Happy New Year! Mixing Up with Mixed Media!

Hello friends and welcome to 2024!🎉 I’m looking forward to a year filled with many happy memories and fun! I’m wishing these things for you as well! So to get the year started, I’m inviting you to a fun challenge to play along with at the Mix It Up Challenge!

The theme is always ANYTHING GOES with an optional theme of MIXED MEDIA! With these challenges, you have plenty of time to enter as they run for 6 weeks! I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

I know that mixed media can seem a bit intimidating, but it’s only using more than 1 extra medium of any kind on your creation. I usually do that anyway! Here’s the card that I came up with for this challenge using the Mixed Media option:

I’m really loving how this turned out! I’ve used another fun card kit from Taylored Expressions with the Snow Crystals card kit. (no longer available)

Background: I started by white heat embossing the Swirling Snow Background Stamp over watercolor cardstock. I used different shades of blue watercolor with a bit of turquoise in there as well. I spritzed it with water to get the “watermark” look and let it dry. I then used some Copic opaque white mixed with water and splattered some over top for another layer of snow. After it was dry, I also filled in the circles with a glitter brush pen.

I die cut the snowflake die in navy and again in white cardstock 3 times. I layered the navy at the bottom over the background. The three snowflakes cut out with white were glued together and then I took 2 layers of sparkle silver embossing powder to heat set. I layered the embossed snowflake slightly tilted from the navy snowflake and attached over top. I also silver embossed the sentiment over a navy strip and added some “dash marks” with a white gel pen before attaching to the background.

Finished off the card by running the edges of the background panel with liquid glue and then attaching some chunky glitter to the edges. I also attached a silver rhinestone in the center of the snowflake. It’s so glittery and shiny in person!

Thanks so much for stopping in today and I hope that you will take the time to play along with us! Be sure to check out the Mix It Up Challenge Blog for the design team inspiration!

Challenges:

Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
Crafting From the Heart – Anything Goes
Allsorts – Cold & Ice
Crafting Happiness – Anything Goes
Gem of a Craft – Anything Goes
Four Seasons – Winter Season

Mixing It Up with a New DT!

Hello friends! Happy November! The time is getting closer and closer for Christmas to arrive and so the Christmas cardmaking ramps up! Have you started on yours or have them done?

I’m very excited to announce that I’ve joined up as design team member over at the MIX IT UP CHALLENGE BLOG! Woot! 🎉 Really happy to be supporting a fellow blog friend Leslie with one of the many challenges she runs! Thanks for having me along! So, I hope you’ll go check it out and play along with us! The challenges run for 6 weeks which is plenty of time to enter and these challenges are always “Anything Goes” with an optional twist involving a technique of some sorts. Sounds fun to me! And I can use any products I like! Count me in!

For the November challenge this month, we have “Anything Goes with optional stamping (use clear or rubber – no digis)” This is my first creation with the team, and I look forward to seeing what you come up with for the challenges too, so I hope you can join!

Of course, I love to stamp! I have SO many and why not use them?! I was lucky enough to have gotten the STAMPtember Trinity Stamps set called: “Sledding Gnomes” (no longer available) and it was so fun to play with for this card. I also decided to make it a slimline card which I haven’t made in quite a while.

For the background: I white heat embossed some snowflakes from the Simon Says Stamp “Frozen Fractals” stamp set (no longer available). Then I took some Oxide Inks in Mermaid Lagoon, Blueprint Sketch and Chipped Sapphire to ink blend over the embossed snowflakes for an embossed resist technique. Lastly, I’ve splattered some Copic Opaque white with water and a fan brush. This panel was cut out from the Trinity Stamps Stitched Card Panels & Window Slimline dies.

I stamped, colored and die cut the characters and cut out some white cardstock using a Lawn Fawn Stitched Hillside Borders die set. I arranged the slopes and tucked in the trees behind each layer and popped up the characters with foam tape. I also white heat embossed the sentiment with red cardstock and die cut it out, which was popped with foam tape.

Here’s a closer look at the coloring: (using Copic markers)

Before attaching the stitched slopes to the bottom of the heat resist snowflake panel, I sprayed some shimmer spray to give it a snow look. I attached this panel to a red piece that was cut from the Trinity Stamps Scalloped Card Panels & Banners Slimline die set. I then layered both of these panels to a white side folding slimline card base measuring 8.5″ x 3.5″.

Lastly, I’ve added some Stickles Stardust glitter to the gnome hat ends and the hat on the reindeer. You can see where I’ve added some white highlights with a gel pen and then I took some gold glitter gems and attached randomly.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my project today and will stop by the Mix It Up challenge blog to check out the rest of the inspiration and play along with us this month! Remember you have 6 weeks!

Thanks for stopping in today!

Challenges:

Crafty Catz – Anything Goes optional: 4-legged critter (reindeer)
Daring Cardmakers – A Bit of Bling (shimmer spray, Stardust Stickles, and gold glitter gems)
Allsorts – Embossing Heat/Dry (heat embossed snowflakes & sentiment)
ABC Christmas – ‘U’ is for “Use it Up” & ‘V’ is for “Vertical” (I made a vertical slimline card and I used up my supplies of sprays, glitters and gems!)

Cute Card Thursday – Anything Goes with Reindeer Farts

LOL! Hey friends! Did I grab your attention with my title today?!

Today starts a brand new challenge over at Cute Card Thursday and it’s an easy ‘ANYTHING GOES!’ Since it’s the first Thursday of the month, we are being sponsored by Whimsy Stamps! Yay! So please be sure to remember to add whatever creation you’re working on over in our gallery this week!

*News update: This will be my last challenge as a design team member for Cute Card Thursday. I have really loved being apart of the team and the wonderful ladies over there for over a year and a half. I wish them all well. I’m sure I’ll be playing along in future challenges of course!*

Here’s the card I made with products from our sponsor:

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BWHAA!! HA! HA! Yep, I’m most positive it’s probably been that cold out over my way! LOL! It’s supposed to get down to the teens next week! Brr!

This hilarious digital image is called Reindeer Farts by Dustin Pike from Whimsy Stamps. It comes with the sentiment which I wouldn’t want it without that! LOL! This image was released back in October, but with all of the Halloween going on, it sort of didn’t get a good “spotlight” on it, so I thought now would be a good time to pull it out and perhaps send it out to my brother for Christmas…which he’ll get a kick out of! 🙂

I started out with a white cardstock panel cut with a stitched rectangle die with the printed out sentiment at the top of it. I pulled out the Whimsy Stamps Snow Flurry clear stamp set and white heat embossed some snowflakes in the background. I ink blended some Distress Oxide Inks over top of them in the colors: Salty Ocean, Wilted Violet, Mermaid Lagoon and Blueprint Sketch. I spritzed some water over it, dapped it with a paper towel and once completely dry, I stamped out some more snowflakes in a few of the Distress Oxide Inks over that to give it a little depth. The ink marks left over the white snowflakes were easily wiped away because the heat embossing resists the inks. I covered this entire panel with a Shimmer Spray. (You can see it in the photo below!)

I layered this piece onto a purple cardstock base and then layered it over a blue piece of cardstock cut from a stitched A2 sized rectangle die which was then mounted over a top folding A2 sized white card base.

I’ve used some White Glitterstock and cut a “snow hill” for the deer with a stitched hillside border die and glued that to cover the entire bottom of the card. I also took another strip of that Glitterstock and used my MS goo border punch to create the small border above the sentiment, which generates a more “cold feeling” to the card.

I’ve printed out the deer image with Copic Blending Card, colored it up with Copics and then fussy cut it out…including the “fart cloud” and popped it up over the snowy hill with some foam tape.

Before attaching it to the glittery snow hill, I took a couple of Copic markers to create a bit of shading for the deer standing on the snow. I also took a white gel pen and added some dot markings on the back of the deer.

You can also see where I’ve added some glossy accents to his eyeballs and I even took some Star dust glitter and added it to the snowflake in the “fart cloud”.

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Well I hope you got a giggle from my card today! LOL! This will be a fun one to send along!

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

Challenges:

Creatalicious – #176 Anything Goes with optional Winter
Sparkles Christmas– Winter Wonderland
A Bit More Time to Craft – Anything Goes
Crafts Galore Encore – Anything Goes
Cute As a Button – Anything Goes with optional twist: Let it Snow!
Cardz 4 Guyz – Christmas Critters
Creative Inspirations – Festive Fun

Embossing for Cute Card Thursday

Hello friends! I hope you’re having a great week so far! Many thanks for the kind thoughts about my post yesterday and the video tutorial. I think I get a bit nervous thinking I’m going to mess up instructions, but perhaps I’ll get the hang of it! 🙂

Today starts a new challenge over at Cute Card Thursday! This week it’s all about “embossing“! Now there are a few different ways to emboss and I happen to love them all! So you could do heat embossing, “dry” embossing with an embossing folder or even maybe do some embossing paste! However you emboss it, we look forward to seeing what you come up with! Here’s the card I made for the challenge:

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TRICK OR TREATS?!! Oh my word now how stinkin’ cute are these penguins?! Don’t they look like they just rang your door bell for Halloween?! LOL! That penguin image that I’ve used here is from Whimsy Stamps called Penguin Trick or Treaters and oh were they fun to color!

I was inspired to create with them for this embossing challenge, so I took a piece of Bristol Smooth Watercolor Paper and stamped the stars from the Whimsy Stamps Basic Christmas Backgrounds clear stamp set with a pigment black ink. I covered it with clear embossing powder and heat set them. Then I went over the stars with some distress inks (Mustard Seed, Carved Pumpkin, Wilted Violet & Blueprint Sketch) and ink foam blending tool. I also spritzed some water over it for the water droplet look.

All of the panels including the card base were cut from the Whimsy Stamps Notched Squares die set. So I took the finished colored panel and attached it over a black die cut panel and then I took a piece of orange cardstock that was die cut and ran an embossing folder over it. I rubbed a white ink pad over it to pop out the details in the embossing and then I mounted it over the die cut black card base.

After coloring the penguins, they were fussy cut out and popped up with foam tape over the colored panel. I had an older Halloween set of dies that I couldn’t part with from Whimsy Stamps and I cut out some bats from black cardstock and attached those to the starry background. I also added some drops with some Tonic Studios Silver Glitter Accents for a bit of sparkle.

Here’s a closer look at these cute little trick-or-treaters and how I’ve colored them up. I have used the following Copic markers to color them with:

Penguin bodies – C8, C3, C1, 0blender, R00, YR27, YR24, Y35, White gel pen
Pumpkin – YR27, YR18, YR14, YR21, R20, YG67, YG63, YG61
Candy Bag – E33, E31, E30, wrote letters with Copic liner
Sheriff Costume – E89, E87, E84, E81, W5, W3, W1, Silver gel pen
Pirate Costume – R39, R37, R35, R32
Witch Costume – V17, V15, V12, YR07, YR04, Silver gel pen

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I think these look like a fun group to go trick-or-treating with, don’t you?! 🙂

I hope you’ve enjoyed my fun Halloween card today and were inspired in some way!

Faux Metal Technique + video

Hello friends!! I’m so excited to share with you this fun technique that’s not new, but a cool look to try with your embossing powders!

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I really love how this one tuned out! I have used the “Faux Metal” technique on my card along with the “emboss resist” technique.

In order to share the steps of this card, I’ve made video so you can see how I incorporated these techniques into my design. CLICK HERE to watch on You Tube or check it out below:

Here’s a closer view of the impressed flower into the embossed panel. It’s fun to run your fingers over the flower. I happened to have found the perfect accent for the center of the flower too! I think it really picks up the pretty colors in the card.

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I hope you’ve enjoyed my card today! Thanks for dropping by!

Challenges I’d like to enter this card for:

Rainbow Card – Passion for Purple
Crafty Friends – Lace/Ribbon

Bubble Bath Beauty

Hello friends! Yes, I’m still here! LOTS of fun stuff to share!

Today, I have a silly kitty card to share with you today:

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Oh my, that face just really cracks me up!! It’s been several years since I have ever had to give a cat a bath, but I believe that’s pretty much how they feel about water in general. I have used this Whimsy Stamps digital image called Bath Cat by Crissy Armstong. (It was previously released as a rubber cling stamp, but now you can also get it in digital format if you prefer that!)

I started out my card with a piece of white cardstock and clear heat embossed several of the solid circle images from the Whimsy Stamps Circles Circles Circles clear stamp set. I then took a few of the distress ink colors and blended them over the heat embossed circles. The ink resisted those and then I spritzed it with some water and dapped it with a paper towel for water droplets. I heat embossed the sentiment with white EP and cut it out in a banner to attach over my background.

The circle inked background was corner chomped on two of the corners and then I placed it over a blue A2 sized top folding card base which I also corner chomped the same two corners on that as well. I then added the image panel and popped it up over some craft foam to attach to the front of the card. I then cut off the edge of the circle with my scissors and lastly added some clear sequins to the design.

Here’s a closer look at the coloring I’ve done on the kitty. I’ve used the following Copics to color him in with:

Kitty – W7, W5, W3, W1, R11, R00
Bathtub – B24, B21
Bubbles – BG000
Duckie – Y17, Y15, Y13

After I cut the image out with a circle die, I sponged around the edges of it with some of the distress ink I used on the background. I used a Wink of Stella glitter pen on some of the bubbles and then used some Nuvo White Blizzard Glitter Drops on the water drops.

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This one gave me a chuckle and sometimes even when you are feeling yucky, you just want someone to tell you that you are beautiful!

Thanks for dropping in today! I’ll see you again soon!

Challenges:

Simply Create Too – Anything Goes (no twist)
Daisy Chain – Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP1918 Anything Goes
Get Creative – Anything Goes (no twist)
Crafty Animals – Anything Goes + animal

Rainbow Shaker Birthday!

Hello friends! Yay! It’s Friday and I thought I’d share this happy shaker card that I made.

Vicki-MFT Birthday Bear Rainbow

I saw over at My Favorite Things “Birthday Project” Challenge was a “rainbow” theme and I thought this would make for a happy and fun birthday card design! So I pulled out the MFT Transparent Triangles Background stamp (now retired) and heat embossed it with white EP over some Bristol Smooth Watercolor paper. I went to work with my rainbow background and sponged several colors of Distress Oxide ink in rainbow form over the heat embossed background for a “resist technique”. I spritzed some water over it and my sprayer went a tad bit “droopy” and I ended up with a weird large droplet pattern, but I decided I wanted to keep it anyway, I liked it.

So to make sure that my shaker balloon was going to line up with my bear, I needed to stamp, color and fussy cut out this bear from the Beary Special Birthday stamp set. I needed to fussy cut it out because the coordinating die cut would also cut out the balloon from the image, and I didn’t want to include it as I was making my own! I’ve also white heat embossed a sentiment from the same stamp set and cut it out with the Essential Fishtail Sentiment Strips. I also took the Mini Balloon Shaker Window & Frame Die-namics to cut out all of the pieces that I needed for the balloon. (I used the fussy cut out bear for placement to see where I needed to die cut a hole in the background for the shaker area.) Before attaching the bear down, I also took some green cardstock and cut out a border with the Grassy Fields Die-namics. I sponged the edges with green ink and took a Copic marker to give a shadow around the bear. So after I placed my “balloon hole” where I needed it on the background, I took the rainbow sequins to place inside the Mini Balloon Shaker Pouches and added a piece of black cardstock for the background, which was placed over an A2 sized white top folding card base.

Here’s a closer look at the bear and how I’ve got him colored in. I forgot that in addition to the rainbow sequins I had, I put some tiny star sequins in there as well. At first, I thought I had gone a bit too dark for coloring the bear, but I like how he blended out and I think he really stands out on the rainbow background and doesn’t get lost with the black accents on the card. I took a white gel pen to his cheeks and added some shimmer to his present with a glitter brush pen.

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Here with the card lying flat, you can better see the shaker bits on the inside of the balloon and how they really stand out against the black balloon background.

I think I got a smile and it was passed around for the shaking.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and I thank you so much for stopping in! Wishing you a very happy and rainbow filled weekend too! 🙂

challenges:

MFT Birthday Project – Rainbow
Creative with Stamps – Birthday
Crafting By Designs – Anything Goes
Little Red Wagon – “Shake It!”
Always Fun – Birthday

Rose Heart Card

Hello friends! I’m back again to share my Rose Heart card! I’m still “in the mood for love”, so here’s what I’ve got for you today:

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I absolutely love this new Rose Heart stamp set! It’s a wonderful layering stamp set, and I can see so many creative possibilities with it! I really hope to get some time to play with it some more!

I thought this stamp set had an elegant Vintage feel to it and I wanted to create with it in that way. There are lots of fun heat embossing, ink blending and layering going on in this design.

Thanks so much for stopping in today! I appreciate your time and comments very much! 🙂

Challenges I’d like to enter my card for:

QKR Stampede – Anything Goes #329
Simply Create Too – Anything Goes/No Twist
Allsorts – Hearts and Flowers
Happy Little Stampers Mixed Media – Layers
Pammies Inky Pinkies (PIP1901) – Anything Goes

Anything Goes for Cute Card Thursday!

Hello there friends! Have you been busy with your Christmas festivities? I am doing a “run-run Rudolph” right now and trying to finish up my Christmas cards let alone some baking, preparing for a Christmas dinner and finish wrapping up presents!! It is the fun of the Holiday Season and I enjoy spending time with my family, so I look forward to seeing them all!

It’s a new challenge today over at Cute Card Thursday! Since it’s that time of year and busy, we made this any easy “ANYTHING GOES” challenge for you!! We are looking forward to seeing what you’re making!

Since I am trying to finish up some Christmas cards, I thought I’d try and work on some doing “mass production” of a design. I only do so many of these before I have to switch things up, but I thought these turned out pretty cute:

Vicki-CCT561-Snowman Joy-mass produce

I have used the My Favorite Things “Filled with Joy” card kit (sold out) to make these plus I have pulled out the MFT “Simply Snowflakes” stamp set (retired) to clear heat emboss the background and then rubbed some Tumbled Glass Distress Oxide ink over it. The panel was cut out with the MFT Die-namics Blueprints 27 and the heat embossed sentiment strip was cut out with the MFT Die-namics Essential Fishtail Sentiment Strips.

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Here you can see how I’ve pieced together the snowman. The die in the card kit cuts out everything including the letters. I’ve cut his top hat with some black felt paper that was also included in the kit and then I decided to cut out the snowman head so that I could cut out those tiny eyes and mouth with the felt paper as well! So, if you happen to get this card from me, please be sure to rub your finger over the felt pieces in his hat and face!! I very carefully and lovingly placed each tiny felt dot in!! 🙂 I think that the blue snowflake background really makes him stand out even more!

On an even closer look at the card, you can see that I’ve added a sequins snowflake to each snowman’s hat and then added some sequins to the card background. I filled each one of these with some silver Stickles. The snowman head was popped up with a foam circle and the rest is just glued down.

Thanks for dropping by and I’ll be back again soon!

Challenges I’d like to enter: