Merry & Bright

Here's a pretty quick card for you tonight. I received this paper this last year some time from a publication. I hadn't used it because I believe I received it some time in the spring. Anyway, I "refound" it and was inspired. I thought it'd be fun to use a rub-on on some ribbon, so that's what I did. It's really very basic and I figured with paper as pretty as this, you might as well let it shine!

Asian Lanterns

Here's a quick birthday card I made with some new-ish stamps that I haven't used to their full potential yet. I really love making a branchy scene and adding something slightly dimensional to it, like flowers, or birds, or these fabulous lanterns. There's not much else going on here, I was just having fun making that particular scene. I added a birthday greeting and found a nice patterned paper that coordinated well enough.

Supplies:
Stamps: Far East, Say it in Script (Lizzie Anne Designs)
Paper: Vintage Cream, Dark Chocolate, Bali Breeze DP (I think?)
Ink: Lady Bug, Dandelion, Tangelo, Rich Cocoa
Accessories, etc.: pop dots (do I remember how to make a card without them anymore?!?)

A Birthday Flower

Here's a quick card I made last night. I really love the fancy label shape. I knew I wanted to set a flower in the shape, so that's what just what I did. First I chose the flower, then picked a size that worked well with my intentions (setting the flower off center to the bottom and still having room for a greeting). Once I had that, I had to decide what to do with the rest of the card. I decided to go with a simple scallops and white polka dots on brown. Ideally I would've liked to put lemon tart satin ribbon on here, but I don't have any, and I don't have the right colour Copic to match that lusciously lemon cardstock from PTI.

Also, in case you're wondering, I'm kind of a bit crazy about having my layers being 1/8'' or under, and unfortunately these Nestabilities dies are more along the lines of 1/4'' apart, perhaps a bit more. If you're patient and a little crazy, like me, this is easily resolved by taking your one layer, adhering it to your next layer and cutting around the first one, leaving your fine mat. I guess I'm just used to cutting approximately 1/8'' mats around items of all shapes, so it's really become no big thing for me.
Supplies: Stamps: Birthday Basics, Garden of Life, Polka Dot Basics
Ink: Dandelion, New Sprout, White, Rich Cocoa
Paper: Lemon Tart, Summer Sunrise, Textured Chocolate, Whisper White
Accessories, etc: Nestabilities Labels One & Long Scalloped Rectangles,White Satin Ribbon, pop dots

In the meantime, we've been getting a bit of this stuff this week. So it actually looks (and feels) like Christmas. There's nothing quite like big fluffy snowflakes and temperatures that approach -30C. Although today it was actually quite nice out, it was -11 when I last checked.

Sweet!

For this card, I had a bunch of ideas running through my head because I wanted to use at least 3 elements. First off, I wanted to use the happy gingerbread man, secondly I wanted to make background strips with the silhouette images, and thirdly, I wanted to place a greeting somewhere, but I wanted it to really pop out.

As is pretty typical for me lately, I started by colouring the main image, then found paper to match. I realized the colours I chose reminded me of Neapolitan taffy. And just like that, it came together. I stamped one silhouette image per coloured strip. Next I decided on the greeting "sweet". I decided that didn't quite cut it though, so I got out my stamp-a-ma-jig and place the rest of this holiday greeting around it. I have to say, this is not a typical "me" card, but I like how it turned out. It's just fun.

Supplies:

Stamps: Santa's Sweet Shoppe and Sentiments

Ink: Rich Cocoa, Pixie Pink, Lemon Tart, Creamy Caramel

Paper: Chocolate Chip, White, Creamy Caramel, Pixie Pink, Lemon Tart

Accessories, etc.: Pop dots, deck the halls quickutz alpha, Copics, SAMJ

A few holiday brights

I uploaded these two cards to the Starving Artistamps gallery blog today so I thought I'd share them here as well. I know I tend to lean towards 2 colour palettes over everything else, brights and earth tones. Well, with this stamp set, I just couldn't resist bringing on the brights in full force. They are just so cheerful!

First up is my favorite polar bear. I had considered doing the white shading with the greys, but I had just done another card doing that, so I went with the icy light aqua. I decided to get really crazy and pair that with its retro complimentary colour- coral, and then I brought in a touch of olive (as if it wasn't feeling a retro enough vibe yet!). For this card, I knew based on past experience that PTI's Berry Sorbet and Sweet Blush were well matched to the coral Copics I coloured with. However, I knew it'd be difficult to find the perfect aqua. So I did the old standby. Cut out a piece of white cardstock with a nestability and then coloured just the edges with my aqua marker. I was even more certain that I would never find matching ribbon, so I cut a strip of 1/2 white satin and coloured that. It's interesting what alcohol based markers do fabric. The ribbon still has its sheen and satin softness, but it becomes very stiff as the colour soaks in. This can be beneficial though, that knot is not going anywhere.

Next up is a simpler card (well less layers and no embellishments). I decided to make a scene using masking as my main technique. So first up I stamped the sleigh, then Santa, then the 2 elves. Once again the marker colours dictated the rest of the card's colour choices. I tend to do that, but hey it usually works out, so why not right?

Supplies:

Stamps: Santa's Sweet Shoppe, Holiday Sweet Shoppe Sentiments , Dot Background

Ink: Tuxedo Black, Versamark

Paper: Sweet Blush, Berry Sorbet, Real Red, Green Galore, White,

Accessories, etc.: satin ribbon, pop dots, nestability