Hallo {Hobbykunst}

Hi, everyone! I’ve got a super simple card to share with you today, using just part of a sheet of patterned paper and a die. That’s it.

Let’s talk for a minute about P13. They’re a Polish company, and they make beautiful, thick patterned paper. That’s really all you need to know, because it’s all I know. When I say thick, I mean thick. I don’t know their exact weight, but it’s close to card stock weight! I’m telling you, these are wonderful. They’re double sided, and the little strip you see at the bottom here with the torn edge is the back of that very same sheet (Spring #03) as the floral cluster I fussy cut and added to the card using 1mm foam squares.

I used a die from Papirdesign to die cut from white cardstock the word hallo (hello) five times. I stacked them for a dimensional look and glued them onto my card. It covers part of that torn edge, part of the floral cluster and part of the cardbase, giving a nice cohesive feel to the card while still leaving plenty of white space.

I have tons of floral clusters left over from the patterned paper, and one of the wonderful things about the P13 papers is that the design isn’t repetitive. This specific sheet of patterned paper had plenty of florals on the front, but they were all a little different, which means creating different cards from them will be a breeze.

Let it snow {Mo’s Dream Team}

I’m one of those people crazy enough to make holiday cards all year. Today’s card is another one. A slimline, this time, measuring 8-1/8″ x 3-1/8″ focusing on Snowy House from Mo Manning. I colored an entire panel in blue Copics going from dark at the top to light at the bottom, then die cut that using a slimline die from Pinkfresh Studio.

I colored in my little scene using more Copics, die cut that using the same die, then fussy cut around the trees, snow and house. I added a sprinkling of snow by heat embossing chunky white embossing enamel on both panels. I glued my blue background to a cardbase I made from Pure Poppy cardstock from Papertrey Ink and added the rest of the scene on top using 1 mm foam squares – lots of them! I added a stacked die cut sentiment using a die from the So Many Snowmen die set from Mama Elephant and my card was done.

I didn’t use too many colors on this, and most of these were actually used on the sky and the snow.

Happiness is being one year older! {Rachelle Anne Miller Creative Studios}

Hi, everyone! I’ve got a sweet, colorful, yet simple birthday card to share today, featuring the Fairy Party image from Rachelle Anne Miller. I wanted a soft color palette for my card, so I have no colors that are really dark in this image. The darkest marker I used is E57, and it’s contained to the hair on one of the fairies, the flower centers and the ladybug.

Once I’d colored the entire panel, I took the largest of the dies from the Stitched Rectangles STAX 1 set from My Favorite Things to turn it into a panel and create a nice border on the front of my card. I knew from the start that I wanted my sentiment inside the balloon, but I couldn’t decide on white or black. I thought the white might not pop enough against the yellow balloon, but I also knew that the end of the pigtail on the fairy would mess with any black stamping, making the letter illegible. In the end, I went with the white, but you can hardly see it in the photos against that lightest yellow. I might go in with a water brush and the refill for the darkest color I used on the balloon to darken it up later. I don’t want to ruin the nibs of my markers by touching the embossing, but refill and water brush with a little bit of blender solution will work without ruining anything.

I finished my card by adding some groupings of sequins and Jewels from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards. I used the Iced Sherbet mix for this card.

Last, but certainly not least, are the colors I used for my image.

Spring flowers {Hobbykunst}

Hi, everyone! My second blog post for today, and it totally shows on my card that I’m longing for spring. Fall is definitely in the air, and I’m feeling colder and colder and colder. I don’t like it one bit! I do, however, like the florals in the Spring collection from P13. These are gorgeous patterned paper, and they’ve got such pretty imagery that I don’t want to cover too much of it up. The paper I used for this card is Spring #05.

For this card, I used the largest die in the Stitched Rectangles STAX 2 set from My Favorite Things. You can find set 1 here. The dies are a little bit smaller in set 1, but the shape’s the same. I have both sets, I just prefer the 1/16″ border I get by using the largest die in set 2.

I glued my die cut panel onto a cardbase made from Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink. I die cut a circle from vellum using a circle die from the Stitched Circle STAX set, also from My Favorite Things. It matches nicely with the stitching around the edge of my floral panel.

I also die cut a bunch of numbers using a die set from Papirdesign. I made most of them from white card stock, but the top numbers from a piece of that same patterned paper. It might not look like patterned paper, but there’s a lot of white space on this sheet, and I used some of that for my numbers. It makes the whites match, which I really love. I put a 3 layers of my numbers underneath the vellum, and the remaining four layers on top. It makes the vellum stand out a bit from the background, which makes the number show up a little better and not get lost in that busy background.

I finished off the card by gluing on some sparkling clear sequins from Pretty Pink Posh.

God jul {Mo’s Dream Team}

Another Wednesday, and another Christmas card featuring a cutie patootie of an image by Mo Manning. This is Feed the Birds. I made a blue Christmas card with this image in January of last year (yes, I started early with my Christmas cards last year, too, then fractured my shoulder and didn’t create a single thing for months), which you can find here. This time I went for a completely different color scheme, focusing on a beautiful grayish blue green color.

As usual, I colored my image in with my Copic before die cutting it down to a panel using a stitched reclangle die from My Favorite Things. I glued it to a card base I made from Stormy Sky cardstock from Papertrey Ink, also a gorgeous color, and it matches my coloring pretty well.

I didn’t want to do too much to distract from my coloring, so I die cut a God jul (Merry Christmas) sentiment using a die from Papirdesign and that same color cardstock as my base, and glued that next to the little girl. I didn’t even stack several die cuts on top of each other like I normally would.

I finished my card by gluing on some diamonds from the Glass mix in the Crystal Collection from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards.

Those last six colors in this graphic? All the colors I used to create the red scarf (I only used E08 for the red on the bird).

Hello

Hi, everyone! Who here can honestly say that their drawer of scraps is shrinking? No one? Didn’t think so. For today’s card I’ve done just that, using scraps of green patterned paper from different brands to create a backdrop for my focal sentiment.

I used a cover die from Neat & Tangled to diecut twice from white cardstock and several times from scraps of different green patterned paper scraps. These are a mix of Papirdesign, Maja Design, Kaisercraft, and one that I don’t even know. Great way to use all those little bits.

I glued my white frames together and inlayed my green pieces, before die cutting a word die from Papirdesign using Ripe Avocado cardstock from Papertrey Ink for the word itself and white for the shadow. I stacked a few of the green ones on top of each other for it to stand out a little bit.

I used some angel hair to make a nest underneath my diecut and glued it right on top using liquid glue. I also added a few sparkling clear sequins from Pretty Pink Posh for some shine, and stamped a Norsk Stempelblad AS sentiment in Ripe Avocado ink from Papertrey Ink on a white strip and added it below my die cut word.

Simple, but the dimension in the frame and the focal point still give the card a little bit of interest.

Christmas hug from the heart {Rachelle Anne Miller Studios}

Hi, everyone! Sunday (or Saturday, depending on the time zone you’re in) and I have some serious card making plans today. I went to see Chess (the musical) last night in Oslo, and it was soooo good. But today, there are no singing Soviet Chess players around, just a couple of penguins floating on a sheet of ice in the ocean.

This is the Penguin image from Rachelle Anne Miller. It comes with a sentiment; Let’s chill soon, friend! In some ways, it would have been the perfect sentiment for the times we’re in, but I wanted to make a Christmas card from my two little penguins, so I removed the sentiment and printed the image alone.

I colored in the image using my Copics. I don’t think I’ve ever colored ocean before, and I was genuinely surprised by how easy it was. I even a little hint of blue to the ocean beneath the ice, giving the illusion of something more under water. 9/10 of an iceberg is under water, after all. It may seem weird that I chose yellow hearts for a Christmas card, but I have a very specific recipient in mind for this card, and she loves yellow 😉

I die cut my panel using the third largest die in the Stitched Rectangles STAX 2 set from My Favorite Things and stamped a sentiment that I made from two different Norsk Stempelblad AS stamp sets using Simon Says Stamp Audrey Blue ink. I sprinkled on some chunky white embossing enamel from Stampendous and heated it from behind, melting the granules. The last thing to do was add lots of foam tape to the back and attach it to my white card base. Couldn’t get much simpler than this, really.

Lots of blue and blue green Copics used on this image. Oh, and grays, quite a few of those, as well.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Hi, everyone!

I’ve got another blue Christmas card with the adorable snowmen from the Little Snowman Agenda stamp set from Mama Elephant.

I colored up these snowmen for Kathy Racoosin’s 30 day coloring challenge in June of last year, so it felt good to finally put them to use. Another thing I put to use? Those die cut squares. They were left over from this card where I stacked die cut frames for a dimensional look. I used a little bit of a trick with graph paper and Press’n Seal to make sure my squares were straight, evenly spaced and centered. Worked like a charm, it’s a trick I’ll definitely use again in the future!

I had 12 snowmen, but I needed room for a sentiment, so I stamped one from Norsk Stempelblad AS onto one of the die cut white squares using Papertrey Ink Enchanted Evening ink and glued the last snowman to the inside of the card instead.

I used the largest die in the Stitched Rectangles Stax Set 1 from My Favorite Things on some Enchanted evening card stock, and glued it to my Stamper’s Select White card base before adding all the squares with 1 mm foam squares. I then used more 1 mm foam squares on the back of the snowmen. Dimension is life, as Laura Bassen says. I didn’t want this card to be too thick, though, so I stuck with the 1 mm. Added some snowflakes die cut with the Hero Arts Snowflake Confetti die, and my card was finished.

Big birthday wishes {Mo’s Dream Team}

Hi, everyone!

I’ve got a seemingly simple card to share with you today, but looks can be deceiving. Those letters? They’re stacked six tall. There are 17 of them. You do the math. Lets just say it was a lot, and definitely a labor of love.

I needed to make a quick card last night, and decided to color up three of the small monsters from the Cupcake Monster set from Mo Manning (I have the separated version, there’s also a merged version, which you can find here). I made them super tiny, they’re about 1/2″ tall. Small surfaces, quick to color, right? Right! However, I didn’t take into account the fact that the rest of the idea I had for this card would be way more time consuming.

When my little monsters were all colored in with my Copics, I pulled out the Big Balloon stencil from My Favorite Things along with four different colors of distress ink. I created three balloons that overlap. All the balloons are ink blended using two colors. The yellow one is Squeezed Lemonade with Spiced Marmalade toward the base of the balloon, the orange one is Spiced Marmalade with Worn Lipstick at the base, and the top one is Worn Lipstick with Picked Raspberry at the base.

I die cut the Big Birthday Wishes die from My Favorite Things five times from Stamper’s Select White card stock from Papertrey Ink, as well as from the blended piece, which is also Stamper’s Select White. It’s my favorite white card stock, I haven’t found one that’s more white than this, and it’s also wonderfully sturdy at 110 lb. I did a layered inlay, then fussy cut my monsters and placed them strategically on my card. I love that the top one looks like he’s balancing on the top of the H, and the one on the right is leaning on the E while dangling his feet from the top of the S.

God jul fra meg til deg {Lili of the Valley}

Hi, everyone!

I’m still working on my holiday card, and this time it’s all about penguins AND a snowman.

This image was part of the Christmas release from Lili of the Valley that came out a few weeks ago, you can find the stamp here on Etsy. There’s a new release coming tomorrow, and it’s full of more Christmas goodness. And they’re png, which makes them so easy to mask and layer. I’ve shared my coloring of one of the new images over on Instagram. It was a polar bear, I couldn’t help myself. For this one, however, I colored up my little scene with my Copics and added white flock to the hats of the penguins for a little bit of fluffy texture.

I diecut my panel using the largest die from the second of the two sets of Stitched rectangles from My Favorite Things and glued my card to a top folding card base I made from Enchanted Evening cardstock from Papertrey Ink. It’s my favorite dark blue cardstock, and that was the last little bit that I had, I’m now out of pieces large enough for cardbases. I used scraps of the same color cardstock to diecut my sentiment three times and stack them. The die I used is from Papirdesign. I added a stamped sub sentiment stamped in the same color ink and finished off my card with a few diecut snowflakes that I made using a die from Marianne Design.

And last, but not least, the Copics I used on this image. I’ve also made myself a BG71 that I used on the snowman in addition to the BG70.