Hope your day is peachy keen! {Purple Onion Designs}

Hi, everyone! I have a peachy keen card to share today, using a few of the stamps from the most recent release from Purple Onion Designs. You can still purchase the entire collection in a bundle at a 30 % discount, an offer that expires at midnight tonight EST.

Purple Onion Designs - Elin Venge - Produce Stand Fruit Crates Jane Alice trifold front

My card is actually a tri-fold card. My original plan was a regular card with a window on the front and the remainder of the scene on the inside, but I really wanted to use William the owl for this card while still keeping it an A2 size, and there just wasn’t room for him, so I opted for a tri-fold design. I started by stamping and masking Alice the squirrel and the crate of apples from the fruit crates set, and then stamping the produce stand. I colored everything with my Copics, used the largest of the A2 Stitched Rectangles dies from My Favorite Things to turn it into a nice panel and adhered it to the front of a sidefold A2 card card base. Using a craft knife, I cut the opening in the fruit stand through both layers of paper, making sure to be very careful around those garlics so I didn’t chop them off.

Purple Onion designs - Elin Venge - Jane Fruit Crates tri-fold insid

On a separate piece of X-Press It blending card, I stamped the remaining two fruit crates, masking the one with the lemons and adding Jane the fox behind it, stamping her so she’d be perfectly placed in the window on the front of the card when it’s closed. You can see the back of the window on the left in this photo. I used the same die from MFT to die cut this panel too, and added a sentiment from the Around the Town sentiment set above the cute fox. I adhered the panel on the back of another sidefold card and glued the two cards together to make my tri-fold.

Purple Onion Designs - Elin Venge - William tri-fold inside

William gets to steal the show on the middle inside of the card. The front is to his left (you can see the window there) and the panel with the fox and the two fruit crates on the back of the part you can see to his right. He might look a little mis-placed since he’s not tucked in a corner, but it’s with good reason. The panel on the right (which is the back of the one with the fox) has plenty of room for a personal message.

Purple Onion Designs - Elin Venge - William tri-fold inside detail

Here’s a bit of a close up. I prefer not to color with my Copics on regular card stock, so I stamped him on X-Press It, colored him with Copics, fussy cut him and glued him to the card base, using a think black pen to draw his feet back in and some gray colored pencils on the card base to ground him.

Purple Onion Designs - Elin Venge - Produce Stand Fruit Crates Alice William tri-fold half open

If you close the front of the card without folding the panel with the fox back where it belongs, it looks like William is the one standing behind the produce stand. This was my reason for placing him where I did, I wanted to have the option of keeping the card half open, so he’d appear in the window instead of Jane.

Purple Onion Designs Produce stand Fruit crates Jane Alice William Copics

I used a ton of Copics for this card.

One for the books {Purple Onion Designs}

Hi, everyone! I have another card to share featuring the new spring release from Purple Onion Designs. This card is very different. First of all, it’s a slimline card, which I don’t make too many of (on account of them being difficult to photograph). Secondly, I only used 6 Copic markers for the entire card. I’ve dabbled with grayscale images in the past, but always with a pop of color somewhere. This one is all about those grays. Oh, and those fabulous new images, of course.

Purple Onion Designs - Elin Venge - George Book Store Room with a view slimline straight

I stamped and masked George the raccoon on a piece of X-Press It blending card that I’d already die cut using the slimline starter die set from My Favorite Things. I stamped Room with a view so George is standing firmly on the balcony, then stamped the book store (minus the roof of the book store) below it and then the balcony railing directly over top of the raccoon once I’d removed the mask.

Purple Onion Designs - Elin Venge - George Book Store Room with a view slimline angled

I colored the entire panel with my 6 chosen Copics, adhered the panel onto a card base I made from Stamper’s Select White card stock from Papertrey Ink.

Purple Onion Designs - Elin Venge - George Book Store Room with a view slimline inside

Deciding to keep the grayscale going on the inside of the card, I stamped one of the sentiments in the “Around the Town” sentiment set using VersaMark ink on a piece of Steel Gray card stock from My Favorite Things, and heat embossed it in white, before adhering the sentiment to the inside of the card. Super simple.

Purple Onion Designs George Book store Room with a view Copics

The Ns and Ts are my favorite Copic grays. For this card, I went with the Ns.

Thanks a bunch {Purple Onion Designs}

Hi, there! I have another card to share today featuring new goodies from the latest release over at Purple Onion Designs.

Purple Onion Designs Junie thanks a bunch front

Isn’t this bunny with her bouquet of flowers adorable? Look at that sweet smile. I love Stacey Yacula’s illustration style, she really brings her characters to life. This is Junie. I colored her with my Copics and decided to fussy cut her.

Purple Onion Designs Junie thanks a bunch front angled

I pulled out a piece of patterned paper from the Dots & Stripes Pastels pack from Sunny Studio and cut it down to a strip, using one of the Stitched Borders dies from Lawn Fawn on both sides for a nice finished look. I die cut a white card stock circle using a die from My Favorite Things, and mounted it on foam tape.

Purple Onion Designs Junie thanks a bunch flatlay

I stamped and white heat embossed one of the sentiments in the “Around the Town” sentiment set on a piece of Melon Berry card stock and mounted it on foam tape, before adding my bunny with some 1 mm foam squares on top of the white circle.

Purple Onion Designs Junie thanks a bunch detail

I finished my card by adding some Pretty Pink Posh sparkling clear sequins in a visual triangle around the circle and bunny.

Purple Onion Designs Junie thanks a bunch Copics

Small image equals a limited color palette.

Paint the town {Purple Onion Designs}

Hi, there. I have a card to share featuring stamps from the brand new “A Happy Little Place” collection from Purple Onion Designs, illustrated by the one and only Stacey Yacula.

Purple Onion Designs Polly and Country flower set and country side front

As soon as I saw Polly the hedgehog with her cans of paint, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. She needed to paint a rainbow. I don’t really free hand draw much on my cards, but arches aren’t too daunting.

Purple Onion Designs Polly and Country flower set and country side front angled

I stamped Polly and her paint cans using Extreme Black ink from My Favorite Things, before masking the paint cans and stamping some country flowers behind them. Using a mechanical pencil, I drew in faint lines for the rainbow, before masking the section that needed to be in front of the countryside scene on the horizon, and then stamping that in fadeout ink from Inkon3 for a no line look in the background. I wanted the focus to be on the hedgehog and rainbow.

Purple Onion Designs Polly and Country flower set and country side flatlay

I colored in the entire scene with my Copics. To be honest I probably spent more time on the rainbow than anything else. I only have five arches, but it was tricky enough to try to color five (the bands are very thin) without the curves getting too jagged, I don’t even want to think about how hard it would have been with seven.

Purple Onion Designs Polly and Country flower set and country side Polly detail

At the end of the rainbow, I created a dripping edge with a puddle of paint on the grass. Isn’t Polly cute holding that paint can and brush?

Purple Onion Designs Polly and Country flower set and country side flatlay left

I stamped a sentiment from the “Around the town” sentiment set onto my colored piece using VersaFine Onyx Black ink, holding my breath as I did so. I didn’t want to mess up my panel and have to start over at this point.

Purple Onion Designs Polly and Country flower set and country side flatlay angled

I used the largest die in the A2 Stitched Rectangles STAX 2 set from My Favorite Things to turn my colored piece into a finished panel, making sure the ink in the sentiment was dry before running it through my Gemini Jr. I added my panel onto a white card base with a top fold, and my card was complete.

Purple Onion Designs Polly regnbue Country flower country side Copics

Lots and lots of Copics. That happens with rainbows 🙂

Have a blooming good day! {Purple Onion Designs}

Hi, there! Today’s the day! The brand new spring release from Stacey Yacula and Purple Onion Designs, A Happy Little Place, is here! I’ve had a blast creating cards with this collection, and the first card I’m sharing happens to be a mini slimline one.

Purple Onion Designs Anna and country side and stone wall mini slimline front

I decided to stamp Anna on the left hand side of my panel, before masking her and stamping the stone wall behind her and then finally country side towards the top of the panel. I colored the entire panel, adding in a dirt road and a little bit of grass at the bottom.

Purple Onion Designs Anna and country side and stone wall mini slimline flatlay

I stamped a sentiment from the Around the Town sentiment set in VersaMark and white heat embossed it, before using an 05 gelly roll pen to add little white dots in the grass to look like flowers in the background. I adhered my 6 x 3 1/2″ panel onto a top fold card base that measures 6 1/4 x 3 3/4″, and my card was done.

Purple Onion Designs Anna and country side and stone wall mini slimline Anna detail

She looks so happy riding that bike!!

Purple Onion Designs Anna country side Stone Wall Copic

The Copics I used. Not really a lot, considering the entire panel is colored in.

You’ll find the entire “A Happy Little Place” collection as well as the sentiment set at a bundled price for the next two weeks. That’s a 30 % discount off the regular prices. A pretty good deal if you ask me.

It’s your birthday! {Purple Onion Designs}

Hi, there! I’m back with a birthday card for an ice cream loving friend today.

Elin Venge - Marigold and Ice Cream Truck and Mountains birthday card front straight

I stamped Marigold from Purple Onion Designs in Extreme Black ink from My Favorite Things, before masking and stamping the Ice Cream Truck and the Mountains using fadeout ink from Inkon3.

Elin Venge - Marigold and Ice Cream Truck and Mountains birthday card front

I’ll admit, this took a while to color. I always start with my background elements and finish with the main image in the scene. Believe it or not, but I actually added quite a bit of brown to those trees. I added darker greens under the wheels of the ice cream truck and under the bunny, and a little bit here and there in the rest of the scene as well, for a little bit of interest. Once the entire scene was colored in, I went in and added a few blades of grass in the foreground.

Elin Venge - Marigold and Ice Cream Truck and Mountains birthday card flatlay

I knew even before I started that I wanted the ice cream truck to be teal. Originally, I was going for a very light color, but it was looking a bit too blue, so I went in with some darker colors and made the whole truck darker, that did the trick. I went for a corally, peachy type color for the awning and the side panel, I really like peach tones with teal. Kind of weird, since I’m not generally a fan of complementary colors, but these work.

Elin Venge - Marigold and Ice Cream Truck and Mountains birthday card flatlay right

Once everything was colored, I did some fussy cutting around the bunny’s ear and used the largest of the A2 Stitched Rectangles STAX 2 dies to die cut the entire panel. Except for the ear, of course. I adhered my panel onto an A2 card base, and I admit I love the little detail of the ear sticking out past the edge of the card. Of course it meant that I needed to make my own envelope, the ear would have gotten crumpled inside the envelope had I used an A2 envelope.

Elin Venge - Marigold and Ice Cream Truck and Mountains birthday card detail

I stamped one of the sentiments in the Everyday Blurbs stamp set using Distress Oxide ink in the color Peacock Feathers, before fussy cutting the speech bubble and mounting it on foam tape onto the card.

Purple Onion Designs Marigold Ice Cream Truck Mountains bursdag Lisabeth Copics

Lots and lots of Copics used for this one!

Birthday wishes {Purple Onion Designs}

Hi, there! I have a wintery slimline birthday card to share today, featuring an adorable hedgehog from Purple Onion Designs.

Elin Venge - Timothy and Snow Day Hill birthday wishes

Timothy is part of the Sweetest Little Town collection released back in October, and I think he’s just the cutest little guy. I colored him up months ago, and my plan was to turn him into a gift tag. Plans change, and instead of a small gift tag, I went big with a slimline card instead, keeping the colors on the rest of the card subdued to really make him shine.

Elin Venge - Timothy and Snow Day Hill birthday wishes detail2

I stamped the Snow Day! Hill background onto a piece of X-Press It blending card using Stormy Sea ink from Papertrey Ink. The panel was wider than the stamp, so I repeated the very left part of the stamp to extend my background scene, also re-stamping the smaller cloud. I also selectively stamped and white heat embossed the word “birthday” from the Warming Winter Thoughts stamp set onto a piece of Stormy Sea cardstock to form part of my sentiment.

Elin Venge - Timothy and Snow Day Hill birthday wishes detail1

I used the slim card basics die set from Mama Elephant to die cut the background. I added three layers of card stock behind the frame, inlaying the “window” pieces so they’re set back, before adding the hedgehog with foam tape on top of one of the windows.

Purple Onion Designs Timothy Snow Day Hill die cut

I die cut the wishes die from Mama Elephant to create the rest of my sentiment. It’s four layers of Stormy Sea card stock, and another three layers of white card stock in the part of the word that spans across the windows.

Trifold Christmas card {Purple Onion Designs}

Hi, everyone! I’ve got a Christmas card to share today. I know it’s Easter time, but there’s a line of lyrics in a Norwegian Christmas song that says Christmas lasts till Easter, and I’m sticking to it. The next line in the song states that it’s not true, but that’s beside the point 😉

This started out as an idea of a fairly simple card with a window on the front so you could see inside, but evolved fairly quickly into a trifold card. A heavy one at that, even though it looks simple, there are a lot of layers, and the card actually weighs in at 28 g.

I started by coloring the polar bear (Icicle) and fussy cutting him, leaving a thin white border around him. I’m not good at leaving a white trim when I fussy cut (my scissors naturally gravitate towards the stamped lines), but I get around that by drawing an outline about 1 mm outside the stamped line with a mechanical pencil, and then cut along that.

I love the snowflake circle die from Hero Arts and have used it many times before. I die cut a window into the center of the front of my card base, and at first thought that would be it. Once it morphed into a trifold, though, it was so back heavy that I needed an additional two die cut windows on top of the card base for some strength and stability. I used the largest of the A2 Stitched Rectangles from My Favorite Things to create a nice finished edge to the top layer.

For the inside panel that you can see from the front, I stamped the Frozen Pond using fadeout ink from Inkon3 and colored in the entire panel, before using the same stitched rectangle die that I used for the front for a nice finished edge. This entire panel flips down, leaving lots of space on the inside for a personal message.

I stamped a sentiment from the Holiday Messages Sentiment set straight onto my card using Ocean Tides ink from Papertrey Ink, before adding the polar bear with 1 mm foam squares.

In this photo it’s pretty evident that the three layers of panels with die cut windows add a nice bit of dimension, as well as stability to what would otherwise be a pretty floppy card front, since the window is so big. I use 110 lb white card stock (Stamper’s Select White from Papertrey Ink), which is a nice, sturdy card stock, but with that big of a window, the only thing that will work is using several layers.

I added white pearls from Kort & Godt to the center of the snowflakes. 3 mm pearls for the largest snowflakes, 2.5 mm pearls for all the others.

Lots and lots of Copics for this one. I used 20 markers to color just the bear, 10 for his fur alone, which is a little bit crazy.

From me to you {Purple Onion Designs}

Hi, everyone! It’s a glorious Sunday, the sun’s out and I’m hoping it’ll help melt the dumping of snow we got earlier in the week. I’ve got a quick Christmas gift tag (yes, another one) to share, featuring Merry, the most adorable penguin from Purple Onion Designs. Okay, they’re all equally adorable, Stacey Yacula illustrates the most gorgeous looking penguins.

I colored the penguin with my Copics, fussy cut him and added 1 mm foam squares to the back. I created a fold over tag using the second largest die in the fold over tags nesting die set from We R Memory Keepers and some really old pink patterned paper from Magnolia.

I created a tag to go inside the folded over tag using scraps of patterned paper from Papirdesign. Using one of the dies in the Tag Builder Blueprints 6 die set from My Favorite Things, I created the to/from circle using that pink patterned paper, and matted it with a white die cut circle. I probably didn’t need the white circle, I’m thinking the letters would have stood out more against the grey patterned paper, but what’s done is done. I still like the white.

Fairly quick coloring on such a small image means I didn’t use a lot of markers. I originally colored his feet and beak orange/yellow, but didn’t like the look and covered it with grey. You can still see the orange shining through in the finished coloring. That, I don’t mind, for some reason, I just didn’t like the look of the orange alone. Some species of penguins have black feet anyway 😉

Be merry {Purple Onion Designs}

Hi, everyone! I have a very clean and simple Christmas card to share today, featuring little Timothy from Purple Onion Designs. I love this little hedgehog, he’s so cute.

My card is heavily inspired by a card Tenia Nelson shared last week on Instagram. If you don’t already follow her, you should. She has a very clean and simple style, and is a master at using white space on her cards. Occasionally, you’ll even find music performances on her feed, she’s a professional musician too! Very talented lady, definitely worth a follow!

Tenia’s card had a wide piece of washi tape going in from the right near the top of the card, with a rectangle perpendicular to the washi with a couple of small colored flowers on top, a sentiment and a few enamel dots. Once I’d ink blended a little bit using Audrey Blue and Island Blue inks from Simon Says Stamp, I tried to add a rectangle to my card, but it was too long and too wide for my liking. I scrapped that idea and die cut a polaroid frame instead for my little hedgehog to sit in. I used the second smallest die from the Precious Polaroids die set from My Favorite Things, and stacked four on top of each other for dimension. The die cut was just big enough to stamp a sentiment onto. The shortest sentiment in the Snowflake Grove Sentiment set was the perfect size.

I added a few snowdrift sprinkles from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards, and my card was complete. Lots of white space, a cute hedgehog and one more Christmas card in the bank for 2021. Doesn’t get much better than that!

Super limited color palette for this tiny image.