Origami Father's Day

Last week's technique challenge at Splitcoaststampers was to make a card with a folded shirt on it. What a fun way to make a Father's Day card! Folding the shirt was a piece of cake once I read the technique challenge thread found at Splitcoast. I will update my blog with a tutorial of my own very soon!

The base of the card is Basic Black cardstock, with a brown panel on the front. The green panels, tie, and pocket are Old Olive, and the Old Olive squares are mounted on Creamy Caramel cardstock. I doodled faux stitching on the shirt and on the edges of the panels. The "DAD" was stamped with a typeset alphabet stamp set. The "loved" was from Stampin' Up!'s "So Very" stamp set. I handwrote the "is" using a silver gel pen.



Another Father's Day card I made was inspired by the Featured Stamper challenge at Splitcoaststampers. It was based on a design by Stamps4funinCA found here.

I created the striped panel down the left side of the card using the same technique I use to make grass on cards. The flowers are Primas and I added a faux brad sticker to the center of each one. The faux brads are also on the blue "Happy" and "Day" panels. The tree is from Stampin' Up!'s "Lovely as a Tree" set. It was stamped in Creamy Caramel ink, and colored with Stampin' Write makers in Apricot Appeal, Certainly Celery, Sage Shadow, and Mellow Moss.

I've been a little lax in updating things here due to lots of changes going on in my life. I've recently found myself single again and am searching for a teaching job! I've already had one interview and have another one tomorrow, so keep your fingers crossed for me!

Squares, squares, everywhere!

I was inspired by Splitcoaststamper's color challege today. The challenge was to use Eggplant Envy, Certainly Celery, and Ruby Red in a card. I don't have the Eggplant color, so I used Perfect Plum instead.
Since Certainly Celery was one of the colors, I thought it was the perfect chance to make a graduation card for a theatre friend of mine. Her favorite color is green, and she's fond of the number four. So, I used squares in my layout (since she likes 4, I figured squares would be great). There are four squares: two in perfect plum, one in ruby red, and one in white. There are also four square brad stickers in the bottom corner and four dots of Stickles in the top corner. So, I really put some thought into this one! The stamps are all from Stampin' Up!. The background grapevine is from "Stippled Celebrations" and the main image and sentiment are from "Measure of a Life." The saying is from Eleanor Roosevelt and reads "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." I thought that was a PERFECT sentiment for a graduation card, especially when it's for a dear friend of mine who I know will do great things in her life.

Grassy How-To

I've had a few people who were intrigued by how I made the grassy background on the card in my post earlier this week. So, I thought I'd make a similar card and create a picture tutorial for you all.


First, start out with a 4" x 5.25" rectangle in a light green color. I used Certainly Celery. You'll need at least two colors of green inkpads as well, one light and one darker. I used Certainly Celery and Old Olive. Open your lighter green inkpad and using only the edge of one side, swipe it down your card from top to bottom. I like to hold the paper in my left hand and the inkpad in the other, but you could do it with the paper laying on the table. If you do it that way, make sure you've protected your table surface. Continue swiping the edge of the inkpad down the length of the card, allowing for some lines to be diagonal and some a bit straighter.

Imagine how grass looks in your yard. As it grows up, some blades overlap one another and they don't all lean the same direction. The same look should be replicated in the swiped ink on your card. After you have filled your paper with "grass," you can use the same technique to make a few flower stems and leaves. You'll want the length and width of your lines to be somewhat proportioned to the size of the flower image you plan on using. In my example, I swiped two flower stems and added two leaves on each stem.






After you have done your grass and stems, you can add your flower blossoms and other card embellishments. In my example, I used the large flower from Stampin' Up!'s Delight in Life set. I stamped it with Staz-On ink on glossy white paper. Then, I highlighted the centers and edges of the petals with wax from a white birthday candle. After that, I used my brayer to apply Yo-Yo Yellow ink to the entire blossom. Then, I used a tissue to wipe the excess ink off of the blossoms. That left me with a white area highlighted on each petal. I was very happy with the outcome of this technique!

Not Flowers

This weekend was the Virtual Stamp Night at Splitcoaststampers. Virtual Stamp Night is actually an entire weekend devoted to fun challenges. There's a new one posted every hour. This month's VSN focused on flowers, and my favorite challenge from the weekend was to make flowers out of something that isn't a flower. We could use anything we wanted, it just couldn't have any actual flower shapes.

I chose to make my flowers from hearts printed with butterflies. The heart stamp is from Close to My Heart's "You and Me" set. I stamped it on Pretty in Pink paper using Ruby Red ink, repeating the same image in a circle to make it look like flower petals. Then, I cut out the entire heart flower and added a silver rhinestone to the center for a little sparkle.

I distressed the Certainly Celery paper with Certainly Celery and Old Olive ink. I simply rubbed the edge of an ink pad in a stripe down the paper. The Certainly Celery ink is supposed to be grass, and the Old Olive ink is the stem and leaves of the flowers. Then, I added the cut out heart flowers to the Certainly Celery paper using dimensional adhesive.

Wonderful Watercoloring

I think making watercolor cards is so much fun, and it really gets the creative juices flowing. I first got the idea to do this from Kittie747 at Splitcoaststampers. She has some awesome watercolor cards in her gallery. I have developed my own style and technique for watercoloring that is similar, but a little different than others I've seen. I tend to make my watercolors a bit more vivid than most people.

Here are the supplies you will need:
Reinkers, watercolor brush, blender pen, stamps, permanent ink such as Staz-on, permanent black pen, watercolor pencils, water, white paper 4" x 5.25"

First, I use Staz-on and a black permanent pen to ink the portion of the stamps that I want to use for my landscape. I stamp the page, keeping distance in mind. Smaller images in the back, larger ones in the front. In my picture, you can see the trees, cows, and flowers are stamped in such a way that they show distance. After stamping, I doodle the remaining elements of the landscape. In this case, I drew lines for a couple of hills, and pieces of grass around the flowers.

After all of my elements are stamped and drawn, I can begin watercoloring. I start with the large areas, the grass and sky. First, I place a drop of reinker on the the lid of the coordinating inkpad. You could do this on a plastic lid or a tray of some sort instead. Then, I dip my watercolor brush into my cup of water. With my wet brush, I pick up some of the reinker color from my lid. You'll see that the water will dilute the reinker in the lid. I like to have some of it very diluted and some of it not diluted much at all, so I try not to blend the reinker and water in the lid too much. I start with the lighter areas, and brush the diluted reinker ink onto my paper. I always try to make sure that my brush isn't too wet, or the paper will really curl and wrinkle. As I'm brushing the ink on the page, I make sure that I'm using strokes that match the curves of the land and match the cloud design I want in the sky. This way, as I add more and more strokes, I end up with lots of highlights and lowlights.

After I'm done brushing the large areas, I use watercolor pencils to color in the more detailed stamped and doodled areas, such as the cows, flowers, and tree trunk in my picture. Then, I use a blender pen and water to blend the colors. I use the blender pen instead of a brush because I can get into finer detailed places with the pen.

When all of the details have been colored, I add any desired sentiment panels (the blue "like to udder" panel on mine) or other embellishments. I try to keep the extra embellishments simple so as not to detract from the watercoloring.

You can see my final product below. I really hope you try this technique sometime... it really gets the creative juices flowing!

Nothing like a great challenge

There's nothing better than a really interesting sketch challenge at Splitcoaststampers. Today's challenge involved two triangular pieces that are met in the middle by a square piece. I had great fun with this one! I used Basic Grey Blush designer paper for my triangles, and I matted it with brown cardstock. The edges of the brown cardstock were cut with wavy scissors to give an interesting look to the matting. The Pretty In Pink cardstock in the background was dry embossed with the D'vine Swirl Cuttlebug embossing plate. Then, I swiped Pretty in Pink ink over the embossed areas. The brads are really faux brad stickers that I've been getting in $1 packets at JoAnn's. They are awesome, because they give the look of brads without having to mess with punching! The layered flowers were cut with the Asterisks Cuttlebug dies. They are cut from brown cardstock and Basic Grey's Lily Kate paper. The flowers and the sentiment panels are popped on dimensionals.

The second card that I made for the challenge is for an old college friend who is getting married in a couple of weeks. This sketch challenge really reminded me of a dress, so I thought it would be the perfect sketch to make a wedding dress card from. The card base is Basic Black and is, once again, Cuttlebug embossed. I swiped pearlescent lavender ink over the embossed areas for a little elegant shine. The dress is made from vellum, and I highlighted the embossed areas underneath the dress with "icicle" Stickles on top of the vellum. The bouquet is a circle punched from Perfect Plum cardstock. I layered a couple of green paper leaves and three Prima flowers on top of the circle. Then, I added "gold" Stickles to the centers of the flowers. I really hope my friend and his new bride enjoy the card.

Simple challenge

Friday's challenge at Splitcoaststampers was to create a card with lots of open space. Ordinarily, I'd fill open space with something like dry embossing or doodling. But, I couldn't do it on this card. For me, creating simple cards is a real challenge. So this challenge really took me out of my comfort zone. I used a set of stamps that was new to me, and it was my first attempt at using some Close to My Heart stamps (the hearts with butterflies). I got them from AmyJo at ScrapinUtopia, and I'm pleased with how they worked. They are clear stamps, and it was nice to be able to see where I was stamping!
I used masking to layer one heart behind another, and I doodled the border, faux stitching, and balloon strings. The "happy" stamp is from Stampin' Up's! "So Very" set.