A Few Floral Favorites from 2016

Hello Everyone!  I am here today with a blog post that highlights some of my favorite cards from this year (2016). For most of these, I can even tell you who I sent it to. This first card was sent to my sweet friend, Amanda who endured 20 months of Chemo and 4 surgeries (her final one was yesterday) so she could battle Breast Cancer.  She has been so valiant in those efforts!   In 2015, my husband and I traveled the entire southeast portion of the United States and that included stopping in Charlotte, NC to see Amanda. It's an experience that did and continues to touch my heart.  This card is made with supplies that are primarily from Papertrey Ink (Cover Plate Twist) with the exception of the leaves which are a My Favorite Things die. 

This card was sent to Amanda as well although at a later time.  She told me she actually fell asleep with this card the day she got it and when she woke, it was under her pillow.  It was a simple card, but it turned out so well. I love the little Chickadee and this one from WPLUS9's Clear Day Stamp Set is a favorite.  I don't want to send the same style of card to the same person over and over, so part of what I do is dreaming up something new and different. The thing about handmade cards is that each one is different, even when you are using the exact same supplies.  

For the next card, I was experimenting with my Kuretake Zig Gansai Tambi Watercolors and Finetec Metallic Gold Watercolors to make this gorgeous watercolored card for one of my sisters-in-law. This is another WPLUS9 Stamp set called Lucky Stars. 

The next card in my line-up features my favorite flowering tree, the Dogwood. This is a wood block stamp from Impression Obsession that I have had for a number of years (10+).  This was the first time I had used it. I love the Legend of the Dogwood and how it relates to Christianity.

I confess, I haven't yet mailed this card to anyone.  I didn't finish it until after Easter so it is waiting for Easter 2017 to be sent out. The die cut "Easter" is from Simon Says Stamp.  

Next up is a card I created using Altenew's Persian Motifs Stamp Set and Graceful Greetings from Papertrey Ink.  Since I started making cards, I have learned that I have several favorite colors besides pink; aqua, teal, sugarplum, coral, etc.  I also love heat embossing and gold embossing powder. My favorite gold embossing powder is Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder.  I painted this using Nicholson's Peerless Watercolors with some Perfect Pearls Pigment Powder in the water.  

My next card features another Altenew Stamp Set called Beautiful Day.  There are Beautiful Day Coordinating Dies for this set which I also used.  In addition I used the love die from the Hero Arts Love Stamp and Cut. My daughter loved this card, so I sent it to her.

Next in the lineup is a card I sent to a Canadian friend and uses the Papertrey Ink Hands of Time Stamp Set with WOW! Metallic Gold Sparkle Embossing Powder; another favorite! I love ink blending and I used that technique for this card.  The Awesome Die is from Waffle Flower Crafts and the little hearts are from a Simon Says Stamp Die called Mini Hearts Set.  

This next card uses Papertrey Ink's Tulip Time Stamp Set and Tulip Time Coordinating Dies. This card was made for my friend Yana and I wanted to send her something that she wouldn't make herself. It uses a "go to formula" that Yana shared on her blog along with papers from Papertrey Ink (Berry Sorbet) and even a paper called Sea Glass that is from Creative Memories. Creative Memories papers aren't normally suitable for card making, but since this is only a mat layer, it was fine. Yana does a lot of how to videos on her blog and I wanted to thank her for sharing her knowledge and expertise with all of us card makers and crafters. As you can see, I love these Tulips and I used them many times over the course of the year. I'm looking forward to using them again in 2017.  

Another 2016 favorite is the Altenew Beautiful Day Stamp and Coordinating Die Set.  I used it for every kind of card but my favorite was to wish someone a really nice day or a Thinking of You type card. It is always so nice to get a card in the mail from a friend who lets you know they are thinking of you, especially for no particular reason. The "Perfect" Die is another from Waffle Flower Crafts.  Even though I used the same basic supplies, each card has a different look. I love it when I can mix and match supplies from all different manufacturers to create the perfect card for the person I am sending it to. 
These are just a few of my favorite floral cards from 2016.  There are many others. Beautiful Day and Tulip Time were my most used stamp sets in 2016 for good reason.  They are incredibly beautiful and the coordinating dies make them just that much more stunning on your finished project.

I'd love to hear about your favorites from the year.  I barely made it into Spring with this post so I'm thinking next year I need to break my favorites into about 3 posts during the last week of the year.  Some of the Christmas cards I made were also among my favorites for the year, but I've been sick this week, so I never got to it.

I have several fun projects coming up this month as I am the Designer in the Spotlight for the Simon Says Wednesday Challenge every Wednesday in January. I hope you'll stop by to see my project each week.

I'm wishing you all the happiest possible New Year in 2017!  Stay safe and make sure you carve out some crafty time int he new year as well.

Everything's Coming Up Roses

I am so happy to be back on my blog again this evening. I have had a tough week this week, especially the last 48 hours while one of my little puppy girls has been so sick. In the last hour, she has really rallied and is back with her happy feet and playful manner. She will always be like a puppy no matter how old she is.  I mean, really, who could resist this face?  But she has been pitiful!

I started so many projects this week and I was not happy with any of them until now.  This one is not what I originally had in mind, but I do love it.  In some ways, this started as an experiment with some of my Peerless Watercolors.  It is so hard to get a deep red in any kind of watercolor.  I didn't go as far as getting out my tube watercolors, but I have been intrigued by this color called Carnation Pink which is one of the Pretty In Pink Collection by Nicholson's Peerless Watercolors.  I have all of those colors swatched but this one is decidedly more red than pink. I could have made it Pink by increasing the amount of water, but I love how intense I was able to get this red.  It takes lots of layers of Festive Berries to get anything even remotely close to this.

For this card, I stamped the flower and two clusters of leaves from the Beautiful Day Stamp Set by Altenew onto watercolor paper, twice and heat embossed it using Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder.  I only recently got the coordinating dies for this stamp set because I use this set so often. Somewhere when this stamp set first came out, I heard that it is supposed to be a peony, but it always makes me think of wild roses when I see it and that's always how I use it.  If I want a peony, I have another set I can use. *Ü*

I water colored the flower and the leaves on the extra images and the flower layer on the card base panel.  I wanted to pop up the top layers on Thin 3D Foam Squares (Scrapbook Adhesives makes it in white and black) and I didn't want the unpainted image to be noticed underneath, so I painted it.  I die cut the extra for my top layer.  As I mentioned, the rose is water colored with Carnation Pink and the leaves with Hunter's Green, both Nicholson's Peerless Watercolors.  Once that was done, I die cut the panel with a Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangle in the largest size.  

This week over at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Blog the theme is "Let's Do The Polka", which I immediately interpreted as Polka-Dots.  I am not really a polka-dot kind of girl, so I took liberties with the theme.  I used one of my stencils that has the three dots in the curve and using a Versamark Marker, inked it up then heat embossed it with Ranger Gold Tinsel Embossing Powder. I went over all of the dots a second time and added more embossing powder.  I love the whimsical feel this added to my card.  I used the Hero Arts Love Stamp & Cuts set for the sentiment and die cut the word from Gold Poster Board then adhered it to my panel with Ranger Multi Medium Matte.   

The butterfly is from SU's Papillion Potpourri as is the matching punch. I was going to use a bigger butterfly die cut, but that seemed to overwhelm the rose so I went with this smaller one.  It's heat embossed on Papertrey Ink Stamper's Select Vellum.  I made a top folding A2 card base using Papertrey Ink's Pure Poppy Cardstock.  I plan to surprise my husband by sneaking this into his lunchbox to find.  I wonder how long it will take him?  

I'll be entering this card at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge "Let's Do the Polka", the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge of "April Showers Bring May Flowers" and the CAS Mix Up Challenge with my 3 being Stamping, Stenciling, and Watercolor with Die Cutting and Heat Embossing thrown in for good measure.  

I hope you all have a great rest of the weekend.  Thank you so much for stopping by and leaving me a comment if you'd like!

Nicholson's Peerless Transparent Watercolors

I sat down yesterday morning with a deliberate plan to use my Nicholson's Peerless Transparent Watercolors which are available at Simon Says Stamp or Ellen Hutson, LLC.  I got these last November on a Black Friday Deal but never got them swatched until about halfway through February of this year and this is actually the first time I've used them.

Nicholson's Peerless Transparent Watercolors are intensely concentrated mineral pigments that come on a paper substrate or "film".  To activate them you only need to touch a damp paintbrush to them.  Charles Nicholson developed this dry form of watercolor in 1885 and the original formula is still in use today, more than 130 years later.  The colors are rich, vibrant and very transparent.  You can use the color straight from the paper or you can touch the color to an acrylic block to add water until the intensity of color you want is achieved.

This first card used Robin's Egg Blue and Grass Green which are both part of the Bonus Pack of colors.  I mixed both colors with a bit of Perfect Pearls Pigment Powder and water and layered in my color as I would with any other watercolor medium. Because the Peerless are so vibrant, I only needed to do two layers of color.  By the time I finished painting the second flower I could go back to the first one for the 2nd layer of color with no waiting. I'm not using much water in most cases so that I have more control over where the color is more or less intense.  I'm using a #4 Round Silver Black Velvet Paint Brush but I use a water brush equally as often.  I made a card base from one of my favorite card stock colors called Hawaiian Shores from Papertrey Ink.  I was delighted when I realized that this paper is the exact same color as Audrey Blue.

My second card was painted with Garnet Pink which is part of the Pretty In Pink Peerless Watercolors; a 6 color set.  The stamp set I used for these cards is called Persian Motifs from Altenew. There are coordinating dies available although I didn't use them today. I heat embossed the "Hello" sentiment from Graceful Greetings by Papertrey Ink after I had watercolored the flowers. This set also has coordinating dies available.  The card base I used here was made from Papertrey Ink Autumn Rose Cardstock.

My last card today is done in Geranium Pink (a favorite) from the Complete Edition and mounted onto a Regal Rose Cardstock base which is a SU! no longer available color.  I'm happy to say that I have now used all three editions of Peerless Watercolors that I acquired all the way back in November.

Each of the card fronts was cut with a Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangles Die in the largest size.

Such pretty flowers will make for some bright and cheerful greeting cards for friends and family.  I used my favorite method of watercolor here by heat embossing my images in Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder which has become my favorite due to the warmth in this tone.  The theme over at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog this week is "Try to Resist".

Thanks so much for stopping by today and I will be back very soon with another project.  The supplies I've used are linked in my post or there are links in the sidebar for Papertrey Ink, Simon Says Stamp and Ellen Hutson, LLC.