Spring cards

Also this weekend I did some spring-inspired cards, thanks to the Simon Says Stamp March card kit!

Here they are:

For this one, I thought the green paper straw would make an excellent stem for a flower, and I like the way it turned out.  The bee is from Technique Tuesday.

This one was inspired by a card in Paper Crafts magazine... I love the way the branch came out with all those different ink colors, and for the tree on the left, I cut a strip of the Simon Says Stamp white woodgrain card stock, and covered it in brown ink.

Enjoy, and as always, I love comments!  (Constructive criticism is welcome too - I am a beginner and could use suggestions!  Just keep it friendly, please.)

Shabby Chic/Vintage Challenge

Hiya!

I've had a busy weekend of making cards, watching the Oscars, and seeing an awesome Indigo Girls concert!  Here are some of the results...

I had a bunch of stuff left from the Simon Says Stamp February Card Kit, but admittedly, most of it was completely not my style.  I decided to challenge myself a bit, and I think this card is actually pretty fitting for the Hero Arts If I Could Turn Back Time challenge.

I was itching to use those cute little envelopes, so I decided to stick the sentiment inside it.

Those hangers/paper clips were in the dollar bin at Michaels, and the pack of those notecards was on the sale rack at The Paper Source.  The rest is from the card kit.

Enjoy and leave me comments with suggestions or thoughts!

More results from craft day

Here are two more cards I made while catching up with a friend (and eating yummy mac and cheese).

I wanted to have something easy to make on hand that I could send out to people who buy my stuff on Etsy, just as a special gift.  I used Kristina Werner's offset-stamping technique, and I stamp I got as a free gift from Lawn Fawn to make this simple Thank You card:

And, ever since Simon Says Stamp sent me kraft cardstock with my card kit, I'm totally in love with it.  So here's another Easter card:

The ducks are actually one stamp that I cut up, the dots are from Paper Smooches, and the sentiment is from Hero Arts.

Thanks for reading and please let me know what you think!

Clean and Simple Challenge #228

Hi again!  Over the weekend I had some crafty with a friend at our monthly craft day, and I wanted to share what I came up with.  This first card is perfect for this week's Clean and Simple Stamping sketch challenge, so I wanted to submit it.  The card is based on this sketch, and since I will be selling at a craft market right before Easter, I thought I would make a few cards for the occasion:

I switched around the words and the image, but it seems to work.  Let me know what you think!

CAS-ual Fridays Challenge, #90

I made this card with extra paper stuff I had lying around, and I wanted to enter it into the CAS-ual Fridays Challenge.  This is week's theme is "black and white +1," meaning black and white with one color.  Here goes:

     

Thanks for reading!

New baby cards

A friend recently asked me to make some cards for her to send to friends who were having new babies, so I went nuts buying some cute stamp sets from Mama Elephant and Avery Elle.  Here's what I came up with:

Here's the inside of this one:

The inside:

I also messed around with my camera a little, so I think these pictures came out better than they have been.  Thanks for reading!

...more new cards...

I've been using my card kits and techniques learned in Clean and Simple Card Making 2, and here are some more I came up with.  These mostly use that gradient technique that I am kind of in love with... but I'm also just starting to experiment with embossing, so here you go.

Please leave me a comment if you enjoyed it, or if you have any tips on how to improve these designs.

Card update and card kits

Hiya!  I have been kind of lacking in updating the blog the past week or so, but I have a ton of cards to share with you.  First up, some more cards using the Simon Says Stamp February card kit.  These 2 are similar, but in the second one, I cut the flowers out and popped them up.  Which one do you like better?

On the first one, I stamped the flowers in white ink, colored them in, and then went over the outlines with a white gel pen.  On the second one, I stamped the flowers on white cardstock, very lightly with purple ink, and then went over the lines with a white gel pen.  

Read on for more new card posts, and thanks for reading!

Clean and Simple Card Making, back to basics.

I keep going back to those sketches and designs from the first few days of class, so I made a couple more.

Here's one using that same sketch from day 1:

For this next one, I used one of the layouts from the gradient stamping day, but I wanted to see if I could something with my Spirograph!  (What?  It was on sale at The Paper Source.)  After many attempts, this was the best I could do... I think it's kind of cute.

Clean and Simple Card Making - back to day 1

I finally got around to trying out another technique demonstrated in Day 1 of our class.  I'd been itching to use this stencil, and I needed some Mother's Day Cards, so here's what I came up with:

I used another DIY supply - instead of those misting sprays you can buy, which I don't have any of, I mixed some watercolor paint with a bunch of water in a little spray bottle and used that to spritz the paper.  It worked beautifully!  That's actually orange paint mixed with water.  

I also made another card using a variation on the same technique.  I don't love this card, the stamping is a little messy, and the ink I used over the stencil didn't dry properly since I don't have a heat tool (other than my hair straightener!).  But I love the idea of the grey sky/trees with the red birds.

CAS Card Making, Day 6

It's late, so here's what I got for today:

My friend asked me to make new baby cards for her, so I used today's technique to make one of them.

I also made this Jewish-themed get well card for a relative, using that gradient technique from last week.

See you tomorrow!

CAS card making, day 4, and other things

I don't have much to say today other than I love the way these new cards turned out, so here they are.

This first one sort of utilizes some of the techniques we've learned in class so far, but mostly it's just cute!

This second one is my very broad interpretation of the white on black technique:

That's all I got for today, but I did love that I got to use purple a lot in these cards.