Just keep swimming!

 I might be *slightly* addicted to this Mermaid's Tail stamp set, but...I made this card for my daughter's Hope Squad group at school. so it's going to a good cause. I just love all of the cute, fun and silly sentiments that are included in the set. Once again, I was dreaming up this card while floating on a tube down the lazy river with my 3 year old on my lap as we soaked up the sun! The best part is when he falls asleep on me, even when we get splashed, and he just snoozes away! 

 It's no secret how much I LOVE my Zig Kuretake Gansai Tambi Pearl watercolors! They have brought me so much joy! LOL! They really are so much fun to work with and provide amazing results. To begin, I diecut the mermaid's tail using the designer dies out of 140 lb watercolor paper and painted the entire piece with the blue pearl watercolor. I also embossed just the very end of the flipper using silver embossing powder because I knew the rest of the tail would be covered up with all of the fabulous seashells. 

 I created a beautiful panel of watercolor so that I could die cut the seashells. I didn't want all of the seashells to just be one color, so I made a point to overlap the dies onto two conjoining colors as I ran them through my Cuttlebug. I had a lot of fun adhering them to the watercolored tail diecut. After they were all on, I added some Rainbow Sparkle Jewels here and there as I have done in previous projects which you can see HERE, HERE and HERE. They are so fun to add to my projects!!!! I also added a little bit of glossy accents to a few of the shells as well. I didn't want to overwhelm the piece, but just give it some fun details. Since it is the main focus of the card, it does have more gems and embellishments than I would if it were mixed with other images.

I created a fun background that reminds me so much of bubbles. I have used this particular Cuttlebug embossing folder for so many projects, mostly sports related. I actually experimented a few days ago with dry embossing acetate. I kept the panel that I am hoping to incorporate into a design, but for today, I did the dry embossing with vellum! Absolutely delightful!

 I really liked how it looked over the top of the Aqua Mist card stock but knew that I could create even more dimension with some ink. I sponged some Broken China Distress Oxide Ink onto the BACK of the vellum piece. The result is fabulous! I think I will be revisiting this idea in the future. I was hesitant to have the oxide ink on the front of the vellum, but I will experiment and see if it dries well. I turned it over and adhered it to the base I created using the Aqua Mist card stock. 

 You can see the depth that it gives that panel! So beautiful!I used Scor Tape along the edges, which is a fabulous adhesive to adhere vellum. I attached it slightly crooked and was pleased to see that I was able to lift it and reposition it, which came in handy later, too!

 I hadn't given enough thought to the sentiment before I added the vellum piece to the card front, but I was happy that the vellum was easily lifted so that I could adhere the sentiment. I chose to stamp the sentiment onto a strip of acetate using black StazOn ink. I wanted it to have a floating quality and not have any bulky sentiment strips! I just love how it turned out. 

I added a few more rainbow sparkle jewels, some Morning Dew Nuvo Drops, and a few Sparkling clear sequins here and there! I was pleased with the simplicity but awesome sparkle! 

I couldn't ignore the inside and I just HAD to add a shrinky dink sentiment. I thought the "Seas the Day" sentiment coordinated nicely with the sentiment on the front. It warped a little bit but I liked the wavy look that it added to the card. I may have gone a *little* wild with the embellishments on the inside, but these are for Jr. High kids so I am sure it will be fine! (wink) Thanks for fluttering by!

You make The World a better place

Hello! I hope you all are having a wonderful start to your week! I am simply enjoying Summer and all that is has to offer! Summer has never been my favorite season, but I am really enjoying it more and more the older I get. Perhaps it is because time flies so much quicker these days and I am desperate for it to slow down!
One of the main reasons that I am enjoying Summer so much is the added creative time I am getting! It is sunshine to my soul!
I am so happy to be part of a creative community on a regular basis again. It has been fun to reconnect with old stamping friends and make new ones along the way as well. My time away has been spent with my adorable children and babies and I don't regret that ONE BIT! 

I was so happy to sit down and make a few similar cards using Concord and 9th's Globe Greetings and coordinating dies. I have been itching to use this set with all of its darling floral images. I made a few graduation cards with it when I first got it but then it got set aside and now I am thrilled to revisit it.

I started off by stamping the various floral and leaf images onto a panel of Stamper's Select White Cardstock. I only stamped them on the right hand side since I already knew the layout I wanted to use. I stamped off the larger, bold images once and then came back in with the detail images at full ink strength. The only exception to this is the very light pink flowers. The hue of pink was too light to stamp off once, so I decided to choose a darker shade instead. I really like how these turned out. I actually wasn't planning on making a second card, but I was enjoying the stamping process and the result so much I just couldn't stop!

I die cut the globe circle portion out of white cardstock as well and stamped the images exactly the same as before. The fabulous "you make the world a better place" sentiment is simply stamped in black Palette ink. The "friend" sentiment strip is heat embossed in white onto a black strip of cardstock and adhered to the front using foam squares.

I used the To the Point Edgers dies on the colored cardstock, using different designs for each card. I've only used them once so far on THIS card so I was happy to use them again. I know I will be reaching for them often. I made sure to leave enough of the colored cardstock to have enough room to stamp and emboss the globe stands as well. I embossed the stand on the orchid card using silver embossing powder and I just stamped the image in black on the Hawaiian Shores piece. Once all that was done, it was easy to pull everything together. The finishing touches are a few Black Ebony Nuvo Drops here and there as well as a few Sparkling Clear sequins...surprise, surprise! Ha Ha! 

I didn't have a recipient in mind for these particular cards as I was really just making them to scratch a creative itch, but in the end I realized that this sentiment will work perfectly for the cards my daughter and I are creating for the Hope Squad. I stamped the same sentiment on the inside and added a stamped flower and a few leaves. I just couldn't resist adding a tiny shrinky dink using the coordinating "friend" sentiment from the front. It just pulls everything together and it is just so darn cute! Thanks for fluttering by! P.S. I'll be back on Thursday for this week's challenge for The Challenge

I believe in YOU!

 I'm back today to share another design that my daughter and I worked on for the set we are making for her Hope Squad. I wasn't planning on sharing it today but I found out that this stamp set is $10 off, which is an amazing price! 
 We've decided to keep the card set cohesive so there will be a lot of similar elements and colors. I shared the first card the other day which you can see HERE. There is something so magical about these Zig Kuretake Gansai Tambi paints that is so addictive.  I had an idea in my mind that I couldn't wait to execute and it required A LOT of watercolored hearts. I die cut 56 hearts out of 140 lb cold pressed watercolor paper while my daughter watercolored each one. Once I was done, I joined in on the fun!

 In the end, my fabulous idea I had in my mind didn't translate so well on paper so I have a ton of hearts to use on some other projects which will be nice to keep the cohesive feel. Each heart is stacked 4 times and glued together. We worked hard to get the tops of each heart to have some interesting variations and shading. The background is watercolored in a rainbow pattern and this time I made sure that it included purple. My daughter worked hard to make purple for the hearts so we needed to make sure the card front had it as well. These paints blend beautifully! The crazy part is that the finished piece looks and feels like shimmer paper....smooth and shiny, but it is actually thick watercolor paper! With the Pearl paints and the embossing, it completely transforms the texture! 

 I absolutely LOVED the effect that the last card had using the deeply etched embossing folder. I chose a cuttlebug embossing folder that actually "debosses" rather than "embosses". We chose this particular design because the flowers are made up of heart images, which is perfect for this design.

The sentiment, which is from the Hero Arts "You are Loved" stamp set, was stamped in Versamark ink and heat embossed with white detail powder. This particular set was designed to give others encouragement and part of the profits will be donated to the "anti-bullying" campaign which is what my daugther's group the "Hope Squad" works on as well as suicide prevention, etc.

 I die cut a circle near the top and then adhered the entire watercolored piece to an A2 card base. The sentiment is placed over the circle and adhered using foam squares. I originally stamped the sentiment in black ink onto white paper, which I liked, but in the end it felt too washed out so I switched to black. 

 Once that was done, it was time to place the hearts scattered across the front. It was fun matching up the hearts to the perfect spot on the card front. And, because they look so darn cute, we just HAD to add some rainbow sparkle jewels. They are addictive as well. I added them in the same way I have in the past, placing them onto the card nearest the color that they match. I love the iridescent quality that they have in combination with the pearl paint; a match made in heaven!

 I felt quite pleased with the results, but wanted to give the hearts a little something extra. I tried this on one of the extra hearts first, to see if I liked it, and in the end I LOVED it! I added some Glossy Accents like I did to the hearts on THIS card, but restrained myself on THIS card because I wanted the beautiful watercoloring to be the focus! NO!!! Let me tell you...the glossy accents MAGNIFIES the watercolors, the pearl quality...it is JUST GORGEOUS! I tried to take a closeup of it here for you to see, but in real life it is amazing!!!!!I'm thinking of adding it to the last card because it is just so beautiful!

I made sure not to neglect the inside of the card and I'm just having too much fun with the Shrinky Dinks still. Also, they will give the whole set and extra dimension of cohesion. I stacked some hearts that were punched out about 4-5 times and then glued the sentiment using Tombow Mono Multi to the heart. I like this particular glue because it comes out white so that you can see where it is, but it dries perfectly clear. I also added a sprinkling of rainbow jewels for sparkle and continuity. Thanks for fluttering by!

You make the world beautiful

I hope you all had a wonderful Independence Day! We had fun as a family going to the parade, backyard BBQ and Fireworks! I had an awesome time with my husband over the weekend at my nephew's wedding as well. I was itching to get back to my creative space to work on this week's design for The Challenge which I will be sharing tomorrow as well as a few other ideas that have been floating through my mind. When I was a kid, my sister and I absolutely loved Shrinky Dinks and then I fell in love AGAIN when I would use them at my SU! workshops YEARS ago! I decided it was high time to revisit all of the fun that they have to offer!!!

It's not often that I use multiple sentiments on the front of a card, but with the fabulous You are Loved stamp set and shrinky dinks, it made it possible to use them all together for a cohesive look. I ordered some "Rough and Ready" shrinky dinks from Amazon since I can't find my old stash of SU! sheets. I really like how easy it is to stamp and color on the rough side. I chose three of the sentiments that worked well together in theme: You are Loved, I care about you, and You make the world beautiful! My daughter is a "Hope Squad" member at her school and we have decided to work together to create a set of handmade cards that she can take to school in the fall. These cards will be given to the teacher in charge of the "Hope Squad" and they can be used as needed. The "You are Loved" stamp set is perfect for this. I got it for Mother's Day and am so excited to get it inky.

To begin, I created a pearlescent watercolor background using Zig Kuretake Gansai Tambi pearl colors. I used 140 lb. coldpressed watercolor paper to create a wash of gradiant colors included in the set. I just went from one color to the next, omitting the white. Once it was dried, I used the fabulous knitted embossing folder from Richard Garay. 

Before I began the card, I experimented A LOT with different shrinky dink elements: die cuts with stamping, sentiment strips with punched holes, Copic Coloring and more. You can see a little sample of them in the background of this photo. Don't worry, I'll be sharing lots more ideas using shrinky dinks because I just can't stop! LOL!

I was finding that some of the sentiments were coming out warped, which is common and it was really bugging me. After I fussed at trying to get the "perfect" piece, I decided to embrace the imperfection and use these pieces on today's design. The "I care about you" piece was wonky and curvy, which in the end, I really like!

I punched out some daisy-ish looking flowers using an old Martha Stewart punch as well as some yellow centers. I love how the sentiments look glued over the top. I also added some Rainbow Sparkle Gems placing them over the background where they blended the best. I did that in my last card which I just love! I also added three Sparkling Clear sequins as well as three watercolored hearts. 

There is a heart image included in the stamp set, but because of my textured background, it would be impossible to add them and I didn't want the stark outline. Instead, I opted to use the tiny heart die that is included in the Beautiful You die collection. I used it on THIS card but added glossy accents over the top. On today's card, I just watercolored the hearts using the pearl watercolors and stacked 4 on top of each other. I had a lot of fun creating this card and I can't wait to make more for my daughter to take to school. It will be a fun project that we can work on together! Thanks for fluttering by and join me tomorrow for a fun new challenge!