Watercolor- Thank You card number 3

Another watercolored card, I was trying to go for red but again the distressed inks don't quite give it the brilliance I had hoped for so mixed in a little festive berries with the fired bricks.

I loved my polka dot pp so much on my previous card I decided to repeat it but using a smaller dot pattern,

Wastercolor - ThankYou number 2

Hope everyone had a safe and restful New Year's eve and day. I know our neighborhood was celebrating way into the 1 am hour so it sounded like they were enjoying themselves.

This is my second Thank you card, also water colored.

I wanted to try something a little out of the norm so I choose a blue color for my flowers. And while I opted for Salty Ocean from Tim Holtz's distressed inks I noticed it kind of faded when it dried and I didn't like the loss of vibrancy so I mixed in a little squeezed lemonade and combined it with the blue to get my greenish color then I think the whole thing just got out of hand, but the funny thing about watercolor is the more you play with it the better it gets. After I was done I realized it kind of looked like a blue pansy.

Funny how you envision something in your mind and when your done it takes on a different look than what you were going for. Not a bad look just something completely unexpected.

Oh and these are still the Simon Says Stamps from Monday. I did have to borrow the leaves from my Altenew stamps to help complete the look.

Watercolor - Thank You Friend

Well I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas. I for one am done, done, done. After hosting 3 straight days of parties I can honestly say I was happy to put my house back in order.

Afterwards I cleaned my craft room which was in need of some desperate cleaning but a bit of organization as well. I have determined my room is just too small for all my needs but alas it's what I have so I pack it full and trust me it doesn't take much to get it out of organization.

Once it was clean I actually had to wait a day just to admire the fact that you could once again not only see my desk but the floor. 

Then it was time for some water coloring and making my Thank you cards.
I stamped my flowers from Simon Says Stamps Beautiful In Flowers stamps set and colored them in with Tim Holtz Distress Inks. I like to use the Pickled Raspberry and Abandon Coral together.

After my coloring was done I opted to use my new MFTS pp which is nothing but black and white polka dot pp. I love the pop it gives my watercolor panel.

I hope all of you have a healthy and happy New Year!

Merry Christmas - WPlus9 die

Yes another plaid card; tis the season or rather weather for lots and lots of plaid as its flannel season here even in sunny California.

I am still lovin this deer I bought a few years back and love the black silhouette with the plaid pp. I wanted to give him a white backdrop so using my Spellbinders die I cut and embossed it then added some silver foil snowflakes and topped him off with a bright and shiny Merry diecut.

I popped the deer, the white label diecut, and a snowflake to give the card some overall dimension.

There's just something about a red, white and black color combo that seems timeless and makes me think of booth Winter and Valentine's Day.

Peace and Love

Digging around in my stamps I came across these Holly and Leaves from Papertrey Ink that I never seem to use much and after browsing around in a Stampin Up catalog I decided I needed to do some stamping and opted for these florals. I wasn't sure at first what I wanted and after a few mishaps I was pretty happy with the my stamped outcome and just needed to add some pp and finishing touches like that snowflake die from Simon Says Stamp. And I'll let you on a little secret, I dropped the damn ink pad on the stamped card panel. Originally I was going to put the sentiment on the left side but you see I now needed to hide my mistake and thus the snowflake helped me rescue me from my clumsy hands.

Christmas Wishes

While I had my watercolors out I felt the need to use the blue for some reason and wondered how the Yeti stamp set from My Favorite Things Stamps would work. I also used some stitched hill dies from Simon Says Stamp and their fallen snow stencil along with some glitter paste. The Christmas die is from Clearly Besotted stamps and the pattern paper from MFTS. 

 

Watercolor - Wishing You A Happy Birthday

Thought I would take a break from my Christmas cards which have been selling quite well at my local craft fair and watercolor a bit.

I mixed both the Peony and Beautiful Bouquet sets from Altenew for this card. Used my Simon Says Stamp Wishing die along with a birthday stamp set and added a couple of enamel dots.

Happy Halloween - Dog gone cute!

While I was feeling my mojo making cards for the grandkids I figured I better make something for Halloween since I don't want to be caught off guard when the time rolls around.

I spied my Simon Says Halloween stamps set and knew this would be perfect for them.

Again, I used my copic mister to spray black ink and then daubed on a little carved pumpkin from my distress ink collection.

The images were then stamped, colored and die cut. Also showcasing my Impression Obsession pumpkin dies.

Finished off the card with a few crystal stars and now I am ready for sending when the time arrives.

Sarah Kay - WIshing You

Sharing more of those Sarah Kay stamps by Stampavie, they are simply too sweet.

Again, stamped the image then colored with my copics, pp from Teresa Collins, stitched die cut from My Favorite stamps, Wishing you was layered to give it a bit of depth and is from Simon Says Stamp.

Sending Sunshine

The other day my daughter came over with the boys and they had just gotten the Valentine Day's card I sent them. She was telling me how much they enjoyed getting mail and usually she gives them the flyers so when my card came it was a big treat to have actual mail. The little one loved it so much he stuck the card in the bib of his overalls and carried it around all day. Now doesn't that just warm your heart?

I told her I would try to send them cards on a regular basis so this is the first of that attempt. I will confess I was in a bit of a rush it was late last night when I pulled it together but it's sort of cute and with a snappy superhero stamp to stick on the envelope I am pretty sure they will love it.

Oh and this was all pretty simple. The cloud die is from Simon Says stamp, the paper, sentiment and sun stamps and dies are all from Papertrey Ink. The pre-imaged paper really helps this be a fairly simple and quick card.

It's Birthday Season!

At least in my house. I realized that I have 2 friends with birthdays in Feb, 1 friend with a birthday in January and then 5 family members all in February so I need to crank out some birthday cards. Of the 8 cards I needed to make 5 are all male. I find those are always a bit more of a challenge. First up is this card I made with my oldest grandson in mind. I figured being 16 he's definitively not going to want some cutesy card, something more on the serious side for him. Using a round dot die from Papertrey Ink and a stitched rectangle die from Simon Says stamp, along with an arrow die cut from QK.

Christmas Time

Halloween is now officially over at my house, all the decorations have been put away and I started on my Christmas Cards. I have to say it feels strange to be starting these but since I also started my Christmas shopping last week I guess it really shouldn't. We all know how time flies and next thing you know Christmas will actually be here so I guess it's best to get a leg up while I can.

Keeping it a bit simple this week. I stamped the sequin tree and die cut that plus two more from pp and of course added a few sequins for decoration. I also added some glitter snow to the background using a falling snow template. And then stamped the sentiment and popped up the center tree.

MFT - Tree Stamp and Dies
Papertrey Ink - Sentiment Stamp, Ink
Simon Says Stamp - Falling Snow Stencil, Stitched Rectangle die
Aleene's - Glitter Snow Paste
Chickinadiddy - Pattern Paper
Other - Sequins

Halloween - It's Official!

At least around our house it's officially decorated that is. I was a busy girl and was able to get 80% outside done and 100% inside done. Well technically I guess it's 100%. I usually have a very intricate Halloween village that I put on display but since the grandbabies have been walking I have omitted it. I was tempted this year to put it out but decided they still aren't quite old enough where I don't have to worry about something getting broken. Other than that it's done.

The outside still needs some spot lights up, cobweb material that I fill across an entire wall and of course fill it with spiders but it's too early for that. All I will get from now until HW is a bunch of debris stuck to it.

I was looking for pictures and a video I took last year to show you my witch who is mostly life size that is cooking up my zombie Harold in a cauldron but alas I guess I deleted it. I have two fog machines that also need to be setup but last year we used dry ice on top of that and lets just say it was a very cool effect and definitely will be repeating that. Ok enough rambling.

Back to more watercolors. I decided to splurge and bought some real watercolor paints instead of using my Distressed Ink dyes. They were a bit more work than the inks becauase I had to come back two or three times to get the effect I was after.

Using up some odds and ends 3-D stickers to complete this scene as well as a Simon Says stamp and dies for the sentiment

Polka Dots

I am not sure why but when I first saw this die I imagined colorful polka dots, in fact looking at this now it reminds me of those pastel sprinkle used for cake decorating.

 

The die is from Papertrey Ink, the stitched rectangle die and Happy Birthday stamp is from Simon Says Stamp and the pp is from Lawn Fawn Hello Sunshine paper pad. The little epoxy hearts are from my long time stash but are from K&Company.

 



TGF - Cheeky Birthday

Here is another card for this month's challenge at The Greeting Farm. Using the Cheeky Rockabilly stamp colored with copics, some more Heidi Swapp pp, new circle stamp sentiment from Simon Says, and a few odds and ends to complete the card.

As you can see I decided to fussy cut a bit of the stamp so she hung off the circle.

Another TGF card - Celebrate

Here is another card for the button challenge on the TGF blog.
I was actually inspired by some tissue paper that came with some product I ordered. It was such a pretty aqua color.

Choose to use one of the Cheeky girls, this one is Cheeky beach. I also went out of my comfort zone and attempted to color her hair black. I say attempted because it wasn't as successful as I hoped to accomplish. The die cut clouds are from Simon Says stamp. The banner die from Nestabilities, the sentiment stamp from Papertrey Ink and the Celebrate die was from Die-Versions.