Shimmery Lovely Lattice

I have been playing around with my Lovely Lattice stamp set from Sale-a-bration, trying to find the best medium to color the beautiful image. I've tried my alcohol markers, watercolor pencils, even Brusho! Although these worked just fine, I just wasn't satisfied. I wanted something else...something different. Enter the shimmer paints!

Yes, I colored my image with shimmer paints! I love anything sparkly anyway, so this is the perfect solution. The images just popped with these paints, and I am very satisfied with the end result.

For my card I started by white heat-embossing my images on a piece of Night of Navy cardstock. Then I colored them in using my Aqua Painter and various shimmer paints (some are now retired): Frost White, Vegas Gold and Bright Copper. Once colored in I cut out my images. I also white heat-embossed my sentiment from the Rooted in Nature stamp set before fussy cutting it.

Next I ran a piece of Night of Navy cardstock (4" x 5 1/4") through my Big Shot with my Subtle embossing folder for added texture. I then wrapped a Silver Metallic Ribbon around my card before gluing down my images. I adhered my sentiment last using dimensionals. This whole piece was then added on to my Smoky Slate card base (A2 size) using more dimensionals, and added a few Pearl Basic Jewels for embellishment.

And that is my card for today, simple coloring for the gorgeous lattice image! Quick and easy, no shading needed, with maximum impact...gotta love that! I hope you guys liked today's project and thank you for stopping by today. Hope to see you next time, happy crafting!

Anniversary card

Hello and welcome, thanks for stopping by! It has been a while since my last post, my apologies, but summer got really busy. Anyway I am back with another card idea for you folks...hopefully you'll like it.

Today happens to be our wedding anniversary...my husband and I are celebrating 8 wonderful years of marriage! Time flies when you're having fun! Anyway of course I had to make a card for him, and as I've mentioned before, I am not really good with masculine-themed cards. So I drew inspiration from a beautiful picture on our work e-mail program. Here it is...

 I thought the colors were just so brilliant! And being as it is nature, it is kinda neutral. So here is my card version of it...

This card was easy to make. I just sponged all my colors to replicate the picture. I used Rich Razzleberry, Blackberry Bliss, Night of Navy, So Saffron and Grapefruit Grove ink pads. Then I just drew the horizon and 'mountains' with my black marker before stamping my tree from my fave set Rooted in Nature. The tree kinda blended in with the black mountains in the horizon, so I decided to put some random highlights using my white pen. 

The sentiment is from the stamp set Beautiful Bouquet, white-heat embossed on a die-cut piece of black cardstock using a die from the Petals and More thinlits set. This was then just adhered using some dimensionals for a bit of interest. I wanted so much to add more embellishments, but my husband literally hates any bling on cards, so I had to restrain myself. I thought simpler is better (for this project anyways :) I couldn't resist adding a bit of Wink of Stella though!

I just layered this on a Basic Black cardstock and then adhered the whole piece onto a Very Vanilla card base. And that is my project for today! Once again thank you for dropping by and I hope to see you next time! 

Ink & Share Blog Hop: Masculine theme

I have always found creating cards for men a bit daunting. One, because I love flowers and colors and sparkles...not exactly manly things. Two, because I just don't know what to create and how to embellish it. And lastly, because I simply do not own alot of stamp sets that scream 'masculine'. True, I can always use nature sets as they are mostly neutral, however I wanted to step outside of my comfort zone and explore and try to create something different. Needless to say, this month's Ink & Share blog hop is quite a challenge for me...luckily for me, I love a good ol' challenge!

For my project, I wanted to use my Country Livin' set. I got this set awhile ago but never actually got around to using it! This seems perfect for our blog hop's theme this month. And because I don't make alot of masculine cards, I decided to further challenge myself and create an interactive card this time around. I wanted my truck to move, so I designed this card...my take on the double slider card. 

Here's a video tutorial of how I created this card. I apologize for the lighting near the end, my camera was on lock mode and didn't adjust to the changing light conditions outside! Lesson learned haha. 

PRODUCTS USED:

• Lovely as a Tree stamp set
• Rooted in Nature stamp set
• Detailed with Love stamp set
• Treehouse Adventure stamp set
• Country Livin' stamp set
• Balmy Blue ink pad
• Pool Party ink pad
• Versamark
• White embossing powder
• Embossing Buddy
• Brusho
• Aqua Painter
• Pretty Label Punch
• Thick Whisper White cardstock
• Gray Granite cardstock
• Night of Navy cardstock
• Dimensionals
• Foam adhesive strips
• Linen thread

Well I hope you enjoyed my contribution to our blog hop this month and thank you so much for stopping by! Do continue down the list of awesome crafters for more inspiration on masculine projects, just keep pressing the Next button. Happy crafting!

Deb Naylor

Cindy Mitchell-Clark

Jo Blackman

Ginger Rabesa

Rhonda Waechter

Sandrin Jse

Shirley Merker

*****Phoebe Borromeo-Carr*****

Linda Handford

Sue McDonald

Kirsten Aitchison

Jacqueline Bobeldijk-Schilder

Vickie Kerr

Tricia Butts

Travel & Explore

Hello and welcome! Today I am participating in Kylie Bertucci's International Blog Highlight for the very first time...eek! It is a monthly challenge, and the top ten winners will get to be part of an international blog hop so feel free to vote for my project! :)  This month the theme is Travel...how fun! I can feel the creative juices flowing! Haha.

Here's what I came up with...

For my project I wanted to create a background using Brushos. I just could not play with these enough...I think I'm addicted! I ended up using all the colors, first creating a wash of the Yellow with my Aqua Painter and then creating my shades using all the other colors. Super easy to make a pretty background with these because I found that Brushos are very forgiving and a lot of fun to use!

Once my background was dry enough, it was time for some stamping fun. I used the beautiful tree images from my favorite stamp sets Rooted in Nature and Lovely as a Tree. The cyclist is from Enjoy Life, another gorgeous set. And the birds are from the set High Tide.

Finally I custom-made my sentiment using the Make a Difference stamp set, and then layered it on top of some Gold foil sheet. To assemble my card, I just layered my trimmed art piece on top of a Basic Black cardstock before adhering to my Very Vanilla card base.

And that is my card for today! Doesn't it make you want to go out and explore? Anyway thank you again for stopping by today and don't forget to vote for me! Happy crafting!!!

Camping Crafting

     My husband and I, along with our little doggy, are out on a two-week camping tour of the Okanagan. It has been a great trip so far...lots of beautiful sights to see, places to visit, and things to do. But what do you do when you get a cold and rainy day?! Well...Stampin' Up to the rescue!

     I brought along a little case of miscellaneous crafting stuff with me, you know, 'just in case'. It's minimal supplies, but I'm sure glad they were with me during this trip! Too bad my order didn't come in time for me to play with the other new stuff, but hey, I still had fun playing with what I had.

     My must-bring-along stamp set of course is the beautiful Rooted in Nature. This set is my absolute favorite from the new catalogue. Beautiful images complemented by beautiful sentiments...just perfect! I also brought along my Stamparatus, which came in handy for stamping my multi-colored leaves. Another stamp set I brought was the Prize Patrol set I got at OnStage, Around the Corner. I haven't played with this set yet, and so I thought this would be the perfect time to do so.

     So on a cold rainy day, I got out my supplies and crafted away. These are what I came up with. I'm not going into details on how I made each one because they are pretty basic. I pretty much just stamped a bunch of the leaves and fussy cut them  (I thought bringing my Big Shot for a camping trip would be too much, lol). 

What about you, what supplies do you bring for your 'emergency' kit? Well that is all for today, thanks so much for stopping by! Hope to see you next time. Happy crafting!

Animal Outing

I simply do not know why it's taken me so long to finally play with this adorable stamp set, Animal Outing! I had gotten this at OnStage in April and only got to play with it now! (gasp!) I have no excuse...but thankfully I finally got around to play with it and make a project with it! Here's what I came up with.

I made these two very similar simple cards. I wanted a 'jungle' look, and the only leaves that I had that would work were the ones from Rooted in Nature (love this set!). I stamped my leaves randomly on a piece of Pool Party cardstock using Old Olive and Lemon Lime Twist. I also lightly sponged along the edges in Old Olive. 

On a scrap piece of Whisper White cardstock, I stamped my animals and coloured them in with my markers. These were then cut out and then glued down onto my Soft Sky background piece. I also stamped some spare leaves, cut them out, then stuck these onto my Soft sky piece using mini-dimensionals. 

My sentiment is from Dragonfly Dreams, and I silver heat-embossed this on a strip of Night of Navy cardstock. For embellishment I just wrapped some silver baker's twine around my layering piece before adding my sentiment on top using more dimensionals. Then I just adhered this on top of my Very Vanilla card base. Of course I needed some sparkle, so I covered my dimensional leaves with some Wink of Stella.

And those are my cards for today, I hope you liked it. I had fun playing with this adorable set! I think it'd be so cute for some kid's birthday cards or baby shower cards. Anyway, I wish you all a lovely day. Thanks for stopping by and see you next time!

Rooted in Nature

     After a very busy past few weeks, I was finally able to play with my Rooted in Nature stamp set. Yay for me! This set was one of my must-haves...it was love at first sight. At OnStage we got to play with this set and I knew right then that this set is gonna be at the top of my wish list.

     

     I wanted to make quick and easy cards to start, nothing too fancy.  With this set, I don't think you need to be too fancy anyway since the images are so pretty already. So I came up with these two cards. They're very similar, just switched up a bit.

The card base I used for both cards is Fresh Fig. For the first card, I used a layering 

piece of Night of Navy and heat-embossed the leaves around the edges. I used both Gold and Silver embossing powders for this. My sentiment was stamped on a piece of vellum using Fresh Fig and then clear heat-embossed right after. I went for an organic look, so I tore the edges of the vellum, and then added shimmer (of course!) using my Wink of Stella. I added very little embellishment, using some glitter enamel dots and the gray ribbon which was a Sale-a-bration item. 

The second card is very similar. I first stamped my leaves on a piece of vellum using Fresh Fig and Rich Razzleberry ink pads, then clear heat-embossed them. I then added more leaves, gold heat-embossing them this time. I tore along the edges of the vellum again and glued it down to my card base. As a tip, I only put glue at the back of the gold leaves so that you can't see the glue spots. 

For my sentiment I used my Layering Circles Framelits and cut out the scalloped circle out of gold foil sheet, and my layering circle piece out of Fresh Fig. My sentiment is then gold heat-embossed, and layered on top of a 'nest' of gold and pink metallic thread.

So these are my first two cards out of this beautiful stamp set...I'm certain that there are many more to come! This set is just gorgeous! If you love Lovely as a Tree (and who doesn't?!?) you'll certainly love this one too! Look for this one in the new Annual Catalogue coming June 1st.

Well thank you for stopping by and I hope to see you next time! Happy stamping!