aquapigments – Stamped Smiles

Conservatory of Quotes + video!

I had SO MUCH FUN with my creation today and I can’t wait to share it with you…

*To check out the full details on how I put together this card and how I created the rainbow background, be sure to check out this video below! (CLICK HERE to view it on You Tube.)

Vicki-Brutus Monroe-ConservatoryofQuotes-JuneGDT

One of my most favorite products is watercolor and all of the really cool effects you can get with them! This is what I have used throughout the card here from the background to coloring the floral image.

Speaking of floral image, isn’t it gorgeous?! It not only has this gorgeous floral image, but it has some really awesome quotes to go with it!

For my card, I first started by masking off an area with some purple tape on some paper that was large enough for my floral image. Then I made the background with some help from a ruler and baby wipes. I used a stitched rectangle die, added the sentiment at the bottom of my rainbow panel and made some splatters. I mounted this piece onto an A2 sized top folding black cardstock.

For the image, I had actually started out doing this card in one direction and then totally went a different way. But the image was stamped with black ink a couple of times over the paper and colored with Aqua Pigments using a waterbrush. I cut an entire image of one and attached it over the rainbow background with liquid glue and then I fussy cut just the flowers and popped them up with foam tape over the full image. I added some of that gorgeous shimmer with the Aqua Pigment and then finished off the design by adding some clear sequins over it.

Vicki-Brutus Monroe-ConservatoryofQuotes-JuneGDT-flat

I hope you’ve enjoyed my card today as I had so much fun making it! I can’t wait to create another project to share with you!

Challenges I’d like to enter this card for:

Stamping Sensations – Show Your True Colors
Get Creative – Anything Goes with optional twist: Favorite color combo
Through the Craft Room Door – Anything Goes
Artistic Inspiration – Anything Goes
Crafting By Designs – Anything Goes
Alphabet Challenge – “F” is for Flowers
Simply Create Too – Anyting Goes with optional twist: Lots of flowers
Rainbow Card Challenge – Neon Rainbow

June 7, 2019August 3, 2021

*Vicki* from Stamped Smiles41 Comments

Cute Card Thursday Has Spring Fever!

Hello friends! Hope you are having a great week so far! It is Thursday already and we are getting closer to the weekend and even closer to the end of March already! WOW!

Since it’s Thursday, it’s time for a new challenge over at Cute Card Thursday! The theme of the challenge this week is “Spring Fever“! I can feel it for sure! Hope you can join us this week with your Spring creations! Here’s what I’ve made for the challenge:

Vicki-CCT574-SpringFever-BM

For this card, I did the “smooshing” technique with a couple of distress inks and the little Aqua Pigment bottle from the kit (see photo) for an added color and shimmer. I set that aside and worked on the images.

Taking a couple of the scene images from the stamp set, I put them together to create this scene over some X-Press It Card and colored everything in with Copics. I then cut it out and sponged along the edge where the grass is and attached it over the smooshed watercolor panel. I took both the bunnies from the set, colored them as well and fussy cut them out and popped up the one in the front with foam tape and glued the one in the back. I cut both of these panels with the MFT Wonky Stitched rectangle die.

I stamped the clouds in the upper portion and colored them with a white gel pen. I then took a sentiment from the same stamp set and heat embossed it with EP and die cut a banner strip. I layered this piece over a piece of black cardstock and then took some of the paper from the kit and layered it behind the black. This is where I took the ribbon and wrapped around the layers and added the bow too. This was all attached to a white A2 top folding card base.

Here’s a closer look at the image panel. You can see the pretty shimmer in the background. I also took some liquid applique and put it on the bunny tails so that when I heat set them, they puffed up. Always hard to photograph, but I’ve added some shimmer to the carrots with a clear glitter brush pen and colored the shovel parts with a silver gel pen. Lastly, I’ve attached some sequins from the kit and filled the centers with some Nuvo White Blizzard Crystal Drops.

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From a different angle you may be able to see more of the shimmer on the card. I love how it turned out and it certainly has me getting that “Spring Fever” where I can’t wait to go outside!! How about you? What do you look foward to in the Spring?

Please HOP on over to the Cute Card Thursday blog and take a look at the rest of the inspiration from the design team and play along with us this week! Can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Thanks so much for dropping in today my friends!! Have a wonderful day and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges I’d like to enter my card for:

Alphabet Challenge – ‘Z’ is for Zesty Colors (I’ve used Squeezed Lemonade and Spiced Marmalade distress inks for background)
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies (PIP1911) – Anything Goes
Allsorts – Favorite image, stamp or die (I love using stamps and coloring them!)

March 21, 2019August 3, 2021

*Vicki* from Stamped Smiles26 Comments

Whimsy Stamps St. Patrick’s Day Celebrations Week!

Hello friends!! I’m so happy that we are into March as I hope to be feeling warmer temps and “seeing the green” very shortly over my way! I’m more than ready for that!

In the meantime, how about we celebrate with some inspiration and perhaps a fun event you might like to be apart of?! Whimsy Stamps is having this fun week of St. Patrick’s Day Celebrations over in their Facebook Group – Check it out HERE!!

Vicki-WSPatricks Day Celebrations

I have made this super fun (mostly green) card especially for this fun event with the really adorable Little Leprechaun digital stamp by Crissy Armstrong. I thought he was so cute sitting atop his pot of gold with his new winged friend there! He was so fun to color up for this card! (See the Copic list below!)

For the card, I started out with some watercolor paper and I’ve used some Aquapigments (liquid watercolor from Brutus Monroe) and some extra water for the background of my card, then I cut it out with the Whimsy Stamps Hand Stitched Nested Rectangle Dies. I also used this to cut out the leprechaun image too. I’ve used some gold mirror cardstock to mat a layer of it behind the image panel.

I thought it would be fun to add a rainbow behind the image panel, so I took the WS Kinetic Curved Hills die set and cut strips with the straight curve die in the colors of the rainbow and added the strips over the background. Then I attached the layered image panel and took the WS No-See All Seasons Tree die set to cut some grass and mushrooms to attach at the bottom of the card. I used a white gel pen to color the spots on the tops of the mushrooms. I also sponged some ink over all the pieces. One of the sections of grass was popped up with foam tape. Lastly I took an older sentiment from Whimsy Stamps and made a banner that was popped up with foam tape over the design. I then mounted the entire card panel over an A2 top folding white card base.

Here you can see a close-up view of the coloring. I have used the following Copics to color in the image with:

pot, hat band, stockings, coat trims & dragonfly body: C8, C5, C3
Leprechaun outfit: C09, C07, G05, G03, Y11, Y13
Leprechaun gold trim and coins: Y17, Y15 (layered over with gold gel pen)
hair, skin, dragonfly wings: E09, E23, E21, E00, E000, Y11, R20, R00
clover on hat: YG97, YG95
outline of image and “dots” : C3, C1, C0, Y11, gold gel pen

You can also see the rainbow has some shimmer on it. This is where I took a Spectrum Noir clear glitter brush pen to go over it. You can also see a bit of shimmer from the Aquapigments in the background…they’re really stunning and I’ll be using them again in the future, so be sure to check back!! 🙂

Vicki-WSPatricks Day Celebrations-flat

I wanted to bring out some more of that gold with the mirror layer behind the leprechaun, so I brought some gold sequins into the layout and filled them with some gold Stickles. When you hold this card up to the light, the whole thing really shimmers and sparkles!! I loved how it turned out! I hope you’ve enjoyed it too!

Thanks so much for dropping in today and I sure hope that you will be joining with us over in the Whimsy Stamps Facebook Group for the St. Patrick’s Day Celebrations this week!! Would love to see YOUR mostly green creations too!! 🙂 Don’t forget there will be prizes, inspiration and fun!! Go check it out!

Here’s the Whimsy Stamps products used on my card today:

Challenges I’d like to enter this card for:

Double Trouble – challenge #23 – “Thing 1“: The Wearin’ O’ the Green “Thing 2“: Collaboration with Heart 2 Heart Challenge (entered below!) “Thing 3“: Include a golden touch (used gold mirror cardstock and sequins filled with gold Stickles!)
Heart 2 Heart Challenge – Greens, Rainbows & Pots of Gold (3 part challenge)
Daisy Chain – Spring is in the Air!
Creative Inspirations – Spring Greens
Mod Squad – Green, Green Everywhere
Crafting By Designs – Anything Goes
Three Amigos Blog Hop Challenges – Rainbow (edited to add)

March 12, 2019March 13, 2019

*Vicki* from Stamped Smiles26 Comments

Late Valentine Share and Looking Into Future With More Calendar Months!

Hello friends! (Long post with lots of photos!!)

I wanted to share the Valentine card I made for my hubby on Valentine’s Day yesterday, but I couldn’t share it on my blog until after he got it because he can be known to be a “stalker” on my blog to see what I’m up to!! LOL!

I’ve colored up these “wasps” with Copics and for the wings and hearts there is a bit of shimmer on them as you can see in the photo. For that I have used the Aqua Pigments Valentine Collection plus the Aqua Pigment Pearl for the wings. I heat embossed the sentiment from the stamp set with EP and I cut the banner myself with scissors and mounted it over the card with the Foam Tape. The little wooden Convo heart accent was added too. Lastly, I took some Nuvo White Crystal Drops and added a few dots here and there around the hearts.

I’ve cut the “wasps” out with a stitched circle die and mounted it over some cardstock from the kit that was cut with a scallop circle die.

So for the background of my card, as I had mentioned above, I used the stencil in the background which is a huge heart with several hearts inside of it. I took some Ink and sponged it over my white card front background. I was able to take some Nuvo Moonstone Glitter Paste and go over it to add sparkly dimension to it! LOVE how it turned out! I stamped a couple more hearts in the bottom corner and colored them the same as the hearts with the “wasps” using the same Aqua Pigments collection. I also added more dots with the Nuvo White Crystal Drops. I layered this onto a piece of red cardstock (from the box) and cut it out with a scallop rectangle die and then mounted this entire design onto an A2 sized top folding white card base. The envelope underneath was used to house the card in and I embellished it with some heart glitter stickers that was included in the box as well.

Challenges I’d like to enter this above card for:

Crazy 4 Challenges (C4C470) – Valentine’s Day Card
Crafty Cardmakers – Love, Love, Love
Always Fun – Love/Valentines
Tuesday Throwdown – Falling Hearts
Try it On Tuesday – Romance
Crafting By Designs – Love is in the Air
Crafty Gals Corner – Love is in the Air (Add a Heart)
Creative Knockouts – Love is in the Air

Now if you remember this post I had a few weeks ago where I had started (late of course) making up my calendar pages for 2019 to put in my stamp room, I needed to make up a couple more of them as the time keeps on ticking…..

LOL! These cute Calendar Grumplings from Taylored Expressions so crack me up! 🙂

Oh I can’t believe we are getting ready to look into the month of March soon! I think after having so much cold, ice and snow, I’m about ready to see some pretty flowers in my back yard! Yay!

So here’s my March calendar and like the entire calendar card set, I’ve used the Taylor Expressions pre-made 3×4 Calendar set for 2019. I’ve cut down this panel very slightly so that I could mat a black piece of cardstock behind it.

For the image area, I’ve used a rainbow die from Lawn Fawn and cut it out in several different colors to create rainbow strips which I’ve added to the backside of the black scallop frame from the TE Build A Scene – Calendar 2 die set. I’ve also cut out a strip of grass from the Build A Scene – Calendar die set. The sentiment (from the same stamp set) was stamped with black pigment ink and clear heat embossed over a strip of vellum which I cut into a banner with scissors and then attached it to the corner of the black frame.

Here’s a closer view of the image panel. I colored the image with Copic markers and then cut it out with the coordinating TE Calendar Grumplings die set. I’ve also added some Nuvo White Blizzard Glitter Drops over the clover.

And here’s my April Calendar card using the same stamp set, coordinating dies and 2019 pre-printed calendar cards. I slightly cut the edges to mat the blue cardstock behind it as well. I’ve used this same color of cardstock to cut the frame from the TE Build A Scene – Calendar Dies. I stamped the sentiment onto a strip of white cardstock and made a banner with my scissors and attached it behind the frame on the top left side. (I’ve also used this same die set to cut a couple of clouds and sponged some gray ink at the bottom of each one.

For the bottom of the frame, I took a piece of vellum and cut out that piece from the Build A Scene – Calendar 2 dies. I took a glitter brush pen to add some sparkle to this piece of vellum so it make it look like a “rain puddle” he’s standing in.

For this elephant image, I also colored him up with Copic markers and cut him out with the coordinating dies. I attached him along with the clouds over the panel where I wanted them to be. I cut out some “rain drops” with vellum, but ended up not being able to see them very well, so I took the Nuvo White Blizzard Glitter Drops and went over them and then created more “rain drops” with it….I ended up liking that effect better, but I had already attached the vellum and just decided to leave it and go over them. LOL!

There you go, that just tells you that I’m either getting old and my sight is failing me or I just have been continuously crafting until I’m blinding myself!! ha!

I hope you’ve enjoyed my crafty makes today and I will be back again tomorrow to share a special post with you for a VERY special cause and I hope you can join me to share in this event!! So please be sure to come back tomorrow!

Have a great Friday evening and thanks for dropping by!