A Visit to My Old Friends

My visit to my old friends was a silent one.  No, there wasn't any chit chat or coffee or drinks.

I was just digging through my stash and tried to give some of them love!

I really wanted to play along with the Color My Heart Color Dare challenge (Creme Brulee and Juniper), but my first couple of attempts were a total disaster.  Something was wrong and I could not explain.  I let my ideas sit for a while and came back to my craft desk.  In between I dug my stash and looked for supplies that I have forgotten about.  There they are - the birdie, the paper flowers, and the blings!

I totally forgot about this bird from Sophie Workshop on the Go and the sentiment from Elemental Workshop on the Go.  They go with each other well!

The card is based on a sketch from Deconstructed Sketch 102:

This card is also entering the challenge at Heart 2 Heart - creature feature.

I'm really happy with this card.  What makes me more happy is that those disastrous attempts were all trials and errors for the card I'd like.  If you ever get into this situation, hang in there and keep trying!

Thanks for stopping by!

A Cake

I saw the inspiration challenge at Just Us Girls with this picture:

Does it look like a wedding cake to you? 

I was inspired by the colors: shades of gray, white and yellow.  It appears to be quite a popular color combo these days.  Instead of making a  wedding-themed card, I've chosen to use the cake for a birthday with the sketch from CAS - Colors and Sketches:

My birthday card follows the sketch strictly:

In my trial version, the cake was stamped in black.  It was fine but when I put the pieces together I thought it was too contrasting compared to the rest of the card.  Thus I flipped over the paper and stamped it again in grey.  It is much softer and blends quite well with the card.  It is something new to me as I almost always stamped an image in Archival black ink for coloring purpose.  Tried and learned something new that I like! Woohoo!

Thanks for stopping by and happy crafting!

Repeat After Me

"Repeat After Me" is the theme of this week's OLW challenge.  Such a cute name!  Karen is challenging us to create a repeat background using the same stamp.

When I first saw it I had a million ideas and thought that it was not a big challenge.  I was wrong.  When I started to think the stamp would be good for a background my mind went blank.  I saw the stamp set from Hero Arts on my desk, in which the arrow image has never seen ink, so I decided to give it a try:

It is fun to make this card.  I learned that because one layer card lacks dimension, color plays an important part to make it interesting.  So I have the sentiment in black and the arrows in various colors, and of course, the arrows do draw our attention to the sentiment itself.

I think I could use this idea for something else, let me try and share with you later.

Thanks for stopping by!

Let's eat cupcake!

I've made a super simple birthday card with a cupcake!

I'm sorry that the quality of the picture is not as high as I wish. 

The part that took me quite some time was to pick the colors but then I let Cricut Art Philosophy to do the cutting (scallop and cupcake), which was just a breeze.  I added foam tape beneath the cup cake, stamped the images, added some glitter on the cupcake and some blings, it's done!

The sketch is adopted from Monday Lunchtime Sketch Challenge:

And the card is entering the challenge at Bearly Mine - Anything Goes and Addicted to Stamps and More - Anything Goes.

Thanks for stopping by!  Happy crafting!

Dream Pop

Sadly, even though I have had my Dream Pop paper for a while, I have only used it once.  Sometimes I just can't explain why that happens.  I am glad that I got a chance to use it and share this card with you.

I was reminded of the Dream Pop paper when I saw the Fusion Card Challenge:

I was totally inspired by the colors!  Such bright and vibrant colors are good for a birthday card, don't you think?

I've used the sketch from Mojo Monday:

It has been quite a long time since I last played Mojo Monday's challenge.  This is a fun one, the black scallops got me thinking and I think a strip of cardstock is not inappropriate.

Thanks for stopping by!

Thanks!

Hooray!  Iwona's darling little girl was born a couple weeks back and I'm just amazed and thankful that Iwona continues to contribute to the blogging community and gives a great sketch to play along!  I'm enjoying the pictures of her little girl.  Darling. Cute.

When I saw her sketch at Sketchbook Saturday Challenge I knew I had to play along, check this out:

And this is my take on the sketch:

I really like the sketch and I had fun making this card.  I may want to try a take-two on the sketch because it is just so fun!

Thanks for stopping by!

Coloring (again)

I'm having quite a lot of fun coloring recently.  A couple days ago I colored a birthday hat with watercolor pencils, yesterday I colored some hexagons with metallic pencils and today I'm back to coloring, this time I'm coloring a birthday cake:

The stamps came from the cardmaking workshop on the go kit (Chantilly).  I like that I get to color the layers in different color!  The other thing I love to do is to squeeeze some glitter gel on the icing.  The glittering icing definitely puts a smile on a girl's face!  Do you see the pennants?  They are just adorable and fun!  The strip dividing the two panels is a zip strip that comes with all Close to My Heart paper.  It gives a perfect accent to the piece as it coordinates with the paper packet.

This card is based on the sketch from Seize the Birthday:

The card is also entering the challenge at Addicted to CAS:

and For Crafty Chicks - Birthday, birthday, birthday.

It has been a lot of fun coloring.  What coloring media do you have?  Give them some love today!

Thanks for stopping by!

Glitter

How do your new products remind you to try them out? Mine sit in a box that's dedicated to new products.  My box is overflowing so I really need to pay attention to them (and my credit card bill!)

I have had the Derwent Metallic Pencils and the Ranger Embossing Powder (Holographic) for quite a while but have never tried them out.  They seem to go well together because of they best show their qualities on dark paper so I'd give it a try in this week's One Layer Wednesday challenge.  Heather asks that we create a border.  So I stamped the hexagon border from Avery Elle with Versamark, heat set with Close to My Heart black embossing powder then colored them with the Metallic Pencils.  They are watersoluble but I have yet tested that characteristic.  In fact, I liked it so much after coloring the hexagons that I worried that water will mess up the whole thing so I paused.  "Thanks" from Paper Smooches was also stamped in Versamark, but was heat set with the Holographic powder.  It looks really cool in person!  I'm afraid my camera does not do a good job and even if I had a fancy camera I couldn't capture the glitter effect.  So cool!

I think it will make a nice Thank You card.  So glad that I've tried the metallic pencils and the embossing powder.  They will definitely be used on other projects in the near future!  I'm off to trying my other new products.  Thanks for stopping by!

Flowers

Are flowers blooming in your neighborhood?  How do you like walking in nature and smelling their aroma?

I have seen quite a lot of flower blooms in my neighborhood and on my craft desk!  Who doesn't like flowers?  Flowers can be considered my go-to item for a girly card.

I've made a card with five flowers to share with you:

Perhaps the photo is not doing its justice here.  It is very difficult to see the Sweet Leaf (light green) scallops beneath the pink panel.  But trust me, a tiny scallop edge does exist!

The flowers are really easy to make with the magic done by Cricut Art Philosophy.  I really like this stamp set from the retired Lucy Workshop on the Go as base and shade stamping is one of my faves.  I first cut out the flowers using Art Philosophy, then stamped the shade in Blush, followed by the outline in Whisper, and finally the center in Buttercup.

The card is based on a sketch from Freshly Made Sketches:

The card is also entering the challenge at
1.  Bitten by the Bug 2 - April Showers Bring May Flowers (Flower Challenge)
2.  Heart 2 Heart challenges - Let's See Those May Flowers
3.  Tuesday Throwdown - Smell the Roses
4.  May Anything Goes with a Twist Challenge (with Flowers)

So much for my flowers today.  Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the flower bloom!

 

Another Birthday card

I'm fortunate to be surrounded by a lot of great men - family, friends, co-workers, mentors.  It is unfortunate that I lack the talent to create great masculine cards.  :(  Starting May every year my headache starts to grow as their birthdays are coming up.

I prepared one for one of them and showed you in yesterday's post and I'm sharing another masculine birthday card today. 

I actually wanted to color the party hat with distress markers but the colors are a bit too dark so I opted to color it with watercolor pencils.  I like birthday card with bright and vibrant colors!  These colors are great for a man card, don't you think?

The sketch of this card came from Monday Lunchtime Sketch challenge:

My card is also entering the challenge at The Paper Players:

and Gingerloft Challenge - birthday theme.

Thanks for stopping by!

A birthday card

I can't think of the last time I played with The Sweet Stop Sketches.  It was long.  long.  There must be a lot of great sketches that I've missed but I'm not going to miss this one:

I've made a masculine birthday card with it:

I didn't realize about the spin with "going buggy" until after I had finished the card.  I am sorry there are no bugs on my card.  I'll be more careful next time. 

My card is also entering the challenge at The Pink Elephant - Masculine Birthday Theme and Addicted to CAS - Birthday:

Thanks for stopping by!

Starting my big project

Woohoo~  It is finally Saturday!  I hope everyone is having a good weekend.  It is the time that I always long for as it is my craft time!

I'm starting my crafty weekend with a Christmas card, where the sketch came from Merry Monday:

I'm using last year's Pear and Partridge paper for this card:

Thanks for stopping by and happy crafting!

An attempt to achieve ombre effect

It's time for a Runway Inspired Challenge!

You can find the original inspiration piece here.

It may sound extremely weird to you, but I was drawn by the bright yellow worn by the model going to backstage and the burgandy stockings worn by the front model.  So then I thought, red and yellow, let's try my Tim Holtz Distress Paints!

It is my first time using the distress paints and I'm sure it will not be the last time.  Fun fun fun!  The three colors that I used were Picked Rasberry, Musteed Seed and Spiced Marmalade.  After spreading the paints on the craft sheet, I sprayed some water on it and gently swiped a white piece of paper across the surface.  Cool.  Like my homemade background paper.

I added some embossing to the background, die cut a sentiment in white and put the pieces together.  Voila!  A fun card is made.  I have a feeling that if I use some dark colors and another font for the sentiment, it will be a great masculine card, don't you think?

Thanks for stopping by!

Stamping

This week Color My Heart's challenge asks us to use Hollyhock, Cotton Candy and Blush.  They are all girly, pinky colors.  I rarely use three shades of pink at the same time so I think it will be a good opportunity to challenge myself.

I first took out my cardstocks but I didn't have a clue how I wanted to use them, so I turned to the fun of stamping.

I first cut one a heart using Art Philosophy at 3" as a mask.  Then I pulled out a lot of floral stamps and inked them up in Hollyhock, the darkest shade.  After the first round of stamping around the heart, I turned to Cotton Candy.  By then the card is quite fully occupied except the bottom part, so I finished off with stamping in Blush.  The finishing touch is stamping the sentiment in black.  Voila!

I thought about trimming it down and mounting it on one of the three cardstocks.  Eventually I left it the way it is.  There is something special about one layered cards and I'll make this card one of those.

Did I mention this is an idea from the craft guru Jennifer McGuire?  I watched a video made by her on youtube and copied the idea for my card, except that her card has an off-centered heart and she has used a colorful palette rather than a monotone.

How many stamp sets have I used?  Here they are:
1.  Perfect Fit - Mom
2.  A Tree
3.  A Blossom
4.  4 My Friend

In my trial version I have used many more stamp sets, but I didn't like it because that I think this technique works much better with solid stamps so I had opted to use repeated images rather than multiple outline images.

Have you looked at the challenge at Heart 2 Heart?  It is all about flowers.  Check it out!

Thanks for stopping by!

Sending Warm Wishes

Sending Warm Wishes on a Tuesday!

Just sharing this quick card with you today and sending warm wishes your way!

The card sketch came from Sketch Frezy Friday:

I love the clean lines of the sketch, perfect for creating a card with a focal image.

My card is also entering the challenge at CAS on Sunday - pastel pretties and Addicted to Stamps - CAS.

Thanks for stopping by!

White-pigment-ink-phobia

I have white-pigment-ink-phobia.  There is no cure for me.

People have told me a million times that white pigment ink is a "must-have", a "go-to" for various techniques and they made beautiful artwork with it.  I tried those techniques and I tried to cure my phobia but I'm afraid I have yet overcome my fear for it.

Between finishing up the inking and completion of this card, I have probably washed my hands for 10 times.  No kidding, 10 times.  It is actually my nth attempt to get the stamping straight but after the success, I worried so much that my inky fingers would mess up the pattern so I kept on washing my hands. I'm not sure what I've done wrong with white pigment inks, but even after multiple heat setting sessions, I think the ink was still not completely dry. If you have tips about pigment ink, please share!

See the front of the card is warped as a result of heat?  I hope it will flatten out later.

Even though I have yet overcome my White-pigment-ink-phobia, I am a step closer to overcoming it.  This card does turn out quite lovely.  For me it is quite a challenge to make a Thank You card for a man but I think the recipient will like it (and the chocolate bar next to it).

This card is entering the challenges below:
1.  OWL - 3x3 card
2.  Simply Less is More - Colored cardstock, one layered card.
3.  Just Us Girls - White Ink

Thanks for stopping by!

Hexagons

Hexagons are really popular these days.  All the craft supplies have something hexagonal - stamps, paper, dies, you name it.

When they first came out I was crazy about them.  I bought quite a number of things: embossing folders, nestabilities, stamps, etc.  I keep on collecting hexagonal things but I can't remember using them.  Shh.......It is absolutly not something I'm proud of.  I am currently pushing myself to dig through my stash and use whatever that are still in the package (There is quite a big pile of those items!!)

Let me start with my nestabilities.  I'm using the hexagon die to cut out small ones and put them back together as a backgroun.  I have then tried different ways to add "Happy Birthday" and eventually settled on this version:

Yup, I feel a bit relieved, or guilt-reduced for using the dies.  They are fun to play with but I honestly wish I had cricut to do it for me.  Cranking out the same shape for two dozen times is a boring task.  Having said that, this boring part makes the recipient appreciate a hand-made card much more than those on the shelf.  I still thinkg it is worth the time.

This card is entering the challenge at CASology - Hexagon:

Black Tie Friday - CAS with Black optional:

and Great Impression - Celebration.

Thanks for stopping by!