Girlfriends

Quick birthday card to share today. As usual, I'm combining different sets and manufacturers. This card is using Mama Elephants Girlfriends and Up & Away sets along with sentiment and stencil from MFT. I'm behind this year on building up my birthday card stash, but that's about to change. I just acquired some new items and set some goals: one related to using older products and another focussing on incorporating dies. With some determination, there will be lots to share soon.

No Line Coloring

I decided to try my hand at no line coloring with the Pretty Lovely stamp set from Mama Elephant. I used a light grey ink with very rough masking knowing that my coloring would cover any overlapping lines. The plan was to use Copic markers on the image but quickly evolved. I was testing a new paper I'd purchased, Strathmore Marker paper. I liked the bright whiteness and smoothness of the paper but wasn't happy with how it performed with copic.

The color was very muted, almost greyish when first applied, though the color did intensify as the area dried. Since I like to work quickly with marker and with nothing to lose, I decided to see how the paper performed with colored pencil. I quickly blocked in the remaining images with copic and then began working the image with colored pencil to add intensity and detail.

I was much happier with the results. This paper would probably not hold up to a lot of layering or scrubbing (not a good artist rendering paper for colored pencil) but for a card with light coloring it performed pretty well. More importantly, since I have 23 sheets remaining, I definitely will be using it again.

Valentines

Valentine's Day is right around the corner.  Typically I don't send many valentine cards. Most of my crafting around this holiday tends to center around treat bags or punny valentines for the kids. This year I agreed to assist our youth group with creating cards and gifts for our shut-ins. Still working to come up with some ideas. I'm finding it a bit more challenging as I'll be working with teenagers...punny valentines seem too young and most of the items I've pinned in the past, much too complicated for the time allotment.  I'm sure I'll get there.

In the meantime, here are a few cards I created to send. No stamping, just paper, dies (Concord & 9th, MFT, Mama Elephant) and shimmer pen. Not that you can see the shimmer very well in the images but trust me, it's there. I would not create a valentine without sparkle!

Thank You

Happy Monday. 

Kicking off a new week and finally kickstarting the new year. It's a rough start. My niece is home sick so all my big goals for the day need to be modified to account for spending most of my day with her. Usually, I'm better organized and prepped. Full of energy and eagerness to set goals, clean out and very productive. Last week, not so much. Procrastion was my first, middle and last name. We did manage to get all the Christmas decorations put away. And I did get to spend some time in the craft room building a stash of Thank-You cards for the coming year. I'll require many more but it's a good beginning and I'm counting it as a win in an otherwise pretty lazy, laid-back start to the year. 

This was really more of a color challenge for me. I've had the turquoise cardstock from Paper Source for a number of years. I believe it is called Pool. Decided it was time to put it to better use than sitting on a shelf. Why I don't use this color combination more often is a mystery to me...I really like to cool greens and blues complimented by the warm brown. And it's not like this combo hasn't been everywhere during the past couple of years. Figures I'm picking it up just as it's going out. 

Stamps and dies are from Altenew, Concord & 9th, Mama Elephant, MFT and I might even have one from Simon Says in there. 

This first one uses the C&9 double cut alphabet dies. This is still one of my all-time favorite alphabet dies. And, yes, I'm still hoping they'll release some phrases because lining up the individual dies, even with a temple, is still a major pain. The fact that I do it is just an indication of how much I love the results. I've paired it with Altenew's Leaf Canopy stamp set. Another new favorite. 

This card uses a free little stamp set Altenew sent to their customers. It was such a wonderful year-end surprise in the mail. Though I'm pretty sure this meant I spent way too much money with them last year.  No matter, my loyaty is easily bought with kindness and great customer service. 

The sentiment is from Mama Elephant. The set contains the word thanks in several languages. Love that!

The final card is using the remaining die cuts and MFT Distressed Patterns stamp. Of all the stamps I purchased last year this one is definitely in the top 10 favorites. I predict it will get a healthy workout in the coming year.