A Banner Celebration

I made a set of four cards using the 'They Say it's Your Birthday' papers from Carta Bella, and the great 'A Banner Celebration' die set from Spellbinders.

The candle and balloon papers work so perfectly with this die set!  And their flip sides are the great green and blue patterns.  I mixed and matched them all along with a few dies from my stash.  First up, is a horizontal card where I wanted to show off the great candle paper:

Then I made a shaker!  There are a bunch of silver discs under the acetate, and I made it a shaped shaker using the Essential Arches die:

With the arched cut out, I used it as a base after fussy cutting out a bunch of the candle boxes:

And finally, I had to show off the pretty balloon paper.  I kept it fairly simple, just used my postage rectangle die to frame the sentiment, then added a few candles and balloons.

All supplies are available at The Papercrafter's Workshop.  They ship!

Introducing: We All Have Baggage!

I'm pretty excited to share with you a new crafting collection designed by my wonderful (& talented!) friend, Sheri Ballantyne in partnership with Spellbinders.  This is "We All Have Baggage", a selection of dies and stamps in support of our mental health, with some really beautiful sentiments, and an uplifting overall message.  

It's many months in the making, and no small accomplishment.  There are two stand alone dies, two stamp and die sets, and a sentiment stamp set.  Scroll down to see the group of cards that I made in honour of Sheri - which I will post individually later.  Meanwhile here are a few photos of her launch party!

Showing the collection in the Spellbinders catalogue!

And a selfie with yours truly :-)

Here's my card set!  This was a blast to make.  There's a bit of a green glow to my craft room right now...

Spellbinders won't be realeasing it until April/May, but the collection is available right now on the Papercrafter's Workshop website.

September Watercolour Weekend

I am on the Art Impressions blog today!

It's September, which means it's fall card making season!  I painted up an image I'd never used before - this is 5593 - Harvest Scenes Set.  

I stamped the image with Tombows #969/565, leaving off the bottom edge of the smaller pumpkin.  I used my stamp positioner to place the leaves from 5598 - Harvest Set, and the squirrel from 5599 - Mini Mice and Squirrel Set as well.  I stuck to a simple colour palette - using #312 on the pot and smaller pumpkin, adding layers to achieve the darker areas.  For the orange pumpkin, I started with #933 in several layers, then added #947 to deepen the shadows.  After pulling the colour out of the lines on the ladder, I used shades of #969, keeping it fairly light, as I wanted a weathered looking wooden ladder - then added touches of #947 and #565 for shadows.  A combination of #947 and 969 was used on both the bird and squirrel.

For the flowers spilling out of the pot, I used 5475  - WC Flower Set 6, in #312/177 and then the small circle of V shaped flowers from 4868 - WC Flower Set 2 was used with #847.  For the leaves, I painted splotches of #173/947/312/993/847.  With the small grass from 4052 Foliage Set and #177, I created the little hill behind the pumpkin and other images, then painted it out with my brush, dragging the colour out as a wash of grass.  I used my Twintone markers to add a few details back in, as well as to darken the eyes... then added a few dots around my scene.

The sentiment from 5797 - Little Things Sentiment Set is stamped in Versafine Onyx Black, and the background paper is from 5838 - Fall PP.

My second September project is actually a set of cards using the newly released 5917 - Floral Bouquet Set.

I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about the colours I've used, as I started painting these a couple of months ago, and didn't note everything down!  We'll talk more about concepts.  I initially just wanted to paint up these pretty new flowers, putting each of them in a container - and realized that I had the makings of a sweet card set to gift someone.  One way to create a card set is to do matching colours and papers, but since I had painted each bouquet in different (not necessarily coordinating) colours,  I used the card design to tie them together.  After painting, I used a postage die to cut them all out, then added a different sentiment from 5797 - Little Things Sentiment Set to each one using Versafine Onyx Black ink.  They were matted on a slightly larger piece of Canson XL Watercolour paper, and a piece of dark grey cardstock that was just 1/16" larger - and adhered with 3D foam adhesive.  The background papers are a bit of a mixed bag, but in this case, I kept in mind that the cards are going to be given out individually, so I focussed more on each background working with each painting, not that all four cards matched each other.  Details for each are below:

Thinking of You - Container is from 5123 - WC Decorative Jar Set, paper is 5892 - Easter S2PP.  You'll see on each painting that I've added colour around the base to 'ground' the container, as well as added a shadow of it.

One Day at a Time - Container is from 5923 - Farmhouse Container Set, paper is 5873 - Mini Birthday PP.  Look closely at the jug, and you'll see that I like to add touches of other colours when I'm painting containers.  I feel that it ties in the scene as a whole, and shiny containers always pick up reflections of items that are around them.

Just a Little Note - Container is from 5923 - Farmhouse Container Set, paper is 5892 - Easter S2PP.  This one is little!  But I love the idea of flowers in a teacup.  The yellow of the cup was quite a strong contrast to the purple/pink flowers, so I brought a little of the pink into the teacup as well, and added a darker ground to balance it out a bit.

Sending a Little Hello - Container is from 5123 - WC Decorative Jar Set, paper is 5892 - Easter S2PP.  I took my time shading between the petals on this one, as the image is very delicate, and the details really matter!

Beautiful Blooms

There's something about making a set of cards that just makes my brain happy!  I recently acquired the Beautiful Blooms stamp/stencil/die set from Pinkfresh Studio, which creates six pretty floral images.  After doing a test run using them in some soft ink colours, I started creating a card with each one. 

Using the colours that I stencilled the flowers with (all Pinkfresh Studio inks), I pulled out soft cardstock colours to match, and set about creating my backgrounds.  The blue card base was made by diecutting PF's Braided Circle dies repeatedly, then created a frame using the Stitched Scalop Rectangle die, backed with a white piece cut with Slim Stitches.  The pink card base was cut with an Altenew Coverplate die, then Spellbinders Hemstitched Oval die matted in a pale green.

For the Thank You card, I started with a warm yellow card base, which I softly ink blended the bottom using PF's peach-toned inks, then added a blue Stitched Scallop Rectangle frame layered twice for some dimension.  The Just a Note card started with a pale green base, then a layer of peach cardstock and finally a white piece cut with the PF Slim Stitches die.

The Congrats card may be my favourite in the set!  I used Spellbinders Essential Arches dies for the green and blue panels, which are popped up with 3D foam adhesive over a white base cut with the PF Diagonal Stitched Plaid coverplate.  The floral is also on 3D adhesive, tucked inside the window.  The two negative arches were used for the second card, adhered with 3D adhesive over a peach cardstock panel cut with an Altenew coverplate die.

All of the cards were splattered with gold paint, and had gold pearls added for decoration.  The sentiments are all PF's Perfect Sentiments that were gold embossed, and all attached with 3D adhesive.
 

Bird Card Set

I am kicking off the Art Impressions Watercolour Weekend posts for 2024 with a set of five cards.  I have a brother-in-law who is a 'birder', so when Ai first came out with all of the bird freebie stamps, I knew what I'd be doing with them!  He's also a big fan of my cards, so here's what I've made for him (scroll down to see them individually):

I started by die cutting my Canson XL Watercolour paper using the 5061 - Square Double Stitched Dies, and the 5064 - Circle Double Stitched Dies, keeping in mind that some of the birds are larger than others, and I wanted a variety of shapes to keep the set interesting.  All of the birds were coloured with Tombow Dual Brush markers in #969/565, and then filled in with various other colours.  *In order to colour them up accurately, I Googled each bird so that I would have a photo to follow!  For each one, I added a little greenery/foliage - several using stamps, and some were hand drawn (the chickadee's leaves).  I kept everything really simple, as I wanted to keep the focus on the birds - so I used a wash of #565 on each, to suggest the sky.

When assembling them into cards, I matted each image with a darker colour to frame it, then chose some subtly patterned papers from my stash as my card bases.  Since they're all for a fella to hand out to friends and family, the card designs were fairly plain, without a lot of extras.  I stamped sentiments from 5735 - Birthday Sentiments Set onto the Canson paper, or right onto the backgrounds using Versafine Onyx Black ink.

*Don't forget that the Watercolour Design Team will be sharing projects on the Ai blog and other social media every Sunday, all year long!  We look forward to bringing you new inspiration each week.

Dim Sum cards

 I got the Catherine Pooler stamp set "Hey There Dumpling" a few months ago, and I made up a couple of sets of 4 cards with it.  One set was given to a coworker, and the other I'm sending out to a few different friends, one at a time.  Here's a group shot, and then scroll down to see them individually:

This is a paper pack from Close To My Heart that I've had for a few years, and I had just enough left to squeeze out my 8 cards.

The little faces on the dumplings just crack me up!  Each card has a few elements that have been popped up with 3D adhesive.  I have a whole pile of fussy cut little images from this set, so you'll be seeing more dim sum cards from me down the road.

Quilt themed card set

I have a set of six quilt themed cards to share today, using the My Favorite Things Die-namics Quilt Square Cover Up die.  I've used an older Close To My Heart paper pack, cutting the die out in 3 different patterned papers and 3 colours of cardstock.  Even though the execution of the cards was pretty straightforward... the planning of the patterns took a bit of work!  I'm happy with the result, though - and my quilting sister-in-law will be getting a little set as a gift in the near future.

 I matted all of the quilt squares on a chocolate square of cardstock, and then mounted them to the background with pop dots.  I kept the sentiments pretty generic so that they can be easily used.

Patterened papers and cardstock are by Close To My Heart; Die is My Favorite Things; Stamp set is Verve.

Playful People

The current challenge on the Art Impressions blog is "Playful People" - and the design team is helping to launch the Ai Work & Play sets.  I have a set of four cards using Proud Nurse Set (Sku #4899):

 I had a great time making these... and once I got going, I realized how many friends I have that are nurses, lab techs, OT's or just work in a hospital - so I have a feeling this is going to be a very well used set!

 The inside sentiment on this one says "At the end of a 12 hour shift it's good to know that the ER is just down the hall"!  There are seven sentiments included in the set, two main images, and four small ones.

 I used some metallic gold thread to zigzag stitch on each of the cards, then added some gold and black sequins for a little more bling.

 Check out what the rest of the design team has to share today - there are four new Work & Play sets available now on the Art Impressions website.

Copics used - Greens - BG18, BG15, BG13, BG11

Greys - W5, W3, W1, W00

Reds - R35, R32, R30

Skin tones - E37, E34, E31, E11, E00, E000, R30

Hair - E18, E15, E07, E09, E02, E55, E53, E51, Y26, Y23, E50