A Blog Named Hero May Challenge - Watercolor!

It's time for a new challenge over at A Blog Named Hero!    This month's theme is Watercoloring, and our collaboration partner is Honey Bee Stamps.   I decided to combine some Honey Bee dies with Hero Arts stamps to create a sweet baby card!

To create my focal piece, I cut a 3 x 3 square of watercolor paper and sprinkled on several shades of blue and green Brusho watercolor powders.   I spritzed on some water and tilted the paper back and forth to create the "sea".   Once dry, I stamped the seahorse and several babies with Versafine ink and added some bubbles with Nuvo Drops.

I wanted to keep the background simple, so I die cut the 'special' & 'delivery' words  multiple times from white paper (first backed with Stick-It to make adhering them easy-peasy!).   I arranged the words over my card base,  added some ribbon from my stash, and then adhered the watercolored and stamped piece to the card with foam adhesive.

I love how this turned out!    It's not your typical baby card, but that just makes it more fun!   I hope you get a chance to play along with our challenge this month - break out your watercolors (any kind!) and Hero Arts goodies and create something awesome!   Link it up for a chance to win!   See you again soon, crafty friends.....

InLinkz.com

World Card Making Day with Winnie & Walter - Pinspiration Challenge

Hello there, I'm back with another card for W&W's World Card Making Day challenge - this one was inspired by Heather's Pinterest photo. 

And here is what I came up with!

I stamped a floral sprig from In Bloom - Addie's Garden in the lower right hand corner of a piece of watercolor cardstock.   I added some hand drawn detail with a black pen.   I loosely colored the flowers with my Zig watercolor markers.   The sentiment is from Wishing You.   As a finishing touch, I sprayed the entire panel with some gold glitter spray by Therm-o-Web and added a few gold sequins by Pretty Pink Posh!

Hope you've enjoyed my card!   I'll be back later with my third and (probably) final entry for the Winnie & Walter World Cardmaking Day Challenges!

CAS-ual Fridays Release Day 3

We are on day three of release week over at CAS-ual Fridays Stamps!   Have you been loving what you've seen?   Today's stamp set is called Thanks, and we are also introducing the brand-y new Smiling Fri-Dies as well!   Be sure to stop by the CAS-ual Fridays blog for a TON of inspiration from the whole DT!

For my card, I used my Gansai Tambi watercolors to create a splotchy background.   I stamped the awesome marquee 'BIG' sentiment with black hybrid ink and then filled in the dots with Viva Decor Paper Pens.  I love the look of dimension they give!   

 I used the Smiling Fri-Dies to cut one 'Thanks' sentiment from gold glitter paper and 5 from black.   I stacked all the black sentiments for added dimension and then offset them with the gold.   I mounted the watercolor panel to a black card base and added a very thin strip of the gold sparkle paper as well.    

Be sure to stop back tomorrow to see what else we've got up or sleeves!   If you liked today's stamp set, you'll LOVE the one we reveal tomorrow....

Always Be Your Own Kind of Beautiful

I'm up today on the Honey Bee Stamps blog today with a pretty watercolor card using my Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers.

Check out the Honey Bee blog for more pictures and details of how I made this card!

CHALLENGES

One layer - embellishments are okay

Watercolor Emboss Resist

I'm playing along with another Papertrey Ink 9th Anniversary challenge - for this one we had to grab and gather supplies in five minutes - and we had to use everything we gathered!  I took inspiration from one of Dawn's release cards, so I knew what I had to gather (is that cheating?  oops!)

I stamped and heat embossed the doilies from the vault set Delightful Doilies in white on watercolor paper.   I added color with my Zig Clean Color Water Brush markers and heat embossed a sentiment from Winter Woods onto a strip of black cardstock.   I mounted the entire panel to a Raspberry Fizz top folding card base.   I had gathered the sequins, so I had to use them, but I'm not sure I'm in love with that look, lol!

Hope you've enjoyed my card!   See you again soon!

Kitty Love

Hi everyone!   I hope you all had an amazing holiday!    It's time to switch gears in my card making.....Christmas is over so that means it's time to start creating for Valentine's Day!   Today I have a cute card featuring Newton's Nook Designs!

I used the adorable kissing kitties from the Newton's Nook Christmas Cuddles stamp set.   (It's out of stock at the moment, but you can sign up for the NND Newsletter to be notified when it's back!) I love that even though the holidays are over, this set is still getting use!   I used Faber Castell Gelatos to create my background.   I swiped various shades of red and pink onto watercolor paper and then blended with my finger and a damp baby wipe.   I stamped a variety of hearts from different NND sets and heat embossed them over top of the blended background.   I watercolored the kitties and die cut using the Christmas Cuddles dies.  The sentiment is from the Simply Seasonal stamp set - 'Happy' was stamped on vellum and fussy cut and 'Valentine's Day' was white heat embossed on a black cardstock strip.  

Hope you've enjoyed my card today!   I'm off to CHA later this week.  I'm so excited!   I will be posting pictures/updates on my Instagram account.   CLICK HERE to follow me so you don't miss a thing!

Newton's Nook Designs October Release - Fox Hollow!

Welcome back, NND friends!   Today the team is showing off the adorable new set "Fox Hollow"and it's matching dies.   I adore this set!   Foxes are one of my favorite animals - I was super excited when Jen showed us this stamp set!

I created my background using blue and purple Zig markers on watercolor paper.   I stamped the trees using Distress Ink in Evergreen Bough and then colored them with the same color ink - I love that sort of "no line" look that gave them!   I added some snowy hills with Stickles and embossed some of the snowflakes in the set with white embossing powder.   My little fox friend was stamped with Vintage Photo Distress Ink and watercolored with the same (I just wiped the ink off the scarf area before I stamped.).   The scarf was colored with Zig markers.   I popped Mr. Fox up on foam adhesive.  Isn't he cute looking up at the falling snow?   

Tomorrow all the sets showcased this week will be available for purchase at Newton's Nook Designs!  Which is YOUR favorite?

Would you like to win the new “Fox Hollow” stamp set? This prize will be given away to ONE lucky winner!

Here's how to win:

Comment on the NND blog and Design Team and Guest blogs (see list below)! The winner will be chosen at random from the collective blog release posts. Make sure to check out each of their blogs and comment for your chance to win. You will not know which blog has been chosen so the more you comment on the better your chances are of winning! You have until Thursday, October 15th at 9pm CST to comment -- winners will be announced on the blog post on Friday, October 16th. Check out all the awesome Design Team Blogs below to enter:

Newton's Nook Designs

Lydia Evans

Larissa Heskett

Samantha Mann

Crafty Math-Chick

Jess Gerstner

Stephanie Muzzulin

Danielle Pandeline

Nina-Marie Trapani

Kimberly Rendino

Yukari Yoshioka

Annette Allen - Guest Designer

Stamp-A-Faire 2015 - That's a wrap!

So I was able to find enough time to make one last card for Papertrey Ink's Stamp-A-Faire 2015.   I chose to do Laura's thread nest challenge (I miss Laura on the PTI team.....don't you?!?!).  

I got my new Color Burst pigments in the mail today, and had to play with them...this is a mix of several of the blue and purple shades.   I absolutely LOVED how it turned out and since it didn't need much else, I thought it'd be the perfect background for a "thread nest" card.   I used metallic silver thread and a PTI die stacked several times for added impact.   Some Wink of Stella on the die and some Pretty Pink Posh Metallic Silver sequins finish the card!

Hope to see you back tomorrow for a fun beachy card!  I'm trying to hold on to the last bits of summer, lol!!!

Watercolor Blog Hop!

Woo-hoo, it's Friday, people!   Thank heavens....I've had a rough week.   My computer's hard drive went kaput, so I lost a TON of photos and had to spend loads of time reinstalling programs, etc. UGH!  And I also lost my Photoshop Elements, so I'm looking for a new editing program.   Any suggestions are welcome!   I tried PicMonkey for today's card....

So - on to today's card for the Watercolor Blog Hop!   I used my new Zig Real Brush markers to create a soft purple and teal watercolor background and then went over it with some Perfect Pearls Mist.   The feathers, from the Jane's Doodles 'Wise Owl' set were embossed with black embossing powder.   To add some interest to the card, I sliced the background apart and tucked the sentiment ("Giving Thanks" from Simon Says Stamp) right in between.   And of course, since this hop is sponsored by Pretty Pink Posh, I had to add some sequins!!   I used Graphite and Sparkling Clear....

I hope you have time to enter this hop....it's sure to be a fun one!   Now I'm off to go check out all the other amazing cards!   Have a great weekend!

Newton's Nook Designs March Release - Beautiful Blossoms!

Welcome to day one of Newton's Nook Designs' March release!    So much goodness this month....and first up is my favorite - Beautiful Blossoms!  

So, so pretty, don't you think?!   I stamped the flowers onto watercolor paper and embossed them  with black embossing powder.   I used watercolors to color them in and fussy cut them out.  The sentiment was also stamped and embossed onto watercolor paper and inset within the Spellbinders die shape and the flowers were arranged around it, some of them popped up with dimensional adhesive.     I love how this turned out!

Be sure to keep hopping  for a chance to win Beautiful Blossoms!  Your next stop is Yukari's blog!

________________________

Would you like to win “Beautiful Blossoms”?
This set will be given away to ONE lucky winner! 

Here's how to win: 

Comment on the NND blog and Design Team and Guest blogs (see list below)! The winner will be chosen at random from the collective blog release posts. Make sure to check out each of their blogs and comment for your chance to win. You will not know which blog has been chosen so the more you comment on the better your chances are of winning! You have until Thursday, March 19th at 9pm CDT to comment  -- winners will be announced on the blog post on Friday, March 20th.  

Check out all the awesome Design Team Blogs below to enter:

Newton's Nook Designs

Lydia Evans

Larissa Heskett

Samantha Mann

Crafty Math-Chick

Jess Moyer

Stephanie Muzzulin

Danielle Pandeline

Kimberly Rendino

Yukari Yoshioka

Wanda Guess (Guest Designer)

Newton's Nook Designs February Release - Naughty Newton

Hello there!   Today we have the CUTEST set to show you!   It's called 'Naughty Newton', and this set just completely cracks me up!

I used the image of Newton with the broken flower pots, but I have to tell you, I was seriously contemplating using the litter box image in a shaker card with kitty litter as filler.   I didn't know how many people would find that amusing, lol!   As a crazy cat lady myself, I'd find it hilarious, but I decided to go with something that might have more mass appeal - ha!!!

I broke out the watercolors again for this card - simple and straightforward.  

Hope you're having fun hopping around!   Remember, the February release will be available to purchase tomorrow! 

Would you like to win “Naughty Newton”?

This set will be given away to TWO lucky winners! 

Here's how to win: 

Comment on the NND blog and Design Team and Guest blogs (see list below)! Two winners will be chosen at random from the collective blogs release posts. Make sure to check out each of their blogs and comment for your chance to win. You will not know which blog has been chosen so the more you comment on the better your chances are of winning! You have until Thursday, February 12th at 9pm CST to comment  -- winners will be announced on the blog post on Friday, February 13th. 

Check out all the awesome Design Team Blogs below to enter:

Newton's Nook Designs

Taheerah Atchia

Lydia Evans

Larissa Heskett

Samantha Mann

Crafty Math-Chick

Jess Moyer

Stephanie Muzzulin

Danielle Pandeline

Kimberly Rendino

Yukari Yoshioka

Simon Hurley (Guest Designer)

Angel Rivera(Guest Designer)

Stretch Your Stamps 2 Homework

I signed up for Online Card Classes "Stretch Your Stamp 2" and have enjoyed every minute of it!   I'm super behind on the homework, though, and since the gallery is closing soon (tomorrow, I think), I figured I'd better pop in and post something quick!

This homework is from day one.    The technique of watercolor resist isn't a new one to me, but if I don't have encouragement to break out the watercolors, it doesn't usually happen.  Watercolor is so pretty, but it's not easy for me, that's for sure.  

In any case, from one background stamped panel, I was able to make four cards!   There's only three here, I still have one in the works.

I love how the middle card takes on a more manly vibe based on where I die cut the hello.  Losing the purple really worked wonders in this case!   I think that card is my favorite.    The cute little wood stars are from Pretty Pink Posh.   Love that open star!

I hope everyone taking the class has enjoyed it as much as me....I've been cruising the gallery, and there is so much to see!