Quick Layering Card

Layering dies are among my new obsessions. Here’s a quick card made with  the Thoughtful Expressions Layers of Floral dies from Spellbinders:

The vertical sentiment is from Stampin’ Up!’s Vertical Greetings set.

Thanks for stopping by to take a quick peek!

Elephants on Parade!

Sometimes the best way to try new products and techniques is by making tags. These were fun and easy!

I started by playing with Hero Arts’ new liquid watercolors (check out the great video in the link) in Strawberry, Moss and Indigo (the only three colors I have, but see how nicely they mix and play together?) . These come in a dropper bottle and are highly pigmented.

I used the watercolors to create a large background sheet (which I cut into tags), but they are also great for coloring individual images. I dropped some watercolors into a paint tray, let them dry, and keep them handy on my desk. They re-activate with the touch of a damp or wet brush.

Once the paper was dry, I stamped and white embossed a portion of Hero Arts Bold Prints Floral Mandala background.

The larger pink elephant on the left is a punch from EK Success; the smaller elephant is a Hero Arts layering stamp (which has a matching die). The balloons on the large pink elephant is from Stampin’ Up!’s Balloon Builders set (if you can’t find it, there are several other great balloon stamps on the website!).

So much fun!

Thanks for stopping by.

 

 

Heartfelt Wishes

Hokey smokes, Rocky … it’s been a while since I’ve posted here!

Here’s a quick project made with a nifty die set — Love Letter — from Spellbinders Paper Arts: 

Isn’t that the cutest die set? (It includes the envelope, “note”, and three heart dies. (See the tiniest heart? Well, I managed to use it just once … and then I lost it! It fell onto my carpet and I thought, heck, I’ll never see that bad boy again. I looked, and looked, but no luck, even though I used my handy-dandy Spellbinders magic magnetic diamond.…)

Then over the weekend, while I was searching near my desk for ANOTHER die that I dropped (oh, brother, I need to get better at handling these dies) … I used that diamond again and, viola!!! It picked up the teeny heart!!! (And I found the other die, too. )

Anyway … here is another version of the card:

(Scalloped card is A2 Scalloped Card base from Papertrey Ink; the sentiment is from Hero Arts. But, sigh, no tiny heart.)

Ta da! Here is the lost heart. See how adorably tiny it is?

Thanks for stopping by!

More Valentines, 2018 version

I love these unique dies from Altenew and couldn’t stop making flowers:

The layering die (this one is Fantasy Floral, but you bet the others are on my wish list!) comes in three pieces, plus the leaves. I just went wild cutting pieces out of various card scraps, then I matched up colors:

 

I even played around with embossing and tone-on-tone:

These two were cut from some painted background pieces. The one on the left has Nuvo Aqua sparkle; the one on the right has about three layers of clear embossing powder.

Here’s a close-up:

And a white-on-white (one with sparkles, of course):

Have a lovely Valentine’s Day!

I (heart) Valentines!

It’s so close to Valentine’s Day! One of my favorite card making holidays.

Here are a few that will be going out this year:

I’ve always loved these three hearts from Hero Arts. I embossed them on black card stock with Wow! Fluorescent Tickled Pink powder. The grey layer is embossed with athe Swirly Bird Cuttlebug folder. Sentiment from Hero Arts.

Below is a fast and easy card, also a Hero Arts image. (May be an old image?)

As you can see, the heart was stamped and heat embossed (two with white, one with black).

And one more, little wilder:

Also pretty fast and easy. I pulled an ink-splattered background from my stash, stamped this terrific Laurel Burch designed cat (from Stampendous!), added the box of candy (Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous Crazy Birds Accessories) and put it all together.

Next post will feature a beautiful die cut floral from Altenew.

Thanks for stopping by!

More New Craft Stuff!!

What, you thought I could stop at just five nifty craft items? Hah!

Here are some others in no particular order:

Love me some glitter paste! Cosmic Shimmer Glitter Kiss from Ecstasy Crafts has an applicator right in the lid!

Glitter goes on easily with Ecstasy Craft’s Glitter Kiss, which comes with its own applicator.

I can’t wait to try these new Translucent Gelatos® from Faber-Castell:

Translucent Gelatos give a watercolor look

The BowVy (a Creativation Innovations winner) from Little Pink Ladybug uses a hot filament to slice and seal polyester ribbon.

In action:

And a new online company, Love + Lemon, lets you pick from a plethora of craft supplies to suit every need:

Check out the sparkles:

Can’t you just imagine a box of these dazzlers showing up on your doorstep?

That’s it from the show for a while. It’s February and I have Valentines to post! So stay tuned … and thanks for stopping by.

Quick Creativation Recap

Hey … what happened to January? Can’t believe we are in February already!

I have some Valentines ready to go, but first I need to do a quick report on what was new, fun, and fabulous at Creativation, the big trade show for the craft and hobby industry (a recent report puts crafts and hobbys as a $36 billion-plus industry!)

So here are some quick shots:

More Distress Oxides? Yes, please, may I have another??? From Ranger.

Whaaaa? Macrame is back? Yes, but hipper and cuter. These are kits from Plaid. There was a lotta knottin’ going on….

Plaid also has a nifty acrylic marbling ink, just dribble from a jar. This opens up such possibilities! Check out this one:

Cool, eh?

Check out Tim Holtz in the cool shades, ready to show off his new 3D embossing folders for Sizzix:

(No, it’s not your eyes … you need the glasses to make sense of the sign!)

 

Here’s a folder:

There’s more to come!

Check out my Instagram account @RobertaWax.

I (heart) Valentine’s Day

Christmas is long gone …. the new year is a week old … which means it’s almost Valentine’s Day! I love making Valentines to send to my besties, so let’s get this party started!

This one-layered card is relatively easy, and the reveal (when you pull of the mask) is so much fun! I created a heart mask, which I placed in the middle of my cardstock. Then I used some small flower and leaf images to stamp around the mask. Easy peasy. When I removed the mask, ta dah — a heart-shaped spot to stamp a sentiment! The sentiment above is from Stampin’ Up’s Bloomin’ Love set, as are some of the flowers.

Here’s another in the same mode:

I could do this all day! The XOXO is a Teresa Collins/Fiskars punch.

Tags, Tags, Tags!

Happy New Year! I spent a fruitful week before Christmas finishing up some gift boxes to deliver to friends and co-workers. One of my most relaxing projects was creating these easy watercolor tags:

These were so fun and easy! First, I splashed watercolors on some scrap watercolor paper using various paints, including handmade colors from Pfeiffer Art Supply.  While those were drying, I punched a bunch of tags using a Fiskars tag punch (with built-in eyelet setter!) and painted swooshes of watercolor.

I die cut cut some birds (unknown die … one of the first dies I ever used)  from that painted watercolor scrap. Because the die did not come with a bird wing, I created wings by using a leaf die that was the right size! The stamped birds (old Hero Arts Decorative Birds set and a Claudia Rose flamingo) were white embossed.

Here’s another look:

(The larger bird is Tim Holtz’s Caged Bird Sizzix Alterations die.) sitting on a double stitched oval die from Gina K. Designs.

Such fun to make, and happily received.

Here’s to a happy, healthy new year with many creative opportunities ahead. Thanks for stopping by.

 

Happy Hanukkah!!!

Happy Hanukkah (yes, there are different spellings … the CH spelling seems to be the old-fashioned way!) to those celebrating this festival of lights.

Love these quick and easy tags! Shimmer silver paper (Paper Source), circle die (Lifestyle Crafts), tag punch (Fiskars), sentiment and six-pointed star punched from silver glitter paper.

May the season be bright!