Tag: Purple Onion Designs

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas {Purple Onion Designs}

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Hi, crafty friends! Is it beginning to look a lot like Christmas? Well, not yet, but we’re supposed to get dumped on tomorrow with lots and lots of snow, so we’ll see. I’m not ready, but Tofu and his friends are.

I chose a very muted color palette for Cozy Window from Purple Onion Designs from the It’s the Season collection, illustrated by Pei. I turned the outside of the window into some timber paneling, and once the coloring was complete, I used the largest die in the Stitched Rectangles STAX 1 set from My Favorite Things. I also stamped a sentiment from the ’tis the Season sentiment set using Altenew Green Opal ink.

I sprinkled on Chunky white embossing enamel from Stampendous to create my snow, making sure no granules covered the critters’ eyes or the letters in the sentiment before heating the panel from the back, melting the granules for a fun, snowy look. I adhered the panel to a top fold card base I created from Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink.

As I said: muted color palette for this one!

The entire It’s the season! collection is available as a bundle at a 30 % discount. The bundle offer ends tonight at midnight EST, so it’s a good idea to purchase it quickly if you would like the collection in its entirety.

Let it snow {Purple Onion Designs}

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Hi, crafty friends! I promised I’d be back on the weekend with a card featuring Holly Mabutas’ new collection with Purple Onion Designs, so here I am. I paired the new Hold on tight with the older Snowy Forest and used a very limited color palette.

I stamped the main image with Memento Tuxedo Black, but opted for the softer Hero Arts Wet Cement for the trees, as I really wanted them to truly be in the background and not distract too much from the focal image. I used the RV90 family for the trees and most of the clothing and made the bunnies different by adding patterns to their scarves.

I stamped the sentiment from the Seasons Sayings sentiment set using Stormy Sea ink from Papertrey Ink, sprinkled Chunky white embossing enamel over my panel and melted the granules from the back, giving it that textured snowy look I love. I used a black glaze pen to add some shine to their eyes and mounted my panel onto a card base I created from Stormy Sea cardstock from Papertrey Ink. This wound up being an odd size card, it measures 5 1/4 x 5″. I added a few snowdrift sprinkles from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards to finish.

Very limited color palette for this one.

For a limited time, the entire Cotswood Christmas collection is available as a bundle at a 30 % discount. The bundle includes all 9 images in the collection and a sentiment. The offer ends Wednesday 11 November 2026, so if you want it, you’re better off not sitting on the fence for too long.

Warm wishes – season’s greetings {Purple Onion Designs}

ElinLeave a comment

Hi, crafty friends! It’s that time of year: the holiday release from Purple Onion Designs is finally live!! This year, there are two collections: one from Pei and one from Holly Mabutas. Today I’m sharing a card with an image from Pei’s collection, but rest assured – I will have one with Holly’s over the weekend.

The It’s the season! collection consists of 11 images and a sentiment set with five sentiments. I’ll use the sentiments on cards in the upcoming weeks, but the sentiment on this particular card is from the Seasons Sayings sentiment set that came out last year. The image, however, is Magical Christmas, and it’s from this new release. I love the bear and cat waving at Santa’s sleigh in front of the moon. I used the Winter Trees background stamp from the Tofu & Friends Holiday collection from 2023 to fill out the scene a little. It makes it look like they’re deep in the woods in the middle of nowhere. I stamped the background and the moon with Classic Kraft ink from Papertrey Ink, while using Memento Tuxedo Black for the foreground. Once my coloring was complete, I re-stamped Santa’s sleigh with Obsidian ink from Altenew and white heat embossed the little trail of stars behind the sleigh.

This card came together pretty easily, and even though I had planned on using more bluegreens for the clothing, in the end I did go back to my trusty blues. You can just never go wrong with blue! I even stamped the sentiment in Altenew Winter Lake ink, to get even more blue in there. I like having the color of the sentiment match the rest of the card.

Simple color palette for this one. I used a lot of dark colors, and I also used BV27, which is a color I’ve made myself, as I find the gap from 29 to 25 a bit tricky to work with for large night skies like this.

For a limited time, the entire It’s the season! collection is available as a bundle with all 11 images and the five sentiments at a discounted 30% off. The offer is available until Wednesday 11 November, 2026 on the Purple Onion Designs website.

Take a little time to relax {Purple Onion Designs}

Elin1 Comment

Hi, crafty friends! I’ve been MIA for a while, and I don’t really have a good reason. I needed to reorganize my craft room a bit, and my order for the storage I was missing arrived on the day I left for summer vacation. Bad timing, right? The motivation to get it done had taken a holiday by the time I got back, and it just took time with work and life getting in the way. Anyway, I hope I’m back, and I’ve seen lots of holiday cards recently, so you’d think I’d post one now, but nope. As much as I usually love creating holiday cards all year, I’m just not ready yet, in spite of Christmas items having popped up in the grocery stores and other shops weeks ago. The snow that’s currently falling outside my craft room window (yes, it’s snowing *why why WHY*) doesn’t help. In fact, it makes me long for summer, which is why I’m sharing a shaker card today with palm trees in the background and a pig jumping into the ocean!

This little guy (gal, maybe?) is part of the Sunshine and Daydreams collection that released this summer from Purple Onion Designs. (S)he is half of the Swim buddies duo, which also includes a goose. I used the goose on her own for this card, and I had a plan for a shaker card for this pig, and it turned out pretty much I wanted it to. Love it when a plan comes together!!

I stamped the Beachscape background in Memento Rich Cocoa ink and only colored in the part that would be inside the shaker window, leaving the rest uncolored. This is a great trick to draw your eyes in to a focal point, and it gives a cleaner look than coloring the entire background, and the bonus is that it’s also less work, which is always a win!

I used the First Class Frame die from My Favorite Things to create six layers of white cardstock for the shaker walls, using Shortbread cardstock from Concord & 9th for the top layer, with a piece of acetate from Hot off the press for the window. I filled my shaker with a blend of the Sea Glass and Starry Night sequin mixes from Little Things From Lucy’s Cards, as well as a few blue 3 mm diamonds from Kort & Godt.

I used Avocado ink from Concord & 9th to stamp my sentiment, which is from the Sunshine & Rainbows sentiment set. The green color stands out against the white background and ties in nicely with the colored palm trees inside the window.

The Farmhouse color combination from Concord & 9th was my inspiration for the colors I used on this card. It’s a combo I probably wouldn’t have thought of on my own, but I quite like the end result. Give me anything blue, and I’m here for it, that Capri color definitely is a show stopper!

I used quite a few Copics for this one, in spite of the coloring being on a somewhat smaller portion of the card front.

Ice cream truck in the woods! {Purple Onion Designs}

ElinLeave a comment

Hi, crafty friends! My blogging has been sporadic lately. Madness (the good kind) at work and the world cup are the reasons behind my absence, but now that we’ve been kicked out of the world cup because FIFA didn’t want us advancing to the semi finals, I can focus on other things. Vacation time is also right around the corner, so I’m hoping to share lots of cards! I’m starting with this cute ice cream truck from Purple Onion Designs, brilliantly illustrated by Pei. This is Happy Cone Mobile, and it’s from the Sunshine & Daydreams collection that was released a few weeks back. The Woodsy Background is from the same collection.

I wanted a storybook look to this, and the ice cream truck is a fairly busy image, so I decided to stamp the background in fadeout ink from Inkon3 for a no line look.

I colored my scene with Copics, and when the coloring was complete, I put the panel back in my Misti and stamped the truck again, this time in Obsidian ink from Altenew. It gives such crisp, dark black lines, but it’s not Copic friendly, so I need to do this step once the coloring is complete. I tend to hold my breath hoping I don’t offset the stamping, as I don’t want to have to start all over again. This time it worked. I stamped SPECIAL DELIVERY and the postmark stamp using Classic Kraft ink from Papertrey Ink. The stamps are from the Vintage PostCARD and the Vintage PostCARD Add-On stamp sets, which are both older sets from Purple Onion. I also stamped a sentiment from the Sunshine & Rainbows sentiment set using Clover ink from Concord & 9th.

I used the largest die in the Nesting Postage Stamps die set from Hero Arts to turn my panel into a large postage stamp.

I adhered strips of solid color cardstock towards the top of my 6 1/2 x 5″ card base, before mounting my huge postage stamp scene in the center with foam tape. The colors I used are Nectar, Sorbet, Starfruit, Clover and Bluebell, all from Concord & 9th.

To finish off the card I added a couple of yellow hearts from the Beach Dreams Crystal collection from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards.

I used a LOT of colors for this one. Very few colors for the background, but a lot for the truck and these cute friends!!

Have a sun-tastic day! {Purple Onion Designs}

ElinLeave a comment

Hi, crafty friends. I probably shouldn’t have favorites, but I do, and this card is my favorite I’ve made with the Sunshine & Daydreams collection from Purple Onion Designs, beautifully illustrated by Pei. It features Beach Besties, and I paired them with the Sunrise Sunset horizon stamp from an older collection from Stacey Yacula.

I stamped Tofu and Brownie in Extreme Black ink from My Favorite Things, placed a mask over top and stamped the Sunrise Sunset with Altenew Golden Honeycomb ink. I colored in my scene and decided to try a new twist for the sky. I don’t think I’ve ever used these particular color for a sky before, but I think it worked out well.

I imagine they’re in a tropical location where the ocean has this very peaceful aqua color that fades into nothing as it reaches the shore. I tried to give the whole panel a dreamy vibe, and there’s not a whole lot of dark markers used. I did include a dark green towel and used more of the YR09 on the crab than I did on Tofu’s hat (believe it or not, it was used on Tofu’s hat, albeit in a very small amount). The greens play well together and work with the ocean, while the more corally color for the hat, seashell and crab play off the peach in the sunset.

Once my image was colored, I cut my panel down using the larges die in the Additional A2 Layers die set from Waffle Flower. I stamped a sentiment from the Sunshine & Rainbows sentiment set using second generation stamping with Memento Espresso Truffle ink. For these scene cards I create for Purple Onion Designs, I prefer a colored sentiment that doesn’t stand out too much from my scene, and second generation stamping is a good way to achieve that look.

I used an extra fine point white Sharpie to add the ripples in the ocean, and used White puff embossing powder from Wow! to create the seafoam on the beach. I added a bit of black glaze pen to their eyes, and the glaze made the crab’s eyes bigger, which made him even funnier than he was originally. I adhered my colored piece to a panel of white cardstock cut to 4 1/4 x 5 1/2″, then mounted the whole thing onto a 4 3/4 x 6″ white card base covered with a panel of Sprout cardstock from Concord & 9th.

The color palette I wanted to focus on was the Garden gate palette from Concord & 9th. It’s very summery, and I love these colors together!

Speaking of colors, I used a ton of Copic colors for this card. By the time I had colored the sky, I’d already used 11 colors; they add up fast!

Holy spritz! It’s your birthday! {Purple Onion Designs}

ElinLeave a comment

Hi, crafty friends! Have you seen the new release from Purple Onion Designs? Pei has outdone herself with the Sunshine & Daydreams collection, and today, I have a fun shaped card to share, featuring Bottoms Up!

Isn’t this image fun? I love that Tofu somehow fits in this wine glass. There was an image in last year’s summer collection with a similar vibe. That one had a corgi hanging on to a margarita glass. So fun!

For this card, I simply colored my image with Copics, placed a mask on top of my mage and did some ink blending with C9 inks and the Celebrate stencil set from Kristina Werner. I used purple voluntarily, can you believe it? The purple is Fig faded into Aster, the green is Clover faded into Surfside, and the blue is Capri blended into Bluebell. I can’t take credit for the color palette, though, it was one Jennifer McGuire shared in the C9 Winter Retreat back in January, when they revealed the new colors to the retreat attendees. I’ll take my color inspiration wherever I can get it, and this was a fun one to try. Capri has stolen my heart!

Back to the card. I removed the mask on the corkscrew before stamping the sentiment in Clover ink from Concord & 9th.

I wanted a little bit more interest in the background and decided to use paste, but before I put the paste on, I die cut my panel using the largest die in the A2 Oval Basics die set from Kristina Werner.

Once my panel was the finished size of the card, I placed the corkscrew mask back on, then used another stencil in the Celebrate stencil set from Kristina using Golden Hour Solar Paste from Simon Hurley. I made sure to cover the sentiment before adding the paste, so it wouldn’t end up where I didn’t want it. The paste adds texture and a little bit of shine in addition to breaking up all the white space in the background.

There you have it, a fun shaped card with Tofu in a glass and a color combo I never would have come up with on my own.

Last, but not least: the Copics I used. Fairly neutral palette for this one.

For a limited time, the entire Sunshine & Daydreams collection is available as a discounted bundle. The discount for the bundle is over 30 %, so if you love Pei’s work as much I do, it’s available until June 24th 2026.

hello friend! {Purple Onion Designs}

Elin1 Comment

Hi, crafty friends! There’s a new release out today from Purple Onion Designs. The Sunshine & Daydreams collection is a beautiful summer collection illustrated by Pei. It consists of 12 images, and there’s also a sentiment set and a few individual sentiments available. These images are so awesome and as always, the images from Pei are a blast to work with.

For this card, I started by stamping the goose from the Swim buddies set (there’s also a pig in the same set) in Extreme Black ink from My Favorite Things. I masked the goose before stamping the Beachscape background stamp using Classic Kraft ink from Papertrey Ink for a soft look.

I colored the panel with Copics, and I made sure to have the feet barely touch the water, making it look like the goose is testing the temperature of the water. Quite a timid one, this one, the exact opposite of the pig in the same set, which is so much fun!

I added White puff embossing powder from Wow! for a seafoam look near the bottom of my panel and stamped a sentiment from the much older Sweet Summer sentiment set using Memento Rich Cocoa ink. I wanted to add a sentiment from the new sentiment set, but my panel was too small for all of them. This older one was the perfect size for this smaller 4 Bar card size.

To finish off the card, I added a few sequins, gems and pearls from the Melon embellishment mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards.

This Tropic color combination from Concord & 9th was my inspiration for this card.

For a limited time, the entire Sunshine & Daydreams collection is available as a discounted bundle. The discount for the bundle is over 30 %, so if you love Pei’s work as much I do, it’s available until June 24th 2026.

 

Live every hour like it’s happy hour {Purple Onion Designs}

ElinLeave a comment

Hi, crafty friends. It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Pei’s illustrations for Purple Onion Designs, and today’s card features Tofu floating in a pool. Tofu’s Flamingo Floatie is one of the images from last year’s Spring is in the air collection from Pei.

I stamped and colored my image with Copics on X-Press It blending card, before using a die in the A2 Double Stitched Rectangle STAX die set from My Favorite Things to create faux stitching around the perimeter of my panel.

I masked off my image, before using Powder, Harbor and Sea Glass inks from Concord & 9th to ink blend the background through the Perfect Pool Water stencil from My Favorite Things. I flipped and rotated the stencil to create my pool water.

While I still had my mask in place, I stamped a sentiment from the Good Libations stamp set from Purple Onion using Oceanside ink from Concord & 9th. With the masking, you can still read the sentiment perfectly, but it looks like it’s behind Tofu’s tail, which I think adds a fun detail on what is really a simple card.

I adhered my panel to a card base I created from Oceanside cardstock from Concord & 9th, added a layer of Glossy Accents to Tofu’s glasses and finished off with a mix of sequins and gems from the Ice Water embellishment mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards.

Very limited color palette for this one.

Hello summer {Purple Onion Designs}

ElinLeave a comment

Hi, crafty friends! This year’s summer collection from Purple Onion Designs, illustrated by Pei, is right around the corner. While we wait, I have a fun tag to share featuring the Sweet Bunny from last summer’s collection. I paired it with the Field background stamp from Holly Mabutas’ Lakewood collection from Purple Onion Designs, also from last year.

I stamped and masked my bunny, stamped the field background, then colored in my scene with Copics. I didn’t want an “all green” background, so I colored the bush and the tree with pink markers, I’m pretending they’re blooming. The fruit trees are in full bloom at the moment, so it was an easy decision. Once my coloring was complete, I used the largest die in the Stitched Traditional Tag STAX die set from My Favorite Things. This tag set doesn’t create holes in the tags, so I made my own and used a reinforcer from the Fold-up Tags die set, also from My Favorite Things, to give the hole a finished look. I stamped Hello from the Outliners sentiment set and summer from the Happy hello sentiment set, both in Parsley ink from Concord & 9th. I then slid a piece of ribbon through the hole and tied it using Cherry divine twine from Whisker Graphics with a strawberry charm attached. I used a black glaze pen for the eyes, and while this doesn’t usually show up very well in photos, in this one you can sort of see a reflection from the camera flash in one of the eyes, at least.

Very soft color palette for this one.