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.

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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Last Christmas Card

I can't stop my obsession! I bought myself a cuttlebug and several embossing folders. The worst part (or the best!) is the $50 gift card to Michaels and $100 to spend on crafty stuff that I got for Christmas. In other words my obsession is being fueled by family and friends so I dont see it ending any time soon : )
Anyways, I ran out of time to post everything before Christmas so here is my last and one of my favorite cards for the holidays.

For this card I used some shimmery white paper and embossed it! Oh its fun, I wanted to just emboss paper all night when I got the cuttlebug home, hehe. The girl is from Whiff of Joy Stamps and coloured with copics. I cut out the music notes and popped them up with foam squares.

I layered the green ribbon on top of the silver one then added a bow made with the bow easy. Check out the video. I never used to add bows but this makes it so easy and they always look perfect!

A break from the holidays

I have been working on Christmas cards for some time now and wanted to take a break and work on something different. I've mentioned in the past using line art from DeviantArt and have found a beautiful image! Komorinight has posted this image and I loved it as soon as I saw it.

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-I coloured the image with copics

-used a glitter pen on the flowers

-added dots to the background randomly with copics

-used distress ink around the edges

-added white dots with a gell pen (after distressing or they will not be white)

I added the finished image to a white card where I had also used distress inks.

First Challenge Entry

I see a lot of bloggers participate in challenges and wanted to try it out.

Over at Anyone For Anya they have a sketch challenge and you need to use an image from The Greeting Farm or CC Designs. I just happened to have this cute one coloured and sitting on my desk waiting to be added to a project.

Luckily I coloured her in non-traditional colours so I’m able to enter the card in the challenge over at Mad For Markers as well. Currently their challenge is to make a Christmas card using non-traditional colours.

And lastly Copic Oz has their challenge of "Christmas with a twist." My non-traditional Christmas colours fits with this one too!

This is my first square card and I’m pretty happy with it.

Another Birthday Card

My boyfriends grandma just celebrated her 84th birthday and this is the card I made her.

The paper is from a girls pack by Martha Stewart.

The papers are double sided so the paterns go well together.

I used the foam squares to pop up the whole cupcake stamp.

This is a metal embellishment I got in a pack from the dollar store. The words didnt pop like I wanted so I went over the letters with a silver gel pen then took a copic marker to create the muttled colour on the surface. It looks a lot better in person, hard to photograph shiny objects.

I used green ribbon wrapped around the front of the card to attach the words. Instead of cutting the ribbon and gluing it only to the front I wrapped the ribbon inside and tied it to secure everything.

 

The cupcakes looked flat so I heat embossed the tops with a clear sparkle powder.

The cupcake digi stamp is from Squiggle Fly.

Birthday Card

I have been using my new copic markers a lot lately and am so excited with what I've done so far. I think I enjoy the colouring part more because I have a bunch of finished images laying on my desk but havent put them together on any cards or other projects. My dads birthday was coming up so I tried to find some fun stamps to make his card. (Yes I know this isnt very manly but I like it!)

As I mentioned, the paper I have can lead to bleeding of the ink so I often cut the images out so you cant tell! I was worried about cutting the paper so thin where the strings are for the balloons and remembered I had some thread so I cut the image of the strings off completely. I poped up the balloons with the foam squares and actually tied the thread around each balloon end. I used my x-acto knife to make a small slit on the lions mouth to feed the thread through.

Another technique I tried on this card was heat embossing. I have a clear sparkly embossing powder I put on the balloons. I actually used my glue pen on them then sprinkled the podwer over top.

I tried using some of the techniques I have seen on other blogs to make the animals have nice fur.. lol.

Overall I am very happy with it.

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I feel like I'm in kindergarten again. I'm learning from the "big kids" who already know more than I do. I get excited when I try new techniques I've watched others do for so long. So please bare with me as I get excited over things as simple as heat embossing : )

Digi stamps from Whiff Of Joy Stamps.

New Copics!

I was so excited when my copics arrived in the mail. I instantly started working on techniques I have been reading about and watching on youtube.

This weekend we were invited to my boyfriends moms for thanksgiving dinner so I made her a card.



I started with the digital stamp first. This was the only fall image I have that isnt all about Halloween. I coloured the leaves first.. right away I learned that I am not using the best paper for these markers. I used regular white cardstock that I got from Michaels and when blending the ink bleeds.

I was very excited when I finished the hair;

I have learned a lot from long time marker users! : )



I've seen a lot of people do little 3-D effects on their cards and figured I would try that too! This card is full of first time techniques for me. I printed out two of the same image and used the leaves from the second image to add on top of the finished piece. I used those sticky foam things (not sure what they're actually called). Since the leaves are pretty small you could see the white foam fairly easily so I coloured them to match each leaf. (Click image to view larger)

So here is my finished card. I actually worked on this for several hours. Not sure how long most people take to colour. Maybe I work slow, I dunno. I used a patterned green for the background and added a strip of sparkly orange. Just for added effect I only rounded the two outside corners. I thought about writing something in the green space but dont really like my writing so I used a few of the extra leaves.

Now that I have my copics and am able to attempt projects like the beautiful ones I see,

I think I will be crafting more often!