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 :)

Spring 2024 | Breath of Spring

Today I’m sharing the steps I followed to create this lovely Springtime tag that I display in my studio to celebrate the arrival of the season.

I used Ranger/Tim Holtz #8 Distress Tags and applied Ranger/Tim Holtz Salvaged Patina Distress Oxide Spray to make the tag base and background coloring.  I set it aside to dry before moving forward.

For the stamping, I used Hero Arts’ “Breath of Spring Heroscape”.  I started with the lighter colored grass and used the Simon Says Stamp’s Pawsitively Saturated Ink in the color Fairway.  For the second/darker colored grass, I used Simon Says Stamp Pawsitively Saturated Ink in the color Pine.  For the flower layers, I used Tim Holtz’s Mustard Seed Distress Oxide ink, and the centers were stamped using Walnut Stain Distress Oxide ink.  For the cloud stamping layer, I decided to use StazOn Cotton White since I was going to be battling the oxide from the Savaged Patina background.  Before all the StazOn had time to dry, I thought it might be fun to add a sprinkling of Stampendous! White Puff 3D Embossing Powder to the clouds for a little texture.

There was one more stamp I wanted to use from this Hero Arts stamp set and it was the silhouette of three dragonflies.  I stamped them onto my tag using Tim Holtz Distress Archival Ink in Black Soot.

The finishing touches were completed by adding a couple words from the Tim Holtz Idea-ology “Big Chat” sticker book, I used a clear Sakura Glaze pen on the dragonflies and added a little dot of bronze Sakura Metallic Gelly Roll to all the centers of the flowers.  The only other additional was to add a new hole reinforcer to the top of the tag since I had to remove the original one to allow me to stamp the clouds.  To do this, I used the hole reinforcer die from the Sizzix/Tim Holtz “Framed Tags” die set and I cut it from Altenew’s “Sparkling Water” glitter cardstock from the Shimmering Shore collection.  I did have to use a hole punch to make the existing hole a little bit larger so that it would be a seamless finish once I glued the new hole reinforcer to the tag front.

That wraps up this fun tag project and it couldn’t be cuter!  Thanks so much for stopping by… I appreciate you doing so!

Happy Making!

Spring 2024 | Happy Easter

The inspiration for this card came from a YouTube video by Jennifer McGuire that I watched several weeks ago during which she used a technique that I just had to borrow to make an Easter card this year. If you're a fan of Jennifer like I am, you may just recognize the technique!

I started this Easter card by ink blending onto a piece of Strathmore Mixed Media paper using the Simon Says Stamp "Layered Flowers" stencil set and Simon Says Stamp Pawsitively Saturated Inks in the colors: Guava, Cherry, Aspen, and Field. After the ink blending was completed, I die cut the stenciled panel to using the largest die from My Favorite Things' "Wonky Stitched Rectangle Stax" dies. I also cut a piece of Spellbinders' "Fern" green cardstock that was in my scrap bin to 4-1/4" x 5-1/2" to serve as the mat for my stenciled panel.

Using the Simon Says Stamp's "Fancy Happy Easter" die set, I used the shadow die to cut a hole in the center of both the fern green cardstock and my stenciled card front. After die cutting, I adhered the two cardstock panel together with liquid adhesive making sure to line up the die cut holes. I cut a Happy Easter toner sheet from the Simon Says Stamp "Fancy Happy Easter" Foil Transfer Cards and used my Minc machine to foil the sentiment with Deco Foil's "Pink Melon" hot foil. I die cut the sentiment using the shadow die I used to cut the card front panel so when it came to assembling the card all the layers would line up.

For my card base, I took a full sheet of Spellbinders' "Fern" cardstock and cut it in half to make a top folding, 5-1/2" x 4-1/4" card. (I must note here... I would have had to do this next step if I had planned this card properly! I decided to make the card base out of Fern cardstock at the last minute versus white which made me have to use the sentiment shadow die to cut yet another hole, this time in the front side of the card base.). Using the shadow die from above - again - I lined up the card front panels to the card base and used the Fancy Happy Easter shadow die to cut a hole in the front side of the card base. I then adhered the card front to the card base using liquid glue and placed to heavy blocks on top until the glue dried. After the glue dried, I placed the foiled sentiment into the hole made into the card front to ensure the alignment would be perfect when the card is closed and flipped the open card face down onto my glass mat and applied adhesive onto the back of the sentiment and then folded the back side of the card onto the front to adhere the foiled sentiment to the inside of the card.

My final touch for the card was to add pink gems to all the random pink dots scattered throughout the background and also to the flower centers.

I hope you enjoyed the card and possibly found some inspiration for a card you are making.

Until next time... Happy Making!