Flowers for Sparkles Monthly!

Hello friends! I hope that you’re enjoying this month so far! The weather has really started to warm up now and it’s been nice and sunny to be outside. I have so many projects that I’m working on, so my blog has been a bit neglected lately. I will be able to share with you all of the things that I’ve been working on later…but for now, let’s talk about flowers!

Today starts a new challenge over at Sparkles Monthly and this time it’s my turn to pick a theme and I have chosen “FLOWER(S)” for this month. Flowers seem to work for so many occasions which is why I chose it. Here’s the project that I came up with:

I needed a card for Mother’s Day this last weekend, so I thought I’d pull out my stash of die cut flowers from Taylored Expressions and create several pieces in different colors to place inside my wheel barrow.

I’ve die cut several pieces from the Fresh Cut Flowers die set in pineapple, guava, dried fig, chocolate truffle (centers) and green tea (stems and leaves). I used the same color of ink to sponge a bit of dimension over the centers and then splattered some white Copic ink over just the flowers and the toffee background that was stamped in toffee ink with the Weathered Words Background stamp.

I arranged all of the die cut flowers and leaves behind the Farmhouse Wheelbarrow die cut from chocolate truffle, toffee and woodgrain textured cardstock. I also used the Building Blocks Happy Additions to white heat emboss over a piece of chocolate truffle and cut out with the coordinating die. The toffee background was placed over an A2 sized top folding white card base and then I added a white frame die cut from the A2 Thin Frame Cutting Plate for an “anchor/ground” for the wheelbarrow to sit on. The sentiment greeting was popped up with a foam strip and then I’ve added a few enamel dots including in the center of the wheel.

Thank you so much for stopping in today! Hope you’ve enjoyed my card and that you will stop by the challenge blog to see the rest of the inspiration from the team. I look forward to seeing what floral creations you share in the gallery with us!

Challenges:

Craft Rocket – #125 Flowers
613 Avenue Create – Anything Goes with optional: Floral Delight
Creative Friday – #385 Spring
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2519 Anything goes
Simply Create Too – #209 Anything for a Woman
Little Red Wagon – #807 ‘D’ is for diecut

Weather Related at Sparkles Monthly

Hello friends! When I read about the weather from other areas, it always amazes me how different and even to extremes the weather gets especially during this time of the year! I hear everything from rain, sun, snow, tornadoes, flooding, cold, warm, hot, etc. So where do you find your own weather to be at right now? In my area, we have reached past the snow, but it’s still pretty cool at night…so I know that Spring and the rain is here for us with a bright spot of flowers/sprouts starting to come out in the Midwest U.S.

With this in mind, we have a new challenge over at Sparkles Monthly and we have a very fitting theme of “Weather Related” (rain, wind, sun, etc.) this month. Would love to see lots of different varieties of weather related projects, so I hope you’ll join us. Here’s what I came up with:

I was so happy to finally get a chance to use this adorable set by Lawn Fawn called Beary Rainy Day as I’ve had it for a while, but never used it until now.

I started with a kraft A2 sized top folding card base and stenciled some white clouds over it. I then splattered some navy watercolor paint over it.

While that was drying, I worked on my scene. For the background, I took some blue oxide inks in Blueprint Sketch and Salty Ocean and ink blended them on the stitched die cut panel. I used some water to spritz over it for a watermark look. While that was drying, I took another stitched panel and ink blended some Mowed Lawn and Rustic Wilderness Oxide inks for the grass area and die cut a hill to place at the bottom. Before I attached it, I also die cut a white picket fence to go behind it. I placed this scene onto a piece of navy cardstock and attached to the card base.

To complete the scene, I’ve stamped, colored with Copics and die cut the critters, rain puddles and clouds. I used the coordinating raindrop die with the set and just die cut a few raindrops in silver glitter paper to add to the scene. Lastly, I white heat embossed part of the sentiment on navy cardstock, cut out with a banner die and then just stamped the sentiment at the bottom in navy ink. Also hard to see in the photo, but I’ve added some shimmer to the puddles with a glitter brush pen.

That’s all from me today! Hope you’ll stop by the Sparkles Monthly blog is see what the team has come up with using this theme and join us in the challenge! Thanks so much for stopping in as I love to read your comments!

Challenges:

Craft Rocket – #124 Layer it Up
Addicted to Stamps & More – #490 Die cuts and/or stencils (clouds stenciled and variety of die cuts used)
Penny’s Paper-crafty – #594 Anything Goes Using Paper
Crafty Gals Corner – #266 Fill in the Blank: “Adorable puddle jumping!”
Time Out – #286 Pick 2 from list: I picked Stencil & Water + Spots ( I was inspired to stencil some clouds and add some spots (splatter) to go with the colors/clouds of my scene and I was inspired by the water with the rain, puddles and watermark for ink blending)

Thank you to all the challenge blogs for keeping us all inspired to create and play along with our supplies! I try to play along as much as I can.

Challenge Up Your Life With Splatters

Hello friends and happy April 1st! We’re moving right along into Spring now and it seems that I’m still waiting for the warmer temperatures to come rolling in any time now. Hope that you’re enjoying the season wherever you are.

Today I’m super excited to be joining the “Challenge Up Your Life” challenge blog as a guest designer! I had previously won a Top 3 and a future guest design spot from a past challenge I had entered. So today their new challenge for April is “SPLATTERS“. Hope you can share your splattering makes with us this month! (Check out the challenge blog for details and inspiration!)

#146_Kleckse_CUYL

Here’s the card that I’ve created for this month’s challenge:

I haven’t used my alcohol inks in a while, and I just got some new Black Alcohol ink cardstock to try out. I started by dropping some alcohol ink “mixatives” and added a few other metallic and non-metallic alcohol inks over it. It seemed that the Pearl “mixative” was a good base to layer other colors over top of it. I pushed the colors around a bit with an air blower where I wanted but left some black area in places too. I then took a brush and loaded it with some silver metallic alcohol ink and splattered over the panel. I thought the black made for a really easy galaxy style background with great results.

Once I was finished with the look, I also took some silver foil that picks up places over the “wet looking” areas of the alcohol inks. This is such a shiny and shimmer look!

The stamp I chose to use for the card comes from the Taylored Expressions Gus & Gertie-Best Buds stamp set and dies. I stamped and colored the image on white cardstock, then cut it out with the coordinating die. The die also cuts the stars next to the image, but I just cut this die out again in silver mirror cardstock for just placing the stars where I wanted them on my card. I also took a strip of regular black cardstock and silver heat embossed the sentiment from the stamp set and layered it over more silver mirror cardstock.

The alcohol ink panel as layered over the silver mirror cardstock and attached to an A2 sized top folding black card base. And before popping up the colored image with foam tape, I splattered some yellow over the moon and then once dry I covered it with a glitter brush pen. It’s so hard to capture it all in a photo, but hopefully you can see some of the details if I point it out.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my card today with the “splatters” theme and come join in the challenge with us this month!

Thanks so much for stopping in and enjoy your day!

Challenges:

Krafty Chicks – Anything Goes
Creative Knockouts – Anything Goes
Fab ‘N’ Funky – masculine
Penny’s Paper-Crafty – Anything Goes using paper
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything Goes

Traditional Mermaid Christmas

Hello friends! Although it still feels a bit like summer outside where I’m from with the temps in upper 80s and 90s all week long, I enjoy creating Christmas and snow-themed cards any time of the year! Besides, I know that once Fall hits, it will soon be time for Christmas to come along right behind it! I have used this adorable September release from Whimsy Stamps once again to inspire you with a more traditional Christmas themed colors and design this time:

Vicki-ChristmasMermaid-Sept18

I have used this gorgeous Christmas Mermaid digital stamp by Crissy Armstrong for my card today. She is an amazing image for the coloring enthusiasts for sure!

My last card with this image showed her in more soft pastel tones. (You can see that post by CLICKING HERE if you don’t remember it.) This time I went for a more traditional Christmas color theme. I found some really cool green with white splatter pattern paper to use, so I worked around that by coloring the mermaid outfit in reds with gold trimmings. I took inspiration from the gold ribbon, bells and buckle and added in more elements with some gold on my card as well.

I was almost too scared to try this, but after coloring the image, I took some white Shimmerz paint and a paint brush to add some white splattering effect over top of her to give the appearance of snow and to also coordinate with the pattern paper in the background. I didn’t get too carried away, but just enough and then I cut her out with the Whimsy Stamps Hand Stitched Nested Rectangles die set and took my ink foam blending tool and went around the edges with some Pine Needles distress ink. I then took some gold cord and wrapped it around the two corners and then added a double bow with some red jingle bells on one end. I also glued some cheese cloth on each corner before I added some foam tape behind her to mount her on the card design.

For the card design, the base is a red top folding 5.5″ square design with the green splattered pattern paper over it. I took some chunky glitter and glued it around the edges and then perhaps you remember this “oldie but a goodie” border die from Whimsy Stamps along the edge of the image panel? I cut it out with mirror gold card stock and then wrapped some gold silk ribbon over it and attached to the card. I placed the foam taped image panel over top and then added the finishing touches over the image:

Here’s a closer look at the image where you can see all of the glitter and shimmer on her. Before I splattered it, I covered her outfit with a clear glitter brush pen and went over her gold buckle and the jingle bells with a gold metallic gel pen. I went over the tiny holly berries with a red metallic gel pen. I then took some liquid glue and added some clear glitter to her hat and outfit trimmings along with the tiny creature’s hats.

After she was splattered, I added some gold sequins and then some gold Stickles in the centers of each one.

Those tiny creature faces just make me giggle every time! 🙂

I know she has tons of shimmer and sparkle, but she is a mermaid after all, and I do love adding a little bit of this and that as much as I can! Do you like lots of bling?

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog, I truly appreciate your time! I’ll see you again very soon!

Challenges: