Floral Thoughts Mini Series 5 | ft. Lawn Fawn "Our Friendship Grows"

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you are having a great day.

Today I'm using an older stamp set, in fact it is one of the very first Lawn Fawn sets I ever purchased, and by far the one I use the most; "Our Friendship Grows".

I honestly cannot say enough about this set. I love the sizes of the flowers, the different builder pieces and vases, and how easy they are to colour in whichever medium you feel like using. It's a win-win-win!

I used the Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers (SURPRISE!!) along with some no line watercolouring for an organic artsy look.

I wasn't sure what kind of card this was going to be when I originally sat down. I just wanted to paint something cheerful, and even though sunflowers aren't my favourite type of flower, I feel they are the happiest.

To begin, I stamped the images using Antique Linen Distress Ink, the large flower and leaves are from Lawn Fawn's "Our Friendship Grows" stamp set, the smaller blossoms and leaves are from the "Happy Harvest" stamp set, stamped on 140lb cold press watercolour paper.

I coloured the images using the Zig markers in two shades for each colour, except for the brown which was just a more concentrated secondary application of the same shade.

The greeting from Clearly Besotted is stamped with CTMH Archival Black ink, I chose this ink because it is super intense as well as waterproof, just in case there was an oops. You never know, and it is better to be safe than it is to be sorry.

I used light gray on the lower edge of the image and pulled it out with clean water to create a faded shadow. I used my clear Wink of Stella on the petals, but sadly the camera simply refuses to pick it up. But it is there. I promise!

Finally to finish off the panel, I adhered a few clear shimmering sequins down just so that the white space wasn't so white.

I then mounted the panel on foam tape and adhered that to a standard A2 sized greeting card.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own.

This card is for:

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Add Some Shimmer

DIY - Card Protector Sleeves with We R Memory Keepers Fuse Tool

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you are having a great day.

There are many different types of protector sleeves on the market and lots of great places online to get them. I found a couple places that sold them in lots of 100s, but the shipping was the same price as the product alone. Now, I may be cheap economical, but I don't really want to pay the same amount in shipping as I do for the item being shipped. Especially in Canada where the exchange is not super awesome at the moment.

I recently had a need to have a whole lot of protector sleeves because there is nothing worse than having super cute dimensional cards with embellishments getting ruined because of improper storage.

So today, I have a step by step tutorial (with pictures) to show you how to create your own for way less than the cost of ordering and shipping and (in my case) exchange. Let's dive in!

The first thing you are going to need is a regular sandwich ziploc bag. It doesn't actually have to be the Ziploc brand, but like anything else in the DIY world if you use cheap stuff you'll get a cheap finished product.

I'm not saying go out and buy super heavy duty bags, but something mid range that you would trust your snacks to will work just fine.

Use a straight edge and an knife to cut the zip part off the bag. This will be the opening, so you you don't want to have a hack job. Unless you want to have to tidy up the edge later, take an extra moment to do this part neatly.

In order to size the bag, use the A2 envelope as a guide, the larger size of the envelope will ensure that the card will fit with room to slide in and out as well as have room for dimension and embellishments and all the things that we love about card making.

Next, heat up your fuse tool. Place the ruler and fuse!

Because the plastic from these bags is lightweight you may have to play around a bit with speed and pressure when fusing. This plastic melts much faster than the stuff you may normally use, so use caution.

I also found that I could only do these in batches because there is no temperature control on the tool, so it needed a break to cool down then I could start again.

To remove the extra piece, I recommend using your cutting tool instead of a ruler and blade. The plastic is quite slippy so it may not stay straight. But do what works for you.

Here you can see what the protector looks like with the extra piece removed and the envelope still inside.

Here we have the finished product! Your own A2 card protector sleeves to keep your works of art safe, for only a few cents and no shipping costs.

YAY!

While the envelope will fit in the sleeve along with the card, it may be a tight fit and in the event that people are pulling the card in and out to have a look at it, it may be tear the bag. But totally your call.








I hope you found today's post to be helpful and economical because really, let's be honest, at the end of the day people are just going to toss the sleeve anyway, right?

If you have any questions or comments please leave them below, I love to hear from you all. If you like this post please follow this blog to see more!

Have a great day!

Hello Baby Boy | ft. Clearly Besotted "Wild Thing"

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you are having a great day.

While I have a bunch more cards lined up for my Floral Thoughts mini series, I thought I would take a little break and share a baby card I created using Clearly Besotted's Wild Thing stamp set.

This set is just too sweet for words, great sentiments and puny sayings, but what I love most are the adorable little critters. There are four animals in the set and each seems to have their own personality, which makes it great for any type of critter card you happen to be creating.

For this particular card, I chose to use the lion in blues for a baby boy.

To begin, I stamped the lion on Copic friendly paper using Memento Tuxedo Black ink. I then coloured him in with Copic markers and fussy cut him out.

For the background panel, I started by using embossing paste through a dot stencil and setting that aside to dry. I make my own embossing paste, and I'll have a post about that later, to get the colour I just add a touch of Distress reinker ink.

I used a leaf die to cut out two fronds from Bristol paper that I had sponged with Mowed Lawn Distress ink. And used the bird punch from Stampin' Up to punch the vellum leaves. The Hello die is from Lawn Fawn's scripty Hello.

Once everything was dry, I used Ranger Multi Medium Matte to place the different leaf pieces together and right down onto the panel. I used the same adhesive to adhere the Hello die cut. I popped the lion up on foam tape to make him stand out and to ensure that he stuck to all the different layers under him.

While it didn't pick up on the camera, I used glossy accents on his nose to make it shiny.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own.

This card is for:

Fusion Challenge: Something Blue

Floral Thoughts Mini Series 4 | ft. Clearly Besotted Merci Beaucoup

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you are having a great day.

It's been a pretty not awesome week for me, May 30th would have been my Father's Birthday so that was a very difficult day. It's been just over a year since he passed away, everyone kept telling me things would get better after the first year. So imagine my surprise and extreme disappointment when that wasn't the case.

I wanted to create a card that expressed my love for him and the sadness that still hangs over us regarding his passing. I still think about him every day and every day my heart breaks.

To begin, I stamped the large rose from Clearly Besotted's "Merci Beaucoup" stamp set with Memento Tuxedo Black ink on Copic friendly paper, and then again on 2" post it tape to create a mask.

I masked the image off, and sponged Hickory Smoke Distress Ink around the the image fading out towards the right side.

Once that was completely dry, I prepped the panel using my powder tool, and pressed Versa Mark ink through the Simon Says Stamp "Falling Hearts" stencil and heat embossed the hearts using gold embossing powder.

I removed the mask and coloured the rose in with Copic markers, using two shades of green for the leaves and stem, 3 shades of red for the blossoms and two shades of warm grey for the shadowing.

The blossoms are covered with clear Wink of Stella to create a shine, but once again the camera fails to do justice to the amount of shimmer that pen gives. In real life it is incredibly sparkly.

Finally, I cut a 3/4" strip of vellum and used the same gold embossing powder to make the greeting. I was originally going to leave this card without a greeting, but the shadowing under the lower leaves got a little thicker than I liked; instead of scraping the card after all that work, I figured I'd cover it up. There really is always a way to fix a little problem.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own.

This card is for:

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Mask It