Mama Elephant: Snowy Days

Hello everyone!
Today I will be show casing Mama Elephant's Me and my Yeti, Little Agenda Santa, and Little Agenda Reindeer stamp sets.  I mixed and match these sets together to create an A-2 sized card as well as a mini card.  I used similar color schemes and are complimentary to each other.

I stamped, colored, and fussy cut the images I wanted to use from the stamp sets for the A-2 card.  I used Copic markers to color the images.  I used Lawn Fawns Mountain Die and created snow drifts on the mountain area with MFT's Drifts and Hills stencil.  The mountain area is popped up on to the card base which was ink blended with Distress Oxides in colors Pink Raspberry, Seedless Preserves, and Blue Jeans as well as a touch of Distress Ink in Chipped Sapphire. I used some white paint to splatter onto the ink blended panel to create a star-y look.  I used an Amy R's Snowman Sentiments to heat emboss with Simon Says Stamp Silver embossing powder.  I tucked the Yeti image behind the mountains before I popped up the mountain panel.  I adhered the remaining images onto the mountain area.

For the mini card, it was one layered.  I die cut using Gina Marie Scallop Rectangle die a panel.  I stamped and masked my images.  I used the same color Distress Oxide and Distress Ink as the A-2 panel for the sky and snow drifts.  I used Copic markers to color my images. I hope you like the cards I created.

My Favorite Things: Spoil You Rotten

Hello everyone!
I hope you are doing well.  I'm going to try to update my blog in the next couple of days of the holiday cards/tags that I have created thus far  I am a bit behind (sooooo sorry).  Its been really busy with family activities since the holiday season in full force.  Today, I will be featuring a card I created in November and was spotted by MFT's blog; click here if you would like to see the post on the MFT's website.  I had so much fun creating this card because it was my first time using texture paste.

The card I created was for the most part a one layered card with a bit of dimension from the texture paste.  I first laid out where I wanted my stamped images to be place.  I used MFT's BB Santa's Elves stamp set as well as BB Jingle All the Way.  Only one new mask was cut for the stack of presents next to the main character image because I already had masks made from previous cards.   All the images were masked off.  The Drifts & Hills stencil from MFT was used to ink blend in Tumbled Glass Distress Ink a snow drift scent.  I then used Salt Ocean and Chipped Sapphire Distress Ink  to ink blend the sky.  Once the background was completed I took off the masks (and saved them on the stamps set to use for future cards).  I then colored the images with Copic markers.  I used a sentiment from the Santa's Elves to heat emboss in Rangers fine detail white embossing powder.  I then used Rangers Texture Paste with Simon Says Stamp Falling Snow Stencil to create a snow falling into the scene.  I quickly cleaned the stencil in warm water, as I hear that once the texture paste is solid it would be too difficult to get it off the stencil.  It took about 30 mins for the texture paste to dry.  I hope you like the card I created.

Christmas is coming! Mini & A-2 Cards featuring Lawn Fawn, My Favorite Things, & Mama Elephant

Hello everyone!

Today I will be featuring quite a few cards most of them are mini cards that are 4.25x2.75in.  Every year I make mini cards for my co-workers at work, usually teachers and staff within my department or work with  closely.  I also make a few for my sister whom gives out gifts for teachers and staff that help with her daughter and son's education.   This year I have about 20-25 mini cards to create and about 10-15 regular A-2 sized cards.  I try to make each one unique, however, with a few more cards this year, I want to see how much I can get done before I start replicating designs.  I have so much fun creating these cards every year.  I usually start creating in October so that I could get them done in time, so from October-December the cards I make are usually Holiday Cards. 

This year I used a combination of a few dies from various companies: Gina Marie Stitch Scallop, MFT's Stitched Rounded Rectangle, Inside/Out Stitched Rectangle, Birch Tree, and Stitched Scallop  Boarder 1 and 2, Lawn Fawn Stitched Hillside Boarder, Mountain Boarder, Tree Boarder and House Boarder dies.  These dies are perfect for winter scenes.  I also used quite a few Stencils to create drifts and snow.  Of course I have to use my distress inks and oxides to add color and dimension to the scene.  A new product to me this year is texture paste and boy am I loving it.  Here are a few cards I have made so far.  Hope you like it.  

I created a full A-2 pop-up version of a mini card I made on the right.  I used my pop up card method that I previously blogged about here.

Here is a close up of the mini card.  I popped up the penguin and lamp.  I used MFT's Drift Stencil to create a bit on dimension. I am loving the Copic combination for Tree's this year (YG 99 & YG 95 with tip to tip method for a smoother transition).

The front of the pop-up card.  I created a band out of 12x12 Christmas Pattern Paper, which is the perfect length.  I cut the pattern paper to 12x1.5in to wrap around the card.  

Inside of the pop up card using various Lawn Fawn Dies.  I used distress oxides in Salty Ocean and splattered with pearl paint and white paint from my Kuretake Gansai Tambi Pallet.

Close up of the pop up.  I wanted to put a song note for the penguins, however did not want it to look out of place in the background.  I used a small piece of transparency to adheare to the Penguin so it looks like its floating.

The mini MFT cards I made.  I tried to keep these a bit simple and used Scallop boarders to create snow drifts as well as a stencil.  I used the Birch Tree die-namics to create a scene and used Pumice Stone Distress ink to create dimension.  I used Oxide colors for the bottom card with Peacock Feathers, Seedless Preserve and Faded Jeans.  I used distress inks in Shaded Lilac and Blue Print Sketch for the polar bear.  I used Tumbled Glass Distress ink for the Hedgehog.

PS: If you would like more up to date look at my cards click on my Instagram link on the side.  I am going to try blog all my cards, but it may take some time because of the quantity of cards I have to make.

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.

MFT Sketch Challenge 351

Hello everyone!
Today I will be featuring MFT's adorable Hippo Birthday stamp set for the sketch challenge.  Here is a mock up of the sketch for this week:

I began by die cutting a stitched rounded rectangle panel as well as the scallop border using the Basic Edges 2.  I then stamped the images I wanted to use on the white cardstock with Simon Says Intense Black Ink as I wanted to Copic color the images.  I wanted my hippos to have clothes so I sketched some with pencil then used my Copic Multi-liner to outline it.  I used Copic Multi-liner because I know the pen will be Copic friendly and not smear when I color it.  Once I colored the images I fussy cut them.  

I then started ink blending the the scallop panel with Twisted Citron Distress Oxide and Mowed Lawn Distress Ink.  I wanted to see how if the different formulas would play well with one another and they seemed to.  The Mowed Lawn was a bit brighter because it did not have that pigment property.  For the main stitch rounded rectangle panel I used Distress Oxide in Peacock Feather and Distress Ink in Tumbled Glass. When I laid down the first layer of Peacock Feather, I thought it was too dark because I was a bit heavy handed with it that was why I switch to Tumbled Glass to lighted it up a bit.  I then used Peacock Feather and the Cloud Border Stencil to create clouds; I made sure to tap off most of the Peacock Feathers on a paper before ink blending with the stencil.   

After I ink blended my panels I heat embossed a sentiment from the stamp set with Rangers White embossing powder on black cardstock.  I then used the smallest stitch rounded rectangle to die cut the sentiment.  I popped the scallop panel up onto the stitched rectangle panel.  I also popped the sentiment.  When I finished putting my images on the card, initially I only had the little hippo, cake w/balloons, and big hippo, it looked a bit empty, so I decided to stamp all the tiny birds from the set to Copic color.  I also added patches of grass to the scallop panel.  I then used my Specrtrum Nior Glitter pen to put some glitter on to the balloon, cake, party hats the hippos are wearing and the red strips on the papa hippo.  After, I used a white gel pen to decorate the cake, and put highlights on the balloons.  I like to use the glitter pen before using my white gel pen because I noticed that if I put the Glitter on after I put white accents it tends to muttle the white gel pen.   I hope you like the card I created.  

Fall 2017 CLH feat. Lawn Fawn

Hello everyone!
I made a simple card today featuring Lawn Fawns Pumkin Spice mini stamp set.  I started by cutting some kraft cardstock to A2 size then I randomly stamped the coffee cup throughout my card and used  the shaker and sugar specs to fill in the gaps.  I used my Prismacolor colored Pencils to color in the image.  I love the way Prismas look on kraft; they colors seem to pop more in it.  I started by laying my lightest color lightly then shaded with my mid tone in areas I wanted to darken.  I used the darkest color last to add some depth and then went back in with the midtown and the lightest color to smooth everything out.  Once the panel was done I used MFT border dies to all stitching all around the panel.  I embossed the sentiment on a strip of vellum with clear ink and heat set it using Ranger white embossing powder.  I wrapped the sentiment strip around the card and taped it down so no adhesive could show through.  The panel was then adhered down onto heavy weight white cardstock.  Hope you like my card.

My Favorite Things: A Halloween Hello

Hello everyone!
I hope the week has treated you well and that the beginning of the weekend brings you joy! I know the weekend brings me much joy.  Today I will be featuring MFT's Witch Way is the Candy? stamp set.  The set I have is the older stamp set that has been retired.  They recently re-release an updated version of the stamp set with more sentiments.  So, I am late on the Distress Oxide train.... I own all the Distress Inks in the mini form, thus did not think I would need to get them in the oxide version.  Boy was I wrong.  As I kept seeing them in use on cards on social media, it made me want to try them out.  I found an etsy shop that was selling both the first set and second set of inks.  The reason why I chose this shop is because all the proceeds from her sales go towards charities; isn't that awesome!  Here is a link to her store: Only One Life Creations.  I had a lot of fun playing with the Oxides and can't wait to experiment more with them.

I first started by using my Cricut to cut out the components to a haunted house SVG that I bought from Miss Kate Cuttables on heavy weight white cardstock. I cut them in white because I knew I wanted to use my Distress Oxide to ink blend them in with color.  I used Wilted Violet, Twisted Citron, and Black Soot in the Oxide as well as Ripe Persimmon and  Wild Honey in Distress Ink.    The reason why I did those two colors in the ink form is because I wanted it to be a bit more vibrant for the light effect in the windows.  I glued all the pieces together and spritzed it with some water to create the oxide effect.  I then die cut the curved scallop with MFT's Scallop Basic Edge 2 die and used Lawn Fawn Meadow Border for a grass panel on white cardstock as well.  I used Distress Oxide in Vintage Photo and Frayed Burlap for the Scallop piece and Peeled Paint and Cracked Pistachio for the grass piece. I spritzs some water onto the brown panel to distress it a bit.  For the night sky, I used masking paper to cut die cut a circle (the moon) and place it on my panel so I could Distress the rest of the sky.  I used Faded Jeans and Black Soot Oxide inks.  Once I distressed the sky I misted it with water and let it dry.  I then water down some white acrylic paint to splatter onto the background.  I also water down some Pearl acrylic paint to splatter; loved how this looked on the background. It made the splatter look like twinkling stars.  Once I finished splattering I took the mask off and went over the edges of the moon with a water pen so the edges did not look too harsh.  I put down my brown dirt panel then my grass. I put the haunted house on top of the scallop panel and popped up my girl image.  I double popped my sentiment which I white heat embossed on black cardstock.  I glued some of the bat images down and popped up two.  I finished the card by adding Spectrum Noir's Sparkling Clear Glitter on the dress and bats.  Hope you like my card.

MFT Sketch Challenge 348

Hello everyone!
Today, I will be featuring My Favorite Things Fall Friends stamp set for the MFT sketch challenge. Here is the layout for this sketch challenge.

I was in a kraft cardstock/Prismacolor Pencil mood, so that is what I went with.  As much as I love the outcome of coloring with colored pencils, I dislike having to re-outline my images with black because I am really bad at it.  I can not for the life of me trace; it usually ends up in mistakes.  However, I decided to use my MISTI to stamp my images on the kraft cardstock.  I outline the area I would be die cutting so that I knew my images would fit.  Then I used the three sides of the MISTI to place my stamps as I would be overlapping some images which is why I created some masks.  I left the stamps in my MISTI so that I could re-stamp them after I finished coloring them.

          

I also used the radiating rays stencil to distress some Wild Honey, Mustard Seed, and Squeezed Lemon Aid. I then die cut the image using the rounded rectangle die and back it with black cardstock so there would be a border.  I used my We R Crop-a-Dile to round the edges of the black cardstock.  for the bottom panel I used MFT's Fine Chevron Background stamp to create a pattern paper, which i cut down to fit the lower 1/4 of the card.  I then used a sentiment from the Fall Friends stamp set to heat emboss in white embossing powder on black cardstock and created fish tails on both ends.  I popped my main image panel up with foam tape and double up the foam tape for my sentiment.  To finish the card I used some orange and iridescent yellow sequins.  Hope you like my card. :)

My Favorite Things & Honey Bee Stamps: Oceans of Love

Hello everyone!
Today I'm here to share a card using MFT's Mermazing Stamp set as well as Honey Bee Stamp's Ocean Builder Scene stencils.  I am in love with Honey Bee's stencil.  I love all the components to build a under the sea scene, which you can pick and choose from.  When I saw Nichol Magouirk using them in one of her videos I had to get it.  I created a similar under the sea theme for the bottom space of my card.

I first started by using Distress Ink in the colors Faded Jeans, Mermaid Lagoon, and Black Soot to create the ocean scene.  I masked the top 25% of the card with some paper so that I could create a moonlight night scene using Faded Jeans and Black Soot.  I die cut a circle from masking paper to create the moon; I kept the  negative to mask off the sky to distress the moon in Pumice Stone.  I used Mustard Seed and a scatter star stencil to create some starts.  I used Mermaid Lagoon with Honey Bee's Stencil to create some rays.  I tried using Simon Says white pigment ink to create some white shadow rays, but it wasn't working too well on the regular distress ink even when pouncing method.  I assume it does not layer too well with the dark colors.   Nichol Magouik used Distress Oxides in her video, but I do not have those yet (making me think hard about getting them).  I did my best to create some moon light shadow rays.  I used Black Soot to crate some coral with the stencils as well as some second generation stamping of fish from the stamp set.  I then used Simon Says Stamp Intense Black to stamp the images I wanted to use from the stamp set and Copic colored it.  The scene I create was inspired by Disney's, "The Little Mermaid" (picture below). I then stamped a sentiment from the stamp set with clear embossing ink on black cardstock and heat it with white embossing powder.  I hope you like the card I created.  :)