Hello Hydrangea

I have hydrangea plants in front of the house. They are the blue mop-headed ones. They bloom beautifully the first bloom, then some sort of fungus takes over and slowly kills the leaves. We spray with copper base anit-fungal, but the result is always the same.

So when I saw Essential's by Ellen's Mondo Hydrangea stamp...I knew I could have the hydrangeas I wanted all year long.

I used MFT's arched stax to mimic the mop head shape and made my own patterned paper for the back drop. The blooms were colored with Tombow markers in purple and blue and blended on watercolor paper. The hello die comes from WPlus9.


Thanks so much for stopping by.

Bountiful Blooms

I love this stand alone die set from WPLUS9.  I admit I got it for the banner and the Hello sentiment and the botanicals were kinda a bonus. 

I tried playing with these dies in two ways, with some SSS Felt, and with cardstock and markers.  The felt cut so easily with the dies, but it was a little hard for me to place on the card fronts.  I finally manged to use some post it's to get the positioning turned over for gluing with glossy accents.  I made three cards in the same color families as the felt colors.

I think the dies might be a bit small for the felt, the felt was a bit fragile and only a few of the outline portions of the dies held up without tearing.

Next up, I used cardstock and copic markers.  In this the medium those dies really shined for me.  The white outlines and spring colors really stood out on the swiss dot embossed kraft card base.  I added a few sequins to finish it off.

Thanks so much for stopping by.

Congratulations

There is a new designer over at Muse. This week Jenni provides a lovely layered and softly colored card.

I was inspired by the design,  layers, the soft inking and the diecut image.  I am unexpectedly in need of a new baby card.  Being in my mid 50's without children I have very few instances for baby cards and have no baby images in my stamp stash.

Thanks so much for stopping by! 

Play Day

Tuesday I had my play day as I call it with the crafty ladies.  We meet most Tuesdays at the home of one of the gals - she has a fabulous space that holds 8 comfortably.  I will usually prep before going with pre cut stamped panels for cards, sometimes I crochet, and soon I might work on some scrapbook pages -- I am about 18 months behind. I finally brought some of my favorite scrappy items back from California this last trip and am looking forward to catching up.

This week I played with a new stamp set from Altenew - Fresh Freesia. I love the smell of Freesia's and that they come in so many different colors. Endless card possibilities.  I know its still winter, but I need to color flowers!

I made one card for a challenge it is posting tomorrow, and made these as well. The last two are my favorites.

Cut marks - Avery Elle

Die - WPlus9

Die Wplus9

Thanks for stopping by and have a fabulous weekend!

A Mash Up

A while back I was quite taken with this card by Michele Ferguson.  I told her so, and that I would likely case it before the year was out. Well I did, but I had to add some color to it.  I was also taken with Jennifer McGuire's Faux Textured Metal Post.  So this is a mash up of the two.

I made two cards, one is going to Michele and the other to my MIL.  Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies: Darice Embossing Folder(Thanks again Greta!), Perfect Pearls, Lawn fawn Dies, Distress Inks.

A little crafty time

I found a regular group of crafty women to meet up with earlier during the summer.  We meet most weeks and work on projects.  This last week I made these cards:

My misty came in very handy for this project.  I used WPlus9's Pretty Peonys and the sentiment comes from PTI- Big Hugs.  The die cut frame is from MFT. The front panel and the flowered panel are both attached on fun foam, the frame is flat mounted to the card base.  I used watercolor paper and mounted it all on a Wplus9 oatmeal card base. Small SU pearls were colored with coordinating copic markers.  Inks were Distress for the water coloring, and Versafine for the black and gray sentiments.

The last one is my favorite, which one do you prefer?  Thanks for stopping by.

Hello Friend

I took out the my new Distress Markers in Fossilized Amber and Abandoned Coral along with old favorites Vintage Photo and Forest Moss and had some fun playing with new to me WPlus9's Fresh Cut Containers.

I stamped the distress inks, then played with a 0 round tipped brush and just a tiny bit of water.  Where ever I wanted more color, I used the marker direct to paper.  The sentiment comes from Simon Says Stamp's Friendship messages, it has a perfect font for watercolor cards.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Quick Note

I was definitely inspired by Jennifer McGuire's cards from this post, for the design of my card.  I really liked the concentric circles and the multi levels around the main image.

I have had this WPlus9 Pretty Peonies set for quite a while, and  I am always second guessing my results.  This time, I had some fun with the set.  I used water color paper, and distress inks for the color.  I first stamped the third image of the three step flower, you can see in the picture the darkest areas.  Next I used a very small brush with water to move some of that color around. 

The biggest help though was to take the stamp that covered the most area, and dip it in water and then stamp over the details with the wet stamp.  Then I moved the water colors around a bit more.  After letting it dry, I again stamped the details with full strength distress ink and barely touched those new inked bits with a damp brush.  I am so glad I was finally able to make some peonies that look lush!

I completely skipped the second layer stamp--only because this was a water color.  When stamping with dye or pigment inks, I would use all three layers. You'll probably see a lot more of these water color peonies from me, now that I have a handle on using them.

After coloring the peonies, I cut two circles at the same time from the water color piece.  The small frame circle, I water colored with the same distress ink as the flowers, and mounted it flush to the card base. The center and outer water color paper were mounted with foam tape. The sentiment is from Simon Says Stamp Friendship sayings.  A few enamel dots and the vellum sentiment strip finished this card.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Wplus9 Sketch Challenge

I saw this new challenge today.  I took a few liberties with the sketch, but I think you can still see it in my creation.

I used WPlus9's Pretty Peonies for my main focal image.

 

The challenge is open until May 29th, give it a try! Just click on the challenge graphic for a link to the challenge page.

Other Supplies: 

Inks - Hero Arts and Versafine,  Embossing Folder - SU,  

Sequins - Pretty Pink Posh and Simon Says Stamp, Die - Pretty Pink Posh

Cardstock - SU and Neenah

Thanks for stopping by!

Coloring

We had a bonus day at Online Card Classes' Holiday Card Workshop 2014 last Saturday, and the topic was coloring.  I had a new stamp from WPlus9 which I thought was perfect for coloring, and just looking at the stamp makes me smile. The set is called Festive Greetings... As a child I would get so excited for the holidays as soon as my parents pulled out the decorations.  I loved those (now-a-days) fat light bulbs in blue, green, red and an orange-y yellow. 

I felt giddy as I stamped them out and colored them with colored pencils...just generic ones I bought at Michaels and a blending pen made for wax based pencils.  Some were additionally gilded with clear wink of stella and glossy accents.  Others only were embellished with glossy accents alone - depending on my perception of them being lit or unlit.

And I have to say I love the "sketchy" font in this set.  The first card I added a piece of paper from Lawn Fawn's Snow Day paper pad, but the rest are pretty much just this stamp set. I had fun with these cards...and leaving white space is so not my comfort zone.

Thanks for stopping by!

Birthday Peonies

I couldn't wait to get my hands on this stamp set by WPLUS9, called Peonies.  I love flowers and this one has such possibilities for lush blooms.  I confess this card took me almost 3 hours to finish.  I really had a tough time stamping the peony images, until I went to You Tube and watch the WPLUS9 video showcasing this set.  They are not meant to line up perfectly...that was my sticking point.  Once I saw that, I was able to stamp my blooms.   I fussy cut them, and then decided where to place them on the panel. Next I stamped  the stems and leaves.  Then I cut a glittery panel to mat the focal point.  I next used the WPLUS9 lattice die for another panel layer.  I attached the blooms and added some wink of stella for some shine.  The card was finished with a gold embossed birthday sentiment from SSS on vellum.

Thanks for stopping by!