Saturday, June 27, 2015

Simple Saturday

I am dubbing today "simple Saturday," because this is one of those super simple but pretty cards. No techniques, no layers, nothing fancy. Just stamping with pretty stamps and inks.

I have a thing for orange and pink lately. It's just so pretty together. I think Betsy Veldman is to blame, though Pinterest is also a likely culprit. This card was made using PTI's raspberry fizz, hibiscus burst, orange zest, summer sunrise, and Limeade ice inks combined with the insanely gorgeous Garden Gild mini kit from PTI. The only vaguely "technique-y" thing I did was add some clear embossing powder over the sentiment. Otherwise, just a happy, vibrant, clean and simple card.

Hope you are all having a fantastic weekend, my friends!

Thursday, June 25, 2015

PTI June Blog Hop!

Today is the 25, so that means PTI'd monthly blog hop! This month's inspiration photo is a super cute, super trendy photo of a pair of little baby shoes. They are gray and white striped, with little orange-y yellow flowers on them. In my book, stripes and flowers are one of the best design combos. Classic, sophisticated, and oh-so-trendy.

I hadn't gotten a chance to play with the Nostalgic Notions Make It Market kit yet, but those beautiful multi-step, watercolor flowers immediately jumped into my hands when I saw the prompt for this month. I used a stripes stamp from PTI's Super Stripes to ground the sentiment, and I created a background with random dots using a black Zig pen. The Scripted sentiment was die cut from Smokey Shadow Bitty Dot paper, and I then added some glossy accents to it and the centers of the flowers. Some gray and white twine finished it off!

Now, I'm off to feed my little ones breakfast, and hopefully I will get some time today to hop around to everyone's entries! Have a fabulous day, friends!

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Shocking pink magnolias!

So, I jumped on the Zig Clean Color Real Brush Marker bandwagon a few weeks ago. They are seriously amazing... The blend is so super smooth. I initially bought them because I wanted the pale, almost washed out colors, but the more I played with them, the more the bright colors attracted my attention. This card is an homage to pink and purple, and I couldn't love it more.

I started out with Ellen Hutson's Mondo Magnolia stamp set. It's got that gigantic flower that is just begging to watercolored. I stamped it three times with Antique Linen Distress Ink that had been stamped off once. I then colored it with a Deep Pink zig marker, and I used the Purple zig marker to add shading. Gold Wink of Stella was used for the centers to add some sparkle. I used Deep Violet for the background. I love that I made this panel with only three markers... These markers rock so much.

I die cut "hope" from the Winnie and Walter big, bold, and comfort set in gold mirror card stock from Bazzill, then white heat embossed a "sending" from the coordinating stamp set. As I look at it now, it might be a good encouragement card for a friend with breast cancer.

Pardon my hiatus for the last few weeks; my twinkies got sick, (double ear infections from molars coming in... Yuck), then my mom was in town, then we went on vacation... I think my mojo was also in a bit of a hiatus. I did lots of playing in between doctor appointments and driving hither and yon, but nothing worth showing here. Please come back again, despite my erratic posting lately! I will be back in a day or two with my PTI Blog Hop post! :)

Friday, June 5, 2015

Watercolor Blog Hop!

Pretty Pink Posh has the most beautiful sequins.... Like seriously, I love them and have far too many packs of them. This weekend, Paulina (the owner of ppp) is hosting a watercolor blog hop. Watercolor? Sequins? Sign me up!!!

I was playing around with my new Zig Clean Color pens and some Avery Elle images, specifically that sweet little deer from Storybook. I just love that little deer... Now I just need a sentiment stamp that says "oh deer!" Teehee! I think all of the images in that set are just perfect for baby cards. I used Hero Arts Little One stamp set for the sentiment, Pretty Pink Posh and The Ton sequins, and Papertrey's Plaid Builder for the background on both cards. I went for a kind of shabby chic pink, Kraft, and cream color scheme for the baby girl card, a blue and gray scheme for the boy card. (Yes, I have a bright blue deer. It's whimsical.... Just go with it....)

Anyway, the deer were both stamped with Pumice Stone distress ink that had been stamped off once, then watercolored with my Zig markers. Boy, oh boy, do I love those things. I can't wait to get my hands on more of them! I adhered the deer to some vellum, as I wanted that fabulously coordinated plaid to be visible, but not overpowering. The sentiment was heat embossed with Princess Gold ep from Ranger for the pink card, Silver from PTI for the boy card. Some little sequins additions finished them off.

Hope you enjoyed them! My only crafty friend is due to come over tomorrow to play, so I've got my fingers crossed that I will get to create another watercolored something to enter into the hop. Till then, happy hopping!!

Oh, and btw, once I reach 250 followers on Instagram, I may or may not have an Altenew stamp set to give away. ;) Find me! I'm eamidgett.

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

The daily color

Me+ watercolor markers=a wonderful afternoon, hopefully with fun projects to share here.

So when I found out that there was going to be a new Daily Color challenge, I was super excited. I missed out on the last one, only realizing what it was in the last few days of the challenge. I am determined to participate this time, if not every day, then as many days as I can.

I've always loved the floral images and monograms from Rifle Paper Co. When I started playing with no-line watercoloring and my stamps, I started itching to make a monogram. I finally got a result with which I'm really pleased!

The only stamps used on this piece were the line images of peonies from Wplus9's Pretty Peonies stamp set. The rest is completely hand drawn, including the monogram itself. I used a combination of Distress Markers/ink pads and my new Zig Clean Color markers. I have to say that I am really pleased how well these two totally different markers play together. The colors complement each other so nicely.

For the color wash around the outside of the wreath, I used some peacock feathers distress ink on a clear block, then spritzed with tsukineko shimmer spray, which I then added to the wet paper. You can't see the sparkle in the pictures, but it adds some lovely shimmer in real life. Some gold Perfect Pearls mixed with water finished off the centers of the peonies.

Hope you all enjoyed this! I am going to add these to my Etsy shop, and some people might be getting these as wedding gifts. ;) have a fabulous day, friends!