Valentine's Day 2016 Series - Card 16

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

As it turns out, I was far more inspired by the sketch challenge than I expected. So here is a second sketch card and the sixteenth in the 2016 Valentine's Day series!

To create this card I die cut two tags out of regular layering weight cardstock. I then adhered them together to give them a bit more stability. I wanted to make sure that this tag would hold up when I added layers of ink. 

I used three shades of distress ink to create an ombre look. After the tag was completely dried I stamped the little "I love you" greeting.

I stamped the elephant on heavy weight cardstock with Memento Tuxedo Black ink, and coloured him with copics. I don't have coordinating dies for this set, (are there coordinating dies for these guys?) so I fussy cut him out, and popped him up on foam tape.

The heart is from a previous project, I covered it with clear Wink of Stella and then with glossy accents. The string is a bit of sparkly thread that I tied around the bottom part of the balloon and wound loosely behind the elephant.

I hope you all like the card for today, and are inspired to create something of your own.

This card is for:

MFT Sketch Challenge #267

Valentine's Day Series 2016 - Card 15

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

To create this card, I die cut a bunch of different size hearts from some scrap papers to use as masks. I arranged the first layer how I wanted them and adhered them with some removable adhesive.

I then gently sprayed the paper with Worn Lipstick spray and allowed the sheet to completely dry.

Then I removed the masks and arranged the next layer and sprayed again.

I repeated this process a couple of times, allowing the panel to dry completely between every layer. The greeting and heart were die cut from a deep red cardstock that was also used as the matting layer.

If I were to create this card again, I would definitely use a watercolour paper or a much heavier weight of cardstock. The paper didn't really like all that water very much and the panel itself is now very delicate. I also noticed that by the time the final layer was dry, it looked more like sponging than spraying, which was kind of disappointing because the spraying looked awesome for the first two layers. Live and learn, I suppose.

I hope you all like the card for today and are inspired to create something of your own.

This card is for:

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge: Spritz and Spray

Valentine's Day 2016 Series - Card 13

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

When I got this hearts in a heart die I was so excited. It had been out of stock for ages and I finally got my hands on it. When I started the Valentine's Day series I totally forgot all about it.

Until now.

To create this card I used the hearts die on a piece of black paper, and set all the hearts aside. I then used the die on this red panel and placed two way tape of the back to allow for easier inlaying of the hearts.

Pro Tip: Keep the hearts that you are using for inlaying (the black ones in this case) in place for where they are to be set. It was a nightmare to figure out where they all went. While they all look of comparable size. They don't all just fit wherever you want. So that took some time.

I used the Love You die on both colours of card stock as well and inlaid those the same way. I didn't like the way the bottom looked so I added the 1/8" white satin ribbon for a bit of interest and dimension.

I hope you all like the card for today and are inspired to create something of your own.

Don't forget to follow this blog in the right sidebar.


This card is for:

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Have a Heart

Valentine's Day 2016 Series - Card 12

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

This card was so much fun to make, and quite a deviation from what I normally do (stamp, stamp, stamp....).

To create this card, I used the large stitched cloud boarder from Lawn Fawn to make a mask. I then used Tattered Rose distress ink to sponge upward to shade. I started from the top and worked my way down toward the bottom of the panel.

The hearts are cut from regular cardstock and then sponged with Victorian Velvet and edged with Worn Lipstick distress inks.

I had considered raising the hearts on foam tape, but I couldn't find my foam tape, and I'm kinda glad for it, because I ended up liking it better without the dimension. The different sizes of hearts gives the illusion of dimension and that worked well enough for me.

The matte is just the actual card base sponged with Worn Lipstick distress ink to match the edges of the heats.

I hope you all liked this card and are inspired to create something of your own.

I'd like to enter this card to the following challenges:

1. Fusion Challenge: Paper Hearts

I used both the inspiration photo of paper hearts and the sketch for this card.

2. Time Out Challenge: Love is the Flower you've got to let Grow

I thought the size differences in the hearts was a nice parallel to the growth as well as representing the love.

Valentine's Day 2016 Series - Card 11

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

Today I have the eleventh card in my 2016 Valentine's Day Series. I honestly didn't think I would get the last couple up, everyone has been super sick the last couple weeks so it has been really difficult to get the creative gears going.

To create this card, I used the negative space from a heart die cut that was used on another project. I then took the small gears from Lawn Fawn's "Beep Boop Birthday" stamp set and stamped them randomly in different colours. I used the tiny little heart to fill in some of the blank spaces.

I had to do a bit of masking to make it look as though the robots were holding hands. I coloured them with copics, added some clear wink of stella and covered them with glossy accents. I don't have the coordinating dies for this set, so I fussy cut them out. Which I guess I would have had to do anyway since I changed the arm positions and had them touching. Both robots are raised on 1/8" foam squares.

I used a black gel pen to add some stitching detail around the heart. 

For the greeting I used a small CTMH alphabet stamp set and then banner cut the strip. To finish it off I matted both the greeting strip and the front panel on some deep red cardstock.

I hope you all enjoyed this card and are inspired to create something of your own.

This card is for the Lawnscaping Challenge: #123 Sending Love, sponsored by Ellen Hutson

Don't forget you can follow my blog using the blue button in the right sidebar.

Valentine's Day 2016 Series - Card 10

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

Today I have the tenth installment in my Valentine's Day 2016 Series.

When I first saw this Newton set I fell in love instantly. These two are just about the sweetest little things I have ever seen and when this week's Newton's Challenge came up it was perfect!

To create this card I stamped the two kitties on 110lb cardstock and coloured with copics. I fussy cut them out and mounted them on the red heart.

I used my black gel pen to add a stitched look around the heart to make it stand out. That wasn't part of the original plan, but after it was mounted I felt it needed a little something extra to help it stand out.

The background is a lovely heart pattern paper. Though the picture doesn't pick it up very well (unfortunately) I used clear wink of stella and glossy accents on a few of the white hearts. In real life, they really shine!

This card is for the Newton's Nook Inky Paws Challenge: #28 Love Theme.

Valentine's Day 2016 Series - Card 8

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by today!

Today I have another card for my 2016 Valentine's Day Series. 

This card was created with distress ink watercolouring on 140lb watercolour paper. To begin, I wet the background panel generously with clean water and then dropped in worn lipstick and picked raspberry.

The raised circle was created the same way after I clear embossed the swirly love stamp. This was then put onto a scalloped circle and raised with foam tape.

While I could have been done at that point, I thought the card needed just a little bit more, so I added three strips of ribbon to add interest.

Distress ink watercolour on 140lb cold press watercolour paper.

Valentine's Day 2016 Series - Card 7

Hi everyone, thank you so much for stopping by today!

Today's card was so much fun to make. I love the emboss resist technique, especially thick lined stamps, such as the one below. 

This technique will work with stamps that have thinner ridges so long as you use a fine detail embossing powder. A thicker powder may unclean lines. 

Emboss resist technique on 140lb watercolour paper. After the panel dried I cut it in angles with my paper trimmer to create a sunburst effect, and raised alternating beams on foam tape to add dimension.

The heart is watercoloured with pinks, sprinkled with glitter and covered with glossy accents. I used sparkling red thread between the heart and the panel for extra interest and shine.

Valentine's Day 2016 Series - Card 6

Hi everyone! Thank you so much for stopping by, I hope you are all having a great day.

Today's card is not only the next installment in my 2016 Valentine's Day series, it is also my submission for the SSS Challenge: Stencil It, sponsored by Simon Says Stamp.

If you are new to stamping or card making or scrapbooking, I highly recommend checking out Simon Says Stamp. 

I created this card using a Pure Innocence image from MFT stamps. I stamped her in Antique Linen distress ink on 140lb coldpress watercolour paper, then watercoloured her in. I'm somewhat new to the "no line colouring" technique, but so far I'm very pleased with how my projects have turned out.

The greeting is heat embossed with white powder onto a coral die cut tag, I used the same coral cardstock for the base of the card.

For the background I used a couple shades of distress ink for a fade effect through my stencil. Unfortunately it was an older stencil that I had in my stash, and I don't remember the name of it. Sorry.

Both the inner and outer panels were die cut using Lawn Fawn's stitched rectangle dies. 

Valentine's Day 2016 Series - Card 5

Hello everyone, I hope you are having a great day. Thanks for stopping by.

I created this card using the MFT mime from their Pure Innocence lineup. It wasn't until I had her stamped out and a basic idea for a layout that I realized I had no idea how a mime was really coloured, I knew they wore black and white, but not really how the outfit was put together. TG for google, right?

I coloured the mime with copics and used clear Wink of Stella on her hat and pants to add a bit of shimmer, because why wouldn't they sparkle?

The background panel was created with Lawn Fawn's "A Birdie told me" speech bubble stamp set. Given the sentiment that I chose from the MFT set, I thought the empty speech bubbles were a perfect compliment for the card. The panel was then put on a piece of heart patterned paper. And finished it off with enamel hearts from CTMH.

The sentiment inside says "No Words. Just Love." Sometimes there aren't words to express how you feel, not only is this super cute, it's also quite clever.

Valentine's Day 2016 Series - Card 4

You can't say I didn't give you a heads up. Here he is again. I love this skunk.

I have been a fan of Lawn Fawn for quite some time, and in all that time I have always tried to colour the critters realistically. For this card I stepped away from realism and attempted a more whimsical palette.

To begin, I stamped the flower, then masked it and stamped the skunk on top to create a one layer critter, since he was designed to hold his heart I didn't need to use a mask. I coloured it with copics and used a gem for the centre of the flower. Because of the addition of the flower I wasn't able to use the coordinating die, but fussy cut him out instead.

The hearts were die cut from the same glossy paper I created for my previous card. I mean, why waste an entire sheet of glossy paper when you can just keep cutting and cutting, right?

I duplicated the watercolour background from that card as well. Perhaps it was my eagerness with the water or I didn't scribble as much as I had on the other panel, but the colour was super faint. I used the same colours and scribbled on my acrylic block and then added more colour to the paper. As it happens, I prefer this panel because of the layers that appeared.

The greeting is from two different MFT sets, I couldn't find a sentiment that said exactly what I wanted so I put one together. It took more than a bit of creative masking, but turned out exactly the way I wanted it. Generally I don't shy away from some stamp surgery, but these were so close together I was afraid of cutting the words, and that would have made me very sad indeed.

I'd also like to enter this card into the SSS Challenge "Something New", I had considered creating a baby card, but this little guy is my newest stamp, and the background is also a relatively "new to me" technique, so I thought why not?

Also, don't forget! You can follow me on instagram @trinadezeeuw

Valentine's Day 2016 Series - Card 3

I had used the alcohol ink marbling technique on a snowflake boarder card, and decided I wanted to give it a try in reds for Valentine's Day. Unfortunately, I didn't really have a red, only pink. Needless to say my vision quickly turned to disappointment. However, I thought I'd give it a go anyway and while it wasn't exactly what I had in mind, I found the results satisfactory. 

The background came about by loosely scribbling three shades of distress ink markers to create an ombre effect, then using a flat brush with clean water to blend. I've tried doing this before but had some difficulty making it blend nicely. I found that if I allowed the markers to dry completely before adding the water I ended up with a streakier look that had distinct lines where the marker was applied. In the card, I applied the water as soon as the cap was on the last marker and was incredibly pleased to see the results I was looking for.

The greeting was die cut from the same watercolour paper several times and glued together to add some dimension. I used the mid-tone shade without water to colour the word, then applied glossy accents to make it really pop. 

The "you" was heat embossed with white on the same marble paper the hearts came from then trimmed and applied with foam tape. 

Alcohol ink marbled die cut hearts on watercolour background with dimensional greeting and glossy accents to make it shine.

Valentine's Day 2016 Series - Card 2

Hi everyone, thanks so much for stopping by today!

Before I get into today's card, I just wanted to take a minute and thank you all so very much for all the support. I've been terribly sick the last week so I haven't been posting, but when I logged in today I couldn't believe the increased traffic to my blog over the last few days. Thank you all so much! I can't even begin to tell you how much it means to me.

Today's card features an older stamp set from Lawn Fawn (shocking, right?). This is one of my favourite mini sets that has been released so far, and to be completely honest I really don't use it as much as I should.

I used three shades of distress ink to fill in the tiny hearts stencil for the background, and was lucky enough to find a very close colour match for the panel on the card base.

This is one of those cards where I knew exactly what I wanted to do and it came together super fast. As much as I wish that were the case every time I make a card, I do enjoy the organic process of putting the card together and seeing how it turns out.

Copic Coloured hedgehogs on raised heart focus on tiny hearts distress ink background.

Valentine's Day 2016 Series - Card 1

To officially kick off the 2016 Valentine's Day Card series I have this adorable little card featuring Stinkin' Cute stamp set from Lawn Fawn.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I just adore this little guy; and here he is again!

To create this card, I used a stitched circle die to create the focus that he sits on. I used copic markers to colour the flowers and the skunk, then applied glossy accents to the heart and the middle of each of the flowers.

I had considered stamping the flowers in pink but landed on black to tie in the colouring of the skunk across the card.

I'm not usually a "pink" kind of girl, but this season the colours are really speaking to me. Perhaps I do have a girly side, after all.

Raised focus over argyle stamped background with coordinating flowers and hearts.