Baby Parade!

Later this month, I will be attending a baby shower over Zoom for my husband's cousin. She lives in Ohio and I've only met her a couple of times, but she really is the sweetest person so I wanted to make something special for her. She's having twin girls! (God bless her, haha)

I was finally able to use the Party Parade stamps I got from Hello Bluebird a long time ago. I just love how versatile they are and I got the coordinating dies which made things so easy for me. I had to work on the Copic blends a couple of times before I found some combos I liked, but I still need to practice.  The background was colored with Distress Oxides: Tumble Glass, Spun Sugar and Squeezed Lemonade.

Sunset Distress

 I have been experiencing a love affair with these distress oxides lately. I know they are really different from the inks and I like how smoother and brighter they are.

A few weeks ago, my husband and I were driving to pick up dinner and there was a spectacular sunset. It was just one of those you wish you could paint so I decided to try and recreate it.

Colors from the bottom: Squeezed Lemonade, Scattered Straw, Spiced Marmalade, Picked Raspberry, Dusty Concord, Chipped Sapphire, Black Soot.

I still sometimes have a hard time blending Dusty Concord with Chipped Sapphire and I think my next purchase will be Wilted Violet since I've seen better blends with that combo. Regardless, I'm really proud of this!

I grabbed my CZ Design Dude die cut once again because I just love it so much and used some holographic foil paper for the front cut. I also used a  Simon sentiment strip which is much straighter now thanks to the Tim Holtz paper trimmer I got!

I gave this to my husband since he was there when I was inspired and honestly, he really does spread happiness like confetti so it was only fitting!

As you can see, I have a lot of them now. I'm still trying to figure out what kind of brush I prefer but the Gina K brushes seem to be winning. Now I'm just trying to figure out how to store them. 

Sigh. 

Dude, I Miss You

I was making some cards for the Cards for Kindness organization (yes, I didn't forget my pledge! More on that later) and I decided that I wanted to make something for my three best friends who I haven't seen in months. Lately, I've been hitting what everyone has been referring to as that "pandemic wall" and I just miss my girlfriends and all the fun we used to have together. Hopefully with vaccine rollouts, I'll be able to see them soon.

I had asked what what their favorite colors were and they all gave me the same answer which made this very easy for me! I had recently purchased some word die cuts from Simon Says Stamp and I wanted to try them out.

Distress oxides I blended for the backgrounds: Dusty Concord, Chipped Sapphire and Cracked Pistachio.  

For this one, I used a heart stencil I got from Simon that works perfectly with A2 cards. The die cut is from CZ Design and Cathy is honestly one of my favorite crafters to watch on youtube now. I learned to create dimension, you should cut three pieces and glue them together. I like these dies because they have the shadowed background too. 

I used some washi tape to create a clean line with my blending here. I also used one of the Simon sentiment strips which was a little tricky to cut in a straight line, but I did my best. I couldn't resist this die cut either. I call everyone dude so I just had to have it.

For my last one, I blended a larger background with the distress oxides and I included a cat from a Michael's stamp pack I bought awhile ago. These cats are fun to Copic color so I've been practicing with them for awhile (and I knew my friend Monique loves cats). 

They all looked really nice when you put them together (much like my beautiful friends)

Happy Galentine’s Day!

With Valentine's Day coming up, I wanted to make cards for two coworkers that I miss very much now that we are all working remotely. 

I used some of the new A2 cards that I ordered from Paper Source and these measure 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 which are very different from the usual 5 x 6 7/8 cards that I craft with. I have to admit, it's a challenge having a smaller canvas to work with, but I really liked it! I may order more. (And honestly, I’ll have to because these belonged to my Cards for Kindness stash... oops)

I used this kitty Penny Black stamp for my first card. And of course, I forgot to write down which copics I used to color it. The hearts and sentiment are from Lawn Fawn dies I bought over holiday break. 

For my second card, I wanted to use one of the million Whimsy Stamp penguins that I spent so long coloring. For the record, I really hate fussy cutting images. Now I know why people spend so much on coordinating stamps and dies! 

Copic colors: C00, C1, C5, C7, C9, R20 and colorless blender. Still not 100% in love with the coloring, but getting there. 

For the background, I embossed the hearts using a Hampton Art stamp with Recollections white detail powder. Then I blended Shaded Lilac, Worn Lipstick and Scattered Straw distress ink over it. Lastly, I used the Lawn Fawn sentiment die.

Here’s to celebrating Galentine’s Day! 

Sister-Sister Birthday

February 1st is my seeeeester-in-law's birthday and because she is one of my favorite people, I wanted to make something bright and fun. 

I used one of my Whimsy penguins and I really wish they had dies because fussy cutting is so hard! I may need to invest in a better pair of scissors. The sentiment is a stamp from Lawn Fawn. 

Copics:

Body: 0, 100, C1, C2. R20, YR01, Y38, YR18

Present/Hat/Balloon: V12, V15, V17 Y08, Y15

Background Distress Oxides: Dusty Concord, Squeezed Lemonade and Picked Raspberry 

Distressed Thanks

So this week has been a bit hectic in work from home land. I’m not the most tech savvy person and I had to learn a new program rather quickly. Thankfully, I was connected with someone who was somewhat of an expert and was very patient with my slightly frenzied e-mails. What’s funny is that I’ve never even met this person! He works in a totally different department and if we were still in the office, I would just walk on down and say thank you. However, with circumstances as they are, I decided to craft him a thank you card instead. (I’m hoping he finds this sweet and not weird and invasive haha) 

I wanted to work on my distress inks with this card. I recently purchased some Distress Oxides after I saw some amazing projects on my friend Rachel’s IG but I got really bright colors and I didn’t want to send this guy a cotton candy looking thing. Instead, I pulled Wild Honey for the edges and then Scattered Straw towards the center. Before that though, I embossed the background using this Hero Arts cling stamp called Starry Night Brushstrokes. I then went over it with the distress inks. I used to use these a lot and I have no idea why I stopped! I definitely see myself purchasing more. 

I had this Thanks sentiment from a stamp pack and I put it directly on there using Memento black ink and honestly, I shouldn’t have done that because you could still see the white embossed swirls from the stamp. I should have stamped the sentiment on a separate piece of card stock and then raised it for dimension but I was afraid to ruin the card so I just used a Copic black marker to fill it in. I’ve been seeing so many cards with these huge die cut letters lately so I think I may invest in those for the future. 

Anyway, hope you are all having a good week. Do something nice for a stranger! We can all use some help right now. 

Penguins!

Before Christmas, I ordered some Penguin stamps from the Whimsy Stamps site. Crissy Armstrong designs the cutest penguins so I bought two general types that I could use with many different cards. I've looked up a lot of color combos for penguins and they're all difficult to blend if you ask me. And I've tried. 

A lot. 

I have more too. On the sides, I've written the copic colors I used trying to decide which combos I prefer. I know there are probably a million places on the internet I could go to to help me decide which colors go best together, but I'm still in the stubborn trial and error phase. 

And I know most of these look exactly alike, but I know they are different and some are sloppier than others. Like I said, practice makes perfect. Evidently, I need a lot of practice.