I is for Ink Blending

Hello friends and happy August! Hope you’ve been having a good start to your month so far. I thought it was supposed to be the “lazy days of Summer”, but it sure isn’t feeling that way lately! LOL Now it seems like we’re getting ready for “back to school” time! Where is this year going?!

Just wanted to share a new challenge up today over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog! Our next letter is “I” and the hostess has chosen “I is for Ink Blending” *Please remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter.* I hope you’ll join in the fun with us. Here’s the project I’ve made for this challenge:

I sure love to do some ink blending! I love doing the dark to light with a watermark effect especially for ocean scenes. So I started with a regular blend of blue ink colors starting light at the top and then working my way down to darker blues. I think the colors used were Tumbled Glass, Salty Ocean, Blueprint Sketch and Blue Saphire Distress Oxide inks. I then added the “Ray of Light” stencil (MFT store closed) over and ink blended with the same colors. It was then spritzed with water and dabbed with paper towel for the bubbly look.

BEFORE I started any ink blending at all, I had an “Under the Sea” border die cut (MFT store closed) that I used to create a mask with labeling tape so that I could leave the border at the bottom for sand. After the ink blending was finished, I ink blended some Antique Linen and Frayed Burlap Oxide inks to create the sand. I didn’t worry about it getting into the blue area because the colors are much lighter in tone. After ink blending was done, I cut the panel out with a “Wavy Pierced Rectangle dies” From Whimsy Stamps.

For the rest of the scene, I pulled out these cute ocean critters from Doodlebug called “Sea Life” (purchased from Scrapbook.com) that I stamped, colored with Copics and then fussy cut. Even though I had the coordinating dies (no longer available), I didn’t want the white border to distract from the ocean scene. It did come with an extra “seaweed” die in the set that I just cut out in white cardstock and then ink blended some green colors over it to add to the scene. I also used a white gel pen for highlights and dots in the sand along with a brown marker and glitter gel pen for more details to the sand.

Here’s a closer view of some of the details. I tried tilting it slightly, but it’s hard to capture the sparkle from the sand with the glitter gel pen.

I know this looks really similar to my last post with the mermaid AJ page, but I think I was having some fun with these underwater projects, and I just sat and had a playing session with it. I do hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and will join us in the challenge for some ink blending fun too!

Thanks so much for dropping by today! Have a great weekend!

Challenges:

Four Season – Anything Goes Summer
Critter Crazy – #101 Anything Goes with Featured Critter
Pearly Sparkles – #110 Under the Sea
Sweet Stampin’ – Use a Stencil + stamping
Try it On Tuesday – Summer
Cardz for Galz – #256 Create a Scene
Crafty Animals – #97 Anything Goes with Animal(s)
Allsorts – #829 Animals/Anything Goes (various products mentioned and linked throughout the post)

July AJ Page-Always Make Waves

Hello friends! I hope that you’re staying cool and having a great weekend so far! This is another pre-scheduled post from me again as I’m away for now. So glad you’re here!

Today starts another monthly AJ page with my crafty friend Carol (from Crafty-Stamper) who is collaborating with me to “SMASH OUR STASH”! We get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles along with a prompt for each month. I know she always has great inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” JULY prompt of “ACROSS THE OCEAN”:

At one point I was going through my extremely large stash of card kits and realized how crazy it was that I had SO many mermaid/under the sea type of card kits/stamps, papers, etc. So I didn’t have any problem finding something from my stash for this prompt!

For the Background: I started with my usual size of 8.5″x5.5″ with Bristol Smooth cardstock this time. I wanted to do some ink blending with a large 6″x9″ layered stencil that I got from Trinity Stamps. I’ve used several different ink colors to create the underwater scene with the stencils. I had lots of fun with it. I then used some of the masks in the set and spritzed some water over it for the bubble effects in the “water”. The “light beams” came with the stencil set and I just used white ink for that layer.

I thought since I was using water, that I would watercolor the images from an older mermaid card kit that I had from Brutus Monroe. I die cut those along with the turtle and bubbles. The sentiment came with this set too and I thought it was a wonderful saying, so I white heat embossed it on the page.

I also had an “Under the Sea” die set from My Favorite Things (store closed) that I cut a few pieces from to add to the scene at the bottom. I took a gel pen and markers to add details to some of the ocean floor botanicals/rocks and then a glitter brush pen on the mermaids and glitter glue over the bubbles above the turtle to finish it off.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my Art Journal Page today! Thanks so much for dropping by and spending some time with me! I’ll be back later next week to see what you’re all up to! See you soon!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Botanicals (Hope seaweed counts!)

H is for HOME

Hello friends! This will be a pre-scheduled post as I’m away for a bit, so this is going to be a very short and sweet post from me.

There is a new challenge today over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog! Our next letter is ‘H‘ and the hostess has chosen “H” is for HOME *Remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter* I hope you will find some time to play along! Here’s what I’ve created:

I have pulled out an older card kit from Simon Says Stamp called “Home Sweet Home” and used some of the cloud papers that came in the kit along with the stamp set to make my little square on the left.

This is a mini slimline sized easel calendar. It folds flat for mailing and then sets up with a base at the bottom. (I figured a message could go on the back.) I got the Square Calendar Tear-Offs as well as the Landscape Calendar Table Tent Base from Taylored Expressions. The “slash marks” on the home sweet home square also came from the TE Square Tear Off Calendar Stacklets Die Set which is how I was able to cut out the square to fit onto the design too.

Obviously, I have August 2025, but I also have 2026 calendars that I will have to replace for the new year. I really love making these calendars every year to give as gifts and I thought it would be nice for someone moving into a new home as well.

Thanks so much for dropping in today! I hope you will take a look at what the design team has for inspiration and join in the challenge with us!
I’ll have another scheduled post for tomorrow to share my monthly Art Journal Page.

Summer Days

Hello friends! I hope that you’re staying cool during these Summer days! For the most part, it’s too warm, humid or both outside, so I spend most days in the air condition. Trying to organize things is what I’m attempting, but I end up crafting instead! LOL

I’m stopping by today to share that we have a new challenge over at Sparkles Monthly and we have the theme of “SUMMER DAYS” this month. This seems rather appropriate right now, so I hope you’ll join us. Here’s what I came up with:

I have used these penguins many times and I just love them! This is an older set called “Penguins in Paradise” from My Favorite Things (store closed). I thought they’d be perfect to use for this theme and I wanted to make a scene for them to do all of those fun Summer things that we do!

I started with another My Favorite Things die set called “Beach Scene Starter” that cuts out the sand/water/palm tree/shells/sun/clouds/land and then I used inks to ink blend them in various colors. For the sand, I splattered several different watercolor colors and Copic Opaque White.

After placing my scene together, I stamped, colored (with Copics) and die cut the three penguins and beach ball that I added to my beach scene and popped up with thin foam tape.

I used a white gel pen to add highlights to the images as well as details to the water shore area, coconuts, beach ball and the shells. I also took a glitter brush pen and went over the sun as well as the penguin’s shades for some shimmer. The sentiment is from the Taylored Expressions Mini Strips-Hello Summer that was white heat embossed over dark blue cardstock and cut out with the mini sentiment strips die.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and will join us for the challenge this month! Please be sure to stop by the blog to check out the inspiration from the rest of the team!

Thanks for stopping in and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

Four Seasons – Summer
Love to Craft – #87 Anything Goes
Love to Scrap – #174 Anything Goes
Crafty Animals – #96 Anything Goes + Critter
Creative Moments – #272 Use Die Cut (I used several)
We Love Stamping – Sun/Sea/Sand or Anything Goes (within post details)
A Cut Above – Anything Goes with a Die Cut
Cupcake Inspirations – #622 For the Birds (penguins)

G is for Girlfriend

Hello crafty friends! Happy Friday to you! Hope that you’re having a great Summer and a great start to your July month. We’ve been busy doing lots of things and I got to visit my new grandson again which of course was wonderful!

I’m swinging in today to share a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog! Our next letter is ‘G‘ and the hostess has chosen “G” is for GIRLFRIEND *Remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter* I hope you will find some time to play along! Here’s what I’ve created:

Isn’t this the cutest image! I found this adorable image called “Emmy and Wryn-BFF” from the Tiddlyinks store on Etsy. I have always loved this artist’s images and I hope to be coloring up more of them soon!

I colored the image with Copics and then black heat embossed the sentiment at the bottom and cut out the entire panel with a stitched scallop square die. (P.S. Have you heard that “My Favorite Things” has closed?) Both the sentiment and die came from MFT.

I had a package of these pretty papers from another crafty friend laying around, so I pulled them out to use for this card. I loved the flowers, so I cut a few of them out and popped them up in the corners with foam squares. I added another strip of the papers in the center of the design behind the image panel that was also popped up with foam tape.

I finished with details on the images using a black gel pen for their eyes and a white gel pen for highlights. I added some colored gems over top.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and that you’ll stop on over to the challenge blog to see what the rest of the team has come up with. Thanks so much for dropping in!

Challenges:

Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – #257 Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2527 Anything Goes
Crafts Galore Encore – #137 Anything Goes
Penny’s Paper Crafty – #600 Anything Goes Using Paper

Mix It Up with Mixed Media

Hello friends and a happy July to you! We’re celebrating July 4th Independence Day this weekend and I know it will be hot! I think we’ll be watching fireworks from our TV inside the cool air this year! Hope that whatever you’re doing this weekend that you stay cool and safe while you’re having fun.

Today also brings us to a new challenge over at the Mix It Up Challenge Blog. The challenges always run for 6 weeks so there is plenty of time to enter. The theme given for us this time is: Mixed Media or you can always do the ‘Anything Goes” too. Here’s the card that I came up with for the challenge using the theme:

This was such a fun card to make! I normally do mixed media on my art journal pages or a larger/3D item, but this time I wanted to make a card for this theme. I pulled out some really fun AALL & Create products that I’ve been wanting to use and I thought this would be a good opportunity to try them out! (I don’t know what it is about these wonky characters, but I think the weird eyeballs are so cute!) I’ve used the “Coffee Time” stamp set with the girl, coffee cups and coffee beans at the bottom. I’ve also used a Simon Says Stamp “Sunflower Fields” in the background and the “Sending Sunshine” sentiment.

To create the background: I’ve stamped a very large sunflower image in yellow ink over a white card base. I’ve then used an AALL & Create “coffee stains” stencil with brown ink over top. I then ink blended some more brown inks over the edges of the panel and then splattered it with both brown and white paints. I took a pen and doodled around the edges and then attached it to an A2 top folding brown card base. I had a left over strip from a collection of coffee backgrounds that I’ve made in a previous post you can see HERE and attached that to the bottom where I stamped the coffee beans in brown ink over it. (I thought it would make for a good “grounding” for the coffee girl and cups to stand on.)

I’ve used another AALL & Create product called “Heart Nook” that I die cut some circles from, and I thought looked like coffee stains, in glitter cardstock. I also cut an additional strip of that to go along the bottom strip of the card. I then added the stack of coffee cups, the girl that I colored up with Copics and fussy cut out. I white heat embossed the sentiment, die cut and popped both that along with the girl using foam tape. I also separately cut out her eyeball and popped that up over her for extra dimension.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my coffee mixed media card today! I had fun coloring her up and very happy to use more things from my stash too! Please be sure to pop on over to the Mix It Up Challenge blog to have a look at what the rest of the team created and play along!

Have a wonderful July 4th weekend.

Challenges:

Just Us Girls – #781 Stencil Week (coffee stains stencil)
Crafty Catz – #697 Anything Goes
Creative Fingers – #304 Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2526 – Sunshine (hope sentiment and yellow works!)
Addicted to Stamps & More – Die Cut(s) and/or Stencil(s) – I used both!

June Art Journal Page-Positive Thoughts and Positive News!

Hello friends and welcome to the weekend! June has seemed to go by so very fast and I don’t know how time seems to keep flying by, but I think keeping busy is the best thing to do to stay in a positive mind set. I also have some positive news at the bottom of this post!

Speaking of positive….it’s our monthly AJ page with my crafty friend Carol (from Crafty-Stamper) who is collaborating with me to “SMASH OUR STASH”! We get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles along with a prompt for each month. I know she always has great inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” JUNE prompt of “ABSTRACT FIGURE(S) or SHAPE(S)”:

I didn’t really have a plan in place when starting my page. I happened to remember these fun nesting dies that I had which remind me of a body of water/pond, but I thought they would work great for the “ABSTRACT SHAPE” prompt for this month. I started thinking of a rock or cave with these holes or crevasses where a rainbow light is coming through and a girl is in deep positive thought where butterflies are floating above her.

For the background: I started with a 8.5″x5.5″ watercolor cardstock and the oxide inks in Black Soot, Hickory Smoke and Pumice Stone. I rubbed the ink pads onto a glass surface, sprayed with water and “smooshed” the paper multiple times after drying with a heat tool in a process of about three times. I then stamped the “IMAGINE” definition text all over the background and went around the edges with black ink.

Each die cut shape was cut from a rainbow paper pad that I lined around the edges with a black marker. I black heat embossed the heart and the sentiment above the girl. The girl was cut from a magazine and placed on the largest rainbow shape so that her feet were dangling off. The butterflies were cut from a printed file and attached randomly over the page. Lastly, I covered each butterfly and the center of the heart with a glitter brush pen. You may be able to see some of the shimmer in the photo.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed my AJ page today! Thank you so much for checking out what I’m doing over here! I appreciate your kind thoughts! I’ll be seeing you soon!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – People
Try It On Tuesday – Add Some Text (not one word/greeting)
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge – Anything Goes
Creative Artiste – #116 Anything Goes Mixed Media
Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – No cards

Positive news! My first grandson was born this week! He’s the most precious thing I’ve ever seen! I didn’t want to leave, so I hope I can come back very soon to see him again!❤️

This is me having a lovely conversation with him. LOL

F is for Feather(s)

Hello friends and happy Friday to you! It’s been so crazy warm over my way and I’m hoping this day finds us with a bit of a break in temperatures.

Today starts a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog! Our next letter is F and it was my turn to choose a theme for this letter, so I have chosen “F” is for Feather(s) *Remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter* I hope you will find some time to play along! Here’s what I’ve created:

I thought this would be a fun theme to play around with as you could just add a bird or anything with feathers. I look forward to seeing the projects for this one! I was happy to have this chance to pull out some things in my stash that I hadn’t used yet.

I’ve used the Taylored Expressions “The Thing With Feathers” stamp set and long with the “Wings of Love” stamp set for this card.

I started with a kraft colored cardstock cut with a scallop rectangle die and masked off the edges to ink blend and stamp a smaller feather around the edges with brown ink. I then took the flying birds image from the “Wings of Love” stamp set and stamped it in white ink. I also decided to add some white splatter over that. This panel was then attached to an A2 top folding white card base.

For the large feather at the bottom: I used my VersaMark ink pad to just ink up the edges of the feather, then I silver heat embossed just the edges of the feather. Without removing the feather stamp from my MISTI, I inked up the entire feather with VersaMark ink and then used a white opal embossing powder over the entire image. Since this embossing powder is translucent, the silver edges that I embossed still showed through. I die cut it out with the coordinating die and popped it up with foam tape at the bottom of the card.

The sentiment was stamped with grey ink and cut out with a coordinating die that I attached with thin foam tape at the top of the kraft panel. I added some clear sequins to finish it off.

Thanks so much for stopping in today! I hope you will grab your feather(s) and play along with us! I’ll see you tomorrow for a new Art Journal Page!

Challenges:

Gem of a Craft Challenge – #7 Anything Goes
Ally’s Angels – #95 Anything Goes
The Creative Crafters – #89 Anything Goes
Crafter’s Cafe – #320 Anything Goes optional: masculine
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2525 Anything Goes

Lots of Stamp Joy and Summer School Sessions!

Hello friends! I hope you’ve had a wonderful week and looking forward to a great weekend coming up! We are having a heat advisory for the next several days over my way, so I thought it would be a great idea to stay indoors and craft! I also thought this would be a great time to catch up with some posts sharing some things that I’ve worked on the first part of this year that I hadn’t gotten a chance to share with you.

LONG POST – pull up your chair with your favorite beverage and enjoy!

I thought I’d share the Taylored Expressions Virtual Stamp Joy that I did back in March. I actually spent the weekend attending the classes and creating as I followed along. I managed to get all of the projects done the day after the event was over, but failed to post all of what I had made due to the fact that I was busy helping two different people move…and then life just got really busy after that as well! LOL

*I also have added an additional event from Taylored Expressions this last weekend called “Summer School” which concentrated on foiling techniques. Although I’ve done foiling before, I sure enjoyed seeing new products and learning a few new techniques too! (These four cards are at the end of the gallery photos below)*

If you’re on my website, just click on the images below to enlarge the photos and view any details underneath each one. ENJOY!

Dimension Class-ink blending and splattering die cuts

I always love to learn new things with stamping/crafting along with all of the fun new products that come out too! I know I REALLY don’t need to purchase more things, but when cool stuff comes out, it’s really hard to pass it by! I think doing these classes and joining in on different challenges help me to use these fun things up!

So I hope you’ve enjoyed my post sharing all of the things that I’ve been doing! I will have another post sharing more things that I haven’t shared yet too! In the meantime, I’ve also been working on a scrapbook which has been fun and something that I haven’t done in a really long time! A baby can do that to you! LOL

Thanks so much for stopping in today my friends! I’ll be seeing you soon! Have a great weekend!😊

It’s a Fairytale/Storybook Time at Sparkles Monthly

Hello friends and Happy Father’s Day to all of those in the U.S. that celebrate this day! Our usual is to cook out on the grill and spend time together. So I hope whatever your plans are, you have a great day! (I made a card for hubby, but forgot to take a photo…so I’ll share later.)

I’m stopping by today to share that we have a new challenge over at Sparkles Monthly and we have the theme of “Fairytale/Storybook” this month. Would love to see your take with this theme on your projects, so I hope you’ll join us. Here’s what I came up with:

Since, I had lots of “Winnie the Pooh” on my mind with the baby shower, I thought it would be appropriate to create something using the stash that I already had out and was thinking of when this challenge theme came time to do! I think most of us grew up with this storybook and know who this is! And I had purchased some of these items from Echo Park several months ago, so it was great to be using more of it up!

FRONT of CARD: It doesn’t really look to appealing on the front, but I thought I’d share what I did anyway. I used a stamp set from Echo Park and stamped the tree (and colored it) with the sentiment on the white panel and die cut it out. I also used some of the Winnie the Pooh papers and layered behind it. The green paper was stamped with the sentiment from the stamp set. I added some matching enamel dots all over it.

Since this is a special Fun Fold design, I needed to help it stay closed, so I tied some twine around the right side of the card.

When you open the card, this is what the inside looks like! You see the center fold pops out like a book! So this is called a “Fun Fold Book Card” and the design was cut out with my Cricut machine using the papers and stamps from Echo Park Designs. This way I knew it would all match up on the design. I did stamp the Pooh with balloon and the other side with the sentiment and bee were also stamped. I blended some blue ink around the edges.

I thought this would be such a cute card for a kid!

Thank you so much for stopping in today and I hope you like my fun fold card! Please stop by the challenge blog to see more inspiration and join in to play! See you soon!

Challenges: