Hi, crafty friends. May is confirmation season in Norway, and I created this card on commission.
I started by stamping the big floral stamp in the Blooming Delight stamp set from Altewew using Altenew Obsidian ink onto watercolor paper (cold pressed Fabriano Artístico), before coloring with Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers. When my coloring was complete, I die cut the flower with the coordinating die and also cut a few extra from white cardstock to build dimension.
I used the Stippled Plaid press plate from Pinkfresh Studio with Pistachio ink from Altenew to create a subtle background. I matted it with some gold shine cardstock from My Favorite Things and adhered my florals pretty much in the center. The flowers stick out on both sides, but I just made a larger envelope to accomodate the larger size.
For the sentiment, I used a konfirmant die set from Papirdesign. I die cut the shadow layer from white cardstock and the word itself from the same gold cardstock that I used previously, with a few white die cuts stacked behind it for dimension. I even stacked a few behind the shadow, so it looks like the shadow floats on top of the flowers. For a sub sentiment, I used a sentiment sticker strip from Kort & Godt that I ink blended with Misty Sage ink from Altenew, before finishing off the card with a few Iridescent Dew Drops from Pinkfresh Studio.
I used the following Zig colors for the coloring: 215 Flamingo Red, 216 Bright Flamingo, 407 Grass Green, 098 Pale Dawn Gray, 061 Light Brown, 505 Yellow Ochre, 706 Light Orange, 999 Blender.
I combined 
I didn’t want color on the entire piece and decided on coloring a strip that includes the largest part of the waterfall, the beaver and part of the mama swan. I used Zig clean color real brush markers to color, using the blender for some of it, but a size 4 round watercolor brush from Princeton, along with water, for most of it. The Zig colors I used are the following: 068 Deep Brown, 816 Soft Violet, 028 Pale Pink, 705 Peach Orange, 505 Yellow Ochre, 407 Grass Green, 406 Sage Green, 411 Cactus Green, 307 Aqua Blue, 315 Ultramarine and 910 Warm Gray 6.
Once my coloring was complete, I cut the colored section apart from the rest. I adhered the uncolored sections onto a black mat I created from Black cardstock from Concord & 9th. Behind the colored panel, I stacked a few layers of cardstock for dimension and adhered it in between the other two pieces. I adhered my finished piece onto a card base that I created from Blue Beyond cardstock from My Favorite Things.
I stamped and white heat embossed a sentiment from the 
I adhered my shaker panel to the card base and cut a couple of additional white panels to put on the inside of the card. This means I have a white panel to write my personal message, the card is a little sturdier because it’s now thicker, and the piece I adhered on the back of the front covers up the fact that I could actually see through parts of the card base after my little sawing earlier. Not shy about glue, remember? Yeah, the glue does its job, and I tore parts of it down to almost printer paper thickness. I added sequins to the front of the card (one covering up my stamping mishap) and I was done. At least I thought so… I was happy with the card, but then noticed as I was writing up the blog post for Papiria that the counter of the second P had slipped a little and wasn’t in the right spot anymore. It was bugging me. It was *really* bugging me, so I peeled it off, die cut a new one that I adhered in the right spot and took a couple of new photos. You can still see the droopy counter in the first two photos here, but that’s my card. I got there in the end.
These images in this scene are all from the Winterwood collection from Purple Onion Designs, illustrated by Holly Mabutas. We have 
I colored the scene with Copics, then stamped the critters and the snowman again, this time using Obsidian ink from Altenew to get crisp black lines. This is a pigment ink, which doesn’t play nice with Copics, but as long as the coloring’s already complete, using this ink is totally fine. I sprinkled on Chunky White embossing enamel from Stampendous, melted the granules from the back of the paper and finished off the card with a sentiment from the 
Not a whole lot of colors used given the large scene, but I did use 7 for the fox alone. But he came out so cute, it was totally worth it!
I originally planned on creating a regular portrait oriented A2 card with this image, but I had this idea of another igloo in the distance, and it kind of evolved from there. I don’t usually create my own backgrounds for cards (I like background stamps that do all the work for me), but I had a blast with this one. Keeping the colors to a minimum certainly helped. I only used five Copics for the entire background.
Once the background and the actual stamped image were both colored in, I stamped a sentiment from the 
Limited color palette for such a large card.
I stamped and colored my critters (
I stamped a sentiment from the older 
I used a lot of colors for this scene.
I packed a lot of stamps into this one card, which is actually an A6 size card (4 5/8 x 6 1/4″). Whenever I create cards with new releases from Purple Onion Designs, I let the design of the card dictate the size of the card, whatever that turns out to be.
I colored the scene with my Copics. I’d managed to overfill a marker when I refilled it, creating a big drop of blue ink on my peach colored cabana when I went to color in the window. At that point the sky, fences and beach were all colored, I only had the critters left and didn’t want to start over, so I made the fences darker and made the cabana darker too. It’s still visible, but I wanted the focus to be on the critters enjoying their time at the beach. If it had happened on a main element of my card, I probably would have started over.
I used a white Sharpie to create foam from the waves coming in, and stamped a sentiment from the coordinating 
Fairly muted color palette for this one.
I colored the image in a very pastel color palette, before trimming the panel down to 3 7/8 x 5 1/2″, added foam tape on the back and mounted it on an A6 (4 5/8 x 6 1/4″) top fold white card base that I covered with a piece of Aqua Sky cardstock from Concord & 9th.
This card was a bit of an evolution. I originally wanted to use a bigger kite and a different sentiment, but the larger kite was too big for my image (AND for my card) and the sentiment I initially wanted to use was too big for this smaller kite, so I had to improvise. I used a die from the kite builder die set from Concord & 9th, and stamped a sentiment from the Kite Strings stamp set, also from Concord & 9th, using VersaFine Onyx Black ink. I then die cut the word hello twice from white cardstock using the Sweet Sentiments die set from Altenew, stacked the two together and added the word above the stamped sentiment and popped the kite on some 1 mm foam squares for a tiny bit of dimension.
My card felt kind of empty at this point, I had even more white space than I wanted, and I needed a fix. My color buddy and general crafty assistant Liz suggested adding clouds. Using the Cloud 1 & 2 die set from Papertrey Ink, I die cut three clouds from vellum. I tucked one behind the kite and added tiny slivers of 1 mm foam squares behind the other two for a little bit of dimension, before strategically placing sequins from the Ice Water mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards to hide the foam squares and finish the card.
This card didn’t turn out the way I planned, but sometimes, that’s actually a good thing. I like the clouds, the sequins and my other revisions to my original idea. And I will never cease to be amazed at how good clouds always look die cut from vellum. It’s the best!
I didn’t use a lot of markers for this one.
Papirmølla 