Grateful for Blessings

Another Thank you card, ladies and gentlemen.. :) I'm really loving this Thank You stamp that I got from the 2$ bin from my LSS. I can't get enough of it! Also my heart is full of gratitude this week because I still can't believe I got the job that I wanted for soooo long! Anyway, this card is for no one in  particular, but I'll save it for somebody special. This is the first time I tried the dimensional stamps technique and I still have a lot of room to improve. I love the effect though. Also here I used Perfect Pearls again. I really really like them! Kinda messy to work with but the effect is so pretty :)

I took the picture at night so it's kind of hard to get the lighting right, oh well. So here I used a 4x6 card base from 3 Birds Design. It's just a plain blue card stock. I matted a paper from the Prima Fairy Belle pad, which I used the embossing resist technique on. I used a small butterfly stamp from Pink Paisley London Market stamp set, embossed it with clear embossing powder and then inked the paper with Milled Lavender Distress Ink. I then stamped a background from Hero Arts with Versamark ink and used Heirloom Gold, Blue Patina, Pewter, and Green Patina on the stamp, set it with water and dried with my heat tool. Again, the picture doesn't do it justice but in the light it's so shiny!!

The image is Magnolia's Tilda Catching Stars. I didn't include the stars though, because I wanted her to be pointing at the sentiment. I inked the stamp with Staz-On ink and stamped it twice (so I can cut one up) on 190gsm Canson Watercolor Paper. I used my Distress Inks to colour the image. Here are the colours I used:

Hair: Tea Dye, Antique Linen

Skin: Tattered Rose

Socks/Crown/Wand: Antique Linen

Dress: Forest Moss

Shoes: Weathered Wood

I then used foam dots to give dimension to the stamped pieces. I think I did a pretty decent job for my first attempt :) Now, on to the sentiment. I used the Thank You stamp again from Hero Arts that I got from the 2$ bin! Yay for deals! I embossed it using gold embossing powder, and used foam dots again to give dimension. I also used some roses from Prima and adhesive pearls. Finally, I used my Memory Box die called Macarena Corner and placed it beside the sentiment. I love this card!

I am entering into the following challenges:
Magnolia Stamp Lovers- Distress, Simply Magnolia- Garden Blooms, Bunny Zoe's Crafts- Girls Girls Girls

Glitter! Sparkle! Shine!

November was non-existent for me this year. I feel like I've been go-go-go since halloween and now it's 17 more sleeps before Christmas! This card is one I made for my grandma who lives in the U.S. I hope she likes it. I also was able to get a bunch of new stamps from my Black Friday/Cyber Monday shopping and I am so glad I now have the time to use them.

I now have 3 Magnolia stamps. I love all of them. This one is the Tilda with Teddy Bear. I coloured her using Distress Inks. It's my first time trying this technique, and I still need a lot of practice. I love the soft watercolour effect though.

The card base is from 3 Birds Design overstuffed cardmaking kit. I stamped the image onto a precut oval 90lb Canson watercolour paper using Staz-on black ink. I used my cricut expression and the elegant edges cartridge to cut the oval and the green frame, and I had to put green glitter glue on it for some holiday sparkle.

I used the following distress inks to colour the image:
Skin: Tattered Rose, Antique Linen
Dress: Forest Moss
Hair: Antique Linen, Vintage Photo
Stockings: Victorian Velvet, Milled Lavender
Teddy: Antique Linen, Vintage Photo

For the inside of the card, I used a black Recollections cardstock and paper from the K.&Co. Best of Brenda Walton pad. I also embossed the sentiment. I hope my grandma likes it!  

Warm Winter Wishes

It was soooo cold today! Coming off a night shift definitely was not fun this morning LOL. It really feels like winter has come early this year. I don't mind it that much because I love snow! Anyway, so the almost freezing temperatures inspired me to make a winter-themed card. I also got some of my new Copic Markers in the mail today so I wanted to use them. I got them from Scrappin' Great Deals~ a Canadian online store based in Ontario. There was a sale on Copic Sketch markers for 5$! An amazing deal that I could not pass up. So here is the card...

The layout of the card was inspired by Prairie Paper and Ink's Christmas Card Series. Amy has now posted 4 cards and she is great at it! I check everyday to see if she added a new video :) For this card, I used another image from The Greeting Farm called Beanie Anya. I love how warm and cozy she is in this image. I stamped it on Copic Xpress it cardstock using Memento Tuxedo Black ink and coloured her with Copic markers. Here are the colours I used:

Skin: E53, E51, E50 with R22 as blush

Hair: E71, E53, E41

Socks: RV000

For the Clothes:

Purples: BV25, BV02, BV00

Greens: BG96. BG93, BG78

Blues: B99, B97, B91

Pinks: R89, R85, R81

The card base is from 3 Birds Design Overstuffed cardmaking kit, and the patterned papers are from K&Co. Seasonal stack, Prima Fairy Flora, and Recollections Pet Pad. I inked the edges of using Memento Grape Jelly ink and used buttons from a garage sale as embellishments. I just wrote out the sentiment. It took a couple of attempts before I was happy with how I had written it.

For the inside of the card, I just used the same patterned papers, inked the edges with Grape Jelly ink and used a couple of blue brads on the sides of the sign. I think it turned out well and I'm really happy with it :) I hope everyone's having a nice cozy night! I'm off to make some hot chocolate, sit by the fireplace and catch up on reading The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown.

A Minimalist Approach

I wanted to colour another image using Prismacolor pencils and odorless paint thinner, and after colouring, I thought I would challenge myself with whipping up something simple~ maybe a card that showcases only very few elements. I am really happy with the way it turned out. I usually spend so much time on my cards and I sometimes get carried away hehe.. When I finshed this card, I feel I've created something simple, but still quite nice. :)

I used a printed cardbase from the 3Birds Design Overstuffed Cardmaking kit. My image is from The Greeting Farm Miss Anya "Rain, Snow, Shine." I stamped the image using Memento Tuxedo Black ink on plain white Recollections cardstock and used the following Prismacolor Premier coloured pencils to colour "Miss Anya Snow."

Hair: Terra Cotta

Skin: Light Peach, Peach, Pink

Ear Muffs: Sand, Yellow Ochre

Scarf: Sand, Yellow Ochre, Light Cerulean Blue, True Blue

Fur linings: Cloud Blue

Coat/ socks: Lilac, Imperial Violet

Boots: 70% Warm Grey

The sentiment I used is from the AmyR Get Well Sentiments, and as usual I stamped it using Memento Tuxedo Black ink. I used Ranger Stickles on the fur to give it a bit of sparkle and I used Recollections yellow half pearls as embellishments. 

That's pretty much it. I have to say, I'm really liking this new technique using coloured pencils and blending the colours with odorless paint thinner. I like that I can show dimension and play with light. I'm off to do another project now. I'm taking advantage of a few days off before I start my set again!

Happy Birthday Bubby!

My hubby's birthday is coming up on Sunday and I made him a special birthday card. He loves it when I bake him cupcakes so I used this image from Stamping Bella. She is "Harriet" from the lulu collection. I know that the card is so girly but I think he'll still like it. I really enjoyed making this card because it has two of my favourite things- cupcakes and stamping :)

The plain orange card base I used is from the 3 Birds Design Overstuffed Cardmaking kit. I then used some printed cardstock from DCWV Sweet Stack. I love the glittery little cupcakes! I also used Recollections border punch, and inked the edges with Studio G ink pad (it doesn't say what colour, but I used one of the blue ones). I stamped my image with Memento Tuxedo Black ink on Copic Xpress it cardstock and coloured it in with Copic markers. Here are the colours I used:

Skin: E02, E00, E000
Apron/ headband/ flowers: BG13, BG11, BG10
Small hair flowers: B02, B000
Polkadots/ roses: R85, R81
Cupcakes: E17, E13, E53
Dress ruffles/ stockings: W3

I also used a white satin ribbon and some flowers and "gems" from a garage sale as embellishments. The sentiment is from AmyR Birthday Sentiments. AmyR sentiments are my favourite! I'm building my collection, and next on my list are the Baby Sentiments and the Thankful Sentiments. Anyway, on to the inside of the card...

I used the same patterned cardstock from DCWV Sweet stack on the inside of the card. I also cut out the middle "writing area" using the Cricut Expression and Storybook cartridge. The sentiment is stamped using Memento Tuxedo Black ink on just plain white Recollections cardstock. The sentiment is from AmyR Lovely sentiments. I did stamp it a bit slanted :( but oh, well.... I'll be more careful next time.
I hope you all had a good Halloween! I wish you a lovely rest of the week!

I am entering this to the Tiddlyinks Tuesday Challenge #71 Anything Goes and Birthday Sundaes Guest Designer Birthday Card Challenge

Just Because Card

Today is my last day off.. back to work tomorrow for a 12-hr dayshift. I feel like I really had a good set of days off since I was able to do a lot of crafting. It's such a zen-like experience for me when I colour and make cards- kind of like when I do hot yoga- I just get into "the zone" hehe. Anyway, this card is an "any-occassion" or "just because" card. My starting off point was the colour pink- my favourite :)

I'm so glad I got to use one of my Gorjuss stamps. I love these images! It's difficult to find here in Canada, but I just ordered some from the US from Susana's Custom Arts and Card Design and it came in 2 weeks. This one is called "Ruby." I stamped it on Copic Xpress cardstock using Memento Tuxedo Black ink (as usual). I coloured it in with Copic markers. Here are the colours I used:

Skin: E000, E00, E21
Hair: E19, E15, YR31and R81 (for the bows)
Dress: R39, R85, R83, R8, for the lining: R22, R20
Stockings (pink stripes): R83, R81, R20
Stockings (grey stripes): W3, W1
Shoes: C9, C7, C5
Cat: C9, C7, C5, C3
Swing: E29, E25
Shadow: W1

The card base I used is a plain dark brown cardstock from 3 Bird Designs Overstuffed Cardmaking Kit. The pink cardstock in the background is from DCWV Sweet Stack. The printed papers I used as panels are from K&Co. Best of Brenda Walton pad. I then used KaiserCraft Rhinestones, as well as flowers and adhesive"gems" from a garage sale as embellishments. Lastly, I put StudioG glitter glue in yellow around my image to give it more sparkle, and tie in with the rest of the card.

For the inside of the card, I just used the same paper from the Brenda Walton pad, and stamped the image on an oval white cardstock from Recollections with Memento Angel Pink ink. I love the softness of the colours. It turned out to be such a girly card! I love it.

My First Halloween Card

Halloween is my favourite holiday... I'm not sure why I don't have any halloween stamps! That has got to change LOL. Anyway, I had to make do with what I have, so I used Lolli Anya from The Greeting Farm, since one of the best things about halloween is candy right?! I coloured her hair pink to give a more of a costume-y feel :)

It looks pretty busy but it was fairly simple to make. I used a printed orange card base from 3 Birds Design Overstuffed Cardmaking Kit, and printed papers from K&Co. Seasonal Paper stack. I stamped my image on Copic Xpress paper using Memento Tuxedo Black ink. I also used the same ink and sponged the edges of all the papers. I coloured my image using Copic markers. Here are the colours I used:

Skin: E02, E00, E000
Cheeks: R20
Hair: RV06, RV04, RV21
Hair bows, shoes, and parts of lollipop: YG63, YG03, YG00
Skirt and parts of lollipop: BV04, BV02, BV00
Hair baubles and bodice: YR16, YR07, YR00

For the sentiment I used a sticker, again from the 3 Birds Design Cardmaking kit. I also used my Cricut Expression and the Happy Hauntings Cartridge to cut out the black bats and the orange skulls I used as embellishments. That's pretty much it.

I'm entering this card to the CMC Copic Challenge Group's #29 October Challenge, The Paper Variety No Tricks Just Treats Challenge, Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes Challenge, My Mum's Craft Shop Spooktacular Challenge, and The Pixie Cottage Go For Gold Challenge

Girly Birthday Card

I am on a roll tonight LOL. Another card I wanna share with you is a card I made for a co-worker whose birthday falls on Halloween. I used some halloween colours (green, purple, black) for the card. I find her look very Rockabilly or Vintage-y 1940s (which I love!), so I chose an image that depicts that. I really hope she likes it.

I didn't do any colouring this time, since I initially planned to enter into a no-colouring challenge but when I read the instructions more carefully, it said to use only images from a certain company :( Oh well, I still think it turned out nicely, even without colouring. It's a nice change. I amped up the embellishments so the card won't look too plain.

I used a plain green card base from the 3 Birds Design Overstuffed Cardmaking Kit, purple patterned cardstock from K&Co. Seasonal Paper stack, and plain white and black cardstock from Recollections. I used the Martha Stewart Punch Around the Page in Framed Dots on the black cardstock. I then inked the edges of all the white cardstock with Ranger Distress Ink in Shabby Shutters. The image I used is by The Greeting Farm, and it's called "Cheeky Rockabilly." TGF images are one of my most favourite images for stamps. I just think they are so cute!

For the sentiments, I used the AmyR's Best Birthday Wishes and Sassy Sentiments. As always, I used Memento Tuxedo Black ink to stamp the images and the sentiments. The flower embellishments and the sparkly "gems" are from a garage sale.

That's it, simple but I really like it! I'd like to enter the Birthday Sundaes Color Challenge and the Paper Pretties Embellish Challenge as well as the Paper Shelter's Anything Goes Challenge