Tuesday, July 27, 2021

Winter Deer Scene with Polkadoodles

Hi friends! It's Christmas in July everywhere and I've used Polkadoodles' Winter Deer from Octavia Frosted Winter for this winter scene. The joy of a digital stamp is that it can be resized/flipped/turned, etc. to create the scene you've imagined.
For this card, I inserted 2 images of the Winter Deer onto a Word doc. One as designed and one rotated and resized smaller. I wanted to mimic a family of deer.
I dropped in the Polkadoodles' Free Digital Sentiment: Peace and Joy. I made sure it was an A2 card size by printing a test and laying an A2 sized frame over it. Just to make sure I am not wasting good watercolor paper with the wrong sizes!

Then I was ready to print onto Ranger Watercolor Paper with my Brother Laser printer. I let it dry a bit and then cut the piece with my all time favorite rectangle die from Sugar Pea Designs called Card Front Builder II. It leaves a tiny dot border which I just love!
I created 2 masks with Gina K. Designs Masking Magic using my Artograph Light Tracer Table. I have to admit I struggled to get the fine details. Next time I'll use a fluid mask such as Pebeo Drawing Gum. That way you can get into all the little spaces easily.
Once masked, I ink blended 2 Distress Oxide Inks: Blueprint Sketch and Wilted Violet just to the feet of the deer. Gave it a good splatter with watered down DecoArt Traditions Titanium White, but any white acrylic paint would work.
The deer were watercolored with various browns/pinks with Zig Kuretake Clean Color Real Brush Markers. They have a brush tip which makes it easy to drop watercolor into corners.
Lastly, I used Brutus Monroe's Glitter Glaze "Fallen Snow" for the snow around the deer and a bit in the night sky. You could use embossing paste and sprinkle glitter on it for the same effect.
The card base is Hero Arts - Hero Hues Premium Dove White 100 lb. Card Stock. Easy to score, but sturdy enough to hold watercolored card fronts.

Thank  you for joining me today. I will be submitting this card to the following challenges:



















4) Pearly Sparkles Challenge Blog - #64 Favorite Time of the Year
















*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.

Friday, July 23, 2021

Kat Scrappiness Holiday Sale

I love a Christmas in July sale...it gives you plenty of time to create! Kat Scrappiness has their sale going on now through August 1, 2021. 

ALL of the holiday products in the store are on sale, including other manufacturer's items so don't miss out on this great opportunity to stock up on your favorites.  Here are a few links to my favorites to get you started:

Of course I could go on and on, but you get the idea! Good time to pick up YOUR favorites!
Happy Holidays (22 Mondays left until Christmas)!

*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.

Tuesday, July 20, 2021

Snails with Hero Arts

Hi friends! Today's post is to play along with Addicted to CAS #202:
I love both CAS cards and Geometric, so I couldn't resist this challenge. I recently posted a blog about a Hero Arts set I purchased for their Summer 2021 Stamp Along  called Succulent Bouquet (Combo). In this set there is a tiny little snail, which is a creature my daughter just loves (bottom left corner).
I stamped them onto Ranger Watercolor Paper with Hero Art's Intensified Black Ink and watercolored with the colors from the ColorThrowDown #651 which is now closed, but still fun to use the colors from challenges. They are: navy, turquoise, magenta and green.
The Succulent Bouquet Combo has a coordinating die for the snail, too which really makes it easy.
For the Geometric part of the challenge, I choose squares.  Using Taylored Expressions' 6 X 6 Masking Stencil - Square Window, I ink blended Scrapbook.com's Caribbean Hybrid Ink softly in the set of 3 windows. I like to use Wendy Vecchi's Make Art Stay-tion when stenciling. It really helps to hold the stencil in place with no spray adhesive or tape involved.
If you are looking a a good versatile set of hybrid inks, Scrapbook.com has wonderful colors! They dry quickly and can be use with both watercolors and alcohol markers. Easy to use when ink blending, too!
Here are all the colors available in Scrapbook.com's Hybrid Ink line. I have them all (full set syndrome) and find them great!

I used a Flora & Fauna Clear Stamp set I have had for a long time and never used, called Slow Down Snail, now retired. It has some great sentiments and images and I made 2 more cards using it:

Thanks so much for joining me today! I am also going to submit to NBUS because I've never used the Slow Down Snail stamp set and don't know why. It is the cutest set!
*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.

Sunday, July 18, 2021

Fun with Hero Arts

Hey friends! I worked on a card last week that combined Freshly Made Sketches #494 and the Color Throwdown #651:
The colors were so inspiring: Navy, Turquoise, Green and Magenta:
I am just getting around to posting now. Had fun all day yesterday with Hero Arts Summer 2021 Stamp Along. One of the sets I purchased was this great Succulent Bouquet Combo Sets:
I had to give watercoloring a try with the image. I used The Stamp Market Color Crush Watercolors for they have beautiful colors that were also in the challenge.
What is great about the combo is that it cuts the whole image and I was able to pop it up over the semi-circle pattern from The Stamp Market Miss Modern 6 X 6 Paper. I used Pretty Pink Posh's Stitched Border Dies to cut it out for that nice stitched edge.
There are also so many sentiments with this set it's easy to use for many occasions. 
Lastly, if you follow me, I've also made several cards I will be posting soon with that little snail! I am a big fan of tiny images.

Some additional products I used for this card are:

Thanks friends, for stopping by and visiting!

*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.

Friday, July 16, 2021

You're Mermazing!

Hi friends! Today I wanted to share a tunnel card I recently made for a very special high school graduate who is "Mermazing"! This was using i-crafter's Tunnel Card Mermaid Add-On. These are drop in plates into a base die which is called Tunnel Card Base, Swan.  There are many more fun add-ons at i-crafter once you have the base plate to make really easy tunnel cards.
The layers were all die cut from Ranger Watercolor Paper with my Big Shot die cutting machine.
I watercolored all the pieces with my Altenew 36 half pan watercolor set including the base. Gave it a good splatter, too. It was a lot of fun layering all the sea images so that the tunnel had a lot of color and depth. 
Here is a picture from the top showing how the edges are folded in to give that tunnel effect.
The sentiment comes from a retired Hero Arts Stamp set called Mer-mazing Messages, but right now available on Amazon, Ebay, etc. It was stamped with Altenew Obsidian Black Ink using my MISTI Stamp Positioner to get that perfect stamping. 
Finally, a little Distress Ink blending with Walnut Stain on the parchment to give it that aged effect. The parchment is actually 3 pieces but I cut an extra set for the ends just to give it a little more dimension and shadow.
The card fold flat and fits into an A2 sized envelope. Perfect!
Thank you for stopping by and I will be submitting my card to the following challenges:

1) NBUS #28 (the Mermaid Add-On)






*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.

Winners of Christmas in July Blog Hop



Here are the Winners for the Paper Funday Challenge Christmas in July Hop Prizes; randomly drawn from all comments that answered the "question" on the posts:
  1. Spellbinders Die - Denise Bryant (Kel's Blog )
  2. Maymay Made it Stamp Set - Crafty Hair Lady (Rocky's Blog)
  3. Park Lane Dimensionals - Granmargaret (Anita's Blog)
  4. Gina K. Tidy Towel - Bunny (Amanda's Blog)
  5. K & Co Chipboard Embellishments - Lisa J. (Kate's Blog)
  6. Greeting Farm GC - Lisa Jannaway (Anirudh's Blog)
Congratulations and please reach out to Donna@dlflowers64@gmail.com if you are a winner!  Thanks for participating!