Hawaiian Hibiscus Birthday | ft Close to my Heart "Hawaiian Hibiscus"

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

Recently I have been playing around with my Copics and I've been looking for friendly inks that are not Memento. Don't get me wrong, I love my Memento ink and it is still my go-to for stamping images, but it is nice to know that there are options.

As it turns out the water-based dye inks from Close To My Heart seem to be compatible. I haven't tried them all - I do have a lot of them, but the few that I have tried have worked nicely.

To begin, I stamped the smaller hibiscus flower using CTMH's Whisper ink on 110lb Copic-friendly cardstock. I then masked that off and began building up more flowers and leaves around it.

I removed all the masks and coloured the images in with Copic markers. I wanted to keep the lines soft. Despite the size of an actual hibiscus they feel very delicate to me. I didn't want anything harsh or "in your face" about this card.

I stamped the Happy Birthday greeting from Lawn Fawn's "Party Animal" stamp set using the same soft grey ink.

To finish it off I added clear Wink of Stella over the petals (once again it doesn't show up on camera, but I promise it is there). Then I mounted the panel on 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 all ready, please follow me over on the right side bar so you don't miss any future posts, if you are viewing this via mobile device, scroll to the bottom and click "View web version" first. You can also follow me over on Facebook. Toss me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

This card is for:

Muse Challenge #230

Inspired by Kim Heggins

My inspiration lead me straight to Hawaii

Stamping Sensations August Challenge

Anything Goes

Watercolour Florals | ft. Hero Arts and Zig Clean Color Markers

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

If you're like me, you see these super pretty cards online and then get a million ideas on how to use that stamp; so you rush out and buy it only to forget about it completely.

No? Just me? Huh.

I got this stamp a while back because I saw all these super pretty cards online and I had to just rush out and buy it, only to forget why I wanted it in the first place. So when I saw the inspiration by Anita Bowden in the Muse challenge, along with a Happy Birthday Challenge and an Anything Goes challenge I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

I'm not going to lie, the execution of my idea took a wee bit longer than I wanted, but now that I have the hang of this one, I'll probably make a couple more with different colour palettes for my friends.

To begin, I prepped a piece of Strathmore Bristol Smooth 100lb cardstock with my powder tool. I then positioned it in my MISTI and stamped this Hero Arts "Large Blossom" using VersaMark ink. I actually did it twice so that I was certain the black embossing powder would stick where I wanted it when I heat embossed it.

I then used my Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers in Carmine, Light Carmine and Bright Yellow for the flowers; and May Green and Mid Green for the leaves and stems. To get a nice blend I put only a bit of each colour at opposite ends of each section and used my Prisma watercolour brush to bring the two together.

Because Bristol isn't actually watercolour paper, it is best to use a very light hand when it comes to adding the water. You can always, always add more, but once you have too much the paper will warp and pill -- no one wants that.

Once that was completely dry, I heat embossed the sentiment using the same black embossing powder.

I then added a bit of twine to the left and bottom of the panel, and adhered the whole piece to 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 all ready, please follow me over on the right side bar. If you are viewing this via mobile device, scroll to the bottom and click "View web version" first. You can also follow me over on Facebook. Toss me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

This card is for:

Muse Challenge #228

Inspired by Anita Bowden

and

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge

Happy Birthday

and 

Stamping Sensations August Challenge

Anything Goes