Simon Says "Anything Goes"

It feels like it has been forever since I got to play along with the Simon Says Stamp Challenges but today's card was made especially for this week's challenge.  I am pretty smitten with this stamp and die bundle from Avery Elle called Floral Bouquet. I almost never use black ink, choosing instead heat embossing with Antique Gold Embossing Powder, but Copic markers work better with Copic friendly black ink.  I have a particular one that I like to use -- Simon Says Stamp Intense Black. It was formulated to work with Alcohol Markers such as Copics. I have two other images already inked up and ready to be colored today with some lovely pink shades.  

This is pretty simple Copic Coloring with no special techniques.  I am not a master colorist and I've had almost no training. Most of what I know is from watching others on YouTube.  I'm also not trying to achieve perfection, I just want something that looks pretty.  It doesn't need to be photo realistic.  

I basically used 2 colors of green for the leaves and 3 for the blooms + black for the Stamens. The part of this card that really helps it pop is the My Favorite Things Striped Sentiment Cover Up.  I die cut it from Stamper's Select White and mounted it to a Deep Indigo Top Folding Card Base.

The Sentiment is from Simon Says Stamp and is the Painted Hello Die.  I cut four of them and glued them on top of each other to make a thick embellishment.

This is it for today.  Thank you so much for stopping by to see my card.  I hope you'll come back soon.  

Inspired By All The Little Things

We have a young man in our subdivision who just started his own business called Candry's Car Care which is a car interior detailing business. Now I have to say, I really like it when an enterprising young man starts his own business at the age of 12.  I want to encourage him if I can.  So I left my car yesterday after school for him to detail.

I am not usually hauling around young children or eating in my car or that kind of thing, but I'm lucky if my hubby washes my car - forget detailing the interior.  I actually did remember that the last time I had warranty work done on it, they did vacuum it, but that is a far as it went and that had been at least a year.

When I went over to get my car last evening, Candry showed me everything he had done.  It was a job very well done indeed and I wanted to make a Thank You note to send him as encouragement for doing such an outstanding job.  All the floor mats had been removed and vacuumed under, the carpeted floor mats had been vacuumed, the seats were cleaned and treated with leather cleaner, all the vents had been cleaned, etc.  Even the inside windows had been cleaned.  Really, he paid so much attention to detail that I feel like I have a new car!

On the Inspired By All The Little Things Challenge this week, they have the beautiful image of fall leaves as our inspiration and I thought it would be a great choice for a young man.  I had actually made some of the leaves several days ago for another project and ended up not using them, so I did have them ready to go. I like to do ink blending in stripes of color on watercolor paper well misted with Shimmer Mist to help all the colors blend and smooth out.  I die cut several of the leaves using the MFT Falling Leaves Die Set which has the embossed details as well as the outline that is achieved in one pass through a die cutting machine.

I cut an oval from the Copper Crinkle Paper to form the shape of my "wreath" and then placed the leaves around that shape.  I cut three layers of the Mama Elephant "thanks" die from gold foiled cardstock and glued them, one on top of the other, for a thicker embellishment. I used Elmer's Craft Bond, which is a spray adhesive, with a shallow box so I can keep it contained.  I put the wreath onto a Pure Poppy panel that had been cut with a Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangle Die and then adhered it all to a top folding horizontal card base using my "new" ATG dispenser.

My ATG has been giving me fits for the last few refills.  When I called 3M/Scotch about the tape refills to see if there had been issues with some of it, they told me there had been an issue with some of the dispensers and offered to send me a new one plus a shipping label to return the duddy one to them.  That came a couple of days ago and I have to say, it is a definite improvement. Only time will tell if it really makes a difference, but I'm hopeful. I also noticed that they used a different refill than the one I had been getting so I made a note of the correct one.

Be sure to stop by Inspired By All The Little Things and check out all the beautiful interpretations of the inspiration photo.

Addicted to CAS - Code Word - Harvest

I started a project Thursday afternoon and as sometimes happens, it took on a life of its own. I will often make 2 or 3 cards in the same or similar style while I have those particular supplies out and that day was no exception.  I can change up the colors easily enough because with watercolor no two images are the same even if you try.

I love watercolor and watercolor techniques and I'm still trying different techniques to see the results.  That was probably the biggest thing I had to learn when I started trying to incorporate watercolor into my work.  You have to relax and try different things and be willing to use some things for purposes not originally intended.  This is how I came to be working on a project for the Addicted to Clean & Simple Challenge.

On Thursday, I got a fantastic surprise in the mail from my friend, Yana Smakula.  One of my favorite of her cards featuring Altenew's Magnolias for Her Stamps and Coordinating Dies was delivered by my postal carrier.  To say I am over the moon to get one of Yana's cards is putting it mildly! While there are many designers whose work I like, I think Yana is the one I most want to be like. Her love for Gold equals my own although neither of us use it 100% of the time. But it is a go to for both of us to instantly add a bit of elegance to a project.  If you aren't familiar with Yana's work, I linked her name above to her blog or there is a link to her blog on my sidebar where you can see more and she does fantastic YouTube Videos as well.

I was playing around with some ink "smooshing" in some "different for me" kinds of colors and while I didn't care for what I did as a background panel, I couldn't help but think of what lovely fall leaves they would make.  I love the Color Pop Autumn Kit that Papertrey Ink released last month, but I've had these My Favorite Things Falling Leaves Dies that I've been wanting to try out and they were absolutely perfect for creating these leaves.  A lot of the trick for getting these well blended colors is an abundance of liquid, or in my case shimmer spritz, added to your watercolor paper.  I used several types of watercolor paper here and I can't honestly say that I think one is better than the other in this particular application. Since I wasn't dragging a brush back and forth over the top, it all held up fine without pilling. I knew I was going to let it just sit to air dry for a while.  The Arches Hot Pressed took the longest to dry as expected. I used Canson Bristol, Arches Hot Pressed, & Fabriano Cold Pressed watercolor papers.

One trick I like to use for heavily textured watercolor paper (such as the Fabriano) is running the very slightly damp paper through my die cutting machine with an unmarked, uncut plate on the top and the embossing pad to help flatten it out.  If you use a cutting plate that has marks in it, those marks will end up on your panel.  The embossing pad won't leave marks, but it does not make it as smooth as an unmarked cutting pad. I have a cutting plate just for this purpose and I keep it in a separate place so that I don't accidentally cut into it (the voice of experience again).

Once I saw the card that Yana had sent me, I really wanted to try shaping my leaves in the same manner so I had to ask her a couple of questions about how she did it.  Now, I've watched her do it in YouTube Videos but the reality (as always) and seeing it in person was even better.  It took my breath away when I took it out of the box she sent it in, so I absolutely wanted to mimic that look.  To achieve this, it is better to do it when your paper is slightly damp or you can give it a light mist of water.  I didn't want to get mine too wet because the dies I used here both cut the shape and emboss the veins but if you put too much water on it expands the previously compressed paper and takes a lot of the embossed detail out.

Once I had all of my leaves die cut and shaped, I made two card bases; one from Kraft and one from Dark Chocolate Cardstock.  I also cut a Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangle from Scarlet Jewel Cardstock in the largest size to use as a mat for the Kraft card base.  For the Dark Chocolate card, I used the Noted: A2 Scalloped Die to cut my card base, then I cut the "Bountiful" die cut from the Color Pop Autumn Kit out of Gold Metallic Cardstock and placed it on a Paper Clippings: Birthday Details Banner cut from Rustic White Cardstock.  I placed my leaves going from the upper left to upper right and upper left to lower left. Since this is a birthday card for my brother, I didn't put any sequins or shimmer on the card.  After I finished assembling it, I wondered if the Scalloped Notecard was too much but my husband said it was fine.  I guess we shall see.  I still have several leaves left for additional projects.  I put them in the stamp pocket with the dies so that when I need them again, I can find them.

This completes my projects for today and for the Addicted to Clean & Simple Challenge.  Thank you so much for stopping by and checking out my projects.  I really love it when you take time to share your thoughts with me.