Blue Daisy

Welcome to this week's LIMES inspiration post!

I chose this card as my inspiration from the gallery of this week's Splitcoaststampers' Featured Stamper!

LIST: Colours (white, blue, yellow, green), Techniques (die cutting, dimensional flowers), Elements (background circular die cut, dimensional bouquet of flowers tied with blue gingham ribbon)

INCLUDE: white, blue, yellow, die cutting

MODIFY: stenciled background instead of die cut, flat (but popped up) single flower instead of bouquet, 

EXCLUDE: green, ribbon

SPIN: square card, added jewels

The dramatic bouquet in the inspiration card is amazing! I love the pop of white and yellow against blue and I immediately thought of this daisy shaker die I have. 

I used a circle mask and a stencil to create my blue background element, using two shades of blue to add subtle interest. 

I backed my daisy die cut with a circle die cut, to keep all the petals in place (they would normally pop out if you're making a shaker with this die). I used another circle for the base of my flower centre and then one of the fancy flower centres that came with the daisy die set.  I finished it with some white gems.

Old Favourites, New Ideas!

 

Recently I completely re-organized my stamps, dies, stencils and embossing folders, both physically and electronically, and while I was doing that, I came across some old items that I've been holding onto but not using. I decided to challenge myself to use a few  of them, in a new way to decide whether it was time for them to go to a new home.

If you want to know more about my reorganization as well as why (and how!) I changed from Evernote to Air Table, join us at the FREE Paper Crafters Get Organized Summit next weekend!

Happy Mother's Day

 

It's mother's day this weekend in the UK, which is where my mother in law lives, so today I'm sharing two pretty cards that will make any mother smile!

(Canadian Links  for Lisa Horton products below with the butterfly (Ecstasy Crafts)).

Effortless Artistry (Merakiversary)

Today, Crafty Meraki is celebrating the love, passion, and creativity that  brought us together in this incredible journey. Your support has been our guiding light, and as a token of our gratitude, we're hosting a fabulous giveaway! Three cheers for a dino-mite third birthday!

To enter the giveaway, watch my video below (and hop along and comment):

1. Subscribe to CraftyMeraki 
2. Leave a comment below the video (comments here on the blog will not be considered). (We will pick a random winner from the comments left across all channels) 
3. Tag your crafty friends in the comments (Optional - Each tag is an extra entry!) 

Three lucky winners will receive an exclusive Crafty Meraki EAP Release bundle! 

Giveaway closes on May 23rd. Winners will be announced on May 24th in a blog post on the craftymeraki.com Blog.  This giveaway is not affiliated with Instagram or YouTube. Open worldwide (must pay shipping).

Blue Coneflowers

 Welcome to this week's LIMES inspiration post!

I chose this card as my inspiration from the gallery of this week's Splitcoaststampers' Featured Stamper!

LIST: Colours (red, green, white), Techniques (misted watercolour), Elements (3 flowers, leaves, slimline, hugs sentiment)

INCLUDE: flowers

MODIFY: blue instead of red, die cut instead of stamping, inkblending instead of watercolour, white splatter instead of white gel pen highlights

EXCLUDE: sentiment

SPIN:

I love the loose watercolour look of Dina's flowers! The soft bleed of the colours onto the background is so pretty! 

I have this coneflower die set from Honey Bee Stamps - it was one of those 'I MUST HAVE THIS' items at the time, but I haven't used it much after that initial honeymoon period. lol! I dug it out and blended ink onto just some of the layers. My blending was very patchy, in two colours of yellow for the centres (plus brown) and two colours (plus a yellow-green) for the flowers and leaf. I drew the stems with a black marker.

I spritzed water onto the flowers and leaves, and lifted some of the colour. Then I splattered white acrylic paint, navy ink and gold watercolour on the flowers and also onto a panel of white cardstock and navy cardstock. I cut a narrow frame from the navy cardstock to go around the white panel.

Mother's Day Video Hop (Dies for all Seasons!)

 

Today, I'm excited to be part of a Mother's Day video hop, with some new crafty friends. 

I used one die set to make cards for all seasons, to show how you can stretch your products to work all year long! 

You can start with my video here, then hop for even more inspiration:

Altenew Classic Imagery Collection Release Blog Hop + Giveaway

 

Good morning! I'm excited to be part of a blog hop for the latest Altenew release (details below).

My cards were made with the new Daisy Bed 3D embossing folder and simple inkblending. I started with an A2 panel of cardstock and ran it through my die cutting machine with the embossing folder. Then I inkblended peach, pink and yellow inks over it.

I trimmed the panel down to make my first card (top) and simply added a popped up sentiment from Bouquet of Love.

But I couldn't bear to throw the rest of the panel away, so I came up with an idea for using that strip with some letters from the Bold Alphabet die set.

Giveaway Prizes

$300 in total prizes! To celebrate this release, Altenew is giving away a $50 gift certificate to 2 lucky winners and a $25 gift certificate to 8 winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog and/or each designer’s blog post on the blog hop list below by 05/24/2021 for a chance to win. 

Altenew will draw 10 random winners from the comments left on each stop of this blog hop and announce the winners on the Altenew Winners Page on 05/26/2021.

Altenew Blog

Nathalie DeSousa

Terri Koszler

Erum Tasneem

Jenny Colacicco

Emily Midgett

LauraJane

Norine Borys

Sandhya Iyer

Lilith Eeckels

Ardyth Percy-Robb

Michelle Short

Bridget Casey

Maryam Perez 

Teresa Litchfield

Carol Hintermeier

Joylita Dsouza

Virginia Lu

Seeka

Nandini Karmarkar

Christine Pennington

Tricia Schaden

Helen Kalb

Beyond Strips - 10 MORE clever ways to use your cardstock scraps! (and great news for Canadian Crafters!)

 

Are you tired of 'stripping'? LOL! In today's video, I'm sharing 10 OTHER ways to use up your cardstock scraps!

And in other news! If you're a Canadian crafter who's sick of waiting forever for goodies to arrive from outside of Canada, and paying taxes at the door, why not check out Ecstasy Crafts. This is the shop where I got the Studio Light triangle die used in the 4th card (see below). 

One Background Stamp -> 5 Amazing Floral Cards

Today I have a new YouTube video showing how I used the Bouquet of Love stamp set from this week's Altenew Whimsical Wonder release, to create 5 DIFFERENT floral cards! (and if you don't have this stamp set, I've got some suggestions for alternatives!)

2 Tips for Getting More from Stencils!

Congratulations to this week's Featured Stamper, Sociology Street!

I chose this card as my inspiration:

LIST: Single flower with stem & leaves, thank you theme, stitching on focal panel, colours (purple, green & silver)

INCLUDE: Single flower, stitching 'frame'

MODIFY: colours (more white, pink vs purple), technique, Mother's Day vs thank you

EXLUDE: tag and twine element, metallic element

SPIN: square card with stitching on cardbase, jewels, ink-blended interior to show through stitching holes

I used my Stencils 360 tool with two little tricks (partial blending and paper movement) to create 2 same-but-different tulip cards (or is it a crocus?) and I have a quick video to show you how I did it.

Happy Mother's Day (and a Sheetload of cards).

Congratulations to this week's Featured Stamper, Teresa (aztk). I chose this card as my inspiration:




I focused on Teresa's:
-colours (blues and yellows)
-butterfly
-gingham
-flowers
-dots

I changed:
-layout
-added pink and green
-added a sentiment

Today I'm also collaborating with Alicia (Call Me Crafty Al) and I was inspired to try her "Sheetload of Cards" idea! This is a monthly "recipe" for making 12 cards with minimal supplies.

 I am in the midst of making a large number of Mother's Day and Thinking of You cards for residents of a nursing home, and thought this would be a great way to make multiples!

Rather than using 12x12 patterned paper, I made my own with a Memory MISTI (the big mama-MISTI!) and some Concord & 9th turnabout stamps.

Alicia also has a video, inspired by my faux inlaid die cut technique, so be sure to check it out!

Here's my video:

More Mother's Day Card Ideas

Today the Ellen Hutson Design Ambassadors have gotten together to give you a ton of inspiration for Mother's Day cards! Be sure to check out the post here - it includes some of my Mother's Day card ideas from  last week, and previous years too (2018 and 2019)!

This is a card I made last year, but never blogged. It uses the Leading Lady, Little Lady and Little Gentleman along with some other stamps.

I don't often create scenes like this, but I do enjoy it from time to time. My intention was to make this look like me and my kids (a few years ago, they are both taller than I am now!)

But I had a hard time with the mom's hair, and it kept getting darker and darker until this is no longer anything like me! Still, I had fun with the girl's skirt and also creating the brick wall!

Be sure to check out the posts from all the Design Ambassadors for lots of inspiration!

Mother's Day Card Ideas with EBE Mondo OMG

Congratulations to this week's Featured Stamper Karen (kaygee47).

I chose this card as my inspiration:



I focused on:
-Mother's Day
-colours
-big letters
-fun fold
-flower embellishment


I changed:
-mother's to mom (fewer panels)
-more white space

I used the new EBE Mondo OMG die to create this card (and two others!) but any alphabet dies would work.

For this one, I used gold embossing powder and embossed Mondo Hydrangea on a panel of watercolour cardstock. I watercoloured the flowers and then cut out the letters, stacked them up on a 5.5x5.5 inch square card. The sentiment comes from That Thing You Did.

Simioar but different. I watercoloured another background, but embossed with white this time. I used it as my background and popped up the yellow letters with a sentiment strip 'woven' into them.

Here's a video:

Amazing Tulip Wreath

Good morning! Today I'm sharing a card that combines the Pretty Pink Posh Tulips set with the Gina K Wreath Builder stencil/template.

I chose the smallest,single tulip and put it into my MISTI, with a square panel of white cardstock. I stamped the tulip then turned my cardstock in the template until I had 8 tulips.

I created two masks for the tulip and then stamped the leaf between the two masked tulips, before moving the masks and stamping again, until the whole panel was filled in.

Then there was a lot of Copic colouring! I chose pinks, corals and soft yellows for the flowers and some yellow-greens for the leaves.

There was a lot of overlapped stamping in the centre, so I chose a simple stitched circle die cut and a small sentiment to finish the card.

Mother's Day Card with new i-crafter Dies

I'm on the i-crafter blog today with this Mother's Day card!

Essentials by Ellen Preview Week Day 2

It's Day 2 of the Essentials by Ellen Preview week and I'm back with another sneak peek at goodies coming in the March 8 release.

Today we're showing off the new Mondo OMG die (I only used the M!) and of course, there's another succulent and some more of those Essential Shapes!

Check out Ellen's blog for a chance to win!

Creating Backgrounds with Small Stamps - FS640

Congratulations to this week's Splitcoaststampers' stamper Cheryl (Motherload). 

Cheryl is a scrapbooker and I chose this layout as my inspiration:

I started by stamping the main image from the new Essentials by Ellen Mondo Wildflowers set and then created a mask.

With the mask in place, I used a dotted stencil to help me position my grid of smaller flowers, stamped in Catherine Pooler Twilight ink. My stencil is so old, I have lost track of who made it, but I've linked a similar one below.

Once I had all the stamping done, I coloured the flowers with Copic markers and highlighted them with Star Dust stickles.

As a finishing touch, I filled in the background flowers' centres with something new to me - Tonic Dream Drops in Indigo Eclipse. This photo does not do them justice - they are iridescent and so shimmery, with just the right amount of dimension.

There is a quick video on my Instagram grid showing how I made this.

I used:

Essentials by Ellen Leading Ladies Instagram Hop

Today, some of the Ellen Hutson Design Ambassadors are having a little Instahop to celebrate our favourite Leading Ladies! Head over to check it out!

Pretty Pink Posh April Release Blog Hop - Day 2

Welcome to Day 2 of the Pretty Pink Posh April Release Blog Hop! (details below)

I created 6 cards using the new Wide Stripes Stencil in different ways to create backgrounds so that I could feature as many of the new products as possible.

Let me know in the comments below which one is your favourite! (and commenting gives you a chance to win, as well!)

Here's a video:

Be sure to hop along to all the stops, and leave a comment for a chance to win!
There are 4 $25 gift certificates up for grabs (two winners each day). Winners will be picked randomly along the blog hop. Comments must be left by 11:59 PM PST on 5/8/2019. Winners will be announced on the PPP blog.

Pretty Pink Posh blog 
Angelica Conrad
Megan Quinn
Ardyth Percy- Robb <<You are here
Sharna Waksmulski
Nicky Meek
Eloise Blue
Jacquie Dean
Alix Davis
Joni Nina Andaya
Mindy Baxter
Rina Galit
Yoonsun Hur