embossed in white.  I then layed down the mailbox and popped the cute Heffy Doodle bear onto the panel.  I used a bit of glossy accents for the heart on the letter and some sparkling clear sequins some I filled with silver stickles.  I then popped the whole panel on a top folding A2 size card.  Hope you like my card!

Lawn Fawn: Give Thanks

Hello everyone!

Today I will be featuring Lawn Fawns Thankful Mice mini stamp set.  This set is super cute!  I must admit I had a bit of a hard time coming up with a layout for this card.  I've been wanting to use the stamp set since it came in last week, but I did not have a card idea for it.  Most times I purchase a stamp set because I have a few card ideas for them, but this set was so cute that I just had to get it.  Then I remembered I wanted to do a Distress Oxide/Distress Ink comparison so I figured this would be a good start to a card.  I wanted to make similar cards, but not identical cards one using the same colors of Distress Oxides the other using Distress inks (I ended up having to use and extra Distress Ink color, which I explained in the video below).

I started the card by stamping the images I wanted to use with Simon Says Intense black ink and Copic coloring them.  I did two sets of the images so that I could use the images in both cards.  I then used my circle stitched die to die cut two circles from kraft cardstock.  While I had my Big Shot out I decided to die cut Thanks using Gina Marie Designs die.  One of the Panels I layered two pieces of white cardstock below a black cardstock piece.  The other panel I used yellow fun foam and a black cardstock piece to cut the word.   I then used the circle piece as a guideline for how wide I wanted my ink blended area to be for both my cards.  I made one card 4.25x5.5in (Verticle Panel) and the other 5.5x4.25 (Horizontal Panel). I used some low tack tape to tape off the area with scraps on paper so that I would not ink up areas that should not be inked.  I used Spiced Marmalade, Fossilized Amber, and Vintage Photo in both Oxides and Inks.  I added Mustard Seed Distress Ink to the Distress Ink Panel. Once both inked panels were done I used hemp twine to wrap around the inked panels.  I tied a bow on the horizontal card where as the vertical card I looped around the card twice.  I used the "Give" in the "Giving Thanks" sentiment.  I stamped Spiced Marmalade in Distress Oxide for both panel and missed it with water.  By misting the sentiment the Oxidation allowed the sentiment to pop a bit more.  I wanted this to be the shadow for my sentiment.  I offset the sentiment and stamped with black ink.  I went over the sentiment with black gel pen.   I then popped up the stitched circle on top of the hemp twin.  I also popped the images on top of the circle.  I glued the die cut "Thanks" to the card.

I finished the cards by using my Spectrum Nior Shimmer Pen and added some sequins to the cards.  Both cards are similar, but a bit of a change in layout.  I did a Instagram story feed about my thoughts on the Distress formulation; I uploaded this to YouTube which is shown below.  Hope you like my cards.