Paper Crafters Unite Against Racism

 

Hello everyone,

I recently participated in the Paper Crafters Unite against Racism Instagram hop and thought I'd share the card I created here on my blog as well. 

The Instagram hop aimed to bring awareness to anti-racism efforts and stand in solidarity with all marginalized groups. It was inspiring to see all of the different styles and themes created by each card maker. The designs were all executed beautifully! You can still check out all of the designs and messages from each hop by searching #papercraftersuniteagainstracism. 

I started my card by creating a watercolor background. I made two and decided to go with the stripes of different skin tones. 

The theme I chose for my card was "good trouble". It was a term often used by Congressman John Lewis. He always encouraged getting into what he called good trouble, which means to challenge systems that are not working to represent all people. I would like to encourage all of you to figure out what good trouble means to you and go make some good and necessary trouble. 

I was initially going to use larger block letters, but ended up using the punched out letters instead. They seemed to go better with the background. I then stamped some hands from the Hero Arts handmade happiness stamp set. Lastly, I placed the panel on a card base and added sequins. 

I hope you all have a wonderful day, and thanks for stopping by! 

 

 

Hello again, friends!

Happy New Year to you all! It has been a while since I posted anything on here. I had a wonderful holiday with my family. I hope you all did as well. 

Today's creation is a celebration card using a new technique! I learned this technique from @Mindmypaper on Instagram. Go check out her page! 

I started this card by creating the background. I used watercolor paper and plastic wrap! This is a technique I hadn't tried before. I used my gansai tambi watercolors to create a light wash on the paper. I swiped my brush over some plastic wrap before placing it wet side down on my paper. I scrunched up the plastic wrap a bit and left it to dry. 

The rest of the card was super simple. I die cut the world celebration 2x in white and glued them together. The shadow layer was die cut in black cardstock. I glued my background onto a black card base, glued on the word and then added sequins. The hardest part of making this card was picking which sequins I wanted on it! You can see my top 3 choices laid out on my desk. Which ones would you have chosen? I ultimately went with the clear sequins. They helped to bring focus to the background instead of distracting from it.

 I love techniques that allow you to do something quickly and then come back to see results. Don't get me wrong, time consuming cards are always amazing and definitely worth the effort, but that much time is not always available. It's nice to have techniques that allow for quick and easy cards. I made several backgrounds at the same time so I can put together a few other quick cards later on. 

I hope you enjoyed this card, and I hope you have a lovely day! Thanks for stopping by. 

Joy, Love, Xmas

 

Hello again everyone! Are you finished making your holiday cards? I started incredibly late and I'm still not quite done. Luckily, I don't have too many to send out. 

Today's card was fairly simple to complete. I used the Joy, Peace, Love die from My Favorite Things Stamps. I only used joy love and xmas. for this card. I cut the words out of red cardstock and then cut them out of both white cardstock and holly patterned paper. The holly paper is from the Lawn Fawn Snow Day remix collection. 

I glued each layer of the letters together, leaving the holly patterned paper on top. I them inlayed the letter into the red cardstock which I had glued onto a white card base. 

After inlaying the letters, I used a white gel pen to create dots of snow all over the red cardstock. It's difficult to see it in the photo, but I also put glossy accents in the star and heart of the Os in joy and love. This added a nice shine and sparkle to the card in person. That's all there was to it! I hope this helped to give you some inspiration if you haven't finished your holiday cards. Have a great day! 

Hello Bees!

 Hello fellow crafters and critters. Today's card was inspired by Jester from Critical Role. For those of you who don't know, Critical Role is a show with voice actors who play Dungeons & Dragons. This card references one of my favorite moments with the characters Jester and Cadeuceus. 

I started by watercoloring a panel in pink and blue. When it was dry, I splattered the watercolor paper with indigo watercolor. I used Kuretake gansai tambi watercolors.

When the panel was dry, I cut it down to about 4 /8 x 5 3/8 with my A2 layers dies from Waffleflower. The next part of this card was the most challenging. I wanted to have Jesters horns on this card so I had to figure out a way to get that shape. I had never made tiefling horns before, so it took a few tries! 

I accomplished making the horns by cutting a small circle out of a larger circle that was slightly scalloped. I used my small scissors to cut the pointed tip of the horn. To make them curve a bit I followed the lines from the scalloped edged on my scoring board with my bone folder. I was pleasantly surprised with how they turned out. 

Jester has metal caps on her horns, but I didn't have any silver embossing powder or nuvo drops, so I substituted ivory nuvo drops. It worked out well, and I love the shine it gives. This was my first time using nuvo drops!

 

I die cut the word hello in black and yellow. I used to yellow to create a shadow effect. A few layers of hello die cut in white are also glued together for some dimension. The horns were then glued to hello so I could put it on the card as one layer. 

I used the Lawn Fawn little fireflies set to create bees. All it took was to create some lines by coloring black and yellow onto the firefly stamps. I then added a little stinger with my micron pen. I think these bees are too cute! I made quite a few extras so you'll be seeing them in another card. I love that a set of fireflies can be used as bees. Versatility is always a plus with stamp sets. 

After coloring the bees, all I had left to do was assemble. I originally intended for the pink to be at the bottom. I accidentally glued the horns on before I noticed, but I actually think I like it better this way. I hope this card brought you some inspiration for card making. Have a lovely day! 

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!