Smell of the Sea with Polkadoodles

Hello my friends and welcome to my first post for Polkadoodles! Look for me on the Digi Choosday Design Tuesday Challenge posts for I am now on this Design Team! Very exciting to be part of this amazing group of talented people beginning with Nikky and Kris Hall, founders of Polkadoodles Ltd.

We are given a Challenge Theme for creating a project and today's theme was the "Smell of the Sea". I created this 5" X 7" card with 3 digital stamps from the shop:

Winnie Starfish/Sandcastles - SeaShells

Winnie Starfish/Sandcastles - Quotes

Horace & Boo Paper Heaven 4

If you are new to stamping or on a budget, there couldn't be a better way to create than digital stamps. When you place your order and check out, you are immediately given a download of the image you purchased. No shipping costs, no late deliveries, no flawed stamps! You can resize up, down, flip, overlay, the sky's the limit with digi stamps!

How to begin? I was recently at a William Sonoma store and saw a display of beach themed items. They had a tablecloth of all shells and sea creatures in an indigo blue print with a linen background. It was paired with a red-bandana like print. This was my inspiration, jumping off point for my card. Look around when you are at stores. There is so much inspiration in design and color that can be used in your own way.

I worked up the background design and printed on copy paper to be sure I had the sizing the way I envisioned it. Once I was happy with the design, I printed it on Ranger Watercolor Paper, rough side up, using manual feed and the thick paper setting on my Brother Laser Printer. I also resized one of the shells so that I would have a focal image on the card. Both were on the same sheet of Ranger Paper - very economical.

To watercolor I adhered the printed design to an acrylic board with Yellow Artist Tape. Using Winsor & Newton Series 1A Antwerp Blue Artists' Water Colour I watercolored all the images using my favorite Silver Brushes, Black Velvet. I liked how the deep blue looked but wasn't happy with it on stark white. I decided a pretty cream color would offset the harshness and mixed a white and tan from Altenew's 24 Pan Artists Watercolor Set. Think of sand at the beach.

To finish the card, I cut it to size, fussy cut the large shell and printed the fun, quirky sentiment from the Winnie Starfish/Sandcastle Quote pack (sent-21) that says "Facebook Free zone". Perfect for a beach card! The pop of red is my ode to the red print I saw at William Sonoma. Yes, you can actually download and print paper - resize it, too! 

Thank you for joining me today for my first post and I hope that you'll take a look at the Polkadoodles Shop and give their high quality products a try! 

I am entering the following challenges:

NBUS - Challenge #27

Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge - AG

Angie's Digital Stamps  - AG #53

Crafty Catz - AG #555

Creative Knockouts - AG #405

*Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Vacation Time with Hero Arts

It's Vacation Time at The Card Concept Challenge #157:

My inspiration came from the window to the Lake and the Lake itself. I am going to call this a Clean and Layered card. I used 2 silhouette Hero Arts stamps to create this card. The first one is called Color Layering Pier At the Lake:

The 2nd one is called Lake Time Fun:

I made about 8 cards with these 2 sets. I stamped all the images with Altenew's Obsidian Black Ink on Hero Hues Dove White Premium Card Stock 100# and ran them through my Big Shot with the Lake Time Fun coordinating die and Color Layering Pier at the Lake coordinating die.

One night as I watched TV with my husband I ink blended backgrounds with various Distress Ink blues. I like to do this so I have bases ready for quick cards. At this point I sell cards in 3 shops so I am always making multiples!

This card had a oval die cut which resembled a rope pattern from Spellbinders, called Elegant Twist Ovals. I layered the white A2 card base over a piece of kraft card stock cut only with the oval die and not the detail rope pattern.

The inside sentiment is from Pink & Main's Too Cool stamp set.

I hope you enjoyed my card making process to make multiple cards and can take time to join us at The Card Concept challenge. Just remember to let us know what inspired you and what style of card you designed. Fun!

*Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Colour of Love with Paper Funday Challenge

Hi friends and welcome to my first Design Team post for Paper Funday Challenges! This monthly challenge takes place the first Weds. of the month and runs until the Sunday before the next challenge begins. So you have a whole month to create and submit. The challenges are sponsored and prizes are awarded, too!

The Design Team is given an option of a free digi stamp from one of two sponsoring companies for that month or if they prefer they can create using the Optional Twist for the month. As long as it is made out of paper, anything goes! I choose a digi stamp from the Colour of Love Shop, Art by Heather Valentin. This shop was new to me and Heather is an amazing artist with an incredible bio.

I choose the digital stamp called Carnation. I had in mind an art journal page and I thought this digi stamp would be perfect - not too busy and I could easily resize to fit my page. I wanted to layer some of the image for dimension.

Since creating an art journal is a many layered process, I will simplify mine. I started with cutting my own art journal 8" X 8" page out of Strathmore Watercolor Paper. Using Distress Collage Medium Matte I place a layer of Tim Holtz's Idea-ology Tissue Wrap called, Melange (retired). This created an instant background. I have some Ranger Ink Dylusions' paint in my stash and brushed lightly in a random pattern, Bubblegum Pink and Squeezed Orange.

I resized the digi to fit the page and printed it twice onto Ranger's Distress Watercolor Paper with my Brother Laser printer. Next I ran it through my Brother Scan 'n Cut. One time it cut fine and one time it left the leaf on which the fairy was sitting. It's a work in process.

I watercolored the images with my Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers. I love their vibrancy. After that I continued to stencil, emboss, spray and splatter the background with various products. I adhered the image twice, fluffing up the wings of the fairy.

The sentiment is from Studio Light Art by Marlene called STICKERBM03. So many fun sticky quotes in this book in both Black & White. I cut out the word "Dream" and added a die cut in its place. 

Also added shading and Lawn Fawn Liquid Stardust. All fairies need sparkle!

I punched my page with the Happy Planner Punch:

Using this tool you can create any size Journal page you wish - 4" X 4", 6" X 6", etc. You need the Happy Planner Discs to hold the pages together.

I made a card with the same Colour of Love Carnation digi stamp re-sized and printed on Ranger Watercolor Paper. Also colored with Zigs.

More Lawn Fawn Liquid Stardust for her, too!

Thank you so much for staying to the end...If you have a chance come play along!

 

*Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Penny Black Friendship

Hi friends. It's the end of May 2021 and we, The Card Concept, are onto our Challenge #156 Anchors Aweigh!

For me, to work with a photo for inspiration, I look closely at the photo, the name of the challenge and try to use something I have in my stash. For this challenge, it was the anchor theme and the blue colors that inspired me to create this Clean and Layered card.

I started with this set of sailing dogs from Penny Black called Friendship:

Our daughter in Phoeniz, Arizona has 2 energetic dogs. The grey dog popping up in the middle, is her dog, Bennett and the tan colored dog on the right is Cooper. Funny, how we usually, at least I do, color these images to match our real life pets.

My other die set that I used to add a few embellishments to the card is Art Impressions' Sail Mini Die Set. I love to be able to add bits and bobs to a card to make it cohesive.

The image was stamped with Altenew Obsidian Black Ink onto Blick Art's Bristol Smooth Paper, sprinkled with Altenew Crisp Clear Embossing Powder and heat set. I colored the images with my Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers. They work perfectly on Bristol Smooth Paper.

I ran the images through my Brother Scan 'n Cut (I made 2 cards) for a nice clean cut. I can fussy cut, but don't enjoy it and it is never as even as the Scan 'N Cut.

I used 3 main stencils for the 2 cards: Taylored Expressions Go With the Flow, i-crafter Cosmic Flair and MFT's Cloud Stencil:

If I had to give my top ten items a new crafter should have it would be a few good stencils that can be adaptable. These 3 are on my list for sure.

I used 3 Distress Inks: Salty Ocean, Blueprint Sketch and Mermaid Lagoon for the waves and clouds and 2 Distress Oxides for the sun & rays: Squeezed Lemonade and Wild Honey. I used Ranger's new foam blending domes and like them as much as Scrapbook.com's! We will see over time which hold up better. I put a piece of washi tape around the handle of the Ranger domes, so I can tell the difference.

At this point it was just a matter of playing to get the layout I liked. I did cut the top of the waves on one card with a retired MFT wave die I had in my stash just for fun. One of the anchors from the AI Sail Mini Dies set was cut from Lawn Fawn's Silver Metallic Card Stock and adhered with a silver brad. The other was cut from a scrap of Bristol Smooth, along with a sea gull from the same set, and colored with a bit of grey.

Finally, the sentiments were stamped directly onto the front with Altenew Obsidian Black Ink and one image popped up with an Action Wobbler and the other with foam tape.

Such fun and colorful cards! If you haven't played along with The Card Concept's Challenges, I encourage you to try. There is so much inspiration in their photos! Thanks for staying with me today!

*Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Happy Father's Day with Art Impressions

Hello friends! Welcome to my Happy Little Stamper Watercolour Challenge for May 2021:

Making a Father's Day Card with a couple of fun stamps. I started with this Happy Birthday stamp from Art Impressions called the Lawn Ranger.

I cut the sentiment apart (Yikes!) and removed "Happy Birthday". I used the bottom half of the stamp in my MISTI, with Altenew Obsidian Black Ink, without the pad, since this is a red rubber stamp. Also stamped the main image and colored with my Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers on the smooth side of Ranger Watercolor Paper.

I did sprinkle Altenew Crisp Clear Embossing Powder on the image while still wet and heat set. I like to do that for watercoloring some images, helps keep the areas separated and not blend together.

I love to color a bit of sunburn on these fun images when they are in the sun. Zigs make it so easy! I used my Trinity Stamps Slimline Scenic Border Dies - the grass die by cutting a scrap of watercolor paper and coloring with various green Zigs:

I made 2 identical cards, so one strip of grass worked for both! This is a handy set to have in my stash for I can use it for both A2 and Slimline cards and also use the die cut as a stencil for hills, clouds and grass. I like to have supplies that perform multiple tasks.

The inside sentiments are from Taylored Expression Punny Man set wich I believe I received as a free gift for I do not see it available. TE has some other fun snarky type sentiments which I enjoyed using. I've linked to them HERE.

So this card could be for birthday, Father's Day or just a great card to send to a friend who loves to ride his Lawn Mower!

Thanks for joining me today and thanks to Happy Little Stampers for all the great challenges monthly!

*Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.