Valentines

Three Valentine cards today (my best friend always asks me to make some for her each year which gets my fund raiser started well before my Christmas card sale in November!).

We Love Stamping wants hearts and Sweet Stampin' wants love - both require stamped images so this card is for them.  It's also for NBUS as it's a stamp I've had for a while and never used.

I stamped it, coloured the hearts with a red alcohol marker, trimmed the panel, bordered it with black, and added it to my card base.  A great "back to basics" kind of card!

Color Hues wants red and pink, and Try It On Tuesday wants love.  It's also going off to Snippets as I used some leftover bits of red cs, a bit of a pink smooshed background, and a couple of strips of white cs for the sentiment and the embossed strip.  

Another quick and easy card but this time using die cuts.  I die cut the three hearts and the sentiment banner, and dry embossed the background strip.

And one more that is less CAS, more mixed media.  It's for Allsorts "Create Your Own Background".

I made a background by first stamping some randomly inked text with Vintage Photo ink. I then laid a heart stencil over the text stamping and used translucent embossing paste through it. It looked kind of bland so I lightly sponged over the panel with the Vintage Photo and that gave more definition to the stencilled hearts.

The large heart is stamped with Versamark on burgundy cs and then gold Pearl Ex was brushed over it (and sealed it with a fixative). I fussy cut the heart, put fun foam on the back, and added it to the background panel.

   
      

  

Supplies for card 1:
Stamps - Unity heart branch, Impression Obsession sentiment
Ink - Versafine Onyx Black
Paper - white and black cs
Size - 4.75" square
Accessories - red alcohol marker, Spellbinders square dies

Supplies for card 2:
Stamps - Impression Obsession sentiment
Ink - Memento Rosebud
Paper - white and red cs
Size - 4.75" square
Accessories - various heart dies, SU narrow strip heart embossing folder

Supplies for card 3:
Stamps - unknown heart stamp, unknown text stamp
Ink - Versamark, Distress Vintage Photo
Paper - white and burgundy cs
Size - A2
Accessories - heart stencil, embossing paste, gold Pearl Ex, fixative, fun foam

Valentine's Day Rabbit and Christmas Horse

Of course I'm always working on Christmas cards, but at this time of year I need to take a little break as my best friend always orders a few Valentine cards from me.  This one is for Paper Players "Love is in the Air", Try It on Tuesday "Love", and Shopping our Stash "Love Me Do".

I die cut the bunny twice out of a bit of leftover beige smooshed background and the stool out of some brown cs that had a faint woodgrain pattern. The sentiment and heart stems are die cut from plain red cs.

Today's Christmas card is for the ABC Christmas Challenge "A is for Anything Christmas and / or B is for Bright".  The red card base could qualify for "bright" and of course it can qualify for "anything Christmas".

I stamped the image and used coloured pencils to colour the horse and wreath. They are the best medium to colour this image as the wreath is full of tiny little details so would be hard to colour with anything other than nice sharp pointed pencils. I used a gold metallic pencil for the bow and some of the details on the bridle.

I had a red pre-made card base with an oval already cut out of it. The image fitted perfectly into it.

    

Supplies for card 1:
Paper - white and red cs, brown woodgrain cs, leftover scrap of beige smooshed background
Size - A2
Accessories - Charlie and Paulchen bunny and stool, Impression Obsession heart stems, Poppy Stamps sentiment die

Supplies for card 2:
Stamps - Serendipity Clyde
Ink - Versafine Onyx Black
Paper - premade red card base, white cs
Size - 6x4.25"
Accessories - coloured pencils, metallic gold pencil

Christmas Bells

Peace on Earth has a heart-themed Christmas mood board in honour of Valentine's Day.  I chose the bottom right image of the bells but added a heart frame to reflect the rest of the mood board.

I stamped the image of the bells and coloured it with a mix of regular coloured pencils and metallic pencils.  I die cut a stitched heart opening out of a piece of red shimmer cs and layered it over the image.  My only sentiment stamps that relate to bells just say things like "jingle bells" or "jingle all the way" and I wanted something that said a bit more so I created the sentiment on the computer, using the first line of a Christmas carol.  I trimmed it with a stitched sentiment die.

Please join us at Peace on Earth.  Here's the mood board that inspired our Design Team's cards.  Will it inspire you?

Supplies:
Stamps - Stampin' Up Bells and Boughs
Ink - Versafine Onyx Black
Paper - off white cs, red shimmer cs
Size - A2
Accessories - coloured pencils, metallic coloured pencils, Memory Box stitched heart die, stitched sentiment die

Die Cut Heart and Three Little Robins

I make a few Valentine cards for my best friend each year.  Here's one for Shopping our Stash "Love Me Do" and Cut It Up "My Heart".

This card is perfect for the Cut It Up challenge as it uses nothing but die cuts.  I have this lovely swirly IO die with hearts in it so thought it would be perfect for the background. I die cut it in gold and added it to a cream card base. Then die cut a heart out of a scrap of Yupo coloured with red alcohol ink and gold foil pressed into the wet sections of the alcohol ink. The sentiment is inside as I thought it would spoil the look of the card if I put it on the outside.

And here's a Christmas card for the ABC Christmas Challenge "A is for Anything Christmas / B is for Bright" (it qualifies for both letters as I have the word "bright" in my sentiment), Christmas Cards All Year Round "Things Starting with A and / or B" (I have birds and the word "bright"), Sweet Stampin' "Bright and Beautiful" (my little birds are so bright and beautiful in their Santa hats, and I have the word "bright" in the sentiment), and AAA Cards Challenge (CASE Francesca's card - I have the same layout with three objects going across a narrow strip).

I had a leftover little strip embossed with a narrow mistletoe embossing folder and thought it would work with the AAA Card Challenge.  I used it to ground three little robins in Santa hats - stamped and watercoloured and fussy cut.  

     

    

  

Supplies for card 1:
Paper - cream and gold cs, scrap of yupo with alcohol inks and foil
Size - 4.75" square
Accessories - Memory Box heart die, Impression Obsession background die

Supplies for card 2:
Stamps - Penny Black birds, Art Impressions sentiment
Ink - Versafine Onyx Black
Paper - watercolour paper, white linen cs
Size - A2
Accessories - watercolour paints, narrow mistletoe embossing folder

Masculine with Text and Old and New Supplies

For the Allsorts challenge "For Boys or Men", and for Try It On Tuesday "Add Some Text", I've made a card for a male friend's birthday.

My friend is a huge fan of the Irish playwright, Samuel Beckett, so I found some text written by Beckett on the internet, printed it off, did a bit of extra stamping on it, and sponged it with Distress inks to make it look old.  I added a Tim Holtz paper doll and a sentiment cut out with a narrow strip die, and mounted it on an off-white card base.

Making sure to also keep working on Christmas cards, I did this for Jingle Belles "Something Old, Something New", Shopping our Stash "Out with the Old, In with the New", Penny Black Saturday Challenge "Something New", We Love Stamping "New Things", and NBUS "Never Before Used Stuff".  My new is the Penny Black stamp, my old are my watercolour paints, my kraft cs, and my Glossy Accents. 

 

    

  

Supplies for card 1:
Stamps - Memory Box sentiment, Tim Holtz Paris postmark, Lavinia plant
Ink - Archival Watering Can, Versafine Smokey Grey, Distress Vintage Photo and Old Paper
Paper - heavyweight printer paper, off white cs
Size - 4.75" square
Accessories - sentiment die, Tim Holtz paper doll

Supplies for card 2:
Stamps - Penny Black birds, Hero Arts sentiment
Ink - Versafine Onyx Black
Paper - watercolour paper, kraft and red cs
Size - 4.75" square
Accessories - watercolour paints, Glossy Accents

B is for Butterfly and Blue Challenges

Stamping Sensations has a fun challenge - "I Spy something beginning with B".  I've got lots of "Bs" on this card - butterfly, blue, birthday, background technique.  I'm also entering it in the Neglected Stuff challenge as this is one of my favourite butterfly stamps and I haven't used it for ages.

The background is a stencil monoprint, using a stencil with tiny square openings, rubbed with several colours of Distress inks, spritzed with water, and then laid onto a watercolour panel.  When dry, I stamped some very faint text and postal stamps for added texture.  I stamped the butterfly and watercoloured it with the same colours as the background, then fussy cut it, glued its body down but popped up its wings with bits of dimensional tape. 

 

There seem to be a lot of challenges calling for blue this month!  Colorful Options "Blue and White", Inkspirational "Shades of Blue", and Color Hues "Blue and White".  So of course, I had to make a card for them!  And because it uses a leftover snippet from another card, it's going to the Snippets Playground.

Back in September, the Group of Cardmakers played with inlaid die cuts.  The piece I used on this card is the leftovers after die cutting and inlaying the centre of it into an ornament - see the second card on this post.

I simply took this leftover piece, trimmed it with a square die, and added it to a shimmery white card base and stamped and heat embossed the sentiment.

 

   

 

 

Supplies for card 1:
Stamps - Penny Black butterfly, unknown sentiment, text, and postmark
Ink - Versafine Onyx Black, various blue Distress inks
Paper - watercolour paper, off white cs, 
Size - A2
Accessories - tiny squares stencil

Supplies for card 2:
Stamps - Penny Black sentiment
Ink - ColorBox blue
Paper - white shimmer cs, TCP dp 
Size - 4.5" square
Accessories - Spellbinders square die, ornament die (for the inner circle of the dp), clear embossing powder