April 2018 Bash My Stash - Kraft Paper and Colored Pencils

I'm on a mission to "Bash My Stash".  Using items I've purchased in the past but not yet used is a personal goal of mine.  So I've decided to make an effort to use one or more items to make a paper crafting project each month to achieve that goal.

For this inaugural month, I chose a stamp set that I have been dying to use, and it's now a year old!  I've also had some beautiful colored pencils that were a birthday gift, and I thought they would be perfect to use with this stamp set.

I've seen so many samples of cards using colored pencils to color images stamped on Kraft-style paper that I wanted to give it a try.  Using my CTMH Kraft cardstock, I stamped flowers and leaves from the Keep Dreaming stamp set and embossed them in white.  Note that I masked as I layered these as well as used a stamping tool to achieve the same pattern on opposing corners of the cardstock.  Next I used the colored pencils to blend color on the images.  The sentiment was stamped on black and embossed in white using the Birthday Sparkles stamp set.  Using a white gel pen, I added a few dots around the flowers and finished up with some Clear Sparkles.

Although I'm a novice at color blending, I think it turned out OK.  It also elicited fond memories of coloring with my mom and sisters!

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Happy Easter 2018!

First and foremost, I want to wish everyone a happy, blessed, and healthy Easter!  It's a little cloudy here today, so I thought it might be nice to share a very Spring-like Easter card I made.

For this card, I used the new Easter Animals stamp set.  I embossed the chicks in black then used my ink pads and a blending pen to color them.  The bonus is that by doing this, I can match my paper!  Using the Gimme Some Sugar Paper Packet as my paper and palette for the card, I thought the White Burlap Ribbon would coordinate very nicely, especially from a textural perspective. The Cricut Artbooking cartridge came in handy to cut multiple versions of the "Happy" portion of the sentiment such that I could cut them in the size I wanted.  Using the Gold Shimmer Brush added a perfect pop of sparkle!  I masked off a portion of one of the sentiments with the word "Easter", embossed it in black, then popped it off the card.  My Marigold Shinhan Marker was used to color the Clear Sparkles in the corner to match the card perfectly and give it just the right finishing touch!

Here is a look at the overall card:

 

This close up shows the embossing and coloring of the chicks as well as the beautiful shimmer on the "Happy" portion of the sentiment:

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