Thanksgiving Cards

 I recently saw some beautiful Fall cards with colored leaves and was inspired to give it a try.  I am not sure what they used to color the leaves but I found a post by Kittie Caracciolo where she used distress inks and they are the best color combo! I had so much fun with this that I made a second card just to do more ink blending of the leaves.  The leaves are a Spellbinder die set from oh gosh 15 years ago? The stamps are the Gnome set by Stampin Up - Kindest Gnomes.  I ink blended behind the Gnome and used Stampin Blends for coloring the Gnome home and part of the Gnome.  On one I paper pieced the hat.

Seashore Stamp

Ahhh I love this new stamp. As soon as I saw it I started thinking about getting it. It is by Our Daily Bread Designs. I have made three cards with it already, this one is the first one I made, for my sister's birthday. I love it! Of course anything ocean, beach etc. is my favorite :) I colored the stamp with markers then stamped it, kind of hard not being able to tell where some things start and finish but looking at another card someone made gave me a better idea where to color. I wish manufacturers would always include a color image. I know they want you to be free to create your own ideas but sometimes black and white isn't enough. Anyway I embossed a white piece of card stock, used a Spellbinders die to cut out the center and put it on pop dots over the image. I stamped and cut out the shell and added Stickles glitter on the shell and the splashing wave. I am very pleased with the result :) The card base is Island Indigo. I will share the other two coming up. Thanks for looking!

Purple and Green Card

Happy Leap Year Day!

This is a case of a card posted not too long ago which I made with what I had on hand. I used a different embossing folder, different stamps and sentiment plus different spellbinder die for the window. So how can it be cased?! Basically the layout and colors. I really like how this turned out. It used a lot of products and was somewhat time consuming but in the end it is really elegant! It was fun to make too. The back ground stamp is from Hero Arts, the butterfly is from a set by______, the dry embossing folder is from Sizzix/Cuttlebug, die window, ribbon sentiment die and leaves are all from Spellbinders. The card stock is from Stampin Up.

Pretty Pattern Paper

I was looking at a blog the other day and the card was just fabulous and I really liked the paper she used. So I asked her and she was so gracious and immediately emailed me with the name of the paper - Crate Paper- Paper Hearts collection. So I had to use this as soon as I got it in. What a nice pack of papers! (6x6) I do so love Crate paper. I have made cards with this stamp before but it is so lovely - and it seemed to work well with this paper so here it is. I also used the Sizzix/Tim Holtz border die and some SU ribbon, Stickles on the flower centers and clear on the beaks and eyes. The main image is a Spellbinders die. So this is a nice mix of almost every company I love!

Penny Black Stamp - Good Friends Card

These pictures were taken with my iPhone. I am still experimenting with getting the lighting right for my cards. These are actually as good as my regular camera and one is actually white for the white card stock background! Which is better the warmer picture or the one with the whiter background? Anyway this is one of my favorite stamps although I haven't used it yet! One card making blogger asked what our new years "craft" resolution was and I decided to ink up and make cards out of every stamp I haven't used yet. I don't have that many but I do have some and I just don't feel right about having not used them yet. Interestingly enough most people said organize their stuff. I do that about every week! It gets into chaos real quick with me :)

I used water color to color the image. It's my favorite method, cant you tell?! I used markers on the Penny Black stamp a few posts ago but its just to heavy and dark to me when I use them. I know lots of people love their Copics but well hey I love my watercolors. I used Spellbinders dies and a Stampin Up edge punch. Those cute bigger brads are Stampin Up too, aren't they perfect for this?! I used Stickles (my second favorite thing to use) on all of the hearts. It just makes it so pretty! The paper is Twitterpated by SU, love this set as you can tell. Here is a close-up to see the sparkle.

Not Cased

Here is a card I created all on my own! I Case a lot of cards due to my horrid lack of creativity and inability to space things right which I will show you in my next post.... but this one came out pretty well :) I sent it to my friend who loves cats and stamps too. The stamp is from Stampavie by Laurence. I colored with water color crayons and used diamond Stickles on the butterflies. The flowers are punched with designer paper and molded a bit with pink rhinestones in the centers. The leaves are an older SU punch. The white layer is embossed with a Cuttlebug embossing folder. Have a nice day!

Cheerful Card

Here is another more or less simple card. Not tons of layers of different designer papers anyway :) This stamp is also from Stampavie called Cottage Mouse. The look is similar to yesterday's water color crayon card but this time I used Distress Inks with a water color brush. I used fired brick, weathered wood, wild honey, frayed burlap, crushed olive and tattered rose. I love both products, for me it is easier to blend and get shades with water than with the alcohol pens - Copic type. You don't get the bright vivid look though unless you put on a ton of layers, so it is a softer look. It is also very quick which is just my style. Thanks for looking once again! Have a nice day :)