A Quick Christmas Card

For the stash, a quick Christmas card!

Supplies: Lawn Fawn Winter Penguin, Memento and Versafine Black inks, Alcohol markers, Pebbles Home for Christmas 6x6 paper pad, cardstock from my stash

I would love to play with Merry Monday’s Penguin challenge and the May Rudolph Days Christmas challenge.  Thanks for providing incentive for us to get our cards done early!

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A Cheery Hello - Robin Card

I was so pleased to have some time to craft the other day, and one of the things I did was color this lovely bird image.  Isn’t he so cute!?  The stamp is named Robin, so I colored him as such, but I have a lot of other ideas of birds that this image more closely resembles, so I hope to try those ideas out soon!

I thought this patterned paper went well with the colors of the bird, but the yellow piece and kraft were from small snippets in my scrap box.  It really worked out well.

Supplies: Elizabeth Crafts Robin 2 stamp, Power Poppy Potted Primroses (sentiment), Memento and Versfine black inks, Spectrum Noir alcohol markers, Echo Park Happy Camper 6x6 paper pad, Gina Marie Designs X stitched circle dies

I would love to play along with the Lost Coast Portal to Creativity - Tweet This Challenge , Pixie’s Craft Workshop -Snippets Challenge #327, and SimonSaysStamp’s Wednesday Anything Goes challenge.  I encourage you to check out this challenge blogs, and thank them for providing inspiration for cardmakers.

THANK YOU so much for your visit today!

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Thinking Happy Thoughts - Rain Background

Hello!  A bit of a quick share today.  I created this rainy background using a technique with Distress Oxides.  I saw something similar on Karen’s blog.  

You smoosh the Distress Oxides on your craft sheet and wet them with a spritz or two of water.  Then use the edge of a piece of acetate packaging (or a small strip of acetate would work too) pick up the inky water and apply to your cardstock.  It controls the application a little so you can keep your card a little more clean and simple.

Supplies:  Just for Fun Rubber Stamps Girl with Umbrella Silhouette, Sentiment sheet 1, Distress Oxide Black Soot, Faded Jeans and Broken China, Versafine Black ink, Avery Elle Wonky Stitched Rectangles dies

Thanks for stopping by today!

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May Flower of the Month - Lily of the Valley

I’m back with this month’s Flower of the Month post!  This is my self-imposed challenge to make at least one card a month using birth flowers and stamps I already have.  

You can find all my Flower of the Month posts HERE!

This month’s flower is Lily of the Valley and it is a favorite flower of mine. I love the scent, and the sweet little blossoms.  My patch is currently in bloom, but is just fading. 

I colored this sweet little image with alcohol markers.  I had an idea on how to create some texture in the sky. I first colored all around the flower with light blue, then I went over the area with my colorless blender marker. It looks almost like watercoloring, and I love it!

Supplies: Power Poppy Natural Beauties stamp set, Memento and Versafine black inks, Spellbinders Oval and Scalloped Oval dies, Recollections Backyard Table 6x6 paper pad, Scrap of light green vellum

I would love to play along with Snippets #326 (the floral paper and the vellum are scraps).

Thanks so much for stopping by, and a double thanks if you subscribe or left a comment!

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Christmas Cards! Stamping two ways!

Thanks so much for visiting my blog today.  I have been away from stamping and blogging for much of the past month, but I am back today with  Christmas cards!  I really loved making them and it feels good to have them in the stash early!

The first card was made by first stamping the Christmas music in very light ink for the background.  I then stamped the pine trees over top with green ink.  I had the bell colored with alcohol markers, so I fussy cut it out and created this vintage look.

You can see that I had so much fun making this that I made two cards while my supplies were out.

For the second card, I heat embossed that music stamp with silver.  Nothing says Christmas like metallics, and I like this look a lot too.  The same bell was colored in more traditional colors as the focal image.

Supplies:  Just for Fun Rubber Stamps Bells and Holly stamp, Glorious Song Background stamp, Silhouette Pines stamp.

I feel like I see a lot more blogging cardmakers getting their Christmas cards made throughout the year.  Are you one of them?  

Just for Fun Rubber Stamp’s May Challenge is to use multiple stamps on your card.  Won’t you join in?  I would also like to add my card to Merry Monday’s Add a Bell challenge.

I hope you get some time this week for crafting! 

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Run for the Roses - Kentucky Derby Inspired

Hello and thanks for stopping by!  I was challenged to come up with a card with a Kentucky Derby theme as a sample for this week’s Free for All Challenge, which begins today.  Well, I don’t have any horse images, and not many to represent the stylish clothes or hats.  So I went off in search of what else goes with the derby.  Beverages would have been a good choice, but I was inspired by the Kentucky Derby logo and flag.

Image credit: derbygifts.com

They have a stylized red rose and many of them had a sort of harlequin design diamonds on them.

I stamped the diamonds in the background and created a flag using a die cut.  My roses were stamped, quickly colored and then fussy cut and arranged on my flag.  I used matting in black and red, which were both colors I saw in a lot of the derby images.  

Supplies: Gina K Better with You stamps set, Memento and Versafine Black inks, Gina K Innocent Pink and Applemint ink, Hero Arts Harlequin Pattern stamp, Spellbinders Labels  Four dies, Spectrum Noir alcohol markers

Thanks for stopping by!

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Using Multiple Stamps with Just for Fun’s May Challenge

Hello and thanks for coming to my blog.

The challenge theme for May at Just for Fun Rubber Stamps is to use multiple stamps.  It is fun to do a lot of stamping on a card, and I do hope you will participate in the challenge this month.  There are not a lot of rules, so it is a great challenge to play along with.

The background of my stamp was made with a piece of normal cardstock that I had coated with gesso.  I really love the result I get when I use this to smoosh into my distress oxide inks.  It creates a softer, lighter look as the ink doesn’t soak into the paper very quickly.   I used some pink, tan and green inks for this, drying in between.  THEN, I inked up my background stamp with the green Oxide ink, spritzed it with a tiny bit of water, and stamped it.  The stamping does take longer to dry on this surface, and that just adds to the texture.

I matched this with the pretty vase, stamped onto an ivory flecked paper and colored with alcohol markers.  I do like to sponge regular distress ink on the sides to add dimension.  I then just added the sentiment to the main panel with Versafine ink.

Supplies: Just for Fun Rubber Stamps Bamboo Background, Asian Vase with Blossoms, Helen Keller  sentiment stamp, Distress Oxide inks Peeled Paint, Antique Linen, Worn Lipstick, Distress Ink Antique Linen, Versafine Onyx black, cardstock from my stash.

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