A Card and Heartbreak

My sweet sister-in-law lost her mother this week and I play with paper so I made a card for her. This is the first time in a LONG time that I’ve absolutely fallen in love with a card I’ve made. But let’s be honest, I just don’t have that many chances to sit and make a card anymore. At first, I wondered if I’d forgotten how, because it wasn’t working. I regrouped, tried something different and got this. I did really like the chance to make my son’s wedding invitations, but those weren’t “mine” as much as they were “theirs”. An awesome opportunity, but not in the same way.

So after this gushing, I hope you like it, too.

In a few days, I’ll be starting another, and it will be one of the most meaningful, but also the hardest that I think I’ve ever done. We lost my 25yo cousin this week and she earned her wings before she ever left this earth. I’m not sure how to pull this off, but I feel driven to do so. The world lost a light this week, but it seems a little bit of my cousin’s light was left with every person she ever met.

Anyway, here’s this one, and like I said, I’m so happy with how it turned out.

Thanks for stopping by

XOXO

That Time I Made a Flower Pail Box Card

One of my favorite things to do is play with paper. I like making it dimensional with color and design. I’m not skilled enough to design something that will be 3D once all the pieces are assembled, so luckily there are places like

SVG Cuts who has some amazing files to play with. I worked with this one, Flower Pail Box Card for this project. If you don’t already know, one of the great things about box cards, is that they fold flat-ish for mailing, then they can be popped open for display, like you see here 🙂 At the tallest point, this card is about 9 inches, and about 3 inches across when open. When folded flat, it’s about 4 inches across the bottom.

The leaves and flowers were cut out of white paper. Then I used markers and pencils to color them. Yes, I could have made this project easier and less time consuming by just cutting them out on colored card stock, but like I said, I like to add dimension through color 🙂

After I cut out and colored everything, I assembled it. I have a nice envelope and I’ll design an address “label”, print it, then cut it out so the card can be sent.

Thanks for stopping by!

XOXOXO

That Time I Played With Paper Again ❤️

If you scroll through my last few years of blog posts, you’ll see they’re mostly dominated by topics like autism and service dogs; by foster care and adoption.

If you go back further, you’ll see paper projects, but it’s been a while.

But I got to play this week – yay!

I made a rose /vase box card. There are things I’m not happy with, but I’m rusty so we’re just going to go with it lol

I used this file from the Silhouette Design Store.

I cut out the pieces on my machine, and because I’m extra, I hand colored them with my markers and colored pencils.

The beginning of the flower buds

The finished flower buds

The leaves and stems still on the paper

I like to color things while they’re still on the cutting mat. I don’t have to be as precise, I don’t loose anything, and I have better control of the paper (small things are hard to hold).

The leaves off the cutting mat. You can see the difference between adding colors to the cardstock and leaving it as is.

The finished card.

I had fun playing with paper and colors again. I hope it happens again sooner rather than later, but there’s a lot of other things to focus on right now, so we’ll see ❤️

Thanks for stopping by!

XOXOXO

I Colored…It’s Been a While

I needed to color and I always need thank you cards so I did this today. Combining the two means I was efficient 😉

I found the frog sketch online, but no name with it, so I’m unable to give the credit I’d like to an amazing artist.

I printed it off and colored it using copics and pencils. I put together a digital background and cut the background and the colored frog panel out on my Silhouette then layered them onto a card.

Thanks for stopping by!

Xoxo

That Time I Made a Topiary Out of Paper

As mentioned in a few posts before, the autism center my boys use is amazing. Most of the work on this project was done there. I cut out everything at home, then colored, shaped, and assembled most of it at the center. The topiary is from the kit Thank You For the Music at SVG cuts.

This is kind of picture intensive, so please be patient with me. There were a lot of components.

I took pictures of some of the process. I’m always amazed I can start with flat pieces of paper and make something substantial and dimensional. So I included pics for other people who might feel the same way 🙂

First, the focal points – the flowers. There’s two types. The main flowers and the fillers. Each main flower has 5 parts. I cut them out of blue paper, then added white to the centers, dark blue to the edges, then blended with a shade of blue somewhere between the color of the paper and the dark blue. I believe there were 32 big flowers.

I wanted a fuller topiary, so I used more filler flowers than called for. I used the same process of coloring them as I did for the blue flowers, just different colors.

 

I also wanted to add clovers and leaves to the base. The clovers are from the Springtime Box Cards kit at SVG Cuts. The leaves are from the pumpkin in the Harvest Sunset Kit, also from SVG Cuts.

I started with white paper  and colored the clovers and leaves the colors I needed them. I used a mix of ink and colored pencils.

 

 

And I just HAD to have a hummingbird. And wouldn’t you know it, SVG Cuts has one or those, too! This one is from their Hummingbird Box Card. Instead of cutting out different colors of paper, I cut all the pieces out in white, then colored the individual pieces before assembling. I made a mirror copy that I used to sandwich a wire between so I could make it hover by the topiary.

 

 

So those are the elements 🙂 Here’s some pics of the finished product. Thanks to my daughter who helped me get the pics 🙂

The clover.

 

The topiary and the hummingbird.

The whole topiary

And the card. I used a kit in my Craft Artist collection and designed this card. The flowers weren’t colored, which I LOVE because it allows me to color them 🙂 I used a combination of copics and colored pencils for the flowers on the card.

That Time I Made Some Cards

 

So that title might be a little misleading…I seem to always be making cards, lol. But here’s some you may not have seen yet.

Trying my hand at water coloring…I think this was my first try. It’s okay. It’s not going to win any awards, but it wasn’t bad enough to toss.

I had THREE birthday boys in May…I need to figure out where the other card went. But here’s two of them 🙂 I was able to color the one on the left with copics as well as parts of the one on the right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes, you just have to color a rose 🙂

 

And this caterpillar is *so* cute. I totally “borrowed” this idea from Sandy Allnock. She did it for Autism Awareness month back in April. I used it as a birthday card 🙂

Thanks for stopping by!
xoxo

I Colored!

It’s been a month or so since I posted.

Little man is doing GREAT in ABA therapy, but we’re doing roughly 20 hours a week, so we’re pretty busy which doesn’t leave a lot of crafting time. But he’s worth it so no big.

Because of the time restrictions, I don’t get to make a lot of 3D projects anymore, but I’ve found that I can do a card or two here and there, so that’s what I’m sharing today 🙂

So one of the new things I bought myself was the Tim Holtz/Tonic Studios stamp platform. One of the things I REALLY loved about this device is the work space on the side that I can use as a color pallet. So I used my inks and tried a little water coloring. Many of the cards shown below will be water colored. These images are stamped then colored. And with many of these cards I used a masking technique when I stamped the images.

The hummingbird is water color mixed with pencil. The orchid is water color.

The flamingo is water colored with pencil on top as well as sponged on color.

On the flower, I used my copics then pencils over top. I finished that one off by heat embossing black over the top after the image was colored. The heron is a mix of copics and pencils. Then the image was embossed with clear embossing powder and the sky filled in with water color and sponging on color from my ink pads.

The flowers were done with markers directly on the stamp then stamped on to the paper. Then I sponged the background. What you can’t see, due to poor planning on my part, are the words Thinking of You that I embossed in white. There’s not enough contrast, so the words get lost on the card. Unfortunately, there’s no undo button on things like this, so it is what it is *shrugs*.

The mermaid card turned out better than I expected which is always a bonus! I used copics then my pencils. The octopus was a layered stamp, but I went in with pencils and embellished areas and deepened others.

Typically, I try to link to the products I used, but there are quite a few here and like I said before, time is limited. And really, I’d rather be crafting than linking 😉 BUT if you have a questions about anything I posted, let me know and I’ll do my best to answer 🙂

Thanks for stopping by!

xoxo

 

 

Wow. It Worked…

Lots of times I see things in my head, but I can’t get them out on paper.

The line art for this was on Pinterest (link below). I only WISH I could draw this well.

But I spent a couple of days working on coloring it (it was great stress relief!) and I’m kinda stoked at how it turned out!

Amy Shulke is an amazing artist (but this is not her work) who kindly shares tips and tricks for using copics and colored pencils. You should check her out!

I used my Silhouette workspace to design the piece by digitally adding frames and patterns to help give it a matted look. After doing a print & cut, I wanted a little more substance to it, since it wasn’t going on a card, so I mounted it on a piece of chipboard that I used distress paint on the edge so I kept the look I was going for.

So, yeah. I can’t believe it worked. But I’m so glad it did! Still have much to learn, but I’m better than I was a year ago 🙂

 

Links: Amy Shulke YouTube page, Line art , pattern paper

Thanks for stopping by!

xoxo

1 Stamp Set 4 Cards

I haven’t done this for a while, but I really wanted to color then ended up with lots of pieces, so I thought why not?

Here’s part of the process, too. This is part of the coloring process I do. I’ve used my copic markers on the bird and have some shading and variation. You can see the same process in the flower next to the bird, even though it’s not all the way done. Also, I ended up redoing the flowers. Although purples and oranges can be combined for something pleasing, I felt my orange colors were off a little. You should be able to see it when you see the finished card 🙂 You can also see my color combination testing 🙂

After finishing the copic coloring, I went in with my prismacolor pencils for more details and subtle shading. You can compare the two birds. I LOVE my copics, but there’s details you just can’t do the same way you can with a finely sharpened pencil point 🙂

Once I had everything colored the way I wanted it, I used the coordinating dies to cut the pieces out using my little die cutter then played some more. I needed sentiments.  In my silhouette program I chose some multipurpose words and fun fonts. I used my sketch pens to draw the words then had my machine cut them out. Before removing the words from the cutting mat, I colored them in and added subtle light spots.

So, back to multiple cards. I wanted them to be unified, but not the same. I used four different sizes, but same color schemes and elements.

This one is a 4.25 x 5.5 and I wanted to keep it kind of simple. So flower, leaves, and sentiment. For a little bit of edging interest, I used an embossing folder with my die cutting machine.

This one is 8 x 3.5. Same kind of idea as the first, except the edges are simpler, with only a decorative edge on the bottom.

Okay. I’m kind of in love with this one. It’s a 5.5 x 5.5 card and I like how the little bird is nestled in the leaves

But this *might* be my favorite out of the bunch. I’m not sure. I flip flop back and forth between this one and the one before. This is a 5×7 card. The edging is a die, but I used it to emboss the paper instead. It’s simple, but not quite with the embossed sections. Now, what you can’t see in any of these pictures is the sparkly spray I dusted them with. I sprayed each piece of paper with glimmer mist before I layered the colored pieces on top. Not only do my cards shimmer now, so do parts of my desk. And I kind of like it.

Okay, that’s it for now. Hope your Easter was great and thanks for stopping by!

Some items used:

Bird and flower stamp set

Coordinating Dies

It All Started 15 Years Ago…

Before I was a mom, I had all sorts of free time and I drew. In art class at school my teacher had me on a different schedule of “Draw whatever you want, ask if you have questions. Next year take AP art.” It worked for me 🙂

I wanted to keep doing it, but it takes a lot of focus and being in the zone for me. With kids, that just didn’t happen very often.

Then someone introduced me to stamping. I knew about stamping, but just the wooden block ones at the store. I didn’t realize people sold SETS. And that you could do so many different things with them. I was in love.

That was almost 15 years ago and I’ve been paper crafting ever since.

I’ve expanded my knowledge base and exceeded my craft corner space. I’ve added so many different options to my stamping journey, but with the cards on the blog today, I kind of kept it old school – mostly. I did use a couple of dies to cut a few things out.

 

My father-in-law just turned 90. His birthday party is in a few weeks. This might be his card. Even if it’s not, I channeled him a little as I made it.

 

I’ve seen these stamps – the girls with no faces – I’m not exactly sure why they don’t have faces – but it was on clearance and I was intrigued! It looked like a lot of fun to color.

 

I needed a quick birthday card. For the guy my daughter’s dating. It doesn’t really scream guy to me, but I ran out of time. But I like it anyway 🙂

Thanks for stopping by!

Xoxo