Spring is in the air {Lili of the Valley}

Hi, crafty friends. I’m back with a super simple, almost one layer card featuring one of the chicks from the recent spring release from Lili of the Valley. This guy is from the Little Easter set, and I think he’s adorable riding his scooter.

This card is, as I mentioned, super simple. A bit of watercolor just behind the image creates a little bit of interest without being too distracting.

Just below the image, I decided to stamp a sentiment. This one is from the Paint-A-Flower: Hydrangea stamp set from Altenew, inked up in Wild Wisteria ink from Gina K Designs AND Winter Wisteria ink from Papertrey Ink. The Gina K ink is a little too blue for what I for this card, while the Papertrey Ink color is a little too pink. By stamping them on top of one another, I get the perfect color for my card.

Using the Additional A2 Layers dies from Waffle Flower Crafts, I turned my simple colored piece into a slightly smaller panel, which I adhered to a panel of Wild Wisteria cardstock from My Favorite Things.

I added my double panel to a white card base, and my card was complete. I wanted my whites to match, and actually covered up the card base with another piece of X-Press It blending card, which is what I use for my Copic coloring.

This is a very flat, very mail friendly card. I don’t make many of those, but I really wanted the chick to shine.

Simple, springy color palette, even though it doesn’t really feel like spring. It started snowing Friday night, snowed all through the night and a good chunk of yesterday, before the snow turned into rain, and then later fog. It’s so foggy right now I can barely see the buildings across the street. 18 days into spring, and it feels more like winter than ever before.

Thank you {Lili of the Valley}

Hi! I’m back today with a fun card featuring a flower wreath from one of the stamp sets Lili of the Valley came out with in their spring release. This is one of the stamps in the Magical Florals stamp set.

I stamped the wreath on a piece of Rustic Cream cardstock from Papertrey Ink, before coloring with pencils. Yes, you read that right, I broke out my Prismacolors and did pencil coloring. I don’t use my pencils very often. Copics are my “go to” coloring medium, but every now and then, I shake things up.

I fussy cut around the finished piece, leaving a white border along the edge and cutting the open part at the top right as if my colored panel was a circle. I didn’t want to cut away the interior, and this seemed faster, easier and better. I created a 4 1/4″ square card base and used the Caleidoscope embossing folder from Simon Says Stamp to create a little bit of texture in the background, before mounting the wreath on foam tape.

I stamped and white heat embossed a sentiment from the Mini Messages stamp set from Mama Elephant onto a piece of Cornflower cardstock from My Favorite Things, before using a nested circle die to turn it into a circle. I put a few foam squares behind it and adhered it to a part of the wreath where it wouldn’t cover up too many of the flowers.

To finish the card, I added a generous amount of Papirdesign pearls for some shine.

Hello {Lili of the Valley}

Hi, crafty friends. There’s a new release coming from Lili of the Valley in a couple of weeks, and I’ve played a little bit with one of the stamp sets in the release.

Aren’t these bunnies cute? I paired the three bunnies in the Teacup Bunnies stamp set with a digital sentiment. The sentiment will be a freebie digi, along with a few others in the same style and sub sentiments to pair with it.

I colored the bunnies and letters with Copics and did some fussy cutting, leaving a thin white border to preserve the “fuzzies” that are part of the signature Lili of the Valley style. I used a black glaze pen for their eyes to make them pop and shine, and once dry, added a tiny white dot to each eye using a white Gelly Roll 05 pen.

I used the Crystal Distortion Embossing folder from Simon Says Stamp on a piece of Lemon Tart cardstock from Papertrey Ink to create a little bit of interest in the background. Below the yellow panel, I added a strip of Sprout cardstock from Concord & 9th for a little bit of extra green.

I adhered the cardstock pieces to a white top fold card base and mounted the teacup bunnies and sentiment on foam tape for dimension, before finishing off with a few enamel dots from the Tropical Forest set from Altenew.

Simple, soft color palette for this one.

A very Merry Christmas to You {Lili of the Valley}

Hi, crafty friends. I have a super simple mini slimline card to share today, featuring this adorable Merry Christmas Penguins image from Lili of the Valley. Christmas is 11 months away, it’s never to early to start making those holiday cards.

I love the playful nature of the Lili of the Valley stamps, and their adorable critters drew me in when I was a new cardmaker years and years ago. I still have all my old rubber stamps from Lili of the Valley, and they stamp so well. This one is digital, however, and the two main advantages that I see in digital stamps are that you can adjust the size to suit your needs and that there’s no waiting for ink to dry. Also, you get a perfect print every time. I love digital stamps!

I haven’t made a mini slimline card in a while, and decided that this image would be perfect for it. I created a card base that was slightly smaller than an average mini slimline. This one measures 5 1/4 x 3″, it fit the scene better than a 6″ wide base.

I colored the scene with Copics, cut it down to a size that left a nice border around the edge and adhered it directly to the card base, before adding some crystals from a mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards to the banner.

The crystals add a tiny bit of dimension to an otherwise fairly flat card, and those penguins are the cutest, aren’t they?

Simple color palette for this one.

Gingerbread Christmas tags {Lili of the Valley}

Hi, crafty friends. I have a trio of gift tags to share featuring some gingerbread cookies from the Gingerbread stamp set from Lili of the Valley. I went very untraditional with my color scheme for these, but I had so much fun!

Three same, but different gift tags using all the gingerbread people in the stamp set. I created the tags themselves using dies (two of them are actual tag dies, I used the topper from the ornament die set to create a topper for the heart to create a tag from that too). I used the Itty Bitty Gifting stamps and the Itty Bitty Strips dies, both from My Favorite Things, for all my to/from strips.

I used Classic Kraft and Stamper’s Select White cardstock for most of my die cutting, both from Papertrey Ink. For the ornament I also used a piece of silver cardstock from Rayher. I did all my Copic coloring on 120 lb white cardstock from Simon Says Stamp. This isn’t the cardstock I normally use with my Copics, but it’s great for one layer cards and elements that you can see the back of, because the markers don’t bleed through. Getting smooth color blends with Copics is trickier on this cardstock than my beloved X-Press It blending card, but the thickness saves me from having to fussy cut each of those gingerbread twice to cover up any bleed through. It’s worth the trade off, I think.

For the yellow one, I used the Snøfnugg, stor die from Papirdesign to create the snowflake tag. I added Nuvo Jewel Drops in the Key Lime color to the green buttons on the belly, and used a couple of pearls from the Igloo mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards for a little bit of embellishment. I put a piece of Divine Twine in the Lemon color through the hole at the top, making it easy to add to a gift.

For the pink one I used the Hjerte 3 die from Papirdesign to create the tag (and the Julekule die to create the hole at the top). The sequins are from the same Igloo mix that I used for the yellow, and I also added Jewel Drops in the color Key Lime to the buttons on her belly. The twine is Divine Twine in the Cotton Candy color.

And finally the green one. I used the Julekule die set from Papirdesign to create the actual tag, Nuvo Jewel Drops in the Limoncello color for the star on his sweater, and green dots from Papirdesign to embellish. The twine is Divine Twine in the color Green Apple.

Very simple color palette for these.

Happy Christmas from all of us {Lili of the Valley}

Hi, crafty friends. Something tells me I should apologize for posting the amount of holiday cards I have lately, but I’m not really sorry. Aside from a Halloween card (a rarity around here) on Monday, I’ve posted a Christmas card pretty much every day this week. Here’s another one, this time featuring the Animal Christmas Wreaths stamp set from Lili of the Valley. This set includes a wreath and six different critters to stamp inside. I kind of went outside the box for this one, stamped all the animals together and omitted the wreath entirely.

I didn’t know what color scheme to go for, and my color buddy Liz suggested purple, knowing I’d kind of hate her for it. 😉 I struggle with purple. It’s not my favorite color to begin with, it’s tricky to photograph well, and also difficult to find good matches with ink and cardstock for. AND it’s even hard to find colors that pair well with it. It’s not something I’d normally use for a Christmas card, but I love a good challenge, so I grabbed a bunch of purple Copics and started coloring.

I kind of tried to chicken out a bit by asking Liz if it’d be okay if I added some aqua tones. “Only if purple is the dominant color,” was her answer. With no chance to weasel my way out of purple and into something I’m more comfortable with, there was only one thing to do… keep coloring purple.

I did add a little bit of aqua to not have everything purple. I even tried some blue, but that didn’t really work and I actually covered up the blue… with more purple. Once I finished my coloring, I added a sentiment from the Snow Cute stamp set from Lili of the Valley, stamping it in Wild Wisteria ink from Gina K. Designs. The sentiment is actually a stacked one, but I cut it in half and stamped it on a line instead – it worked better for my card.

I used a black glaze pen to get their eyes extra black and shiny, added a tiny white dot to each eye using the 05 white Gelly Roll, and covered Rudolph’s nose with Glossy Accents. Once dry, I sprinkled on lots of chunky white embossing enamel from Stampendous and melted the granules from the back of the panel for a snowy look.

I adhered my colored panel to a top fold landscape card base I created from Royal Velvet cardstock from Papertrey Ink, and added a thin strip of Sea Glass cardstock from Concord & 9th below the sentiment for an additional element that wasn’t purple.

I used so many colors for this, it’s ridiculous. I used different colors for all the animals, only keeping cheeks, noses and inner ears the same throughout.

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.

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.

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.

Gift tag trio {Lili of the Valley}

Hi, crafty friends. I’m usually pretty good at making Christmas cards all year. What I’m not usually so good at is creating Christmas tags to go on presents. It’s often one of those things I do last minute, even after the gifts are wrapped. I’m trying to be better, though, and today I have three tags to share featuring the Snow Cute stamp set from Lili of the Valley, I just can’t get enough of this set.

These penguins are about 4 cm tall, which makes them the perfect size to create gift tags from. By stamping them on a sheet of X-Press It blending card (or your cardstock of choice) with a little bit of space between them, you can die cut some and fussy cut the remaining ones. I decided to fussy cut the one in the center, while using dies for the other two.

I colored all the penguins with Copics and used a black glaze pen to create a little bit of shine and dimension to their eyes. Once the black was dry, which didn’t take long, I used a white Gelly Roll 05 on top of the black to put the white back into their eyes.

I’m starting with this fussy cut penguin. In a drawer, I had a scrap of a snowy background that I created last fall using Rustic Cream cardstock from Papertrey Ink, the Falling Snow stencil from Simon Says Stamp, modeling paste from The Crafter’s Workshop and Rock Candy distress glitter from Ranger. I decided to put it to use and die cut it using the 210 die from Kort & Godt, I really like the heart shaped hole it creates at the top. I mounted the penguin using foam tape and added a sentiment strip below. The sentiment is from the Christmas Greetings stamp set from Lili of the Valley, it’s got heaps of great sentiments for the holidays. I used a bit of red lace ribbon, a couple of bells and a piece of thread to the top of the tag to embellish it a little.

On the back, I added die cut letters to spell the words to and from. The words are from the Tag Builder Blueprints 6 die set from My Favorite Things, die cut from Amarena Cherry cardstock, also from MFT.

Simple color palette for this one.

Next up is the circular tag. I used the Tag Builder Blueprints 6 die set for this one as well, as well as another sentiment from the Christmas Greetings stamp set from LOTV. I added Divine Twine in the color Cherry to the top, a bell charm and a few red enamel dots from Papirdesign to finish it off.

On the back, I used the to/from circle die that I used for the first tag, but for this one, I used the negative of the die cut, popping in the centers of the o’s to complete the look. I figured it would be easier to see the writing on white cardstock instead of the red in the dim light on Christmas Eve when we open our presents, so this is meant to be practical too.

A few additional colors for this one, I wanted to ground my penguin and also needed some color on that candy cane.

For the blue one, I used the Fold-Up Tags die set from My Favorite Things to create my tag. I made sure not to cut off his scarf by fussy cutting that and putting it behind the die as I ran it through my die cutting machine. I used a piece of Blue Breeze cardstock from My Favorite Things to create the reinforcing element near the top, added some Divine Twine in the color Blueberry, a couple of white bells from UiT Hobby and some thread that’s actually meant to use with a loom (it’s super strong). Once again, I used the Christmas Greetings stamp set for the sentiment, and scattered a few snowdrift sprinkles from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards to finish.

On the back, I used that same die from the Tag Builder Blueprints 6 die set from My Favorite Things that I used for the other two tags, this time die cut from Enchanted Evening cardstock from Papertrey Ink.

Once again, simple color palette. These were such fun to make. I want to make more, and have a bunch on hand when it’s time to wrap Christmas presents, so I’m not rushing last minute to get the tags done.