Hooray {Mo’s Digital Pencil}

October 6, 2021October 5, 2021 ElinLeave a comment

Hi. I’m back with another Mo Manning creation. This time I colored up Tall Cake using my Prismacolor pencils and created a fairly simple birthday card. This is one of my most used images from Mo. It’s so fun with those cake layers and it’s easy and pretty quick to color, even for a slow colorer like me.

I actually colored this in May last year. I keep my colored image in stamp storage sleeves from Tim Holtz. They’re super sturdy and you can put a lot of colored images in one pocket. They come five in a pack, which is perfect for me, that way I can dedicate each sleeve to one design team, since I’m currently on five design teams. Sometimes, I just want to color without having to turn it into a card right away, and sometimes I just want to make a card, but don’t feel like coloring, or simply don’t have time to do both. Compartmental crafting for the win.

Onto a piece of Blueberry Sky cardstock from Papertrey Ink, I stamped the Happy Birthday Background stamp from My Favorite Things using VersaMark ink and dusted it with Perfect Pearls powder, before misting it with water to fix the powder to the cardstock. It doesn’t really show in the photos, but it has a wonderful shine when you tilt it in the light. I used a double stitch rectangle die from My Favorite Things to turn it into a nice panel and adhered it onto a cardbase made from Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink.

I mounted my colored panel using foam tape and adhered it to the center of the card. I felt like it was missing something and needed a little bit extra. Mini paper doilies from Doodlebug Design to the rescue. I love these mini doilies, I use them often. And you don’t need the whole doily, either, I just used two small pieces for this card, and there are 75 doilies in one pack, they last forever. Onto a piece of Blue Breeze cardstock from MFT I stamped a Norsk Stempelblad AS sentiment using Blueberry Sky ink from Papertrey Ink. I cut it down to a 1″ circle using a circle punch from EK Success, added it to my card using foam tape and finished the card with a few pink enamel dots from Papirdesign.

Bøø {Streamside Studios}

October 1, 2021October 1, 2021 ElinLeave a comment

Hi! We’ve got a fun spook-tacular Instagram hop happening today for Streamside Studios, but I thought I’d share my project here as well.

This cute vampire is from the My Little Pet Ghost stamp set. There’s also a witch in the same set that I used for a similar treat bag, which you can read all about in this blog post. For today’s treat bag, I colored the vampire with Copics, fussy cut him and added him onto my treat bag using 1 mm foam squares for a tiny bit of dimension. On the treat bag itself, I used a mini layering stencil from Tim Holtz along with Eiffel Tower ink from My Favorite Things to create the brick pattern on the front. On the inside, I glued a piece of patterned paper from My Favorite Things to get a little more orange in there. I colored some white letter stickers from Papirdesign with Copics (E08, YR07 and Y38 for an ombré look) and adhered the letters next to my little vampire. I created a hole near the top with the smallest die in the Labels Trio set from Spellbinders, added some orange ribbon and tied a bow around it using Black Licorice Divine Twine from Whisker Graphics.

I colored this vampire on the same day that I colored the witch, and I used the exact same colors.

Merry Christmas {Mo’s Digital Pencil}

September 1, 2021August 31, 2021 ElinLeave a comment

I’m sharing a super simple Christmas card today, featuring Door with a Wreath from Mo’s Digital Pencil. This is one of her older images, and it’s in the retiring section of the store, so if you want the image for yourself (or one of the maaaany others she has in the retiring category), you’d better hurry, because they’re about to be gone.

This card took me an hour and a half to make from start to finish, including coloring and the stacked die cuts. That’s so fast for me, I don’t know what happened.

I printed the image center on a 1/4 sheet of X-Press It blending card before coloring with Copics. I didn’t use many colors, and it was pretty quick to come together.

Using the largest of the dies in the A2 Double Stitched Rectangle STAX die set from My Favorite Things, I turned my colored piece into a panel with a nice faux stitch edge and adhered it to a cardbase I created from Blueberry cardstock from My Favorite Things.

I stacked five God jul die cuts and adhered the layered die cuts to the wreath. The die I used is from Papirdesign. It’s actually a heart with the letters inside, I just skipped the heart and used the letters by themselves. I adhered tiny white snowflakes on the wreath, and I used a die from Hero Arts to die cut those. I stacked these too, but only two layers. And that’s the whole card, super simple.

Not a lot of Copics for this one either. It really was super simple.

Good friends are the best gift of Christmas

August 31, 2021 ElinLeave a comment

Hi! I’m sharing a Christmas card today, featuring the Dragon building a snowman image from Lee Holland. He still has his Ultimate Christmas bundle and Ultimate Dragon bundle at a whopping 60% discount with the code CHRISTMAS60, but the offer expires today, so you’d better be quick if you want to get them.

I colored in my image using the no line technique. Before printing, I made all the lines in the image light gray except for the eyes and eyebrows, which I kept black. This is a great trick to color no line without having to worry about drawing things back in with a black pen and potentially getting things wonky and weird. I’ve done that once, starting over isn’t fun, so I’ve learned to get around it.

I cut my colored piece down using a stitched rectangle die from My Favorite Things. I covered the card base with patterned paper from the Forever Green collection paper pack from ModaScrap and mounted my colored panel onto that using lots of foam tape.

I cut a couple of strips of patterned paper from that same paper pack from ModaScrap and added them onto my colored panel. Using a green marker, I created a green colored cardstock piece to match my dragon, stamped my Norsk Stempelblad AS sentiment onto it, heat embossed it and used a circle punch to get it to a perfect 1″ circle, before adding an epoxy sticker on top for a little shine and dimension.

To finish off my card I added a few enamel dots. The brown ones and the white are from Papirdesign, the green ones from Altenew.

Not a whole heap of colors for this one.

Sending hugs {Rachelle Anne Miller Creative Studios}

August 22, 2021August 22, 2021 ElinLeave a comment

Hi! I have a super simple card to share today, featuring this adorable Sisters image from Rachelle Anne Miller.

I printed the image onto X-Press It blending card, which is my go to paper for Copic coloring. It’s bright white and can handle a lot of layers without bleeding.

Once my image was colored, I used a die in the A2 Stitched Rectangles STAX 1 set from My Favorite Things to turn it into a finished panel of 2 7/8 x 4 1/8″. I’d printed the image a little too big for my die, so I did some fussy cutting on the side of the big sister’s head before die cutting.

I created a card base from Summer Splash Prestige cardstock from My Favorite Things and used an impression plate from Papertrey Ink to create some subtle texture in the background. I mounted my colored, die cut panel to the center of the card front using lots of foam tape.

Onto a piece of Cotton Candy Heavyweight cardstock from My Favorite Things, I stamped and white heat embossed a sentiment from the Monster Hugs stamp set from Simon Says Stamp and Concord & 9th, which is a collaboration set from 2018. It has a cute monster image and lots of great sentiments. I die cut my sentiment using the smallest of the dies in the Fishtail Flag Frames set from My Favorite Things and added it to the card using foam tape and 1 mm foam squares, to make it pop up slightly from the image.

I finished off the card by adding three pink enamel dots from Papirdesign.

Fairly simple color palette. I even experimented a little with a new teal/green combo on the little sister, and I kind of like the color combination, so I might use it again one day soon!

Happy summer! {Mo’s Digital Pencil}

August 18, 2021August 18, 2021 ElinLeave a comment

Hi! Part of me is struggling to believe it’s been a week since my last post, but it totally has been. I was so good and efficient in my craft room before going on vacation, getting lots of stuff done and scheduling everything for when I was away, and let me tell you, getting back into the swing of things is not easy, I feel like I’m still in vacation mode. I’ll get there, though, it just takes a little while.

Technically, I should have made this card at the beginning of the summer, but it’s a recent image from Mo and I couldn’t NOT make a summer card using it. The air is definitely getting cooler here, and I’m very well aware of the fact that summer officially ends in two weeks. I kind of want to go back to June and warmer temps, I don’t like the cold.

Onto the card. I colored the image with Copics and used a double stitch rectangle die from My Favorite Things to turn it into a nice panel, before adhering it to a top fold card base I made out of Enchanted Evening cardstock from Papertrey Ink. I love their cardstocks.

When I don’t have a clear idea for a card, I turn to embellishment clusters of patterned paper scraps. These are so easy to put together and a great way to add SOMETHING when I’m out of ideas and my mojo’s low.

I’ve sorted my die cut patterned paper scraps by color, so I pull out colors that will match my card and just start playing. I used patterned paper from 3ndypapir, Papirdesign, Kaisercraft and Imaginisce for this card, and the dies I used to cut them out are from XCut and My Favorite Things.

I white heat embossed a sentiment from Norsk Stempelblad AS onto a scrap piece of Enchanted Evening cardstock and used one of the Itty Bitty Strips dies from My Favorite Things to diecut it, before using 1 mm foam squares to mount it onto my cluster. I added a few enamel dots from Papirdesign to finish my card.

Fairly limited color palette for this one.

You can actually get the image I used for FREE if you spend $20 or more during Mo’s summer sale, which ends today, so you’d better be quick.

You’re the best! {Mo’s Digital Pencil}

August 11, 2021July 23, 2021 Elin1 Comment

Hi! I’m back with another creation using one of Mo’s adorable images. This is Best of the Bunch, and it’s one of many favorites I have from her.

I colored the image with my Copics and used the largest of the A2 Double Stitched Rectangles dies from My Favorite Things to turn my colored piece into a panel with the faux stitch edges I love so much.

I adhered my panel onto a top fold A2 card base I made from Blue Yonder cardstock from My Favorite Things. It’s such a pretty blue color, I love it.

I decided to add one of my signature clusters to this card. A scrap piece of a paper doily from Doodlebug Design lays the foundation for all the other bits on top. I keep a bin on my desk with lots of die cut patterned paper scraps that are perfect for clusters like this.

For this particular card, the scraps are from Papirdesign, Fancy Pants and Sunny Studio, and they’re all die cut using one of two die sets: the Happy Days Ticket Stubs die from XCut (one die which cuts out nine different tickets, it’s kind of awesome) and the Fishtail Flag Frames die set from My Favorite Things.

On top of the cluster I added a sentiment. I heat embossed a sentiment from the Itty Bitty Basics stamp set from My Favorite Things onto Blue Yonder cardstock, and die cut it using one of the dies in the Itty Bitty Strips die set. I added a few blue enamel dots from Papirdesign to finish, and my card was complete.

Lots of colors for this one.

Hello there {Mo’s Digital Pencil}

July 14, 2021July 13, 2021 ElinLeave a comment

Hi there! Today’s card actually features an image called Hi there. This is a very simple image, and I should have been able to color it super quickly, but coloring the mint green around the white of the paper to leave the flowers white took a while. It might have something to do with the fact that I was watching the semi-final, then the first two parts of the finale of MasterChef Australia while coloring, but I won’t mention that.

I used mostly light colors for my coloring on this card, and die cut the colored panel using a die from the A2 Stitched Rectangles STAX 1 set from My Favorite Things and adhered it onto a top fold card base made from Mint Julep card stock from Papertrey Ink. It’s a pretty small card measuring in just shy of 4 Bar dimensions at 3 1/2 x 4 3/4″. I added my “typical Elin cluster” in the top right corner using scraps of paper doilies from Doodlebug Design and scraps of patterned paper from various companies (Maja Design, Papirdesign, Diecuts with a view and Making Memories are represented here) die cut using dies from My Favorite Things and XCut.

I stamped and white heat embossed a sentiment from the Itty Bitty Basics stamp set from My Favorite Things onto Smokey Shadow card stock from Papertrey Ink, before using one of the Itty Bitty Strips dies from MFT to die cut it. I added it on top of my cluster with a little bit of dimension behind it, before finishing off with a few enamel dots from Altenew. I added an even smaller cluster using similar elements in the opposite corner.

Not a lot of Copics, that’s bound to happen with a pale color palette.

Let’s get floral {Streamside Studios}

June 29, 2021June 27, 2021 ElinLeave a comment

Hi! Sometimes, I like to change up the use of a stamp or two in a stamp set. Small stamps in stamp sets, for example, are great for making backgrounds (though time consuming). This time, I’ve turned a floral image from the Fairy Happy Couple stamp set from Streamside Studios into a card that isn’t wedding related at all. It could be, though, I chose a sentiment that can be used for a birthday card, a wedding card and many other occasions.

This wedding bouquet is so gorgeous, and I printed it onto X-Press It blending card before fussy cutting it, leaving a white border around the edge. For some reason, I’ve been riding a pink, peachy, yellow wave whenever I’ve colored flowers lately, and this one is no exception.

I cut down a piece of Lemon Tart card stock from Papertrey Ink to 3 1/4 x 5 1/2″ and ran it through my die cutting machine with an impression plate to create some texture to my yellow background. I mounted it with foam tape onto a side fold A2 card I created using Stamper’s Select White card stock from Papertrey Ink. It’s my favorite white card stock, it’s thick, bright white and doesn’t crack.

Onto the yellow, I added my colored flowers using 1 mm foam squares. On the part that hangs off the yellow edge, I used foam tape in addition to the 1 mm foam squares to prevent sagging and make everything level. Using a die set from Papirdesign, I created a stacked sentiment. For the shadow, I used some 40 lb vellum, and on top of that I have four white die cuts stacked on top of each other for dimension. The trick here is that I also put two layers of white die cuts behind the vellum, giving it a little lift. In fact, the part of the word that overhangs to the right of the flowers has an additional three white die cuts behind it to compensate for the height of the 1 mm foam squares behind the flowers. Dimension is life?

I stamped and white heat embossed part of a sentiment from Norsk Stempelblad AS onto Melon Berry card stock from Papertrey Ink and added a few more strips of the same card stock behind it for dimension. I embellished the card very simply using sparkling clear sequins from Pretty Pink staggered around the flowers. Some are tucked behind, others hanging off the edge, I really like the effect it brings.

Lots of layers, and lots of dimension.

Quite a few colors despite a fairly simple palette. I didn’t want the center flower to be the same color as the other ones, so I went in with dark colors and plenty of layers before I was happy.

Showering you with birthday wishes {Purple Onion Designs}

June 20, 2021June 20, 2021 ElinLeave a comment

Hi! I have a simple, yet colorful birthday card to share today, featuring the Confetti Celebration stamp set from Purple Onion Designs, illustrated by Julian Charlton.

I love Elliot & Marcel, they’re such a cute pair, and so full of character!! These two don’t have a ton of detail to them, making them quick and easy to color. If detailed coloring isn’t your thing, these stamps are a great option. I colored my elephant and monkey (and umbrella and confetti) using my Copics, and I didn’t even ground these. I did, however die cut them into a panel using the largest of my A2 stitched rectangles dies from My Favorite Things.

I adhered my colored panel onto a top fold card base I made from Lush Lagoon card stock from My Favorite Things, and added a second white panel with faux stitching to the inside of the card, giving me plenty of space to write a personal message to the recipient.

I stamped and white heat embossed a sentiment from the Confetti Celebration stamp set onto a separate piece of Lush Lagoon card stock and decided to cut it up, leaving out the word birthday entirely and using a die from My Favorite Things to create die cut letters instead. I used the Big Birthday Wishes die, and die cut it three times from white card stock and once from a silver glitter card stock.

I stacked my letters for a dimensional look, glued them to my card and added the rest of the sentiment above and below my die cut word. The wonky angles I used for the sentiment goes well with the playful look of the image and adds a little bit of visual interest.