Watercolour Birthday

I realized when it was my daughter's birthday earlier this week, that I hadn't shared the card that I made her, here on my blog.  I cut up a bunch of squares and rectangles of watercolour paper, pulled out my Distress Inks and started playing.  This was my favourite colour combo:

I love that you never quite know how colours are going to blend, or look together.  After the ink dried, I stamped overtop of it with black ink, popped the whole square panel up on pop dots, and added an arrow die cut.

Ai Watercolor & Easel Dies

I have something fun to share today from Art Impressions - along with 3 new Watercolor Mini Project Series sets, Ai has come out with two fabulous Easel Dies!!  You're going to love these:

I am using the Square Easel Die (Sku #4699) along with Flower Cart (Sku #4703):

 I started by cutting out two of the Easel die cuts using my Cocoa cardstock and glued them together (you can see a video of how to assemble them, here!)  Scroll down and you'll see a photo of the back of my Easel card.  I added a piece of patterned paper to my base, then I coloured directly onto the cart stamp using my Tombow markers, and stamped it onto smooth watercolour paper.  Using a damp paintbrush, I went over all of the outlined edges to soften them, and pulled out the colour to paint the cart.  Then I used the flower stamp to add some dark purple flowers.  I used several other foliage, grass and floral Ai stamps to create the rest of my flower cart, and went over them with my damp paintbrush as well.  I used some Distress ink to paint in the suggestion of a sky:

 I used a stitched circle die to cut out my image, and popped it up on pop dots, added a few irridescent sequins, and the Just For You (Sku #3143) sentiment.  Here's the back view of the Easel - I didn't glue the two flaps together because I found that it would lay beautifully flat for mailing if I left them open.  You just pull down the two little tabs and your card stands up perfectly:

 Our "Use Water-based Inks" challenge is still on for one more week - head on over to the Ai blog to see what the other Designers are sharing, and you can link up your creation there.  Happy stamping!

Hopscotch Birthday

I have a masculine card to share today... with a whole whack of male relatives with birthdays over then next couple of months, I wanted to get a handle on my supply of cards, so I made up four of these:

I kept it fairly simple, used the Hopscotch papers & Hello-Life stamp sets from Close To My Heart along with three matching Creative Basics cardstocks (they have a tone-on-tone glossy pattern on them that you can barely see in the photo).  Then I die cut the Spellbinder's Feathers in three colours of cardstock and tied them with a bit of waxy flax.  I popped up the sentiment circle and tucked the feathers in behind it.

Ai Girlfriends Bench Set

Hello Ai fans!

The cooler weather is definitely sneaking up on us here north of the border... we woke up to 1/2" of snow covering the ground this weekend!!  Luckily it all melted an hour later, but that's still pretty early, even for the Great White North.  So it's only fitting that I share a card that's perfect for these cooler days.  Here is one of the 2015 Girlfriends sets - Bench Set (Sku #4546):

I popped up the image and sentiment with some pop dots, and added a few gumdrops to jazz things up a little.  Happy stamping!

Copics used: Reds - R59, R37, R35, R32, R30

Browns - E57, E55, E53, E51, E50, E18, E07, E02, E11, E00, E000

Greens - YG67, YG65, YG63, YG61

Blues - B97, B95, B93, B91, B02, B01, B00, B000

Yellows - Y26, Y23

Greys - W7, W5, W3, W1, W00

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Freshly Made Sketches

My Dad will be turning 83 in November, and he has always been a big supporter of my little card making hobby - so I've made him a fun & bright birthday card using this week's Freshly Made Sketch and my favourite Crazy Birds:

Patterned papers are Hip Hip Hooray by Doodlebug Designs; Stamp sets are Crazy Birds, Tim Holtz & sentiment by Art Impressions; Gumdrops are Your Next Embellie; Copic Markers.

Cricut Capers

I haven't played along with the Heart2Heart Challenge blog in a while... so I'm happy to be playing along this week :o)  This week's challenge is to use one of the CTMH Cricut cartridges, and I have a cute Halloween card made with the Close To My Heart Artfully Sent Cricut cartridge, and Art Impressions' Be Scary Set:

I love this spider web card base - and it was so quick to put together, the Cricut cut the entire black card base, so all I had to do was adhere some patterned paper behind the spider web, and then glued my cute little trick-or-treater on top (I popped her up with some pop dots).

Patterned papers are Frightful by My Mind's Eye; Stamp set is Be Scary Set (Sku #4521) by Art Impressions; Ink is Memento Tuxedo Black; Copic Markers; Sequins are Glimmer Glam by Craft Medley.

Snowman Shaker

 I am really loving the five new Shaker sets that Art Impressions released this fall!  And in October, I always make a conscious effort to work on my Christmas cards, so I was able to get three of these done this weekend!  Here's what I came up with using the Bells Ring Set (Sku #4682):

 I sewed a couple of tiny jingle bells onto a small black bow, so that when my little snowman shakes his booty, the bells should jingle a little, too.

 Copics used: Blues - B28, B26, B24, B23, B21, B000, B0000

Greens - G46, G43, G41, YG03, YG01

Greys - C9, C7, C5, C3, C1, C00

Yellows - Y38, Y35, Y32

Reds - R29, R24

Oranges - YR18, YR16, YR12

InLinkz.com

Black, White & Glam

I love the October inspiration on the Verve Blog - Black, White & Glam!  And I knew that I had the perfect papers for it, which just happened to come with matching ribbon and a pack of glitter papers.  I've used this week's Mojo Monday sketch:

**I've snapped a quick photo this morning to try to show how sparkly this is in real life - photos don't do it justice!!:

Patterned papers, ribbon & glitter paper - all Papermania Capsule Collection; Dies are Mask Die set, Tagged Rectangle Die - Verve; Stamps are Happy Thoughts, Verve.

Witch Spinner

 I have another Art Impressions Spinner card to share with you today - using the sweet Witch Spinner (Sku #4679):

 This was a fun card to figure out... I wanted her to be flying in front of a yellow moon, and I also wanted a different style of card - so I came up with this half-card idea:

 I had her floating between two die cuts that I glued to the inside & outside of the front panel, and then glued a yellow circle behind her circle opening to be my moon.  It looks quite cute when it's on display.  Here's a closeup of the sweet witch:

 Be sure to check out all the new Spinners and their matching dies - you can find them in the Ai store here.  There is still time to link up your creation for our spinning challenge - there are always wonderful prizes to be won.  Happy stamping!

Copics used: Skin - E11, E00, E000, R20

Hair - Y26, Y23, Y21, E50

Purples - BV04, BV02, BV01, BV00

Greys - C7, C5, C3, C1, C00

Greens - YG03, YG01

Browns - E57, E55, E53

InLinkz.com

Quick Birthday cards

Well, I actually got 7 quick birthday cards done today... my daughter wanted a bit of a stash to take back to university tomorrow.  I'm only going to share two of them today - I'm using up some older CTMH papers along with a newer mini stamp and some bits and pieces:

I haven't made a paper rose in a while!  I used a few different die cuts, added some zigzag stitching and some embellies, and that's it.
Patterened papers are Sophia, Cardstock is Hollyhock, Blush, Pear & White Daisy, Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge for the flower and the Make a Wish stamp - all Close To My Heart; Sprightly Sprigs die and Pennant Banner die - Verve;  Stitched Circle STAX, My Favorite Things; Spellbinders Large Scallop die.  Memento Tuxedo Black Ink.

Art Impressions Design Team Reunion Blog Hop!

It's a big day for Art Impressions - not only are we launching 7 new Spinner stamp sets & dies, but we are having a Design Team Reunion - with 22 current & former DT members, hopping to show you our creations with the wonderful new spinners.  You should be coming from Jessica Griffon's blog!

Now to get down to business - Spinners come with a front and matching back version of the image, as well as a sentiment.  The idea is to sandwich a piece of thread or string between the front and back, and suspend it in a window or opening on a card - the image will spin freely, creating a fun, interactive card.

I am sharing a couple of projects using the cute Pumpkin Spinner (Sku #4676) and matching Pumpkin Die (Sku #4695).  First up is a card:

When you make a spinner you want to have several layers of cardstock, so that you can hide the ends of your string neatly.  I use just ordinary sewing thread, with a strong adhesive - I find it spins really well, and 'fades' into the background nicely.  Here's a shot of him spinning:

 And what it looks like from the inside:

Now for something a little different... I've had this idea of doing a spinner ornament, ever since they debuted last spring, and the Pumpkin Spinner was the perfect one to use.  For a first effort, I'm pretty pleased:

 I die cut 6, 4" circles using two circle dies taped together, scored them so they folded, and glued them all together in an open sphere.

 To assemble, I used some black sewing thread, adding black beads, a sentiment circle and the image suspended in the middle of my sphere.  I tied the thread onto a loop of Baker's Twine so that it can hang easily.  It's actually pretty cute when it's in motion, you can get the pumpkin and the sphere both spinning in opposite directions.  I'll try to add a video of it spinning if I can, later today.

Your next stop on the hop is the oh-so-talented Kerry Kung, but before you head over to her blog, check out the prize giveaway below, and there is a complete hop listing in case you've missed anyone.


a Rafflecopter giveaway
Today's list of Blog Hop participants:

Art Impressions Blog

Cheri Burry
Crystal Lopez
Dana Warren
Deloris Thiede
Diane Zechman
Isha Gupta
Jessica Griffin
Karen Day
Kerry Kung
Kirsi Kamppikoski
Maria McGuire
Marie-Pierre Capistran
Mary Witter
Piali Biswas
Reneé Matarese
Sharon Caudle
Soili-Maria Seppala
Tammie Koehnen
Tracy Gray
Tracy MacDonald
Trena Brannon
Zora Bergstrom

Today also brings the start of a new challenge to the Art Impressions blog - we want to see your creations that SPIN!  Be sure to link up your project over on the Ai blog for a chance to win an awesome prize!