A Cup of Cheer

I've become a big fan of succulents so finding stamps of succulents was the perfect answer.  

 The challenge at Wednesdays Simon Says Stamp is Hip to Be Square so I picked up my succulent stamps from a set by Simon Says Stamp and created this card.  I'm sure a big fan of Distress Stains so I created my backgrounds with those inks along with a stencil.  

 The squares were cut with a stitched set of dies from My Favorite Things.  I love those stitch accents making the squares so much more fun.  I used some Liquid Pearls in red to add the final accents.  

 Here is the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge.

 I also love photographing flowers and plants so I wanted to share a couple here. 

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

Summertime Dreams

The challenge at Simon Says Monday blog is Summer Fun.  

 The sentiment on this bookmark says it all as far as I'm concerned.  Summer is a whole lot of things but I can sure dream of the island breezes.  I created a bookmark just for summer time reading. That sentiment is a stamp from Printworks Rubber Stamps.  The flower and leaves are stamps from Altenew.

 For the background on my piece, I first used embossing paste with a stencil to create this gorgeous pattern and then washed over a few different colors of Distress Stain mixing those inks with water so that the inks ran and created a watercolor look.  I so love a watercolor background because it is always irregular and unpredictable yet always wonderful.  

 Here is the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge.

 This also fits the Just Us Girls watercolor challenge.

I have become rather obsessed lately with photography so I thought I'd share a few photos.  

Getting up close and personal with some Hummingbirds. 

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

Happy Card - Happy Colors

I just had to sneak in a card for the Colour Q challenge. 

 I have been wanting to color this cute A Day for Daisies clown image for awhile and I was pretty sure this color combination was going to work.  I love working with digital images because I get to size them to fit what I want to do with them and I can print them out as many times as I want. 

 This cute clown caught my eye, maybe because of all of those hearts!!! I colored her in with Copic markers.  I did very little shading because I wanted to colors to be bright and vivid.  Each heart is coated with Glossy Accents.  I tried to turn the card to the side to show off the shine.  The corners were accented with a dot stencil and some stamp pad inks.  The "happy" word die is from Clearly Besotted, love their style.

 Here is the color combination for Colour Q.
And for a fun photo...

Seems that wearing lizards on our shirt is a new style around our house!!!

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

A fun new AAA Cards Challenge

You need to watch closely because the theme of the challenges at AAA Cards changes each week and that is part of the fun of taking part. 

This week we are focusing on fussy cutting.  I have to admit that I really like fussy cutting so I was so on board for this one.  One thing I have discovered that sitting down and cutting out an image really doesn't take that long and the result is pretty cool. 

 I feel in love with this adorable Printworks snow lady when I saw her at our stamp convention and I have had so much fun using her. Most of the other elements were cut with my Cricut.  This was a quick little card to assemble because the Cricut pieces had been cut out previously.  I had saved them for a future use and this card seemed like the perfect fit.   

After I stamped the snow lady with black ink, I embossed it with clear embossing powder.  I really like my black lines on an image to be a little more intense with embossing and I like using that technique when I am going to add coloring with Copic markers.  You can see where where I added some chunky glitter on the red heart and on the golden wings.

Make sure you stop on over on the AAA Cards blog so you can play along.

And, can you stand a few more Maui photos...

 We stopped at this little Coconuts stand mostly because I saw that red truck and just had to get a photo of it.

 One of my most favorite photos from our trip!  We found this old hotel with these colorful surfboards along the front. I had a feeling it was abandoned but sure made a great photo op. 

I couldn't even get enough beach photos. Mostly because each beach we stopped at seemed different from the last.  I loved the shadow of the palm tree across the sand.

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

Pink goodness

I wanted to play along with the current Fusion challenge so I sat down to do some creating.

 Every once in awhile, I sit down and play with inks and stencils so my background here was created during one of those play sessions.  I thought the resulting pinks went well with the Fusion challenge.  I used watercolor paper and some Distress Inks.  

 To follow the sketch with the Fusion challenge, I stamped these leaves from Wplus9 Designs with some Distress Stains.  The "hello" is also from Wplus9 Designs.  

 Here is the Fusion challenge.

And, I just have to share more Maui photos...

 This is the amazing view from our hotel room.  These cottages are part of the resort complex but we stayed in the tower part of the hotel.  I would strongly recommend The Royal Lahaina Resort to anyone for their Maui visit. It has it's own amazing beach plus other great features. 

 This photo is from our Lahaina visit.  This is an amazing area to spend time shopping and eating. 

This is one of my favorite beach photos.  One of the beaches we visited was Big Beach where the waves were so amazing, not to mention the cloud formations.

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

The next AAA Cards challenge

It's Sunday again and time for the next AAA Cards challenge.

 This week, we were to use a team members card for inspiration. 

 Since I am so wanting summer to stay around for awhile longer, the sunburst design on Julia's card was a fun inspiration piece.  For my card, I started out with a favorite stamp from Neat and Tangled.  It is a large, distressed looking circle.  I inked it with two colors of Distress Stain, gave it a spritz of water and then stamped it.  Since I am loving playing with watercolor looks, I loved how this one turned out.  

 I then took a starburst stencil from The Crafter's Workshop and inked some of the rays with a yellow stamp pad.  I tried to be irregular in the length of the different rays while sponging on the ink.  The sentiment is from Mama Elephant and I added some black enamel dots to give it the finishing touches.  

Plus my card loosely follows the Freshly Made Sketch for this week. I love taking a piece of inspiration and making it my own.

And, I have to share some photos...

 We just returned from a magical time in Maui.  I don't know anything more to say then it was wonderful.  I tried to get lots of beach photos since there are so many different kinds of beaches there and it seemed that every day brought more amazing cloud formations.  

 On a beach walk, we came across a sand castle someone had built.  The waves had already taken part of it away, but I just loved the crumbling results, especially with more cloud formations in the background.  

One of our sightseeing trips was to the Iao Valley Monument.  It is a gorgeous garden-like area with great historical significance.  This is just one glimpse of that area. 
I sure hope you can get a chance this week to play along with the AAA Cards challenge.

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

AAA Cards Challenge Sunday

Yes, time for another AAA Cards challenge.

 This one is pretty fun, it's a moon sketch!

 

 I thought this was a fun way to add a moon to a little scene.  I simply punched out a circle and backed that with the yellow cardstock.  Since I picked yellow, I hope it looks like a moon and not a sun!!!

The little snowy tree forest is a stamp from Hero Arts.  My snow is some Liquid Pearls.

And for a few photos...

 We recently had a period of HUGE waves.  It was a spectacular sight.  Of course, I went down to take photos. 

 The size of the waves was most noticed and measured against our pier.  It is not too often they get that close to the pier.

Such a neat experience.

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

It's AAA Card Challenge time

It's Sunday and it's time for a new AAA Cards challenge.

 This week just happens to include one of my favorite techniques - Stencils.

 I pulled out one of my favorite stencils from The Crafters Workshop.  I simply used black embossing paste on a piece of black cardstock.  I love the matte finish to this embossing paste and the slight texture.  

 For a simple accent, I used some of my favorite flower stamps to create these three awesome flowers.  The set is from Altenew Stamps.  This set is so much fun to use.  The flowers are stamped in layers and just about any color works.  You don't even have to use all three layers.  I stamp the black outline layer last.  The word strip is from another set of stamps.  I love that these look like tape. 

Here is a different view of the black on black embossing paste.  It was a little bit hard to photograph so the details showed.

And for a photo...

Is this CUTE!!!! We stopped in the tiny town of Harmony and this was set up for photo ops when they host events. When I walked up to it, I thought it was so fun that the cows on the hill were in just the right spot.

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

The embossing paste journey

I love to experiment and to just sit and play with my crafting supplies.  I always learn so much, sometimes failures, most of the time victories.  

 I picked up some Crackle embossing paste and so I wanted to see how I could use it. I started out with the matte black embossing paste and a stencil.  It looks bad here so I wanted to be sure to show you that fun step!

 In removing the stencil, it is almost breathtaking the beauty that is unveiled.  This was left to dry. It could even be left just like this too.

I put the stencil back in place and gave my leaves a coat of the Crackle embossing paste.  That goes on white and the cracks are revealed as it dries.  I then took some Worn Lipstick Distress Stain and started adding color over the entire surface.  Again, I left this to dry. The color here is a little bit too orange from the real color.

 Here is the finished card.  I thought it ended up being a fun mix of colors and techniques.

 The fancy circles pieces are cut with Spellbinders Nestabilities with an vellum kind of paper.  The amazing black leaves are a Waltzing Mouse stamp and the label sentiment stamp is from Altenew.  The color combination was to go along with the Colour Me challenge but that has ended.  

 The card fits the Simon Says Emboss IT challenge.

And the Addicted to CAS Celebrate challenge.
And for a photo...

This is a new plant to our yard this summer, it just opened it firsts "flower".  Kind of odd but actually pretty artistic.

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)