Happy Floral Birthday | Delicate Flowers

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

Happy New Year to everyone, as well! It's been a super busy holiday season here, but it's time to get back at it. I have a lot planned for the new year, and hopefully we can get everything back on track soon.

Today's card is stamped with Simon Says Stamp Intense Black ink on Bristol Smooth cardstock. I used the Zig Clean Colour Real Brush Markers to add some very soft colour to this design.

I wanted it to be bold and beautiful but still look incredibly delicate, which I think it does quite nicely.

The floral images are stamped from SSS Delicate Flowers and the greeting is from the SSS Sketched Flowers sets. I love that many of these sets can be mixed and matched to get the perfect look.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar, over on Facebook and on YouTube! Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

Floral Thoughts Mini Series | ft. Simon Says Stamp "Beautiful Flowers" and 2 Kinds of Watercolour Pens

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

Today I wanted to share a card (and video - two days in a row, peoples!!) featuring the Beautiful Flowers stamps set from Simon Says Stamp. I received this in one of their monthly kits, but I think it is still available independently on their site. I wasn't sure how much I was going to love the giant floral images, turns out I love them a lot and I cannot wait to get more. There is a Sketchy Flowers coming in the October card kit, but that hasn't made its way to me yet.... I've been checking every single day and it's like that commercial where the little kid looks so hopefully only to be woefully disappointed - that's me. Every. Day. I can only imagine what my neighbours think when I shuffle back to the house empty-handed.

I recommend watching in HD over on YouTube!

So I've done some cards using the Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers and I've done some cards using the Tombow Dual Brush Pens but I've never used the two together. Until now. I didn't have quite the palette I wanted to use in either set, so I ventured just a bit out of my comfort zone and used both sets. 

I stamped the image using VersaMark embossing ink and heat embossed it with Ranger's Rose Gold embossing powder. It's pretty, but it really wasn't as "rose-goldy" as I would have liked. I have a new powder that has arrived (between the filming and the voice-over for this video) and I'm looking forward to trying that out.

I hope you like today's card (and video) and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar, over on Facebook and on YouTube! Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think!

Gilded Butterfly Encouragement Card | ft. Urban Stamps, Nuvo Gilding Flakes and Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

A while back I created a gilded butterfly card (which you can see here), I loved the card so much that I decided to create a tutorial video to go along with it.

The card today is a little different, as it is a 9"x 4" card. It fits nicely in a legal size envelope so it won't require additional postage; and that is always a good thing!

Or you can watch in HD over on YouTube!

The images are stamped with VersaMark ink on Bristol Smooth paper, then embossed with Ranger's Sticky Embossing Powder. The gilding flakes I used are the Radiant Gold Gilding Flakes by Nuvo. Please watch the video above for the full tutorial on how I created this card. And see just how crazy these flakes are. I'll be cleaning up these flakes for days. LOL they are everywhere!

In real life, the butterflies are super shimmery, unfortunately it doesn't really pick it up all that well on camera.

I don't often finish the insides of my cards, or if I do they are an after thought depending on who I am giving them to. But here is a shot of the inside that has been embossed with gold embossing powder. 

I hope you like today's card (and video!) and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar, over on Facebook and now on YouTube! Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

Shadow Butterflies | ft. Forever In Time "Butterfly Fancy"

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

A little while ago, I posted a card using a new (to me) stamp company and I really liked the results. Recently, I've been able to get my hands on some other sets and while the stamps themselves definitely need some "prepping" to be ink-ready, I'm enjoying the new designs.

To begin, I cut down a piece of Strathmore Bristol Smooth cardstock and used Salty Ocean and Broken China Distress Oxide inks to create the background. Once that was relatively dry, I used the Distress sprayer to spritz clean water and give the distressed look we all love.

I hit that with my heat tool - because I learned from the last piece that sometimes they take forever to dry. I then used a bunch of the butterflies from Forever In Time's "Butterfly Fancy" and Daisy White pigment ink from CTMH to stamp them randomly over the panel. I used first and second generation stamping to create a swarm.

While the lighting was pretty good, the camera didn't seem to want to really pick up the different layers of depth that was on the card. So in real life these butterflies are more bold than you can see here.

Once the white was dry, I stamped the greeting from CTMH "Cursive Birthday" using Pacifica pigment ink. I generally have pretty good luck stamping larger solid images with pigment ink, but less luck stamping the greetings - perhaps because the lines are finer - I seem to get these "trenches" in the ink. So I did this part of the stamping using my MISTI.

I mounted the piece to a coordinating piece of blue cardstock then adhered the whole piece to the front of a standard A2 sized card base.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.