Another Card for the Altenew Challenge

As I was sitting and working on a completely different style of card on Monday afternoon, I had an idea for another card for the Altenew July 2016 Inspiration Challenge using the image on the left and using the theme of "Wedding".  Altenew lets you enter their challenge as many times as you wish in one month so I decided to go for it again and make this second card. I could easily make a few more too. I used the color palette given in a different way this time having the largest blooms be yellow with only a very small amount of the pink this time.

For this card, I cut a 4.25 x 5.5 inch piece of the gold foil and white striped paper to be my background and mounted it on a Top Folding Vertical Card Base made from Stamper's Select White Cardstock. This is the same foiled paper that I used on my card here, just a much larger piece of it. It's called "Be Bold, Be Bright" and is available at Hobby Lobby and happens to be half off this week.   Let me just say that while I love the gold, it is very hard to photograph although I did manage to get a couple of acceptable images to use for this post.  Anyway, the foil makes for an instantly elegant card.  I have several patterns in the gold and white paper but again, I like stripes although I may try another pattern later.

Using Altenew's Peony Bouquet and Beautiful Day Stamp Sets, I stamped and heat embossed them using Versamark and Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder.  To color the flowers I stamped inside the outlines using Lemon Tart and Harvest Gold.  The 2nd and 3rd detail layer were both stamped with the Harvest Gold but the color deepens a bit when you stamp the next layer over it.  I feel like I am not explaining myself very well so please ask if you have a question.  I tried using a third ink color, but I didn't like the way it looked.  This way is much more subtle and realistic.  The larger leaves are from the Beautiful Day Stamp Set while the single leaves are part of the Peony Bouquet Stamp Set. I used New Leaf for all of the leaves and Raspberry Fizz for the berries.  It's a little difficult to get those berry filled little sprays lined up and inked up so today I die cut them from watercolor paper first, then stamped and heat embossed them after cutting. To keep the paper lined up for stamping, I left the positive pieces in the negative and put a piece of masking tape over the back side to hold them in place until I was done with all the stamping.  This worked very well.  The stem and leaves are one part and the berry details are another.  Then each of those has another layer for coloring them in.  It's a little bit tedious, but I honestly didn't mind and felt it was worth it for the final results.  I used the Beautiful Day and Peony Bouquet coordinating dies.

I also cut a Spellbinders Labels 42 Decorative Elements as an anchor for my bouquet although you can't see much of it in the end.  It's just a skosh wider than the standard A2 card, but it will still fit in the envelope if you do it carefully.  I wanted to have my arrangement go from the upper left corner to lower right this time which helps draw your eye from the two corners and meet up at the greeting of "Congratulations" which was stamped using Altenew's Magnolias for Her Stamp Set.  The banner is from Papertrey Ink's Tag Sale: Quilted Die.  I've used this banner way more than the other part of the die.  Not every sentiment will fit onto it, but it is the perfect size for many of them. *Ü*

It's a bit hard to tell from the photos, but this is a super elegant card that you could give for a wedding or engagement card or even to a couple who is celebrating a milestone anniversary.  The peonies were spritzed with some Iridescent Gold Shimmer Mist (this one would be close) after the ink dried but before they were adhered to the card base using Ranger Multi Medium Matte. The only element I used dimensional adhesive for is the banner.  

I hope you enjoyed another card for the Altenew Challenge.  Be sure to stop by their blog and see the other entries. Thanks for stopping by today. See you soon! 

CAS(E) this Sketch #179

I saw this sketch this morning over at the CAS(E) this Sketch Challenge and loved it so I decided to play along. I really love how it looks like a wreath or branches framing in the sentiment and grounding it.  I'm limited to 5 entries on the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge each week and this will be my 4th entry there, but today is the last day before a new challenge is issued.

I used some already heat embossed and stamped pieces left from another card and added a couple of new ones in.  I started my card by creating a 4.25 x 5.5 inch top folding notecard from Papertrey Ink's Lovely Lady Cardstock.  Next, I cut a background panel from Stamper's Select White using the WPLUS9 Design Studio's Sunshine Layers Die Set. Using a kabuki style makeup brush as my stencil brush, I brushed Lovely Lady Ink all around the outer edges of the panel lightly.  In the future I'm just going to call this my stencil brush without explaining what I am using until someone asks.  I have to say, I am loving this technique and I find it to be great for not getting marks or streaks in the ink.  Ink blending is great too, but I'm glad to have another option in my tool box.

I cut a gold foil oval from Spellbinders Oval Floral and cut the oval center out as well for a true "frame" feel.  I adhered that to my background panel using Ranger Multi Medium Matte.  When that was dry, I arranged the peony and leaves (from Altenew's Peony Bouquet Stamp Set) how I wanted them on the card and attached them with a combination of Thin Foam Squares and Ranger Multi Medium Matte.  I also used the same stencil type brush to lightly ink up the sentiment banner which used Altenew's Beautiful Day Stamp Set and attached it with Thin Foam Squares as well.

Since most of the pieces were already stamped and cut, it made for a quick card. I think this is a sentiment that can be used for a wedding, birthday or even encouragement cards.

For your reference, the leaves were stamped in Vintage Jadeite and the peony was stamped in Spun Sugar Distress Ink for the lightest layer, Lovely Lady for the 2nd and 3rd layers and then the 3rd layer was stamped again in Hibiscus Burst to give it a little more depth.

Typically, I don't do very many dimensional elements because I mail nearly every card I make so I want them to go through the machines.  It's nice that with the Thin 3D Foam Squares it can have a little of that while still being mailable. I'm pretty sure this one is going to my Mother-In-Law, Agnes.  She still enjoys her cards and my sister-in-law, Brenda, made her a binder of all the cards she has received so she can look at them in book format.  She doesn't remember who they're from, but she does like being able to see them.

Thank you so much for stopping by today.  I appreciate that you've spent some time on my blog today.  You can also find me on Facebook and Instagram.  Have a great day, everyone!

Stampin' Royalty #336 & Simon Says Wednesday Challenge

I have a card today for the Stampin' Royalty #336 Challenge and the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge.  The Simon Challenge is "Anything Goes" and Stampin' Royalty is using the inspiration image on the left which you can see has lots of blues and corals in it.

As I often do when trying a new technique, I stamped multiples of the pieces for the card I created yesterday (in case of mistakes) for the Altenew July 2016 Inspiration Challenge.  That is how I happened to have 4 of these coral colored blooms from the Altenew Peony Bouquet Stamp Set.  I ended up not using any of the coral ones on that card but when I sat down this morning to figure out a few challenges to participate in, I thought of these immediately when I saw the inspiration image.

I started by making a top folding 4.25 x 5.5 inch card base from SU! Night of Navy Cardstock. I had planned to use Enchanted Evening from Papertrey Ink but that is more of a Midnight Blue than a Navy Blue and didn't work with my accent paper.  The background panel is cut from Berry Sorbet Cardstock with the largest Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangle Die. The blooms are stamped with Pale Peony and Berry Sorbet for both of the layers.  I used a strip of navy & gold striped paper for a vertical stripe to adhere my row of flowers to.  While the designs I've seen so far all feature a horizontal stripe, I liked the visual interest of the vertical stripe and I had just enough of the coral blooms to do it this way.

For the greeting, I used one of the sentiments from Altenew's Beautiful Day and heat embossed it with Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder which is the same as the one I used on the blooms.  The outlines images of the blooms were stamped with Versamark and heat set, then stamped with colors inside the heat embossed outline.  Afterward, I used a less expensive version of the ever so popular Clarity Stencil Brushes to lightly apply ink with Berry Sorbet. It just helps to tie it all together although I'm not you can tell in the photo. The Clarity Brushes are expensive at $30.00 for a set of 4 brushes in varying sizes and then you'd need two sets at that price to have one brush for each color family. A friend suggested that she was going to try this technique with a kubuki style makeup brush which makes perfect sense.  I wasn't sure it would work, but I've been very happy with the results and I got 5 large brushes, all about the same size in the set of make-up brushes I ordered from Amazon.  That pretty much covers the color groups I would need - Pink/Rose, Coral/Orange, Yellow, Blue/Indigo and Violet.  So far, these brushes don't shed as you are using them. You can find this set I got by following the link.

This card went together much faster than I was expecting but the hard part was already done so it just meant coming up with a design.  I have a very hard time using patterned paper but this gold foil striped paper is a winner for me every time.  I have it in white, mint, dark blue, grey, teal and green.  The pink and orange are long gone.  The paper is Hobby Lobby's "Be Bold, Be Bright" patterned paper that comes in an 8.5 x 11 inch pad of 80 sheets with all different patterns.  There are two of each color in each pattern.  If you buy it with a coupon like I did, it will be well worth the price.  Foiled paper is easily $2.00 a sheet so I feel like this was a bargain. I've got enough for quite a while. I took this last photograph at a slightly different angle so you could see the gold foiled paper.  The finishing touch is a few gold sequins.

I'm also going to pop over to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Blog and enter this card since they have an Anything Goes theme this week.  Thank you so much for stopping by today.  I always appreciate it when you take time to leave me a comment.  See you again soon!

July 2016 Altenew Inspiration Challenge

Hello there!  I don't know about you all, but I have had a very busy week.  I work in my studio every day but I don't always have an idea that comes to fruition right away.  Sometimes I start a project with all the elements but in the end, I just didn't have something I was happy with, so I started over.   

That was the case yesterday when I began my card for the July 2016 Altenew Inspiration Challenge.  Sometimes, you just need a do-over. It's not that the first card was a total disaster, but in the end I felt it was just "too much" and decided to start from the card base I had created a few of at the onset of this project.

I started with a note card cut from Stamper's Select White Cardstock using the Papertrey Ink Noted: A2 Dies.  Once I had the note card folded, I masked off the scalloped border using the stitching lines as my guide.  Using my Fintec Mica Gold Watercolors in the color Inca Gold, I created some spatter. You can use any kind of shallow box to lay the card base in so you don't get spatter everywhere. I still always end up with more spatter on the hand that I bounce the brush off of than I do on my actual project.  I was so excited yesterday when I discovered that Finetec makes individual replacement pans of this watercolor. The set I have has 6 different colors of gold and I use the Inca Gold and Arabic Gold the most.  It will be great that I can replace just the one that is empty.  Simon Says Stamp carries the individual pans of the Kuretake and I'm hoping they will start carrying these as well.  I tried several several different brush sizes on the first card base but quickly decided that my #8 Silver Black Velvet Paintbrush was the size of spatter I liked; big enough to see, but not big enough to overwhelm.  The size of the brush determines the size of the spatter.  I tried everything from a #2 all the way to a #12.  I chose to do the ink spatters because Altenew carries a card stock called "Spicy Yogurt" which has speckles in it and I love the look.  I figured for a wedding card, gold spatter would be good.  Simon Says Stamp carries Altennew Stamps and Dies, but no cardstock so you have to order it from them directly. I've not found it elsewhere. I do have some Rustic White Cardstock from Papertrey Ink, but it is far less speckled than the Spicy Yogurt from what I can tell.  I'll let your know later as I ordered some.  It just hasn't arrived yet.  I'm planning to do at least one other card for this challenge after it arrives.

I wanted to use one of my Spellbinders Labels 42 Decorative Elements as my substitute for the Antique Trims that Altenew also carries. Yana Smakula is leading this challenge for Altenew and I love her stuff.  Her card was nothing less than stunning.  She creates the most beautiful cards all of the time. My own style is similar to hers and I use lots of gold embossing and shimmer in almost every card I make.  Some people don't like the mess of heat embossing but for me, it's still magic — every.single.time.  

Once I had my gold label cut, I stamped each outline image in the Altenew Peony Bouquet Stamp Set multiple times (anticipating errors) and heat embossed them using Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder, which is my favorite gold embossing powder even over WOW! or Ranger. It is a warm gold and very well suited for almost everything I make. Occasionally I need silver or platinum, but most of the time I use gold embossing powder and this one is a great fit for me.  It melts nicely and the price is great as well. I cut each shape out with the Altenew Peony Bouquet Coordinating Dies so I could stamp them.

To color the blooms, I stamped each different layer of color on the leaves and blooms.  I have a couple of very light pink inks but the only one I really like for multi-layer stamping is Distress Ink in Spun Sugar.  It is a cool pink tone rather than a warmer tone such as Sweet Blush or Pale Peony.  For the first (and lightest layer) I stamped twice using the Spun Sugar Distress Ink on the large blooms and then the 2nd and 3rd layers using Lovely Lady and Hibiscus Burst Ink.  I stamped the 3rd layer again using Raspberry Fizz this time for the brightest pink accents. I stamped the smaller blooms of the peony in Lovely Lady with Hibiscus Burst and then Raspberry Fizz for the pink blooms and Lemon Tart with Harvest Gold for the 2nd and 3rd layers of the yellow blooms. All the leaves are stamped with Vintage Jadeite and the berries were stamped with Raspberry Fizz.  I assembled my bouquet on top of the gold label and then picked the whole arrangement up using Press 'N Seal.  I have a couple of pieces of this in my studio and I use them over and over again until they are no longer sticky.  There are a lot of small pieces to that bouquet and I didn't want to try to get it right from a picture on my phone so this method saves some of my sanity.   I don't normally use this many pieces on a card, but afterall, a wedding is special. The Press 'N Seal was a good way to keep the design together while I glued the pieces down.  You just start by adding glue to the backs of the pieces that you just picked up with the Press 'N Seal.  After that, you can add a drop or two of glue anywhere that you missed before.

I almost forgot the embellishments but remembered at the last minute and added some clear sequins and clear droplets from Pretty Pink Posh. I cut the sentiment piece by re-aligning my paper back into the same small rectangle from the My Favorite Things Stitched Rectangle Stax Dies and cutting again to make it narrower.  I attached it using a thin foam square on the far right end and some Ranger Multi Medium Matte on the left end.  I wish I could buck the system a little but at least in English, we read from left to right, so it's always more natural for me to lead in from the left hand side of the card and work toward the right.  I tried the sentiment with gold spatter on there, but I didn't like and felt it was distracting so I made a new one without the spatter.  

I'll be entering this card in the July 2016 Altenew Inspiration "Wedding" Challenge as well as the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge with their "Anything Goes" theme this week.  Have a great holiday weekend and stop by again soon!  

A Trio of Challenges

I am entering today's card into a few challenges this week; Stampin' Royalty #332 "Flowers" Challenge, CAS June 2016 Mix Up Challenge for Stamping, Diecuts and my choice which in this case is Heat Embossing and Sponging, and Inspired By All The Little Things where I was inspired by the color scheme in the inspiration photo.  

I often make cards from the extra pieces I have laying around and this is one of those cards.  I used Altenew Beautiful Day and Altenew Peony Bouquet Stamps with the coordinating dies for my flowers on this card. The Stamper's Select Vellum was sponged with Lovely Lady and Amethyst Allure Inks, then stamped and die cut.  The leaves were stamped on vellum and diecut without added color. 

For my card base, I used Lavender Moon Cardstock from Papertrey Ink (which is really more pink than purple) and my background panel is Stamper's Select White Cardstock.  I cut a frame using Spellbinders Labels 42 and Labels 42 Decorative Elements. The Sentiment is from Papertrey Ink's "Scripted" Dies.   

I really love pink and purple but I actually work at not using it for everything. Because of this I think I enjoy it a lot more when I do get to create using those colors.  This card is pretty straight forward stamping and heat embossing without any special techniques.  One of the things I love about it is how easy it would be to duplicate.  I think you can truly spend as much or as little time as you want when creating a card.  I never go into it having a specific design in mind, I only play around with the various elements until I get a look that I like. Sometimes that happens right away and at other times it doesn't.  I guess that's what makes it an art form.  

I hope you enjoyed my card today.  I have a few projects to work on and I will be back with a new project soon.  Enjoy your weekend! 

Our Rustic Cuff Story

I noticed a couple of months ago that whenever I tell a little story about the card I am making, a lot more people seem to comment.  This particular post is one I've had on my mind for a little while.  I really loved the last card I created and I wanted to create a special one like it to send to someone in particular.  This post is in honor of her.

We are married to twin brothers and have been sisters-in-law for more than 30 years.  We are both named Vicki (& Vickie).  Trust me when I tell you we have had some good clean fun over the years because of that.  But in the past year or so, we've gotten to know each other better and have gotten to be pretty close because of it. She is a fun loving person who knows how to see the bright side in pretty much any situation.  I really admire that about her.

Wayne and Vickie were here about a month ago for the Tulsa Chill Car Show (where BTW they won "Best of Show") and on that Friday, Vickie and I went out to shop locally for a couple of things.  You know, my local is different than her local and she was right here in an area where the population is over 1 million people and shopping for that compared to her entire county back home with a population of less than 10,000.  This is how we came to be at Kirkland's.  

She was looking for a gift for an upcoming occasion and I had mentioned in passing that Rustic Cuff was kind of cool and a somewhat local thing.  Without having one to show her, it probably didn't even register. But as we were walking around Kirkland's I noticed the associate was wearing two of these bracelets so I grabbed her wrist and said "Look! This is Rustic Cuff" and went on to tell her how this was an Oklahoma thing and how much I'd been wanting one.  Poor girl probably didn't know what to make of someone grabbing her wrist.  She asked me which color I liked and when I said the pewter one, she took it off her wrist and handed it to me saying that was part of the Rustic Cuff Tradition too.  I was floored.  I hadn't heard that part of the Rustic Cuff Story before.  As we were checking out and signing up for Kirkland Rewards, the associate learned that we were sisters-in-law, married to twin brothers, and that we have the same first and last name. She took her other bracelet off and gave it to Vickie.  It was a pretty special thing to receive the RAK but also seeing Vickie receive one as well. There is no one I would rather have shared that experience with.

The White Emerson

Of course, then I had to take Vickie over to the little boutique nearby that carries lots of different Rustic Cuff Bracelets and we both felt we needed another bracelet to go with the one we had been RAK'd. . .  *Ü*  The ones we have are all this style called The Emerson.

I've been wanting to make a card to send her to commemorate that occasion although I don't think either of us will ever forget it.  I used the colors of our bracelets for this card; Pewter, Rose, White and Plum. When you buy one of these bracelets you can get them with a gold Rustic Cuff logo charm or a silver one. We both have gold.  This is not the most colorful card, but I know Vickie will realize the time and thought I put into making it.  She has been one of my biggest supporters since I started making cards and writing my blog and she loves to receive them. You can read the full Rustic Cuff Story here if you are interested.  Suffice it to say that even Oprah has one (or possibly more).

This card was made in pretty much the same way as my previous post, just with different colors.  I chose to use the heat embossed gold leaves without adding color to the vellum to represent the white bracelets.  The rose colored flowers were colored with Hibiscus Burst, and the purple ones with Amethyst Allure. The background panel was inked up with Smoky Slate to represent the pewter bracelets.  Because of the logo charms on our bracelets, I went with gold accents where normally I think I would have used silver.  I used Altenew Beautiful Day and Altenew Peony Bouquet with their coordinating dies for the flowers and the Papertrey Ink Scripted Stamp Set and Scripted Dies for the sentiment. The banner is from the Tag Sale - Quilted die.

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  I hope you enjoyed my story of getting to share in some pretty magical moments with my Sister-In-Law/Friend.  I treasure her and she does mean the world to me.  The Word Art Wednesay Challenge Blog is all about being a blessing to someone.  I think it's also important to notice when someone is being a blessing to us and Vickie is definitely a blessing to me!

Lavender Moon

I love pink and purple.  I love it even more if they are somehow combined into one thing as long as the shades are right.  Granted, you can't just pick a couple of random shades of these two colors and toss them together like a salad, but when you take the time to select just the right shade, it can be magic.

You'll probably be surprised to find out that I watercolored these flowers from the Altenew Peony Bouquet Stamp Set with Papertrey Ink's Lavender Moon Ink. The leaves were watercolored using Vintage Jadeite, a green that I absolutely adore.  I did this by smooshing some ink onto an acrylic block and using my water brush to paint with it.

Shades of purple rarely behave as expected when combined with water.  The first layer of color I put in was truly a soft lavender shade but when I added in the second layer of color, it seemed distinctly mauve which then made me start thinking about how nice they would look with the Autumn Rose Cardstock from Papertrey Ink.  I cut each of the flowers and leaves out with the coordinating Peony Bouquet Die Set.

I used a My Favorite Things Oval Stax for the Stitched Oval Piece and I cut that from Gold Foil "Cardstock".  I don't know if y'all pay much attention to the price of gold foil cardstock, but I've been using Gold Foil Poster Board recently.  I can find it on sale often at Hobby Lobby (2 sheets for $1.00) and I can use as much as I want of it since it isn't costing me $2.00 for a sheet of 12 x 12 inch paper. The Poster Board comes in a sheet that is 24 x 36 inches so when I get it home, I cut it into sheets that are about 12 x 18 inches.  The cut doesn't have to be perfect, I'm only trying to manage the size I'm storing.  I just use my Tim Holtz Scissors and it's easy.

The Sentiment is from Graceful Greetings and was stamped on vellum in Versamark then heat set it using Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder.  I cut it out with the coordinating Graceful Greetings Dies.

I've mentioned before that my Mother-In-Law resides in a nursing home.  One of the things she really liked before was to get a greeting card.  She isn't really aware of a whole lot that is going on around her now, but she enjoys looking at her cards.  One of my Sister-In-Laws reads them to her whenever she goes to visit.  I try to keep a pretty steady stream of them going her way and I made this card with her in mind.

Over at the Word Art Wednesday Challenge Blog, they always have a challenge of "Anything Goes" as long as it is family friendly and uplifting so I'll be linking up to their blog.  The Simon Monday Challenge this week is for "April Showers Bring May Flowers".

And last but not least, I want to share this over on the Papertrey Ink "Create Along With Us Challenge. My color choices were totally inspired by Melissa Phillips' Succulents Card found here. Melissa has a way with soft, gentle color!

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  I'll be back soon with another project for you.