Water Color Fun

Well hello there.  Are you feeling the effects of too many snow days in a row yet? I know I am.  My kiddo's are too.  They are ready for some kind of normal to return.  The good side affect is that I have lots of play time in my craft room.

One of the projects I played with to was the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge. The theme this week is anything goes.  So I pulled out the Simon Says Stamp Big Scripty Greetings stamp set

 

and my new Kuretake Gansi Tambi water colors.

  I love them!

 I stamped the Missing you always stamp in Versamark ink on water color paper and heat embossed it with white embossing powder.  After it cooled I taped it down and watered it down with clean water then dropped reds, yellows and oranges on the top of the embossed greeting.

I love how it turned out. I wish it photographed better.  I tried a few times and because I went a little color crazy the sentiment is stained a little.  Oh well, I have a dear friend that will love it no matter the orange overkill.  :)

If you have any photography tips for snapping photos at night, let me know.  I'd love to be able to add better photos.

Another Snow Day Another Card Sketch

I was looking through some sketch challenge blogs today and came across the current sketch from CAS(E) this Sketch.

I needed a card for a niece's birthday and this was just the thing.  I have a hard time with single layer cards in the past because I never felt like the card base was sturdy enough.  I heard about a 110 pound card stock from youtube video.  I wish I could remember who but I love this card stock.  Its from Michaels and it's great for those single layer card bases.

I bought a ream of black to use for card boxes too.   Any way, I wanted to use balloons but I don't have a balloon stamp set. :O I cannot believe it.  That's on my list for sure now.  I did have the Wplus9 unforgettable stamp set and it has a balloon. 

I taped off the sentiment area with 1 inch post it tape and traced it with a S Pitt Artist Pen then stamped the balloon image over the tape line.  The cool thing about clear stamps is that they are easy to manipulate.  I fussed with the balloon string so that they didn't all look the same.  I needed to make a mask to add some layers and depth so I just stamped the balloon on the sticky end of a post it and trimmed around the image.

I colored the balloons with Prisma Colored Pencils and Gamsol.  I added some stars from the stamp set to round out the card front.  

30 Day Color Challenge 4

Get you coloring grove on! I'm getting ready to participate with Kathy at The daily Marker for her 4th 30 day color challenge.  Check out her blog for details.  

Get your coloring things ready and color something every day.  It doesn't have to be a completed project, just color something.

Blizzard Play Day with A Sketch Challenge

Thanks to my Hubby for getting me awesome birthday presents and to Mother Nature for the blizzard I have tons of play time.  Sure I could be doing laundry, but what fun is that?

One of the things I got for my birthday this month was a new Avery Elle stamp and die set.

Isn't he cute! I couldn't wait to color him and busted out my Copic markers.

I love how he turned out, especially his beard.  I've been working on my hair coloring skills.  Any way, when he was all colored I had to find something to do with him.  He's to cute to end up in my stash.  I went looking for a card challenge and found the Monday Mojo sketch challenge.

What a cute sketch.  Since the sentiment is kind of lovey, I went with a Valentine's Day card for the sketch.

I used the hearts to fancy up the card base and looked through my stash for some Valentine's Day Paper.  Ta Da.

Snow Day Play

I've been making cards for my huge extended family as usual, and for the last part of last year, for craft fairs.  Unfortunately, I wasn't blogging much.  One of my goals for this new year is to blog more often and expand my audience.  So now I needed some direction. 

For that I went to the My Favorite Things Wednesday Sketch Challenge. here's the sketch.

And here is my take on the sketch:

I used the MFT stamp Penguins in Paradise stamp and die sets.  I colored the images with copic markers and decided to create a shaker card.  

Oh my headache.  I used SUPER small seed beads and they kept falling out of the card.  I was ready to throw the whole thing away.   Then I remembered that I had bought myself the We Are Memory Keepers Fuse Tool Duh.

I made a pocket from a page protector and gathered up all the spilled seed beads and fused it shut.  And, it worked!

I made the frame with Law Fawn's Stitched rectangle dies and then went to work on the background. 

I used pattern paper from my stash and the My Favorite Things Stitched Snow Drift Dies to make the beach scene. I inked the edges of everything for a little depth.

The sentiment is from My Favorite Things Merry Messages stamp set.

Now I have something warm to look at during our blizzard this weekend.