Crafty Day

A few months ago I posted about a "stamp camp" I hosted for my mother in law, aunt in law, and their lovely friends. We all had such a good time that we decided to make it a quarterly occurrence.

We had an afternoon filled with yummy food, laughter, and stamping! We talked about marriage, jobs, and life in general. I am amazed at the outlook these ladies have on life. They help remind me that even when my circumstances are not the greatest, that I can still choose to look for God's blessings. These ladies are always so thankful when we get together, but the truth is it does me a world of good as well.

Alright on to the crafting!

Something I wanted to show these lovely ladies this time around was that they could use a card layout with just about any stamp set they own. I used the layout from a previous post and used it to come up with two cards.

Here is the original card I made using the layout in question:

{See original post HERE}

Unfortunately the picture doesn't do it justice, but I love that pop of color behind the stamped image!

Here is my first card using the same layout:

First off, like some of my other cards, I feel like the picture doesn't do it justice. Anyone have any good tips for taking pictures of your cards, because I can't seem to get it right. I love this card, it makes me think of my niece who love all things super girly. The last time I took her to the movie she was adamant that she had to bring her purse with her; she's 6. 

Supplies

Stamp Set: My Favorite Things Magical Unicorn set by Birdie Brown
Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic Markers (various), White Gel Pen, Distress Oxide Ink in Abandoned Coral
Paper: Neenah Classic Crest, and scraps of patterned paper from my stash

Accessories: 3M Foam Mounting Tape

The second card using the same layout:

I love how the layout worked with this card. It just feels like this little guy is exploring space. It makes me think of the movie The Martian with Matt Damon. 

Supplies

Stamp Set: My Favorite Things Space Explorer set by Birdie Brown

Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic Markers (various), White Gel Pen, White Pigment Ink, Distress Oxide Ink in Peacock Feathers, White Gouache

Paper: Black Card Stock , and scraps of patterned paper from my stash

Accessories: 3M Foam Mounting Tape

I wanted my last couple of cards to be simple.

When I first saw this set by Avery Elle, I knew I HAD TO HAVE IT! I love puns so I know that this Lava You set was going to be a part of my collection. Anyone else picked this one up?

Supplies
Stamp Set: Avery Elle Lava You
Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black, Distress Oxide Ink in Vintage Photo, Distress Oxide Ink in Candied Apple
Paper: Neenah Desert Storm Card Stockand a piece of patterned paper by Doodlebug

Last but not least....

I knew I wanted to do a purple card because a few of the wonderful ladies I was crafting with love this color. This was a pretty easy card to do. The hardest thing by far was the embossing. The front panel is a piece of watercolor resist scrapbook paper I picked up at Michael's a couple of months ago, but you could easily recreate with any of your favorite background stamps and some clear or white embossing powder!

Supplies
Stamp Set: Impression Obsession Thoughts
Inks: Distress Ink in Milled Lavender, Seedless Preserves, and Dusty Concord
Paper: Stampin' Up! Perfect Plum Card Stock and Patterned Resist Watercolor Paper from Michael's
Accessories: 3M Foam Mounting Tape, Copper Embossing Powder


Thank you all for stopping by. Until next time, keep on crafting!

Let the Christmas Cards Begin

Hola! Welcome back. If you read my last post, you will know that I was prepping for "stamp camp" for my my wonderful Mother in Law, my fantastic Aunt in Law and their friends. I have to say it was a blast, and while I got pictures of the cards I made I did not take any pictures of us ladies together. Tons of fun was had. We stamped, we laughed, we ate lunch, and of course had chocolate, so it was the perfect crafty day!

Onto the cards....


My first card was pretty easy. I pulled out my Cricut to cut out the layers that make up Bethlehem onto watercolor paper. I watercolored Bethlehem with my Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolors. I then used Distress Inks in Chipped Sapphire and Black Soot on the background and embossed the Star and Oh Holy Night sentiment from Paper Smooches A Blessed Christmas set. I finished the whole thing off with some gold sequins from Pretty Pink Posh.

I used Neat and Tangled's Little Baby Jesus Stamp and Die set to create a super cute but simple card. I stamped my image onto Neenah Solar White and pulled out my Stampin' Up! Markers to color Baby Jesus in. I die cut it out and used foam tape to pop him up. 

I used Neat and Tangled's Beary Merry to create a candy bar holder (instructions can be found  on Splitcoaststampers). I used some red cardstock for the base and used a piece of Lawn Fawn's Knit Picky patterned paper for the slip cover. I stamped that Beary Merry onto watercolor paper and  watercolored him in. 

That's it for this post. Until next time, keep on crafting!

Never too soon for Halloween

It seems like every year goodies for certain holidays start showing up sooner and sooner. I know that this can make many people roll their eyes, but not me. I love the first signs of Halloween goods popping up in stores, because that means fall is upon us. This for me starts the most magical time of the year. We start with Halloween, all the adorable costumes, and all the spooky movies. So it should not come as any surprise that my cards for this week are Halloween themed.

I picked up MFT Stamps Witch Way Is The Candy by Birdie Brown a couple of years back and did nothing with it until this year. Honestly, I used to have a job where I was on call 24/7 so as much as I love crafting, I never have time for it. These days though I have a set schedule and much more time to do what I LOVE!

This week I made two Shaker Cards using Witch Way Is The Candy.

My first shaker was easy enough to make. I used Stampin' Up!'s Summer Sun Cardstock for the frame and base of the card because I thought it went really well with the patterned paper from my stash. I die cut some clouds out of white cardstock using Lawn Fawn's Puffy Clouds Border Die and inked it up with some black soot Distress Ink. I threw in some Doodlebug Sequins and BAM, shaker was done.

I didn't run into any issues until I went to color that precious witch. My hubby recently surprised me with a full core set of the Spectrum Noir alcohol markers. While they are similar to Copics, they don't blend quite the same as Copics do. There's definitely a learning curve to them, but they are great markers and a truly sweet gift from a fantastic hubby!

My second card using that cutie put up a little more of a fight.I knew I wanted to put a shaker tag onto a card front and started working on the tag first. My first tag ended in Utter Disaster. I am not saying this to be dramatic, my first tag warped, my sequins fell out due to the warping, it was not pretty. The only thing I managed to salvage from that first tag was the sequins.

Creating my second tag went much smoother than the first. The sentiment is embossed onto black card stock and comes from the HSH Halloween Additions set by  There She Goes. I used some patterned paper from my stash for the background of the tag and sponged some Spiced Marmalade Distress Oxide Ink onto some white paper and die cut it out for the top of my tag. I finished the tag off with some Lawn Fawn Gold Sparkle Cord, black ribbon, and some gold Pretty Pink Posh sequins.

My tag ended up just a little bigger than I originally intended so I made a 5x7 card base out of Canson watercolor paper. I used my Kuretake Gansai Tambi to watercolor the base with black and gold and put it all together.

My question to y'all is, are excited to see Halloween stuff already or do you wish they would wait until closer to the actual holiday?

Until next time, keep on craftin'!