Christmas with A Colorful Life Designs

Recently Mary Kay of A Colorful Life Designs asked the Design Team if we would make samples for some of the stencils. I said, sure, and one of the stencils she sent was this Christmas Star:

This stencil is so good for a wonderful background all year round. I created a masculine background using Ranger Ink's Distress Oxide Vintage Photo, but think of the embossing powders, glazes, sprays, glitter and yes, colorful ink blending, you could do for celebration cards, Patriotic cards, and on and on. So many good uses for a background stencil like this. 

The buck is from  Sizzix's Tim Holtz Cool Yule Die Set (as of this writing on sale for $5.75 from $22.99!):

How cute are these guys?! I die cut all the pieces from white cardstock, left them in the panel and ink blended various browns. The scarf, glasses and mustache were all die cut from colored card stock.

My glasses are a bit off on my gentleman...we lost power while I was working on this and I kept going in the fading light.  Oh well...not too bad.

The sentiment was die cut 3X from the same red as the scarf. I used Paper Rose's Season's Greeting die:

All in all, I think a really cool masculine Christmas Card that all began with the Christmas Star Stencil! If you shop at A Colorful Life Designs use my discount code: AnitaFan10 for 10% off your entire purchase (excluding bundles)...you'll love them!!!

I will be submitting to:

NBUS 

A Place To Start - AG

Critter Crazy Challenge Blog

*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.

Let's Make A Frame

Hi all! If you follow my blog, you know I used A Colorful Life Designs' Marvelous Masked Deckled Rectangle Stencils (say that 3X fast!) in my last post:

I had made a few more cards playing with the stencils:

For this card I created a frame with 2 of the stencils.

I used the 5" deckled edge stencil and layered a smaller negative stencil on the inside to keep the white space. For the color I dabbed a bit of Ranger Ink's Distress Oxide Twisted Citron and Salty Ocean, here and there, and blended together. I thought the frame turned out really cute and it felt summery to me, so I used a cute image from Colorado Craft Company by Anita Jeram called Ice Cream Day:

Aren't they just the cutest? I used the coordinating die, too. Love how it cuts out in between the fallen ice cream and the kitten.

The images were colored with alcohol markers - I have various ones, some Copics and other brands, too. I used whatever colors I like best.

The sentiment is uplifting (although I did stamp it a bit crooked!).

Thank you for joining me! And don't forget to used my discount code: AnitaFan10 for 10% off your entire purchase at A Colorful Life Designs (excluding bundles)!

I will be submitting to the following challenges:

NBUS - Ice Cream Day is new

Through the Craft Room Door - AG

CreataliciousChallenges - AG

Critter Crazy Challenge - AG

Crafty Animals Challenge #64

*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.

Growing Together

August already?! Hard to believe. LOL, I think I say that every month! This month one of our generous sponsors was Fred She Said and I chose a beautiful digital image called Growing Together. I saw these flowers and bees and thought of a garden.

I made 2 cards both very similar. I printed the images onto Ranger Ink's Tim Holtz Watercolor Paper...love that it's a nice white and handles water well. I used the Daniel Smith Watercolor Dot Cards for the water coloring. The clouds were created with A Colorful Designs Stencil called A Cloud Edger. A little ink blending, and in a flash you have a beautiful cloudy sky! (Use my code AnitaFan10 for 10% your entire order at a Colorful Life Designs (excluding bundles).

The sentiments are from Ellen Hutson Julie Ebersole's You're One in a Buzz-illion. So cute!

Thanks for joining me today, and please visit The Paper Funday Challenge this month and join us. Anything goes!

*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.

Silhouette Cards

I had some fun this month, just using one stencil set from A Colorful Life Designs.

It is a mask set called Marvelous Masks Deckled Rectangle Stencil. Here is the image from the website:

There are 4 stencils plus the inner 4 pieces - a total of 8 pieces. You can layer them, use them separately or together. Really fun with all kinds of ink blending, which is what I did. For all 4 cards, I used Hammermill Premium Color Copy Cover 100 lb. I did buy this for hot foiling, but found it works really well for ink blending too. But be careful with anything a bit too sticky on it, such as postage notes, etc., it can tear.

For the "Thoughts and Prayers" card shown above I used the smallest opening and moved it each time and overlapped the previous color. The Ranger Ink's Distress Oxides colors I used were: Candied Apple, Picked Raspberry, Wild Honey and Squeezed Lemonade.

My "Thank You" card used the 3" Rectangle with Distress Oxides: Twisted Citron, Crushed Olive and Lucky Clover.

"Wishing You Well" was again with the 5" Rectangle and Distress Oxides: Spun Sugar, Seedless Preserves and Wilted Violet.

Lastly, "Sending Love" used the 4" Rectangle with Distress Oxides: Salvaged Patina, Salty Ocean and Prize Ribbon.

I used Pink and Main's stamp set called Wildflower Silhouettes which I believe was in a Monthly Subscription box and no longer available. But any silhouette stamp would work perfectly with this technique. I always use Altenew's Obsidian Black Pigment Ink for I find it is the absolute darkest black. It takes a minute to dry, so be careful!

Thank you for joining me today. If you are interested in purchasing from A Colorful Life Designs (a small business owned by one woman!) I have a discount code for 10% off your entire purchase (excluding bundles): AnitaFan10

I would like to submit to the following challenges:

NBUS - both the stencil and the stamp set

Pammie's Inky Pinkies

A Place To Start

*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.