Greetings friends, let’s talk digital. I have always steered clear of digital crafts since it’s basically what I do, all day – professionally. Years ago I attempted to dabble in digital scrapbooking. That lasted a few minutes. Digital stamps never appealed to me either. I like to get my hands dirty.

Enter the Coffee Loving Cardmaker’s Summer/Spring Blog Hop. 1,468 entries and I was lucky enough to win one of the 73 prizes. I was super excited. What did I win, you are wondering? A gift certificate to Polka Dot Orchard. What’s that, you are also wondering? A digital stamp shop. True story. Now don’t misunderstand, I was still thrilled. I still won something. And that’s awesome. And, it gave me an opportunity to share with my friend Donna who likes digi stamps. So I let her pick and I ordered a few that I thought were cute. And then I forgot about it.

Friday rolls around and Donna comes over for dinner. What does she bring…the printed digi stamps on various papers. She’s so thoughtful. In my head I am thinking, I guess I am going to have to do something with these. So a few nights later while on my weekly zoom call with my friend Laura in FL, I felt like coloring. What’s sitting right there on my desk? The digi stamps that Donna was nice enough to print out. Since I was worried about the printer ink smearing and I had not used pencils in so long, I grabbed the Prismacolors. I colored while Laura and I chatted. I had forgotten how I enjoyed coloring. By the time we were ending our call, I had a beautiful image to use on a card. I was pretty damn excited.

Needless to say, that night my Graphic Designer mind went haywire with the possibilities this had. Plus, I could not wait to get this on a card. So here is how it turned out…

Since the images were already colored and cut, the rest of the card came together pretty quickly. I used Salty Ocean Distress Oxide with my favorite blending brushes from Picket Fence Studios. I sprayed water on a Vicki Boutin waves stencil from the Wander collection and pressed it down. The sentiment is from Colorado Craft Company’s “Be a Mermaid” set. It is embossed but it is hard to tell in the photo. I used a white pen for highlights. Donna gave me the idea to add shimmer to the fish so I covered it in clear Wink of Stella. The last thing I did after placing the images was use Stampin’ Up Fine Tip Glue to make water droplets.

I have to say, from the point of wanting nothing to do with digital crafts and then completing this card, I am pleasantly surprised with the outcome. Is it possible there will be more digital designed projects in my future? Stay tuned…

Has one of your designs ever been inspired by a person? This is a card that I created with my daughter in mind. My original objective was to create this for the June challenge at Picket Fence Studios so the focus was on using their products with the theme being “food & drink.” Whatever my original intentions were, this card soon took on a personality mirrored by my 6 year old diva.

I recently added the “Your’e a Hoot” stamp and die set to my collection and I adore the pair. They are still on sale if you want to snag them. I used the 3 small coffee cups to create a background by arranging all 3 on a block in different directions. I then began from the center and stamped out to fill the background. I used Versamark then embossed with white embossing powder from Ranger. Next I used Picket Fence Studios Life Changing Blending brushes (also on sale!) with Catherine Pooler ink to blend the background. Ink colors were Rose Petals, Peppermint Scrub and Over Coffee. Peppermint Scrub is definitely one of my favorite colors. It’s red I have not really seen from other companies.

For my sassy little owl, I stamped her, her coffee and the sentiment in Over Coffee ink. Then I colored her by dabbing each of the ink pads on my craft mat and using a water brush to pick up the colors and “paint”’the owl. I felt the soft subtle colors were an interesting contrast to the bold and sassy character and design.

For the finishing details, I used dies from Stampin’ Up for the vellum shape behind sassy owl and the branch she is perched on. Her necklace is pearl accents also from Stampin’ Up. I filled her glasses in with Stampin’ Up’s Fine Tip Glue pen to make them look shiny. Finally I added a few sequins from the Champagne Bubbles Sparkle Blend mix from Doodles Paper Playground. One awesome thing about these is how the colors can totally change when the sequins are separated. At first glance, looking at this mix in the bag you would not think it coordinated. Once I removed a few select pieces, they were perfect!

Just like my sassy little girl, this card has a softness to it. One of my favorite design approaches is to contrast ideas, elements or colors. Another example of this approach was the color burst card I created. Check it out if you haven’t already and thanks for stopping by.

Hello my crafty friends, is anyone as excited for Friday as I am? As the weekend approaches I get excited about all the extra time I have to work on crafty projects but then end up spending most of my time with my kids or cleaning up after them. Although, my daughter who is 6, loves to be in the office with me creating. She is also a big fan of Kindred Stamps. She often borrows them to make cards of her own. I’m ok with that, kinda.

As I have mentioned before, most often when I am making cards I have a person in mind they will be sent to or my intentions are for them to be given away. And as we all know, sometimes our original intentions do not produce our final outcomes. Such was the case with these two card designs.

Again, I was trying to push myself and decided to play with some stencils and blending. My original plan was to make a birthday card for my friend Maureen who shares my snark and sarcasm. You will notice most of the people in my life that I am close to, share those same characteristics. Needless to say, it had to be something from Kindred, my favorite when it comes to snark and puns. I chose one of Kindred Stamps Naughty sets, “I Like Your Beaver.”

I made this card using Catherine Pooler inks (obsessed–I need them all), Life Changing blender brushes from Picket Fence Studios and masking. First I placed down a square mask made from scraps and placed the Petals stencil from Pink & Main on top. I blended the petals with Mardi Gras ink. I lifted the Petals stencil and blended on Garden Party ink to fill the negative space and blended out towards the edges. I also blended some color around the outer edges. Then I lifted the stencil and square and masked around the outside of the square using purple tape. Inside the square I used the Mini Cloud Edges stencil from MFT and blended with Suede Shoes and It’s a Boy inks. I stamped the beaver and sentiment with Over Coffee ink from Catherine Pooler. Stamping with other colors besides black is something I have been trying to do more of lately. Sometimes depending on the color palette, I think it works better than black. I colored the Beaver with SU alcohol markers and highlighted him with a white pen. All the paper is SU. The flowers were given to me by daughter from one of her slime kits. They seemed to go nicely with the colors and theme.

Once I finished this guy, I loved it but knew right away there was someone better to receive this. This was not Maureen’s card. It belonged to my father in law who’s birthday is coming up in a few weeks. Perfect. I set it aside but still had to make something for Maureen.

It just so happened that the brand new Banana Box was sitting on my desk filled with fun. Perfect! There was so much goodness inside, I spent quite some time playing around and mixing and matching all the items. If you ever get the opportunity to purchase a limited special edition box form Kindred Stamps – DO IT. You won’t be sorry. In all honesty, I’m not a die hard fan of banana potatoes, but the items in this box were so much fun to play with and well worth the purchase. Everything used on the card was from Kindred except blue & yellow SU cardstock, yellow SU embossing powder and black ink. Patterned paper, denim paper google eyes, and so much more I haven’t even used yet were included. There will definitely be more little yellow guys showing up in future cards!

Hello crafty friends,

I imagine that all of you, like myself are feeling the weight of the world’s trauma during this time. I desperately needed a distraction from the pain and sorrow, if only to feel happiness for a little while. Crafting has definitely filled an emptiness for me these past few months as well as being a much needed distraction. I can easily get lost in experimenting and trying new techniques.

As I mentioned in previous posts, I have been trying to push outside my comfort zone. I am trying to approach each new creation with the intent of trying something new or doing something differently than what I would normally do. The inspiration for this card came from the “Shake the Rainbow” Sparkle Blends from Doodles Paper Playground. That Blend led me to purchase the PI Color My World stamp set from MFT with which I am truly obsessed. This was one of those sets that as soon as I laid eyes on it, I had a ton of ideas. Even just writing about it I am thinking of more things to do with her.

Once I started thinking about rainbow colors and her paint palette, I instantly thought of color bursts. I love playing with these and I knew this card would create a perfect canvas for them. The Sparkle Blends were bursting with color and I knew the card had to “burst” just the same. I chose to color the girl in greyscale as a metaphor to the sentiment and to contrast all the bright colors from the color bursts and the Sparkle Blends. I wanted it to look like the colors were bursting out of her brush so I painted just water across the paper coming out of the brush. Next I sprinkled on my colors one by one, then spritzed it with more water. I dabbed any puddles with a paper towel.

I had to build the shaker element pretty deep to allow the blends to move. Keep that in mind when using shaker materials with big pieces. The hearts are thick and I didn’t want them to get stuck so I built this shaker using three layers of chipboard. If you look down at the inside bottom edge you can see the stacked chipboard. I like using this method when I can because I feel I have more control over my shaker. Another reason is there is no chance my shaker pieces will stick around the edges. Sometimes with foam tape (or squares or dots) there is stickiness on the edges that the sequins will stick to. However, the number one reason I prefer using chipboard when possible – no little paper backing pieces to peel off!

I embossed the black frame after I die cut it with an old embossing folder from Darice. The cardstock and markers are from Stampin’ Up and I used my favorite black ink from Picket Fence Studios. I definitely have some more ideas for using color bursts so stay tuned! Leave a message and let me know if you were “sweetly inkspired.” Thanks for stopping by.

Hey crafty kids, Happy Monday! Why am I happy this Monday, you ask? It’s a 4 day week! Kids are off on Friday & Memorial Day! So this 4 day week is followed by a 4 day weekend! That means 4 straight days of not having to fight with kids to do schoolwork! Woot Woot! I am hoping to spend lots of time playing with all my “Covid Christmas” purchases! I am so excited to play with new stamps from Kindred Stamps, The Rabbit Hole (which I bought from Kat Scrappiness), MFT and most of all my new Sparkle Blends from DPP! I haven’t gotten them yet (or I would have definitely posted pics!) but all the new deliciousness is on it’s way and I will be stalking the mailman!

So it was my dad’s 75th birthday. He is one of those guys that truly deserves the world. He is simple, kind and generous to say the least. As usual, I always seem to find something from Kindred Stamps, to fit just about anyone. This little guy was perfect to celebrate my dad. I wasn’t sure I was going to like him in black white, but aside from how much fun I had coloring him, I am really happy with how he turned out. I used papers and alcohol markers from Stampin’ Up, my favorite black ink from Picket Fence Studios, “Golden Age” stamp set from Kindred Stamps and added a pop of color with Intergalactic Sparkle Blends from DPP. This was a quick and easy make, but I had fun with it. Thanks for checking it out! Please come back and visit soon as I’ll be posting many new creations as the packages arrive!