Fab Finds Friday — Coastal Christmas

It’s always such fun to discover a new stamp company! So when I checked out Flourishes, I immediately fell in love with this *Coastal Christmas set.

First, I played with the boat, which was perfect for coloring:

I used a variety of colored pencils and my Kuretake Gansai Tambi to watercolor this scene, which was first stamped in VersaMark black on watercolor paper. (The card is a 4Bar (7″x7 7/8″, folded to 3 1/2 x 4 7/8). And added a touch of Wink of Stella clear to some of the packages. It felt unbalanced, so I added a strip of a scrap paper to the left side.

The next card features the pretty beachy wreath:

Images were stamped and embossed in white on blue cardstock, colored in with various gel pens, edged with Aegean Silver glitter powder (Judikins). The pieces were mounted on a silver shimmer cardstock from Paper Source.)

That same wreath and sentiment also made quick cards with simple white embossing:

*Disclaimer: This stamp set was provided to me by Flourishes. Thank you, Flourishes!

Fabulous Finds Friday — Balloon Bonanza

I love dies for so many reasons, but mostly because they make cutting easy and I can often USE UP MY SCRAPS!!!

Which is exactly what I did to with this set of balloon dies (*Party Balloons QF176) from Cheery Lynn. I gathered a bunch of scraps and did some serial die cutting.  Here’s my Cheery Lynn balloon explosion:

And a group shot of a few of the cards:

Once you have the dies cut, these cards come together quickly. Great to have in a card emergency.

A few close-ups:

(Cuttlebug embossing folder)

*(Sorry, I could not find a direct link.)

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Quick All-Purpose Card

Here’s a quick card I made while I was playing with some feather die cuts (from Spellbinders):

 

I haven’t added a greeting because I may use it for a fall birthday (this is a good masculine card) … or it may be for a Thanksgiving hello. The card base is 4 7/8 x about 7″, then folded in half. The bottom embossed design is from a Darice embossing folder. The leaves were cut from random scraps, then the tips were embossed in copper powder. This was so fast and easy!

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Simple Stories … Cards

Almost a year ago I received some journaling stamps from Simple Stories. These papers sat … and they sat … and they sat some more. This week I decided enough is enough! Use these! Since I am a cardmaker at heart, that’s what I did. And I found these journaling cards  made quick, pretty backgrounds.

I trimmed some the papers to fit the front of my A2 card, then I looked around for images to adorn them. I looked first in my stash of pre-stamped images. Here are two using the Stampin’ Up! layered cupcake set:

(Gave it some bling with yellow Stickles.)

And another using Tim Holtz’s Crazy Bird set (watercolored and hit with some Wink of Stella clear sparkle.)

And one more, using two of the same journaling cards, just using the opposite sides:

These are so easy I’m going to make a few sets to give away as holiday gifts.

Thanks for stopping by!