You're Tea-rrific!

You might have seen a shot on Instagram of my watercolor of a tea cup.  I've never inked it up because it just isn't my style; it was part of some supplies that a friend gave me when she cleaned out her closet.  But once I started playing with watercoloring with Distress Ink markers, I realized that I just hadn't yet seen the potential in this vintage Stampendous China Tea Cup stamp.  It was the perfect stamp for a little watercoloring.  I finished the coloring and it's sat on my desk for a while.  I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it, but then I remembered I had bought this Fiskars Latte Love stamp a while ago and I was pretty sure it had something tea in it too.  Sure enough, it had the perfect sentiment.  I opted for a simple treatment.  I cut out the panel using the stitched frame from Mama Elephant's Femme Frames and used the larger scalloped piece to cut our some vellum.  I topped my card with piece of paper from the 6x6 paper pad from Crate Paper called Flea Market cut to fit the whole card base, then topped it with the vellum and watercolor piece.

Inspired by Mojo Monday and Featuring Newton's Nook

Okay, so I'm not really a fan of a skinny card, but I liked the sketch and I thought it was the perfect way to combine one of my newest dies from Simon Says Stamp with a Newton's Nook image I colored a week ago.

I gave away my last baby card the other day, so this seemed like the perfect way to start to replenish my supply.  I used the Echo Park 6x6 paper pad from the Everyday Eclectic line, which has some adorable prints that were perfect for a paper card.  I colored the cute little penguins from the Newton's Nook Wild Child set then cut them out with a die from the Frames set from Simon Says Stamp.  I added the sentiment from the stamp set to a banner cut with the die from American Crafts/Crate Paper Maggie Holmes Styleboard dies.  I found a button in my stash and added some baker's twine from Hemptique to finish it off. 

 

Miyako and Kate Take Two

Since I wasn't happy with some of my choices on my first attempt with the Miyako and Kate stamp from Whimsy Stamps designed by the amazing Sandy Allnock, I immediately decided to start a second one so I could leave the shoes a lighter color.  I changed up a few things, such as the colors, but followed quite a bit of the same technique.  I even built the card the same way, but this time used a piece of paper from the Maggie Holmes for Crate Paper Flea Market 6x6 paper pad.  I like the overall look of the coloring of this one better, but I like the cat on the first one better (it looks more like my beautiful Smoke). 

Hippo Birdie Two Ewe Revisited...

Since I already had the stamps out on my desk, I decided to make a second card with the Year Four, Critters on the Farm, Hello Sunshine, Technique Tuesday Grid and Jessie's ABC's stamps and dies along with the Mama Elephant Landscape Trio dies.  This time I also pulled out the Stitched Journaling die from Lawn Fawn as well.  I used the same green polka dot paper from DCWV but this time I used a sheet from the 6x6 paper pad from the Maggie Holmes collection for Crate Paper for the sky background and some DCWV polka dot paper left over from a prior project to cover my card.   It turned out so different even though it mostly the same products: 

Another Watercolor with Art Impressions

 Here's the other card I put together using a watercolored panel made with Art Impressions stamps and Distress Ink.  I used another sheet from the Maggie Holmes for Crate Paper 6x6 pad with the same design as yesterday's card, only this time in a monotone yellow color. 

 

 

Here's a shot of yesterday and today's cards together:

More Watercoloring with Art Impressions

I have two panels of watercolors that I did a bit back that were sitting on my craft room desk for a long time.  I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with them.  Then I was putting away a few things in my craft room when I saw the Maggie Holmes for Crate Paper 6x6 pad with a snippet of this cute floral paper on the cover and decided it was the perfect paper for those watercolors.  The watercolor panels were done with stamps from Art Impressions and Distress Ink Markers.  It's a totally fun way to watercolor, even if, like me, you don't have any artistic talent.

Another Newton's Nook Image

Today I have yet another card made with the Newton's Nook set called Newton's Birthday Bash. I used a design very similar to the one in yesterday's card.  The images were stamped onto Neenah white cardstock using Tuxedo Black Momento Ink so I could color with my markers.  For the card on the left, I used some markers from Stampin' Up (I wasn't really very happy with the outcome).  For the card on the right, I used my new Copic markers.  I liked the Copic markers much better for this process.  I cut the finished images out using that same Lawn Fawn Stitched Journaling Card die.  For the paper, I used two more sheets from the Crate Paper 6x6 Party Day pad cut down to an A2 side and wrapped with baker's twine.  For the banners, I again couldn't find the right paper.  This time I used a couple of Distress Ink ink pads and my blending tool to color them to go with the rest of the card.  Then, I used that Lawn Fawn Bannerific stamp and die combined with the sentiment from Sophie's Sentiments. 

More Fun with Newton's Nook

 While I had my new Newton's Nook sets out, I could help but ink up Newton's Birthday Bash too.  It has such cute images.  This time, I used my watercolor paper, some Jet Black Archival ink and my Distress Ink Markers.  The one on the right was my first try and I was able to learn a few things that made the left image a bit easier to do.  For the cards, I used some paper from the 6x6 pad from Crate Paper called Party Day as the background and some baker's twine.  I cropped the corners with my We R Memory Keeper's Corner Rounder.  I ran the images through my Stitched Journaling Card die from Lawn Fawn for a little more interest.  I wasn't really sure about how to put on my sentiment and finally decided on a banner, but I couldn't find the right paper.  So I finally decided to add some color to watercolor paper using my Distress Ink pens, stamp the sentiment from Sophie's Sentiments from Lawn Fawn using my Archival ink.  Then it was just a few snips of the scissors to make a banner and some pop dots to finish it off.   

I'm Back With a Birthday Card Inspired by Julie Davidson...

Life has been crazy and hectic and really I just haven't been myself lately.  But today I had some time in my craft room and I wasn't busy putting together December Daily or Christmas cards or tags for gifts or one of a million things lately that has taken over my life.  But I do have a couple of people with birthdays coming up that I needed cards for my stash is woefully depleted.  So today I made a new card, well actually two of the same card to get me through this card drought.

For this card, I took my inspiration from this card on Julie Davidson's blog.  I used the Lunar Lights set from Lawn Fawn along with the tag die from Winter Gifts (not just for winter at all) to stamp and cut out the focal tag of the card.  I used Versafine Ink in Onyx Black then set it with some clear embossing powder (I am so grateful to finally have a working heat gun again.  Mine died right before Christmas and with my shopping embargo, I was not allowed to buy a new one.  I got one for Christmas but it died the first day.  I'm beginning to think I wasn't supposed to have a heat gun anymore).  I colored the lanterns with Distress Ink and then sprayed them with some water to wash out the color a bit to more closely match the paper I had selected from the Party Day 6x6 pad from Crate Paper.  I fussy cut the lanterns then layered them on my tag and finished off the tag with some Hemptique baker's twine. 

I finished off the card by putting the patterned paper on a mat of solid blue that I had distressed with a little Black Soot Distress Ink and wrapped in the same Hemptique baker's twine.  I added the tag with some pop dots.

I inserted a panel on the inside with a sentiment from Inkadinkado's All Occasions stamp set, also heat embossed to match the front and set on a blue mat inked with a little Black Soot Distress Ink.  I then finished off the entire card with a bit of Wink of Stella on the lanterns and topped with some Glossy Accents. 

Missing My Friend

So today's Learn Something New Every Day post made think about things that used to be part of my daily life but aren't anymore.  The absolutely first thing that came to mind is my friendship with Val.  We used to talk nearly every day.  Now we're lucky if we talk four or five times a year.  She's busy with school, work, family, church and her other friends. I understand that, but it doesn't mean that it hurts any less that I feel like I don't have a place in her life anymore.  So today's journal entry was about losing that close friendship we used to have and I made a page to go with it. 

I pulled out a collection pack that I bought at the sidewalk sale at Craft Warehouse this summer.  It's Crate Paper's Paper Heart Collection.  It's a pretty lovey-dovey set that I actually bought to scrapbook some of our wedding pictures with, but there's a couple of papers in there that I just love that are a bit more neural, like this background page, which I absolutely adore.

I love, love, love the sayings in the Echo Park collections.  They always just seem to be perfect.  The only problem was that the color of this saying was all wrong for my layout.  So I printed the print and cut design out from my Silhouette Studio, scanned it and opened it in Photoshop.  I then filled the text with colors that went with my layout and cut it out again.  The only problem was the white cardstock I had printed it on was too white.  So I used a little Old Paper Distress Ink to age it a little.  Now it was the absolute perfect embellishment. 

I added some Recollections pearls that were part of my stocking stuffers this year (thanks Mom!), some Prima and Imaginesce flowers and Darice bling.  The little tickets are from a border strip in the Crate Paper collection and the heart is from my new stamp set from Inkadinkado called Hearts.  I finished it off with some Thickers letters (my new obsession) and some rub on letters I found in my stash.  The top flower has an extra little eyelet tucked behind the gem because it's the pull tab for my hidden journalling. 

I had today off and used the day to try the smoker out by myself for the first time to smoke a couple of piece of pork that we had left over from buying meat at Costco.  Pretty dismal failure although Hubby saved the day when he got home.  But my attempt at dinner was much better.  I found a lovely crock pot recipe for Cashew Chicken on Pinterest posted by Six Sisters' Stuff.  I changed it up a little by doubling the sauce.  Then just a little before we were ready to eat, I dumped in a bag of frozen stir-fry veggies.  It was wonderful, although next time I think I'll triple the sauce.

Then we finally sliced the apple pie we made yesterday after canning apple pie filling from the apples we picked in the afternoon.  Yum!