Catch up!

 Hello Everyone!

 It has been over a month since I've posted on here! I have made a few cards that I posted on Instagram, but I haven't posted them all on here. Since my last post, my daughter has gained 2 new teeth, learned to walk, and she turned 1!! I've been busy chasing her around the house while also trying to entertain my 4 year old son. 

I decided to start with a simple hi card to say hello again! For this card, I simply embossed some paper. I used sidewalk from Brutus Monroe. The embossing folder is called seedhead stems. It was on sale for .99 cents at Simon Says Stamp! 

After embossing the paper, I used my alcohol ink markers to color in the stems and leaves. I also used a marker for the brown seeds. My Sakura Gelly Roll gel pen is what I used for the white part of the seeds and some lines on the leaves.

 

The "hi" as well as the shadow are cut out in plain white paper. I colored the shadow with the same green marker. The hi die is from Photoplay paper. It's the same one I used for my "hi,hey,hello" card in a previous post. 

I had trouble deciding if I wanted the Hi at the top or the bottom of the card. I like it both ways, but ultimately decided to put it at the top. I may make another one so I have one of each! That's it! It was a pretty simple card to make. I think I'll be using embossing folders more often. Thanks for checking out this card. I hope you have a lovely day! 

 

Happy November, Everyone!

 

     Now I know most people are getting started on their holiday cards, but I'm still gushing over fall. I love the leaves as they change color and hearing them crunch under your feet. I'm just not ready for holiday cards yet!

  This card was created to play with a few of the leaves I made using a leaf stencil from Photoplay. 

Back on World Cardmaking Day, I won a giveaway from Photoplay, and these leaf stencils were a part of the prize! 

I haven't had much time to craft lately with a teething 11 month old and rambunctious 4 year old, but I was able to practice some ink blending with distress inks and these leaves are the result. 

You will definitely be seeing more of these leaves! I made a few sheets of different color combinations and cut them all out to use later. The stencil comes with 2 pieces. One piece is for the leaves and the other is decorative leaf veins. I used the 2nd stencil to dab some Versamark ink onto the leaves before adding embossing powder.

I struggled quite a bit with the end result of this card. I'm still not entirely happy with the leaf placement, but after fussing with it for far too long, I decided to just stick them where they were. Sometimes you just have to make it work and move on! What projects have you struggled with lately? 

 

Hello Everyone!

Today's card was my experiment with Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolors. Gansai Tambi is traditional Japanese watercolor. They are more opaque and sometimes use different binders than western watercolors, so I wanted to get some practice in and see if I like this type of watercolor. 

I started by painting the owl. 

It was quite relaxing to work with these paints. I'm excited to continue practicing with them. 

Once I finished with the owl, I set it aside to dry and painted some watercolor paper in oranges and browns. I then die cut the gears out of the watercolor paper.

I decided to add some black watercolor and splatter it with gold to give more of a rusty gear effect. I've also read that adding a bit of cinnamon can help with a rust effect, though I did not use that method this time. 

I splattered the background and added my owl, gears and sentiments! I used an acrylic block to make sure the word awesome stuck down properly. The gold behind the word awesome was painted with watercolor. It shows up a bit brighter in pictures than it is in real life. I definitely have a few changes I would have made on this card, but it helped me to practice with my watercolor and play a bit! 

 

Greetings crafty folks,

Halloween is quickly approaching, and I'm not the least bit ready. What about you? In this house, we haven't even decided on costumes. I made this glow in the dark Halloween card to help us get in the spirit. My kids loved seeing this shaker glow in the dark! Here's how I put this card together:

I started out by making the shaker. I die cut 7 pumpkins out of white cardstock and 1 pumpkin in purple. I glued all of the white pumpkins together and let them dry. I also cut down a piece of acetate and glued it to the purple pumpkin piece. This is the top of the shaker. 

While I let the shaker pieces dry, I glued orange and green strips to my card base. I die cut these with a Lawn Fawn Simple Stripes background die. The pumpkin is also from Lawn Fawn. 

Once everything was dry I put the shaker together. I initially glued some green paper to the back, but decided, it looked batter in all purple and glue the inner parts of the purple pumpkin to the inside of the shaker. Then I added some glow in the dark crystals and black sequins. 

I love how the shaker turned out all on its own. This could be used as a tag or interactive Halloween decoration. I made my shaker separately, but you can always just glue the stacked pumpkins directly to the card base and add your sequins before putting the top pumpkin layer on.

After finishing the shaker, all I had to do was glue it to the card base, stamp the card, and add a few more black sequins. I used my Hero Arts Celebrate everyday set to stamp Happy Halloween.

I had so much fun making this card, and it was really cool to see it glow in the dark. This card was definitely a family favorite! Check out that glow! I hope you all have a wonderful week and have time to get crafty. 

Easy Peasy

 

Hello fellow crafters,

Today's card is a quick and easy card! I ordered a few things from My Favorite Things and felt compelled to create a Christmas card. I thought it would be fun to change up this tropical leaf cover plate and create something for Christmas instead of a tropical scene. 

All I had to do to create this card was die cut some red paper with the cover plate and remove all of the small paper pieces. I glued the die cut background onto a 4.25x5.5 green panel. It took a bit of time to dot the glue all over the back. I may try an adhesive sheet or tape gun next time.

I then cut out a 2 inch piece of vellum and heat embossed Merry Christmas in gold. I wrapped the vellum around the panel so I could glue it to the back so no adhesive would show through the vellum.

Then all I had to do was glue it to a card base! Easy peasy. I think these would be a great card for mass producing to send out at Christmas. I got a few more goodies from MFT, and I'm excited to share what I'll be creating with these! 

World Cardmaking Day

 

Hello fellow crafters and paper enthusiasts,

Today’s card was my world cardmaking day creation. Were you all able to get some crafting done on WCD? I created this card to welcome the beginning of October. I love the eerie, spooky fun of October. I’m definitely partial to corn mazes and a walk on a foggy October night vs going to a haunted house. I enjoyed creating this card and was excited to try making a card with no stamps.  

I started by die cutting a pumpkin frame. I cut this out 3 times and glued them together to get a bit of dimension. I then added a some detail to the leaf and the stem for the pumpkin. 

I stamped the inner pieces of the pumpkin, added a bit of brown ink around the edges, and glued it all together. I think that little bit of brown ink helped to give the pumpkin a more grungy look. I cut up some craft moss to help with the eerie look as well. Moss always makes me think of grave stones for some reason.

I die cut the letters, and then tried to decide on the look. I was initially going to add the letters to the moss, but I thought it might be a bit too wobbly, so I added them to the pumpkin instead. I had trouble deciding between purple and gold for the embossing on the word fun. Which color would you have chosen? I thought the gold looked best with the browns and greens in the card. I would have chosen purple if I'd gone for a more traditional black and orange for Halloween. I thought this card would land somewhere between fall and Halloween.

Once I had everything adhered, I felt like the card didn't look dirty enough so I added some splatter. I still feel like I could have done more to achieve a creepier look, but I love how this turned out! What do you think? 

Hi, Hey, Hello

 

   Welcome, fellow crafters! This blog is my space dedicated to sharing my handmade cards and paper crafting projects. Whenever I'm reading someone's blog, I always want to know a bit more about the creator. So here's your chance to learn a bit more about me. 

I'm Lawanda, a 34 year old mom to a 4 year old boy and a 10 month old girl. I've been married to my non-crafty husband for almost 11 years! He's more into creative writing than crafting. I've always enjoyed crafting, but I never really stuck with anything until I found papercrafting. Papercrafting led me to making cards. I love the entire process of designing a card and bringing someone joy when they receive it. I enjoy crafting, baking, drinking tea, playing D&D, and the occasional video game.

I never have much to say about myself, but feel free to ask me anything you'd like to know! I'll post a few photos of some of my previous papercrafting projects as well a some watercolor. I hope you enjoy them!