free flying...almost

Does anyone know if this technique has a name? When you make something hang in mid-air??!! In a cut-out circle? Well, anyway, that's what happened here on all these cards. The first two were a personal challenge for me to use my circle thinlets card dies. I find them sooooo challenging, but I was happy with what I came up with. Just in time for valentines!

This owl perches on a branch from a different die (I'm sorry I don't remember which one!) but the circle is cut out and that blue/gray you see is actually a poor picture of bashful blue, I believe. I had help from my young friend again in the design of this one!

Sky is the Limit

This card is one I found and my favorite 5-yr-old decided to copy it. Sort of. He actually changed things up a little, like embossing in black instead of cutting the bi-plane out and his sky was done by dipping his aqua painter into reinker puddles!! (Yes, I helped him! But he pretty much designed and colored everything!)

And here's one I embossed in black and brayered a sunset over. It's not a completed card, but the sentiment will be added once I know the occasion it will be used for.

The Open Sea/Botanical

This ship from The Open Sea was stamped and then water colored with my aqua painters. I'm loving the Botanical Blooms from the new Occasions Catalogue, pages 26 & 27. Be sure to get the bundle at a 15% discount and this particular bundle includes the Botanical Gardens DSPaper as well. A really sweet deal to be sure!

Here you might be able to see my favorite Wink of Stella Glitter Brushing again! Simply gorgeous!

watercolor Remarkable You

I told you about Stephanie, my new friend, in my last post. These two cards (above and below) are her creations. She's good for me in this little thing that she confidently creates "simple" gorgeously. I loved watching her work at these. Aren't they lovely?!

At the same time, I made the card below and then on the bottom, you see a close up of Wink of Stella Glitter Brush. I cannot tell you HOW wonderful Stella is! The picture doesn't nearly portray her beauty but it might give a sort of idea of what she does. Oh and one more thing...we used the rotary stamp thing-a-ma-bob for our sentiment as it gave us that perfectly imperfect script.

Just For You/Botanicals and a New Friend!!!

 I cannot DESCRIBE to you how blest I feel that my friend Linda introduced me to Stephanie! I have a leeeeetle feeling that's what Stampin' Up does for us doesn't it? Helps us find new friends and friendships! Anyway, that's Stephanie's card you see up above! She loves embossing and shading and brayering SAME AS ME!!! We had such a fun afternoon creating and talking a mile a minute. I wonder how many topics we covered!

Here are mine. Let's see, how many techniques did we use? Emboss resist. Sponging. Die cutting. Anyway, I can tell you my two absolute favorite SU products right now are two new items found in the Occasions Catalogue. Wink Of Stella Glitter Brush...canNOT be without this one! Check out the photo below. Do you see the gently subtle shimmer on those petals? BeaUtiful! And far easier to use than loose dry glitter and glue. (Page 24 of the Occasions Catalogue)

And I'm completely in love with the Big Shot Die Brush, page 19 of the Occasions Catty. It WORKS, people! It WORKS!!! Even my fave 5-yr-old friend appreciates it!

And I'm soooo enthused about a new friend! (Hi Steph!!!)

double embossed ditches

If my funny road looks a little outa' perspective, rather than studying it too closely, check out my ditches! I LOVE my ditches! Our gorgeous hoar-frosty January weeds have inspired me over and over this year. SOOOO beautiful! What I did was Versamark my various weed images onto my paper, leaving room for that road. I poured gold embossing powder carefully carefully onto only the bottoms of the foliage. Tapped it off and then sprinkled on the white embossing powder. Tapped that off and heat embossed the whole thang. THEN I sponged on the wintry sunrise colors, keeping it foggy and misty like we've seen for days now. Doesn't it look pristine and northern?

Friendly Flowers

On good ol' Pinterest I spotted this pin. It was the inspiration for this card. I used a stem from Wild About Flowers and then for the petals I used the flower builder punch that came out at Christmas.  Just flicked on the ink with sponges for a little color and then assembled my card!

I THINK I'm catching onto SIMPLE! Haha!

rose garden (more sympathy and caring)

I have a difficult time keeping my cards SIMPLE, so lately that's been my on-going challenge: simplify, simplify, simplify. And this Rose Garden stamp set helps me so beautifully. It almost makes itself into a card and you need very little other embellishment. On both of these cards I embossed the rose image in clear and then sponged ink on top. (emboss resist technique, my favorite of all time!) 

Notice the seaweed image from By The Tide. Wow is that ever one versatile stamp. Here it looks like the airy asparagus fern used in bouquets. It also works well to put a crackle effect on, say, a teapot or something similar. An aged look...but that's not what this is about! Ha! Below you see the inside of this card. I just love love love the sentiments on Rose Wonder. So caring.... 

As you can see, I'm replenishing my sympathy card supply! Soon we'll be onto something else. Promise!

Ombre Rose

My friend Jane from the White Orchid sent me the most gorgeous Christmas card in teals and whites. She used this watercolor ombre background and it was so beautiful I decided to try it myself. (Hi Jane!) I'm not certain what method she used for her background, but I used a few drops of three different shades (from light to dark) of pinks and reds and then I used a very very wet aqua painter to paint from light to dark on water color paper. I love how the white rose die-cut pops out on the red background. Below I added some pearls to dress it up (and to cover a glue smudge, but you don't know that! LOL!)

Remarkable You card set

I simply LOVE the images from the Remarkable You set. They color in so beautifully. The background on these cards was done using my brayer and some old "found" textured paper in some old stack somewhere from long ago prehistorically. Well, pre-Stampin' Upically anyway. So no, that design isn't any special technique or stamp. Sorry! I'm missing one of the Remarkable You images since I gave that card away before I got its picture taken.

the perfect blend

Sometimes I don't make sense even to myself! Do you know what I mean? Like WWWAAAAYYY back I got this Perfect Blend stamp set cuz I could NOT be without it. I've made probably five (???) cards total with it. Gulp! BIG gulp! (Of coffee!) So I challenged myself to make at least three more cards with it before I start another project. These are the ones I came up with. Take your pick! My fave is the top one with the middle card coming in second.

I suppose lidded to-go cups don't steam, but this card (above) needed something so I grabbed some ancient pencil crayons and sketched in some heart-y steam. Or steamy hearts. Whatever! And below is a pretty close cousin to the top card, only this one is red. Now place your vote!

I'm serious! I want a comment from SOMEONE!!!!

rose garden (my latest crush!)

Okay! I know I fall in love with every new catalogue that comes out, but surely this one is the best yet! Just LOOK will you? Aren't those rose garden dies THE BEST???!!!  I haven't even used the coordinating Rose Wonder stamp set---yet. But I can't wait. It has such lovely caring sentiments to go along with the images. But about these two cards here: I am so glad I kept my Manhattan Flowers TEF from long ago. It coordinates with these dies as though they were made to go together. Forever....sighhhhh......

I water colored the background by misting the water color paper and then just dabbing on a few drops of reinker with my aqua pen and letting them blend naturally. With the circle dies I cut a large-ish circle into the face paper and embossed it. Then assembled the whole thing. Simple really.

This one's my favorite! I just like the colors better for whatever reason!