LIM459 One Layer One Word

Happy Monday, peeps! Wow, the last day of February!  Hope you had a good weekend. Thinking of and praying for all the souls in the Ukraine, such an unspeakable tragedy.  I pray it is all over soon! I did get some stamping time yesterday and wanted to try (again) no-line watercoloring.  Mine never turn out quite as well as the videos that I watch, but I gave it a try again.  Since I used only one layer and and one word, I am entering it at the Less Is More challenge as well:

So here we go:

I always use one of two papers for my watercoloring: watercolor paper or Shimmery White.  Since I wanted to make a full card, I chose to use Shimmery White.  The colors move around nicely on it since it has a kind of coating that makes the shimmer, but also helps the water and ink not to soak in too quickly.  I stamped the image from Friendly Hello in Sahara Sand ink and then used an aquapainter to color everything in.  I went a little too strong on my flowers, I would have preferred to have them lighter, but I guess it's a learning curve!  I chose to make the bird a wee little house finch; they have been very active at my feeders and although the colors aren't perfect, they're close enough!

I added a Soft Sueded sentiment from Biggest Wish and you might be able to see some itty bitty speckles stamped in Soft Seafoam around the bird.  Perhaps if I had watercolored a bit of background it would have looked better.  I'll keep practicing!  Thanks for popping in today!

I showed you last week the pictures of non-happy Eden, sad that she was banished from the new couch and forced to sleep in her new bed.  Here's HER new bed on the left, and GINGER'S new bed on the right:

Yep, she refuses to sleep in her bed and wants to sleep in Ginger's. Heaven knows where Ginger is! Don't you wish you could know what was in their minds?  Pets are so funny!

  Enjoy your day and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Friendly Hello, Biggest Wish
Card stock & Papers	Shimmery White
Ink	Sahara Sand, Crumb Cake, Soft Suede, Flirty Flamingo, Poppy Parade, Pear Pizzazz, Old Olive, Soft Seafoam
Accessories
Tools	Aquapainter, Corner Rounder Punch (ret)

Paper Players 433 One Layer Bluebird

Happy Sunday, everyone!  Hope you're having a great weekend!  I had a fun workshop yesterday as well as an "Everybody Birthday Party" last night at church!  Busy weekend!  It's a good thing that Jaydee's Paper Players challenge was a One-Layer Clean and Simple one!

One-layer cards can be a challenge for sure...we all love to put layers, embellishments and froufrou things on our cards, don't we?  For my one-layer card, I chose to use some Shimmery White cardstock; it's sturdier than regular white, has a lovely little sheen to it, and accepts watercoloring better than regular white.  So here we go:

I stamped my little bluebird from Best Birds in Stazon black ink, then watercolored him with an aquapainter and some Balmy Blue, Blueberry Bushel, Grapefruit Grove, Calypso Coral and Daffodil Delight inks:

I added a little ground with Soft Suede and some very, very pale speckles (Itty Bitty Backgrounds-retired, unfortunately) in Sahara Sand.  For the sentiment, I used a cool heat-embossing technique!  Using the Stamparatus, ink and stamp your sentiment in your color of choice; for this one, I used a birthday sentiment from Perennial Birthday and Early Espresso ink.  Leave your stamp on the Stamparatus plate and very carefully clean off all the ink, then re-ink and stamp again with Versamark.  I always like to ink and stamp a couple of times to make sure I get good coverage!  Then simply sprinkle it with Clear Embossing Powder and heat set, and you have a lovely embossed image in any color!!

Once I had done the embossing, I added some "sky" watercoloring with Balmy Blue, along with a few more speckles!  Simple and easy!

I hope you'll step up to the challenge and create a one-layer wonder card this week and share it with us at the Players!  Check out what the others did at the Paper Players blog!  

Enjoy your day and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Best Birds, Perennial Birthday, Itty Bitty Backgrounds (ret)
Card stock & Papers	Shimmery White
Ink	Versamark, Stazon Black, Early Espresso, Balmy Blue, Blueberry Bushel, Calypso Coral, Grapefruit Grove, Daffodil Delight, Soft Suede, Sahara Sand, Crumb Cake
Accessories
Tools	Aquapainter, Heat Tool, Clear Embossing Powder, Embossing Buddy, Stamparatus

PP399 Laurie's Sketch

Happy Sunday, all!  It's time for another Paper Players challenge!  Did you notice the latest number of our challenge?  #399?  That means #400 is coming up next week, so be sure to stay tuned for some fabulous-ness at the Players that week!  Anyway, for today's challenge, Laurie has a nice little sketch for us!  I wanted to make several cards using this one:

I've got two cards to show you with this sketch; this one is the more stepped-up version!  It's for the wedding of a young lady in our church; she's a bit younger than Dana and we have watched her grow up into a beautiful, talented, sweet girl!  I know she has blue in her wedding, so I pulled a floral from the Gardens Impression papers, added some layers and some florals from a new-to-me set, Perennial Birthday:

Lots of new goodies used here!  The Petal Pink layer was embossed with the Basketweave EF; the So Saffron layer was embossed with the Tufted EF.  I heat embossed the florals in white embossing powder and watercolored them in, and stamped a sentiment from Itty Bitty Greetings in Night of Navy ink directly on a piece of ribbon:

I stamped a wedding sentiment on the inside as well!  

My next card is much cleaner and simpler; I used some background paper my friend Teri gifted me with, and added a sentiment from Perennial Birthday stamped in Gray Granite and diecut with the Stitched Framelits dies.  I had some of these glossy dot embellishments still in my stash, so I added a couple for interest:

So, two cards, same layout, different designs!  What will you come up with using this fun sketch?  Be sure to share your creation with us at the Players this week...can't wait to see what you come up with!

I have no idea how the karate stances are spelled, but this one sounds like "cheeri-up"!!  SO cheer-up and have a blessed day!

PP394 CAS Blooms and a Tutorial

Hi peeps!  Sunday brings us another Paper Players challenge with Laurie as our sweet hostess!  It's a Clean and Simple challenge...be sure to check out the PP blog to make sure you follow all the guidelines for "clean and simple"!!

For my card today, I chose a simple outline floral from Tim Holtz and stamped it in Stazon Black on some Papertrey Rustic White cardstock:

I loosely colored it with an aquapainter and some inks, then added a sentiment from Technique Tuesday and a little line of washi tape:

I also wanted to show you how I rounded the lower right hand corner of my card with a circle punch!  It's really easy to do!  On this card, I used a 1 3/8" SU circle punch; turn it to the back:

See the dark "groove" under the big silver outer portion of the punch?  That's where the paper slides into when you are punching:

Take the corner of your card and slide it into that groove as far as you can; see how it fits in there?

Very carefully punch!  Your corner will not be perfectly round, as you can see below, but it is easy to just trim it a wee bit to take off the edges at the top and bottom:

so it looks like this:

The less bulky your paper, the less trimming you'll have to do because you can get the corner into the punch more easily!  Practice on some scrap and you'll have it down pat in no time!  And you can use any size circle punch!  I did not come up with this idea, it was shown at convention several years ago!

I made another card with the same flower set, while I had it on my desk!  This time I spritzed some SU watercolor paper with water and Tangerine Tango ink, heat set it to dry it quickly and stamped a different floral on top.  I used some Simple Stories DSP for the background, mounted it on a Very Vanilla card, distressed the edges of my panel and added the same sentiment:

 

On the inside, I stamped the sentiment again in Smoky Slate, added another sentiment to it and stamped the flower again in Sahara Sand:

I used the Freshly Made Sketches sketch by my sweet friend Linda, and am also entering it in the Time Out Challenge, which is Inspired by Words:

I hope you'll play along with our CAS "Bloom" challenge this week!  Check out what the DT did as well:

·        Claire

·        Jaydee

·        Joanne

·        Laurie

·        Nance

·        Sandy

·        Elizabeth

·        Annie

·        Jan

Enjoy your day and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Flower Garden (Tim Holtz), So Blessed (Technique Tuesday), Itty Bitty Backgrounds (ret)
Card stock & Papers	Very Vanilla, Watercolor, Rustic White (Papertrey Ink),  Reset Girl (Simple Stories)
Ink	Stazon Black, Tangerine Tango, Crushed Curry, Really Rust (ret), Cajun Craze, Early Espresso, Old Olive
Accessories	Pick a Pattern Washi Tape
Tools	Aquapainter, 1 3/8" Circle Punch

RRCB86 May Flowers

Happy Tuesday, everyone!  It's time for another Retro Rubber Challenge and this is a sweet one...May flowers!

Oh my, so many sets from which to choose!  In the end, I opted for a retired SU set called Nature Walk from 2009!  I stamped it in Stazon Black ink on watercolor paper and used ink and an aquapainter to color it in:

Here's a closer view:

I am still getting the hang of doing the background...coloring the images in is a piece of cake, but making that "dreamy" background takes a bit of practice!  I added a little banner and sentiment, and it's hard to see, but there is a piece of Powder Pink ribbon behind the sentiment, as well as a glimmer dot on top:

I love that pretty pink paper on the background...it's from PhotoPlay's French Flea Market!

I hope you'll play along with us this week...I know there are lots of flower-lovers out there!  Pull out your older stamps (at least a year old) and give them some love, then share it with us at the RRCB blog!  Can't wait to see what you create!

Enjoy your day and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Nature Walk (ret), CL342 Sentiments (Hero Arts)
Card stock & Papers	Rustic White (Papertrey), French Flea Market (Photoplay), Watercolor
Ink	Stazon Black, Garden Green, Powder Pink, Melon Mambo, Wild Wasabi, Soft Sky
Accessories	Glimmer Dot, Powder Pink Ribbon, Dimensionals
Tools	Big Shot, Stitched Shapes Framelits, Banner Dies (Nestabilities), Aquapainter

Paper Players 389 Magical

Hi everyone!  Hope you're having a good weekend so far...it's been lovely here in SE PA for a change!!  Sandy is our hostess at the Paper Players today and she's got a challenge that was really a challenge for me:

To my chagrin, I have NO stamps that fit this category!!!  Oh no!  So I searched the internet and found this sweet little fairy image from Needlecrafter.com, printed it out on some watercolor paper and went to work:

In my quest to find the right image, and my pleasure in watercoloring it in, I totally MISSED the "Clean and Simple" part of Sandy's challenge, but I didn't have the heart to start over with something else, so hopefully the she will be forgiving!  It is only a couple of layers and a ribbon, but I usually strive to do something more simple when I do CAS cards!  Oh well!  Anyway, this little charmer was a delight to color in, even if I did color her thighs green, thinking it was part of her fairy outfit!  I guess I was trying to make her more modest, LOL!  Check her out:

I also have to say this is the worst watercolor paper in the world, I don't know why I just don't throw it out, it's so bad.  Once I learned how much it would bleed, I stayed within the lines a little more carefully!  I used an aquapainter and various shades of ink, then fussy cut the image out and layered it on top of a piece of DSP on which I had printed some music, I believe this one came from the Graphics Fairy:

 

I also stamped some Impression Obsession words along the edges; they seemed to fit in with the dreamy theme!!  My final touches  were some Wink of Stella on her wings, a shabby seam binding ribbon that I dyed in Marina Mist,f and some pretty little sequins!

Just as an aside, this artwork reminds me of some of my favorites from childhood, the work of Joe and Beth Krush; they illustrated the Borrowers books as well as Gone-Away Lake series, another one of my favorites!  When reading up on them, I realized they lived not more than 30 miles from me, just outside of Philadelphia!  Of course, we didn't have Google back then, or would I have even thought to see where they were from!  But it was nice to know they were from my area.  I loved looking at the details they had in their illustrations!

Anyway, I hope you'll play along with our challenge this week....the DT has come up with some really fun creations and I am sure you will too!  Be sure to share them at the Players! 

This is what an Easter egg hunt looks like when your hosts have ten acres of yard on top of a windy hill; you dispense with baskets and go right to grocery bags!

As I remember, it was cold as well as windy, but they didn't seem to mind!  Enjoy your day and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Imagine Words (Impression Obsession), Computer-Generated Images
Card stock & Papers	Rustic White (Papertrey), Watercolor Paper (Loew Cornell), Silver Bells DSP (Kaisercraft)
Ink	Smoky Slate, Daffodil Delight, Tangerine Tango, Marina Mist, Mint Macaron, Crumb Cake
Accessories	Seam Binding, Sequins, Wink of Stella pen
Tools	Aquapainter, Dimensionals, Computer

Another PP358

Happy Monday, peeps!  I trust you had a good weekend!  I have a confession!  The card I have for you today was supposed to be for yesterday's Paper Players challenge.....but I forgot that it was supposed to be clean-and-simple, and although I love this card, I didn't really feel like it met Joanne's criteria!!!  So I saved it for today:

I used the same DSP, Just Add Color Specialty, this time it was the teapot paper!  I used the Sunday Stamps Summer Petals color palette:

and using inks and an aquapainter, I colored in the images!  Isn't this one cute?

And I very carefully ('cuz it's a really tiny stamp) used the "berries" from Carols of Christmas for the wallpaper design behind my array of teapots:

I used the new Quilt Top embossing folder for the background, and I used a sentiment from Beautiful Bouquet and stamped it on a stitched tag from Pretty Pink Posh:

 These colors are just so pretty together!  Thanks for popping in today!

Dana had a big party for Cassidy on Saturday--the weather was perfect, the kids had a load of fun and I got to meet some of Wayne's family and catch up with some of my own!  Of course there was cake:

and even though I am not a big fan of bright artificial colors on my cake, I have to admit that these were pretty amazing!  A local gal that waitressed with Dana bakes these!  Cassidy was thrilled with them, of course:

And although she didn't get all seven candles blown out in one shot, she gave it a good try!

 Enjoy your day and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Beautiful Bouquet, Carols of Christmas
Card stock & Papers	Flirty Flamingo, Basic Black, Whisper White, Just Add Color Specialty DSP
Ink	Flirty Flamingo, Peekaboo Peach, So Saffron, Crumb Cake, Memento Black, Calypso Coral
Accessories	Glitter Enamel Dots, Black Grosgrain Ribbon (ret)
Tools	Aquapainter, Big Shot, Stitched Tags and Stitched Borders Dies (Pretty Pink Posh), Quilt Top Embossing Folder, Dimensionals