Hi, crafty friends. I have a (for me) super clean and simple card to share today, featuring products from Crafty Meraki’s anniversary release. No coloring today, which is rare on my cards.
I thought the Natalia Meraki Flora dies were really beautiful and wanted them to be the focal point on my card. Using all three flower dies in the set, I die cut from Buttercup cardstock from Concord & 9th as well as from New Leaf and Cocoa Bean cardstock, both from Papertrey Ink.
I wanted to add a little bit of interest to my flowers and did some simple ink blending. I used Mustard Seed and Spiced Marmalade Distress inks for the yellow, Fresh Leaf ink from Altenew for the green and Vintage Timber from My Favorite Things for the brown. I also added additional diecuts to build dimension and interest to these flowers.
Onto a white card base I created from Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink, I stamped a sentiment from the Paper Hugs stamp set, which comes with a beautiful image of an envelope full of flowers and is another new one from the anniversary release. I really want to color up the envelope with flowers too, so stay tuned for that. I used VersaFine Onyx Black ink and placed the sentiment in a sweet spot between my sunflowers.
This is a very simple card, and in hindsight I kind of wish I’d used a different color for my card base, or even ink blended a gradient blue with on the card base, but the white makes the yellow pop and is very clean, which is usually my preference on simple cards.
Here you can see a little bit of the dimension on the card. I used white diecuts behind the the yellow ones (I don’t have a lot of that Buttercup cardstock and wanted to use as little of it as possible), which worked out great. The white almost disappears against the white of the background, making it look like the flowers are floating on the card, it’s such a cool effect!
This time I’m keeping the focus on 
I used a lot of green for this card. Not too many markers, but I feel like most of the card is green. I actually had to refill all the greens I used for the fields and trees halfway through. They hadn’t been refilled in a couple of years, so it was about time, I use these greens a lot.
I needed a pop of color to counteract all the green and decided on a corally pink color combination that I used for the party hat and balloon. I dug through my colored cardstock looking for a match, and wound up with Fire Coral cardstock from My Favorite Things. I created a top fold A2 card base from it and adhered my colored panel onto it to the left side, it wasn’t wide enough to cover the entire card front.
In the fall of 2020 I was running seriously low on X-Press It blending card, which is the only cardstock I use for my Copic coloring. It was hard to get hold of back then, but I lucked out and got a pack from Amazon UK. It was A4, which kind of blew my mind a little bit. Up until that point, I didn’t even know A4 X-Press It existed, I’ve always bought letter size. A4 is less wide and taller than letter size, which means I only get two panels that cover an A2 card front from one sheet. I used one of the narrower pieces on this card, which left me with about 1/4″ extra width on the card base. I debated cutting it off, but I feel like the pink strip on the right provides a little bit of balance, the card would be very green without it.
Onto a separate piece of Fire Coral cardstock, I stamped and white heat embossed a sentiment from the Til mannen stamp set from Norsk Stempelblad AS, before die cutting it using a speech bubble die from Altenew. I popped it up on 1/16″ foam squares from Gina K for a tiny bit of dimension.
You’d think that with a close to full panel of coloring that I’d use a lot more colors than this, but the four greens near the left end of this graphic were all I used for the grass and the trees, which covers most of the card.
I colored in the image using Copics, before fussy cutting it, right up against the black lines of the image. I put the image aside while I worked on the rest of my card.
I actually worked directly on the card base for this one. Using the Big Balloon stencil from My Favorite Things, I ink blended two balloons using Distress inks – one using Picked Raspberry, Worn Lipstick and Abandoned Coral; the other using Mustard Seed and Squeezed Lemonade. And in the words of Laura Bassen – the magic’s in the overlap.
Once the balloons were done, I used the mask in the Big Balloon stencil set to mask off the balloons while I used the Slimline Cloud Edges stencil, also from MFT, to create the illusion of clouds in the distance. I used Eastern Sky ink near the top of the card, Iceberg ink towards the bottom, both are gorgeous colors from Altenew.
I free hand cut a grassy hill from Parsley cardstock from Concord & 9th and adhered it to the bottom of my card. I die cut the Happy Birthday die from My Favorite Things twice using white cardstock from Papertrey Ink (same cardstock as my card base) and adhered the two layers together for a tiny bit of dimension and adhered my layered die cut on top of the balloons.
To finish off the card, I drew in balloon strings using a 0.35 Copic Multiliner, popped the tortoise (I can’t bring myself to write the word “turtle” when this is clearly a tortoise) up using some 1/16″ foam squares and added sequins from the White Orchid sequin mix from Little Things From Lucy’s Cards for a bit of sparkle and shine.
Simple color palette for this small image.
I’ve made a slimline card this time, with images from a Stamptember collaboration set from Mama Elephant and Simon Says Stamp that I colored up in November 2020. These have been sitting on my desk for a while, and I always planned on creating this window design with them – Get Cracking on Christmas is the perfect opportunity to execute plans you’ve had for a while, but not had time for.
I colored up this fairy quite a while ago, and I even had a blue sky around her that I decided not to use. I fussy cut the image, leaving a trim around the edge (I didn’t want to contend with the whispy lines in her hair).
I created a white top fold card base using Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink. It’s my all time favorite white cardstock. Using a geometric embossing folder from We R Memory Keepers, I created a bit of texture to the card front. It’s nice to have lots of white space while giving the background a little bit of interest, and embossing folders are a great way to ensure that.
I cut a piece of Winter Wisteria cardstock from Papertrey Ink at an angle and adhered it to the top of the card using foam tape.
I adhered my colored image, half on top of the purple cardstock using foam tape, the bottom half to the card base using foam tape. I let her foot hang off the edge of the card for a little bit of added interest.
To finish off the card, I die cut scraps of purple patterned paper from Papirdesign to adhere to the bottom right corner of the card. Onto one of the strips, I stamped and white heat embossed a sentiment from the Hilsninger stamp set from Norsk Stempelblad AS, before I added sequins from the White Orchid sequin mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards for a little bit of embellishment.
Not a lot of colors for this one.
This koala was so quick and easy to color. If you’re new to coloring, or enjoy coloring but don’t want to spend an eternity coloring one image, I’d recommend her images. They’re not super detailed, which makes them easy and fast to color.
I decided to put my colored koala in a polaroid frame, and used the largest of the dies in the Precious Polaroids die set from My Favorite Things to die cut three times from white cardstock for a stacked look on top of the cute koala.
I created a top fold A2 card base using Green Parakeet cardstock from Papertrey Ink. Onto the left bottom corner of a piece of Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink, I stamped some leaves from the Leaf Clusters stamp set from Altenew, using Limelight ink from My Favorite Things. This is a much more vibrant, yellowy green than what you’ll find in eucalyptus leaves, but I wasn’t going for realism with this card and happen to like the bright green – it really pops. I made sure to stamp a large enough area that some of the leaves would be visible around the polaroid frame with my koala. I also stamped the smallest leaf cluster in the Altenew stamp set near the top right corner for a little bit of balance and die cut the white panel using the largest die in the A2 Stitched Rectangles STAX 1 set from My Favorite Things.
I wanted a punny koala themed sentiment on my card, and the word koalaty (quality) came to mind. I needed something to use with it, and dug through my sentiment sets for one with the word friend in it. A sentiment in a stamp set from InkyWings was perfect, it said For a sweet friend. I stamped it in VersaMark ink and white heat embossed it using Super fine detail embossing powder from Ranger. I cut the sentiment down to a strip, removed the word sweet and had the perfect start and finish to my punny sentiment. Using the Connected alphabet die set from My Favorite Things, I die cut the letters to spell koalaty three times from Green Parakeet cardstock and stacked them for a dimensional look. I die cut an additional three white ones for the letters that hang off the polaroid (ATY) and glued these behind the green ones so the letters would all be flush on the card. I also added some additional layers of cardstock behind the white heat embossed strips for that little bit of added dimension, before finishing off the card with a few enamel dots from Papirdesign.
The dimension is more visible in this photo, I love adding dimension to my cards. Dimension is life 😉 I cut the layered up white A in half, because only half the letter hangs off the edge. The letters that have the white die cuts behind them kind of look like they’re floating on the card.
Super simple color palette for this one.
I really wanted to create a birthday card with 
I colored in my scene using Copics. I started with the sky (I don’t even remember what color I used there, sorry), before coloring the trees, the ground, then the critters. I struggled with my colors on this one. I wanted the trees to be a muted green way back in the distance, but the colors I used felt too gray, so I added a couple of more vibrant greens to make them come alive a little bit more.
I managed to make the same mistake with the ground. I originally wanted a muted green, because most of the green backgrounds I’ve colored using stamps from this release have been very vibrant. As it turns out, I’m not as big a fan of the muted green look when it’s down on paper as opposed to what I envision in my head before I start. I was originally only going to use three green markers for the ground, I ended up with eight, and I’m still not entirely happy with it. It’s messier than what I’m used to, and I struggled with the blending.
I used the largest die from the A2 Stitched Rectangles STAX 1 set from My Favorite Things to turn my colored panel into one with a nice faux stitch edge, and adhered it to a top fold A2 card base I created from Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink. I love the look of the faux stitch with that thin white border going around the edge. For my sentiment I die cut the Happy Birthday Brush Script die from Simon Says Stamp four times from white cardstock and glued them together for a stacked, dimensional look, and I had just the right spot to adhere it to the card.
At that point I thought the card was a little plain and decided to add some “flowers” by drawing in white dots in a few clusters on the green grass. This adds a little bit of interest, but I still didn’t think it was enough, so I pulled out my Frosted Lace Stickles and added a thick layer to the balloon, before deciding to also add it to the die cut letters. This helped a little more, but I felt like I needed another element in the sky, it was still pretty plain. Using the Cloud 1 & 2 die set from Papertrey Ink, I die cut four small clouds from vellum. I glued two and two together and adhered them to the sky, which really helped pull the entire design together. This was an evolution of a card (I also colored the bird yellow to begin with, but decided I wanted it red and colored red over the yellow), but it came together in the end.
I used quite a few Copics for this one. I have a feeling I may have used B00 for the sky, but I’m not entirely sure.
I stamped and masked all these critters. From left to right we have 
There are two sentiments that come with Petunia that you can stamp in the banner. One is the hip hip hooray!, which I white heat embossed, the other says Happy birthday! This card is a bit of an odd size. I needed it big to fit all my images, and it measures 7 1/4 x 5 1/16″. I probably could have trimmed off a little bit on the sides and on the bottom (or top) to make it an even A7 size, but this is what I wound up with. I’ll probably make my own envelope to fit anyway.
Lots of Copics used for this one. I tried to make the colors of the critters different even though I have two brown ones and two gray ones. I love the Copic range of earth tones and gray tones, it really does allow you the option to create different colors within the same color family.
I printed the image towards the bottom left of my panel of X-Press It blending card and colored it with Copics. I’ve colored this girl once before, but I decided to go for a different color scheme this time, I think the only thing that’s stayed the same since the last card is the coloring on the watermelon. The printer doesn’t print all the way to the edge, so I cut off a little strip on the left side and decided to add a strip of yellow patterned paper from Papirdesign on the right to balance out the design and fill the front of this A2 card.
And as usual, I finish with the Copics I used. Quite a few for this super simple image, I reckon.
I used one of the dragons in the 
I fussy cut around the image leaving a thin white border. There’s a set of coordinating dies to go with the stamp set, but I don’t have it, and fussy cutting this one was simple enough.
I added a thick coat of modeling paste through the 
Using 1/16″ foam squares, I added my colored dragon towards the bottom center of the card. I added a little bit of liquid glue to make sure it really adhered to my glitter balloons, I didn’t want it coming off at any point. I didn’t have the right shade of cardstock to match my tealy blue coloring, so I colored a scrap strip of X-Press It blending card using one of the markers I used for the bow, before stamping and white heat embossing a sentiment from the Flamin’ Birthday stamp set. I cut it to fit the sentiment, added a couple of strips of cardstock behind it for dimension and stability and adhered it to the present.
I finished off the card by adding a few sparkle gems. These are from the 
Last, but certainly not least – the colors I used for this cute dragon present. BG05 is the color I also used on the sentiment strip.
Papirmølla 