June 2024 | Make a Wish

Birthday cards are so much fun to make. You can make them without a recipient in mind and still have an amazing useable card... or you can cater the card specifically toward your favorite nephew - lol.

I started this card with a piece of Paul Rubens hot press watercolor paper taped to a hardboard to help prevent warping, Sarah Renae Clark's Color Cube card #203 and Simon Says Stamp's Pawsitively Saturated Inks in the colors Zest, Sweets, and Sangria. I used a #16 round watercolor brush to thoroughly saturate my watercolor paper and, using that same brush, added the three ink colors to the paper by adding them in large water-laden inky drops to the top of the watercolor cardstock while I held the hardboard vertically so that the inks would literrally run down the cardstock in a freeform, striped fashion. Once I was satisfied with the amount of color I added, I used the Tim Holtz/Ranger Heat Tool to dry the cardstock then I removed it from the hardboard.

Next, I pulled out the Spellbinders BetterPress system and Pinkfresh Studio's "Make a Wish" press plate. I inked up the press plate with Spellbinder's Betterpress Black ink and taped my watercolor panel to the BetterPress's clear plate then ran the system through my Spellbinder's Platinum 6 die cutting machine.

For the matting layers, I used Your Paper Insider cardstocks in the colors Favini Black Gloss, Canary Yellow, and Dark Red from their subscription packs. I used alternating dies from two Spellbinders die sets to cut the matting layers - Precision Layering A2 A and Precision Layering A2 B (these two die sets are AMAZING and must haves in my creative stash). I glued the matting layers to the watercolored panel and set it aside while I created the other elements for the card front.

I selected the Gerda Steiner Designs stamp set called "Birthday Bear" for the bear's arm holding a balloon. I stamped the image onto white cardstock using Simon Says Stamp Intense Black Ink and colored it with Copic markers: arm - C9, C6, C4 and balloon - YR16, Y17, Y02. After that, I used my Brother Scan N Cut to cut out the image. I placed foam adhesive squares to the back and adhered it to my card front.

I used the Heffy Doodle "Happy Birthday - Shadow" die set for my sentiment. I cut the words three times and the shadow once from Your Paper Insider's Pale Pink Shimmer Vellum (shadow) and a black sort of rubbery cardstock (words). I used Distress Collage Medium in a fine point bottle and adhered all the sentiment layers together and then adhered it to the shadow and card front.

My final touches were adding Ranger Glossy Accents to the balloon in the bear's hand and staggered a few Pinkfresh Twilight Ombre Glitter Drops across the card front.

Thank you so much for stopping by... I hope you enjoyed the card :)

Birthday Nasturtiums

For this nasturtiums themed birthday card, I used Spellbinders' "Nasturtium and Galvanized Wash Bucket" die set and some Distress Inks to create a one-of-a-kind bucket of goodness. The flower and leaf shaping was done by the help of watching Susan Tierney Cockburn's Youtube video - she's an excellent instructor - and this is the link to her video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGyk1JEABjI

First, I used Ranger's Distress Inks in the colors Squeezed Lemonade and Kitsch Flamingo to ink smoosh to separate pieces of watercolor cardstock. I put Squeezed Lemonade ink on my mixed media mat, misted it with a bit of water, swirled it around with my finger tips, then dipped the watercolor cardstock into the ink several times, dried the panel, and continued until I had the look I desired. After that, I did the same thing with the Kitsch Flamingo ink and watercolor cardstock. When both panels were inked and dried, I used the petal dies from the die set and proceeded to cut as many pieces as I could of both the petal dies from the inky panels.

For the leaves, I cut nine sets from a piece of My Favorite Things' "Limelight" cardstock, then ink blended Distress Inks (Twisted Citron, Mowed Lawn, and Rustic Wilderness) across the die cuts until I had what appeared to be a decent leaf blend. After the Distress Ink dried, I used a Moonlight Gellyroll pen #427 to draw the veins on the leaves then followed Susan's instructions in the video listed above to form the leaves.

For the flower petals, I decided to ink the backs of each petal die cut with the coordinating color of Distress Ink to add color so they wouldn't be white when/if the backs are seen. After that, I used Diarylide Yellow Shade PanPastel and a foam applicator to apply shading to the centers of all the petals - both the pinks and yellows. I continued following the instructions in Susan's Youtube tutorial on the shaping and assembly of the flowers and stamin die cuts. I cut about 20 or so of the flower stamens and once they were assembled (following Susan's instruction video), I dipped them all in glue and then dipped the tops into Woodland Scenics "Yellow Paper Flower Pollen" that I purchased from Spellbinders and set those aside to dry.

I cut the planting container out of a scrap of grey cardstock and applied a generous coating of embossing ink across the entire die cut using the Distress Embossing Dabber. Next, I applied a sporadic layer of Ranger Ink's Antiquities Verdigris embossing powder and Potting Soil embossing powder until the entire die cut was coated. I let the excess fall onto a flattened coffee filter, then melted the embossing powder on the die cut with the heat gun. While the melted embossing powder was still hot, I dabbed portions of the die cut back into the powder on the coffee filter and melted the added embossing powder - I repeated this process until I was happy with the results.

To create my card front panel / background, I used a 5" x 5" piece of dark blue cardstock from my stash and 3D embossed it using Altenew's "Wicker Texture" 3D embossing folder. I put foam adhesive behind the plant container die cut and adhered it to the embossed panel and then began gluing the flowers and leaves on and around the opening of the container onto the card front. After the flowers were adhered, I began adding glue to the flower centers and glued the stamens in place.

My card base was created using a piece of Cardstock Warehouse "Stardream Gold" cardstock cut to 5-1/4" x 10-1/2" that I scored at the 5-1/4" mark. I put Simon Says Stamp's Big Momma foam tape on the back of the embossed panel and adhered it to the card base. My sentiment was created using a scrap piece of brown cardstock and using Spellbinders' "You Are Everything Sentiments" Betterpress plate along with a piece of gold foil that I ran through my Glimmer Foil System. After I die cut the sentiments, I selected the one I wanted to use and adhered it to the card front using thin foam squares.

I hope you enjoyed my Through the Arbor Garden themed card using Susan Tierney-Cockburn's die release.

Until next time... thank you and Happy Making!

Birthday Greetings! | Whimsy Stamps

This stamp set isn't a new one for me, but is certainly one I enjoy creating cards and tags with. Today's card is a mini slimline card, not sure why I don't use this size more often!

I started with a scrap piece of watercolor paper that I taped to a watercolor hardbord so that it will remain flat when I start applying copious amounts of water to it. Since I planned to use the Whimsy Stamps "Black Hole" stamp set, I decided to create a nebula or galaxy background and this can be created easily with watercolor paints. For my paints, I chose to use the Mijello Mission Gold paints and chose the colors Cerulean Blue, Cobalt Hue No. 1, Indigo, Black, and Yellow Green. After the paints were applied, I used Winsor & Newton white gouache and a toothbrush to make my white starry layer.

I stamped the images I wanted to use for the card front from the Whimsy Stamps "Black Hole" stamp set using Simon Says Stamp Intense Black ink so that the ink wouldn't smear when I started coloring them with Copic markers. The Copic markers I used are: for the alien, YG17, YG03, and YG01 - for the balloon, BG07, BG15, and BG32. After coloring the images, I fussy cut them out and applied Simon Says Stamp black, high loft (.08") 3D Foam Squares to the backs so they would really pop from the watercolored background panel.

For the sentiment, I used the Pinkfresh "Perfect Sentiments" stamp/die/hot foil set to stamp out the Happy Birthday sentiment and then die cut the words and made three additional die cuts for layering out of My Favorite Things' Limelight cardstock. I glued those layers together for a dimensional sentiment.

I die cut the watercolor panel using Honey Bee Stamps' "Sweet Stacks Mini Slimline" dies using the second to largest die in the set. Next, I cut a 6"x6" piece of the My Favorite Things' Limelight cardstock and scored it down the middle at 3" with my Scor-Buddy, folded it in half and used the bone folder to reinforce the fold... this created my mini slimline card base.

I put strips of Simon Says Stamps' Big Momma Foam tape to the back of the watercolor panel and adhered it to the card base and adhered the sentiment and images to the card front panel. My last task was to apply Ranger Glossy Accents to the alien's eyes and the balloon.

That completes this fun outer space themed birthday card, I hope you enjoyed it!

Until next time... happy making!