September 2020 - Joyful Stars Blog Hop & Reverse Stencil Technique

Welcome back to the Joyful Stars Blog Hop! If you've just joined me from our wonderfully talented Krista's blog,  thank you for continuing on to join me here!

I'm excited to debut something from our new Close to My Heart Core Idea Book!  I've never been so excited about a new book, but this one has everything you could ask for to use for your paper crafting purposes throughout the year.  From beautiful papers, to exciting new colors, to cute stamp sets, and to the artsy mixed media, this book has it all!  In particular, inks and how they are formulated have always appealed to the science soul in me.  

As such I decided to start this hop with the beautiful new Ranger Distress Oxide inks.  I was lucky enough to already own all the Distress Oxides introduced to CTMH, so it was a no brainer to start with a much loved technique of mine: reverse stenciling.

 

I created this card a few weeks ago when I received the new Stencil Collections from the new Idea Book.  I thought it was perfect for the reverse stencil technique.  This technique is done by blending inks onto a piece of cardstock, then using a stencil to apply black ink on top of the blended colors.  The Mandala stencil was perfect for this technique over some rainbow colors.

 

Here are the supplies I used to make this card:

• Distress Oxide Inks:  Candied Apple, Spiced Marmalade, Mustard Seed, Peacock Feathers
• Black Dye Ink
• White Daisy Cardstock
• Black Cardstock
• Sentiments by Melissa Esplin stamp set
  
• Ranger White Super Fine Embossing Powder
• Gold Sequins
• Clear Shimmer Brush
• Mini Ink Blending Tools
  
• Mini Ink Blending Foams 
• Stencil Pack 1
  

Now please head over to the wonderfully talented Marie's blog to see what the beautiful work she has done!

 

 

 

 

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August 2020 - Joyful Stars Blog Hop & Retiring Colors

Welcome back to the Joyful Stars Blog Hop! If you've just joined me from our wonderfully talented Marie's blog,  thank you for continuing on to join me here!

This month I wanted to pay homage to our retiring colors.  Although I always feel a sense of sadness to say goodbye them, there are always I few for which I will miss more than others.  Here are the colors that are going away so please get your ink pads, re-inkers, and cardstock while you can!

The two I will particularly miss are Ruby and Sweet Leaf.  So for that reason, I created a card to highlight the two colors I will miss most.

For this card, I chose one of my favorite new stamps, Treasured Memories.  I wanted a water colored look with my flowers, so I swiped both my Ruby and Sweet Leaf ink pads on my craft mat, rubbed my stamps into the ink and stamped onto White Daisy cardstock.  Pieces of a zip strip from the Timber Paper Pack were adhered above and below the images.  A piece of the wood B&T paper from the pack was adhered to a White Daisy card base, and the previously assemble piece adhere on top.  The sentiment from the Winged Wishes stamp set was stamped in VersaMark ink onto a scrap of Black cardstock and embossed in Ranger White Super Fine Embossing Powder.  I finished the card with a few Bitty Sparkles on the centers of the flowers.  Although a simple card, I hope it will brighten the day of a friend.

Thanks for visiting!  Now for some awesome artwork, please continue with the hop over to the very talented Krista!

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July 2020 - July SOTM For My Beautiful Friend

The July Stamp of the Month, For My Beautiful Friend, has been enticing me to take it out and play with it for the past month.  I finally made the opportunity happen during one of the sessions for our new Idea Book launch event.  I LOVE playing with mixed media so created the following card:

To make this card, I cut a panel out of watercolor paper and stamped the image from the For My Beautiful Friend stamp set using Intense Black ink.  After ensuring it was dry, I taped the image to a cutting board, laid down some clean, clear water over the flower bouquet using a brush, then randomly dropped some Mowed Lawn and Peacock Feathers Distress Oxide inks and heat set it.  Then I repeated the process to the bottom half of the girl using Mustard Seed and Picked Raspberry inks.  Finally, I added a few spatters from the brush over top of the whole panel with each of the colors I used.

After ensuring the image was dry, I used Spectrum Noir Tri-Blend markers to color in the images before taping it down to a Black cardstock panel and then a Lagoon standard-sized card base.

Next I stamped the sentiment onto Black cardstock with Versamark ink and heat embossed with Ranger White Super Fine Embossing Powder. The sentiment was then attached to the card using 3-D Foam Tape.

Finally, I added some Bitty Sparkles to the centers of the flowers to complete the card.

Each month you can purchase a new D-size stamp set, available for one month only, for just $5 - that's over 70% off retail!  When you place an order of $50 or more in Close To My Heart products, you qualify for this special Stamp of the Month pricing.  Otherwise, you can purchase this set outright for $18.95.

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July 2020 - Joyful Stars Blog Hop and Born to Bloom!

Welcome back to the Joyful Stars Blog Hop! If you've just joined me from our wonderfully talented Marie's blog,  thank you for continuing on to join me here!

This month I had a vision of a card using the Born to Bloom stamp set using rainbow colors.  Although slightly different than how I first imagined the card, I'm happy enough with the results.  Rainbow colors on a card are always so cheery, and let's face it, we all need a little color to brighten up the days we're living with right now!

To make this card, I first stamped the plants and pots with VersaMark ink onto different colors of cardstock (Candy Apple, Nectarine, Lemonade, Clover, Bluebird, and Almond) and heat embossed with Ranger White Super Fine Embossing Powder.  I then cut the images using the coordinating Born to Bloom Thin Cuts.

To assemble the card, I created a 3-1/2" x 8" card base out of White Daisy cardstock and adhered a Black cardstock panel of 2-3/4" x 7-3/4".  A piece of retired gold shimmer ribbon was attached to the bottom of the Black cardstock panel.  The sentiment was stamped from the Winged Wishes stamp set using Black ink.  Finally, I attached the potted plant images with 3-D Foam Tape and added Bitty Sparkles.

I hope you all enjoyed my rainbow!  Please continue on with the hop and visit the uber talented Krista's blog!

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June 2020 - Joyful Stars Blog Hop and A Million Little Things!

Welcome back to the Joyful Stars Blog Hop! If you've just joined me from the wonderfully talented Marie's blog,  thank you for continuing on to join me here!

After my mojo left me last month, I decided to take a little break from creating and continue instead to work on getting more of my inventory into Evernote.  This break helped me tremendously and made me excited to do something I'm still learning and practicing, but that I find therapeutic when making cards, and that's doing watercolor.  So I pulled out my paints and watercolor paper and water colored an image that was calling my name. 😊

Using Intense Black ink, I stamped the rose flower from the A Million Little Things stamp set onto a scrap of Watercolor Paper, then used some watercolor paints to do some basic water coloring.  (Go easy on me - I'm still learning!)   It's difficult to see in the photo above, but if you look at the close up photo below, you can see that after I finished the painting, I spattered some shimmer from the Black Shimmer Brush over the image.  I then cut it to size and matted on Black and Ruby cardstock.  The sentiment was also stamped from the A Million Little Things stamp set using Black ink and a card base cut from French Vanilla cardstock.  The matted rose image was then mounted onto the card base using 3-D Foam Tape.  Finally just a few Clear Sparkles were added as a finishing touch.

Here is a closeup of the card where you can see the shimmer of the Black Shimmer Brush.

Now for those of you who were curious about which Mother's Day card I gave my mom last month after really not liking my cards, the answer is neither one!   I ended up making a brand new card, which I liked much better.  I've been enjoying seeing a rainbow of colors on various social media sites and thought maybe I could try my hand at one.  So I pulled out the Floral Borders stamp set, inked up the solid floral border image with Candy Apple, Nectarine, Lemonade, Clover, and Sapphire inks, overlapping the color next to it.  I stamped this on a piece of White Daisy cardstock, then added a strip of Black cardstock as a border and thin strip of Gold Foil Paper underneath.  This was matted onto a piece of Black cardstock and mounted on a White Daisy card base.  The sentiment was taken from the Mother's Day Door stamp set, stamped in VersaMark ink onto a scrap of Black cardstock, embossed in Ranger White Super Fine Embossing Powder, and attached to the card using 3-D Foam Tape.  Finally, the card was embellished with a few Gold Glitter Gems.  Isn't it funny that you can be happier with the outcome of a less time consuming card to make?

Here is closeup of the card:

Now please do me a favor and head off to Krista's blog to see a wealth of creativity on display!

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May 2020 - Joyful Stars Blog Hop and Love for Mother: My Failures!

Welcome back to the Joyful Stars Blog Hop! If you've just joined me from the crazy talented Krista's blog,  thank you for continuing on to join me here!

First off, confession time!!!  I really struggled preparing for this month's blog hop.  I was not loving or feeling any of my art.  Although I had some visions in mind when I started out, mostly because I had my mom in mind, I wasn't near as happy with the outcomes.  Quite frankly, I don't care for either card I made this month.  And maybe, just maybe, you all can feel me on this.  So, I'm going to show my two attempts and explain why they were less than satisfactory to me.

ATTEMPT #1:

When I saw this Mother's Day Door set from the Love for Mother promotion, I really wanted to watercolor it.  Everything was a bit of a mess, including the unfortunate choice of colors.  I embossed it after coloring, thinking that might help.  It did help some, but the colors I chose went together WAY better in my mind than they did here.  I then exacerbated the poor color choices by choosing similar B&T and cardstock.  I have to also mention the fact that the crooked stamping of the door is something I just can't get past.

ATTEMPT #2:

After killing my eyes with the first card, I decided to go in a different direction with a another set from the Love for Mother promotion, All That I Am.  I did not want to make the same poor color choices as I did in the first card, so pulled out my Love Of Color book to see what would go with Raspberry, one of my mom's favorite colors.  The book suggested Peacock and Lagoon.  Since I wanted the sentiment to be the hero, I decided to just grab some scraps and make a square card.  The card looks a little better in person but still not something I had envisioned or hoped for.  Since I stamped and embossed over the striped scraps, I'm not crazy about the gaps in the image.  And although the colors were suggested for Raspberry, I'm really not in love with the combination, at least not for this card.  Maybe that's because all three colors have equal footing.

Anyway, I still have some time this evening to come up with something else for my mom.  I'm thinking I may have to dig out the third stamp set in the Love for Mother promotion, Amazing Mother.  If I complete a card that I like, I may come back with an update.  Fingers crossed!  Now off with you to the next stop on the hop, the ever talented Nancy Brown awaits you with some beautiful art!

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April 2020 - Joyful Stars Blog Hop and April Stamp of the Month - O-fish-ally Awesome!

Welcome back to the Joyful Stars Blog Hop! If you've just joined me from the talented Debi's blog,  thank you for continuing on to join me here! What a crazy time we're in, right?  I don't know about you, but I sometimes find myself paralyzed in this surreal situation.  I'm fortunate in that I can still work and can work from home without issue.  In fact I've been working so much lately, including all through last weekend (going through a data conversion mock run), it's starting to feel like Ground Hog's Day!  Although I've been working a great deal, it does help the days pass a little quicker.  My son is staying with us for the time being, and he is quick to sense my moods and pull me out of the depth.  I'm truly lucky to have him!  And a great deal of praying never hurts either, especially for those who are sick and who are putting themselves in harm's way every single day. 😉

And now let's get to why you're here - paper crafting!  What another great way to pass the time to do something we love to do or at least appreciate the art!  A few months ago, I made my upline and my son a birthday card using an older retired set that included fish images.  So when I saw the April Stamp of the Month, O-fish-ally Awesome, the first thing that came to mind was to do a similar card to the ones I made in December.  What I particularly liked was the sentiment, "Just Keep Swimming".  It's something I say often to remind myself to just take one step at a time and not let myself feel too overwhelmed.  This is the perfect time to send a card to your family and friends to do just that!

The nice thing about this card is it uses minimal supplies.  Although there is a good deal of coloring and fussy cutting (I just had to use the bulk of those cute images), being stuck at home has its advantages, like being able to take the time to color and cut.  All images were stamped simultaneously in Intense Black ink using a stamp positioner, colored with Spectrum Noir TriBlend markers, then restamped with Black Pigment ink and embossed with Range Clear Super Fine embossing powder.  For the background, I used blue painters tape to section off the center portion of a White Daisy card base, then sponged both Lagoon and Sapphire inks directly onto the card.  After cutting the images I colored, I attached them to the card base, popping up some of them with 3-D Foam tape.  The "thinking of you" sentiment came from the Floral Borders stamp set and was stamped in VersaMark ink and embossed with Ranger White Super Fine embossing powder.  Finally, I finished up the card by using Liquid Glass to create some bubbles for all of the fish.

The picture above does not do the card justice, but you can get a clearer sense of what the overall card looks like in the photo below.  Thanks for visiting, and please don't stop here - go check out the beautiful work on Nancy's blog!

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