This or That Flowers

This week is flying by and it's already Thursday again! Today I'm hopping along with some crafty friens over on Instagram for the This or That hop. Are challenge themes this week are snowflakes or flowers. Since the cold weather and I aren't friends, give me flowers any day!

Last month, I purchased one of the Gina K Designs mystery boxes. I only have a handful of stamps from them through the years, so figured there was a good chance I wouldn't duplicate anything. I was right and came away with a ton of new stamps, dies, and foiling papers. I'm trying to work through a whole bin of holiday gifts and crafty purchases, so challenged myself to pick a few things from the mystery box to create today's card.

The flowers are from the Create Friendship set, which came in the box along with it's coordinating dies.  I stamped in light, medium, and dark carnation, and did the leaves in light, medium, and dark spruce. These came in a kit I bought a while back, along with the Watercolor Floral Paper Pack, which I chose the grey striped paper from. I embossed the Follow Your sentiment from the Heart Mini set in white on black cardstock, and then cut the coordinating Heart word die from black cardstock and layered everything together.

I used some pink cardstock for the background, which I embossed with a very old QuicKutz folder, then added some black matting and a few pinkfresh jewels to finish things off.

Since I didn't use all the flowers I had stamped and cut, I decided to make a second card. For this one I used some red Minc foil and the Happy Swirls Poly-Glaze Foiling Sheets that came in the mystery box. After foiling the sheet, I then blended light and medium carnation inks over the background. I used another strip of the grey stripe paper and pulled out some red card stock for matting. The sentiment is from the Mini Blossoms Mini and embossed in white on red card stock.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I hope you have a fabulous day!

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Hello Sweet Friend

Hi friends! Happy Wednesday! This month is a much lighter load than I've had for a while in design team work, so that means I get to just play in my studio part of the time this month! Woohoo!  I haven't played around in non-DT challenges for a while, so for today's card I was inspired by the Gina K. February Monthly Mix Challenge. The challenge is Just Add Texture, and this card definitely has that in spades!

The Friendship Blooms partnership set from Gina K. Designs and Hero Arts has been on my wishlist since it released, and I finally got a chance to pick it up! I love every little thing about this set from the glorious floral image to the beautiful sentiments. I also recently added the new colors of Lindy's Magicals to my collection and couldn't wait to do a patina look with a few of them.

I started with watercolor paper, sprinkling first the dephinium turquoise, then the edelweiss moss green, and then the bayou boogie gold and spritzing and drying in between colors.  I did a couple layers of color, then embossed the large floral sentiment in gold. 

Next I fussy cut just around one side of the stamped image and set aside.  I pulled out some White Glitz glitter gel and a stencil and got to work on the background. This was the first time I tried the glitter gel and wowza... it's so beautiful! Love that shimmer!  When it was dry I used the same colors of Magicals over the stenciled background. When that was dry, I added in a bit of sandra dee sepia Magicals and then blended some broken china, peeled paint, and vintage photo distress oxides to deepen the colors around the edges.

The sentiment is embossed in gold embossing powder onto a circle die cut, then sponged and roughed up a bit with vintage photo ink.  I added the stamped piece over the top of the background with foam tape, then finished off with a seam binding bow and some distressed edges.

Such a fun card to make, and I still have a little turquoise ink under my fingernails! 😆 Thanks so much for stopping by today! I hope you have a fabulous day!

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Let's Do This

Hi coffee loving friends! I'm excited to be back sharing another couple of projects as one of the December guests for the Coffee Loving Cardmakers blog. I have loved the coffee sets I'm using today from a far since the first time Claire Brennan peeked them way back in the days of Waltzingmouse. I finally added them to my collection during the Gina K. Designs Thanksgiving sale and couldn't wait to play.

The first card I'm sharing uses the Coffee stamp set. I stamped the elegant little kettle and matching cup in lead ink and the coordinating flower in iced aqua. I hand trimmed these then added a bit of gloss with a crystal clear lacquer pen and set them aside to dry. Next I created a background by randomly stamping the flower images in iced aqua and the coffee bean images in stone, then adding the OK  coffee let's do this sentiment.  This panel is bordered in black with a border trim die from Verve (sniff, sniff)

The background of the card is stone cardstock, embossed with a herringbone folder and to complete this little you can do it New Year's card, I die cut the TCP Numbers Plate (they're having a 40% off everything sale through the end of the year, by the way!) from black cardstock and accented with ebony nuvo drops.

My second card uses the Gina K. Wreath Builder Templates, which I am totally crushing on recently. I couldn't wait to make a coffee wreath with this sweet littlle cup from the We Go Together set. I stamped the cup in jet black amalgam ink and then stamped the coffee beans in stone to form the wreath.  I added some coloring with copic markers and then just had to use this sentiment for a fun little snarky valentine.

I stamped the love you more* than on a heart shaped die cut and then masked off just the coffee from another sentiment and stamped it.  This is popped up in the center of the wreath and then I added the fine print *almost in the corner and highlighted with a copic marker.  I finished off this simple square layout with thin black and stone cardstock mats for a finished card sie of 4.25" square.

Thank you so much for stopping by and for having me as a guest here on the Coffee Loving Cardmakers Blog. I had so much fun creating these little projects and I hope I gave you a little caffeinated inspiration today. Cheers!


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