New Beginnings – Stamped Smiles

Hello friends! With January comes a new year and every year people are thinking about everything “NEW” like resolutions, out with old, in with new sort of things. It seems with cold and snow winter outside; I’ve been doing a majority of my time organizing and figuring out what to toss or keep! I’m thinking I need a new “for sale page” here on my blog! I will need to figure that out and update later!

Today brings a new challenge for the start of the year at the Sparkles Monthly Challenge Blog! For the start of the year and this month’s challenge, we have the theme: NEW BEGINNINGS! I received a Lawn Fawn gift last year and this is my first time using it for my card today:

Of course, a baby is a wonderful “new beginning”, and I was inspired to use this darling Lawn Fawn stamp set called Elephant Parade plus the Add-On. I stamped, colored and die cut all of the images to arrange a scene over the arch opening of my card front made with the Lawn Fawn Secret Garden Window die set.

I wanted to keep the colors gender neutral, so I went with mint and yellow type colors. I blended around the inside edge and white heat embossed the sentiment at the bottom. I found a very old scrap of decorative paper and ran a stitched cloud background plate die over it. (I think it’s been retired) This was the background for my window opening. I added foam tape to the back of the mint card front and attached it to the decorative paper. Some of the images were glued directly onto the background and some were popped up with foam tape. I’ve added this panel onto a top folding A2 white card base.

I finished out the design with some clear sparkling sequins filled with Stardust Stickles and a few white and black dots with gel pens.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and have been inspired to come join us this month to enter your creation! I look forward to seeing what you make! Thanks so much for stopping by as I appreciate you taking the time! Have a great day!

CHALLENGES:

Simon Says Stamp – Cute Critters
Critter Crazy – Anything Goes featuring a Critter
Time Out – NEW
CRAFT – NEW
My Time to Craft – New in Your Stash (stamps/dies – first used for this card from gift given October 2023)

Hello friends! Back with you today to share a card I’ve made using the January release stamp set called Early Spring Nest!

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I had so much fun playing with this pretty Spring image and playing with some new embossing powders on this one!

To get the background, I’ve taken a piece of watercolor paper and sprinkled it with some Nuvo Blue Blitz Shimmer Powder and spritzed it with water to also move it around the paper until I got the look I was wanting for it. I set it aside to work on the rest of my card until it was COMPLETELY dry. After it dried, I took my Static Free Bag to rub over the area and prep for heat embossing. I stamped the Crackle Background stamp (Really love the versatility of this image!) with VersaMark and heat set the image with the Robin’s Egg embossing powder. (Sounded like the perfect product to use for my card!) I also used my corner chomper to round the corners on this panel.

For the scallop layer behind this panel as well as the layer behind the sentiment, I took my VersaMark ink pad and smeared on a layer around the edges and heat embossed them with the Coffee embossing powder. I also used this for the sentiment as well as the nest image, so this also works for a nice, detailed embossing powder! I made the fishtail banner layer before I did the embossing with my Tim Holtz 5″ scissors. I took some craft foam and attached the front base panel to the embossed scalloped layer which was mounted onto a white A2 sized top folding card base.

Here’s a closer look at the stamped Crackle background with the Robin’s Egg heat embossing over the watercolor background. I just love the shimmer it has in it! You can also see the Coffee heat embossed layers. I love the pretty Copper sheen it has as well as the dark brown flecks in it! You can also see how well it embossed the fine detailed stamped images too.

There are so many different things going on with the embossing powder on this design that you really need to capture all the different angles throughout the design to see it!

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For the coloring of the image, I just used some Clean Color Real Brush markers for it. I like to heat emboss the images when I do this sort of coloring as it helps to keep the water coloring inside the lines and acts as sort of a “well” so that the colors stay where you want them.

For the eggs inside the nest, I took a VersaMarker pen and colored them in with it. Then I took the same Robin’s Egg embossing powder and heat set the eggs with it. It really creates a fun and unique look with the blue tint and speckle flakes in it, plus it gives it a nice embossed shine for an “egg like” appearance!

After coloring in the image, I used my scissors to fussy cut it out and then added a couple of feathers from my stash and attached this image over the card front panel with some foam tape. I finished off my design by adding a few random drops with some Nuvo Dazzling Blue Glitter Drops.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed my card today and thank you so much for stopping in!

Challenges I’d like to enter: