Sending Birthday Cheer - (CTD403)

Hi there!  It's time for this week's Color Throwdown Challenge.

For my card I used the Papertrey Ink stamp set Bloomers to create a soft watercolored background and I used some metallic gold paper to die cut the Sending from the PTI Don't Forget to Write kit along with the birthday cheer sentiment which I stamped on a pale pink banner.  For my flowers I inked them up then misted them with water and stamped them onto watercolor paper overlapping the flowers in clusters.  Once the flowers started to dry, I stamped the centers of the flowers and used a water brush to blend some of the colors.

For more inspiration, check out the design teams' blog links below OR you can go to the Color Throwdown blog for details on how to play along and you can see all the sample entries in one location.
Amy Rohl Amy Rysavy

Barbara Anders   

Broni Holcombe   

Jodi Collins 

Lisa Henke 

Lori Tecler

Lynn Put   

Vickie Zimmer 

Wanda Cullen

Kim Singdahlsen - July Guest Designer

Thanks so much for stopping by! Don't forget, you can follow me on Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest to see what I'm up to.

Papertrey Ink July Blog Hop - A Book for Your Birthday

Hello!  I've got a card and coordinating bookmarks that I'm sharing for the Papertrey Ink July Blog Hop.  The inspiration for this month's hop is the photo below.  When I first saw the inspiration photo for the hop my first thought was that I loved the colors within it, then I started thinking about what elements I'd like to make into a card and out of the flowered pillow and patterns, my eye zeroed in on the little stack of books.  So that's what I went with.  I'm huge lover of books and reading and I'm always in need of a birthday card for one of the girls in my book club, so I used my PTI stamp set Bibliophile and coordinating dies to create a birthday card. I used the colors from the wood floor for my books, the aqua color for my background which I used a PTI impressions plate on, the white for my teacup and a pop of the coral color in my rose.  And I'm also entering this card in for the Gilded in Gold with Danielle Flanders Stamp-a-faire challenge because I used some Martha Stewart gold leaf paint and painted the edges of my teacup, the edges of two books on my card and the bottom edges of my bookmarks.  The rose is from the PTI stamp set The Sweet Life and I stamped it in berry sorbet and pure poppy with the leaves in simply chartreuse. The bookmarks I kept simple other than stamping a quick little quote from the Bibliophile set, adding a cluster of roses and painting the bottoms with metallic gold paint.

Papertrey Ink Stamp-a-Faire - A Friend

Hi there and good morning!  I've got another card for the Papertrey Ink Stamp-a-Faire that I'm sharing today.  For this card I used the Watercolor Like a Master with Kay Miller challenge.  If you're in the card making/papercrafting community then I'm sure you've seen and have heard of Kay Miller and know how gorgeous her cards are.  Kay creates the most beautiful watercolors on her cards and for this challenge she is sharing her first ever video on how she watercolors, so be sure to pop over and watch. For my card I used the PTI stamp sets Garden Grace and Choose Joy.  I started out with a piece of watercolor paper and by stamping the solid leaf stamp with limeade ice ink and then stamping the solid flower stamp in berry sorbet ink.  Then I used my water brush and blurred the edges of some of the flowers and leaves careful not to have the colors run together too much.  Next I added some water to the center of my card and added some aqua mist ink.  After that I inked up the outline leaf stamp in ocean tides and stamped over the solid leaves and inked up the outline of the flower in pure poppy ink and stamped that.  I ended up adding a few single flowers and sets of leaves along the edge of my card just to fill it in a bit more and then I went back in again with my water brush and softened some of the edges on the stamped images.  Once the center of my paper was dry, I stamped my sentiment and glued on some iridescent sequins.

Papertrey Ink Stamp-A-Faire - You Brighten My Days

I'm back again (this is my second post for today) with my second card for the Papertrey Ink Stamp-a-Faire event for this weekend.  I'm skipping around with the different challenges from the event and playing along with whatever gets me creating.  For the Masterpiece Inspirations Challenge we were to use one of the inspiration pieces that the design team selected and create a card using the photo as inspiration.  I chose the Still Life Vase with Twelve Sunflowers by, Van Gogh because I not only love sunflowers (one of my favorite flowers) but I have always been inspired by Van Gogh's art.  I love the movement, texture and the play of light in Van Gogh's paintings.  I have a print of one of his paintings that used to hang in my hall, it's a still life with Sunflowers and Roses. For my card I used the PTI stamp set Simple Sunflower and used three different distress inks to ink up each sunflower (mustard seed, wild honey & spiced marmalade), then mist it with water and stamped onto watercolor paper.  I did the leaves in a similar way using ocean tides and simply chartreuse inks and watercolored in some hawaiian shores ink then die cut.  I fussy cut two of my sunflowers and stamped the third onto a die cut tag. I used the stamp set Scripted for my sentiment along with the die cut You which I die cut from brown cardstock.  For my background I used the colors hawaiian shores and simply chartreuse inks to do some watercoloring.  As a final touch I added three clear acrylic water drops.

Papertrey Ink Stamp-A-Faire - Many Blessings

Hello!  I'm jumping in to share a card for the Papertrey Ink Stamp-A-Faire event that is going on this weekend.  I wanted to stamp yesterday during the day but was busy steam cleaning my carpets and so I didn't get the chance to create this card until late last night.  There are so many fun and inspiring challenges to chose from over on the Papertrey Ink Capture the Moment site and the design team has done a wonderful job of putting together another fun Stamp-A-Faire event.
For my card today, I chose to start off with one of the first challenges which was to choose one of the Master Color Recipe cards and create a card using those colors.  I chose the John William Waterhouse color card with it's pretty muted colors.  John William Waterhouse is actually one of my favorite artist with his romantic paintings of garden scenes, Greek mythology and medieval paintings.  I had started a Pinterest board about a year ago with some of my favorite paintings of his, you can see it here if you're interested. I'm combining two challenges with this one card because not only did I use one of the Master Color Recipe cards but I also used Melissa Phillips Floral Impressionism Challenge.  I love Melissa style and her card for this challenge is beautiful.  Melissa's video showing how she stamped, embossed and watercolored her flowers and card was fun and informative to watch so I decided to give it a try. I used the PTI stamp set Bold Blossoms and stamped them onto watercolor paper and followed Melissa's steps to heat emboss and watercolor them.  I used a piece of watercolor paper for my background which I watercolored using ocean tides, spring moss and gray ink and then stamped with a text stamp from the Ombre Builders set.  Once my background was done, I die cut a PTI scallop frame from soft stone and adhered it to my watercolored background and added my flowers popping up the largest flower with foam tape.  Then I die cut three of the Many Blessings from ocean tides cardstock and glued them together and adhered that to my card and stamped the coordinating sentiment from the Scripted stamp set.  To finish off my card, I used some chunky iridescent glitter around the centers of each flower. Thanks for stopping by!

Funky Cats - (CTD402)

Hello!  It's time for this week's Color Throwdown Challenge and we've got some fun colors for all of us to create with!

For my card I used the super cute and funky My Favorite Things set, Cat-itude to create a birthday card.  I used some wilted violet, tumbled glass, spiced marmalade, crushed olive and a touch of worn lipstick distress ink to watercolor these fun cats along with the background and flowers (who said cats can't be green or purple?).

For more inspiration, check out the design teams' blog links below OR you can go to the Color Throwdown blog for details on how to play along and you can see all the sample entries in one location.
Amy Rohl Amy Rysavy

Barbara Anders   

Broni Holcombe   

Jodi Collins 

Lisa Henke 

Lori Tecler

Lynn Put   

Vickie Zimmer 

Wanda Cullen

Kim Singdahlsen - July Guest Designer

Thanks so much for stopping by! Don't forget, you can follow me on Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest to see what I'm up to.

Posie Hello - (CTD401)

Hello, crafty friends!  Hope your week is going well so far.  It's time for this week's Color Throwdown Challenge and I hope you'll take the time to play along.

For my card I used the My Favorite Things stamp set Pretty Posies and Label Maker Sentiments along with a MFT's hello die.  I started out with a white card base, added a panel of watercolor paper which I sponged with picked raspberry distress ink then splattered with water droplets.  For my flowers, I stamped them onto watercolor paper, die cut them and then watercolored them with my Gansai Tambi watercolors.  Once they were dry I used a Wink of Stella glitter pen on the four main flowers and adhered all of my flowers and leaves to my card front popping up the fuchsia rose with foam tape.  To finish off my card, I adhered my die cut hello, friend sentiment and three iridescent sequins. For more inspiration, check out the design teams' blog links below OR you can go to the Color Throwdown blog for details on how to play along and you can see all the sample entries in one location.
Amy Rohl Amy Rysavy

Barbara Anders   

Broni Holcombe   

Jodi Collins 

Lisa Henke 

Lori Tecler

Lynn Put   

Vickie Zimmer 

Wanda Cullen

Thanks so much for stopping by! Don't forget, you can follow me on Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest to see what I'm up to.

Loads of FUN!

Hello!  I've got two fun shaker cards for my post today both using the Lawn Fawn stamp set, Loads of Fun and both using the mood board for the Lawnscaping Challenge #133. I stamped and die cut several of the pieces from the Loads of fun set, then colored them using Copic markers.  Some pieces I paper pieced using scrap designer paper from my stash but even those I did a little bit of Copic shading for some interest.   For the inside of each shaker, I adhered two pieces of clothing and some bubbles to the background and added some clear iridescent, pale blue and teal sequins in different sizes as my shaker bits. These cards were so fun to create, I enjoyed using this new set for the first time and I hope you like what I've created.