Background Bonanza!

I love to have a handy stash of background papers on hand. Here’s a stash I made using Art Foamies big, bold foam stamps and some acrylic paint:

The Foamies come with their own palette, making it easy to add paint and then just stamp. Clean-up is a breeze, too.

And with these busy backgrounds, you don’t need a lot of embellishments to make a card, such as this:

You can see the shimmer of the gold paint in this close-up:

(The “hello” die cut is from Simon Says Stamp.)

Thanks for stopping by!

Altenew Cards

In my last post, I showed some of my practice pieces made using the Altenew Amazing You set.

Here are the results:

These cards are all 4Bar sized (4 5/8 x 3 1/2 folded)

The backgrounds are made using Papertrey Ink’s  Mix & Mat Flourishes set.

The hello die is by Simon Says Stamp.

So much fun to mix and match the backgrounds and the images!

Cool Cats from Waffle Flower

Here are two quick, easy cards using stamps from Waffle Flower:

 

Just some simple stampin’ and colorin’ here! I stamped a bunch of the cats from the Flora Cat Play set, colored them and cut them out, so now I have a stash. All I had to do was stamp the Enveloper Little Birdie, color it in and add my cut out cat (using foam tape) and the sentiment. (Watch a Waffle Flower video here.)

A similar card:

The pretty dots are Dew Drops from the Robins Nest; the hello is a Simon Says Stamp die colored with black Wink of Stella.

Thanks for stopping by!

A Rainbow of Birthday Wishes

Would you believe I never made a shaker card? I don’t know what took me so long! But with this Birthday Wishes die from Simon Says Stamp, and some Distress Oxide inks from Ranger, it was a perfect storm.

I LOVE these Distress Oxide inks. I love the colors, I love the way they blend, I love the way they react with water, I love everything about them.  I used Fossilized Amber, Worn Lipstick, Cracked Pistachio, and Broken China. After blending them on my card stock, I spritzed a bit with water and dabbed off the water with a paper towel, leaving those cool spots. There just wasn’t enough sparkle, so I added some Ranger Perfect Pearls. 

I added some foam tape to the die cut and sprinkled some small sequins (I think they are from Sulyn). I was tempted to add more sparkle, but decided to keep it simple.

Here is a more detailed shot:

This was a very good play day!

Thanks for stopping by.

Stamp, Color, Cut with Spellbinders

Today I’ll show two cards (that I teased in my last post) using the lovely floral bouquet from Spellbinders’ Designer Series Feather from the Earth Air Water Collection by Stephanie Low. (There’s also a cool feather in the set, which has stamps and coordinating dies.)

I stamped the bouquet in VersaFine black ink (from Imagine Crafts), then painted using various markers. (And cut it out with the matching die.) To get my color, I scribbled the  markers on a palette, then picked up the colors using my water brush. (I use this technique a lot when I want a watercolor look without a heavy saturation of water.)

When using markers, I use a variety, including Ranger Distress Ink, Faber Castell’s PITT Artist brushes, Tombow markers, etc. I also will dab water-based ink pads on my palette and pick up the color with the water brush. The sentiment was cut using a Technique Tuesday die from the Celebrate set.

Here’s a variation:

The components are mostly the same, but the frame is from Simon Says Stamp.

Thanks for coming back!

 

Easy Watercolored Card

A quick card that was easy and fun to create:

I stamped Altenew’s Persian flowers on watercolor card stock, using grey StazOn ink so I wouldn’t have harsh lines. (And the StazOn is doesn’t bleed with water.) I used Ranger Distress inks to add some soft colors, then trimmed the piece, edged it with a black permanent marker and mounted the panel to a kraft card front.

I added a dash of Zig’s clear Wink of Stella for a wee bit o’ sparkle.

I die cut two pieces of this Simon Says word from the same kraft card stock, glued them together and mounted on the front of the panel. The inside says “birthday greetings.”

Fast, easy and oh, so satisfying!

 

Fast & Easy New Year Card

I don’t always get my Christmas cards out in time (and forget Hanukkah … even though it’s eight days long, sometimes the days fly by! Especially if the holiday comes early …)

But, lucky for me, there’s always a second chance to send a winter holiday card for the … New Year!

Here is a fast and easy card I made with my new Simon Says Stamp Quadrangle Frame die:

I doesn’t get much easier. I die cut the frames from gold, black and silver scraps of card stock. Before gluing them down, I gold embossed the Hero Arts sentiment in the lower corner (using Zing! gold glittery powder). I glued the squares in place and added some Sulyn star sequins. My glue of choice for everything was ScraPerfect’s Best Glue Ever, which I have been using a lot lately, finding it a great glue for multiple purposes. (Check it out here and see more of ScraPerfect’s great products on the Web site. I’ll be talking more about their products in a future post.)

Thanks for stopping by, and Merry Christmas to all.

Puzzle-icious Die Cutting

I love using dies that create inset pieces. Putting the pieces together reminds me of doing puzzles as a child, which I loved to do.

Here are some quick cards that show how fun and easy it is to create cards using simple die cuts.

I went crazy over these Highlight Frames from Simon Says Stamp.

First, here’s a look at the three shapes that come in the set.

I placed the dies on a piece of scrap silver cardstock and cut the shapes.

I then used the dies on various other scraps and inserted those pieces into the silver base to create this card:

(Sorry for the wonky photo!) To insert the pieces I first put a piece of packing tape on the back of the large silver piece. I put the tape so the sticky part would be face up as you looked at the card, showing through as you look at it. Then I carefully inserted the die cut pieces into the cut portion — just like fitting together a puzzle. The pieces stuck to the tape. (Hope that makes sense!)

I then attached the entire piece to the front of my card.

Here are two other examples:

This one is a bit different because I didn’t inset the die cuts, I just glued them to the front. As you can see, this method made it a bit tricky to get the lines down straight. I need to work on that!

The dies are quite versatile in that you can turn them to use in different directions.

After doing all that die cutting, I had some random leftovers. So what’s a gal to do? Make tags of course!

How cute are those tags?

Thanks for stopping by! Want more die-cutting insets? Check out these postings here and here.

Straight From the Heart

Yikes! It’s almost Valentine’s Day and I’ve only posted one of the many heart cards I’ve made! I love making Valentines, and I love sending them to my girlfriends.

Let’s kick off my Valentine extravaganza with these fun ones made using Simon Says Stamp’s Hearts on Parade die (and lots of scraps!):

I love making these cards (as you can see by the assortment!) Piecing the cards together reminds me of the puzzles I used to work on with my mother — such pleasant memories. There is something so relaxing about matching pieces to die cut openings.

Here’s a closer look at just one card:

As I was die cutting the pieces, I wound up with odds and ends. Never one to let anything go to waste, I used some leftover pieces on this tag …

… and on this kind of strange card:

I’ll be back with more Valentine’s day cards, using another Simon Says Stamp die.

Fabulous Finds Friday — Hearts on Parade

Yowzas, I love this new die from Simon Says! It’s Heart Parade and playing with it makes me want to march with a band! What a Fabulous Find!

Here’s the first card I made:

Easy peasy. I first cut out the whole thing, which gave me the frame (the outline of the hearts) and the “inner” hearts (which I saved for other projects.) Using some scraps, I cut it a few more times to get different patterns for the inside, then re-inserted the cut pieces in the heart outline. (Don’t throw out those partial frames, though! You’ll see how I used them.)

The sentiment is from Inkadinkado’s Occasions clear set (a set I use VERY often). The base paper is from WorldWin. I glued the small pieces down with Elmer’s fine line glue pen.

**Tip: After cutting the die, save the unused pieces in the same envelope as the die. Then when you want to mix it up a bit, you already have some cut pieces.**

My next card was bolder:

I love the blue pearlized paper (WorldWin)! I cut the pearlized paper using Spellbinders’ A2 Curved Matting Basics A S5-171. I stamped the white base card using Hero Arts’ envelope Pattern S5507 inked with Imagine Craft’s Platinum Planet Brilliance. The sequins, from Doodlebug Designs, were attached using Glue Dots’ micro dots — perfectly mini sized for these sequins! And no messy liquid!

I stamped a scrap piece of white with the same envelope pattern, then added the sentiment (Hero Arts) in VersaFine black. I wanted more bling, so added a piece of silver glitter tape (Close To My Heart).

This next one didn’t turn out as I expected, but it worked.

I tried to cut the die on a thicker piece of cardstock and it didn’t cut all the way through. I started to painstakingly cut out the pieces with my Xacto knife, when I smacked myself on the head and said, “Just leave the pieces in there, doofus.” (I often call myself names.) The large heart popped out easily, so I switched it out with a patterned piece, but left the others in plae. I rounded the corners, stamped a sentiment (Hero Arts) and stick a fork in me, I’m done.

One last trick before I go…. When you keep cutting out the heart to get different insides, you get several outlines, too.

Naturally, I save them, stashing them with the die. I trim what I need and use these smaller pieces for tags:

Whew! This is a loooong post! But as you can see, I’m crazy about this die.

Thanks for indulging me.