Berry Sweet - DTGD2017

Are you playing along with the Dare to Get Dirty challenges on SCS this week?  This is one of the cards I made for one of the challenges yesterday.  I colored those strawberries with Copic markers and then tied some twine around the top with a tag.  I can't tell you exactly what the challenge was - that's reserved for the Fan Clubbers who are playing along.  Come join the Fan Club and play with us this week!!

Beautiful Life - DTGD2017

Hi friends!  This week, I'm playing along with all the Dare to Get Dirty challenges over on Splitcoaststampers.  This is the card I made for TexasGrammy's challenge yesterday, and I love how this one turned out.  We can't say what the challenges are - that's reserved just for the Fan Clubbers who are playing along.  So why don't you join the Fan Club over on SCS and come play with us this week??

CAS439 Eclectic Friend

Hi folks! The CAS challenge over on SCS this week is all about friendship. This theme is wide open for all kinds of interpretations, and this is what I came up with. I just got these dies and stamps from Stampin Up, and I really wanted to play with them. To me, this is clean and simple because the majority of this is just die cuts. The only stamping is the sentiment. 

If I were to make this even more CAS, I'd take two of the flowers and one of the leaves away and just have one flower, one leaf sprig, and the sentiment. But I was in the mood to play with these dies, so this is what I came up with. :-)

Want to play along with the CAS439 challenge?  Check it out here and share your artwork with us!

Mermaid Dreams on Oil Pastels

Hi folks!  We are in our hot days of summer here in Texas, and the temperatures are hovering around 100 every day now. I want to dive into the sea like this mermaid from Art Neko and cool off!

For this card, I was playing with some water soluble oil pastels. I scribbled some blue and green pastels onto watercolor paper, and then I dipped my fingers into water and blended the colors together. After the piece dried, I stamped this beautiful mermaid image from Art Neko's Mermaids and Ocean Life stamp set (A198) directly onto the oil pastels. I had never tried stamping on oil pastels before, so I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it worked! :-)

For the blue card base, I used Versamark to stamp the collection of seashells and starfish (also from the Mermaids and Ocean Life stamp set A198) in each of the four corners. This stamp is a perfect fit for stamping onto the corners of your cards. I cut out the mermaid piece with an oval die and matted it with a matching scallop oval. This oval fits beautifully inside the stamped corner frame.

The sentiment is also from the same Mermaids and Ocean Life stamp set A198. I stamped the sentiment onto white cardstock and cut it out with scissors. It is adhered with some foam tape to give the sentiment some dimension.

There are 36 stamps on this Mermaids and Ocean Life sheet A198 from Art Neko. That's a lot of stamps! This set has so many wonderful coordinating stamps all on one sheet for a great price. I love all the fish and the seashells as well as the variety of mermaids on this sheet. The "crab shack" stamp is awesome! I can't wait to use that one! Go check out the stamps at Art Neko by clicking on this link - Mermaids and Ocean Life A198.

Have a great week!

CAS438 Four Botanical Poinsettias

Hello everyone!  This week's CAS challenge is Christmas in July, and I had a great time playing around with different ideas.  I did a series of Four Botanical Poinsettias, all with different degrees of simplicity.  All of these cards use the same poinsettias stamp as well as the sentiment from Botanical Blocks IV (Papertrey Ink).  I've arranged them from the easiest to the most time consuming here:

This one above is the easiest card of the four.  It's just a matter of embossing the poinsettias and the sentiment with white embossing powder and then adhering the pieces to a white card base.

This one was my little experiment to see what this would look like in a monochromatic gray.  I wanted to try something that was not in Christmas colors, and I love how this turned out.  I embossed the poinsettias with silver embossing powder and then I colored in the flowers with a Versamark reinker.  The Versamark darkens the cardstock and it results in a very subtle but powerful coloring.

This card above is the third in my series.  I wanted to try coloring the poinsettias with Copic markers, but I wanted to save a little time by not coloring in the background around the flowers.  So I stamped the poinsettias on Smoky Slate (soft gray) cardstock and colored just the poinsettias and leaves with Copic markers.  I used Liquid Mercury Nuvo drops to fill in all the little dots inside and around the flowers.  The sentiment was embossed with silver embossing powder.  I love the unusual color combo of red, green, white, black, and silver.  It's a fresh new perspective on Christmas.

This last card is the most time consuming of the four.  I stamped the poinsettias onto white cardstock and colored the entire piece with Copic markers.  The background around the flowers is colored with a soft gray (C1) Copic marker.  The little dots inside the flowers and around the outside were covered with Liquid Mercury Nuvo Drops.  I embossed the sentiment with silver embossing powder.  If I had to pick a favorite card today, this card is tied with the monochromatic gray card for first place.  :-)

I hope you've enjoyed my cards today.  Have you started on your Christmas cards for this year??  

CAS437 Sweet Berries

This week's CAS437 challenge is all about summer fruit.  I had fun playing with different color combos for my sweet berries on this card.  I started by sponging some white cardstock with Soft Sky ink, and then I stamped the leaves, berries, and sentiment.  I glued this piece down to a bright Berry Burst card base and then tied some black and white twine around the top of the berries.  

Pull out your fruit stamps and play along with us in the CAS challenge this week!  :-)

Iris Mini Altar

Hi everyone!  I hope you all had a wonderful and safe day celebrating the 4th of July yesterday.  I ordered these really cool mini gatefold chipboard pieces from Art Neko's B-Muse website, and I'm sharing my Iris Mini Altar with you today. These gatefold chipboard blanks are called Mini Altars, and I paired it with an ATC iris stamp from Art Neko. The Mini Altars look like this when you order them from B-Muse:

The fun begins when you start to decorate these! I stamped some soft green paper with the branch from the A151 Japanese Floral 4 sheet from Art Neko. You can see the branch on the left and right sides of the green paper. I sponged some Shabby Shutters and Peeled Paint distress inks along the edges before I adhered it to the inside of the Mini Altar.

The iris ATC stamp from the A292 Flowered ATC's sheet (Art Neko) was stamped with black ink onto some white Bristol cardstock. I colored it with Prismacolor pencils, taking the time to add the special details like the yellow areas and the pinkish hues on each flower. The ATC was cut out and adhered to the center of the Mini Altar.

On the outside of the mini altar, I stamped some soft green paper with the same iris ATC stamp from the A292 Flowered ATC's sheet and adhered them to the two front flaps. I found some purple ribbon that matched my colored flowers and I tied the mini altar closed with the ribbon.

These mini altars are a lot of fun to decorate. Grab some from the B-Muse store and select some stamps or papers from the Art Neko store and enjoy!