Happy Birthday

We were heading to a BBQ to celebrate all the birthdays in the family for May so I spent the morning making a few cards.

This first one is for my soon to be mother-in-law. This was the first time I used my cupcake stamps. I coloured the three images with copics. In the second picture I tried to capture the shine on the strip of paper in the middle. I like making certain parts of the card pop up so I used foam squares to secure the cupcakes to the card; I was then able to overlap the big ones so it looks like one is in front of the other. The sentiment and other little stamps are from the same set as the cupcakes.

Simple Cards

I love colouring stamped images with copics but often when I'm done I'm at a loss for how to put it into a card. I convinced myself that not all cards have to be busy or complicated so I tried a few simple cards.

I started with plain white cards and embossed each with a cuttlebug folder. I found a stamp and coloured it seperately then added it to the card with foam squares so it pops up a bit.

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For this card I added milled lavender distress ink to the embossed card. I used the same colour ink on the edges of the cut out stamp image to make it stand out a bit more. The stamped image was also heat embossed with black powder.

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On the second card I lightly went over the embossed dots with broken china distress ink, then went back with two copic markers to darken random dots. The distress ink was also used around the stamped image.

Impressabilities!

I love trying new things and I have been learning so much about paper crafting. I just looked back at my first blog entries and I have come so far! I almost wanted to remove posts of some of my first attempts but I didnt.

I recently bought a couple Spellbinders Impressabilities! On this recent card I used the Flower Silhouette on patterned paper. I lightly went over the embossed area with peeled paint distress ink to help the flowers pop.

I also got a MS butterfly punch. I punched one piece of purple paper, then punched some clear plastic. (I keep scraps from food and craft packaging like plastic and cardboard to use later) For the plastic butterfly I used a straight edge to help bend each wing up from the body, keeping the body flat to sit on the card. On the plastic I also ran a few lines of glue and poured glitter over. I then ran another bit of glue down the underside of the body on the plastic butterfly and adhered it to the paper one.

The girl is Queens Cutie from KennyKDownloads. Check out the site.. not only are the images great and affordable, there is a freebie each month!
The tree stump is from Whiff of Joy.

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Trying new things...

For this card I tried a couple new techniques to me.

On the cuttlebug folder I added antique linen distress ink to the back side. This gave the background colour, not the embossed dots. I used two copic markers to add random dots.

The stamped image was heat embossed with white powder which is also new for me. I went in with fine tip pens to add colour to the negative space in the image.

The background on the flower piece has distress ink in antique linen with some faded jeans around the edge. The scalloped circle also has faded jeans with some dots added with a white gel pen.

I dont have a lot of dies so I just cut a circle and went around it with my scallop scissors. Worked out pretty well I think.

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Water Detail Card

I thought I would show another card using a stamp by Ching-Chou Kuik since I love them so much. This one is called Autumn Falls. Coloured with copics and white gel pen for white of eyes.
For the card base I used a cuttlebug folder to emboss the front. The card is actually bigger than the folder I used so I ran it through twice to cover the whole front. You can see the line a bit where the folder end met with the second embossing pass but I put the image over it and its not really noticeable.
I used Distress Inks to add some interest to the embossed card. If you go over the area lightly you will only add colour to the raised parts. I also didnt cover the entire thing, making some areas darker felt more like water to me.

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Wow.. its been five months. Although I havent posted in a long time, I have been crafting. I thought it was about time I took some pictures and updated the blog!

I wanted to play around with the Tim Holtz Distress Inks for this one.
I had a plain white card and randomly added colour. I used a cuttlebug embossing folder to create the frame and cut out the oval. Again I used Distress Inks on the frame to add depth, darkening the raised swirl part. On the frame around the image I added some faux stitching with a white gel pen.
Last but not least is the image! I love the stamps over at Sweet Pea Stamps. They always have sales and the regular prices are great as is. They have many wonderful artists who make beautiful images.
This stamp is called Come Softly by one of my favorite artists over there, Ching-Chou Kuik. The image was coloured with copic's.

When colouring images I always like to go back when it is finished and use the white gel pen to add the nice crisp white back into the eyes. Sometimes the ink bleeds or I work too fast and by accident get colour in that area. I like the sharp contrast in the eyes : )

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