Peonies

Hello, friends!  I've been busy spending time with my daughter who is home on spring break since last week so I haven't had much time to create.  But today I had a few minutes in-between laundry to play, so I created a matching set of cards using the Avery Elle stamp set Peonies. For my first card, I used this week's CAS(E) this Sketch Challenge #162 for my layout and kept my card clean & simple for the most part with the focus on my watercolored flowers. Yes most of the time peonies are shades of pinks, but I started pulling out colors and decided I wanted something bolder and went with abandoned coral and festive berries distress ink to watercolor my peonies and twisted citron for the leaves.  I die cut the flowers from the set from watercolor paper, stamped them with black ink and watercolored each of them with distress ink.  I used a Hero Arts stencil for my background and sponged on some cracked pistachio distress ink.  I added my white vertical banner then my sentiment strip and adhered my vase and flowers.  To finish off this card, I tied on some black and white bakers twine and some black rhinestones. For my second card, I repeated some of the same steps as my first card with the stenciling and watercolored flower but used the Avery Elle Happy die cut which I die cut three times from black card stock and glued together.
To those of you who watch Downton Abbey, did you watch the finale last Sunday?  Ugh, it was so good and I'm so sad that it's over.

Skating By...

Hi there friends! Happy Thursday!  Today I have three cards that I created using the new Avery Elle Skating By stamp set and dies.  This is the first time I've ever ordered anything from Avery Elle, I've never used their stamps before and I have to tell you I'm impressed.  Ordering and delivery was easy and quick and the stamps needed no conditioning and stamped like a dream.   I saw this Skating By set months ago and fell in love with how cute and versatile it was, this set comes with several pieces you can interchange to create different scenes, it's so girly and super fun (I only stamped a few of the possibilities for my cards today). I kept the cards that I created today fairly simple with the focus on the stamped images.  For each card, I die cut the skater girl and colored her with Copic markers.  It doesn't show up in the pictures but after coloring each girl, I used my wink of stella glitter brush and added glitter to the bows, skates  and little bracelets.  I paired each skater girl with coordinating designer paper from my stash and die cut a scallop border edge.  For the red headed skater girl, I used the cute dash hound dog, for the blonde I used the balloons and the brunette the bubbles which I used Glossy Accents on to make them look wet. I'm going to be adding these cards to the small pile of cards I've created to send to the Cards for Hospitalized Kids.  This cause is dear to my heart ever since my youngest son was hospitalized to have a tumor removed from his spine.  While he was in the hospital (a week and a half total) any little thing to bring him joy and make him smile made staying there seem a little better, so if I can do the thing I love and make cards for kids that are stuck in the hospital, I'm going to do it (I usually create cards for this cause with my family after Thanksgiving dinner at our house but this year we weren't able to that).  While my son was in the hospital, I stayed there with him and while I was there I had the opportunity to talk to some of the nurses who told me that some kids come into the hospital and once their parent drops them off, the parents don't return for days which is heart breaking. God bless nurses everywhere. Once I have enough cards created I'm going to send them in.  I only wish I had more stamps and cards for boys, most of my stamps and cards are floral or girly. I'll have to remedy that ;) These cards were SO FUN to create!

Hello Friend - (CTD382)

Hello!  We made it half way through the week!  Today is Wednesday and time for this week's Color Throwdown Challenge.  Our hostess for this week is Barbara who chose our colors and inspiration photo. Looking at the inspiration photo and colors for this week, I decided to go with a clean and simple look for my card.  I drew my inspiration from the large leaves on the pillow in the inspiration photo and instantly thought of the large feather within the PTI Feathery Finery set.  I used my new Zig Clean Color pens to add some watercolor to my feather (just got these and still need practice) and once the watercoloring was dry, I stamped the coordinating dots from the set on top using Versa Mark ink and heat embossed them in a silver iridescent powder.  After that I stamped my sentiment from the PTI Wet Paint set and matted my main panel with black card stock, popping it up with foam adhesive and adhering it to my white card base. 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 Rysavy

Barbara Anders   

Broni Holcombe   

Joan Ervin

Jodi Collins 

Lisa Henke 

Lori Tecler

Lynn Put   

Vickie Zimmer 

Wanda Cullen

Leslie Miller  - March Guest Designer

Thanks so much for stopping by!
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With Deepest Sympathy

Hello!  Happy Saturday!  The card I'm sharing today is a sympathy card for a gentleman my husband knew through his work.  From what my husband told me, this gentleman was a man who had a strong belief in God and enjoyed gardening so I hope this card is fitting. I am so happy that Papertrey Ink released a bird stamp set with a series for the different seasons!  I love birds, I own birds, we feed the wild birds outside our home and I enjoy watching them so I knew I needed the PTI Winter Woods and Spring Woods stamp sets.   For my card today, I started out with a white card base, then cut a panel of aqua mist card stock 5 1/4" x 4" and sponged on some peacock feathers distress ink along the outer edges especially at the bottom and adhered that to my card base.  Next I die cut the coordinating Winter Woods cover plate from brown card stock and the bird and branches from the Spring Woods set from white card stock.    I stamped my bird in tropical teal, black and (close to cocoa ink SU) and the branches in (chocolate chip SU), new leaf and hawaiian shores.  After stamping my flowers, I went back and added some shading with Copic markers and added a white dot to the center of each flower using a gel pen.  I stamped my sympathy sentiment onto a white banner using black ink and arranged all of my pieces together (cutting some of the branches) onto my sponged panel, popping up the bird with foam adhesive. I think while I have the supplies all out on my desk I will create a few more of these cards in this style, sympathy cards are always the hardest to make when you actually need one.
Enjoy your weekend!