Clean Up Cards!

 I don’t know about you, but I have hundreds and hundreds of card photos stored in my computer and my typical habit is to edit them for blog posts or to post on social media then pop them over to my CopyCatCard file!  Once that’s done, I delete them from Camera Uploads but unfortunately, I often forget that step!  During this time of social distancing, I’ve been working on cleaning up my files and came across a number of cards that I never edited and so they were never used for a blog or Facebook post!  I thought I’d share them with you today!  You’ll see that I have quite a few cards made with some of Alex Syberia Designs like this one above!  I printed it onto Bristol Smooth card stock and then colored the blossom with my Zig markers.  After die-cutting the image into a circle, I mounted it to a white base card which I’d embossed with a lovely folder I have.  I think that script is so elegant, don’t you?  The sentiment is from Unity Stamps.  

Here’s another one of Alex’s designs called Roses Bouquet which I stamped onto Bristol Smooth and painted, again using Zig markers! I think the sentiment is from Taylored Expressions  Simple Strips set!  

This card features a stamp made by Crafty Individuals called Summer Poppy Meadow.  I have to admit that I didn’t check to see the actual dimensions of this stamp when I ordered it, assuming it was a full A2 size!  It was quite disappointing to see the actual size when it arrived but it’s still a beautiful image and easy to work with!  I paired it with a black and white striped panel of a store bought card I had in my stash!  

I made this card over a year ago (maybe two?) and I’ve kept it for myself instead of selling it!  The simple yet striking lotus blossom was drawn by Luisana Lowry for her collection of digital stamps she called Red Hibiscus Designs and I was honored to be asked to create cards for her!  I colored this blossom with Copic markers and paired it with a background I had in my stash.  A little gold cord and a few sequins are pretty details!  

How gorgeous is this moth?!  Another one of Luisana’s designs, it’s not something I would typically be interested in, but I loved coloring this!  My Copics collection was fairly new and quite limited at this point but with the excellent tutorials that Luisana has shared, I learned so much and just love how beautifully this came out!  The background was made with Hero Arts Everything Flower stamp and I think I colored directly on the stamp, misted with water then stamped it onto Bristol Smooth card stock.  A perfect pairing, if I do say so myself!  Oh!  That bold sentiment is from Stamplorations!  

I just love this card!  It’s a print I found on Pinterest and it came with the blue background so all I had to do was color the flowers!  I believe I used Prismacolor pencils on this because I had to print it onto regular weight card stock.  The addition of Glossy Accents on some of the blossoms give it a really nice touch!  Sentiment is Taylored Expressions Simple Strips!  

When Alex Syberia created her first line of digital stamps, she invited me to design cards to help promote the line and I was honored and happy to do so!  This image is called Spring Bouquet and you can find it here in her Etsy shop!  Because I printed this with an inkjet printer, the ink smudged a bit but I used the printer ink as my gray and just went with it!  

Here’s the same image in orange and yellow; I like the addition of the Tim Holtz Hello die popping out of it!  

Another colorful card using Spring Bouquet, again letting the printer ink be my gray for coloring.  

Alex rocked the flower frame with this digi called XOXO Floral!  What a glorious array of blossoms and leaves to frame the hand-lettered XOXO!  I used Prismacolor pencils for this card, die-cut it with Gina Marie Designs Stitched Rectangle die then mounted it onto a base card made with heavy patterned paper!  

My last card is a simpler design featuring a sweet little Stampendous set called Sunshine Daisy!  I colored it with Copics, die-cut it into an oval and adhered it to the dotted paper oval.  The embossed base card is perfect with it’s display of petals, right?!  The sentiment is from Butterfly Reflections, Ink set called Let’s Flamingle.  

Here’s the inside of the Daisies card with the rest of the sentiment!  

I leave you with this sympathy card done in restful colors of nature and Papertrey Ink’s Meadow Greensstamp set.  I heat embossed the ferns with clear powder then sponged oxide and distress inks over them for a resist look, one of my favorite simple techniques!  The sentiment is from an old Stampin Up set.  Thanks for coming with me on this little walk through my computer files!  

All The Pretty Horses

Hi there, friends!  I apologize for neglecting my blog for so long but I’m back today with some cards I made last fall but never shared here! Let me tell you how I got all these beautiful stamps!  My friend, Janice is an avid horse lover and has a nice collection of horse stamps! One of our daughters became a rider in the past year and I wanted to make her some horse cards so I borrowed one of Janice’s stamps!  It’s such a great design that I decided to look it up on ebay to see if I could find my own and was thrilled to see that the seller had not just one but three beautiful horse stamps by Coronado Stamp Company!  Each one was listed for $14 apiece and although that was a little pricey for me, I ordered one anyway.  I was shocked to get a message from the seller the next day saying she’d made a mistake and sent me ALL the stamps for the price of one and to keep them!  Uh, sure!!  😀  (P.S. I did offer to return the other two but she declined my offer.)  

Because it’s been a while since I made these cards, I’m trying to remember the process!  But it seems that I basically sponged panels of Bristol Smooth card stock with a variety of distress and oxide inks and then added spatters of water, white and or black paint.  Such an easy way to add beautiful detail and interest!  

I then stamped and heat-embossed the horses over the distressed panels after dusting them generously with anti-static powder!  

I am just thrilled with how striking each card turned out!  This is my favorite background with all the colors!  

I made this collection for Courtney and she loves them all; which one is your favorite?  

Can you see the faint geometric pattern in the background of this card?  It’s Altenew’s Pattern Play-Hexagon background stamp and I spritzed it with water then laid it gently onto the distress panel, removed it and patted the panel dry with a paper towel.  I think that adds a little extra to the card, don’t you?  I haven’t made anymore horse cards since these but it’s good to know I have some great stamps to work with when I do!  Thanks for stopping by!  

Stampendous Cling Garden Mum

I wasn’t planning to write a blog post about this card- okay, actually, it never occurred to me to write a post!  I just pulled out this gorgeous new stamp set by Stampendous and went crazy with it!  But someone requested a post to describe how I made this so here I am!  I’ll try to remember to at least snap some photos of the process the next time I make a card!  But for today I’ll just explain my process!

The name of this set is Cling Garden Mum and it comes with a beautiful flourish stencil and some gorgeous samples depicted on the back of the packaging!  I was so inspired by the samples!  To begin my card, I taped the stencil to a panel of watercolor card stock and sponged on Broken China distress oxide ink.  The next step was to heat emboss the giant mum directly to the stenciled panel using black embossing powder.  I decided to use my Bister watercolor powders to fill in the blossom; the depth of color is determined by how much powder and how much water you add!  I tried to create shading with the use of both!  

When the flower was colored in I decided to add the row of flourishes down the right side; to do that, I stamped them in Versamark then heat set them with clear embossing powder.  I then sponged a layer of Black Soot distress ink over the whole panel, trying to stay away from the blossom.  This, of course, made those flourishes pop!  If you look at the top left you’ll see where I stamped on a scripty stamp using a little water then removed the dampness with paper towel.  This left a faint impression for yet another detail!  

My card looks far more complicated than it actually was!  To finish it off, I trimmed down my watercolor panel and adhered it to a base card of textured aqua card stock then added the sentiment strip.  I like how this pops against the colorful background!  

I typically keep my inside panel quite basic with a sentiment or a coordinating strip of patterned paper as a band at the bottom, but this time I went all out!  I used Technique Junkies Zinnia’s with Monarch stamp in Hickory distress oxide ink right over the stenciled pattern which I did first!  I heat embossed the sentiment onto a scrap of pink then cut it with a label punch.  I think I can still write a message inside despite all the other stuff going on here!  I had so much fun making this card and hope I’ve inspired you to play with your own stencils and stamps!  Thanks for your visit!  

Outta This World With Ranger Ink!

This card kinda makes me laugh!!  Like, whut?!  Succulents floating in outer space?!  Really, Sharon??  Yes, really!!  😀  As I was playing with my new supplies from Ranger Ink and Wendy Vecchi I decided to go out of my comfort zone and do something a bit silly!

It all started when I made this galaxy background by blending all of my new Wendy Vecchi’s Blendable inks onto a panel of Perfect White cardstock and covering them with a layer of Black Soot distress ink!  I added spatters of white craft paint and then gold from Gansai Tambi’s Starry Colors palette! 

 But what next?!  The sweet succulent from Wendy Vecchi’s Flower Pot Stamp/Die/Stencil set was just begging to be featured on a card again, so I heat-embossed a bunch of them in gold, colored them with Zig markers then cut them out.  Before I adhered them to the panel, I added strips of washi tape from Wendy Vecchi’s Washi Tape Assortment 2– the watercolor-y design just perfectly coordinated with my card!  I also like how the straight lines of the tape nicely balanced out the organic shapes of the succulents and the flowy script of the sentiment!  

“Dreaming of You” seemed the most appropriate sentiment for this galaxy card and it’s from Simon Says Stamp’s Seeing Stars set.  I embossed “Dreaming of” in gold onto a strip of black card stock then trimmed it down and mounted it with a bit of foam tape to my card.  Just below it I embossed the “You” directly to my panel.  

I really love this whimsical card with floating succulents and hope you do too!  Thanks for stopping by!  

 

CopyCat Strikes Again!

Most stampers and card makers know that the term “CASE” means “copy and share everything” and I DO like to copy!!  I’m continually impressed and inspired by other’s work and today’s card is no exception!  Lauren Lovato is a designer for Brutus Monroe and she recently shared THIS card which I fell in love with!  I’m always drawn to watercolored, spatter-y backgrounds and leaves and sprigs are some of my favorite design elements!  Her card combined both so I had to CASE! (Technically,  I made this card prior to seeing Lauren’s aforementioned card!)  This was made specifically for my daughter’s birthday; Sara is an amazing poet and going to grad school this fall for Writing and Publishing.  I’m so proud of her for pursuing her goals and “following her bliss”!  

The very first thing I did was to heat-emboss in black this encouraging sentiment from Stamplorations into the center of a piece of Bristol Smooth card stock.  I then pulled out an old Stampin Up set called Remarkable You which I recently found on ebay and heat-embossed the leaves image using Versamark ink and then clear embossing powder.  

Next, I tapped out Fossilized Amber distress oxide ink onto my craft mat, spritzed with water and laid my card stock into it, then repeated that process with Mowed Lawn distress ink, and Forest Moss distress oxide ink, drying in between layers with a heat tool.  As a nod to the written word, I had to add the Dictionary background stamp by Stampin Up in black over the whole card front.  I rubbed off the excess inks with a paper towel to reveal the crisp white leaf outlines.  Lastly, I sponged Black Soot distress oxide ink around the edges then mounted the panel to a white card base.  I really, really love this card and Sara did too!  

  I think it’s quite ironic that I had just created the Follow Your Bliss card for Sara, and then saw Lauren’s card online!  Here’s my CASE of hers!  Again, I used Stampin Up’s Remarkable You leaves image and embossed them in black onto a panel of Bristol Smooth.  Using Zig markers, I began by scribbling a little Deep Blue into the crannies between the stems of the leaves, then moved and blended the ink outward with a water brush.  I did a section at a time, letting it dry in one area then going back in to add another layer of color and water.  

When the dark blue background was filled in, I used Dark Pink on the leaves and again, a waterbrush to move the ink.  Persian Green was then added to the leaves and blended with more water.  I like that the Pink and Green colors bled into the Deep Blue background!  I happily spattered on all three Zig colors and a little extra black then die-cut the circle of vellum, embossed the sentiment with black powder and attached it to my watercolored panel.  A few little jewels added extra pizzazz and a black card base finished my card!  Thanks to Lauren for her inspiration!  I hope you will take the time to view her creations on her Instagram page or blog!  

Stampendous Little Mushroom & Fern Garden

I recently received a big fat package of goodies from Stampendous and was so tickled to see these beautiful images!  I immediately got busy and have been making cards with Little Mushroom and it’s coordinating dies plus this amazing background stamp called Fern Garden!  I’m in love!!!   

The first thing I did was to ink up Fern Garden with Peeled Paint and Forest Moss distress oxide inks, then spritzed with a fine mist of water.  I stamped it out onto a panel of Bristol Smooth card stock, then stamped it again onto a second panel so as not to waste any of that delicious color!  

Next, I stamped the Little Mushroom onto another piece of Bristol Smooth and had so much fun coloring it in with my Zig markers!  I spattered droplets of water to create “texture” on the image then used the handy-dandy die to cut it out!  

Lastly, I added some bits of foam tape to the mushroom and attached it to the Fern Garden background then adhered that to a white base card.  I stamped the sentiment directly to the card front with Versafine Onxy Black ink.  This was a simple card and I just love the woodsy-ness of it, don’t you?!  

For my next card, I decided to play around with the Fern Garden background using the Floral Garden Embossing Powder kit which I also received!  It has twelve little containers of colorful embossing powders and little scoops for using with it.  I inked up Fern Garden with Versamark and stamped it onto a piece of Bristol Smooth then scooped the two shades of blue powder onto a section of the inked design, tapped it off and heat set it.  I did this again but used the two greens next!  

I inked up Fern Garden again with Versamark, then turned the stamp so the design was going in a different direction and stamped it directly onto the first heat-set layer of colors!  Again, I scooped additional colors of powders (orange, red and yellow) but this time I placed each color onto an area of the Versamark’d image, gently removed the excess and then heat-set them all at the same time.  I hope all that makes sense!  

The result of all that layering, scooping, heat-setting and repeating is quite vividly beautiful, I think!  I have a stamp set by Papertrey Ink called Meadow Greens with fern stamps and dies, so I stamped one out onto Bristol Smooth using distress oxide inks (Peeled Paint and Mowed Lawn) then die-cut it.  I also die-cut a fern of olive green card stock and placed that beneath the stamped fern.  

To complete my card, I adhered the Fern Garden background panel to a white card base, added a little Vintage Note script stamp to the bottom then attached my ferns to the lower corner using foam tape for dimension.  The sentiment is from Pink Fresh Studio’s Let’s Flamingle set!  I had a lot of fun playing with the embossing powder kit and the Fern Garden background and have several ideas for more fun cards, so stay tuned!  Thanks for visiting!