The Kneeling

Hi friends! It's Tuesday and time for Digi Choosday from Polkadoodles - a sale and a challenge.

The challenge for the Design Team was create an unusual shaped card and use flowers. This was perfect for me because I knew my grand-daughter's boyfriend was going to pop the question soon and I wanted to have a card ready and on hand.

I started with a single rose digital stamp from Polkadoodles' Winnie Winterland - Digis Digital Craft Paper. I had a lot of fun with this one image, resized many time, flipped, inverted, etc. until I had a full background sheet of the rose. I use Word to set up my digital creations and print on copy paper until I am sure it is just the way I want it. I wanted the rose to frame the kneeling image and also frame the heart die cut I was using for the card.

Once I had the roses laid out I dropped in the Polkadoodles' digital stamp called The Proposal which I have had in my digital stash for a while. I used the Black & White version.

Now the rest is my favorite way to handle a digital image: 

1) Print on Ranger Watercolor Paper with my Brother Laser Printer;

2) Watercolor with The Stamp Market Color Crush Watercolor Palette;

3) Die cut with a heart shaped die from my stash AND

4) Add light with Pear Blossoms' EZ Lights! Yes, the diamond lights up! How fun!

Wasn't the easiest thing to photo while holding the camera! Finally I had to solicit help.

Well, finally last week, he did ask and she said YES! And I was so glad I had my card ready!

Thanks friends for coming along with me on my crafting journey. I will be submitting my card to the following challenges:

1) NBUS -#29 (The Proposal stamp)

2) Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge

3) Colour Crazy Craft Challenge - AG

4) Crafting Happiness Challenge - AG

5) Lil Patch of Crafty Friends - AG

*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.

Art Journal-Card with Eureka Stamps

Welcome to my Paper Funday Challenge Design Team project for August 2021! This challenge is sponsored by Eureka Stamps and I received this beautiful digital stamp called Butterfly & Daisy Flower Digital Stamp from them:

To be honest, when I first saw it I love it because Black-Eyed Susans are my favorite flower and that is what I saw. But, of course, they could be daisies! 

The beauty of digital stamps is that they can resized, flipped, overlaid...anything you can imagine! I like to start with a card and get the feel of the coloring and then move on to an art journal page.

Once I sized them, they were printed onto Ranger Watercolor Paper and watercolored for the most part with Daniel Smith Colored Dot Cards. There are several Dot Cards out there now. These are cards with just a bit of Daniel Smith Fine Watercolors on them, so that you can give them a try. I have a 66 Color Dot set from Blick Art and 18 dots palette sets from Hero Arts, Debby Hughes (retired) and Shari Carroll. With fine watercolors like Daniel Smith's a tiny bit goes a long way and, I feel, you can really see the difference in the final result. These dot cards are very inexpensive and a great resource to have on hand.

Turns out my favorite color came from the Debby Hughes Palette called Phthalo Green Blue Shade and I painted the center of the butterfly with that color.

You can see the beautiful color here:

The finishing background color, Tropic, came from The Stamp Market Crush Color 24 Pan Watercolor Set. What a lovely soft turquoise blue! I watered it down quite a bit so that it would be very soft and not take away from the focal point.

The sentiment, from Altenew's Beautiful Day Stamp set is stamped with Altenew's Obsidian Black Ink. Lastly the panel was die cut with Sugar Pea's largest Stitched Scallop Rectangles and popped up with Fun Foam. Another favorite of mine from Sugar Pea Designs:

I went on to create my Art Journal with the same, but larger, image printed on Ranger Watercolor Paper. I watercolored with the Daniel Smith Dot Palettes and fussy cut the image. Since I had a pretty lilac color in the butterfly, I decided that was how I was going to start my background. If you've followed me before, I am creating a series of 6" X 6" Art Journals that just speak to me.

Art Journals just evolve. It's hard to give a step by step since it is something that is unique to you. I do like Vicky Papaioannou's style and follow her advice for the most part.

I also like part of the image to pop up or be interactive in some way. I colored an additional image and fussy cut the butterfly. The center of the butterfly was adhered to the image and the wings "fluffed up."

See that tiny little butterfly in yellow in the picture below? That is also the digital stamp but reversed and shrunk down. See how versatile digital images are?

Here are some the products I used for the Art Journal:

Vicki Boutin All the Good Things Mixed Media Foundation Paper

Studio Light - Art by Marlene StickerBM02

Sizzix Alphanumeric Bold 80 pc. Dies

Faber-Castell 15 pc. Stampers Pitt Big Brush Pens

Distress Collage Medium

Stampendous Cling Grunge Script Stamp Set

Dina Wakely Gloss Spray White

The Happy Planner Punch

Soft Lilac DecoArt Americana Acrylic Paint

Ranger Archival Black Ink

Dylusion White Linen & Crushed Grape Paint

Thank you to Eureka Stamps for their sponsorship and come play along with us at The Paper Funday Challenge. It starts the first Weds. of each month so you have a whole month to create!

I will also be submitting to:

1) NBUS - Digital Image

2) Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge

3) Lil Patch of Crafty Friends

4) A Place To Start - Favorite Style - Watercolor Art Journal

5) AUD Sentiments Challenge - AG with a Sentiment

*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.

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:

1) NBUS #28

2) 613 Avenue Create

3) Lemon Shortbread Challenge

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

5) Crafting Happiness Challenge #106 - AG

*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.

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: Christmas Tag Elements Stamp & Die Combo by Waffle Flower Dress Up Riley Snow Globe Stamp & Die Bundle: Crafter's Essential Winter Dies by Kat Scrappiness: 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.

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.