I ate Santa’s cookies {Streamside Studios}

Hi, crafty friends. I’m back with another super simple card. This time it’s an adorable mouse from the Merry Christmouse digi stamp set from Streamside Studios, and he’s gotten hold of Santa’s cookies.

I colored up the image yesterday, actually, while watching Tim Holtz’ live on Instagram. Once the coloring was complete, I used the largest of the dies in the Wonky Stitched Rectangle STAX die set from My Favorite Things to give it a nice faux stitch edge.

I adhered my colored and die cut panel to a quarter piece of Classic Kraft cardstock from Papertrey Ink, then adhered it all to a top fold note card I created from white cardstock, also from Papertrey Ink.

I thought the sentiment was perfect for this little image, and decided to print it in brown onto Classic Kraft cardstock. I then used a 1″ circle punch from EK Success to cut it, then added it to the card using foam tape for a little bit of dimension.

I kept the card very simple and decided to only add a few sequins. I love the sequin mixes from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards and use them very often on my cards. These particular ones are from the White Orchid sequin mix.

A little bit of a side view shows the dimension and those sequins a little bit better.

Not a lot of Copics used for this card, this came together really quickly.

Alex Syberia Designs Kickstarter Campaign | Blog Hop 1 & Giveaway

The moment has arrived!! Alex Syberia Designs Kickstarter Campaign is live!
Today, we are celebrating the launch of Alex Syberia Designs’ very first collection of physical products through their Kickstarter Campaign! With clear stamps, dies and stencils, there’s something for everyone to love!
To have a look at all of the designs in detail (including videos!), the exclusive offers they have for you, and see how you can support them, make sure you check their Kickstarter Campaign Page.
 
 
 
Their Kickstarter Campaign, full of incredible discounts for you, will run from the 15th September to the 16th October 2022.

This great milestone called for some big celebrations! Throughout the duration of the Kickstarter Campaign, Alex Syberia Designs will be hosting 4 hops:

  • 15 September 2022 – Hop 1: Blog hop
  • 23 September 2022 – Hop 2: Instagram hop
  • 5 October 2022 – Hop 3: Blog hop
  • 13 October 2022 – Hop 4: Instagram hop

GIVEAWAY PRIZES | OVER £1000/$1200 IN TOTAL

Alex Syberia Designs is giving away some fantastic prizes; their full September Release and two of their gorgeous Floral Bundle or Critter Bundle to choose from. There are also amazing companies and crafty friends who are celebrating with us. Here’s the complete list of awesome prizes:

Check the Kickstarter Campaign for more info

That’s a total of 15 prizes for 15 lucky winners! To be in with a chance to win one of these amazing prizes all you have to do is play along with each of the four hops! Alex Syberia Designs will draw winners from those entrants that have played along the hops by 16th October 2022. 

Our first hop is a blog hop and it couldn’t be easier to enter. All you have to do is leave a comment on this blog post as well as those of the other amazing designers in this hop. You can see the full list, with links to each blog, below.

Winners will be announced on the Alex Syberia Designs blog on the 23rd October 2022.

BLOG HOP 1 | DESIGNERS LIST

Below is the complete list of the super talented designers who are sharing their creations with us today:

I created a simple, colorful birthday card using the Birthday Sentiments stamp set.

I stamped the word happy repeatedly in a column on a piece of X-Press It blending card, stamped birthday close to the bottom and colored in all the individual happy words using Copics.

I trimmed my panel down significantly, before adding plenty of foam tape to the back of it and mounting it to a card base I created from Soft Stone cardstock from Papertrey Ink.

I wanted to add even more dimension by having one of the happy words popped up, but the letters are so narrow, they were too tricky to put foam tape on the back of. I decided to add dimension in another way by covering the green letters with Nuvo Jewel Drops in the color Key Lime. It makes the happy slightly raised and also gives it some shine.

Clean, simple, colorful – what more could you want from a card?

Lots of Copics used for this one.

Have fun hopping along, there are some amazing cards made using the stamps, dies and stencils in this release.

Get Cracking on Christmas – September

Hi, crafty friends. Today’s the third Thursday of the month. Kind of hard to believe – true, nonetheless. It’s what you get when the month starts on a Thursday, and it also means it’s time to get cracking on Christmas. Just over 3 months to go, it really is time to get started on Christmas cards if you haven’t already. At the very least, it’s time to start thinking about it.

I’ve created a very simple card this time, featuring this cute little car from the new Snowglobes stamp set from Lili of the Valley, which came out earlier this week. The stamp set includes a snowglobe, six different scenes to put inside and a few sentiments. I actually omitted the snow globe entirely for this card, I thought the car to go inside worked well on its own and decided to go for a no line version.

I did some simple no line coloring of the image. I hadn’t done no line in a while when I created this, so opting for this tiny image was perhaps not the most brilliant idea ever. It’s kind of what I do, though, I jump in. I used a grey Copic to give the illusion of someone sitting in the car, used a couple of blues for some simple shading near the tires and kept everything very simple.

Using four different shades of blue ink (Distress Inks in the colors Chipped Sapphire, Faded Jeans and Stormy Sky, in addition to Iceberg ink from Altenew), I softly ink blended an ombre sky before sprinkling on Chunky White embossing enamel for a snowy effect that I love having on my cards. I heated the panel from the back, melting the granules and adhered the panel onto a top fold card base I created from white cardstock from Papertrey Ink.

Using the sentiment die from The Penguin’s Waddle die set from Mama Elephant, I created a chunky sentiment by adding several die cuts together for a stacked, dimensional look. I adhered it to the top center of my card and finished it off by placing a few snowdrift sprinkles from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards near the car.

I love a dimensional die cut sentiment, it kind of says I mean business and adds so much to a simple card!

Simple color palette for this one. It’s a simple card with a tiny image, so it’s kind of a given.

Let it snow {Mo’s Digital Pencil}

Hi, crafty friends. I have a super simple card to share with you today. I feel like I say that pretty often, but this IS simple. This is one of the penguin chicks from the 2 Penguin Chicks digi stamp set from Mo’s Digital Pencil. The chicks come with scarves, and this particular penguin comes with ear muffs. The scarf and ear muffs are separate from the penguin, so you can choose to add them or leave them off, which is what I did here. The stamp set also comes in a merged version, where the scarf and ear muffs aren’t separate from the rest. I prefer having the option, so I always choose the separated versions of Mo’s digis that come like this.

I colored the penguin very simply with my Copics, sprinkled on chunky white embossing enamel to my panel and added it to a top fold note card I created from Blue Breeze cardstock from My Favorite Things. I then die cut the Let it snow sentiment using a die from Mama Elephant. I die cut three layers of the same blue color cardstock and adhered them for a stacked look in the top center of the card before finishing off with a few snowdrift sprinkles from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards.

Very simple color palette for this one.

Boo! {Streamside Studios}

Hi, crafty friends. I have a fun Halloween card to share today featuring the Bewitching mice digi stamp set from Streamside Studios. This set was actually released last year, and it’s full of images to create a cute Halloween scene.

This set comes with sooo many images, and I’ve actually used 11 different ones for this card. I added the lines for the shelf with a black pen, but everything else in the scene comes in the one stamp set.

I’m known on the design team for occasionally printing my images very small. This time I might have set a new record, the mouse and the eyeballs in this scene were so small, they were tricky to color, but I really wanted them this size to fit the scene and the card design.

Once I finished the coloring, I trimmed the panel down to 3 1/4 x 4 1/2″, and put it aside while I worked on the rest of the card.

I created a card base from Cement Gray cardstock from My Favorite Things, added three 1/4″ strips of cardstock in colors that matched the scene (Royal Velvet from Papertrey Ink, Orange Zest from Papertrey Ink, Sour Apple from My Favorite Things), before I mounted the scene on top using plenty of foam tape.

I stamped and white heat embossed the sentiment from the Itty Bitty Boos stamp set from My Favorite Things, added a few more layers of cardstock behind it for stability and dimension and finished off the card with a trio of acetate ghosts from the Candy Corn mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards.

Lots of Copics for this little scene.

Merry Christmas {Lili of the Valley}

Hi, crafty friends. The new release from Lili of the Valley is just around the corner, and today I’ve played with another stamp set from the release. Last week I used the set with the wreath and the critters for this card, this week, I’m shaking things up with a snow globe.

As soon as I saw this stamp set, I knew these snow globes would make the perfect shaker cards. The stamp set comes with the snow globe and six different scenes you can stamp inside. I, of course, opted for the penguin, but there’s also a snowman, a car with a tree on the roof, a house, a tree with presents and a village, as well as a few sentiments.

I stamped and colored the empty snow globe on a quarter sheet of X-Press It blending card. I stamped the penguin on a separate piece of blending card and colored that for the inside of my snow globe. I glued a few Kort & Godt pearls around the penguin and put him aside while I worked on the rest of the card.

I cut the center out of the snow globe and adhered a piece of acetate to the back of the white cardstock, before adding foam tape on the back of the shaker area, making sure not to leave any gaps. With glitter inside the shaker window, you don’t want it to escape.

I put a mix of clear Distress glitter from Ranger and some micro beads inside the shaker area, before adding my colored penguin to the exposed adhesive of the foam tape to close the shaker.

I initially put too much inside (I always seem to put too much inside) and had to pour some out to get the perfect amount. I then adhered my popped up snow globe to a card base I created from Enchanted Evening cardstock from Papertrey Ink. I used the merry script die from Mama Elephant to cut the word merry three times from Blue Breeze cardstock from My Favorite Things, stacking the die cuts for a dimensional look. Near the bottom of the letters I softly ink blended a bit of Blueberry Sky ink from Papertrey Ink to add a little bit of a gradient. I stamped the word Christmas from the Snow Cute stamp set onto a separate piece of Blue Breeze cardstock using Blueberry Sky ink once again. I put a couple of additional layers of cardstock behind it for dimension and adhered it below the die cut word and finished the card with a few snowdrift sprinkles from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards.

This is a fairly simple looking card, but it’s got tons of dimension and a shaker card is always fun, right?

Not a whole lot of Copics for this one. I did also use B90, which is a color I made myself using an empty marker, some B91 refill and blender refill.

Hugs {Lee Holland Designs}

Hi, crafty friends! I have a super clean and simple card to share today, featuring the Polar bear and penguin image from Lee Holland Designs. The coloring took a while, but the rest of the card only took a few minutes.

I printed the image with a 10% opacity onto X-Press It blending card before coloring. Whenever I want to color things that are supposed to look close to white (ice, snow, polar bears +++), I prefer doing a no line version. To me, there’s something very distracting about black lines on an image that’s supposed to look white, so I prefer the softer no line version. I colored the image with Copics, starting with the sky, then ocean, ice floe, polar bear and finally the penguin and his little scarf. I prefer doing the black towards the end, it’s just good practice to avoid getting it into nearby areas where you don’t want it.

Once I finished the coloring, I die cut the panel using the second largest die in the A2 Stitched Rectangles STAX 1 set from My Favorite Things, before mounting it on foam tape onto a white card base I created from white cardstock from Papertrey Ink. I die cut the word klem (hug) twice from white cardstock using a die from Kort & Godt. It’s actually a Christmas die that says juleklem (Christmas hug), but by using only the latter part of the word, I have a completely different use for the die, which I love. That’s the whole card, I decided not to add any embellishments, I wanted to keep the focus on the image.

Loooots of Copics for this deceptively simple scene.

Merry Christmas {Purple Onion Designs}

Hi, crafty friends! Yes, I’m aware that we’ve still got three and a half months until Christmas, but I love creating Christmas cards and just can’t stop.

Old Betsy from Purple Onion Designs is such a great image. I love this pick up truck with the bear inside waving hello through the window. I’ve used it before on this card, which also featured lots of other images. This time, though, I only focused on this one image, and only used the front section of it too.

Using the Itsy Bitsy Polka Dot Backdrop die from Lawn Fawn, I die cut a panel of white cardstock from Papertrey Ink to add a little bit of texture to the front of my card. I adhered it to a quarter panel of Blue Breeze cardstock from My Favorite Things, before using the Selfie Square die, also from My Favorite Things, to die cut a window in the top center.

I put foam tape on the back of my polka dot panel and adhered it to my colored piece, making sure to line up the image so it would show trough the window the way I wanted it to. I then grabbed a quarter panel of Jalapeño Popper cardstock from My Favorite Things and used my G99 Copic marker and scribbled it close to the edge of the green cardstock to make the color match my car a little bit better. Green cardstock is tricky, and I don’t often find the right kind of green that I want for my projects. This was an easy hack, but if anyone out there has a suggestion for a green cardstock that is close in color to G99 (or G94), please let me know.

I adhered my improved green cardstock to an A2 top fold white note card and mounted the polka dot piece with the colored window using foam tape – lots of it. I then used the same Blue Breeze cardstock that I used previously to cut the word merry three times using the Merry Script die from Mama Elephant. I love their script dies! On the top layer I spritzed sheer shimmer craft spray from Imagine for a bit of sparkle to the letters. Unfortunately, details like that are tricky to photograph, but it’s definitely noticeable in real life, trust me 🙂

Onto a leftover scrap of X-Press It blending card, I scribbled an even layer of G99 to create a dark green cardstock that would match my colored image. Onto it, I white heat embossed the word Christmas from the Holiday Messages Sentiment Set from Purple Onion Designs. I love the classy script die cut with the more playful block lettering of the heat embossed word. I added a couple of cardstock strips behind my sentiment strip for dimension and finished the card with a few sequins from the White Orchid Sequin mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards.

I love my Copics and used quite a few for this rather simple image.

Treat yourself {Mo’s Digital Pencil}

Hi, crafty friends. I’m sharing another birthday card today. Somehow I seem to be able to create birthday cards from pretty much every image I color. Birthday cards and holiday cards are my favorite cards to make, though, so I really don’t mind.

I colored up The Sweetest from Mo Manning for this card. It’s one of her newer images, and it’s so cool. I went for a bit of an unusual color combination for me, starting with the BG90s which were already out on my desk after my previous project. Less markers to clean once done, that way – I always try to clean my markers after each image.

Once the coloring was complete, I used the largest die in the A2 Double Stitched Rectangles STAX die set from My Favorite Things to turn my panel into a rectangle with a nice faux stitch around the edges. I then added a thick layer of Glossy Accents to the heart and let that dry.

Using the Geometric Landscape stencil from Altenew, I ink blended a bit of yellow in the top right corner using Distress Inks in the colors Mustard Seed and Squeezed Lemonade, letting the lighter shade of the two fade to white. I then adhered my panel onto a top fold card base I created from Stormy Sea cardstock from Papertrey Ink.

I die cut the word wishes four times from the same color cardstock using a die from Mama Elephant. I stacked the die cuts for a dimensional look and adhered them on top of my ink blended section.

Using two stamp sets from My Favorite Things (Bitty Birthday Wishes and Itty Bitty Gifting), I heat embossed sub sentiments onto strips of Canyon Clay cardstock from Papertrey Ink. I die cut those using the Itty Bitty Strips dies, also from My Favorite Things, before finishing off the card with a few yellow enamel dots from the Pocketful of Sunshine pack of enamel dots from Altenew.

This was a fun color palette to work with, and I think the finished card echoes that. I’d say it’s my usual style of card, just not my usual color palette. I need to branch out more often, I had a blast using these colors.

Happy Christmas {Lili of the Valley}

There’s a brand new clear stamps release from Lili of the Valley right around the corner. It’s another holiday release, and there are some really cute critters involved. Lili of the Valley does the best critters.

There’s a stamp set in the release which includes a wreath and six different critters you can put inside, as well as a few individual stamps that go well with the wreath. I chose the wreath and the reindeer in the set for this card, making sure Rudolph was stamped a little crooked peeking into the front of the card from the side, I thought that made for a dynamic card design.

Using my Copics, I colored Rudolph and the wreath and also one of the smaller images, which I also fussy cut.

I trimmed my panel down so that it was 1/2″ more narrow than the card base and mounted it on foam tape onto a 4 1/4 x 5 1/2″ piece of Clover cardstock from Concord & 9th. They have the most gorgeous color range! Their cardstock isn’t very thick, so I don’t use it for card bases, but their colors are magical. This panel I adhered to a top fold card base I created from Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink.

I stamped a sentiment from the Snow Cute stamp set from Lili of the Valley (released last month) near the top left of my panel using Evergreen ink from Altenew. I then added my fussy cut holly leaves next to it, making sure a little bit would hang off the edge of the white panel.

To finish off the card, I decided to add a layer of black glaze pen to Rudolph’s eyes. This makes them shiny and also adds a tiny bit of dimension. Once dry, I put a white dot in each eye using a 05 Gelly Roll pen. I also added Glossy Accents from Ranger to the berries and Rudolph’s nose for some extra shine.

Rudolph and his shiny nose say hi. It’s really shiny!

Fairly simple color palette. This card was so much fun to make, I love the playfulness of Rudolf with his head tilted in from the side of the card.