L is for Love Letter

Happy Friday friends! I hope that you’re having a great week and looking forward to the weekend ahead of us! We’re planning on being outside and have fun with family! It’s still warm, but hopefully we can get away from the 90 degree (F) weather!

Today is a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog! Our next letter is “L”, and our hostess, Veronika, has chosen “L is for LOVE LETTER” (include handwriting & hearts) *Please remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter.* I hope you’ll join in the fun with us. Here’s the project I’ve made for this challenge:

I always think of handwriting as the most sincere form of a love letter for sure, but I do not like my handwriting at all….so I prefer the typewritten style! LOL I thought the Just Write card kit I got from Taylored Expressions would work great for this challenge.

I fell in love with Lori Craig’s card including the colors of it, so I wanted to duplicate it! I didn’t have everything she used in hers, but I like how it turned out! The background was done with a 3D Lots of Love embossing folder over a stamped cork background. I swiped white ink over the popped up hearts to try and bring them out a bit more. The lined notebook paper inside the typewriter came from the TE Love Letters Clear Stamp & Die combo which is also where I got the “XOXO” to stamp on the heart at the top. I also used the hearts from this set to stamp on the notebook paper.

Here’s the inside of my card where I used one of the Just Write-Insiders panel for my card and included the stenciled pen and stamped an “ink spot” all included with the card kit.

I thought this would work for my “handwriting” portion of the challenge. *wink* I could’ve signed it to be completely official, but I don’t know who will be receiving this card right now, but it will be ready to go when the time comes.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and that you will be joining in the challenge with us! Thank you so much for stopping in today! Wishing you a wonderful weekend ahead!

Challenges:

Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2537 Anything Goes
Ally’s Angels – #98 Anything Goes
The Creative Crafters – #92 Anything Goes
Creative Knockouts – #555 Anything Goes

ATCs With Flowers, Rainbows and Stencils…Oh My!

Hey there friends! Hoping you had a wonderful weekend and ready to start a fun week ahead! Although we’ve been having some cool and rainy days this week, I know that some nice warm weather is on it’s way and I’m really looking forward to it and getting outdoors to my flowers!

For today, I have something a bit different that is not a card, but I think a really cool and fun way to experiment with different media and ideas…especially on a smaller “non-intimidatingly” way. I’m talking about those ATCs (Artist Trading Cards for the newbies)! It’s like a “fun size” candy bar in small bite form…these are like the “fun size” of the traditional A2 sized cards! LOL! They’re normally 3 1/2″ x 2 1/2″ which is similar to the size of a business card. They’ve been around for years since I started stamping and newer to me are the round coin ones. (I will attempt those at another time, I’m sure!)

I had a few challenges in mind and found some time yesterday to have a play:

Rainbows seem to be a huge deal right now and I think there is even a special day dedicated to them! I also was wanting to play with my crafty stash.

For the ATC on the left, I used the stencil and some embossing paste over a piece of watercolor paper and set aside to dry. While that was dry, I cleaned off the stencil and used it on another piece of white cardstock and used my distress inks and ink blending tool to create a rainbow background for another ATC (right). I ended up stamping the bicycle over it with black ink and then sprayed the panel with some shimmer spray.

Going back to the dry embossed paste panel, I took some Creamy Aqua Pigments and added rainbow colors at the top and then sprayed them with water and let it drip down. I let the colors run and even left some white on there as you can see above. I let it dry and then splattered some black watered down paint to splatter over it with a paint brush. I then stamped the clouds from the same stamp set, fussy cut them out and popped them over the background.

On both ATCs, I white heat embossed the sentiments over black cardstock and cut them out with my scissors to place over top. For the bicycle ATC, I added some metallic Fibers along with some flowers. Part of the sentiment was popped up on foam tape for both of them. One of the clouds was popped up with foam tape on the left one.

Super fun to play and create with!

I had made one early last month too, but never posted it, so I thought this would help fit it in for today:

Vicki-NeonshoesATC

Not really a “rainbow” theme, but this was sure fun to create and doodle around with!

For this one, I finally got a chance to play with my Neon Aqua Pigments! I used the “smoosh technique” with them for this background and let it dry. Then I used some black embossing paste over the Wallpaper stencil.

I also stamped the shoes and colored those in with the Neon AP and popped it up with foam tape over a another piece of the metallic Fibers like I used on the “bicycle ATC” above. I also took glitter pen to go over the shoes and added a yellow rhinestone to it. From the stamp stamp set, I took the sentiment and stamped it in black ink, fussy cut it out and layered it over some black CS and fussy cut it out leaving a border. Each one glued over the background. I took a black pen and doodled along the edges.

Vicki-NeonshoesATC-neonglow

And of course, when you shut the lights off and turn on your black light, you can REALLY see the fun and funky neon colors glow on it!! Even this photo doesn’t do it justice because it looks so fun in person!

For my ATCs, I’ve been attaching them to Chipboard for sturdiness. I also added the Artist Trading Card Labels for the backs of them.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my ATCs today and gave you a little inspiration to try one out for yourself! But I have to warn you….just like those “fun-sized” candy bars, you can just have one!! LOL!

Thanks for dropping in today friends!! Enjoy your week!

Challenges: (For top ATCs only)

ATC Around the World – Flowers (Bicycle ATC only)
Creative Crafting Uncles – Anything BUT a Card
Creativ Fusion Arts & Crafts – Anything Goes
Happy Little Stampers ATC – Rainbow
Crafty Friends – Flowers (Bicycle ATC only)
{Cupcake Inspirations} – CIC493 “Let’s Roll!” (Bicycle ATC only)
A Bit More Time to Craft – #116 Anything Goes

Sun, Sea or Sand at Cute Card Thursday

It’s that time of the week again, my friends, for another CUTE CARD THURSDAY CHALLENGE! The theme for this week is an appropriate “Sun, Sea or Sand” challenge. As hot as it’s going to be this weekend, I think I’d take the sea waters out of those three choices! 🙂 But since I’m inside the air conditioning, I decided to go ahead and use all three of them for my card today:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Our sponsor for this week is All Dressed Up Stamps. I have chosen to use this fun Summertime digital stamp for my card. I first printed out my image and colored her in with my Copics. I then used the Molotow masking liquid – (Dick Blick was the cheapest found for me in the U.S.) to cover it up (yeah, it gave me a bit of a heart attack, but it worked!) and once it dried, I used several different stencils and distress inks with a blending tool to create the beach scene behind her.

I have used a craft knife to cut a small slit in one of the waves just enough for the beach ball (MFT Penguins in Paradise) to fit inside so that it looks to be floating along the water. I just used my Copic markers to make the dotted lines for the beach sand. The sun (Lawn Fawn Spring Showers dies) was die cut from some glitter paper that I also colored with a yellow Copic marker. The sentiment along the edge is from a Tim Holtz sticker book. The front panel cut from MFT Wonky Stitched dies and mounted on a top folding A2 sized white card base.

I hope you will stop by the Cute Card Thursday challenge and check out the rest of the inspiration from the design team and join along with us this week! Thanks for stopping by and enjoy your day!

These are the challenges I’d like to enter this card for: