Tag: card making

Mama Elephant August Challenge… Watercoloring + Birthday!

Happy Weekend! How's it going? We just got home after watching our nephew play football this afternoon. It was a wonderful day out at the park and he played really well. He has worked so hard all Summer and we are so proud of him in his starting position this year. He is twelve and already has a good head for the game. Can't wait to watch him grow into his own… We came home and made dinner, and now I'm finally getting around to posting the card I made this morning!

I made this card for the Mama Elephant and Me August Challenge! The theme for August is Watercoloring + Birthday! I used the free set I received last month called "In My Heart" and made a cheery birthday card. I popped this card with lots of red accents and I always love red and aqua together. Here ya go….

I think this would be a good 'across the miles' birthday card! All the supplies are from Mama Elephant except the tiny 'happy birthday' stamp, which is from PTI. All the dies and other stamps are ME. So much fun to make this one!

I colored the images with my Gansai Tambi 36 Watercolor set. I loooooove the shades of these paints and they are so creamy and dreamy to work with. I made my girl a blondie like me!

You can see that the white watecolor tag has a row of hearts across the bottom of it. I did that by taping the row of hearts die onto the same paper as my tag, as you see here….

Voila! I used watercolor paper since I love the texture and I knew I was going to stamp my girl directly onto the paper.

I cut a second tag out of bright cherry red paper. Here are all my pieces…

I have been trying lots of different inks with my watercolors and have finally determined that (for me) Versafine works the very best. It doesn't bleed or smear when you are painting. The Memento Inks really were not working for me… I use my glass stamping mat to watercolor – you can see my paints on the right side. It's so easy to clean up.

I like how the red paper shows through the heart cut outs…and I adore these fonts! My layers are cut using the Femme Frames dies.

After the card was done I had the idea to add some itty bitty red hearts coming out of the envelope! That tiny envelope has a lot of love! The letter is from the Panda set.

A little bit of twine at the top and we're done!

There is still time to enter the Mama Elephant and Me August Challenge! Join in the fun! CLICK HERE to go to the page for the challenge! Have a wonderful day! XOXO

Oh, wait, one quick last thing….Some Instagrams! YEAH! You know I love me some Instagrams! First up is a photo of a card I made our nephew to give him at the game today. I had bought him a football tee shirt and, you know, it needed a card!

And here's a shot from the sidelines this afternoon!

Okay, now I'm really done! Bye!

August 23, 2014
Texture and Color…

Hello my friends! What a nice weekend I'm having! Whew – too much fun for one girl. Friday I left work early and the DH picked me up from the office to go to a concert! We went to see Counting Crows at the Greek Theater in Berkeley. What an amaaaaaazing show! Wow. They have been on my concert list for quite some time and I was so happy to see them here at (their/our) home. (Fun fact – I actually went to college with the lead singer of Counting Crows!) The weather was gorgeous, the beer was cold, the show was fantastic! We got home at 2:30am! OMG I am WAY too old for staying up that late!

Saturday we went for a peaceful drive up to the mountains to visit my friend Steve who was camping out. We needed to help him celebrate his 50th birthday. YAHOOOOO! It was a glorious day up at Union Valley Reservoir! We took our chairs down by the water and gabbed the day away. So nice to relax and catch up with friends, isn't it? We don't do that too much these days, because everyone is going 100 mph all the time. I really tried to be in the moment, just sitting there in the sunshine with a nice breeze. Looked up at the skies to say "Thank you Lord!"

Today I'm in the craft room, mostly organizing some things… I had no idea what to make today and then I saw this piece of text paper that I had in my stash. I decided I wanted to use it, and pick up some of the pretty colors in the text. Well, the project turned into a nice mix of textures and colors…

The yellow and teal paper are the Swiss Dot paper from Bazzill. Lends a very nice and subtle texture to the card. Yes, I am still using wood grain paper on everything. I'll try to let it go….

The tag die is from My Favorite Things, the butterfly dies are from Papertrey Ink, the leaves are from Memory Box and the frame dies are from Mama Elephant! I think that pretty red heart is an old embellishment from Wendy Vecchi??

Can you see all the pretty colors in the text paper? Love that!

I didn't really feel like adding a sentiment. I stamped Happy Birthday on the inside though. You can never have enough birthday cards, right?

You guys probably know that I'm kind of (a lot) obsessed with Instagram! Do you have an account? Leave a comment with your user name and I'll follow you! Mine is stampcatwg. Thought I would post a few of my Instagram photos from the weekend to share.

First up – arrival at the show! Perfect antidote to a long week in cubicle land!

Counting Crows! OMG they are a million times better in person than on a recording!

The birthday card I made for my friend's birthday. Lots of watercoloring and Distress Ink goodness going on there! This was a fun card to make!

Ice House Road, off Highway 50 on the way to Lake Tahoe. Hard to believe in about 30 minutes from home you can be in the middle of nowhere! So lovely.

Union Valley Reservoir where we sat the day away…. I used a cool iPhone app called Distressedfx to make this one look like a painting.

Okay, I think that's enough for one day! Hope you've been having a lovely Summer weekend! XOXO

August 17, 2014
Be Strong & Courageous!

Ahoy there my friends! Summer is winding down…so I figured I would keep on sharing some more Summer projects while there's still time! LOL. It will be time to start thinking Fall here before we can blink an eye! You know I love some nautical shabby chic, and that's just what I have for you today! Flowers, pink, anchors, sequins…yay! And a beautiful Bible verse too.

I was rattling around in my craft room this morning, organizing and what not. Nothing would come to me…I had no idea what to make today. Then, I spied this gorgeous Webster's Pages paper sitting on my desk…and the card came to me! The stamp is part of a gorgeous set called Safe Harbour Sentiments from Waltzingmouse. All the patterned papers are from Webster's Pages Ocean Melody collection.

I really love the contrast between the woodgrain and the floral and the twine… All those different textures and colors together. And blue and pink is always a winning combination. Stripes too. Yum.

I stamped my sentiment in Nautical Blue ink from Memento – the perfect match to the navy in the papers. This is one of my favorite Bible verses. How nice of Claire to make it into a stamp for me!! And the little ships' wheel? Awesome.

Here's a side shot ot my layers. Foam tape – you know me by now! The sentiment panel is wrinkled – I just kind of wrinkled it in the palm of my hand for some added texture. I also distressed the edges of the papers.

Be strong and courageous indeed! Great message!

Thank you for spending part of your weekend with me!

Have a fabulous day! XO

August 9, 2014
Fabulous Flamingos!

Cheers! Hope you're having a great week! It's already Wednesday?! Our heat wave has broken here in Sacramento and that makes me happy again. Also, I can feel the very slightest hint of Autumn in the air,and that makes me VERY happy. Last weekend I had a fun time at my friend Sharon's scrapbooking/crafting event. At the event, I made a cheery card using some brand new stamps from Reverse Confetti. Fabulous Flamingos is the name of the stamp set, and it literally just came in the mail last week. I looooove it! To me, flamingos just say - Florida and Palm Beach! So I used the preppy colors of Lily Pulitzer to make a happy flamingo card. This old preppy girl loves pink and green!!

Here's my card….

These flamingo stams ARE fabulous, don't ya think? They are perfection! For the front of my card, I forgot to leave room for a sentiment! So, I stamped parts of a larger sentiment to say "you are fabulous" and then stamped the entire sentiment on the inside. I kind of like how this 'accident' turned out! To do this, simply put washi tape over the parts of your stamp that you don't want to show, then ink it up. Remove the washi tape and stamp your words! Easy peasy!

I love that the flamingos come in two pieces – their body and their wing. This gives such a nice dimensional flair to them. And, their wings are polka dots!!! CUTE!

Here is the inside of the card – using the entire sentiment. I like how it pulls together! I also added one more little guy down in the corner.

Pink + green = happiness!

Go out and be fabulous!

August 6, 2014
It’s the weekend – let’s get caught up!

Helllooooooo! Happy Friday night! Yeah! A weekend awaits and I am blogging! I've missed ya this week. I have lots to share. I have a couple more watercolor technique cards I made last weekend and some other stuff too. How are you? Got any fun plans for the weekend? I hope you do! Me….I have no idea what I'll be doing, and to be honest, that's just okay with me! I know one thing that's 100% certain….Sleeping in tomorrow!!

Here is card #1 with another SUPER cool watercolor technique from the Onlinecardclasses class I signed up for. I'll warn you, this took about four hours! But, I think it's worth it because I really like how it turned out. Lots of color and a pretty pattern.

Here's a side shot of this card. I tried a bunch of different things on the front – banners, die cuts, stamped things and nothing looked good. So, I left it just the way it was. And, I sort of like it. I think this could be a nice 'any occasion' card for either a man or a woman. What do you think? What would you put on the front of this?

Here's a side shot of the coloring and the colors…

The first step is to take watercolor paper and white heat emboss your stamped pattern. This is a giant background stamp from Penny Black. I used Versamark Ink and White Embossing Powder.

The next step is to INDIVIDUALLY color each tiny section!!! I used Distress Markers in some pretty shades. You'll notice that all my colors fade in the same direction. This gives an overall appealing look. The color placement is totally random. I took my marker and gently colored a swatch in the section, then took my water brush and blended it.

I only colored about half the image, then I cut it out around the edges.

Here are my marker colors….

This next watercolor technique is an old favorite! This cute stamp set is from Mama Elephant. I simply stamped my images with Distress Ink pads and then went over the images with my water brush. This softens the edges and gives a blurred look.

I kept this card really clean and simple too…

One last watercolor/stencil technique – if you'll indulge me!!! This is F-U-N!! Take your favorite stencil and some mini Distress Inks…. Blot your ink pads directly onto the back of your stencil in a random fashion.

Next, take your mini mister and spritz the ink really good. Let the ink colors sort of run together…

Then, smush your stencil down on some watercolor paper….

Voila! I told you this was fun!!! How neat does this look??? I haven't made anything with it yet. It's just sitting on my craft table right now.

Give it a quick hit with the heat gun to stop the ink from rolling around and ruining the images.

In the interest of full disclosure…. Here's another one I made that I don't really like. I think all the darker colors are not as interesting as the brights…but there you have it!

AND…you thought this post was over??? Ha! Today was my day to host over at the Taylored Expressions Blog and here's the card I'm sharing over there. You know it's only two weeks until the 4th of July! CLICK HERE to see more photos and my notes and directions for this card.

Whew. Okay, now I'm done!

Have a great, awesome, wonderful, fantastic weekend. Love ya!

June 20, 2014