Baptism cards

Hello! Today I have a couple of cards I made for friends' babies who were baptized this past weekend.  

First up is one for a little boy. I started by spraying a piece of watercolor paper with water and then running a line of Mermaid Lagoon Distress Stain across it.  I held it upright and allowed the color to flow downward.  I used my finger a bit to spread it as well. While that was drying, I stamped the bible on a piece of vellum and heat embossed it.  I tore the edges and then inked them with Salty Ocean Distress Ink. Once the background was dry, I stamped and heat embossed the sentiment. I added a few Liquid Pearl dots on either side of the sentiment to finish it off.

My second card was for a little girl. I used Gelatos this time and water and used my finger to spread and blend the colors for the background. I again stamped and heat embossed on vellum, but this time I fussy cut the candle. The sentiment was stamped and heat embossed on white cardstock. I tore the edges and inked the edges with Dusty Concord Distress Ink. A piece of shimmery ribbon finished off the card.

July Calendar Page- Stick it Down

Good morning!  Today I have my July calendar layout ready to share! I was once again inspired by the sketch at Stick it Down:

I played a bit with Distress Stains and Simple Stories Summer Paradise. The colors of Distress Stain that I own coordinated beautifully!

I started with white cardstock and blotted some Distress Stains to make some big polka dots.  I sprayed the areas a bit with water to help the inks blend and flow a bit.  After that dried, I added all of my patterned papers. For embellishment, I used a variety of products, stickers, flair buttons, gems, tape, trim, and adhesive rub ons and glitter. 

For my title, I took some plain white letter stickers and used some Distress Stains to color them. Once dry, I stuck them onto blue cardstock and fussy cut them.

Materials:
Cardstock- Bazzill
Patterned Paper- Simple Stories
Stickers- Simple Stories, October Afternoon, Bo Bunny Press, Making Memories
Flair- October Afternoon
Ink- Ranger
Stamp- Hampton Arts
Pen- Zig
Rub Ons- K and Co.
Glitter- American Crafts
Tape- My Mind's Eye
Gems- EK Success
Trim- Heidi Swapp
Chipboard- Me and My Big Ideas

Happy Birthday- CAS(E) this Sketch #129

Hello, today I am sharing a birthday card I made for my father-in-law whose birthday is today!

I started with the currents sketch at CAS(E) this Sketch:

I wanted to play some more with my Distress Stains, so I stamped and heat embossed the diamond background on white cardstock.  I then added color by rubbing Cracked Pistachio and Mermaid Lagoon Distress Stains over the design.  I sprayed it with some water to blend the colors and let it dry.  I stamped and fussy cut the banners on patterned paper and attached them to the card. I finished it off with the stamped "Party" words down the side.  I rubbed the black ink off the embossed areas to give it an aged look.

Happy Birthday- Fusion Card Challenge

Hello! Fusion had another beautiful inspiration piece this week, so that was the inspiration for my latest card.

Gorgeous, right? For my card, I flipped the sketch vertically after playing with the placement of my butterfly a bit.  The background of my card was made on watercolor paper. I stamped the flowers and heat embossed them with glitter embossing powder.  I then used Distress Inks and Stains to add the color. I sprayed it all down with water to blend the colors and then dabbed off the excess, leaving the beautiful, soft colors you see on my card. The butterfly was cut with my Cricut and the Sentimentals cartridge. I cut both layers and then heat embossed the detail layer to make the detail different, but subtle. I happened to have a Doodlebug sentiment sticker the matched the blue in the inspiration piece and added it on top of my butterfly.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there! I have a couple of cards to share that I made for my dad and father-in-law.

I was again inspired by a lesson in the "Cards For Scrapbookers" class at Big Picture Classes.  This time the focus was on using older scraps and punches or die cutting. For my card, I punched the banners from some very old papers (we're talking 5+ years!). I inked the edges to make them stand out a bit.  I started by putting them directly on the background, but it felt like it needed more. I used a mask and some Distress Inks and made the circle background. I cut the cards from scraps of cardstock using my Cricut and the Holiday Cakes cartridge.  To add some shine to the orange car, I rubbed some Iced Coffee Gelato (sounds delicious, doesn't it? ;)) over it. 

I die cut the letters using my Cricut.  The hub caps are brads. The inside of the card reads, "You're a Classic! Happy Father's Day!"

Happy Anniversary

Hi all!  Today is my husband's and my 11th anniversary!  I made a card for him yesterday using random supplies.  I was inspired by the first assignment for "Cards for Scrapbookers" at Big Picture Classes.

 

The assignment was to use at least for die cuts or other smaller embellishments on a card.  I pulled out a package of die cuts that I received in a Scrapfest class a few years ago.  I selected a few die cuts and laid them out on my desk.  Then I noticed the background panel that I had made a week ago for another project that I didn't use.  The colors worked perfectly,  so I pulled that in.  I then found the canvas leaf and inked it to match.  I found the scroll die cut in my stash of random things I've cut with the Cricut, but haven't used.  I inked that and added it to my card. The sentiment was stamped and heat embossed.

More Cards!!

Today I have a quick run down of cards I have made recently that were not for any specific challenges.

First up is a quick graduation card I made for a young man I have never met. His mom is a friend of a friend and was requesting that people send her son a graduation card. Her son has autism and doesn't have friends and wasn't having a grad party, but she knew he would love to receive graduation cards. This one is very basic, using just cardstock and heat embossing in the school colors.

Next up is an anniversary card. The bottom half of the card is a tag I made a few years ago at Scrapfest.  I pulled it out and decided to finally use it.  I had used Gelatos on the tag, so I pulled mine out and continued the rainbow up the card. I added some Stickles details to the bird, used a strip of washi tape and stamped a sentiment on the inside to finish this one up,

I have one more graduation card to share. This one is for my husband's cousin. I played a bit more with my Distress Stains, using Abandoned Coral and a mist of water to stamp the flower.  I used a Distress marker and water on the leaf stamp. A stamped sentiment, Prima Say It With Pearls, and some ink splatters finished this one off.

Happy Birthday- The Card Concept #37

Good morning! I have a new card to share today! (Just a heads up, there will be lots of card posts coming in the next few weeks. Today's card was inspired by the current challenge at The Card Concept:

Isn't this inspiration piece SO beautiful!? As soon as I saw it, I knew I needed to use it! I decided to go with a mixed media style, so I pulled out my Distress Inks and Stains and went to work on a piece of watercolor paper, smearing the inkpads and stains across the page in a rainbow. Then I gave everything a good spray with water and used a foam brush to blend the colors.

The butterflies were cut using my Cricut and the "Sentimentals" cartridge. I used glue on just the inner half of the wings so that the ends could lift a bit for some dimension.  I used some flower brads to connect the wings and put a bit of Stickles on them for a little sparkle. The sentiment was stamped and heat embossed.

Fair Fun

Hello! Tonight I have a layout to share with you that I have been working on. It is the last one for the "5 Ways To Use Gesso" class I have been working through at Big Picture Classes.  This lesson was about dry embossing and using gesso. For my layout, I cut a sheet of cardstock into 9 4x4 inch squares and then dry embossed them using 3 different folders. I then attached them to another sheet of cardstock and brushed gesso over the whole thing.  After that was dry, I sprayed and dripped some spray ink on my layout.  I added some water and moved the colors around until I was happy with the result. I then pulled out my sewing machine and stitched between the sections. 

There was a challenge on the October Afternoon blog last week to use the cut apart tags. I felt like they would work well with my page design, so I went with it, using the new Summertime collection that I picked up at the warehouse sale. I mixed in some older October Afternoon embellishments for finish off the page.

Even though the Sketchathon at My Scraps and More is over, I used this sketch. As soon as I saw it, I knew I needed to use it.

Materials:

Cardstock- Bazzill

Patterned Paper, Stickers, chipboard- October Afternoon

Brads- Making Memories, Basic Grey, Doodlebug

Letter stickers- Basic Grey

Pen- Zig

Gesso- Liquitex

Ink- EK Success, Tattered Angels

Embossing Folders- Spellbinders, Darice, Provo Craft

Happy Birthday- Fusion

Hi all!  I am back with another card to share, this time using the current challenge at Fusion:

I was inspired by the colors and the textures. I started with a piece of white cardstock and coated it with gesso. After the gesso was dry, I dry embossed it.  I then took my Cracked Pistachio Distress Stain and ran it over the paper.  The banner panel was also dry embossed.  I used Picket Fence Distress Stain to accent the texture.  This card was for my brother-in-law, who is a musician, so I used the music washi tape and wrapped it around another piece of cardstock. A heat embossed sentiment, a punched and inked star and some star embellishments finished it off.

A Perfect Pear- Stick It Down Guest Designer

Hi all!  I am here today with a card I created as a guest designer at Stick It Down.  My card was selected in April as a favorite, so I was invited to guest design with this great card sketch this month:

Here is what I made:

I pulled out some old Cosmo Cricket scraps and started mixing and matching and cutting.  I stamped the sentiment with pink ink.  The pear was fussy cut from some of the paper and then heat embossing with iridescent clear embossing powder.

You can see the shine from the embossing powder a little better here. Make sure you head over to Stick it Down and check out all of their sketches this month!

Mojo Monday #400- Happy Birthday

Hello! I'm back with a couple more cards.  I went on a bit of a card making binge the other day. If you have followed my blog for a few years, you know this is a good thing, because this time of year is card making (and sending) season! There are A LOT of birthdays and anniversaries in our family during the months of June and July.

Up first is a birthday card I made for my sister.  I was inspired by the current sketch at Mojo Monday:

For the background, I wet down a piece of watercolor paper and dabbed some Distress Stain on it. The water made the stains bleed and spread, leaving a dreamy watercolor look. I stamped and heat embossed the flower and then colored it with Distress Inks and Stains and a water brush. I put the flower on the card and felt like it needed a bit more, so I used my Stamping Gear and stamped and heat embossed the leaves.

Here is another card I made while playing with Distress Stains.  I put a few dabs of Cracked Pistachio and Mermaid Lagoon on my Stamp Press (any slick surface works), sprayed it with water and then drug my piece of watercolor paper through it.  After it was dry, I stamped and heat embossed the cross and sentiment.  I added the tape and then felt like it needed a bit more on the left, so I stamped and heat embossed the brush stroke.

Sketch Saturday #357- Happy Birthday

Hello all! I have a card to share today that I made for my niece whose birthday party is this weekend.  I used this sketch from Sketch Saturday:

I rotated the sketch for my card. I stamped and heat embossed the diamond background.  Then I used some Distress Stains to make the stripes. I sprayed them with water to make the colors blend and then blotted off the excess water in spot and let it dry. For the image, I stamped and heat embossed it on watercolor paper. I used Distress Inks and a water brush to paint the bears in. 

After I cut up and attached the background, I used a strip of washi tape across the middle of the card and attache the image to some black cardstock and put it on the card with foam tape.

VBS: God is WILD about us

Hi all!  I have another layout to share today. I hope you aren't getting sick of me playing with gesso, because I am LOVING it and I have one more lesson after this in the 5 Ways to Use Gesso class at Big Picture Classes.  This lesson was on adding texture to the background with gesso, and it was another fun technique.

I put the gesso on thick with an old gym card and then I pressed an embossing folder into the gesso to make the dots. Drying the gesso with a heat gun also causes it to bubble and have more texture, so I did that too. After it was all dry, I dropped some spray ink onto the gesso using and eye dropper. I then took a very wet paintbrush and helped the color spread over the page.  Below you can see some of the texture from the embossing folder and the heat gun.

I also took some large chipboard letters and painted over them with the gesso and spray ink to make them blend with the page. I added a fun banner accent above the title for some added interest.

Materials:
Cardstock- Bazzill
Patterned Paper- Simple Stories
Gesso- Liquitex
Inks- Pink Paislee and Imaginisce
Brads- Doodlebug
Twine- Queen and Co.
Rub ons- Basic Grey, Making Memories
Gelatos- Faber Castell
Wood Veneer- American Crafts
Enamel accents- October Afternoon, Simple Stories
Stickers Simple Stories
Tape- My Mind's Eye
Pen- Sharpie, Creative Memories
Journaling Card- Echo Park
Embossing Folder- Darice
Chipboard- Making Memories