May Bizarre Day

Hello -

May's bizarre day is May 16th - Love a  Tree day.  I do love trees. I love them all year round - when its stark and cold in winter, when they are full  of color in fall, when they are lush and green in summer and mostly in the spring when some of them bloom.

I love both the cherry blossoms and the magnolias - my two favorite springtime flowering trees.  This card is was inspired by them.  I followed the AI Watercolor Wednesday video for placement. 


After about 5 years, my crafty space is finally set up and organized in a way that makes it feel open and friendly for crafting.  I've been putting it together piecemeal deciding what I do like and what I don't.  This space also holds my "office" where I help out hubs.  This final push included doubling plus my shelving, purging things I had stuffed away in every nook and cranny, and organizing so I can just look and know what is where.  I thought I would share a photo.  Its a panoramic shot and has a bit of distortion on the right side.

My window is west facing, and gives me light most of the day. I am on the second floor - outside that window is a stand of trees - a small woods and a bird feeder.  I often get side tracked by the squirrel antics, the birds, and the hopeful yet unsuccessful cats stalking both the birds and squirrels. 

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Mothers Day

Hi there:


This card is for my fabulous MIL. If you have been following me for any length of time, you know she is the absolute best, and her favorite color is pink.

This is the first card I made with the main image from Avery Elle's Floral Bunch, and after playing with it, I had to make more cards.  Those were posted earlier this last week. I've saved my favorite for last.

I am entering this to Double D Challenges. I loved the soft pink flowers with pale yellow centers in the mood board, they inspired my coloring.  Had to hold post publishing, so my MIL got the card before seeing it on the blog.

Just Because

Hi there,

I've been MIA for a few days, my last week's posts were pre-done. I've been reorganizing my crafty space, and as my projects usually go it was FAR more work and time intensive than I thought it would be.

Now that my crafting table is clear, it is time to create.

I am playing along with two challenges -  The Card Concept - Bold Bloom, and Where Creativity meets C9 - Floral.

From the Card Concept I was inspired by the red and the white blinds, and I love this bold lily from Concord and 9th.  In addition, I used a cover plate from Avery Elle and a sentiment from PTI to complete my card.  The image was white embossed and colored with Arteza brush tip watercolor markers.

I'm calling this one clean and layered for the card concept.

I stamped the image on bristol, heat embossed in white, colored it and then die cut that whole panel with the coverplate. I mounted it on black for drama and added a black inked sentiment.  This is my wedding anniversary month - 10 years on the 30th.  Red, Black and white were my wedding colors so I am often drawn to this combination.

                             

Thanks so much for stopping by!

More Floral Bouquet

Hello -

As promised  I am back with more Floral  Bouquet cards.  I'll warn you now, these are unusual color choices.

Both were heat embossed - the orange in white and the gray in silver pearl on gray cardstock.  The orange was colored with Zig CCRBT pens and the other was colored with Faber Castell poly chromos.

These cards are not my usual colors...well maybe the orange is, but the gray is not.  I am happy with how they turned out.  I have one more post coming soon with this image and then on to another stamp set.

Thanks for stopping.

Floral Bouquet

Hello -

Lately, I've been making multiple cards with the same main image.  I figure at 3 bucks a card I need to make at least 5 maybe 6 cards for each $15.00 stamp set to make it a cost effective purchase.  With flower stamps that is an easy task - they can be colored in many colors.  Especially non-specific flowers like these beauties in Avery Elle's Flower Bouquet. They are clustered like a hydrangea, but have 5 petals.  I made two cards using the non-main images in this post.

Tuesday, I used the main image in this post.

Today, I am sharing 2 cards with classic colors.  The flowers were heat embossed on bristol then colored with Zig CCRBT markers. The image was die cut and mounted on prepared card panels. The pink used another cover die from Avery Elle, the blue uses a die from Little Inkers.  Sentiments were from Stamping Up and PTI.

 Thursday, I'll have this set again with some unusual colors.

Thanks much for stopping by.

a little tic tac toe

Hi There!

I'm playing at AAA cards today, they have a tic tac toe board up.  I went with the first vertical line -  Gold Watercolors Flowers.

 

My flowers are from Avery Elle - Floral Bouquet. The were watercolored with zig markers after having been gold heat embossed, I also gold embossed the sentiment.

I have a few more cards made with this stamp -  I'll be showing them this week.  Stay tuned.

Thanks for stopping by!

More Pink

Hi there, we are having a heat wave! In the high 80's and low 90's.  It feels like I am back in So Cal, since the humidity is low too.

After running errands, I had some time to sit down and make a few cards this evening.

This card was inspired by Fusion Card Challenge, Cupcake Inspiration, and Muse and will be entered to all three challenges. I stamped the Avery Elle Floral Bouquet stamps and leaves for alcohol marker (color-it) coloring.  I colored them very simply with two colors each. Afterwards I fussy cut and darkened the edges with a black marker.   I mounted the flowers as doubles for dimension.  The cover-plate is quilted by Lawn Fawn. The sentiment is from Simon Says Stamp.

   

From Fusion I took the sketch, and from Cupcake I loved that front double pink shade, from muse I was inspired by the colors.

I had stamped quite a few flowers and leaves, so I had some left over for this card which will also go to the Cupcake Inspiration Challenge and Muse.  The cover plate and sentiment are both from PTI.

ETA: I was a bit confused that my cards didn't show at the Muse gallery.  Tonight I figured it out. I linked them to Addicted to Stamps and More, on their photo week. I got an honorable mention for the first card. I often have several challenges open when I prepare my blog posts, I must have forgotten to add this one in to my post.

Here is the lovely graphic.


Thanks for stopping by!

More kindness and thanks

Hi there,

My friend Betty recently sent me some embossed images and some die cut roses.  The images I am saving for Easter or even Christmas this year.  She also sent along some Altenew rose die cuts.  Greta also sent me some die cut frames, both come together in these cards.

The die cuts called out to me to play, so I did.  I added a soft watercolor wash via SU's watercolor wash background stamp on both card bases. I added the scalloped frames, flowers and leaves.  A stamped Thanks was added in smokey gray ink and a little epoxy heart was added above the sentiment to finish it off.

Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Birthday

Hi there!

It's the start of the May birthdays.  This one goes to my bestie. She and I may live on opposite sides of the country, but we are still quite close despite my move.  She loves pink.  Happy Birthday Evelyn!

The flowers and leaves are from Altenew. The Sentiment is from Stampin Up. The cover-plate die is from Lawn Fawn.

I am not a good flower arranger, but the first time I saw these dies in use was at my bloggy friend Lin's blog.  I used her arrangement as a start...I may have moved or added a few pieces around, but it is thanks to her skills that this looks like a good bouquet.

I added wink of stella to the second lightest color on all the flowers, along with a bit of pink glitter tape under the sentiment strip to finish this off.  With that cover-plate die panel, I didn't think any additional embellishment was needed.

I found it easiest to pull out the layering guide, and then cut each of the dies from the shade needed for a particular layer in one pass through my vagabond. So basically each shade of paper was run through once with 4-5 dies on it. That cut down on the number of times I had to cut. Each flower has 4 layers.

I am entering this to:
 Seize the Birthday - Anything goes.

Always fun Challenges - Flower




Thanks so much for stopping by!

Hello There

Hi

A couple more Daisy cards from the large batch I colored earlier in April. I forgot to post them.

Thanks for stopping!