Tag: ink smooshing

A Single Flower at Sparkles Monthly

Hello friends!  Welcome to the start of a new week for mid-September!  I think Summer actually DID come back to us as we’ve set record high heats for this time of the year!  I think I’m ready for those cooler temps to come back! Ugh!  I know it won’t be long now and we can start enjoying trips outdoors as we look forward to picking apples and all Autumn festivities that we do!

Today is time to share a new challenge over at Sparkles Monthly and we have the theme of “USE A SNGLE FLOWER (floral image)”  this month.  Flowers seem to be everyone’s favorite.  Here’s what I came up with: 

Mine is a single sunflower image.  My husband planting them in our backyard this year and they were so pretty!  Of course, I forgot to take a photo of one before they died off.

The items I’ve used came from an older card kit from Simon Says Stamp including the stamp set called Sunflower Fields.  There is a single sunflower image that I thought would be perfect for this challenge, plus I can use more items from my stash!

For the size of the flower image, I wanted it to stand out, so I used a tag and twine from the kit and decided to make this a mini slim card size.

For the background:  I used a piece of watercolor cardstock and gold heat embossed the “Romantic Script” background stamp (retired) from My Favorite Things and then used some oxide inks swiped on glass with spritzed water to make a “smooshed” background.  I also used these same colors to watercolor my flower with. (except the green, I only used that for the flower)  I also used some gold watercolor to splatter over the tag.  I only splattered the tag because I didn’t think it would show very much over the card background.

I cut the smooshed watercolor panel to fit over a kraft side folding mini slimline card base.  I die cut the flower and the sentiment to attach over the tag, added some twine and then used foam tape to pop it up over the ink smooshed background.  Lastly, I’ve added some yellow sequins to finish it off.

I hope you will take some time to pull out a single flower and join us in the challenge this month!  Looking forward to seeing your creations!  Thanks so much for dropping by!

Challenges:

  1. Creative Inspirations – Anything Goes
  2. Ellibelle’s Garden Party – Anything In or From a Garden
  3. Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
  4. Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
  5. Penny’s – Anything Goes Using Paper
  6. Love to Craft – Anything Goes
  7. Crafts Galore Encore – Anything Goes

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:

  1. Just Us Girls – Stencil Week (coffee stains stencil)
  2. Crafty Catz – Anything Goes
  3. Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
  4. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2526 – Sunshine (hope sentiment and yellow works!)
  5. 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:

  1. Art Journal Journey – People
  2. Try It On Tuesday – Add Some Text (not one word/greeting)
  3. Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge – Anything Goes
  4. Creative Artiste – Anything Goes Mixed Media
  5. 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