backgrounds and die cutting

dragonfly dreams water color

This card made itself. Well, after the black embossing was on there. If you've never worked with water color paper, you need to try it! I just sprayed it down really good and dropped reinker on it where I wanted the color. It bloomed out EXACTLY how it should! I did dab a bit of the excess moisture off and tipped and tilted the card so it would all act like I wanted it too.

If you're unsure how to do this, let me know. I'll personally show you if we live close enough so I can!

dragonflies

Stampin' Up has done it again! Designed the most wonderfully perfectly eye-poppingly delicious stamp and die Dragonfly Dreams bundle. I can't get enough of it and so I keep on and on using these dragonflies On EVERYTHING!! The card (above) has a water color background and if you look closely you can see I used Wink of Stella on the dragonfly as well as the Congrats. (Below) Is an example on a single layer direct-to-paper design with an embossed dragonfly and then masking and sponging.

accordian card

This card is an example of emboss resist. I used many different products on it, mostly Stampin' Up, but also some other random pieces of equipment!

Thank-you friend...

Christmas bells

I'm loving Stampin' Up's new teeny tiny jingle bells!

just a note

my shoulder is yours

I absolutely love that sentiment. This card was a combination of embossing, stamping, sponging, masking, coloring, and anything you can think of! I love using Timeless Textures for the edges and subtle hints of background design.

i'm here for you

I just love this sentiment. It's so caring. So this whole post is full of cards that tell you "I'm here for you!"

Besides challenging myself to use DSP, the following card has the added interest of holes punched in it and butterflies on the INSIDE of the card!

and drink coffee!

I don't know what to say about these cards except I used a mixture of different brands of product on them. There's just something so comforting and earthy about a good cup of coffee and a good coffee card!

all about roses

These cards are all very different from each other, but they have one common element. They were created with the Rose Garden and Rose Wonder stamps and dies bundle. The card above was water colored after the image was embossed in clear on watercolor paper.

 

Above, is another die-cut and water colored rose card. I love how these images lend themselves to simple elegance. Below is a partial die-cut rose. Again, simply elegant.

emboss resist celebrations

At first it may be a tad difficult what these two cards have in common, but I stamped, embossed, and inked both of them at the same time. The balloon card was sponged while the leaf card was "aqua-paintered"! (Don't you love my new word?) And one little tip I TRY to remember when doing cards like these is to take a darker marker (WOW! Rhymes!) and outline one side and underneath each image to create a shadow effect. If it shows up, it's nice to outline the opposite sides and top with white gel pen to create a light effect.

dandelion wishes

If you notice in the Balloon Celebration stamp set, there are two teeny little stamps that you can use to build yourself a dandelion. They've given you a gorgeous example in the catalogue as well. The dandelion on the card above is embossed and then sponged over. I added a sentiment and different designs to finish it off. And then shadowed the edges of the dandelion with Night of Navy.

Dragonfly Birthday

At my Open House last Saturday we started with this card (above). It's simply emboss resist using sponges and different greens and blues meanwhile masking with a few different sizes of circles to create a sort of ripple affect in the water.  Below we stepped up the design by adding Garden Green ferns (from Butterfly Basics---YES!!!) and sponging a bit of pink in the water. I like both. While the cards below are more lush, the top one is soft and sweet. Everyone did a WONDERFUL job of their cards and they each turned out differently, which is what I love about this style of card.
Don't forget to outline the shadowed edges of the wings with a darker shade of turquoise to give your dragonfly a bit of depth.

know what I love?

YOU!!! I embossed the flowers from You've Got This in gold and the sentiment from What I Love in Pool Party. The hearts are punched out of Pool Party and sponged with Espresso. I sponged the edges of the card front.
And that's all, folks!!

starfish emboss resist

Both of these cards use the starfish image from Picture Perfect from the Occasions Catty. My {generic brand} embossing gun chose to quit on me so I used the TOASTER to emboss these cool leeetle starfish! Fortunately my friend Linda had an extra SU gun she sold to me so I was able to emboss again right away! (Thank-you Linda!!)

One tip here: Did you know the new stamp pad inks work to emboss with? They dry a lot quicker than Versamark so you do have to move quickly, but yes, I used the regular Espresso and I-forget-which-tan as my embossing inks on my fishy.

These cards don't differ a lot from each other, just a few elements changed out.

Any of you who want to order now during Sale-a-bration, now's the time! Let me know what I can get for you!!

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.

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?

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!