One can never have too much cupcake {Mo’s Dream Team}

Hi, everyone! Another Wednesday already. Man, the weeks fly by so quickly. I’ve got another Mo Manning cutie to share today.

This is one of Mo’s birthday fairies. Her name is Dee, and you can find it in the store here. I actually have a red rubber version from Penny Black of this image that I actually used for this card. I stamped it in fadeout ink from Inkon3 and went to town with no line coloring. When doing no line coloring I usually stamp (or print) the facial features in a darker ink than the rest of the image, but I forgot on this one, and had to draw everything back in once my coloring was done. I used a Prismacolor pencil and held my breath as I added those details back in.

I diecut my panel using the largest of the faux stitch rectangle dies from My Favorite Things. I think it’s the perfect size as it creates a 1/16″ border when I add it to my cardbase. The color scheme might not be typical of me, but the layout definitely is. I added half a mini paper doily from Doodlebug Design, diecut some scraps of pink patterned paper to go with my image using another favorite MFT die set (Fishtail Flag Frames) and stamped a Norsk Stempelblad AS birthday sentiment using Papertrey Ink Hibiscus Burst ink. The ink matches the cardstock, which is also Hibiscus Burst from Papertrey Ink.

I added my banners using foam tape and embellished very simply with some sequins from Pretty Pink Posh. I even used my scissors on one to cut a little bit off and tucked it underneath that sentiment banner. Laura Bassen would be proud, haha.

God jul {Mo’s Dream Team}

Is it Christmas yet? No? Really? Are you sure? Let’s just pretend for a quick minute, because I have a Christmas card to share today, featuring Katie and Bear from Mo’s Digital Pencil.

I had to use my favorite color combination for Christmas on this one. Blue, grey and brown. I made my greys very light, so they look more white than grey, and I have to admit I kind of love the look! I printed the image with 15 % opacity and did no line coloring. I love no line coloring!

This card is very “me”. The cardbase is made from Papertrey Ink Enchanted Evening cardstock, I used a die from My Favorite Things to add the faux stitching detail on the main panel, and I added a little cluster of diecut patterned paper scraps. I stamped and heat embossed a Norsk Stempelblad AS sentiment on one of the patterned paper pieces and added three snowdrift sprinkles from Little Things from Lucy’s Card as my finishing touch.

Clean and simple with cluster, these cards come together so easily once the image is colored.

I used quite a few colors for this simple image. Lots of different earth tones for different parts of the image, and two grey families.

Warm hug from the heart {Mo’s Dream Team}

Hi, everyone! I’ve got a hug to share with you today, I think we could all use those right now.

I colored up Hug from Mo Manning for day 11 of the last round of Kathy Racoosin’s 30 day challenge in March, and today I’ve turned it into a card. I fussy cut the image and mounted it on foam squares to my card base.

This card is somewhat different for me. It has a lot of white space, which is fairly common for me, but I used a stencil and texture paste on the card base to change it up a bit, which definitely isn’t normal for me. I even sprinkled distress glitter all over the texture paste while it was still wet, so the card sparkles when you tilt it in the light. Glitter is a nightmare to photograph, though, so it doesn’t show up in the photos very well.

I used the Parker alpha set from Memory box to diecut the word klem, which means hug in Norwegian. I diecut each letter five times and glued them together for a stacked, dimensional look. I created a couple of pink cardstock pieces by using one of the Copic markers I used on the skirt, stamped the remainder of my sentiment and heat embossed in white before glueing them on with clear foam tape.

By adding part of my sentiment on top of the image, I get a more cohesive design than I would have if I had put my little sentiment strip above the word only. Just a little design tip. I finished off the card by adding a few raindrops from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards.

These are all the Copics I used, and I must admit that I really love the pink and peach combos I came up with for this one.

Juleklem {Mo’s Dream Team}

Another Wednesday means another Mo Manning project. I thought it was time for another Christmas card, this is my 6th this year, and it feels pretty good!

I colored up Hanging the Stockings for Kathy Racoosin’s 30 day coloring challenge earlier this month, and turned it into a very simple card by diecutting my panel, adding a heat embossed sentiment and some heart shaped raindrops.

I’ve had this image for so long, and it really felt good to finally color it up. I used the largest of the dies in the Stitched Rectangles STAX (2) set from My Favorite Things, before heat embossing a Norsk Stempelblad AS sentiment in white using super fine detail embossing powder from Ranger.

I love the look of those heart shaped raindrops from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards. They’re part of the crystal collection and add the perfect little touch to such a simple card.

Christmas in March?? {Mo’s Dream Team}

Hi, everyone! I’m still keeping up with making those Christmas cards, and I must admit, it feels pretty good. This is Going North, colored for day 5 of this run of the 30 day coloring challenge by Kathy Racoosin.

I turned my image into a card last night by stamping a sentiment, diecutting the entire panel with a faux stitch rectangle die, adding that to my card front and embellishing very sparingly with three clear crystals from the Ice Water mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards. That’s it.

The sentiment is from the B04 stamp set from Norsk Stempelblad AS. I love the stamps Åshild has designed and am so glad I have so many different sets from them. I used Enchanted Evening ink from Papertrey Ink. It’s a beautiful dark blue color.

Cards don’t get much simpler than this. And cards like this are so fun to make, too.

Would you believe I used 10 (yes, ten) different colors for the fur?? Am I crazy?

Soft and girly

There are two types of cards I love making more than any other: Christmas cards and birthday cards. I love making clean and simple cards, but also very layered ones with lots of patterned paper. Today’s card is one of those, made exclusively with papers from the Sofiero collection from Maja Design.

One of the things I love the most about Maja Design paper is the quality of the paper they use. It’s almost as thick as cardstock, something I haven’t really found in other patterned papers. Their patterns are gorgous, too, making card making a breeze. The thick quality also means I can use a wet paint brush (with clean water) and run along the edges, before using my fingers to curl them slightly back. This is so much easier to do when the paper is wet, and so much easier to do with these good quality papers. Thinner paper won’t hold up as well to all that water. I love the look you achieve by doing this.

I’m not an embellishment queen. I use a little bit on cards like this, but I rarely do a lot. This time, I used some pieces of chipboard from SnipArt and a few flowers to frame the image in the center of my card. I also used some lace to combat the rigid look you sometimes get when using just straight lines like square or rectangular panels.

I also added a couple of diecut doilies to further break up the linear look, and added stacked diecut numbers to the bottom left of the focal point of the card. As you can tell from this photo, this is a card with lots of dimension, it’s not very mail friendly.

I did a little bit of layering on the insides, as well. They are both the same, and those pink center panels provide plenty of room to write a personal message to the birthday girl.

On the back of the card I stamped a sentiment from Norsk Stempelblad AS using Papertrey Ink Autumn Rose ink. The text is about butterflies, so I thought it fitting to add a few chipboard ones for a little bit of extra interest.

Even though my card isn’t very mail friendly, I needed something to put it in, so I made a box envelope to go with it and added the recipient’s name on the front of it. The card was hand delivered, so this works perfectly.

 

Something a little bit different {Mo’s Dream Team}

Another Wednesday, and I have another “alphabet” card to share. I’m still on F, and Flower Frame from the Avril set was next up. It’s basically a circle image with flowers on the outside. To avoid having to color super tiny flowers I decided to use only a section of the circle, and made my little arch just large enough to fit the width of my card.

This is a lot more artsy than what I normally do. I printed the image with an opacity setting of 25%, colored it with Copics and then used a Copic multiliner to add back in some black lines in selected areas before fussy cutting my image with a thin, white border on the outside and straight up to the black line on the inside.

I used foam tape from Gina K to pop up my colored piece onto a cardbase I made from Spring Rain cardstock from Papertrey Ink.

I stamped a Norsk Stempelblad AS sentiment using VersaFine Onyx Black ink, and added splatters across the entire card with white liquid watercolor from Hero Arts and a watered down black ink.

Not exactly my usual style of card, this one. What do you think?

Soft, sweet and simple {Mo’s Dream Team}

Another Wednesday, another creation featuring a Mo Manning image. I’m still working my way through the alphabet of my unused digis, and today it was time to color up Fairy Sleepy.

I printed my image on a piece of X-Press It cut down to 4 1/4 x 5 1/2″. I colored my image with my Copics and used the largest of the stitched rectangle dies from My Favorite Things to cut it slightly smaller.

I’m also doing my best this year to use scraps of patterned paper. I have a basket of scraps that I’ve cut down to card front sizes, and I realized pink is the color I have the most of, which was the reason for my color choice today. I found a pink scrap in the basket that I wanted to use, colored my image in matching colors and took a bit of a dive into my smaller scraps to find pieces to use for my cluster. The circle with the sentiment is actually cut from the center of the patterned paper I used on the front of this card, which is a scrap from the Vintage Summer Basics collection from Maja Design. The diecut banners are from the Sofiero collection, the colors were perfect for this card.

I used part of a Doodlebug mini paper doily in the top right corner as a base for my small cluster. I had a tiny bit left over and glued in the opposite corner. I embellished very simply with a couple of hearts from the Rosy Glow mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards and sequins from the White Orchid Sequin mix, also from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards. I added an epoxy pebble to the sentiment circle for a little bit of extra dimension and interest.

Du fortjener det beste {Ett trykk}{Hobbykunst}

Hallo – du fortjener det beste! I det aller siste nummeret av Ett trykk var teknikkutfordringen at vi skulle bruke to eller flere dies som hovedmotiv. Jeg valgte en coverdie fra Neat & Tangled og en hallodie fra Papirdesign og lagde noe jeg egentlig vil kalle et typisk Elin-kort.

Jeg startet ved å sverte distress oxide-blekk (fargene Picked Raspberry, Salty Ocean, Peacock Feathers, Cracked Pistachio, Twisted Citron og Fossilized Amber ) over et panel stort nok til å dekke fronten av kortet mitt. Jeg sprutet over rent vann og tørket av med tørkepapir, før jeg sprutet over hvitt blekk i dråper og lot det tørke.

Jeg limte deretter Stick It bak hele panelet. Dette er en veldig tynn dobbeltsidig teip som er perfekt når du skal stanse ut dies der det blir litt pirkete.

Deretter skjærte jeg til en bit mosegummi like stort som panelet jeg skulle bruke.

Jeg stanset ut det svertede panelet først, og deretter mosegummien med samme die. Jeg tar dette i to runder. Hvis jeg stanser ut begge samtidig blir ikke kuttekantene på mosegummien jevne, og jeg kan få rynker i kartongen siden presset under dermed ikke er jevnt. Ved å stanse ut i to omganger holder alt seg mye penere.

Den neste delen av jobben er litt pirkete. Her tok jeg ut hver bit av den svertede biten, fjernet beskyttelsespapiret fra den dobbeltsidige teipen på baksiden og limte den på tilsvarende bit mosegummi. Da alle bitene var på plass tok jeg flytende lim på baksiden av hver mosegummibit (forsiktig, så jeg ikke fikk lim på rammen) og limte det på frontpanelet på kortet mitt. Jeg la noe tungt oppå og sørget for at alt tørket ordentlig.

Deretter kunne jeg fjerne mosegummirammen forsiktig fra resten av kortet, og bitene ligger igjen der de skal.

Jeg stanset ut en hallodie fra Papirdesign flere ganger i hvit kartong og limte dem oppå hverandre for dimensjon.

Da var det bare igjen å lime hallo på kortet, også her brukte jeg flytende lim, og lurte litt englehår fra Mester Grønn under for å lage litt mer liv i kortet.

Jeg stemplet også en undertittel på svart kartong og embosset i hvitt. Det blir et ordentlig blikkfang på et såpass fargerikt kort. Jeg satte på tekststripen min med 3D-teip.

Noen paljetter fra Pretty Pink Posh er siste lille finish.

Takket være at jeg limte alle bitene på kortet mens jeg fortsatt hadde rammen rundt er de nå perfekt plassert, og kortet er veldig rent selv om jeg har brukt mange farger.

Det er ingen hemmelighet at jeg digger å fargelegge, men jeg digger også å lage kort som dette, selv om det er litt pirk å lime alle bitene sammen. Jeg er faktisk ganske glad i pirk også!

God jul {Mo’s Dream Team}

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m terrible at sticking to schedules. Seriously awful. And every year I tell myself to get started on Christmas cards early and make them throughout the year to avoid being swamped come November. Every year I’m swamped in November because I fail to make them throughout the year. I’m off to a good start this year though, I’m starting with this Candy Cane Bear from Mo Manning in the form of a shaker card (I’m not going to mention that I started off great last year, too, before I fractured my shoulder and didn’t create anything for months).

I printed my bear onto X-Press It blending card (the best paper for Copic coloring) and colored it with Copics. Normally, I probably would have made his hat blue, but I wanted a dark blue background, so I needed a color that would pop against it. Anyone who knows me would also know that I’m not a fan of red for Christmas cards, but in 2019 I made quite a few Christmas cards with red in them anyway, and I guess I’m starting the new year with it, too. Not to worry, though, I’ll get back to my regular blue eventually, it IS the color of the year, after all.

I diecut a front panel with faux stitching around the edges and a nice big window in the top center. I stamped a Norsk Stempelblad AS sentiment using Papertrey Ink Scarlet Jewel Ink, added acetate behind my window and glued it to the front of my card using two layers of craft foam to really make those sequins and other few elements inside the window shake!

I love the dimension you get on such a simple card by doubling up the foam, it makes a big difference, and everything inside the window moves more freely.

I’m a bit of a perfectionist, so I made sure all the sequins were turned the right way before I glued my shaker shut. I used a combination of two different mixes from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards. Most of the elements are from the Igloo mix, but I also added some from the Crystal Collection – Glass. I never know how much to put into my shakers and usually end up with way too much or not enough, but I think I added a perfect amount on this card. First time for everything, right?

Not a whole lot of colors on this image. I also used R52, which is a color I’ve made myself.