Thanks

This is one of my favorite flower stamps since it is perfect for watercoloring. I combined gold paper and the watercolored flower for a different feel than what I would normally do with this stamp!

Oh So Succulent

I absolutely adore these new In Colors from Stampin' Up. I made this card for my stamp club's monthly sketch challenge. The challenge was to create a card with a die-cut edge and using this sketch. What a fun challenge!

Botanical Birthday

Here's another card featuring Botanical Blooms, but this time I watercolored after stamping. My mother in law loves pink, so I will be sending this to her for her birthday!

Botanical Blooms

Isn't this a gorgeous stamp set? It's from Stampin' Up, and it's called Botanical Blooms. The flowers and leaves are just perfect together. I watercolored a sheet of watercolor paper, then stamped and embossed the leaves before die cutting. The result was a perfectly imperfect variation of colors.

Father's Day Hugs

I looked through my stamp vault for this old truck that is perfect for a Father's Day card! I watercolored it, and the color reminds me so much of a truck we had that was just like this! 

Bee Mine

This was a card I made for my stamp club's monthly sketch challenge.  The challenge was a sketch plus a love theme for February, so I pulled out this cute little bee from Stampin' Up's Honeycomb Hello set and the hexagon hive thinlit also from Stampin' Up.  I layered the die over kite-string paper from Pink Paislee so it wouldn't be too pink and purple and girly for my hubby.  

Clean and Simple Birthday

If you don't own a MISTI, you need one, and this card proves it.  This set is Ombre Builders from Papertrey Ink.  It was so easy to line up with the MISTI and made for a quick and simple card.

More Thanks!

To wrap up the thank-you cards, I pulled out the flowers, added some gold and sparkle, and kept it simple.



_________________________________________________________________________________

I'm not sure I understand the pineapple trend, but I used it as a background for this card, die cut and embossed the sentiment, and popped it using foam tape.  I like how the pineapples just peek out a little.

Watercolor Thanks

I had tons of fun over break with embossing and watercoloring.  Some of these were new sets and others were stamps I pulled out of the vault.

On this card, I used Tempting Turquoise, Watermelon Wonder, and Daffodil Delight ink to make the background.  I die cut these three little butterflies in vellum from a Stampin' Up die that embosses them at the same time!  I love how they turned out!

I used clear embossing powder on this card, then watercolored using greens and blues...I think it was helado de pistachio, costa cabaña, and pool party.  I label all my inks in Spanish, but I can only remember what some of them are in English, and they don't translate directly... Ha!

This was my favorite card of the whole break because I just.love.that.flower!  I used white embossing powder here and watermelon wonder, crisp cantaloupe, and frambuesa sorpresa ink.  Then I splattered it with watermelon wonder and gold and glittered it up with my Wink of Stella glitter brush.

I FINALLY liked a card from a set I have struggled with.  This set is a three-step process and drove me insane until I got a MISTI for Christmas, which really is the best thing ever.  No more trouble lining things up!  I wet the paper and stamped it, adding water when I wanted it to run more. 

For this card, I just wanted to use that palm tree from the Totally Trees set!!!!  On this card, I used Distress inks: Faded Jeans, Tumbled Glass, Spiced Marmalade, and Wild Honey, and maybe a little frambuesa sorpresa ink in the sunset too.  Are you as in love with the watercolor trend as I am?

Trees, Trees, and Trees

Some of my favorite stamps are trees, and since I still needed more thank-you cards, I grabbed some of my favorite trees to stamp.

For this card, I stamped the background trees in Smoky Slate and embossed one in white to stand out next to the sentiment.

_______________________________________________________________________________

I was trying to keep this card very CAS to let the gold be the focal point and again used my favorite thanks sentiment.

________________________________________________________________________________

The new set from Stampin' Up, Totally Trees, is so fun and whimsical.  I used Bermuda Bay, Real Red, and Pool Party and love how the colors turned out.

Snowman Thank Yous

I am always in need of lots of thank you cards after Christmas, so last week I got to work on them during break.

For this card, I used Stampin' Up's new Jar of Cheer set, watercolored the background in Pool Party ink, and added some glitter for the snow.

On this card, I used a Stampin' Up Christmas set from last year--I love those trees--and offset the background.  Don't you just love both of these little snowmen?

Winter Thank Yous

It has been snowing like crazy this week, so I was in the mood for some wintery cards and needed lots of thank-you cards. 

This is one of my favorite sets ever: Winter Hills from Papertrey Ink.  I stamped it and used markers to color it, added some glitter for snow, and stamped the sentiment from Stampin' Up's watercolor wonder card kit.  

On this card, I used an older Stampin' Up set that I normally had trouble with because of the two-step stamping.  These are rubber stamps, so they're hard to line up, but my new MISTI was fantastic, and I was happy with the result.

On this card, I used the new Christmas Pines stamps and dies. These are so fun!

You are Remarkable

First day of summer crafting!  Yay!  I just received this stamp set from Stampin' Up, and I LOVE IT!  Many, many uses to come.  I started by stamping the leaves on the card in garden green, then stamped them on watercolor paper and watercolored them with pistachio pudding and did the flower in crisp cantaloupe.  I fussy cut those and rounded the leaves with my leaf tool for some texture.  I glued them down with Zots so the edges would pop up just a little.  Love this set!

Blendabilities Blended Bloom

So I jumped on the HUGE bandwagon of Stampin' Up's new Blendabilities alcohol markers.  I have never bought Copics because that level of attention to detail and the high price tag were not very appealing.  THESE markers are SUPER affordable though.  I think it was $11.95 for a pack of 3, so I regret that I didn't also buy more colors at the same time!  I did find that coloring this massive flower got a little tedious since you have to do it petal by petal, and it's not perfect, but I was happy with it for my first go.  I'm really excited to try these markers on some other (smaller) stamps.  :)  I'm not sure if there's a way to make the design a little more original?  My flower looks exactly like many many many projects out there, but I'll play around and see what I come up with. I would TOTALLY recommend these markers.  Especially to people like myself who don't see themselves on the Copic wagon.  I guess we'll start our own wagon, huh?  :)

Watercolor Blended Bloom

Today I played with my my new flower stamp from Stampin' Up.  I stamped it on watercolor paper and watercolored the heck out of it with several different shades of pink and orange...I even made the watercolor paper curl, so you know that's a lot of agua, right?  I highlighted the curled petals in white for contrast.  You'll be seeing much more of this stamp.  I LOVE IT!