Hopping By

Hi friends! I'm hopping in with a quick little card I made with a sentiment from the Hip Hop Bunnies stamp set and the Wings & Petals Printable that is free with puchase of the Wings & Petals die set. These butterflies have always been a favorite of mine. The release that they were originally in back in 2008 was a turning point for me. It was the first time I started to feel like I was a "real" artist.

We had hired a local graphic designer to redesign our logo and complete a branding package when we switched our name from Verve Visual to Verve Stamps. Let's say it was an epic fail. The gal was late, did not complete any of the designs we had discussed and when she finally sent a working proof of the logo it was nothing usable. That's when I realized I really should just do it myself. Unfortunately, the gal made me pay up front and we never received anything for our money. A tough lesson learned, but I dug in and created our logo myself and then designed our new packaging , which I still love 10 years later (a few little tweaks through the years, but still basically the same).

Anyhow, the butterflies are colored with Zig clean color real brush markers and a Wink of Stella glitter pen. I cut them with the coordinating Wings & Petals die set and then accented with  white enamel drops and some flatback pearls.

The sentiment is stamped on white, then cut out and accented with black enamel dots and matted with black. For the background I masked off a regtangle in the center, then stenciled the plaid layering stencil with squeezed lemonade and fossilized amber distress oxide. I thne did another layer with dot fade layering stencil in peacock feathers.  I added a thin black mat to the panel and finished off by layering it all together. Easy peasy and super fun!

In other news, I've been working on making printables for the dies who no longer have matching stamp sets, and I pulled together a few new DIGITAL sets that are available in the store and 55% off.  I haven't yet had a chance to create with them, but hope to do a little creating this weekend!

Land of Liberty is a completely new Americana themed set, which was slated to be a stamp set, but plans changed when I decided to close the shop. The smaller cups in this set coordinate with the Cup of Cheer Die Set. Three Cheers is a digital set we offered for a limited time in the summer of 2016, but I had planned to bring it back this summer. Coffee or Tea is a redesign of the popular One Cup stamp set, adding in sentiments for coffee lovers as well as tea lovers.  It also coordinates with the Cuppa Tea Die Set.

Okay, that's all for today! I hope you have a fantastic start to your weekend!

Enabler's List
Stamps: Hip Hop Bunnies, Wings & Petals Printable (Verve Stamps)
Paper: smooth bristol (Canson) Basic Black (SU!)
Ink: squeezed lemonade, fossilized amber, peacock feathers (Ranger Distress Oxides), intense black (Hero Arts), clear Wink of Stella glitter pen, Kuretake Clean Color Real Brush markers (Zig)
Accessories: Wings & Petals die set (A Cut Above by VERVE), plaid and dot fade layering stencils (Tim Holtz), flat back pearls, nuvo enamel drops, enamel dots

You Are Everything Nice

Hi friends! I'm back today with another colorful card using a mixture of Verve stamps, dies and printables. I hadn't made a coffee card in a bit, so thought it was time to ink up the cup from the Everything Nice set.  I stamped it in Intense Black by Hero Arts and then colored with Zig Clean Color real brush markers and a zig wink of stella pen.  I then cut it out with the coordinating Pumpkin Spice Die Set and gave the cream on top a bit of sparkle.

Total coffee side note, here... it finally looks like summer is coming with temps in the 90's yesterday and as good old Murphy would have it, the icemaker in my fridge decided to stop making ice! I mean doesn't it know it's prime iced coffee season?  What's a girl to do? I had to dig an old ice tray out of the garage last night. The boys were fascinated that you could MAKE ice yourself and wanted to know exactly how it all works. So we're kicking it old school with ice cube trays and I'm feeling like I've done one more thing to prepare my boys for life in the "real" world. Haha!

Okay, side note over. I decided to do a little mash-up to make the sentiment, masking off the  pumpkin spice and everything nice sentiment from Everything Nice and pulling in the "you are" part of a sentiment from the Simply Amazing set. I cut this out with a doily die, then started adding some printable images I've been coloring for #thedailymarker30day challenge. The leaves are the printable included with purchase of the Dreamy Leaves die set and the butterfly and flower are from the printable included with purchase of the Wings & Petals Die Set. I cut them all with their respective dies and then layered them together to finish my focal piece.

Next I went for a little mixed media technique on the background. I taped off a rectangle on a panel of white cardstock, then blobbed a little gesso on and sprayed a pump of London Blue dylusions spray on the gesso blob and blended it out with a paint brush. Once this was dry I took a stencil and some water and spritzed to lift some of the ink. I did this a few times, blotting off in between, but it wasn't quite giving me enough texture, so I spritzed some more dylusions spray over the stencil and then spritzed with water and worked it around.  It turned out super cool, but then my sentiment/image panel took up most of the card and is blocking the best texture. Oh well!

I finished with a thin black mat and a white card base.

Thanks so much for stopping by today. If you missed yesterday's post (I wrote and scheduled it for yesterday morning, but forgot to set it to publish, so it didn't publish until mid day), click here for another card.

Enabler's List
Stamps: Everything Nice, Simply Amazing, Wings & Petals Printable, Dreamy Leaves Printable (Verve)
Paper: white, black
Ink: intense black (Hero Arts), laser printer, Kuretake clean color real brush markers, clear wink of stella glitter pen (Zig), London Blue Dylusions spray (Ranger)
Accessories: Pumpkin Spice, Wings & Petals, and Dreamy Leaves die sets (A Cut Above by VERVE), doily die (QuicKutz), painter's tape, nuvo glitter drops, gesso